Funky physics and controls make mobile games fun. You tap against gravity in Flappy Bird, fling on a trajectory in Angry Birds and press to maintain momentum in Tiny Wings. So when two of Facebook’s top designers left to build their own apps, they wanted to bring a new gesture to gaming… and let worms, not birds, be the stars. Pinchworm sounds simple, but its the mapping of the controls… Read More
Ex-Facebook designers climb charts with adorable game Pinchworm
Charity or opportunism? It’s so hard to tell, sometimes. In RideAustin’s case, it looks to be a bit of both. It’s a non-profit car-for-hire service that’s happy to abide by the city’s rules — and adds a layer of budget- and conscience-friendly features that may help it stay differentiated (and alive). Read More
Non-profit RideAustin looks to fill void left by Uber and Lyft
We’re hearing from multiple sources that there’s a new fund coming out of Betaworks, and Twitter is chipping money into it. Twitter is investing at least $10 million in the new fund, according to one source. We don’t know the total size of the venture. In the past, Betaworks has focused on smaller seed investments and has stayed away from outsized funds. Another previous… Read More
Interior design and decorating resource Houzz is the overall best Android app of the year, according to Google, which this evening announced the results of the first-ever Google Play Awards at its developer conference, Google I/O. While in previous years, the company had rounded up large numbers of apps for “Best of” lists, the new Google Play Awards instead follows… Read More
What’s worse than asking the Internet at large to name your product? Telling them it has to start with N. Let’s just take a moment to appreciate the stupefying magnitude of Google’s naiveté here. Read More
Google asks the Internet for N-words — what could possibly go wrong?