Samsung teases new tablet launching at Mobile World Congress

 Samsung isn’t launching its upcoming Galaxy S8 flagship smartphone at Mobile World Congress, but it looks like the Korean firm will unveil a new tablet at the Barcelona show. Today, Samsung teased an upcoming device through invites to a press event on February 26, the eve of MWC. This looks like being the Galaxy Tab S3, which just cleared the FCC hinting at an imminent arrival. Its… Read More

Apple shares up 3% after company beats earnings expectations

 Apple’s latest quarter surpassed earnings expectations, sending the stock up about 3% in initial after-hours trading. Its fiscal first quarter of 2017 saw record earnings of $3.36 per share, well above the $3.21 forecast by Wall Street. Revenue also beat, coming in at $78.4 billion, versus the $77.3 analysts were predicting. Investors were pleased that the company sold 78.3 million… Read More

Apple’s return to growth was stronger than everyone expected this quarter

 Wall Street and Apple had expected to return to growth this quarter following the holiday season, though it was supposed to be largely incremental. And what it wasn’t exactly a blowout, Apple still pleasantly surprised Wall Street with better results than what was expected. Apple said it sold 78.3 million iPhones — which is its main growth engine — whereas Wall Street… Read More

Coin will shut down its product services at the end of February

 This was all inevitable, of course. Fitbit has made its plans for Coin clear since it bought the mobile payment company back in May of last year. At the time, the wearable maker announced that it was shutting down the Coin Developer Program, though cards would remain active until their batteries finally gave up the ghost. The company has since announced via its blog that product services will… Read More

Zenefits launches new tools for employee compliance and looks to simplify pricing

 Zenefits today said it would be introducing new pricing tiers in an effort to simplify them, as well as add new tools for HR managers to ensure that employees are getting their documents in and they are compliant with regulations. The new tools — and pricing — are another way that Zenefits is trying to differentiate itself as an all-in-one platform for managing employee records… Read More

LEGO Life is a new social network where kids can share their creations

 Club Penguin may be shutting down, but there’s a new social network for kids arriving today from LEGO. The company known for its physical blocks and building sets is launching LEGO Life, a safe, online space where kids can share their LEGO creations, and connect with a broader community. Available as an iOS and Android application, the social network is aimed at those under the age of… Read More

Club Penguin is shutting down

 Club Penguin, the Disney-owned social network for kids, announced this morning it’s shutting down. In its place, the company will launch a new product for mobile, Club Penguin Island, which has been in development over the past several years. Club Penguin Island will launch in March, while the Club Penguin game on the desktop and mobile devices will shut down on March 29, 2017. The… Read More

Around 5-percent of ‘Super Mario Run’ downloaders end up buying the game

 Some additional insight out of today’s Nintendo earnings. The gaming giant offered some key contextual information about Mario’s recent mobile debut. The title has racked up more than 78 million downloads globally, according to the company, pulling in a respectable $53 million or so since it hit iOS in December. The company puts Super Mario Run’s conversation rate at… Read More

Backed by author Amy Tan, mobile fiction startup Radish raises $3M

 Radish is officially launching its mobile apps for reading bite-sized chunks of serialized fiction — and it’s announcing that it has raised $3 million in seed funding. This isn’t the first startup to experiment with new ways to deliver fiction via e-readers and mobile devices. In fact, I wrote about one of them in my very first piece for TechCrunch five years ago. But… Read More

SoundHound raises $75M to bring its voice-enabled AI everywhere

 SoundHound has been around for 10 years and, before today, had raised around $40 million in financing as its worked to build a massive conversational AI platform. But today, the company is adding an even more cash to that pile, nearly doubling the amount that it’s already raised with a $75 million round including strategic investors like NVIDIA and Samsung Catalyst Fund, among others. Read More

We need startups to build democracy tech

 It’s time to actually make the world a better place. Silicon Valley was birthed from an existential threat to the world. Nazi radar defense technology was decimating the Allied air forces. But American engineers heeded the call, and in a Harvard lab led by Stanford professor Frederick Terman, invented radar jammers that helped win the war. Terman brought the engineering talent back to… Read More

Razer acquires Nextbit, the startup behind the Robin smartphone

 Three months after acquiring iconic audio tech company THX, Razer is making another move to expand its business beyond hardware and software for the gaming community. The company has acquired Nextbit, the startup behind the Robin smartphone, founded by Android veterans who had set out with high hopes (and some decent funding) to rethink how to build a mobile phone that leant on cloud… Read More

Instagram Stories is stealing Snapchat’s users

 Good enough and convenient. That’s proved a winning strategy for Instagram’s clone, according to a dozen analytics providers, social media celebrities, and talent managers who told TechCrunch they’ve seen a decline in Snapchat Stories usage since Instagram Stories launched on August 2nd. Read More