CDN network Akamai today published its quarterly “State of the Internet” report for the first quarter of 2016. The report examines global internet speeds, which are going to be more relevant than ever for live-sports aficionados in the summer of the Rio Olympic Games. Global average connection speed increased 12 percent from the fourth quarter of 2015, to 6.3 Mbps, a 23… Read More
Does Facebook suggest new friends based on your location? The answer seems to change day by day. Yesterday, Fusion reported that Facebook uses location data to make friend suggestions and pointed out that this could lead to unfortunate privacy mishaps. Users could find themselves outed in situations that ought to be anonymous (for instance, Facebook might recommend that a user add a friend from… Read More
New technology is emerging at ever-increasing speeds, transforming how we communicate, collaborate and manage our day-to-day responsibilities. As soon as we get a strong grasp on the latest workplace technology, an even newer solution surfaces. Read More
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Read that — I dare you. Oh, you can’t? Maybe that’s because I’ve rendered it unreadable with Mozilla’s unbreakable emoji-based cipher, Codemoji! Read More
This weekend was the annual San Francisco Pride Parade. The event drew over a million spectators and participation from many of the tech world’s most recognizable companies. Over 30 tech companies marched in this year’s parade. Whether you were there in person or in spirit, SF Pride withdrawal has already started. We here at TechCrunch decided to do a recap of some of the… Read More
TechCrunch is pleased to bring you a recap of Pitch@Palace Malaysia that took place earlier today. Established by The Duke of York, Pitch@Palace offers entrepreneurs the opportunity to present their business in front of an audience of influencers. Pitch@Palace Malaysia aims to provide a platform to showcase Malaysian Entrepreneurs, connecting them to local and international networks with… Read More
Compass, a 4.5-year-old startup that had previously raised $3 million from investors for its business monitoring and intelligence service, is getting out of the crowded business of benchmarking startups and instead zeroing in what it sees as a far more underserved market: helping e-commerce businesses grow their revenue. The 11-person San Francisco-based company just closed $1 million in… Read More
Live.ly, the newly released live streaming app from musical.ly, has now secured the top slot in the Apple App Store. That puts live.ly above Facebook Messenger, Snapchat, Google Maps and Instagram.
Live.ly finished rolling out last Thursday and the app has already received over 500,000 downloads, the company tells TechCrunch. The app lets people broadcast what they are doing in real… Read More
The mad roboticists at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne have produced another biomimetic mechanoid — this one based on the lithe locomotion of the salamander. “Pleurobot” imitates the amphibian’s ambulation with its own articulated vertebrae, allowing it to slither along on land or at sea. Read More
A startup based in Branford, Connecticut, Ancera Inc. has raised $8.9 million in Series A funding for technology that helps food producers detect contaminants faster than other methods will allow.
The company’s mission is to prevent food waste, recalls or worse, the spread of food-borne illnesses, said Ancera CEO and founder Arjun Ganesan.
Investors in the deal included: Glass Capital… Read More
There is great writing. And there is content. And at this juncture in the internet’s evolution it seems very plain, Dear Online Reader, that you are mostly being served a tsunami of content — accelerated into your attention trough by click-dependent digital business models that require a steady stream of word fodder to engage eyeballs long enough to ambush them with ads… Read More
PredictSpring, a startup that helps brands and retailers build mobile apps, announced today that it has raised $11.4 million in Series A funding. Founder and CEO Nitin Mangtani has said that one of his goals is to help businesses create truly native mobile experiences that make it easy for consumers to shop. Customers include Calvin Klein, Cole Haan and Nine West, and the company says… Read More
The rules for commercial drone usage released last week by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) left some unanswered questions on the table. We discussed some of these with Thomas Gemmell, a former U.S. Air Force fighter pilot and the co-leader of the drone team at the law firm Husch Blackwell in Chicago. The rules, which concern unmanned aircraft weighing less than 55 pounds… Read More
In an email to Blue Origin fans this morning, founder Jeff Bezos announced that the company broke ground on their orbital vehicle manufacturing site in Florida. At 750,000 square feet, the new custom-built facility is designed to be large enough to accommodate manufacturing, processing, integration, and testing of orbital rockets. To put that size in perspective, SpaceX’s rocket facility… Read More
People who love Google+ sure love Google+. That hasn’t changed since Google first launched what at the time seemed like a credible Facebook competitor back in June 2011. If you’re a Google+ fan, today is a day to celebrate: Against all odds, your favorite social network turned five today. For everybody else, the fact that Google+ is still online may come as a surprise. The number… Read More
If you feel the world is in danger of under-population but your fallopian swim team is letting the side down, Sandstone Diagnostics has your back. Now FDA-approved, the company’s product Trak will be the lifestyle coach and home-diagnostics tool to help deliver happier sperm and tiny shouty miracles. Read More
Apple knows that the battle for people’s pockets is going to be fought in part in the photography space. With iOS 10, the company is making it even easier to get to the camera in a hurry, but in an effort to remind people that they’re already carrying a great camera around with them, Apple is launching a new round of its popular Shot on iPhone advertising campaign. Read More
Imagine a washer that autonomously contacts suppliers and places orders when it’s low on detergent, performs self-service and maintenance, and schedules its cycles to take advantage of electricity prices; a connected car, smart enough to find and choose the best deal for parts and services; a manufacturing plant where the machinery knows when to order repairs for some of its parts… Read More
This week is the Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition conference in Las Vegas, and Google researchers have several accomplishments to present. They’ve taught computer vision systems to detect the most important person in a scene, pick out and track individual body parts and describe what they see in language that leaves nothing to the imagination. Read More
Theranos did have a spokesperson, as in used to have one person handling all public relations efforts outwardly. We’ve confirmed Brooke Buchanan, VP of communications, left her position within the company on Friday. Buchanan could not be reached for comment on the departure but the head of comms was handling all calls, emails, and any other messages related to the troubled one drop… Read More