Year: 2018

 French startup Cityscoot announced a $50 million round of financing yesterday (€40 million). RATP Capital Innovation and Inventure Partners are leading the round, with existing investors Caisse des Dépôts and LeasePlan also participating. Cityscoot operates an electric scooter-sharing service in Paris and plans to expand to other cities in France and Europe. You can now find around… Read More

 Viacom has acquired VidCon, a move that seems designed to help the media giant connect with younger audiences. Viacom’s blog post describes VidCon as “the premier event for the worldwide online video community,” drawing more than 30,000 attendees to its flagship conference in Anaheim, Calif. (It’s also held smaller events in Amsterdam and Melbourne.) The company was… Read More

 It’s been more than a year since the well-funded startup Cyanogen announced that it would shut down its mobile OS development, and since pivoted to self-driving technology. Yet we’re still seeing some fallout among the companies that had pinned their hopes on the original plans of that shooting star. Wileyfox, a smartphone maker that was one of the earliest companies to build a… Read More

 Snapchat is finally getting Live video, but you won’t be able to broadcast. Today Snapchat announced it will pipe snippits of NBC’s Live Olympics coverage directly into its app. But when TechCrunch asked if users would be able to go Live, a Snap spokesperson told us on background that there’s no intention to open up broadcasting to Snapchatters. They said users have not… Read More

 After what seems like an endless wait, Apple’s HomePod finally lands this week. You can read our freshly posted review — it’s the next best thing to actually buying the thing (and a lot less experience). We’re also trying something a bit new, with a liveblog reaction, discussing Apple’s first foray into the smart speaker category and answering some questions… Read More

 Amazon’s Alexa ad was the biggest winner of this year’s Super Bowl outside the greater Philadelphia area. The company spilled the beans early, but the spot still managed to drum up the biggest response of the night (outside of some very unfortunate choices from automakers). The silly 90 second commercial centered around some high profile celebrities filling in after… Read More

 Never did I ever think I’d be writing about a technology and science-driven pantyhose company, but here I am. Intrigued by a pitch that described them as made with the same type of fiber found in bulletproof vests and climbing equipment, I quickly jumped on the opportunity to speak with Sheerly Genius founder and CEO Katherine Homuth. Turns out they’re not bulletproof, but they… Read More

 When it comes to the art and science of retro gaming, Analogue has no equal. The small company that first brought us the Analogue Nt, then the Nt mini, is back again with the Super Nt – a lovingly engineered and built modern SNES/Super Famicom console. Wait but what? A ‘modern SNES’? What does that entail? If you know Analogue’s past work, you know it essentially… Read More

 The meme-laden Tumblr platform is the latest social media and blogging outlet to be unmasked as a distribution channel for Russian agents to rip at America’s societal fault lines and seek to influence citizens’ voting habits, according to a report by BuzzFeed News. Read More

 The 2018 Winter Olympics officially kick off with Friday’s Opening Ceremony in Pyeongchang, South Korea.  The temptation to fly a shiny new drone over the action will no doubt be great for amateur filmmakers and photographers in the immediately area, but DJI’s working to put the kibosh on things by implementing a temporary no-fly zone around sports arenas in the country. The… Read More