Revenue, I choose you! The Pokémon Company’s profits jump by 2,500 percent

 It’s been a banner year for The Pokémon Company: Pokémon GO was a global phenomenon and the latest full-on Pokégame for the 3DS sold very well indeed. One would expect the company to be doing well financially — perhaps even doubling or tripling last year’s profits. Well, apparently it quinvigintupled them, which is to say multiplied by 25 times. (I had to look it up.) Read More

The best Meeker 2017 Internet Trends slides and what they mean

 Here are the must-read stats about what’s happening with Internet adoption, smartphones, ads, ecommerce, entertainment, gaming, enterprise healthcare, China, India, and startups. We’ve picked the most important slides from legendary Kleiner Perkins partner Mary Meeker’s massive 355-page 2017 Internet Trends report, deciphered the complex data, and explained why… Read More

With the KEYone, BlackBerry threads the needle on retro smartphone appeal

 But it’s weird not because it wasn’t designed in-house, and instead was handled by partner TCL; it’s weird because it’s strangely successful at pulling off an odd balancing act of combining modern functionality with the same kind of retro appeal Fujifilm has managed to infuse throughout their mirrorless camera lineup, with nostalgia for the earliest days of the… Read More

Android Pay expands to Canada

 Android Pay launched in Canada on Wednesday, with support for a number of major banks at launch, and additional banks to be added soon. The Android Pay debut in Canada was teased at Google’s I/O developer conference keynote earlier this month, and reported as imminent last week by MobileSyrup. The launch today includes support for Visa and MasterCard credit and debit, as well as… Read More

Nickelodeon revamps Noggin, its “Netflix for Kids,” with dozens of interactive, play-along videos

 Nickelodeon’s Noggin is today taking a step to differentiate Noggin from being just another “Netflix for kids” type of subscription video service.  Alongside its existing lineup of TV shows and sing-alongs, Nick is introducing a series of what it calls “play along” videos. These new videos, which are also curriculum-based, are designed to be interactive in… Read More

Read Mary Meeker’s essential 2017 Internet Trends report

 This is the best way to get up to speed on everything going on in tech. Kleiner Perkins venture partner Mary Meeker’s annual Internet Trends report is essentially the state of the union for the technology industry. The widely anticipated slide deck compiles the most informative research on what’s getting funded, how Internet adoption is progressing, which interfaces are resonating,… Read More

Pokémon Go reveals sponsors like McDonald’s pay it up to $0.50 per visitor

 Pokémon Go-maker Niantic says it has driven 500 million visitors to sponsored locations like McDonald’s Japan where gamers can score a special virtual good. But it never said how much those sponsors paid per visitor delivered by the game. But in an interview published yesterday by Brazil’s Globo newspaper, Niantic VP of strategic partnerships Mathieu de Fayet said (translated)… Read More

Lob tries to maximize snail mail efficiency with another $20M

 You probably still get plenty of snail mail at your home — whether that’s wedding invitations, bills or advertisements for new credit cards. But despite all the efforts to kill that snail mail and get it sent directly to an inbox, there really doesn’t yet seem to be a replacement to that experience of getting home and stepping over those letters from businesses (important… Read More

Smartphone screens find their size sweet spot

 The joke in the smartphone space in years past was how screens just kept getting bigger — stretching palms and making you look ridiculous when held up to the head to talk. Read More

Twitter tests rounded buttons and thumbnails…because that’s the problem?

 Twitter is testing a new interface for its mobile applications on iOS and Android, which involves rounded profile images, buttons and other features. It’s unclear what advantage going “round” would bring. Read More

Epic! raises $8 million to keep kids reading in a digital age

 The makers of Epic!, one of many apps jockeying to become a “Netflix for books,” have raised $8 million in a round led by Reach Capital, the education-specialized venture firm. Additional investors in the Series C included: TransLink Capital, Rakuten Ventures, Menlo Ventures, WI Harper, Brighteye Ventures and Innovation Endeavors. Epic! at its core is an on-demand, digital… Read More

Ex-Apple designer & former Twitter engineer launch Halide, a premium iPhone camera app

 An ex-Apple designer and former Twitter engineer have teamed up for a new take on iPhone photography, with today’s launch of their iOS camera app called Halide. The idea is to offer a variety of high-end tools for taking quality photographs, but packaged in a way where accessing those controls via gestures becomes like muscle memory – similar to using the dials on a camera.… Read More

Nice phone Essential, but why is there a hole in the screen?

 Andy Rubin’s Essential smartphone has made its splashy, highly saturated debut, and the phone looks like a pretty stunning piece of kit in press images (most things in press images do). But the question I can’t shake is why it has a large-ish hole in the display. This is a cutout for the front-facing camera, I understand – but I’m still at a loss as to why it made the… Read More