Ah, another day, another stealth mobile gaming startup getting funded by Shakira. LA-based Wonder announced today that it has closed a Series A round of funding. The startup is building what it claims to be a new breed of “VR-ready” gaming hardware in secret, but seems to have been gesturing loudly about just how secret it is. Read More
Intercom, a business messaging tool that enables companies to communicate directly with customers in an online context, announced today that it has hired former Intuit SVP Karen Peacock as company COO.
She joined the company May 30th, but they are making the news public for the first time today.
Peacock comes with an impressive resume that starts with a BA from Harvard and an MBA from Stanford. Read More
Blue Apron — the next big consumer IPO for 2017 — isn’t looking as good as it was just a few weeks ago. The company said in an updated filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it would cut its IPO price range target. Read More
Testing self-driving cars in California is like playing a video game on the “easy” setting, because it’s nice all the time and basically temperate year-round. Autonomous vehicles face significant challenges when it comes to more extreme weather conditions, which are a standard part of certifying any current cars for legal road-ready status. Waymo, Alphabet’s… Read More
TechCrunch is pleased to offer Microsoft Accelerator’s Tel Aviv demo day event today at 6:30 p.m. local time, 8:30 a.m. PST. The Microsoft Accelerator is an immersive three- to six-month program aimed at helping entrepreneurs get through the challenges of building a company, finding customers and scaling to global markets. There are seven accelerators located around the world, from… Read More
Snapchat introduced a way to create custom geofilters back in February of last year, and now it’s making the feature easier to use. U.S. Snapchat users can now create and submit custom filters directly in the app, rather than having to go to the studio website to make their custom filter.
The mobile creative studio is now located in settings, under a menu item called “On-Demand… Read More
On the heels of launching its next-gen DVR for cord cutters who want to record TV over-the-air from a digital antenna, the maker of the Tablo DVR is today releasing a new app for Android TV owners, for recording live TV without the need for additional DVR hardware. The app, Tablo Engine, initially works with the Nvidia Shield. Of course, you’ll still need an HDTV antenna in order to… Read More
LiveLike, the service that partners with sports broadcasters to create and host their VR viewing experiences, is going social. LiveLike’s VR experience is a “virtual suite” overlooking the field, where you can select different camera angles, look around the suite, view pre-produced content, etc. And now you’ll be able to do this with friends. Read More
Android Pay launched at the end of May in Canada, but at the time American Express was listed as “coming later this summer” in terms of support. AmEx users didn’t have to wait long, it turns out, because support just went live for their credit cards in Android’s mobile payments platform in the country.
AmEx joins a decent list of major Canadian banks, as well as… Read More
If you follow long-running video game focused comic series Penny Arcade, then you’re probably aware that they occasionally take breaks from the regular strip to create mini-series. One of those is Automata, a sci-fi film noir detective story about a hardboiled human sleuth and his robot partner. Penny Arcade ran a Kickstarter to fund the creation of a live action series based on the… Read More
Drop-In is a strange and mostly ill-advised feature. It’s a way of offering instant communication between Echo devices — essentially a phone call that doesn’t require the receiver to pick up in order to initiate. Hence, “dropping in.” Amazon introduced it with the new Show and is rolling it out to older Echo devices as a way of facilitating the new intercom feature… Read More
Tinder this morning announced it will begin testing a new service called Tinder Gold in select markets, aimed at increasing the number of paying users for its popular dating app. With Tinder Gold, which will be an upgrade available to both existing Tinder Plus subscribers as well as free users, users will have a direct way to see all those who have already swiped right on their profile, through… Read More
Cat owners rejoice! Now you can quantify the comings and goings of your furry friend — thanks to an app-controlled pet door that can send push notifications when Tibbles enters and leaves your abode. Read More
Egnyte had a big milestone last week. It turned 10 years old, which is a pretty big deal for a startup. The company has survived and even thrived, but as it moves into its second decade, it recognizes that it can’t live on file sync and share alone, and today it announced the general availability of a new product called Egnyte Protect. The product was introduced in Beta last year, but… Read More
Put aside whatever shred of healthcare decency the Senate happens to be ripping out at the moment and take a look at Better, a startup helping people deal with out-of-network medical bills. The startup has just pledged 100 percent of its revenue towards relieving those stuck in serious medical debt — at least until this fall. Read More
Salesforce launched three AI tools for developers today at the TrailheaDX developer conference. These algorithms, which fall under the new Einstein Platform Services, enable third-party developers to add Einstein intelligence to applications built on top of the Salesforce platform. The new services include sentiment and intent analysis and some pretty sophisticated image recognition… Read More
Cloud computing is driving growth at 3 of the 5 most valuable companies in the world. AI will impact jobs only as quickly as AI-powered business software evolves. These are just two of the ramifications of disruptions in enterprise technology permeating mainstream media.Yet the inner workings of the tightly knit enterprise software industry are rarely publicized. Most talented engineers flock… Read More
The UK is getting a new commercial astronaut training facility, called “Blue Abyss,” which will include a pool with a depth of 50 meters, Engadget reports. That’s 164 feet, which tops (or undercuts, rather) NASA’s own 12 meter buoyancy lab, and it’ll help prepare paid private astronauts for the rigors of spaceflight, along with other features of the facility… Read More
Wayra, the Telefónica backed accelerator network, is launching a new startup program in the UK that aims to tackle the so-called ‘poverty premium’ — whereby people on low incomes pay more for some goods and services. Read More
Okay, European startup fans. You’ve procrastinated long enough. Tomorrow, we’ll be releasing a batch of 50 pairs of tickets to Disrupt Berlin 2017, but in order to take advantage of this limited-time 2-4-1 opportunity, you’ll need to sign up today. Read More
