Microsoft and Amazon are at it again as the fight for the Defense Department JEDI contract continues. In a recent series of increasingly acerbic pronouncements, the two companies continue their ongoing spat over the $10 billion, decade-long JEDI contract spoils. As you may recall (or not), last fall in a surprise move, the DoD selected […]

It’s an odd feeling to come from California, one of the world’s most prodigious economies where the infrastructure and public systems are simultaneously falling apart in plain view, and arrive in the tiny, landlocked East African country of Rwanda. The first thing you notice is how exceptionally clean the streets of Kigali appear. That’s because of a ban on non-biodegradable […]

Kim-Mai Cutler Contributor Kim-Mai Cutler is an operating partner for Initialized Capital, an early-stage venture firm and was previously a journalist covering technology, finance and policy issues at TechCrunch -- best-known for her long-form work on the Bay Area. More posts by this contributor The outlook for Bay Area startup space in 2017 OpenVote launches […]

Boris Johnson’s allies include a national mood of exhaustion, and his Labour opponent

IAG boss Willie Walsh warns people will not fly if government brings in new measures

We knew it was going to be bad — but not necessarily “lowest level since 2013” bad. As Apple was busy reporting its earnings, Canalys just dropped some of its own figures — and they’re not pretty. After two quarters of much-needed growing, the global smartphone market just took a big hit. And you no […]

Got something in your medical history that first responders should know about if you call 911? Things like known drug allergies, or the medications you’re on? The iPhone and Apple Watch will soon be able to share this information with first responders automatically (if you opt to let it do so). When a user with […]

After months of rumors, Verizon finally sold off Tumblr for a reported $3 million — a fraction of what Yahoo paid for the once mighty blogging service back in 2013. The media conglomerate (which also owns TechCrunch) was clearly never quite sure what to do with the property after gobbling it up as part of […]

Late last night the Financial Times reported that HuffPost, arguably one of the crown jewels of Verizon Media Group’s remaining network of media properties (which includes TechCrunch), is up for sale. Verizon has been shedding media properties in a retreat from the strategy that it had begun to execute with the acquisition of AOL for […]

Emerging economies that have long tested investors’ patience say they need fresh help

Shortages of components likely to be far worse than expected, warn experts

Across the U.S., sustainable microgrids are emerging as a vital tool in the fight against climate change and increasingly common natural disasters.

Unfortunately, the world doesn’t have a constant quantity of problems, and while governments and most private businesses are focused on tackling the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, companies like Genecis Bioindustries are working on technologies to solve another major problem: climate change. For over a decade, sustainability advocates and entrepreneurs have been searching for a way to […]

Google’s data centers run 24/7 and suck up a ton of energy — so it’s in both the company’s and the planet’s interest to make them do so as efficiently as possible. One new method has the facilities keeping an eye on the weather so they know when the best times are to switch to […]

In a small suburb of Melbourne, two entrepreneurs are developing a technology that could mean big changes for the packaging industry. Stuart Gordon and Mark Appleford are the co-founders of Varden, a company that has developed a process to take the waste material from sugarcane and convert it into a paper-like packaging product with the […]

Mark Mills Contributor Share on Twitter Mark Mills is the author of the book, “Digital Cathedrals: The Information Infrastructure Era,” and is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a Faculty Fellow at Northwestern University’s McCormick School of Engineering, and a partner in Cottonwood Venture Partners, an energy-tech venture fund. An epic number of citizens […]

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. Every week we write this post with some opening line akin to wow, what a week, huh? This is yet another one of those weeks. Perhaps this is just life now, and every week will stretch before us, similar to […]

Microsoft and Amazon are at it again as the fight for the Defense Department JEDI contract continues. In a recent series of increasingly acerbic pronouncements, the two companies continue their ongoing spat over the $10 billion, decade-long JEDI contract spoils. As you may recall (or not), last fall in a surprise move, the DoD selected […]

Zoom is making some drastic changes to prevent rampant abuse as trolls attack publicly shared video calls. Starting April 5th, it will require passwords to enter calls via Meeting ID, as these may be guessed or reused. Meanwhile, it will change virtual waiting rooms to be on by default so hosts have to manually admit […]

If you think that action movies generally suffer from an excess of characterization, then “Extraction” is the movie for you. Almost everything about the film that’s not an action scene is dealt with in a perfunctory way, starting from the sketchy characterization of our hero Tyler Rake (played by Chris Hemsworth) — he’s muscular, good […]

Mark Cuban isn’t impressed that you’ve raised money. “If you think the accomplishment is raising money first, we’re probably not gonna get along,” said Cuban in an Extra Crunch Live interview. “If your orientation is ‘I got to raise the money first,’ you don’t really have a company yet, and you really haven’t accomplished anything […]

Impossible Foods made huge waves in the food industry when it came up with a way of isolating and using “heme” molecules from plants to mimic the blood found in animal meat (also comprised of heme), bringing a new depth of flavor to its vegetarian burger. This week at CES, the company is presenting the […]

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released updated projections of future U.S. energy production and use in its Annual Energy Outlook 2020 (AEO2020) today.

In the U.S., Robinhood has led the charge in upending the stock investing model through its mobile-first, minimal-step, commission-free trading platform. Now a startup out of Germany built on a similar premise is announcing a big round of funding from some top investors to continue its growth. Trade Republic — which lets people buy and sell […]

Layoffs are having a big impact on industries across the board due to COVID-19. This week alone news came out of massive cuts for TripAdvisor, Lyft, and reportedly Juul and Uber. But according to data tracker Layoffs.fyi, the cuts have affected certain job roles more than others. Sales and customer success roles are the most […]

Founder and CEO Lara Vandenberg told me she created Publicist to support the ways in which the communications and marketing industry is changing — changes that are only accelerating due to COVID-19. Vandenberg was previously senior vice president of communications and marketing at Knotch, and she told me, “More companies now are being better served […]

PwC has appointed the former CEO of Transdev Australasia, Jonathan Metcalfe, to lead the public transport practice.

Governments must apply renewed focus to achieve fiscal balance and sustainably reduce the cost of delivery.

Australia's next generation of family business leaders is more confident and better prepared for senior roles than two years ago, but is also experiencing more challenges, both inside the firm and in the wider business landscape.

Modest personal tax cuts, tighter superannuation concessions, and a pathway to lower corporate tax rates make this a responsible if not spectacular budget.

Backblaze today announced that its B2 Cloud Storage service is now API-compatible with Amazon’s S3 storage service. Backblaze started as an affordable cloud backup service, but over the last few years, the company has also taken its storage expertise and launched the developer-centric B2 Cloud Storage service, which promises to be significantly cheaper than similar […]

On Monday, April 20, 2020, New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil front-month futures prices fell below zero dollars per barrel (b)—at one point, trading at -$40.32/b (Figure 1)—and remained below zero for part of the following trading day. Monday marked the first time the price for the WTI futures contract fell below zero since trading began in 1983. Negative prices in commodity markets are very rare, but when they occur they typically indicate high transactions costs and significant infrastructure constraints. In this case, the WTI front-month futures contract was for May 2020 delivery, and the contract was set to expire on April 21, 2020. Unless they have made other arrangements ahead of time, market participants that hold WTI futures contracts to expiration must take physical delivery of WTI crude oil in Cushing, Oklahoma. Typically, most market participants close any futures contracts ahead of expiration through cash settlement in order to avoid taking physical delivery, and only about 1% of contracts are physically settled. The extreme market events of April 20 and April 21 were driven by several factors, including the inability of contract holders to find other market participants to sell the futures contracts. In addition, in this case, the scarcity of available crude oil storage meant several market participants sold their futures contracts at negative prices, in effect paying a counterparty to close out of the contracts. ...

Tumblr is making a change to how it deals with hate speech on its blogging platform. The company announced today it will also remove the reblogs (repostings) from any blogs that were suspended for violating its policies around hate speech. Already, the company says it’s identified nearly 1,000 blogs that were banned for blatant violations […]

A video about the coronavirus featuring a well-known vaccine conspiracist is spreading like wildfire on social media this week, even as platforms talk tough about misinformation in the midst of the pandemic. In the professionally-produced video, a solemn interviewer named Mikki Willis interviews Judy Mikovits, a figure best known for her anti-vaccine activism in recent […]

1. Blood thinners may boost survival rates of Covid-19 infected patients: Report  Top Live News
2. Coronavirus blood-clot mystery intensifies  Nature.com
3. Blood thinners could improve survival chances for sickest coronavirus patients, study says  USA TODAY
4. Evidence Builds Linking Anticoagulation to COVID-19 Survival  Medscape
5. Doctors may have found a way to reduce the risk of death in severe coronavirus cases  BGR
6. View Full coverage on Google News

It’s like 2nd innings of Test match: Kumble on fight against COVID-19  Hindustan TimesView Full coverage on Google News

This week, Automattic revealed it has signed all the paperwork to acquire Tumblr from Verizon, including its full staff of 200. Tumblr has undergone quite a journey since its headline-grabbing acquisition by Marissa Mayer’s Yahoo in 2013 for $1.1 billion, but after six years of neglect, its latest move is its first real start since […]

After months of rumors, Verizon finally sold off Tumblr for a reported $3 million — a fraction of what Yahoo paid for the once mighty blogging service back in 2013. The media conglomerate (which also owns TechCrunch) was clearly never quite sure what to do with the property after gobbling it up as part of […]

Late last night the Financial Times reported that HuffPost, arguably one of the crown jewels of Verizon Media Group’s remaining network of media properties (which includes TechCrunch), is up for sale. Verizon has been shedding media properties in a retreat from the strategy that it had begun to execute with the acquisition of AOL for […]

Fortunately, there are a number of ways for brick-and-mortar stores to simplify this difficult process.

These low-cost franchises are worth your time, energy and investment.

Join Harvard Business School Professor Rebecca Henderson as she discusses why entrepreneurs are central to building a better world and why there are million dollar businesses to be built along the way.

Fortunately, there are a number of ways for brick-and-mortar stores to simplify this difficult process.

Navigating a high-growth company can be difficult for every entrepreneur to manage.

A Nepalese drawing reminds her to think about the impact her business has on the world.

Fortunately, there are a number of ways for brick-and-mortar stores to simplify this difficult process.

Kingly kedgeree, lobster cutlets and cocktails the Crawleys would have quaffed, in this extract from the new Downton Abbey recipe

Actress Michelle Dockery, 37, from Essex. has told how Kate Middleton, 37, 'met everyone from the drivers to the caterers and the actors' when she made a set visit to Downton Abbey in 2015.

Sophie McShera turned heads on the red carpet in a plunging black floor length dress as she joined the cast for the world premiere of Downton Abbey the movie, held in London, on Monday night.