As we see the ecosystem continue to develop, bots are increasingly showcasing a wide variety of features, from chat to menus to buttons and visual interfaces. Some bots now almost look like full-fledged apps with a variety of feature-rich options. So it begs the question… what exactly is a “bot”? Read More
Trying to figure out this whole live video broadcasting thing? Good news! Periscope, the Twitter-owned live-broadcasting app, picked up a new trick this morning: a shiny new analytics dashboard. It’s not the most groundbreaking thing in the world, but it makes sense. Making a successful live video on the internet — particularly one that doesn’t involve video games or naked… Read More
Matrix Labs just completed a successful crowdfunding campaign for what amounts to an AI voice recognition system for the Raspberry Pi which allows you, a mere mortal, to make your own Alexa in your basement. Created by Rodolfo Saccoman and Brian Sanchez their first board, the Creator, fits right on top of a standard RaspPi and gives you an 8 microphone array, a temperature sensor,… Read More
European justice and home affairs ministers are putting their heads together to try to decide on a collective response to Internet companies’ use of strong encryption. And, ultimately, whether to push for legislation requiring backdoors in end-to-end encryption to afford the region’s law enforcement agencies access to user data on-demand. Read More
Tesla is releasing new 8.1 software out to vehicles, which includes updates to Autopilot for hardware that supports version 2.0 of the advanced driver assistance features. These late model cars are getting features that bring it basically up to parity with the original, first generation software, Electrek reports, which means a speed limit bump for Autosteer, a beta introduction of the… Read More
Apple will lose its lead over Android in terms of revenue generated by mobile apps this year, according to a new report from App Annie, out today. However, the firm’s estimate is based on including third-party Android app stores in its forecast, not just Google Play. When the Apple App Store is pitted against Google Play alone, Apple is expected to maintain its lead through 2021, the… Read More
A joint resolution has just been passed by both houses of Congress and all but signed by the president, reversing the Broadband Privacy Rule, a piece of regulation from the FCC that made some inconvenient changes to the ways internet providers can collect and sell the data they collect on consumers. But what exactly can they do now that they couldn’t last week? Read More
Sound Ventures, the venture firm founded by Ashton Kutcher and Guy Oseary, has hired a new managing partner and COO. Effie Epstein, who most recently led global strategy at Marsh & McLennan subsidiary Marsh, will be joining the firm to make investments and help run day-to-day operations. Read More
A billion and a half photos find their way onto Facebook every single day and the company is racing to understand them and their moving counterparts with the hope of increasing engagement. And while machine learning is undoubtedly the map to the treasure, Facebook and its competitors are still trying to work out how to deal with the spoils once they find them. Read More
TechCrunch Disrupt NY is around the corner, and with it we’re introducing a brand new way for startups to get their moment in the sun on our main stage. You’re probably familiar with our fireside chats — last year we spoke one-on-one with USV’s Fred Wilson, Uber’s David Plouffe, Facebook’s Stan Chudnovsky, Soledad O’Brien, Carmelo Anthony and… Read More
Raise.me, a service that gives colleges and universities (including my alma mater, Oberlin) an ability to award “micro-scholarships” for academic and extracurricular achievements throughout high school — rather than doling out lump-sum awards after a student applies to their school — has attracted $12 million in new venture capital financing to expand the service… Read More
It’s no secret that communications between patients and their doctors and pharmacists is anything but seamless. The same is true for communications between doctors and the labs and insurance companies with which they work. Carbon Health, a San Francisco-based startup, is aiming to create a two-sided marketplace that makes it easier for everyone involved to know what’s what. To… Read More
Today’s the main event for Samsung. It’s been well over a year since the company unveiled its last flagship and, well, a lot has happened to the company in the interim. After several months of recalls and some bizarre executive scandals, this is the moment where the company needs to dust itself off and show the world what helped make is such a smartphone powerhouse in the first… Read More
Media company BuzzFeed is trying to do the impossible by creating a new public media company today. According to reports from The Wall Street Journal and Axios, the company is working on an initial public offering for 2018. BuzzFeed has already raised hundreds of millions from VC firms and NBCUniversal. And if you’ve raised a ton of money in order to grow rapidly, you don’t have… Read More
To accompany the launch of the latest Gear VR, the Oculus team has rebuilt Home from the ground-up for mobile. The latest version is a doozy, with 3x faster load times and a number of new features and optimizations that bring the experience closer to that of desktop. If things feel a lot more like the experience on the Rift, it’s because Oculus has taken advantage of the new… Read More
Pretty much everything you’ve already read about the Samsung Galaxy S8 is true. And that’s a good thing. Whether by accident or design, the company did a truly abysmal job keeping its new flagship under wraps. Read More
The Galaxy S8’s main selling point still isn’t fully formed. Announced the week leading up to today’s main event, Bixby is as much a key building block for the company moving forward as is the shiny new piece of a flagship phone. The company is finally ready to make its play for the smart home, and the new messenger is going to be a key component. Read More
Samsung wasn’t going to get out of today’s Unpacked event without an update on the VR front. The company has long had the best low-cost VR headset (courtesy of a partnership with Oculus), and the package is getting a bit better with the addition of a controller to the mix. And as a show of goodwill (in case anyone was wary of jumping back in with the company after last… Read More
Since the dawn of machines, mankind has dreamed of shoving one small computer into a larger one. The vision resurfaced last week in the form of a strange Apple patent for a laptop-style device that slotted in an iPhone in place of the trackpad. Of course, Apple patents all sorts of crazy stuff. That’s just a thing that Apple does. The actual possibilities of such a device coming to… Read More
A reminder that I’ll be holding a micro-meetup at Boomtown on Broadway in Boulder, Colorado on today, March 29th, at 7pm. You’ll have 2 minutes to pitch in front of two local judges and then 2 minutes of questions. No slides, no props, no costumes (Ok, maybe costumes.) Boomtown is at 2060 Broadway B1 in the basement. To get there, park around Spruce and Broadway and it’s in… Read More
