With virtual reality, Hollywood and Silicon Valley have never been more closely aligned in their desire to push the boundaries of how people emotionally interact with technology. Video games may be drawing in a huge deal of interest but there are also an army of filmmakers and creatives looking at how they can use VR to draw viewers in and experience something breath-taking. Today, Tribeca… Read More
Do you really need a screen? That’s the question Fossil is asking with their clever and handsome Fossil Q Hybrid smartwatch, an analog watch that hides all of its smarts behind an understated face. This type of watch has become more common with watchmakers like Skagen and Michael Kors jumping on the bandwagon. Many of the manufactures use movements from MMT and others and most of them… Read More
Snap debuts as a public company in soaring IPO, AWS suffers major outage and Nokia is reviving Snake. These are the top tech headlines of the week explained. Read More
Uber is using a tool called “Greyball” to work identity requests made by certain users and deny them service, according to Mike Isaac reporting for the New York Times. The software, later renamed the “violation of terms of service” or VTOS program, is said to employ data analysis on info collected by the Uber app to identify individuals violating Uber’s terms… Read More
In preparation for Disrupt New York in May I’m going to hold a few pitching workshops in New York for you all. We’ll listen to and critique ten pitches on March 13th at 7pm at the Knotel space at 22 West 38th Street, 3rd Floor. This is an informal pitch-off but the two best teams will get two tickets to Disrupt New York and the undying admiration of millions of people (actually… Read More
The time U.S. users are spending in mobile apps is continuing to grow; according to new data released this week by analytics firm Flurry, we’re up to 5 hours per day on our mobile devices. This follows on news from January that said the time spent in mobile apps had increased 69 percent year-over-year. Read More
Peter Thiel has been at Donald Trump’s side since the Republican National Convention, guiding the then-candidate on technology policy and brokering a meeting between him and top tech executives. Now Thiel has secured a place for one of his top aides in Trump’s White House — Michael Kratsios, formerly chief of staff at Thiel Capital, will step into the role of deputy chief… Read More
The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is creating huge opportunities in the water and wastewater industries, adding value to both the utility and the consumer. Connected machines are reshaping the way these utilities operate, allowing them to make smarter and more informed decisions. By driving up innovation, water utilities are driving down cost. Here’s what they’re up to. Read More
NextGen Venture Partners, a young, Washington, D.C.-based venture firm that’s quarterbacked by a handful of investors but fueled financially by a network of hundreds of part-time investors who help with its portfolio, has raised $22 million for its debut fund. (This if you don’t count a $1 million pool of capital that it raised from its network in 2015.) We had a quick chat… Read More
Another day, another allegation against Uber. Keala Lusk, a former Uber software engineer, just posted to Medium her story of sexism, disrespect and condescending behavior at the hands of a female manager at Uber. Read More
Atom Bank, a startup out of the U.K. that has built a mobile-only bank targeting consumers between the ages of 18 and 34, has raised another £83 million ($102 million) in funding led by BBVA, the Spanish bank and owner of Simple in the U.S. The funding gives Atom a post-money valuation of £261 million ($320 million), TechCrunch has confirmed with the company. BBVA also led… Read More
World View’s new spaceport in Tucson, Arizona is focused on a unique task: Launching high altitude balloons that will take equipment, and eventually people, to the Earth’s stratosphere to do work in an edge-of-space operating theater. We got the chance to go to the facility’s grand opening, and interview CEO and co-founder Jane Poynter, as well as co-founder and former… Read More
Traders who have an idea for a money-making algorithm have two choices: learn to code themselves, or hire a great engineer. But neither of these two options are realistic, especially for part-time traders who don’t have a large bankroll behind them. Meet Algoriz, a startup participating in Y Combinator’s Winter 2017 batch. Read More
Snap Inc., the parent of Snapchat, has been off to the races with its debut on the stock market.
Yesterday, the stock closed at $24.48, a 44% gain from the IPO price of $17. And today it’s gone up a bit further, surpassing $29 at one point, an almost 20% increase from the close of yesterday. Shares later fell to $27, but it’s still on track for a 10% gain for day two.
This is… Read More
Since 2013, The Associated Press has been making an intentional effort to put data in the hands of local reporters. In the last few years, this meant assisting with Freedom of Information Act requests and putting a team of four engineers to work building visualizations and extracting insights from massive spreadsheets. Today the AP is entering into a joint pilot program with Data.world to… Read More
Surprisingly, even though TechCrunch is owned by not one but two enormous corporate entities — the Voltron form of which I like to call Verizaol — we are hit by very little splash from the stream of time-wasting marketing exercises that form a corporation’s very being. Recently, however, we were asked to come up with an internal tagline to explain what TechCrunch is to —… Read More
Amazon has quietly added a new product to its private label, Amazon Elements, which previously only carried Amazon’s own brand of baby wipes, after pulling its diaper line from the label in 2015. Now Elements is moving beyond baby products, having introduced its own line of vitamins and supplements under the brand. Launched on February 21st, 2017, this is the first addition to the… Read More
Mobile World Congress is more than just a product showcase. The event is a handy snapshot for the current state of the smartphone industry, and as with CES, the show’s beginning of the year slot is ideally timed to offer a bit a preview of the year to come. Some trends were hard to miss. 5G was a big buzz word at the event, in spite of the fact that no one is quite sure what it means.… Read More
Facebook has been busy with the app updates, as of late. In recent months, it has added new sections for finding nearby Wi-Fi, meeting new people, checking the weather, and more. Now, it’s rolling out yet another addition to the “More” menu inside the Facebook app: City Guides. A potential challenger to Foursquare, Facebook’s guides will show you a list of cities and… Read More
Toyota’s Research Institute (TRI) houses some of the automakers most ambitious future-focused projects, and the R&D organization debuted its new second-generation autonomous safety technology research vehicle on Friday. The car debuted at Toyota’s Prius Challenge event in Sonoma, California, which is a Silicon Valley forum designed to bring entrepreneurs, roboticists and… Read More
