Happy Gamescom week, everyone. The folks at Lenovo are celebrating Europe’s biggest gaming event with a pair of PCs aimed at embracing virtual reality, doing so with an almost sci-fi-like panache. The desktops are constructed from all sorts of strange and dissonant angles, culminating with a glowing red “Y.” And while they certainly look the part, it is, naturally,… Read More
Shoptiques has been making big moves of late, opening up business in Australia and the Netherlands and updating their app and website. But perhaps more interesting is that Shoptiques has revealed how the platform has transformed the boutique shopping industry as a whole. The company says that retailers that are using the platform see sales growth increase 157 percent month over month in… Read More
While not quite a flagship (an honor that goes to its more mainstream sibling, the Galaxy S), Samsung’s Note line is undoubtedly one of the most iconic handsets around, with a strong enough following to redefine the way in which the industry at large approaches screen size. That first generation’s 5.3-inch display transformed the word “phablet” from similar tech… Read More
It’s hard to believe, but the company unveiled the original Gear VR two years ago next month. At that point, the hardware was focused on bringing developers on board, with two early hardware releases going out to interested parties prior to the device’s initial consumer release in late 2015. The headset sits comfortably in the wide swath of space between Cardboard and… Read More
Carmakers continue to look to the Valley for help paving the way for the future of cars – Ford has teamed up with Baidu to jointly invest $150 million in Velodyne, a company making LiDAR sensors in California’s technology hotspot. The money will help Velodyne quickly ramp up efforts to make its LiDAR sensors at scale while retaining and increasing quality, which will help… Read More
Ida Tin, co-founder and CEO of digital female health company Clue, will speak at Disrupt SF this fall. Clue’s app is known for its user-friendly menstrual cycle tracking abilities and its mission to bring feminine health into the age of data. Period tracking has long been a way to understand the correlation between menstruation and fertility for those trying to conceive. Apps that… Read More
China’s UnionPay is bringing its mobile payment system to North America, starting with a launch today in Canada. The UnionPay International subsidiary of China’s interbank network in China, which creates a unified debit and credit card payment network for the country’s banks. UnionPay is actually the third-largest payment network in the world, behind Visa and MasterCard, owing… Read More
In a year where money is harder to come by, especially from conventional venture capital sources, Rubrik is a notable exception, announcing a $61 million Series C round from several brand-named Silicon Valley venture firms. The round was led by Khosla Ventures with participation from existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners and Greylock Partners, and unnamed angel investors coming… Read More
After getting on top of some teething problems with shipping to domestic buyers, Facebook-owned Oculus Rift has opened up pre-orders for its VR headset outside the U.S., announcing today that the kit is available to buyers in Europe (UK, France and Germany) and Canada, with a ship date of September 20. Read More
Apple has launched carrier billing in Switzerland and Taiwan in a move that will let customers purchase apps and content without using a credit card. Read More
European online glasses retailer MyOptique, which operates websites such as Glasses Direct and SunGlasses Shop in the UK and Lensbest in Germany, has been acquired by French lens maker Essilor International. Read More
India has a new tech unicorn. Hike, a four-year-old messaging app, today announced that it has closed $175 million in funding led by new investors Tencent and Foxconn. The Series D round values the company at $1.4 billion, founder and CEO Kavin Bharti Mittal confirmed to TechCrunch. Read More
If you’re reading this article and live in the U.S., you might not realize that Venmo, Square Cash, Facebook Messenger payments and other similar services only work in the U.S. In many countries, such as Germany, most people still have to rely on wire transfers and IBANs to send money to their friends. German startup Cookies wants to make peer-to-peer payments as easy as 1-2-3. It is… Read More
Samsung will introduce (yet) another smartwatch this month. The Korea-based giant teased a launch event at the IFA electronics show in Germany, the date to watch for is August 31 and, as the teaser above rather heavy-handily hints, this will be the Gear S3. Read More
Can Google spring back from its social failures with a bare-bones video-calling app that unites iOS and Android users? Today it’s launching Duo, which lets you video call people one-on-one via their phone number. The problem is they’ll have to download the app but won’t get any bells and whistles or the ability to connect with Google Chat, Hangouts, Spaces, the upcoming… Read More
Earlier today, we started seeing rumblings about a New York Times op-ed from famed entrepreneur and venture capitalist Peter Thiel — an op-ed where he’d lay out the case against Gawker. Thiel, of course, quietly poured $10 million into the lawsuit by Terry Bollea, a.k.a. Hulk Hogan, which bankrupted Gawker Media. Thiel’s financial involvement wasn’t revealed until after… Read More
Pokemon Go issues lifetime bans for people who cheat, Spotify launches a category for kids, Audi is working with traffic technology services to know when a light is going to turn green, Google’s mysterious new Fuchsia operating system could run on almost anything, and Gurbaksh Chahal is sentenced to a year in jail. All this on Crunch Report. Read More
Hyperloop One tells TechCrunch it might be building its crazy fast transportation system at the Jebel Ali port in Dubai if all goes according to plan.
And it could be the first place to build an actual Hyperloop for commercial use, says CEO Rob Lloyd. “It’s got the infrastructure, regulatory movement and kind of capital in place needed to build it already,” he told… Read More
Business analytics platform BeyondCore will be officially joining Salesforce, according to a blog post by BeyondCore CEO Arijit Sengupta. BeyondCore is an enterprise analytics tool that bolsters business intelligence with computational and statistical analysis. While Salesforce could have gone fishing and come up with a number of business intelligence companies to buy, BeyondCore was… Read More
