Top Stories of the Day // July 31, 2018

Tuesday, July 31, 2018 Posted by bloggerdaddy
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.

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 

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