Category: Tech news

 The subscription makeup service Deck of Scarlet, a business unit of the subscription-based perfumerie ScentBird, is making the jump to the material retail world with a presence in Urban Outfitters. It’s the latest step in the company’s campaign to take the world of beauty and perfume by storm. The company, which has started with a makeup palette for sale in two Urban Outfitters… Read More

 Good news, everyone! We survived 2017! Each December, the TechCrunch staff members (our writers, editors, video, and social teams) get together and make a big ol’ list of our favorite things from that year. The apps, or gadgets, or movies, or music (or really anything) we loved. We tend to be a pretty picky bunch, and these are the things that made, and continue to make, the cut. These… Read More

 Unbound, a sexual wellness startup for women, recently raised $2.7 million from Founders Fund, Slow Ventures, Arena Ventures, SoGal Ventures and others. Founded by Polly Rodriguez of Women of SexTech, Unbound aims to empower women to own their sexuality. “Raising money is always hard but it took an exceptional amount of resilience,” Rodriguez said. Unbound’s bread and butter… Read More

Eric Schmidt was the hired-gun CEO whose balancing act with co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin propelled Google to great heights.

On this week’s show, we talk about the services, apps, and companies that went belly-up in 2017.

Thanks to advances in batteries, brain-controlled robotics, and AI, today’s mechanical limbs can do everything from twist and point to grab and lift.

We say goodbye to all of this year’s tech casualties.

Daimler acquires a majority stake in an Uber competitor in France, Sequoia Capital’s next fund could be a $5 billion one and an iced tea company changes its name to Long Blockchain and its value skyrockets. All this on Crunch Report. Read More

 Mattermark, the site for startup and company data, is shutting down its own business after selling in a disappointing outcome to FullContact.
In a document obtained by TechCrunch, co-founder and CEO Danielle Morrill wrote that “common stockholders will not be receiving anything in this deal.” In other words, Mattermark employee shares are worthless.
It was just last year that… Read More

 Here’s an unexpected but pleasant little way tech might be able to improve a few lives: laser shoes. Yes, seriously. Shoes equipped with small laser emitters were shown in recent tests to help sufferers of Parkinson’s disease to walk normally. Read More

 The Max sounds good. But is it $399 good? On the whole, it’s a solid offering. It isn’t a flashy speaker from a design perspective, but the audio is loud and clear, and the bass bumps like a mofo. Read More

 I watch with increasing trepidation at the direction Apple is taking its products. The most recent concern came yesterday from Bloomberg that Apple intends to offer its software developers new libraries that will allow apps to serve both touchscreen interfaces like the iPhone as well as traditional mouse and keyboard setups on desktop computers using a single unified set of APIs. Read More

 More than a year and a half ago, I wrote about Coach, a startup offering tools for tutors and other freelancers to make money and operate their business online. Since then, the company has shifted focus in a big way, and it recently announced that it’s raised $3 million in seed funding. It’s got a new name, too — Podia. Read More

 A bipartisan group of lawmakers in the Senate has introduced a bill designed to protect the technical integrity of American elections as the nation moves toward midterm season. Introduced in the Senate, the bill known as the Secure Elections Act. Read More

 Huge numbers of people are upset at the FCC’s decision to undo its own highly popular net neutrality rules. But the grand plans to undo this mischief being announced left and right should be taken with a grain of salt. Unfortunately, it all comes down to politics. Read More