TechCrunch Industry News

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

Y Combinator-backed employment platform 70 Million Jobs is launching a new social network geared toward helping formerly incarcerated individuals connect with each other. While 70 Million Jobs focuses on helping people with criminal records find jobs, Commissary Club wants to serve as a place for folks to find community. “Folks with [criminal] records have always, […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Juganu, the venture-backed Israeli company that makes lighting systems capable of emitting light at specified wavelengths, is now selling a product that it claims can disinfect surfaces and deactivate pathogens in an attempt to provide buildings with new safety technologies that can prevent the spread of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. The company claims that […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase is launching a debit card in the U.S. this winter. Customers can join the waitlist and get the Coinbase Card whenever it is available. Coinbase already launched the Coinbase Card in the U.K. and Europe. The Coinbase Card is a Visa debit card that works with any Visa-compatible payment terminal, online checkout […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

T-Mobile is launching new skinny bundles of live TV and streaming services to compete with expensive cable subscriptions. The carrier has already been moving into the TV market with the acquisition of Layer3 and the subsequent launch of TVision Home last year. However, that was closer to traditional cable, with a price tag starting at […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Instagram is adapting to the way creators have been using its service during the coronavirus pandemic. With individuals and businesses now limited from hosting in-person events — like concerts, classes, meetups, and more — users have turned to Instagram to live stream instead. Today, the company says it’s significantly expanding the time limit for these […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Not just the future of civilization is up for grabs this November. In this age of mobile social computing, we’re figuring out how to vote, entertain, teach, learn, and commit to meaningful change. Thanks to the pandemic emergency, our plans for transforming our country and planet are subject to immediate recall. Much of the current […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Readers of a certain age will no doubt remember some region variation of TV Powww. The syndicated program, which found viewers at home giving directions over the phone to an in-studio operating playing an Intellivision game. Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit review Perhaps the best-known variant is New York’s TV PIXXX, wherein the player would say […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Last year, Dropbox talked about making a shift to Shingled Magnetic Recording or SMR disks for short because of the efficiency they can give a high volume storage platform like theirs. Today, Western Digital announced that Dropbox was one of the first companies to qualify their Ultrastar® DC HC650 20TB, host-managed SMR hard disks. Dropbox’s […] 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 Brussels 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

Lyft riders will soon have the option for paying and splitting fares using Venmo, the company said in a blog posting this morning. Venmo joins Lyft’s other payment methods of PayPal, credit cards, debit cards, Lyft Cash and more. To enable the payment method, users need to authorize Venmo in the Lyft app. Lyft says […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On first screening, the network assumed it had a disaster on its hands. It was a quiet cartoon — more of a meditation on seasonal depression than a proper holiday film. The pacing was slow, it was voiced by a cast of amateur children and the soundtrack amounted to little more than the jazz piano […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

PayPal has partnered with cryptocurrency company Paxos to launch a new service. PayPal users in the U.S. will soon be able to buy, hold and sell cryptocurrencies. More countries are coming soon. PayPal plans to support Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin at first. You’ll be able to connect to your PayPal account to buy […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Last night, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez went live on Twitch to stream Among Us with a handful of superstar streamers. The purpose of the stream, which drew a massive crowd, was to get out the vote as we head into the general election. At its peak, the stream drew a concurrent viewership of 435,000+ people, and […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Polaris Slingshot has always wowed. Three wheels, open cockpit, and a design reminiscent of the Batmobile. It draws a crowd and is a blast to drive. I spent several weeks in the reworked Polaris Slingshot. The company just unveiled a new version that is finally available with an automatic transmission. Past versions were limited […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There’s a new streaming service in France called Salto. The companies behind the new service have been around for a while though. Salto is a joint initiative between TF1, France Télévisions and M6 — three major TV networks. Those companies already had their own apps with live TV and ad-supported catch-up content. And of course, […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It’s been a busy few weeks for smart speakers. Amazon kicked things off in late September with newer, rounder versions of both the Echo and Echo Dot. Less than a week later, Google updated the Home, after four years, with the rebranded Nest Audio. And then, last week, Apple unveiled the long-awaited $99 HomePod Mini, […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Relativity Space has bagged its first public government contract, and with a major defense contractor at that. The launch startup’s 3D-printed rockets are a great match for a particularly complex mission Lockheed is undertaking for NASA’s Tipping Point program. The mission is a test of a dozen different cryogenic fluid management systems, including liquid hydrogen, […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Election Day approaches! Still not sure where the nearest polling place or ballot drop box is? Google wants to help. This morning the company rolled out a handful of features across Google Assistant, Google Maps, and Google Search, all meant to kick in when a user seems to be looking for information on voting locations. […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Surface Laptop Go joined me in the woods last week. It lived in my backpack for a few days and came along for a 20-mile hike through footpaths and across bridges of questionable integrity. It is, without a doubt, light. It’s certainly lighter than the MacBook Air I also packed for the trip, at […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Twitter has announced an update to its hacked materials policy — saying it will no longer remove hacked content unless it’s directly shared by hackers or those “acting in concert with them”. Instead of blocking such content/links from being shared on its service it says it will label tweets to “provide context”. Wider Twitter rules […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has announced his intention to pursue a reform of Section 230 of the Communications Act, which among other things limits the liability of internet platforms for content they host. Commissioner Rosenworcel described the timing — immediately after Conservative outrage at Twitter and Facebook limiting the reach of an article relating to […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Separated by a strait, the internet in Taiwan and mainland China are two different worlds. Even mainland tech giants Alibaba and Tencent have had little success entering the island, often running into regulatory hurdles. Less than a year after Taobao launched on the island through an Alibaba-backed joint venture, the marketplace announced it will cease […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Tesla Model S is about to get a bit less expensive. Tesla CEO and resident meme maker, Elon Musk, just tweeted that the Model S sedan will soon be priced at $69,420. This pricing wasn’t done on a whim and a joint. The price cut is likely in response to Lucid undercutting Tesla on […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A cultured meat research program led by a Spanish biotech firm has been awarded a €2.7M grant under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 R&D funding framework. The consortium project, called ‘Meat4All’, says it’s the first lab-grown meat research effort to get public investment by the EU — which it’s taking as a sign that regional […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Apple clearly has plenty to announce during today’s big iPhone event. That means, as usual, its Beats line didn’t really get any love. The company is much more content to focus on its own audio offerings, instead. But the Apple-owned brand had some news to share today, as well. In contrast to Apple’s offerings, the […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Alphabet (you know… Google) has taken the wraps off the latest “moonshot” from its X labs: A robotic buggy that cruises over crops, inspecting each plant individually and, perhaps, generating the kind of “big data” that agriculture needs to keep up with the demands of a hungry world. Mineral is the name of the project, […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

eBay is announcing today that it’s going to start authenticating sneaker sales over $100 in the U.S. This is a clear bite into the dominance of StockX and GOAT in the limited sneaker universe. The authentication will be done by Sneaker Con, the company that runs, well, Sneaker Con. Founded by Yu-Ming Wu and Hayden […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Twitter announced a major set of changes to the way its platform would work Friday as the social network braces for the most contentious, uncertain and potentially high stakes election in modern U.S. history. In what will likely be the most noticeable change, Twitter will try a new tactic to discourage users from retweeting posts […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

High-end speaker manufacturer Devialet is launching its first pair of earbuds called Devialet Gemini. The in-ear earbuds feature active noise canceling and cost £279 in the U.K. — they will be available in the coming weeks. The Devialet Gemini are completely wireless, which means that there’s no cord between each earbud, like on Apple’s AirPods. […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Everyone is familiar with carrier pigeons, but what about carrier moths? This research project uses the nocturnal insects as a delivery service for tiny electronic packages that weigh less than a hundredth of an ounce. The system was created by graduate students at the University of Washington and its prolific tiny gadget creator Shyam Gollakota. […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Apple told me today that it will be extending AppleTV+ subscriptions that are set to end November 1, 2020 through January 31, 2021 through their billing date in February of 2021. The basic situation is that Apple gave away a free year of AppleTV+ to new device purchasers last year and those are all set […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Kroger Co., one of the biggest grocery chains in the Midwest is dipping its toe into on-demand delivery and the ghost kitchen craze through a partnership with an Indianapolis-based startup, ClusterTruck. Supermarkets would seem to be logical places to site the kinds of ghost kitchens that have caught investor’s eye over the past few […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Former Apple software engineer and designer Ken Kocienda, whose work included the original iPhone and the development of touchscreen autocorrect, has created his first iOS app, Up Spell. The fast-paced, fun word game challenges users to spell all the words you can in two minutes and uses a lexicon of words Kocienda built to allow […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bespoken Spirits, a Silicon Valley spirits company that has developed a new data-driven process to accelerate the aging of whiskey and create specific flavors, today announced that it has raised a $2.6 million seed funding round. Investors include Clos de la Tech owner T.J. Rodgers and baseball’s Derek Jeter. The company was co-founded by former […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Twitter is testing a new way to follow accounts. The company announced today it’s rolling out a new feature, “Suggested Follows,” that will pop up a list of other accounts you may want to follow on the profile page of someone you had just followed. The feature will be tested on Android devices, for the […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Acquired in 2017, Soundtrap more or less serves a similar role as Anchor under the larger Spotify banner — albeit largely focused on music creation, instead of podcasting. The company’s software of the same name is a cloud-based service designed to let musicians remotely collaborate on a song, track by track. It is, honestly, a […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It has been over four years since Project Jacquard, Google’s smart fabric technology, made its debut at the I/O developer conference. Launched out of what was then Google’s ATAP unit, Jacquard is currently best known for being available on Levi’s jeans jackets, but Saint Laurent also launched its $1,000 Cit-e Backpack with built-in Jacquard technology. […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Chinmay Malaviya and Charlie Depman found themselves at the center of the shared micromobility industry just as it took off, working for companies like Bird, Lime and Scoot. They experienced a rollercoaster ride of venture funding and skyrocketing demand, product pitfalls and regulatory hurdles. It was in the midst of this activity that the pair […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Plaid, the company building a universal banking API that lets you connect an app or service with a bank account, has updated Plaid Link. Plaid Link is the interface that you see when you add your bank account to any app or service that uses Plaid, such as Cash App or TransferWise. Given that 3,000 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In a year, Nintendo would have demoed, in person, Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit. The company would have invited select members of the press into some rented event space and let us experience the game first-hand, like it had with Labo and Ring Fit Adventures. It’s 2020, however, and that’s just not how we do […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

While the overall cloud infrastructure market is booming having reached $30 billion last quarter worldwide, Oracle is struggling with market share in the low single digits. It is hoping that the Zoom and TikTok deals can jump start those numbers, but trying to catch the market leaders Amazon, Microsoft and Google, never mind several other […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Google has long had a frenemy position with regards to the world of news: it can direct a lot of traffic to online publishers, but that’s only if people bother to click on links after getting the gist of the story from Google itself (and that’s before considering Google’s AMP approach on mobile that keeps […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Twilio’s annual customer conference was supposed to happen in May, but like everyone else who had live events scheduled for this year, it ran smack-dab into COVID-19 and was forced to cancel. That left the company wondering how to reimagine the event online. It began an RFP process to find a vendor to help, but […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Boston-based robotic gardening startup Tertill this morning announced that it has appointed Helen Greiner as CEO and Chairman. The executive is best known for cofounding iRobot in 1990 along with fellow MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab members Rodney Brooks and Colin Angle (the company’s longtime CEO). At first glance, Tertill is a pretty natural fit for […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Greylock Partners has teamed up with Management Leadership for Tomorrow to address issues of diversity and inclusion in the technology industry. “Our view is this has to be a comprehensive approach,” MLT Founder and CEO John Rice told TechCrunch. “This is not just a coding program, mentor program, fellowship program. There are plenty of great […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Grammarly, the popular spelling and grammar checker, is launching a few new features for its paying users today that go beyond some of its traditional tools to help its users make their overall writing not just technically correct but also more legible. That means the service can now help you restructure sentences for clarity, help […] 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 Rome and Milan will capture how the cities are faring, and what changes are being wrought amongst investors by the coronavirus pandemic. (Please note, if you have filled the survey […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A U.S. federal court has said a ban on TikTok will not go into effect on Monday as scheduled. The move to delay the anticipated ban will allow Americans to continue using the app while the court considers the ban’s legality and whether the app poses a risk to national security as the Trump administration claims. […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Amazon today announced a lot of new products including the new Echo speaker line. And the products looks dramatically different. Gone are the cylinders. They’re spheres now and look like nothing else on the market. The lights are now on the bottom, while there are still rounded buttons on the top. The Alexa software got […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices