Buying a couch sucks. Not unlike when buying a mattress, most people find themselves picking one of two* options: heading to a chain couch store and haggling with someone who needs to keep the price up for the sake of commissions, or saying “screw that” and heading for IKEA. Then you’ve gotta deal with getting the thing to — and in — your house. (* or, of… Read More
Forget food delivery. Just the organic slice of the grocery delivery business remains competitive in the U.S. with giants from the brick and mortar world, tech titans and upstarts all muscling in for a piece of an annual market that sees more than $40 billion in sales domestically. Some have flamed out, like Farmigo, which recently closed shop. And others done some belt-tightening, like… Read More
Regardless of whether you’ve seen Netflix’s original show Stranger Things (you should go start after you read this post if you haven’t), watching the video above with any kind of 360 VR viewer, like Google Cardboard or Gear VR, is quite the experience. Stranger Things is a perfect starting point for Netflix to dabble in VR, given how atmospheric, immersive and spooky the… Read More
Popular password manager 1Password is trying a new distribution model. Instead of letting you pay for the 1Password app on your Mac or PC and pay again to upgrade to a new major version, AgileBits now has a new plan — for $2.99 per month, you can download and use all the 1Password apps for as long as you subscribe. Read More
Jim Prosser, Twitter’s head of corporate, revenue, and policy communications, is leaving the company. He’s headed over to SoFi to run communications and policy, he said on Twitter. It’s noteworthy that three of Twitter’s top communications executives have left in the past month. The highest profile departure in the past few weeks was longtime Apple veteran PR… Read More
Facebook Pages and websites that frequently withhold, exaggerate or distort information in their link headlines will disappear from News Feed thanks to a new anti-clickbait algorithm that’s now rolling out. Facebook manually classified tens of thousands of headlines with a clickbaitiness score to train the new algorithm. Now it can detect headlines like “When She Looked Under… Read More
Video has generally been available — and is often shared — on Pinterest, but it hasn’t quite received the same treatment that the company’s traditional content has seen.
Over the next few months, however, that will be changing. Pinterest is starting to test ways to get video running directly on its services, including building a native video player. And beyond that… Read More
LinkedIn announced today that it is open sourcing a tool called Test Butler, which was developed in-house to overcome limitations on Android app test emulators. As LinkedIn was developing its latest Android app, it decided to completely overhaul the way it develops and tests apps. But it ran into a huge testing limitation that was slowing it down in an unacceptable way. “We are… Read More
Say what you will about OnePlus’ now-defunct invite system – it certainly helped the company control its supplies and gauge demand. The launch of the OnePlus 3 marked a brave new, invite-free world – one that’s apparently come with a few growing pains as the company works to meet demand. Co-founder Carl Pei took to the company’s forums to announce that it will… Read More
Apple’s forthcoming reality TV show just scored itself some big-time Hollywood star power: according to a report out this morning from Variety, actress and Goop founder Gwyneth Paltrow will serve as a mentor to the contestants on the new series, “Planet of the Apps.” The show, which is debuting next year, will also have Gary Vaynerchuk and will.iam as advisers, the report says. Read More
In the 80s, there were dozens of 1-900 hotlines that anyone could call to chat about a certain topic. These ranged from phone sex lines to WWF chats to fan hotlines for stars like The New Kids On The Block and Hulk Hogan. Chatrooms eventually ended this lucrative industry. Until now.
Unmute, an app that lets users make and listen in on live phone calls, is today unveiling v2 of the product… Read More
Most of my analogies revolve around sports. The concept of “attribution” in business is similar to giving credit to a player for assisting another player in achieving an objective. The purpose of this post is to explain the analogous concept of multi-channel attribution in digital marketing: That is, which channels should get rewarded when a user clicks through to buy something. Read More
Kyna and Conan Fong were at dinner trying to convince their father, who ran a medical practice, to try something different than just keeping paper records. There’s a good reason for that — they’re slow, they’re hard to transfer and share (often requiring paper delivery or faxes), and there’s a lot of information that can be lost along the way. But despite that being… Read More
During what was likely the first presidential campaign fundraiser held at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas, campaigners made their case for Hillary Clinton as the cyber candidate.
Last night, Jeff Moss, the founder of Black Hat, and Jake Braun, a former Obama campaign staffer and security consultant to the Department of Homeland Security, pitched Clinton to the security pros… Read More
This might sound like inside baseball, but I’ve been using Ulysses for all my writing for a few months now. It’s a rock-solid, well-designed writing app for iOS and macOS. And now, the app lets you publish on any WordPress website with a native export screen, among other things. Read More
Sling TV has long been a viable option for sports fans who want to cut the cord with traditional pay television, thanks to its streams of popular channels providing sports coverage, like ESPN, Fox Sports, TNT, TBS and more. Now, you can add NFL Network and NFL RedZone to that mix, thanks to a newly announced deal between Sling TV parent company Dish Network and the NFL. Read More
TechCrunch is going to be in Los Angeles next week and we want you to come hang out with us. We’ll be hosting a mini meet-up next Wednesday, August 10, from 6-8 p.m. at WeWork’s brand spankin’ new Culver City location. Come hang out with some of your favorite TechCrunch writers and the sexy TC video team for a good time over drinks and apps to discuss tech, news and your… Read More
Apple released a brand-new ad just in time for the Olympics. The video is all about diversity and happiness, and it features many different photos and short clips of people smiling and enjoying life. Maya Angelou is reading her own poem “Human Family” to narrate the ad.
Apple will air it for the first time during the Olympic Opening Ceremonies tomorrow. Compared to previous… Read More
Reputation management startup BrandYourself has raised another $2 million. It’s been two years since the company raised $3.3 million in Series A funding. Since then, co-founder and CEO Patrick Ambron said BrandYourself has grown to an 80-person team, and it’s become profitable. (Ambron also pitched BrandYourself on Shark Tank last year, though he ended up turning down funding… Read More
In an attempt to better understand neuromuscular conditions like ALS, engineers at MIT have developed a quarter-sized chip housing a muscle strip and some motor neurons. The setup is designed to recreate the neuromuscular junction, the bit of chemical synapse where neurons and muscle fibers meet. The team has developed a method for creating muscle response by shining a light onto the neuron… Read More
