Technology news

The dating startup world is notorious for few exits, and a similarly slim number of buyers. There’s Match Group, which owns Tinder, Hinge and OkCupid, and there’s Spark Networks, which owns Christian Mingle, JSwipe, Jdate and Zoosk.
Dating.com Group also owns a slew of dating brands, like Dil Mil, a dating app for South Asians. And it just closed a $50 million corporate venture capital fund to invest in more.
Dmitry Volkov, the founder of Dating.com Group, said that he’s lookin

Instagramis finally preparing to copy Snapchat’s most popular feature, and one of the few it hasn’t already cloned. Instagram has prototyped an unreleased ephemeral text messaging feature that clears the chat thread whenever you leave it, a Facebook spokesperson confirms to TechCrunch. That could make users more comfortable with having rapid-fire, silly, vulnerable, or risque chats, thereby driving up the reply notifications that keep people opening Instagram all day long.Instagram a

This is a difficult time. Whoever and wherever you are, your life is likely already changing in ways you never could have anticipated as the world grapples with the fast-spreading global outbreak of a virus we don’t yet fully understand.
It’s weird and hard and we’re feeling it too. Now more than ever, diving into new skills, old interests and even — perhaps especially — totally fluffy mindless entertainment can keep our minds refreshed and our days full. From at-ho

Scopely, the mobile gaming publisher behind titles including Marvel Strike Force, Scrabble Go, Yahtzee with Buddies, and Star Trek Fleet Command, has added another $200 million to its hoard of cash for mergers and acquisitions.
While some startups are fearing a cash crunch, other businesses seem to be preparing to go on a shopping spree. The economic slowdown has many businesses reconsidering their prospects and it’s a good time for startups and established businesses with lots of cash to

Dave Struzzi ContributorShare on Twitter Dave Struzzi is the founder of Fame Arcade, a consultancy that works with innovative technology brands. His book, "App Store Fame and Fortune," was among the first to explore best practices for mobile app marketing.As organizers cancel events with massive attendance, like SXSW (400,000 attendees), E3 (66,000), GDC (65,000) and Mobile World Congress (100,000), mobile game developers have felt the crunch. At a show like SXSW, larger developers can spend mor

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Facebook has begun rolling out the overhauled version of its desktop site. Starting today, users have the option to opt in to the new design, which places a heavier emphasis on two of Facebook’s most critical features: events and groups. The redesign was previously exclusive to the Facebook mobile app and was first announced at the company’s F8 developer conference last year.“Starting today, the majority of people on Facebook will have a

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube will introduce a new row of verified videos to its homepage for anyone trying to find authoritative news on the ongoing coronavirus story.Pulling from a list of authoritative news outlets and local health authorities that upload to YouTube, the goal is to provide people with a source of information that is more reliable than just general videos on the subject uploaded by random users. Videos are generated algorithmically, according to YouTube, wit

Kickstarter is giving creators extra time to meet their crowdfunding goals. On Thursday, the company said any creator with a campaign live now can request a seven-day extension. To ask for extra time, they just have to email [email protected] from the email address associated with their project along with a link to the campaign.Kickstarter says creators have reached out to say COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, has affected existing campaigns on the platform, and the

This week, Extra Crunch hosted a call with General Catalyst managing director Niko Bonatsos to discuss a number of startup topics, including what the novel coronavirus is doing to investing in the Valley, as well as his thoughts on robotics, homeschooling, edtech, SMBs, international investing and what he’s looking to see today in startups. Joining me on the live call was my fellow Equity host Alex Wilhelm and a couple of dozen EC members.
If you missed this conference call for EC members,

In an effort to ensure that the latest updates related to COVID-19 are as visible as possible, YouTubeannounced today that they’re launching a dedicated hub on the YouTube home page for stories related to the coronavirus outbreak.
For YouTube, the dedicated shelf is a means of promoting “authoritative content” to users. In the U.S., most of these videos appear to be from national publications. It will be rolling out in 16 countries with more on the way, according to the company

illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The Game Developers Conference, an annual gathering of game creators in San Francisco, has been rescheduled after being delayed earlier this year. The original event, which was slated to take place this week, was postponed at the end of February due to the novel coronavirus pandemic. (Many of the scheduled talks have since been streamed on Twitch.)
The new version, dubbed GDC Summer, will be a three-day-long event that kicks off on August 4th, with a show

Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images GameStop is instructing its retail employees to keep stores open, even in the face of local authorities who would seek to shut them down over coronavirus-related lockdowns. In a memo first obtained by Kotaku, employees were told that “due to the products we carry that enable and enhance our customers’ experience in working from home, we believe GameStop is classified as essential retail and therefore is able to remain open during this time.”

Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images GameStop is instructing its retail employees to keep stores open, even in the face of local authorities who would seek to shut them down over coronavirus-related lockdowns. In a memo first obtained by Kotaku, employees were told that “due to the products we carry that enable and enhance our customers’ experience in working from home, we believe GameStop is classified as essential retail and therefore is able to remain open during this time.”

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge Tesla will temporarily shut down its car manufacturing plant in Fremont, California, starting on Monday, March 23rd, after days of back-and-forth with the local authorities about whether the company was exempt from a recent shelter-in-place order. The company will also suspend most operations at its solar panel factory in Buffalo, New York.Tesla says it will keep some “basic operations” up and running, like work on its charging infrastructure. The

Teslawill suspend production at its Fremont, Calif., factory beginning March 23, days after a shelter in-place order went into effect in Alameda County due to the COVID-19 pandemic and sparked a public tussle between the automaker and local officials over what was consider an “essential” business.
Some basic operations that would support Tesla’scharging infrastructure and what it describes as its “vehicle and energy services operations” will continue at the factory,

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Snap is rolling out its Here For You search tool a bit earlier than planned to help users who may be feeling anxious or stressed over the coronavirus pandemic, the company says. The Here For You tool was first announced in February, and it’s designed to surface “safety resources” from mental health experts when users search for topics like anxiety, depression, suicide, or bullying.The company has now added a coronavirus-specific section

Microsoft’s Windows 10 operating system passed a billion active users earlier this week, and the company is now marking the occasion with a video that teases new features and UI changes. In an Instagram video from Windows and Devices chief Panos Panay, Microsoft has revealed it’s pushing ahead with changes to the Windows 10 Start menu that will see the company deemphasize its Live Tiles.
Microsoft is planning to reduce the color of the blocks of the tiled interface on the Start menu

At TechCrunch, we aim to deliver a great show no matter what. We’re constantly looking at ways to broaden the reach of Disrupt — in 2018, for instance, we added several new pricing tiers to make sure the show is as accessible as possible.
That’s why today we’re announcing plans to offer access to Disrupt SF content and networking opportunities virtually for our flagship event. We’ve been thinking about this for a long time, as there have always been people who would

Nvidia is making its Parabricks tool available for free for 90 days (with the possibility of extension, depending on needs) to any researcher currently working on any effort to combat the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic and spread of COVID-19. The tool is a GPU-accelerated genome analysis toolkit, which leveraged graphics processing power to take a process that previously took days, but that through its use can be accomplished in just a matter of hours.
Researchers will still need access to N

The wild ride that has been U.S. stock market over the past couple of weeks may be settling down — at least for the moment — from the whiplash-like swings that helped set global markets on edge.
The new economic normal that the pandemic has brought to countries across the world seems to be settling on weary investors as the extent of COVID-19 becomes more clear and as proper testing begins to roll out along with massive trillion dollar aid packages.
Wall Street responded to repo

Getty Images/iStockphoto As more and more workplaces transition to being remote, we’re learning how to navigate all the aspects of working digitally. Meetings are moving entirely online, which means that we’re attending a lot of video conference calls. If you don’t have a lot of experience with video conferencing, it may take some getting used to — especially when your whole team’s now working remotely. While it’s helpful to treat it like an in-person meeting

Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images Uber will stop blocking drivers in New York City from signing on to its app, which it has been doing since summer 2019. The company says it wants to give drivers one less thing to worry about amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Uber began restricting drivers’ access to the app after the city passed a law in late 2018 requiring ride-hail companies to pay drivers at least $17.22 an hour after expenses. The pay formula uses a so-called “utilization

A recovered COVID-19 patient donates blood in Beijing.| Photo by Cui Nan/China News Service via Getty Images When a new virus like the novel coronavirus appears and starts infecting people, one critical asset in the fight against it is blood from people who were sick and then recovered. These blood samples can help scientists understand how the immune system responds to it, and can help in the search for therapies to treat the disease.That’s why, this week, the Vaccine Research Center at

The U.S. State Department has issued an unprecedented “do not travel” warning to U.S. citizens, as the number of coronavirus-related infections jumped sharply overnight.
The advisory said U.S. citizens should “avoid all international travel due to the global impact of COVID-19,” the coronavirus strain which last week was declared a global pandemic. The advisory added that citizens abroad should “arrange for immediate return” unless they are prepared to stay ov

It was, it seems, only a matter of time before something like this happened. As we noted in yesterday’s FreshDirect story, not everyone has the ability of being able to shelter in place during the spread of COVID-19. In fact, the more of us who stay put, the more strain we’re going to put on workers who play a role in getting products and supplies to our doors. 
Amazon today confirmed that an employee in its Queens, N.Y. fulfillment center has tested positive for the novel coron

Photo by Al Seib/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images Charter Communications is updating its work-from-home policy Thursday, following numerous reports from employees who said the company had required them to report to work in person despite the coronavirus pandemic. The company said in a statement to The Verge that it would “provide the option to work remotely to employees we believe can remain productive outside the office without endangering our obligation to provide critical services.&r

Image: Nvidia Microsoft has a new version of its industry-standard DirectX 12 (DX12) gaming and multimedia graphics technology called DirectX 12 Ultimate, which promises to better unify the feature set and capabilities of Windows gaming with the Xbox platform. It’s not getting a release until later this year, but we can expect it to support the Xbox Series X at launch sometime this holiday season.DX12 Ultimate isn’t a giant leap over standard DX12, the graphics API first released ba

U.K. takeout marketplace Just Eat has announced a 30-day emergency support package for restaurants on its platform to help them through disruption caused by the coronavirus crisis.
From tomorrow (March 20) until April 19 the package — which Just Eat says is worth £10 million+ — will see funds directed back to U.K. partner restaurants in the form of a commission rebate of one-third (33%) on all commissions paid to Just Eat by restaurants; and via the removal of commissions acros

With most new social media startups seeming to dial in on specific communities to thrive in a still Facebook-dominated sphere, some of the more broadly focused social investments from top VCs are going into online gaming.
The latest is Mainframe Industries, a Nordic game studio building a massively multiplayer online title. The team doesn’t have much to share of what their title will actually look like gameplay-wise, they’re just saying it’s a sandbox MMO designed for cloud str

Neighborhood social networking app Nextdoor has introduced two new features, Help Maps and Groups, to give people a way to better support one another during the coronavirus outbreak. The Help Map offers a way to coordinate aid between those in need, like the elderly and at-risk, and those willing to offer some form of assistance — like running errands or dropping off supplies, for example. Groups, meanwhile, allows smaller groups to network outside of the main feed.
Nextdoor had the techno

Netflix will take new actions to reduce bit rates of streams in Europe following a conversation between the European Union Commissioner Thierry Breton and CEO Reed Hastings, the company announced on Thursday.
“Netflix has decided to begin reducing bit rates across all our streams in Europe for 30 days,” a spokesperson said in a statement to The Verge. “We estimate that this will reduce Netflix traffic on European networks by around 25 percent while also ensuring a good quality

Today, Slack, a popular internal chat application, announced that it added 7,000 new customers between February 1 and March 18. That is 47 days. For context, Slack added 5,000 customers total in its preceding quarter, making its recent customer adds impressive.
Slack, like other companies whose products can help facilitate remote work, has seen a boom in usage due to the COVID-19 pandemic that has forced people to work from home. TechCrunch covered that fact this morning, saying that the company

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge I’m always on the lookout for off-the-beaten-path Twitch streams, and today, a pal recommended a great one: a mechanic who streams himself fixing cars on Twitch. (The audio is surprisingly clear, too.) I watched for a while today as he replaced the transmission on a Kia, which had its previous transmission destroyed after something put a hole in it on the highway. It’s the kind of thing I’m always trying to find on Twitch: a keyhole look