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What’s a poor, freshly minted developer to do when they’re out of coding boot camp but don’t have any real-life experience? You step into the world of simulation. That’s the basic premise of what Wilco offers. Last week, I covered the company’s $7 million seed funding round , and the company’s CEO, On Freund, was gracious enough to let me use the deck the company created to close that round for my Pitch Deck Teardown series . One of the things I love, love, love about the deck is that it — like the company’s overall design style — uses the Sierra-era games look. Specifically, it harkens back to the old 1980s and ’90s Space Quest games, and the company itself, Wilco, is apparently named after Space Quest’s main protagonist, Roger Wilco . TechCrunch+ is having an Independence Day sale! Save 50% on an annual subscription here . (More on TechCrunch+ here if you need it!) It’s a particularly fitting name, given that Roger, in the Space Quest series, is a hapless but well-meaning “sa...

Devindra Hardawar Contributor Devindra Hardawar is a Senior Editor at Engadget . More posts by this contributor Meta’s latest VR headset prototypes will help it pass the ‘Visual Turing test’ Cadillac’s new self-driving concept is a luxury loveseat on wheels With Pokémon Go , Niantic became the poster child for the power of mobile augmented reality (AR) apps. Since then, the company has struggled to recapture that glory. Yesterday’s round of layoffs and canceled projects cemented how difficult things are for Niantic, driven by the pandemic that has made it tough for people to get outside and gather in groups. But it turns out there’s another way for Niantic to double down on its AR lead: By making it easier for its existing players to communicate with each other. Today, the company has begun rolling out Campfire, a social app that will let Niantic’s users chat with their friends, join groups of like-minded mobile wanders, and arrange major events like Pokémon Go’s rai...

More than a half dozen Cruise robotaxis stopped operating and sat in a street in San Francisco late Tuesday night, blocking traffic for a couple of hours until employees arrived and manually moved the autonomous vehicles. Photos and a description of the Cruise robotaxi blockade were shared to a Reddit post on a subreddit about happenings in the city. The cars appear to have been stalled at the intersection of Gough and Fulton Streets. “We had an issue earlier this week that caused some of our vehicles to cluster together,” a Cruise spokesperson said. “While it was resolved and no passengers were impacted, we apologize to anyone who was inconvenienced.” The vehicles were recovered through a combination of remote assistance and manual retrieval. The mishap comes less than a week after Cruise launched its first fully driverless, commercial robotaxi service in the city. Cruise’s vehicles are initially operating between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. on designated streets and without a human saf...

After debuting NFT support on Instagram in May , Meta has launched digital collectibles support on Facebook with select creators. A spokesperson for Meta told TechCrunch that the company has started a slow rollout that allows a select group of creators in the United States to post digital collectibles on Facebook. With this feature, these creators will be able to show off NFTs on their profiles under a new tab, and the art will have a “digital collectibles” label — just like Instagram. The official launches comes a week after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company would be testing NFT support on Facebook soon. At the time, Zuckerberg said the test will allow creators to cross-post on Instagram and Facebook. However, the spokesperson said the sharing feature across both platforms has not yet rolled out, but is coming soon. Navdeep Singh, a product manager at Meta, shared screenshots of the digital collectibles support. According the screenshots, you can post NFTs on your timeline...

Google today announced an update to its password manager that will finally introduce a consistent look-and-feel across the service’s Chrome and Android implementations. Users will soon see a new unified user experience that will automatically group multiple passwords for the same sites or apps together, as well as a new shortcut on the Android home screen to get access to these passwords. In addition to this, Google is also now adding a new password-related feature to Chrome on iOS, which can now generate strong passwords for you (once you set Chrome as an autofill provider). Image Credits: Google Meanwhile, on Android, Google’s password check can now also flag weak and re-used passwords and help you to automatically change them, while Chrome users across platforms will now see compromised password warnings. With this release today, Google will now also finally let you manually add passwords to its passwords manager (“due to popular demand,” Google says) and the company is brin...

Pokémon GO developer Niantic is running into trouble as it builds “ the real-world metaverse .” Like so many other tech companies facing turbulent economic times , the company decided to let go of 8% of its staff, affecting about 85 to 90 people. Just seven months ago, the company raised $300 million at a $9 billion valuation, more than doubling its valuation from 2018. In an email to staff, reported by Bloomberg , CEO John Hanke said that the company needs to reduce costs to best prepare for “economic storms that may lie ahead.” Niantic also cancelled four upcoming projects: Heavy Metal, a Transformers game that had already entered beta testing ; Hamlet, a collaboration with the theater company behind “Sleep No More;” and two other projects called Blue Sky and Snowball. Recently announced games like NBA All-World and Peridot don’t appear to be affected. While Pokémon GO brings in more than $1 billion in revenue each year, other games like now-defunct Harry Potter: Wizards Uni...

We’re sorry in advance for getting Paula Abdul stuck in your head today. Virgin Orbit is ready to launch the “Straight Up” mission this evening at 10 PM PDT — yes, it’s named after the singer’s 1988 hit — and you can watch it live below. The mission will ferry seven experimental satellites to orbit for the United States Space Force, demonstrating both new hardware (a new satellite bus and radio communications technology) and software (regarding satellite monitoring and studying climate change). They’ll be taken to orbit via Virgin Orbit’s “horizontal” launch system: The LauncherOne rocket is released from the belly of a modified Boeing 747 aircraft named Cosmic Girl while the aircraft is in mid-flight. The plane will take off from Mojave Air and Space Port in California before flying over the Pacific Ocean, where LauncherOne will be released to deliver its payload to a 500-kilometer orbit. “Our hardware is in top-notch condition, and the team is performing exceptionally, as we pre...

Modsy , an online interior design services company, has ceased to offer design services, a move that comes at the cost of the team behind the effort and customers who have orders in flux. In an email to TechCrunch, Modsy CEO Shanna Tellerman provided this statement when asked about the disruption of business: We have worked hard over the past seven years to build Modsy and never expected we would have to disrupt our business. Our focus has always been, and still is, on our customers. We intend to fulfill customer merchandise orders and we are working through a process for our design service customers. We ask for your patience as we work through this plan. I hope that for many people, the Modsy story will not be defined by this turn of events, and we are truly sorry. We would like to thank our team, our designers, and our customers. TechCrunch sent a series of questions in response to the statement – including queries about the below information from sources – but has not yet hear...

Imagine for a second that you could roll up the entire cloud market, everything from SaaS to infrastructure to platform, CDNs (content delivery networks), managed private clouds, data center rentals — everything. What would that be worth in a quarter? Well, the folks at Synergy Research were kind enough to do the work for us and the figure the firm came up with was $126 billion for Q1 2022, up 26% over the prior year. That’s a lot of money, but consider that a significant portion of that, $44 billion, came from the infrastructure and platform segment, which was itself up 36% year over year. Another major tranche of $54 billion came from three major categories that Synergy follows encompassing managed private cloud services, enterprise SaaS and CDN, leaving $28 billion divided up among the remaining categories — still nothing to sneeze at, mind you. The astonishing part of all this is that John Dinsdale, who is research director at Synergy, is predicting that the cloud services port...

Google announced today that its Switch to Android app for iOS users is now compatible with all Android 12 phones. The iOS app, which launched earlier this year , makes the transition between the mobile platforms easier to manage by helping users import their contacts, calendar, photos and videos to their new Android phone. Prior to today’s expansion, the app was limited to Pixel phones. The app initiates a transfer process by displaying a QR code on your iPhone that you can scan to start migrating your data over to your new Android phone. You will be prompted to connect your old iPhone with your new Android phone either with your iPhone cable or wirelessly via the new Switch to Android app. In addition to moving data, the app offers other instructions about the transfer process, such as how to deregister iMessage in order to continue getting texts on the new Android device. The app will also give you tips for your new device, such as learning how to transfer photos from iCloud....

If you want the inside scoop on which companies are serious about addressing their carbon emissions and which aren’t, take a look at the public comments submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission regarding its proposed climate rule. You can tell if a company is serious by its stance on so-called Scope 3 emissions. Depending on the business, Scope 3 emissions might make up a significant majority of a company’s carbon footprint. Such emissions can result from activities and assets a company doesn’t own or control, like leased office space, business travel or end-of-life processing of their products. They also might occur when customers use their products, like when someone drives their gas-powered SUV. In short, if your company is serious about doing something about climate change, it should probably be estimating its Scope 3 emissions. If it’s making noise about being sustainable, at the very least it probably shouldn’t undermine attempts to make Scope 3 disclosures stan...

Disney’s board unanimously voted to extend CEO Bob Chapek’s contract for three more years, the company announced yesterday. His current deal was set to expire in February 2023. Despite a chaotic tenure that began at the height of COVID, the new three-year agreement will begin Friday, July 1. “Disney was dealt a tough hand by the pandemic, yet with Bob at the helm, our businesses—from parks to streaming—not only weathered the storm but emerged in a position of strength. In this important time of growth and transformation, the Board is committed to keeping Disney on the successful path it is on today, and Bob’s leadership is key to achieving that goal. Bob is the right leader at the right time for The Walt Disney Company, and the Board has full confidence in him and his leadership team,” said Susan Arnold, chairman of the board, in a statement . The extension is Chapek’s chance to prove to the board, Wall Street and subscribers that he is capable of running a streaming business in thi...

Facebook announced today that it’s introducing new features for Facebook Groups, including “Channels” that will let users connect with each other in smaller settings. Admins can create channels to connect with their groups in more casual settings within their communities to have more focused discussions. There are three types of channels that admins can create: chat, audio and feed. Community chat channels can be used as a place for people to message, collaborate and talk about specific topics in a more real-time way across both Facebook Groups and Messenger. Once you create a chat, you can name it and decide if you want it to be invite only. When you join a chat, you’ll be able to send messages and receive notifications. If the chat becomes full and you’re inactive, you may have to join again. Image Credits: Facebook The new community feed channels are a way for members to connect when it’s convenient for them. Facebook says admins can organize their communities around topics wi...

Welcome Back to Found, the TechCrunch podcast where we get the stories behind the startups. Christine Tao knows good leaders have good executive coaches. She founded Sounding Board to make it easier for companies to manage, scale, and measure leadership coaching on one unified platform. This week, she talks to Darrell and Jordan about difficulties she and her co-founder faced while fundraising and why she believes so deeply in the power of a good executive coach. She also gets into how she and her co-foundered decided to go b2b and establish the customer type that made scaling possible. Take our listener survey  and let us know a bit about yourself and what you think of FOUND. Connect with us: On  Twitter On  Instagram Via email: found@techcrunch.com Call us and leave a voicemail at (510) 936-1618

Image Credits: Coalition In 2020, Thrive Capital asked a cohort of folks — including Glossier VP of Communications Ashley Mayer , Cityblock Health co-founder Toyin Ajayi , Umbrella co-founder Lindsay Ullman and Tribe AI co-founder Jackie Nelson — if they wanted to be scouts, or invest tiny checks on behalf of the firm with a potential for shared upside. Instead, the four-person group had an idea: Why not pool the scout capital they were being offered and formalize it into a micro-fund to be invested out together. Checks wouldn’t just come with one stamp of approval, but four; and instead of playing subtle scouts, the four operators can see and back a broader range of companies. After all, invest for the job you want, right? Twenty checks and two years later, the quartet decided to pitch another idea, this time as a firmer bet on themselves and to a broader group of investors. The vision, launching publicly for the first time today, is Coalition , a fund and operator network d...

You know you’re living in the space age when a rocket hits the moon, and the industry as a whole points to the sky and, like an angry teacher holding up a paper airplane, asks “Who launched this?!” Truly, that is what occurred this week as an unidentified rocket stage (!) impacted the lunar surface, forming a new and interesting crater and leaving us all wondering how it’s possible not to know what happened. The short version of this story is that skywatchers led by Bill Gray had been tracking an object for months that, based on their calculations, would soon impact the moon. It was obviously a piece of rocket trash (rockets produce a ton of trash), but no one stepped up to say “yes, that’s ours, sorry about that.” Based on their observations and discussions, these amateur (though by no means lacking in expertise) object trackers determined that it was most likely a SpaceX launch from 2015. But SpaceX didn’t cop to it, and after a while Gray and others, including NASA, decided it w...

Volkswagen Group subsidiary Electrify America said Tuesday it raised $450 million in a deal that includes its first external investor as it aims to accelerate its rollout of ultra-fast charging stations in the U.S. and Canada. The deal, which values North America’s largest ultra-fast EV charging network at $2.45 billion, includes more than $100 million from German industrial company Siemens and additional capital from VW Group. The money will help Electrify America toward its goal of more than doubling its footprint to 10,000 ultra-fast chargers across 1,800 charging stations in both countries by 2026. The company currently operates 3,500 ultra-fast chargers at 800 stations. Siemens, now a minority shareholder with a seat on the board, will invest “a low triple-digit USD amount” as the charging company’s first outside investor, Electrify America said. Meanwhile, Volkswagen said it plans to increase its capital investment in Electrify America beyond its original commitment of $2 bil...

Research in the field of machine learning and AI, now a key technology in practically every industry and company, is far too voluminous for anyone to read it all. This column, Perceptron (previously  Deep Science ), aims to collect some of the most relevant recent discoveries and papers — particularly in, but not limited to, artificial intelligence — and explain why they matter. This week in AI, engineers at Penn State announced that they’ve created a chip that can process and classify nearly two billion images per second. Carnegie Mellon, meanwhile, has signed a $10.5 million U.S. Army contract to expand its use of AI in predictive maintenance. And at UC Berkeley, a team of scientists is applying AI research to solve climate problems, like understanding snow as a water resource. The Penn State work aimed to overcome the limitations of traditional processors when applied to AI workloads — specifically recognizing and classifying images or the objects in them. Before a machine ...