Category: Tech news

 Private group messaging is a feature Twitter is supposedly working on and that many have been waiting to come out for a while, but we’ve yet to see. Read More

 The natural reaction of many citizens, companies and governments is to try to get their data out of the United States and out of the hands of American companies.  The idea is a seductive one, even for Americans.  Offshoring money has been a popular strategy for tax avoidance.  Why not offshore data to a foreign company? This offshoring of data to avoid surveillance is not just an idle… Read More

 Last year at CES we were introduced to Onewheel, a crazy new self-balancing skateboard built by electromechanical engineer and board sports enthusiast Kyle Doerksen. Less than a year after the project went up on Kickstarter, Onewheel is shipping to early backers and those who pre-ordered the device. A few weeks ago, we got a tour of the Onewheel assembly line to see how it gets put together and… Read More

Microsoft’s search engine Bing.com and other sites, including live.com, suffered a brief outage of somewhere around 20 minutes today, give or take, according to reports on Twitter and other website-monitoring services. While Bing.com and others have since returned (in fact, while we were reaching out for comment on the outage), we noticed also that Yahoo’s search service (powered… Read More

 President Obama has signed an executive order authorizing new sanctions against North Korea, according to a press release from the US Treasury Department. The sanctions are described as a response to the recent hack of Sony Pictures Entertainment. The hackers also threatened violence if Sony released The Interview, a comedy revolving around the attempted assassination of North Korean leader… Read More

 If you’re attending the show we want to see you. As in year’s past, TechCrunch will have a large broadcast tent in front of the Las Vegas Convention Center. You can’t miss it. There are LED panels all over it. Twice a day we will hold Hardware Battlefield where 16 startups will compete for $50,000 and the Metal Man trophy. You can watch the show live at the booth or here… Read More

 Vinnie Omari, alleged member of the Lizard Squad, the hacking crew that took down both Xbox Live and the Playstation Network on Christmas, was arrested in Twickenham on December 31. Omari provided details to the Daily Dot regarding the arrest and the police issued a press release announcing the raid.
From the release:
?The South East Regional Organised Crime Unit (SEROCU) has arrested a… Read More

 Polaroid’s attempt to re-establish its brand in the age of digital photos continues this morning with the announcement that it has partnered with Edinburgh-based photo journaling service Blipfoto, which is now relaunching and expanding into the U.S. The service, available on the web and in mobile apps for iOS and Android, offers users a place to document their lives by sharing only… Read More

 The great Danish physicist Niels Bohr once observed that “prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future.” Particularly in the ever-changing world of technology, today’s bold prediction is liable to prove tomorrow’s historical artifact. But thinking ahead about wide-ranging technology and market trends is a useful exercise for those of us engaged… Read More

 Codementor, which lets developers get coding advice from vetted experts, was created to help people finish building projects. Successfully launching an app involves more than just coding it, however, so the founders of the startup have created Makers Year to help get more projects off the ground. Read More

 The beta version of the Photos app on iCloud.com has disappeared, several sites are reporting this morning, and we’ve also confirmed through tests. Previously, the app allowed Apple users signed in via the web to access their iCloud Photo Library on their PC or Mac. The app isn’t just missing from the iCloud.com homepage, either – visiting the URL directly also displays… Read More

 Scribd, a startup offering unlimited access to half a million e-books for $8.99 a month, is announcing that it has Raised $22 million in additional funding. The round was led by Khosla Ventures, with Khosla partner Keith Rabois (previously an executive at PayPal, LinkedIn, Slide, and Square) joining the company’s board as an observer. In an email, Rabois compared Scribd’s… Read More

 From cloud wars to the certainty that there will be hacks, venture capitalists believe that 2015 will be a year of tumult and (in public markets anyway) triumph for the startup world. Here are the visions that the general partners, managing directors and partners from firms such as NEA, IVP, Cue Ball Group,General Catalyst Partners and MDV have when they gaze into their crystal balls. Read More

 A Comcast user named Mike posted a portion of a four-hour call with the company to cancel his account. The resulting back and forth — full of long, pregnant pauses and corporate rigamarole — isn’t nearly as exciting as Ryan Block’s Kafkaesque hell: Mike’s story is about patience, perseverance and poorly trained customer service providers whereas Ryan’s… Read More

 Editor’s Note: David Hirsch is a founder of Metamorphic Ventures. The firm is an investor in TalkSpace, Boxbee, Snowball, Voyat and Thrive Market. .  1) We Went From People Searching For Things To Things Finding People Companies are leveraging data in order to serve people with relevant content, commerce, and ads based on situations and locations. In content, a good example of this is… Read More