TechCrunch Industry News

Apple is reportedly developing a number of Apple Silicon chip variants with significantly higher core counts relative to the M1 chips that it uses in today’s MacBook Air, MacBook Pro and Mac mini computers based on its own ARM processor designs. According to Bloomberg, the new chips include designs that have 16 power cores and […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Google is almost running out of AR/VR projects to kill off. The company announced today in an email to Poly users that they will be shutting 3D-object creation and library platform “forever” next year. The service will shut down on June 30, 2021 and users won’t be able to upload 3D models to the site […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

An Executive Order was just issued from the White House regarding “the Use of Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence in Government.” Leaving aside the meritless presumption of the government’s own trustworthiness and that it is the software that has trust issues, the order is almost entirely hot air. The EO is like others in that it is […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Twitter is shutting down its experimental app twttr, which the company had used publicly prototype new features back in 2019. The app was first introduced at the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2019, then launched to testers that March. Its primary focus had been on trying out new designs for threaded conversations, including things like […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today after the bell, Salesforce reported its third-quarter earnings for its fiscal 2021, a period that ended October 31, 2020. The CRM giant reported top-line revenue of $5.42 billion, up 20% from the year-ago period. Salesforce also had net income of $1.08 billion and earnings per share of $1.15. Analysts had expected the company to […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The UK’s medicines regulator has approved the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine against COVID-19 for emergency use, the companies said today. The UK is the first country to approve the vaccine for widespread use — paving the way for some of the most “high risk” citizens, such as elderly care home residents, to get the jab before the end […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Whether it’s a fun day hike, a car camping excursion or a multi-day backcountry backpacking trip, there’s plenty of great camping and hiking gear that can make life easier for the outdoors person (without going overboard). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Canadian electric truck and bus manufacturer The Lion Electric Company said Monday it plans to become a publicly traded company via a merger with special-purpose acquisition company Northern Genesis Acquisition Corp. The combined company, which will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange, will have a valuation of $1.9 billion. The companies raised $200 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has released a new product today. It’s a tiny $5 fan combined with a small heatsink for the Raspberry Pi 4. It works with the official case, below the top cover. That accessory should prevent the Raspberry Pi from overheating. If you’re not familiar with the Raspberry Pi, it’s a cheap, […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Drugmaker Moderna has completed its initial efficacy analysis of its COVID-19 vaccine from the drug’s Phase 3 clinical study, and determined that it was 94.1% effective in preventing people from contracting COVID-19 across 196 confirmed cases from among 30,000 participants in the study. Moderna also found that it was 100% effective in preventing severe cases […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Amazon Web Services is currently having an outage, taking a chunk of the internet down with it. Several AWS services were experiencing problems as of early Wednesday, according to its status page. That means any app, site or service that relies on AWS might also be down, too. (As I found out the hard way […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Reset yer counters: Facebook has had to ‘fess up to yet another major ad reporting fail. This one looks like it could be costly for the tech giant to put right — not least because it’s another dent in its reputation for self reporting. (For past Facebook ad metric errors check out our reports from […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This holiday season the next generation of gamers, bless their hearts, will be hoping to receive the next generation of gaming consoles. But confusing branding by the console makers — not to mention a major shortage of consoles — could lead to disappointment during the unwrapping process. Before making any big promises this year, you’ll […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

France is going forward with its plan to tax big tech companies. The government has sent out notices to tech giants, as reported by the Financial Times, Reuters and AFP. There could be retaliation tariffs on French goods in the U.S. For the past couple of years, France’s Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire has been […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Netflix started streaming “Chappelle’s Show” at the beginning of November — but barely more than three weeks later, it has taken the Comedy Central sketch show off its service. Co-creator Dave Chappelle offered some context for the decision in an Instagram clip of what appears to be a recent standup set, in which described any […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Let’s just get this out of the way: for the past several years, I’ve contributed the “Best Gifts for Frequent Travelers” segment to TechCrunch’s annual gift guide. I love it. It was easily my favorite gift guide to write, and it was an audience favorite, as well. But I am no longer a frequent traveler. […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Finally. It only took almost three weeks, but the Biden-Harris transition has officially begun. On Monday, the General Services Administration gave the green light for the Biden-Harris team to transition from political campaign to government administration, allowing the team to receive government resources like office space, but also classified briefings and secure computers. And, with […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Its long fruitful relationship with Apple may be sunsetting soon, but Intel’s still got a fairly massive footprint in the PC market. There’s never a good time to get complacent, though (a lesson the company learned the hard way on the mobile front). This week the chip giant is debuting its own laptop, the NUC […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Twitter is the latest social media site to allow users to experiment with posting disappearing content. Fleets, as Twitter calls them, allows its mobile users post short stories, like photos or videos with overlaying text, that are set to vanish after 24 hours. But a bug meant that fleets weren’t deleting properly and could still […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Charge Bikes founder Nick Larsen and VP of product Peter Vallance wanted to reduce the pain points of buying and owning an electric bike to attract everyday folks and cycling enthusiasts alike. The company offers three models: the Comfort for weekend leisure rides, the City for commuters and the XC for off-road enthusiasts. I got […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Since Chrome came out back in 2008, it’s been a constant companion in my life. In fact, Chrome’s launch is how I helped get the startup I worked for at the time onto TechCrunch for the first time. We did shots to celebrate. Chrome rocked, and we were Day One Fans. But over time what […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Microsoft announced a few updates to its Edge browser today that are all about shopping. In addition to expanding the price comparison feature the team announced last month, Edge can now also automatically find coupons for you. In addition, the company is launching a new shopping hub in its Bing search engine. The timing here […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Google is launching a major redesign of its Google Pay app on both Android and iOS today. Like similar phone-based contactless payment services, Google Pay — or Android Pay as it was known then — started out as a basic replacement for your credit card. Over time, the company added a few more features on […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

French startup Yubo is the biggest social media app you’ve never heard of — unless you’re a teen. With a focus on young people under 25, the company has managed to attract 40 million users. A fraction of them hang out every day in live-streaming rooms, meet new people and spend money for more features. […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The musician’s life is rarely an easy one. That goes double for these last, oh, eight or so months. Most artists who haven’t risen the ranks to rock-star levels make the lion’s share of their money from live shows, and that’s just not in the cards for now — and likely won’t be for some […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Twitter’s new Stories feature, “Fleets,” appears to be struggling under the load. Launched this morning to Twitter’s global user base, Fleets appear at the top of the Twitter app, allowing users to post ephemeral content that disappears in 24 hours as well as view stories posted by others. But user demand and curiosity about the […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Apple has updated a documentation page detailing the company’s next steps to prevent last week’s Gatekeeper bug from happening again, as Rene Ritchie spotted. The company plans to implement the fixes over the next year. Apple had a difficult launch day last week. The company released macOS Big Sur, a major update for macOS. Apple […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

WildWorks, the gaming company that makes the popular kids game Animal Jam, has confirmed a data breach. Animal Jam is one of the most popular games for kids, ranking in the top five games in the 9-11 age category in Apple’s App Store in the U.S., according to data provided by App Annie. But while […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Another banner month month for Nintendo hardware sales, per the latest figures from NPD. The firm puts Switch sales (including the standard and Lite models) at 735,000 units in the U.S., making the best October for a Nintendo console since the Wii sold 807,000 units in October 2008. It’s been a good couple of years […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There are plenty of reviews out there for the Hero 9 already, so I wanted to do something a little different. I decided to put GoPro’s latest to the test while hugging turns in my 1970 Chevelle. I recently swapped the automatic transmission in it for a Tremec Magnum 6-speed manual in order to do […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

TechCrunch is embarking on a major new project to survey the venture capital investors of Europe, and their cities. Our survey of VCs in Dublin will capture how the city is faring, and what changes are being wrought amongst investors by the coronavirus pandemic. (Please note, if you have filled the survey out already, […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Twitter’s own version of Stories, which it calls “Fleets,” have arrived in Japan. The new feature allows users to post ephemeral content that automatically disappears after 24 hours. Though Fleets previously launched in Brazil, India, Italy, and South Korea, Japan is notably Twitter’s second largest market, with some estimated 51.9 million users. It’s also second […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Come June 1, 2021, Google will change its storage policies for free accounts — and not for the better. Basically, if you’re on a free account and a semi-regular Google Photos user, get ready to pay up next year and subscribe to Google One. Currently, every free Google Account comes with 15 GB of online […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This year, more than ever before because of the Covid-19 pandemic, huge droves of workers and consumers have been turning to the internet to communicate, get things done, and entertain themselves. That has created a huge bonanza for cybercriminals, but also companies that are building tools to combat them. In the latest development, an Israel-hatched, […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In addition to the MacBook Air, Apple also introduced a new Mac Mini. It runs Apple’s first custom chipset specifically designed for Mac computers, the M1. It still features the same familiar design, but it now uses an Arm-based chip. “If you compare a Mac mini to the top-selling desktop in this price range, the […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Beyond Meat’s partnership with McDonald’s to develop the McPlant burger wasn’t enough to keep shares from collapsing after the company posted third-quarter earnings that fell far below analysts’ expectations. The big miss sent shares tumbling nearly 29% in after markets closed Monday after reporting it generated $94.4 million in revenues and a loss of 28 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Macs. Okay, great. We’re done here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Inrupt, the startup from World Wide Web founder Tim Berners-Lee, announced an enterprise version of the Solid privacy platform today, which allows large organizations and governments to build applications that put users in control of their data. Berners-Lee has always believed that the web should be free and open, but large organizations have grown up […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There was some confusion when the Juice Pack Connect was announced last week. I admit I was a bit confused, too. It was, no doubt, the proximity to Apple’s iPhone 12 launch that lead many to (understandably) assume that the new take on Mophie’s case is based on the handset’s new MagSafe tech. While it […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Two days ago, about $1 billion worth of bitcoin that had sat dormant since the seizure of the Silk Road marketplace in 2013, one of the biggest underground drug websites on the dark web, suddenly changed hands. Who took it? Mystery over. It was the U.S. government. In a statement Thursday, the Justice Department confirmed […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Let’s get this out of the way: The Aeron is better. But not much, and that’s the story here. The tCentric Hybrid starts at $900 and offers serious comfort and support for the tireless worker. There are endless adjustment levers, knobs, and options. The chair is available for ordering with a bevy of accessories and […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

German fintech startup Vivid Money has raised a $17.6 million Series A funding round (€15 million). Ribbit Capital is leading the investment. Today’s funding round gives Vivid Money a valuation of $117 million (€100 million). Vivid Money is quite a young startup as the company started accepting customers just a few months ago. Built on […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NBC News has updated its iOS app with a new feature that brings election news, data and results directly to your iPhone or iPad home screen. With the app’s new “Decision 2020” iOS 14 widget, you can customize a series of widgets with information related to early voting stats, polls, as well as the current […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Even as the country is in the final days of a polarizing election, the cogs of VC never stop turning. On this ever-so-quiet, non-election-news Tuesday, venture firms still managed to file paperwork with the SEC indicating newly raised funds. Precursor Ventures and Insight Partners will join Hustle Fund in closing new capital. The filings are […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

PayPal this week laid out its vision for the future of its digital wallet platform and its PayPal and Venmo apps. During its third-quarter earnings on Monday, the company said it plans to roll out substantial changes to its mobile apps over the next year to integrate a range of new features including enhanced direct […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In an election eve preview of what to expect in the coming days, President Trump pushed the limits on Twitter’s election-specific policies Monday night. In a tweet, Trump railed against the Supreme Court’s decision to allow Pennsylvania officials to count ballots postmarked by Election Day. The Republican party has waged a brazen legal onslaught against […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Robotics and automation startups have seen a strong uptick in interest over the course of the pandemic. And it’s easy to see which companies have a newfound interest in automating their workforce amid a seemingly endless virus-driven shutdown. But Walmart, which has long promised to take an increasing focus on such technology, has reportedly pulled […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

At its five-year anniversary gala graced by celebrities, esports stars and orchestras, Tencent’s mobile game Honor of Kings said it has crossed 100 million daily active users. The title has not only broken user records but generated other unprecedented accomplishments along the way. For one, it consistently ranks among the top-grossing mobile games worldwide, jostling […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Wyze first made a name for itself when it launched its $20 indoor security camera a few years ago. Since then, the company branched out into other smart home products, ranging from doorbells to scales. Today, it’s going back to its origins with the launch of the Wyze Cam V3, the third generation of its […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Utah Jazz, an NBA basketball team based in Salt Lake City, announced today that Qualitrics CEO and co-founder Ryan Smith was buying a majority stake in the team along other properties. ESPN is reporting the deal is worth $1.6 billion. Smith can afford it. He sold Qualtrics, which is based in Provo, Utah, in […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices