Lucas Matney
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The Latest from Lucas Matney
Interior design startup Havenly raises $32 million
Interior design platform Havenly is raising $32 million in new funding to create its first private label brand as the startup aims to integrate its own products into its design recommendation engine.
Week in Review: The ‘smart home’ is still so, so stupid
Hey everyone. Thank you for welcoming me into you inbox yet again. Last week was a short one, but I talked about the merger of a couple of the worst adtech companies in the world. If you’re read
Facebook sure does love free $peech
Ensuring politicians in the 2020 election stay truthful is hard work, so Facebook has decided it’s going to sit this one out. Joe Biden’s campaign team sent a letter to CEO Mark Zuckerberg
Week in Review: Tech’s trashiest merger
Hey everyone. Thank you for welcoming me into you inbox yet again. Last week, I talked about Juul’s unraveling mission statement and the highly valued startup’s new Big Tobacco CEO. I got
Snap CEO isn’t expecting much from Facebook antitrust investigations
Facebook’s relentless feature copy of Snapchat has been seen as one of the chief examples of the company’s competitive overreach, but Snap CEO Evan Spiegel isn’t sure whether antitru
Amid AR/VR experiments, Apple buys UK visual effects studio
Apple has reportedly acquired U.K. special effects studio IKinema, a startup that may be useful in Apple’s quest to bolster its mobile devices with AR special effects and in its more far-flung a
Foursquare’s location-aware Pilgrim SDK gets a free tier
Ten years later, Foursquare is far past its scrappy consumer days as it builds out its B2B services, but its latest announcement is thrusting it back into the scrappy consumer business. Onstage at Tec
Skydio’s second-gen ‘self-flying’ drone is faster, smaller and half the price
There weren’t many scenarios where consumer were deciding between buying the original Skydio R1 autonomous drone and something from DJI. The R1 was the second drone in your arsenal, it was a cou
Subscription email app Tempo hits the right minimalist notes
Email will likely never die, but if new apps can change how we think about using it, maybe it will feel like the worst parts have croaked. In the wake of popular apps like Inbox and Mailbox being suns
Facebook employee dies after apparent suicide at company’s Menlo Park headquarters
An employee of Facebook died by apparent suicide Thursday morning, Menlo Park police reported and the company confirmed. “We were saddened to learn that one of our employees passed away at our M
Lunchclub raises $4M from a16z for its AI warm intro service
There are apps out there that help you find friends, find dates and find your distant family histories, but when it comes to “growing your professional network,” the options are shockingly
Facebook will let users disable storage of Portal voice snippets
As consumer tech companies come under fire for how they handle voice data from consumers, Facebook is announcing changes to how users can manage recordings and transcriptions that are stored on Facebo
Week in Review: Apple games the system
Hey all. This is Week-in-Review, where I give a heavy amount of analysis and/or rambling thoughts on one story while scouring the rest of the hundreds of stories that emerged on TechCrunch this week t
Another high-flying, heavily funded AR headset startup is shutting down
While Apple and Microsoft strain to sell augmented reality as the next major computing platform, many of the startups aiming to beat them to the punch are crashing and burning. Daqri, which built ente
Apple’s HomePod set to gain some long overdue functionality this fall
It’s no secret that the HomePod’s software updates have been a bit sluggish, which made it all the more alarming that the device was barely touched on in yesterday’s Apple event. Wel
Apple debuts the triple-camera iPhone 11 Pro
Apple’s triple-camera iPhone is real and it’s the first phone the company has dubbed “Pro.” The iPhone 11 Pro comes in two flavors, with 5.8″ and 6.5″ varieties at
Apple debuts slightly bigger entry-level iPad
Today was supposed to be all about the iPhones, but Apple took some time to offer a hardware refresh to the entry-level iPad. Things are largely the same, but the updates aren’t driving the entr
Apple Arcade launches later this month for $4.99/mo
Apple finally delivered more details on its gaming subscription program, Apple Arcade. The ad-free gaming service will launch September 19 for $4.99 per month with a one-month free trial. Users will a
Smart grocery cart startup Caper bags $10 million
Caper wants to deliver a major update to the self-checkout aisle without keeping its dreaded catchphrases, i.e. “Unknown item in the bagging area,” “Please place the item in the bag.
Week in Review: Facebook’s newest feature might be arriving too late
Hello subscribers. This is Week-in-Review, where I give a heavy amount of analysis and/or rambling thoughts on one story while scouring the rest of the hundreds of stories that emerged on TechCrunch t