Lucas Matney
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The Latest from Lucas Matney
Boosted nabs $60M as the electric skateboard maker looks to build something new
Boosted has scored some serious cash as it looks to move beyond the world of electric skateboards to conquer new forms of personal transportation. The startup announced today that it has closed a $60
After $130M+ in funding, AR startup Blippar collapses
While proponents swore 2018 would be the year AR moved mainstream, by year’s end it seems the biggest trend has been the movement of early startups to financial collapse. Blippar, an early augme
Twitter rolls out ‘sparkle button’ to let users hide the algorithmic feed
Twitter is giving users the ability to easily switch between seeing the latest tweets first and seeing the company’s algorithmically chosen “Top Tweets” when they open the app. The c
Discord announces 90/10 revenue split for self-published titles on upcoming games store
After gaming chat app startup Discord announced in August that they were building out a games store, today, they’ve detailed that they’ll be pursuing a very competitive 90/10 revenue split
Facebook restructures Building 8, separating projects into Reality Labs and Portal groups
Facebook is restructuring its experimental hardware efforts and giving its moonshot projects a home within its AR/VR research division. The restructuring, reported by Business Insider (paywalled), did
Niantic reportedly raising $200M at $3.9B valuation
Pokémon GO creator Niantic is raising a $200 million Series C at a valuation of $3.9 billion, according to a report from Katie Roof at the WSJ. The round is expected to be led by IVP with participat
Facebook open-sources PyText NLP framework
Facebook AI Research is open-sourcing some of the conversational AI tech it is using to power its Portal video chat display and M suggestions on Facebook Messenger. The company announced today that it
IMAX pulls the plug on its dream of VR arcades
The company behind the biggest screens in cinema is giving up on bringing VR screens within a few inches of users’ faces. The company announced today in an SEC filing that it will be shutting do
Facebook settles Oculus VR lawsuit with ZeniMax
Nearly five years after announcing its acquisition of Oculus VR, Facebook is finally ready to put behind it the drama surrounding its founding. Gaming giant ZeniMax Media’s lawsuit against Faceb
VRgineers looks to set a new gold standard with their $5,800 VR headset
Thought VR was too expensive and too bulky? Well, VRgineers is here with a giant $5,800 headset to prove that you lack perspective. The Prague-based startup just showed off its latest piece of high-en
WaveOptics nabs $26M as it sets its sights on lower-cost AR hardware
At the heart of the lightweight augmented reality glasses that you’ve been promised is a display engine that a handful of tech companies are racing to improve. WaveOptics is one such startup loo
Google Lens arrives in iOS search app
Google is bringing its Lens visual search feature to the iOS Google app, giving iPhone users a new way to search the web on mobile. By tapping on the Google Lens icon, you dive straight into the camer
CTRL-labs’ first dev kit is a gesture-tracking neural controller
The race to replace the mouse and keyboard has yielded a lot of weird tech, but as various hardware startups try to find the missing link between what we have now and some sort of embedded brain chip,
Artie aims to bring you closer to your digital idols with autonomous AR avatars
If you spend enough time scrolling through manicured photos of manicured lives on social media, you might come to the realization that maybe the fakeness of the online world has started to look too re
Magic Leap loses two women from top executive positions
Magic Leap’s executive team is pretty heavy on the dudes these days. The augmented reality startup’s two female C-suite executives, Chief Marketing Officer Brenda Freeman and Chief Busines
Where Facebook AI research moves next
Five years is an awful lot of time in the tech industry. Darling startups find ways to crash and burn. Trends that seem unstoppable sputter-out. In the field of artificial intelligence, the past five
Facebook announces dates for 2019 F8 conference
Facebook was in the news a bit more than they would have preferred in 2018, but the company’s leadership will be taking to the stage to talk about its next product evolutions for consumers and d
Fortnite-maker aims for Steam’s head with Epic Games Store
Fortnite-maker Epic Games is capping off their insanely successful 2018 with an even more ambitious product launch: a desktop games store built to take on Valve’s Steam Store. The store, which i
Reddit had a pretty solid 2018
2018 was a big year for Reddit . The company executed an almost comically overdue redesign, continued to clean up toxic communities and promoted new features that are pushing the company toward new ar
Apple Music is getting native Android tablet support
Bringing Apple Music to Android tablets probably wasn’t Apple’s biggest priority, but three years after launching support for Android phones, the bigger screens are getting some love. The