TechCrunch Industry News

With iOS 14, Apple is going to update Apple Maps with some important new features, such as cycling directions, electric vehicle routing and curated guides. But the app is also going to learn one neat trick. In dense areas where you can’t get a precise location, Apple Maps will prompt you to raise your phone […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In recent years, Seattle-based Wyze made a name for itself thanks to making a lot of smart home gadgets affordable. These days, the company sells everything from smart plugs and locks to scales and fitness bands, but what started it all was the $20 Wyze indoor security camera. Today, the company is following that up […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When Dell bought EMC in 2016 for $67 billion it was one of the biggest acquisitions in tech history, and it brought with it a boatload of debt. Since then Dell has been working on ways to mitigate that debt by selling off various pieces of the corporate empire and going public again, but one […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The App Store ecosystem today is home to nearly 2 million apps. That means finding new apps to download is now more challenging than ever. This, in turns, leads app developers to funnel more money into App Store Search ads, traditional SEO, and digital advertising in an effort to acquire new users. A new feature […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Whatever you do, don’t take your finger off your phone screen. MSHCF, a company striving to build a flashy brand by creating viral moments, is taking the wraps off of their next stunt, an internet-wide competition with as much as $25,000 on the line. How do you win the cash? Open up their new app, […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

During the virtual keynote of WWDC, Apple shares the first details about iOS 14, the next major version of iOS that is going to be released later this year. The most visual change is that the home screen is getting widgets. “This year, we spent time rethinking the iconic experience of the iPhone,” SVP of […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Apple held its WWDC keynote today, a virtual affair that managed to convince swaths of the technology industry to watch a pre-recorded video. While TechCrunch has posts galore up on the site about all the latest stuff from Cupertino, we also kept an eye on Apple’s stock price during its event. Doing so is a […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ford has changed the debut of its 2021 Bronco once again because its planned July 9 reveal falls on the birthday of O.J. Simpson, one of the iconic SUV’s most infamous passengers The automaker tweeted Friday that it has moved the unveiling to July 13. The reveal of the all-new Bronco lineup will now happen […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Respawn just dropped a big ol’ bundle of news about its popular free-to-play Battle Royale shooter, Apex Legends, during a livestream event hosted by its parent company, EA. The key bits: Apex is coming to the Nintendo Switch this fall. Playing Apex up until now has meant camping in front of a TV (or rigging […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Twitter does not have a team dedicated to accessibility, the company confirmed after a developer alluded to the fact. It’s a baffling omission for a company that employs some 4,000 people and a CEO who is often heard talking about doing the right thing. This is not to say that Twitter is a wasteland for […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Google today announced a deeper integration between Gmail on mobile and its Meet video conferencing service. Now, if you use Gmail on Android or iOS and somebody sends you a link to a Meet event, you can join the meeting right from your inbox. That obviously isn’t radically different from how things work today, where […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hertz, which filed for bankruptcy last month, halted its $500 million stock offering Wednesday after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission told the rental company it would review its controversial plan to sell shares that could soon be wiped out completely. Hertz disclosed Monday that it would issue a $500 million stock offering following approval […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This storm shall pass. However the choices we make now will change our lives forever. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Drone deployment of sterile mosquitoes could accelerate efforts to control their populations and reduce insect-borne disease, according to a proof of concept experiment by an multi-institutional research team. The improved technique could save thousands of lives. Mosquitoes are a public health hazard around the world, spreading infections like malaria to millions and causing countless deaths […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A week before kicking off WWDC, Apple introduced a pair of upgrades to its pro-level hardware lines. Both the 16-inch MacBook Pro and the Mac Pro desktop are getting select internal upgrades, starting today. One the notebook front, the 16-inch model gets an additional graphics configuration. The addition of the AMD Radeon Pro 5600M GPU […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

My birthday was last month (still accepting belated greetings in the comments below). I was sick and sheltering in place, and my sister kindly gifted me a Cameo of Kids in the Hall/Newsradio star Dave Foley. His hair was blue for some reason and I found out he has a dog named Falkor. It was […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

WarnerMedia is hoping to make things simpler for anyone wondering whether to get HBO Max, HBO Go or HBO Now. Back in simpler times, there were only two HBO streaming apps — Go for cable subscribers, and Now for viewers who wanted a standalone streaming subscription. Then the company launched launched HBO Max last month. […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hertz, the rental car company that is going through Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings, can now sell up to $1 billion in stock as it seeks to tap into one of the hottest tickets in town: traders with an appetite for short-term speculative bets. . The decision Friday by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Volkswagen has started to sell a home-charging device as the automaker prepares to bring its new ID. family of electric vehicles to market. The ID.3 is the first electric vehicle under the ID label and will only be sold in Europe. Customers who made reservations for the launch edition, known as ID.3 1st, will be able […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you’ve ever wanted to try out OpenAI’s vaunted machine learning toolset, it just got a lot easier. The company has released an API that lets developers call its AI tools in on “virtually any English language task.” Basically, if you’ve got a task that requires understanding word in English, OpenAI wants to help automate […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Snap is unveiling some important changes for Snapchat at its Snap Partner Summit. The navigation has been rethought with a new action bar at the bottom that lets you access Snap Map and Snap Originals in just a tap. Snap Map is also getting some brand new features to compete head-to-head with Google Maps. A […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Everyone needs a webcam these days, whether for business meetings or the distant socializing accomplished via video calling — but if you’re like most, you’re using the built-in camera on your laptop or some piece of junk from years ago. But if you happen to have a nice big-brand camera, it’s easy to set it […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said in a memo its time to “go all out” and start volume production of the Tesla Semi, the all-electric Class 8 truck revealed nearly three years ago. CNBC first reported on the memo that was sent to all employees. TechCrunch has also viewed the brief memo, which lacked details such […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Grow Credit, the startup that launched last year to help customers build out their credit scores by providing a credit line for online subscriptions like Spotify and Netflix, has added Mucker Labs as an investor and closed its seed round with $2 million in total commitments. The Los Angeles startup founded by serial entrepreneur Joe […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If there’s one lesson I’ve learned these last few months, it’s that life rarely works out as planned. One minute you’re the sole two members of the band whose music has been prophesied to heal the world and usher in a new era of peace, and the next you wake up middle-aged playing some barstool […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Grammarly, the popular tool that aims to help you avoid grammar and style gaffes, today announced that launch of custom style guides for its paying business users. Like with any style guide, the idea here is to ensure that a business’ communications are consistent. You wouldn’t want one email to say ‘datacenter’ while the other […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Acura NSX is a fun sports car with a hybrid powertrain that lays out an impressive amount of power. But I’m not here to talk about the car’s performance. One of the car’s best features is its cell phone holder. It’s time for automakers to face the reality that cell phones are a critical […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Amy Errett’s company, Madison Reed, sells in-home care color. It may not sound like a glamorous business but, as it turns out, it’s a very durable one, done the right way. Not only has the seven-year-old outfit been slowing chipping away at the dominant personal care giants like L’Oreal that have long controlled what’s currently […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There’s a decent chance buying music is the furthest thing from your mind right now, and I can’t say I blame you. Here in the States, 108,000 people are dead of COVID-19, and protests against the killing of George Floyd raged on for an eighth night. And neither of these society-shaping events are set to […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

New numbers from Canalys project a 7% drop in global PC sales, owing to financial strains. The category is one of countless impacted by the COVID-19-related shutdowns, but the group notes that the virus’s direct impact is mostly behind the industry, due to the rebounding of China’s supply chain. A resulting global recession, on the […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today Slack reported its earnings results for the three months ending April 30, 2020, the first quarter of its fiscal 2021. The well-known SaaS chat service posted revenue of $201.7 million, up 50% compared to its year-ago period. Slack also reported an adjusted per-share loss of $0.02, and per-share losses of $0.13 when counting all […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Kitty Hawk is shutting down its Flyer program, the aviation startup’s inaugural moonshot to develop an ultralight electric flying car designed for anyone to use. The company, backed by Google co-founder Larry Page and led by Sebastian Thrun, said it’s now focused on scaling up Heaviside, a sleeker, more capable (once secret) electric aircraft that […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today after the bell, video-chat service Zoom reported its Q1 earnings. The company disclosed that it generated $328.2 million in revenue, up 169% compared to the year-ago period. The company also reported $0.20 per-share in adjusted profit during the three-month period. Analysts, as averaged by Yahoo Finance, expected Zoom to report $202.48 million in revenue, […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tembici, which says it owns 80% of the market share in Latin America’s micromobility space, now has $47 million more in capital to double down on its docked ebike offering. The Series B round was led by Valor Capital and Redpoint eventures. The International Finance Corporation (IFC), part of the World Bank Group, and Joá […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Acorns, which helps millions of people invest their spare change in the stock market, has laid off between 50 to 70 people, TechCrunch has learned from multiple sources. The Irvine, Calif.-based company would not confirm the total number of people laid off, but did confirm that there were cuts at the company as a result […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

More dismal numbers confirm what we already knew: Q1 2020 was real rough for an already struggling smartphone category. Gartner’s latest report puts the global market at a 20.2% slide versus the same time last year, thanks in large part to fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. Every single one of the global top-five manufactures saw […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Uber is bringing a new feature to the U.S. that lets users book rides for $50 an hour and make multiple stops as the ride-hailing company tries to respond to changing consumer needs during the COVID-19 pandemic. The hourly booking feature, which is already available in a handful of international cities in Australia, Africa, Europe, […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Pax today is announcing a new app for its cannabis vaporizers. The service offers access to device controls, cannabis strain information, and safety features. The company previously launched an Android and iPhone app with similar features, but Apple later removed the version on the App Store, stripping iPhone users of features and information. Pax is […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Several months into this pandemic, you can no doubt already eyeball six feet/two meters with the best of them. But if you’re still having trouble — and happen to have an Android device handy — Google’s got you covered, I guess. The latest project out of the company’s Experiments With Google collection, Sodar is a […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The greatest comedy in television history became a part of the Disney family when the mega-corporation gobbled up Fox last year, like so many forbidden donuts. Beyond having to make nice with the cartoon mouse American’s family had so openly antagonized over the decades, the deal meant that The Simpsons would have a permanent home […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Why’s this on TechCrunch? We hear that occasionally when posting things outside of our general programming. Generally, there’s a tech hook; there isn’t here with this $100,000 2020 Lotus Evora GT. The Lotus Evora GT is supersized go-kart with nary an advanced technical feature. And I love it. While most cars are coming equipped with […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has released a new version of its flagship model, the Raspberry Pi 4. In addition to the models that come with 2GB and 4GB of RAM, there’s a new 8GB model. This model costs $75, which makes it the most expensive Raspberry Pi out there. As always, you get a single-board […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You don’t need a green thumb and a big backyard to grow baskets of fresh produce. In fact, according to Chicago-based Rise Gardens, you probably just need a bookshelf’s worth of space in your living room and an app. Rise Gardens, an indoor hydroponic gardening system, has raised $2.6 million in seed funding for home-grown […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Browser developers love to add small Easter Eggs to their apps to help you while away the hours when your Interent is down, for example. Chrome has long had the Dino game, that you can start from the ‘No internet’ error screen, for example. With its surf game, Microsoft’s Edge team built something similar into […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

New numbers from Gartner show a sizable — if not unexpected — decline in device shipments for 2020. According to the analyst firm, the category (including phones, tablets and PCs) is currently on track to decline 13.6% for the year. An already struggling smartphone market takes a big hit from COVID-19 COVID-19 is, naturally, largely […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Security researchers have found a major vulnerability in almost every version of Android, which lets malware imitate legitimate apps to steal app passwords and other sensitive data. The vulnerability, dubbed Strandhogg 2.0 (named after the Norse term for a hostile takeover) affects all devices running Android 9.0 and earlier. It’s the “evil twin” to an earlier […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

IBM confirmed reports from over night that it is conducting layoffs, but wouldn’t provide details related to location, departments or number of employees involved. The company framed it in terms of replacing people with more needed skills as it tries to regroup under new CEO Arvind Krishna. “IBM’s work in a highly competitive marketplace requires […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the days and weeks after Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed the cybertruck — a post-apocalyptic inspired vehicle made of cold-rolled steel — there was a lot of speculation about whether it would be smaller once it actually made it to market. Production of the Cybertruck is still a long ways off. There isn’t even […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tuca & Bertie was wonderful. It was a hilarious and heartfelt examination of adult relationships, coupled with whimsical animated visuals. And like most good things in this world, it was simple too beautiful to live. The Netflix series, which starred comedians Tiffany Haddish and Ali Wong and two mismatched bird best friends was canceled after […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Magic Leap has reportedly received a $350 million lifeline, a month after slashing 1,000 jobs and dropping its consumer business. Noted by Business Insider and confirmed by The Information, CEO Rony Abovitz sent a note to staff announcing the funding, courtesy of unnamed current and new investors. The who — and more importantly, why — […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices