Category: Tech news

 Skype’s web-based client, along with both IM and video/audio call functionality, is now available to all users in open beta, the company announced today. The web-based version of the popular chat and calling tool came out at the end of last year, with access gated based on an invite system, but now everyone can join in, so long as you’re residing in the U.S. or U.K. The Skype web… Read More

 Disney knows a it has a good thing going with its Infinity line of interactive toys, which is way it wasted little time integrating Star Wars into the franchise. The new Disney Infinity 3.0 Edition arrives later this year, and now we’re getting a closer look at the Star Wars Rise Against The Empire Play Set. This is an add-on set that goes with the Disney Infinity 3.0 Edition Starter… Read More

A company from China you’ve never heard of has made a pair of $15 earbuds that outperform some big-name models costing ten times as much.

The post Review: Mrice E300 Earphones appeared first on WIRED.

 Lawn care startup LawnStarter is announcing that it has raised $6 million in Series A funding.
The company describes itself as “your personal lawn care concierge” — the idea, said co-founder Steven Corcoran, to express LawnStarter’s “focus on customer experience.” Read More

 As anticipation continues to rise for the new Star Wars film to open at the end of this year, a hardware startup central to the making of one of the characters has raised a new round of funding. Sphero, makers of the eponymous spherical robots that you control with your smartphone — as well as the new BB-8 droid in Star Wars: The Force Awakens — has raised $45 million in a new… Read More

 Startup accelerator Boost.vc is diversifying its next cohort of startups, shifting its line-up of accepted startups from focusing solely on Bitcoin to include those working on virtual and augmented reality. Read More

 “I’m speaking to you from Silicon Valley, where some of the most prominent and successful companies have built their businesses by lulling their customers into complacency about their personal information,” said Cook. “They’re gobbling up everything they can learn about you and trying to monetize it. We think that’s wrong.” Read More

 Forget billboards or magazine ads. If an advertiser wants to put its brand in front of a big audience today, you may as well slap that ad on an Amazon shipping box. Or, at least, that’s the mindset behind the new partnership between Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment and Amazon. The retailer has begun to ship customer orders in bright yellow delivery boxes featuring… Read More

 Magic Leap wants game makers, filmmakers, and other creators to build augmented reality experiences on its platform, and today on stage at MIT Technology Review’s EmTech Digital conference, it announced how that will happen. Magic Leap is launching a development platform. It’s just opened a Developers section of its website where people can sign up for access to its SDK, which… Read More

 Today’s episode of Cribs had us criss-crossing the country to New York City, where mobile payments juggernaut Venmo has made its home. Venmo has become enough of a phenomenon that it has become a verb in many circles — “I’ll Venmo you the cash I owe for dinner” is not an unusual thing to overhear — so it was fun to go to their office in person to see where… Read More

 Following Pinterest’s unveiling of Buyable Pins — a way for merchants to sell things that users can buy directly within Pinterest — I had an opportunity to sit down with the company’s general manager of monetization Tim Kendall to talk a little bit more about it. The first thing he made clear was that, for now, brands will not be able to promote Buyable Pins. Read More

 On a vote of 67 to 32 today, the Senate passed the USA FREEDOM Act. The bill, which will now race to President Barack Obama’s desk, marks the first time Congress has moved to reform the National Security Agency (NSA’s) surveillance programs since Edward Snowden’s revelations. Read More

 Instead of spending over $10,000 on a golden Apple Watch Edition why not use the Midas Touch USB, a DIY kit that uses electrochemistry to plate your boring old steel Apple Watch with 24 karat gold. Unlike the posers who have just painted the watch gold, this process actually chemically binds 24 karat gold to the stainless steel surface. The kit currently requires a stainless steel Apple Watch,… Read More

 Pinterest grew tall on the backs of bloggers, some who were incentivized to rabidly fill the discovery network with content because they got a little affiliate fee when their Pins led to purchases. But in February, Pinterest suddenly began removing all affiliate links people posted, claiming they led to spam and irrelevant Pinning. Read More

 It was a big morning for Mic — the company announced that it has raised $17 million in new funding, and that it’s hired Madhulika Sikka, previously executive editor at NPR News, to take on the same title at Mic. As is contractually required for any digital media company raising a big round of funding, Mic is aiming for an audience of millennials. At the same time, the tone’s… Read More