Those hoping for Google to deliver more details of a quantum leap toward next-gen virtual reality may have been a bit disappointed Tuesday when the company chose to promote wide user accessibility above cutting-edge features in its VR headset. The Daydream View doesn’t have any buttons or embedded sensors; you just stick your phone in it and VR happens. Google is really… Read More
Many startup companies begin with either an idea or a proprietary technology. Sometimes this technology is straightforward and easily explained; other times, it is novel and revolutionary. For some founders, the latter can be a double-edged sword, especially once they begin to seek outside financing. Read More
Today, Pinterest announced that it has hired its first chief financial officer from Twitter, Todd Morgenfeld. However, there’s a more interesting footnote that’s reported in The Wall Street Journal’s story about the hire: Pinterest generated roughly $100 million in revenue last year, according to the report. You may recall that last year TechCrunch reported, based on… Read More
The hacker who claimed responsibility for the Democratic National Committee email leak claims to have breached the Clinton Foundation’s servers and retrieved a number of files potentially damaging to the Democratic Presidential nominee — but the Foundation denies any such breach occurred.
The hacker, Guccifer 2.0, posted screenshots and spreadsheets they claimed were from the… Read More
Google unveiled a lot of new devices today, but at the core of nearly everything was a commitment to Assistant specifically, and to showing off what Google’s range of service offerings can do. I sat down with Google Canada’s Head of Public Affairs Aaron Brindle after the satellite keynote event here in Toronto to discuss what hardware means for Google now, and how its work in… Read More
Yahoo’s trust with users is damaged today by a Reuters report that claims the company developed a custom program to search all users’ incoming email for specific queries given by U.S. intelligence officials.
“We’ve worked hard over the years to earn our users’ trust and we fight hard to preserve it,” Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer says in the opening to the… Read More
Google unveiled a gaggle of new products and services today at its event in San Francisco. The company was all about making things easy and seamless, so we thought we’d do the same. Here’s all the stuff you need to know, in one place. Read More
Pinterest has hired its first chief financial officer, Todd Morgenfeld — who was most recently vice president of finance at Twitter — the company said today. He was at Twitter for about a year and a half before joining Pinterest. Generally, these kinds of hires can signal a few things. One is that, more simply, the company is getting more ambitious about getting its finances in… Read More
When Nike said it was making the 2016 version of its Back to the Future-inspired shoes limited edition, the company wasn’t messing around. Only 89 pairs of the self-lacing shoes will be released to the public (likely not a coincidental nod to the year the futuristic sequel was released), portioned out to eager buyers by way of an online raffle. As with the 2011 version of the project,… Read More
Google has two new smartphones, the Pixel and Pixel XL, and these are the first that Google says it has designed on its own in terms of both hardware and software: It shows. These are great-looking devices that also feel excellent when held, with industrial design that clearly inherits some of its sensibilities from Google’s work with the Pixel Chromebook, and recalls last year’s… Read More
The White House hosted its first-ever festival in President Barack Obama’s backyard, the South Lawn. Dubbed South by South Lawn, the one-day event celebrated art, ideas and action, featuring guests from all parts of the spectrum, including Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield, technologist and activist for inclusion in tech Anil Dash, music group The Lumineers (pictured above), Brittany… Read More
In a blog post this morning, Union Square Ventures formally endorsed Hillary Clinton for President of the United States. This marks the first time that the 13-year-old fund has endorsed a candidate in a presidential election. In the brief 375 word statement, the firm addressed both the risks of a Trump presidency and the qualities that would make Clinton ideal for the job. Collectively,… Read More
Educational technology is making a bold mark on the development of higher education. While edtech overall has seen quite a few successes in the past years, the global uptake of truly innovative educational technology at universities is still limited. The future progress of edtech necessitates creating comprehensive standards of data in higher education. Read More
On the face of it, today’s big Google event in San Francisco was all about hardware, but let’s be real here – there’s always something bigger going on with Google below the shiny glass and metal exterior. Much of the event was devoted to the company’s play for the smart home – a direct shot Amazon’s Echo/Alexa offerings, and to a lesser extent (for… Read More
Looking cool has never been Google’s strong suit. This is the engineer-led company that brought us Google Glass, after all. Yet some beanie-clad Mountain View designer seems to have had a vinyl-fueled revelation. Google is late to the game of non-cardboard virtual reality headsets. Oculus, Samsung, HTC, and others have popularized sci-fi looking VR masks. So to standout, Google needed… Read More
Google Home, the company’s answer to Amazon’s Echo, made its official debut at the Google I/O developer conference earlier this year. Since then, we’ve heard very little about Google’s voice-activated personal assistant. Today, at Google’s annual hardware event, the company finally provided us with more details. Google Home will cost $129 (with a free… Read More
Google just announced a new feature arriving in its just-unveiled Pixel smartphones that could make Apple iPhone owners jealous: unlimited storage for photos and videos…in full resolution. That’s something the company already provides via its Google Photos service as an option, but it requires that you use the storage in your Google Account. In other words, that means you were… Read More
Google’s revealing a wide product portfolio today, but the Chromecast Ultra might be the most unassuming sleeper hit of the bunch. The newest member of the Chromecast family supports 4K resolution video streaming, and yet still doesn’t break the bank at $69. It’s still a plastic puck, like it’s predecessor, with an integrated HDMI output in a short, flexible cable and… Read More
Google revealed Wifi today – not the underlying tech, of course, but a new piece of hardware that wants to make it even easier to bathe your whole home in wonderful, soothing connectedness. Google Wifi is a new router, which basically is a tiny device that can pair up with others to create a more robust, more far-reaching home network that will ensure more reliable performance across… Read More
