Kiran Upadhyay

Facebook has been putting a lot of resources into improving internet connectivity in rural areas. At first, that may seem like a distraction for the social networking giant, but Facebook takes its mission to connect people pretty literally. And to do so, it’s taking a building-block approach that involves lots of different projects that all attempt to solve different issues of this larger technology challenge. At its F8 conference in San Jose this week, Facebook once again moved these connectivity efforts into the spotlight. While the most exciting example of its work in this area is surely its giant, solar-powered Aquila drone (which actually hangs over the exhibit area at the conference), a lot of the work Facebook is doing here is in the networking technologies that connect the drone (or multiple drones) with the internet. That includes a project like Terragraph, which is meant for urban environments, as well as the likes of the OpenCellular project, a fully featured wireless a

Google is planning to add an ad blocker to Chrome, its web browser, and to possibly turn it on by default for all users. That seems counterintuitive for a company that makes the majority of its revenue (read: all the monies) from advertising, but it could actually be a way to beat blockers by becoming one itself, per a new Wall Street Journal report that first reported the news. If Google offers its own ad blocker in Chrome, targeting specific types of ads that users find particularly annoying, like pop-overs and autoplaying audio and video, those users might never seek out a third-party ad-blocking extension, the logic goes. The WSJ reports that Google doesn’t love the deals it often has to make with third-party blockers like Adblock Plus, which require payment of fees in some cases to whitelist ads by companies like Google who are willing to pay for the privilege of working around their filters. Chrome’s widespread uptake by internet users means the browser has almost half of

Facebook will rely on an army of outside developers to contribute augmented reality image filters and interactive experiences to its new Camera Effects platform. After today’s Facebook F8 conference, the first effects will become available inside Facebook’s Camera feature on smartphones, but the Camera Effects platform is designed to eventually be compatible with future augmented reality hardware, such as eyeglasses. While critics thought Facebook was just mindlessly copying Snapchat with its recent Stories and Camera features in Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp, Mark Zuckerberg tells TechCrunch his company was just laying the groundwork for today’s Camera Effects platform launch. Because stylish, affordable AR glasses might be years away but everyone already has a camera phone, Zuckerberg tells me “the first augmented reality platform that becomes mainstream isn’t going to be glasses, it’s going to be cameras.” He says other apps (like Snapchat) have been keeping t

Facebook has completely rewritten React, its popular JavaScript library for building user interfaces. The company hasn’t previously talked much about React Fiber, as the project is called, but it has actually been working on it for a while. It’s now ready to talk about this project publicly in more detail (after word about it started spreading last year) and the plan is to put this rewrite into the hands of developers once React 16.0 launches later this year. It’s already in use on Facebook.com today, which clearly indicates that Facebook itself thinks it’s ready for prime time. In addition, it is also launching a rewrite of Relay, its framework for building data-heavy applications. React Fiber The idea behind React Fiber, the company tells me, is to take what the company has learned from developing React the first time around and put that into an updated framework that is still fully backwards compatible with existing React-based applications. React Fiber, Facebook tells me,

Xiaomi unveiled its newest flagship smartphone — the Mi 6 — today at an event in Beijing, having skipped Mobile World Congress, the telecom industry’s largest annual event where it announced the Mi5 last year. There’s plenty at stake with this new device, given that Xiaomi suffered a sales slump last year with CEO Lei Jun admitting that the company has entered a transitional period after growing too fast. So, what about the Mi 6? Well, the first thing to note is that there are plenty of similarities to the iPhone 7, but price isn’t one of them. The entry model — featuring 64 GB of storage — comes in at 2499 RMB, that’s around $360, with a 128 GB option (2899 RMB, $420) and ceramic edition (2999 RMB, $435) completing the range. All three are far cheaper than iPhone equivalents, but, interestingly for Xiaomi, the range is more expensive that the company’s usual flagship prices. The most obvious iPhone comparison is that there is no headphone jack on the Mi 6, just as Apple ele

Have you always wanted to check out that StarCraft game you’d heard so much about, but somehow managed to go nearly 20 years without buying a copy? Good news! Nearly two decades after its 1998 release, StarCraft is now free. Legally! Blizzard has just released the original game — plus the Brood War expansion — for free for both PC and Mac. You can find it here. Up until a few weeks ago, getting the game with its expansion would’ve cost $10-15. The company says they’ve also used this opportunity to improve the game’s anti-cheat system, add “improved compatibility” with Windows 7, 8.1 and 10 and fix a few long-lasting bugs. So why now? The company is about to release a remastered version of the game in just a few months, its graphics/audio overhauled for modern systems. Once that version hits, the original will probably look a bit ancient by comparison — so they might as well use it to win over a few new fans, right? This is also good news for everyone who, like me, has want

Tesla dropped the price on their entry-level Model S, with a $5,000 discount to the 75kWh version, which now starts at $69,500. The price drop comes as Tesla stops selling the 60kWh model, which it discontinued recently and sold only until remaining stock ran out. The price drop also comes with upgraded standard equipment, meaning you’ll get a better value overall. These include the all-glass overhead roof, and an automatic powered rear lift gate as standard features across all Model S battery options. Electrek reports that in addition to those changes, some other tweaks mean you can only get certain options on higher-priced models now, which it looks like are designed to help make sure the company continues to see a healthy mix of buyers at all points in its pricing matrix. The Model S still isn’t “cheap” by any stretch of the imagination, but the pricing and option changes do mean your money goes farther at the entry-level for the vehicle lineup. The lesson is this: Patience i

Location sharing is back in Google Maps. Google announced the addition of "real-time location sharing" to the Android and iOS apps, coming soon to an app store near you. The process seems pretty simple: Open the navigation drawer and press the new "Share Location" button. You'll be able to send a sharing permission to a Google contact or send a link over a messaging app, and you'll be able to pick how long you want to share your location for—permanently or for a set time. Anyone you share to will get a notification from Google Maps, and they'll be able to see your location on the smartphone and Web versions of Google Maps. There's also a "share trip" button you can activate while navigating somewhere, so rather than sending someone an ETA, they can just see you drive around on the map. This feature existed years ago in Google Maps—it was called "Google Latitude" and was great for friends and family. Latitude was kill

We're going to get one thing straight right off the bat: The Dodge Demon is undeniably the star of the 2017 New York Auto Show. It takes guts to unleash an automobile designed for the road that's too fast to use on a dedicated race track, and clearly, FCA's got those guts. That out of the way, here's why the Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk (also from FCA) is actually a more enticing prospect for nearly anyone looking for a brand-new street-legal muscle car. Let's talk performance. Yes, the Dodge Demon does 0-60 in 2.3 seconds, and that's way faster than the 3.5-second estimate of the Trackhawk. But, even putting aside the argument that 0-60 measurements are overrated, the Jeep will still hit 60 miles per hour in about the amount of time it takes you to say "zero to sixty in three-point-five seconds." That's not just impressive; it's quicker than a Chevy Corvette Stingray. You can't talk about performance without also thinking about how e

Almost exactly a year after the Android N Developer Preview launched, Google is unleashing a developer preview of the next major version of Android, "Android O." We haven't tried it yet (images should be dropping any minute now), and the heavy developer documentation is still on lockdown, but we do have a big list of new features to go over. This first developer preview is apparently not going to be super stable. Google's blog post notes that "it's early days, there are more features coming, and there's still plenty of stabilization and performance work ahead of us. But it's booting :)." Because of the early status, this first version of Android O won't be rolling out to the Android Beta program, which offers handy in-place OTA upgrades. Instead Google will be kicking it old school with images for the Nexus 5X, 6P, Player, and the Pixel, Pixel XL, and Pixel C. There's a Wear 2.0 version of Android O, but it's only available via

Reliance Jio has launched a new tariff plan dubbed 'Dhan Dhana Dhan'. Starting at Rs 309, the new plan offers 1GB of data per day and has a validity of 84 days. This means users will get 1GB data per day with unlimited national calling for 84 days (28 x 3). There's another plan available at Rs 509, offering users 2GB of daily data with the same validity of 84 days. Both these plans are exclusive for Jio Prime members. Incidentally, the offer is not for members who are eligible for the company's 'Summer Surprise' offer. As for non-Prime users, the 1GB per day plan is priced at Rs 408. For 2GB data per day, users will need to pay Rs 608. The validity of both these plans is 84 days as well. The all-new Jio 'Dhan Dhana Dhan' offer replaces the company's 'Summer Surprise' offer. Late last week, telecom regulatory body Trai had asked the Reliance-owned telecom service provider to withdraw its 'Summer Surprise' offer+ . Trai said that

As widely speculated, India's biggest e-commerce website Flipkart has acquired eBay India. The company announced this on Twitter. Flipkart has also raised $1.4 billion from Tencent, eBay and Microsoft. This is the biggest round of funding by an Indian internet company till date. With this latest round of funding, Flipkart valuation has reached $11.6 billion and US software giant Microsoft joins the marketplace as a strategic investor. In exchange for an equity stake in Flipkart, US-based eBay will make a $500 million cash investment and sell its eBay.in business to the e-commerce major. Bengaluru-based Flipkart will own and operate eBay.in business once the transaction is closed, which is expected by the end of this year. eBay and Flipkart have also entered into an exclusive agreement in which they will jointly pursue cross-border trade opportunities. "We are delighted that Tencent, eBay and Microsoft — all innovation powerhouses — have chosen to partner with us on thei

With 'Summer Surprise' offer termed 'void', Reliance Jio seems set to woo users with new offers. The company has announced on its website that it will soon be announcing new tariff packs with more exciting offers. "We are updating our tariff packs and will be soon introducing more exciting offers," reads the banner on the company's website. A company's spokesperson also confirmed to ET telecom the same. However, he didn't divulge any details. In a surprise move last week, Telecom Regulatory Authourity of India (TRAI) had asked Reliance Jio to withdraw its Jio 'Summer Surprise' offer. Trai said that the offer did not fit into the "regulatory framework," prompting it to order the company to stop the plan. The 'Summer Surprise' offer gave three more months of complimentary benefits to all Jio Prime members who made their first recharge of Rs 303 (or more) by April 15. The complimentary services include three more month

RIP Pebble… The wearable maker that pioneered wrist-based notifications before Apple and many others waded into the smartwatch space has confirmed it’s closing its doors as an independent entity. Late last month rumors emerged that Fitbit was set to acquire Pebble — with our sources telling us the price-tag was between $34 million and $40M, a figure they said “barely” covered the startup’s debts. Although the company avoided an explicit confirmation of the rumor by tweeting a shrug emoji until now. Today Pebble’s CEO Eric Migicovsky has published a blog with official confirmation of the acquisition and details of what will happen to Pebble products. The post does not confirm the acquisition price, however. “We have made the tough decision to shut down the company and no longer manufacture Pebble devices,” he writes. “While dissolving Pebble as you know today is difficult, I am happy to announce that many members of Team Pebble will be joining the Fitbit family to continue their

After a couple years of being driven primarily by the startups, the virtual reality industry is growing to be one increasingly dominated by the big dogs. There’s still a sizable amount of fragmentation in the industry as well a high chance of failure for many of the efforts currently being undertaken. For these reasons some of the biggest names in the industry, Google, HTC, Oculus, Samsung, Sony and Acer have joined forces to create the Global Virtual Reality Association (GVRA) which aims to “unlock and maximize VR’s potential,” but its really not clear what this all means for consumers. What many in the VR community have been thirsting for is some unification of standards in terms of software and hardware. Games bought in the Oculus store don’t play on the Vive or PS VR. Sensors for the Vive don’t work on Oculus. Sony doesn’t play nice with anyone else’s standards etc. etc. Valve, which makes the Steam store and SteamVR platform for the HTC Vive and others, is notably not a m

Google today announced the launch of App Maker, the newest entry in the low-code, drag-and-drop app building market. Like its competitors from Microsoft and numerous startups, App Maker promises to make it easy for anybody to quickly develop basic apps that serve a very specific purpose inside an organization. The new service features a cloud-based drag-and-drop development environment that lets you build the user interface and populate it with data from your G Suite applications, Google Maps, Contacts and Groups and virtually any service that offers an API. These applications then run on the same infrastructure on which Google’s own G Suite apps run, and IT admins can also manage them in exactly the same way as Gmail, Drive and other G Suite applications. The typical use case for these kind of apps are time-tracking solutions, or tracking orders and inventory — essentially any problem inside a company that can be easily digitized and solved by a very basic custom app. The ad

Native mobile advertising startup Avocarrot — which, interestingly, was in the first cohort of company builder Entrepreneur First — has been acquired by adtech company Glispa Global Group. Terms of the deal remain undisclosed, though TechCrunch understands from sources that the headline price is around $20 million. That’s likely a mixture of cash and stock and may also include various earn-out stipulations. It should also be noted that EF won’t make a dime out of this exit. Avocarrot joined the London-based company builder, which targets technical graduates to help them become entrepreneurs, before it started investing in the startups it puts through its program. In other words, as was the case when CustomInk was bought for a reported $100 million, EF didn’t have an equity stake in Avocarrot. How times have changed. That said, the exit does provide a little more validation that EF’s unique model works. Described as a native advertising Supply-Side Platform, Avocarrot offers a

Some interesting consolidation afoot in the travel industry: Concur, the travel and expense platform that was acquired by SAP in 2014 for $8.3 billion, is today making its own acquisition: it is buying Hipmunk, the travel search startup. The companies are not disclosing the terms of the deal but we are trying to find out. Hipmunk had raised around $55 million since being founded in 2010, but its valuation has never been sky-high. Some clues to the value of this deal: Its last valuation as of 2014 (ahead of two small venture rounds) was around $96 million, according to PitchBook.  We at TechCrunch had last heard around April 2016 that it was trying to raise money, but in a down-round. In the event, Hipmunk picked up a small $5.75 million in venture funding that very month. Hipmunk will be integrated into Concur’s platform (which currently has search already, but as a Concur user, I can attest to the fact that it’s not that great and will be very much improved by adding Hipmunk).

The announcement comes a year-and-a-half after Uber hired dozens of researchers from Carnegie Mellon University’s robotics center to develop the technology. Uber gave a few members of the press a sneak peek Tuesday when a fleet of 14 Ford Fusions equipped with radar, cameras and other sensing equipment pulled up to Uber’s Advanced Technologies Campus (ATC) northeast of downtown Pittsburgh. During my 45-minute ride across the city, it became clear that this is not a bid at launching the first fully formed autonomous cars. Instead, this is a research exercise. Uber wants to learn and refine how self driving cars act in the real world. That includes how the cars react to passengers — and how passengers react to them. “How do drivers in cars next to us react to us? How do passengers who get into the backseat who are experiencing our hardware and software fully experience it for the first time, and what does that really mean?” said Raffi Krikorian, director of Uber ATC. If they a

By now everyone has heard of Google’s RankBrain, the new artificial intelligence machine learning algorithm that is supposed to be the latest and greatest from Mountain View, Calif. What many of you might not realize, however, is just how fast the SEO industry is changing because of it. In this article, I’ll take you through some clear examples of how some of the old rules of SEO no longer apply, and what steps you can take to stay ahead of the curve in order to continue to provide successful SEO campaigns for your businesses. So what is artificial intelligence? There are generally three different classifications of artificial intelligence: Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI): This is like AI for one particular thing (e.g. beating the world champion in chess). Artificial General Intelligence (AGI): This is when the AI can perform all things. Once an AI can perform like a human, we consider it AGI. Artificial Superintelligence (ASI): AI on a much higher level for all things