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Pinscreen launches with high-tech distractions for a nerve-wracking election
Pinscreen says it has developed a system for generating what can be photorealistic three-dimensional images from a single scan. While the technology’s current applications involved distorted faces for caricature, the same technology could be used for exceptionally realistic video. Read More
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Prisma now supports real-time style transfer on Facebook Live
Prisma’s app now supports real-time style transfer for livestreaming videos broadcast to the Facebook Live platform. Read More
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Snapchat copies Instagram Story rewinds, adds augmented background lenses
Now the copying is going the other direction, as Snapchat clones Instagram Stories’ rewind feature. But Snapchat is still innovating on the augmented reality features it popularized, plus adding new ways to share. Today’s Snapchat update for iOS and Android introduces World Lenses. While its well-known Selfie Lenses change the way you look with dog ears and flower crowns, World… Read More
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Digital wedding planner Joy says ‘I do’ to $4.5 million in seed funding
Joy, a startup aiming to help brides-to-be plan their weddings in the digital age, has pulled in $4.5 million in seed capital. Joy launched out of Y Combinator this summer with aims to take on what some might think of as a crowded industry. There are plenty of wedding websites in existence but many more popular sites like MyWedding.com, WeddingWire and TheKnot.com popped up years ago… Read More
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Is LeEco really in trouble?
Billionaire CEO Yueting Jia told employees in a letter last week that the company’s rapid growth was leading to stagnation and management problems at LeEco, and announced that he would invest $10 million into the company and cut his salary to 15 cents in order to keep LeEco steady as it expands into the United States and develops a self-driving car. But North American operations lead… Read More
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Casey Neistat’s Beme launches Exit Poll, an app to share who you voted for and why
Beme, the social media app founded by Casey Neistat, is getting involved in the election by launching an app called Exit Poll. The concept is simple: You download the app, tap who you are voting for (the options are Hillary or Donald or decline to answer), what state you are in and record a short video explaining your reasoning. Exit Poll then will collate these videos into a Facebook Live… Read More
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Apple picked up talent, tech from defunct music startup Omnifone in August
As the race continues to pick up more subscribers for streaming music services, TechCrunch has learned that one of the most prominent players in the field quietly picked up some talent and tech to advance its position. Apple hired at least 16 employees and purchased select technology from Omnifone, an early player in streaming music services that filed for bankruptcy this summer. The… Read More
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Facebook threatens LinkedIn with job opening features
Facebook might muscle-in on LinkedIn’s recruiting business with ways for business Pages to promote job listings. The new Jobs features could give companies another reason to drive traffic to their Facebook Page beyond marketing their products in the News Feed, while also allowing them to pay the social network to get their open position in front of more candidates. Today TechCrunch spotted… Read More
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Inside an Apple smart home
Ever since I saw Disney’s Smart House in 1999, I’ve dreamed of a home that cleans itself and cooks breakfast, lunch and dinner. We’re not there yet, but Apple’s HomeKit and Home app gets us (me) a bit closer to that dream. Apple is racing against Amazon and Google to try to get the masses to adopt the smart home. Unlike Amazon and Google, Apple isn’t manufacturing… Read More
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Twitter still might save Vine by selling it
Vine may survive after all. Twitter is currently vetting multiple term sheets from companies offering to buy Vine, and hopes to make a deal soon, multiple sources tell TechCrunch. After announcing its plan to shut down Vine last month, Twitter received a large number of bids, including several from Asia. It’s now working to decide who should run the short-form video app. While… Read More
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Stripe launches Works With Stripe, a directory of apps that integrate with its payments
Stripe, the company that competes against the likes of PayPal by letting businesses add payment services into their apps and websites with a few lines of code, is today launching a new directory that plays into its bigger ambition to position itself as not just a payment tech startup, but a wider platform for business services. Works With Stripe, as the new directory is called… Read More
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Signal app-maker rebuts criticism of dev direction by calling for more community help
Moxie Marlinspike, founder of Open Whisper Systems (OWS), the not-for-profit software group behind the respected Signal Protocol crypto (and the eponymous Signal secure messaging app) has responded to criticism of how the group is developing its projects by calling for more contributions from the community to broaden implementations of the protocol. Read More
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WhatsApp adds GIF support in iOS app
Amid increased competition from Apple’s iMessage, Snapchat, and Google’s new entry Allo, Facebook-owned WhatsApp has now rolled out support for sharing GIFs in its messaging application on iOS. According to the app update text in iTunes, the new feature will allow users to send and receive GIFs, including Live Photos and shorter videos, both of which can be now converted to… Read More
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Blippar launches self-service suite of tools so developers can build their own AR
Blippar, the company that has brought a full augmented reality experience to a smartphone near you, has today announced the launch of its self-service suite of tools. This is the first time that Blippar has made its technology publicly available to developers, letting them tap into Blippar’s Computer Vision API and attach their own augmented reality experiences to real-world… Read More
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Why iRobot’s Colin Angle thinks the smart home starts with a robot vacuum
Robots — and the smart home in general — are a hot topic, and it’s one where an enormous amount of investment is happening right now. There are many companies like Nest and Ring that are trying to target segments of the home in the hopes of making everything smarter. But it’s easy to forget that the home is still a physical space, and in order for everything to… Read More
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Facebook Messenger is testing “Instant Games” like this one from King
Facebook Messenger is preparing to launch a new “Instant Games” platform that will let people play lightweight games against friends. Candy Crush maker King.com is already testing one of these Instant Games called “Shuffle Cats Mini” in New Zealand, TechCrunch has discovered. And other studios including Big Viking also appear to be prepping for the Instant Games… Read More
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Periscope Data pulls in $25 million in Series B
Periscope Data, the company that lets data scientists quickly build customized, highly detailed visualizations of their data, has signed the term sheet on a ~$25 million funding round, according to sources close to the matter. Sources told TechCrunch that the pre-funding valuation was at $100 million, and the round was led by existing Periscope Data investor DFJ*. DFJ also led Periscope… Read More
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