Category: Tech news

Back in November, Microsoft dropped the price of the Xbox One down to $349 as part of a “promotion” (read: market test) through the Holidays.
It did great! Hell, it managed to outsell the PS4 for once, ending Sony’s long running streak as top seller. Then it did it again in December!
Then came the New Year. Right as the ball dropped, Microsoft bumped the price back up to… Read More

 Drones are fun. Drones are cool. And, for now, drones are legal. Here are a few great commercial/entry-level drones that can take to the air right now and a few that might make it into stores – and the air – in the future. Read More

 Have you been personally victimized by Regina George? You can now play her in a game. The aptly named gaming company So Much Drama is bringing a reimagined version of the film Mean Girls to iOS.
Similar games such as Mean Girls High School Showdown for web and Mean Girls DS for PlayStation exist, but this is the first time a game based on the popular chick flick is available on iPad and… Read More

 Remember the good ol’ days of personal photography? The days of limited film rolls; of crappy yellow cameras you bought at the drug store?
None of this “Oh, you blinked? Don’t worry — I can retake it!” digital nonsense. More like “You blinked? Enjoy looking at your dumb blinking face in the photo album for the rest of eternity.” Read More

 Despite being on our phones for years, Siri still often gets confused by our questions. Cloe, an SMS-based recommendation engine, adds a human understanding that provides context to our queries. And Cloe co-founder Chase Hildebrand hopes his text-based service will become the better Siri for finding out the best of everything around you. Read More

 The gaming industry appears to be in strong shape, according to a recent survey of 2,000 North American developers. The study, conducted by the Game Developers Conference, states that 41 percent of developers reported higher profits in 2014 than the year before. Only 9 percent indicated that their profits declined. The remaining developers were either flat, year-over-year, or unsure. Hiring… Read More

 Intel reported its fourth-quarter financial performance today, including revenue of $14.72 billion and profit per share of $0.74. Both figures beat expectations: The street had expected $14.70 billion in revenue and $0.66 in profit.
But neither the company’s narrow profit beat, nor its wider profit beat, have sent its shares higher in after-hours trading. Rather, at issue is its… Read More

 Cities make the sharing economy work. The overall sentiment toward sharing is shifting as traditional industries are upended and local regulatory environments are disrupted, while the sharing economy serves as a bulwark for innovation and growth — all at the same time. Read More

 Yesterday I got to play with a pair of augmented reality glasses from Osterhout Design Group, a San Francisco-based company that’s spent the last six years iterating on AR for military and industrial clients. Read More

 The Wikimedia Foundation is rolling out a new version of its Wikipedia mobile application beginning this afternoon, which offers an improved reading experience, better search and an image-centric design, the company says. The updated app will be released on Android first, with an iOS release scheduled to follow. Read More

 Games and the formula that leads to their success can be a bit of a mystery, perhaps more so on mobile. One of 2014’s big hits, both in terms of critical and audience success, was Monument Valley by ustwogames. The isometric 3D puzzler was breathtaking in terms of its visual design and had nice mechanics, and it managed to earn nearly $6 million in revenue from over 2.4 million… Read More

 Welcome to the very first episode of TCBTC, TechCrunch’s new, weekly, bitcoin-focused podcast. It has been a turbulent 2015 thus far for the cryptocurrency, making it a perfect moment to take stock of the year’s price swings and make a few predictions about what is coming next. Read More

 While a number of startups have emerged to offer on-demand cleaning services to consumers, most of them just hire subcontractors and pay them a flat hourly fee for their work. But they do little to help them build their businesses outside of the platforms. Cleanify offers something different: It wants to provide independent cleaners and small businesses with the tools they can use to find… Read More

 A preliminary Congressional GOP net neutrality plan earned modest praise today from the Internet Association, while Senator Al Franken tried to rally his troops this morning in the opposite direction. Congressional hearings on net neutrality are planned for next week. The Internet Association, which counts Facebook and Uber as members, managed to produce a lukewarm statement concerning the… Read More

 Dating service Zoosk has laid off 15 percent of its employees this week, sources told TechCrunch, and the company now confirms. According to a spokesperson, the move was made as part of a larger effort to lower expenses in many areas. News of the layoffs follows the exit of Zoosk’s founders from their leadership roles last month, and confirmation that the company was indefinitely… Read More