Category: Tech news

 Google has made another move to build out its e-commerce business, and specifically its retail portal Google Shopping. It has acquired Rangespan, a London-based provider of back office services for online retailers, using data science to help them expand their product selection based on real-time sales dynamics. The company is based out of London, making this the third acquisition for Google out… Read More

 Aggregated data from sites like Google and Twitter have given researchers new ways to track things ranging from diseases to emergency responses after a disaster. Now Stanford researchers are using tweets to supplement ShakeMaps, which are created by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Earthquake Hazards Program to track earthquakes so quickly that data about affected areas is available almost in… Read More

Seems the Eleventh Doctor is headed for the apocalyptic future of the Terminator franchise. Doctor Who’s Matt Smith has been cast in an as-yet-unspecified role in the rebooted Terminator movie series.

 The White House this week released a report on big data in which it calls for an update to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA). The act, which should in fact be called the Electronic Communications Lack Of Privacy Act, is sorely in need of reform. Read More

 News that a major company or extremely well-funded competitor has launched a new product with a similar or identical name is certainly the kind of thing that keeps startup founders up at night. Well, the former has just happened to location sharing UK startup Swarmly Read More

Apple’s iWatch enters production, and new vital sign-sensing EarPods could be on their way.

 Applying to preschool in San Francisco is not that different from when you may have applied to college 15 years ago. You have to complete a bunch of applications either by hand or print them out from an online application, and then you have to mail them in manually with a check to each school. It’s archaic and fairly frustrating in the highly connected world we live in (I don’t even own a… Read More

 Orbotix, the company that makes fast-moving, robotic toys that you control with smartphone apps, has raised another $20 million in funding, TechCrunch has learned and confirmed with a reliable source. This brings the total raised by maker of the popular Sphero ball to $35 million, as it gears up to start selling its next product, the cylindrical Ollie (originally called the 2B), later this year… Read More

 Mobile ad network Heyzap is shutting down its standalone applications, company CEO Immad Akund confirmed to us. The iOS application, which previously served as something of an app discovery service for mobile gamers, is already gone from the App Store, and the plan is to do the same with the Android version in the near future, Akund says. The company, for background, had originally built a mobile… Read More

 Fifty years ago this month, in 1964, a computer programming language winked to life that changed the course of a generation. While many would point to the rise of Unix and other ubiquitous programming languages in the intervening years as formative points in the history of computing, on May 1, 1964, a computer at Dartmouth College ran the first BASIC program, changing the world forever. Read More

We live in a time of remarkable innovation: computers are getting more powerful, DNA sequencing costs are plummeting, and robotic cars are driving around Mars. Why is it then, that our music is being made just as it has been for decades? Sure, new styles ebb and flow, but turn on the radio and you’re […]

This is going to be an awesome summer for thrill seekers. Taller, faster, steeper, and more stomach-dropping amusement park rides are opening across the country. Zip your pockets, take your Dramamine, and check out some of the craziest new record-breaking screamers. We’ll be hiding behind the snack bar. GOLIATH Six Flags Great America Gurnee, Illinois […]

In the forests of Australia, every year just before spring there erupts a sexual frenzy quite unlike any other on Earth. It’s bigger than an ultra-romantic Neil Diamond concert, bigger even than spring break in Cancun. Here a tiny hyperactive marsupial called antechinus sprints around mating almost non-stop for an exhausting three weeks, with single romps lasting as long as 14 straight hours.

For those about hit up their local shop for some freebies, we’ve collected the 10 must-have titles.

 Online publisher and ad company Glam Media announced several major initiatives today — for one thing, it’s now called Mode Media. For another, it’s launching a new video business, with a new content-curation platform. It looks like that Mode/Glam is funding these efforts, in part, by raising more private funding. Last summer, I heard from a source with knowledge of the company that it had… Read More