Tech

This is it — today is your last chance to host a Side Event at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 in San Francisco. By tonight, applications close. No extensions. No late entries. Apply here. Disrupt Week, taking place October 25–31, is your chance to put your brand in front of 10,000+ founders and investors, plus the Bay Area tech ecosystem. To create …

Google figured out early on that video would be a great addition to its search business, so in 2005 it launched Google Video. Focused on making deals with the entertainment industry for second-rate content, and overly cautious on what users could upload, it flopped. Meanwhile, a tiny startup run by a handful of employees working above a San Mateo, California, …

At Meta Connect 2025, the company’s biggest event of the year, Mark Zuckerberg unveiled three new smart glasses: the second-generation Ray-Ban Meta, the Meta Ray-Ban Display and wristband controller, and the Oakley Meta Vanguard. Meta says it has sold two million of the first-generation Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, and earlier this year, Meta unveiled its latest AI-powered smart glasses with …

The Startup Battlefield 200 global pitch competition at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, taking place October 27–29 at San Francisco’s Moscone West, is just weeks away, and the stakes have never been higher.  Twenty founders will pitch their companies on the Disrupt Stage, but only one will walk away with the $100,000 equity-free prize and the coveted Disrupt Cup. Helping to decide the winner is our world-class roster of judges, investors, and operators …

British renewable energy provider Octopus Energy said this week that it’s spinning off Kraken, its tech platform for utilities, spurred in part by $500 million in committed annual revenue from other utilities and energy providers. An eventual Kraken IPO could be valued at $15 billion and could occur within a year, according to The Wall Street Journal. Kraken was actually …

Earlier this year, Apple introduced its Foundation Models framework during WWDC 2025, which allows developers to use the company’s local AI models to power features in their applications. The company touted that with this framework, developers gain access to AI models without worrying about any inference cost. Plus, these local models have capabilities such as guided generation and tool calling …

Many of our favorite TVs and monitors feature displays with high refresh rates, promising smoother on-screen action and a sharper picture. The same is true for the best Android phones and all of Apple’s iPhone Pro models (since the 13 Pro and onward). Today, every iPhone 17 model can reach a 120-Hz refresh rate. It has become standard across the …

It’s official! We are in the final week to lock in your TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 pass and save up to $668. If you have been on the fence about joining one of the biggest tech gatherings of the year, where we will also celebrate 20 years of TechCrunch, now is the time to commit before prices rise. Register here to …

Other Alexa (or Alexa Compatible) Speakers Amazon Echo Pop for $40: The Echo Pop is a perfectly fine little speaker, and the cutest one in Amazon’s lineup. Does it have great sound? No. It’s fine enough for background tunes or if you’re limited to a dorm room, but you’ll get much better sound for a similar size from the Echo …

Photograph: Simon Hill If your old device doesn’t support Quick Start, or you don’t want to use it, then follow the steps on the Hello screen until you reach a screen asking whether you want to join a Wi-Fi network. Choose the network you wish to join. You will be prompted to set up eSIM (choose Transfer From Another iPhone) …