Day: October 25, 2018

A growing number of states has legalized retail marijuana sales, but ensuring that everything works as advertised is no easy task. Among the many things that regulators have to concern themselves with are granting licenses to dispensaries, retail sales, delivery, distribution, and ensuring marijuana has been tested for pesticides and other materials before it hits […]

Twitch continues to dominate the live streaming market, with approximately 2.5 billion hours watched by viewers in the third quarter of 2018, according to a new industry report out this morning. While YouTube still trails, it’s begun to close the gap with Twitch, it appears. YouTube’s live streaming platform, YouTube Live, started the year with […]

ShopRunner chief executive Sam Yagan conquered the online dating world. Can he conquer the e-commerce world, too? Hot off the heels of its first profitable year, ShopRunner is announcing its first infusion of venture funding under Yagan, an acquisition of the shopping app Spring and, sources tell TechCrunch, it’s readying a major overhaul to its mobile […]

Google Maps has been steadily rolling out new features to make its app more than just a way to find places and navigate to them. In recent months, it’s added things like group trip planning, music controls, commuter tools, ETA sharing, personalized recommendations, and more. Now, it’s introducing a new way for users to follow their […]

Streaming news company Cheddar announced this morning it’s acquiring Rate My Professors, the Viacom-owned site where students go online to rate and review their professors and schools across the U.S. The site, founded in 1999, has become something of a staple on the web, and by its nature it attracts the young demographic that Cheddar […]

Big problems require big war chests. Ribbon wants the biggest chest of them all. The startup, which was founded just about a year ago by ex-LendingClub head of strategic development Shaival Shah and ex-Twitter/TellApart engineer Jian Wei Gan (who, full disclosure, is married to TechCrunch columnist Joyce Yang), wants to replace the incredible stress of […]

A China foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying dismissed yesterday’s damning report about spying on Trump’s unsecured iPhone, calling it, “fake news,” according to The South China Morning Post. She had a few other choice words for the president, suggesting he switch to a Huawei handset, or, failing that, just stop communicating. The shade amounts to […]

Google this morning announced it’s bringing its A.I.-powered Lens technology to Google Image Search. The idea, explains the company, is to allow web searchers to learn more about what’s in a photo – including, in particular, items they may want to shop for and buy. For example, a photo of a well-decorated living room might […]