Vungle has had a rocky few months. The mobile video ad company was thrown into crisis in October when its founder and CEO, Zain Jaffer, left after being arrested on charges that he sexually assaulted a child. Rick Tallman, chief operating officer, was appointed the new CEO, and w … | Continue reading
As Facebook faces a growing wave of criticism across a wide range of issues, the man in charge of crafting the company’s communications strategy wants you to know that executives understand they’ve messed up. “This last year, it would be an understatement to say, has been a great … | Continue reading
Russian internet giant Mail.Ru has announced that it’s acquiring esports company ESforce, in a deal valued at at least $100 million. ESforce is the holding company for a number of Esports-related brands, including esports communities SK Gaming and Virtus.pro, the latter of which … | Continue reading
REVIEW: Iconoclasts feels like a classic. It’s brimming with callbacks to an older era of games, but with an updated look and style. It’s an incredible feat that Joakim Sandberg (aka Konjak) was the sole developer, artist, and composer on this game, because it achieves such a hig … | Continue reading
REVIEW: Telltale Games’s Batman: The Enemy Within has been uneven so far, but fortunately Episode Four breaks from the previous entry’s stagnation. Titled “What Ails You,” it’s action-packed and simmering with tension, winding the players up for the next episode, which will be th … | Continue reading
This month at CES 2018 in Las Vegas, we saw the near-future of VR hardware when HTC unveiled the Vive Pro at its press conference. The 3K resolution is improved over its current model predecessor, and it also features an improved fit, embedded audio solution, and the promise of i … | Continue reading
Veteran game publisher Brian Fargo and other game industry veterans announced a plan to shake up PC digital game purchases this week with the announcement of Robot Cache and its planned cryptocurrency, dubbed Iron. Their idea comes amid a sometimes hot, sometimes not — but always … | Continue reading
GUEST: A year ago, the Midwest saw one of its largest tech exits to-date: the January 2017 $1.1 billion sale of CoverMyMeds to San Francisco-based McKesson Corp. The CoverMyMeds exit was the biggest in Ohio history, and it signaled an upward growth trajectory in exit activity fro … | Continue reading
(Reuters) — U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday said he signed into law a bill renewing the National Security Agency’s warrantless internet surveillance program, sealing a defeat for digital privacy advocates. “Just signed 702 Bill to reauthorize foreign intelligence collection … | Continue reading
GUEST: Video game software and hardware together could be a $165-$170 billion range in 2018 (if mobile outperforms again), and it could reach between $230 and $235 billion by 2022 if strong performance continues. That might make games software/hardware bigger in five years than 1 … | Continue reading
I’m trilingual, or at least that’s what I’ve been telling everyone for the last couple of decades. The truth is that ever since I graduated high school, my French has all but completely deteriorated. My Polish is a bit better, but only because I still use it to communicate with m … | Continue reading
GUEST: Entrepreneurs are the beating heart of the American economy. Yet despite an uptick in recent years, startup formation has been in a decades-long decline that has affected every state in the country. That’s a problem because startups are responsible for nearly all net new j … | Continue reading
The new Mutant Football League is now available digitally for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. It costs $20. Mutant Football League received $138,092 in crowdfunding on Kickstarter in March 2017. It launched for PC via Steam in October 2017, but releasing console versions could introd … | Continue reading
Iris Automation, a San Francisco-based startup that’s building collision avoidance systems for industrial drones and other autonomous flying machines, has closed an $8 million Series A round of funding led by Bessemer Venture partners, with participation from Bee Partners. Founde … | Continue reading
The Nintendo Switch was the No.-1-selling game console in December, but Microsoft’s Xbox One family of consoles outsold Sony’s PlayStation 4, according to market researcher NPD Group. It’s no surprise that Microsoft could beat Sony in December, as Microsoft launched its Xbox One … | Continue reading
GUEST: Our minds may no longer be a safe haven for secrets. Scientists are working toward building mind-reading algorithms that could potentially decode our innermost thoughts through memories that act as a database. For most, this probably sounds like an episode of Netflix’s hit … | Continue reading
Exactly a week ago, Microsoft released the latest Windows 10 preview build with a slew of new features and improvements. Among these was a short note about the Windows Camera app getting a revamp, but the company didn’t go into much detail. That changed today with the Windows tea … | Continue reading
The U.S. video games industry earned $36 billion in revenues in 2017, according to The NPD Group and Entertainment Software Association (ESA). This is an 18 percent increase from 2016. Revenues includes sales from hardware, peripherals, software (physical and digital), and in-gam … | Continue reading
The survival genre is getting another entry, and this time its from the developer of the Might and Magic: Heroes series and Tropico 6. Limbic Entertainment announced Memories of Mars today. This new adventure will have players taking on the role of a clone who must craft dwelling … | Continue reading
While AT&T and Verizon used last week’s CES to announce limited-scale 2018 rollouts of 5G cellular services, T-Mobile had little to say. That changed this week with a blog post from T-Mobile CTO Neville Ray, who has clarified the third-largest U.S. carrier’s 5G plans while throwi … | Continue reading
ANALYSIS: Amazon’s announcement that cities had a chance to pitch themselves for the company’s second North American headquarters drew a whopping 238 bids from cities across North America — cities as diverse as Fresno, California, and Stonecrest, Georgia (which offered to rename … | Continue reading
Twitch has rolled out a plethora of features in the last few months, such as software extensions and a native raid function, and today, it’s launching its new Video Producer suite. This new tool designs Twitch broadcasts around prerecorded videos, enabling streamers to essentiall … | Continue reading
Whether the frenzy of initial coin offerings that swept the globe last year was a temporary phenomenon or the start of a lasting revolution, the bottom line is that the bottom line was huge. A new report from the Crypto Valley Association and consulting firm PwC Strategy& notes t … | Continue reading
The former creator of Mythic Entertainment’s The Dark Age of Camelot is back with a new game, and he has raised $7.5 million for the online fantasy game dubbed Camelot Unchained. The new game could feature as many as 2,000 players fighting in a battle at the same time. Mark Jacob … | Continue reading
Apartment List, A San Francisco-based apartment rental marketplace, has raised $50 million in a series C round of funding led by Passport Capital, with participation from Allen & Company LLC, Canaan Partners, Matrix Partners, Industry Ventures, Quantum Partners LP, Tenaya Capital … | Continue reading
ANALYSIS: There’s no narrative that the tech industry likes quite as much as a good revolutionary tale in which a startup pursues a strategy that topples an established order. Such a mythology is now being constructed around the upcoming Spotify IPO. They emerging mythology goes … | Continue reading
Tilting Point’s mobile game publishing strategy is paying off. Thanks to viral hits like Nukebox Studios’s Food Truck Chef, its Q4 revenue has increased fourfold year-over-year. It’s also shuffling around its leadership — COO Samir El Agili will become Tilting Point’s president. … | Continue reading
As I’ve mentioned previously, one of the questions that I get asked most frequently is what tech companies in the Heartland should the average person be watching. The question is a fair one — the channel that I write for is called “Heartland Tech,” after all. But the question als … | Continue reading
REVIEW: I’ve been thoroughly invested in Street Fighter V for the last two years. It’s my “main game.” The thing I play when I am done doing adult stuff, usually involving other games. It’s to the point where I run a local tournament dedicated to Street Fighter V every week. It’s … | Continue reading
Samsung only briefly touched upon 5G at CES last week, but behind closed doors, the Korean company was reportedly showing off Exynos 5G, a prototype 5G-compliant modem designed for mobile devices. Described by BusinessKorea as part of Samsung’s plan “to significantly reduce its r … | Continue reading
Nintendo revealed a new line of games for the Switch. Nintendo Labo has users creating unique docks for the Switch and its Joy-Con controllers to make new experiences. Its first products will come out on April 27. In the reveal video, examples including creating a cardboard piano … | Continue reading
GUEST: Much of the conversation about tech in the workplace centers on jobs that will be replaced by AI, as well as the technology’s impending effects on workplace dynamics. Without question, this is a revolution in the making, and some businesses will thrive within it while some … | Continue reading
A small surprise was nestled in the middle of Apple’s announcement of a $350 billion contribution to the U.S. economy today: Apple confirmed that it will repatriate the giant pile of cash it has held overseas. According to the release, Apple expects to pay approximately $38 billi … | Continue reading
(Reuters) — Bitcoin skidded below $10,000 on Wednesday, halving in value from its peak price, with investors gripped by fears regulators could clamp down on the volatile cryptocurrency that sky-rocketed last year. The price of bitcoin, the world’s biggest and best known cryptocur … | Continue reading
Google announced today that it would start rolling out a fix tomorrow for an issue Android users have encountered with devices like the Home smart speaker clogging up a network. It’s supposed to fix a software bug that occasionally causes a Cast streaming media connection to fill … | Continue reading
Comcast Cable is gearing up to push viewers to its wide variety of on-demand and live programming for the upcoming Winter Olympics. It’s going to be a combination of traditional and digital TV. Comcast has been working on the features since the last Olympics games, and about 18 m … | Continue reading
Google today announced a new project to improve its mobile search results: Factoring page speed in its search ranking. As the company notes, page speed “has been used in ranking for some time” but that was largely for desktop searches. Starting in July 2018, page speed will be a … | Continue reading
It’s been nearly three years since Google first lifted the lid on Project Fi, a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) service that flits between Wi-Fi and the cellular networks of T-Mobile, Sprint, U.S. Cellular, and Three. Thus far, the pricing model has been fairly straightfor … | Continue reading
Google introduced a new security dashboard for customers of its G Suite productivity software today, providing IT administrators with a number of metrics about how their organizations are doing when it comes to security. The Security Center should provide some extra peace of mind … | Continue reading
PRESS RELEASE: LumaTax, whose software streamlines sales tax compliance for small business owners by integrating with tools that they already use, today announced that it closed a $3 million financing led by Cowboy Ventures. With additional participation... | Continue reading
UserMind, a company that aims to help businesses garner great customer insights by connecting their various software applications, has raised $23.5 million in a series C round of funding led by Northgate Capital, with participation form previous investors, including Andreessen Ho … | Continue reading
Google announced a new cloud service today that’s designed to make it easier for companies to create custom machine learning algorithms for processing images. Called Cloud AutoML Vision, the system allows developers to upload a bunch of images to Google’s cloud and receive a cust … | Continue reading
PRESS RELEASE: Circle Pharma, Inc. today announced that results from its collaborative work with Pfizer Inc. to develop a potent and orally bioavailable macrocycle modulator of the chemokine receptor, CXCR7, have been published in the Journal of Medicinal... | Continue reading
Encrypted email service provider ProtonMail has announced that its standalone virtual private network (VPN) service is now available to Android users. The Swiss company launched ProtonVPN in beta for desktop users back in March, before rolling it out to the public a few months la … | Continue reading
Sony Interactive Entertainment has a new deputy president. Jim Ryan, who previously served as president of Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe, has moved up to a new role under SIE president and chief executive officer John Kodera. Ryan has worked at Sony’s PlayStation division … | Continue reading
Robot Entertainment has spent the last several years dealing with rampaging humanoids with the Orcs Must Die! franchise. But it also has another well-received series, Hero Academy, a tactical game that appeared on iOS, Android, and Steam way back in 2012 — and it’s launching the … | Continue reading
ANALYSIS: Will U.S. citizens get their first 5G phones from Huawei or ZTE? Not if Congress has its way. Over the last week, members of Congress have been getting tough on the two Chinese companies, formally identifying both as threats to national security following years of inves … | Continue reading
GUEST: As internally developed artificial intelligence systems move from lab to deployment, the importance of creating unbiased, ethical systems is greater than ever. The challenge is that there is not a simple solution for companies to build ethical consideration into AI algorit … | Continue reading