The U.S. Department of Labor recently filed a lawsuit against Google in an attempt to obtain compensation data from the tech giant as part of a routine compliance evaluation. The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs asked Google to submit information about the company’s equal opportunity program and practices in September 2015, but Google did not comply, according to the… Read More
Last year DJI took a minority stake in Hasselblad, the iconic Swedish camera company. The companies also announced a partnership to work together on high-end camera drones that would combine DJI’s drone aerial technology with Hasselblad’s cameras. Now Luminous Landscape has reported, and multiple industry insiders have told TechCrunch, that DJI has acquired Hasselblad, not… Read More
Blockstack, a three-year-old, New York-based decentralized Internet and developer platform for secure, server-less apps, has raised $5.3 million in new funding led by earlier investor Union Square Ventures, shows a new SEC filing that was processed yesterday. The company, a Y Combinator graduate formerly known as Onename, said in an October interview with The Observer that it has been… Read More
The biggest tech trade show in the world is off and running, and TechCrunch has descended on Las Vegas to bring the show to you live.
Some of us will be roaming the show floor live, while others will be back at the TC Booth conducting live interviews with some of hardware’s biggest names, including GoPro’s Nick Woodman, Dan Gilbert (founder of Quicken Loans and Detroit Venture… Read More
We are thrilled to introduce the participants in the Hardware Battlefield 2017. These startups represent what we at TechCrunch feel are the most interesting, most promising early-stage hardware companies being built. Whether medical devices, construction safety, healthy lifestyles or electric vehicles are your fancy, we’ve got you covered with this batch. Over the past month these… Read More
Last year, Triby became the first non-Amazon product to integrate Alexa functionality. But what, you’re no doubt asking, has the company done for you lately? After all, since that announcement, countless other products have followed suit, and these days we’re up to our necks in voice-controlled vacuum cleaners and refrigerators, right?
At this year’s CES, Invoxia is firmly… Read More
With Goals, Google launched a new Google Calendar feature last year that allowed you to easily schedule and track certain goals you set for yourself. Right in time for people to forget their New Year’s resolutions, Google today announced an update to Goals and Google Calendar that allows you to connect Google Fit and Apple Health to the fitness goals you set in Goals. Once you hit… Read More
Of all the potential use-cases for VR, Samuli Cantell has arguably come up with the most unusual after persuading his pregnant girlfriend to undergo 4D ultrasound scanning of their unborn child in order to generate a 3D model that could then be placed in a Unity environment and viewed in VR. Read More
Strapping a VR headset to my face and taking a seat on an exercise bike isn’t my idea of fun, but fun was exactly what was served up when I tried out VirZOOM’s platform. A cycling game was obvious, given the input mechanism, but a flying pegasus and a tank game were not. The games were both eye-openers in terms of taking exercise and VR, making it more than the sum of its parts. Read More
Segway’s moving along with its plan to develop its robotics capability, with the launch of its developer edition Loomo robot, the first robot it created and demoed last year at CES. The robot combines a domestic bot with a Segway personal transport, tackling last-mile transportation as well as addressing a host of other in- and around-home uses.
Loomo has autonomous capabilities and… Read More
Oakland-based venture capital firm Better Ventures recently closed its second fund at $21 million according to cofounder and managing director Wes Selke. The firm was originally founded as an accelerator called Hub Ventures to help social entrepreneurs running so-called “triple bottom line” startups. These companies measure their success not only by revenue and profitability,… Read More
Timelapse photography is fun, but complicated. For long-term projects, you need to feed power to the camera, and if you want your photos back, you need to rig up a data gathering solution. That changed when Enlaps came along. The company just finished a successful IndieGoGo campaign, raising $250k for its Tikee camera. Read More
Razer, the billion-dollar startup that builds hardware and software for hardcore gaming enthusiasts, is today unveiling two of its latest products aimed at ramping up the immersive gaming experience. And — surprisingly, given how much else we’ve seen in this area this week already at CES — Razer is not launching yet another virtual reality tool. Project Ariana is a… Read More
Yubico today announced the USB-C version of its YubiKey 4 authentication dongle. Like the standard USB version, the new YubiKey 4C supports multiple authentication protocols, including standards like Universal 2nd Factor, smart card and Yubico’s own one-time password mechanism. The new USB-C version will cost $50 and will be available in the Yubico store on February 13. Given that… Read More
Formlabs makes powerful 3D printers that can make objects that look as solid and smooth as injection-molded parts. Now, however, they’ve added improved materials including a new gray material that is completely matte and reformulated for optimal printing and a ceramic material that can be fired like standard ceramics. Further, they’ve launched Form X, an experimental toolkit for… Read More
Misfit seemed destined to get here, soon or later. Between getting swallowed up by Fossil and the recent introduction of the Phase hybrid watch, the company has been spending the last couple of years dipping its toes in the waters of more advanced wearables, finally going all in with the Vapor. The Vapor is a reasonably fairly slick affair, built with a focus on minimalism more akin to its… Read More
Now that 2016 is over, some companies are taking time to look back and recap how they fared last year. And now Apple has shared some stats showing us how the App Store did. New Year’s Day 2017 was the single biggest day ever on the App Store – with iOS users spending almost $240 million on apps. This is a little bit surprising, since you’d think Christmas Day is… Read More
ForeScout announced an integration with Splunk today that it hopes will bring a new level of security visibility to Internet of Things devices. The new tool dubbed The ForeScout Extended Module for Splunk, allows two-way communication between the ForeScout CounterACT tool and Splunk Enterprise or Splunk Enterprise Security (Splunk ES) — with the goal of finding issues faster in order… Read More
One of the big HR startup stories of the last year has been the trials and tribulations of Zenefits, but news coming out today from another company in the space shows that there is still a lot of opportunity in the industry with the right approach. Namely, a New York-based SaaS HR firm that focuses on mid-sized (100 to 1,000 employees) companies offering an all-in-one human resources… Read More
Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant is having a good CES. Not only landing inside additional speaker hardware but finding entirely new incarnations in other connected household items — such as a lamp, a smart fridge and even a robot vacuum cleaner. Cars are on the cards too. Read More
