TechCrunch Industry News

Spotify is expanding the ability to post video podcasts for creators in six new countries, including Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Brazil, and Mexico. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A company from China is ready to capture Japan’s demand for autonomous service vehicles as robots play an increasingly important role to address the aging society’s labor shortage. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Crypto owners tend to be more generous when donating to charity than other investors, research shows. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Building wind and solar farms is an important part of building a new green grid, but a calm night stops their energy generation cold. It’s just as important to research and build green energy storage — and to that at scale requires federal intervention as soon as possible, suggests a new report from MIT. “The […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Instacart announced today that it’s launching a new “Cart Star” rewards program for shoppers on its platform. The program will offer incentives in three tiers: gold, platinum and diamond. To qualify for Cart Star, shoppers need to accumulate points based on the number of orders they fulfill, earning 10 points per customer order they deliver. […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

More than a quarter of Americans say they would not buy an electric vehicle, according to a Consumer Reports survey released Thursday. Price, range and access to charging stations have remained as primary barriers to buying an EV. But Consumer Reports has identified a new factor: a lack of education around EVs. The survey of […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Pinterest announced today that it’s rolling out new merchant features, including product tagging on Pins and a Pinterest API for Shopping. The company says all of the new features are designed to make it easier for merchants to create engaging shopping experiences for users. With the new Pinterest API for Shopping, merchants will get access […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nothing, the consumer tech company started by OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei and known for its aggressive marketing, unveils a non-fungible token project called Black Dot. Its fans are skeptical. Black Dot is a video clip featuring a rotating, transparent cube with a black dot bouncing off the walls inside and making a crispy, metallic sound. […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Mask Network, a Binance-backed startup that enables users to send cryptocurrencies and encrypted messages on established internet platforms like Twitter, has an ambitious goal: to become the corporate venture capital powerhouse in web3 as Tencent has done in web2. To that end, the five-year-old company recently completed the first close of its venture investment arm […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Glance, a subsidiary of adtech giant InMobi Group, is planning to launch its lock screen platform on Android smartphones in the U.S. within two months, a source familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. The startup is engaging with wireless carriers in the U.S. for partnerships and is gearing up to launch on several smartphone models […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Some drone industry consolidation this morning as Ondas Holdings, the company behind Waltham, Massachusetts–based American Robotics announced its plans to acquire Airobotics. It’s admittedly been a few years since we covered the latter, when the Israeli firm announced a combined $28.5 million A/B round. To date, the company has raised $130 million since its 2014 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision to strip federal abortion rights in the U.S., many people are questioning how the apps they use every day might suddenly be turned against them. As concerns over the endless well of data that tech companies built an entire industry around mount, Google is taking at least […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Three years after Facebook announced its ill-fated push into cryptocurrency, aka the Libra project, the tech giant has signalled another scaling back of its activity — announcing Friday that Novi, the digital wallet payments pilot it launched last October, will be ending on on September 1. In a statement provided to CoinDesk, the tech giant […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Google said Thursday it will pay $90 million to settle a lawsuit with US developers that accused Google of abusing its power of app distribution and charging an unfair fee of 30% for app purchases and in-app purchases made through the Play Store. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Software Freedom Conservancy, a not-for-profit organization that provides support and legal services for open source software projects, has called on the open source community to ditch GitHub after quitting the code-hosting and collaboration platform itself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Apple announced Thursday that developers can now use a third-party payment system for the South Korea App Store. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Startup EV manufacturer Drako Motors previewed today the follow-up to its $1.25 million Drako GTE: the 2,000-horsepower Drako Dragon Super-SUV. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tesla has gutted the data annotation team working on Autopilot, laying off nearly 200 employees and shutting down the San Mateo, California office where they worked. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Arzooo, an Indian startup that is attempting to bring the “best of e-commerce” to physical retail shops, has raised $70 million in a new financing round as it looks to scale its platform to more cities. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Tuesday that Democrats are considering the introduction of legislation that could protect the abortion rights of citizens. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As the cannabis markets are maturing, we’re seeing new opportunities rise to the surface. JourneyOne ventures told TechCrunch it’s closed a $10 million fund and has started making its first few investments. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The promise of STEAM robots, which are billed to increase children’s interest in science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM), has been around for years. The market is teeming with products from hardcore robotics scientists and their copycats. Many have faded away, but investor interest hasn’t died down, at least for one company coming from […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Volkswagen Group unveiled its ID.AERO concept in China on Monday — slated to serve as the inspiration behind the automaker’s flagship EV, and first-ever global all-electric sedan, next year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As companies grow they expose more of themselves online and become harder to defend in terms of cybersecurity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Any given year, the real unsung highlight of re:Mars are the dozen or so startups and researchers who show off their wares on the show floor. There are always a couple of cool projects that have somehow managed to escape our radar, thus far. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Einride, the Swedish startup that wants to electrify the autonomous freight industry, will begin operating its purpose-built, self-driving pods on public roads in the U.S. this year as part of an existing partnership with General Electric Appliances (GEA). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Uber said on Thursday it has never explored exiting India, a key overseas market for several tech giants, dismissing a claim that it has had held discussions to sell the local unit. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As part of its ongoing efforts to expand into e-commerce, Twitter today announced a new partnership with Shopify. The deal will see Twitter launching a sales channel app that will be made available to all of Shopify’s U.S. merchants through its app store. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In mid-May, Wingcopter announced an extremely ambitious plan to deploy some 12,000 of its fixed-wing UAVs in Sub-Saharan Africa over the next half decade. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Singapore-based Stashfin has raised $270 million in a new funding round as the neobanking platform, which currently only serves customers in India, looks to expand to Southeast Asia and other South Asian markets, it said Tuesday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NFT marketplace Magic Eden, launched just nine months ago, has raised $130 million in a Series B round co-led by Electric Capital and Greylock Partners, bringing its valuation to $1.6 billion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Iran’s relationship with the crypto mining sector is a love-hate one. The government is again restricting crypto mining activity as it tries to ease the strain on the country’s power supply, despite knowing the promise of crypto as a way to evade international sanctions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

RansomHouse, a ransomware gang, has claimed responsibility for the cyberattack on Shoprite, Africa’s largest retailer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Three months after announcing it would make a big push into software and enterprise, fintech giant Brex is apparently abandoning the very segment it started out to serve – small and medium-to-sized businesses. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The crypto gaming industry is continuing to grow in popularity as more capital is deployed in the space and traditional Web 2.0 gaming studios look to enter the web3 market. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Reddit announced Thursday that it would buy Spell, a platform for running machine learning experiments, for an undisclosed amount. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Google Maps is introducing a new widget for Android that will be another use for the functionality that helped make a name for Waze, the other driving and mapping app that Google acquired nearly a decade ago. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

GreyNoise Intelligence, a Washington D.C.-based cybersecurity startup that analyses internet scanning traffic to help organizations separate threats from internet “background noise,” has landed $15 million in Series A funding to expand its threat collection capabilities and help protect organizations from emerging vulnerabilities. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Amazon Fire TV revealed an updated user interface that aims to improve the navigation experience for users. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Shared micromobility giant Lime is piloting electric motorbikes in Long Beach, California. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Overair, a California-based electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicle startup, has secured $145 million in funding that will go towards the development of Butterfly, the company’s experimental aircraft prototype, by the second half of 2023. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Gaining a place on retail shelves is just the start to Magic Spoon's plan to evolve into an omnichannel brand that eventually goes beyond the cereal box. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Cryptocurrency lender Celsius Network, recently valued at about $3 billion, told customers Sunday evening that it is pausing “withdrawals, swap, and transfers between accounts." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Amazon won’t be bidding for the IPL media rights for the year 2023 to 2027, a person familiar with the matter said, leaving the hotly contested streaming auction to Disney and Reliance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Duolingo, the Nasdaq-listed language learning app, is back in China’s Apple App Store and Android stores nearly a year after it disappeared from the country’s app stores. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tesla has accused the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) of failing to conduct proper investigations before it sued Tesla for racial bias at its assembly plant, according to a petition filed Wednesday with California’s Office of Administrative Law (OAL). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Google is expanding a verification program for financial services ads that it launched in the UK last summer after seeing what it describes as a “pronounced decline” in reports of ads promoting financial scams. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The startup’s “share-to-earn” data token model will reward users for contributing valuable information, which it will then use to help its model better pick stocks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Honor of Kings, the world’s largest mobile game made by China’s internet behemoth Tencent, is rolling out a global version by the end of this year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

At the end of last year, just before Christmas, Oracle made a big move when it announced it was acquiring electronic health records company Cerner for $28 billion, thrusting it quickly into the top enterprise deal for 2021, just under the wire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices