San Francisco is getting closer to banning the sale of e-cigarettes in the city in a bid to prevent minors from accessing them—but the new legislation may also hurt adult smokers who are trying to quit. The city’s Board of Supervisors today voted unanimously to approve two proposals: legislation that would ban the sale or delivery…
There are a number of key differences between Apple’s AirPower and lookalike knockoff, AirUnleashed. The most pertinent one, however, is that one of the two is actually available for purchase. Apple gave up the AirPower ghost back in March, after having gone silent on the product for some time, citing an inability to “achieve [its]…
There has been a longstanding gulf between the consumption music and the creation of it: not everyone has the time or money to spend on lessons and instruments, and for those in school, many music education programs have been cut back over the years, making the option of learning to play instruments for free less…
Optimizely, a platform that offers tools for A/B testing and personalization on the web and in mobile apps, today announced that it has raised a total of $105 million. This includes a $50 million Series D round led by Goldman Sachs Private Captial, with the participation of Accenture Ventures, as well as $55 million line…
GuestReady, a three-year-old service that lets shared-economy hosts manage their business on Airbnb and other rental sites, has announced a $6 million Series A round. The investment was led by existing backer Impulse VC — the Russian fund that is backed by billionaire Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich — and new addition VentureSouq from Dubai. Other…
Get ready for summer in the city, TechCrunch -style. We just released a fresh batch of tickets to the 14th Annual TechCrunch Summer Party. Available on a first-come, first-served basis, tickets to our popular event sell out quickly, and they’ll be gone before you know it. Don’t wait — buy your ticket today. Join us…
Silicon Valley is entering a new phase in its quest for diversity and inclusion in the technology industry. Some advocates call this part “the end of the beginning,” Code2040 CEO Karla Monterroso tells TechCrunch. At first, advocates were focused on calling out the lack of diversity at tech conferences, pressuring companies to release diversity data…
A few months after nabbing a handsome $500 million funding round, China’s shared housing startup Danke Apartment got a talent boost. On Monday, Danke announced the appointment of Gu Guodong as its new chief operating officer to ramp up the company’s offline operational crew. Gu, whose nickname is Michael, stepped down from Baidu after five…
French startup PayFit is raising a new $79 million funding round (€70 million) from Eurazeo and Bpifrance. The company first started with a payroll service for small and medium companies in France. It has evolved into a full-fledged HR solution for multiple European countries. PayFit uses a software-as-a-service approach so that small companies can easily…
American Airlines, the world’s largest airline by fleet size and passenger traffic, has finished rolling out satellite-based broadband Wi-Fi to its entire mainline narrowbody fleet of over 700 aircraft (that is, the Boing 737s and Airbus A319 and 320 that typically fly the company’s domestic routes). All of these satellite-equipped planes also offer access to…
