Given all the uncertainties, a global pandemic may be the wrong time to pursue a new startup idea, but in many ways the timing couldn’t be better. That’s one of the lessons we learned from our GeekWire podcast conversation this week with an entrepreneur and investor in the Seattle area Shirish Nadkarni, Author of the … Read more
To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s greatest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3:00 p.m. PDT, subscribe here. Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for Thursday September 2, 2021. TechCrunch is largely retired tomorrow thanks to a Pan-Yahoo corporate hiatus. But don’t worry, all systems will continue to work as … Read more
SpaceX has reached another major milestone in its fully reusable Starship launch system: it has stacked the Starship spacecraft itself on a prototype of its Super Heavy Booster, which itself is loaded with a full complement of 29 Raptor rocket engines, and which Starship has on top six itself. The stacked spacecraft now represents the … Read more
A number of startups have sprung up in recent years to meet the growing demand from satellite providers, biotech companies, and others looking to launch payloads into space. One such startup is Germany’s Isar Aerospace Technologies, which focuses on the construction of orbital launch vehicles that are designed to carry up to 1,000 kilograms into … Read more
A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket will launch NASA’s long-awaited mission to Europe, Jupiter’s icy moon, which may have the conditions to support life. The agency has been planning to send a probe to the Jupiter moon for years and completed its plans in 2019. In its announcement, NASA said the Europa Clipper spacecraft is scheduled … Read more
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos (wearing a cowboy hat) with Jose Andres (left of Bezos) and Van Jones (right of Bezos), recipients of $ 100 million charitable gifts from Bezos, announced after his Blue Origin flight into space on Tuesday . (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle) After what some critics call the world’s most expensive midlife … Read more
Many consumers use their credit cards to collect rewards for travel. But what if you’re a sports fan and using your credit card could lead to a virtual conversation with a player on your favorite team? Thanks to San Francisco cardless, this opportunity may be less far than you think. The startup, which aims to … Read more
Welcome to the space race, billionaire edition. Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin Galactic, is scheduled to take off into space on Sunday, if the weather and technical controls permit. If the mission is successful, Branson will beat competitor Jeff Bezos, who recently stepped down as CEO of Amazon, by days. Bezos’ own rocket company … Read more
Icosavax creates virus-like particles using technology licensed from the University of Washington’s Institute for Protein Design. (Icosavax photo) Seattle-based Icosavax filed for an IPO just four years after it started at the University of Washington. The company, a spin-out of the UW’s Institute for Protein Design, develops vaccines that resemble naturally occurring viruses. Icosavax initiated … Read more
After launching in the US five years ago, Apple’s search engine advertising service finally hit mainland China this week. The feature called Apple Search Ads enables developers to bid on an advertising space based on users’ keyword searches in the App Store, similar to Google search ads. JPMorgan previously estimated that the giant’s annual advertising … Read more