eMusic, the veteran digital music company that was acquired in 2015 by Israeli media startup TriPlay, is expanding its horizons. Today the company is launching eStories, an audiobook service that will offer 80,000 titles at a cost of $11.95 per title to use, plus 33 percent off additional purchases. The service aims to compete with the likes of Audible, which is owned by Amazon and dominates… Read More
GoPro has been largely quiet on the Live VR front since giving a glimpse of the technology back at NAB in April. And even then, it was more of a hint at best, buried under announcements around its bigger GoPro VR push. The action cam pioneer is showing off a little more of the forthcoming system, albeit in the most GoPro of ways, nestling into it a sort of heartwarming video highlighting… Read More
Twitter’s quest to become a live-streaming service continues this morning with another announcement of a new partnership that will bring live events to its social network. This time, Twitter and Pac-12 Networks are teaming up to stream more than 150 university sporting events during the 2016-2017 season, the companies said. The news follows similar deals Twitter has made with the NFL… Read More
Ads don’t work so well anymore. To begin with, there are just too many of them. In a time when consumers are inundated with ads from every corner of their screens (and lives), brands and startups are finding it insanely difficult to stand out from the crowd. The average consumer has slowly become immune to online advertising and marketing. Read More
Rentomojo, a startup pioneering an interesting alternative for furnishing homes in India, has landed $5 million in fresh financing to further scale its business. The money was provided by Accel and IDG Ventures, and it follows a $2 million raise last November from the same investors. Read More
When you’re on a roll, why not make crowd-pleasing decisions. Nintendo, which has seen its market cap soar thanks to the Pokemon Go phenomenon, just announced that it will relaunch its iconic NES console. Read More
As of this morning, NVIDIA is in the game publishing business. In its own weird, roundabout sort of way. The company has pushed its first title out to Steam, offering players seven mini-games under the Funhouse umbrella (with a total of ten planned for eventual roll out). But while the Funhouse is as fully playable as one would expect from a Steam-distributed title, it is as much a showcase… Read More
DCM Ventures, an early stage venture firm, with offices in Menlo Park, Ca.; China; and Japan, has just closed its eighth early-stage fund, DCM VIII, with $500 million. The fund came together on the heels of two other funds that DCM has raised in the last 18 months, including a $170 million “Turbo Fund” that DCM is using to invest in growth-stage companies (that it mostly but… Read More
Amazon Web Services has made an acquisition to continue building out the services that it offers around and on its cloud storage platform. It has bought Cloud9, a San Francisco-based startup that has built an integrated development environment (IDE) for web and mobile developers to collaborate together. The news was made public by Cloud9 itself in a statement on its site, which also says… Read More
Anyone who is interested in sports knows that daily fantasy sports has became the next big thing. And leading the charge is DraftKings, a four-year old technology company that has already raised over $400 million dollars at over a billion dollar valuation. But it wasn’t an easy ride. In its short lifespan, DraftKings has already been the center of an FBI and Justice Department… Read More
After years of battles in Brussels and beyond, search giant Google has come under yet more fire from antitrust regulators in Europe concerned about the its dominance in online advertising. Today, the European Commission announced that it has sent further Statements of Objections to the company, accusing it of abusing its dominant position in search in areas like comparison shopping services… Read More
ClassPass is not the only startup looking to disrupt the fitness class business. Zenrez also lets users book yoga sessions on demand, but without the packages or the monthly membership costs. The Zenrez app, which like ClassPass is powered by MindBody, shows nearby fitness classes on a map. The pay-as-you-go service is specifically designed for last-minute bookings — users can only… Read More
One of the more interesting side effects from the explosion of new mobile AR game Pokémon Go is physical movement: a lot of people are finding themselves walking miles and miles (and miles) more than they normally would as they search for PokéStops, load up on PokéBalls, and (of course) track down more Pokémon. Now the game itself — which originally launched in Australia, New… Read More
Peter Thiel, Silicon Valley’s own wild card, is slated to speak at the Republican National Convention next Thursday, according to the New York Times. Though Thiel has previously voiced support for the presumptive nominee, his views have historically not fully aligned with the Republican Party. Thiel is a known Libertarian. He donated to Ron Paul in the past who straddles the lines between… Read More
Line, the mobile messaging app from Japan, is going public today in a dual Japan-U.S. IPO that is set to be the largest of a tech company this year to date. Yet, despite that, precious little is known about the company outside of Asia, where the vast majority of its users are located. Read More
“Motion in the living room!” says the notification from your Nest Cam Oh no!!!! Is someone breaking in? Is someone stealin’ your gold?! NOPE. It’s your Roomba. Or your dog. Or a bug flying past the lens. Eventually, you either move your Nest Cam to somewhere with less movement, disable notifications, or just become blind to the motion alerts. Nest is trying to address… Read More
If you own a Dropcam Pro (the last model Dropcam shipped before it was bought by Nest): surprise! It can now do 1080p recording. Previously capped at 720p, Nest had long promised that 1080p support was on the way for the Dropcam Pro. Hell, even the Dropcam Pro’s box said it supported 1080p! When Nest eventually shipped a 1080p Nest Cam, many figured the long-promised update would… Read More
Nest Cams (formerly known as Dropcams) are handy little things — plug it in, get it on WiFi, and boom, you’ve got a low-hassle indoor security camera. Want to put it outside? That’s a bit more complicated. The original Nest Cam isn’t very rugged, so you’re looking at dropping at least $50 on a waterproof enclosure. At long last, however, Nest is debuting an… Read More
Google is continuing the expansion of Android Pay in Asia Pacific after the mobile payments service went live in Australia today, its most significant launch in the region to date. Read More
Endangered ferrets are being saved by M&M dispensing drones, Senator Al Franken sends letter to Niantic about Pokemon Go privacy issues, Google acqu-hires KIFI to enhance Spaces app, there is a more affordable Model X now. Unity raises $181 million. All this on Crunch Report! Read More
