While the IPO market roars back, venture remains leery

New York Stock Exchange The IPO market is poised to make an almost complete 180° turnaround after a bleak Q1 and a very quiet summer. In contrast, venture capital investments, which had recalibrated alongside the IPO market in the second half of last year, have remained sedate, with a clear flight to quality; fewer rounds, for higher quality companies, with larger check sizes. Read More

Crunch Report | Galaxy Note 7 banned from all flights

Salesforce walks away from a Twitter acquisition, SoftBank and Saudi Arabia public investment fund have formed a $100 billion fund, Zuckerberg is in search of someone to voice his AI, changes at Spotify are hinting of an upcoming IPO and Glaxy Note 7s are now banned from all flights by the Department of Transportation. All this on Crunch Report. Read More

WristWhirl lets you control your smartwatch with hand gestures (and look mad while you do it)

wristwhirl1 It’s a funny thing: Smartwatches are supposed to be the more accessible alternative to your smartphone, but you can operate a phone with one hand, while the watch takes two. Luckily, Dartmouth researchers are on the case, and have engineered a way to use your wrist as a sort of joystick, allowing you to use your smartwatch one-handed. Read More

Palantir says it didn’t racially discriminate against Asian people

Alexander Karp, chief executive officer and co-founder of Palantir Technologies Inc., walks the grounds after the morning sessions during the Allen & Co. Media and Technology Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, U.S., on Thursday, July 7, 2016. Billionaires, chief executive officers, and leaders from the technology, media, and finance industries gather this week at the Idaho mountain resort conference hosted by investment banking firm Allen & Co. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images Palantir Technologies has come out and said that it did not discriminate against Asian people, Fortune reports. This comes after the U.S. Department of Labor sued the company for alleged racial discrimination against Asian people in its hiring and selection process. According to the DOL’s suit, Palantir allegedly used a hiring process that discriminated against Asian applicants for… Read More

Applications are open for Hardware Battlefield at CES

Nima We’re back. Hardware Battlefield is TechCrunch’s premier hardware startup event and is returning to the world’s largest consumer electronic show. Applications are now open until November 3 at 9pm PT. Submit your application here to compete for free demo space at the Consumer Electronics Show, a $50,000 prize and the Metal Man trophy.
Hardware Battlefield is part of… Read More

Salesforce’s shift into equality

Marc Benioff, chairman and chief executive officer of Salesforce.com Inc., left, speaks with Tony Prophet, vice president of Windows marketing at Microsoft Corp., during the DreamForce Conference in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Monday, Oct. 13, 2014. Salesforce.com Inc. is entering a new business, data analytics and business intelligence, seeking to maintain growth and persuade customers to pour more of their information into its data centers. Photographer: Noah Berger/Bloomberg via Getty Images It’s important for tech companies to have at least one voice at the senior leadership table that advocates for issues around equality, diversity and inclusion. Unfortunately, that’s just not the case for many companies in the tech industry. Salesforce, a company that said a year ago that a major focus for it was “the women’s issue,” recently became an… Read More

Five considerations about accelerated learning for the next administration

Hacker writing code Our next president will take office during a period of seismic change across the education landscape. Policymakers, students and employers increasingly question the cost — and return — on a college degree, as a profusion of new pathways from education-to-employment emerge. Read More

Samsung’s Galaxy TabPro S upgrade gets a spec bump under a new gold coat of paint

wifi_w700_galaxy_tabpro_s_gd_ext_right_click_463255265_463255266_2908092-1024x746 There’s going to come a time when not every mention of Samsung will elicit some snarky comment about exploding smartphones. Now is not that time. And the Galaxy TabPro S Gold Edition is certainly not the product to serve as catalyst. In fact, it will probably be a little while before the company has an offering compelling enough to shift the public consciousness back to the next… Read More

U.S. Department of Transportation bans Galaxy Note 7 from all flights

Samsung Galaxy Note 7 In the latest instalment of Samsung’s ongoing Note 7 saga, the U.S. Department of Transportation has issued an official, blanket ban against bringing the Galaxy Note 7 on airplanes. The ban applies to all Note 7 devices, and covers both carry-on and checked baggage, as well as prohibiting anyone from carrying the phone onto a plane on their person. The ban will go into effect… Read More

Instacart reverses course, re-introducing tips for shoppers

instacart-thumb Under pressure from shoppers complaining about losing the ability to receive tips last month as the company looked to smooth out the earnings curve, Instacart said it is re-introducing customer tipping. “After announcing this change, we heard a lot of feedback from our shopper community,” the company said in a blog post. “While our shoppers liked most of the changes, they did… Read More

Weekly Roundup: Galaxy Note 7 recalled, Amazon’s music service and Verizon/Yahoo sale troubles

marissa-mayer-writing Things were pretty bleak for tech companies this week as the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 was officially recalled and Yahoo’s securities woes reportedly drove Verizon to request a $1 billion discount on its pending acquisition. Here are the top stories from around the tech universe to get you up to speed. Read More

Audi axed its electric supercar, per report

audi_e-tron_edit1 The Audi R8 e-tron is dead if a report from Car and Driver is to be believed. The production version of the car was unveiled at the 2015 Geneva Auto Show and apparently Audi produced less than 100 vehicles — which sported a $1.1 million window sticker each. When announced the e-tron seemed like a key part of Audi’s future. Built in the same vain of the R8, the e-tron sat on top… Read More