the new apple tv is officially available instores, bitcoin's value is rallying again, facebook tests a new local market featurethat rivals craigslist, and more. it's friday, october 30th and this is crunchreport. some facebook users in auckland, new zealand,and melbourne and sydney. australia, have spotted a new feature being tested in theiphone app called “local marketâ€... sometimes
Android TV chrome, in place of the “messenger†button atthe bottom center of the screen. local market, as the name implies, is a marketplace aimedat buyers and sellers, that lets facebook users either browse or post items to sell...things like autos, appliances, furniture, clothing, household, kids stuff, and books.the section is being populated by pulling
in items from facebook’s “sale†groupsin a given geographic region... sale groups is a popular way people are using facebookgroups already. in fact facebook said earlier this year that it hosts tens of millions ofgroups on its site, and sale groups were one of the most popular categories. so, let'ssay local market becomes a public feature... it could go up against craigslist, or etsy...as long as people used it. facebook isn't currently the place you go to sell your books,but if it can convince its users to do that, the commerce side of facebook gets more interesting. chrome os, the “cloud†based operatingsystem that google runs on affordable laptops, and android, google's mobile operating systemfor phones and tablets, may merge into one
product... this is according to the wall streetjournal. the merge could happen as early as next year…and could be introduced at nextyear’s i/o. a few things point to this not being total bs - android co-founder andy rubinleft the company last year, which could indicate changes at foot, and google’s ceo sundarpichai, who used to oversee chrome, chrome os, apps and android, stated that mobile rulesthe world during alphabet’s most recent earnings call. now, chrome os doesn't havenative apps, which developers love, but it does have google apps, which companies andschools love. and then there's google's announcement of the pixel c, remember? that laptop-tablet-running-full-on-android.the whole thing doesn't sound that farfetched, really.
the new apple tv, with a brand new remoteand its own app ecosystem, is now available in retail stores. the set top box starts at$149 at apple stores, - there's a 64gb model for $199 - with best buy and target carryingthe device as well. although if you really want one, you probably already pre-orderedan apple tv when it went on sale online last week. apple has also redesigned the remote,which now holds multiple sensors, to allow for more functionality, and a touchpad forsliding control over skipping backward or forward, and has its own accelerometer andgyroscope for motion controls on games. apple tv now supports universal search, voice controland siri integration, although it's a more stripped down than what we're used to on ios.
remember when we talked about bitcoin allthe time? those were the days. actually, when were those days? because all year the cyroptocurrency'ssort of languished well below its former value highs. however! we've got ourselves a rally,because bitcoin is now at its highest value of 2015, trading for around $320 per coin.that's still nowhere near its former highs, but it's suer a lot better for investors thanwhen it dipped below $200 earlier this year. now, bitcoin price is just one way to feelout the health of its larger ecosystem. volume, difficulty and the aggregate hash rate - whichas techcrunch's alex wilhelm explains to me, has to do with the processing power of thecurrency as a whole, based on total coins mined - they all come into play here. butwhen bitcoin’s price goes up, people also
tend to get more interested in it. and aftera ton of bitcoin-related startups got a lot of money to build their businesses, withouta proven business model, the market may be in a period of self-correction. daily deals just aren't the hot thing theyonce were. and the latest company to pull out of the space is...amazon.. the amazonlocal homepage now informs customers that the platform is closing down on december 18,2015. at that point, amazon will stop selling deals via the website and in the amazon localmobile app. although the company says if you've already bought a deal, it'll still be honored.the shift away from daily deals is real - local deals platform livingsocial, which is partlyowned by amazon, announced this month that
it’s laying off 200 people, or 20 percentof its staff, as it moves away from the deals model to focus on what it calls “experiences.â€and groupon, the king of the daily deals fad, announced 1,100 layoffs in september and ceasingof operations in several non-u.s. markets. so, amazon will no longer directly run a dailydeals platform, but it'll still offer its
deal of the day, kindle daily deals, etc viathe main amazon.com website. amazon home services. that’s the report for today. i’m sarahlane. crunch report airs every weekday at 7 pm eastern,4 pm pacific, on techcrunch.com. you can also find us on itunes, and on youtube. happy halloween,see you monday!
