The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. (This one’s a little shorter than usual — it’s a holiday weekend in the United States.) If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here:
1. Black Friday predicted to hit $5.9B in online sales, $645M spent so far
After a record-breaking Thanksgiving with $3.7 billion in digital sales across desktop and mobile devices, it looks like Black Friday will also pull in a bumper year for e-commerce. Adobe — which tracks trillions of transactions across a range of retail sites — says that as of 7am Pacific Time, there has already been $645 million spent online.
Shopify, which provides a real-time sales visualisation for some 600,000 merchants on its platform, notes that the average sales per minute for those merchants is hovering at just over $400,000 per minute.
2. Amazon warehouse workers in Europe stage ‘we are not robots’ protests
They’ve timed the latest protest for Black Friday, one of the busiest annual shopping days online as retailers slash prices and heavily promote deals to try to spark a seasonal buying rush.
3. Be a Thanksgiving security hero with these family-friendly tips
If you’re reading this, chances are you’re: Pretty good at tech stuff, spending time with your family for Thanksgiving and bored because you’re reading this newsletter right now.
4. Silentmode’s PowerMask is a $200 connected relaxation mask
Someone described the PowerMask as a kind of small scale take on a sensory deprivation tank — and sure, why not?
5. BlueCargo optimizes stacks of containers for maximum efficiency
Under current sorting methods, yard cranes end up moving a ton of containers just to reach a container sitting at the bottom of the pile. BlueCargo wants to optimize those movements by helping you store containers at the right spot.
6. Gift Guide: 16 fantastic computer bags
Yep, it’s another TechCrunch gift guide, this one focused on Matt Burns’ favorite subject.
Source : Daily Crunch: Black Friday’s online sales are projected to hit $5.9B
