Facebook Messenger is preparing to launch a new “Instant Games” platform that will let people play lightweight games against friends. Candy Crush maker King.com is already testing one of these Instant Games called “Shuffle Cats Mini” in New Zealand, TechCrunch has discovered. And other studios including Big Viking also appear to be prepping for the Instant Games… Read More
Remember when Pokemon GO got a new system for finding nearby Pokemon (to replace the one that’d broke almost immediately after launch) … but it worked pretty much exclusively in San Francisco? Well, good news/bad news time. The good news: more people outside of San Francisco are getting it now! The bad news: its still not for everybody. The company just announced a small roll out on… Read More
Google Capital has rebranded to CapitalG, Facebook hub gives its election hub top billing in hopes of making you a more informed voter, Wish is rumored to be raising $500 million, Lucas Matney was really impressed by Doppler Labs’ Here One device and the NFL is launching a virtual reality series on YouTube. All this on Crunch Report. Read More
AIs have more or less mastered chess, Go and a number of other highly cerebral games — how will they do on something like StarCraft II, which combines high-level strategy with the need for quick reaction times and tactical thinking? Probably great, honestly. And this collaboration between Google’s DeepMind and Blizzard will ensure it. Read More
When cities are designed and deployed as a single unit, they don’t carry the cultural vibrancy of a city built organically in response to the needs and desires of its denizens. The piecemeal approach to integrating smart city technology is more appealing than the built-from-scratch approach — it’s the only way to preserve the character of the city. Read More
The Happy Home Company is the latest home services startup to call it quits. The company was founded by Doug Ludlow, who sold his previous startup, Hipster, to AOL (which also owns TechCrunch). Its goal was to take some of the confusion out of the home maintenance process — when something broke in your home, Happy Home’s “home managers” would help you find the right… Read More
This morning Samsung announced that it was issuing a voluntary recall to address some 700-plus reports of malfunctioning top-loading washing machines, including one very unfortunate case of a broken jaw. It was the cherry on top of what has already been a rough few months for the hardware giant, driven mostly by the prolonged saga of the Galaxy Note 7. Heading into the weekend, the… Read More
This week, Facebook’s Trending Topics system was notably late to a huge social media protest, Elon Musk announced new solar roof panels that the company hopes will change how we consume electric power and Instagram tested shoppable tags. These are some of this week’s top stories in tech. Want to receive the Weekly Roundup in your inbox? Well, turns out you can. Read More
Do you, like many others, wake up each morning, gaze upon your Amazon Echo, and think, “Damn it, Echo. Instead of a shiny cylinder, why can’t you be a singing fish?”
Good news, friend. Your dreams have come true.
On his Facebook profile, artist Brian Kane briefly demonstrates what happens when you take one of those oh-so-classy singing fish — “Big Mouth Billy… Read More
And the post-Alphabet Google rebranding continues. Google Capital — the company’s venture arm that focuses on growth-stage companies (read: those that have proven their idea and are now growing) as opposed to earlier-stage startups — is now “CapitalG.” All this, it’s worth noting, is a separate thing from GV, Alphabet’s investment arm that focuses on… Read More
TrendKite announced today that it has raised $16.3 million in Series D funding. The company says it helps businesses understand the impact of their news coverage and public relations strategy — like which articles are driving the most awareness of their brand, the total audience that’s being reached by the coverage and the sentiment of that coverage. TrendKite also shows you… Read More
Periscope Data, the company that lets data scientists quickly build customized, highly detailed visualizations of their data, has signed the term sheet on a ~$25 million funding round, according to sources close to the matter.
Sources told TechCrunch that the pre-funding valuation was at $100 million, and the round was led by existing Periscope Data investor DFJ. DFJ also led Periscope… Read More
Sure, for many of us next Wednesday can’t get here soon enough to finally put an end to this multi-year election cycle, but before that day arrives, it’s time for some civic duty. Uber and Lyft, for their part, are taking steps to remove a little bit of pain from locating and getting to the proper polling place. Uber’s teamed up with Google to offer up an in-app “Find… Read More
We are faced with a huge gender imbalance in technology that is only getting worse. Today, just 24 percent of the U.S. computing workforce is female. New research from Accenture and Girls Who Code estimates that if we stay on our current course, the number of women in computing will fall to 22 percent of the workforce by 2025. The connection is undeniable and decisive action is needed. Read More
Apple is addressing the sudden and wide inexplicable fear of dongles driven by the MacBook Pro’s USB-C only approach with a store-wide discount on adapters. The price cut applies to a bunch of dongles, accessories and peripheral devices that allow users to attach legacy devices to the new laptops, which ship with between 2 and 4 Thunderbolt 3 capable USB-C ports, and nothing else.
The… Read More
Facebook’s ad ambitions are expanding to encompass Internet-connected TVs — it will be conducting a test of its ad network on Apple TV and Roku next week. Other online ad companies (including TechCrunch-owner AOL) have explored TV advertising already. In Facebook’s case, the company will use Facebook data to target ads for A+E and Tubi TV — basically, what the… Read More
The Powerbeats3 don’t look all that different from their predecessors. There are a few tweaks here and there, mostly aimed at getting them to fit better. The primary distinction is tucked away inside, a happy addition to the Bluetooth earbuds that arrives as a result of the headphone company’s acquisition by Apple. While the brand wasn’t exactly front and center at the… Read More
I spend most of my days chatting with virtual/augmented reality companies, so the world of Black Mirror always seems a bit more imminent than it perhaps is. That being said, the future felt frighteningly close after my brief demo with Doppler Labs’ Here One smart earbuds. At face value, the Here Ones are just another pair of expensive wireless earbuds that have been created because… Read More
Visitors to the Westfield World Trade Center (the recently opened mall below the World Trade Center) will be able to get a hands-on virtual reality experience this month — an experience curated by Tribeca Enterprises, the organization behind the Tribeca Film Festival. Tribeca has held a number of VR events before, but programmer Loren Hammonds noted that those events are part of the… Read More
Turkey has once again blocked access to social media in an apparent effort to keep a lid on protests; many in the capital and elsewhere are demonstrating following the arrest of a number of opposition leaders. Here are some ways to get around the block. Read More
