Google announced on Twitter today that it was cancelling its annual I/O developer conference out of concern for the health and safety of all involved. It will not be holding any online conference in its place either. “Out of concern for the health and safety of our developers, employees, and local communities — and in
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In a public health emergency that relies on people keeping an anti-social distance from each other to avoid spreading a highly contagious virus for which humans have no pre-existing immunity governments around the world have been quick to look to technology companies for help. Background tracking is, after all, what many Internet giants’ ad-targeting business
Efforts to get at-home test kits for the COVID-19 coronavirus are ramping up quickly, and two more health industry startups are bringing their own products to market, with both Carbon Health and Nurx starting shipping of their own in-home sample collection kits. Both of these new offerings are the same in terms of approach to
28% of a nurse’s time is wasted on low-skilled tasks like fetching medical tools. We need them focused on the complex and compassionate work of treating patients, especially amid the coronavirus outbreak. Diligent Robotics wants to give them a helper droid that can run errands for them around the hospital. The startup’s bot Moxi is
Dating may be proving next to impossible for many during this era of mass social distancing, but Tinder’s hoping to leverage an existing feature to help bring people closer together. Virtually, at least. The dating app is waving fees for Passport, a feature designed to let premium users connect with people outside of their dating
As society comes to grips with the growing worldwide crisis related to the COVID-19 virus, many companies are stepping up in different ways. Today, two major tech companies — Amazon and IBM — each announced programs to encourage developers find solutions to a variety of problems related to the pandemic. For starters, AWS, Amazon’s cloud
Uber Eats is waiving delivery and activations fees in the UK to support restaurants hit by decreasing demand during the coronavirus crisis. The measure will apply until March 31 when it says it will review it. On Monday the on-demand food delivery giant announced a similar waiver of delivery fees in the US. The announcement
One of the obstacles to accurately estimating the prevalence of sickness in the general population is that most of our data comes from hospitals, not the 99.9 percent of the world that isn’t hospitals. FluSense is an autonomous, privacy-respecting system that counts the people and coughs in public spaces to keep health authorities informed. Every
At-home diagnostics startup Scanwell, which produces smartphone-based testing for UTIs, is working on getting at-home testing for the novel coronavirus into the hands of U.S. residents. The technology, which was developed by Chinese diagnostic technology company INNOVITA and has already been approved by China’s equivalent of the FDA and used by “millions” in China, can
Ohio-based Coterie, a startup working on in the commercial insurance space, has announced today it has raised $8.5 million Series A. The company had previously raised a little over $3 million in early investments, bringing its equity capital raised to nearly $12 million to date; the firm also told TechCrunch that it has raised $2.5
Coronavirus quarantines are hurting local businesses, but Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger wants to help them keep revenue rolling in. Krieger and his wife Kaitlyn this week launched SaveOurFaves, a directory of Bay Area restaurants selling gift certificates to offset lost income amidst ‘shelter in place’ orders across the region. Users can search for restaurants or
French startup October wants to reduce the pressure on small and medium companies going through the Coronavirus crisis. In order to give them some headroom, companies that have borrowed money on October won’t have to pay back their loans for the next three months. October works with small companies in France, Spain, Italy, Netherlands and
Scopely, the mobile gaming publisher behind titles including Marvel Strike Force, Scrabble Go, Yahtzee with Buddies and Star Trek Fleet Command, has added another $200 million to its hoard of cash for mergers and acquisitions. While some startups are fearing a cash crunch, other businesses seem to be preparing to go on a shopping spree.
Hiring chatbot Mya Systems — which uses a conversational AI to grease the recruitment pipeline by automating sourcing for agencies and large enterprises needing to fill lots of vacancies in areas such as retail and warehouse jobs — has closed an $18.75 million Series C. The funding round was led by Notion Capital with participation
Claimer, a London-based startup that makes it easy for companies to claim R&D tax credits in the U.K., has raised £300,000 in seed funding. Backing the already revenue-generating company is Ben Holmes (who was previously at Index Ventures), Nick Telson and Andrew Webster (the founders of DesignMyNight, which recently exited), Rupert Loman (founder of Gamer
As a former Jam City executive, Jill Wilson led teams behind some of the top-grossing gaming franchises, like Cookie Jam and Panda Pop. Now she’s running her own startup, Robin Games, where a team of mostly women is working to create a new niche in mobile entertainment they’re calling “lifestyle gaming.” As the name implies,
Garrett Smallwood Contributor Wag! CEO Garrett Smallwood is a three-time entrepreneur with previous experience at Redbeacon (acquired by The Home Depot), Pillow (acquired by Expedia via Home Away Group) and Finrise (acquired by Wag!). Wag!, the petcare company known for connecting pet owners with local dog walkers, has recently undergone a series of sweeping changes.
Quantum Machines, a Tel Aviv-based startup that is building both hardware and software to operate quantum computers, today announced that it has raised a $17.5 million Series A funding round. The round was led by Israeli tech entrepreneur Avigdor Willenz, who, among other companies, co-founded Habana Labs and Anapurna Labs and sold them to Intel
Facebook today officially rolled out its sweeping desktop redesign that offers dark mode, tabbed homescreen, and a cleaner profile. Facebook tells TechCrunch that “starting today, the majority of people on Facebook will have access to the new desktop design” which it announced at last year’s F8 conference. Users can opt-in to turn on the redesign
It’s easy to think, as we find ourselves in the midst of a truly unprecedented situation, that the rules of building a successful business have suddenly changed. While the world may be topsy-turvy at the moment, keeping your customer at the center of your business strategy is more important than ever. That means finding creative
UK takeout marketplace Just Eat has announced a 30-day emergency support package for restaurants on its platform to help them through disruption caused by the coronavirus crisis. From tomorrow (March 20) until April 19 the package — which Just Eat says is worth £10M+ — will see funds directed back to UK partner restaurants in
The threat of vape lung seems to have receded to the distant past now that we are all facing the coronavirus, but new research has shed light on the nature of that much more limited epidemic. It turns out vitamin E acetate, the vape fluid additive until now merely associated with lung damage, converts into
Instagram is finally preparing to copy Snapchat’s most popular feature, and one of the few it hasn’t already cloned. Instagram has prototyped an unreleased ephemeral text messaging feature that clears the chat thread whenever you leave it, a Facebook spokesperson confirms to TechCrunch. That could make users more comfortable with having rapid-fire, silly, vulnerable, or
Glossier NYC, in normal times, is typically visited by more than 2,000 people every day, with lines of people from all over the world curling out the door. And when you enter, it’s tempting to touch, well, everything. The walls are adorned with flowers, mirrors and giant versions of the makeup company’s flagship product: Boy
Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between. Today we’re taking a look at the world of esports venture capital investment, largely through the lens of preliminary data that we’ll caveat given how reported VC data lags reality. That phenomenon is likely doubly
The big social networks take steps to ensure that they’re providing accurate information for public health, Charter refuses to allow employees to work from home and Microsoft Teams sees a big spike in popularity. Here’s your Daily Crunch for March 19, 2020. 1. Facebook will put a new coronavirus info center on top of the
Storj, a startup that developed a low-cost, decentralized cloud storage solution, announced a new version today called Tardigrade Decentralized Cloud Storage Service. The new service comes with an enterprise service level agreement (SLA) that promises 99.9999999% file durability and over 99.95 percent availability, which it claims is on par with Amazon S3. The company has
The European Commission is putting pressure on Netflix and other streaming platforms to switch to standard definition during periods of peak demand as the coronavirus crisis puts unprecedented load on Internet infrastructure. Across the European Union — a region with around 445M citizens — it’s likely many millions of office workers will switch to teleworking,
In a great example of what can happen when smart, technically-oriented people come together in a time of need, an open-source hardware project started by a group including Irish entrepreneur Colin Keogh and Breeze Automation CEO and co-founder Gui Calavanti has produced a prototype ventilator using 3D-printed parts and readily available, inexpensive material. The ventilator
Apple’s promise of high-quality video “shot on iPhone” is getting another real-world stress test, as late-night TV host Conan O’Brien announced on Wednesday he will return to doing full shows that will be shot using Apple’s mobile device. On Monday, March 30, new episodes of O’Brien’s show “Conan” will air on TBS, with production staff