Microsoft announced today that it has acquired Semantic Machines, a Berkeley-based startup that wants to solve one of the biggest challenges in conversational AI: making chatbots sound more human and less like, well, bots. In a blog post, Microsoft...

The speed and magnitude with which technology innovation is moving is mind boggling, even for those of us who have worked at the center of it for decades. Technology innovation is now a global village.

Sarah Guo didn’t necessarily set out to become a venture capitalist. She certainly didn’t imagine she would become one of the first general partners at one of the oldest venture firms in the country. Yet Guo is both of these things today. Indeed,...

After taking tens of thousands of crowd-funding pre-orders for a high-end pair of “3D sound” headphones, audio startup Ossic announced this weekend that it is shutting down the company and backers will not be receiving refunds. The company raised...

On any given day in the United States, more than 450,000 people are behind bars awaiting their constitutionally mandated fair trial. None of them have been convicted of a crime — they’ve been accused of committing a crime, but no formal ruling of...

Baidu’s stocks took a hit earlier today after the company announced that its Qi Lu is stepping down from his job as president/COO after just a year and a half. In a press release tied to the news, the executive cited personal reasons for his...

If you haven't taken part in the yanny/laurel controversy over the last couple days, allow me to sincerely congratulate you. But your time is up. The viral speech synth clip has met the AI hype train and the result is, like everything in this mortal...

The highlight of Google’s I/O keynote earlier this month was the reveal of Duplex, a system that can make calls to set up a salon appointment or a restaurant reservation for you by calling those places, chatting with a human and getting the job...

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. Today Matthew Lynley, Connie Loizos and I were joined by Semil Shah, the founder of seed-stage fund Haystack and venture...

The front of SuitX’s East Bay headquarters is an empty room. No reception desk, no furniture — it’s about as unassuming as robotics office spaces get. For now, it’s a trial space, where perspective clients can try out the startup’s soft robotics...

PayPal is taking its biggest bet yet on point-of-sale transactions, small businesses and markets outside of the U.S. as it looks to raise its game against Square, Stripe and others in the world of payments: The company has confirmed that it is...

No, it’s not a “regram” option. Sorry!  But today, Instagram is officially launching a new feature that will allow users to re-share someone’s Instagram post with their friends via Instagram Stories – something it confirmed was in testing earlier...