Yet the news cruised by with analysis focused simply on what Facebook’s new keyword post search does today. Yes, any post by you or any of your friends can now be dug up with a quick search from mobile. But I don’t think people realize how big a deal it is for tomorrow. Facebook just went from data rich to Scrooge-McDuck-swimming-in-a-tower-full-of data rich. The ramifications… Read More
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After years of questions about how it will make revenue, Pinterest’s roadmap to monetization is becoming more clear. The company announced today that its Promoted Pins program, which it made available in beta to certain brands eight months ago, has performed “just as good and sometimes better than organic Pins,” and it will make the program available to all advertisers on… Read More
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Smartphones are changing us, at least according to researchers at the Institute of Neuroinformatics of the University of Zurich. It seems that as we moved from phones with buttons – BlackBerrys and even feature phones – the parts of our brain associated with the thumbs are changing thanks to increased screen typing activity. Read More
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You probably already know ‘Big Data’ is top of mind heading into 2015. How could you not? You are hearing about it constantly from vendors and journalists alike (guilty as charged). And you know what that hype says, right? Big data is going to provide all the answers, make your companies run more efficiently and help you make brilliant, data-driven decisions that give your… Read More
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As we’re coming up on the next Consumer Electronics Show, I got an update from one of the companies that participated in TechCrunch’s Hardware Battlefield at the last CES — Russian startup Livemap.
The Livemap team is working to create motorcycle helmets with voice control and GPS navigation directly in your field of vision — so while you’re riding, you can see… Read More
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When I first heard about the Bitcoin Bowl, I assumed it was a joke, or maybe a weird startup publicity stunt. It turns out that yes, the Bitcoin Bowl is promoting Bitpay, a Bitcoin-processign startup — but it’s also real college football game that’s underway as I write this on Friday evening.
Yes, one day you’ll be able to tell your kids about the very first… Read More
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Amazon stuck with its mystery theme for this year’s holiday sales performance review, saying things like “record-breaking” and “record growth” without really talking about actual solid numbers or dollars. The company did reveal some stats that, even surrounded by an obscuring fog of relative terms, are worth paying attention to. The company signed up over 10… Read More
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Tesla isn’t done with its iconic Roadster. The company just took the wraps off the next generation of the sport car. Chief among the updates is a new 400 mile range, which will allow drives from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Tesla notes that it expects a 40-50% improvement on driving range between the original Roadster and Roadster 3.0. Read More
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For a time I believed that microconsoles might change the face of the games industry, but they haven’t really worked out. Thoughts on why. 
This week we’ve got a very special, very delayed episode of the TechCrunch GameCast. Darrell Etherington, Ed Zitron, and myself chatted about open-world games, noting the best of side quests, getting around, and keeping things from getting too stale.