Match Group pauses background checks on Tinder and other dating apps
Illustration: The Verge Match Group, which owns dating apps like Tinder, Plenty of Fish, and Match, is ending its partnership with the nonprofit organization that provided background checks to its users, as reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal. The service that provided the checks, called Garbo, is shutting down
Read moreFifteen years in and still early to the industry with Marco Zappacosta from Thumbtack
Welcome back to Found, where we get the stories behind the startups. This week Becca and Dom are joined by Marco Zappacosta, the co-founder and CEO of Thumbtack, a startup that runs a marketplace for home services and beyond. Zappacosta talked about his unusual path to entrepreneurship which included almost
Read moreTumblr is rolling out a new web interface, and it looks a lot like X (formerly Twitter)
Tumblr is officially rolling out a new look for its web browser after testing it with select users over the past month. The new navigation interface looks a lot like X, formerly known as Twitter, as it brings the platform’s navigation bar to the left. The new look also brings
Read moreCruise and Waymo see a surge in robotaxi app downloads
Consumer interest in Cruise and Waymo’s competing robotaxi services surged following a vote last week by the California Public Utilities Commission that allowed the two companies to expand and charge for their driverless car operations in San Francisco. Estimates from app intelligence provider data.ai showed 15,400 downloads of the Waymo One
Read moreBitcoin spot ETFs heat up, SBF’s bail revoked and web3 gaming adoption grows in Asia
Welcome back to Chain Reaction. To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important crypto stories delivered to your inbox every Thursday at 12 p.m. PT, subscribe here. The digital asset space is still trucking along, while there were some big headlines, the week was arguably a little less
Read moreMoemate’s AI avatar analyzes your whole screen, with spotty but intriguing results
As evidenced by the slow death of Cortana, it’s clear that the AI assistants of yesteryear aren’t meeting expectations. And so they’re being remade. Amazon is building a new large language model akin to OpenAI’s GPT-4 to power its Alexa voice assistant. Meanwhile, Google is reportedly planning to “supercharge” Google
Read more6 fintech investors sound off on AI, down rounds and what’s ahead
At the height of the funding boom in 2021, no single sector enjoyed as much VC money as fintech startups did. But in 2023, it appears that fintech companies have to work harder to get funding. Global funding in the space hit a six-year low in the second quarter, according
Read moreBack to school: Our favorite student apps
Summer is coming to an end, which means students will (hopefully) be in air-conditioned classrooms and away from this unrelenting heat wave. It also means that they’re probably on the hunt for mobile apps that can help prepare them for the long school year. From math problem solvers and note-taking
Read moreFord aims to secure battery material supply with new Canada facility
Ford is partnering with South Korean battery manufacturers SK On and EcoPro BM to build a cathode manufacturing facility in Quebec, Canada. The CAD $1.2 billion (USD $890 million) joint investment will provide battery materials to supply future Ford electric vehicles. The onshoring of battery factories in the U.S. has
Read moreReflecting on Two Years at Microsoft
A journey of unlearning, learning, and relearning!Yours truly at The Royal Senchi Resort GhanaToday, the 16th of August 2023, makes it exactly two (2) years since I joined Microsoft as a software engineer, and it has been a journey of unlearning, learning, and relearning!Given the global economic downturn and multiple tech
Read more