Gadgets

Gloucester, Massachusetts-based Cometeer has been around for nine years. In that time, the company has built up a mad scientist’s lair worth of coffee scientists, equipment and processes to jolt some fresh life into the industry. Based out of a former frozen seafood facility, the company has created a multimillion-dollar proprietary production line to turn

Hello again, and welcome back to TechCrunch’s running series of posts discussing how the public markets rarely give even half of a spare fuck concerning what Apple announces at its events. Indeed, Apple’s stock seems to be far more labile to external events than from internally sourced announcements; rare is the case in which Apple’s

The ocean economy is growing in importance, and with it grows the need to map, understand, and track the ocean itself. Saildrone has been doing just that with its fleet of autonomous science vessels, and the company has now raised a massive $100M round C to pursue its ro-boat aspirations further. Saildrone’s boats have been

Apple is set to announce new hardware today. The company is holding a (virtual) keynote at 10 AM PT (1 PM in New York, 6 PM in London, 7 PM in Paris). And you’ll be able to watch the event right here as the company is streaming it live. [embedded content] Rumor has it that

Analogue’s much-anticipated Pocket retro gaming machine will come with more than just sleek design and the ability to play tons of classic games. The device will be the first with AnalogueOS on it, an effort to make what founder Chris Taber calls the “Library of Alexandria of video games.” Actually, he called it the “great

The new version of Nintendo’s hit Switch console is just different enough to justify itself, but hardly a must-buy for any of the millions who bought the launch version. With a bigger, brighter, and better screen, it’s a good choice for someone buying now who intends to use it mostly as a handheld — but

The math is pretty basic. How many satellites are going to go up over the next decade? How many solar panels will they need? And how many are being manufactured that fit the bill? Turns out the answers are: a lot, a hell of a lot, and not nearly enough. That’s where Regher Solar aims

The Luna Display from Astropad is a clever product enabling you to use your iPad as a second display. It was originally launched for Mac only, but Apple launched a competing product, putting the company in jeopardy for a couple of years. Today, it’s available for Windows machines as well, completing Astropad’s pivot to a

In a rather surprising move, the makers of the reMarkable line of e-paper tablets have added a subscription service to their latest device that enables several of its more advanced features. All current users are provided a lifetime subscription, and new users get about a year for free, so nothing will change for most, but

Following Tile’s recent close on $40 million in debt financing, the company today is introducing its latest lineup of lost-item trackers, including the long-promised ultra-wideband-powered tracker aimed to compete with Apple AirTag, Tile Ultra. This product, though being officially announced, is not yet available for purchase. Instead, the company’s first updates include the premium Tile

E-bike manufacturer VanMoof recently raised a $128 million funding round. And the company is already using some of that cash to develop a brand new product — the VanMoof V. This is a new product in the VanMoof lineup, a high-speed bike. The VanMoof V isn’t available just yet. Instead, the company teased the new

Ahead of its launch on October 19, it seems as if retailers and Google are playing a game of chicken about who can leak the most information about its two upcoming flagship phones; the Google Pixel 6 and Google Pixel 6 Pro. Google’s Pixel line of smartphones has traditionally been the flagship of the Android armada

Natasha and Mary Ann and Alex were all aboard this week with Grace on the dials, which meant that we had a flat lovely time recording Equity for you. Of course, Equity is TechCrunch’s venture capital focused podcast where we dig into the most critical funding rounds, and natter about the key news items impacting startups. Before we hop into

Move over, precision agriculture — precision apiculture is what’s on the minds of all future-focused farmers. BeeHero has been growing fast since its debut and seed round last year, and $19M in new funding means it can scale beyond its initial markets and find more uses for its one-of-a-kind collection of data collected from thousands

A pair of new e-readers from Kobo iterate on the company’s high-end options, adding Bluetooth audiobook and stylus support to the now familiar asymmetrical design of its larger devices. The Sage and Libra 2 also gain a new charging cover so you only have to plug the device in every few months rather than every

Amazon today introduced Amazon Glow, a new, interactive device aimed at families that allows kids to interact with family members and other remote loved ones over video calls. While something of a competitor to Facebook’s line of Portal devices, which are also largely aimed at connecting families over video, Amazon Glow differentiates itself by providing

No one knows exactly how drone delivery will fit into the future of logistics, but one thing is for sure: the aircraft aren’t going to drop off important payloads directly onto someone’s lawn. Matternet’s Station, an automated landing space and payload control tower, may be the solution, and the flower-like structure has finally made the

Last year, Ring announced at futuristic (slightly dystopian?) take on in-home security with its Always Home Cam, a drone equipped with sensors and a camera that can navigate the interior of your home along custom paths laid out by a user, in response to triggers including Ring Alarm sensors, or a manual command from the

Ring is just one part of Amazon’s annual devices and services event this year, but they’re bringing a lot of updates, including a new Pro Alarm suite that includes refreshed hardware and integrated Eero Wi-Fi 6 router capabilities. They also have a new service offering called ‘Virtual Security Guard’ that basically keeps an eye on

DroneSeed started as a tech-powered alternative to the backbreaking work of large-scale tree-planting, but this important task is only one small part of forest restoration, the infrastructure for which is being pushed to the breaking point by wildfires. Armed with $36M in new funding, the company is reimagining reforestation from root to crown in a

Amazon today announced a new subscription service called “Alexa Together,” designed for families with aging family members who are still living independently, but who may need extra support. The $19.99 per month subscription expands on Amazon’s existing product, Alexa Care Hub, an earlier investment in elder care, by taking many of Care Hub’s features and

Amazon is introducing two new services tied to user health and fitness, and its Halo personal health devices. They include Halo Fitness, a new service for interactive home video workouts that looks a lot like Apple Fitness+, and Halo Nutrition, a personalized, guided meal planner. Both of these services will be included as part of

The FCC has sent out the first checks from its Emergency Connectivity Fund, an effort to help close the “homework gap” at schools by covering the cost of computers and internet services. Thousands of school districts, in every state plus D.C., Guam and Puerto Rico, will split this first $1.2 billion distribution, and there’s still

EU lawmakers are finally set to standardize charging ports for consumer electronics devices like smartphones and tablets — announcing a proposal today that, once adopted, will see the region settle on USB-C as a universal charging port for gadgets which will also include cameras, headphones, portable speakers and handheld videogames consoles. Some smaller consumer electronics

Pollutants pouring from smokestacks around the world may be bad news for the atmosphere, but if you catch them before they get out there, you could reduce emissions and collect some valuable materials at the same time. That’s what Carbix aims to do with its carbon-sequestering reactor, which would extract minerals from emissions while staying

Owners of Alexa devices will soon be able to use OnStar’s emergency services from their homes, under an expanded partnership between OnStar’s parent company General Motors and Amazon. OnStar already expanded OnStar Guardian earlier this year with the introduction of the Guardian app, which lets customers access the service via their mobile device. This latest

Smart fitness gear is often limited by being static and non-portable. (And, well, eye-wateringly expensive.) Think Peloton‘s stationary bike for spin classes or wall-mounted strength training rig Tonal. Great if you’re at home and can afford to shell out thousands on a fancy home gym, but what if you want to take your workout with

Turns out COVID-19 lockdowns have been good for the indoor hobby of hardware hacking: The U.K.-based foundation behind the low-price microprocessor Raspberry Pi announced close of a $45 million funding round yesterday. The cash injection into the trading arm of the (nonprofit) Raspberry Pi Foundation values it at $500 million (pre-money), founder Eben Upton confirmed.

Apple has just released the final version of iOS 15, the next major version of the operating system for the iPhone. It is a free download and it works with the iPhone 6s or later, both generations of iPhone SE and the most recent iPod touch model. iPad users will also be able to update

Weeks after Amazon introduced an updated Fire TV lineup that included, for the first time, its own TVs, Roku today is announcing its own competitive products in a race to capture consumers’ attention before the holiday shopping season. Its updates include a new Roku Streaming Stick 4K and Roku Streaming Stick 4K+ — the latter