TechCrunch Disrupt — taking place October 18–20 in San Francisco — is the world-class tech conference where startups go to grow. Building a startup is no easy task — not exactly a newsflash, we know. And it’s why we want to direct your attention to the companies we partner with to make it happen. One … Read more
Venture capital deal flow into cryptocurrency startups is going in the same direction as the cryptocurrency market cap: down. The total crypto market cap has fallen almost 59% from about $2.25 trillion at the beginning of the year to $923 billion at the time of publication, according to CoinMarketCap data. “Deal activity tracks very closely … Read more
The Blade production logo. | Image: Marvel Studios Though Marvel’s been hyping up its new Blade feature for quite some time, the studio’s now pumping brakes on the production as it looks for a new director and takes another crack at getting the story just right. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Marvel has shut down … Read more
Image: Blizzard Bugs in Overwatch 2 are like a Hydra — you cut off one head, and two more appear. After login issues, problems with account merges, backlash against the game’s new SMS Protect feature, and taking down the servers twice for emergency fixes, Blizzard had to disable two heroes as bugs were leaving them … Read more
Many Americans feel comfortable treating their advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), which partially automate certain driving functions, as full self-driving systems, according to a study from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). The survey explored habits, expectations and attitudes among regular users of General Motors Super Cruise, Nissan/Infiniti ProPILOT Assist and Tesla Autopilot. A … Read more
What happens when you’re working away from your office, so you don’t have your big desk and multiple large monitors with you? You could just use your laptop and make do. Or, you could buy a $1,499 Quest Pro, which Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg says is built with work specifically in mind. Today, in Horizon … Read more
This Shark robot vacuum is only sold as a package with its self-cleaning charging station. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge If you’re in the market for a quality robot vacuum, the midrange Shark AI Ultra XL is now on sale for an all-time low price of $349.99 at Amazon. This deal … Read more
Welcome back to Found, where we get the stories behind the startups. This week Darrell and Jordan talk with Scott Gravelle, the CEO and co-founder of Attabotics, a robotics company that specializes in distribution and supply chain. Scott talks about how he was inspired by the Cutter Ants to design a vertical warehouse and create … Read more
Corporate spend management startup Brex has laid off 136 people, or 11% of its staff, across all departments as part of a restructuring, the company has told TechCrunch exclusively. After the layoffs, Brex has just over 1,150 employees. It’s been a tumultuous year for Brex, which announced in April that it was leaning into the … Read more
A year after rebranding Facebook to Meta, Mark Zuckerberg is still all in on building the metaverse Continue reading…
At Meta Connect 2022, the company’s annual developer conference for its VR efforts and Oculus hardware platform, the company announced a lot of stuff — but what it communicated more effectively than anything else was just how incredibly thirsty — one might even say desperate — Mark Zuckerberg is for his metaverse bet to pay … Read more
The low-step frame and big, chunky tires are designed for comfort and approachability. | Image: Specialized Globe, the utility e-bike brand from Specialized, finally revealed its first model today, and I’m low-key obsessed with it. Back in May, Specialized announced it was creating a new e-bike sub-brand to liberate people from the scourge of car … Read more
Meta didn’t hold back with their announcements at Meta Connect this year. As Facebook has done every year or so, the company is shaking up their avatar products. This year as Meta focuses more heavily on the metaverse, the company made a big addition to their updated higher-detail avatars: legs. The announcement that the avatars, … Read more
Tech giants and news organizations sparring over news reporting isn’t new. Companies often complain to journalists about getting nuances wrong and usually air their dismay “off the record.” Journalists usually agree to include the rebuttals provided the companies can offer the same assertions on-record. The companies don’t follow through and the conversation typically ends there … Read more
Mark Zuckerberg’s avatar now has legs. | Image: Meta Meta’s Horizon avatars will be getting legs. So far, the company’s avatars have weirdly just hovered off the ground, but sometime later next year, Meta will let you add legs to your avatars on VR, mobile, and more as part of the company’s next generation of … Read more
Meta today announced a partnership with Microsoft to bring new content, including Windows apps and Teams tie-ins, to Meta’s metaverse hardware efforts. During Meta’s Connect conference this morning, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that Microsoft Teams will integrate with Quest devices and that Microsoft will provide a way to stream Windows apps to Meta’s headsets. … Read more
Nick Mills Contributor Nick Mills is a go-to-market leader with more than 20 years of experience building tech companies, including roles at Stripe, Facebook and CircleCI, and supporting early-stage startups as an investor and adviser. He is currently president at Pitch. As a tougher funding climate starts to bite, it’s time to ditch the past … Read more
Image: Meta Microsoft is bringing Xbox Cloud Gaming to Meta’s Quest VR platform. The two companies announced the partnership at Meta’s Connect event on Tuesday but didn’t announce a release date. With Xbox Cloud Gaming, “You’ll be able to play 2D games with your Xbox controller projected on a massive screen on Quest,” Microsoft CEO … Read more
Huge news for, like, five people: you can take videos on Horizon Worlds and share them to Facebook and Instagram Reels, Meta’s TikTok clone. At today’s Meta Connect event, the company formerly known as Facebook announced this new way to share content from Horizon Worlds, Meta’s flagship social VR app. Despite launching about a year … Read more
Microsoft Teams on Meta’s Quest VR headsets. | Image: Meta Microsoft and Meta looked like they were on a collision course last year, poised to compete heavily for the future of work in the metaverse. But today, both companies announced they are partnering to collaborate on how people will work and even game in virtual … Read more
Earlier this year, when we covered the news that Meta had signed on fast food giant McDonald’s as a customer for Workplace, the B2B service that was originally conceived as a Facebook for enterprises, we noted that Workplace the product had, curiously, been moved into a larger “Reality Labs” division to bring it closer to … Read more
At Meta Connect 2022, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the company’s latest virtual reality headset, but after years of striving to bring down the cost-of-entry to the VR world, the newly announced Quest Pro appears to be all about pushing technical boundaries. The new device shares the Quest name, but has little in common with the … Read more
Image: Apple The trailer for season 3 of Mythic Quest, Apple TV Plus’ comedy show about game development, debuted on Tuesday, and as with previous seasons, it seems to tackle a lot of the big issues in game development today: the difficulty of adapting playable experiences into movies; having to deal with massive egos; and … Read more
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Among Us may have had its heyday two full years ago, but Meta isn’t counting out 2020’s hottest multiplayer whodunnit. Today during its big VR developer event, Meta announced that the indie game will hit the Meta Quest 2 on November 10. Meta first announced Among Us back in April, promising that the game would … Read more
The Meta Quest Pro virtual reality headset. | Photo by Alex Heath / The Verge Meta finally showed off its Quest Pro virtual reality (VR) headset at its Connect event on Tuesday, revealing that the high-end device will sport the new Snapdragon XR2 Plus Gen 1 chip. Qualcomm says the chip offers 50 percent higher … Read more