Techcrunch blog!: Daily Crunch - Google has new smartphones

Tuesday, October 15, 2019 • By Darrell Etherington

It's a very Google Tuesday

Google’s annual hardware event is happening today, which usually makes for some weird announcements. Also, Fortnite returns after its Big Bang, and Harley-Davidson pulls the plug on its electric motorcycle (temporarily?).

Here’s your Daily Crunch for October 15, 2019.

Harley-Davidson halts production of its first electric motorcyle

Weird all around, since Harley says it isn’t recalling the ones already on the road, but needed to stop production and delivery of the LiveWire due to a “non-standard condition.” No word either on when or if deliveries and production will resume.

Not a great start for what was supposed to kick off an entire lineup of Harley-Davidson two-wheeled EVs.

Harley-Davidson halts production of its first electric motorcyle image

See how much capital startups are investing in growth

Check out Google's hardware event

New Pixel phones! The FOURTH ones! Are they good? Probably yes, I would say. Also a ton of other new stuff from the big G, which sometimes seems like it’s maintaining a hardware business just for funsies.

WeWork's other bad news: Phone booths

The co-working/real estate/whatever company can’t get a break lately: It issued a recall for around 1,600 phone booths across multiple locations, due to high levels of formaldehyde that could potentially lead to health problems.

Image Credits: MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images / Getty Images

Uber lays off 350 more

Uber’s cost-cutting measures continue: The company is clearly laser-focused on trying to get to a point where it’s profitable — or at least where it isn’t burning cash quite so quickly. The company is laying off 350 more employees, with cuts coming across Eats, its ATG autonomous business, performance marketing, recruiting and more.

Jackson Square Ventures closes $193 million third fund

That’s nearly $200 million that could have your name on it, startup founder. Yes, YOU, the startup founder reading this newsletter. With the glasses. Or maybe no glasses. BUT I MEAN YOU SPECIFICALLY.

Facebook's new Portal, reviewed

Facebook has a new Portal, which is a mystifying product and a mystifying continuation of the same. If anything says “twilight years of relevance” like making what seem to be mostly old-people video phones, then I don’t know what that would be.

Fortnite is back with Chapter 2

Incredibly popular game Fortnite pulled a massive stunt yesterday when it seemingly just erased its whole world and then also got rid of all the content from its social media accounts. Now it’s back, with a fully new Chapter 2 (apparently chapters are more significant than seasons, in Fortnite taxonomy).