Category: Tech news

 Project Include set out in 2016 to change the way the tech industry approaches diversity. Rather than identify underrepresented groups that are often the target of unfair hiring practices or the victims of discrimination on the job, the organization is attempting to teach CEOs and their teams how to foster environments of inclusion. The 10th Annual Crunchies Award winner of the TechCrunch… Read More

 It’s that time of year again. Silicon Valley has exchanged its standard hoodie-based uniform for something a bit more festive and has made its way over to the War Memorial Opera House to celebrate the 10th Annual Crunchies. Like last year’s show, tonight’s host is comedian and actress Chelsea Peretti. After an open nomination process, the members of our Crunchies board voted… Read More

100 companies file opposition to Trump’s immigration order, Zenefits gets a new CEO, Snap partners with BBC to get Planet Earth II on its platform and DARPA’s SideArm simplifies military drone landings. All this on Crunch Report. Read More

 As tech-savvy government efforts like 18F and the USDS take technological strides forward, other parts of the government are abandoning modern technology altogether. Starting next month, the FBI will no longer accept Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests by email. In lieu of its popular email service, the FBI suggests sending a fax or snail mail, a procedural change that has more to… Read More

 A bill set to update online privacy laws dating back three decades just cruised through the House by unanimous vote for the second time. The bipartisan bill known as the Email Privacy Act (H.R. 387), introduced by Colorado Rep. Jared Polis and Kansas Rep. Kevin Yoder, would require the government to seek a warrant in order to access the email of American citizens.
As it stands, ambiguity… Read More

 TV maker Vizio will pay $2.2 million to settle a lawsuit after it was shown that for years the company has been secretly collecting viewing data and selling it to third parties. The penalty may seem light, but the damage to the Vizio brand may be irreparable. Read More

 If you’re looking for a great camera with interchangeable lenses, I advise you to look at Canon and Sony offerings so you can start building personal expertise. But if you can already shoot and want something unique, then by all means buy a Leica — like the company’s latest, the M10 — which costs about as much as a Ducati motorcycle. Historically, M series… Read More

 The rise of tech startups around San Francisco has contributed to a rise in rents that’s pushing families out of the Bay Area. Crooked landlords use legal loopholes to evict families so they can jack up prices and move in richer tenants. But now one of the Bay’s wealthiest families is putting a little of its fortune toward fighting back on behalf of longtime residents who… Read More

 Nearly 100 companies filed an amicus brief on February 5 stating their opposition to President Trump’s immigration ban. Zendesk intends to join those companies in a court filing this afternoon, sources tell TechCrunch. The software company plans to sign on to the amicus brief via a filing this afternoon in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, where the Trump administration is appealing… Read More

 Optometrists don’t make it easy to buy new lenses for a favorite old pair of glasses or shades. Especially shades! Who even does that? Lens replacements through an optometrist can cost more than a new pair altogether, especially when it comes to sunglasses. A new startup out of Westwood, Calif. called Lensabl is on a mission to keep your favorite frames on your face. Whether the old… Read More

 We’re hearing from sources that Kuaishou — a hot photo-sharing application in China — is planning to go public in the U.S. later this year. Sources tell us the app has more than 40 million daily active users against 100 million monthly active users, and was most recently valued at around $3 billion. The app is in some ways similar to Instagram, with photos (some of which… Read More

 Desktop Metal has raised $45 million in a Series C round of venture funding to develop desktop 3D printers that make metal objects. The company aims to bring metal-making capabilities to smaller businesses and designers who couldn’t afford, or find the space, for previously available technologies. GV (formerly known as Google Ventures) led the investment, joined by BMW iVentures and… Read More

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 One of Snapchat’s more clever ideas was not its disappearing messages, but that the smartphone camera should be a toy. Along those same lines, but on a lesser scale, a new app called OOO is meant to be a fun, little camera toy that lets you play with your video. Instead of trying to help you craft the “perfect” shot, the app lets you rapidly zoom in and out on as quickly or… Read More

 It’s easy to forget that even with the fanciest of machine learning models, we still need humans in the trenches cleaning input data. Descartes Labs, a startup that combines satellite imagery with data about our planet to produce insights and forecasts, knows this all too well. The company ended up building its own cloud-based parallel computing infrastructure to clean and process… Read More