Midtown Blogger/Manhattan Valley Follies: Techcrunch Latest

Lyrics Annotation Site Genius Poaches Longtime New Yorker Music Critic Sasha Frere-Jones

28 minutes agoby Colleen Taylor

Genius, the startup formerly known as RapGenius that began as a place for crowdsourced rap lyrics and now provides a platform for people to annotate everything from songs to historical texts, has scored a high-profile new hire: Renowned New Yorker music critic Sasha Frere-Jones. The New York Times was the first to break the news on Sunday evening, reporting that Frere-Jones will join Genius as… Read More
In Search Of Bitcoin At CES

1 hour agoby Ingrid Lunden

Bitstamp, the well-known bitcoin exchange that saw the equivalent of $5 million in the cryptocurrency disappear after a breach by malicious hackers, was notably absent during last week’s CES show — its pre-paid stand completely empty save for a fan of trade mags laid out by a hopeful publisher. Instead of manning their booth, reps from company, we heard, were holed up in a… Read More
From A Rebuilt ’60s Motel In Vegas, OrderWithMe Tackles Big E-Commerce Challenges

1 hour agoby Ingrid Lunden

Everyone who comes to live in Vegas has a story about how they got there. But while some of those tales may be prosaic, there are a few that stand out. OrderWithMe — a startup that started out aggregating small business so that they can order from bigger suppliers in bulk, thereby mimicking the procurement power of a larger business — is not your typical Vegas tech… Read More
Leaked Palantir Doc Reveals Uses, Specific Functions And Key Clients

2 hours agoby Matt Burns

Since its founding in 2004, Palantir has managed to grow into a billion dollar company while being very surreptitious about what it does exactly. Conjecture abounds. The vague facts dredged up by reporters confirm that Palantir has created a data mining system used extensively by law enforcement agencies and security companies to connect the dots between known criminals. TechCrunch has… Read More
Rumors Swirl That Adam Bain Will Be The Next Twitter CEO, But Costolo’s Not Going Anywhere Yet

4 hours agoby Alexia Tsotsis

The new year always brings new speculative tech predictions. Some of the most common predictions this year are that neither Dick Costolo and Marissa Mayer will make it through 2015 with their titles intact. Wall Street analysts and activist investors have called for changes at Twitter and Yahoo (and at our parent company Aol) so many times that perhaps everyone should just play CEO musical… Read More
Talking Drones With 3D Robotics CEO Chris Anderson

5 hours agoby Frederic Lardinois

Drones were one of the hot topics coming into CES, but the show itself didn’t actually feature any standout products. Many of the new drones we saw were little more than knockoffs of DJI’s extremely successful Phantom Vision line (though there were a few interesting exceptions). Maybe it’s no surprise then that the largest U.S.-based drone manufacturer, 3D Robotics… Read More
GoPro’s HERO4 Will Learn A Few New Tricks With A Free Update In February

5 hours agoby Greg Kumparak

It’s been about 3 months since the launch of GoPro’s HERO4 – but outside of a small patch that shipped just after launch, the HERO4’s software is pretty much the same as it was on Day 1. That changes come February, when the company will ship a free update that teaches the camera all sorts of new tricks. Read More
Gadgets
Yota Devices Talks A Future Of E-Ink Devices Beyond The YotaPhone At CES 2015

6 hours agoby Darrell Etherington

E-ink continues to expand its presence at the annual Consumer Electronics Show, and one of the best advocates for the tech has been Yota Devices. The Russian company created the YotaPhone, a dual-display smartphone with an LED screen on one side, and a low-power e-paper display on the back. In 2014, they debuted the YotaPhone 2, a successor to the original that offered much better execution on… Read More
Gadgets
Gannett’s Next Oculus Rift Experiment Takes You Onto The Ski Slopes Of Vail

6 hours agoby Anthony Ha

Last fall, Gannett unveiled its first attempt at journalism for the Oculus Rift — Harvest of Change, a series of stories in the Des Moines Register. Specifically, the series used Oculus to give readers a tour of the farm featured in one of the stories. Now the media company is launching its second experiment in this vein, this time taking viewers to the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships… Read More
Gadgets
This Desk Will Tell You When To Sit And When To Stand

7 hours agoby Matt Burns

Standing is better than sitting. Most of the time. Sometimes your body needs a rest and that’s where the Humanscale OfficeIQ powered by Tome comes to play. Tome’s Jack Sigal stopped by the TechCrunch broadcast booth to show me how this desk can help me lose weight. Software and hardware developed by his new company is built into the Humanscale desk and chair and will send… Read More

Gadgets
A Look Inside The World Of European Hardware Funding

8 hours agoby John Biggs

Karolina Boladz is the COO of Zortrax, a 3D printer company in Poland. Her company grew out of a Kickstarter project that ballooned and is now in the running to be one of the largest and most popular printers in Europe. However, unlike her competitors, Zortrax had a hard road to funding and ended up issuing bonds in lieu of raising an A Round. The result? A strong company that is opening… Read More
Gadgets
Some Of The Best Video From CES 2015

9 hours agoby John Biggs

CES is a huge show. While we focused on Hardware Battlefield, in truth we covered miles of convention center and shot hours of film. And we want you to watch some of the best of it. While you can enjoy all of our video over here, I’ve picked out a few of our favorite clips to show the madness, the dronelove, and the magic of CES. It’s a massive event and it’s loads of fun… Read More
Column
Why Business Must Take The Lead In Protecting The Global Internet

10 hours agoby Chris Mondini

“Products don’t really get that interesting to turn into businesses until they have about a billion people using them,” said Mark Zuckerberg in a call with analysts in late October. Imagine trying to get to a billion users without the global Internet. Underlying Mark Zuckerberg’s comment is the simple assumption that the globally united and rapidly expanding… Read More
Startups
Vegas Is In Search Of A Tech City, Not Just A Quick Jackpot

11 hours agoby Ingrid Lunden

Last week, tens of thousands of people came to Las Vegas for CES, where they spent their time milling around the Convention Center and comparing selfie sticks, fancy TVs and robots, trudging to the dozen or so other distantly-placed hotels where related events took place, and apparently drinking a lot. We went off the beaten track to take a gander at another aspect of tech life in… Read More
Column
Channeling Positive Tablet Usage To Foster Childhood Development

21 hours agoby Yuval Kaminka

“Kids spend too much time on tablets and smartphones, not enough time outside!” “They are losing key skills because they are spending too much time on video games and apps!” We hear statements like these constantly, but the fact is, technology is a part of all of our lives, including our children’s, and that isn’t likely to change. Instead of looking at tech…Read More
Column
What It Means When Law Firms And Startups Give Away Legal Documents

yesterdayby Daniel Doktori

Over the past five years, law firms in Silicon Valley, New York and Boston have put online – for free – the documents that startups need to execute basic legal transactions. But as big law firms mimic their small clients’ “freemium” business development model, they face increasing competition from startup companies seeking to disrupt the legal industry. Read More
Apps
The Photonic Lets You Make Beats By Dancing

yesterdayby Kyle Russell

While walking through startups at Eureka Park at CES with Darrell Etherington doing live interviews with founders, I forced him to chat with Photonic, a startup that makes nifty orbs that translate your dance moves into beats, while I demoed the device besides them. Read More