The web version Google Meets can soon detect when someone is underexposed due to bad lighting. Meet will then increase the brightness so it’s easier to see yourself and your cohorts on calls.
Amazon bets on Hindi voice shopping to reach wider India
Speaking of Amazon — which is reportedly conducting an investigation to find whether its lawyers bribed government officials in India — the company announced today it plans to roll out the voice shopping experience feature in the Hindi language in the South Asian market ahead of the Diwali festival in early November. The e-commerce giant, […]
The GoPro-ification of the iPhone
Hello friends, and welcome back to Week in Review! Last week, we talked about some sunglasses from a company that many people do not like very much. This week, we’re talking about Apple and the company 1,600 times smaller than it that’s facing similar product problems. If you’re reading this on the TechCrunch site, you […]
Google abused dominant position of Android in India, antitrust probe finds
Google has abused the dominant position of Android in India to illegally hurt competitors in the world’s second largest internet market, a two-year antitrust probe by the nation’s watchdog has found. The Android-maker reduced device manufacturing firms’ ability and incentive to develop — and sell — devices running alternative versions of Android (more popularly known […]
Google reportedly plans to add free channels to its smart TV platform
Chromecasts and other devices powered by Google TV might give users access to free, ad-supported streaming television channels in the future, according to a new report.
Apple and Google bow to pressure in Russia to remove Kremlin critic’s tactical voting app
Apple and Google have removed from their respective mobile app stores in Russia a tactical voting app created by the organization of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny. Earlier this week Reuters reported that the Russian state had been amping up the pressure on foreign tech giants ahead of federal elections — appropriating the language of […]
Confluent CEO Jay Kreps is coming to TC Sessions: SaaS for a fireside chat
As companies process ever-increasing amounts of data, moving it in real time is a huge challenge for organizations. Confluent is a streaming data platform built on top of the open source Apache Kafka project that’s been designed to process massive numbers of events. To discuss this, and more, Confluent CEO and co-founder Jay Kreps will […]
Tyk raises $35M for its open source, open-ended approach to enterprise API management
APIs are the grease turning the gears and wheels for many organizations’ IT systems today, but as APIs grow in number and use, tracking how they work (or don’t work) together can become complex and potentially critical if something goes awry. Now, a startup that has built an innovative way to help with this is […]
Google’s R&D division experiments with newsletters powered by Google Drive
Following entries into the newsletter market from tech companies like Facebook and Twitter, Google is now experimenting with newsletters, too. The company’s internal R&D division, Area 120, has a new project called Museletter, which allows anyone to publish a Google Drive file as a blog or newsletter to their Museletter public profile or to an […]
News aggregator SmartNews raises $230 million, valuing its business at $2 billion
SmartNews, a Tokyo-headquartered news aggregation website and app that’s grown in popularity despite hefty competition from built-in aggregators like Apple News, today announced it has closed on $230 million in Series F funding. The round brings SmartNews’ total raise to date to over $400 million and values the business at $2 billion — or as […]
Constructor finds $55M for tech that powers search and discovery for e-commerce businesses
One of the biggest problems in the world of e-commerce is the predicament of shopping cart abandonment: when shoppers aren’t getting to what they want fast enough — whether it’s finding the right item, or paying for it in a quick and easy way — they bounce. That singular problem is driving a wave of […]
South Korean antitrust regulator fines Google $177M for abusing market dominance
The Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) said on Tuesday it fined Google $177 million for abusing its market dominance in the Android operating system (OS) market. The U.S. tech company has restricted market competition by prohibiting local smartphone makers like Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics from customizing their Android OS, through Google’s anti-fragmentation agreements (AFA), […]
Rezilion raises $30M to help security operations teams with tools to automate their busywork
Security operations teams face a daunting task these days, fending off malicious hackers and their increasingly sophisticated approaches to cracking into networks. That also represents a gap in the market: building tools to help those security teams do their jobs. Today, an Israeli startup called Rezilion that is doing just that — building automation tools […]
Billogram, provider of a payments platform specifically for recurring billing, raises $45M
Payments made a huge shift to digital platforms during the COVID-19 pandemic — purchasing moved online for many consumers and businesses, and a large proportion of those continuing to buy and sell in-person went cash-free. Today a startup that has been focusing on one specific aspect of payments — recurring billing — is announcing a […]
WhatsApp will finally let users encrypt their chat backups in the cloud
WhatsApp said on Friday it will give its two billion users the option to encrypt their chat backups to the cloud, taking a significant step to put a lid on one of the tricky ways private communication between individuals on the app can be compromised. The Facebook-owned service has end-to-end encrypted chats between users for […]
Microsoft acquires TakeLessons, an online and in-person tutoring platform, to ramp up its edtech play
Microsoft said in January this year that Teams, its online collaboration platform, was being used by over 100 million students — boosted in no small part by the COVID-19 pandemic and many schools going partly or fully remote. Now, it’s made another acquisition to continue expanding its position in the education market. The company has […]
The 2022 Chevrolet Silverado gets a tech upgrade, hands-free trailering and a new ZR2 off-road flagship
GM unveiled Thursday the 2022 Chevrolet Silverado, a full-sized pickup truck that received a major technology upgrade, including its hands-free Super Cruise advanced driver assistance system and an infotainment system with embedded Google services, as well as an overhauled interior. A new flagship trim, the off-road ZR2 truck with a factory-installed suspension lift, has also […]
UK dials up the spin on data reform, claiming ‘simplified’ rules will drive ‘responsible’ data sharing
The U.K. government has announced a consultation on plans to shake up the national data protection regime, as it looks at how to diverge from European Union rules following Brexit. It’s also a year since the U.K. published a national data strategy in which said it wanted pandemic levels of data sharing to become Britain’s […]
Google and Jio delay their India smartphone launch
The JioPhone Next, the much-awaited smartphone designed by Google and India’s Jio Platforms to tap hundreds of millions of users in the world’s second-largest internet market, won’t launch on Friday, the Indian technology giant said Thursday midnight. In a statement issued just now, Jio Platforms said it has been testing the smartphone with a “limited […]
Investors are doubling down on Southeast Asia’s digital economy
Southeast Asian tech companies are drawing the attention of investors around the world. In 2020, startups in the region raised over $8.2 billion, about four times more than they did in 2015.
Review: Facebook’s Ray-Ban Stories make the case for smart glasses
Facebook’s first pair of smart glasses doesn’t feel like much of a Facebook product. You won’t find the Facebook logo emblazoned on them or even its name in small print by the serial code. They aren’t “Facebook Stories” or “Ray-Ban’s Facebook Stories” or even “Ray-Ban Stories in collaboration with Facebook.” Unlike other Facebook-designed hardware like […]
AI-driven voice assistant PolyAI raises $14M round led by Khosla Ventures
“Conversational AI” startup PolyAI, based out of London, has raised $14 million in a funding round led by Silicon Valley’s Khosla Ventures, with participation from existing investors (Point72 Ventures, Amadeus Capital, Sands Capital Ventures, Passion Capital and Entrepreneur First). This follows their $12m Series A, and will provide resources for further US expansion beyond its […]
Google Workspace opens up spaces for all users
Google is tying everything together with a handbook for navigating hybrid work, which includes best practice blueprints for five common hybrid meetings.
Check out who’s coming to TC Sessions: SaaS 2021
On October 27, less than two fast-moving months away, we’re hosting TC Sessions: SaaS 2021, our first event focused exclusively on the software-as-a-service ecosystem. SaaS — the de facto business model for B2B and B2C startups and enterprises alike — shows no sign of slowing down. This is a prime opportunity to hear and learn […]
After years of inaction against adtech, UK’s ICO calls for browser-level controls to fix ‘cookie fatigue’
In the latest quasi-throwback toward ‘do not track‘, the UK’s data protection chief has come out in favor of a browser- and/or device-level setting to allow Internet users to set “lasting” cookie preferences — suggesting this as a fix for the barrage of consent pop-ups that continues to infest websites in the region. European web […]
Mobius Labs nabs $6M to help more sectors tap into computer vision
Berlin-based Mobius Labs has closed a €5.2 million (~$6.1M) funding round off the back of increased demand for its computer vision training platform. The Series A investment is led by Ventech VC, along with Atlantic Labs, APEX Ventures, Space Capital, Lunar Ventures plus some additional angel investors. The startup offers an SDK that lets the […]
The cocktail party problem: Why voice tech isn’t truly useful yet
Our voice technologies have not been engineered to confront the messiness of the real world or the cacophony of our actual lives.
Report: India may be next in line to mandate changes to Apple’s in-app payment rules
Summer is still technically in session, but a snowball is slowly developing in the world of apps, and specifically the world of in-app payments. A report in Reuters today says that the Competition Commission of India, the country’s monopoly regulator, will soon be looking at an antitrust suit filed against Apple over how it mandates […]
UK now expects compliance with children’s privacy design code
In the U.K., a 12-month grace period for compliance with a design code aimed at protecting children online expires today — meaning app makers offering digital services in the market which are “likely” to be accessed by children (defined in this context as users under 18 years old) are expected to comply with a set […]
Google appeals ‘disproportionate’ French copyright, talks fine
Google is appealing the more than half a billion-dollar fine it got slapped with by France’s competition authority in July. The penalty relates to the adtech giant’s approach toward paying news publishers for content reuse. In a statement today, Sebastien Missoffe, a Google France VP and country manager, characterized the fine as “disproportionate” — claiming […]