A few days ago, new Twitter owner Elon Musk said that the company will try a lot of dumb things in the coming days. And that seems to be the product strategy of the company — even if it causes utter chaos all around. It’s a tough time for anyone keeping tabs on changes at … Read more
Social media platforms Facebook, TikTok and Twitter did not live up to their election integrity pledges during Kenya’s August elections, according to a new study by the Mozilla Foundation. The report says content labeling failed to stop misinformation, as political advertising served to amplify propaganda. The study found that hours after voting ended in Kenya … Read more
Strap back in for another Musk-Twitter U-turn: After a wave of impersonation chaos that hit a number of high profile brands and celebrities in recent hours, including an account pretending to be pharma giant Eli Lilly tweeting that insulin in “now free” — surely cooling the last embers of any advertiser ardour for the social … Read more
Another day, another dollar, and another VC fund launches. But, refreshingly, this one will specifically address the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Prediction Capital is a new VC sprung out of the Swiss Family Office infinitas Capital, the investment firm of former entrepreneur and investor Robin Lauber, and formed together with Christopher Chuffart and Kilian Graulich. … Read more
Image Credits: TechCrunch We had to talk about the news that rocked the crypto world this week in our Thursday episode: the Binance/FTX deal that never was. To begin, we gave you a rundown of WTF just happened with the beef between two of the largest crypto exchanges in the world and how Sam Bankman-Fried’s storied exchange fell … Read more
To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here. Tech reporting is a lot of things, but it sure ain’t boring, as the chaos around Twitter, crypto, and layoffs continues. We’re just trying to hang on for dear life to try … Read more
Hours after news broke that Twitter lost top cybersecurity executive Lea Kissner, another round of departures deepened the company’s ongoing crisis. Platformer’s Zoë Schiffer first reported that Twitter’s Head of Trust and Safety Yoel Roth quit the company Thursday after just two weeks under Musk’s leadership. Robin Wheeler, who was elevated to lead Twitter’s marketing … Read more
The FTC has telegraphed what appears to be a now-inevitable investigation into Twitter’s internal data handling practices, as the company continues to shed important staff and improvise new features. “No CEO or company is above the law,” the agency said in a statement — and if Elon Musk’s Twitter continues its current spree, they may … Read more
As Elon Musk struggles to make people give Twitter $8 a month for a blue check, Tumblr had an idea: what if they offered users $8 for not one, but two blue checks? Yes, you can legitimately buy two blue checks for your Tumblr blog. For the low, low price of $7.99. As Tumblr wrote in … Read more
Google says it has evidence that a commercial surveillance vendor was exploiting three zero-day security vulnerabilities found in newer Samsung smartphones. The vulnerabilities, discovered in Samsung’s custom-built software, were used together as part of an exploit chain to target Samsung phones running Android. The chained vulnerabilities allow an attacker to gain kernel read and write … Read more
I rarely update my Twitter display name, except maybe when I am on vacation and want to warn people that if you email me, I will either not see it or I will become very annoyed that you emailed me about NFTs. But I was convinced to add a little emoji to my name by … Read more
Welcome back to Chain Reaction. Last week on the podcast, we talked about trouble brewing for bitcoin miners. This week, we had to tear up our plans to cover pretty much anything else and turn our attention to what we think is the biggest story in crypto to unfold this year: the fall from grace … Read more
Even Healthcare, an Indian “healthcare membership” company, landed new financial support in the form of $15 million to further drive its mission of providing affordable care to communities across India. Even isn’t insurance, but allows members to access primary and preventative care at any of over 100 partnered hospitals. Typically, the way Indians access healthcare … Read more
One of the most popular activities at a TechCrunch conference is watching top-notch early-stage founders square off in a pitch competition. Seriously, who doesn’t love a pitch-off? And the Crypto Pitch-off is just one more compelling reason to go to TechCrunch Sessions: Crypto on November 17 in Miami. Let’s take a look at the judges … Read more
Greetings on a brisk New England morning. I’m finally here on my long threatened trip to Boston. I was planning to be here in early July ahead of our robotics event, but SARS-CoV-2 and its many variants had different ideas. I narrowly avoided another reschedule on my third time around with COVID, but now I’m … Read more
Twitter’s painstakingly layered infosphere looks to be light-speeding back to chaotic noise under new owner Elon Musk. The billionaire is no fan of meritocratic signals nor, it seems, a friend to genuine information — preferring anyone pay him $8/m to have their account on his microblogging social network badged with a check-mark that looks like … Read more
Syneroid recently raised a $500,000 round of funding to bring something halfway between microchips and dog collars to market. The company is finding some interesting slices of the market, but the deck, overall, leaves a few things to be desired. We learn more from mistakes than from perfection, so I figured it’d be a great … Read more
Last year, OpenAI announced the OpenAI Startup Fund, a tranche through which it and its partners, including Microsoft, are investing in early-stage AI companies tackling major problems. Mum’s been the word since on which companies have received infusions from the Fund. But today, the OpenAI Startup Fund revealed that it led a $23.5 million investment … Read more
Google today announced it’s expanding its user choice billing pilot, which allows Android app developers to use other payment systems besides Google’s own. The program will now become available to new markets, including the U.S., Brazil and South Africa, and Bumble will now join Spotify as one of the pilot testers. Google additionally announced Spotify … Read more
Following this morning’s debut of the Sparrow bin picking robot, Amazon just unveiled MK30, the latest iteration of its delivery drone. The system is the successor to the MK27-2, which is set to debut limited deliveries to residents in Lockeford, California and College Station, Texas. The MK30, which is set for a 2024 debut, is … Read more
Waymo has opened up its fully driverless ride-hail service in downtown Phoenix to members of the general public. Previously, the company had only been operating a commercial service with no safety driver behind the wheel for participants in its “trusted tester” program. The expansion in Phoenix is yet another sign of Waymo’s accelerated push towards … Read more
A dual Russian and Canadian national linked to the LockBit ransomware operation has been arrested over his alleged involvement in attacks targeting critical infrastructure and large industrial groups worldwide. Mikhail Vasiliev, 33, was arrested in Ontario, Canada on October 26 following an investigation led by the French National Gendarmerie with the help of Europol’s European … Read more
Pineapple, an app that’s aiming to reshape professional networking for Gen Z, is officially launching to the public today. The idea behind Pineapple is to give young professionals a way to network with others through a visual story profile that’s kind of like a digital portfolio. For now, the platform is only available on iOS. … Read more
Okta launched a cloud identity product back in 2009 when most people were locked into Microsoft Active Directory, an on-prem incumbent so entrenched that nobody believed that anyone could touch it. It took a little audacity to go after a giant like that, but Okta took a cloud-first approach, a markedly different strategy from Active … Read more
Mental health problems — and the tech products which aim at them — come in all shapes and sizes. There are “mental wellness” products like Calm and Headspace. On the more severe side of things there is Cerebral, Betterhelp and, of course, marketplaces for actual, card-carrying therapists. If you have more moderate mental health problems … Read more
Vincent Aiello Contributor Spencer Fane attorney and business owner Vincent Aiello helps businesses solve legal problems to secure revenue flow and reduce business risks. Whoever said you can’t have your cake and eat it too should have called their accountants and lawyers first. These professionals often receive inquiries from founders, equity investment firms and venture … Read more
Reddit is rolling out a new “community muting” feature to give users more control over what they do and don’t want to see on the platform. The new feature is launching on Reddit’s mobile apps over the next few weeks. Reddit plans to expand the feature to the desktop version of its platform in the … Read more
Twitter’s most senior cybersecurity staffer Lea Kissner has departed the social media giant. Kissner announced the move in a tweet on Thursday, saying they made the “hard decision” to leave Twitter, but did not say for what reason they resigned. Elon Musk completed a $44 billion takeover of Twitter two weeks ago, resulting in layoffs … Read more
Pinterest’s new collage-making app Shuffles is now available to the general public, after entering an invite-only test phase earlier this summer. The app grew in popularity with Gen Z users, who used the creative expression tool to make “aesthetic” collages, sometimes set to music and posted to TikTok, or shared privately with friends or the Shuffles community. … Read more
The bin moving robots designed by Kiva Systems still form the foundation of Amazon’s warehouse robotics play a decade after it acquired the startup. There’s a reason — for example — that the recently announced fully autonomous Proteus robot effectively looks like a green (“Seahawks green,” per robotics VP, Joseph Quinlivan) version of one of … Read more