Greg Kumparak
TechCrunch
Oakland, CA, United States
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Recent articles by Greg:
Niantic is working with Qualcomm on augmented reality glasses –
We’ve known for a while that Pokémon GO creator Niantic feels a bit limited in what it can do with augmented reality today. Between the latency limitations of 4G cellular networks and the need for players to wave a smartphone around to do anything in AR, the tech just isn’t where Niantic wants it to […] → Read More
Postscript raises $4.5M to help Shopify shops stay connected with customers over SMS –
Back in February, we wrote that Postscript “wants to be the Mailchimp for SMS.” Now they’ve raised $4.5 million to help get it done. This round was lead by Accomplice, and backed by Kayak co-founder Paul English, Wufoo co-founder Kevin Hale, Klaviyo co-founder Andrew Bialecki, Drift co-founder Elias Torres, Front co-founder Mathilde Colin, and Podium […] → Read More
Gift Guide: Black Friday tech deals that are actually worth considering –
Ah, Black Friday. The day of a zillion “deals” — some good, many bad, most just meant to clear the shelves for next year’s models. Hidden amidst ten thousand “LOWEST PRICE EVER! ONE DAY ONLY!” e-mails, though, are a handful of solid deals on legitimately good stuff. Whether you’re trying to save some coin heading […] → Read More
Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger are down for many around the world –
If you’re having issues with various Facebook -owned services this morning, you’re very much not alone. There appears to be a major outage impacting Instagram, Messenger, and Facebook itself. A sudden influx of Down Detector user reports suggest that the outage started at roughly 6 am P… → Read More
Elon Musk says sledgehammering Cybertruck led to the onstage window failure –
After pounding the side of his new Cybertruck with a sledgehammer with not a mark left behind, Elon Musk turned his focus to the “Tesla Armor Glass”. As we all saw, the glass did not fare so well. A toss of a steel ball into the window caused it to splinter, catching everyone on stage […] → Read More
Tesla’s Cybertruck will have a solar charging option, says Musk –
Tesla revealed its Cybertruck pickup last night, a SciFi-tastic wedge built from the same steel alloy that SpaceX is using for its Starship spaceship. Elon Musk spent about twenty minutes showing off the truck, with demos ranging from a game of tug-of-war against an F-150, to racing a Porsche, to a window strength test that […] → Read More
Tesla accidentally busted two windows on the Cybertruck while demonstrating how tough they are –
Well, I don’t think that was supposed to happen. In what was one of the more surreal product launches I’ve seen, Tesla debuted its $39,900 Cybertruck pickup tonight. After running through some specs and hitting the truck’s door with a sledge hammer, Elon asked an on-stage companion to demonstrate the strength of the Tesla […] → Read More
Twitter will finally let you turn on two-factor authentication without giving it a phone number –
Two-factor authentication is good! SMS-based two-factor authentication? Not the best option. After countless tales of people having their phone numbers and inbound SMS hijacked by way of SIM swapping, it’s clear that SMS just isn’t the right solution for sending people secondary login codes. And yet, for many years, it’s been the mandatory go-to on […] → Read More
The Flux Beamo is a $1500 laser cutter with simple but powerful software –
Laser cutters are in a fun place right now. Gone are the days when the cheapest machines were tens of thousands of dollars, and when the “compact” models were roughly the size of a freezer. They’ve gotten affordable enough, and small enough, that a DIY home hobbyist can add it to their toolset without taking […] → Read More
Valve’s flagship Half-Life VR game will land in March of 2020 –
As expected, Valve just dropped some details about Half-Life: Alyx, the flagship VR game it teased earlier this week. → Read More
Google will now pay up to $1.5 million for very specific Android exploits –
When Google first introduced its bug bounty program for Android, the biggest reward you could get for finding and reporting a potential exploit was $38,000. The cap grew over time, as Android grew in popularity, more security researchers got on board, and more vulnerabilities were unearthed. This morning, Google is bumping its top reward up […] → Read More
Is this Niantic’s next game? –
First came Pokémon GO. Then came Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. Then came… Catan? It’s starting to look like the next property to get Niantic’s “real world game” treatment will be Catan — the namesake island from the popular Settlers Of Catan board game series. Late last month, the company behind Catan said during a board […] → Read More
Valve confirms it’s making a “flagship” Half-Life VR game –
After what feels like years of rumors, it’s official: Valve is making a virtual reality Half-Life game. Official word of the new title comes via Valve’s (brand new, but verified) Twitter account, where the company is promising more details later this week: Tweets by valvesoftware While it’s a bit curious to drop news like this […] → Read More
Ubiquity6’s Display.land is part 3D scanner, part social network –
The world is being mapped in 3D — one brick, one bench, one building at a time. For things like hyper-accurate augmented reality, autonomous robots, and self-driving cars, 2D maps and GPS only get you so far. Apple is building its map with lasers strapped to the top of cars. Niantic has talked about building […] → Read More
Google acquires CloudSimple –
Just a few months back, Google announced a partnership with a company called CloudSimple to help more enterprise teams move their on-site operations to the cloud. Now Google is outright acquiring them. So what is CloudSimple? It lets businesses run VMWare vSphere workloads on the cloud, allowing them to take their existing on-premises tools and […] → Read More
Those crappy pre-installed Android apps can be full of security holes –
If you’ve ever bought a low-to-mid range Android phone, there’s a good chance you booted it up to find it pre-loaded with junk you definitely didn’t ask for. These pre-installed apps can be clunky, annoying to remove, rarely updated… and, it turns out, full of security holes. Security firm Kryptowire built a tool to automatically […] → Read More
MACLUNKEY! The Han/Greedo scene has an inexplicable change on Disney+ because George Lucas will never stop changing it –
Who shot first? Han? Greedo? Who cares. MACLUNKEY! Disney+ launched this morning, and with it comes a mostly inexplicable change to one of cinema’s most debated scenes — the encounter between Han and Greedo at the Mos Eisley cantina. For reasons unknown to anyone but George Lucas right now, a super brief but newly inserted […] → Read More
Facebook wants you to pay people on Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp with Facebook Pay –
Square. Venmo. PayPal. Apple Pay. Google Pay. There’s really no shortage of ways to give people money via your phone, but that — nor growing calls that the company is already getting too damned big — isn’t stopping Facebook. Facebook has just announced Facebook Pay, a single payment system that ties into all of […] → Read More
Formlabs is making a 3D printer just for dentists –
Back at CES this year, we talked with 3D printer maker Formlabs about its early experimentation in using its printers to make dentures faster and more affordably than existing alternatives. A few months later, the company is going deep on the concept. They’re releasing a 3D printer meant specifically for dental use, opening up […] → Read More
Disney+ will launch in the UK, Germany, Italy, France, and Spain in March 2020 –
Disney+ will launch in the US, Canada, and the Netherlands on November 12th, a bit shy of a week from today. On November 19th, it’ll expand to Australia and New Zealand. But what about the rest of the world? Disney has kept a bit quiet about its plans for other countries, presumably because going […] → Read More