The Great Hack tells us data corrupts

This week professor David Carroll, whose dogged search for answers to how his personal data was misused plays a focal role in The Great Hack: Netflix’s documentary tackling the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal, quipped that perhaps a follow up would be more punitive for the company than the $5BN FTC fine released the same day. The documentary — which we previewed ahead of its general release Wednesday — does an impressive job of articulating for a mainstream audience the risks for individuals and society of unregulated surveillance...

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Startups Weekly: SoftBank’s second act

Hello and welcome back to Startups Weekly, a weekend newsletter that dives into the week’s noteworthy startups and venture capital news. Before I jump into today’s topic, let’s catch up a bit. Last week, I noted some challenges plaguing mental health tech startups. Before that, I wrote about Zoom and Superhuman’s PR disasters. Remember, you can send me tips, suggestions and feedback to kate.clark@techcrunch.com or on Twitter @KateClarkTweets. If you don’t subscribe to Startups Weekly yet, you can do that here. Anyway, onto the subject...

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Ethics in the age of autonomous vehicles

Earlier this month, TechCrunch held its annual Mobility Sessions event, where leading mobility-focused auto companies, startups, executives and thought leaders joined us to discuss all things autonomous vehicle technology, micromobility and electric vehicles. Extra Crunch is offering members access to full transcripts of key panels and conversations from the event, such as Megan Rose Dickey‘s chat with Voyage CEO and cofounder Oliver Cameron and Uber’s prediction team lead Clark Haynes on the ethical considerations for autonomous vehicles. Megan,...

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Siri recordings “regularly” sent to Apple contractors for analysis, claims whistleblower

{rss:content:encoded} Siri recordings “regularly” sent to Apple contractors for analysis, claims whistleblower https://ift.tt/2JWzbei https://ift.tt/312ycyL July 27, 2019 at 12:45AM Apple has joined the dubious company of Google and Amazon in secretly sharing audio recordings of its users with contractors, confirming the practice to The Guardian after a whistleblower brought it to the outlet. The person said that Siri queries are routinely sent to human listeners for closer analysis, something not disclosed in Apple’s privacy policy. The recordings...

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Lessons from the hardware capital of the world

A week is obviously not enough time to truly understand a market as massive and fascinating as China. Hell, it’s not really even enough time to adjust to the 12-hour time difference from New York. That said, each of the three visits I’ve taken to the country in the past two years has yielded some useful insights into my role as hardware editor here at TechCrunch. Late last week, I got back from an eight-day trip to Shenzhen in the Guangdong Province of South China and nearby Hong Kong. In some respects, the cities are worlds apart, though a newly...

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Fintech decacorn Nubank raises $400m led by TCV

Another day, another mega round for a fintech startup. And this one is mega mega. Brazil-based Nubank, which offers a suite of banking and financial services for Brazilian consumers, announced today that it has raised a $400 million Series F round of venture capital led by Woody Marshall of TCV, the growth-stage fund best known for its investment in Netflix but which also made fintech a priority, with over $1.5 billion in investments in the space. According to Nubank, the company has now raised $820 million across seven venture rounds. Katie Roof...

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Daily Crunch: Yep, Apple is buying Intel’s modem business

{rss:content:encoded} Daily Crunch: Yep, Apple is buying Intel’s modem business https://ift.tt/2yfP8Wm https://ift.tt/2Mj2hWO July 26, 2019 at 08:05PM 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 acquiring most of Intel’s smartphone modem business in $1B deal Apple has entered into a deal to acquire a majority of Intel’s modem business, including Intel IP, equipment, leases and employees — it’s...

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David and Goliath: Approaching the ‘deal’

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Muzmatch adds $7M to swipe right on Muslim majority markets

Muzmatch, a matchmaking app for Muslims, has just swiped a $7 million Series A on the back of continued momentum for its community-sensitive approach to soulmate searching for people of the Islamic faith. It now has more than 1.5 million users of its apps, across 210 countries, swiping, matching and chatting online as they try to find “the one.” The funding, which Muzmatch says will help fuel growth in key international markets, is jointly led by U.S. hedge fund Luxor Capital, and Silicon Valley accelerator Y Combinator — the latter having previously...

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Twitter Q2 beats on sales of $841M and EPS of $0.20, new metric of mDAUs up to 139M

Two days after Facebook reported growing numbers (even amid its regulatory turmoil), its social media counterpart Twitter today announced its Q2 results. The company made $841 million in overall revenues, up 18% on a year ago; with EPS and net income respectively at $1.43 and $1.1 billion, a huge bump due to a “significant income tax benefit” related to the establishment of a deferred tax asset for corporate structuring for certain geographies, Twitter said. Without that, non-GAAP diluted EPS was $0.20 on non-GAAP adjusted net income...

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T-Mobile and Sprint get DOJ approval for $26 billion merger deal

{rss:content:encoded} T-Mobile and Sprint get DOJ approval for $26 billion merger deal https://ift.tt/32UnHzu https://ift.tt/2MfIw2l July 26, 2019 at 05:45PM The U.S. Department of Justice this morning gave the green light to T-Mobile US and Sprint for their proposed $26 billion merger. The deal, which would combine the nation’s third and fourth largest carriers (by subscriber number) has been greenlit on the condition that T-Mobile sell its prepaid assets (including Boost Mobile) to Dish Network. The proposed merger has been under regulatory scrutiny...

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FeaturePeek wants put an end to last-minute front-end design reviews

FeaturePeek, a member of the Y Combinator Summer 2019 cohort, wants to change the way companies review front end interfaces. Instead of kludging together reviews with screen shots or involving product managers and marketing people at the last minute, they want to make it easy to carry out reviews throughout the development cycle. “FeaturePeek allows product teams and designers to give feedback on new front end work as the developers are working on it, and as a pull request is open. So that while it is still top of mind for the engineer, you can...

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Why the hell is Robinhood worth $7.6B?

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This was a special week for us because Danny was back in the office, which meant we cornered him into coming on the show. Danny, of course, is an Equity regular. Also aboard this week were our regular hosts, Kate and Alex. We were relieved to have three hosts because there was a lot of news to get through, from IPOs to late-stage financings to little seed fundings, and we shit you not, camping! Up first was the...

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Muzmatch adds $7M to swipe right on Muslim majority markets

Muzmatch, a matchmaking app for Muslims, has just swiped a $7 million Series A on the back of continued momentum for its community sensitive approach to soulmate searching for people of the Islamic faith. It now has more than 1.5M users of its apps, across 210 countries, swiping, matching and chatting online as they try to find ‘the one’. The funding, which Muzmatch says will help fuel growth in key international markets, is jointly led by US hedge fund Luxor Capital, and Silicon Valley accelerator Y Combinator — the latter having previously selected...

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WhatsApp reaches 400 million users in India, its biggest market

{rss:content:encoded} WhatsApp reaches 400 million users in India, its biggest market https://ift.tt/2GwjtED https://ift.tt/30W6NhZ July 26, 2019 at 02:50PM WhatsApp has amassed more than 400 million users in India, the instant messaging app confirmed today, reaffirming its gigantic reach in its biggest market. Amitabh Kant, CEO of highly-influential local think-tank Niti Aayog, revealed the new stat at a press conference held by WhatsApp in New Delhi on Thursday. A WhatsApp spokesperson confirmed that the platform indeed had more than 400 million...

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