Last year, Instagram added a way for users to filter some kinds of “sensitive” content out of the Explore tab. Now, Instagram is expanding that setting, letting users turn off that content in recommendations throughout the app. Instagram doesn’t offer much transparency around how it defines sensitive content or what even counts. When it introduced
Best known for its open source microcontrollers that have been wildly embraced by the developer community, Arduino now has its sights firmly set on the enterprise world. Specifically, the company believes it’s well positioned to gain a foothold among Gen Z and millennial engineers in the work force. Certainly the company’s ubiquity in the maker
Oleksandr Yaroshenko Contributor For more than three months, Ukraine has been engulfed in the flames of a war with Russia. That might look like a red flag from an investor’s point of view, but everything is not so black and white in the country’s tech sector. Tech companies with Ukrainian roots and core markets in
During a keynote at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, the company debuted the latest version of WatchOS, the operating system that runs on the Apple Watch. Apple claims that it has improved the Apple Watch’s ability to detect arterial fibrillation (AFib), an irregular heartbeat that can lead to blood clots, stroke, heart failure, and other heart-related
Take Blip, an online messaging platform for businesses, today announced that it raised $70 million in a Series B round led by Warburg Pincus. CEO Roberto Oliveira said that the capital, which brings Take Blip’s total raised to $170 million, will be put toward product development, mergers and acquisitions, and customer acquisition. Not every customer
All jokes about robot armies and SkyNet aside, robotics are set to profoundly impact the future of how America works. And not in just a few industries, but across an ever-growing swath that includes agtech, automotive, construction, labor, logistics, healthcare and more. Automation is inevitable, and yet advancements in technology often result in lower wages
Latin America appears set to chalk up another quarter of falling venture capital activity, adding to a string of successive periods when the value of investments in the region fell. Leaning on PitchBook data and looking at venture-backed companies in Central and South America, a TechCrunch analysis indicates that investment volume in deal and dollar
Instagram announced today that it’s launching the ability for users to pin up to three posts, including photos or Reels, to the top of their profile grid. The company says the new feature will give creators more flexibility to express themselves on their profiles. The official roll out comes as Instagram confirmed to TechCrunch in
Product-led companies twice as likely as sales-led peers to grow more than 100% YOY, new report shows Anna Heim 7 hours Should SaaS companies contact as many of their users as they can in hopes of converting them from free to paid? Best-in-class companies don’t, a new survey-based report found. According to OpenView’s third annual
European Union co-legislators have reached provisional agreement on a common charging solutions for smartphones, laptops, tablets and other small and medium sized electronics — some 15 different categories in all — agreeing that, by autumn 2024, USB Type C will be the common charging port for in scope devices. Laptop makers have been given a
Sonos went a bit further downmarket recently with the Ray, a smaller and cheaper soundbar than the Beam, itself a smaller, cheaper soundbar than the Arc. But while the Ray performs well, it doesn’t quite earn its premium and leaves one feeling that they should have just gone for something bigger. No one should have
A game studio, HiDef, announced today that it is teaming up with camera company Snap Inc. to develop an off-platform Bitmoji-based dance and music social game. The game will leverage Snap’s augmented reality tech as well as Bitmoji, the personalized cartoon avatar maker. Bitmoji joined the Snap family over five years ago, and today over
Lagos and San Francisco-based Klasha has received an additional $2.1 million to complete its $4.5 million seed round. The startup, which provides multiple products for the cross-border commerce space in Africa, raised this new financing from a group of international investors co-led by American Express (AMEX) Ventures, the strategic investment group of American Express. This
Last year saw a huge funding boom for Southeast Asian consumer investment apps and if Pintu’s funding announcement today is anything to go by, that looks set to continue. The cryptocurrency-focused app has raised a $113 million Series B from Intudo Ventures, Lightspeed, Northstart Group and Pantera Capital. Launched in April 2020, Pintu bills itself
As Elon Musk tries to squirm out of his commitment to buy Twitter, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is running interference for the newly minted Texan. Paxton just announced that his office is investigating how Twitter may be “misleading Texans” about the number of automated bots on its platform. “It matters not only for regular
Solid Power’s new pilot line is a groundbreaking moment in the march toward solid-state batteries for electric vehicles. But don’t count on a revolution in lithium-ion battery chemistry happening on the line itself. That’s by design. The new facility, unlike the company’s previous pre-pilot line, will be “highly inflexible,” said Doug Campbell, Solid Power’s CEO.
Opal, a platform that decentralizes access management for enterprise customers, today announced that it raised $10 million in a Series A funding round led by Greylock. CEO Stephen Cobbe says that the proceeds will be put toward product development and expanding the size of Opal’s 25-person team. It’s Cobbe’s assertion that companies give out too
Apple surprised WWDC keynote watchers with the release of a new, fully redesigned MacBook Air. The MacBook Air, Apple’s most popular notebook computer, last got a significant physical overhaul in 2018. The new MacBook Air borrows design cues from both Apple’s latest iMac line, as well as the new MacBook Pros that were released in
Today at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), Apple unveiled a slew of upgrades headed to iPad devices in iPadOS 16, the latest version of the company’s tablet-focused operating system. A redesigned multitasking interface — dubbed Stage Manager — makes it simpler to see which apps are open and switch between tasks, while new tools offer
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. Today is Monday, June 6, 2022, and in case you didn’t know, it is also Apple’s WWDC conference, which is what Haje and our other colleagues are focused on today, so you
Perhaps it’s the end of an era now that Sheryl Sandberg announced she will leave Meta. However, to Kelly Graziadei and Joanna Lee Shevelenko, general partners at f7 Ventures, an early-stage venture firm, they are carrying forward the influence Sandberg had on them during their time at Facebook in their new endeavor. All of f7
India is proposing to create an appeals panel with the veto power to reverse content moderation decisions of social media firms, it said Monday evening, republishing the draft changes to the IT rules after quietly withdrawing it last week. If enacted, it would be the first time globally that a nation creates an appeals panel
Solid Power, a solid-state battery company, today unveiled a pilot production line for EV-sized cells that will be sent to automotive partners for testing. The move represents another step in the steady march toward solid-state lithium-ion batteries, which promise to bring unprecedented range and safety to electric vehicles. “We validated that we can use industry-standard
Agrotools, a Brazilian-based technology and intelligence company for agribusiness, raised $21 million (BRL 100 million) to value the company at around $94 million, according to the company. Investors in the round include Horácio Lafer Piva (Klabin), Pedro Paulo Campos (JP Morgan, Pátria and Arsenal), Fátima Marques (Hay Group/Korn Ferry), Paulo Hegler (Toledo), Olivier Murguet (Nissan-Renault),
The appropriately named endurance (so: running, triathlon, cycling, etc.) events marketplace Let’s Do This (a YC alumni) appeared a couple of years ago listing all kinds of endurance activities globally and attracting the backing of stars such as Usain Bolt and Serena Williams, alongside more standard venture investors such as EQT. Founded by Alex Rose
Apple is improving its webcam on the shiny new M2 MacBooks, but for those of us still chugging along on our existing MacBooks, we’ll be able to use our iPhones as webcams ( … if we don’t want to sneak a look at our phone during a Zoom meeting). Later this year, Apple will begin
At a developer briefing following Apple’s keynote address at its Worldwide Developer Conference this afternoon, the company went into more detail about the different types of widgets developers can now build for the iOS 16 Lock Screen. Inspired by the Apple Watch’s complications, Apple said these new widgets can help developers leverage key information from
Curtis Townshend Contributor More posts by this contributor Are early-stage funding rounds out of control? Companies are valued based on metrics. Those with better metrics are valued higher, and those with worse metrics are valued lower. None of this is controversial, but it’s also not helpful for getting started — metrics alone don’t help you
Unicorns, Tiger, and bear markets! Oh my! Alex Wilhelm 7 hours Unicorn traffic jam, meet unicorn glut. Private-market tech companies worth $1 billion or more have long been an indicator of investor enthusiasm. The number of so-called unicorns minted in a particular period was a workable indicator of how hot the venture capital market was
In a fresh SEC filing this morning, Twitter shared a letter it received from Elon Musk’s legal team indicating displeasure with the company’s offered information regarding the level of “spam and fake accounts” on its service. This is the same concern that the technology entrepreneur has posted about extensively since his deal to buy the