Voice recognition is a standard part of the smartphone package these days, and a corresponding part is the delay while you wait for Siri, Alexa or Google to return your query, either correctly interpreted or horribly mangled. Google’s latest speech recognition works entirely offline, eliminating that delay altogether — though of course mangling is still…
Twitter today is joining the podcasting arena. This morning, the social network is launching its first-ever podcast series with a new show focused on Twitter’s advertising business, which it’s calling “Character Count.” The company says, for now, it’s testing the waters with five already-produced episodes of around 25 to 30 minutes in length. It plans…
Russia has told internet providers to enforce a block against encrypted email provider ProtonMail, the company’s chief has confirmed. The block was ordered by the state Federal Security Service, formerly the KGB, according to a Russian-language blog, which obtained and published the order after the agency accused the company and several other email providers of…
Multi-cloud architecture is a huge trend in enterprise, and today F5 made a big move to bring its own business closer to it. The company, which provides cloud and security application services, announced that it has acquired NGINX, the commercial company behind the popular open-source web server, for $670 million. We’d actually been hearing murmurs of…
Tidal may be a distant competitor to Apple Music and Spotify, but much like Neil Young’s PonoMusic, Tidal is keeping its high-fidelity music service going far past its expected expiration date. Tidal’s most premium-est audio vision, Tidal Masters, gives your tunes a studio-quality kick (typically 96 kHz / 24 bit), a substantial bump beyond what…
After several days of speculation, today NVIDIA confirmed that it would acquire chipmaker Mellanox for $6.9 billion, paying $125 per share in cash, in an ongoing consolidation of chipmakers — and in this case those making chips for supercomputers, a crucial market segment in this age of cloud services. The deal is expected to close at…
From 3500 feet up California is a glorious patchwork quilt of green and gold, textured by rippling mountains and shining water. Ahead of us we see the Carquinez Bridge and the Bay; behind us, the fingers of Lake Berryessa curl into the steep hills. Twenty minutes ago I stood barefoot in the soft grass on…
Brian O’Malley has enjoyed a lot of success as a venture capitalist, thanks to bets on Bazaarvoice before its IPO, Dollar Shave Club before it was nabbed by Unilever, and a variety of other startups that were ultimately acquired or went public. It’s one reason that O’Malley, who began his venture career with Battery Ventures…
We’re starting an experiment for Extra Crunch members that puts the words of our wildly popular venture capital podcast, Equity, in your eyes instead of your ears. This week, the team discussed Y Combinator moving to San Francisco, Airbnb acquiring HotelTonight and an infusion of cash into the ride-hailing industry. But maybe you don’t like…
Welcome back to Transportation Weekly; I’m your host Kirsten Korosec, senior transportation reporter at TechCrunch . This is the fifth edition of our newsletter and we love the reader feedback. Keep it coming. Never heard of TechCrunch’s Transportation Weekly? Catch up here, here and here. As I’ve written before, consider this a soft launch. Follow…
