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European parliament’s NationBuilder contract under investigation by data regulator Europe’s lead data regulator has issued its first ever sanction of an EU institution — taking enforcement action against the European parliament over its use of US-based digital campaign company, NationBuilder, to process citizens’ voter data ahead of the spring elections. NationBuilder is a veteran of the digital campaign space — indeed, we first covered […] Social – TechCrunch - European parliament’s NationBuilder contract under investigation by data regulator November 29, 2019 at 02:00AM

Twitter tests new conversation features from twttr prototype, rollout planned for 2020 Twttr, the prototype app Twitter launched earlier this year, has been testing new ways to display conversations, including through the use of threaded replies and other visual cues. Now, those features have been spotted on Twitter.com, giving the service a message board-like feel where replies are connected to original tweeter and others in a thread […] Social – TechCrunch - Twitter tests new conversation features from twttr prototype, rollout planned for 2020 November 28, 2019 at 07:00AM

Twitter to add a way to ‘memorialize’ accounts for deceased users before removing inactive ones Twitter has changed its tune regarding inactive accounts after receiving a lot of user feedback: It will now be developing a way to “memorialize” user accounts for those who have passed away, before proceeding with a plan it confirmed this week to deactivate accounts that are inactive in order to “present more accurate, credible information” […] Social – TechCrunch - Twitter to add a way to ‘memorialize’ accounts for deceased users before removing inactive ones November 28, 2019 at 06:00AM

Box looks to balance growth and profitability as it matures Prevailing wisdom states that as an enterprise SaaS company evolves, there’s a tendency to sacrifice profitability for growth — understandably so, especially in the early days of the company. At some point, however, a company needs to become profitable. Box has struggled to reach that goal since going public in 2015, but yesterday, it delivered […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - Box looks to balance growth and profitability as it matures November 28, 2019 at 05:00AM

Brexit ad blitz data firm paid by Vote Leave broke privacy laws, watchdogs find A joint investigation by watchdogs in Canada and British Columbia has found that Cambridge Analytica-linked data firm, Aggregate IQ, broke privacy laws in Facebook ad-targeting work it undertook for the official Vote Leave Brexit campaign in the UK’s 2016 EU referendum. A quick reminder: Vote Leave was the official leave campaign in the referendum on the […] Social – TechCrunch - Brexit ad blitz data firm paid by Vote Leave broke privacy laws, watchdogs find November 27, 2019 at 09:00PM

Xerox tells HP it will bring takeover bid directly to shareholders Xerox fired the latest volley in the Xerox -HP merger letter wars today. Xerox CEO John Visentin wrote to the HP Board that his company planned to take its $33.5 billion offer directly to HP shareholders. He began his letter with hostile tone befitting a hostile takeover attempt, stating that their refusal to negotiate defied […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - Xerox tells HP it will bring takeover bid directly to shareholders November 27, 2019 at 08:00AM

New Amazon capabilities put machine learning in reach of more developers Today, Amazon announced a new approach that it says will put machine learning technology in reach of more developers and line of business users. Amazon has been making a flurry of announcements ahead of its re:Invent customer conference next week in Las Vegas. While the company offers plenty of tools for data scientists to build […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - New Amazon capabilities put machine learning in reach of more developers November 27, 2019 at 04:01AM

Instagram founders join $30M raise for Loom work video messenger Why are we all trapped in enterprise chat apps if we talk 6X faster than we type, and our brain processes visual info 60,000X faster than text? Thanks to Instagram, we’re not as camera-shy anymore. And everyone’s trying to remain in flow instead of being distracted by multi-tasking. That’s why now is the time for […] Social – TechCrunch - Instagram founders join $30M raise for Loom work video messenger November 27, 2019 at 02:01AM

Instagram founders join $30M raise for Loom work video messenger Why are we all trapped in enterprise chat apps if we talk 6X faster than we type, and our brain processes visual info 60,000X faster than text? Thanks to Instagram, we’re not as camera-shy anymore. And everyone’s trying to remain in flow instead of being distracted by multi-tasking. That’s why now is the time for […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - Instagram founders join $30M raise for Loom work video messenger November 27, 2019 at 02:01AM

Coralogix announces $10M Series A to bring more intelligence to logging Coralogix, a startup that wants to bring automation and intelligence to logging, announced a $10 million Series A investment today. The round was led by Aleph with participation from StageOne Ventures, Janvest Capital Partners and 2B Angels. Today’s investment brings the total raised to $16.2 million, according to the company. CEO and co-founder Ariel Assaraf […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - Coralogix announces $10M Series A to bring more intelligence to logging November 27, 2019 at 12:03AM

Vivun snags $3M seed round to bring order to pre-sales Vivun, a startup that wants to help companies keep better track of pre-sales data announced a $3 million seed round today led by Unusual Ventures, the venture firm run by Harness CEO Jyoti Bansal. Vivun founder and CEO Matt Darrow says that pre-sales team works more closely with the customer than anyone else, delivering demos […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - Vivun snags $3M seed round to bring order to pre-sales November 26, 2019 at 11:00PM

Inside the Instagram AI that fills Explore with fresh, juicy content Instagram has posted an article describing the behind-the-scenes machinery that fills the Explore tab in Instagram with new, interesting stuff every time you open it. It's a bit technical, so here are five takeaways. Social – TechCrunch - Inside the Instagram AI that fills Explore with fresh, juicy content November 26, 2019 at 12:00PM

AWS expands its IoT services, brings Alexa to devices with only 1MB of RAM AWS today announced a number of IoT-related updates that, for the most part, aim to make getting started with its IoT services easier, especially for companies that are trying to deploy a large fleet of devices. The marquee announcement, however, is about the Alexa Voice Service, which makes Amazon’s Alex voice assistant available to hardware […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - AWS expands its IoT services, brings Alexa to devices with only 1MB of RAM November 26, 2019 at 05:00AM

Save 50% in the Hacking with Swift Black Friday sale All books and bundles are half price! Swift Developer News - Hacking with Swift - Save 50% in the Hacking with Swift Black Friday sale November 25, 2019 at 08:00PM

Hulu is down, and nobody’s sure why Hulu is currently down. We’re not sure why, and neither does Hulu. A stream of tweets complaining about the outage surfaced Sunday morning on the U.S. east coast, but it seems like a global outage. In response, Hulu’s Twitter support didn’t seem to know either, instead telling frustrated users that it’s looking into it. Fantastic. […] Social – TechCrunch - Hulu is down, and nobody’s sure why November 25, 2019 at 02:00AM

Facebook prototypes Favorites for close friends microsharing Facebook is building its own version of Instagram Close Friends, the company confirms to TechCrunch. There’s a lot people that don’t share on Facebook because it can feel risky or awkward since its definition of “friends” has swelled to include family, work colleagues, and distant acquaintances. No one wants their boss or grandma seeing their […] Social – TechCrunch - Facebook prototypes Favorites for close friends microsharing November 23, 2019 at 07:00AM

Making sense of a multi-cloud, hybrid world at KubeCon More than 12,000 attendees gathered this week in San Diego to discuss all things containers, Kubernetes and cloud-native at KubeCon. Kubernetes, the container orchestration tool, turned five this year, and the technology appears to be reaching a maturity phase where it accelerates beyond early adopters to reach a more mainstream group of larger business users. […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - Making sense of a multi-cloud, hybrid world at KubeCon November 23, 2019 at 07:00AM

Cloud Foundry’s Kubernetes bet with Project Eirini hits 1.0 Cloud Foundry, the open-source platform-as-a-service that, with the help of lots of commercial backers, is currently in use by the majority of Fortune 500 companies, launched well before containers, and especially the Kubernetes orchestrator, were a thing. Instead, the project built its own container service, but the rise of Kubernetes obviously created a lot of […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - Cloud Foundry’s Kubernetes bet with Project Eirini hits 1.0 November 23, 2019 at 01:00AM

Watch Sacha Baron Cohen skewer Zuckerberg’s “twisted logic” on hate speech and fakes Comedian Sacha Baron Cohen has waded into the debate about social media regulation. In an award-acceptance speech to the Anti Defamation League yesterday the creator of Ali G and Borat delivered a precision takedown of what he called Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s “bullshit” arguments against regulating his platform. The speech is well worth watching in […] Social – TechCrunch - Watch Sacha Baron Cohen skewer Zuckerberg’s “twisted logic” on hate speech and fakes November 22, 2019 at 10:00PM

Twitter will finally let you turn on two-factor authentication without giving it a phone number Two-factor authentication is good! SMS-based two-factor authentication? Not the best option. After countless tales of people having their phone numbers and inbound SMS hijacked by way of SIM swapping, it’s clear that SMS just isn’t the right solution for sending people secondary login codes. And yet, for many years, it’s been the mandatory go-to on […] Social – TechCrunch - Twitter will finally let you turn on two-factor authentication without giving it a phone number November 22, 2019 at 09:00AM

Linear takes $4.2M led by Sequoia to build a better bug tracker and more Software will eat the world, as the saying goes, but in doing so, some developers are likely to get a little indigestion. That is to say, building products requires working with disparate and distributed teams, and while developers may have an ever-growing array of algorithms, APIs and technology at their disposal to do this, ironically […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - Linear takes $4.2M led by Sequoia to build a better bug tracker and more November 22, 2019 at 07:00AM

Facebook Dating now integrates with Instagram and Facebook Stories Facebook Dating, an opt-in feature of the main Facebook app, will begin to tap into the content users are already creating across both Facebook and Instagram to enhance its service. Today, Facebook Dating users will be able to add their Facebook or Instagram Stories to Facebook Dating, in order to share their everyday moments with […] Social – TechCrunch - Facebook Dating now integrates with Instagram and Facebook Stories November 22, 2019 at 03:00AM

Twitter rolls out its ‘Hide Replies’ feature to all users worldwide Twitter’s radical “Hide Replies” feature, one of the biggest changes to how Twitter works since the invention of the Retweet, is now available to Twitter’s global user base. The company says the feature will roll out to all Twitter users across platforms by today, with only one slight tweak since earlier tests. Designed to balance […] Social – TechCrunch - Twitter rolls out its ‘Hide Replies’ feature to all users worldwide November 22, 2019 at 02:00AM

Celonis, a leader in big data process mining for enterprises, nabs $290M on a $2.5B valuation More than $1 trillion is spent by enterprises annually on “digital transformation” — the investments that organizations make to update their IT systems to get more out of them and reduce costs — and today one of the bigger startups that’s built a platform to help get the ball rolling is announcing a huge round […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - Celonis, a leader in big data process mining for enterprises, nabs $290M on a $2.5B valuation November 21, 2019 at 11:00PM

Amnesty International latest to slam surveillance giants Facebook and Google as “incompatible” with human rights Human rights charity Amnesty International is the latest to call for reform of surveillance capitalism — blasting the business models of “surveillance giants” Facebook and Google in a new report which warns the pair’s market dominating platforms are “enabling human rights harm at a population scale”. “[D]despite the real value of the services they provide, […] Social – TechCrunch - Amnesty International latest to slam surveillance giants Facebook and Google as “incompatible” with human rights November 21, 2019 at 08:00PM

Google Cloud launches Bare Metal Solution Google Cloud today announced the launch of a new bare metal service, dubbed the Bare Metal Solution. We aren’t talking about bare metal servers offered directly by Google Cloud here, though. Instead, we’re talking about a solution that enterprises can use to run their specialized workloads on certified hardware that’s co-located in the Google Cloud […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - Google Cloud launches Bare Metal Solution November 21, 2019 at 06:00AM

Reimagine inside sales to ramp up B2B customer acquisition User-first products are driving rapid company growth in an era where individuals discover, adopt, and share software they like, but what if your company doesn’t fit that profile? Enterprise – TechCrunch - Reimagine inside sales to ramp up B2B customer acquisition November 21, 2019 at 06:00AM

Google makes converting VMs to containers easier with the GA of Migrate for Anthos At its Cloud Next event in London, Google today announced a number of product updates around its managed Anthos platform, as well as Apigee and its Cloud Code tools for building modern applications that can then be deployed to Google Cloud or any Kubernetes cluster. Anthos is one of the most important recent launches for […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - Google makes converting VMs to containers easier with the GA of Migrate for Anthos November 21, 2019 at 02:00AM

Nominations open for the 2019 Swift Community Awards Nominate the people and projects that help you the most Swift Developer News - Hacking with Swift - Nominations open for the 2019 Swift Community Awards November 20, 2019 at 08:00AM

Facebook’s latest experiment is a meme creation app, Whale Facebook’s NPE Team, a division inside the social networking giant that will build experimental consumer-facing social apps, has now added a third app to its lineup with the launch of meme creation app Whale. Currently, the app allows users to decorate photos with text and stickers in order to create memes that can be shared […] Social – TechCrunch - Facebook’s latest experiment is a meme creation app, Whale November 20, 2019 at 06:00AM

Give InKind’s smarter giving platform brings in surprise $1.5 million in pre-seed funding Helping out a friend in need online can be surprisingly difficult. While giving cash is easy enough, that's often not what people need most — so Give InKind aims to be the platform where you can do a lot more than write a check. The idea is such a natural one that the company tripled its goal for a pre-seed round, raising $1.5 million from Seattle investors. Social – TechCrunch - Give InKind’s smarter giving platform brings in surprise $1.5 million in pre-seed funding November 20, 2019 at 05:00AM

Clumio raises $135M Series C for its backup as a service platform Clumio, a 100-people startup that offers a SaaS-like service for enterprise backup, today announced that it has raised a $135 million Series C round, led by existing investor Sutter Hill Ventures and new investor Altimeter Captial. The announcement comes shortly after the company’s disclosure in August that it had quietly raised a total of $51 […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - Clumio raises $135M Series C for its backup as a service platform November 20, 2019 at 05:00AM

Facebook announces dates for its 2020 F8 developers conference Facebook announced its plans for its F8 annual developer conference, which is where the company shows off its latest technology, apps and its vision for the future. The company says the next event will take place on May 5-6, 2020 at the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, CA. Interested attendees can sign up at www.f8.com […] Social – TechCrunch - Facebook announces dates for its 2020 F8 developers conference November 20, 2019 at 04:00AM

SocialRank sells biz to Trufan, pivots to a mobile LinkedIn What do you do when your startup idea doesn’t prove big enough? Run it as a scrawny but profitable lifestyle business? Or sell it to a competitor and take another swing at the fences? Social audience analytics and ad targeting startup SocialRank chose the latter and is going for glory. Today, SocialRank announced it’s sold […] Social – TechCrunch - SocialRank sells biz to Trufan, pivots to a mobile LinkedIn November 20, 2019 at 12:01AM

Salesforce, AWS expand partnership to bring Amazon Connect to Service Cloud Salesforce and AWS announced an expansion of their on-going partnership that actually goes back to a $400 million 2016 infrastructure services agreement, and expanded last year to include data integration between the two companies. This year, Salesforce announced it will be offering AWS telephony and call transcription services with Amazon Connect as part of its […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - Salesforce, AWS expand partnership to bring Amazon Connect to Service Cloud November 20, 2019 at 12:01AM

SocialRank sells biz to Trufan, pivots to a mobile LinkedIn What do you do when your startup idea doesn’t prove big enough? Run it as a scrawny but profitable lifestyle business? Or sell it to a competitor and take another swing at the fences? Social audience analytics and ad targeting startup SocialRank chose the latter and is going for glory. Today, SocialRank announced it’s sold […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - SocialRank sells biz to Trufan, pivots to a mobile LinkedIn November 20, 2019 at 12:01AM

Eden office management platform raises $25 million Series B Eden, the workplace management platform that connects office managers with service providers, today announced the close of a $25 million Series B round led by Reshape. Participants in the round also include Fifth Wall Ventures, Mitsui Fudosan, RXR Realty, Thor Equities, Bessemer Venture Partners, Alate Partners, Quiet Capital, S28 Capital, Canvas Ventures, Comcast Ventures, Upshift […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - Eden office management platform raises $25 million Series B November 20, 2019 at 12:01AM

The Cerebras CS-1 computes deep learning AI problems by being bigger, bigger, and bigger than any other chip Deep learning is all the rage these days in enterprise circles, and it isn’t hard to understand why. Whether it is optimizing ad spend, finding new drugs to cure cancer, or just offering better, more intelligent products to customers, machine learning — and particularly deep learning models — have the potential to massively improve a […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - The Cerebras CS-1 computes deep learning AI problems by being bigger, bigger, and bigger than any other chip November 19, 2019 at 11:00PM

18 months after acquisition, MuleSoft is integrating more deeply into Salesforce A year and a half after getting acquired by Salesforce for $6.5 billion, MuleSoft is beginning to resemble a Salesforce company — using its language and its methodologies to describe new products and services. This week at Dreamforce, as the company’s mega customer conference begins in San Francisco, MuleSoft announced a slew of new services […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - 18 months after acquisition, MuleSoft is integrating more deeply into Salesforce November 19, 2019 at 10:00AM

Twitter launches a way to report abusive use of its Lists feature Like many things found on today’s social media platforms, Twitter’s Lists feature was introduced without thinking about the impact it could have on marginalized groups, or how it could be otherwise be used for abuse or surveillance if put in the hands of bad actors. Today, Twitter is taking a step to address that problem […] Social – TechCrunch - Twitter launches a way to report abusive use of its Lists feature November 19, 2019 at 06:00AM

Gremlin brings Chaos Engineering as a Service to Kubernetes The practice of Chaos Engineering developed at Amazon and Netflix a decade ago to help those web scale companies test their complex systems for worst case scenarios before they happened. Gremlin was started by a former employee of both these companies to make it easier to perform this type of testing without a team of […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - Gremlin brings Chaos Engineering as a Service to Kubernetes November 19, 2019 at 04:00AM

Google Maps tests a social networking feature with the ability to ‘follow’ Local Guides Google Maps will soon begin testing a new feature that’s more common to social networks like Facebook, rather than a maps app: the ability to find and follow other users. In Google Maps’ case, it’s specifically rolling out the ability to follow top “Local Guides” — its community members who actively review business and share […] Social – TechCrunch - Google Maps tests a social networking feature with the ability to ‘follow’ Local Guides November 19, 2019 at 03:00AM

Bill McDermott takes reins as ServiceNow CEO sooner than expected with new CFO When former SAP CEO Bill McDermott announced that he was stepping down in October after a decade in the position, it was pretty unexpected. He indicated at that point, he would stay until the end of the year to help with the transition to new leadership — then ServiceNow hired him to be its CEO just […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - Bill McDermott takes reins as ServiceNow CEO sooner than expected with new CFO November 19, 2019 at 01:01AM

Ohi raises $2.75M to power same-day delivery for brands that aren’t Amazon The world has gotten so much faster. Amazon has made two-day shipping the standard and same- or next-day shipping commonplace. And that doesn’t even include the collection of on-demand players who can get us everything from groceries to alcohol to services like concierge storage and in-home cleaning with the press of a button. But the […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - Ohi raises $2.75M to power same-day delivery for brands that aren’t Amazon November 19, 2019 at 01:01AM

Salesforce, Apple partnership begins to come to life Last year at Dreamforce, Salesforce’s enormous annual customer conference, Apple and Salesforce announced the beginnings of a partnership where the two organizations would work together to enhance Salesforce products running on Apple devices. Today, as this year’s Dreamforce conference begins, the companies announced the fruits of that labor with general availability of two new tools […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - Salesforce, Apple partnership begins to come to life November 19, 2019 at 12:01AM

Facebook’s Libra code chugs along ignoring regulatory deadlock “5 months and growing strong” the Libra Association announced today in an post about its technical infrastructure that completely omits the fierce regulatory backlash to its cryptocurrency. 40 wallets, tools, and block explorers plus 1,700 Github commits have how now been built on its blockchain testnet that’s seen 51,000 mock transactions in the past two […] Social – TechCrunch - Facebook’s Libra code chugs along ignoring regulatory deadlock November 16, 2019 at 08:00AM

Why Salesforce is moving Marketing Cloud to Microsoft Azure When Salesforce announced this week that it was moving Marketing Cloud to Microsoft Azure, it was easy to see this as another case of wacky enterprise partnerships. But there had to be sound business reasons why the partnership came together, rather than going with AWS or Google Cloud Platform, both of which are also Salesforce […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - Why Salesforce is moving Marketing Cloud to Microsoft Azure November 16, 2019 at 07:00AM

Daily Crunch: TikTok starts experimenting with commerce The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here. 1. TikTok tests social commerce The short-form video app said it’s allowing some users to add links to e-commerce sites (or any […] Social – TechCrunch - Daily Crunch: TikTok starts experimenting with commerce November 16, 2019 at 06:00AM

Three of Apple and Google’s former star chip designers launch NUVIA with $53M in series A funding Silicon is apparently the new gold these days, or so VCs hope. What was once a no-go zone for venture investors, who feared the long development lead times and high technical risk required for new entrants in the semiconductor field, has now turned into one of the hottest investment areas for enterprise and data VCs. […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - Three of Apple and Google’s former star chip designers launch NUVIA with $53M in series A funding November 16, 2019 at 06:00AM

Twitter makes its political ad ban official The ban on political ads announced by Twitter two weeks ago has come into effect, and the rules are surprisingly simple — perhaps too simple. No political content as they define it may be promoted; Candidates, parties, governments or officials, PACs, and certain political nonprofit groups are banned from promoting content altogether. Social – TechCrunch - Twitter makes its political ad ban official November 16, 2019 at 05:00AM

Despite bans, Giphy still hosts self-harm, hate speech, and child sex abuse content Image search engine Giphy bills itself as providing “fun and safe way” to search and create animated GIFs. But despite its ban on illicit content, the site is littered with self-harm and child sex abuse imagery, TechCrunch has learned. A new report from Israeli online child protection startup L1ght — previously AntiToxin Technologies — has […] Social – TechCrunch - Despite bans, Giphy still hosts self-harm, hate speech, and child sex abuse content November 16, 2019 at 12:01AM

TikTok tests social commerce TikTok is beginning to dabble in social commerce. The short-form video app said it has started to allow some users to add links to e-commerce sites (or any other destination) to their profile biography as well as offer creators the ability to easily send their viewers to shopping websites. The company said the roll-out of […] Social – TechCrunch - TikTok tests social commerce November 15, 2019 at 07:00PM

Homeis adds community tools for Mexican immigrants Homeis, a startup building networking tools for immigrant communities, officially launched its community for Mexican immigrants this week. Co-founder and CEO Ran Harnevo (pictured above) previously founded video syndication company 5min, which was acquired by AOL, where he served as the global president of the company’s video division. (AOL also bought TechCrunch and then was […] Social – TechCrunch - Homeis adds community tools for Mexican immigrants November 15, 2019 at 10:00AM

This ride-hailing PR pitch shows platforms and digital campaign ‘dark arts’ want democracy to be pay to play A UK PR firm pitching to run an account for Ola has proposed running a campaign to politicize ride-hailing as a tactic to shift regulations in its favor. The approach suggests that, despite the appearance of ride-hailing platforms taking a more conciliatory position with regulators that are now wise to earlier startup tactics in this […] Social – TechCrunch - This ride-hailing PR pitch shows platforms and digital campaign ‘dark arts’ want democracy to be pay to play November 15, 2019 at 10:00AM

AWS confirms reports it will challenge JEDI contract award to Microsoft Surely just about everyone was surprised when the Department of Defense named Microsoft as the winner of the decade long, $10 billion JEDI cloud contract last month, none more so than Amazon, the company everyone assumed all along would be the winner. Today the company confirmed earlier reports that it was challenging the contract award […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - AWS confirms reports it will challenge JEDI contract award to Microsoft November 15, 2019 at 10:00AM

Facebook quietly built “Popular Photos”, an in-app Instagram Facebook is copying Instagram while simultaneously invading its acquisition with branding and links back to the mothership. TechCrunch has spotted Facebook testing a feature called Popular Photos, which affixes an endless scroll of algorithmically selected pics from friends beneath the full-screen view of a photo opened from the News Feed. The result is an experience […] Social – TechCrunch - Facebook quietly built “Popular Photos”, an in-app Instagram November 15, 2019 at 07:00AM

Adobe announces GA of customer data platform The customer data platform (CDP) is the newest tool in the customer experience arsenal as big companies try to help customers deal with data coming from multiple channels. Today, Adobe announced the general availability of its CDP. The CDP is a like a central data warehouse for all the information you have on a single […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - Adobe announces GA of customer data platform November 15, 2019 at 03:01AM

Instagram tests hiding Like counts globally Instagram is making Like counts private for some users everywhere. Instagram tells TechCrunch the hidden Likes test is expanding to a subset of people globally. Users will have to decide for themselves if something is worth Liking rather than judging by the herd. The change could make users more comfortable sharing what’s important to them […] Social – TechCrunch - Instagram tests hiding Like counts globally November 15, 2019 at 02:00AM

Salesforce announces it’s moving Marketing Cloud to Microsoft Azure In the world of enterprise software, there are often strange bedfellows. Just yesterday, Salesforce announced a significant partnership with AWS around the Cloud Information Model. This morning, it announced it was moving its Marketing Cloud to Microsoft Azure. That’s the way that enterprise partnerships shimmy and shake sometimes. The companies also announced they were partnering […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - Salesforce announces it’s moving Marketing Cloud to Microsoft Azure November 15, 2019 at 01:00AM

Moveworks snags $75M Series B to resolve help desk tickets with AI Moveworks, a startup using AI to help resolve Help Desk tickets in an automated fashion, announced a $75 million Series B investment today. The round was led by Iconiq Capital, Kleiner Perkins and Sapphire Ventures. Existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, Bain Capital Ventures, and Comerica Bank also participated. The round also included a personal investment […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - Moveworks snags $75M Series B to resolve help desk tickets with AI November 14, 2019 at 10:00PM

Eigen nabs $37M to help banks and others parse huge documents using natural language and ‘small data’ One of the bigger trends in enterprise software has been the emergence of startups building tools to make the benefits of artificial intelligence technology more accessible to non-tech companies. Today, one that has built a platform to apply power of machine learning and natural language processing to massive documents of unstructured data has closed a […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - Eigen nabs $37M to help banks and others parse huge documents using natural language and ‘small data’ November 14, 2019 at 08:00PM

Social network for motherhood Peanut raises $5M, expands to include women trying to conceive Peanut, an app that began its life as a match-maker for finding new mom friends but has since evolved into a social network of more than a million women, announced today it has closed on $5 million in new funding and is expanding its focus to reach women who are trying to conceive. The round […] Social – TechCrunch - Social network for motherhood Peanut raises $5M, expands to include women trying to conceive November 14, 2019 at 03:00PM

Messaging app Wire confirms $8.2M raise, responds to privacy concerns after moving holding company to the US Big changes are afoot for Wire, an enterprise-focused end-to-end encrypted messaging app and service that advertises itself as “the most secure collaboration platform”. In February, Wire quietly raised $8.2 million from Morpheus Ventures and others, we’ve confirmed — the first funding amount it has ever disclosed — and alongside that external financing, it moved its […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - Messaging app Wire confirms $8.2M raise, responds to privacy concerns after moving holding company to the US November 14, 2019 at 11:00AM

AWS, Salesforce join forces with Linux Foundation on Cloud Information Model Last year, Adobe, SAP and Microsoft came together and formed the Open Data Initiative. Not to be outdone, this week, AWS, Salesforce and Genesys, in partnership with The Linux Foundation, announced the Cloud Information Model. The two competing data models have a lot in common. They are both about bringing together data and applying a […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - AWS, Salesforce join forces with Linux Foundation on Cloud Information Model November 14, 2019 at 08:00AM

Freshworks raises $150M Series H on $3.5B valuation Freshworks, a company that makes a variety of business software tools from CRM to help desk software, announced a $150 million Series H investment today from Sequoia Capital, CapitalG (formerly Google Capital) and Accel on a hefty $3.5 billion valuation. The late-stage startup has raised almost $400 million, according to Crunchbase data. The company has […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - Freshworks raises $150M Series H on $3.5B valuation November 14, 2019 at 07:00AM

Atlassian expands Jira Service Desk beyond IT teams Atlassian today announced a set of new templates and workflows for Jira Service Desk that were purpose-built for HR, legal and facilities teams. Service Desk started six years ago as a version of Jira that was mostly meant for IT departments. Atlassian, however, found that other teams inside the companies that adopted it started to […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - Atlassian expands Jira Service Desk beyond IT teams November 14, 2019 at 05:00AM

Facebook says government demands for user data are at a record high Facebook’s latest transparency report is out. The social media giant said the number of government demands for user data increased by 16% to 128,617 demands during the first-half of this year compared to the second-half of last year. That’s the highest number of government demands its received in any reporting period since it published its […] Social – TechCrunch - Facebook says government demands for user data are at a record high November 14, 2019 at 03:00AM

Mirantis acquires Docker Enterprise Mirantis today announced that it has acquired Docker’s Enterprise business and team. Docker Enterprise was very much the heart of Docker’s product lineup, so this sale leaves Docker as a shell of its former, high-flying unicorn self. Docker itself, which installed a new CEO earlier this year, says it will continue to focus on tools […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - Mirantis acquires Docker Enterprise November 14, 2019 at 03:00AM

The Best Swift and iOS conferences in 2020 Learn more Swift and meet new friends at the same time. Swift Developer News - Hacking with Swift - The Best Swift and iOS conferences in 2020 November 14, 2019 at 12:01AM

Facebook wants you to pay people on Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp with Facebook Pay Square. Venmo. PayPal. Apple Pay. Google Pay. There’s really no shortage of ways to give people money via your phone, but that — nor growing calls that the company is already getting too damned big — isn’t stopping Facebook. Facebook just announced Facebook Pay, a single payment system that ties into all of the things […] Social – TechCrunch - Facebook wants you to pay people on Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp with Facebook Pay November 13, 2019 at 07:00AM

A US federal court finds suspicionless searches of phones at the border is illegal A federal court in Boston has ruled that the government is not allowed to search travelers’ phones and devices at the U.S. border without first having reasonable suspicion of a crime. That’s a significant victory for civil liberties advocates who have said that the government’s own rules that allow its border agents to search electronic […] Social – TechCrunch - A US federal court finds suspicionless searches of phones at the border is illegal November 13, 2019 at 06:00AM

Facebook pilloried over iPhone ‘secret camera access’ bug Facebook has faced a barrage of concern over an apparent bug that resulted in the social media giant’s iPhone app exposing the camera as users scroll through their feed. A tweet over the weekend blew up after Joshua Maddux tweeted a screen recording of the Facebook app on his iPhone. He noticed that the camera […] Social – TechCrunch - Facebook pilloried over iPhone ‘secret camera access’ bug November 13, 2019 at 04:00AM

Work collaboration startup Notion Labs cozies up to Silicon Valley’s top accelerators Startups building work software for other startups have been a huge focus of investment in Silicon Valley as eager VCs hope to grab a piece of the next Slack. Notion Labs, a profitable work tools startup that recently hit a reported $800 million valuation, isn’t making it easy for VC firms to give them money, […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - Work collaboration startup Notion Labs cozies up to Silicon Valley’s top accelerators November 13, 2019 at 03:00AM

S’More is a new dating app that looks to suspend physical attraction for something more According to former Chappy Managing Director Adam Cohen Aslatei, “something more” is one of the most common pieces of feedback that dating apps get from their users. That’s where S’More comes in. S’More was founded by Aslatei to provide a dating app to users that goes beyond superficial looks. Here’s how it works: Rather than […] Social – TechCrunch - S’More is a new dating app that looks to suspend physical attraction for something more November 13, 2019 at 01:00AM

Loop Returns picks up $10 million in Series A led by FirstMark Capital Loop Returns, the startup that helps brands handle returns from online purchases, has today announced the close of a $10 million Series A funding round led by FirstMark Capital. Lerer Hippeau and Ridge Ventures also participated in the round. Loop started when Jonathan Poma, a cofounder and COO and President, was working at an agency […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - Loop Returns picks up $10 million in Series A led by FirstMark Capital November 12, 2019 at 11:01PM

Lawyers hate timekeeping. Ping raises $13M to fix it with AI Counting billable time in six minute increments is the most annoying part of being a lawyer. It’s a distracting waste. It leads law firms to conservatively under-bill. And it leaves lawyers stuck manually filling out timesheets after a long day when they want to go home to their families. Life is already short, as Ping […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - Lawyers hate timekeeping. Ping raises $13M to fix it with AI November 12, 2019 at 11:00PM

Dutch court orders Facebook to ban celebrity crypto scam ads after another lawsuit A Dutch court has ruled that Facebook can be required to use filter technologies to identify and pre-emptively take down fake ads linked to crypto currency scams that carry the image of a media personality, John de Mol, and other well known celebrities. The Dutch celerity filed a lawsuit against Facebook in April over the […] Social – TechCrunch - Dutch court orders Facebook to ban celebrity crypto scam ads after another lawsuit November 12, 2019 at 10:00PM

Instagram Stories launches TikTok clone Reels in Brazil Instagram is launching a video-music remix feature to finally fight back against Chinese social rival TikTok. Instagram Reels lets you make 15-second video clips set to music and share them as Stories, with the potential to go viral on a new Top Reels section of Explore. Just like TikTok, users can soundtrack their Reels with […] Social – TechCrunch - Instagram Stories launches TikTok clone Reels in Brazil November 12, 2019 at 09:00PM

Snapchat Spectacles 3 review: Pretty, pricey No one’s going to pay $380 for decent point-of-view video glasses and some trippy filters. But that’s kind of the point of Snapchat Spectacles 3. They’re merely a stepping stone towards true augmented reality eyewear — a public hardware beta for the Snap Lab R&D team that Apple and Facebook aren’t getting as they tinker […] Social – TechCrunch - Snapchat Spectacles 3 review: Pretty, pricey November 12, 2019 at 08:00PM

Facebook finally lets you banish nav bar tabs & red dots Are those red notification dots on your Facebook home screen driving you crazy? Sick of Facebook Marketplace wasting your screen space? Now you can control what appears in the Facebook app’s navigation bar thanks to a new option called Shortcuts Bar Settings. Over the weekend TechCrunch spotted the option to remove certain tabs like Marketplace, […] Social – TechCrunch - Facebook finally lets you banish nav bar tabs & red dots November 12, 2019 at 05:00AM

Salesforce Ventures invested $300M in Automattic while Salesforce was building a CMS In September, Salesforce Ventures, the venture of arm of Salesforce, announced a hefty $300 million investment in Automattic, the company behind WordPress, the ubiquitous content management system (CMS). At the same time, the company was putting the finishing touches on Salesforce CMS, an in-house project it released last week. The question is, why did it […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - Salesforce Ventures invested $300M in Automattic while Salesforce was building a CMS November 12, 2019 at 03:00AM

Twitter drafts a deepfake policy that would label and warn, but not always remove, manipulated media Twitter last month said it was introducing a new policy to help fight deepfakes and other “manipulated media” that involve photos, videos or audio that’s been significantly altered to change its original meaning or purpose, or those that make it seem like something happened that actually did not. Today, Twitter is sharing a draft of […] Social – TechCrunch - Twitter drafts a deepfake policy that would label and warn, but not always remove, manipulated media November 12, 2019 at 02:00AM

Instagram to test hiding Like counts in US, which could hurt influencers “We will make decisions that hurt the business if they help people’s well-being and health” says Instagram’s CEO Adam Mosseri. To that end, next week Instagram will expand its test of hiding Like counts from everyone but a post’s creator to some users in the United States. But there are major questions about whether the […] Social – TechCrunch - Instagram to test hiding Like counts in US, which could hurt influencers November 9, 2019 at 11:00AM

Ex-Facebook CPO Chris Cox now advises on climate & campaign tech Chris Cox’s motivational speeches were at the heart of Facebook’s new employee orientation. But after 14 years at the social network, the Chief Product Officer left in March amidst an executive shake-up and Facebook’s new plan to prioritize privacy by moving to encrypt its messaging apps. No details on his next projects were revealed. Now […] Social – TechCrunch - Ex-Facebook CPO Chris Cox now advises on climate & campaign tech November 9, 2019 at 08:00AM

Facebook’s first experimental apps from its ‘NPE Team’ division focus on students, chat & music This July, Facebook announced a new division called NPE Team which would build experimental consumer-facing apps, allowing the company to try out new ideas and features to see how people would react. It soon thereafter tapped former Vine GM Jason Toff to join the team as a product manager. The first apps to emerge from […] Social – TechCrunch - Facebook’s first experimental apps from its ‘NPE Team’ division focus on students, chat & music November 9, 2019 at 07:00AM

Alpaca nabs $6M for stocks API so anyone can build a Robinhood Stock trading app Robinhood is valued at $7.6 billion, but it only operates in the U.S. Freshly funded fintech startup Alpaca does the dirty work so developers worldwide can launch their own competitors to that investing unicorn. Like the Stripe of stocks, Alpaca’s API handles the banking, security and regulatory complexity, allowing other startups to […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - Alpaca nabs $6M for stocks API so anyone can build a Robinhood November 9, 2019 at 05:00AM

How Microsoft is trying to become more innovative Microsoft Research is a globally distributed playground for people interested in solving fundamental science problems. These projects often focus on machine learning and artificial intelligence, and since Microsoft is on a mission to infuse all of its products with more AI smarts, it’s no surprise that it’s also seeking ways to integrate Microsoft Research’s innovations […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - How Microsoft is trying to become more innovative November 8, 2019 at 08:00AM

Legislators from ten parliaments put the squeeze on Facebook The third session of the International Grand Committee on Disinformation, a multi-nation body comprised of global legislators with concerns about the societal impacts of social media giants, has been taking place in Dublin this week — once again without any senior Facebook management in attendance. The committee was formed last year after Facebook’s CEO Mark […] Social – TechCrunch - Legislators from ten parliaments put the squeeze on Facebook November 8, 2019 at 07:00AM

YouTube’s homepage redesign focuses on usability, giving you control over recommendations YouTube’s homepage is getting a makeover. The company announced today an updated, cleaner design that does away with information density to instead give more room to the videos and their titles, plus other new features like an “Add to Queue” option on the desktop, a desktop version of YouTube’s stop suggesting feature, and more. The […] Social – TechCrunch - YouTube’s homepage redesign focuses on usability, giving you control over recommendations November 8, 2019 at 03:00AM

AWS announces new savings plans to reduce complexity of reserved instances Reserved instances (RIs) have provided a mechanism for companies, who expect to use a certain level of AWS infrastructure resources, to get some cost certainty, but as AWS’s Jeff Barr points out they are on the complex side. To fix that, the company announced a new method called Savings Plans. “Today we are launching Savings […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - AWS announces new savings plans to reduce complexity of reserved instances November 8, 2019 at 02:00AM

With $6.5M in funding, Aircam offers a fast, easy way to share photos at events Aircam is a new startup that allows anyone to get instant access to pictures taken by professional photographers at weddings, parties and other events. The company was founded by brothers Evan and Ryan Rifkin, who previously co-founded Burstly, the company behind mobile app-testing service TestFlight (which was acquired by Apple). In addition to officially launching […] Social – TechCrunch - With $6.5M in funding, Aircam offers a fast, easy way to share photos at events November 8, 2019 at 12:01AM

Salesforce announces new content management system Salesforce has its fingers in a lot of parts of the customer experience, so why not content management? Today, the company announced a brand new tool called Salesforce Content Management System, which it says is designed from the ground up to deliver a quality customer experience across multiple channels. The idea is to provide a […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - Salesforce announces new content management system November 7, 2019 at 11:01PM

An early look at eFounders’ next batch of enterprise SaaS startups European startup studio eFounders recently reached a portfolio valuation of $1 billion across 23 companies. And the company doesn’t want to stop there as it is currently launching three new companies and products. While software-as-a-service companies are trendy, eFounders has been exploring this space for a few years now. The company regularly comes up with […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - An early look at eFounders’ next batch of enterprise SaaS startups November 7, 2019 at 07:00PM

Saudi Arabia reportedly recruited Twitter employees to steal personal data of activists Saudi Arabian officials allegedly paid at least two employees of Twitter to access personal information on users the government there was interested in, according to recently unsealed court documents. Those users were warned of the attempt in 2015, but the full picture is only now emerging. According to an AP report citing the federal complaint, […] Social – TechCrunch - Saudi Arabia reportedly recruited Twitter employees to steal personal data of activists November 7, 2019 at 09:00AM

WhatsApp says it will let you control if and how you get added to Groups (for real this time) WhatsApp, the popular messaging app owned by Facebook, has faced a lot of controversy over the role that Groups plays on the platform — both for Groups’ role in spreading spam, misinformation or worse, and for the fact that it can be very hard (actually impossible) to control when you are added, except by blocking […] Social – TechCrunch - WhatsApp says it will let you control if and how you get added to Groups (for real this time) November 7, 2019 at 08:00AM

Tinder’s interactive video series ‘Swipe Night’ is going international next year Tinder’s big experiment with interactive content — the recently launched in-app series called Swipe Night — was a success. According to Tinder parent company Match during its Q3 earnings this week, “millions” of Tinder users tuned into to watch the show’s episodes during its run in October, and this drove double-digit increases in both matches and messages. As a […] Social – TechCrunch - Tinder’s interactive video series ‘Swipe Night’ is going international next year November 7, 2019 at 04:00AM

Cyber-skills platform Immersive Labs raises $40M in North America expansion Immersive Labs, a cybersecurity skills platform, has raised $40 million in its Series B, the company’s second round of funding this year following an $8 million Series A in January. Summit Partners led the fundraise with Goldman Sachs participating, the Bristol, U.K.-based company confirmed. Immersive, led by former GCHQ cybersecurity instructor James Hadley, helps corporate […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - Cyber-skills platform Immersive Labs raises $40M in North America expansion November 7, 2019 at 12:01AM

Neo4j introduces new cloud service to simplify building a graph database Neo4j, a popular graph database, is available as an open source product for anyone to download and use. Its enterprise product aimed at larger organizations is growing fast, but the company recognized there was a big market in between those two extremes, and today it introduced a new managed cloud service called Aura. They wanted […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - Neo4j introduces new cloud service to simplify building a graph database November 6, 2019 at 09:00PM

Coveo raises $227M at $1B+ valuation for AI-based enterprise search and personalization Search and personalization services continue to be a major area of investment among enterprises, both to make their products and services more discoverable (and used) by customers, and to help their own workers get their jobs done, with the market estimated to be worth some $100 billion annually. Today, one of the big startups building […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - Coveo raises $227M at $1B+ valuation for AI-based enterprise search and personalization November 6, 2019 at 07:00PM

Amperity acquires Custora to improve its customer data platform Amperity announced today that it’s acquiring another company in the customer data business, Custora. Amperity co-founder and CEO Kabir Shahani told me that Custora’s technology complements what Amperity is already offering. To illustrate this point, he said that customer data tools fall into three big buckets: “The first is know your customer, the second is […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - Amperity acquires Custora to improve its customer data platform November 6, 2019 at 10:00AM

Valence launches a social network for black professionals Over the past two years, as technology companies continued to struggle with diversifying their work forces, Los Angeles-based venture capitalist Kobie Fuller wrestled with how to solve the problem. As a black professional himself, Fuller had experienced the frustrations and isolation that can sometimes come with being the only person in the room who looked […] Social – TechCrunch - Valence launches a social network for black professionals November 6, 2019 at 03:00AM

Seismic acquires Percolate to expand its marketing tools Seismic is announcing that it’s acquiring Percolate in a deal that it says is combining “two essential pillars of the marketing technology stack.” It sounds like the two companies aren’t direct competitors, but they offer related tools: Seismic helps companies create and manage the content they use in sales and marketing, while Percolate expanded from […] Enterprise – TechCrunch - Seismic acquires Percolate to expand its marketing tools November 6, 2019 at 03:00AM