During the second quarter of 2016, smartphone shipments saw a modest return to growth after a first quarter which saw the first ever year-over-year decline in worldwide smartphone sales, according to research firm Canalys. But sequentially, shipments didn’t improve, and historical data reveals that the year-ago quarter was also relatively disappointing, all of which points to this return… Read More
Awair, the IoT product that sits in the home and measures the quality of your air, has today announced integrations with a number of other platforms to improve the experience.
The company behind Aawir, Bitfinder, has teamed up with Nest, the Amazon Echo, and IFTTT to offer users new ways to interact with the data gathered from air quality monitor and more seamlessly automate their other… Read More
PSA Group — the carmaker behind brands Peugeot, Citroën and DS — has acquired a majority stake in European auto-repair marketplace Autobutler. Read More
Today Big Health, which is already backed by Index Ventures, is disclosing that it has raised $12 million (£9.15m) in new funding led by Octopus Ventures. Also participating are Kaiser Permanente Ventures, Index, Sean Duffy (CEO, Omada Health), and JamJar Investments (the UK-based investment fund of the innocent drinks founders). Noteworthy is that Esther Dyson, and Peter Read are also… Read More
In about an hour, Apple will announce its quarterly earnings. So you’ll soon be able to read all about it on TechCrunch as we have a team ready to look at all these numbers and find out if they’re moving up or down. But I’m going to use this opportunity to give you a few thoughts about what’s going to happen and what you should look for. Read More
Self-driving race cars are a few years away but why not simulate the roar of robotic Formula 1 cars with a little Raspberry Pi magic? The folks at Piborg are offering the opportunity for hackers and makers to try and drive their own autonomous car brain in a centralized race. They’ve launched a Kickstarter and they’re looking for folks to download the autonomous racing code, modify… Read More
Scopely is announcing that it has raised a $55 million Series B round of funding. The Los Angeles-based company has built tools for promoting and monetizing mobile games — some of those games are developed in-house, others are created by outside studios. “The vision is creating the most premium experiences on people’s phone across a network of developers,” co-founder… Read More
A new startup called Rockets of Awesome launching today wants to make shopping for kids’ clothing easier by offering to do it for you. Similar in concept something like StitchFix, which sends boxes of clothing free of charge for home try-on, Rockets of Awesome helps parents build their children’s wardrobe by sending seasonal selections, and only charging for those items… Read More
Launched just 18 months after Kickstarter itself, the original Glif was an early beacon of what was to come for the crowdfunding platform, with an innovative tripod mount for smartphones unlike any other. Studio Neat has taken its sweet time to launch the sequel, but it was worth the wait; it’s a marvelously clever piece of engineering. I spent some time with the prototype to take a… Read More
As has been the case with so many industries, the pendulum of VR will eventually swing back from dedicated apps towards web-based systems — and when that happens, Google will be ready. It published details of a new method for delivering serious surround sound over the web, a system it calls Omnitone. Read More
