Category: Tech news

 Tom Hanks’ name can do more than sell a movie, it seems. His recently launched, hipster-ish typewriter app for iPad, Hanx Writer, has now shot to the top of the iTunes App Store, ranking No. 1 in both the Productivity section, as well as Overall. Launched last week, Hanx Writer turns your iPad into an old-fashioned typewriter, offering a pseudo-analog typing experience. The bangs of… Read More

 Meet Noke: a water-resistant connected padlock that doesn’t need a physical key to be unlocked — the clue is in the name, which is pronounced ‘no-key’ — instead it uses Bluetooth connectivity as the unlocking mechanism, triggered when your smartphone is nearby. Read More

 Community Health Systems, one of the largest hospital operators in the U.S., today announced that hackers stole about 4.5 million records with patient names, addresses, birth data, phone numbers and Social Security numbers. The company says the data was stolen in attacks that occurred between April and June 2014 and the hackers gained access to data from anybody who was referred for or… Read More

 Thanks to the predicted tech talent shortage and uncertainty in other industries, the idea of switching careers to jump to the tech industry is an enticing prospect for many in these less-than-stellar economic times. Read More

The Pocket Kick from Soundfreaq is small (“pocket” is probably a misnomer, but it is very tiny), it costs $100, and the sound quality it produces puts it at the head of the class of small speakers at this price.

 We rarely talk about bags on TC these days (except during Bag Week) but here’s a crowdfunding project that I think would be perfect for all of us multi-phone, laptop-toting nerdotrons. Call the Bolstr, this U.S.-made bag is small enough to be unobtrusive and not fancy enough to rank as a true murse. Created by Cleveland native Jay Yoo, the thin back features pockets for all your… Read More

 We’re in the mid-August tech news cycle (AKA, it’s pretty slow), which made for some interesting topics for this week’s episode of CrunchWeek.
Pour yourself a nice cold spiked lemonade, and join Sarah Buhr, Alex Wilhelm, and I at the big white table to talk about Amazon launching a product that competes with Square, as TechCrunch first reported way back in 2012 (and… Read More

 Despite the nifty-ness of having your phone tell you to leave work 15 minutes early to make it to your flight or Siri and Cortana cracking the occasional joke, the limitations to these assistants are clear. Siri can set a reminder, but she can’t help you schedule a meeting; Google Now can suggest some restaurants nearby, but it can’t book you a table at your favorite place. Read More

 An Austin-based company called Bearch has raised $2.1 million in seed funding for its anonymous photo-sharing app Unseen, which has been trending on college campuses. Investors in the round include Rackspace co-founder Dirk Elmendorf, Indeed.com CEO Rony Kahan, CEO of Woodbolt International Doss Cunningham, and several other angel investors. Read More

 The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced Friday it would extend the net neutrality reply comment period from September 10 to September 15.
The commission has already received more than 1.1 million comments, which it released to the public last week. That is the largest number of comments the FCC has ever received, with the exception of Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe… Read More

 Tesla CEO and founder Elon Musk just announced via Twitter and the company blog that the drivetrain warranty for the 85 kWh Model S has been extended, giving it an eight-year, infinite-mile warranty to match that of the battery pack. This new warranty arrangement applies retroactively to every Model S ever produced, too, meaning it benefits both existing and new owners. Read More

 It’s come to our attention that PotatoStock is a go. Zack “Danger” Brown, a Columbus, Ohio native, previously confirmed that he will put the proceeds raised from his potato salad Kickstarter to good use, namely founding PotatoStock, a philanthropic music festival featuring “gallons” of potato salad. The festival, which will be held on August 27 in Columbus,… Read More

 Gillmor Gang – Robert Scoble, Kevin Marks, Dan Farber, Keith Teare, and Steve Gillmor. LIVE recording session has concluded for today Read More

 With over a million apps in each the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store, there’s an app—or 10—for practically everything a consumer needs. So why is it in an ever-growing sea of competing apps, some take off like rocket ships while most fade into obscurity? The answer is magic. Read More

 Serial entrepreneur, investor, and overall Internet good guy Kevin Rose is stepping down from his role of general partner at Google Ventures. The Digg and Revision3 founder will be moving into a part-time role at the firm, and will be using all his spare time to embark on a whole new adventure building a mobile startup called North. Read More