Tushop , a social-commerce platform in Kenya that enables the group-buying of fast-moving consumer goods (FMCGs), is set for expansion across Nairobi after raising $3 million in pre-seed funding in a round led by 4DX Ventures. Founded last year by Cathy Chepkemboi , also the CEO, Tushop uses community-leaders, who collect orders from their neighbors and also support last-mile deliveries. Each com
iOS updates are a regular occurrence, but if you’re waiting for your phone to automatically update then you’ll often be getting those updates a lot later than you could be doing – in some cases weeks later. If you want to get the latest versions of iOS a lot faster, then you should instead head to Settings > General > Software Update as soon as they're available. If your version of iOS isn’t alre
TL;DR: This MagStack Foldable 3-in-1 Wireless Charging Station is 36% off as of March 31, so you can get it for $47.99 instead of $74. One of the most unique charging stations — the MagStack from WonderCube — is on sale once again. We featured this deal last year when the price dropped 36%, and now that same sale price is back for a limited time. The MagStack features a unique, modular design. Wh
Army of the Dead star Ella Purnell has reportedly joined the cast of Prime Video's upcoming Fallout TV show. Per Deadline , Purnell – who also stars in Netflix's Arcane animated series and Showtime's Yellowjackets – has landed one of the lead roles in the Fallout TV series. Unsurprisingly, there are few confirmed details about who Purnell will play. However, Deadline suggests the Army of the Dead
Today is World Backup Day and to mark the occasion, retailers including Amazon and Best Buy are offering some solid deals on storage. Amazon's sale includes an all-time low price for SanDisk's 1TB Extreme microSDXC UHS-I memory card . It has dropped by $35 from $175 to $140 in a one-day-only deal. If you're looking to seriously upgrade the amount of storage available on your Nintendo Switch, that
Sony has announced its PS Plus free games lineup for April 2022, and its certainly an eclectic mix of titles. From April 5 to May 2, PS Plus subscribers can grab Hood: Outlaws and Legends ( PS5 and PS4 ), Slay the Spire (PS4), and SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom – Rehydrated (PS4) for free. It's certainly a mixed bag, in more than one way. Intense online multiplayer Hood: Outlaws
Welcome to Thanks, I Love It , our series highlighting something onscreen we're obsessed with this week. Bridgerton is an easy show to love. It's romantic and sexy, with great costumes and plots that zip along until each season ends with a happily ever after. Its popularity isn't difficult to understand, but augmenting its appeal as fun streaming entertainment is the massive amount of work by the
TL;DR: The Premium Microsoft Office Training Bundle + Lifetime License of MS Office Home & Business is usually $1,549, but as of March 31, it's a whopping 94% off, so you can get it for just $79.99. Microsoft Office isn't going away any time soon. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and now Teams (thanks, pandemic) have secured their places in office culture for the foreseeable future — even if that office
TL;DR: As of March 31, the PICO Planter Herb Garden is on sale for $39.99 instead of $49, so you're getting a discount of 18%. As a plant parent, there’s nothing more heartbreaking than watching your leafy green child shrivel up and rot. But sometimes, despite the amount of love you put into it, that’s exactly what happens. There’s no way to guarantee your plants will thrive, but the PICO Planter
On a dreary day in the slog between Chiristmas and New Year's last December, I was procrastinating at work. (If you try to tell me that you get any work done after Dec. 15, you're a dirty liar.) Deep into my procrastination efforts, I found myself in the Slack app's settings, where a little poking around bestowed me with the greatest gift of my holiday season: the Hummus Slack sound. For those un
TL;DR: This refurbished iPad Mini is on sale for just $289.99 as of March 31, which means it's 60% off its oroginal price of $729. If you’re in the market for an iPad, there’s no need to pay full price. The best way to score an iPad for under $300 outside of Black Friday is by buying refurbished. This 2015 iPad Mini — with WiFi and 4G unlocked, 128 GB of storage, and a bundle of accessories — for
The best Oscar moment of the decade wasn't actually part of the show. Mere hours after the March 4, 2018 Academy Awards ceremony, which ended with The Shape of Water taking best picture, The Lonely Island uploaded a YouTube demo for an Oscars song called “ Why Not Me? ” The four-minute track and storyboard celebrates the kind of movies the Academy usually overlooks, like superhero blockbusters, b
In 1999, Rice University chemist Jim Tour co-founded Molecular Electronics Corporation, a company that aimed to use single molecules to make a new type of electronic memory. But Tour had even bigger dreams. In a 2000 story in Wired , he foretold a future in which molecular electronics would leapfrog silicon-based circuitry, allowing computer chips to keep getting denser and more powerful. This vi
The actor, best known for his starring role in “The O.C.,” has become an outspoken critic of a volatile market driven by speculation. Who’s listening?
Boston Dynamics Stretch•
Almost exactly a year ago, Boston Dynamics introduced a new robot called "Stretch." It's not quite as exciting or as terrifyingly adorable as the Hyundai-owned company's Spot robotic dog, but it can make loading, unloading and moving boxes in warehouses a lot easier. Now, Boston Dynamics has announced that Stretch is finally available for purchase . Or, more precisely, it's now accepting reservat
Ahead of tomorrow’s energy price hike (1 April), Martin Lewis has outlined three tips for people who pay for their energy bills by monthly direct debit. Tomorrow, the energy price cap is due to rise by an average of 54% . If you have never switched supplier or you were on a cheap fix that has now ended, your energy bills are governed by the price cap. You’re also on the price cap if your previous
What happened to the concept of leading by example? Airline executives flout mask rules We’re slowly starting to see some airlines and airports remove the requirement to wear masks when traveling. Personally I’m in favor of giving people that choice at this point, as we have readily available vaccines and high quality masks for those who want to wear them. However, I can’t help but point out the
On @depthsofwikipedia, Annie Rauwerda is compiling some of the crowdsourced site’s most bizarre pages.
Egyptian Khazna QC•
In a country where 50% of its 100 million people are active smartphone users, two out of every three individuals have little or no access to formal financial services in Egypt. With banks doing their best to deepen financial services to the underbanked and unbanked across the North African country, startups are also playing their part. One such provider is Cairo-based Khazna — a self-described “f
Blue Origin is gearing up for its first crewed launch of the year, and fourth crewed launch overall, as the company seeks to expand its budding space tourism business. This time, the Jeff Bezos-headed company is sending up a crew of six, with the launch set to take place on Thursday at 8:30 AM CT (9:30 AM ET). Like the company’s previous missions – notably the mission in which Bezos himself went
Launches Klarna Kosma•
Last year, Visa surprised the European fintech industry as it announced that it would acquire Tink for €1.8 billion ($2.15 billion at the time of the deal). Klarna now wants to compete directly with Tink with a new business unit that has its own brand — Klarna Kosma . Like Tink, Klarna offers an open banking application programming interface (API) with Klarna Kosma. Tink and Klarna are also both
YESTERDAY
Cordless stick vacuums are all the rage these days but they can get super pricey, putting them out of reach for some. Samsung’s latest smart cordless vacuum, the Jet 60, looks like a decent entry-level option for those who want the lightweight convenience of a stick vacuum. It’s certainly not cheap coming in at AED 999 - a limited launch-time discount - but it is more approachable than Dyson’s of
OnePlus 10 Pro India•
It's finally almost here: the OnePlus 10 Pro is set to debut today, months after its initial launch in China (which was only for sales in that country). The global launch for this next big OnePlus phone is taking place today at 7am PT / 10am ET / 3pm BST, or at 1am Friday 1 AEDT, and you can find our guide on how to watch the online live stream here . This OnePlus 10 Pro is set to be an event jus
Meta and Sama , its main subcontractor for content moderation in Africa, are facing a lawsuit in Kenya over alleged unsafe and unfair working conditions, if they fail to meet 12 demands on workplace conditions brought before them. Nzili and Sumbi Advocates, the law firm representing Daniel Motaung, a former Sama employee that was laid-off for organizing a strike in 2019 over poor working conditio
Italia Trasporto Aereo (ITA Airways), Italy’s new national airline, launched operations as of October 15, 2021. For the last few months of 2021, the airline offered a status match promotion. That was then brought back a couple of weeks ago, for anyone who is interested but didn’t take advantage of the last offer. I wanted to provide an update on this, since the number of airlines that ITA Airways
Apple Netflix Spotify•
Netflix, Spotify and other similar services will now be able to add a link in their iOS apps that take users to their own websites for payment and account management. Apple now allows developers of "reader" apps to link to a website that they maintain. The tech giant defines reader apps as applications that "provide previously purchased content or content subscriptions for digital magazines, news
Smartphones are notoriously dirty. You've probably heard the toilet seat analogies before: The average phone is anywhere from seven to 10 times dirtier than most porcelain thrones, depending on who you ask, and one in six is supposedly contaminated with fecal matter. If you're checking your phone as often as most people — that is, about once every 10 minutes — that's a lot of exposure to a lot of
SAVE 82%: It's not all about ExpressVPN when it comes to streaming. PureVPN is cheaper, and offers many of the same streaming-friendly features. A two-year subscription to PureVPN is on sale for £35.85 — 82% off list price for a limited time. ExpressVPN is almost always at the top of roundups of the best services for streaming, but there is life outside this bubble. Hey, give some of the other gu
TL;DR: The Dynamic 2022 Digital Illustration Artist Bundle is on sale for £22.82, saving you 97% on list price. Getting started with graphic design is hard enough. Navigating a new software makes an already-intimidating skill almost unapproachable. Fortunately, though, courses like the ones in the Dynamic 2022 Digital Illustration Artist Bundle are designed to ease you into things. Packed with si
Wordle Today March•
It's a new dawn, it's a new day, and there's a new Wordle to solve. What a time to be alive! You'll find today's Wordle answer right down the bottom of this post. If you want a few clues first to nudge you in the direction of the solution, as well as general Wordle tips, strategies, and info, you'll find those on the way down. Created by engineer Josh Wardle as a gift for his puzzle-loving partne
TL;DR: A one-year subscription to Parallels Desktop Pro Edition is on sale for £60.87, saving you 20% on list price. Apple lovers are die-hard when it comes to their gadgets — usually packing a Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and maybe even some accessories to boot. They typically don’t venture too far from what they know, unless it’s necessary. For instance, there are some applications that just
We are living in the golden age of streaming, with absolutely loads of platforms hosting a massive library of content. We have literally thousands of movies and shows to choose from every night, and yet, it can still feel like there is nothing left to watch. We are spoilt for choice, but still not satisfied. Not content with the wide range of streaming sites on offer, a lot of users are turning t
SAVE 49%: ExpressVPN is one of the best services for unlocking extra content on the American version of Disney+. A one-year subscription to ExpressVPN is on sale for £78.27, and includes an extra three months for free — 49% off for a limited time. Disney+ is a hub of new releases, exclusives, and old favourites. There's plenty of entertainment on offer from this popular streaming platform, but so
You've probably heard about Tesla Arcade, but what about Steam support? It looks like Valve's platform will launch in these EVs, at least if Musk has his way.
The cloud VPN provider GoodAccess has announced the launch of its new Starter plan that allows even smaller companies to get access to a capable business VPN service for free. With the company's new Starter plan, SMBs and even startups can create a cloud-based business VPN for up to 100 users for free without the need to build their own hardware infrastructure. Despite being free, GoodAccess' new
Persona 5 PlayStation•
In yet another instance of Aussies getting the short end of the stick when it comes to online services, Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) has announced that a slightly worse version of the newly revamped PlayStation Plus will be arriving Down Under in June. While most overseas subscribers will have the option of Essential (free monthly games, online multiplayers, exclusive discounts, cloud sav
Intel chips remain the bedrock CPU solution in the PC industry. Now the company has set its sights on crypto mining, and that's a pretty big deal.
Incorporating different types of movements into your workout routine can be an effective way to improve your overall strength, mobility, and conditioning. And walking like an animal—instead of like a human—should be different enough. Read more...
Facebook Meta TikTok•
A new report claims Facebook's parent company Meta paid a GOP consulting firm to praise it in the media while also attacking competitor TikTok.
Shared micromobility company Tier Mobility said on Wednesday it has acquired Fantasmo , a U.S.-based computer vision-powered e-scooter parking startup whose tech Tier had been trialing in multiple cities in Europe. Tier will bring on all of Fantasmo’s 15 staff members and continue to invest in and develop what will now be an in-house Camera Positioning System (CPS) technology that the company say
The anticipated OnePlus 10R smartphone may have made its first appearance in a series of high-quality renders, and they're joined by some alleged specs.
Morbius Leto Marvel•
In the unrelenting flood of superhero stories hitting film and television, you might well feel overwhelmed by the Spider-Men , Eternals , The Batman , and Moon Knight of it all. Well, I've got some good news for you: Morbius is totally skippable. In an attempt to stand out, Sony's latest MCU-adjacent Spider-Man spinoff pitches plenty at audiences to see what sticks. Yet amid a barrage of stars, m
Morbius, the long-delayed next film in Sony’s Spider-Man universe , is like a roller coaster without a pulse. There are highs, there are lows, there’s plenty of disorientation, and by the end, you aren’t upset with the ride, but largely underwhelmed because you have the sense it should have been better . Read more...
Have you ever wanted to own headphones that cover your nose and mouth for air-filtering purposes? No? Well, Dyson apparently thinks some people do.
Demo Day Winter 2022•
The second day of Y Combinator’s Winter 2022 Demo Day is now behind us, and the TechCrunch team is recovering from watching hundreds of pitches in quick succession. Every accelerator demo day is a marathon, but the American group has worked with more startups over time, making its pitch sessions a veritable deluge of new companies and founders. Recall that nearly 400 companies presented at YC Dem
Astronaut Mark Vande Hei recently returned to Earth from the ISS, and while such events are typically routine, that certainly wasn't the case this time around.
Cryptos Capital GCC•
San Francisco- and Tokyo-headquartered gumi Cryptos Capital (gCC), a venture capital firm that focuses on blockchain startups, said it has launched a new $110 million early-stage fund. The venture capital firm’s second fund aims to back approximately 50 blockchain companies in the early stage from pre-seed to seed, managing partner of gCC Rui Zhang told TechCrunch. Industries include blockchain g
Airbus A380 Cooking•
An old Airbus A380 has a green new mission. The first A380 ever produced took flight last week on a flight powered by 100% sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF. A380 prototype. (Photo by A. Doumenjou/Master Films via Airbus) SAF is a type of biofuel that relies heavily on organic materials. The aviation industry is banking heavily on this type of fuel, hoping it can lessen the aviation industry’s re
Editor’s note: This is a recurring post, regularly updated with new information. Credit card issuers are in the business of acquiring long-term customers. Beyond offering a large introductory bonus to draw new applicants in, banks try to incentivize existing cardholders to not only keep their products for years but to swipe them on a recurring basis. One of the many tools to drive long-term utili
Moderna Pfizer Different•
Enlarge / A vial of COMIRNATY (Pfizer/BioNTech) and a vial of Moderna COVID-19 vaccines. (credit: Getty | Marcos del Mazo ) The mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines made by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna have proven highly effective at priming our immune systems to fight the pandemic coronavirus—preventing substantial amounts of infection, severe disease, and death throughout several waves of variants. But,
8.5 Apple Watch 7 Charging•
One of the major Apple Watch Series 7 features is fast charging support, but it looks like a recently issued software update has left it broken.
Wicked fast VPNs, data organization tools, auto-generated videos to spice up your company’s Instagram stories … Y Combinator’s Winter 2022 open source founders have some interesting ideas up their sleeves. And since they’re open source, some of these companies will let you join in on the fun of collaboration too. Here are all of the open source related companies presenting at Demo Day in the Wint
Sophie Alcorn Contributor Sophie Alcorn is the founder of Alcorn Immigration Law in Silicon Valley and 2019 Global Law Experts Awards’ “Law Firm of the Year in California for Entrepreneur Immigration Services.” She connects people with the businesses and opportunities that expand their lives. More posts by this contributor Dear Sophie: How long does it take to get International Entrepreneur Parol
Demo Day Winter 2022•
And that’s day two in the books! TechCrunch once again spent much of the day watching a parade of startups present as part of Y Combinator’s Winter 2022 cohort, Demo Day part two . Yeah, that’s a mouthful. But we did learn quite a lot. You can find all our coverage here , but what matters is that themes are emerging from the YC milieu. Southeast Asia is a huge startup target, with a host of busin
To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PT, subscribe here . Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for Wednesday, March 30, 2022! It’s day two of Y Combinator’s Demo Day, which means that the TechCrunch team has been looking at more than 400 startups over two days. If you’ll forgive us, our brains are dripping out of our ears as
Purnell Fallout Goggins•
Showing quite the penchant for survivalist roles, Ella Purnell (star of Showtime’s plane-crash drama Yellowjackets ) has signed onto another with Amazon’s Fallout adaptation. And she’s no stranger to genre: she was also in Zack Snyder’s Oscar “fan favorite ” zombie flick Army of the Dead , and voices one of the kids on … Read more...
The FDA has authorized a second COVID-19 booster shot for certain people despite the controversy surrounding it. Here's why the agency says it's important.
iOS picks up more and more features with each major release, which unfortunately means some of them aren’t exactly … obvious, making for great fodder for “things you didn’t know about your iPhone” TikTok. Example #4123131, this video: @initialfocus #stitch with @partyshirt I am way too late to this party #apple #iphonetricks #iphone ♬ original sound – michael You probably know about Apple’s long-
The makers of your favorite personalized pillow cases and DIY jewelry on Etsy are preparing for a digital strike in protest of what they see as exorbitant seller fees. Read more...
US Google Maps Reuters•
Enlarge / Let's see, you landed on my "Google Ads" space, and with three houses... that will be $1,400. (credit: Ron Amadeo / Hasbro) Google's latest antitrust headache is coming from the US government, which is starting to take issue with how Google bundles Google Maps and restricts developers from using competing services. Nothing's official yet, but Reuters' sources say the US Justice Departme
CDC Covid Cruise Travel•
After imposing more than two years of COVID-19 restrictions on the cruise industry, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has lifted its travel health notice for the sector, removing its warning level completely as the number of onboard cases has dropped. Most recently, the warning was at a Level 2. What does that mean for cruisers? Nothing, really. The change is significant because
Boss Move Talk about an entrance! Major League baseball player Tsuyoshi Shinjo, nicknamed “Big Boss,” returned to Japan’s Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters team as the new manager this week — and, memorably, he flew into the stadium on a hover bike. Shinjo levitated above the field while a light show and loud music played, according to a new report published this morning in USA Today . A tweet from ba
Apple Meta Hackers•
Last year, cybercriminals used phony law enforcement data requests to steal an unknown amount of user information from Apple and Meta. The data requests were submitted to the tech companies using hacked police email accounts, making them appear to be from legitimate government sources. Read more...
Elite status matches are a unique opportunity to extend the value of your existing frequent flyer benefits to other programs. And currently, Royal Air Maroc is offering the chance to earn Silver or Gold status to elite status holders in a wide variety of loyalty programs. Royal Air Maroc is part of the Oneworld alliance, giving you partner benefits with dozens of airlines. By qualifying for Royal
YouTube Picture iPad•
Google has begun rolling out a new update to its iOS YouTube TV app that allows both iPhone and iPad users to take advantage of picture-in-picture functionality. To watch something in PiP mode, swipe up from the bottom of the screen. The video will then automatically resize and move across your device’s display. iPhone & iPad users 🔊 We’re happy to share that picture-in-picture is now rolling ou
Moon Knight is a series that goes to some rather unfathomable places for a Marvel TV show. It’s darker and more mysterious than perhaps anything since the studio’s Netflix endeavors . It, with rather considerable restraint, chooses not to constantly reference its place in Marvel Cinematic Universe. Perhaps most… Read more...
HBO is bringing the fire-breathing dragons, white-haired royals, and fierce politics from the "Game of Thrones" universe back to the small screen in August.
Apple Financial Services•
Enlarge / The featureless, very Apple-like physical Apple Card. (credit: Apple ) Apple plans to build its own in-house technology and infrastructure for financial services, according to a Bloomberg report citing people with knowledge of the matter. The initiative is internally codenamed "Breakout" as an allusion to the idea of users breaking free from the current establishment players in the fina
Read more...
Healthcare has a hiring crises. Nearly 20% of medical workers have quit their jobs during the pandemic, according to a recent Morning Consult survey . Some studies estimated the healthcare system’s burnout cost at about $4.6 billion a year before the spread of COVID-19, a number that has likely risen. Organizations have increasingly ramped up benefits and hiring in an effort to address the challe
Samsung Western Digital•
Samsung and Western Digital have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that will see the two work together to further develop new SSD technology. As part of the new MOU, both companies will collaborate to standardize and drive broad adoption of next-generation data placement, processing and fabrics (D2PF) storage technologies. However, Samsung and Western Digital will initially focus on crea
Lapsus$ Giant Globant•
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images ) IT and software development firm Globant said in a statement Wednesday that it experienced a network breach. The statement appeared to confirm claims made by Lapsus$, a group that has successfully compromised Microsoft, Nvidia, Okta, and other victims in recent weeks. Lapsus$ is a relative newcomer to the data-extortion scene. While the group's tactics and procedur
NASA Hubble Telescope Star•
Astronomers have had success finding some of the most distant galaxies in the universe, but now they might have pinpointed the most distant star to date. As SyFy Wire notes , researchers using the Hubble Space Telescope have spotted Earendel ("morning star" in Old English), a star currently reckoned to be 12.9 billion light-years away — the light we see from it comes from when the universe was ro
Kimpton Hotels is providing free therapy to guests. They’re providing “up to 1,000 complimentary video therapy sessions with licensed counselors to any guest over the age of 18 staying at one of Kimpton’s 60+ participating properties.” And the deal on mental health treatments extends even beyond the stay. Continue reading ...
Amazon has revealed the eight games that it'll make available for free to Prime subscribers in April, though you'll need a gaming PC to play them.
Northern Lights If you live in the Northern part of the United States and catch a glimpse of the aurora borealis tonight, you’ll have a “cannibal” solar explosion to thank. As Live Science reports , a “cannibal” coronal mass ejection (CME) — a cloud-like release of magnetic plasma particles from the Sun’s corona so huge that it eats smaller clouds to create a gigantic mega-blast — is the cause of
Hundreds of companies presented at Y Combinator’s Winter 2022 Demo Day event , and I looked at pretty much all their logos. There’s a lot of solid ones, a few clunkers and a handful of really nice ones. Here’s a list of the latter for your pleasure and edification. I haven’t put these in any order — in fact the order they appeared in when I put the images in the post was a complete surprise. Let’
Mac iFixit Apple Studio•
It may look a lot like the redesigned iMac , but Apple’s new Studio Display is in many ways a more complicated device once you open it up. Next to the company’s all-in-one desktop, the monitor is about 50 percent thicker, and there’s an interesting reason for that. Following its recent Mac Studio teardown , iFixit took apart the Studio Display to see the engineering that went into Apple’s first d
Tumblr is expanding its tip jar feature by introducing blog-level tipping for its iOS and web applications, the company announced on Wednesday. The company rolled out its tip jar feature last month allowing users to leave tips on posts. Today’s expansion will allow users to leave tips on blogs. Tumblr says the expansion will benefit creators because it permits tipping at the blog level without ty
The major credit card issuers have various policies in place to crack down on those who apply for credit cards exclusively for welcome offers. While credit card issuers sometimes have big bonuses to get customers to apply, they do so with the hope of people holding onto a credit card long term. While it’s understandable that sometimes a card might not work out for someone, those who constantly op
Earning airline elite status has historically required flying long distances and spending thousands of dollars. However, airlines have been rethinking their qualification requirements over the last few years and making them more about spending than actual travel. American Ai