Category: Tech news

 Today at our TC Disrupt event in San Francisco, we had the chance to catch up with investor Steve Jurvetson about a wide number of things that are sweeping across the startup landscape (and might fundamentally change it), from ICOs to Softbank’s giant Vision Fund to AI to Elon Musk’s new Boring Company. Jurvetson had plenty of interesting insights about all, unsurprisingly. He… Read More

 Facebook has been reportedly working on a video chat device and a smart speaker that would use a new voice interface, to compete against the likes of Amazon and Google in the race to control your living room; and it’s also been testing as a voice search feature for its app. Today, the company’s head of design, Luke Woods, came out bullish on the promise of voice commands, squirmed… Read More

 Virtual reality is having a tough time breaching consumer markets and it’s not clear where the demand is exactly. But when it comes to research and analytics, gathering emotional responses could be huge to custom tailoring content and gaining important insights. Looxid Labs, launching onstage today at TechCrunch Disrupt Battlefield, wants to bring brain waves into the VR equation. There… Read More

 Berlin-based colormass, one of the startups presenting today at TechCrunch Disrupt as part of the Battlefield, has developed a platform that lets you recreate an IKEA-style experience for your own merchandise: highly realistic, but digitally manipulated 3D facsimiles. Read More

 The makers of Index are hoping they’ve created the only app you’ll need to access all your files, notes and links. “We’re giving people a full control panel for the digital world,” founder Brian Cox told me. Cox said he actually developed Index for his own personal use five years ago. Read More

 In a major upset for Apple’s smartwatch brand, it appears that it was a Fitbit, not an Apple Watch, that the Red Sox used as a medium for their sign-stealing in a recent ball game. The news comes from “a major league source” speaking to Boston Globe sports reporter Nick Cafardo. It’s unclear at this time whether the source himself or herself is major league or if they… Read More

 Following a directive from the Department of Homeland Security last week banning the use of Kaspersky Lab security software in the executive branch, the U.S. Senate has followed suit. On Monday, the Senate passed an amendment against Kaspersky Lab pushed forward by New Hampshire Democrat Jeanne Shaheen. Read More

 Roll up, roll up… there’s another e-commerce mega deal in Southeast Asia courtesy of a Chinese investor. Following on from Alibaba’s $1 billion deal with Lazada and a $1.1 billion round in Tokopedia led by Alibaba, rival Chinese e-commerce firm JD.com has announced a $500 million investment that will create e-commerce and fintech businesses in Thailand. Southeast Asia, a… Read More

 The Global Learning XPRIZE, an international competition to create educational software, has reached its penultimate stage: 5 teams out of an initial pool of nearly 200 have been selected to receive $1 million and compete for the $10 million grand prize. Read More

 Equifax learned about a major breach in its systems in March, well before it disclosed a massive breach earlier this month that included sensitive information for 143 million consumers, according to a new report from Bloomberg. Read More

 Apple and Google are ready for an augmented reality tidal wave, but what of developers? Over the past several months, the availability of ARKit and ARCore have proven there’s plenty of interest in the technology on the developer side, and some big brands from Ikea to Disney have been publicly exploring the ways in which the technology can enhance existing applications. But developers… Read More

 Since the advent of the modern ticket era, speed has been the name of the game. Whether it was the first person to get in line, or the first ping to hit the server, the winners in the world of ticketing have always been a step ahead. Over the last 15 years on the internet, that competition has risen to super-human levels, with bots becoming virtually unbeatable. For average fans, that… Read More

 Noted Silicon Valley investor and SpaceX investor Steve Jurvetson is probably better positioned than most to know what Elon Musk is thinking with The Boring Company, his project to build a better tunnel boring concern, which he created essentially because he was fed up with sitting in traffic in L.A. Though The Boring Co.’s most recent headlines have hailed Musk’s plans to… Read More

 Essential is bringing the latest version of Android to its first smartphone, the aptly named “Phone.” The Android 8.0 release is already available for Google’s own flagship Pixel hardware, but Essential has previously talked about how it will endeavor to follow Google quickly when it comes to major software updates. Read More

The company’s newest tennis shoe is made from recycled leather.