So Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Atari and Chuck E. Cheese, is launching a new virtual reality company called Modal VR, along with Jason Crawford (who invented the Modal tech and serves as the company’s chief executive) and that’s super cool. But (more importantly to me) I played human Pong in virtual reality at the Machinima studios using Modal’s gear and that was… Read More
Transportation investment has moved into the fast lane. Venture and growth investing in transport-related companies accelerated in the third quarter, fueled by momentum in the autonomous driving and ride-hailing spaces, as well as the prospect of big acquisitions. VCs and seed investors poured more than $6.2 billion into more than 150 companies across the globe with transportation-related… Read More
Remember those old school chemistry sets that came in a cardboard box with a bunch of vials, plastic beakers, safety glasses and a booklet full of instructions for different experiments?
London startup MEL Science is putting a high-tech twist on them, with virtual reality and augmented reality content that takes kids on a virtual tour inside a chemical reaction, right after they conduct an… Read More
Serverless offers developers an open source framework that allows them to more easily write applications for platform like AWS Lambda and — in the near future — Microsoft’s Azure Functions and Google’s Cloud Functions. The company today announced that its framework is now out of beta and that it has raised a $3 million seed round led by Trinity Ventures. The… Read More
A pair of lengthy reports from the White House show that the administration is well aware of both the opportunities provided by and the obstacles holding back artificial intelligence. Its summary of the state of the art and dozens of recommendations for researchers and the government itself is well worth a read — but just in case, here are our highlights from the papers. Read More
Noodle Partners Inc., a new education venture from the founder of The Princeton Review and 2U Inc., John Katzman, has raised $4 million in venture funding to help colleges and universities deliver high-quality certificate and degree programs online. Philadelphia-based Osage Venture Partners led the investment in Noodle Partners and was joined by New Markets Venture Partners, 500 Startups… Read More
After successfully bringing a high-profile antitrust case against Google in Russia over bundling services with the Android OS, the country’s national search giant Yandex is trying to take its competitiveness in mobile up another notch. To grow its business outside of its current core market of Russia, the company launched a new partnership program to work with smartphone handset… Read More
HoloLens, Microsoft’s $3,000 mixed-reality goggles (or “the world’s first self-contained holographic computer” in Microsoft’s parlance), was only available in the U.S. and Canada so far. Today, however, the company announced that it will also start selling the devices in Australia, France, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Preorders start today… Read More
Rumors have been swirling around Amazon’s plans to launch its own, standalone music streaming service, and now those reports have been proven out: the company is today announcing the launch of Amazon Music Unlimited. This new, on-demand streaming service offers access to tens of millions of songs, and is available for $7.99 per month for Prime members, or $9.99 per month for… Read More
Hooch, a subscription-based drink startup we’ve covered before has raised $1.5M in new funding, bringing total funds raised to $2.7M. All of the investors in this round were considered strategic by the startup, and include celebrities like Russell Simmons, Shaun White and Chris Burch. As a refresher, the app charges $9.99 per month for the ability to claim one “free”… Read More
Obama wants Americans to go to Mars by the 2030s, Google acquires FameBit, a new report from The Wall Street Journal hints at Amazon opening grocery stores, Navya gets closer to building an autonomous shuttle and Greylock closes its 15th fund. All this on Crunch Report. Read More
The role of corporate venture capital in the venture ecosystem has never been more visible or impactful than it is right now. For entrepreneurs, this evolution and increased competition in the venture funding landscape means more potential sources for backing and greater emphasis on what assistance each can bring to the table to help get their company to the next level. Read More
DroneDeploy wants businesses to be able to find a drone services provider as easily as anyone can find a place to eat dinner, anywhere in the world. So today, the company unveiled a new free Drone Mapping Directory. Take, for example, a real estate developer who needs a finely detailed map of land where it may soon build a giant, corporate campus. Instead of buying drones equipped to scan… Read More
We’ve been hearing a lot about diversity and inclusion recently. One of the areas that people are excited about is applying machine learning to eliminate bias. Done right, this can be a huge boost supporting our efforts to go beyond bias across all areas of the organization. But there are potential pitfalls; if not done right, machine learning can actually make your business more biased. Read More
What will friending, sharing, and messaging look like in virtual reality? Facebook has tapped video game giant Electronic Arts’ VP Rachel Rubin Franklin as the new head of the Facebook Social VR team. Last week, Mark Zuckerberg presented an exciting demo of how friends can play and explore together in VR thanks to Facebook, and Franklin will now work to bring that experience to the… Read More
Nuheara’s IQbuds are strange little things. It took a rep a few tries to properly explain the things when they first crossed my radar. And honestly, it wasn’t until I took the things for a spin on the crowded Manhattan streets that I really grasped what they were all about. The simplest way to explain them is as a sort of combination wireless earbuds and hearing aids. They do all… Read More
Messaging app Signal is proud to be end-to-end encrypted, and privacy is their watchword — but its new ephemeral messages aren’t being billed as tools to that end, and nor should they be. Read More
Applications are now open for student groups to attend Disrupt London at The Copper Box Arena on Tuesday, December 6th. The program is part of Include, TechCrunch’s diversity program aimed at facilitating opportunities for underrepresented groups in tech to gain better access to the startup scene. Starting at Disrupt SF last month, TC has formalized our student program by creating… Read More
The interactive navigation app Waze, with its 65 million active monthly users, has partnered with Esri, which provides geographic information systems (GIS) software to 25,000 state, local and national governments. While the combination isn’t quite the vehicle to infrastructure (V2I) communication that will enable autonomous vehicles in the future, it is a kind of app-to-infrastructure… Read More
A pair of satellites operating in tandem for five years have produced a depth map of the planet so exact you could theoretically zoom down to street level and tell an adult from a kid, or spot a breaking wave at Malibu. The immense database — some 2.6 petabytes — is available for free to researchers. Read More
