Category: Tech news

If you’re planning to attend TC Sessions: Mobility 2019 on July 10, then get ready to network like never before. And by that, we mean easily. TC’s day-long event — dedicated to the future of mobility and transportation — features discussions, demos and workshops with the brightest founders, technologists and investors in these industries.

With more than 1,000 people attending, a simple tool to help you connect with the right people would be awesome. We have just the thing for you. It’s called CrunchMatch and — even better news — it’s free.

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If you’re not already familiar with CrunchMatch, here’s how it works. Watch for an email to all ticket holders when CrunchMatch goes live. Fill out your profile with your specific details — your role (technologist, founder, investor, etc.) and who you want to connect with. CrunchMatch will make meet-up suggestions, which you can approve or decline.

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We can’t wait to see you in San Jose. If you haven’t purchased your ticket yet, do it now before the prices go up. Early-Bird Tickets are available for $195 — you save $100. Students can book a ticket for just $45 here.

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TC Sessions: Mobility 2019 takes place in San Jose, Calif. on July 10. Join your community, explore the future of mobility and transportation and make productive connections with the influential people who can help you reach your goals.

Airbnb is looking to book a place in the streaming media business. The company best known for its controversial marketplace of on-demand accommodations is now plotting a foray into becoming a production studio, according to a report in Reuters.

Tons of companies in Silicon Valley have taken to producing marketing features and print magazines as an exercise in branding, but Airbnb is reportedly looking to take this a step further.

The company already has a glossy magazine published by Hearst, and according to the Reuters report, that effort will be central to the company’s media plans going forward.

Video seems to be the next playground for big companies flush with cash that want to differentiate themselves in the market. Apple has a streaming service it intends to launch, Amazon already does and Walmart has one, too.

With its built-in user base of 500 million travelers, the company told Reuters that it already has partners that want to partner on productions.

Airbnb has already made one series for Apple. It’s a documentary series called “Home” that features quirky homes from around the world and the owners that built them. It’s also got another documentary production in the works, “Gay Chorus Deep South,” which records the travels of San Francisco’s Gay Men’s Chorus as it takes a trip through the “Deep South,” Reuters reported.

“We’re very much in the R&D phase here. It’s not just limited to video. It could be audible. It could be physical,” Airbnb spokesperson Chris Lehane, told Reuters. “The more we put content out there, the more you’re going to bring people to the platform.”

If nothing else, the Airbnb shows could raise the visibility of the service among a new audience that’s reluctant to book time in strangers’ homes.

Just don’t expect to see any exposés about the company’s problem with hidden cameras or its complicated relationship with cities and the neighborhoods that have been transformed through its business.

Braille is a crucial skill to learn for children with visual impairments, and with these LEGO Braille Bricks, kids can learn through hands-on play rather than more rigid methods like Braille readers and printouts. Given the naturally Braille-like structure of LEGO blocks, it’s surprising this wasn’t done decades ago.

The truth is, however, that nothing can be obvious enough when it comes to marginalized populations like people with disabilities. But sometimes all it takes is someone in the right position to say “You know what? That’s a great idea and we’re just going to do it.”

It happened with the BecDot (above). and it seems to have happened at LEGO. Stine Storm led the project, but Morten Bonde, who himself suffers from degenerating vision, helped guide the team with the passion and insight that only comes with personal experience.

In some remarks sent over by LEGO, Bonde describes his drive to help:

When I was contacted by the LEGO Foundation to function as internal consultant on the LEGO Braille Bricks project, and first met with Stine Storm, where she showed me the Braille bricks for the first time, I had a very emotional experience. While Stine talked about the project and the blind children she had visited and introduced to the LEGO Braille Bricks I got goose bumps all over the body. I just knew that I had to work on this project.

I want to help all blind and visually impaired children in the world dare to dream and see that life has so much in store for them. When, some years ago, I was hit by stress and depression over my blind future, I decided one day that life is too precious for me not to enjoy every second of. I would like to help give blind children the desire to embark on challenges, learn to fail, learn to see life as a playground, where anything can come true if you yourself believe that they can come true. That is my greatest ambition with my participation in the LEGO Braille Bricks project

The bricks themselves are very much like the originals, specifically the common 2×4 blocks, except they don’t have the full eight “studs” (so that’s what they’re called). Instead, they have the letters of the Braille alphabet, which happens to fit comfortably in a 2×3 array of studs, with room left on the bottom to put a visual indicator of the letter or symbol for sighted people.

It’s compatible with ordinary LEGO bricks, and of course they can be stacked and attached to themselves, though not with quite the same versatility as an ordinary block, as some symbols will have fewer studs. You’ll probably want to keep them separate, since they’re more or less identical unless you inspect them individually.

All told, the set, which will be provided for free to institutions serving vision-impaired students, will include about 250 pieces: A-Z (with regional variants), the numerals 0-9, basic operators like + and =, and some “inspiration for teaching and interactive games.” Perhaps some specialty pieces for word games and math toys, that sort of thing.

LEGO was already one of the toys that can be enjoyed equally by sighted and vision-impaired children, but this adds a new layer, or I suppose just re-engineers an existing and proven one, to extend and specialize the decades-old toy for a group that already seems already to have taken to it:

“The children’s level of engagement and their interest in being independent and included on equal terms in society is so evident. I am moved to see the impact this product has on developing blind and visually impaired children’s academic confidence and curiosity already in its infant days,” said Bonde.

Danish, Norwegian, English and Portuguese blocks are being tested now, with German, Spanish and French on track for later this year. The kit should ship in 2020 — if you think your classroom could use these, get in touch with LEGO right away.

As the Kleiner Perkins empire crumbles, Mary Meeker builds her own.

The author of the Internet Trends Report has $1.25 billion in capital commitments for her debut growth fund, Bond Capital, as first reported by Axios and confirmed to TechCrunch by a source close to the firm.

Bond Capital has declined to comment.

Meeker spun-out from the Kleiner Perkins growth investing practice in September 2018 to form Bond after an internal power struggle between her and Mamoon Hamid, who joined Kleiner in 2017 from Social Capital, left no other option. According to a recent Fortune feature on the formerly revered venture capital firm, Kleiner recruited Hamid to refuel the firm’s early-stage efforts but his purported plan to increase the size of the early-stage funds’ stakes was a step too far onto Meeker’s turf.

“Hamid, say Kleiner insiders, saw himself as helping; Meeker’s team viewed Hamid’s offers as meddling,” Fortune writes.

Meeker, in her Kleiner tenure, was responsible for several of the firm’s most-prized investments, including Airbnb, Uber, Houzz, Slack, Peloton and, more recently, fintech platform Plaid and subscription lifestyle brand FabFitFun. She holds stakes in those high-performing companies via Kleiner’s funds, not through Bond, which has yet to deploy capital, per a source.

Meeker continues to invest out of Kleiner Perkins’ Digital Growth Fund III, a $1 billion vehicle that closed in 2016. Now that Bond has the capital to invest too, Meeker will be busy backing startups with capital from both investment vehicles.

In her new effort, Meeker is joined by Kleiner’s entire former growth practice: Mood Rowghani, Noah Knauf and Juliet de Baubigny, all of whom are general partners in the debut fund.

With Bond, Meeker makes history in launching the first female-founded, female-led venture capital fund to cross the billion-dollar threshold. She is, however, one of several former Kleiner GPs to raise her own fund. Aileen Lee stepped out on her own to form Cowboy Ventures in 2012, Trae Vassallo launched Defy Partners in 2016 and last year Beth Seidenberg raised $320 million in September for Westlake Village BioPartners.

Meeker joined Kleiner Perkins in 2010 after two decades as a managing director at Morgan Stanley. As a well-established Wall Street tech analyst, she quickly rose the Silicon Valley ranks to become one of the few women to earn a GP title at Kleiner in an industry where women have traditionally been shut out from the highest roles.

Her exit from Kleiner, a firm that has been for decades worshipped by founders, damages a brand already suffering from a slew of high-profile exits and a pivot to renewable energies from which the firm never fully recovered.

Kleiner, however, continues to double down on its early-stage efforts under Ilya Fushman, a former investor at Index Ventures, and Hamid’s lead. Earlier this year, the firm closed on $600 million for seed, Series A and Series B-focused funds.

“The environment for venture has evolved — with larger checks being written for seed and A rounds and more support from partners required to build companies — demanding a high degree of specialization and extreme focus to excel,” a spokesperson for Kleiner Perkins said in a statement provided to TechCrunch following Meeker’s exit. “The changes in both areas have led to less overlap between venture and growth and creating two separate firms with different people and operations now makes sense.”

A new brain-computer interface takes the snap, crackle, pop from inside your motor cortex and translates it into digitally synthesized speech.

Ahead of what’s expected to be a disappointing earnings report, Tesla CEO Elon Musk predicts 1 million “robotaxis” on the road by next year.

Brave says it can show users ads while protecting their privacy; eventually, it hopes to also pay publishers.

James Holzhauer won a record $110,914 in a single game of ‘Jeopardy!’ by perfecting a playbook.

A new report from Pew Research backs up the idea that social media often doesn’t reflect the larger world around us.

The old Hollywood studios built thousands of ornate theaters across the country. Most have been torn down or abandoned.

Summer blockbuster season is here! And by “here” we mean in your living room!

Gavin Free and Dan Gruchy break down the techniques behind the internet’s most popular clips.

There’s still something film festivals provide that streaming services can’t: interactive social experiences in VR and AR.

This portable pizza oven packs a punch, but it’s overkill for amateurs.

WIRED’s favorite portable Bluetooth speakers of all shapes and sizes, from clip-ons to a massive boombox.