From the offices of venture capital firms to the financial services districts, it’s hard to escape the siren’s song of FinTech start-ups. Take a structural shift to mobile, an ever decreasing cost of computing power, the availability of lots of (big!) data, mix in one part artificial intelligence, one part distributed ledgers and we have the perfect recipe for how technology… Read More
Looking beyond the hype at FinTech in Southeast Asia
From the offices of venture capital firms to the financial services districts, it’s hard to escape the siren’s song of FinTech start-ups. Take a structural shift to mobile, an ever decreasing cost of computing power, the availability of lots of (big!) data, mix in one part artificial intelligence, one part distributed ledgers and we have the perfect recipe for how technology… Read More
Pokévision, and other popular third-party tracking apps that helped Pokémon Go players discover which Pokémon were nearby and see their location on a map, have been shut down. The move follows comments from Niantic’s CEO John Hanke last week, where he referred to to the use of such sites as cheating, and hinted that the company was poised to take action against them. In an… 
A fortnight after offering news that it will be using Apple’s ReasearchKit to conduct arthritis research, drug giant GlaxoSmithKline has announced that it will be teaming with Verily, the Alphabet-owned LLC formerly known as Google Life Sciences, to create Galvani Bioelectronics. The jointly owned venture (55-percent GSK, 45-percent Verily) will work to explore bioelectronic medicine,… 
Technology Crossover Ventures, the VC that has backed the likes of Facebook, Spotify, LinkedIn, WorldRemit and Zillow as well as more nascent investments, has closed a fund that will see the company taking many more bets in the near future. TechCrunch has learned and confirmed that it has now closed TCV IX, a $2.5 billion fund that it plans to use for growth-stage investments. “We… 
Hard to believe, but the Olympics are less than a week away, and all of that training you’ve been doing, sitting on the couch watching various sporting events, is finally about to pay off. And Google would like to help facilitate the realization of those long standing goals. Like pretty much every other company in the world, the search giant is working an angle for the Rio events.… 
I get the chance to test out quite a bit of first-generation consumer gadgets. And while a few are great, the majority just aren’t able to meet the high threshold of quality that Apple has (for better or worse) subconsciously instilled in all of us. So it’s always a nice surprise to find a hardware startup that can build a product that just looks good and does what it… 
Panaray. Panaromic and array. Made by Bose, the $3,700 optional Panaray audio system puts 34 tiny speakers around the Cadillac CT6’s cabin with the goal of creating an immersive soundstage. This is more than creating a surround sound system. It’s about creating an environment of sound. And it works. 
Hot off the heels of its acquisition of Yahoo last week for $4.8 billion, today Verizon announced another huge purchase: it’s buying Fleetmatics, a telematics company based out of Dublin, Ireland, for $2.4 billion in cash to build out the products that it offers to mobile workforces. The deal comes about six weeks after Verizon announced that it would acquire another company, Telogis,… 
U.S. companies needing to transfer personal data of European customers across the Atlantic can now sign up to a new framework to govern such data transfers, with the so-called EU-US Privacy Shield up and running from today. 
The impacts of the U.K.’s Brexit vote to leave the European Union will undoubtedly be playing out for years and years to come. But here’s one short term effect: the HTC Vive VR headset is now £70 more expensive — rising from its original pricing of £689 to £759 (+ P&P) from today. 
Video advertising platform Teads has raised a further $47 million in debt financing. Providing the capital are a bank syndicate made up of BNPP, Bank of China, HSBC, Banque Palatine, and BPI. 
China’s Didi Chuxing has confirmed that it has agreed to buy Uber China in a deal that had been heavily speculated earlier today. 
TechCrunch first caught wind of Lumo’s smart pants with the running sensor last October. It was a breakout product from its posture trainer Lumo Lift and a first step into both connected garments and the running industry. You can check out our video review with Lumo co-founder Monisha Perkash here. Lumo’s pants needed the sensor to go in a special pocket to work when we last caught… 
Even as a deal is imminent and its closest competitor Didi Chuxing in the immense Chinese market, competition continues to intensify around the globe. Africa is one region where entrants continue to pile in. In Kenya’s tech transit market, which already includes Uber and several other startups, Safaricom, the country’s largest telecom and fintech firm, has recently launched its… 
Didi Chuxing’s proposed acquisition of Uber’s Chinese business hasn’t even been confirmed, but the gravity of the deal — Didi will hold stakes in all of the planet’s top ride-sharing firms — has already prompted responses from others in the industry. 
Huge news for China’s ride-sharing industry, it appears that Didi Chuxing will gobble up rival Uber China in a deal that will value the combined entity at $35 billion. 
Philips is no stranger to health. In fact, Philips Healthcare (nee Philips Medical Systems) comprises a bit chunk of the multinational corporation, providing some serious industrial equipment for hospitals, from CT scanners to defibrillators. It’s no surprise, then, that the company’s been angling to make progress in the booming consumer wearable space – or that… 
Pundits are painting a picture of doom and gloom for startups, saying it will be harder to raise money. What do you think? I think the next several months and possibly years will be challenging for raising capital. There has definitely been a reset. The market was over extended in an unhealthy way and we are seeing the impact across the board. The catalyst for this reset has been the collapse… 
This week on Technotopia I talk to Rob Anderson, founder of Convergent Media Group and a former founding team member at MTV Russia. Anderson has some interesting ideas on education and the necessity for a true way to assess and hire based on personality types and skills. Anderson is constantly hiring for his media company and he’s looking forward to a future when we will all be working a… 
The Israeli startup scene has dramatically changed within a couple of years because of the significant increase in investment prospects, events, meet-ups, competitions, lectures, academic programs and more. Especially interesting are the recent alterations in the diversity of the entrepreneurs, with more and more women entering the previously male-dominated startup habitat. 
