TechCrunch Industry News

Amazon’s Fire TV Recast will let you record live TV, stream it anywhere Amazon this morning introduced a new device called the Fire TV Recast that works with Fire TV and other devices to allow you to record live TV through a connected digital antenna. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From its glass-lined offices in San Francisco’s leafy Presidio national park, six-year-old Mithril Capital Management has happily flown under the radar. Now it’s leaving altogether and relocating its team to Austin, a spot that has “enough critical mass of a technical culture, an artisanal culture, an artistic culture, and [is] not necessarily looking to Silicon Valley for validation,” says firm cofounder Ajay Royan. The move isn’t a complete surprise. 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 worked with an (excellent) skeleton crew. Our own Connie Loizos held down the fort with a guest that knew quite a lot: March Capital’sJamie Montgomery. There was a healthy blizzard of news to get through, so Connie and Jamie plowed ahead. Up top, the Eventbrite IPO was big news. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jamie Burke to explain why you should still bet on the blockchain at Disrupt Berlin Now that your cousin doesn’t ask you questions about bitcoin anymore, is it the end of all things blockchain? Maybe it just means that it’s time to think about innovating at the protocol level and come up with new use cases. That’s why I’m excited to announce that Outlier Ventures CEO and founder Jamie Burke will join us at TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Fortnite has taken the world by storm. In fact, the game is so popular that Epic has released versions for PC, Xbox, PS4, iOS, Android and the Nintendo Switch, making the game about as accessible as possible. The popularity of the game stems from the general popularity of the Battle Royale genre and popular streamers like Ninja, who have made the game so much fun to watch. But it also comes from the fun, and often fleeting, skins, dances and pick axes the game offers in its Item Shop. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There’s an empty space in my heart for a minimalist phone with only the most basic functions. Bad for my heart, but good for a handful of companies putting out devices aiming to fill it. Punkt’s latest, the MP02, goes a little ways to making the device I desire, but it isn’t quite there yet. Punkt’s first device included just texting and calling, which would likely have worked as intended if not for the inconvenient choice to have it connect only to 2G networks. 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. More posts by this contributor A conversation with Dean Kamen on the myth of “Eureka!” Behind the scenes with Tezos, a new blockchain upstart Below are excerpts from the most recent episode of the Flux podcast hosted by RRE Ventures principal Alice Lloyd George. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Kayak’s new AR feature will tell you if your carry-on bag fits the overhead bin Popular travel app Kayak has put augmented reality to clever use with a new feature that lets you measure the size of your carry-on bag using just your smartphone. Its updated iOS app now takes advantage of Apple’s ARKit technology to introduce a new Bag Measurement tool that will help you calculate your bag’s size so you can find out if it fits in the overhead bin – you know, before your trip. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Audi just announced its first production electric vehicle. Called the e-tron, the EV is a mid-size SUV loaded with technology with an unofficial range of over 300 miles. It’s nicely equipped, and with a starting price of $74,800, it sits between the Jaguar I-Pace and the Tesla Model X. The e-tron is most similar to the Jaguar I-Pace though the Audi is slightly better equipped. The e-tron packs a 95 kWh battery over the Jaguar’s 90 kWh battery. 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 Supergiant VC rounds aren’t just raised in China July sets a record for number of $100M+ venture capital rounds In venture capital, a variant on the Glengarry Glen Ross mandate is most fund managers’ modus operandi: Always. Be. Raising. And it seems like VCs have picked up on that. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The new iPhone’s here, so Google wants to talk Pixel 3 In the off-chance you haven’t already had your fill of phone news for the week, Google just offered up a few friendly reminders that it’s got its own handset coming out in the not so distant future. The company’s event isn’t happening until early next month, but Google’s started with the teasers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A nasty legal battle is set to play out between two former Uber executives. Eric Alexander, the ride-hailing company’s formerpresident of business in Asia-Pacific, has filed suitagainst former Uber PR chief Rachel Whetstone . Alexander blames Whetstone for his firing from Uber in June 2017, claiming her “grossly misleading statements” both internally at Uber and to the media, “destroyed his reputation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The most remarkable thing about the iPhone XS Max is that it doesn’t feel huge. It’s all relative, of course. And surely Apple’s old guard would have scoffed at the notion of a 6.5-inch display. But time marches on. Seasons change and so do minds. Temperatures increase, superhero movies pile up and screen sizes increase, unabated. Much of the perception no doubt comes from the rest of the industry pushing the limits of human hands and pants pockets. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Even if you don’t plan on buying a new iPhone, you’ll be able to get a bunch of new features next week. Apple plans on releasing iOS 12, the next major version of iOS, on Tuesday, September 17th. As always, iOS 12 will be available as a free download. If your iPhone or iPad runs iOS 11, you’ll be able to update to iOS 12 as Apple plans to keep supporting all existing iOS 11 devices. Here’s a quick rundown of what’s new in iOS 12. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Apple just unveiled brand new phones. The iPhone XS and XS Max are the two new flagship devices, replacing the iPhone X. The iPhone XR is replacing the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus with Face ID and an edge-to-edge design. And maybe you were waiting for this press conference to buy a new smartphone. So here’s a quick rundown of how much you’re going to pay for those devices. The iPhone XS is are available with 64GB, 256GB or 512GB of storage for $999, $1,149 or $1,349. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A popular top-tier app in Apple’s Mac App Store was found pilfering browser histories from anyone who downloads it. Yet still, at the time of writing, the rogue app — the number one grossing paid app in one of the app store’s most popular categories — remains, which TechCrunch confirmed. But Apple was warned weeks ago and did nothing to pull the app offline. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Elon Musk made an appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience, a podcast hosted by the eponymous comedian, where the pair smoked a blunt and pondered the flat-Earth movement, the future of AI, “inventing shit” and several other of the eccentric billionaire’s favorite topics. The now-viral interview, which was live-streamed to thousands of viewers, was immediately followed by two high-profile executive departures at Tesla. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Unboundfounders Polly Rodriguez and Sarah Jayne Kinney have long and varied careers. Rodriguez worked for U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill on Capitol Hill before heading to Deloitte Consulting and dating startup Grouper. Kinney was a graduate of University of Cincinnati worked at Puma and then at Esquire and O, Oprah’s magazine. She worked shooting products for fashion houses in New York. The duo met in 2014. Now they make fashion-forward vibrators. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It’s been a slow year for Apple hardware. The company has traditionally done a good job spreading announcements throughout the calendar, but aside from an iPad event in Chicago and a MacBook refresh a few months back, there’s been little news out of the company. Even this summer’s WWDC was utterly devoid of hardware news. All that’s about to change at the big show being held next week at Steve Jobs Theater on the company’s new space-age Cupertino campus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is officially a trend. This afternoon, Slack reported connectivity issues through its official status channel. We can confirm. Roughly half of our messages are going through. And yes, it’s super duper annoying. We're very sorry for the interruption. We're currently investigating connectivity problems, and we're working as quickly as we can to get everything back to normal. Thanks for bearing with us. https://t. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Eventbrite sets IPO range of $19 to $21, valuing it at $1.8B Eventbrite has taken its final step toward becoming a publicly traded company. In an updated S-1 filing this morning, the ticketing and events company announced plans to sell 10 million Class A shares on the New York Stock Exchange at a price range of $19 to $21 under the ticker symbol EB. At a midpoint price, Eventbrite will raise $200 million at a $1.8 billion valuation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Twitter is testing a new experience for web users, the company announced in a tweet on Thursday. A small number of Twitter users will see the updated version of Twitter for web, which will include access to Twitter’s Bookmarks feature, and scrolling through Twitter’s Explore section, the tweet said and a spokesperson confirmed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As a speaker I often find myself mumbling into a microphone with little thought about the sound system powering it. While most PAs are massive affairs requiring a soundboard operator and lots of wiring, I’ve also had to hoot into portable PAs, a practice I rarely relish. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

At Disrupt SF 2018, Girlboss CEO Sophia Amoruso sat down with former TechCrunch co-editor Alexia Bonatsos to talk about the success of Girlboss and the failure of Nasty Gal, Amoruso’s failed retail startup. Nasty Gal shut down in 2016 — and even without that, it would’ve been a hard year for Amoruso. “So in 2016, in a six-month period, I was on the cover of Forbes and then a month later, my husband of a year left me,” she said. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Just over a year after Skype introduced a colorful, Snapchat-inspired makeover which included its own version of “stories,” the company says it’s now going to refocus on simplicity – and it’s ditching stories along the way. The redesign had been met with a lot of backlash. Skype had clearly wanted to appeal to a more youthful demographic with its update, but in doing so, it cluttered the user experience with features no one had asked for or needed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Mercedes-Benz unveiled Tuesday the EQC, an all-electric crossover that kicks off the German automaker’s plans to invest more than $12 billion to produce a line of battery-powered models under its new EQ brand. The automaker plans to invest another $1.2 billion in global battery production, Daimler AG Chairman and Mercedes-Benz CEO Dieter Zetsche said. The Mercedes EQC, which is expected to go on sale in the U.S. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Mavic Pro was a revelation. It wasn’t a perfect product, to be sure, but it represented a new paradigm for DJI and the consumer drone industry in general. It was compact, folding up into a nice, portable package, while still being portable enough to shove into a backpack. It was also the beginning of a new line for the company, paving the way for the Mavic Airand Spark — both even more portable than their predecessor. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Disrupt SF (Sept 5-7) approaches with just a few days until things kick off. We have an all-star lineup that only TechCrunch can assemble, and we’re expecting our largest number of attendees yet. Check out our star-packed agenda here, and keep reading to find out everything you need to make for a stellar conference experience. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The interconnectedness of the cloud has allowed us to share content widely with people inside and outside the organization and across different applications, but that ability has created a problem of its own, a kind of digital fragmentation. How do you track how that piece of content is being used across a range of cloud services? It’s a problem Box wants to solve with its latest features, Activity Stream and Recommended Apps. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Googleisn’t one to shy away from bold claims. “We have had no reported or confirmed account takeovers since implementing security keys at Google,” a spokesperson told TechCrunch. And it’s probably true. Think of a security key as like a two-factor authentication code that’ssent to your phone — but instead a USB stick in your pocket. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

SurveyMonkey, which helps businesses gather feedback through its survey platform, has submitted paperwork to the SEC for its upcoming NASDAQ public offering. The company plans to raise $100 million in the IPO, per the filing, though that’s likely a placeholder amount. The company, which will list under the symbol SVMK, has yet to price its shares. Most recently, SurveyMonkey brought in $250 million from Tiger Global, ICONIQ Capital and Social+Capital Partnership. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What do you do if you’re a European startup competing against the likes of Box and Dropbox, and are looking to make a splash in international markets like the U.S.? Well, if you’re the Dutch startup WeTransfer (which raised a cool $25 million about three years ago to take the U.S. market by storm), you get weird. Really, really, avant garde-level weird. WeTransfer, Funky Dutch Cousin Of Dropbox And Box, Gets $25M To Go Large In The U.S. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Back in March, Nest and Yale teamed up to release a smart door lock to complement Nest’s then brand-new video doorbell. It’s a solid piece of hardware, but it had a curious quirk for something made under Google’s watch: it didn’t work with Google Home or Google Assistant. That’ll change later this week. On August 29th, the lock will be getting an update that adds Google Assistant and Home support to bring a handful of voice-powered tricks into the mix. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

No, it’s not just you. Yes, Slack is having connectivity issues yet again. Though this time, they seem a bit less pronounced. I know we’re having some problems off and on, with different channels appearing offline. For the most part, however, communication is still up, so you probably won’t be able to convince your boss to take the rest of the day off. Sorry. We're investigating the cause of connectivity issues affecting all users. Thanks for your patience. https://t. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you’re not sure about watching a whole movie where your point-of-view is limited to computer and smartphone screens, you’re not alone — “Searching” filmmakers Aneesh Chaganty and Sev Ohanian told me they had very similar reservations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

At least eleven people have been shot and four people were killed in a mass shooting attack at a livestream event debuting the new “Madden NFL 19” game at an arcade in Jacksonville, Fla., according to local news reports. The Jacksonville Sheriff’s office confirmed on Twitter that one suspect was dead at the scene and the police were still investigating. 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 a full house which was super great. TechCrunch’s Connie Loizos and Sarah Buhr held down the fort in San Francisco along with our guest, Susan Mac Cormac, a partner at Morrison Foerster where she works on some of the most interesting deals in the private capital space. I dialed in from the home office in Providence. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

AWS cuts in half the price of most of its Lightsail virtual private servers AWS Lightsail, which launched in 2016, is Amazon’s answer to the rise of Digital Ocean, OVH and other affordable virtual private server (VPS) players. Lightsail started as a pretty basic service, but over the course of the last two years, AWS added features like block storage, Windows support and additional regions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tim Kentley-Klay, the co-founder and CEO of secretive self-driving vehicle company Zoox, was fired suddenly Wednesday by the company’s board. Kentley-Klay’s departure was firstreported by The Information, which cited an unnamed source. Kentley-Klay later tweeted a statement confirming that he had been fired by the board. Kentley-Klay and Zoox could not be reached for comment. TechCrunch will update the story as it develops. Cheers to the most legendary crew, ever. pic.twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Mosaic Manufacturing Palette 2 – an upgrade the original Palette – is a self-contained system for full color 3D printing. It works by cutting and splicing multiple filament colors and then feeding them through as the object is printed. The system uses a unique and internal cutter called the Splice Core that measures and cuts filament as it prints, ensuring the incoming filament can change colors quickly and easily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Are you trying to stay off social media, but just can’t seem to stop yourself from posting? When random thoughts pop into your head, do you find yourself launching Twitter and typing before you remember you’re trying to quit? Well, now there’s a better way. Hello, Brizzly. Brizzly is a revolutionary new app designed just for social media quitters. With Brizzly, you can satisfy your over-sharing urges with its all-natural social media substitute. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Streaming TV services now reach 5% of U.S. Wi-Fi households, up 58% since last year The number of U.S. households watching streaming TV services – those that deliver cable TV-like programming over the internet – has grown a remarkable 58% over last year, according to new data from comScore. However, these services still account for a small portion of the overall market, as only 5 percent (4.9 million) of U.S. households with Wi-Fi streamed TV over one of these services in April 2018. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Joanna Glasner Contributor More posts by this contributor Boston-area startups are on pace to overtake NYC venture totals While tech waffles on going public, biotech IPOs boom Unicorn exits are taking flight. With the IPO window wide open, an apparent record number of venture-backed companies privately valued over $1 billion have launched public offerings this year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Twitter tried to downplay the impact deactivating its legacy APIs would have on its community and the third-party Twitter clients preferred by many power users by saying that “less than 1%” of Twitter developers were using these old APIs. Twitter is correct in its characterization of the size of this developer base, but it’s overlooking millions of third-party app users in the process. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the future everyone will be naked for fifteen minutes. It’s with this novel thought in mind that I connect with a model named Nazanin who will walk me through the new world of bi-directional teledildonic cam life. I was there to test a new device from Kiiroo called the Kiiroo Launch. This novel sex jar connects with a Flashlight – essentially a masturbator – and can send and receive signals from a remote dildo. 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 was a corker. We had Alex Wilhelm in-studio with ourguest Minal Hasan, founder of K2 Global, and TechCrunch’s Danny Chriton jumped in from New York to help the crew dig through the biggest and best stuff from the last seven days. It’s been busy, to say the least. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tim Merel Contributor Tim Merel is managing director of Digi-Capital. More posts by this contributor China could beat America in AR/VR long-term Ubiquitous AR to dominate focused VR by 2022 AR/VR/XR are going to be big, but not everyone will win. Today’s market is a collection of related point solutions to specific problems, but not a fully functioning ecosystem. Not yet. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It’s hard to be a fan of Twitter right now. The company is sticking up for conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, when nearly all other platforms have given him the boot, it’s overrun with bots, and now it’s breaking users’ favorite third-party Twitter clients like Tweetbot and Twitterificby shutting off APIs these apps relied on. Worse still, is that Twitter isn’t taking full responsibility for its decisions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

U.S. accelerator Y Combinator is expandingto China after it announced the hiring of former Microsoft and Baidu executive Qi Lu who will develop a standalone startup program that runs on Chinese soil. Shanghai-born Lu spent 11 years with Yahoo and eight years with Microsoft before a short spell with Baidu, where he was COO and head of the firm’s AI research division. Now he becomes founding CEO of YC China while he’s also stepping into the role of Head of YC Research. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As summer comes to a close and the leaves begin to brown, the gaming world goes through its own sort of transition. A handful of new titles prep for launch, including Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. But unlike previous CoD titles, Black Ops 4 represents a counter-attack on the world’s biggest game, Fortnite Battle Royale. For the first time, Call of Duty is ditching a campaign and opting to introduce a new Battle Royale mode to the first-person shooter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices