TechCrunch Industry News

Cameras have long been the battleground on which the smartphone wars have been fought. Short of any left-field innovation like folding screens or strange form factors, that looks likely to continue to be the case for the foreseeable future. Year after year and generation after generation, companies tout imaging breakthroughs to set themselves apart. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As exciting as the entire Perseverance mission to Mars is, one of the events most looked forward to by us Earthlings must be the first flight of Ingenuity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nearly five years after the launch of Pokémon Go, Niantic announced Monday that they are partnering with Nintendo to co-develop a new title based on the company’s Pikmin franchise. Niantic says the app is being developed in their Tokyo office and will launch later this year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Biden didn’t campaign on getting tough against big tech, but his early actions are speaking louder than his words. The White House confirmed its intentions to nominate Lina Khan to the FTC Monday, sending a clear signal that his administration will break from the Silicon Valley-friendly precedents of the Obama era. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Brian Brackeen, the founder and former CEO of facial recognition startup Kairos, has made his way back to the company following his ouster in 2018. Brackeen is now chairing the company’s scientific advisory board, where he’ll help to address and eliminate issues of racial bias from the technology. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Facebook’s hardware strategy often looks pretty opaque from the outside. The company has done fairly well with Oculus sales amid pandemic demand. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Chinese users of the instant messenger Signal knew that the good times wouldn’t last long. The app, which is used for encrypted conversations, is unavailable in mainland China as of the morning of March 16, a test by TechCrunch shows. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nvidia’s cloud gaming service GeForce Now has announced some changes when it comes to subscription plans. Starting today, paid memberships now cost $9.99 per month, or $99.99 per year — they are now called ‘Priority’ memberships. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Security compliance may not be the hottest conversation starter, but it’s a critical and often grueling process that companies have to endure every year to show that their security practices are up to par. It’s a burden that bogs down startups more than others. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

BMW plans to have 25 electrified cars in its lineup by 2025 and it’s taking a few more steps in this direction this year with the launch of the all-electric iX SUV and the i4 sedan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Google is making changes to its parental control system, Family Link, that aims to better reflect parents’ changing views on children’s screen time. In the pre-pandemic world, parents were more likely to see screen time as something in need of restriction — they’d rather their kids get offline or go outside to play with friends. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bangalore’s fintech startup ecosystem is inching closer to delivering a new unicorn: CRED. Two-year-old CRED is in advanced stages of talks to raise about $200 million at about $2 billion valuation, three sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The COVID-19 pandemic boosted U.S. online shopping by $183 billion, accord to a new report by Adobe’s e-commerce division, released this morning. This figure represents the increase in online shopping during the months of March 2020, when the pandemic began in the U.S, through February 2021. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s tweets are the subject of another lawsuit. A Tesla investor is suing the company board and Musk for continuing to send ‘erratic tweets’ that violate a settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that requires oversight of his social media activities. The lawsuit, which was first reported by Bloomberg, claims […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Los-Angeles based startup Canoo revealed its newest — and now third — electric vehicle, a pickup truck that does away with the sharp corners and huge engine housing of both comparable EV trucks and legacy diesel pickups and is aimed at both commercial customers and weekend warrior-minded consumers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

“It seems quite odd that no one has built the SpaceX equivalent for the ocean,” Anthony DiMare tells TechCrunch. “There’s no big, modern technology company that fits the space yet.” DiMare cofounded Bedrock Ocean Exploration last year, with Charles Chiau. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Gather helps people, well, gather in virtual spaces for any reason, whether it be for weddings, magic conventions, or, just a regular day at work. Over the past few months, as remote workers look for better ways to interact with each other, the startup has quietly amassed more than 4 million users. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Last month Jeff Bezos announced he would step down as CEO of Amazon later this year, moving into the executive chairman role, while passing the baton to AWS CEO Andy Jassy. Could Marc Benioff, co-founder, chairman and CEO at Salesforce be the next big-name executive to make a similar move? A Reuter’s story published on […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The U.S. Department of Defense is setting up a working group to focus on climate change The new group will be led by Joe Bryan, who was appointed as a Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense focused on climate earlier this year. The move is one of several steps that the Biden administration has […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Introduced in late-2019, the Move was a very Sonos approach to the Bluetooth speaker. It was an attempt to bring the company’s long-standing premium approach to a more portable form factor. Accordingly, the press photos feature a lot of shots of the product on porches and around pools. Today’s arrival of the Roam, however, takes […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Arlan Hamilton, the Backstage Capital founder and managing partner, joined us at TC: Sessions Justice to chat about how she vets founders beyond Stanford signal, the changing role of venture capital, how raising money from the community, versus institutional LPs, can impact Backstage strategy. On what makes a founder make sense for Backstage Capital In […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Before kids graduate to the expansive virtual worlds in games like Roblox, Minecraft, and Fortnite, they often get their start in online social gaming with a game like Animal Jam. Here, kids learn to personalize their avatar, explore a world, chat with other players, and trade items in a safe environment with parental controls. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

TechCrunch is hosting a small virtual meetup this Thursday centered around Miami. We hope you can attend. It’s free. This is our first (virtual) field trip to Miami. Even though we can’t be there physically right now, it’ll sure feel like we are. All lights will be shining on the Magic City. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Chalk this up to inevitability. The iMac Pro is soon to be no more. First noted by 9to5Mac, TechCrunch has since confirmed with Apple that the company will stop selling the all-in-one once the current stock is depleted. One configuration of the desktop is still available through Apple’s site, listed as “While Supplies Last” and […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Twitter announced today it’s opening up its live audio chat rooms, known as Twitter Spaces, to users on Android. Previously, the experience was only open to select users on iOS following the product’s private beta launch in late December 2020. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When I first wrote about Whatnot in February of last year, they were just getting started. Aiming to be the GOAT of collectible toys, they were focusing first on being the go-to trusted spot for buying and selling authenticated Funko Pop figurines. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

SpaceX has launched another batch of its Starlink satellites –Â the usual complement of 60 of the low Earth orbit spacecraft, which will join the more than 1,000 already making up the existing constellation. This is the fifth launch of Starlink satellites for SpaceX this year, and the 20th overall. Earlier this year, SpaceX opened up […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Earlier this year, TikTok was spotted testing a new Q&A feature that would allow creators to more directly respond to their audience’s questions using either text or video. Today, the company has announced the feature is now available to all users globally. With the release of TikTok Q&A, as the feature is officially called, creators […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Late last night Oscar Health, a tech-enabled medical insurance provider, priced its IPO at $39 per share. The final price came in $1 per share above its raised IPO guidance; Oscar Health had originally targeted a $32-$34 per-share IPO price. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

DJI has flirted with FPV goggles before, of course. The company got on the burgeoning FPV movement with the launch of its DJI Goggles back in 2016. It was a logical extension for the company that controls around 70% of the drone market. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In another key moment for the growing tech labor movement, Glitch employees today announced that they have signed a collective bargaining agreement with the company. The move comes a year after the site’s workforce voted to join the Communications Workers of America Local 1101. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Facebook was ordered to pay $650 million Friday for running afoul of an Illinois law designed to protect the state’s residents from invasive privacy practices. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

TechCrunch is embarking on a major project to survey the venture capital investors of Europe, and their cities. Our survey of investors in Zagreb will capture how Croatia is faring, and what changes are being wrought amongst investors by the coronavirus pandemic. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Wall Street investors can be fickle beasts. Take Salesforce as an example. The CRM giant announced a $5.82 billion quarter when it reported earnings yesterday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Lightspeed Venture Partners, the well-known Silicon Valley venture capital firm that has backed the likes of DoubleClick and Snapchat, is in the midst of hiring a new London-based investment partner as it looks to put down further ties to Europe, TechCrunch has learned. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Newsela, a SaaS platform for K-12 instructional material backed by the likes of TCV, Kleiner Perkins, Reach Capital, and Owl Ventures, announced today that it has raised $100 million in a Series D round. The financing was led by new investor Franklin Templeton, and brings Newsela’s valuation to $1 billion. The new round is larger […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coinbase’s S-1 publicly dropped this morning with much anticipation. My colleague Alex Wilhelm has the high-level details, but there was one major wrinkle for the crypto trading darling: two of its early investors seem to be cutting down their stakes pre-IPO. Coinbase files to go public in a key listing for the cryptocurrency category The […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Oak HC/FT general partners Annie Lamont, Andrew Adams and Tricia Kemp invested in healthcare and fintech before the two sectors were mainstream, and today, as a result of that early intuition and a handful of key exits, the trio has over a billion dollars in new fund money to show for it. The firm announced […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Genealogy tracking online is a big business, and today comes some M&A news for one of the bigger names in the field. TechCrunch has learned and confirmed that Israel’s MyHeritage.com — which lets people test DNA and track their family lineage and has some 62 million users — is getting acquired by Francisco Partners, for […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Twitter is running a new test that will ask users to pause and think before they tweet. According to the company’s announcement, when Twitter detects what appears to be a potentially harmful or offensive reply to someone else’s tweet, it will prompt you to consider revising your text instead of tweeting. Users whose tweets are […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A number of online creators and influencers have adopted mobile-friendly “link in bio” websites, like Linktree, to point their fans to their social profiles or other content they want to promote. Today, live streaming software company Streamlabs launched its own product in this market with its new mobile website builder Willow. Its tool differentiates itself […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Huawei’s first foldable feels like a distant memory. Announced in 2019, the company went back to the drawing board prior to release, as Samsung ran into its own much publicized issues with the innovative form factor. The Mate X was well-received among journalists — I had the opportunity to spend some time with it at […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

TechCrunch is embarking on a major project to survey the venture capital investors of Europe, and their cities. Our survey of VCs in Oslo and Norway will capture how the country is faring, and what changes are being wrought amongst investors by the coronavirus pandemic. We’d like to know how Norway’s startup scene is […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

SpaceX is now in the business of flying people to space, and if all goes to plan, it’ll be the first to provide a trip for a crew made up entirely of private space tourists later this year. Now, we know who will join billionaire and Shift4Payments founder Jason Isaacman on that trip – St. […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nearpod, the Miami-based edtech company, is being acquired by Renaissance Holding Corp., a group that develops education technology. While Nearpod isn’t announcing the news until later this month, the information leaked to Yahoo! Finance yesterday, and a source inside the company confirmed the sale with TechCrunch this morning. The acquisition price, and further details, have […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

2020 was a weird year by any measure. Certainly it was a wild ride for those in the consumer electronics category. Take smartphones — first there were manufacturing delays out of China, followed by an across the board decrease in demand. There are lots of reasons contributing to the latter, but the simplest and most […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When Wendell Brooks stepped down as managing partner and head of Intel Capital last August, Anthony Lin was named to replace him on an interim basis. At the time, it wasn’t clear if he would be given the role permanently, but today, six months later, the answer is known. In a letter to the firm’s […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Google has suspended the Trump 2020 campaign app from the Google Play Store for policy violations, the company confirmed, following a report from Android Police which noted the app was unable to load any content and appeared to have been taken down. Both the Android version of the app and its iOS counterpart have been […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Amazon’s Day 1 Edition program pulled back the curtain ever-so-slightly on the company’s hardware development process. The initial class featured its Echo Frames smart glasses and Loop smart ring. Based on early user feedback, the company only opted to continue production on the former. But it takes the idea even further. The program is akin […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

People who have spent time in jail or prison oftentimes face barriers to accessing stable jobs, housing and financial services. These types of barriers are a key driver of recidivism for the more than 600,000 people who are released from prison each year. Between 2005 and 2014, an estimated 68% of people released in 2005 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices