Hardware

Investor FOMO following Roblox’s blockbuster public debut is pushing venture capitalists who missed out on that gaming giant to invest in competing platforms. Today, Rec Room announced it has raised $100 million from Sequoia and Index, with participation from Madrona Venture Group. The deal i

Lidar companies across the planet are going SPAC, but Baraja isn’t in a hurry to go public. The Australian lidar maker has raised a $31 million B round to continue the deployment and development of its “unique and ingenious” imaging system, with participation beyond the usual VC s

OnePlus unveils new hardware, Apple updates its educational offerings and Facebook reveals plans for its next developer conference. This is your Daily Crunch for March 23, 2021. The big story: OnePlus announces its first smartwatch The Chinese smartphone maker announced the OnePlus

Well before the rumors, we knew this day was coming. After several generations of smartwatches and a handful of headphones, the smartwatch was the next logical step for OnePlus. At today's big launch event, the company made its first major wearable official, sporting the decidedly pared-down na

Cameras have long been the battleground on which the smartphone wars have been fought. Short of any left-field innovation like folding screens or strange form factors, that looks likely to continue to be the case for the foreseeable future. Year after year and generation after generation, companies

Facebook's hardware strategy often looks pretty opaque from the outside. The company has done fairly well with Oculus sales amid pandemic demand. Even its Echo Show competitor Portal has seen a bump as people have been forced to socially distance. The company's smartphone partnership with H

There's been quite a bit of movement in the additive manufacturing space in recent months. If I had to pinpoint a reason, I would say that — much like robotics (another space I follow fairly closely) — the category has gotten a boost in interest from the pandemic. Medical applicatio

An artificial retina would be an enormous boon to the many people with visual impairments, and the possibility is creeping closer to reality year by year. One of the latest advancements takes a different and very promising approach, using tiny dots that convert light to electricity, and virtual rea

Mass manufacturing may be the future of 3D printing (one hopes), but health products are very much its present. From orthodontics to prosthesis, medical needs are right in the sweet spot for additive manufacturing. Prototyping is a category with a specific ceiling, while true mass manufacturing is

“It seems quite odd that no one has built the SpaceX equivalent for the ocean,” Anthony DiMare tells technewss. “There's no big, modern technology company that fits the space yet.” DiMare cofounded Bedrock Ocean Exploration last year, with Charles Chiau. The latter brought a depth of r

Apple is making a big investment in Germany, Russia takes aim at Twitter and Roblox goes public. This is your Daily Crunch for March 10, 2021. P.S. Don’t forget to sign up for TC Early Stage 2021, a virtual event focused on operations and fundraising that we’re holding on April 1 and 2!

Apple has announced that it plans to increase its corporate spendings in Germany. In particular, the company wants to set up a new facility in Munich, Germany. Called the European Silicon Design Center, the team will focus on 5G and potentially future wireless technologies. The company said that Mu

Apple is beginning to assemble the iPhone 12 in India as it ramps up its production capacity in the world’s second-largest smartphone market. Foxconn, a contract manufacturing partner of Apple, is assembling the iPhone 12 base model — though currently no other iPhone 12 model (Pro, Pro

Introduced in late-2019, the Move was a very Sonos approach to the Bluetooth speaker. It was an attempt to bring the company's long-standing premium approach to a more portable form factor. Accordingly, the press photos feature a lot of shots of the product on porches and around pools. Today