Welcome back to The TechCrunch Exchange, a weekly startups-and-markets newsletter for your weekend enjoyment. It’s broadly based on the weekday column that appears on Extra Crunch, but free. And it’s made just for you. You can sign up for the newsletter here. With that out of the way, let’s talk money, upstart companies and the …
09/08/2020
Moft is a clever company that makes clever products. For a while there, I was sporting their laptop stand. It was a head-turner when I used to unfold it during meetings — back when we used to do those in-person. The truth is, I ended up having to tear it off the bottom. It lasted …
09/08/2020
Everyone sees Microsoft as the next owner of Internet sensation TikTok, but according to a new report, Twitter itself has also been involved in preliminary talks about a possible merger. In other words, Twitter wants to buy TikTok too, according to a report from Dow Jones cited by Bloomberg, only that at this point, Microsoft …
09/08/2020
Microsoft is set to take over TikTok, with an announcement expected by September 15, but for the company’s co-founder Bill Gates, who’s now just an adviser for the software giant, this is a really risky move. And it’s because managing a social network is no easy business, with Bill Gates explaining while it’s a good …
09/08/2020
elementary OS 6 early access builds are now available to let you try out what’s coming in this major update before the official launch finally happens. The dev team announced the release earlier this week, along with a new website where the early access builds are hosted. “Over the past week, we quietly launched builds.elementary.io. …
09/08/2020
We’ve known for a while that Microsoft planned to launch the Surface Duo in August but without any specifics available, everybody expected the software giant to come out with an announcement all out of the blue. Now it looks like this out of the blue moment is next week, as according to Microsoft watcher Paul …
09/08/2020
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter has had preliminary discussions about a “combination” with TikTok, the Wall Street Journal reported, making the social media platform the latest possible suitor for the popular video-sharing app. As the WSJ notes, it’s not clear whether Twitter would pursue a possible acquisition of TikTok, and any such …
09/08/2020
Microsoft allows users to download, install or update drivers on Windows 10 in multiple ways. You can update a device driver manually, including using Device Manager, Windows Update, and tools from device manufacturers. Updating drivers via Windows Update can take some time until manufacturers publish newer driver packages. In addition, the update process could also …
09/08/2020
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge TikTok plans to sue the Trump administration over the president’s executive order banning the app in the US, and the company may file the lawsuit as early as Tuesday, NPR reported. According to NPR, the lawsuit will argue the president’s action is unconstitutional because TikTok did not have …
09/08/2020
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge In a move that may forever change what it means to be ratio’d, Twitter is testing some new language on tweet metrics, making quotes (also known as retweets with comments) visible on each tweet, the company confirmed Saturday. “A few months ago, we’ve made Retweets with Comments more …
08/08/2020
The now-defunct Prenda Law firm became notorious for taking alleged BitTorrent pirates to court. These copyright lawsuits were not illegal in themselves, but Prenda crossed criminal lines when it lied to courts and trapped people by uploading self-made adult content on The Pirate Bay. They were effectively running a honeypot scheme. The matter landed on …
08/08/2020
Editor’s note: Get this free weekly recap of TechCrunch news that any startup can use by email every Saturday morning (7am PT). Subscribe here. They say business needs certainty to succeed, but new tech startups are still getting funded aggressively despite the pandemic, recession, trade wars and various large disasters created by nature or humans. But before …
08/08/2020