TechCrunch Industry News

There are lot of companies out there making robotic exoskeletons. In fact, it’s one of the more active categories in the space — and for good reason. These sorts of technologies have the ability to profoundly impact the future of how people work, move and rehabilitate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There’s a bunch of tablet news coming from Amazon this morning. Leading the way is the release of two new 10-inch devices: the Fire HD 10 and Fire HD 10 Plus. The former features a 1080p display with a bump in brightness, an unnamed eight-core processor and 3GB of RAM — a 50% jump over […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Earth Day may have come and gone, but with apps like #8meals from the non-profit Habits of Waste, anyone can try and do their part to help reduce deforestation and rising greenhouse gas emissions by cutting meat out of their diets for just 8 meals a week. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ride-hailing company Lyft has sold off its autonomous vehicle unit to Toyota’s Woven Planet Holdings subsidiary for $550 million, the latest in a string of acquisitions spurred by the cost and lengthy timelines to commercialize autonomous vehicle technology. Under the acquisition agreement announced Tuesday, Lyft’s so-called Level 5 division will be folded into Woven Planet […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bobby Goodlatte has only been an investor for about a decade, but he appears to have already made tens of millions of dollars, contrary to the expectations of some traditional VCs who have privately, and publicly, griped that too many novice investors have flooded into the industry. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ever since I read this Bloomberg story about how songs are engineered to go viral on TikTok, I’ve had one thought in my head – if you can call it that – it’s more of a noise, or impression:Â AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH Yes, it’s the sound of internally screaming. Just when I thought I understood how deeply […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The European Union’s lead data protection supervisor has called for remote biometric surveillance in public places to be banned outright under incoming AI legislation. The European Data Protection Supervisor’s (EDPS) intervention follows a proposal, put out by EU lawmakers on Wednesday, for a risk-based approach to regulating applications of artificial intelligence. The Commission’s legislative proposal […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Apple just announced the new iMac powered by Apple’s own M1 silicon. Among the numerous updates and upgrades is a new power brick that sports something special to Apple’s lineup: an Ethernet port. On the surface, this seems like a silly placement of a critical I/O port, but there’s a good chance this feature could […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The big news from today’s Spring Loaded event is, as anticipated, a new version of Apple’s high-end tablet. The new iPad Pro is the first in the line to adopt the M1 chip introduced on the company’s Mac line. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today’s Apple event, chock-full of the company’s products that will help decide whether the company meets, exceeds or undershoots Wall Street expectations for its future growth and performance, had little to no impact on its share price. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Some of the most popular running apps are still lagging behind on security and privacy. That’s the verdict from security researchers who examined the leading running apps five years apart and found only a few apps had improved — and not by much. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Apple has unveiled a new, colorful iMac today with an Apple-designed M1 chip. But that was just part of the story as the company used that opportunity to release new Mac accessories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Surprise! It’s another Apple Event. Gone are the days of getting a few weeks’ notice before these events now that they’re entirely virtual (at least until 2022, most likely). Instead, the company just dropped the news last week. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It’s been a strange few years for Fitbit. After defining the fitness tracking space, the company was a bit late to the smartwatch trend, but was still able to ride that wave to a rebound. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

General Motors is joining the list of big automakers picking their horses in the race to develop better batteries for electric vehicles with its lead of a $139 million investment into the lithium-metal battery developer, SES. Volkswagen has QuantumScape; Ford has invested in SolidPower (along with Hyundai and BMW); and now with SES’ big backing […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Third-party hardware integration can be a tricky thing. Peloton this week raised some eyebrows by dropping Apple GymKit compatibility for its Bike Bootcamp program. Users were, naturally, quick to react. The situation left some wondering whether the move was a direct response to Apple’s recent entry into the home exercise market with Fitness+. A Peloton […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Twitter has banned right-wing provocateur James O’Keefe, creator of political gotcha video producer Project Veritas, for violating its “platform manipulation and spam policy,” suggesting he was operating multiple accounts in an unsanctioned way. O’Keefe has already announced that he will sue the company for defamation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Good news, Bay Area! Apple Pay now works with Clipper cards. That means you can now use an iPhone or Apple Watch to pay for BART. Or Muni. Or Caltrain. Or the Ferry! Or (almost) any other transit-related thing you’d otherwise use the plastic Clipper card for. Clipper has a page outlining the Apple Pay […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Microsoft is understandably positioning the latest additions to its Surface line as productivity devices. Laptop sales, in particular, have jumped amid the pandemic, as many have scrambled to shift to a work from home setting. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It’s been about a year and a half since Amazon released the first Echo Buds. I reviewed them when they arrived, and they were, I don’t know, fine, I guess. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Apple only dropped info about WWDC two weeks back, but the company just announced another event – this one happening much sooner. After Siri spilled the beans this morning, the company has officially confirmed its next event for April 20. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The new Surface Laptop was the marquee arrival in today’s Microsoft announcement, but boy howdy, the company also dropped a whole bunch of new accessories. It’s a pretty broad range of new devices, including some small updates to existing products and entirely new entries. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Workflow automation has been one of the key trends this year so far, and Zoho, a company known for its suite of affordable business tools has joined the parade with a new low code workflow product called Qntrl. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Cleo Capital, a venture capital firm founded in 2018 by Sarah Kunst, is raising up to $20 million for its second fund, according to a source familiar with the matter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Starting this week, some Domino’s customers in Houston can have a pizza delivered without ever interacting with a human. The pizza delivery giant said Monday it has partnered with autonomous delivery vehicle startup Nuro to allow select customers to have their pizzas dropped at their door via Nuro’s R2 robot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Security researchers say APKPure, a widely popular app for installing older or discontinued Android apps from outside of Google’s app store, contained malicious adware that flooded the victim’s device with unwanted ads. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Historically, the transmasculine community has been neglected by the fashion world. But Both& is a new brand looking to offer clothing tailored specifically for transmasculine bodies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The coronavirus pandemic has increased our collective screen time, and that’s particularly true on mobile devices. According to a new report from mobile data and analytics firm App Annie, global consumers are now spending an average of 4.2 hours per day using apps on our smartphones, an increase of 30% from just two years prior. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When the pandemic arrived in the U.S. early last year, companies scrambled to figure out what to do with their long-standing, in-person developer events. For Apple and Microsoft, that meant going virtual – something companies have done with mixed results. For Google, it meant calling off I/O all together. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yesterday we noted that Apple launched a new Find My Certification Asst. app, designed to test support for third-party hardware. Find My, of course, has been a long-standing feature for Apple’s own hardware like iPhones, AirPods and Macs, but back at WWDC, the company announced plans to open it up to manufacturers. Today the company […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Facebook confirms it’s testing a new QR code feature and payment links for use with Facebook Pay to make it easier for people in the U.S. to send or request money from one another. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The last year has put a spotlight on mental health, and startup Real is looking to shake up the space with a product that makes group therapy available on-demand. Founded by CEO Ariela Safira, Real is inspired by a long-standing methodology in the world of mental health: Group therapy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Two-year-old CRED has become the youngest Indian startup to be valued at $2 billion or higher. Bangalore-based CRED said on Tuesday it has raised $215 million in a new funding round — a Series D — that valued the Indian startup at $2.2 billion (post-money. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Apple CEO Tim Cook dropped a few hints in an interview released Monday about the direction of the much-anticipated Apple car, including that autonomous vehicle technology will likely be a key feature. “The autonomy itself is a core technology, in my view,” Cook told Kara Swisher in an interview on the “Sway” podcast. “If you […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Underrepresented founders are the most undervalued asset class in the U.S. today, and investors are starting to realize that diversity is not charity -- it’s economic opportunity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Meesho said on Monday it has raised $300 million in a new financing round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 as the Indian social commerce startup works to become the “single ecosystem that will enable all small businesses to succeed online.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

U.S. consumers spent an average of $138 on iPhone apps last year, an increase of 38% year over year, largely driven by the pandemic impacts, according to new data from app store intelligence firm Sensor Tower. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I use Feedly to work my way through each day’s stream of politics, tech, and media stories. Today, I am greeted with a picture of something called Feedly Cloud and the following message: Scheduled Maintenance Feedly will be back in less than 30 minutes. 60 minutes later, it still says that. Feedly is built on […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Launched in only November last year, the Craft Docs app — which was built from the ground up as an iOS app for collaborative documents — has secured an $8 million Series A round led by Creandum. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The pandemic’s remarkable impact on the app industry has not slowed down in 2021. In fact, consumer spending in apps has hit a new record in the first quarter of this year, a new report from App Annie indicates. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Apple this morning announced that it will be returning to an all-virtual format for a second year. The company went online-only for the first time in 2020, as Covid-19 ground in-person events to a halt. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Two-and-a-half years later, the Nest Home Hub remains one of my favorite smart screens on the market. Maybe that’s a commentary on the rate of improvement in the category, or maybe Google just got things pretty right the first time out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Payment card network Visa has announced that transactions can be settled using USD Coin (USDC), a stablecoin powered by the Ethereum blockchain. Crypto.com is the first company to test the new capability with its own Visa-branded cards. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Swiss automation and technology company ABB has announced a collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to create a cloud-based EV fleet management platform that it hopes will hasten the electrification of fleets. The platform, which the company says will help operators maintain business continuity as they switch to electric, will roll out in the second […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Boston Dynamics’ transition from a decades-long research robotics firm to a company that productizes and sells hardware has been a fascinating one to watch. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Security researchers say a powerful new Android malware masquerading as a critical system update can take complete control of a victim’s device and steal their data. The malware was found bundled in an app that had to be installed outside of Google Play, the app store for Android devices. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Porsche has added its first all-electric vehicle, the Taycan sports sedan, to its subscription and short-term rental program as part of a broader expansion that aims to build a new customer base of U.S. owners. The German automaker said Thursday it is also expanding the Porsche Drive subscription and rental programs to five more cities. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sending money from the U.S. to Nigeria can be a painstaking process. For remittance platforms like Western Union, it will cost a transfer fee and take between one to five business days for money sent from a U.S. debit card to enter a Nigerian bank account. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Eat Just, the purveyor of eggless eggs and mayonnaise and the first government-approved vendor of lab-grown chicken, has raised $200 million in a new round of funding, the company said. The funding was led by the Qatar Investment Authority, the sovereign wealth fund of the state of Qatar, with additional participation from Charlesbank Capital Partners. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When AWS CEO Andy Jassy announced in an email to employees yesterday that Tableau CEO Adam Selipsky was returning to run AWS, it was probably not the choice most considered. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices