After taking users into the sea and up to the top of Mont Blanc, Google has updated Street View with loads of breathtaking views inside some of the world’s most famous sports stadiums, arenas and tracks. Football fans can see what it’s like at the 40 yard line on the CenturyLink … | Continue reading
Microsoft announced that it’s killed off Project Astoria, its development tool for porting Android apps to Windows. The news doesn’t come as a surprise: the company put Project Astoria on hold back in November before it was even fully ready. In a blog post, Microsoft said: We rec … | Continue reading
Back in November, Airbnb released a massive data set on the status and characteristics of its hosts in New York in an attempt to better detail what kind of people put their rooms or entire homes for rent on the platform. While Airbnb’s statistics looked like it had a significantl … | Continue reading
With every passing generation, computers get better displays, processors, speakers, and more. Microphones though? Not so much. That means that if you have any interest in documenting anything involving sound – podcasting, vlogging, singing – you’ll need a serious upgrade. And whi … | Continue reading
After a fair bit of controversy over the past few months, which included a sacking, a resignation and a search engine that riled up some anger, Wikimedia Executive Director Lila Tretikov has resigned from her role. The troubles began after Wikimedia announced that it was working … | Continue reading
Gifs dominate our social landscape because they allow us to say something that’s already been said hundreds — or thousands — of times already, without having to do it ourselves. Yarn takes this idea to the next level by attempting to strip the mundane from common email exchanges … | Continue reading
At the Mountain View Campus of social networking platform Facebook, there’s a longstanding landmark called the signature wall designed to be a visual representation of the growing community at the company. But, according to Gizmodo, it’s also been the site of troubling racial con … | Continue reading
During a live chat in Berlin today, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told viewers he wanted to capture his daughter Max’s first steps in virtual reality. I’ve been thinking about when my daughter takes her first steps, how I want to capture it,” Zuckerberg said. When I took my first … | Continue reading
At a House Intelligence Committee hearing today, CIA Director John Brennan — the guy who recently had his AOL account hacked — used his time at the World Wide Threats hearing to blame media for terrorists being so good at evading law enforcement. The hearing started with testimon … | Continue reading
It’s pretty much exactly what Apple asked for in its ongoing encryption dispute with the FBI – the company’s legal representative Bruce Sewell will appear in Congress on Tuesday to argue its case in front of the House’s legal committee. The director of the FBI James Comey Jr. wil … | Continue reading
At an event in New York today, Facebook launched its newest product for marketers: interactive mobile ads called Canvas. Facebook needs ads to make money, so getting them right is crucial. Canvas is an evolution of the earlier Carousel ads, which allowed users to swipe through mu … | Continue reading
Google debuted its Launchpad accelerator program late last year as a way to give equity-free help to burgeoning startups in Brazil, India and Indonesia, as well as offering advice and resources to grow their apps. As 24 companies successfully made it through the pilot class, Goog … | Continue reading
Some travelers like to plan their stay way ahead of time, others leave it up to spontaneity. If you’re one to figure things out last-minute, Overnight wants to help travelers find same-day accommodations from local hosts. Launched first in Los Angeles and today expanding to Austi … | Continue reading
Telegram has just sailed past 100 million monthly active users and, aside from its well-known encryption creds, that might be because it’s genuinely helping the people who organize groups on its chat app. Its latest update offers silent messages for channel admins to use if they … | Continue reading
For creators, reshooting a scene for the tiniest bloopers is one of the more annoying (and cost-consuming) aspect of filming. Today, YouTube wants to help fix that by letting you blur any part of the video before it makes it to the public Web. The concept isn’t entirely new – in … | Continue reading
Mark Zuckerberg just did a live video stream on Facebook (where else) from Berlin where he detailed plans to give 25 high-power GPU servers to European research labs in order to accelerate advances in intelligent computing. The Facebook AI Research (FAIR) Partnership Program star … | Continue reading
When you think of using your favorite mobile app, what words come to mind? Convenient? Simple? Frictionless? Now, what if I change the context to buying something on mobile? Do those same qualities of ease still apply? For many consumers the answer is, unfortunately, nope. Not ye … | Continue reading
Typically, when VCs invest in a young company, they get equity and a board seat. The startups get money and a new board member. But good portfolio companies should get more, because VCs have a lot more to give – especially to companies that deserve it. VCs are well connected and … | Continue reading
Having recently expanded to a total of 190 locations around the globe, today Netflix released an update for iOS that comes with improved functionality for iPhone as well as an optimized layout for iPad Pro. The latest iteration of the streaming service – that bumps the app to ver … | Continue reading
Good design can change the conversation, but great design can change the world. As technology evolves and more media outlets compete for customers’ time, providing an enjoyable experience is critical to both attracting and keeping users. The UI & UX Design Bootcamp aims to demyst … | Continue reading
Mobile-first productivity suite Quip is changing. To better suit what it calls the ‘living document,’ Quip has redesigned its inbox and folders features. Inbox will now update you when changes are made to a document, which will come in handy for teams. It also sports filters and … | Continue reading
The FBI made a group of security researchers hand over their findings about the TOR anonymity network so that it could track users’ digital footprints, the BBC reports. The two Carnegie Mellon University researchers’ data – after being subject to a court order – was used by the F … | Continue reading
FinTech, financial technology, is about disrupting the stale financial sector with technology and innovation. Have you accepted the status quo of a bank-led dominance? The people in the flourishing FinTech field have rejected it. Last year, Eileen Burbidge, the UK government’s sp … | Continue reading
The Internet of Things was pervasive in almost every presentation at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week, and walking the floor you could tell that almost everyone wanted at least one gadget in the area. So we decided to list nine of the most terrible devices coming to a … | Continue reading
As this year’s TNW Conference Europe draws near, our Tech5 tournament is also back with its latest edition. The online competition, co-hosted by payments technology company Adyen, is once again looking to celebrate Europe’s fastest-growing tech startups. Over the past two years, … | Continue reading
One of the reasons I was excited to attend Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this year was to try out HTC’s Vive VR headset in person. After spending an hour with it, I’m happy to report that the Vive lives up to the hype and then some. Equipment The $799 Vive kit includes a hea … | Continue reading
It would have been Steve Jobs’ 61st birthday yesterday and had he been alive to see it, it would have been interesting to watch him approach the ongoing legal battle around iPhone encryption. In his absence, Tim Cook used a slot on ABC with David Muir to explain, in terms we can … | Continue reading
Buyers, beware: a Huawei device with a Leica camera might be in the works. Chinese telecom Huawei just announced an ambitious partnership with iconic German camera manufacturer Leica in an effort to offer “uncompromising quality” in smartphone photography. According to the press … | Continue reading
The UK’s telecom regulator Ofcom has said that BT – a provider of phone and broadband services that owns virtually all the infrastructure required to provide a national service – is not being forced to split its two businesses. In a statement made today, Ofcom says that splitting … | Continue reading
Having been down at Google’s DeepMind office earlier this week its man vs AI machine gaming competition preview, I was tipped off that a potentially-more-serious healthcare announcement would follow soon. That it has, but contrary to what the company’s remit might suggest, this p … | Continue reading
Each week we’re profiling one company that has been selected for Boost – our early-stage startup growth program. Catch up with these companies in person at The Next Web Conference in Amsterdam on May 26-27. If the thought of having your driving monitored via a smartphone app in e … | Continue reading
The French government is reportedly seeking a pretty hefty $1.76 billion (€1.6 billion) in taxes it believes Google has avoided paying in the country. The sum dwarfs the $180 million (£130 million) sum agreed with Google by the British government last month for back taxes owed be … | Continue reading
Mandrill has long been Mailchimp’s standalone email service for developers needing to send transactional email from their apps. Today, the company has announced a bizarre developer-hostile move: it’s turning the standalone service into a Mailchimp add-on that requires a paid Mail … | Continue reading
Have you ever looked through your photo library and tried to determine where an image was taken without any additional detective work? It’s not always an easy task. Today, MIT Tech Review details a new project led by Tobias Weyand, a computer vision specialist at Google. The proj … | Continue reading
Facebook and Twitter, it seems, are indeed having an impact in the fight against ISIS, at least online. Last week we reported on a George Washington University study that concluded the Islamic State was having a difficult time spreading propaganda, or recruiting, on Twitter. This … | Continue reading
Sony has a lot of ‘Z’ phones. Starting with the original Xperia Z1 in 2013 and ending with the current Z5, Z5 Compact, and Z5 Premium, the company has released over two Z phones per year, most of them high-end models. But now it’s look like the company is planning to end the line … | Continue reading
While many of us are pleased with the stick or disc-shaped media dongle hanging out of the back of our regular old dumb televisions — the well-lived Chromecast — it seems that Google has plans to put those features directly in televisions. According to a scoop by Variety, a new m … | Continue reading
In a world that’s soon to be dominated by smart cars capable of making complex decisions, or even driving themselves, security vulnerabilities that allow hackers access to these systems are sort of a worst-case scenario. Today, security researcher Troy Hunt released his findings … | Continue reading
As the music world continues to look for innovative new ways to drive profits, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis are the latest artists looking to bridge the gap — or kill it completely — between traditional and digital media distribution. The hip-hop duo will debut their newest album, ‘ … | Continue reading
Microsoft is buying Xamarin, a company that enables cross-platform development for mobile apps. Microsoft has partnered Xamarin for some time now, but the company is saying “the combination of Xamarin, Visual Studio, Visual Studio Team Services, and Azure provides a complete mobi … | Continue reading
With a bit of ingenuity, and a $60 USB dongle available on Amazon, hackers can now access your computer with just 15 lines of code, from more than a hundred feet away. The researcher who found the ‘MouseJack’ vulnerability, Marc Newlin, recently published a report detailing his f … | Continue reading
When it comes to using anonymous browsers on the Web, you don’t always get treated to the same experience as the less-private users. According to a research paper from the University of Cambridge, over 1 million IP addresses are deliberately degrading the service they provide to … | Continue reading
It’s finally coming: after years of expanding into new and different cities, Google is finally bringing Fiber home to the San Francisco area. Announced in a blog post today, the company will be bringing Google Fiber to existing homes through an already-built fiber network. “By us … | Continue reading
In Japan on February 27, 1996, people were first called to be the very best, like no one ever was. Now, 20 years and a handful of games later, Pokemon is celebrating its big 20th birthday and lasting legacy. Live-streaming platform Twitch is playing a big part, hosting a day-long … | Continue reading
Since rolling out support for voice typing back in September, Google Docs has made a significant jump from a convenience and accessibility standpoint. Now, it is even better, as today the company announced it would now support voice commands for Docs on Chrome. These new commands … | Continue reading
Apple’s next iteration of OS X — 10.12, codenamed Fuji — will feature a familiar voice that’s already made her way to Apple TV and Apple Watch, as well as the iPhone and iPad in years past. Apple has been testing internal versions of OS X with Siri integration since 2012, but acc … | Continue reading
It can cost as little as $150 on the black market to launch a DDoS attack on a website if you don’t like the views being expressed there. So Google has built a free tool for journalists, news sites and other organizations, like election monitors, called Project Shield that re-rou … | Continue reading
Google has released a helpful, stylish update to Gmail for Android that will make the service a lot easier for power-users to take advantage of. Namely, the mobile app now supports rich text and RSVPs — fairly nifty features when you’re using Gmail on the desktop. Now, on mobile, … | Continue reading