Reddit has just completed a major redo of its scoring algorithm aimed at cracking down on bots and vote brigades while also showing just how big the site has gotten. Read More
If you were thinking of getting your kid a little doll or robot that they can talk to — and, critically, that responds — you should probably hold off for a few years. A complaint to the FTC filed by consumer watchdog groups highlights ongoing privacy and security concerns with this creepy class of toy. Read More
If you’ve already gone through all of the trouble to stick a microphone and speaker on your hybrid smartwatch, you might as well make the most of the thing. Martian’s taking advantage of the opportunity with the addition of Amazon Alexa functionality to its mVoice wearable.
Honestly, as silly as it sounds, this may be one of the most logical third-party implementations of Alexa yet. Read More
The 2017 Chevy Bolt is coming to California and Oregon before the end of 2016, and along with it comes its very own official charger from AeroVironment. The company’s EVSE-RS charger has been available for some time, and AeroVironment is not new to the EV charging game. The company is kind of an unofficial charger for everyone else; it sells models compatible with just about every EV… Read More
GoDaddy is on a shopping spree. Yesterday we reported that the domain and hosting company had bought WP Curve, a WordPress services startup to expand its WordPress support team. And today the company has just announced a much bigger deal. GoDaddy has acquired European rival Host Europe Group (HEG) for $1.8 billion — including €605 million paid to existing Host Europe… Read More
Today, Ruvento is announcing a new $25 million seed fund for hardware startups in need of capital from Singapore, China and the U.S. The fund, managed by Slava Solonitsyn and Alex Toh, will write 70 percent of its checks between $100k and $500k. The rest of the capital will be reserved for follow-on investments of up to $2 million. Ruvento is not the first investor to take a… Read More
Over the last few years, robotics and every other field have come to inform and improve each other, and robots have begun to infiltrate and affect our lives in countless ways. So the only surprise in the news that the prestigious journal group Science has established a discrete Robotics imprint is that they didn’t do it earlier. Read More
Boosted Board, long considered the de facto electric skateboard, finally has some competition from a rival that is also based in California. Price as reviewed: $1,399 at Inboard The Inboard M1 brings a new take to the category, with hubless motors that are planted into the rear wheels of the board. This means that the motors, batteries and wires are hidden, and there’s no resistance in… Read More
Aside his on-going free market bromance with entrepreneur-turned-transition-adviser Peter Thiel, things between Donald Trump and the broader tech community have been fairly rocky for some time. Silicon Valley largely put its weight behind his opponent, and the President-Elect has taken a number of potshots at big technology names from Apple to Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.
A number of execs… Read More
Reports that media player and DVR maker TiVo is testing a “cloud DVR” type functionality have been circulating in recent weeks. If the feature was to make it into commercial production it would be a notable addition for the hardware maker, whose products have been more focused on competing with traditional DVRs by combining TiVo’s unique user experience with the ability… Read More
Startups participating in the Startup Battlefield have all been hand-picked to participate in our highly competitive startup competition. They all presented in front of multiple groups of VCs and tech leaders serving as judges for a chance to win £40,000 and the coveted Disrupt Cup. After hours of deliberations, TechCrunch editors pored over the judges’ notes and narrowed the list down… Read More
It may be getting a late start, compared with streaming services from Amazon and Netflix, but today Google Play Movies & TV is adding 4K movies to its content library. Google says there are now over 125 movies in 4K resolution, using VP9, available for purchase via its web or mobile storefront. These can be streamed via a Chromecast Ultra, Sony Bravia Android TV, or Xiaomi Mi Box 3.… Read More
Crowdpac’s Steve Hilton, a passionate advocate of Brexit, has few points of agreement with Daniel Korski, a former advisor to David Cameron and an organizer of the Remain campaign. But the two could agree on at least one thing — the U.K. is headed for a so-called hard Brexit that will have negative ramifications for the technology and business sectors. “My sense is that they… Read More
French-based location sharing app Zenly hopes to be the next Snapchat and co-founder Antoine Martin came onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt London to talk about how it plans to get there. The original idea came from Foursquare check-ins but Zenly allows users to check-in and share their location with friends and family. Martin spent two to three years with ex-Google and Apple engineers perfecting… Read More
Arago’s flagship HIRO AI product plays Freeciv, a free civilization building simulation that’s based on the popular and long-lived Sid Meier’s Civilization series of games – and it’s getting more skilled. Freeciv is a complex, sprawling game with a huge number of possible strategies that can lead to success, especially when playing against unpredictable human… Read More
Microsoft announced a slew of goodies today for its upcoming Windows 10 Creators update, designed to please IT admins and simplify management of Windows 10 inside large enterprises. Microsoft has been trying to get enterprise companies — you know the ones with lots of users — to make the switch to Windows 10. They claim, even before this announcement, the number of… Read More
Jason Goldberg — a founder that may be as well known for his high-profile startups (Fab.com, Fabulis, Jobster) as his failures and pivots (Hem, Fab.com, Fabulis, Jobster) — earlier this year stepped up to the batting plate once again with Pepo, a group social messaging app that lets you post, read and interact with content based on specific interests. Today, he’s… Read More
Netflix is rolling out a new user interface for its app for televisions and streaming media players which will now include video previews, instead of still images. The previews will appear when you’re browsing through the library looking for something to watch, and pause on a specific title. Video previews are something Netflix began testing more broadly earlier this year, so… Read More
Microsoft’s $26.2 billion acquisition of LinkedIn looks like it’s ready to go. The company’s Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith just announced that the deal has been cleared by the European Commission — the last regulator that needed to sign off on the deal. “As a result, we’ve now obtained all of the regulatory approvals needed to complete the acquisition,… Read More
The CEO of Musical.ly, the lip syncing app that’s become a major with youngster worldwide, has defended the way it manages its users, some of whom are younger than 13 years, while also revealing that the service now has over 40 million monthly active users. Read More
