Microsoft connection: Trussel launched Glympse in 2008 after nearly 15 years at Microsoft, most recently as the company’s director of casual games. He joined with fellow Microsofties Steve Miller and Jeremy Mercer to launch the company. No intimidation: Glympse started with a goal of working with auto companies — the Mercedes and BMWs of the world, Trussel said. It has since done a “clean sweep” of automakers, he said, with its technology integrated into some Ford, BMW, Mercedes, Volkswagen, Volvo and other cars. In many models, drivers can access Glympse technology from the dashboard.

If you've tried virtual reality, whether or not it blew your mind probably depends on how you experienced it: whether it was with a high-end headset like the Oculus Rift or one that used a smartphone like the Samsung Gear VR. While today's flagship phones can provide a decent VR experience, they have shortcomings. Latency is an issue since the immersive nature of VR taxes the processor. Mobile VR also doesn't support much interactivity — meaning you can't touch or pick things up in the virtual environment, which is crucial for games. And even though manufacturers are squeezing more resolution into displays …

Norton by Symantec surveyed more than 5000 consumers from Australia, the US, UK, Canada and Japan about their fears concerning the "connected world" and the Internet of Things. The use of mobile apps to control connected devices is most common in Australia, with 63% of respondents using at least one mobile app to manage their finances or control connected devices such as home entertainment systems, fitness trackers, baby monitors, cars, home entry systems, light switches and smart home appliances.

The growing number of brands leveraging virtual reality is opening the door to VR commerce, which marketers are tapping to showcase products out of bricks-and-mortar contexts and offer in-store shoppers unique customer experiences. A slew of retailers – including The North Face and IKEA – have already begun experimenting with VR commerce by showcasing products through mobile applications and complementary headsets that pull into individuals into new dimensions. 

Smartwatches have really hit their stride in the past couple years with popular products from brands like Samsung, Apple, FitBit, Motorola, and more each promising their own set of features to make them worth putting on your wrist. Unfortunately, one of the biggest problems with smartwatches is that their size limits the wearer’s ability to navigate and control it. Tiny touchscreens, buttons, and dials offer only a limited amount of control over what could be a much more powerful communication device.

It’s not been a good few weeks for Nest, and it looks like things are going to get worse, before/if they ever get better. Google has launched the Home, its rival to Amazon’s Echo, with Nest, Alphabet’s smart home subsidiary, entirely absent from proceedings. From a business efficiency standpoint, it seems logical that Alphabet would want to focus its resources and combine its consumer electronics ambitions into one division – thereby uniting its OnHub router and the new Home with Nest’s smart home portfolio. But so far this has not been the case. While this could be attributed to the …

PepsiCo’s Mountain Dew is scaling up its virtual reality content strategy with a new campaign on Shazam, YouTube 360, Facebook 360 and a dedicated hub, for an immersive experience showcasing two limited-edition flavors and encouraging viewers to vote for their favorite. The Mountain Dew effort, the brand’s first to use VR as a content channel as part of larger, integrated campaign, showcases how virtual reality boosts mobile’s importance in product development with more immersive experiences, in this case via a tie-in with several NASCAR drivers. While the content is available for the Oculus headset, it is also found on a number …

If Brian May could capture one moment from his life so that others could step inside that moment and experience it, it would be the time he strode onto the roof of Buckingham Palace alone except for his guitar and played to 200 million people. "I'd love people to know what that felt like," said the Queen guitarist. "It was a whole life-changing experience for me." No-one but May will ever know what it was like to perform on the roof of 'er majesty's gaff for the Queen's Golden Jubilee celebrations in 2002. But the legendary guitarist is giving music lovers a …

Shopping companion application shopkick continues to evolve the mobile coupon space by introducing video viewing and receipt scanning, providing consumers with a wider range of methods to receive rewards while enabling retailers to enhance engagements. In response to the growth of mobile video, shopkick is now providing users with rewards in exchange for video views within the mobile app and has seen average completion rates of 90 percent in test markets. Shoppers can now also scan receipts from stores and earn rewards for items purchased.

Eero's mission to rid the realm of dropped Wifi connections just got a multi-million-dollar boost to its coffers and landed retail shelves for its router. The startup announced Wednesday that it has secured a $50 million growth round led byMenlo Ventures with participation from Index Ventures, as well as a commitment from Best Buy, which will begin selling the product on its website this week, to stock eero in 500 stores starting this summer.