Tech

For many people around the world, braille is their primary language for reading books and articles, and digital braille readers are an important part of that. The newest and fanciest yet is the Monarch, a multipurpose device that uses the startup Dot’s tactile display technology. The Monarch is a collaboration between HumanWare and the American

“Nobody does creature work the way Wētā does,” Craig Mazin, co-creator of HBO’s “The Last of Us,” said in the official podcast for the video game adaptation series. If you’d had a chance to watch the bloater scene from episode five, then you most likely agree with him. It makes sense that HBO approached Wētā

Before it crashed, Silicon Valley Bank was known to many startups and venture firms as the place to park their money or take out a capital line. But for emerging managers, it was a lot more than just a financial institution. Multiple emerging managers told TechCrunch+ that SVB was instrumental in helping them build their

Welcome to Week in Review, folks, TechCrunch’s regular recap of the week in tech. GPT-4, OpenAI’s text- and image-understanding AI, might’ve dominated the headlines over the past few days. But fresh drama around Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse emerged as well. We cover all that and more in this edition, so grab a coffee and settle

Green Li-ion says its battery recycling machines are the “size of a small house,” so it’s no wonder the Singapore-based startup needed to top up on funds. It’d only raised about $15 million ahead of its latest cash infusion. This week, Green Li-ion announced a $20.5 million “pre-Series B” round led by climate-tech investor TRIREC.

The U.K. has become the latest jurisdiction to ban social video app TikTok from government devices, confirming reports that surfaced earlier this week. The ban follows a security review ordered by U.K. ministers looking to establish whether government data could be compromised from social networks installed on work devices. Indeed, the review did include other

Update: Google tells TechCrunch that it remains committed to augmented reality, stating, “For years, we’ve been building AR into many Google products and we’ll continue to look at ways to bring new, innovative AR experiences across our product portfolio.” I know at least one TC staffer who is gutted by the inevitable second death of

MindGeek — owner of several adult entertainment sites, including Pornhub, Brazzers and Redtube — was acquired by a Canadian private equity firm, Ethical Capital Partners (ECP). ECP, which was formed last year, did not disclose the terms of the deal. “In MindGeek, we have identified a dynamic tech brand that is built upon a foundation

To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here. Happy Thursday, Crunchers! An agreement among a group of the nation’s largest banks to deposit some $30 billion with First Republic Bank could save its bacon, Christine reports, and over on TC+,

Sidechat, the anonymous posting platform that began blowing up last year on college campuses, appears to have acquired a rival anonymous social platform, Yik Yak. While you may recall Yik Yak’s troubles from earlier years, where bullying and harassment ultimately led to an ignominious exit in the form of an acquihire by Square, the gossip

Tesla is opening up Powerwall home battery sales, nearly two years after limiting them because its supply was “too low.” Tesla announced its backup battery tech long ago, in 2015, explicitly intending for the product to work in tandem with solar panels. Yet up until 2021, the automaker also allowed folks to buy the big

Medwing, a European startup building a recruitment marketplace for healthcare workers, has raised €44 million ($47 million) in a Series C round of funding. Founded out of Berlin in 2017, Medwing targets the healthcare industry in Germany and the U.K. with a platform designed to match hospitals and clinics with nurses and elderly caregivers, though

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Apple is building a mixed reality headset that’s set to ship this year. The company’s MR (AR+VR) hardware ranks among its longest-lasting rumor cycles. Some (Apple Watch) have borne fruit. Others (that pesky Apple TV set) not so much. The category doesn’t feel like a foregone conclusion

YouTube TV is today announcing a new feature that may help the live TV service attract more subscribers — and particularly those who like to watch live sports. The company says it’s launching early access to “multiview,” an option that allows viewers to watch up to four different preselected streams at the same time. Initially,

Ross Haleliuk Contributor More posts by this contributor 4 ways cybersecurity startups can boost adoption and shorten time to value To bring PLG to cybersecurity, let’s change our hiring habits Trust is fundamentally about a sense of safety, familiarity and assurance that “everything will be fine.” Faith is built as we address our doubts and

The Indonesian used car market is on a course for growth fueled by a number of trends: the increasing digitization in used car sales; a larger variety of finance options; and the COVID-19 pandemic, which pushed the idea of private car ownership.  Broom, an Indonesia-based auto-financing startup that wants to help used car dealers work more

Like all of its peers in the tech industry, Microsoft has a carbon pollution problem. The software giant’s emissions are on the rise, in spite of a pledge from the company to be carbon negative by 2030. This ticking clock explains Microsoft’s latest deal to address its environmental toll: It’s turning to Running Tide to

As of late Thursday night and Friday morning, the fallout from the shutdown of Silicon Valley Bank in the US had reached the shores of the UK and Europe. Yesterday afternoon, the Bank of England sought a court order to place Silicon Valley Bank UK Limited — the UK arm of the US institution —

According to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple could be working on a new HomePod device that would feature a built-in display for 2024. The rumor seems to be based on third-party supply chain companies, such as Tianma, a Chinese display manufacturer. This new product in the HomePod lineup would look completely different from existing HomePods as

The fallout from the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank is impacting a range of startups and larger firms including, as we know now from SEC filings, publicly traded companies like Roku, Roblox, Quotient, and others. Roku said in a filing that it had around $487 million held at SVB, representing around 26% of its cash

Welcome to Startups Weekly, a nuanced take on this week’s startup news and trends by Senior Reporter and Equity co-host Natasha Mascarenhas. To get this in your inbox, subscribe here. Writer’s note: We’re breaking from our usual formatting this week because there was a once-in-a-generation collapse of one of the biggest banks in the country.

The sudden collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, which served as lifeblood for startups, is also impacting firms 8,000 miles away. Dozens of young Indian startups backed by the likes of YC, Accel, Sequoia India, Lightspeed, SoftBank and Bessemer Venture Partners banked with Silicon Valley Bank, sometimes as their only banking partner, and couldn’t take out

Welcome back to Found, where we get the stories behind the startups. This week Darrell and Becca are joined by Matt Rogers, the founder and CEO of Mill, a startup that helps its customers turn their food scraps into farm feed. The former founder of Nest talked about what compelled him to jump back into

Brussels-based startup Cowboy has been in the news lately for its cash burn rate. But the company wants to control its narrative again with some product and business news. Cowboy is launching a new feature called “AdaptivePower,” which automatically adjusts the power of the motor depending on the current slope and weather conditions. Cowboy’s electric

Drone delivery is one of those ideas that’s been sold as “the next big thing” forever. Regardless of how bullish you happen to be on the technology, there’s undeniably a lot that has to be figured out before we can start having serious conversation about mainstream adoption. Regulator issues are a big box to be

Among the wave of Spotify announcements coming out of today’s Spotify Stream On event, the company shared some exciting news with podcast listeners — in particular, Batman fans. Spotify is launching a new podcast series “The Riddler: Secrets in the Dark,” starring comedian-actor Hasan Minhaj as The Riddler. As part of Spotify’s exclusive multiyear partnership

To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PST, subscribe here. Happy International Women’s Day! Did you know that the holiday was adopted by the UN 46 years ago? We read the Wikipedia article about IWD, and learned stuff. Try it — you

But early-stage startups could face the most headwinds Alex Wilhelm 9 hours If you read the startup press, you might think that everyone in tech is still nursing a stiff hangover from the zenith of the 2021 boom. While there is much talk of cutting spending, conserving capital, trimming staff and hunkering down, there’s also

Local governments in the southwestern U.S. are putting up $150,000 to back what they say is a pioneering effort to “turn air into concrete at scale.” The funds will help cover the cost of the “reference project,” a collaboration between two climate tech startups and a masonry firm in Flagstaff, Arizona. The firms expect construction

It’s taken rather longer than a month for Meta-owned WhatsApp to commit to address complaints swirling around how it imposes terms of service on users but the European Commission has just announced that the messaging platform has agreed to improve how it communicates to users and presents future ToS updates. Early in 2021, WhatsApp triggered