Category: Tech news

 Google is marking Safer Internet Day, which falls today, by introducing new authentication features to Gmail to help better identify emails that could be harmful or unsecured. Read More

 With Twitter-owned Periscope, Facebook’s latest video efforts, and, of course, Meerkat, is there any space left for a new social video streaming app? Read More

 Sand Hill Road venture firm DFJ is announcing a new, $350 million fund this morning — the firm’s 12th early-stage vehicle. We chatted with managing director Josh Stein yesterday about the effort, which he says took about two months from start to finish. The biggest takeaway: Expect more of the same from the firm, which typically plugs between $10 million and $15 million into… Read More

 When we last covered Lully, the YC-Backed startup had just announced the close of a $2.1 million seed round for operations surrounding their flagship product called The Sleep Guardian. That product launched in June of 2015. Today they are launching an updated version—The Sleep Guardian Plus. Read More

 Google appears to have reversed its earlier decision to ban ad blockers from the Google Play store – a move which had seen the company pulling apps like Adblock Fast and stalling the updates for others, like Crystal’s ad blocker. Now, following an appeal from Rocketship, the developers behind Adblock Fast, Google has re-approved and republished its app to Google Play. The… Read More

 One of the UK parliamentary committees that is scrutinizing proposed new surveillance legislation has published its report on the draft Investigatory Powers bill — and it makes for uncomfortable reading for the government. Read More

 DNA sequencing startup Sure Genomics wants to help you learn about your entire genome at the click of a button. Today, the startup opened up an at-home service to the public, enabling consumers to get their full DNA sequence with a single saliva test. Some of the bigger companies in the personal genome space like Knome and Illumina’s Every Genome offer an all-encompassing service for tens… Read More

 Twitter’s latest step in the tricky balancing act of championing free speech without also handing a free pass to orchestrated harassment via its platform is the announcement today that it’s formed a “Trust & Safety Council” comprised of multiple external organizations with various interests in the two issues. The company said today that the Twitter Trust &… Read More

 Twitter has been in the spotlight for the past several days over allegedly imminent (longstanding) plans to change the order of Tweets in your timeline. But while its CEO has confirmed there are no such plans for this week, Twitter is adding a new product in its advertising business that does underscore the fact that on Twitter, timing does count for a lot. Today Twitter is unveiling… Read More

 It’s a new environment for startups in 2016. Financing will get harder. Valuation inflation will dissipate. Profitability will be in vogue again. And old-fashioned business fundamentals will balance out the disruption frenzy of the past five years. Given the new investment climate, what’s an entrepreneur to do? To answer that, let’s first examine the factors behind Silicon… Read More

 The force has been strong for AI (artificial intelligence) over the last few weeks, what with Slack announcing a fund for bots, Elon Musk announcing OpenAI and, of course, the release of Star Wars. This has given all of us new hope — and even more reason to talk about AI and bots controlling every aspect of our lives. Read More

 Twelve startups campaigned for their chance to win the prize at 1st and Future, the startup pitch hosted jointly by the NFL, Stanford and TechCrunch, but only one could take home the prize in each category. Kenzen, the startup billing itself as a “personal health lab,” was among the chosen few today, winning in the category of Future Athlete. Kenzen competed against some… Read More

 We’ve reached the end of 1st And Future — a sports-centric startup competition thrown as a joint effort between the NFL, Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, and TechCrunch.
The final of three categories in the competition today was “The Future Stadium”, focusing on technology that would advance the stadium experience of tomorrow. Read More

 Virtual reality, body cameras, and the Internet Of Things are poised to change the way we watch sports. Today we saw how at TechCrunch’s 1st And Future startup competition held at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. The home viewing category winner, LiveLike, lets you watch games in virtual reality from multiple angles. The contest featured twelve finalists competing in three… Read More

 Remember Twitter? Or, at least, that would seem to be the sentiment from parts of Twitter that are now shocked that the company is considering switching to an algorithmic timeline, according to a BuzzFeed report. Everyone panic! This changes everything! Twitter will never be the same. #RIPTwitter. There’s even a top trending hashtag for it. Update: CEO Jack Dorsey said in a… Read More