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
As software proliferates every corner of a business, IT is being crushed by demands from users who require applications and data to be always available and always connected. IT can no longer meet the demand by simply running faster on the hamster wheel. The new operating model requires IT to build reusable, self-service assets and infrastructure to avoid reinventing the wheel every time a… Read More
Chat bots have ballooned in popularity in recent months, and now we’re seeing some interesting examples of how that technology, where computers interact and respond to human requests, is being used to solve other problems. Today, Zendesk is taking the wraps off “Automatic Answers”, a service for businesses to reply to emails from customers without ever having a human… Read More
It’s really frustrating when that super-fly Snapchat you took at 55 mph of the unreleased Tesla Model 3 you caught in the wild turns out blurry. DigitalGlobe will be able to snap that picture from 400 miles away, at 17,000 mph, with its new satellite.
TechCrunch got a sneak preview of DigitalGlobe‘s, nearly billion dollar, satellite that will be able to send hella dope grams… Read More
Made In Space, the company that owns and operates a 3D printer on the International Space Station, has announced their next big project: growing optical fiber in microgravity. The company is scheduled to send a new manufacturing product to the ISS in the first quarter of 2017. If initial tests are successful, the company could begin producing higher-quality optical fiber for applications here… Read More
Adobe’s Lightroom is a widely used tool among photographers, but the mobile version has always been hampered by poor RAW support — until now. Previously limited to DNG files, Lightroom for iOS now has the ability to open and tweak any RAW file that the desktop version can. Read More
The road to the Rio Olympics for the U.S. women’s volleyball team has included grueling six-hour practice sessions, sparking the need for players to train smart — not just hard. After all, one critical injury could derail the team’s chances of a successful showing on the world stage. That’s where a tiny wearable by VERT comes into play. Read More
