The original Facetune app made it easy and fast to make your selfies look next-level awesome. Lightricks just released a fully revamped version 2 of Facetune, complete with automatic 3D meshing built in, which makes it possible to have another level of editing prowess at your fingertips. Read More
LeEco may have had some high-profile setbacks in recent weeks, with news coming from the company that it had overextended itself financially in some areas, but the Chinese electronics maker and service provider is still doing ambitious things in retail, starting with a new flagship store it opened at its Beijing headquarters earlier this year. We toured the store, and spoke to LeEco VP of… Read More
Over the past several years, the popularity of “sharing economy” models has skyrocketed. The key to success has been finding a category with high demand but low capacity utilization, then relentlessly focusing on the customer experience. Although vehicles are among the most expensive assets purchased by consumers, their historical utilization rate has generally hovered around a… Read More
Charge, an Oxford, UK-based electric vehicle company, is testing its prototypes in the most time-honored way: at the races. Since the dawn of the automotive age, inventors and manufacturers have taken their cars to the track to test their capabilities. These trucks aren’t racing, though; they’re the official support vehicles for the Formula E all-electric racing series. Formula… Read More
With advances in information technology, robotics, and artificial intelligence developing at a rapid rate, workforce dislocations are happening now and are here to stay. As existing trends accelerate and irreversibly change the workforce as we know it, the question to be answered is–what will we do to broadly share the gains and alleviate the challenges? Cities often lead trend cycles… Read More
Welcome to the 2016 TechCrunch Holiday Gift Guide! We’ll be rolling out a bunch of guides leading up to Christmas, hopefully making your holiday shopping a little easier. Looking for gifts for others on your list? Check out our full 2016 Gift Guide Hub. Cars are okay on their own but they can be better. We have the technology. And this is a gift guide of that technology. You can spend a… Read More
San Francisco’s public transit riders were greeted with an unusual message at ticket kiosks over the weekend: “You hacked.” The city’s light rail system, MUNI, was compromised in what appears to be a non-targeted ransomware attack, and riders were given free transit on Saturday until the issue was resolved. The attacker claimed that MUNI’s data was encrypted… Read More
What better way to celebrate the passage of a decade or so spent waiting for the new installment of a popular video game franchise than with a commemorative Sony Walkman? A fitting homage to a series that dates back to the late 1980s. Sony’s marking tomorrow’s long awaited release of Final Fantasy XV with a limited edition version of its A-Series Hi-Res Audio-friendly Walkman.… Read More
If you’re using iCloud to sync your calendar across your devices, chances are you just received a bunch of spammy invites over the last few days. Many users are reporting fake events about Black Friday “deals” coming from Chinese users. If you’re looking for cheap Ray-Ban or Louis Vuitton knockoffs, you might find these invites useful. Otherwise, you might be wondering:… Read More
Canadian self-driving vehicle tests are about to kick off on Ontario public roads, with three groups approved to take part in a pilot licensing program that allows autonomous testing with a safety driver behind the wheel. BlackBerry is one of the three, along with the University of Waterloo’s Centre for Automotive Research and Erwin Hymer Group, a German maker of motorhomes and other… Read More
Dick’s Sporting Goods is expanding its digital tools with the acquisition of GameChanger Media, the company behind the mobile scorekeeping app of the same name. A sporting goods company (with 675 locations across the United States) might not seem like an obvious buyer of tech companies, but it’s been building up its suite of digital products for youth sports — which it… Read More
Americans gobsmacked by the outcome of the U.S. presidential election still have an opportunity to vote against Donald Trump with their wallets, and a new app from the Democratic Coalition Against Trump allows them to do just that. The app, though fairly rudimentary in design, offers a searchable, alphabetical list of companies and businesses with ties to Trump’s business empire, offering… Read More
New data from PayPal further confirms mobile’s contribution to e-commerce retailers’ bottom lines over Thanksgiving and Black Friday. According to data from its network, mobile devices accounted for a third of all total payment volume on both of these top shopping days this year – figures that back up earlier reports that mobile accounted for roughly a third of online… Read More
Disrupt London is approaching quickly and we’re excited to introduce you to our stacked lineup of speakers and judges. The event takes place at former Olympic Village’s Copper Box Arena and you can buy tickets here.
The conference kicks off on December 5 and is packed both days with a lineup featuring inspiring entrepreneurs, savvy investors and TechCrunch’s… Read More
This week on Technotopia I talked to Christian Villum, a designer and thinker at the Danish Design Center. His vision of the future is simple: with the right kind of education and the right tools, cities can be reborn with design thinking. His background in hacktivism and making also allowed him to talk about the future of 3D printing in schools and cities. He’s a founding member of… Read More
As competition between television streaming services heats up, Dish’s Sling TV announced a new feature designed to better compete with rivals like Sony’s PlayStation Vue and others: it’s debuting a cloud DVR that will allow customers to record shows and movies to watch later at their convenience. Vue already offers a similar option, which has been one of its… Read More
Like just about everyone else, Samsung had a rough 2016 – though the South Korean company’s year was perhaps even tougher than most. There was that drawn out Galaxy Note incident, which entailed two recalls and a on-going apology parade, coupled with the subsequent recall of 2.8 million washing machines over reports of malfunctions and injuries, including a broken jaw. The… Read More
As promised, Hello Games has released a major new update for its ambitious space exploration game No Man’s Sky. The new update was promised late last week, but arrived early on Sunday, giving game owners a bunch of new ways to play, including two brand new game modes and a base building system. Base building allows players to craft buildings and storage capacity either on a… Read More
360-degree cameras are still somewhat of a novelty, with a range of options offering decent quality for around $300 or so. A new device launching on Indiegogo Monday could bring some better balance to the cost/effectiveness equation – the Insta360 Air is a clip-on 360-degree video camera with livestreaming capabilities that will cost $99 in pre-order, or $119 when it’s available… Read More
After Disrupt in London I’ll be heading over to Wroclaw, Poland for a double dose of meet-up fun. The meetups coincided with a few events in Wroclaw and you’re welcome to come to one or both. The first meetup is part of ImpaceCEE and will be held on Wednesday, December 7. You can RSVP here. It’s primarily Fintech-related but, again, you’re welcome to come along to chat… Read More
