Daily Crunch - Spotify is testing virtual events

TechCrunch Newsletter

Wednesday, August 26, 2020 • By Anthony Ha

Spotify explores virtual concerts, Twitter tests a “quotes” count and Google’s Nest Hub becomes more hotel-friendly. This is your Daily Crunch for August 26, 2020.

The big story: Spotify is testing virtual events We can’t have real-world concerts at the moment, so the popular music streaming service is exploring virtual alternatives. The feature isn’t live yet, but reverse-engineering scoopster Jane Manchun Wong tweeted out photos of an “Upcoming Virtual Events” section. Spotify already highlights upcoming concerts from artists you like through various ticketing partners, and the screenshots show Songkick as the ticketing partner. Presumably, Spotify would be able to support virtual events with only minor changes to its bargaining agreement. And how big can these events be? K-pop megastars BTS raised nearly $20 million for a single show — but it’s probably safe to assume that most events will fall far short of that. Read more Image Credits: Getty Images

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The tech giants Twitter experiments with adding a 'Quotes' count to tweets — This engagement metric would sit alongside the tweet's existing retweets and likes counts. Instagram Guides may soon allow creators to recommended places, products and more — The feature, which launched in May, has allowed select organizations and experts to share resources related to managing your mental health. Google is pushing to get the Nest Hub in more hotel rooms — A new update is tailored for the hotel experience, with key features like wake-up calls, weather and local businesses. Image Credits: Twitter

Startups, funding and venture capital SpaceX will launch Masten's first lander to the moon in 2022 — Masten's first lunar mission is set to take place in 2022 if all goes according to plan. Here are the 94 companies from Y Combinator's Summer 2020 Demo Day 2 — So many companies! Course Hero, a profitable edtech unicorn, raises rare cash — A Series B extension of $70 million, to be more specific.

Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch Synthetic biology startups are giving investors an appetite — Impossible Foods is only the most public face of a growing trend in bioengineering. Funding for mental health-focused startups rises in 2020 — As wellness startups drift generally, VC hotspots emerge. (Reminder: Extra Crunch is our subscription membership program, which aims to democratize information about startups. You can sign up here.) Image Credits: Bloomberg / Getty Images

Everything else GM teases two new all-electric Chevy Bolt models — Both vehicles will go into production in summer 2021, according to GM. Learn how to scale social impact startups at Disrupt with Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins and Jessica O. Matthews — Uttering the words "making the world a better place" isn't the same as doing it, or doing it well. Image Credits: GM/ Photo by Steve Fecht

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Daily Crunch - Judge says Apple can't block Unreal Engine

TechCrunch Newsletter

Tuesday, August 25, 2020 • By Anthony Ha

Epic Games wins a victory against Apple, Fitbit announces a new smartwatch and Microsoft Word adds a transcription feature. This is your Daily Crunch for August 25, 2020.

The big story: Judge says Apple can't block Unreal Engine U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers weighed in on the legal battle between Epic Games and Apple with a mixed verdict. She denied Epic’s motion to restore the popular game Fortnite to Apple’s App Store, but also ordered Apple not to block Epic’s developer accounts or to restrict developers on Apple platforms from accessing Epic’s Unreal Engine tools. "Apple has chosen to act severely, and by doing so, has impacted non-parties, and a third-party developer ecosystem," Rogers said. A full hearing on the dispute is scheduled for September 28. Read more Image Credits: Getty Images

OMNi Seeks to Raise $250M Megaround as CAC Region's 1st Neobank Sponsored by OMNi As the only Super App and digital-only bank for the Central American and Caribbean (CAC) Region, OMNi ventures towards a disruptive horizon to conquer 1 digitally untapped region. Read more

The tech giants Fitbit launches a $330 Apple Watch competitor — The Sense is designed to be a premium alternative to the Versa line, described by the company as its most advanced health smartwatch. Facebook is bringing a Shop section to its app, while Instagram expands Live Shopping — Facebook Shop doesn’t sound too different from the similarly named Instagram Shop, where users can browse products from their favorite brands and businesses. Microsoft brings transcriptions to Word — This new feature lets you transcribe conversations, both live and pre-recorded, and then edit those transcripts right inside of Word. Image Credits: Fitbit

Startups, funding and venture capital YC's most anticipated startup raised $16M from a16z before Demo Day — Trove sells a suite of internal compensation tools to other startups. Self-charging, thousand-year battery startup NDB aces key tests and lands first beta customers — NDB has created a new, proprietary nano diamond treatment that allows for more efficient extraction of electric charge from the diamond used in the creation of the battery. Instacart workers are demanding disaster relief amid CA wildfires — Gig Workers Collective, a gig worker-activist group led by Instacart shoppers, is asking Instacart to provide disaster relief to workers impacted by natural disasters. Image Credits: NDB, Inc.

Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch How to establish a startup and draw up your first contract — We invited James Alonso from Magnolia Law and Adam Zagaris from Moonshot Legal to join us at TechCrunch Early Stage to give us a 360 overview of the legal side of running a startup. Unity, JFrog, Asana, Snowflake and Sumo Logic file for IPOs in rapid-fire fashion — Alex Wilhelm does a big roundup of new IPO filings. As DevOps takes off, site reliability engineers are flying high — The emergence of site reliability engineers is not a new trend, but one closely coupled with the theme of DevOps over the last decade. (Reminder: Extra Crunch is our subscription membership program, which aims to democratize information about startups. You can sign up here.) Image Credits: Getty Images

Everything else Netflix's 'Emily's Wonder Lab' is smart, interactive science TV for kids — TV science host (and former TechCrunch contributor) Emily Calandrelli told us that “Wonder Lab” is the realization of a concept that she's been pitching for years. Porsche experiments with subscription pricing, expands to Los Angeles — Porsche now has three tiers under its newly rebranded Porsche Drive vehicle subscription program. Meet the Disrupt 2020 'TC10' — The TC10 is a group of entrepreneurs, investors, etc. who have been a staple of our Disrupt conference over the past decade. And they’re all coming back! Image Credits: Netflix

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Newest Jobs from Crunchboard DIGITAL SW DEVELOPER API, WEB, MOBILE SR at Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian (Newport Beach, CA, USA) Head of Product at KitBash3D (Los Angeles, CA, USA) Embedded QA Engineer at Brivo Systems LLC (Bethesda, Maryland, USA) Chief Experience Officer at University of California Santa Cruz (Santa Cruz, CA, USA) Remote Senior Software Engineer - Back End at Eleanor Health (Waltham, MA 02453, USA) See more jobs on CrunchBoard Post your tech jobs and reach millions of TechCrunch readers for only $200 per month.

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Daily Crunch - TikTok sues the U.S. government

TechCrunch Newsletter

Monday, August 24, 2020 • By Anthony Ha

TikTok fights its U.S. ban, Twitter takes action against another Trump tweet and Unity files to go public. This is your Daily Crunch for August 24, 2020.

The big story: TikTok sues the U.S. government TikTok is fighting back against the Trump administration’s decision to ban the popular video app in the U.S. market (unless it’s sold to an American buyer). The company filed a lawsuit today claiming that the president’s executive order was signed without evidence or due process. In its suit, the company argued: The executive order seeks to ban TikTok purportedly because of the speculative possibility that the application could be manipulated by the Chinese government. But, as the U.S. government is well aware, Plaintiffs have taken extraordinary measures to protect the privacy and security of TikTok's U.S. user data including by having TikTok store such data outside of China (in the United States and Singapore) and by erecting software barriers that help ensure that TikTok stores its U.S. user data separately from the user data of other ByteDance products. Read more Image Credits: CHRIS DELMAS/AFP / Getty Images

Get an Extra Crunch annual membership for free with your Disrupt pass Sponsored by TechCrunch We're sweetening the deal at Disrupt 2020 with a complementary Extra Crunch membership for 1 year when you purchase a Digital Disrupt Pro Pass. Join the TechCrunch community for 5 days of insights, learning, networking and growth from September 14-18 and unlock over 100 exclusive articles a month (a $99 value) for free! Get your pass today! Read more

The tech giants Twitter hides Trump tweet behind notice for potentially dissuading people from voting — In the tweet, posted on Monday, Trump claimed mail drop boxes are a "voter security disaster" and also said they are "not COVID sanitized." Zoom meetings hit by outage — Don’t worry, the outage has been resolved. Facebook to pay $125 million in back taxes in France — French tax authorities raided Facebook's offices in Paris in 2012 and later opened an investigation on unpaid taxes covering activities between 2009 and 2018. Image Credits: TechCrunch

Startups, funding and venture capital Sequoia strikes gold with Unity's IPO filing — After much anticipation, video game engine Unity filed its Form S-1 with the SEC as it prepares a roadshow to go public in the coming weeks. SugarCRM acquires Node to gain predictive customer intelligence — The acquisition will add a customer prediction element to Sugar’s platform. With $11 million in fresh capital, Bolt Bikes rebrands to Zoomo — The new name is meant to reflect a customer base that has expanded beyond gig economy workers to include corporate clients and everyday consumers. Image Credits: Nigel Sussman

Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch Five VCs discuss how no-code is going horizontal across the world's industries — Few topics garner cheers and groans quite as quickly as the no-code software explosion. Red Antler's Emily Heyward explains how to get people obsessed with your brand — Heyward's branding company has worked with some of the most iconic startups of the past decade, such as Casper, Allbirds, Brandless and Prose. Unpacking the Sumo Logic S-1 filing — The company’s showing strong growth for a business now comfortably into the nine-figure annual revenue range. (Reminder: Extra Crunch is our subscription membership program, which aims to democratize information about startups. You can sign up here.) Image Credits: Red Antler

Everything else Conan is coming to Disrupt 2020 — Conan O’Brien will be discussing his shift to podcasting, and more. Original Content podcast: On Netflix's 'Selling Sunset', everyone's a villain — Speaking of podcasts, we’ve got a review of the evil-but-addictive Netflix reality show “Selling Sunset.” Image Credits: Team Coco

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