Category: Tech news

 How do you know when things have gone full-on CES? It’s probably a pretty good sign when people start launching smart hairbrushes. Like the many connected toothbrushes that have come before it, the Kérastase Hair Coach Powered by Withings is an attempt to convince the early adopting public that their dumb old products just aren’t cutting it in this ever more connected world.… Read More

 Since Ultrahaptics was founded in 2013, the company has showed off a string of better and better technical demos. Which has been fun, but obviously where the rubber really hits the road (pun most emphatically intended) is when the products start showing up in the real world. 2017 may just prove to be the year that happens. Read More

 While Qualcomm continues to work on closing its $47 billion acquisition of automotive chipmaker NXP, it’s also driving ahead with developing car technology on its own steam. Today at CES, the chipmaker unveiled several initiatives to drive further into the connected car space, including a partnership with Volkswagen, a connected car trial in Germany, a new class of high-bandwidth,… Read More

 Houseparty is a new group video chat app that was built by the founders of ex-livestreaming app Meerkat. The app provides a space to video chat with friends – once you open the app you can just pop in other friends group video chats, or wait for friends to join yours. But currently the app notifies all of your friends (who are Houseparty users) with a push notification each time you… Read More

 After a year of criticism and allegations around fake news, censorship, and bias, Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg is using his yearly challenge to educate himself on the needs and problems of his users around the United States. That could help Facebook become a better platform for the voices and ideas of everyone, not just those on the coasts or who work in technology. This is… Read More

 When Qualcomm first teased the latest version of its near ubiquitous Snapdragon line back in mid-November, it was fairly light on the details. At the time, it offered some vague promises of performance enhancements, lowered power consumption and a Quick Charge speed bump baked into a 10-nanometer designed built with manufacturing partner, Samsung.
As promised, the San Diego-based component… Read More

 On the heels of raising $58 million in December, the wearables company Osterhout Design Group — known for making smart glasses and other gear for organizations like the U.S. military — is today making its first foray into the consumer market. At the CES show in Las Vegas, ODG unveiled the R-8 and R-9, two models of augmented/virtual reality smart glasses aimed at a wider range… Read More

 Tesla said it delivered approximately 76,230 vehicles in 2016, falling short of the 80,000 vehicle projection it set for the year in its fourth-quarter earnings report at the beginning of the year. It’s a slight miss, and it doesn’t seem like one that’s made Wall Street all that upset. The company in October reported that it had made a profit in the third quarter, saying… Read More

 Since the advent of accelerators, venture capitalists have competed to lock in deals with the best startups in a given batch. Entrepreneur turned investor Sean O’ Sullivan thought it would be better to develop a venture firm that owned and ran its own accelerators. Today that firm, SOSV, has closed its third fund at $150 million to back startups that are admitted to and have graduated… Read More

 We’ve landed in Las Vegas, and we’re going to be bringing you coverage from CES 2017 all week long. From quirky and innovative startups to our Hardware Battlefield competition, we’ll have plenty of exciting features for you to enjoy. Every person has a slightly different way they like to consume TechCrunch, so we decided to lay it all out for you. Here’s how to… Read More

 What would you do if you had an e-reader the size of a TV? Probably not read books. E-Ink and Quirk Logic think you’d write on it, and that’s what they hope you’ll do with the Quilla, a 42-inch display that works as both signage and a digital whiteboard. Read More

 What does my crystal ball say about the outlook for venture capital in 2017? The building blocks of a better year are in place. Many venture capital firms are flush with cash, startup valuations have become more reasonable, technology industry M&A is robust and the technology IPO market is improving. Read More

 Value creation in enterprise tech is often driven by a cohort of exits, while value creation in consumer tech is generally driven by large, individual exits — a phenomenon I recently dug into. What the data revealed is that there is of late a trend of larger consumer exits, such as Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp. If this trend continues, that’s very good news for… Read More

 2016 sucked, if we’re being honest with ourselves. But the year wasn’t a total waste. The world of tech offered up a few shining stars in 2016, and in the era of apps, five standouts were nominated as finalists for The Best App of 2016 award. As the show grows nigh, we thought it might be helpful to let you get to know some of these startups. So without any further ado, here are… Read More

 After spending the better part of 2016 researching, analyzing and experimenting in the Virtual Reality industry, here is what I’ve found to be the Top 10 VR experiences of the past year. This subjectively compiled list is informed by my own experiences spending more than 100 hours in Virtual Reality across all major platforms, as well as from observing first-time experiences, reactions… Read More