Greg Kumparak
TechCrunch
Oakland, CA, United States
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Recent articles by Greg:
Harry Potter: Wizards Unite goes live in Canada, Germany, and 23 other countries –
Harry Potter: Wizards Unite (think Pokémon GO, but with wands and giant spiders instead of pokéballs and Pikachus) officially launched earlier this week, but with a catch: it was only available in the US, UK, Australia, and New Zealand. Why? Amongst other reasons, a country-by-country rollout helps Niantic ensure that their servers stay stable. By […] → Read More
A chat with Niantic CEO John Hanke on the launch of Harry Potter: Wizards Unite –
Just shy of three years ago, Pokémon GO took over the world. Players filled the sidewalks, and crowds of trainers flooded parks and landmarks. Anywhere you looked, people were throwing Pokéballs and chasing Snorlax. As the game grew, so did the company behind it. Niantic had started its life as an experimental “lab” within Google […] → Read More
Harry Potter: Wizards Unite is now available in the US and UK, one day earlier than promised –
Earlier this week, Niantic announced that Harry Potter: Wizards Unite — the company’s Potter-themed followup to Pokémon GO — would start rolling out to the world on June 21st. Looks like they decided to get the ball rolling a bit early, though. The game just went live on the iOS and Android app stores in […] → Read More
Harry Potter: Wizards Unite will launch on June 21st –
After a year of teasing out Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, Niantic (the company behind Pokémon GO) and WB Games have at long last announced an official release date: June 21st. The news came this evening at a press event held just outside of Universal Studios’ Wizarding World (where else?), where Niantic also confirmed plans to […] → Read More
ThinkGeek.com to close, replaced as a section of GameStop –
Sad news for anyone who loves geeky goods and top-notch April Fools’ jokes: ThinkGeek.com, the 20 year old online retailer known for selling more geek-centric gadgets and peripherals than you could fit in a TARDIS, is going away. According to an FAQ sitting at the top of its site, ThinkGeek isn’t “shutting down”. It just […] → Read More
iOS 13 will let you bypass the App Store download cap when on a cellular connection –
Just a few days ago, Apple bumped up the limit on how big of an app you can download from the App Store while on a cellular connection, increasing it from 150MB to 200MB. As we noted at the time, it’s always seemed a bit silly that there was no way to acknowledge the […] → Read More
Here’s everything Apple just announced at the 2019 WWDC Keynote –
Apple kicked off its annual Worldwide Developer Conference in San Jose this morning with a two-and-a-half hour keynote, showing off everything the company has been working on for the past many months. Want to know everything they announced, but don’t have time to watch the whole thing yourself? We’ve wrapped it all up for you […] → Read More
Apple bumps the App Store cell connection download cap up to 200 MB –
Good news: Apple now allows you to download bigger apps over a cellular connection than it used to. Bad news: there’s still a cap, and you still can’t bypass it. As noticed by 9to5Mac, the iOS App Store now lets you download apps up to 200 MB in size while on a cell network; anything […] → Read More
Pokémon GO will soon use sleep data to “reward good sleep habits” –
Well, here’s a bit of surprise news this evening: at some point in the future, Pokémon GO is going to wrap the player’s sleep habits into the gameplay. It’ll come as part of a wider initiative by The Pokémon Company to — as CEO Tsunekazu Ishihara put it in a press conference this evening — […] → Read More
An original Apple I built into a briefcase just sold for nearly $500k –
Most people wouldn’t think too much of a computer crammed into a briefcase — but if it’s one of the few remaining examples of the first computer ever built by Apple? That’s a whole different story. An original Apple I from 1976 — as hand-built by Steve Wozniak — just sold for £371,260 (or […] → Read More
Here’s the first teaser trailer for the new Star Trek: Picard series –
Just a bit shy of a year ago, Patrick Stewart blew the minds of Star Trek fans everywhere by taking the stage at the Las Vegas Star Trek convention to announce he was returning to the role of Jean-Luc Picard. His return would come in the form of a series made for CBS’ streaming service, […] → Read More
Spansive’s first wireless charger powers multiple phones simultaneously and works through thick cases –
When Pi Charging (winner of TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2017) rebranded as Spansive last month, the company also dropped plans for its previously-shown cone-shaped charger capable of charging phones placed within a few inches around it. That charger would’ve required special cases for each device — and as the world quickly adopted built-in wireless charging […] → Read More
Seven years later, the OUYA is dead for real –
Remember the OUYA? As a cheap Android-powered game console, it was pitched as being able to “open the last closed platform: the TV”. It was one of the first huge Kickstarter campaigns, raising nearly 9 million dollars on the site in 2012. Even half a decade later, it remains one of the biggest campaigns […] → Read More
Valve’s Steam Chat gets its own iOS and Android apps –
A little under a year ago, Valve released a big overhaul for the chat features built into its Steam game store/launcher. Focusing on modern day chat conveniences like better group chats and embedded media (GIFs!), some saw it as a move to hopefully keep a few more users from heading for Discord — which, […] → Read More
Future Family launches a $200 membership for fertility coaching –
Future Family is a startup aiming to make fertility services like IVF and egg freezing more accessible. They work with doctors and clinics to make the pricing of these services more predictable and upfront, then offer monthly payment plans to help customers spread the cost (often in the tens of thousands of dollars) over […] → Read More
Steam Link now lets you beam Steam games to your iOS devices –
About a year ago, Valve announced that it was building an application called Steam Link. It’d let you stream Steam games to your iOS or Android device, with a computer on your local network doing all of the heavy computation. Then Valve submitted it to the iOS App Store and… Apple rejected it. At the […] → Read More
You can now buy a 1 terabyte microSD card –
Remember when the idea of having a terabyte of storage was just mind-blowing? Now they’re packing a terabyte onto a card the size of your pinky nail. In news that would have made teenage me’s head pop, SanDisk is now selling a 1 terabyte version of its Extreme microSD line for $450. The company first […] → Read More
Game Of Thrones’ showrunners are making the next Star Wars movie –
Love it or hate it, Game of Thrones ends this week. The series finale will air this upcoming Sunday, capping a final season that has been criticized for being too short, too rushed, and, at times, too damned hard to see. Seemingly immune to the ires of the Internet, the series’ showrunners are moving […] → Read More
Here’s everything Google announced today at the I/O 2019 Keynote –
In a two hour keynote at the annual Google I/O Conference this afternoon, the company announced a ton of stuff it’s been working on over the last year, from new phones to a next-gen version of its voice-powered Assistant. → Read More
A glitch is breaking all Firefox extensions –
Did you just open Firefox only to find all of your extensions disabled and/or otherwise not working? You’re not alone, and it’s nothing you did. Reports are pouring in of a glitch that has spontaneously disabled effectively all Firefox extensions. Each extension is now being listed as a “legacy” extension, alongside a warning that it […] → Read More