Category: Tech news

 Tag Heuer’s chairman Jean-Claude Biver announced that the company is ramping up weekly production of their Carrera Connected Smart Watch from 1,200 to 2,000 pieces. The watch costs $1,500 and features a nice titanium case and Android Wear. Buyers get the option to upgrade to a limited edition mechanical watch for another $1,500. Biver is also trying to move sales away from the web to… Read More

 While governments around the world struggle to address the needs of the 4 million refugees who have fled Syria since the start of that country’s civil war in 2011, hackers across Europe are marshaling resources to help. At our own TechCrunch Disrupt London Hackathon, a team of five young Belgians have created Safe Haven, a location-based app that aims to connect refugees with aid… Read More

 A team at the TechCrunch Disrupt London 2015 hackathon has created what they say is one of the first personal assistants for the WhatsApp messaging platform. Called WhatsBot, the assistant uses a combination of artificial intelligence, location data from Foursquare, and mapping data from Esri in order to help you find places to meet up with friends, family or colleagues. Read More

 People in developing countries may not have the luxury of access to many modern technologies. They do, however, have affordable access to smartphones increasingly. According to a recent mobility report from Ericsson, there are 2.6 billion smartphone subscriptions globally, with another 3.5 billion expected to come online by 2020. Read More

 Ahoy, mates! We’re in foggy London town and Disrupt Europe 2015 is officially underway, as the Hackathon presentations kick off right now. In case you have no idea what I’m talking about, here’s the scoop: Before every TC Disrupt conference, we give coders and developers from the area a chance to check out the coolest APIs in the land and throw together a MVP in less than… Read More

 Dropping by the Disrupt London hackathon at around midnight, we expected to see many participants losing energy or flat-out asleep — and understandably so. Instead, almost everyone remained appallingly friendly, enthusiastic and eager to talk about their projects. They may have gotten a boost from the traditional midnight offerings of beer and pizza, not to mention a mysterious… Read More

 Big cities like San Francisco and New York are digital meccas, home to many of the world’s largest technology startups — and to hordes of smartphone-toting, app-using consumers. But when it comes to making a name for themselves, many of the companies hoping to influence these techie urbanites are going decidedly analog. In these cities, and others, it’s hard to miss the… Read More

 The rise of the edtech industry has completely transformed the K-12 experience for students. But what about teachers? Shouldn’t technological innovation be used to improve teacher performance, just as it is doing for students? With a recent shift in education policy and reform focusing on teacher evaluation and accountability, this is a hole in the education technology market with… Read More

 During its PlayStation Experience (PSX) event in San Francisco today, Sony unveiled some new information about the PlayStation VR and showed off some new titles. Unfortunately we’ve gotten no more information on dates aside from early 2016. However, the games we saw during today’s keynote look fantastic. Read More

 Uber, the on-demand transportation company that has amassed around $10 billion in funding to date, is raising once more. This time, it is looking to  to $2.1 billion, in a Series G round that could value the company has high as $64.6 billion if all the shares are issued, TechCrunch has confirmed with a source close to the company. The fresh funding, reported first by Bloomberg, is… Read More

 With Periscope and Meerkat being two of the breakout stars of this year’s SXSW, and Snapchat serving as the primary engagement tool for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, live video platforms have taken the media, political and business worlds by storm. Read More

 David Hornik believes in the free market, but argues that regulation has an important role in tempering some of the more traumatic consequences of disruption — especially in the sharing economy. Read More

 Rideshare platform Uber is looking to raise $2.1 billion. Uber is the most valuable private technology company on paper, at a current $50 billion valuation. The additional funding would bring those figures up to $62.5 billion in value, according to a Bloomberg report.
Compare that to Uber’s U.S. rival Lyft, rumored to be raising half a billion at a $4 billion… Read More

 As Uber ramps up its business globally with yet more money, four of its regional rivals are getting closer to each other in a bid for more scale and service continuity. Lyft in the U.S., Didi Kuaidi in China, Ola in India and GrabTaxi in SouthEast Asia have now inked a strategic partnership to work together on technology and services. This will begin with customers of each company able… Read More

 First I encourage you to watch the video below. By mixing a vague misunderstanding of the English language with a guy who sounds like the guy who voices trailers for action films, you’ve created one of the finest examples of the Kickstarter video oeuvre I’ve seen in a while. But let’s not pick nits. Skriware is a Polish 3D printer created by a team of designers and engineers… Read More