Top Stories of the Day // July 31, 2018

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THE DAILY CRUNCH TUESDAY, JULY 31 2018 By Anthony Ha Uber shuts down its self-driving trucks division, Nintendo has sold a whole lot of Switches and venture capital's diversity numbers remain unimpressive. 1. Uber's self-driving trucks division is dead, long live Uber self-driving cars "We believe delivering on self-driving for passenger applications first, and then bringing it to freight applications down the line, is the best path forward," the company says. The program has its origins in Uber's acquisition of Otto, a deal that ultimately pulled the company into a trade secrets lawsuit with Alphabet's self-driving tech subsidiary Waymo. 2. Nintendo got it right again Nintendo is coming off a massive quarter that saw 88 percent year-over-year growth in operating profit. The company has sold nearly 20 million Switch systems since the console's launch. Sponsored By: Spry Make some noise with Spry's new Startup Publicity Kit. Everything a startup needs to turn heads, in one simple, turnkey package. No hassle, no headaches. Just real media coverage, quality impressions, and natural SEO. All right from your phone. Learn More… 3. Venture capital's diversity disaster White people make up 70 percent of the venture capital industry, according to a recent analysis by Richard Kerby, a partner at Equal Ventures. He also found that women now make up 18 percent of the industry, compared to 11 percent in 2016. 4. Google gives Chrome the virtual reality treatment The company is bringing its Chrome browser to Daydream VR headsets. This was first announced as in the works back at Google's I/O developer conference in 2017. 5. OpenAI's robotic hand doesn't need humans to teach it human behavior Researchers at OpenAI have created a system that not only holds and manipulates objects much like a human does, but also managed to develop these behaviors on its own. 6. Samsung reports Q2 profit slowdown, says Galaxy S9 sales were lower than expected On the bright side, the Korean tech giant said its semiconductor business is doing well. 7. WhatsApp now allows group voice and video calls between up to 4 people Starting this week, WhatsApp callers can add friends by hitting the "add participant" button at the top right corner of their screen. The maximum number of participants is four, and WhatsApp said the calls are end-to-end encrypted. Get more stories at techcrunch.com  Newest Jobs From CrunchBoard: Senior software engineer (C++) at Sticker Mule (Anywhere) System Administrator at Modus (New York, New York, United States) Tech Lead - Java at N26 (New York, NY, USA) Senior Software Engineer at N26 (New York, NY, USA) IT Engineer II - Business Intelligence & Data Analytics at City of Mesa (Mesa, AZ, USA) SEE MORE JOBS ON CRUNCHBOARD Post your tech jobs and reach millions of TechCrunch readers for only $200 per month View this email online in your browser If you do not want to receive this email or you would like to update your preferences click here. 410 Townsend Street, San Francisco, CA 94107 © 2018 Oath Tech Network. All rights reserved.   TechCrunch is now a part of Oath and a part of Verizon. On May 25th 2018 we will be introducing a new unified Oath Terms of Service and Privacy Policy which will explain how your data is used and shared. Learn More.

                                                           

Twitter tries to be less toxic. It's The Daily Crunch.

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THE DAILY CRUNCH MONDAY, JULY 30 2018 By Anthony Ha Twitter selects researchers to investigate its "conversational health," leaked photos may show new iPhones and John Oliver takes on Facebook. Here's your Daily Crunch for July 30, 2018. 1. Twitter turns to academics to improve conversational health on the platform In March, Twitter called for proposals from researchers around how they might measure and improve conversational health on the platform. Now the company has chosen two research teams to focus on two different issues — echo chambers and intergroup conflict. It sounds like this is all pretty far removed from leading to concrete changes on Twitter itself, but at least the company is working with outside researchers to try to understand the issues at stake. 2. This is what the next iPhone could look like Most likely, the devices in the leaked photos aren't actual iPhones. Instead, they're dummy units created by manufacturers based on leaked design schematics — but these units usually look just like the real thing. Sponsored By: Divvy Divvy raises $35m Series B to eliminate expense reports Divvy, the proactive expense management platform that eliminates expense reports and gives managers control and visibility over company spending, recently announced a $35m Series B. Divvy is free to use and offers decision makers $100 to take a demo. Learn More… 3. John Oliver makes an honest Facebook ad "Seriously you guys, we were making so much money off of you, you don't even understand." 4. Grover raises €37M Series A to offer latest tech products as a subscription The startup has also been trialling a B2B product called Startups get Grover. Apparently there was demand from startups that want, for example, to subscribe for access to MacBooks for their new employees. 5. Tesla is making a $1500 … surfboard? Tesla says, "The Limited Edition Tesla Surfboard features a mix of the same high-quality matte and gloss finishes used on all our cars." I mean, sure? But it looks like they're already sold out. 6. This is the leaked DJI Mavic 2 drone Just like the original, it's a small, foldable drone. This time around, there will be two different versions, the Zoom and the Pro, though both will reportedly have the ability to fly at 45mph with a range of five miles. 7. A podcast is a song in your heart Last week's episode of Equity looked at Facebook's falling stock price, while your hosts at TechCrunch Mixtape (previously known as CTRL-T) took a ride in a self-driving car. Get more stories at techcrunch.com  Newest Jobs From CrunchBoard: Tech Lead - Java at N26 (New York, NY, USA) Senior Software Engineer at N26 (New York, NY, USA) IT Engineer II - Business Intelligence & Data Analytics at City of Mesa (Mesa, AZ, USA) Senior DevOps Engineer at Elinvar (Berlijn, Duitsland) FPGA Designer/Concepteur de FPGA at Haivision Network Video (Montreal, QC, Canada) SEE MORE JOBS ON CRUNCHBOARD Post your tech jobs and reach millions of TechCrunch readers for only $200 per month View this email online in your browser If you do not want to receive this email or you would like to update your preferences click here. 410 Townsend Street, San Francisco, CA 94107 © 2018 Oath Tech Network. All rights reserved.   TechCrunch is now a part of Oath and a part of Verizon. On May 25th 2018 we will be introducing a new unified Oath Terms of Service and Privacy Policy which will explain how your data is used and shared. Learn More.