Urban-X, the urban-tech startup accelerator backed by MINI and early-stage urban-tech fund Urban.Us, hosted a demo day today for its fourth cohort of companies at its Brooklyn HQ. The seven presenting companies offered solutions to issues plaguing modern cities, including toll-road pricing, energy and construction management, and even the inefficiencies of modern cycling helmets. In a…
Earlier this month, media startup Tech In Asia surprised its readers when it announced plans to implement an $18 per month paywall. More expensive than packages for the Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal, the subscription went live this week. It’s designed to make the business self-sustaining after a tricky period of business in which…
It’s just one short week until we bring our premier startup competition to the Middle East and North Africa for the first time, and we are stoked! TechCrunch Startup Battlefield MENA 2018 takes place October 3 in Beirut, Lebanon. We’ve chosen 15 of the region’s best early-stage startups to compete head-to-head and — in the…
Remember the Surface Studio? It’s arguably the coolest computer Microsoft’s built, but nearly two years after launch, its specs feel stale. In fact, the device already felt pretty under-powered back in 2016 due to its choice of some mobile components and a last-gen graphics card. That’s why it’s pretty disappointing to see supposed benchmarks of…
Cybersecurity researchers at ESET have unveiled what they claim to be the first-ever UEFI rootkit being used in the wild, allowing hackers to implant persistent malware on the targeted computers that could survive a complete hard-drive wipe. Dubbed LoJax, the UEFI rootkit is part of a malware campaign conducted by the infamous Sednit group, also…
Elon Musk, founder and CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, is in deep trouble in the US. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed a lawsuit against the serial entrepreneur for fraud, alleging that he made “false and misleading” statements regarding his intention to take Tesla private with the aid of Saudi Arabian cash. This…
Sheryl Sandberg and Jack Dorsey — representing Facebook and Twitter, respectively — recently testified before Congress, this time evading questions about bias on their platforms. We frequently turn to tech executives to answer for such issues because they have the agency to make changes. But they are not alone. Overlooked are the tech employees —…
Update: There’s a live stream of the SEC press conference detailing the complaint: The Securities and Exchange Commission lodged a complaint today against Elon Musk following tweets sent last month by the CEO involving a planned private takeover of the electric car company at $420 a share. The filing from the Southern District of New York…
Tesla CEO Elon Musk described fraud charges filed Thursday by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission an “unjustified action” that has left him “deeply saddened and disappointed” in a statement sent to TechCrunch. The SEC alleges in a complaint filed against the CEO that Musk lied when he tweeted on August 7 that he had “funding…
Facebook might be doing its best to stay out of political scandals in the latter half of 2018, but the company had a presence, front and center, at one of the most contentious Senate hearings in modern history. Facebook’s Vice President of Global Public Policy at Facebook, Joel Kaplan, was spotted sitting prominently near his…
