Category: Tech news

 CyberPowerPC has introduced a new entry-level virtual reality-ready pre-built PC with AMD’s Radeon RX 470 on board for $499 at Best Buy and Amazon. That’s a new low for an off-the-shelf VR-capable configuration, and it’s also available as a bundle with Oculus Rift for $1,099.98 — or exactly what you’d pay if you purchased the two separately. Even if there’s… Read More

 The iPhone turns 10 today, at least if you start counting from the day it was announced. So why not take a few minutes to relive that day, with all its excitement and the palpable pride taken by Steve Jobs in both the product and presentation? Come on, you know you want to. Read More

 Paul Hemmersbaugh, chief counsel for the Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), has left the agency. NHTSA confirmed Hemmersbaugh’s departure after TechCrunch learned of the top lawyer taking leave of the federal organization. Hemmersbaugh is another high-ranking departure at the agency ahead of Trump’s inauguration, after… Read More

 Lola, a startup that connects travelers with live travel agents, has raised $15 million in Series B funding. The Boston-based startup was founded by Paul English, who previously co-founded and served as CTO at Kayak. In contrast to many other assistant services that hype their automation and technology, Lola proudly highlights the fact that its iPhone app uses human travel agents —… Read More

 The United States has finally announced a comprehensive package of responses to Russia’s 2016 influence operation against the U.S. elections. This is a significant response, but a closer reading of the package reveals four important lessons about what this means for deterrence, statecraft and cybersecurity. Read More

 Do you like making lists of things to do, but then end up failing to accomplish the items you’ve laid out? A new application aimed at those with a tendency towards procrastination can help. Instead of a simple checklist or time tracker, Time, as the app is called, lets you more obsessively micro-manage the tasks at hand with a color-coded timer that changes from green to yellow to red as… Read More

 Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday our daily guided tour of the biggest tech stories from the past 24 hours will appear here on TechCrunch.com. To get The Daily Crunch in your inbox every day of the week, sign up here.
Atlassian says ‘hello’ to Trello, Uber gets moving, and Facebook does more monetizing with video. All that and more in The Daily Crunch for January 9, 2017.
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 Despite the copious amounts of venture funding that have flowed to them in recent years, food tech startups haven’t had an easy time of it especially in the food delivery game. Since 2015, GoodEggs, Zesty and Munchery have shuffled their executive decks, meal kit delivery darlings Blue Apron struggled with worker safety, and logistics providers Postmates struggled to lock in a new… Read More

 Microsoft launched one of its larger Insider Builds for Windows 10 today. The new version (15002) includes a plethora of new features that touch everything from the Start menu to the Edge browser, Windows Ink, Cortana, Defender and Windows’ built-in accessibility features. All of those are great, but the one new feature that may make the biggest difference in your day-to-day use of… Read More

 Salesforce founder and CEO Marc Benioff today joined an increasing number of Silicon Valley luminaries who are backing the first ever coding academy to be created in Gaza, Palestine. In doing so they are putting their stamp of approval on a wider initiative to develop Palestine’s technology sector, which lags behind Israel’s highly developed startup and VC ecosystem. Benioff joins… Read More

 Abhishek Singh graduated from NYU’s ITP program and clearly he learned a lot about the future of computing. During his tenure there he quickly fell in love with hardware startups and, with a little grit and programming work, he created Peeqo, a robot that responds only in GIFs. That’s right: this is a robot that replies only in animated video clips. God help us.… Read More

 Kids TV network Nickelodeon already has solid footing in the digital space with its lineup of over 40 preschool apps and games and its own streaming service, Noggin. Now, the entertainment brand is making its move into e-books. The company has just launched its first ever reading app aimed at kids, which brings interactive stories from their favorite Nick characters to the iPhone and… Read More

 Highly-funded Airbnb is making an investment of its own, announcing today that it is leading a $13 million round in Resy, an app for restaurant reservations. “Helping people find and book incredible local restaurants is a key part of us moving beyond just accommodation to focus on the whole trip,” said Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky in a statement. Airbnb will be integrating Resy into… Read More

 What if you didn’t have to wait every two weeks to receive a paycheck?
What if you could be wired the money you earned almost immediately after a shift?
What if, unlike with payday lenders, you didn’t have to pay interest on those payments? Instead, you were merely encouraged to donate a kind of tip to the company providing you with this service?
That’s the proposition of… Read More

 Today marks the tenth anniversary of the iPhone, a device that practically invented the smartphone genre in itself, but, over in China, a more modern bellwether of the mobile industry rolled out its own innovation which could shape the future. Read More