Today is International Women’s Day — day that began in the early 20th century as an opportunity to acknowledge, celebrate and respect women while recognizing how far society must come before gender parity truly exists. It’s also a day where plenty of online trashcans claim there … | Continue reading
Speaking at Common Cause’s ‘Blueprint for Democracy’ conference today, Edward Snowden used his time to speak out about surveillance, personal liberties and of course, the San Bernadino iPhone. “The FBI says Apple has the ‘exclusive technical means’ to unlock the phone,” Snowden s … | Continue reading
For the better part of last year, Salesforce audited its pay structure to identify and correct wage gaps found between male and female workers. And a blog post released today shows that the company has had to correct salaries to the tune of $3 million. “We have made equality a co … | Continue reading
No two software engineers are alike, but the Applications Developer Alliance is creating a program to encourage more standardization in how engineers are considered. The new Developer Workforce Initiative is “a global effort to increase the size, expertise and understanding” rega … | Continue reading
As drones become more prevalent and automated, we measly humans have started to think up better ways to take them down. For instance, the SkyWall drone defense system, which can drop a drone without breaking it. Flying your jet ski into one of them, however, may be a little bit e … | Continue reading
With the hiring of Chris Poole, Google got everyone talking about Plus again, but not in the way it may have wanted. According to one engineer, Plus won’t be the new 4Chan, so we can rest easy. Yonatan Zunger is the man behind the social tech at Google, and took to Plus to commen … | Continue reading
If you’re using a third-party Snapchat app, it’s time to delete it. Change the password to your Snapchat account while you’re at it. Will Strafach of Sudo Security Group, a company that researches security vulnerabilities in apps, came across numerous third-party Snapchat apps ig … | Continue reading
After 31 years, the Brooklyn Heights Association will end its historic home tours due to visitors sharing photos from inside the private homes on Instagram. The tours offered visitors an opportunity to peek inside the unique residences in that particular neighborhood. It’s an int … | Continue reading
The Olympics have always been a showcase for new television technologies, but this the event is going one step further: large swaths of it will be filmed in virtual reality. According to Advanced Television, the Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) confirmed that it will capture “ … | Continue reading
According to a new patent, Facebook is exploring new software designed to scan the social network looking for emerging slang and nicknames. Once found, the software would deposit the terms neatly into a “social glossary” for further analysis. The patent, which was granted in Febr … | Continue reading
CocoaPods, one of the most popular ways to integrate libraries and dependencies into apps, recently had some performance issues. As it turns out, the reason was that it was too popular. Developers who were trying to install Pods may have had it timeout a few times, or just plain … | Continue reading
What if your friends could see every photo you took? Not every photo is flattering, or even interesting, but a new photo sharing app called Shorts wants you to look past all that. Shorts is a photo sharing app with a twist, and a unique one at that — it wants you to open up your … | Continue reading
When it comes to planning a trip, it’s hard not to go to the same places over and over again and sometimes you just need some inspiration. I often type “everywhere” when I’m searching for flights just to see if anything out of the ordinary will pop up. Now Google Flights has take … | Continue reading
Google likes maps. To make better maps, the company bought Skybox Imaging back in 2014, which helped to keep Google’s satellite imagery up-to-date, with nearly 100,000 images since the launch of the company’s first satellite. Now Skybox Imaging wants to venture further that just … | Continue reading
Yik Yak is making anonymity optional. Users can now create handles, and will have the option of attaching posts to those screen-names. Like a Twitter username, a handle can be whatever you like, and are unique to each user. If you’ve got a particularly snappy handle in mind, Yik … | Continue reading
The thing I love about SMS-based money-saving app Digit is that it steals pieces of my paycheck without my knowledge and squirrels it away as a fund I can tap into on a rainy day. For those who are more anxious about the when and where their money is moving, the startup has relea … | Continue reading
My mom has only one story about robots – and it’s that back in the 50s when she was tiny, kids were promised that in the future, you’d basically all have a robot butler. Alas, mother, the prediction was actually a little off, because you can now pre-order a robot that would kill … | Continue reading
Today, the activity tracking service Human released a cool visualization that shows all the physical activity of its users in a few major cities around the world for a 24 hour period. Whether or not you’re interested in being motivated to get a few more steps in each day or not, … | Continue reading
In this series of blog posts, I’ve enjoyed shedding some light onto how we approach marketing at The Next Web through Web analytics, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO), social media and more. This piece focuses on what data we use from Google Sea … | Continue reading
Last year, Google Ventures launched a website focused on the concept of a five-day design sprint – a process for companies to help focus and define their core product and goals. Today, the site is now followed up with its long-awaited book, appropriately named ‘Sprint: How to Sol … | Continue reading
Today is International Women’s Day, as I am sure your Facebook and Twitter feeds have told you countless times already. Women in tech is a subject that has gotten an increasing amount of attention, usually to point out where the industry is falling short, but today, crowdfunding … | Continue reading
Apple is a name synonymous with personal technology in the 21st century, but there’s a serious price tag attached to much of its gear, which is why TNW Deals is offering a $1,000 Apple Store Giveaway to one lucky winner! Pick up a brand-new iPhone 6s, an Apple TV, whatever you li … | Continue reading
Eclipse has a new IDE named Che, which it thinks will redefine how developers work and coordinate efforts using the cloud. Because it’s centered in the cloud, Eclipse Che is accessible from any local or remote device, and can even support shared access to workspaces. Che supports … | Continue reading
TRON Legacy is still one of my favorite movies and basically any mention of it automatically makes the Daft Punk soundtrack start playing in my head. Now there’s a tiny but amazing little game based on the original TRON’s lightcycles that you can play entirely via SSH. It’s fully … | Continue reading
Technology has pushed the “gig” worker into the business model spotlight. Thousands of apps allow independent contractors to connect with each other – and with their work. But, these relationships also come with risks, as gig industry leaders Uber and Lyft know. Both companies ar … | Continue reading
When it comes to smart devices making our lives easier in the home, it’s not difficult to find countless thermostats, lights, coffee machines and even robots. So it surprised me when New York-based startup HERO announced its latest creation – a smart pill dispenser – that I could … | Continue reading
The Samsung Galaxy S7 is one of the hottest and most anticipated phones of 2016 (despite it only being March), like the rest of the world, we were keen to get our hands on the device for a more prolonged test than its unveiling at MWC would allow. With a host of crowd-pleasing fe … | Continue reading
When the Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge were announced last month, I’d only had a short amount of time to get my hands-on the device, but having now spent three days using it as my daily driver, it’s time to take a look at the best and worst of the handset. There’s a more detailed … | Continue reading
It’s not that I don’t know how to cook or that I don’t want to cook – I just don’t have the counterspace to do so in my tiny New York apartment. At least, that’s what I tell my mom about my constant take-out habits. Y-Combinator backed Tovala aims to fix this issue for many young … | Continue reading
Amazon is debuting its first live TV show tonight – a 30-minute daily fashion and beauty segment featuring a former Miss America, an ex-Big Brother star and an MTV presenter as its hosts. From the ‘Style Code Live‘ trailer it looks insufferably cheerful, with Rachel Smith, Franki … | Continue reading
Every year, The Next Web holds hundreds of interviews with young startups in order to shortlist the cream of the crop and invite them to Boost, our early-stage growth program at The Next Web Conference. With the eleventh edition of our flagship Amsterdam conference coming up in M … | Continue reading
Web development expertise is increasingly in demand in the digital era, a must-have skillset for aspiring professionals. For a limited time, you can save 94 percent on the Front-end JavaScript Coding Bootcamp, to help kickstart your career in the highly employable world of Web de … | Continue reading
A new product being teased by Google simple called ‘posts’ appears to be a social network that lets you post thoughts directly into search results. It’s being tested for US presidential candidates in ‘real time’ over the coming months, and will allow them to use a mobile app to p … | Continue reading
Prepare your eyes for yet another tech logo redesign – this time from 99designs, a design crowdsourcing website. The new 99designs logo is now more straightened out, getting rid of the square that once separated the “99” from “designs.” CEO Patrick Llewellyn says the new wordmark … | Continue reading
The ever-increasing competition on the web has forced marketers to be more creative in their content marketing endeavors than ever before in order to drive conversions. In fact, conversion optimization has now become a must. Conversion rate optimization is one of the most crucial … | Continue reading
Car manufacturer Ford announced earlier this year that it was ramping up its self-driving car testing. What it didn’t mention was that the company is at least looking into the idea of turning those vehicles into mobile movie theaters. Yes, Ford has filed a patent for an “Autonomo … | Continue reading
Skype Translator is still in preview mode after around a year and a half in beta – and four years in development – but the team has announced a new milestone for its real-time natural language processing tool as Arabic goes live on the service. Along with Chinese, Arabic is one o … | Continue reading
At the end of 2015, Oracle acquired a DevOps startup out of Austin named StackEngine. While this acquisition by the 800 pound gorilla in Silicon Valley might have been a surprise to many, getting on Oracle’s radar wasn’t just dumb luck. In fact, it was exactly the opposite of luc … | Continue reading
Let’s Encrypt’s SSL certificate service launch marked a milestone for the open Web last year when it became the first major service to offer valid certificates for free. Now, just a few months past general availability, the group has passed more than 1 million issued certificates … | Continue reading
If you’ve ever come across a news article and wondered if there’s more to the story, you’ll find Transparent quite handy. This Chrome extension reveals the changes made to articles on several prominent news sites, highlighted and color coded on the same page so you can tell at a … | Continue reading
Despite being a short month, February brought its fair share of deals in Latin America’s tech scene, including quite a few acquisitions and funding rounds. Here’s the news you don’t want to miss: Big players Google made several announcements regarding its Latin American operation … | Continue reading
Caller identification service Truecaller has updated its Android app with a raft of new features, including an availability indicator that lets you know if your contacts are free to answer your call. It works by checking your calendar to see if you’re at an appointment and knows … | Continue reading
A job listing on Glassdoor from Amazon reveals that the company is working on a “platform and interface for immersive storytelling.” Amazon is looking for a software development manager to lead its VR team in this effort. The listing mentions that the ecommerce and media giant is … | Continue reading
Although Toyota is best known for building cars, it’s been working on a project over the past four years to enable a different kind of mobility. The company’s engineers in collaboration with the Toyota Partner Robot Group are developing Project BLAID, a wearable for the blind and … | Continue reading
Following a major breach of its systems in which hackers stole 700,000 US taxpayers’ records in 2015, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) attempted to tighten security last week by issuing people personal identification numbers (PINs). The trouble is that this new authentication m … | Continue reading
If you needed another way to feel like a barely relevant, crusty old, here it is. The Fine Brothers bring their wildly popular and fairly controversial ‘React’ series to Windows 95, an operating system that most of the teens recruited to navigate were not even born to witness. Ye … | Continue reading
Unlike New York, Illinois and Nevada, Virginia is welcoming fantasy sports betting from sites like DraftKings and FanDuel. The new “Fantasy Contests Act’ outlines just how those entities are allowed to operate legally. The main takeaway is that Virginia is monetizing fantasy spor … | Continue reading
In a world where apps are getting more feature-rich and complex, Prompt is taking a step backwards and aiming to be ‘a command line for the real world.’ Tagline aside, the application (SMS/Slack/Web) lets you text commands to a number of integrations to do things like change the … | Continue reading