Dublin and Berlin-based Internet of Things (IoT) startup Smartfrog has raised €20 million in further funding, meaning that the smart cam maker has managed to pull in €28 million in total despite only launching roughly a year ago. The latest investment breaks down into $15 million equity and $5 million debt financing. Read More
In what’s surely one of the early signs of the end times, Candy Crush is soon to be a live action game show over on CBS. Yes, the mobile game. A TV show. With contestants. And prizes. And some giant, interactive game boards. And candy, apparently. CBS isn’t divulging a lot of specifics at this point about how the game will work, or what teams will win – prizes? cash?… Read More
It’s been more than three years since Ultimaker released its last major 3D printer upgrade. Sure, the Dutch company has offered up a couple of iterations on the theme, including the larger Ultimaker 2 Extended and the portable Ultimaker 2 Go (which inspired this bizarre bit of gear), but the company has mostly been toiling away working on the next big sequel. According to the… Read More
Google today released Nomulus, the Java-based registry platform that powers Google’s own .google and .foo top level domains (TLDs). Google says it started working on the technology behind Nomulus after the company applied to operate a number of generic TLDs itself back in 2012. Until then, domain names were mostly restricted to the .com’s, .net’s and various country-level… Read More
Are you and your friends all in love with the same strange girl who bleeds from her head? Does she like waffles? Are you afraid of monsters? Then have we got the Halloween decorations for you. This DIY LED light kit allows you (or Winona Ryder) to communicate with your child who has been taken to the Upside Down using an Arduino board and some clever wiring.
The plans are available as an… Read More
There are of course plenty of ways to learn to code online these days. But recently there’s been a trend to allow would-be developers to learn it on the go. We’ve already covered the efforts of Enki to create a ‘snackable’ mobile learning app for developers. And so, SoloLearn has appeared on the horizon, after garnering a healthy following. Today it announces… Read More
I don’t know who wants to shop via chatbot, but that hasn’t stopped a range of companies from launching their own virtual assistants dedicated to this task. The latest to hit the scene is the new ShopBot bot (say that three times fast), from eBay. Debuting today on Facebook Messenger, this bot is aimed at helping consumers narrow down the best deals from eBay’s over a… Read More
If the Amazon Echo is the face of home automation, a smart home hub is the brains. It sits silently, stuffed under a couch or on a bookshelf, connecting all the smart devices around a person’s home. There are a few competing hubs available, but the latest from Wink packs the most connectivity options.
This is the second Hub from Wink. Called the Hub 2, it costs $99. The changes are… Read More
A startup called Wonder Workshop has partnered with Apple to teach kids how to code using Swift. Founded in 2012, Wonder Workshop makes toy robots, called Dash and Dot, that kids can control with programs they create using Wonder Workshop apps, which feel more like casual games than desktop scripting tools. The apps connect to Dash and Dot via bluetooth, and automatically determine what… Read More
Black cabs have been a staple of London’s transportation system for decades. That said, the city’s regulators aren’t the biggest fan of Uber, which often offers lower prices and added convenience. London’s transportation regulation agency (the TfL, Transportation for London) is imposing new rules that would require all private hire drivers to take an English… Read More
The application is where we traditionally tend to work with a piece of software, but with the increasing use of APIs, sometimes the application is just one way of interacting with the tool. Looker announced version 4 of its data visualization tool today with expanded ways to make use of the data beyond the interface itself.
Sure, they updated the interface as part of today’s broad… Read More
Zumper, the online apartment search platform, has raised $17.6M in Series B funding. This brings total funding to date to $39.2M. While the company declined to discuss valuation, TechCrunch has learned that it’s just north of $100M post-money. The round was led by Jim Breyer’s firm Breyer Capital and Foxhaven Asset Management, and included follow-up funding from existing… Read More
On any given day in our nation’s capital, you’ll find many lawmakers touting the benefits of entrepreneurship. Unfortunately, this enthusiasm is all too often forgotten when it comes to our nation’s tax policy, which often either ignores or is outright hostile towards startups. That is why when legislation does gain traction to massage the tax code to the benefit of… Read More
Amid Brexit uncertainty, not least pertaining to the U.K.’s likely lack of influence on future EU data protection and sharing rules, London-based fraud detection startup Ravelin has closed £3 million in Series A funding. Read More
Electric Objects is announcing new ways to bring art into your home, with an affordable price tag. The New York City startup, led by Jake Levine (formerly of Betaworks), launched a Kickstarter campaign for its digital art displays in 2014, then started shipping them a year later. Levine told me he’s trying to tear down “the barrier between normal people … and art,” so… Read More
At the heart of Google’s new Pixel smartphone is a piece of software that would be your companion: Google Assistant, the spiritual successor to Google Now and the sum of the company’s work in AI and machine learning, given a voice and a central perch in the new Pixel Launcher software that makes this phone’s version of Android unique in the mobile galaxy. In the spirit of… Read More
Rockstar games confirmed a sequel to Red Dead Redemption is on the way for release in Fall 2017, tweeting the date along with the promise of a trailer arriving this Thursday, October 20. The follow-up to Rockstar’s epic Western action-adventure game series has been teased through Rockstar’s account, leaving many to suspect a sequel was planned, but now we know for sure. The… Read More
It’s a bit of synergy that was only a matter of time. Late last year, Fossil Group purchased Misfit for a cool $260 million. And now, just under a year later, the wearable startup, best known for its modular fitness devices, is launching a watch. To its credit, the company’s not going full-on smartwatch here. There’s not a hint of Android Wear to be found on the Phase.… Read More
Let there be no question. This is a Google phone, through and through. Sure, the software giant may have teamed with another company to actually manufacture the product, but everything down to the $769 Pixel XL’s MadeByGoogle URL is a not so subtle reminder of that fact. The company’s latest phones take a step beyond it long-standing and well-loved Nexus line to demonstrate the… Read More
The short answer is yes – Google has delivered a terrific photo and video experience on the Pixel (I tested the XL, but both contain the same camera hardware and software). Pixel snaps photos quickly and easily, and its automatically-enabled HDR+ smarts ensure even exposure throughout the frame in most conditions. Video stabilization works astonishingly well, with the caveat that… Read More
