Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey isn’t in the VR hardware business these days since getting canned by Facebook (he’s focused on smart border security at his new company Anduril), but he still wants people to like the product he helped design. A couple of months back he detailed some of the rather intricate mods he had […]

Foldables are going to get weird. And I’m here for it. Just check out these leaked TCL renders from CNET. All manner of strange and wonderful folding devices — two tablets and three smartphones, including one that flips all the way around into a Futurama-style bracelet. There are renders for tablets and phones that fold […]

HiHello, the latest startup to take aim at business cards with its own digital alternative, has raised a $2.5 million seed round to continue its efforts in building a better contact management solution designed for the mobile era. The new financing was led by August Capital, K9 Ventures and TenOneTen Ventures, and will see Villi Iltchev […]

Mark Zuckerberg recently revealed that commerce is a huge part of the 2019 road map for Facebook’s family of apps. But before people can easily buy things from Instagram etc., Facebook needs their credit card info on file. That’s a potentially lucrative side effect of Instagram’s plan to launch a Fundraiser sticker in 2019. Facebook’s own […]

In addition to competing for smart speaker market share, Google and Amazon are also competing for developer mindshare in the voice app ecosystem. On this front, Amazon has soared ahead — the number of available voice skills for Alexa devices has grown to top 80,000 the company recently announced. According to a new third-party analysis […]

The Japanese conglomerate SoftBank and Mubadala, the Abu Dhabi state investment company, have a closely intertwined relationship, and it’s one that the two are further cementing. According to the Financial Times, SoftBank has just committed half the capital for a new $400 million fund from Mubadala that aims to back European startups. Industry observers might […]

WireGuard could be the most promising VPN protocol in years. It lets you establish a connection with a VPN server that is supposed to be faster, more secure and more flexible at the same time. The developers launched a brand new app in the Mac App Store today. WireGuard isn’t a VPN service, it’s a […]

More than a year on from a child safety content moderation scandal on YouTube and it takes just a few clicks for the platform’s recommendation algorithms to redirect a search for “bikini haul” videos of adult women towards clips of scantily clad minors engaged in body contorting gymnastics or taking an ice bath or ice lolly […]

Apple has always been an evolving company. While it never really invented any product categories, it always seemed to make those product categories work better and smarter. It also found a way to make us want them, even when they were more expensive. Today, the WSJ reports, Apple is trying to find its way to […]

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here. 1. Stop saying, ‘We take your privacy and security seriously’ Zack Whittaker says that in his years covering cybersecurity, there’s one variation […]

Netflix is no longer in the Marvel superhero business, with the cancellation of “Jessica Jones” and “The Punisher.” The writing has been on the wall since last fall, when the streaming service canceled its other three Marvel shows — “Iron Fist,” “Luke Cage” and “Daredevil.” Plus, showrunner Melissa Rosenberg was already announced to leave “Jessica Jones” […]

Perhaps hoping to distract from Greenpeace’s latest report on its “dirty cloud,” Amazon this morning announced a new environmental commitment, focused on reducing its carbon footprint. The company says it aims to reach 50 percent of all Amazon shipments with net zero carbon by 2030. The company is calling this program “Shipment Zero.” Details on this […]

Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is quite reliable when it comes to Apple’s road map. And he shared a ton of information over the weekend in a new report obtained by 9to5mac. In 2019, you can expect a bigger MacBook Pro, a new display and upgrades to iPhones, iPads and AirPods. Let’s start with the Mac. […]

“The Breaker Upperers” kicks off with an ingenious premise: What if you could pay an agency to take care of your awkward romantic break-ups? And what if that agency was run by two longtime friends who are starting to drift apart? The film was a big hit in New Zealand last year and is now […]