Category: Tech news

 Streaming video service Hulu is today launching its own tool for fans of GIFs, with the debut of its own GIF search engine powered by Tumblr. The new site, dubbed “The Perfect GIF,” isn’t just a standard Tumblr blog, however, but more of customized Tumblr experience where you can search for and discover TV-related GIFs by tag, show, reaction or action involved. The idea… Read More

 Content publishing platform RebelMouse has raised $16 million in Series B funding from previous investors Softbank Capital and Oak Investment Partners, with additional participation from Buddy Media’s Mike Lazerow. An SEC filing first alerted us to the news that the round had closed. Founder and CEO Paul Berry later confirmed to TechCrunch that this was a growth round that had closed at… Read More

 Remember Edward Snowden? For many Americans who talked to John Oliver on Last Week Tonight, the answer is no. It’s been almost two years since the world was captivated by Snowden’s leaks to The Guardian and The Washington Post about American surveillance programs. For weeks it seemed there was a new headline everyday about another previously classified surveillance program or… Read More

 CoreOS, a Docker-centric Linux distribution for large-scale server deployments, today announced that it has raised a $12 million funding round led by Google Ventures with participation by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Fuel Capital and Accel Partners. This new round brings the company’s total funding to $20 million.
In addition, CoreOS is also launching Tectonic today. This new… Read More

To get a look at the market for offline GPS systems, we downloaded four apps that support offline maps, turned cellular data services off, and hit the road.

The post We Tested 4 GPS Apps That Work Even When You’re Offline appeared first on WIRED.

 The Raspberry Pi made experimenting with computing hardware and software more accessible to millions, and now a new project wants to take that concept further with an even smaller developer board that runs full Linux and has built-in Wi-Fi, all on a circuit board just 1/4 of the size of the Raspberry Pi. The Onion Omega is a dev platform designed to give software developers an easy way to… Read More

 Google’s VP9 video codec — its more efficient replacement for H.264 — powered 25 billion hours of video streaming on YouTube in the last 12 months, the company announced today. Google argues that VP9, which is the default codec for YouTube’s HTML5 video player now, enables users with limited bandwidth to watch higher quality video than before without suffering from… Read More

 When Google announced that Haier and Hisense were about to launch $149 Chromebooks — the most affordable Google-powered laptops yet — I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. How much computer, after all, can you expect to get for $149? I’ve now had a chance to spend a few days with the Hisense Chromebook and the answer is: more than you probably expect. Read More

 Virtual reality and augmented reality are exciting – Google Glass coming and going, Facebook’s $2 billion for Oculus, Google’s $542 million into Magic Leap, not to mention Microsoft’s HoloLens. There are amazing early-stage platforms and apps, but VR/AR in 2015 feels a bit like the smartphone market before the iPhone. We’re waiting for someone to say “One… Read More

 Philips has a new addition to their Hue smart lighting system: The Hue Go, a portable light that packs three hours of use on a full charge before it needs to be plugged in again. The Hue Go has a single button that offers local control over light tone and dynamic effects, as well as a low power standby mode and auto dimming to maximize usage on the go. The Hue Go resembles some of Philips… Read More

 It’s no surprise that Vietnam is being talked about as an alternative, amid rising costs and attrition rates in popular offshoring destinations like China and India. The General Statistics Office of Vietnam reports growth of almost 6 percent in GDP during 2014. Tech giants like Samsung, Microsoft, LG and Intel have invested in large operations in Vietnam, and a growing number of… Read More

 Startup PR firm Publicize is launching a new program for what it calls Reporters-in-Residence.
Publicize founder and CEO Conrad Egusa said he was inspired by the Entrepreneur-in-Residence programs offered by venture capital firms, where former startup founders and execs are put on the payroll to help the firm’s portfolio while also coming up with new ideas. Read More

 Welcome to another episode of CrunchWeek — a special one, as our brand-new reporter Matt Lynley joins us for the first time. We’re incredibly happy to have him on the team and the set.
Aside from newkid and myself, Sarah Buhr were on hand to dig into the biggest stories of the week: Shyp’s massive capital raise, Microsoft’s new Surface device and GoDaddy’s… Read More

 This week’s tech headlines saw a mega-roundup of April Fool’s Day tech pranks, Jay-Z’s new music streaming service and much more. These were our best stories of the week (3/28-4/3). Read More

 Apple has released a series of four videos today that show — explicitly — exactly what the Apple Watch can do, how it will do it and why you might be interested in buying one.
If it seems to be a bit late in the cycle to get something like this out, I agree. Apple’s early marketing around the Watch has focused mainly on its construction, originality and possibilities for… Read More