TechCrunch

Dispatches from the cutting edge of computer vision

1/13<p>Raising smartphone photos to DSLR quality<p>Don’t let the fundamental inferiority of your phone’s smaller sensor and lens get in the way of photographic greatness. This paper looked at photos of the same exact scenes taken on several platforms and modeled the differences between them. The result …

Amazon to add second Vancouver office and 1,000 more jobs by 2020

While Amazon has yet to reveal where in North America its second headquarters will be, the Seattle headquartered ecommerce behemoth has got Canadians excited by announcing it’s opening a second corporate office in Vancouver — and planning to double its staff headcount in the city, adding 1,000 …

Netflix cuts ties with House of Cards actor Kevin Spacey

More fallout from allegations surrounding House of Cards actor, Kevin Spacey: Netflix has said it will no longer work with the actor at all.<p>In a statement given to the Verge yesterday, a Netflix spokesperson said: “Netflix will not be involved with any further production of House of Cards that …

Niantic Acqui-hires Evertoon | Crunch Report

Aquantia up 6% following semiconductor IPO

Tech IPOs have been picking up lately and one lesser-known semiconductor company, Aquantia, made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange today.<p>The company raised $61 million in its offering, after pricing shares at $9.00. It closed the day of trading at $9.51.<p>Aquantia describes itself as “a leader …

4 TechCrunch writers bought the iPhone X. Here are our thoughts

Happy iPhone X day! A few of us over here at TechCrunch received our new toys today and wanted to share some initial thoughts with ya’ll.<p>Leggo.<p>First up, <b>Megan Rose Dickey</b>, the lunatic who at one point told co-workers she felt like she was on drugs during her initial iPhone X exploration.<p>I could …

Evolve Foundation launches a $100 million fund to find startups working to relieve human suffering

It seems there’s nothing but bad news out there lately, but here’s some good news — the nonprofit Evolve Foundation has raised $100 million for a new fund called the Conscious Accelerator to combat loneliness, purposelessness, fear and anger spreading throughout the world though …

Tusk Ventures has closed its debut fund with $36 million

Bradley Tusk, a former political operative who helps companies launch political-style campaigns, runs several businesses. One of them, Tusk Ventures, has been working with startups for a couple of years and until recently, accepted its payment in equity only.<p>That changed in early 2016 when the …

Inside Summit Series, the invite-only getaway striving for altruism

“Make No Small Plans” is the Summit Series motto, and it doesn’t. The “Burning Man meets Davos” event company has bought a mountain, rented cruise ships, and this week, is taking over Los Angeles.<p>If you can get an invite, Summit Series could see you learn to free dive or meditate, watch Quentin …

StarCraft II will be free to play starting November 14

It was only in April that Blizzard made the original <i>StarCraft</i> free to play, and now the company has done the same for its sequel. <i>StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty</i>, which is certainly the most-played real-time strategy game ever made, will be free for anyone to play starting on November 14. Of course …

Meural’s upgraded Canvas is a surprisingly awesome showcase for art

Meural’s second-generation Canvas digital art display is now available, and I’ve been testing one out for the past couple of weeks to see how it stacks up. This is my first experience with any kind of digital canvas product, and I have to admit I had very low expectations going into it – but the …

Original Content podcast: We have mixed feelings about ‘Stranger Things 2’

<i>Stranger Things 2</i> (as Netflix and the Duffer Brothers are calling the second season of their hit show) has been out for a full week, so some serious fans have already watched all nine episodes.<p>That includes TechCrunch’s Darrell Etherington and Anthony Ha, who have been bingeing the show all week. …

Snap, where are my anibitmoji?

The day we’ve all been waiting for is finally here. Apple’s highly-anticipated iPhone X has made it into the hands of everyday customers. I’m a big weirdo, so I’ve been mostly looking forward to being able to use Face ID for the purposes of animoji.<p>Animoji takes emoji to the extreme and it works …

Over 15 Million watched the ‘Stranger Things 2’ premiere by its third day on Netflix

Netflix definitely has a hit show on its hands with the recent release of <i>Stranger Things 2</i>. According to new data this week from Nielsen, which only recently began measuring subscription video on demand services, 361,000 viewers binged their way through the entire second season of <i>Stranger Things 2</i> …

In line for the iPhone X

On iPhone X launch day, Apple draws a crowd

Today, the iPhone X became available in Apple retail stores across the globe. And given the fanfare around iPhone launches for the past decade, we couldn’t help but show up and chat with one of the world’s most loyal consumer fan bases.<p>At Apple’s 5th Avenue Manhattan store, lines stretched down the …

Early-bird ticket deadline for Disrupt Berlin extended til 22 November

Friends, if you include yourself among the ranks of world-class procrastinators, we’re here to say that you just got lucky. We’re extending the deadline on deep discount savings for Disrupt Berlin tickets — until 22 November.<p>You read that right. You now have until 22 November to save 30 percent …

Niantic acqui-hires Evertoon to add a social network to Pokémon Go and other apps

Niantic, the company behind the hit mobile game Pokémon Go and its predecessor, Ingress, announced today it has acquired the team from the startup Evertoon to help it further build out its mobile products. Deal terms were not disclosed, but from how it’s described, the move seems to be more of an …

Hevo Data gets $1M in seed funding to streamline data integration

Going from food delivery to data integration might seem like an unlikely progression for a startup team, but it was a natural fit for Hevo Data’s founders. Manish Jethani and Sourabh Agarwal previously launched SpoonJoy, an on-demand restaurant delivery app in India. The challenges they encountered …

iPhone X teardown finds major changes inside the gleaming exterior

The iPhone 8 may have been filled with the expected kit, but we’ve all been looking forward to finding out what fun Apple’s engineers had putting together the all-new iPhone X — and it doesn’t disappoint. iFixit’s excellent-as-always teardown finds a wealth of strange new components inside the …

Twitter says it has “implemented safeguards” to prevent Trump account deactivation

President Trump’s Twitter account was deactivated on Thursday for 11 minutes at the hands of a rogue employee on their last day at the company. While many cheered the attempt at halting the controversial tweets, others expressed concerned at the lack of control Twitter had over its own service.<p>In a …

Unubo makes it easy to track what you or your startup spends on subscription services

Unubo, a new U.K. startup soft-launched a couple of months ago, is pretty meta: a software-as-a-Service to help you track the cost of SaaS and other subscription-based products or services you are signed up to. The web app let’s you add the services you use in various ways, including by optionally …

Amazon Fresh is shutting down in some neighborhoods, including ones in San Francisco

Amazon is pulling the plug on Fresh, its grocery delivery service, in parts of nine states throughout the country, Recode reports. So, if you live in certain parts of Connecticut, Massachusetts, Virginia, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and California, you’re out of luck.<p>When …

Twitter posts a new version of its rules with updated sections on abuse, spam, violence and more

Twitter today published a new version of its rules, in an effort to further clarify its policies about abuse, spam, self-harm and other topics, as well as to better explain how it determines the appropriate action – like suspending an abuser’s account, for example. The company says the updated …

WhatsApp’s hour-long outage today was global in scale, likely caused by software bug

Did WhatsApp go down for you earlier today? You weren’t alone. The Facebook-owned messaging service experienced a roughly hour-long global outage on Friday, which led to difficulties in accessing the app and sending messages to friends. While no online service is immune to the occasional hiccup, …

Lazy Jar’s app makes you pay for not exercising enough

Want to exercise more, but lack motivation? An app called Lazy Jar, aimed at Fitbit owners, may be able to help. The app actually penalizes you a monetary amount if you fail to meet the fitness goals you’ve set for yourself, in terms of metrics like steps per week, miles walked, or calories burned, …

Sources: Snap has acquired Metamarkets for less than $100M to step up its ad tech play

As Snap, the parent company of Snapchat, gears up to report its quarterly earnings next week, it looks like the company is making some moves to beef up its primary business line, advertising.<p>TechCrunch has learned that the company has acquired Metamarkets, an ad tech startup that provides …

Let’s meet in Muscat

I’ll be rolling through Oman next week for a conference and I thought it would be fun to see what the region has to offer. I’m holding one of my patented MicroMeetups in Muscat, Oman on Thursday November 9th from 3pm to 6:30pm.<p>We will meet at the Sheraton Oman.<p>There is no RSVP list so just show up! …

Snapchat fell out of the top 10 for first time in Q3

Snapchat’s mobile app fell out of the top 10 for the first time this year during Q3 2017, according to a recent report from Sensor Tower. The app, which had been ranked at #8 during Q2 2017 dropped to #18 on iOS during the quarter, but remained ranked at #2 on Google Play. Combined, that gave the …

Query friends or fans with new GIF and photo Facebook Polls

Facebook Questions first launched in 2010 as a Quora wannabe before shifting into lighter-weight polls, but Facebook shut the feature down in 2012. Apparently it was just ahead of its time as Facebook went poll-crazy this year, adding them to Instagram Stories and Messenger group chat as well as …