TechCrunch Industry News

A new mobile app called Honk aims to make messaging with friends a more interactive, real-time experience. Instead of sending texts off into the void and hoping for a response, friends on Honk communicate via messages that are shown live as you type, with no saved chat history and no send button. The end result […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Spotify users have Wrapped and Instagram users have their Top 9. And now TikTok users will have their own year-in-review feature, too. The company today announced the launch of its first personalized annual recap feature with the launch of “Year on TikTok,” a video highlight reel that showcases individual users’ own top TikTok moments. This […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It’s been a busy year of expansion for the large cloud providers, with AWS, Azure and Google aggressively expanding their data center presence around the world. To cap off the year, Google Cloud today announced a new set of cloud regions, which will go live in the coming months and years. These new regions, which […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Twitter is shutting down Periscope, the video app it acquired several years ago when Facebook Live threatened to lap the field. When we stream the Gillmor Gang sessions, we send them to Facebook, Twitter, and an unlisted embed on YouTube. At one point, we planned to stream the sessions live on TechCrunch, but for now […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Mobile travel app Hopper has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic as consumers canceled their trips and airlines dropped their flights. But the complications around getting airline credits and refunds have since turned into a customer service crisis for the airfare prediction and ticket booking startup, which had been valued at $750 million back […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The latest branch of the US Military was founded just a year ago and will celebrate its first birthday on December 20. General John W. “Jay” Raymond spoke at TechCrunch Sessions: Space and explained how the youngest military branch operates like a startup. “In some ways, we’re a startup as well,” Gen. Raymond said. “The […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A few weeks after announcing that iOS support was on the way, Google’s cloud gaming service now supports the iPhone and iPad. As expected, the company is using a web app to access the service. Google also says that you need to update to iOS 14.3, the latest iOS update that was released earlier this […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Google has been all about the fun little augmented reality Easter Eggs lately, with a bevy of search terms triggering Halloween-themed AR experiences back in October. Ghosts! Jack-o-lanterns! Dancing skeletons! Now they’ve got another one. Rolled out just in time for tomorrow’s Season 2 finale of The Mandalorian, this one brings The Child (or, as […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coinbase, perhaps the best-known American crypto company, announced today that it has filed confidentially to go public. The company’s debut was expected, having been reported earlier in the year. As the well-funded unicorn has filed confidentially, its debut looks to be an early-2021 affair. What sort of flotation the company will pursue is not clear […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Aceable, the Austin-based mobile edtech service for state-accredited classes, is getting an “A” from investors again as private equity firm HGGC pours $50 million into the company. In the eight years since Aceable’s launch, the company has grown from a driver’s ed test prep service to an online training tool for drivers and real estate […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices