Tech

When it comes to moving the transportation sector over to EVs, commercial fleets are probably some of the lowest hanging fruit. More often than not, they have consistent routes, reserved off-hour parking, and cost a lot less to drive and maintain. But for many commercial operators, EVs are still a wildcard. Gagan Dhillon and Andrew

LG Electronics has acquired AppleMango, a South Korean electric vehicle battery charger developer, as the race to produce everything related to EVs ramps up globally. The acquisition, which was made jointly with GS Energy, an EV charging station operator, and GS Neotek, an IT provider, will allow LG to take advantage of future business opportunities,

As Google works on reconfiguring its adtech stack to move away from cookie-based ad targeting to something else that’s not yet fixed but which it claims will be better for individual web users’ privacy — and after Apple’s move last year to lock down third party tracking of app users on iOS, also on a

Cashify, a marketplace for gadgets trade-ins and buybacks in India, has raised $90 million in a new financing round as it looks to expand its business in the world’s second-largest smartphone market. Prosus Ventures and NewQuest Capital Partners led the seven-year-old Indian startup’s Series E funding, Cashify said on Thursday. Paramark Ventures and existing backers

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. The app industry continues to grow, with a record number of downloads and consumer spending across both the iOS and Google Play stores combined in 2021, according to the

Welcome to The TechCrunch Exchange, a weekly startups-and-markets newsletter. It’s inspired by the daily TechCrunch+ column where it gets its name. Want it in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here. My home country’s president, Emmanuel Macron, wants to have 100 French unicorns by 2030. Economy minister Bruno Le Maire, 10 homegrown decacorns. But shouldn’t

Hello from America, where we are digesting some pretty big news. Given the portent and weight of what’s going on today, it may feel a bit weird to sit down and read about billions of dollars of someone else’s money. But this is a technology startup and financial news site. So, to work. Just know

A federal appeals court froze the FDA’s ban on Juul products Friday after the company sought an emergency administrative stay. On Thursday, the U.S. regulator took sweeping action against the e-cigarette maker, effectively killing its access to the U.S. market. The temporary stay will be in place essentially to buy time until the case can

Vibrant Planet — which is creating an “operating system for forest restoration” — comes as a pleasant surprise, and not one I expected. Climate tech, while relatively new, has settled into two camps: hardware and software. And while Vibrant Planet is definitely a software play — from its cloud focus to its per-seat licenses, it’s

The era of commercial autonomous robotaxi service is here — Cruise officially became the first company to offer faired rides to the general public in a major city as of late Wednesday. The milestone comes after Cruise received official approval from the California Public Utilities Commission in early June to operate driverless in a commercial

Another strike against use of Google Analytics in Europe: The Italian data protection authority has found a local web publisher’s use of the popular analytics tool to be non-compliant with EU data protection rules owing to user data being transferred to the U.S. — a country that lacks an equivalent legal framework to protect the

The axe has fallen for e-cigarette maker Juul. The FDA ordered the company to stop selling and distributing its ubiquitous vaping devices in the U.S. Thursday, a dramatic end for a company that dominated the e-cigarette market and was valued at $38 billion at the top of its game. Juul will no longer be able

As video-led podcasts become highly favored by listeners, Podcastle, which was primarily an audio recording and editing studio, is introducing a new feature that enables podcasters to conduct high-resolution video interviews or solo recordings. Now, Podcastle will allow users to invite and video record up to ten guests through the Chrome browser or the Podcastle mobile

Florence Healthcare, which creates software that connects clinical trial sites, sponsors and contract research organizations, announced today that it has raised a $27 million Series C-1 led by Insight Partners. Insight Partners is known for its ScaleUp program that helps its portfolio companies grow rapidly. Florence Healthcare, which has now raised $114.1 million to date,

The buy now, pay later (BNPL) market, estimated to be worth $120 billion in 2021, has grown significantly over the last few years. But for most of its rise to virtual checkout prominence, BNPL largely targeted everyday consumer goods like clothes from Urban Outfitters or a Peloton. Now, the credit method is moving beyond its

Google announced today that Fitbit is introducing a new premium feature called “Sleep Profile,” which will offer users a new longitudinal analysis of sleep patterns while making sleep data easier to interpret. The new Sleep Profile feature will analyze sleep across 10 key metrics, including new data points like bedtime consistency, the time before sound

Google News is refreshing its desktop site with a new design that allows you to track global and local news on one screen. The redesign puts Your Briefing, Local news, and Top Picks section on a single page in different columns so it’s easier to catch up with news on topics and regions you care

Barack and Michelle Obama are heading to Audible. On Tuesday, the Amazon-owned company announced an exclusive multiyear first-look production deal with the former first couple’s Higher Ground media company. The deal comes after it came out that the Obamas and Spotify had decided not to extend their exclusive podcast partnership beyond the end of 2022.

It’s pretty annoying to go through CAPTCHA verification where you have to identify weird squiggly letters or click on images of the boat till there are none left — just to prove that you’re not a robot. Apple might be getting rid of this problem with a new feature in the upcoming iOS 16 and

Vahak is not only an open marketplace for truckers, but it also provides drivers with services like healthcare and discounted fuel cards. The Bangalore-based company announced today it has raised a $14 million Series A. The round was led by Nexus Partners, with participation from Foundamental, iSeed Ventures, Leo Capital, RTP Global and Tital Capital.

India’s market regulator fined Reliance and two of its officers on Monday for not properly disclosing Facebook’s $5.7 billion investment into Jio Platforms in April 2020. The Securities and Exchange Board of India said that media had reported about the then-impending deal in March itself, which prompted the shares of the group company to rise.

Iran’s relationship with the crypto mining sector is a love-hate one. The government is again restricting crypto mining activity as it tries to ease the strain on the country’s power supply, despite knowing the promise of crypto as a way to evade international sanctions. Electricity to all 118 government-authorized mining operators in Iran will be

It’s been a rough week for the crypto community as top tokens have seen massive selloffs, pushing some in the space to double down while leaving others to take stock off how the industry got to this point and what widely accepted truths need to be re-evaluated as the crypto internet matures. There haven’t been

This week on the TechCrunch Podcast our host, I talk with Bill Gates (yes, that Bill Gates) about whether we can still avoid climate disaster, the importance of crypto, and Elon Musk’s time management and social media skills. That conversation is an edited version of the full chat (which you can view here if you’re

As several Apple stores across the country fight to unionize, workers in Towson, Maryland became the first to win formal recognition. Out of 110 eligible employees, the union received 65 yes votes and 33 no votes. This historic victory comes after concentrated efforts from Apple to discourage its retail workers from unionizing. Last month, the

Welcome back to Chain Reaction. Last week, we talked about layoffs and the Winklevoss rock gods. This week, we’re looking at a new layer of crypto doom and gloom. Get this newsletter in your inbox every Thursday by subscribing on TechCrunch’s newsletter page. crash redux We’ve talked crypto crashes a couple times already in the

For years, startups addressing the recycling crisis labored in relative anonymity. But for those who have stuck with it — or survived the lean times — investors are now rewarding them with growing support, three founders told me this week at TC Sessions: Climate 2022 in Berkeley. “It’s been very hard to raise in the

Forgive me if I’m over here, in the corner, having vibrant flashbacks to the Commodore 64, my very first computer. Today, Pentaform launches its AbacusBasic, a computer built into a keyboard. It comes with Windows 10 and everything you need to do computer-y things. You still need a monitor, but there are a few solutions

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. There we go, today it’s Friday! We’re planning to spend some quality time with a headset and a collection of amazing TechCrunch podcasts — here’s our roundup of this week’s episodes, enthusiastically