Waymo is partnering with Lyft to bring self-driving vehicles onto the ride-hailing network in Phoenix as the company ramps up its commercial robotaxi service. Waymo will add 10 of its self-driving vehicles onto Lyft platform over the next few months, according to CEO John Krafcik. Once Waymo vehicles are on the platform, Lyft users in…
If you’re going to go carrier exclusive, Verizon (disclosure: our parent company’s parent company) is probably about as good as any. Ultimately, however, exclusives invariably do more harm than good when it comes to growing your footprint. That’s no doubt a key part of why Google had a rocky financial quarter when it came to…
Barcelona-based Hubtype has raised a €1 million (~$1.1M) seed round led by Madrid-based early stage VC firm, K Fund. The team last raised when the business was founded, back in February 2016, when they took in €235,000 in a mix of public and angel funding. Hubtype targets enterprises and developers with customer service focused tools…
When it comes to voting, we’ve come a long way from dropping pebbles into an amphora — but still not nearly far enough if the lack of confidence in our election systems is any indication. Microsoft is the first major tech company to take on this problem with a new platform it calls ElectionGuard that…
Twitter is finally letting you do more with Retweets. In a small but useful update rolled out today, Twitter will now allow users to add a photo, video or GIF to a Retweet, instead of only text. The feature is live today on iOS, Android and Twitter’s mobile website. Though a seemingly minor upgrade, the…
We’re inviting hundreds of think-outside-the-boxers — coders, devs, engineers and tech makers — to compete onsite at the TechCrunch Hackathon, which takes place during Disrupt San Francisco 2019 on October 2-4. Are you up for the adventure? Participating in the hackathon is free, and all competitors receive Expo Only passes for days one and two,…
No one does brand synergy quite like Lego. The company’s been one of the biggest Star Wars licensers over the years, and for the first time, it’s applying one of the most valuable pieces of IP to its own line of STEM kits, Lego Boost. For this year’s Star Wars Day, the Danish company is…
The major darknet marketplace known as the Wall Street Market has been seized and its alleged operators arrested in a joint operation between European and U.S. authorities. Millions in cash, cryptocurrency and other assets were collected, and the market shut down. How investigators tied these anonymity-obsessed individuals to the illegal activities is instructive. The three…
The White House has refused to exempt the “brain” of Tesla’s Autopilot technology from punitive import tariffs, a decision that could delay or disrupt the company’s self-driving ambitions, TechCrunch has learned. At a special “autonomy day” event last week, Tesla CEO Elon Musk unveiled advanced Autopilot 3.0 hardware, including a new custom chip intended 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. Facebook bans a fresh batch of mostly far-right figures The banned figures include Milo Yiannopoulos, Paul Joseph Watson, Laura Loomer, Paul…
