TechCrunch Mixtape

Mara Mills  

• Associate professor of Media, Culture and Communication at NYU
• Co-director of the NYU Center for Disability Studies
• Author of Testing Hearing: The Making of Modern Aurality
• Twitter

Meredith Whittaker

• Co-founder of the AI Now Institute
• Minderoo Research Professor at New York University
• Founder of Google’s Open Research group
• Author of the report Disability, Bias and AI
• Twitter

Sara Hendren

• Professor at Olin Co...

This week we are joined by TechCrunch’s resident bearer-of-bad-news -- security reporter Zack Whittaker. He came on to discuss the Capital One breach that we all found out about earlier this week. Zack spent some time on his vacation writing about how this shouldn't be a surprise given nothing changed after 2017's Equifax breach. Remember that one?

But it wasn’t all bad news. Tinder launched new protections for LGBTQ+ people trave...

It’s that time of the week again when Megan Rose Dickey and Henry Pickavet talk about the good and could-be-better tech companies. This week, we talked about Instacart getting caught shorting its shoppers out of dough they rightfully deserved. Of course the company apologized for its “misguided” approach. Which at least sounds better than apologizing for getting caught — and getting caught, the company did.

And wouldn’t you know it...

Screen time for kids, corporations not paying people from underrepresented groups and IBM offers some hope for the future of facial recognition technology: These are the topics that Megan Rose Dickey and Henry Pickavet dive into on this week’s episode of Mixtape. 

According to research by psychologists from the University of Calgary, spending too much time in front of screens can stung the development of toddlers. The study found t...

This week Megan Rose Dickey and I welcome Tiana Kara, the head of partnerships and growth at #builtbygirls (which, like TechCrunch, is owned by Verizon Media Group). The organization connects girls and women between the ages of 15 and 22 with mentors of all stripes in the tech industry based on their interests. The idea here is that not all tech jobs include coding, and #builtbygirls wants all young girls who want in the industry t...

We’re coming to you with another episode of Mixtape, the TechCrunch podcast that takes a peek behind the headlines that go beyond tech. 

This week, Megan Rose Dickey and Henry Pickavet get into a discussion about women’s sexuality, because the world’s biggest "consumer electronics show” revoked an innovation award from Lora DiCarlo, a company that created a sex toy for women. In its initial objection, the CTA cited a clause th...

This time Megan and Henry talk about all of those hubs in your abodes — you know, your Google Homes, your Amazon Echo Shows, your Facebook Portals …. There really are a lot. Stripe is doing a little something different when it comes to reporting diversity: It’s looking within. AR might finally have a use that we can all get behind and Super Mario Party is apparently fun to play.

Square details compensation and promotion practices

S...

This week, Megan and Henry talk about a startup called Bungalow that is trying to make the housing search a little easier. Also on tap this week was a conversation about 23andMe and its efforts to provide more specific regional data about the origins of people of color.

And Sarah Cooper, comedian and author of “How to Succeed Without Hurting Men’s Feelings” joined us in the studio to talk about the book and her experience working i...

It's dogs, mac and cheese and working out this week! Megan and Henry talk about Bark and Co., the company that sends dog treats in boxes. It’s now opened a dog park in Nashville where dogs are the members and humans are the guests. A mac and cheese joint got some funding because why not? And there is a workout machine for your home in the market that Henry really wants.

The company behind BarkBox is opening an ‘outdoor clubh...