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 Snapchat has temporarily removed its Giphy GIF sticker feature after a user saw an extremely racist GIF as an option. Snapchat confirms to TechCrunch “As soon as w were made aware, we removed the GIF and have disabled Giphy until we can be sure that this won’t happen again. The spokesperson says that all GIFs in Snapchat are meant to be “rated PG”, meaning… Read More

 Facebook’s augmented reality camera is evolving beyond selfie masks and randomly placed 3D objects to using location markers in the real world that trigger AR experiences in a precise location. Spotted today, Facebook confirms to TechCrunch that it’s testing the feature in closed beta with promotions for the upcoming Ready Player One and Wrinkle In Time films. And in April, it plans… Read More

 Fornite is on fire. The popular game takes the familiar artistic direction and freemium structure of popular mobile games and combines it with the last-person-standing gameplay directive of other viral titles like PUBG to get users running and gunning through its maps. The game will be expanding beyond its home on consoles and PC/Mac with the launch of “Fortnite Mobile” in iOS… Read More

 Urban Airship recently announced new capabilities designed to allow app developers to deliver the right message to their users at exactly the right time. Senior Vice President of Product and Engineering Mike Herrick explained that the company (which started out as a platform for push notifications) has supported in-app messaging for years. However, those messages have been sent from Urban… Read More

 We’re hearing from a number of sources that Giphy, the big platform for hosting GIFs that also runs a GIF keyboard, held talks to raise huge new financing round — though it’s not clear if it ever crossed the finish line. Sources pegged the round at something as high as around $100 million, but that may have changed over time. We’ve been hearing about this for some time… Read More

 The high-end audio technology company Bose is getting into the augmented reality game with a new product and a $50 million fund devoted to startups that will develop services for its new platform. Read More

 Capital One today officially introduced a new way to use its virtual card numbers from a web browser, in order to make shopping online safer. Virtual card numbers, of course, aren’t new – Bank of America and Citi both offer a similar feature that creates a temporary credit card number linked to your real account number for the purpose of online shopping. But Capital One’s… Read More

 Capital One today officially introduced a new way to use its virtual card numbers from a web browser, in order to make shopping online safer. Virtual card numbers, of course, aren’t new – Bank of America and Citi both offer a similar feature that creates a temporary credit card number linked to your real account number for the purpose of online shopping. But Capital One’s… Read More

 For its latest addition to Street View, Google has employed a trio very good (and extremely fuzzy) boys — Ako, Asuka and Puuko. In order to capture the snowy streets of Ōdate City, Japan, the company strapped 360 cameras to the backs of the three Akita dogs, which hail from the country’s cold and mountainous regions. The company can’t seem to decide between Dog View or Pup… Read More

 Not really the showiest of SXSW announcements, but Google’s got a nice little update for developers looking to differentiate Assistant integration on a product level. Custom Device Actions are way to add specific functions to products. In a blog post, the company gives the specific example of activating a specific color cycle on an Assistant-enabled washing machine machine. The new… Read More