Tech Boys

When someone in the U.S. is killed by a police officer, there's no guarantee that their death will be recorded as such. This reality is no surprise to the activists, many of them Black, Latino, and Indigenous, who've said for years that their loved ones, friends, and neighbors are killed by police officers yet officials don't accurately report their cause of death. Instead, the fatality might be attributed to causes like heart disease or sickle cell trait . Sometimes coroners or medical examiners are embedded in police departments and may be under pressure to list a cause other than police violence. In other cases, they fail to properly cite the cause of death because of poor standards or training. A new study published in the Lancet illustrates the vast disparity between the federal government tally of police killings and what people see happening in their own communities. The researchers estimate that between 1980 and 2018, more than 55 percent of these incidents, o...

Viral food, in general, falls into a few, readily identifiable categories. There's your run-of-the-mill kitchen hack — think air fried eggs . There's your viral, stunty food that's entrancingly weird, like the bell pepper sandwich craze. And then there's, for lack of a better term, professional food. Stuff like Alison Roman's chocolate chunk shortbreads that were known simply as The Cookies or the entire aspirational account of TikTok influencer @Sad_Papi , a remarkably chill fine dining chef. Then there's Emily Mariko, a wildly — and increasingly — popular food influencer on TikTok. There's nothing all that difficult about her food — her most famous dish involves reheated rice, leftover salmon, and seaweed wrappers. She's not pitching a diet. She's not doing anything stunty or putting off bug-eyed, pick-me energy like men who're budding influencers. Hell, she hardly even talks in most TikToks and went super viral for leftovers. SEE ALSO: ...

Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto/Getty Images Millions of Android users were plagued by scam apps that placed charges on their wireless bills. Users were tricked by a fake prize into providing their phone numbers, Zimperium reported. Google says that all of the apps identified by Zimperium have been removed from the Play Store. See more stories on Insider's business page . A massive scamming campaign recently plagued the Google Play Store, affecting millions of Android users. The scam took place via more than 200 apps run by attackers to scam money from its downloaders, security firm Zimperium reported. Zimperium, a member of the Google App Defense Alliance which scans applications before publishing in the Google Play Store, estimates that 10 million Android users globally were affected by this scam . The applications posed as seemingly normal downloads, hiding under facades like "Photo Effect Pro," "Daily Horoscope & Life Palmestry," and "Fr...

Associate Justice Samuel Alito sits during a group photo of the Justices at the Supreme Court in Washington, DC on April 23, 2021. Erin Schaff-Pool/Getty Images Justice Samuel Alito defended the Supreme Court against recent criticisms. Alito said members of the media and politicians have tried to paint the court's work as "sneaky and dangerous." "This portrayal feeds unprecedented efforts to intimidate the court," he said. See more stories on Insider's business page . Justice Samuel Alito on Thursday defended the Supreme Court against recent backlash over its decision earlier this month to maintain a Texas law that bans abortion after six weeks of pregnancy. Alito was among the majority of justices who on September 2 refused an emergency request to block the Texas statute, which is widely considered to be one of the most restrictive abortion measures in the country. The narrow 5-4 decision was handed down on its emergency docket without a full b...

To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here . Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for September 30, 2021. It’s the last day of the third quarter! Yes, that means earnings season is coming, along with a whole bunch of venture capital data — more on that in a moment — but more importantly, how the heck is it Q4? Already? From the TechCrunch side of things, cheap tickets to our Sessions: SaaS event are going away in short order . So, snap ‘em up if you are coming. I’m hosting and even doing a panel or two. See you there! – Alex 48 hours left to save $100 on passes to TC Sessions: SaaS 2021 The TechCrunch Top 3 Facebook spins own research: The only way to get Facebook to release data and research concerning its own platform that hasn’t been filtered through its PR leviathan is to have it leak. Then Facebook may release it, but with a huge dose of its own spin. This, of course, is precisely ...

NASA has chosen two U.S. companies to develop electric propulsion technologies for aircraft, with the aim of introducing this tech to U.S. aviation fleets by 2035. The two companies, GE Aviation and MagniX, will conduct their work over the next five years. That includes ground and flight test demonstrations, as well as collaborations with other NASA projects focused on electric propulsion, data analysis and flight test instrumentation. The awards, granted under the agency’s Electric Powertrain Flight Demonstration (EPFD) program, have a combined value of $253.4 million. Of that, $179 million was awarded to GE Aviation, with MagniX receiving $74.3 million. “GE Aviation and MagniX will perform integrated megawatt-class powertrain system ground and flight demonstrations to validate their concepts, and project benefits for future [electrified aircraft propulsion] aircraft configurations,” NASA’s Gaudy Bezos-O’Connor, EPFD project manager explained in a statement. “These demonstrations w...

Vlad Novakovski co-founded Lunchclub in 2017 as a way to improve professional networking. In 2020, the company made a large push toward videos (thanks, COVID) and eventually saw enough traction to raise a $24.2 million Series A at a valuation above $100 million. Nicole Quinn from Lightspeed Ventures lead the raise. We’re thrilled to have both on TechCrunch Live to help explain how to raise a Series A financing round. They’re sticking around the show to give feedback on pitch decks presented by selected startups. TechCrunch Live also features the TCL Pitch-off, which gives folks in the audience the chance to raise their hand and pitch their startup to our guests, who will give their live feedback. Nicole Quinn is a leader in venture capital and her portfolio is impressive, with such investments as Cameo, Zola, Goop, Calm, Haus Laboratories and others. Vlad Novakovski co-founded Lunchclub in 2017 with Scott Wu and Hayley Leibson. In 2019 the company raised a $4 million seed round le...

Sen. Richard Blumenthal doesn't understand what a finsta is. Facebook should be delighted. The senator from Connecticut displayed his ignorance of the slang term during a Thursday hearing designed to hold Facebook officials to account after the Wall Street Journal published a bombshell series of articles based on leaked internal company documents. Sen. Blumenthal's misunderstanding of the word, which has since gone viral on Twitter , paints a picture of an out-of-touch elected official trying to regulate tech platforms — and in the process serves as a likely welcome distraction for Facebook officials. After all, why should the public focus on the real harms documented by Facebook's own internal researchers when we can instead all gawk at the old man misusing internet slang? For the blissfully unaware, the term finsta is meant to designate a secondary Instagram account, often made under a fake name. The slang is used by the likes of teens, adults , and even former p...

A Frontier Airlines Airbus A321 Carlos Yudica/Shutterstock.com Frontier announced 12 new routes in its latest network expansion, focusing on Mexico and Florida. Cancun will get six new routes beginning in December and Tampa will get five beginning in November. The airline will offer introductory fares starting at $39 one-way to Tampa and $89 one-way to Cancun. See more stories on Insider's business page . Frontier Airlines announced 12 new routes on Wednesday and it's honing in on Mexico and Florida, just in time for the winter travel season. Frontier is targeting Cancun, Mexico, and Tampa, Florida in its latest network expansion, with service scheduled to start on November 30. Five nonstop routes will operate to Tampa International Airport, six to Cancun International Airport, and the last of the 12 will connect Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and Punta Cana International Airport in the Dominican Republic. -Frontier Airlines (@FlyFrontier) Septemb...