Operator wants to “unlock the 90% of commerce that’s not on the Internet”, CEO Robin Chan tells me. After two years in stealth, Chan was finally willing to give TechCrunch a peek at his startup, which he sees as the convergence of the biggest themes in tech: mobile, messaging, and the on-demand economy. Operator calls itself a “Request Network”. It’s an… Read More
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Many customers who ordered the Apple Watch have been receiving email notifications alerting them that their orders are “Processing,” despite being told when they placed their order that they wouldn’t ship until May or June. Apple has confirmed to TechCrunch that many Watch orders will indeed be at their doors a lot sooner than expected. Read More
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Facebook Messenger wants to replace the telephone, not just SMS, and it’s on its way. Messenger now makes up 10% of global Voice Over IP calls, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during today’s Q1 2015 earnings call. And Zuckerberg said that because VOIP can actually provide higher audio quality for calls than traditional phone calls, he expects that growth “is going to continue… Read More
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Box announced ‘Box Developer Edition‘ at its yearly BoxDev event today. The new approach allows developers to run their own Box “instance” inside of their application — their very own Box, in other words. This turns Box on its head in a sense because instead of running the Box application, and building apps on top of it, you are building something and embedding… Read More
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As mobile developers rush to release applications compatible with Apple’s new wearable device, the Apple Watch, many are still wondering what sorts of app experiences make sense for the small wrist-borne screen versus that of the smartphone. To some extent, where the Apple Watch really shines is with “invisible” apps – paying for items with Apple Pay, or using the Watch… Read More
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Say goodbye to calls from unknown numbers. Facebook’s newest app Hello instantly matches phone numbers of incoming and outgoing calls to Facebook profiles to show you info about who you’re talking to, block calls from commonly blocked numbers, and search for businesses to call. Today, Hello is rolling out for public testing in the US, Brazil, and Nigeria, but the catch is that… Read More
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Imagine being able to touch a toy figurine to your phone’s screen in order to see the character transported into your video game, or touching another small piece of plastic to the phone in order to unlock exclusive content, like a new video or iTunes download. A startup called SnowShoe has developed technology that does just this – it has created clever, plastic… Read More
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Long before LinkedIn went public or before a plethora of on-demand startups began washing the Bay Area and other U.S. cities with services at the click of a button, there was this startup from an MIT grad called Assured Labor. David Reich started the company in 2008 to make informal labor markets in Latin America faster and more transparent for low-skilled workers. It was a social enterprise… Read More
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Here comes some more funding for a European financial tech company specialising in online loans. Germany’s Smava — a peer-to-peer lending platform where investors provide the funds to loan money to borrowers — has raised $16 million in funding led by Phenomen Ventures, along with existing investors Earlybird and Neuhaus Partners. Phenomen’s track record in… Read More
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No one likes brands more than their friends, and there are plenty of ways to get their marketing updates. Facebook’s unique value is keeping you up to date on your real-life friends. So to “get this balance right” Facebook today announced it’s reconfiguring News Feed to show content from close friends higher up, which may push posts from business Pages further down. A… Read More
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