We’ve reached a new milestone in the long road to getting AI-based self-driving systems to be truly autonomous. Daimler and Bosch have now received approval from German regulators to run their automated driverless parking function without a human safety driver behind the wheel — making this the world’s first fully automated driverless SAE Level 4 parking…
Bird is raising a Series D round led by Sequoia Capital at a $2.5 billion valuation, TechCrunch has learned. Sources, however, did not indicate the size of the round. This round follows reports from The Information that Bird was looking to raise $200 million to $300 million by the end of this summer, at a…
Short-form video app TikTok, which hosts 15-second clips, was undoubtedly the star of VidCon — almost every TikTok panel was standing room only. Since launching in 2016, the app has grown to 500M monthly active users globally, far surpassing its predecessor, Musical.ly (which maxed out at 100M). In contrast to perfectly curated Instagram feeds, the content…
Amazon this morning announced its intentions to open a pair of robotic-powered fulfillment centers in Ohio. The two warehouses — both larger than 700,000 square feet — will be located in the north of the state, in Akron and Rossford, respectively. They’ll function much like Amazon’s other shipping centers, providing a collaborative workspace between human…
Trading on China’s new Nasdaq-style stock market began today, with 25 tech companies listed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board, operated by the Shanghai Stock Market. Called the STAR Market, the board is an initiative by the government to encourage more Chinese tech companies to list domestically by addressing concerns about governance. Traders cautioned…
More posts by this contributor In big tech’s future expansion plans, public good should be the corporate incentive To actually change the world, Big Tech needs to grow up From Toronto to Tokyo, the challenges faced by cities today are often remarkably similar: climate change, rising housing costs, traffic, economic polarization, unemployment. To tackle these…
Reminder: Extra Crunch Event Discounts for Summer Party TechCrunch’s annual Summer Party is just around the corner next week — come meet all the staff at the Park Chalet beer garden on the Pacific Coast in San Francisco this Thursday evening. We handed out 50 free tickets to EC subscribers this past week by email,…
Seems Hongmeng isn’t the Android replacement it’s been pitched as, after all. The initial story certainly tracked, as Huawei has been preparing for the very real possibility of life after Google, but the Chinese hardware giant says the operating system is primarily focused on industrial use. The latest report arrives courtesy of Chinese state news…
Shahin Farshchi Contributor More posts by this contributor Four ways to bridge the widening valley of death for startups Building a great startup requires more than genius and a great invention Sense and compute are the electronic eyes and ears that will be the ultimate power behind automating menial work and encouraging humans to cultivate…
Introduced a few I/Os back, Fast Pair is Google’s attempt to make its own mark on the post-AirPod headphone landscape. Many of the features are similar to Apple’s offerings, but Google’s got a leg up in one key way: third-party hardware. Like Android, the company’s focused on bringing Fast Pair to as many manufacturers as…
