Twitter is rolling out its spam and abuse filter for Direct Messages, a month and a half after the company announced it had started testing the feature. The filter will be available on Twitter’s iOS, Android and Web apps. The filter adds a new view to the Additional Messages inbox, where DMs from people you don’t follow go. If you …
AWS IQ matches AWS customers with certified service providers
AWS has a lot going on, and it’s not always easy for customers to deal with the breadth of its service offerings on its own. Today, the company announced a new service called AWS IQ that is designed to connect customers with certified service providers. “Today I would like to tell you about AWS IQ, a new service that will …
European early-stage VC firm ‘Project A’ on Europe’s startup scene taking the next step
Project A, the Berlin-based VC, just raised a new $200 million fund (€180 million) to continue backing European startups at Seed and Series A stage. In addition, the firm — whose investments include WorldRemit, Catawiki, Voi and Uberall — announced it will now have a presence in London and Stockholm in order to put people on the ground in what …
Daily Crunch: Facebook faces VR challenges
The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here. 1. Not all is predictable on Facebook’s social Horizon Last week, Facebook unveiled Horizon, a massively multiplayer VR world that’s scheduled to launch in 2020. This might …
Google brings its Jacquard wearables tech to Levi’s Trucker Jacket
Back in 2015, Google’s ATAP team demoed a new kind of wearable tech at Google I/O that used functional fabrics and conductive yarns to allow you to interact with your clothing and, by extension, the phone in your pocket. The company then released a jacket with Levi’s in 2017, but that was expensive, at $350, and never really quite caught …
Instagram launches a ‘creators’ account to encourage more… creation
Instagram deployed a new tool today that should help it continue to build a more viable alternative to YouTube for individual creators looking to try a different platform. It’s a dedicated account called @creators, which will deliver tips and tricks for people hoping to become more active on the platform. Based on the pinned FAQ story that Instagram has posted …
SmartNews’ head of product on how the news discovery app wants to free readers from filter bubbles
Since launching in the United States five years ago, SmartNews, the news aggregation app that recently hit unicorn status, has quietly built a reputation for presenting reliable information from a wide range of publishers. The company straddles two very different markets: the U.S. and its home country of Japan, where it is one of the leading news apps. SmartNews wants …
Microsoft’s Windows Virtual Desktop service is now generally available
Microsoft today announced that Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD), its Azure-based system for virtualizing the Windows and Office user experience it announced last September, is now generally available. Using WVD, enterprises can give their employees access to virtualized applications and remote desktops, including the ability to provide multi-session Windows 10 experiences, something that sets Microsoft’s own apart from that of other …
WeWork withdraws its S-1 filing, will delay its IPO
WeWork’s parent organization The We Company just announced that it’s withdrawing the S-1 filing for its IPO. The coworking company has had a turbulent month since the filing went public, around both the general state of its finances and the behavior of co-founder/CEO Adam Neumann. As a result, Neumann stepped down down as CEO last week (he will continue to serve as …
Confluent adds free tier to Kafka real-time streaming data cloud service
When Confluent launched a cloud service in 2017, it was trying to reduce some of the complexity related to running a Kafka streaming data application. Today, it introduced a free tier to that cloud service. The company hopes to expand its market beyond large technology company customers, and the free tier should make it easier for smaller companies to get …
Spotify now lets you add podcasts to playlists
Spotify this morning announced a new feature that will allow users to add their podcasts to playlists. With the addition, users can create their own custom playlists of their favorite podcasts, or even those that combine music and audio — similar to Spotify’s own newly-launched “Your Daily Drive.” With “Your Daily Drive,” Spotify put its personalization engine to work to …
Watch these hackers crack an ATM in seconds
Sick of high bank fees? Blame Windows XP and malware that allows cybercriminals to anonymously “jackpot” ATMs. Subscribe to CNET: https://www.youtube.com/user/CNETTV CNET playlists: https://www.youtube.com/user/CNETTV/playlists Download the new CNET app: https://cnet.app.link/GWuXq8ExzG Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cnet Follow us on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/cnet Follow us on Instagram: http://bit.ly/2icCYYm
Tencent to take 29% stake in multiplayer games maker Funcom
Chinese social media and gaming giant Tencent is taking a 29% stake to become the largest shareholder in Oslo-based Funcom. The indie games developer is responsible for multiple adaptations involving the Conan the Barbarian franchise, such as Age of Conan and Conan Exiles, as well as a number of other multiplayer titles — including a forthcoming open world sandbox game …
Amboss, the knowledge platform for medical professionals, scores €30M Series B
Amboss, the Berlin-based ‘medtech’ startup that originally offered a learning app for students but has since pivoted to a knowledge platform for medical professionals, has raised €30 million in Series B funding. The round is led by Partech’s growth fund, with Target Global acting as a co-investor. Existing investors, Cherry Ventures, Wellington Partners and Holtzbrinck Digital, also participated. Launched in …
Africa’s top mobile phone seller Transsion lists in Chinese IPO
Chinese mobile phone and device maker Transsion has listed in an IPO on Shanghai’s STAR Market, a Transsion spokesperson confirmed to TechCrunch. Headquartered in Shenzhen, Transsion is a top seller of smartphones in Africa under its Tecno brand. The company has also started to support venture funding of African startups. Transsion issued 80 million A shares at an opening price …
Kickstarter darling EcoFlow Delta battery generator is not what it seems
The Delta EcoFlow is a new battery generator available on Kickstarter with incredible claimed features. Most are true, some are not. Device like the Delta offer incredible battery storage capacity. Designed for more than just recharging phones and tablets, these can run refrigerators, pumps, power tools and medical equipment. They’re great for emergencies, camping and general use where power is …
Why is Dropbox reinventing itself?
According to Dropbox CEO Drew Houston, 80% of the product’s users rely on it, at least partially, for work. It makes sense, then, that the company is refocusing to try and cement its spot in the workplace; to shed its image as “just” a file storage company (in a time when just about every big company has its own cloud …
This Week in Apps: AltStore, acquisitions and Google Play Pass
The app industry shows no signs of slowing down, with 194 billion downloads in 2018 and over $100 billion in consumer spending. People spend 90% of their mobile time in apps and more time using their mobile devices than watching TV. In other words, apps aren’t just a way to spend idle hours — they’re a big business. And one …
Learn everything you can about mobility at Disrupt SF
Cars might still reign supreme, but things they are a changin’. And companies are lining up to provide new ways — and some recycled ones — for people to get from Point A to Point B. The past several years have seen an explosion in startups, automakers and tech companies launching and testing products from scooters and electric bike share …
Startups Weekly: Alpha Medical wants to rebuild women’s healthcare
Hello and welcome back to Startups Weekly, a weekend newsletter that dives into the week’s noteworthy news pertaining to startups and venture capital. Before I jump into today’s topic, let’s catch up a bit. I’ve been on a bit of startup profile kick as of late. Last week, I wrote a little bit about Landline, a bus network backed by …
Meet the makers of modular
When Dieter Döpfer, the founder of music instrument manufacturer Doepfer, decided to launch a brand new modular synthesiser system in 1995, no one could have predicted what would follow. Today, his “Eurorack” format supports an ecosystem of hundreds of manufacturers that have collectively produced thousands of compatible modules used by famous musicians, such as Radiohead, Chemical Brothers and Aphex Twin, …
As vape lung death toll mounts, CDC investigators warn against ‘informal’ THC sources
At least a dozen people have died of an acute lung condition related to vaping, and while officials aren’t ready to pin it on any one chemical or brand, they are warning that many of the patients reported buying THC cartridges from “informal sources” — which is to say off the street or online. “The vast majority of patients received …
Cracking the code on podcast advertising for customer acquisition
Krystina Rubino & Lindsay Piper Shaw Contributor Krystina Rubino is a marketing executive who leads the offline growth marketing practice at Right Side Up. Lindsay Piper Shaw is an advertising strategist and growth marketer currently consulting on podcast and offline advertising at Right Side Up. Of the various channels available to growth marketers, podcast is among the most misunderstood. Brands …
Not all is predictable on Facebook’s social Horizon
Most of the people I spoke with at Facebook’s Oculus Connect see the proliferation of virtual reality as a foregone conclusion, one that’s just a matter of timing at this point. For Facebook, the conference’s “The Time is Now” catchphrase showcased that they feel their hardware is ready for everyone. But despite the success, they feel like they’ve tapped into …
Daily Crunch: Facebook hides Like counts
The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here. 1. Facebook tries hiding Like counts to fight envy It looks like Facebook wants to end the terrible game of chasing Likes, and then the equally terrible …
Get ready to meet the new D-O droid (app-enabled toy)
BB-8 has a new friend. Meet D-O, the coolest Star Wars toy droid going on sale for Triple Force Friday on Oct. 4. The interactive, app-controlled droid is a self-balancing wheel packed with animations. It also comes with a few games and reacts to motion and loud noises. And it plays fetch with its own toy ball. This Hasbro toy …
Google will soon open a cloud region in Poland
Google today announced its plans to open a new cloud region in Warsaw, Poland to better serve its customers in Central and Eastern Europe. This move is part of Google’s overall investment in expanding the physical footprint of its data centers. Only a few days ago, after all, the company announced that, in the next two years, it would spend …
Why Maxar CTO Walter Scott thinks now is the time to address the orbital traffic boom
The number of objects in orbit around Earth has been growing, and growing fast. Before 1957, of course, there were a total of zero human-made objects in the orbital region of outer space just beyond Earth’s atmosphere. There were 4,987 satellites orbiting the globe at the start of this year, according to the U.N. Office for Outer Space Affairs, which …
Get your pitchdeck analyzed by top investors and experts at Disrupt SF next week
…And see other pitchdecks get the teardown treatment from top early-stage investors Charles Hudson (Precursor Ventures), Anu Duggal (Female Founders Fund) and Russ Heddleston (CEO of DocSend). All you have to do is send your deck over to ec_editors@techcrunch.com if you’re attending Disrupt, and you can get feedback directly from them in a workshop setting. If we use your deck, …
TC’s Greg Epstein and Kate Clark talk mental health startups and the ‘Cult of the Founder’
Some weeks, tech ethics is in the news. And some weeks, it IS the news. This week was one of the latter, There were so many ethically fraught news stories about technology companies over these past few days, I had trouble keeping track of them all. So I’m delighted that my latest interviewee for this series on ethics and technology …