Lucas Matney
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The Latest from Lucas Matney
Group of employees calls for end to Microsoft’s $480M HoloLens military contract
More than 100 Microsoft employees have signed a letter sent to CEO Satya Nadella and President Brad Smith criticizing the company’s plans to build HoloLens AR tech for the military, the organizi
Sunsama’s $10/month task management calendar cleans up your online productivity
I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard friends lament how difficult it is to find a decent calendar app. The stock calendar apps are certainly serviceable, but there’s so mu
HTC revamps standalone VR headset to keep pace with Oculus while it looks to big business
HTC has had a little bit of a rough ride these past few years. After betting the farm on VR, the company has had to make some substantial business strategy shifts to keep the division kicking in the f
Samsung has sold 2 billion Galaxy phones
Samsung announced its most expensive phone today, but it also shared the progress it’s made so far in selling a whole lot of Galaxy smartphones. Onstage, Samsung Electronics president DJ Koh ann
This is the best VR headset I’ve ever demoed
Before Oculus kickstarted a lot of the fervor around consumer headsets, the VR headsets that were being built for enterprise rigs were multi-thousands-dollar rigs that still sucked. As Oculus and HTC
Oculus co-founder shipping free Rift repair kits to users with VR headset audio issue
Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey isn’t in the VR hardware business these days since getting canned by Facebook (he’s focused on smart border security at his new company Anduril), but he sti
Postscript wants to be the Mailchimp for SMS
Email is certainly not dead, despite many such exclamations, but there’s no question that it’s a bloated, seeping hog of a platform on which it’s incredibly difficult for businesses
Facebook mulled multi-billion-dollar acquisition of gaming giant Unity, book claims
Less than a year after making a $3 billion investment into the future of virtual reality with the purchase of Oculus VR, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was considering another multi-billion-dollar bet t
Asteroid is building a human-machine interaction engine for AR developers
When we interact with computers today we move the mouse, we scroll the trackpad, we tap the screen, but there is so much that the machines don’t pick up on — what about where we’re l
Tim Cook-backed shower startup Nebia shows off a warmer, water-saving shower head
I’m not in the habit of getting naked during meetings at startup offices, but this time it felt appropriate. Nebia, a shower startup that has attracted investments from the likes of Apple CEO Ti
Massless raises $2M to build an Apple Pencil for virtual reality
Despite all of the VR over-hyping, for those observing from the inside, the capabilities are still uncharted. VR as a creative medium has probably been one of the more entrancing use cases since the f
Y Combinator’s latest batch of startups is too big for one Demo Day stage
Y Combinator has been steadily ushering in more and more startups into its classes, but this year the poll position accelerator is having to make some major logistical adjustments to accommodate just
Athenascope nabs $2.5M seed led by First Round to bring gamers AI-edited highlight reels
As massive cross-platform gaming titles become even larger time-sucks for a lot of people, it’s probably worth reflecting on how to savor your in-game accomplishments. Streaming of esports celeb
References to next-gen Oculus ‘Rift S’ headset reportedly found in internal code
After we broke the news in November that Oculus’s former CEO had left the company partially due to disagreements on the company’s PC hardware direction, including the cancellation of a hig
Alphabet revenues are up 22% but the stock is still dropping
Despite delivering a Q4 earnings revenue beat, Google parent company Alphabet’s stock is seeing a bit of a drop. The massive search company reported revenue of $39.3 billion, up 22 percent year-
Periscope’s latest feature turns your broadcast into a radio talk show
When it comes to live streaming, the viewer contributions are pretty light. In Periscope, you can drop a comment of leave a floating heart icon, but there isn’t a deep way to contribute to a str
Apple’s long-time Siri leader reportedly no longer in charge
The man who has headed up Siri at Apple since 2012 is no longer at the helm, according to The Information. Bill Stasior remains at the company in a different role, the report states. We’ve reac
Apple’s global active install base of iPhones surpassed 900 million this quarter
It’s not surprising that Apple has a massive active install base of iPhones across the globe, but we now finally have an exact number to put behind it. During its Q1 earnings call, CFO Luca Maes
Apple’s Q1 revenue declines with iPhone sales down 15%
Apple met its already-lowered expectations for its first earnings report of 2019, but the outlook isn’t too rosy as the gadget maker sees a major year-over-year decline in its cash cow iPhone bu
Slack now has more than 10 million daily active users
As Slack reportedly readies itself for an entry to the public markets, the high-flying startup is ready to brag a little bit about what it has accomplished in the past year. In a blog post, the compan