Category: Tech news

 Roboticists at Disney Research are investigating how to improve the quality of human-robot interactions by studying how speech patterns affect engagement with a creepy anthropomorphic bot that imitates its playmates’ speech. Read More

 The idea might not be as dumb as you think (or maybe it is). Read More

 Serial entrepreneur Justin Kan, best known for co-founding Twitch, Justin.tv and Socialcam, has left his position as a partner at Y Combinator to start his own startup incubator program. The venture is called Zero-F — think ‘zero to funding’ — and the idea, Kan told TechCrunch, is to take a very hands-on approach to building new startups in Silicon Valley.… Read More

 Snapchat parent Snap Inc. debuted on the stock market Thursday and immediately saw substantial gains on its first two days. But the excitement has already worn off, with shares tumbling more than 12 percent on day three. After finishing Friday at $27.09 per share, Snap closed at $23.77 on Monday, beneath the $24 where it opened on its first day of trading. This is still above the $17… Read More

 Chicago-based Hazel Technologies is on a mission to reduce food waste. The company has developed packaging inserts that, through the magic of basic chemistry, can ward off fungus and mold and slow the spoilage of fruits and vegetables. How big a problem is food waste? The most recent available reports from the U.S. Department of Agriculture have found that each year we waste more than 25… Read More

 Last fall, Google introduced a new system for machine-assisted language translations, Google Neural Machine Translation system (GNMT), which takes advantage of deep neural networks to translate entire sentences – not just phrases – for greatly improved translations. The company put the system to work in Google Translate for eight language pairs in November, and is today… Read More

 A report from Bloomberg paints a grim picture of left-leaning political groups being targeted by (apparently) Russian hackers; but don’t worry: this seems to be more “open season on DC” than Russki cyber-soldiers trying to derail the democratic process (again). Read More

 This is the Samsung Galaxy S8. Sure, it’s still a couple of weeks until we get the see the thing in person on March 29, but we’ve gotten what appears to be a pretty solid view of the handset from just about every angle. Once rare and coveted, device leaks have long since become part of the release cycles for many manufacturers, built into the hype machine ahead of a… Read More

 With a growing number of streaming TV services on the market – including, as of last week, YouTube TV – Sony’s PlayStation Vue is today launching a new feature aimed at differentiating its offering from the rest: “multi-view.” As you might guess by its name, this feature will allow you to watch multiple channels all on the same screen. With multi-view,… Read More

 Last week, two-year-old, NFX Guild, a Silicon Valley-based, invite-only accelerator program, hosted its newest demo day before 200 venture investors from Sand Hill Road and San Francisco. The outfit — which is backed financially by the venture firms CRV, Shasta Ventures, Greylock Partners, and Mayfield and works only with startups that have been referred to it through a network of… Read More

 At its height, River City Media, run by Alvin Slocombe and Matt Ferris, sent out a billion emails a day, slamming Gmail servers with fragmented traffic in order to ensure all of its email went out on time. After failing to password-protect a remote backup, however, the company has exposed its nearly 1.4 billion email records, some of which contain real names and addresses. The company, for… Read More

NBCUniversal invests $500 million in Snap, Jeff Bezos has plans for a Moon expedition, Uber plans to turn its app into a content marketplace and more Uber troubles. All this on Crunch Report. Read More

 Mixed reality arcades can be a huge boon for VR adoption, and I’m confident there will be profitable ventures created in these immersive arcade experiences. But the path to profitability will be a long one. Because VCs typically shy away from capex-intensive industries, I don’t see VCs as the right backers to see these exciting experiences to market. Read More

 Remember that time when Amazon decided it wanted to sell you internet service and cable TV? Well, that’s done now. Yep, Amazon’s “Cable Store” is no more. As you may recall, around a year ago, the online retailer launched a “cable store” website where it began reselling a variety of Comcast’s services, including its internet, TV and phone bundles. The… Read More

 Ed Baker, Uber’s VP of product and growth, has resigned from Uber, Recode first reported. Uber declined to comment on the story but TechCrunch has confirmed that Baker has left the company, and that Daniel Graf, Uber’s head of marketplace, will be the interim head of product and marketplace. “I have always wanted to apply my experience in technology and growth to the… Read More