Keita Takahashi, creator of the famously bizarre ball-rolling game Katamari Damacy, has a new title, but it’s not for the PS4 or Xbox One — you’ll need a Project Tango compatible device to play this one. Read More | Continue reading
Putting body cameras on police seems like a net good for everyone involved, but how to deploy them and what the subtler effects will be are questions that would be better to answer sooner or later. Otherwise, as a new large-scale study shows, we risk making things worse — body ca … | Continue reading
We’re hearing from multiple sources that Down to Lunch has met with investors about a potential financing round. Down to Lunch became a bit of a darling during its rise thanks to its dead-simple approach: signal to your friends that you’re interested in getting lunch, drinks, or … | Continue reading
Over the past few years EyeSight has been establishing a name for itself by bringing gesture control to a series of computing platforms, from mobile devices to smart eyeglasses. Today’s announcement brings the company’s technology to the format where it arguably makes the most se … | Continue reading
Oracle and Google are back in the courtroom again — the same court they started in back in 2010, when Oracle first sued Google over the company’s use of 37 Java APIs in its Android operating system. The case, first decided in favor of Google, bounced up to an appeals court and wa … | Continue reading
SocialRank is a startup that helps brands, agencies and celebrities understand their social media followers — not just in aggregate, like most social analytics services, but on an individual level. Today it introduced more features as part of a new SocialRank Premium plan. As a r … | Continue reading
Facebook appears to have been blocked in Vietnam as a part of a government-imposed crackdown on social media, amid public protests over an environmental disaster attributed to toxic discharges from a steel complex built by Taiwan’s Formosa Plastics. Dissidents are blaming wastewa … | Continue reading
One day a year, Google gathers all sides of the industry to show off everything the company has been cooking up for the past twelve months. From all new Android to automated automobiles, it’s the day they unveil everything they’ve worked so hard (with varying degrees of success) … | Continue reading
Ever felt like you were being watched online? You know, like when you read something about New York, and the next site you visit shows you ads for New York hotels? As it turns out, on my computer, there were more than 130 companies tracking my every move. These companies are basi … | Continue reading
Apple rolled out a new version of iTunes this week which introduced an updated design, including modified navigation and the return of the left sidebar. However, under the hood, the new software also includes a fix which aims to address the troubling issue of iTunes deleting some … | Continue reading
Oracle and Google continue to fight it out in a retrial over $9 billion that Oracle claims Google owes it for using its Java code in its popular Android mobile platform. And in the process, we’re also hearing details about other companies that may not have been known before. Toda … | Continue reading
Being a freelance animator is a pretty crappy existence, living out of a suitcase, jetting from country to country as the major studios are chasing tax incentives around the world. Launched this week, Artella are attempting to changing that by creating a full suite of software to … | Continue reading
Travelers in the Southwest have a new all-electric option: long-distance car sharing in a Tesla with Autopilot. The service is called Tesloop, and it currently serves 15 cities in southern California, plus Henderson and Las Vegas in Nevada and Phoenix, Arizona. The idea came to f … | Continue reading
Fresh on the heels of Disrupt NY, we’re packing up and heading to Austin and Seattle for the TC Meetup + Pitch-off. Ten companies will have exactly sixty seconds to pitch to a panel of expert judges, including local VCs and TC editors, as well as our lovely audience. Judges will … | Continue reading
As civilian drones become more affordable, sophisticated and common around the world, a company called Dedrone Inc. has raised $10 million in venture funding for systems that monitor the skies and tell people when drones have entered their airspace.Menlo Ventures led the Series A … | Continue reading
Uber today announced a new tool that will allow family members and other loved ones the ability to track each others’ trips using its service. Called simply “Trip Tracker,” the addition is a feature connected to Uber’s Family Profiles, a program Uber announced in March which allo … | Continue reading
In the two years since HP announced it was entering the 3D printing space speculation arose regarding what exactly the PC giant would launch? Home 3D printers for the masses? All-in-one manufacturing machines? Amazing teleportation devices? Nope. They launched a big printer for i … | Continue reading
With a still unannounced price and a footprint the size of a washing machine (as The BBC handily points out), the Jet Fusion 3D 4200 is big and (most likely) expensive. But HP is also positioning the big ole industrial machine as an entry into a new paradigm for 3D printing, call … | Continue reading
TechCrunch Include Office Hours are happening on May 24th! Satya Patel, Beth Scheer and Hunter Walk from Homebrew Ventures will join TechCrunch to provide valuable advice and feedback to startups. Launched in 2014, Include is TechCrunch’s diversity program, aimed at facilitating … | Continue reading
Xavier Niel’s new project is an ambitious coding university in Silicon Valley called 42. But the trick is that it’s nothing like other universities out there. 42 is free, doesn’t care about your SAT and wants to educate 10,000 students in 5 years. This isn’t Niel’s first try at b … | Continue reading
Jifiti, the startup attempting to reinvent digital gift-giving, announced this morning that their new chatbot API was approved by Facebook Messenger. It’s a big deal for the Columbus, OH startup, who already has relationships with many companies ranging from IKEA to Evite and who … | Continue reading
Media Temple is launching a new enterprise-grade WordPress hosting solution today. That would be interesting new by itself, but the twist here is that the company, which is owned by GoDaddy, is hosting this service on AWS. Media Temple launches new enterprise WordPress solution h … | Continue reading
T-Mobile is again expanding its Binge On program, with news this morning that a number of video services, including Google Play Music, NBC, TIDAL, Spotify, Radio Disney and others, will now be made available for streaming without impacting customers’ data plans. Some of these com … | Continue reading
Twitter has been releasing a variety tools for publishing its content beyond Twitter itself. Now it’s giving publishers an additional incentive — monetization through the company’s MoPub ad exchange. Previously, if a web publisher or app developer embedded a timeline from Twitter … | Continue reading
Affirm has made it no secret that its success will hinge on its ability to offer customers a wide range of retail partners where they can frequently use Affirm to pay. While the lending startup originally launched with niche partners like Casper mattresses and Boosted Boards, the … | Continue reading
With 17 percent of the GDP, it’s fair to say that Samsung is South Korea, or at least has represented it on the global business stage for the last decade or so. But for the last year or so, with the contraction of the global economy and the dynamism of Chinese and Indian competit … | Continue reading
Google’s Cultural Institute, the company’s initiative to preserve the world’s culture and history by bringing it online, has this morning unveiled a new project aimed at allowing web users the ability to view art up close – down to the very brushstrokes. Google had invented a new … | Continue reading
So much for pomp and circumstance. A day ahead of Google I/O’s official kick off, Morotola/Lenovo has spilled the beans about three new versions of the company’s warmly received Moto G line of budget handsets. With a naming scheme that will surely bring a wave of nostalgia to ear … | Continue reading
As more of today’s consumers shop online using their mobile devices, often bypassing Google for e-commerce sites directly – and especially Amazon – Google has moved to combat the trend by launching its own visual shopping ads. Announced just ahead of its annual I/O developer conf … | Continue reading
Just swallow a pill and it expands into a balloon in your stomach so you don’t feel hungry. No gastric bypass, no surgery required. Sounds magical, but Boston-based Allurion has created the only non-invasive gastric balloon for obesity. Gastric balloons are nothing new, but you u … | Continue reading
Amazon is giving TV viewers a few more, not-crazy reasons to talk back to their TVs. After bringing the functionality to various properties, opening it to third-party hardware and letting developers get a crack at it, the Pacific-Northwestern retail giant is rolling a out a bunch … | Continue reading
If you’re a basketball fan, you’re more than aware it’s playoff time — and we’re down to the final four teams. You probably also know that the NBA has been running a promo called ‘Every Second Counts‘, which includes a new song written specifically for the campaign by the artist … | Continue reading
If you’ve ever grumbled about long lines at the pharmacy, Capsule wants to save you the trouble next time. The New York-based startup is launching today to offer delivery of prescription meds directly to your doorstep or office in your time of need. Here’s how it works: When you … | Continue reading
More proof, if proof were needed, of the privacy-stripping power of metadata. A multi-year crowdsourced study, conducted by Stanford scientists and published this week, underlines how much information can be inferred from basic phone logs cross-referenced with other public datase … | Continue reading
Microsoft and SAP have been pals for years and years, and today at the SAP Sapphire Now customer conference in Orlando, the two company CEOs, Satya Nadella and Bill McDermott announced they were taking the relationship to another level with deeper cloud integrations between the t … | Continue reading
You saw it coming, right? 3D model repository Sketchfab just added support for all major virtual reality headsets out there. You can now view your pretty 3D models in your VR headset. Read More | Continue reading
While the BBC is planning to take on Netflix by building its own “Britflix” on-demand video streaming service, on the news front, it looks like the UK media giant is cutting back to shore up its funds and figure out a better way of competing against (or within!) Facebook. Today, … | Continue reading
Intel missed out on the mobile CPU market because that market is a high-volume, low-margin business, and Intel is a high-volume, high-margin company that can’t afford to offer low-margin versions of its products without killing its existing cash cow. Read More | Continue reading
French startup Snips is launching its first product today, an iOS app that is supposed to make your life easier by letting you view and search your data more easily. Snips is a personal assistant that helps you know where you need to be and when. When you first launch the app, Sn … | Continue reading
In three short weeks, the TechCrunch team will be in the beautiful city of Stockhom for a good old TechCrunch Meetup + Pitch-Off — and I couldn’t be more excited about this event. If you’re an entrepeneur and you’re available on June 7, it’s now time to apply to the pitch-off. Re … | Continue reading
Microsoft may have built a new web browser that is befitting of today’s Internet, but its decision to develop Edge and deprioritize Internet Explorer might be benefitting its rivals. Read More | Continue reading
Self-driving cars are very much a part of the future of tech, with Google, Uber, Apple and plenty of other top names working to develop autonomous vehicles. But what about trucks? That’s where Otto, a startup that has come out of stealth, is aiming to shape the future. Read More | Continue reading
Just like London buses, you wait for a European vacation rental search engine to raise funding and three come along at once. Following Holidu and HomeToGo, the latest to secure investment is Hundredrooms, which has closed €4.1 million in Series A funding. Read More | Continue reading
WeSchool, initially available in English, Spanish and Italian, is aimed at teachers with a product that will go up against established Learning Management Systems (LMS), such as the Moodles of the world, and upstarts like EdModo. Read More | Continue reading
For years, Twitter users have complained about the fact that link and photo URLs count against each tweet’s 140-character limit. Now that may finally change. According to a report in Bloomberg, Twitter will stop including photos and links in character counts, possibly within the … | Continue reading
Facebook is heaping focus on live video with an entirely dedicated tab for streams, which prioritizes in-the-moment broadcasts, so it’s no surprise to see that Twitter is fighting back in the streaming war with an integration between Periscope, its live-streaming platform, and th … | Continue reading
As the tech world waits to see what VR stuff Google shows off at its I/O conference later this week, today, the company snuck in an update to YouTube for iOS that allows you to view any video in VR mode on Cardboard. YouTube’s Android app has had full Cardboard support since Nove … | Continue reading
Lucid Sight, Inc., an LA-based VR game studio, announced today that they have closed a $3.5 million Series A round of funding led by Rana Capital Partners, B.V. and Salem Partners. This raise brings the company’s total funding to $4 million. Previous investors included AdColony f … | Continue reading