Nerdly News Curated from Interesting Sites
When adults are struggling to remember all of their passwords, how can second graders? After launching to provide a common API for K-12 education two years ago, Clever wants to help instructors teach more and worry about resetting students’ forgotten passwords less. The education technology company recently launched a feature that will allow students to use a single sign on to all of… Read More
Before we take off for the long weekend, check out the best stories from the past week (8/23-8/29). After months of rumors suggesting that Google was prepped to snatch up Twitch, Amazon ended up dropping the money to make this deal happen. Alex Wilhelm originally reported the news for TechCrunch, but Kyle Russell offered some critical analysis about how Amazon’s acquisition is too big… Read More
Vice Media has agreed to sell a 10 percent stake to A&E Networks. The $250 million investment values the company at $2.5 billion.
The news was first reported in the Financial Times (warning: paywall), and a Vice spokerson confirmed both the deal and the valuation. Read More
Since the introduction of custom keyboards in iOS 8 at this year’s WWDC, we’ve seen a few implementations come from developers preparing solutions aiming to make the typing experience more convenient on the iPhone. Taphive’s ThemeBoard is something else — it’s a keyboard that mostly acts like Apple’s, but you can customize it with designs from the community. Read More
Chuck Stephens is an artist, musician, hardware hacker and small boat builder who specializes in the use of recycled, repurposed and salvaged materials. Exhibiting at Maker Faire Orlando as Nepchunes Noise Circus, Chuck says noise circuits provided his Eureka! moment in electronics.
A group representing giants in the cable industry is trying to shut down two municipalities’ proposals to expand their public broadband networks, arguing that public broadband has a “mixed record” and can be harmful to taxpayers, despite these two networks already being successful where they’re already operational. Laws in 20 states prevent municipalities from from creating their own broadband networks much to the pleasure of private cable companies, which have shown an impressive dedication to avoiding any competition and any suggestion that their service is merely a utility. Municipalities have on occasion created their own public networks to make up for shortcomings from local internet providers, and it’s easy to see why private…
Snapchat isn’t just for sharing slices of your life with your friends anymore. A new feature called “Our Story” has begun rolling out to all users today, which lets you create and view public collections of photos and videos captured at the same live event say a concert or sports game even with people who aren’t on your Friends list.
Here’s how it works: if you’re using Snapchat at a big event where other people are also using the app, you can choose to add your video and photo snaps to a larger public collection. Anyone in the world with Snapchat can then open their app, find the collection of snaps from that event, and watch it as a single Snapchat Story. The feature doesn’t identify who created which snaps, only showing that…
A NSFW comix noir tale from the fetid depths of Dennis P. Eichhorn’s troubled soul, illustrated by Aline Kominsky-Crumb. Originally published in Real Stuff #6, April 1992. (Read Part 1) Read the rest
A 3-year-old boy who was born deaf has been caught reacting to music for the first time and it looks like hes ready to bust a move.
When Spitzer Space Telescope captured the billowing aftermath of a colossal asteroid smashup 1,200 light-years away, scientists realized they were watching a scene much like the one that played out billions of years ago in our own solar system.
Zimperium, a mobile security company, provides a way to test if a public network has any vulnerabilities. Now, the company has updated its Mobile Threat Defense Suite to 2.0, bringing a new app to iOS devices — zIPS. Read More
The Pivena is an open-source laser-cut wooden case with 3D printed plastic stand-offs and corner tie-ins.
It was inspired by the Novena open-hardware laptop from Sutajio Kosagi.
You know you want to be that chihuahua right now, dawg. [video link]
When John Zimmer and Logan Green launched a new ride-sharing service called Lyft in the spring of 2012, they instantly knew they had a hit on their hands. But that wasn’t always the case. Read More
Amazon Prime, Netflix, utilities, the New York Times, HBO Go, the gym…
When you stop and think about all the subscriptions you have, the list probably is a bit longer than you thought.
But even as more subscription services become available, from ride shares to make up kits, it seems companies still offer customers limited subscription options due to constraints with their billing systems. Read More
You can tell when summer is coming to an end: The weather turns cooler, the days run shorter, and tech news starts to pick up the pace. This week was a great example of the news cycle perking up as we head into fall, giving us a few big stories to talk about for our weekly CrunchWeek show.
Ryan Lawler, Alex Wilhelm, and I got together to talk about Twitch’s $1 billion sale to Amazon… Read More
First released in 2011, the Nintendo 3DS has been re-released both as the bigger 3DS XL and as the the cheaper, kid-friendly 2DS. In today’s “Nintendo Direct” video update, Nintendo announced the “New Nintendo 3DS,” an update to the platform that’s somewhere between a minor update and a full-fledged follow-up. Read More
Max Gurvits is an investor. Based in Bulgaria, the peripatetic VC is almost everywhere, showing up at events around the world and scouting out some amazing ideas. I talked to him about how he became a VC at a comparatively young age and what it takes to make it in investing for our back to school series. TC: You’re pretty young (comparatively). How did you start? Gurvits: I co-founded… Read More
As August comes to a close, the world speeds back up again and things actually start… you know, happening.
Apple has an event in just a few short days, where we expect to learn about the iPhone. After that, a bunch of other companies are releasing smart watches, including Motorola, LG, and Google and Disney entering the Game of Drones. Read More
From pizza to rocket engines, its safe to say that NASA is really interested in 3D printing these days. But the agency’s latest experiment in that realm may be its most spectacular yet. Using a technology known as “selective laser melting,” NASA was able to create a rocket injector the part that shoots fuel into a rocket engine out of just two separate components, instead of the 163 that were required using traditional manufacturing techniques.
The idea is to improve efficiency and cut costs, without sacrificing reliability or safety. So far, NASA’s tests of its 3D-printed rocket injector seem to be going well: this week, the agency announced that the injector recently survived a 6,000-degree Fahrenheit test-firing at the Marshall…