Alphabet’s Loon subsidiary, which aims to blanket the Earth in high-speed broadband Internet connectivity, has passed the 1 million hour mark in terms of total time spent in Earth’s stratosphere across all its flights. The balloons occupy the upper-edge of Earth’s atmosphere, in an altitude band between 50,000 and 70,000 feet, riding wind currents and […]

Transitioning between different types of professional roles can be challenging — new expectations arise, and fresh ways of seeing the world are required to be successful. A few weeks ago, I interviewed Anjul Bhambhri of Adobe about how she transitioned from engineering into product, where she now leads the company’s customer experience cloud. This week, […]

The Planetary Society’s pioneering spacecraft LightSail 2 is getting ready for its big moment – deploying the solar sail it carries on board, which should be able to propel the spacecraft using only the force of photons from the Sun striking its surface, if all goes to plan. You can watch live as it undergoes […]

Earlier this month, TechCrunch held its annual Mobility Sessions event down in San Jose, where leading mobility-focused auto companies, startups, executives and thought leaders joined us to discuss all things autonomous vehicle technology, micromobility and electric vehicles. Extra Crunch is offering members access to full transcripts key panels and conversations from the event, including a […]

Microsoft today published three data sharing agreements that it hopes can function as a basis for other organizations who want to create similar documents. In today’s announcement, Erich Andersen, Corporate Vice President and Chief IP Counsel at Microsoft, argues that while there are plenty of organizations that want to work together on shared datasets, the […]

Since the launch of its first electric scooter in 2015, Gogoro co-founder and CEO Horace Luke has frequently been asked when the startup is going to expand beyond Taiwan. In its home country, Gogoro’s two-wheel vehicles, with their distinctive swappable battery system, are now the top-selling electric scooters. But Luke says the company has always […]

Startups looking to expand the reach of financial services continue to receive a nod from investors. Zeta, a fintech firm that runs a full stack neo-banking platform and offers enterprise payments solutions, said today its valuation reached $300 million in its maiden outside funding. Sodexo BRS funded Zeta’s Series C round to take a minority […]

Last call, startuppers! TechCrunch’s Silicon Valley summer soiree — a.k.a. the 14th Annual TechCrunch Summer Party — is nearly sold out. If you want to join the brightest members of the startup community on July 25 and celebrate your intrepid entrepreneurial spirit, you’d best buy a ticket while you can. It’s now o’clock, people! This […]

Thumbtack just closed a new funding round of $150 million. Sequoia is leading the round, and the company is now valued at $1.7 billion. TechCrunch’s Kate Clark previously reported that the startup was raising again, but that it was a tough process. In a candid blog post, co-founder and CEO Marco Zappacosta admits that the […]

Huawei this week cut 600 positions from its Futurewei Technologies U.S. research arm, which operates out of Silicon Valley, Chicago, Washington state and Dallas. The move, which represents 70% of the division’s 850 roles, follows the hardware giant’s blacklisting by the U.S. government. Reuters initially reported the news via a source from the company who […]

Last July, Google announced its Contact Center AI product for helping businesses get more value out of their contact centers. Contact Center AI uses a mix of Google’s machine learning-powered tools to help build virtual agents and help human agents as they do their job. Today, the company is launching several updates to this product […]

Lyft is offering to the public a set of autonomous driving data that it calls the “largest public data set of its kind,” containing over 55,000 3D frames of captured footage hand-labeled by human reviewers, data collected by seven cameras and as many as three lidars depending on the car used, plus a drivable surface […]

CircleCI launched way back in 2011 when the notion of continuous delivery was just a twinkle in most developers’ eyes, but over the years with the rise of agile, containerization and DevOps, we’ve seen the idea of continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) really begin to mainstream with developers. Today, CircleCI was rewarded with a […]

In addition to Samsung and Vizio, LG announced earlier this year that it would be adding support for Apple’s ecosystem to its TV operating system. According to a tweet from LG’s Australian account, the webOS update that adds support for HomeKit and AirPlay 2 will be released next week. Homekit is releasing in 1 week. […]