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Airbnb invests in restaurant reservation app Resy
Highly-funded Airbnb is making an investment of its own, announcing today that it is leading a $13 million round in Resy, an app for restaurant reservations. “Helping people find and book incredible local restaurants is a key part of us moving beyond just accommodation to focus on the whole trip,” said Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky in a statement. Airbnb will be integrating Resy into… Read More
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China’s Tencent takes on the App Store with launch of ‘mini programs’ for WeChat
Today marks the tenth anniversary of the iPhone, a device that practically invented the smartphone genre in itself, but, over in China, a more modern bellwether of the mobile industry rolled out its own innovation which could shape the future. Read More
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Samsung rolls out new smart TV services for sports, music & video, plus an updated mobile app
Apple last month released a new TV app in an attempt to centralize all the streaming TV options available across Apple TV, iPhone and iPad. Now, Samsung is rolling out its own take on the matter, with the launch of a trio of new Smart TV services focused on sports, music and video on demand. The services are a part of Samsung’s Smart Hub platform, which offers customers a way to… Read More
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Samsung opens up iOS compatibility for its wearables
After a long stint as a closed ecosystem, Samsung’s wearables are now opening up to make some new friends. The Korean tech giant today announced, on the heels of CES 2017, that Samsung wearables would now come with iOS compatibility, allowing iPhone owners to use the smart watches and fitness bands whether or not they have a Samsung smartphone. The news includes iOS compatibility for… Read More
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Aivia slaps a touchscreen on a slanted wireless speaker
Hugh Behroozy is obsessed with symmetry — so much so that they wanted his company’s name is even symmetric. And that’s why the Aivia, a combo subwoofer/speaker, is slanted — so it will fit seamlessly against a wall and not jut out because of a charging cable. The speaker also has a screen built into it, which may seem like an odd decision to make for a startup. But… Read More
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Trigger tells you when Trump tweets about your stocks
Very few people can move financial markets with their tweets, but like it or not, President-elect Donald Trump is one of them. And while you can’t do anything to prevent the madness, you can keep up with it using a new tool from Trigger Finance. Originally a class project at Cornell Tech, Trigger makes it easy for users to set up real-time alerts when news drops about their stocks. Read More
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Google Hangouts API gets hung out to dry
Draw with your face? Conference call ping pong? Not any more. Google today quietly revealed that it will shut down the Hangouts API, preventing new apps from being built and shutting off existing apps on April 25th. There was no blog post about this, just an updated FAQ and email notification to developers active on the API, forwarded to us by one of these devs. Some examples of experiences… Read More
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Sprig adds tips and equity to keep meal deliverers loyal
Some Sprig customers might be bitter about getting guilt-tripped into tipping, but at least the startup is being sweet to its on-demand food servers. TechCrunch spotted that Sprig added a tipping feature to its freshly made meal-delivery app this week. Now Sprig has confirmed this is part of a wide-range of not-yet-announced perks for its servers, including a $1/hour wage increase, to $14.50… Read More
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Siren Care weaves electronics into fabric to keep diabetic patients healthy
Instead of tracking your health with a little band that’s on your wrist, Ran Ma thinks that the future is keeping track of your health — or at least parts of it — with technology that’s woven into the fabric of your clothes. That’s the target of Siren Care, a wearable company that looks to weave electronic sensors into its clothing in order to track changes in… Read More
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Facebook needs to crack down on fake “Live” videos
Was that space walk or climb of a massive antenna tower really shot on Facebook Live? No. Is the point of Facebook Live to show a virtual clock counting down to the new year? No. Yet these are some of the videos that have crookedly taken advantage of the notifications and extra News Feed visibility of Facebook Live posts. Read More
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AOL’s Kanvas launches an SDK: now any app can use its photo and video effects
The rise of apps like Instagram and Snapchat has put photo effects front and center in the world of picture messaging, giving users not only the ability to send images to each other, but to personalise them with little doodles, lurid colors, bunny ears. Now, an app maker that has built a bunch of these is launching an SDK that will let any app add these kinds of effects to their… Read More
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Lawsuit claims Snap Inc. hasn’t been honest about its pre-IPO performance metrics
Against the backdrop of an imminent public offering, one former Snap Inc. employee is claiming in a lawsuit that the company inflated its performance metrics to lure investors. Anthony Pompliano, the one-time head of Snap’s growth and user engagement team, is seeking an injunction and monetary relief after being fired just three weeks into his tenure. Mr. Pompliano, now a… Read More
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Instagram adds Live Photo-to-Boomerang, wider colors for iPhone 7s
Now you can post GIFs to Instagram Stories even if you didn’t shoot them in its standalone app Boomerang. Apple Live Photos can now be converted into Boomerangs. Meanwhile, new iPhone owners can share even more vividly, as Instagram on iPhone 7 and 7 Plus now supports wide color capture and display. Today Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger announced the new features have been almost… Read More
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Nvidia hits prime time at CES this year
What do you do when you rapidly become one of the most important chip manufacturers in the world and your stock price more than triples in a single year? For Nvidia, it means you throw a massive keynote stuffed with announcements that are setting the stage for a suite of products built around your core technology — building GPUs — that will make you the center of the… Read More
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GoPro wants the moments you capture on the internet instantly
GoPro is facing a bit of an existential crisis as it starts to contend with other wearables — like the Snapchat Spectacles — cropping up to capture moments in peoples’ lives that they can share with their friends. So GoPro needs to basically find ways to get the footage it captures on its cameras on the internet as fast as Snapchat can, without having to do any major editing. Read More
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CrowdAI sells artificial-intelligence-as-a-service
Computers aren’t blind, but they can’t see. They can detect objects, but must be trained to understand what those objects are. That takes two things: a ton of example data collected and organized by artificial intelligence and humans to accurately label and verify that data. Done right, this process can teach self-driving cars to avoid pedestrians, detect parking lot usage by… Read More
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The recalled GoPro Karma drone can be fixed with a piece of tape
GoPro recalled its Karma drone around 16 days after it launched in November last year for an issue with the battery. According to CEO Nick Woodman, that can even be fixed with a piece of tape. The problem with the drone stems from the battery basically popping out a few millimeters and causing a power failure in the drone, Woodman said at TechCrunch’s stage at CES this year. So, if a… Read More
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Google Calendar integrates with Google Fit and Apple Health to help you stick to your fitness goals
With Goals, Google launched a new Google Calendar feature last year that allowed you to easily schedule and track certain goals you set for yourself. Right in time for people to forget their New Year’s resolutions, Google today announced an update to Goals and Google Calendar that allows you to connect Google Fit and Apple Health to the fitness goals you set in Goals. Once you hit… Read More
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New Years 2017 was the biggest App Store day ever with $240M in purchases
Now that 2016 is over, some companies are taking time to look back and recap how they fared last year. And now Apple has shared some stats showing us how the App Store did. New Year’s Day 2017 was the single biggest day ever on the App Store – with iOS users spending almost $240 million on apps. This is a little bit surprising, since you’d think Christmas Day is… Read More
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