Author: pekandesigns

Thanksgiving, a day when brick-and-mortar stores tend to be closed, has become a big one for online spending, and this year did not disappoint, with a surge of consumers rushing to digital platforms to grab sale items while physical stores were closed. This year, US consumers spent a record $3.7 billion on Thanksgiving, according to […]

If you’re reading this, chances are you’re: Pretty good at tech stuff Spending time with your family for Thanksgiving Bored because you’re reading this article right now You may not celebrate Thanksgiving where you live, but most of our readers are American. So let’s use this opportunity to review the tech setup of your family. […]

Berlin-based Zizoo — a startup which self describes as booking.com for boats — has nabbed a €6.5 million (~$7.4M) Series A to help more millennials find holiday yachts to mess about taking selfies in. Zizoo says its Series A — which was led by Revo Capital, with participation from new investors including Coparion, Check24 Ventures and PUSH […]

Ah, wonderful to see you again, sir. The usual? Kool-Aid Grain Alcohol Martini with a twisty straw. Of course. And I see you’re wearing a new watch. The MQT Essential Mirror. Quite striking. I see the watch has a quartz ETA movement – an acceptable movement by any standard – and a very elegant face […]

Google has announced its plan for combating election interference in the European Union, ahead of elections next May when up to 350 million voters across the region will vote to elect 705 Members of the European Parliament. In a blog post laying out a narrow approach to democracy-denting disinformation, Google says it will introduce a […]

Give the gift of organization this year. Bags are often ignored but are a critical part of anyone’s mobile gear. They’re the outward representations of our techie styles, and we put far too little thought into where we keep our most prized possessions. Here’s a collection of bags TechCrunch reviewed over the last year. You’ll find waxed canvas […]

Amazon has reversed a decision it made six months ago to shut off its US ecommerce site to Australian shoppers. Reuters reports that the U-turn comes after a customer backlash. Since July shoppers in Australia trying to browse stuff to buy on Amazon.com have been redirected to the local site, Amazon.com.au. Shipping to Australia from Amazon.com was also […]

One of the most immediate — and already live — applications for robotics and artificial intelligence in general has been in using unmanned robots in warehouses and other environments, where they replace humans in repetitive jobs such as sorting and moving objects from A to B. Now, Beijing-based robotics startup Geek Plus (aka Geek+) says […]

Wluper, the London-based tech startup building a conversational AI to power knowledge-based voice assistants, has raised $1.3 million in seed funding. Leading the round is “deep tech” VC IQ Capital, with participation from Seedcamp, Aster, and Magic Pony co-founder Dr Zehan Wang. Founded in 2016 and originally backed by Jaguar Land Rover’s InMotion Ventures, Wluper’s […]

French crowd-lending platform October (formerly known as Lendix), wants to educate more people about new ways to borrow money. That’s why the company is launching a project called Grandir Ensemble (grow together). 11 big companies are borrowing €100,000 each on October at a 2.5 percent interest rate. October users will be able to lend as […]