Year: 2018

 Amazon’s a la carte TV subscription service, Amazon Channels, just added another big name to its lineup. Today, Amazon and CBS announced that CBS’s over-the-top streaming service, CBS All Access – yes, the home to the new “Star Trek” – will now be available on Amazon Channels. However, only the higher-priced, $9.99/month commercial-free subscription will… Read More

 Netflix’s original film Bright has been decimated by critics, but Darrell Etherington and Anthony Ha, the hosts of TechCrunch’s Original Content podcast enjoyed it — kind of? Maybe? As Darrell put it: “I don’t regret watching it.” To be clear, it’s a very silly movie, combining Lord of the Rings-style high fantasy with the kind of morally ambiguous… Read More

 Amazon wants to bring Alexa to more devices than smart speakers, Fire TV and various other consumer electronics for the home, like alarm clocks. The company yesterday announced developer tools that would allow Alexa to be used in microwave ovens, for example – so you could just tell the oven what to do. Today, Amazon is rolling out a new set of developer tools, including one called… Read More

 Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This episode, the first of 2018, saw our own Katie Roof and your humble servant (Alex) joined by Atish Davda, CEO and founder of EquityZen. Matthew Lynley is off this week. (Davda’s firm put together a landing page for Equity, which we thought was… Read More

 Another pre-CES announcement out of Samsung’s PC department less than a week ahead of the show. This time it’s a refresh to the Notebook 7 Spin, a convertible tablet with a 360-degree 13-inch display. It’s a update to last year’s well-received model that garnered solid reviews for packing a decent amount of firepower in under $1,000.  The new device joins the new… Read More

 In what is Mark Zuckerberg’s now-traditional New Year Speech, the Facebook supremo pledged to fix the social network’s many problems which bubbled up in 2017. Perhaps understandably, that admission hogged the headlines but Zuckerberg also said he plans to study encryption and the blockchain “see how best to use them in our services.” That statement comes amid a period… Read More

 In what is Mark Zuckerberg’s now-traditional New Year Speech, the Facebook supremo pledged to fix the social network’s many problems which bubbled up in 2017. Perhaps understandably, that admission hogged the headlines but Zuckerberg also said he plans to study encryption and the blockchain “see how best to use them in our services.” That statement comes amid a period… Read More

 The rise of ICOs surprised many in the tech industry, helping blockchain companies raise close to $4 billion in 2017, and that’s all set to continue with a twist in 2018. Beyond continued momentum for ICOs, also known as token sales, leading ICO companies themselves are set to start investing. TechCrunch understands that at least half a dozen companies who raised money via ICOs and each… Read More

 Insurtech was one of the big VC bets of 2017, and that looks set to continue into the new year as startups spot gaps in the insurance market. Continuing this trend is Dinghy, a new startup that offers “flexible” insurance for freelance professionals, all delivered and managed through a mobile app. Read More

 The nightmare is a reality in India. Reports from the country suggest that the government’s national ID system — Aadhaar, which holds personal data belonging to more than one billion people — was compromised. On the slight positive side, the breach wasn’t down to hackers — at least on this occasion. The access hole was publicized after Indian newspaper The… Read More