After peppering Google employees with questions regarding Stadia’s latency, pricing and supported devices to mostly no avail, I got my hands on one of their new controllers and pressed play on the Doom 2016 gameplay they were showing off on a big-screen TV. Things started off pretty ugly. The frame rate dropped to a fast-paced […]

Uber Freight, the newly spun out Uber business unit that helps truck drivers connect with shipping companies, is kicking off its global expansion plans. The company said Wednesday it is launching the app in Europe, starting with the Netherlands. Local carriers and drivers will be able to book and move their first loads with Uber […]

Skymind, a Y Combinator-incubated AI platform that aims to make deep learning more accessible to enterprises, today announced that it has raised an $11.5 million Series A round led by TransLink Capital, with participation from ServiceNow, Sumitomo’s Presidio Ventures, UpHonest Capital and GovTech Fund. Early investors Y Combinator, Tencent, Mandra Capital, Hemi Ventures, and GMO […]

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. Apple announces new AirPods The new AirPods are fitted with the H1 chip, which is meant to offer performance efficiencies, faster […]

German startup Yoolox, makers of a portable wireless charger for smartphones, tablets and laptops, exhibited in Startup Alley at Disrupt with the goal of spreading awareness of their first products, Yoolox 10k and 16k. Given Disrupt’s global brand exposure, Yoolox decided it would be the perfect place to debut what they had been working on: […]

As of 12:02am Eastern today, Disney has closed its acquisition of 21st Century Fox . The goal of the enormous deal is to help Disney position itself for a streaming-centric future. The company has already taken a step in that direction with the ESPN+ streaming service, and it has plans to launch another service called […]

Tech has a bad reputation for pulling money out of musicians’ pockets, but Splice is changing that. The audio sample marketplace and music production collaboration tool has now paid out $15 million to artists since 2013, doubling in the last year. Splice lets musicians sell their sounds for royalty-free use, and songs by Eminem, Ariana […]

After years of high-profile onstage announcements, Oculus has decided to quietly deliver the successor to its flagship Rift virtual reality headset, confirming most bits of our October report with the release of the new Oculus Rift S. As we first reported, the biggest improvements to the Oculus Rift S are a move to the company’s […]

Skedulo, a service that helps businesses manage their mobile employees, today announced that it has raised a $28 million Series B funding round led by M12, Microsoft’s venture fund. Existing investors Blackbird and Castanoa Ventures also participated in this round. The company’s service offers businesses all the necessary tools to manage their mobile employees, including […]

Serena Williams, the global sports and fashion icon and investor, is doubling down on her relationship with the dating app Bumble with today’s announcement that she will serve as an investor in its Bumble Fund.  Launched in 2018, the Bumble Fund backs early-stage businesses founded and led by women of color and underrepresented groups. The […]

Streaming video is the key to Peloton’s success. But like any good spin class, it’s the soundtrack that really does the heavy lifting. A new suit filed by The National Music Publishers’ Association alleges that the wildly successful exercise startup used north of 1,000 songs in its classes without the proper licensing. The suit features […]

Amazon rules the roost when it comes to e-commerce marketplaces in countries like the U.S., but today it’s announcing a deal that it hopes will be a start to its plan to have that same kind of ubiquity outside of its walled garden. The company has inked a deal with Worldpay for the latter to […]

From Extra Crunch Patreon, the focus of our first EC-1, has now announced the new pricing tiers that they telegraphed in our deep dive. New reports discuss the growing demand for foreign talent and consumer annoyance with media fragmentation (i.e. can’t everything just be on Netflix?) One of our Verified Expert lawyers, José Ancer, discusses […]

If you work in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, you could be one of the first consumers to ride in a self-driving car in the state of New York. That’s thanks to autonomous vehicle startup Optimus Ride, which today announced its plans to deploy self-driving vehicles to the 300-acre development in Brooklyn. The development houses 400 […]