Technology news

The right advice at the right time can make all the difference for your company. So this year at Disrupt SF (Oct. 2-4), we’re going to try to help startup founders get an extra level of insight. We’re hosting a set of workshops with experts in fundraising, growth and hiring, where attendees can submit questions and materials ahead of time and potentially talk with them live at the event.
Fundraising: Top seed investors Charles Hudson (Precursor Ventures) and Anu Duggal (Female Founde

Tesla released its latest software update, V10, on Thursday, and amongst the new games, streaming services (Spotify at last!), and Joe Mode, came an autonomous driving update.
Customers who have a Full Self-Driving capable car or Enhanced Autopilot package already had a Summon feature through the Tesla mobile app. Now they have Smart Summon. And everyone is trying it out. 
Smart Summon goes beyond its predecessor's simple ability to remotely move the car forward and backward while outside t

It looks like Cats has some competition.
A fan-made mash-up bringing together "Truth Hurts" and Disney's 1970 classic, The Aristocats was good enough to earn a shout and a share from Lizzo herself. View this post on InstagramTHIS IS BIG PUSSY ENERGY
A post shared byLizzo (@lizzobeeating) on Sep 28, 2019 at 10:07am PDTThe video comes from fan Brendan Carey, who first shared it on Friday on his Instagram. It's not clear when Lizzo first saw it, but Carey, a self-described Lizzbian, was clearly thr

Japan Airlines is giving passengers as much information as possible to help them decide where they want to sit on a flight. 
On Tuesday, a frequent flyer noticed a kid icon on the seating chart for his 13-hour flight on JAL, as the Japanese airline is known. He tweeted out his gratitude for what he called a warning "about where babies plan to scream and yell."Thank you, @JAL_Official_jp for warnings me about where babies plan to scream and yell during a 13 hour trip.This really ought to be

Where does tech end and media begin? It can be hard to find the dividing line, particularly as tech companies move into the media business, and as big Hollywood blockbusters are increasingly created on computers.
So even though TechCrunch’s Disrupt SF event (happening next week!!) is ostensibly a tech conference, we’ll have plenty of big names from the worlds of media and entertainment onstage to discuss the changing landscape.
On day one, those names include Joseph Gordon Levit

EC Editorial Announcements
TechCrunch Disrupt SF is this week: join us on the Extra Crunch stage
TechCrunch’s biggest event of the year is happening this coming week at the brand-new Moscone North convention center in SF. We have wall-to-wall programming on our inaugural Extra Crunch stage, where audience members can ask questions to our panelists on topics as diverse as growth marketing, recruiting, fundraising, legal quandaries, and more.
If you want to join but haven’t bought your

SpaceXis all set to deliver an update on the status of its Starship program, courtesy of CEO Elon Musk. Musk will provide new info about “the design and development of Starship” at 8 PM CDT (9 PM EDT/6 PM PDT) tonight, live from the company’s Boca Chica rocket assembly facility in South Texas.
The likely backdrop for the update will be the Starship Mk1 orbital prototype, the second flight-testing vehicle SpaceX has produced in its development of Starship. The first, Starhopper

On Friday night, a completely unremarkable college football game produced something extraordinary. The Virginia Tech Hokies didn't do much to write home about on the field, but on the sideline, a robot celebrated the few points they scored in its own way.
ESPN's broadcast of Friday night's Virginia Tech-Duke matchup captured footage of a robot that does pushups for each point Virginia Tech scores. When the Hokies kicked a field goal to go up 3-0 in the first quarter, the robot peeled off three q

SpaceXis set to show off its Starship Mk1, an orbital-scale prototype of the spacecraft it eventually plans to use to attain its goal of fully reusable commercial spaceflight. Starship is the key ingredient not only to fully reusable launch and cargo vehicles for serving commercial clients; it’s also the next most important step in SpaceX and Elon Musk’saudacious plan to get humans to Mars and sow the seeds that will help us become an interplanetary species.
Starship Mk1 is the evolu

Google launched YouTube Music four years ago, but Android owners have been able to avoid it. Until now, anyway.
In a Friday blog post, Google announced the YouTube-branded music streaming service would supersede Google Play Music as the default music player on Android devices. It'll come pre-installed on new Android 9 and Android 10 devices, though Google was quick to note that Google Play Music can still be downloaded from the Play Store.
This probably won't be all that disruptive in the short

In these times, climate change and the effects of a warming planet are top of mind, especially with recent extreme weather events, Donald Trump administration policy roll-backs, and climate activists like Greta Thunberg reminding us how we're destroying her future.
So in true 2019 fashion, the heartwarming story of the week isn't about a kitten and a duck snuggling, but about a gas station in Maryland fully embracing emission-free transportation, or at least cleaner energy than gasoline to power

“Between Two Ferns: The Movie” is based on the comically confrontational web interview series starring Zach Galifianakis. In fact, some of us assumed that the film might be nothing more than one interview after another.
The movie does indeed have plenty of celebrity interviews, but they’re connected by a loose narrative thread in which Galifianakis and his crew have been dispatched by their corporate overlord Will Ferrell to crisscross the country, trying to film 10 interviews

It’s hard to understand the exact impact of 5G connectivity, but we must pay attention to its risk to create an even bigger digital divide. Some experts predict that 5G will offer up to 600x times faster internet speeds compared to 4G. With the first 5G infrastructure and device rollouts starting to happen, now is the time to pay attention to the impact of 5G on internet equality. Unfortunately, 5G will not be equally distributed, at least at first. The transition to widespread 5G availab

Microsoft's answer to Pokémon Go is finally ready for showtime.
Minecraft Earth is an augmented reality game in the vein Niantic's 2017 hit, and its "early access" phase of release is officially set to begin in October. Fans interested in participating can sign up starting on Sep. 28 at the game's website.
Signing up means you'll be notified when Minecraft Earth launches in your country. Microsoft's plan is to roll out the early access in smaller markets – exactly where isn't clear

The app industry shows no signs of slowing down, with 194 billion downloads in 2018 and over $100 billion in consumer spending. People spend 90% of their mobile time in apps and more time using their mobile devices than watching TV. In other words, apps aren’t just a way to spend idle hours — they’re a big business. And one that often seems to change overnight. In this new Extra Crunch series, we’ll help you keep up with the latest news from the world of apps — incl

This evening, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk will give an update on the design and future of his company’s next-generation rocket, Starship, a massive vehicle that is meant to take people to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. The concept for Starship has evolved in numerous ways over the last few years, and now Musk plans to reveal the vehicle’s latest blueprints.
Musk is giving an hour-long presentation on the rocket at SpaceX’s test facility in Boca Chica, Texas, a tiny town just north of the

Cars might still reign supreme, but things they are a changin’. And companies are lining up to provide new ways — and some recycled ones — for people to get from Point A to Point B.
The past several years have seen an explosion in startups, automakers and tech companies launching and testing products from scooters and electric bike shares to ride-hailing, electric vehicles, autonomous vehicles and even flying taxis. Or heck, even space travel.
Even as more mobility startups pop

It's been a big year for black holes. Back in April, NASA gave us our first direct glimpse of an existentially terrifying gravitational event, and now, the agency has gotten another look at what one can do to a star much like our own sun.
NASA announced this week that Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (or TESS) managed to spot what's called a tidal disruption event. In layman's terms, that's when a star gets a little too close to a black hole and, well, it stops being a star after that.There

Buried deep in the "someday" folder of my Todoist is the germ of a book I am nowhere near brave  enough to write: "A Year Without Screens." Picture it: 365 days in which you shun all smartphones, computers, and TV. It could be a nightmare, or it could be incredibly good for real-life relationships and create mad focused reading skills (for one thing, imagine only learning about Trump's onslaught of outrages in a once-daily newspaper). 
Is that digital-free life even possible in the 21s

I’m filling in for Jake this week, and this is usually where he writes some pithy thoughts about a movie or show that he watched recently. I was really hoping that there would be a new Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker trailer out so I could write about that, but, sadly, there wasn’t. Although, if history is anything to go by, we’ll probably get one sometime over the next few weeks, so hopefully there won’t be too long to wait.I did watch Once last week. It was very cute,

One of the big themes we’ve been tracking for a few years now is Amazon’s various attempts to make Alexa useful outside your home. Amazon has a very good value proposition for customers inside their houses: Echo speakers are great for music, timers and such in the kitchen, and smarthome controls.Amazon clearly has ambitions to make Alexa the leading platform for ambient computing. But to do that, it needs more ubiquity than it can achieve right now. That’s one reason that Amazo

By now, you probably know who 16-year-old Greta Thunberg is. From the brilliant shade she threw at President Trump after he mocked her heartfelt speech at the U.N. Climate Action Summit, to leading the Global Climate Strike of 4 million people, it's clear she's a superstar climate activist who isn't going anywhere.  
But she's not the only young person demanding action on the climate crisis.
Here are five young climate activists you should also follow.
1Alexandria Villaseñor, 14 year

Welcome to CHEAP, our series about things that are good, but most of all, cheap. CHEAP! For a long time I wasn’t really a fan of smart speakers. The idea was cool, but relying only on audio seemed like a clumsy way to interact with technology. Then, I started using smart speakers with screens. It changed everything. Smart speakers now finally made more sense to me. You could use voice commands to get visual results. Browsing music and watching videos was possible. Basically, screens

Hello and welcome back to Startups Weekly, a weekend newsletter that dives into the week’s noteworthy news pertaining to startups and venture capital. Before I jump into today’s topic, let’s catch up a bit. I’ve been on a bit of startup profile kick as of late. Last week, I wrote a little bit about Landline, a bus network backed by Upfront Ventures. Before that, I profiled an e-commerce startup called Part & Parcel.
Remember, you can send me tips, suggestions and feed

Welcome to TNW Basics, a collection of tips, guides, and advice on how to easily get the most out of your gadgets, apps, and other stuff. I have a confession to make, I’m terrible at picking something to watch on Netflix. I’m getting better at using other tools to find something that tickles my taste buds, but I still fall into the old trap of watching whatever is suggested. Often, after five minutes, I realize that I’ve chosen to watch a steaming hot pile of visual garba

What a week it has been, from Spider-Man returning to the MCU, Google celebrating its 21st birthday, Naughty Dog releasing a brand new trailer for their up and coming AAA game, The Last of Us Part II. Confirmed that the game will be launching on February 21, 2020, and pre-orders for it has already begun at Amazon for $59.99.
Check out more of today's best deals from Amazon, Walmart, Home Depot, Adorama, Rakuten, and Verizon Wireless for Saturday, Sept. 28.Read more...More about Gaming, Smartphon

It's tough to practice real self-care when the internet's obsessed with #selfcare. Let Mashable help with our new series Me, My Self-Care & I.As the concept of self-care has spiralled out from the original definition, one of its new mutant meanings stands out: Self-care is actually just self-parenting. 
It’s the care in caretaking, being the stern but loving voice in your own head that fights the whining kid who doesn’t wanna — telling yourself to go to bed at a sensib

Our robot colleague Satoshi Nakaboto writes about Bitcoin every fucking day. Welcome to another edition of Bitcoin Today, where I, Satoshi Nakaboto, tell you what’s been going on with Bitcoin in the past 24 hours. As Isaac Newton used to say: Let’s pull this rabbit out the hat! Bitcoin Price We closed the day, September 27 2019, at a price of $8,251. That’s a minor 1.71 percent increase in 24 hours, or $138. It was the highest closing price in one day. We’re still 58 per

What a nuisance is a faulty memory. How many times have you forgotten where you parked the car? A few years ago, probably as a sign that my retirement was overdue, I spent literally half a day trying to find my car at a major New York airport. Fortunately, I am not alone. When people find out I am an expert on memory, the first thing they ask me is normally whether I can help them be less forgetful. Indeed, excessive forgetting is a major problem, but “normal” forgetting is actually

Technology is constantly changing, with everything from cars to homes becoming smarter by the day. If you're thinking, "Yeah, but Facebook, Google, and Amazon are recording all of our personal data in the process," you're not wrong. But don't let that taint your view of technology as a whole. You can still get the convenience and flexibility of the coolest tech without them — just make it yourself.
Platforms like Raspberry Pi and Arduino are making DIY tech easier and more affordable than

Welcome to TNW Basics, a collection of tips, guides, and advice on how to easily get the most out of your gadgets, apps, and other stuff. I’ve owned iPhone after iPhone. Ever since my first iPhone 5c, I’ve never backed it up to iCloud — and for no good reason, really. It was just something I refused, which resulted in countless notifications from Apple saying it’s been “87,359 weeks since I last backed up my iPhone.”  I could no longer face the noti

Can't sleep? Us either. 
It seems like most of us are constantly trying to catch up on sleep. But spoiler alert: we never will. According to the Center For Disease Control and Prevention, more than a third of Americans aren’t getting enough shut-eye. From work anxiety to entirely too much screen time to snoring partners, sleep is a never-ending battle. And without enough of it, we're all a bunch of cranky, irritable jerks.
Fortunately, there's a solution that promises to help you wake

Unless you live under a rock, you know you can find just about anything on the internet – even things you never knew existed. But having constant access to super cool stuff means you need to be extra careful when it comes to figuring out what's actually worth the money and what's a cheap gimmick. You don't want to end up filling your home with a bunch of pointless junk — Marie Kondo would be so disappointed. 
Don't worry — we're here to help you spark some joy. We've scour

When Dieter Döpfer, the founder of music instrument manufacturer Doepfer, decided to launch a brand new modular synthesiser system in 1995, no one could have predicted what would follow. Today, his “Eurorack” format supports an ecosystem of hundreds of manufacturers that have collectively produced thousands of compatible modules used by famous musicians, such as Radiohead, Chemical Brothers and Aphex Twin, and hobbyists alike.
Fuelled by passion not venture capital, most compani

Teslabroke national labor laws when it unfairly prevented workers from unionizing, an administrative law judge in California ruled Friday.
The ruling, which will likely be appealed, was first reported by Bloomberg. Tesla has not responded to a request for comment. TechCrunch will update the article if Tesla responds.
The automaker and CEO Elon Muskwere ordered by Judge Amita Baman Tracy to take several actions to remedy the violations, including reinstating and giving backpay to a fired pro-unio