Greg Kumparak
Greg Kumparak is the Mobile Editor at Techcrunch. Greg has been writing for the TechCrunch network since May of 2008.
Greg was born just outside of San Jose, and now lives in the East Bay of California.
CrunchBase profile →Latest from Greg Kumparak
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SoundFocus Raises $1.7M To Adjust Music To The Way You Hear
I generally enjoy writing about startups, but I love writing about startups that are working on something undeniably good for the world. This is one of those. SoundFocus is trying to improve the experience of listening to music for people who are hard of hearing, or unable to hear certain frequencies. They’ve just raised $1.7M to get it done. Read More
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How Things Change
Four years ago, Brian Acton was looking for a job. His job at Yahoo, where he’d filled many engineering roles over 11 years, had come to an end. He was networking with recruiters: networking with recruiters, venture capitalists, playing ultimate frisbee— Brian Acton (@brianacton) May 20, 2009 He met with Twitter. Twitter said no: Got denied by Twitter HQ. That's ok. Would have… Read More
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Venmo Now Lets You Find And Pay Other Nearby Venmo Users
Venmo, the mobile payment app, has had a wild few years. They shook up their industry so hard that they were acquired twice within 4 years of launch; once by Braintree for $26.2M, and again when Paypal acquired Braintree for $800M. Their trick? Make paying your friends easy and (mostly) free. Today, they’re making it even easier: you don’t even have to be friends with the person… Read More
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Dear Car Makers: Please Hire People Like This
The interfaces in modern cars are, with rare exception, awful. It’s almost absurd, really. The car is one of the most expensive things that people buy for themselves. It’s massive. It’s got a power supply that lasts for days… and yet, it’s one of the least “smart” devices in our lives. A three-year old tablet headed for the recycling bin puts the stock… Read More
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Irrational Games, The Company Behind BioShock, Is Shutting Down
Whoa. Irrational Games, the company that built the acclaimed BioShock video game series, is going away. Co-founder Ken Levine announced directly on the company’s front page this morning that they will soon see sweeping layoffs and will be reborn as a much smaller team with a new focus. From his post: I am winding down Irrational Games as you know it. I’ll be starting a smaller, more… Read More
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PIXEL Brings Old School Video Game Art To Life In Your Home
Take your old Lite-Brite and turn it up to 11. Add Bluetooth, tuck in animation support, and let people draw their designs via smartphone. What do you get? Something like PIXEL. The (aptly named) PIXEL is a display built specifically for showing off pixel art. A pixel art photo frame, if you will. Read More
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Google Acquires SlickLogin, The Sound-Based Password Alternative
SlickLogin has been acquired by Google, just five months after launching at TechCrunch Disrupt. Read More
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Kickstarter Hacked, Customer Addresses and Other Info Accessed
These days, it really seems we can't go a week without some big site getting hacked. The latest target? Kickstarter. Read More
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Instapainting Turns Your Photos Into Hand-Painted Oil Paintings On The Cheap
Surprise! It's Valentine's Day, the stealthiest of all the holidays. If you're trying to get a gift today, you… might be a bit short on options. Will you go with the gas station teddy bear? The twice-crushed box of chocolates? A bouquet of acceptable-looking roses for $200? If your nearly-forgotten flame would be content with the promise of a pretty cool gift in a few weeks, though, you… Read More
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Here’s The Full Video Of The 7th Annual Crunchies Awards
Didn't get a ticket to the Crunchies before they sold out? Miss the live stream? Don't sweat it — we brought the whole thing back to you in glorious HD. From the Broadway-style opener by the incredibly talented Spencer Rose to the spot-on roasting of Silicon Valley by host John Oliver, it's all here. Read More
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Creators Of ‘Super Hexagon’ and ‘Canabalt’ Build Fantastic Tributes To Flappy Bird
I told myself I was done writing about Flappy Bird. Really. I'm sort of sick of hearing about it too. But this… this is something special. The creators of Canabalt and Super Hexagon — two games that helped pioneer the whole "simple yet absurdly difficult" category that Flappy Bird exploded — have created new games in tribute to Flappy Bird. These aren't clones — these are homages. Read More
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Oculus VR’s Co-Founders On Winning A Crunchie, Getting To Launch Day, And Their Favorite VR Apps
Are you excited about the Oculus Rift? Because a whole lot of folks are. So much so, in fact, that the tech community picked Oculus as the “Best Hardware Startup” of 2013 — and that’s without them having shipped their finished product. I grabbed two of Oculus' co-founders for a post-win interview, and we talked about everything from challenges ahead to pretending to be a chicken. Read More
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Oculus Rift Takes Home The Crunchie For Best Hardware Startup
It’s hard for me to imagine a hardware startup that is more exciting, more fascinating, and that has more potential to ripple out into a million amazing things than Oculus and their Rift virtual reality headset. Many of you, it seems, would agree. After weeks of voting, our readers and this community have chosen Oculus VR as the Best Hardware Startup of the year. As has been said many a… Read More
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Flappy Bird Is Gone From The App Store
Yesterday, the developer behind Flappy Bird said he would be removing the remarkably/mysteriously successful game from the App Store in just 22 hours. Sure enough, the game appears to be gone. And in its spot on the #1 spot on the leaderboard? A Flappy Birds clone. Read More
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Facebook Now Lets You Edit Your “Look Back” Movie
Earlier this week, we learned that Facebook would soon let you edit the automatically-generated “Look Back” videos the company had made to celebrate Facebook’s 10th anniversary. Sure enough: they just launched the editor. Read More
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Google’s Latest Doodle Shows Support For LGBT Olympians Heading To Sochi
Hours before the 2014 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony is set to kick off, Google is putting some of its most valuable real estate — their logo — to good use: to show their support for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender olympians on their way to Sochi. Read More
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Don’t Like Your Facebook “Look Back”? You’ll Be Able To Edit It Soon.
For the past 24 hours, my Facebook newsfeed has been predominantly filled with just two things: people sharing those cutesy automated "Look Back" videos that Facebook made for most of its users, and people complaining that they hate their Look Back. Hate yours? Don't sweat it too much. Facebook is working on an edit tool, we've learned. Read More
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Trouble With Your Code? AirPair Connects You Live With Expert Programmers
Learning the fundamentals of programming is easy. But becoming an expert? That’s damn hard. There are a million and one languages, each with their own nuances, strengths, and weaknesses. Worse yet, the programming hype train is always chugging away; just when you think you’ve mastered the world’s greatest language, everyone will be talking up some new language or framework or… Read More
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Valve Adds In-Game Music Controls & Playback To Steam
What fun is playing your favorite game if you can’t blast your favorite tunes? Today, Valve announced a pretty great new feature for its fledgling SteamOS and Big Picture interfaces: in-game music controls. (Wondering what the heck “SteamOS” and “Big Picture” are? SteamOS is a Linux-based operating system Valve is building for a series of dedicated… Read More
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How To Get Facebook Paper If You’re Outside The US
Good news: Facebook’s super pretty new standalone app, Paper, launched today. Bad news: For some crazy reason, it’s only available if you’re in the US. Good News, part 2: That restriction is a pretty easy thing to workaround. Read More
