Facebook At Work is launching next month

fb-work-briefcase Facebook is ready to make work as addictive as socializing. The company plans to launch its enterprise communication and collaboration network Facebook At Work in the next few weeks on a per seat pricing model, The Information (paywall) first reported and a source close to Facebook confirmed to TechCrunch. Facebook believes it can keep individual employees engaged with the product, so… Read More

SpaceX shows off its Interplanetary Transport System in new video

screen-shot-2016-09-27-at-1-44-58-pm SpaceX has released a new video showing a CG concept of its Interplanetary Transport System, the rocket and spacecraft combo it plans to use to colonize Mars. The video depicts a reusable rocket that can get the interplanetary spacecraft beyond Earth’s orbit, and a craft that uses solar sails to coast on its way to a Mars entry.
The booster returns to Earth after separating from the… Read More

Former Rothenberg employees allege mistreatment and cash management problems

rothenberg As TechCrunch has previously reported, there’s been an exodus of talent from the Rothenberg “ecosystem,” amid claims of a significant breach of fiduciary responsibilities and other unconventional behavior by the venture firm’s founder, Mike Rothenberg. This week, we have learned more details about alleged employee abuses within Rothenberg Ventures, recently re-branded… Read More

Gillmor Gang: Just A Scratch

Gillmor Gang Artcard The Gillmor Gang — John Taschek, Keith Teare, Frank Radice, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor. Recorded live Friday, September 23, 2016. With two days until the First Debate, the waiting’s almost over and the voting begins on all available channels. Cast your ballot now! + G3 with Mary Hodder, Elisa Camahort Page, Halley Suitt Tucker, and Tina Chase Gillmor
@jtaschek, @kteare… Read More

We’re looking at cyberbullying the wrong way

Bad egg A bully is a bully and a troll is a troll, no matter where you go online. For as long as online mass communication has existed, online bullying has existed. To effectively address the issue of cyberbullying, one must not only question the environments that yield such behaviors, but examine how and why the behavior exists in the first place. Read More

The hopes and headaches of Snapchat’s glasses

snapchat-spectacles Snapchat is the only company cool enough to possibly dismantle the Google Glass stigma. Awkward, useless, and a threat to privacy are how many think of computers you wear on your face. Can Snapchat show off the masterful marketing and smooth execution required to produce a product that won’t die on stores shelves or in a desk drawer? To quickly recount the basics, a video of… Read More

Taking a swing for the Grammys with the new Lip Sync Battle app

Lip Sync Battle The art of the lip sync has had a profound impact on the state of our…ok no, but dammit is lip synching fun. For those of you locked in a Faraday cage, pretending to sing has become all the rage these days. You have Michelle Obama doing it for Carpool Karaoke, Tim Cook using it to open up events, and of course the ever entertaining LL Cool J and Chrissy Teigen using it as a platform… Read More

The ugly reality of an Oculus founder’s politics

Palmer Luckey It hasn’t been a great couple of days for Facebook PR. For one thing, the company admitted that, due to an error, it has been significantly inflating its reports on average video view times. For another, The Daily Beast discovered that Oculus founder Palmer Luckey is backing the pro-Donald Trump organization Nimble America, a group dedicated to promoting anti-Hillary Clinton memes… Read More

Brian Solis talks about why AI won’t suck

edit-lift11-geneva-by-ivo-napflin-597x396 This week I got the chance to talk to a private hero of mine, Brian Solis. Solis is a digital analyst and speaker who talks about the future and how big brands – Coke, IBM – will interact with humans. His new book X is out now and it’s designed to help big companies survive the changing tides of business and tech. Luckily, however, Solis didn’t just focus on his… Read More

Why is San Francisco trying to strangle its golden goose?

San Francisco holiday skyline from One Rincon Detroit doesn’t place burdensome regulations on automobile manufacturers, Idaho doesn’t put undue restrictions and hurdles in front of potato farmers and California takes steps to protect its farmers. These industries do more than just create jobs, tax revenue and prestige — they became a symbol of who they are, part of the fabric of the community and the economy. And then… Read More

Camera manufacturers, you’re still missing the point. Be better.

This is a photo of a sunset over Cologne. It was taken on a mirrorless camera, copied using Wi-Fi to my smartphone, edited using Enlight, then shared to Instagram within a couple of minutes of being taken. If my camera didn't have Wi-Fi, it would probably still be sitting on a memory card somewhere. That would be sad. Let's talk about why. Spotted at Photokina, the world’s largest photography trade show: A professional photographer, taking a photo, then taking a picture off the back of their camera to share the photograph on Facebook. It’s not that unusual an occurrence, but it served as the perfect parable on quite how vigorously the camera manufacturers have self-copulated themselves into oblivion. Read More

Hands-on with Pictar, which adds buttons and wheels to your iPhone camera

20160924-_dsc3356 There’s no denying that your smartphone’s camera is getting better and better for every generation, but what’s a poor photography nerd to do about controllability? Miggo’s Kickstarter-funded Pictar is shipping soon, and might be just the thing to teach your iPhone some additional photography skills. At Photokina, I had a chance to try it myself. Read More

Why Salesforce might be interested in Twitter

A person is seen using the Twitter app on a tablet. Rumors were flying all day yesterday that Twitter is up for sale, and Salesforce.com could be a chief suitor. At this point, with so many possible bidders being reported, it’s hard to know what’s going to happen (if anything). But the big question for many is why Salesforce would even be interested in the consumer-facing social network. While nobody could say with certainty that… Read More

Yi’s camera brings some underdog to the Micro Four Thirds market

Minimalist design. You may know Yi Technologies from its action cameras or its fancy, carbon-fiber drones, but at Photokina, the company launched its first mirrorless Micro Four Thirds camera, the Yi M1. Sporting a 20 mpx Sony IMX269 sensor, a high-quality 3-inch touch-screen and a raft of sharing-friendly features, it’s crashing into a space that has been stale for a while. Read More