Chris Velazco
Chris Velazco is a mobile enthusiast and writer who studied English and Marketing at Rutgers University. Once upon a time, he was the news intern for MobileCrunch, and in between posts, he worked in wireless sales at Best Buy.
After graduating, he returned to the new TechCrunch to as a full-time mobile writer. He counts advertising, running, musical theater, and soup among his myriad interests.
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Latest from Chris Velazco
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New Tactus Case Concept Brings A Disappearing Keyboard To The iPad
It was about this time last year that Tactus -- the company behind the amazing disappearing touchscreen keyboard -- really started making a name for itself. So what does a buzzy company do to top its previous showing at the world's biggest consumer tech show? In Tactus' case it quietly showed off yet another potential game-changer, so we met with Tactus CEO Craig Ciesla on the CES show floor to… Read More
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AirDroids Wants To Democratize The Skies With Its Pint-Sized Pocket Drone
The buzz around drones is undeniable these days -- as it turns out, even Martha Stewart uses one to survey her farm -- but there still hasn't been a runaway drone hit that has captured that imaginations of the masses. That’s exactly what a hardware startup called AirDroids is trying to accomplish with the Pocket Drone, a (relatively) inexpensive flying machine that’s meant to give people of… Read More
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Driblet’s Smart Water Meter Wants To Track Your Home Water Usage
Access to clean water is something that most us probably take for granted — after all, it just comes out of taps and faucets and hoses and shower heads with little more than the twist of a spigot. Using all that water can cost a pretty penny (especially in certain foreign countries), but Monterrey, Mexico-based Driblet wants to make sure that people can easily track how much water… Read More
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Atlas Wearables Takes On Jawbone And Nike With A Smarter Exercise Tracker
If there's one lesson to be learned at this year's CES, it's that everybody and their mothers are going nuts for wearables. More than a few of these peculiar gadgets are meant to make sure you're getting enough exercise, but a new fitness tracking hardware startup thinks they've got an edge on all the wearable incumbents that have popped up these past few years. You see, rather than just… Read More
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Sony Doubles Down On Wearable Tech With The Life-Tracking ‘Core’
LG played up its push into wearable tech earlier this morning, and now it looks like Sony's turn to do the same. Sony Mobile president and CEO Kuni Suzuki took the stage at the tail end of Sony's CES press conference to show off what he called "the tiniest gadget Sony has ever made" -- the life-tracking Sony Core. Read More
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Huawei’s Ascend Mate 2 Will Hit The U.S. And Charge Other Phones, We Go Hands-On
Oh how times have changed. When Huawei showed off its flagship smartphone at CES last year, it did so in a smallish conference room with some chairs in the middle and crudites and demo phones flanking the sides. This time, Huawei nabbed itself a ballroom and bisected it with a stage and a giant screen to highlight its latest and greatest giant smartphone, the Ascend Mate 2. Maybe the company… Read More
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Zola Books Snaps Up Bookish To Power Its Literary Recommendations
Heads-up bibliophiles: social e-book retailer Zola Books has acquired curated book recommendation site Bookish. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but a spokesperson for Zola Books confirmed that there were multiple bidders in the mix and that Zola was the smallest of the bunch. In case you hadn't heard of it, Bookish is a book discovery site founded by Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and… Read More
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Tactus Raises Series B To Help Bring Its Disappearing Touchscreen Keyboard To Market
There were plenty of media darlings at last year’s CES, but few tickled people’s fancies the way that Tactus and its amazing appearing tablet keyboard did. The company has spent the past few months crafting reference devices for would-be partners and gearing up to help OEMs bring that impressive keyboard tech to market, but now it’s looking to supercharge those efforts with a newly raised… Read More
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Basis Refreshes Its Fitness Tracker, Adds Improved Sleep Analytics
The quantified self movement has grown to the point where you could easily bedeck your limbs with thousands of dollars of tracking gadgets, and the race to measure your movement isn’t going to end any time soon. That’s why Basis — makers of an awfully accurate, wrist-worn health gadget — has rolled out a new version of the device just in time for the nerd hordes at CES to ogle it. Read More
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Motorola’s Flagship Moto X Gets A Permanent Price Cut
Let’s be real here: there’s a decent chance that you picked up a new smartphone at some point during the holidays, so you’re off the market for at least a little while longer. As it turns out though, you may have been better off waiting a bit. In a show of New Years magnanimity (or, you know, a ploy to push more units) Motorola has slashed the prices of its sans-contract Moto X — a… Read More
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LG May Be Taking Another Stab At The Wearable Activity Tracking Formula
CES 2014 is — amazingly enough — just around the corner, along with enough new gadgetry to fill several lifetimes. Last year we saw a glut of activity trackers pop up in the wake of notable hits like the Fitbits and Jawbone’s UP, and now it looks like LG is taking yet another stab at the wearable fitness formula with its newly-leaked (thanks to @evleaks) Lifeband Touch. Read More
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Apple Slapped With $667K Fine For Trying To Influence Taiwanese iPhone Prices
Chances are that if you’re reading this, you didn’t recently buy an iPhone in Taiwan. As it happens, that may be for the best — according to a Wall Street Journal report published earlier today, Apple has been fined NT$20,000,000 by Taiwan’s Fair Trade Commission for attempting to influence iPhone sale prices. That may sound like a lot, but the reality is considerably less… Read More
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Gift Guide: Our Favorite Android Phone
Darrell and I spent a good chunk of our last Droidcast discussing some Android-centric holiday picks, but we felt that one of those choices could use a bit more fleshing out. That said, we took a moment to stop bickering and share some thoughts on Google and LG's Nexus 5, a device that wound up being our favorite Android phone of the holiday season. Read More
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Fly Or Die: Motorola Moto G
It always seems like the flagship phones get the most attention, but what about a device that doesn't even bother trying to claim that title? Motorola CEO Dennis Woodside has been saying for months and months that one of the company's priorities was to improve the experience of using a low-cost smartphone, and the end result of drive was the cheapo Moto G. Read More
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Atheer Labs Turns To Crowdfunding To Bring Its 3D Augmented Reality Glasses To Life
The jury is largely still out on wearable gadgets like Google Glass that let you passively consume information that appears in front of your eyes, but Soulaiman Itani isn't satisfied with just looking. Instead, his company -- Mountain View-based Atheer Labs -- has been working on a device that lets its users physically manipulate that information too. Sounds like yet another load of sci-fi… Read More
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This Week On The TechCrunch Droidcast: What To Get The Android Lover Who Has Everything
After a whirlwind trip in Toronto, my co-host Darrell Etherington and I are back in our respective countries and ready to talk about what's new with Android. But first, a heartrending disclaimer -- we were not wearing festive sweaters while recording the show like the image would indicate, but we did get a little festive talking about Google's new Play Edition devices, what's new in the world of… Read More
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Lovely’s Apartment Rental App Moves Into Its New Digs On Android
Few things in life are more frustrating that trying to find a new place to live (especially if you're itching to move to the housing market hellholes that are New York City and San Francisco). It's no wonder then that so many startups -- Trulia, Zillow, Redfin, Apartment List, Rental Engine, Zumper, Nestio, the list goes on -- are trying to make it all just a little bit easier. Of these myriad… Read More
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Google Outs Play Edition LG G Pad And Sony Z Ultra, But They’re Still US-Only
Well, that was fast. LG inadvertently outed a G-Pad tablet that would be getting the Google Play Edition treatment earlier today, and Google has just followed up with a confirmation, a price tag ($349) and another device to add to the mix. Sony's $649 Z Ultra is also available in the Google Play store, much to the chagrin of rumormongers who have long claimed that Sony would soon get a crack at… Read More
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Source Code Says LG’s G-Pad Tablet Will Get The Google Play Edition Treatment
Google and LG have been getting awfully cozy lately -- the web giant tasked the Korean company with delivering its two most recent Nexus smartphones, and if you're the type to put stock in rumors, it seemed like a new Nexus tablet (bearing the model number "LG-V510") would be the next fruit of their union. Well, according some files posted to LG's own site, it isn't. Not exactly, anyway. Read More
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AirCast Mobile Wants To Make Phone-To-TV Video Sharing As Easy As Texting
Chances are you've got a screen in your pocket and a screen in your living room, and as time goes on more and more companies are trying to find ways to make the two play nice together. The latest entrant in the field is a Chicago-based startup called AirCast Mobile is taking a stab at bringing the phone-television content gap with an app called AirCast Live that lets users remotely send their… Read More
