Technology news

The CW’s supernatural series Supernatural will come to an end with its 15th season. The series follows brothers Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) Winchester as they follow their father’s footsteps in the “family business” — hunting down supernatural monsters. Since it premiered in 2005, the series has has garnered a massive fan following.The CW renewed the series for its 15th season in January. In a video message on Twitter, Padalecki, Ackles, and co-s

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.
What a Friday. This afternoon (mere hours after we released our regularly scheduled episode no less!), both Pinterestand Zoom dropped their public S-1 filings. So we rolled up our proverbial sleeves and ran through the numbers. If you want to follow along, the Pinterest S-1 is here, and the Zoom document is here.
Got it? Great. Pinterest’s long-await

Tropical Cyclone Idai struck the African countries of Zimbabwe, Malawi, and Mozambique a week ago, but humanitarian workers are only now grasping the scale of the storm's destruction. 
Hundreds are dead, and experts believe that number will rise sharply in the coming days. The storm brought catastrophic flooding that submerged entire villages and towns. The United Nations estimated that 2.6 million people were affected by the tragedy. 
"If these reports, these fears, are realized, then

It's bad enough Huawei Chief Financial Official Wanzhou Meng, who was arrested last December in Vancouver on charges ranging from fraud to money laundering, faces decades of jail time.
But now, a report from Bloomberg has revealed Meng might be a big fan of Apple products. 
SEE ALSO: Huawei announces it will sue the U.S. government
According to the report, a court filing has revealed Meng had her iPhone 7 Plus, iPad Pro, and MacBook Air seized by Canadian police at the time of her arrest. M

Last year, Dyson promised it would no longer develop corded vacuums, because, well, cords are annoying. But battery life is limited. When I reviewed the V10 last year, I had to constantly think about which power setting to use – do I want more suction or longer runtime? Dyson’s new V11 Torque Drive makes that a concern of the past. Dyson’s stuck a 20 percent more powerful motor and bigger battery in the vacuum, but the biggest change is the V11’s Dynamic Load Sensor. The

Microsoft is adding a graphing mode to the Windows 10 calculator. The company made the calculator open-sourced on GitHub earlier this month and has received over thirty suggestions from contributors so far, as spotted by ZDNet.The graphing mode is the first open-sourced suggestion to be chosen. It was Microsoft engineer Dave Grochocki’s idea, who suggested that students could use the graphing feature to study algebra. He pointed out that algebra is the stepping stone to more advanced math

It's finally Mueller Time and no one knows what the fuck is happening. 
Special counsel Robert Mueller finally delivered his report to Attorney General William Barr on Friday. The report investigates Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and has been a point of contention in Trump's two-year-long term. 
As soon as news broke late Friday afternoon, Twitter users went into full meltdown mode and began sharing their hot takes. This is gonna be like when the INSTALLIN

Pinterest is not happy with Facebook. 
The forgotten middle child of the social media family filed for an IPO on March 22, and in doing so the San Francisco-based company made a very public argument that its future is bright. That is, if Facebook doesn't screw things up for it first. 
Buried deep in the pages and pages of IPO-related disclosures resides a friendly little section called "RISK FACTORS." The section contains a lot of standard, boilerplate stuff about how things might not

Silicon Valley is known for its massive wealth. When these companies file to go public, we all finally get to know how much money these executives take home each year, and the millions they’ll take home after the IPO.
In Pinterest’s S-1, which it filed earlier today, we see that co-founder and CEO Ben Silbermann earned a salary of $197,100. But that’s actually nothing compared to PinterestCFO Todd Morgenfeld, who earned a base salary of $360,500 with stock awards worth $22,028,

The CW is saying goodbye to Supernatural. 
The beloved drama will wrap up with its already ordered 15th season in 2020. Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki, and Misha Collins broke the news in a video message right after they told their crew. They said they wanted fans to hear directly from them. 
SEE ALSO: All your favorite TV comedies end this year. Now what?
They also shared a message from Supernatural creator Eric Kripke saying, "In a show about family, it is amazing and the pride of hi

Heathcare kiosks, a home-cooked food marketplace, and a way for startups to earn interest on their funding topped our list of high-potential companies from Y Combinator’s Winter 2019 Demo Day 2. 88 startups launched on stage at the lauded accelerator, though some of the best skipped the stage as they’d already raised tons of money.
Be sure to check out our write-ups of all 85 startups from day 1 plus our top picks, as well as the full set from day 2. But now, after asking investors a

The latest Silicon Valley company to file for an initial public offering is Pinterest, the San Francisco-based social network and image board that in recent years has built a large advertising and commerce business from its growing user base. The company, although it is still not profitable, says it earned more than $750 million in revenue last year, and it’s cut its losses from nearly $200 million in 2016 down to just under $75 million annually. Pinterest says it was in fact profitable i

Earlier this year, Helen Greiner-founded drone startup CyPhy Works announced a major change. The company was rebooting and renaming itself Aria Insights, a move that arrived with a newfound AI/data-driven focus. Now, just over two months later, the company is no more.
Reports that Aria had shuttered began surfacing earlier this week. Moments ago, the company confirmed the move in a tersely worded statement offered to TechCrunch:
Aria Insights has ceased operations effective March 21, 2019.
That&

Pinterest,the nearly decade-old visual search engine, has unveiled its S-1 as it prepares for an initial public offering expected in April.
Valued at $12.3 billion in 2017, Pinterest took its first official step toward a 2019 IPO two months ago, hiring Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase as lead underwriters for its NYSE offering. Now it’s giving us a closer look at its financials.The San Francisco-based company, which will trade under the ticker symbol “PINS,” posted revenue of $

Zoom, the video conferencing startup valued at $1 billion in early 2017, has filed to go public on the Nasdaq as soon as next month.
The company joins a growing list of tech unicorns making the leap to the public markets in 2019, but it stands out for one very important reason: It’s actually profitable.
Zoomwas founded in 2011 by Eric Yuan, an early engineer at WebEx, which sold to Cisco for $3.2 billion in 2007. Before launching Zoom, he spent four years at Cisco as its vice president of

As we all anxiously await the Mueller report, a curious theory has emerged: What if Robert Mueller, special counsel of the Russia investigation and former director of the FBI, is just procrastinating?
On a Friday afternoon — a great time to put off work — a lot of people wrote tweets about what Mueller might be up to in his procrastination hole. Sure, they might have done these tweets instead of doing their jobs, but that only makes the tweets better and more appropriate. (I say this

The biggest surprise about next week’s Apple event may be the fact that the company has anything left to announce. This week, several core pieces of Applehardware received upgrades, including the iPad Air and mini, iMac and AirPods. Given the company’s rush to get all of that out the door, we don’t expect to see much in the way of new devices at Monday’s event.
Apple sent invites announcing that March 25 will be “Show Time.” The wording was a subtle nod to the

Netflix is testing a new mobile-only subscription plan in “select countries” including India that would only cost $3.63 a month. That’s half the cost of Netflix’s Indian basic streaming plan, which covers all devices and costs $7.27 (INR500), as spotted by Variety.Netflix told The Verge in a statement, “We are always looking for ways to make Netflix more enjoyable and accessible. We will be testing different options in select countries, where members can, for examp

A couple of years ago, Clark, a New York-based startup, appeared on the scene with tutoring software that aimed to both make it easier for educators to start and manage a tutoring business by handling on its platform all the work that tutors struggle to find time to do, from drumming up students, to managing scheduling and payments, to making it far simpler to communicate with parents.
Today the company is announcing a bit of a shift, moving away from simply selling access to its business softwa

When it comes to watching television, viewers typically watch everything in the same order — the show will either have a certain broadcast order, or its story will be such that watching it out of order would turn it into nonsense. With its new anthology series Love, Death + Robots, Netflix tried something new: testing out different episode orders to see which performed the best.
For such an anthology series, where each episode stands on their own, you don’t have to worry about makin

Google wants its upcoming game-streaming service, Stadia, to up the ante for live-streamed games on YouTube, but Google didn’t address the many ways its system could lead to harassment, demonetization, and other problems for creators
One of Stadia’s most exciting developments for YouTube creators is “Crowd Play,” a feature that allows creators to play games like NBA 2K19 with their viewers. It seems like a good idea on the surface, but Google’s presentation didn&rs

AT&T’s 5G E network isn’t actually 5G. You probably knew that, but since we’ll never get tired of dunking on it, a new study (via Ars Technica) now shows that 5G E isn’t just misleading, it proves that AT&T’s current 4G LTE speeds can actually be slower than other carriers who employ similar LTE Advanced and Advanced Pro technologies. Perhaps this is why AT&T is trying to sweep the lie under the rug.
The study by Opensignal measured and compared downloa

AT&T’s 5G E network isn’t actually 5G. You probably knew that, but since we’ll never get tired of dunking on it, a new study (via Ars Technica) now shows that 5G E isn’t just misleading, it proves that AT&T’s current 4G LTE speeds can actually be slower than other carriers who employ similar LTE Advanced and Advanced Pro technologies. Perhaps this is why AT&T is trying to sweep the lie under the rug.
The study by Opensignal measured and compared downloa

Scantrons are the bane of any student's existence. But this meme might make them a little less nerve wracking. 
If you went through any sort of school system, you probably had to use a Scantron form to take a test. After agonizing over a multiple choice question, you scratched in what you hoped was the right answer with a No. 2 pencil and prayed to the standardized testing gods that you won't get hit with a fuchsia incorrect mark.  
But the horrible test sheets are now a beautiful ASCI

Pretty much every self-driving car on the road, not to mention many a robot and drone, uses lidar to sense its surroundings. But useful as lidar is, it also involves physical compromises that limit its capabilities. Lumotive is a new company with funding from Bill Gates and Intellectual Ventures that uses metamaterials to exceed those limits, perhaps setting a new standard for the industry.
The company is just now coming out of stealth, but it’s been in the works for a long time. I actuall

Virginia transit officials don’t seem very impressed with Elon Musk’s tunnel and they had a very hard time trying to hide it.
The state’s public transit subcommittee is in talks to invest billions of dollars to upgrade its transportation systems. However, the board was worried that rail infrastructure projects would soon be rendered obsolete by technology like Elon Musk’s much-hyped tunnel. So, earlier this year Elon Musk’s Boring Company provided a tour of its tunn

Apple’s Beats is getting ready to launch truly wireless Powerbeats earbuds in April, CNET reports. CNET’s source, who it says is close to the retail channel, says the new earbuds will reportedly use Apple’s new H1 chip which are used in the new wireless charging AirPods, and have the same always-on Siri voice assistant. It’s also expected to have a longer battery life than the AirPods, which have around five hours of listening time.
CNET points out that the timing of the

Catching up on the winter TV you missed? 
Be sure to not skip over I Am The Night on Hulu this month. Starring Chris Pine and India Eisley, this dark mini-series tells the real-life story of Fauna Hodel, a young woman mysteriously connected to the infamous Black Dahlia murder. Sporting one of the most satisfying endings in a period drama, this is one limited series worth doubling back for.
If you're looking for spring fashion inspiration and a whole lot of drama, search no further than The

Intel has ended further development of the company’s Compute Cards, as confirmed by Tom’s Hardware. The credit-card-sized device contained the fundamental guts of a PC — processor, storage, RAM, wireless modem, etc. — and was meant to make it simple for companies to create docking station-like products that could be upgraded as Intel released new versions. You’d just pop out the old Compute Card and insert the latest hardware. Intel first showcased the device at CE

If you’ve been dying to get your hands on an Apple MacBook Pro with a Touch Bar, but haven’t wanted to fork over cash for the full price, you’re in luck — the 15-inch MacBook Pro is on sale for $2,499, a savings of $300.
This MacBook Pro model is equipped with an Intel Core i7 processor and has a 512GB capacity. Models with different capacity and processing levels are also available, though if you want the most bang for your buck, you should opt for the 512GB Intel Core i

March Mindfulness is our new series that examines the explosive growth in mindfulness and meditation technology — culminating in Mashable's groundbreaking competitive meditation bracket contest. Because March shouldn't be all madness. Read more...
FlowVR
$3.99 for the Oculus Go appView Product
The Good
Easy to make into a habit •especially with short sessions • Can meditate anywhere you have the headset • Calming and approachable
The Bad
Limited choices that don't update --

Mailchimp today announced that the Mailchimpapp, which let its users use their Shopify data to create targeted email campaigns, for example, is no longer available in the Shopify marketplace. The reason for this, Shopifyitself says, is that it “had growing concerns about Mailchimp’s app because of the poor merchant experience and their refusal to respect our Partner Program Agreement.”
Clearly, this isn’t the most amicable divorce.
“It’s critical for our merch

Crunchyroll, a leading anime subscription service, is raising its monthly subscription cost to $7.99, up from $6.95. The price hike is the first time Crunchyroll has raised the price of its basic, most widely purchased plan since the service first launched in 2006. The changes go into effect for new users on May 1st, 2019, while existing users get a three-month grace period. The news, first reported by TechCrunch, has since been confirmed by an email Crunchyroll has sent to subscribers.“C

Gaming is always a relatively expensive hobby, but most of us were hoping that the newest Xbox, PlayStation, or Nintendo Switch was as pricey as things were gonna get.
But then virtual reality entered the picture and $500 became the new $300.
While the HTC Vive may literally never have a decent sale (it has yet to drop below $480 on Amazon), your time to hop into the premium VR market is now: The Samsung HMD Odyssey+ Mixed Reality headset is on sale for $394.99 today, a whopping $105 less than t

Google may have stolen the show at this year’s Game Developer Conference with its Stadia cloud gaming reveal, but Microsoft is hard at work on its own service, xCloud, that it’s already testing now. At a GDC developer session yesterday, Microsoft representatives from the xCloud team gave us a little more detail into how games designed for Xbox consoles will translate over to mobile devices, where players might be used to either a Bluetooth controller or on-screen touch controls.xClo

Some dogs were just born to be on camera.
One pup, Stanley the Collie, recently made a big splash on Network 10 Perth, a local news station located in Western Australia.
Just look at how he commands control of the conversation. And please, turn the volume up if you can to hear the chomp. View this post on InstagramHey @stanleythecollie, don't eat that mic foam! It's bad for your tummy! Stick to the tennis balls... @beaup35 #dogs #fetch #goodboy #nomnom #perthdogs #celebrity #mediatraining
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