Then mark your calendars for TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 happening in San Francisco from October 28–30.
Then choose your preferred presentation format:Breakout session: Take the spotlight with up to four speakers, including a moderator.
Each speaker will lead one breakout session during Disrupt.
Roundtable discussion: Lead an engaging 30-minute interactive discussion with an intimate audience of up to 40 attendees.
We’ll publish the selected topics, descriptions, and speakers online, where TechCrunch readers — and your followers — can vote for their favorite sessions.
TikTok is introducing a data portability API to help it comply with new European regulations designed to rein in Big Tech’s market dominance through various obligations and restrictions.
Data transfersData portability and interoperability constitutes a major part of the DMA regulations, and tech companies have been bolstering their efforts on this front for several years in preparation.
Thus the data portability API goes some way toward addressing that limitation, allowing third-party developers to build conduits for data to travel from TikTok to their own apps — if the user authorizes this.
Through the API, developers can request access to “all available data,” or individual categories including TikTok posts and profile data, activity, and direct messages (DMs).
The data portability API is available to applicants globally, but the developer must be able to demonstrate a “well-defined use case” before they will be approved.
Nubank CEO dishes on the neobank’s profit surge and how tourist VCs in LatAm have gone homeListen here or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hello, and welcome back to Equity, the podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.
This is our interview show, where we sit down with a guest, think about their work, and unpack the rest.
This week, we talked to David Vélez, the co-founder and CEO of Nubank, the $50 billion São Paulo, Brazil-based digital bank that offers credit cards, checking accounts and life insurance to consumers.
Waymo received approval Friday afternoon from the California Public Utilities Commission to operate a commercial robotaxi service in Los Angeles, the San Francisco Peninsula and on San Francisco freeways.
Importantly, it opens up new territory for Waymo in one of the country’s largest cities and unlocks a route to the San Francisco Airport.
Waymo has operated a commercial service 24 hours a day, seven days a week throughout the city of San Francisco since receiving approval from the commission in August.
Waymo is also allowed to give people free driverless rides in parts of Los Angeles.
Until today’s approval, it was not able to charge for rides in Los Angeles.
MyHeritage announced today that it’s launching OldNews.com, a new website that offers access to thousands of historical newspapers, mainly from the 1800s and 1900s.
The website allows genealogists, educators, researchers, and history enthusiasts to search for articles about people and events throughout history.
At launch, the website includes newspapers from publications across the U.S., Canada, U.K., Austria, the Netherlands, and Australia.
“Historical newspapers contain a wealth of information and provide an unparalleled level of detail about the past,” said MyHeritage CEO and founder Gilad Japhet in a press release.
“We are launching OldNews.com to serve as our focal point for historical newspapers, with a robust content offering.
Now the EU is asking questions about Meta’s ‘pay or be tracked’ consent modelMeta’s controversial pay or be tracked ‘consent’ choice for users the European Union is facing questions from the European Commission.
Meta’s ad-free subscription is controversial because under EU data protection law consent must be informed, specific and freely given if it’s to be valid.
Now the EU itself is stepping in with an RFI under the DSA, the bloc’s recently updated ecommerce rulebook.
In follow-up questions last month, the MEPs criticized internal market commissioner, Thierry Breton, for what they couched as “inadequate answers” — repeating their ask for a clear verdict on Meta’s ‘pay or consent’ model.
We also reached out to Ireland’s DPC for an update on its review of Meta’s consent or pay model — which has been ongoing for around six months.
Apple has reversed its decision about blocking web apps, also known as Progressive Web Apps (PWAs), on iPhones in the EU.
Last month, Apple reduced the functionality of PWAs as mere website shortcuts with the release of the second beta of iOS 17.4, as security researcher Tommy Mysk and Open Web Advocacy had first pointed out.
The company then updated its developer page saying that because of security risks like malicious web apps reading data from other web apps and accessing cameras, it decided to end support for home screen apps.
Apple also said that PWAs had “very low user adoption” so there might not be a lot of impact on users.
Separately, the Open Web Advocacy group published an open letter addressed to Tim Cook to lift the ban on web apps, which was signed by hundreds of organizations and individuals including Mastodon, internet advocate Cory Doctorowand Vercel CTO Malte Ubl.
After adding 15 hours of free audiobooks listening to its subscription plan late last year, Spotify today is introducing a $9.99 per month option that will allow its free users to also access its audiobooks collection.
With the addition, free Spotify users will able to continue to stream music and podcasts via its ad-supported service, but pay to listen to audiobooks without having to buy a Spotify subscription.
However, the move could allow Spotify to upsell audiobooks to customers who aren’t as interested in its music service, or who regularly use another app for that.
15 hours is fairly generous, as it often encompasses more listening time than one audiobook alone, if not two shorter books.
The company today also offered an update on the interest that free users have for audiobooks, noting that since launching audiobooks for its Premium subscribers, it’s seen a 45% increase in free users searching for and interacting with audiobook content each day.
But Karma3 Labs is hoping to change that with $4.5 million in fresh capital backing its decentralized reputation protocol OpenRank.
This is the protocol’s first capital raise, Sahil Dewan, founder and CEO of Karma3 Labs, told TechCrunch exclusively.
“We are really obsessed with solving trust and safety issues for crypto,” Dewan said.
“We wanted to create a protocol and generalized system, not as a source of trust, but for anyone to come and build reputation systems,” Dewan said.
The OpenRank protocol allows any developer to use its “Reputation Graphs” for ratings, ranking or recommendations for applications or communities.
That’s why I am glad to announce that NFX’s James Currier is coming to TechCrunch Early Stage 2024 in Boston to discuss how to build MVPs into today’s startup world.
Currier is also a regular at our Early Stage event, thanks to his experience on both sides of the fundraising table.
If you want to get a head start on the get-together, TechCrunch has covered MVPs extensively over the years.
As with all sessions at Early Stage, Currier will present and then answer audience questions.
Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TechCrunch Early Stage 2024?
