Microsoft tries to improve corporate intranet, Google will offer new smartphone health measurements and 23andMe is going public via SPAC. This is your Daily Crunch for February 4, 2021. The big story: Microsoft rethinks corporate intranet Microsoft launched what it’s calling a new “employee experience platform,” designed to reinvent those Read more
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. Natasha and Danny and Alex and Grace were all here to chat through the week’s biggest tech happenings. The good news is that we managed to fit it all into a single episode this week. The bad news is Read more
Huawei’s status in the U.S. has been one of many question marks hovering over the newly minted Biden administration. The smartphone maker was one of a number of Chinese companies added to the Department of Commerce’s “entity list” during Trump’s four years in office. Gina Raimondo, Joe Biden’s nominee for Read more
As Democrats settle into control of both chambers of Congress, signs of the party’s legislative priorities are starting to manifest. So far, lawmakers’ interest in reimagining tech’s regulatory landscape appears to be alive and well. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) is out with a new proposal for antitrust reform that would Read more
Robotic process automation (RPA) has found a strong foothold in the world of enterprise IT through its effective use of AI and other technology to help automate repetitive tasks to free up people to focus on more complicated work. Today, a startup called Infinitus is coming out of stealth to Read more
As startups have stayed private longer and liquidity has become harder to secure for early employees and investors, more and more shareholders have looked for ways to unload their shares to others. All the way back in 2011, companies like SecondMarket were seeing nine-figures’ worth of shares being traded on Read more
Identity and access management service Okta today launched its new design system, both for its own corporate and brand use, but also as an open-source project under the Apache 2.0 license. The Odyssey Design System, as the company calls it, is similar to the likes of Google’s Material Design or Read more
Microsoft today launched Viva, a new “employee experience platform,” or, in non-marketing terms, its new take on the intranet sites most large companies tend to offer their employees. This includes standard features like access to internal communications built on integrations with SharePoint, Yammer and other Microsoft tools. In addition, Viva Read more
Newcastle United’s Joelinton has been fined £200 for breaching Covid-19 restrictions after he posted a photo of himself getting a haircut. The Brazilian, who signed for the Premier League club for £40m in 2019, was investigated by Northumbria Police following the post he shared on Instagram last week. The mirror selfie showed the 24-year-old striker Read more
Lupin is the Netflix show that everybody is talking about. In less than a month on the platform, it’s reached 70 million households. That’s more than The Queen’s Gambit and approaching Bridgerton levels of success, not to mention groundbreaking for a French-language show. This week, the streaming platform announced that season two will be arriving this summer Read more
With more of us spending significant amounts of time at home because of Covid-19, our attention has turned increasingly to how and what we eat. Today, one of the startups that has seen a lift in its business as a result of that is announcing a round of funding to Read more
Doctors in New York have performed the world’s first successful face and double hand transplant. Joe DiMeo, 22, underwent the 23-hour surgery, performed by a team of more than 140 healthcare workers last August. A car crash in 2018 left Mr DiMeo with third-degree burns over 80% of his body. Read more
It was only a matter of time before application programming interfaces came for the carbon credit offsets — the voluntary programs that allow companies to cancel out their greenhouse gas emissions (on paper) by financing renewable energy projects or carbon sequestration projects globally. Massive e-commerce and payments companies Shopify and Read more
Joompay, a startup with an iOS and Android app similar to Venmo and TransferWise, has now launched in Europe after obtaining a Luxembourg Electronic Money Institution (EMI) license. The app allows people to send and receive money with anyone, instantly and for free. However, it enters a crowded market, competing Read more
The United States of America’s decision to recognize Morocco’s full and entire sovereignty over its Sahara, in addition to its unequivocal support for the Moroccan initiative for Autonomy has surprised some and comforted many others. The weight of this decision lies first in its author: a global power, permanent member Read more
Four victims of the Buipe-Tamale highway accident who sustained major injuries are in critical condition at the Tamale Teaching Hospital. The accident they were in involved two vehicles; a Yutong bus with registration number AC 1699-20 and another bus with registration number GN 3345-16. It is suspected that the collision Read more
The feeling of opening Twitter and noticing that something’s off probably isn’t a new one, but it usually isn’t related to the site’s color scheme. Yet some users (and Verge staff) are now seeing that Twitter’s desktop dark mode has gotten darker, or worse, been changed to light mode. Twitter tells The Verge that the change from blue Read more
Genetics testing and genome research company 23andMe is set to go public via a merger with special purpose acquisition corp (SPAC) VG Acquisition Corp, a vehicle set up by Richard Branson and his company Virgin Group. The transaction is expected to result in 23andMe having around $984 million in cash Read more
Recently I was intrigued to see an “agility” button on the control console while checking out my neighbour’s new car – a 2016 Mercedes Benz C300. As a car enthusiast, I began to wonder how the carmaker had introduced this new feature, which sought to provide better ride comfort, without Read more
Taskforce for the Ghana National Association of Small Scale Miners (GNASSM) has halted the activities of a firm allegedly engaging in illegal mining in the Aowin Municipality of the Western North Region. According to the Public Relations Officer of GNASSM, Abdul Razak Alhassan, a residence manager of Crisphil Goldfield Limited, Read more