Managed marketplaces have been one of the hottest categories of venture investment over the past several years. They garner a lot of press because the consumer experiences are often radically different than what’s previously been available in the market. But there is confusion over what a true “managed” marketplace is. It’s fairly easy to spot if you know what to look for. Read More
There are only a few virtual reality titles that I’ve played where I need a bit of a “come down” period to regroup my thoughts and start thinking like a real human again. SUPERHOT VR is one of those titles. Today, the Rift-exclusive is finally coming to the HTC Vive natively via the Steam store, nearly six months after its launch on the Oculus Store. Read More
Robots may have the upper hand on math and science, but when it comes to athletics, no one can kick around a ball quite like a human can. In this installment of Judah vs. the Machines, Judah Friedlander heads to the University of Miami to see how the school’s RoboCanes robotic soccer team fares in a challenge against his own soccer abilities. Read More
In an all-too-familiar Airbnb fashion, the home-sharing company has released a report touting how great it is. Airbnb says it helped travelers collectively save $12 million on Memorial Day weekend last year by offering them accommodations in homes versus hotels. Read More
Google’s News Lab launched a new tool for making basic data GIFs today. While the Data GIF Maker is mostly geared toward journalists, anybody can use it to make some halfway interesting visuals based on all kinds of data. But don’t get too excited yet. Read More
Amazon has officially begun operating its AmazonFresh Pickup locations in Seattle, letting customers order groceries ahead of time and then quickly grab them on their way home. The service requires as little as 15 minutes advance notice, without any minimum purchase requirements, and it’s a free service for any Amazon Prime members. Amazon first revealed Pickup back in March, but… Read More
Lyft is getting into the higher-end ride hailing game with Lyft Lux and Lyft Lux SUV. These are black car offerings similar to the service that rival Uber originally launched with, and they’ll be available beginning in 20 markets with a gradual rollout starting now in five initial markets and continuing through mid-June. Lux will roll out first in five U.S. cities where it makes the… Read More
Two years ago payments startup Stripe launched a new product called Stripe Connect to serve a growing number of marketplace customers. Today the company is launching a new set of capabilities that will enable new marketplace categories and help companies sign up and onboard sellers and service providers to their platforms. Read More
Uber and Lyft had paused their operations in Austin, TX back in 2016, because local regulators imposed rules that both argued were overly taxing to running their businesses. The rules included requiring fingerprint-based background checks for drivers, as well as barring pick-ups and drop-offs in lanes on certain roads within the city. Both Uber and Lyft will resume operations because Texas… Read More
Twilio is getting into the serverless game today with the beta launch of Twilio Functions. Like other so-called “serverless” platforms, Functions abstracts away all of the tiresome server and infrastructure management and scaling and allows developers to focus on building their event-driven applications. Read More
One of the problems publishers face today in making their content more readable on mobile devices is that there are multiple, competing formats available for this purpose. Facebook has Instant Articles, Google is spearheading the AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) project, and the Apple News Format optimizes content for iOS devices. Facebook is today taking a crack at a solution to this problem… Read More
Mogees, the London startup behind the Mogees Pro and Mogees Play contact microphone and machine learning-based music and gaming devices, has raised $1.1 million in seed funding — capital it plans to use to embed its “gestural recognition tech” into new devices and applications. Read More
Bike sharing has taken a turn in the U.S. The new mode is “dockless,” where companies distribute bikes around a city or campus to be rented per trip instead of dispensing them from one station. The bikes are tracked via GPS, and can be located by users, paid for and unlocked using their smartphones. When riders are done, they can park the bike anywhere that’s convenient… Read More
Atlantic.Net, the Florida-based hosting provider, today announced that its users can now use Windows Server Containers on its platform to bring their existing Windows workloads into the cloud.
While many of the larger cloud providers like AWS and Google also offer support for Windows containers on their virtual machines and dedicated container platforms, Atlantic.Net’s more direct… Read More
Rackspace announced today it was purchasing TriCore, giving it an enterprise applications management play to go along with its cloud management services. The announcement comes just one day after the company announced it was bringing a new CEO onboard, make it a busy week for the firm. The companies did not share the terms of the deal, but Rackspace called it the largest acquisition in… Read More
Back in the mists of 2014 we revealed how one of the UK’s most active venture investment funds operated. To this day Octopus Ventures continues to rub shoulders with the most active institutional VC funds at the early stage, even though it’s technically an evergreen fund attached to the stock market. It’s backed hits like LoveFilm, Zoopla through to IPO, Graze as well as… Read More
TechCrunch’s first ever robotics event is fast approaching, and we’re putting the final touches on an amazing programming line-up, which includes MIT’s Daniela Rus, Disney’s Martin Buehler, Amazon’s Tye Brady, ABB’s Sami Atiya, iRobot’s Colin Angle, SRI’s Manish Kothari and many more. Look for the full agenda soon, but today we’re… Read More
Productivity app maker Readdle is rolling out a new feature across its line of iOS applications that takes advantage of the iPad’s support for split screen viewing to make it easier to move files between apps. The move could encourage current Readdle customers to buy the software maker’s larger suite of apps in order to take advantage of the new functionality. Split view is a… Read More
Microsoft’s live-streaming service Beam, which the company acquired last year shortly after it emerged as the winner of the TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Battlefield, is today getting a new name: Mixer. The name is meant to express the way the service brings people together, the team explains, but it’s not the only change rolling out today, as it turns out. Mixer is also launching… Read More
Do you think you know cars? Well, Blippar’s new machine learning technology is ready to take you on, as the augmented reality/visual search company is today announcing automotive recognition tech. In other words, Blippar’s AI can identify the make, model and year of any U.S. car made in 2000 or after, as long as the car is traveling slower than 15mph. Blippar originally launched as… Read More
