Category: Tech news

 LinkedIn took a step today to build up its presence in China, and China’s Uber rival Didi Kuaidi took a step to make more inroads into the U.S. tech industry: the two companies have signed a deal to form a strategic partnership covering product integration, technology, recruitment, and brand development. The announcement was made during a large meeting today at the… Read More

 Technologies only become truly integrated into society when they move from requiring forethought to becoming an afterthought. It’s the progression of all innovations and it’s now happening to how we experience of the internet. Read More

 At the very beginning, there were around a thousand startups. We hand-picked the 25 greatest companies so that they could compete in our incredibly competitive startup competition — the Startup Battlefield. They all presented in front of multiple groups of industry leaders serving as judges. The startups were competing for $50,000 and the highly coveted Disrupt Cup.
After hours of… Read More

 Meet Robo Wunderkind, the Lego of the future. This startup is building programmable Lego-like bricks that teach your children how algorithms work. It is launching today on stage at Disrupt, and on Kickstarter. Read More

 Slack efforts to reinvent email are inspiring others to simplify different forms of communication. Aircall, a company that presented at TechCrunch Disrupt today in San Francisco, wants to remove the complications around calling — and international customer support calls, in particular. Read More

 Well, this is sure provoke to some debate. Zumper, a venture-backed startup that focuses on creating a more efficient and transparent apartment rental marketplace, ran a study of housing costs in tech hubs across the United States. They’re arguing that one-third of San Francisco’s rents are attributable to venture capital funding. Last year, venture firms invested $49 billion… Read More

 Agrilyst, which is officially launching in the TechCrunch Disrupt SF Battlefield today, helps greenhouse operators run their operations more efficiently by pulling in data from sensors in the greenhouse and information about crop yields and other metrics. Read More

 If there’s one thing I dislike about owning a home, it’s when the time comes to paint a room. If I do it myself, I go crazy before the prep work is even done. So. Much. Masking. Tape. If I hire someone, I end up spending just as much time talking to friends/neighbors/the Internets trying to find a reputable local painter only to never be quite certain I made the right choice. Read More

 This might not seem like the best time to be running a startup focused on stock market trading, but Vlad Tenev, co-founder of Robinhood, still sees plenty of opportunities. “There’s always companies and products that are doing well, and there’s always comapnies and products that aren’t doing so well,” he said. “In addition to that, short-term fluctuations… Read More

 As consumers, we tend to focus on how virtual reality will work in our homes — the new types of games it allows, the insane 360-degree cinematic experiences, etc. Some of VR’s greatest potential, though, lays not at home but in the classroom. Hell, you can boil VR’s potential as a learning tool into just three little words: Magic. Friggin’. Schoolbus. Think shared… Read More

 Postmates recently unveiled a revamped version of its app, dubbed Postmates 3.0, which features category discovery, delivery tracking, gifting and estimated delivery times.
In addition to providing customers with timely information, one of the reasons why Postmates added estimated delivery times is to adjust customers’ expectations.
“Most of our deliveries are not just under an hour. Read More

 Make way for another wearable. Launching sign-ups for its alpha program on stage today, here at TechCrunch Disrupt SF, is a startup called Humon — which is building a real-time lactic acid threshold monitor designed for endurance athletes to help them tailor training to their personal limits. Read More

 Buying and running a bitcoin miner is either a labor of love or an effort at profit… but rarely both. 21.co, for their part, seems to have reached an interesting parity. Their new Bitcoin Computer is a Raspberry Pi 2 connected to a bitcoin mining rig. It is available for pre-order now on Amazon for $399. They also include a WiFi adapter and a 128GB SD card with a copy of the… Read More

 A new wave of startups, including companies like Blue Apron, Plated, HelloFresh and more, have been catering to consumers looking to cook healthier meals at home, but lack the time to shop and source the right ingredients. Today, a new service called Scrumpt is offering a similar option for kids – or rather, for their busy parents who want an easier way to pack a healthy school lunch. Read More

 Mixmax, an e-mail startup that recently raised $1.5 million from Harrison Metal and Floodgate, integrated with Inbox to turn e-mails into much more than just a text-heavy experience. With Mixmax, you can schedule calendar availability directly from where you’re composing your e-mails from Google Inbox among other features. Mixmax was founded in the past year to turn e-mail from a static… Read More