A couple of big, roadmappy pieces of news out the Qualcomm 4G/5G Summit, being held in Hong Kong this week, far away from the component company’s sunny Southern California headquarters. Alongside a number of new chips, the Qualcomm is laying out its plans to support camera functionality across a wide set of different form factors. The new technology portfolio moves well beyond the… Read More
While it’s true we don’t all have the pleasure of hanging at the Hong Kong Ritz Carlton for this week’s 4G/5G Summit, we can still bask in the chipmaker’s news from afar. Arguably most fascinating among the San Diego company’s big announcements for the week are its plans to go big into the future of cross-platform camera hardware, but it wouldn’t be a… Read More
At the end of the day, insurance is all about risk. Whatever keeps people safest leads to the lowest claims — and the happiest people. Insurance technology is getting very popular among founders and investors, yet, as a category, is little understood. Read More
There may be hope for the First Amendment rights of new media journalists― a North Dakota judge has dismissed riot charges against Democracy Now! cofounder and investigative reporter Amy Goodman.
As TechCrunch reported this weekend, Goodman was charged for “participating in a riot” after she reported from the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota, on the… Read More
The Orbital ATK Antares rocket – the same rocket that exploded on its way to the International Space Station two years ago – returned to flight today with a much-anticipated launch. Lifting off from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, the Antares rocket is now on its way to deliver the Cygnus spacecraft filled with over 5,000 pounds of cargo to crew members aboard… Read More
Lobster, a Startup Battlefield company from 2014, is breathing new life into its AI-powered media licensing platform by partnering with Verizon Cloud. Advertisers, publications, agencies and will now have the means to license images sourced from social media and now, Verizon Cloud. For every image sold, 75% of the profit goes towards the contributor, ranging in skill from pro photographer… Read More
It’s been a weird year for Peter Thiel. The always contrarian investor has managed to stir up quite a bit of ill will with his shadowy support of the lawsuit that brought Gawker to its knees and his vocal — and now financial — support for Donald Trump. Along the way, each of Thiel’s controversies has led to calls for the companies he funded and advised, like Facebook… Read More
Software-defined networking (SDN) has taken center stage in the networking industry for the better part of a decade now. In the spirit of the election season, it’s a great time to ask the question: Is your network better off now than it was before? Read More
Amazon’s AWS cloud computing service today announced launched a region in Ohio. The aptly-named “US East (Ohio) Region” brings Amazon’s total region count to 14. The region will feature three separate availability zones for increased fault tolerance. AWS now offers 38 availability zones across its data centers.
Amazon’s CTO Werner Vogels noted in today’s… Read More
Razer, the company that develops hardware and services for gamers and the world of gaming, has made an acquisition to catapult it to more platforms and more people: The company has acquired THX, the legendary audio and video quality assurance company that was originally founded by George Lucas as part of Lucasfilm. Razer’s CEO Min-Liang Tan said in an interview that the terms of… Read More
Netflix is finally breaking off from its slowing subscriber growth trend as it posted a huge quarter that beat both its own, and Wall Street’s, expectations. Here’s the money chart: Shares of Netflix are absolutely blowing up, now up more than 20% in extended trading after the earnings report came out. With today’s crazy jump in its stock, the company added nearly $10 billion… Read More
But a trip along Interstate 5 reveals a different world. Miles of browning grass stretch along the roadside, broken by the green clusters of California’s farms, which provide fruits, vegetables and nuts to most American households.
California is the top farm producer in the U.S. In 2015, the state’s farms and ranches harvested approximately $47 billion for their output, vastly… Read More
Facebook Messenger may have already hit the billion-user club this past summer, but the company is always looking for new ways to increase app usage. The latest attempt is the introduction of “conversation topics” on Messenger – a feature offering suggestions about what to talk about with friends. These conversation starters appear to rely on Messenger’s connection… Read More
Things seem to be going from bad to worse for Mike Rothenberg, the founder of Rothenberg Ventures, which was more recently renamed Frontier Tech Ventures. According to documents obtained by TechCrunch, San Francisco’s Planning Department was notified earlier this month that Rothenberg Ventures has been operating out of two floors in a building that’s not permitted for use as… Read More
HTC really wants VR to happen. For all of their mobile handset woes, the company is keen to grab the next platform shift by the horns and have the ecosystem and infrastructure in place to become an early powerhouse in the space. The company’s VR presence has notably been lacking in the mobile department which has been somewhat confounding given the fact that they seem to understand… Read More
A Chicago-based startup called Snapsheet has raised a Series C round of $20 million to make life easier for people who have been through a car crash.
The company’s cloud-based software is used by auto insurance providers to guide users through a photo- and information-gathering process on the scene of an accident. It is basically white labeled as a mobile app for each auto insurance… Read More
Today’s 20-something tech wizards might not worry about the challenges of old age — but they should. Seniors represent a huge untapped market for tech companies. While just 13 percent of America’s population is 65 or older today, that slice will jump to 19 percent by 2030. One area that holds particular promise? Wearables. Read More
Apple is making a visible push in the direction of AI today by hiring Carnegie Mellon University professor Russ Salakhutdinov for what appears to be a newly minted position: director of AI research. Read More
Imagine a world where manufacturing is no longer geographically mandated, when you can print custom parts in minutes, and anyone can build anything. That’s the world Amar Hanspal, Autodesk’s SVP or Product, wants to live in. I talked to Hanspal while he was at a future of manufacturing conference and we talked about all of the pitfalls of future manufacturing, the improvements… Read More
There’s a fine line between security and being creepy and I think the Netatmo Presence is on the right side of things. This porch light/security camera melds the best of an automatic LED floodlight with an outdoor webcam, offering you a way to keep tabs on things even if you don’t want to leave the relative safety of your basement bunker.
Designed by French company Netatmo, the… Read More
