Category: Tech news

 It appears that Twitch-integrated games are not the only thing Amazon has been working on with the live-streaming site it owns. A small number of Twitch users are now reporting seeing a new section called “Twitch Prime” pop up in their profiles. According to a banner ad spotted by one user, Twitch Prime will include perks like “free loot every month,” as well as… Read More

 Nintendo has further taken the wraps off the must-have gaming gadget of the holidays — which is to say, the one we’re all buying ourselves as soon as it’s available. An aggressively retro-themed video released today visually demonstrates three of the the NES Mini’s features. Brace yourself, it’s about to get real nerdy in here. Read More

 TechCrunch Include Office Hours are happening this October 10th! Phin Barnes and Bill Trenchard from First Round Capital in San Francisco will join TechCrunch to provide valuable advice and feedback to startups. Launched in 2014, Include is TechCrunch’s diversity program, aimed at facilitating opportunities for underrepresented groups in tech to take their startups to the next level.… Read More

 What happens when the world’s biggest YouTube star Felix “PewDiePie” Kjellberg tells his 48 million YouTube subscribers to download and play his new mobile game? The game promptly shoots up to the top of the App Store, and the servers crash under the load. That’s what happened, at least, following the iOS and Android launch of “PewDiePie’s Tuber… Read More

 Ever wonder how things get marked NSFW on the internet? It’s Yahoo. Yahoo does it — with their special-made, smut-trained, porn-detecting neural network. And now you can, too, because the team behind the system has made it open source. I guess you could say they’re down to fork. Read More

 Meet Atomic, a prototyping service for your next mobile app or website. It works in your browser, but it’s a lot more powerful than you’d expect. Atomic handles animations and lets you make interactive designs. And you can collaborate on your designs with your team in real time. The startup launched the version 2 this week adding a bunch of new features that make your design… Read More

 One of the more fun usages of virtual reality to have already emerged is Google’s Tilt Brush. The VR painting simulator is often one of the first things I demo to first-time VR users and it really allows people to lose themselves in a VR world and make it whatever they want it to be. Art is more fun with friends, and it appears Google is discovering that as well. Today, the company… Read More

 So now we have a federal CISO as part of the OMB (Office of Management and Budget). But what does that really mean? Read More

 The following is an excerpt from Sarah Cooper’s new book, 100 Tricks to Appear Smart in Meetings (October 4, Andrews McMeel) In a brainstorming meeting, the pressure of coming up with incredible new ideas can be debilitating. Luckily, the last thing most corporations want is new ideas. During these largely pointless exercises, the point is to contribute using the mere gravitas of… Read More

 Facebook is stealing the Stories format and invading countries where Snapchat isn’t popular yet. Today in Poland it launched “Messenger Day”, which lets people share illustrated filter-enhanced photos and videos that disappear in 24 hours, just like on Snapchat. By using the international popularity of Messenger to spread the Stories format, Facebook could boost retention… Read More

 We’re taking more digital photos than ever, but we’re not very good about printing them out to enjoy them in our homes. Meanwhile, the digital picture frame market has filled with cheap products that haven’t kept up with technology developments, like ubiquitous Wi-Fi, better photo quality, and higher resolutions, in order to instead chase ever-lower price points. Aura aims… Read More

 I’m doing my best to resist the urge to go all Andy Rooney here and complain about kids these days. You’ve heard that one before. And besides, with all of those new VR tools and Pokemon Going, kids are probably getting a better work out than they have in a generation, right? Also, let’s be honest, when it comes to getting off the couch and moving around, we could all probably… Read More

 Tyra Banks rang the closing bell at the Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center in San Francisco this afternoon. The supermodel turned entrepreneur and startup investor was there to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the launch of Tyra Beauty. Tyra Beauty is both “beauty business and badassery,” Banks quipped in a video chat with TechCrunch. It’s a “cosmetics experience, not… Read More

 Elon Musk has a plan to colonize Mars, but he’s not rushing it. In a conference call following the SpaceX CEO’s presentation today at the International Astronautical Conference, Musk noted that the project is still essentially a hobby at the company, drawing only a fraction of its efforts. Read More

 At a company event today in San Francisco, Samsung President & Chief Strategy Officer Young Sohn detailed that the company is actively pursuing both smartphone-focused VR headsets and standalone solutions. The decision to market and ship a dedicated all-in-one device would rely largely on where the VR market goes in the upcoming months and years, he says, and whether the clunky headsets… Read More