Blog

 Gfycat, a player on the smaller side of the consumer-facing explosion of GIFs, has generally spent a lot of time trying to build out a suite of creator tools — and now it looks like it’ll get another piece to add to that with a small acquisition today. The startup said it’s acquiring MovieLala in a deal where the terms were not disclosed. MovieLala was originally birthed as… Read More

 YouTube Gaming, Google’s rival to game-streaming site Twitch, is starting to pick up traction. According to a new report from Streamlabs, Twitch continues to dominate the live streaming space, but YouTube grew its monthly active streamer base by 343 percent over the course of 2017. Twitch, by comparison, grew 197 percent. Streamlabs has visibility into the live streaming market by way of… Read More

 Social media giants have once again been singled out for a high profile public spanking over social responsibility and illegal online content in Europe. Read More

 CamSoda, a adult web-streaming service, has announced VIRP – Virtual Intercourse with Real People – a service that lets you simulate sex with on-screen participants using RealDoll robots. Yep. The CamSoda [NSFW LINK] service is partnering with the folks at RealDoll to add teledildonics to already fairly realistic sex dolls. The dolls range in price from $1,500 and up and… Read More

 Sneaky Pete, the series created by Bryan Cranston and David Shore, is heading into its second season. Amazon today announced that Season 2 of the drama/thriller will debut March 9 on Amazon Prime Video. Sneaky Pete follows the story of Marius, a conman released from prison who decides to steal the identity of his cellmate Pete to avoid paying back a gangster he robbed in the past. Amazon… Read More

 Sonos is offering a special limited deal for its new Sonos One smart speaker, which works with Amazon’s Alexa right now, and is gaining support for Google Assistant in a future update: You can buy two for $349, which is the same price as one of Apple’s HomePod Siri-enabled speakers. This is likely not a coincidence. Individually, the Sonos One retails for $199, so you get a $50… Read More

 Some consolidation is underway in the world of crowdfunding and online fundraising: YouCaring — which competes with GoFundMe and others in the area of sourcing fundraising for compassionate and charitable causes — is buying Generosity.com from crowdfunding giant Indiegogo (which originally launched as Indiegogo Life). The latter is using the divestment to further hone its focus… Read More

 Ex-hacker Eric Taylor, also known as CosmoTheGod, and another infosec name, Bryant Townsend have colorful pasts. Most recently Taylor stole the social security and personal records of a number of high-ranking Obama administration officials, posting it on a site called exposed.su. Townsend, for his part, was caught up in a denial of service hack that led back to his former DDoS mitigation company. Read More

 Square has acquired Entrees On-Trays, a 32-year-old restaurant delivery platform. The plan is to expand the footprint of its on-demand food delivery service, Caviar, in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas area. There were a few factors Square took into consideration in its acquisition of Entrees On-Trays, Caviar product lead Gokul Rajaram told TechCrunch via email. For one, the acquisition is designed… Read More

 Meet Cozy, a French startup that wants to completely rethink how cloud services work. The startup first launched a Dropbox-like competitor to store, synchronize and share all your files. Now, the company wants to go one step further and create an ecosystem of open-source services that respect your privacy. When I met with Cozy co-founder and CEO Benjamin André earlier this week, he was fed… Read More