VSCO, the photo filter and editing app that , has called VSCO Capture. The free iOS‑only app is a camera with live previews where users can choose from over 50 different presets with real‑time film effects and manual settings like shutter speed and exposure for fine‑tuning. The app takes the guesswork out of how your photo will look after you apply VSCO’s iconic filters.
“VSCO Capture is a direct response to our community’s desire to get closer to the lens, to reduce editing fatigue and find more joy in the process of making authentic, stylized photography using their phone,” said Eric Wittman, CEO of VSCO.
The app’s non‑destructive presets retain the original captured image so users can modify them later and change filters after the fact. VSCO Capture supports RAW and formats for maximum flexibility when editing. Capture syncs instantly with the main VSCO app for additional edits and sharing.
Earlier this year, Google announced it was discontinuing the Nest Protect. The intended smoke and carbon monoxide alarm replacement from First Alert is now listed on the US and Canadian Google Store.
Going to the Google Store’s “Smart Home” landing page features an updated “Smoke & CO alarm” entry. Clicking takes you to a listing for the First Alert SC5 Smart Smoke & Carbon Monoxide Alarm. You can also get there when searching “Nest Protect.”
However, you cannot buy it from the Google Store (and take advantage of the Google One perk). Instead, there’s just a link to Find Retailers for the Battery and Wired versions. (At the moment, both take you to the First Alert website.)
The first feature highlighted on the listing is how it “Works with Google Nest Protect” and can “seamlessly integrate with existing Google Nest Protects in the Google Home app to expand your safety ecosystem or replace expiring Nest Protects.” Specifically, it is “designed to work with your existing Nest Protect base plate,” though there’s a new mounting plate in the box.
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Works with the First Alert and Google Home apps: “Check, silence, or remotely test your alarm in the First Alert or Google Home app.”
Get smart smoke & CO alerts: “Connect with the First Alert or Google Home app to receive emergency or heads up early warning alerts on your phone if smoke or CO are detected.”
Interconnect with compatible alarms summary: “Create a smart and connected fire and CO safety system in your home. When one alarm sounds, they all sound. Works with select First Alert/BRK alarms and Google Nest Protect.”
With this listing, Google looks to have also run out of existing Nest Protect inventory, which it was selling at a discount since March.
Meanwhile, Google today is still selling the Nest x Yale Lock, though half the colors are out of stock. The Yale Matter Smart Lock is now available at other retailers.
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After a slew of rainy weekends this summer, it looks like New England is gearing up for a cool, dry fall, according to a new report from The Old Farmer’s Almanac.
The publication, which launched in 1792 in Dublin, New Hampshire, released its 2025 fall forecast earlier this month. While the country-wide forecast indicates a warmer than average season, the Northeast section of the report foresees “cooler and drier conditions than usual.”
Local temperatures will be two to three degrees cooler than average, the report states, predicting a September average of 59 degrees and an October average of 46 degrees. Estimated rainfall for the region is 3.5 inches in September, and 2.5 inches in October.
“Look for scattered showers, brief warm spells, and overall chilly weather,” the report states.
Other parts of the county that will see a cooler than average season include the Appalachians, the Lower Lakes, the Ohio Valley, the upper Midwest, the desert Southwest, and Hawaii.
These predictions are based on the publication’s longstanding method of combining solar science, climatology, and meteorology, and yield results that “are often very close to our traditional claim of 80 percent [accurate],” the almanac’s website states.
A separate fall foliage report from the publication also states that most of New England will be “at or near peak fall color” by October 11.
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Hulk Hogan between matches during WrestleMania in Los Angeles in 2005.
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Hulk Hogan, one of the biggest stars of professional wrestling, has died. The police and fire departments in Clearwater, Florida, put out a statement stating they responded to a medical call for a cardiac arrest this morning. Hogan was pronounced dead at a local hospital. He was 71 years old.
Hogan, whose real name is Terry Bollea, was one of the earliest stars of World Wrestling Entertainment and was the face of pro wrestling’s boom in popularity during the 1980s.
In a post on X, the WWE called Hogan “one of pop culture’s most recognizable figures,” and credits him for helping the brand achieve global recognition.
He was so popular, there was a name for his era of popularity – Hulkamania. Hogan parlayed that stardom into movie roles, including a memorable appearance in Rocky III.
Hogan also became a major figure in the media after the website Gawker published a portion of a sex tape of Hogan in 2012. Funded by billionaire Peter Thiel, Hogan sued parent company Gawker Media. Hogan won the lawsuit. A Florida jury awarded him $140 million, driving Gawker Media into bankruptcy.
Two years after securing $1 billion in commitments from over 20 countries, the NATO Innovation Fund (NIF) is entering a new chapter, marked by the arrival of two new partners and the departure of a founding team partner.
In a context of increased military spending across NATO members, investment in dual-use technology has skyrocketed since the initiative was first announced in 2021. Once a no-go zone for institutional investors, defense and resilience tech last year reached an all-time high of 10% of all VC funding in Europe, where nearly all NIF’s backers are located.
This boom should have given NIF a first-mover advantage, but the fund was hampered by management challenges and a series of high-profile departures. After the 2025 NATO Summit in The Hague reaffirmed its importance last June, NIF is now emerging with an almost entirely new investment team.
While NIF originally had four partners and one managing partner, it is now composed of three partners, and a person familiar with NIF said this flat, three-partner structure will remain in place for the foreseeable future.
Two of the partners are new hires: Ulrich Quay and Sander Verbrugge, who will be based in Amsterdam. Quay, a German national, was most recently in charge of corporate investments as a vice president at BMW, where he previously founded and led corporate venture fund BMW i Ventures. Verbrugge, a Dutch PhD in molecular biophysics, was previously a partner at deep tech VC fund Innovation Industries, which he joined after working at semiconductor design and manufacturing company NXP. The third partner is London-based VC Patrick Schneider-Sikorsky, who is the last remaining member of the original investment team.
Alongside the new hires, the fund announced the departure of founding team partner Kelly Chen, who tells TechCrunch that leaving was her decision and that she will be building a new venture. Chris O’Connor, another founding team partner, left NIF earlier this year with similar plans.
Chen currently sits on the board of several startups backed by NIF but will transition her board responsibilities once her employment at the NIF has wrapped up, TechCrunch learned from its chief communications and marketing officer, Amalia Kontesi.
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While some observers wish the fund had deployed capital faster, Kontesi said NIF “is on track to meet [its] investing goals for the year.” Since its inception, NIF has made 19 investments: seven into funds such as OTB Ventures, and 12 into startups including Space Forge and Tekever, which makes dual-use drones.
Adding new partners with industrial and scientific backgrounds, no matter how impressive, may not satisfy those who wish that the fund could invest in Ukraine or pure defense, as opposed to dual use, in response to Russia’s war economy. But the NIF’s broader thesis is to “empower deep tech founders to address challenges in defence, security, and resilience.”
In the meantime, NIF has also ramped up its efforts on the defense side. Its team was heavily involved in the development of NATO’s Rapid Adoption Action Plan, aimed at accelerating the adoption and integration of new technological products for defense. NIF has also been building up its Mission Platform Group with strategic hires including John Ridge, who was hired as chief adoption officer in 2024 to help portfolio startups navigate military procurement.
As for its new partners, they were once again hired through a process previously described by VC Michael Jackson as akin to “building a boy band.” They weren’t teamed up based on shared history or chemistry, in other words; they were identified by NIF’s board of directors and approved by LPs.
That process may be inevitable for an organization that now counts 24 countries as limited partners but is widely believed to be one reason the previous team didn’t gel. This time, all three partners got to meet throughout the recruitment process and spend time together to “ensure a smooth transition and to position the team for long term success,” Kontesi said.
In a statement shared exclusively with TechCrunch, NIF’s vice chair, professor Fiona Murray, compared the organization to a startup. “We are proud of what we accomplished, but like any effective team we are learning, experimenting, improving: speeding up our processes, expanding our platform support for startups, doubling down on ecosystem building and more broadly recognizing the need to build the sector and the capital stack.”
Murray expressed pride in having brought together a qualified team that can collaborate effectively, creatively and quickly. “They will enable us to move even more rapidly and decisively to drive the Alliance’s technological agenda and support the best founders across European ecosystems,” she previously wrote in a joint statement with NIF’s chair, Klaus Hommels.
Hommels’ other activities as an investor have prompted questions about possible conflicts of interest, but no change appears to have been made to his role during NIF’s recent LP meeting in Venice. Rather than dwelling further on its reorganization, NIF seems set on helping NATO become more resilient.
“In this next phase,” NIF’s vice chair said, “you’ll see us refocus on DSR opportunities and emphasize building companies that can drive industrial scale and really support ecosystems across Europe.”
Regulators won’t stand in the way of Skydance’s Paramount acquisition. The Federal Communications Commission has approved the $8 billion purchase of Paramount Global and its subsidiaries, including the parent company of CBS Network. In a statement, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said he welcomes “Skydance’s commitment to make significant changes at the once storied CBS broadcast network.” Skydance, he said, has made written commitments to ensure that its “news and entertainment programming will embody a diversity of viewpoints across the political and ideological spectrum.” He also said that Skydance has “committed that it will not establish” DEI programs.
“Americans no longer trust the legacy national news media to report fully, accurately, and fairly. It is time for a change…These commitments, if implemented, would enable CBS to operate in the public interest and focus on fair, unbiased, and fact-based coverage. Doing so would begin the process of earning back Americans’ trust. Today’s decision also marks another step forward in the FCC’s efforts to eliminate invidious forms of DEI discrimination,” part of Carr’s statement reads.
FCC Commissioner Anna M. Gomez, however, issued a statement saying she cannot support the deal “in light of the payout and other troubling concessions Paramount made to settle a baseless lawsuit.” In early July, Paramount agreed to pay $16 million to settle the lawsuit Donald Trump filed over a CBS interview with Kamala Harris during the 2020 presidential campaign. His lawyers accused the network of editing her answers to “confuse, deceive and mislead the public.”
Legal experts said at the time that Paramount may have settled to ensure that there are no obstacles for the merger’s approval. When news about the acquisition first came out, the company said that it plans to rebuild its streaming technology while reducing costs under its new CEO David Ellison. Paramount, after all, invested billions into its streaming service Paramount+, and it had yet to turn a profit. The company said that it was allocating the $16 million to Trump’s future presidential library and not paying him “directly or indirectly.”
“In an unprecedented move, this once-independent FCC used its vast power to pressure Paramount to broker a private legal settlement and further erode press freedom,” Gomez said in her statement. “Once again, the agency is undermining legitimate efforts to combat discrimination and expand opportunity by overstepping its authority and intervening in employment matters reserved for other government entities with proper jurisdiction on these issues. Even more alarming, it is now imposing never-before-seen controls over newsroom decisions and editorial judgment, in direct violation of the First Amendment and the law.”
She added: “The Paramount payout and this reckless approval have emboldened those who believe the government can — and should — abuse its power to extract financial and ideological concessions, demand favored treatment, and secure positive media coverage. It is a dark chapter in a long and growing record of abuse that threatens press freedom in this country. But such violations endure only when institutions choose capitulation over courage. It is time for companies, journalists, and citizens alike to stand up and speak out, because unchecked and unquestioned power has no rightful place in America.”
The monthly “Google System Release Notes” primarily detail what’s new in Play services, Play Store, and Play system update across Android phones/tablets, Wear OS, Google/Android TV, Auto, and PC. Some features apply to end users, while others are aimed at developers.
The following first-party apps comprise the “Google System”:
A feature appearing in the changelog does not mean it’s widely available. Some capabilities take months to fully launch.
Google Play services v25.29 (2025-07-24)
System Management
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[Phone] With the updates to settings, it’s now easier to manage Google system services.
Notable additions this week include being able to add Wear OS Tiles to your watch from the Play Store, and some unspecified improvements to the Document Scanner on phones.
Google Play Store v47.2 (2025-07-21)
[Wear] Add tiles to your watch carousel directly from Play Store.
[PC, Phone] With a more flexible system, you can now choose which tasks to complete including optional ones that offer additional rewards.
Google Play services v25.28 (2025-07-21)
Account Management
[Phone] With this update, you’ll find recommendations for Find Hub features in Google Settings.
[Phone] We’ve added infrastructure updates to make it easier to find important account related activity.
Developer Services
[Phone] We’ve updated the Document Scanner feature to improve the overall user experience.
Wallet
[Phone] With this update, it’s easier to transfer your Wallet Felica Transit cards between devices.
Google Play Store v47.1 (2025-07-14)
[Phone] With this update, you can now find the developer’s latest videos from the Details page of some apps.
[Phone] At the top of select app pages, you can now quickly preview app details with a new image gallery.
Google Play services v25.26 (2025-07-07)
Account Management
[Auto] Reauthentication now works through a simple approval on your trusted device.
System Management
[Auto, PC, Phone, TV, Wear] With this feature, we’ve updated the open source licensing page.
Wallet
[Phone] You can now buy a season pass through select transit agencies with pass purchase for transit insights.
[Phone] Bug fixes for Wallet related services.
Google Play Store v47.0 (2025-07-07)
[Phone] You can now give feedback on your answers in Freeform Q&A.
Android System Intelligence powers features like At a Glance, Live Caption, Now Playing, Smart Reply, and more. As of Android 16 QPR1 Beta 2.1, going to the Play Store listing does not offer the usual “Update” button like other apps.
The latest version for devices on the beta appears to be B.0.playstore.pixel9.738427685. (On Android 16, it’s B.7.playstore.pixel9.778505170.)
Android System Intelligence V.31 / B.9 (2025-07-04)
[Phone] Refactoring and bugfixes.
Private Compute Services V.31 / B.9 (2025-07-01)
[Phone] Internal infrastructure and maintenance changes.
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Behind a four-run comeback in the top of the sixth inning, the Worcester Red Sox earned an impressive 5-2 win to sweep Thursday’s doubleheader against St. Paul.
During the opening game, Worcester starting pitcher Cooper Criswell hurled five scoreless innings and struck out six to improve his record to 4-2.
On the offensive side, meanwhile, Kristian Campbell ended his recent slump with a first-inning solo blast to help their team earn a 4-0 win.
After Nate Eaton evened the score with a run-scoring single to start the top of the sixth inning, Blaze Jordan followed with his own RBI single to help Campbell score the eventual game-winning run in Game 2.
Nathan Hickey then doubled home multiple insurance runs to help Worcester improve its record to 50-48. The Red Sox finished 4-for-12 with runners in scoring position, while they also recorded three two-out RBIs.
Complete statistics of the second game can be found here.
After a scoreless start at the top of the first inning, the Saints’ offense loaded the bases. For a moment, though, it seemed like it wasn’t enough as Carson McCusker struck out swinging for the first out.
But Jonah Bride said otherwise, as he took Red Sox starting pitcher Isaac Coffey’s 0-2 pitch into left field for a two-run single that plated Payton Eeles and Luke Keaschall.
The opposing cushion was short-lived, though, as Tyler McDonough earned a double to right field that cut Worcester’s deficit to 2-1 through three innings of action.
After the Red Sox stranded one of their three runners on base during the top of the fifth inning, the road team made sure their luck changed in the sixth inning.
Moments after Vaughn Grissom failed to advance the previous runners past first and second base, Jordan countered with a run-scoring single to left field to move Worcester ahead for good.
Hickey’s multiple insurance runs proved essential, as the Saints earned an opportunity to gain an impressive comeback win once they loaded the bases with one out in the bottom of the seventh inning.
Before that could happen, though, Worcester manager Chad Tracy replaced relief pitcher Alex Hoppe with Jose Adames. And it was the right decision, as McCusker grounded into a 5-4-3 double play to seal the three-run win.
Worcester and St. Paul will continue its series on Friday from CHS Field at 8:07 p.m. EST.
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Chuck Mangione performs at the A Time To Care gala in 2004 in Holmby Hills, Calif.
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Jazz flugelhorn player and composer Chuck Mangione died in his sleep on Tuesday at his home in Rochester, N.Y. He was 84. Mangione’s smooth jazz hits topped the Billboard adult contemporary charts in the 1970s and ’80s. Along the way, he picked up two Grammys and an Emmy Award, and played himself as a recurring guest star on a Fox animated series.
With his beard, long hair and brown felt fedora, Chuck Mangione cut an unforgettable figure in American culture, one that stretched well beyond the jazz world. His instrument was the flugelhorn, larger and mellower than a traditional trumpet, and the music he wrote and played fused pop and electric sounds with the warmth of the flugelhorn and strong melodic hooks. For a while, his music was very popular: The track “Feels So Good,” from the double-platinum album of the same name, hit No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and the top of the adult contemporary chart in 1978.
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Mangione was born Nov. 29, 1940, in Rochester, which remained his home throughout his life. His parents owned a grocery store, and he began music lessons in elementary school, choosing to play the trumpet after he saw the Kirk Douglas film Young Man with a Horn. He started a jazz band with his brother, Gaspare, nicknamed Gap, in high school. The two sat in with jazz luminaries like Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie at the Ridge Crest Inn outside the city. Gillespie became what Mangione called “my musical father,” and gifted him a trumpet when he was 15.
It was at the Eastman School of Music where Mangione picked up the flugelhorn, on the way to a bachelor’s degree in music. Still, it was on the trumpet that he really cut his teeth, playing with Art Blakey‘s Jazz Messengers, which also featured Keith Jarrett and Chick Corea at the time.
By the early 1970s, Mangione had struck out on his own. Friends & Love, a concert of his music performed with the Rochester Philharmonic, was recorded and released privately before being picked up by Mercury Records, netting him his first of 14 Grammy nominations for the track “Hill Where the Lord Hides.” In 1973, another live album, Land of Make Believe, with vocals by Esther Satterfield, got widespread alternative FM play.
A&M records, Herb Alpert’s label, picked Mangione up from there, and he continued to climb the charts with Chase the Clouds Away and Feels So Good. He won his two Grammy awards in the ’70s, for the track “Bellavia” and for the title track to the film Children of Sanchez. Mangione also wrote music for two Olympics, the 1976 Summer Games in Montreal and the 1980 Winter Games in Lake Placid. “Give It All You Got,” the piece he played at the latter’s closing ceremony, earned an Emmy.
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Mangione toured extensively over the years, played with symphony orchestras and appeared on TV. He dedicated much of his life to music education, creating and teaching at Eastman’s jazz program. He also performed with high school bands and invited kids to play onstage at his matinee children’s concerts. And in later years, he became familiar to a new generation when he voiced a comic version himself on King of the Hill, as a pitchman for the department store Mega Lo Mart.
Oh, and that signature brown felt hat? It’s in the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, along with the score to “Feels So Good” and a trove of photographs and albums, which Mangione donated to the institution in 2009.
The internet trend is simple: A friend or family member looks into the camera and tells viewers, in a slightly aggressive tone, that they are about to witness a presentation and that they better be nice.
That’s what Kendall, the sister of Lucious McDaniel IV, did, and after she stepped aside, her brother pitched his company, BiteSight, a food-delivery app that lets users watch videos of food before ordering. It also lets customers see what their friends have ordered and bookmark places to try out. The app plays on how young people engage with content — through short-form videos and recommendations from friends.
McDaniel posted the video and went back to work. Fifteen minutes later, his sister texted him that their post was going viral. “We were at 20,000 views in 15 minutes,” McDaniel told TechCrunch. Excitement came, but then chaos ensued as “parts of our app started to break as we got more users.”
The engineering team worked around the clock to keep BiteSight functional, while McDaniel took to making TikToks about the chaos, which ended up going viral, too. He said people loved the “authenticity” behind seeing what happens when “your app explodes overnight.”
McDaniel told TechCrunch that the idea to make this video came after watching a friend partake in the same internet trend for his dating app. “It got over a million views, and he suggested I try it for BiteSight.”
Twenty-four-year-old McDaniel said he, like many young people, realized he was eating too much takeout, ordering from the same three places because he couldn’t discover new restaurants on delivery apps. “I’d hit this wall of identical-looking restaurants with stock photos, and somehow every place had 4.6 stars.”
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He started keeping a spreadsheet of restaurants he’d found on Instagram and TikTok, tracking actual reviews, and seeing what his friends thought about said places. “When I realized other people were doing the exact same thing, my co-founder Zac and I decided to build something better: an app that actually reflects how we discover food today,” he said, referring to Zac Schulwolf, the company’s CTO.
McDaniel is no stranger to the tech industry. He previously worked at General Atlantic, where one of his main focus areas was restaurant technology. He previously founded a payments company called Phly, led product for a recruitment software, and has even angel invested in a few companies, including the fintech Mercury.
He and Schulwolf, 25, spent over a year building BiteSight, including participation in Y Combinator’s Winter 2024 cohort. They then did a limited beta around New York University in April. In mid-May, the company launched an early version and did a bit of social media marketing. In June, they made their viral video.
“What made our video stand out was that what we are building resonates,” said McDaniel, who is BiteSight’s CEO (also known as chief eating officer). He added that “it’s clear that consumers, and especially Gen Z, are ready for something that feels fresh and built for the way they engage.”
After the video, BiteSight briefly became No. 2 in the App Store’s Food and Beverage category, bypassing Uber Eats, Starbucks, and even McDonald’s.
McDaniel said the app also gained more than 100,000 new users, and though it is only available in New York at the moment, people in other cities started messaging for a nationwide release. On the restaurant side, McDaniel said everyone from small family-owned spots to chain restaurants has reached out to partner and, of course, “we’ve had a surge of investor interest from folks who see that this is where food delivery is going.”
He declined to comment on the size of any upcoming funding deals, except to say he expects to have news to share soon.
Of course, BiteSight has a lot of big, well-funded competition like DoorDash and Uber Eats. McDaniel believes, however, that being a startup in the age of AI will be to his advantage. For example, while most of its competitors needed hundreds of engineers in their early days, BiteSight can work with AI tools that perform 10x the work of a human for much less the cost.
“By using AI to avoid massive overhead and infrastructure costs, we can do much more with much less and pass on the savings to the small business owners and customers who need it most while still maintaining healthy margins,” he said.
What also differentiates BiteSight is its focus on food and video, rather than other categories at the moment.
“We’re trying to be the go-to app for the generation that discovers everything through social recommendations and short-form video.”
