TechCrunch Industry News

In nearly a decade of attending Sundance, I’ve never seen a scene like the premiere of the documentary Miss Americana, detailing the last year and a half or so of Taylor Swift’s life. The crowd before letting into the theater was huge, blistering with rumors about whether or not there was so many guests and press that there wouldn’t be room for ticketed attendees and whispers about which door Swift would use when arriving. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This morning Mural, a software startup focused on visual collaboration1, announced that it closed a $23 million Series A round of capital. The funds come after MURAL, formerly Mural.ly, had raised just a few million dollars previously. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Two years after Vine’s co-founder Dom Hofmann announced he was building a successor to the short-form video app, today Byte makes its debut on iOS and Android. Byte lets you shoot or upload and then share six-second videos. It comes equipped with standard social features like a feed, Explore page, notifications, and profiles. For now, though Byte lacks the remixability, augmented reality filters, transition effects, and other bonus features you’ll find in apps like TikTok. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Samsung, which once led the smartphone market in India, slid to the third position in the quarter that ended in December even as the South Korean giant continues to make major betson the rare handset market that is still growing. According to research firm Counterpoint, Chinese firm Vivo surpassed Samsung to become the second biggest smartphone vendor in India in Q4 2019. Xiaomi, with command over 27% of the market, maintained its top stop in the nation for the 10th consecutive quarter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Time is supposed to make technology better. The idea is simple: With more time, humans make newer, better technology and our lives improve. Except for when the opposite happens. Google is a good example of this. I’ve been harping on the matter for a while now. Google mobile search, in case you haven’t used it lately, is bad. It often returns bloated garbage that looks like a cross between new Yahoo and original Bing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

U.S. mobile app subscription revenue jumped 21% in 2019 to $4.6B across the top 100 apps Outside of in-app purchases in mobile games, subscription revenue from non-game apps helped to boost 2019’s mobile consumer spend — a figure that reached $120 billion globally last year, according to a recent report by App Annie. Now, new data from app intelligence firm Sensor Tower indicates U.S. subscription app revenue grew by 21% last year from the $3. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Did you notice a recent change to how Google search results are displayed on the desktop? I noticed something last week — thinking there must be some kind of weird bug messing up the browser’s page rendering because suddenly everything looked similar: A homogenous sea of blue text links and favicons that, on such a large expanse of screen, come across as one block of background noise. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If robots are to help out in places like hospitals and phone repair shops, they’re going to need a light touch. And what’s lighter than not touching at all? Researchers have created a gripper that uses ultrasonics to suspend an object in midair, potentially making it suitable for the most delicate tasks. It’s done with an array of tiny speakers that emit sound at very carefully controlled frequencies and volumes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Your Sonos system will stop receiving updates if you have an old device Smart speaker manufacturer Sonos has announced that the company is going to drop support for some of its products. Sonos stopped selling these devices a few years ago. While nothing lasts forever, dropping support is going to have a lot of implications and shows once again that the connected home isn’t as future-proof as expected. Sonos points out that 92% of the products that it has ever sold are still in use today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

One of the big questions I got around the time the Apple Card launched was whether you’d be able to download a file of your transactions to either work with manually or import into a piece of expenses management software. The answer, at the time, was no. Now Apple is announcing that Apple Card users will be able to export monthly transactions to a downloadable spreadsheet that they can use with their personal budgeting apps or sheets. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices