Category: Tech news

 We’ve seen startups helping brands tap influencers to promote themselves on social media platforms like Vine and Instagram, so it might be time for a new influencer marketing startup, Applause, that’s focused on live video — particularly Twitter’s Periscope app. It’s certainly a platform that CEO Jon Jacques is familiar with. In addition to working for a couple… Read More

 Cisco announced today it was buying Jasper Technologies, developers of an Internet of Things cloud platform for $1.4 billion. With Jasper, Cisco gets a company that understands the burgeoning Internet of Things market. While the IoT term gets bandied about quite a bit, it simply means connected machines talking to one another over the internet. This could be industrial automation equipment on… Read More

 Sales of action camera maker GoPro fell short of Wall Street expectations on Wednesday, with the company reporting a loss of 8 cents per share, whereas analysts were predicting an average of 0 cents. 
Fourth quarter revenue also fell short, coming in at $437 million, but investors had been forecasting $496 million. This is also down 31% from the $634 million in the same period the year… Read More

 With so much happening in the African tech market these days, it’s hard to keep track. Here’s a handy guide we’ll try to put out every month on the biggest news in one of tech’s most exciting (and earliest) emerging markets. Read More

 Strange times we live in. The world’s biggest financial players and analysts are buzzing about an invention that became famous partly by promising to destroy them. In just a few months, blockchain went from the cause célèbre of crypto-anarchists and tech evangelists to the biggest idea in mainstream banking. Read More

 Chances are you hate this protruding camera module pictured above on your current iPhone 6 or iPhone 6s. According to a new rumor on the iPhone 7 design (via Mac Rumors), the next iPhone could have a flush rear camera. The antenna bands across the back would also disappear. Read More

 Google today announced that it is expanding its self-driving car testing program to Kirkland, Washington. So far, Google’s cars have driven 1.4 million miles around the company’s hometown of Mountain View, California and — more recently — in Austin, Texas. “We have strong roots in Kirkland having established an office here a decade ago,” said Jennifer… Read More

 3D Touch was just a first step. AppleInsider has spotted a new patent that would add a proximity sensor layer into your iPhone display. It would open up a brand new field of interactions for your phone with new hovering gestures. Read More

 The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration is due for reauthorization and the Transportation & Infrastructure Committee introduced the first draft of the FAA bill today. While the efforts to reform the air traffic control system will likely take center stage in the discussion around the bill, it also includes a number of items around the commercial use of drones. While the bill represents… Read More

 Instagram today announced that it began running its first 60-second video ads, starting with T-Mobile and Warner Brothers. Until now, the maximum length for video ads was 30 seconds, already longer than the 15-second videos users are allowed to post. Instagram tells me that “We recognize that advertisers have a variety of creative resources and want to bring more choice to help them… Read More

 Earlier this week, Samsung rolled out support for ad blocking in the new version of its web browser for mobile devices, the Samsung Internet Browser. Third-party developers quickly responded by launching ad-blocking mobile apps that work with the browser. Now those developers are finding their apps are being pulled from the Google Play, and their updates are being declined. The reason? It… Read More

 Remember Thunderstrike 2? Last summer, Xeno Kovah and Trammell Hudson unveiled a serious zero-day vulnerability in OS X letting malware creators completely brick your Mac without any way to reset it to its factory status. And it looks like Apple didn’t just fix the vulnerability — it has also hired the team behind this exploit to work on security. Read More

Trans*H4CK, a series of hackathons for transgender and gender non-conforming people, recently launched a Q&A web series featuring trans people in tech. I recently sat down with Trans*H4CK founder Dr. Kortney Ryan Ziegler to chat about diversity, racism, unconscious bias and more. Below is our conversation, which has been mildly edited for clarity.
Megan Rose Dickey: What is diversity?
Dr. Read More

 Are you an undergraduate or graduate student looking to attend the hottest conference in startups and technology? We have set aside a number of tickets to TechCrunch Disrupt NY exclusively for students, and you can snag one for just $300 with a valid university ID and your current transcripts. Read More

 Online real estate site Zillow today announced that it has acquired Naked Apartments for $13 million in cash. While the name makes it sound like some kind of kinky cleaning service, it’s actually an apartment rentals platform with a focus on New York City. The acquisition is expected to close in the next few weeks. Read More