UltraHaptics acquires Leap Motion, Foursquare acquires Placed and Apple's big developer conference approaches. Here's your Daily Crunch for May 31, 2019. 1. Once poised to kill the mouse and keyboard, Leap Motion plays its final hand Leap Motion raised nearly $94 million for its mind-bending demos of hand-tracking technology, but the company was ultimately unable to find a sizable customer base. Even as it pivoted into the niche VR industry, the startup remained a problem in search of a solution. Now the nine-year-old company is being absorbed into the younger, enterprise-focused UltraHaptics. 2. Foursquare buys Placed from Snap Inc. on the heels of $150M in new funding Foursquare just made its very first acquisition, with Placed founder and CEO David Shim becoming president of the location data company. 3. What to expect from Apple’s WWDC 2019 The leaks of new iOS features have already started, and the big news so far is system-wide Dark Mode, following in the footsteps of MacOS. 4. ‘Lion King’ director Jon Favreau explains why he’s remaking an animated classic After sitting on it for 18 months, I can finally share an interview with the director of the new "Lion King" about how he used game engines and VR to visualize his film. 5. Uber Eats, micromobility services are growing faster than Uber’s core ride-hailing business In Uber’s Q1 2019 earnings, the company reported gross bookings growth of 230% for its other bets, while ridesharing grew just 22% year-over-year. 6. If you use women as decorative objects, then I will assume your tech is from the 1950s, too Just a reminder that "booth babes" are a toxic and outdated marketing gimmick. 7. The Slack origin story Find out how a whimsical online game became an enterprise software giant. (Extra Crunch membership required.) |