Ever wanted to design a city from scratch? All those years tinkering with SimCity and Legos are going to finally start paying dividends for a lucky few. YCombinator is looking for urban mavericks to address everything from the creation of affordable housing to the design of public spaces in its new research undertaking. The buzz-word smart-city is rapidly becoming platitudinous but YC will… Read More
Calling startups in Asia and across the world — apply for our Startup Battlefield competition at TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco this September! Startups are at the core of what we do here at TechCrunch. Beyond writing about them every day on TechCrunch, they are a hugely important focus of our events whether it’s TechCrunch Shanghai, where our team is right now or Disrupt SF… Read More
The future is always being shaped by the past. Long before the 3D printer, origami was the original genius at creating lifelike forms out of a flat surface. Folding brings with it the ability to collapse, flex and unfurl structures at will, which has huge potential for a variety of engineering applications. From digestible origami pills that could provide alternatives to invasive surgery to… Read More
The short-term rental company filed suit today over a new law that requires Airbnb to verify that its hosts have registered with the city before showing ads for their homes online. The suit aims to block the law from going into effect as scheduled on August 1.
San Francisco legislators passed the law earlier this month in an effort to combat the housing crisis in the city, but Airbnb and… Read More
New mobile games and robot butlers are all well and good, but there are also many applications for the latest technology in poverty-stricken school districts and in the service of the disabled. A Carnegie Mellon project that targets both of those things is described by its leaders as an exercise in what they call “compassionate engineering.” Read More
Buy organic groceries online, at an affordable price. That’s the mantra of Los Angeles-based Thrive Market, which has raised a significant $111 million Series B funding round, led by Invus. Thrive, which competes with similar online grocery services like Vitacost, believes there is a significant market opportunity to make natural foods more accessible to consumers and they’ve… Read More
Twitter is in trouble. In a move out of a middle school flag football game, Microsoft selected LinkedIn to join its team. The sheer size of the transaction has reignited conversations about who will be picked next to join the super special circle of public mega-cap tech companies. Vultures have been circling Twitter for well over a year, but the company has defied all experts who have… Read More
The Pocket Tripod is repeating its crowdfunding success from a few years ago, creating an updated, universal version of its incredibly popular credit-card-sized tripod that fits in your wallet. Now available for pre-order for Android users and people who like to stick cases on their phones, it’s a tremendously useful piece of kit for smartphone photographers on the move. Read More
There has been much talk of late about the end of easy venture capital and what will happen to startup economics when everyone is forced to spend more wisely.
Spending wisely should always be an objective regardless of the economic conditions. But this is especially true for marketers who control a large share of the budget at many companies — and who are the most at risk for wasting money. Read More
It’s been a long time since Marty Hellman and his collaborator Whitfield Diffie ushered in a new era of private communication with their invention of public key cryptography — but better late than never when it comes to winning the Turing Award, referred to by some as the Nobel Prize for technology.. I talked with Hellman about tech, global politics, and keeping relationships alive. Read More
New drone regulations in the U.S. ostensibly make it easier for companies to put flying robots to work whether that’s in media, construction or agriculture. But drones are still limited to flying within the “line of sight,” or the range where a human operator can see them. So we can’t have pizzas, or prescriptions, delivered by drones as a going concern, yet. And… Read More
Next-gen edtech and virtual reality are both high-stakes platforms that have quite a bit of potential when it comes to defining our near-future. The marriage of the platforms may be far from ready for primetime, but there is a lot of flirtation happening in the space right now thanks to some major players. Today, Google for Education announced that it will be adding integration of… Read More
Most people can’t shoot compelling videos, and static photos are boring. That’s why the tech giants are all pushing their own versions of automatic movie makers based on your media. This month, Apple announced its version called Memories coming to iOS 10 Photos, Google Photos already has its Movies Assistant and today Facebook is rolling out Slideshow to all iOS users around the… Read More
Several years ago, Google engineers figured out a way to stitch together satellite imagery to remove clouds, giving Google Earth and Google Maps users a better and more comprehensive view of the ground below. Today, the company has repeated the process, but this time with newer, crisper imagery from NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) Landsat 8 satellite. When Google first… Read More
If you follow tech executives or famous actors on Twitter, you’ve probably seen references to something called OurMine several times over the last few weeks. That’s because a group of three hackers called OurMine have been finding their way into accounts belonging to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek, Amazon CTO Werner Vogels and “Magic Mike” star… Read More
It’s been a long time coming, but Fujifilm’s finally ready to offer up the sequel to its Instax Share Smartphone Printer SP-1. Two-and-a-half years after debuting the peripheral at CES, the company returns this week with the fittingly named Instax Share SP-2, which promises some key improvements over its warmly received predecessor. Read More
A former senior chief in the U.K.’s Met Police and now a Lib Dem peer in the House of Lords has warned about major risks to the privacy of web users’ personal data from a provision in the Investigatory Powers bill that would require ISPs to retain information on the websites and services accessed by their users for a full 12 months… Read More
On the heels of Amazon’s entry into the learning materials market, Google this morning also unveiled a series of product announcements aimed at expanding use of Google products and technologies in the classroom setting. At the ISTE conference today, the company introduced a number of new tools for educators, ranging from a research project that helps teaches kids to code called… Read More
Online clothes shopping can be a gamble – you never really know if items will fit until you try them on. Meanwhile, shopping at local retailers can be time-consuming. A startup called Boon + Gable aims to solve both those problems with a service that offers a personal stylist who comes to your home with a curated selection of clothes for you to try, then buy on the spot if you like them. Read More
Approximately 550 million people use Facebook Events each month, with 60 percent of connections to events happening serendipitously in the News Feed. But Facebook is giving hardcore extroverts seeking more parties a new Featured Events list full of hand-picked gatherings. Starting today, iOS users in 10 U.S. cities will see the option for Featured Events in a carousel atop their list of… Read More
