Amid increased competition from Apple’s iMessage, Snapchat, and Google’s new entry Allo, Facebook-owned WhatsApp has now rolled out support for sharing GIFs in its messaging application on iOS. According to the app update text in iTunes, the new feature will allow users to send and receive GIFs, including Live Photos and shorter videos, both of which can be now converted to… Read More
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Google today launched the first major update to its Firebase backend-as-a-service platform since it first announced its plans to turn the service into its unified platform for developers six months ago. While Facebook decided to shut down its competing Parse service earlier this year, Google decided to double down on Firebase (which it acquired in 2014) as its flagship development platform… Read More
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Robots — and the smart home in general — are a hot topic, and it’s one where an enormous amount of investment is happening right now. There are many companies like Nest and Ring that are trying to target segments of the home in the hopes of making everything smarter.
But it’s easy to forget that the home is still a physical space, and in order for everything to work… Read More
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I’m a really lucky guy. In the course of this work I get to talk to a lot of my personal heroes and my favorite so far has been Ruben Bolling aka the creator of Tom the Dancing Bug. Bolling is a fixture in the alt-comics scene and he has a lot to say about the rise and fall of the alt-weekly and the new laws of popularity. If you want to know how to build and keep an audience you can look… Read More
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Tesla’s new Gigafactory opened at the end of July, with much excitement from both the media and the general public. Only 14 percent of the massive structure has been built, with the rest of the $5 billion project to be concluded by 2020. According to Tesla, battery cell production will start in 2017; by 2018, the Gigafactory should be cranking out cars to the tune of 500,000 Model 3s… Read More
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Every company has a board of directors — but few founders and entrepreneurs give the matter of board composition much thought. We’d like to offer some advice to founders and CEOs seeking to learn more about their boards, as well as to people who have been invited to sit on a board. Read More
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Facebook Messenger is preparing to launch a new “Instant Games” platform that will let people play lightweight games against friends. Candy Crush maker King.com is already testing one of these Instant Games called “Shuffle Cats Mini” in New Zealand, TechCrunch has discovered. And other studios including Big Viking also appear to be prepping for the Instant Games… Read More
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AIs have more or less mastered chess, Go and a number of other highly cerebral games — how will they do on something like StarCraft II, which combines high-level strategy with the need for quick reaction times and tactical thinking? Probably great, honestly. And this collaboration between Google’s DeepMind and Blizzard will ensure it. Read More
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The Happy Home Company is the latest home services startup to call it quits. The company was founded by Doug Ludlow, who sold his previous startup, Hipster, to AOL (which also owns TechCrunch). Its goal was to take some of the confusion out of the home maintenance process — when something broke in your home, Happy Home’s “home managers” would help you find the right… Read More
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TrendKite announced today that it has raised $16.3 million in Series D funding. The company says it helps businesses understand the impact of their news coverage and public relations strategy — like which articles are driving the most awareness of their brand, the total audience that’s being reached by the coverage and the sentiment of that coverage. TrendKite also shows you… Read More
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