YC startup Felix wants to replace antibiotics with programmable viruses

Right now the world is at war. But this is no ordinary war. It’s a fight with an organism so small we can only detect it through use of a microscope — and if we don’t stop it, it could kill millions of us in the next several decades. No, I’m not talking about COVID-19, though that organism is the one on everyone’s mind right now. I’m talking about antibiotic-resistant bacteria. You see, more than 700,000 people died globally from bacterial infections last year — 35,000 of them in the U.S. If we do nothing, that number could grow to 10 million annually...

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Under quarantine, media is actually social

The flood of status symbol content into Instagram Stories has run dry. No one is going out and doing anything cool right now, and if they are, they should be shamed for it. Beyond sharing video chat happy hour screenshots and quarantine dinner concoctions, our piece-by-piece biographies have ground to a halt. Oddly, what remains feels more social than social networks have in a long time. With no source material, we’re doing it live. Coronavirus has absolved our desire to share the recent past. The drab days stuck inside blur into each other. The...

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Under quarantine, media is actually social

{rss:content:encoded} Under quarantine, media is actually social https://ift.tt/3adk5vy https://ift.tt/2QQzudV March 21, 2020 at 08:23PM The flood of status symbol content into Instagram Stories has run dry. No one is going out and doing anything cool right now, and if they are, they should be shamed for it. Beyond sharing video chat happy hour screenshots and quarantine dinner concoctions, our piece-by-piece biographies have ground to a halt. Oddly, what remains feels more social than social networks have in a long time. With no source material,...

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This Week in Apps: Coronavirus special coverage, Apple tries to save AR with lidar and more

{rss:content:encoded} This Week in Apps: Coronavirus special coverage, Apple tries to save AR with lidar and more https://ift.tt/2J5AGWh https://ift.tt/33BBYli March 21, 2020 at 03:49PM Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the Extra Crunch series that recaps the latest OS news, the applications they support and the money that flows through it all. The app industry is as hot as ever, with a record 204 billion downloads in 2019 and $120 billion in consumer spending in 2019, according to App Annie’s “State of Mobile” annual report. People are now...

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Twitter prioritizes blue-check verifications to confirm experts on Covid-19 and the novel coronavirus

At long last, here’s an actually useful purpose for Twitter’s blue-check verification mark: Twitter last night announced that it is mobilising the badge system to help surface and signal more authoritative and verified voices that can provide “credible updates” on the topic of the coronavirus, and made a general call out for people that are experts to get all of their information up to date — including associating the word addresses with their accounts — to speed up this process. This is the latest move from Twitter in what has been an ongoing...

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Google launches Covid-19 page and search portal with safety tips, official stats and more, US-only for now

{rss:content:encoded} Google launches Covid-19 page and search portal with safety tips, official stats and more, US-only for now https://ift.tt/33yyb8v https://ift.tt/3a9zj4V March 21, 2020 at 01:11PM Google says Coronavirus has become its biggest search topic by a country mile this year, and to continue its efforts to harness that attention in the best possible way, late on Friday the company launched a new information portal dedicated to the pandemic as well as an improved search experience for desktop and mobile. The search experience, Google...

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Healthcare startups Nurx and Carbon Health ship at-home COVID-19 test sample kits

Efforts to get at-home test kits for the COVID-19 coronavirus are ramping up quickly, and two more health industry startups are bringing their own products to market, with both Carbon Health and Nurx starting shipping of their own in-home sample collection kits. Both of these new offerings are the same in terms of approach to testing: They deliver swab-based sample collection hardware that people can use at home to collect a mucus sample which they then ship back using including safety approved, projective packaging to be tested by one of the existing...

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Hospital droid Diligent Robotics raises $10M to assist nurses

28% of a nurse’s time is wasted on low-skilled tasks like fetching medical tools. We need them focused on the complex and compassionate work of treating patients, especially amid the coronavirus outbreak. Diligent Robotics wants to give them a helper droid that can run errands for them around the hospital. The startup’s bot Moxi is equipped with a flexible arm, gripper hand, and full mobility so it can hunt down lightweight medical resources, navigate a clinic’s hallways, and drop them off for the nurse. With the world facing a critical shortage...

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Crowd-lending platform October hits pause on loan repayments

French startup October wants to reduce the pressure on small and medium companies going through the Coronavirus crisis. In order to give them some headroom, companies that have borrowed money on October won’t have to pay back their loans for the next three months. October works with small companies in France, Spain, Italy, Netherlands and Germany who need a credit line. One of the company’s key advantages compared to borrowing money from a bank is that it’s much faster. You can apply to a credit line and get an answer just a few days later. Usually,...

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Instagram founder launches gift card site for quarantined restaurants

Coronavirus quarantines are hurting local businesses, but Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger wants to help them keep revenue rolling in. Krieger and his wife Kaitlyn this week launched SaveOurFaves, a directory of Bay Area restaurants selling gift certificates to offset lost income amidst ‘shelter in place’ orders across the region. Users can search for restaurants or browse by neighborhood, and then click through to buy gift certificates straight from the eateries with no added fee from SaveOurFaves. “We’re no longer going out because of COVID-19...

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Tinder waives Passport fee to help users connect virtually around the world

Dating may be proving next to impossible for many during this era of mass social distancing, but Tinder’s hoping to leverage an existing feature to help bring people closer together. Virtually, at least. The dating app is waving fees for Passport, a feature designed to let premium users connect with people outside of their dating radius. The offer kicks in next week for all users and runs through April 30. Tinder is hoping that it will be adopted for virtual socializing beyond dating. Our hope is that you use the Passport feature to virtually...

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Coterie raises $8.5M to build ‘commercial insurance as a service’

Ohio-based Coterie, a startup working on in the commercial insurance space, has announced today it has raised $8.5 million Series A. The company had previously raised a little over $3 million in early investments, bringing its equity capital raised to nearly $12 million to date; the firm also told TechCrunch that it has raised $2.5 million in available venture debt as part of its current round. In an uncertain market, Coterie is better capitalized than it ever has been, thanks to Intercept, and The Hartford, and Hippo, which led its latest round. Coterie...

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Scanwell aims to launch at-home 15-minute coronavirus test, but it still needs FDA approval

At-home diagnostics startup Scanwell, which produces smartphone-based testing for UTIs, is working on getting at-home testing for the novel coronavirus into the hands of U.S. residents. The technology, which was developed by Chinese diagnostic technology company INNOVITA and has already been approved by China’s equivalent of the FDA and used by “millions” in China, can be taken at home in 15 minutes with the guidance of a medical professional via telehealth, and produces results in just hours. Scanwell’s test will require FDA clearance, but the...

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Raising in a recession

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This week’s episode was a testament to making do, as we’ve had to cancel some trips, juggle a few guests, and get up and running as a podcast that have guests dial in without losing our stride. So, this week Danny and Natasha and Alex were joined by Unshackled VC’s Manan Mehta. And it went pretty ok, aside from a hiccup or two, expect Equity to still feature guests as often as it makes sense, even if we’re currently...

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Claimer raises seed backing to make it easier for UK startups to claim R&D tax credits

Claimer, a London-based startup that makes it easy for companies to claim R&D tax credits in the U.K., has raised £300,000 in seed funding. Backing the already revenue-generating company is Ben Holmes (who was previously at Index Ventures), Nick Telson and Andrew Webster (the founders of DesignMyNight, which recently exited), Rupert Loman (founder of Gamer Network), and TrueSight Ventures. Founded by Adam McCann in January 2018 and then launched in April 2019, Claimer streamlines the process of claiming R&D tax credits, which is a U.K....

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