TechCrunch Industry News

The latest data from Inrix paints a dismal picture for folks traveling Wednesday (that’s today!) ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday. Drivers in Boston, New York City and San Francisco will see the largest delays with drive times nearly quadruple the norm, according to AAA and Inrix,whichaggregates and analyzes traffic data collected from vehicles and highway infrastructure. AAA is projecting 54.3 million Americans will travel 50 miles or more away from home this Thanksgiving, a 4. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Since taking the reins as chief executive of Kindred at the beginning of the year, Jim Liefer has been focused on commercializing his company’s autonomous robots. But unlike forward-projecting use-cases for robots that may (or may not) one day take over for human beings in a wide swath of functions, Kindred’s current robots are purpose-built for the floor of retail fulfillment centers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Walmart passes Apple to become No. 3 online retailer in U.S. Walmart has overtaken Apple to become the No. 3 online retailer in the U.S., according to a report this week from eMarketer. While Amazon still leads by a wide margin, accounting for 48 percent of e-commerce sales in 2018, Walmart – including also Sam’s Club and Jet.com – is poised to capture 4 percent of all online retail spending in the U.S. by year-end, totaling $20.91 billion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

MailChimp, the popular email newsletter service and marketing platform, today announced a partnership with Square that will allow its users to create landing pages with built-in e-commercefeatures. These shoppable landing pages are meant to give businesses a new sales channel to sell things like limited edition good or run targeted promotions. MailChimp’s landing pages have been around for a few years now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Until autonomous vehicles are here, ride-hailing companies like Lyft and Uber have to attract and retain human drivers if they hope to sustain their businesses. Lyft announced Thursday a half dozen new driver-friendly features, from default tipping and in-trip tipping to ways to protect their ratings and an events planner. Lyft also committed to rolling out at least one new feature or enhancement from its driver community each month. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome back toEquity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This week we had the excellent Connie Loizos on the air, we had Danny Crichton on the horn from New York, I was in the studio mostly hacking up one lung or the other, and we hadMatt Howard of Norwest Venture Partners. And so, with smoke in the Bay and snow in the Big Apple, we dug into what we love. Namely, dollars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dustin Rosen thinks L.A. has a problem, aside from its famously car-choked highways. There aren’t enough investors willing to write small checks. Why not? The way he sees it, most of the so-called micro venture funds have grown their funds to the size of traditional venture firms, and are making bigger bets as a result. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Das ist super geil — this is awesome! Early-bird prices for Disrupt Berlin 2018 passes have returned to the roost. But you need to act fast, because our time-sensitive offer expires in just 48 hours. This opportunity translates to serious savings in any language — up to €500. Here’s even more good news. During this sale, anyone who buys a Startup Alley Exhibitor pass will receive three Founder passes instead of two. The sale clock starts on 15 November at 12:00 a.m. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I’m a fan of Alexa and of voice computing in general. But when Amazon said it was putting Alexa into a microwave, I wasn’t so sure. The value in voice computing is being able to get to news, information, music hands-free, as well as perform simple tasks, including those for the smart home – like changing the thermostat from downstairs, or taking a peek at your security camera video from your Echo Show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I’m calling it — this is the best deal of this year’s Black Friday season, for gamers anyway. It’s amazing. It’s spectacular. Sony is selling a PlayStation 4 Slim with the new Spider-Man game for $199. That’s way too little money. The 1TB PS4 slim currently retails for $300, and that used to be the cost of the 500 GB one. So a $199 price for the improved, terabyte-capacity console would already be a great deal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

About a year ago, David Hyman, former Beats Music CEO and co-founder of music startup Mog that eventually sold to Beats Music, did something that was “very abnormal for me — career-wise,” he told TechCrunch. Hyman was an entrepreneur in residence at a giant real estate company. Because the music industry has changed so much, he said he didn’t want to do another music company. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

China’s Ucommune, the country’s largest rival to WeWork, has been on a busy acquisition spree to build out its domestic business and now it is looking at overseas opportunities after it closed a $200 million Series D funding round. The new round was led by Hong Kong-based All-Stars Investment with participation from Chinese investment bank CEC Capital and other investors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jason Rowley Contributor Jason Rowley is a venture capital and technology reporter for Crunchbase News. More posts by this contributor Early-stage SaaS VC slip snaps recovery as public software stocks soar International growth, primarily in China, fuels the VC market today Crunchbase News recently profileda selection of U.S. companies’ largest VC raised in 2018, and no surprise here: the 10 largest rounds all topped out well north of $100 million. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Months after announcing its privacy-focused DNS service, Cloudflare is bringing 1.1.1.1 to mobile users. Granted, nothing ever stopped anyone from using 1.1.1.1 on their phones or tablets already. But now the app, now available for iPhones, iPads and Android devices, aims to make it easier for anyone to use its free consumer DNS service. The app is a one-button push to switch on and off again. That’s it. Cloudflare rolled out 1.1.1. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Upstart launch provider Rocket Lab aims to finally launch its first fully commercial payload to orbit this weekend after months of delays. The small Electron rocket will take six satellites from four companies to orbit as early as tomorrow evening Pacific time — Sunday afternoon at the company’s launch site in New Zealand. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

“Who am I going to be worried about? Oh Facebook seeing? No, I’m not worried about Facebook seeing. They’re going to look at my great art collection and say they want to come steal it? No, I never really thought about it.” That’s my 72-year-old mother Sally Constine’s response to whether she’s worried about her privacy now that she has a Facebook Portal video chat device. The gadgetgoes on sale and starts shipping today at $349 for the 15. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Vine — the much loved and mourned short video hosting platform — will return, kind of, sort of. Co-creator Dom Hofmann announced on Twitter today that its spiritual success is set to arrive next spring. Details? We don’t have many. Though Hofmann did give us a name — Byte — and logo to match. From the sound out of, things will operate similarly to Vine, with short, looping videos. So far it’s got a domain and a couple of admittedly clunky social media handles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sling TV’s growth further slows in Q3, but still leads rivals in terms of subscribers It appears Dish’s live TV streaming service, Sling TV, has been impacted by the increased competition from rivals like YouTube TV, Hulu with Live TV, AT&T’s DirecTV Now, and others. Sling TV still leads the market with 2.37 million subscribers for its TV service aimed at cord cutters, Dish reported in its Q3 2018 earnings, but its momentum is slowing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Watchmaker Jaquet Droz makes luxury watches that cost more than some San Francisco apartments. Now, however, they’ve decided to go “downmarket” with their Sports Watch chronograph, a handmade watch that is designed for both work and play. The watch is a standard chronograph with big date, a complication that displays the date as two digits instead of on a rotating dial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I dunno, man. Maybe it’s 2018 getting me down. Maybe I’ve just been at this for too long. Maybe it’s the flu shot I just got. Whatever the case, count me among the unsurprised when some long awaited finally hits the market and, well, it looks rough. The Royole Corporation (What they call the Quarter-Pounder Corporation in France) looks like a strong contender to be the first to market with a foldable display phone. And if these demos are to be believed, it’s not pretty. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Alice Lloyd George Contributor Alice Lloyd George is an investor at RRE Ventures and the host of Flux, a series of podcast conversations with leaders in frontier technology. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Elon Musk says Tesla won’t make e-scooters, but might consider electric bikes Tesla won’t be joining the scooter wars. But electric bikes? Yeah, maybe. During a lengthy podcast with Recode’s Kara Swisher, Tesla CEO Elon Musk talked about everything from AI and his fights on Twitter with journalists to Saudi Arabia and Mars. Even scooters. Of course, scooters. But don’t get your hopes up for a Tesla scooter. According to Musk, they lack dignity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dearest Martha, I write to you from the cold wastes of Earth on the first day of the New Year, 2023, the third year of war, and so close to your own child’s decanting date that it pains me to think on thee. The machines have been unkind to this planet and I hope you are well situated on Mars where it is safe. The men in the platoon – Dutch, Brooklyn, Dandy, and French – all send a cheerful “Hello.” I think they are jealous that you are human. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On chilly Saturday mornings my father would fire up the kerosene heater and get the back of our garage warm. He’d turn on the old radio, constantly tuned to the local public radio station, and Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me or Harry Shearer would come on, clearing away the static like gust of wind through cobwebs. “Get your old clothes on,” he’d say, sticking his head into the warm kitchen. I’d still be in my pajamas. I’d grunt and grumble. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The early-bird clock is winding down, and you have just three days left to save up to €500 on passes toDisrupt Berlin 2018.You’d be cuckoo to miss this deal (pun intended). The early-bird price flies away on 2 November, and your savings fly with it. Don’t miss out on the best possible price. Buy your ticket today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the pantheon of watches there are a few that stand out. Looking for your first automatic watch? Pick up a Seiko Orange Monster. Looking for a piece with a little history? The Omega Speedmaster is your man. Looking for an entry-level Swiss diver that won’t break the bank? Tissot’s Seastar has always had you covered. The latest version of the Seastar is an interesting catch. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Justine and Olivia Moore like to introduce themselves together, otherwise, it can be a little confusing. They live together in an apartment in Menlo Park. They share clothes. They both wear Rothy’s sustainable ballet flats and are big fans of Glossier. Their desks are only inches apart, because yes, they work together too — and because they share a space heater. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Xiaomi has announced the newest version of its bezel-less Mi Mix family, and it doesn’t sport a notch like its Mi 8 flagship.Indeed, unlike the Mi 8 — which I called one of Xiaomi’s most brazen Apple clones — there’s a lot more to get excited about. The Mi Mix 3 was unveiled at an event in Beijing and, like its predecessor, Xiaomi boasts that it offers a full front screen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Google Docs just rolled out a time-saving trick that’s sure to be welcomed by heavy users of Docs, or any of Google’s other productivity tools like Sheets, Slides, Sites, or Forms. The company this week introduced its “.new” domain, which can be used to instantly create a new file across any of these services, it says. For example, instead of going to Google Drive, clicking the “new” button, then the service you want to use, you can just type “doc. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jason Rowley Contributor Jason Rowley is a venture capital and technology reporter for Crunchbase News. More posts by this contributor International growth, primarily in China, fuels the VC market today Corporate venture investment climbs higher throughout 2018 Chinese startups rule the roost when it comes to total reported venture dollars raised so far in 2018. That is, mostly. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome back toEquity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This week the normal band was together, with Connie Loizos, Danny Crichton, and myself on hand along with IVP investor Jules Maltz. We had yet another episode of market turmoil, that was again reversed to some extent before we could even talk about it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Finding clothes that are the right fit can be a laborious, psychologically challenging experience. RedThread, a custom clothing startup founded by former GoPro VP of Direct to Consumer, E-commerce and Digital Meghan Litchfield, aims to do away with sizes and instead focus on actual fit. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It’s been nearly a decade since Rockstar Games introduced Red Dead Redemption, a massive open world game with a story about as reflective of American culture as the Grand Theft Auto franchise. Tomorrow, Red Dead Redemption II goes live after months of breathless speculation. And yes, it’s as good as you dreamed it. That’s not to say that the layers of interactivity, which are a huge step forward for the next generation of open world games, are not without their faults. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Larry Ellison gave his Oracle Openworld keynote on Monday and of course he took several shots sat AWS. In his view, his company’s cloud products were cheaper, better and faster than AWS, but then what would you expect him to say? He rolled out a slide with all the facts and figures in case you doubted it. He wrapped it up in a neat little marketing package for the world to see. Oracle has an autonomous self-healing database. AWS? Nope. That much he’s right. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you’ve ever bought a movie on Google Play and decided to save a few bucks by buying it in standard definition, you might’ve just lucked out. Google has just announced that it’s upgrading all previously purchased movies to 4K (if a 4K version is available) free of charge. Even if you bought SD instead of HD when the latter was available, they’re bumping it all the way up to 4K. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Maybe it was her lipstick applying robot. Or her terrifying vegetable-chopping death machine. Or the robot that tried its best (and failed wonderfully) to feed her breakfast. Chances are good you’ve seen one of Simone Giertz’s ridiculous creations, be it on the Colbert show or GIF’d into your newsfeed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jason Rowley Contributor Jason Rowley is a venture capital and technology reporter for Crunchbase News. More posts by this contributor International growth, primarily in China, fuels the VC market today Corporate venture investment climbs higher throughout 2018 A few months ago, Crunchbase Newsreportedthat a longstanding period of SaaS investment stagnation had come to an end. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Makula Dunbar Contributor Makula Dunbar is a writer with Wirecutter. More posts by this contributor The best gear for starting a small business The best games and gear for game night Editor’s note: This post was done in partnership with Wirecutter. When readers choose to buy Wirecutter’s independently chosen editorial picks, Wirecutter and TechCrunch may earn affiliate commissions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Recent reports that Softbank may take a majority stake in WeWork has added fuel to the already hot market for start-ups in the workspace and property tech sectors. One of the more compelling companies that stands to benefit from this trend is New York-based Convene. Started by co-founders Ryan Simonetti (CEO) and Chris Kelly (President), 500-person strong Convene has distinguished itself as a top-tier provider of meeting, event and flexible workspace offerings in its 21 locations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I miss the old MacBook Pro. Remember when the MacBook Pro had a good keyboard? Or an SD Card slot? Or an escape key? I miss the time when the MacBook Pro was 2mm thicker than the current version but had a full-size USB port. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When Discord first launched its new built-in game store just a few weeks back, there was one big caveat: it was available to only a tiny, tiny slice of its 150M users. 50,000 of them, to be exact — all of them in Canada. Today it’s going global. Discord says that access to its store should be rolling out to the rest of the world throughout the day. Discord’s move to become a store comes just weeks after Valve overhauled the chat system in Steam. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Voyage may be dead, but the Kindle line still has some life left in it. This time last year, Amazon upgraded the high-end Oasis model, and now the mid-range Paperwhite is getting a little love.The workhorse of the company’s devoted e-reader line just got a handful of upgrades that will give users a more premium experience, while keeping the device’s starting price at $130. Waterproofing is the most exciting among the upgrades here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Good news! Apple now allows U.S. customers to download a copy of their data, months after rolling out the feature to EU customers. But don’t be disappointed when you get your download and find there’s almost nothing in there. Earlier this year when I requested my own data (before the portal feature rolled out), Apple sent me a dozen spreadsheets with my purchase and order history, a few iCloud logs, and some of my account information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Twitter users on iOS were hit with a strange bug today. Instead of receiving notifications that included the tweet itself, they received a string of alphanumeric characters. The issue only affected iOS users, we confirmed with the company, and has since been resolved. Twitter was quick to address the problem, following complaints from Twitter users about the weird notifications. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey posted at 12:42 PM ET today that Twitter was aware of the issue and was working on a fix. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The charmingly outdated media player Winamp is being reinvented as a platform-agnostic mobile audio app that brings together all your music, podcasts and streaming services to a single location. It’s an ambitious relaunch, but the company behind it says it’s still all about the millions-strong global Winamp community — and as proof, the original desktop app is getting an official update as well. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It’s 8:00 PM on Friday night and you’re home alone and already drunk. Oh, is that just me? Well no matter. Snapchat has made lenses for your cat now. Yes, that’s right. Your cat! This is what the internet is made for, friends. Not all that fake news and trolling. Not having to read tweets where people use words like “woke” unironically. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Google unveiled a number of new products Tuesday at its big hardware event, including the Google Home Hub and Google Pixel Slate. But the Pixel 3, the company’s new smartphone was the real star. The Pixel 3, which is available in two sizes and starts at $799, comes in three colors and has a rear 12.2 megapixel camera as well as a dual front camera. What’s inside the phone is a host of new apps and features. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Moving air — that’s the through line across most of Dyson’s products. The vacuums, fans, hand dryers, hair driers — at their heart, they all the do the same thing. Same goes for the new Dyson Airwrap, which has figured out a way to leverage vacuum power into hair curling. Here’s how Dyson describes it, At the heart of this story comes a radical idea: harness Dyson’s digital motor to create a phenomenon known as the Coanda effect. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tech stocks tanked today amid a broader stock market slide as nervous investors worried that the ten year bull run in public stocks may be coming to an end. The S&P 500 dropped 3.3 percent while Nasdaq composite index (which is the market where many of the largest U.S. tech companies are traded) lost 4% of its value, falling 315.97 points. The net result is that the hand of the market is crushing stocks and high growth technology companies are bearing the brunt of the beating. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Google just one-upped Apple in a significant way by addressing a problem that’s plaguing U.S. cellphone owners: spam calls. The company’s new Pixel 3 flagship Android smartphone is first to introduce a new call screening feature that leverages the built-in Google Assistant. The screening service transcribes the caller’s request in real-time, allowing you to decide whether or not to pick up, and gives you a way to respond. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices