Category: Tech news

 If you’ve been aching for some high-minded chatter on the topic of how we, as social animals living in a postmodern society, interact with and are affected by social media and technology, you’re in luck. Snapchat is funding a site called “Real Life” on which just such chatter will be published. Read More

 Immigrants play a significant role in job creation, entrepreneurship and the startup ecosystem in the U.S. However, the U.S. has a strict immigration policy and has yet to pass the bill for the “startup visa.” For entrepreneurs determined to stay in the U.S. to create or work at a startup, it’s important to learn about the myths, lies and half-truths about startups and… Read More

 Gillmor Gang – Keith Teare, John Borthwick, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor. LIVE recording session 12:30pmPT.
Our live chat stream during the show broadcast
Gillmor Gang’s Facebook page HERE
G3’s archive on ustream
G3’s Facebook page HERE Read More

 Like most stories worth telling, this one begins with bad time management. The day I was set to fly out to San Francisco, I was on the road with a friend driving to Chapel Hill from Chicago. By the time I got back, I had just under an hour to pack for my new home. I got to the airport 20 minutes before my flight and clutched a miracle. Unfortunately, my checked bag was not as lucky. Read More

 Nintendo has never been afraid to go against the grain of prevailing industry trends. In fact, the refusal to follow the pack has become a defining aspect of the gaming giant’s business strategy during the ascendance of chief console competitors Sony and Microsoft. So it comes as no surprise, really, that it did something markedly different at this year’s E3 show. But just how… Read More

 The New York State Senate has passed a bill that would make it illegal to advertise short-term rentals (less than 30 days) for entire homes on Airbnb. Earlier today, the State Assembly passed the bill through to the State Senate. The next step in the process is for New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo to either sign or veto it. The bill would make it illegal to post a short-term rental… Read More

 We’ve become accustomed to staying connected whenever and wherever we are. All this connectivity is great, but it has also blinded us to the associated risks of being online at all times. Connected devices — especially smartphones — are vulnerable to cyber attacks, so security is of the upmost importance. Just a little further down the road is the next major connected device:… Read More

 The FBI steadily, stealthily compiled a massive facial recognition database without oversight and in disregard of federal law, according to a report released today by the Government Accountability Office. The bombshell report reveals that the FBI dipped into driver’s license photo databases from 16 states, as well as passport and visa photo databases from the State Department, feeding… Read More

 The Apple Watch needs an action button. Something to allow you to confirm, acknowledge, activate and navigate using a physical press. There’s even a button right there, on the side, waiting for the task. The button, located right below the scroll wheel, was originally used by Apple for the People function. So few folks used this feature that Apple is canning it in watchOS 3 and replacing… Read More

 In these earliest days of commercial viability, virtual reality is running up against the same wall as so many technologies before it: how does a company translate it for the majority of consumers who won’t be able to demo it in the wild?
HTC’s mixed reality is an interesting sort of work around, adding augmented reality to the equation, in order to offer a sort of voyeuristic… Read More

 The very mention of e-sports tends to conjure up titles like Bethesda’s Quake, the arena shooter, or Valve’s Dota 2 and Riot’s League of Legends, both arena battle games, which are played by professionals for piles of cash with prize pools in the millions of dollars. But a San Francisco startup called Skillz paid out 21% of last year’s e-sports prizes worldwide, and is… Read More

 After building out an editorial team focused on using data to cover San Francisco’s neighborhood news, Hoodline CEO Andrew Dudley said the startup has begun to explore new ways to make money. Not that Hoodline has been avoiding revenue, but the only way it has monetized until now is through advertising. Dudley told me the team agreed that Hoodline’s long-term business needs more… Read More

 Uber faces a growing number of legal troubles these days – the latest involves a court settlement of $7.5 million for background checks. Uber has agreed to pay the $7.5 million sum to a group of San Francisco drivers alleging the company acquired consumer background reports without asking them first. Uber also agreed to pay $100 million to San Francisco and Massachusetts drivers in… Read More

 Between Oculus, HTC, Samsung and a slew of smaller hardware manufacturers, 2016 is the year that VR presence played out like a hockey stick graph at E3. To say it’s the story of the show is to greatly under represent just how big a role it’s played over the course of the last few days here in downtown Los Angeles, serving as the focal point for a majority of big companies… Read More

 Microsoft has been searching for ways to strengthen its flagging Dynamics customer relationship management (CRM) tool, and it made a couple of moves this week (one quite significant) with an eye toward making life easier for sales people and enhancing its marketshare in the process. For starters, you might have heard that Microsoft bought LinkedIn on Monday for a cool $26 billion.… Read More