Category: Tech news

 In a noisy room, trying to shout louder to make yourself heard just escalates the problem of being overwhelmed with sound. It’s a fitting analogy for mobile devices and content too. More, bigger, shinier, more colourful and capable screens filled with more and more apps, making incessant demands on our attention. It’s a whole cacophony of noise. In that context, less starts to… Read More

TechCrunch will be dropping RadiumOne as a Disrupt New York hackathon sponsor. As Leena Rao writes, we simply couldn’t sleep at night knowing that we were supporting and promoting a company led by someone who does not share our values on the issue of domestic abuse. In this decision our team is united, both on the editorial and the business side. We will not condone, support, or deal with… Read More

Dear RadiumOne Board Members, In covering the day-to-day launches, funding announcements, and feature additions of tech startups and companies, I rarely think about the founder or CEO of a company’s personal life. Sure, when it’s a serial entrepreneur, I take note. Or if the founder happens to be a friend, I’ll ask about their kids and families, and trade banter over the usual… Read More

 The Gillmor Gang — Robert Scoble, Dan Farber, Keith Teare, and Steve Gillmor — record a midweek Wednesday edition after Apple and Facebook earnings calls. The Gang seems comfortable with Apple numbers setting the table for a Wearable Winter, if you can count an iWatch as meaning both something on the wrist and Apple TV as an extension of the AppStore. Is Facebook moving away from status… Read More

 The seed “round” as a singular event appears to be dying. What used to be a discrete funding round is now more of a rolling, continuous financing process. At Bullpen we say “seed is a process,” and it’s important for entrepreneurs to know how to tailor this process to minimize dilution and maximize survival chances. Read More

 This guest post is written by Ciarán O’Leary and Jade Read, VCs at Earlybird in Berlin. They invest across Europe in companies such as Wunderlist, Onefootball, SocialBakers, Auctionata, Rapidminer and EyeEm. Ciarán usually blogs over at Berlinvc.com. What’s missing in the Berlin tech ecosystem? Well, a few things. But the elephant in the room really is one – no, a few –… Read More

Google is adding a deeper integration of its hotel and restaurant search to Google Search on Android. This is a pretty straightforward integration that allows you to type or speak queries like “show me hotels in San Francisco,” and the search results page will indeed return a list of hotels. Read More

 I divided my time this month between West Africa and the Bay Area, which triggered a lot of cultural whiplash, which got me thinking about filter bubbles. I fear today’s technology can reinforce our instinct to confuse what’s familiar with what’s normal … which leads to skewed perceptions, bad decisions, and needless conflict. It’s OK to live in a bubble, but it is not OK to not know that you… Read More

 ChaseFuture, a Shanghai-based startup that built a platform where admissions experts and college alums can coach international students on how to get in, just raised $400,000 in a fresh seed round. Led by Banyan Partners and Harbor Pacific Capital, the round also included Artesian Capital Management and other educational technology angels including an AngelVest consortium, SingTel Innov8′s… Read More

 Microsoft lost its first challenge to the authority of the United States government’s use of search warrants to demand data stored abroad. Microsoft challenged a U.S. search warrant for emails stored in Ireland. The cloud does have a physical footprint, after all. The company was not surprised that it lost the initial test, noting in a blog post that “the Magistrate Judge, who… Read More

 In December Federal Judge Richard Leon indicated that in his estimation, the bulk collection of telephony metadata by the NSA was likely unconstitutional. He stayed his ruling, however, citing “significant national security interests” and “the novelty of the constitutional issue” at play. Read More

 Sony has confirmed to TechCrunch that the Xperia Z2 will be released in the U.S. but not for several months. The release is scheduled for “summer.” A U.S. launch of the Xperia Compact Z1 is currently not on the books at all, we also learned. Read More

 Blue Apron is raising $50 million Series C round led by Stripes Group, TechCrunch has learned. The latest round is based on a $450 million valuation, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.

It is unclear whether or not the deal has officially closed or still in the process of being finalized. Read More

 If you’re hoping to store lots of large media files, Streem might be the cloud storage service that you’re looking for.

The startup, which is part of incubator Y Combinator, launched its Streem Drive product last week, and it’s announcing that it has raised $875,000 in seed funding. Read More

 Vungle announced today that it’s launching what it calls “the first ever advertising exchange built exclusively for in-app video.” When the company announced its $17 million Series B in February, CEO Zain Jaffer said that the exchange would allow Vungle to expand beyond app trailers to run video ads for big brands, too. He reiterated that point this week when discussing the exchange, saying… Read More