Category: Tech news

 The Mozilla Foundation looks like it’s about to take another step in its bid to sharpen its focus on its Firefox browser and continue with its fightback to gain more market share against competitors like Google’s Chrome. According to a company-wide memo penned today by chairperson Mitchell Baker (and confirmed by Mozilla to be from her), Mozilla wants to once and for all hive… Read More

 There are many reasons why you could use Slack as your messaging platform of choice for a public or semi-public project. It can be an open source project, a local community project or just an interest-based project. But chances are your community is getting big and you want to get unlimited searchable chat history. Read More

 The Holga is a medium format mechanical toy camera that became a fan favorite when it was launched in 1981. Now, thirty-four years later, the company that currently makes the camera has closed up shop and has thrown away all of the tooling. “There is nothing available for sale,” said the manufacturer. Freestyle Photograph Services announced the death in a blog post.… Read More

 In the first breach that seems to have hit both adults and children at the same time, interactive toy maker VTech has confirmed hackers have accessed private data including names, email addresses, and passwords as well as some mailing addresses and download history. The company claims that no credit card data was stolen but it seems that multiple headshots of parents and children are now in… Read More

 The battle to make elite autonomous vehicles is on, and a major part of that is assembling teams that will carry out your plans.
Today, it was reported that Google snagged Tesla’s former Autopilot software engineering manager, Robert Rose. Rose also spent five years at SpaceX, according to his LinkedIn profile. Read More

 Bob Lord will soon leave his role as president of AOL. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong said he’d seen Lord as his eventual successor, but that plan was sidetracked by Verizon’s acquisition of the company (which owns TechCrunch). As part of the deal, Armstrong committed to remain on-board for several more years. Lord joined AOL two years ago,… Read More

 At this week’s “Game Awards” in Los Angeles, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey is scheduled to attend and make an announcement of some sort, its host announced today on Twitter. Read More

 The space administration recently announced its Startup initiative by opening up around 1200 patented technologies to US startups to commercialize at no upfront costs. Soon, the space-age technologies that appear ripped from the pages of science fiction, and initially intended for deep space exploration, could make their way into our living rooms, reshaping our daily lives. Read More

 Random is the right way to describe Facebook’s attempted invasion of Amazon’s turf. With skimpy product selection, no reviews and limited browsing options, Facebook’s dedicated feed of products is not a great way to shop. At least not yet. But this is only Facebook’s first attempt. It brings with it a ton of knowledge about you and its position as where people spend… Read More

 YouTube’s plans to convert a portion of its user base to a subscription-based, ad-free service known as YouTube Red appears to be gaining traction. The company’s iOS application is now ranked as one of the App Store’s Top 10 Grossing apps on iPhone, following the launch of YouTube Red in late October. This indicates that a number of users who initially signed up for the… Read More

 Sonos users, rejoice! The speaker company just announced that an update adding Apple Music is coming on December 15 in beta. All the flagship Apple Music features will be available directly from the Sonos app. Read More

 Air shouldn’t really be something you have to spend too much time thinking about. You breathe it in, then breathe out. All good. Unfortunately, sometimes air quality sucks and you have to invest in an air purifier, which you then generally have to spend too much time thinking about how to operate. Read More

 A lot of people are excited to hop into a car one day and read emails and tweets as the car drives itself, and you, to work. It would cut down on the anxiety we all feel during our daily commutes, as well as keep the roads safer. Google’s self-driving project is leading the pack, and a recently granted patent (Patent #: US009196164, granted 11/24/15) signals that the company is trying… Read More

 When we first met the team building the LucidCam, they aimed to raise $100,000 on Indiegogo. They found their 264 backers to get them there. Their goal is to bring the ability to shoot immersive virtual reality content with a camera that fits in your pocket. And at a reasonable price ($299). I caught up with Lucid’s CEO, Han Jin, to see what’s next. TC: You hit your goal. Any… Read More

 Meet Sylaps, a voice-over-IP startup that lets you start phone calls without giving out your phone number. Sylaps is all about making it as seamless as possible to start a phone call with people you don’t know. Read More