A driverless shuttle set free in downtown Las Vegas was involved in a minor accident less than an hour after it hit the streets, reported the local NBC affiliate KSNV. Not really the kind of publicity you want, or that self-driving cars need. Read More
Mating digital photography with film seems to me an alluring yet ultimately quixotic endeavor; who doesn’t love the idea of a camera that combines the weight and handling of a 35mm SLR with the convenience and precision of a digital one? Yet it has never been done, and likely never will be. Reflex is the latest to try, though, with a new 35mm camera built for the modern tech-loving… Read More
It’s clear that flying cars are transitioning from a fascinating concept to a quite-mature technology and promising investment thesis. But will we see flying cars out in the world? And how will the market environment evolve? Read More
Eyeing more secure alternatives to Social Security numbers, lawmakers in the U.S. are looking abroad. Today, the Senate Commerce Committee questioned former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, Verizon Chief Privacy Officer Karen Zacharia and both the current and former CEOs of Equifax on how to protect consumers against major data breaches. The consensus? Social Security numbers have to go. Read More
Shernaz Daver, the chief marketing officer for Udacity, who company founder Sebastian Thrun credits with architecting the company’s dramatic revitalization four years ago, is stepping down from her position with the company. Read More
Square is continuing to make its bid to capture the payments of small businesses around the world, as well as tap into the momentum of peer-to-peer payments products with Square Cash, as its payments volume continues a steady and methodical rise — though, Wall Street still seems a little skeptical today as the stock is down slightly. Read More
Roku, the digital streaming business, had a huge first earnings report, greatly surpassing analyst expectations. The company quickly surged over 26% in initial after-hours trading. Roku reported $124.8 million in net revenue for its third quarter, compared to $110.5 million in analyst estimates. It’s also above the $89 million in revenue for the same period last year. Adjusted losses… Read More
If something scary or infuriating happens with your Uber, sending an email to support doesn’t always cut it. And if you’ve ridden thousands of miles with Uber and paid them boatloads over the years, you might expect better service. You’re always just a few taps away from switching to Lyft, right? This week, TechCrunch spotted Uber testing new “Premium Support”… Read More
Not content with merely launching its own take on Instagram and Snapchat’s Stories, Skype today is adding another copycat-like feature to its app: photo stickers. The company says it’s introducing new “Photo Effects” (as it’s calling these stickers), which include things like face masks, decorative borders, witty captions, and more. However, unlike the photo… Read More
Earlier today, at the Web Summit conference in Lisbon, Brad Parscale, the digital director of Donald Trump’s presidential election campaign, revealed much more about Trump’s election campaign and the role that Facebook played in it. Read More
Over the past 20 years there have been 11,459 accidents across the network of oil and gas pipelines that crisscross the U.S. The toll in human lives and financial damages is severe and something that can be avoided. Technology startup Enview has developed tools for geospatial analytics that oil and gas companies and utilities are beginning to use to monitor and manage their networks. Read More
Apple’s original content ambitions just landed some premiere talent, per The Hollywood Reporter: A drama series focused on a fictional version of the morning TV show world, based on background from CNN media reporter Brian Stelter’s book ‘Top of the Morning: Inside the Cutthroat World of Morning TV’ and starring Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon has been picked… Read More
Former cable news anchor Greta Van Susteren is ready to jump into the app market with an apology app, according to a Facebook post she put up today. Van Susteren says in the post she’ll be releasing her first app, “Sorry,” which she’s spent more than a year on already, to let people send apologies to one another. Read More
The U.S. Department of Justice may block Time Warner’s sale to AT&T if it doesn’t sell CNN first, according to a report from the Financial Times. The $85.4 billion deal was proposed last year, just weeks before the U.S. presidential election. After Donald Trump was elected, some wondered if his disdain for the cable news channel would somehow thwart the deal. Read More
Apple is reportedly working on a redesign of the iPad that includes dropping the Home button and slimming down the bezels on the top-end model, as well as adding facial recognition tech to allow for Face ID unlocking and more. Bloomberg says the redesigned iPad could make its consumer debut as early as next year.
The upgraded tablet would likely sit at the top of the iPad line, which would… Read More
Every financial services firm has a team of data scientists that take all the information that comes in and structure it in a way that the rocket scientists and genius mathematicians can turn into something useful. It’s a difficult job that only a select few can handle. Those select few have now launched Crux Informatics to take over the data processing that big banks need done. Read More
Amazon quietly launched its own private label diapers on its site last week, this time under the Mama Bear brand. The brand, which already sells other baby items like baby food and diaper pail refills, is now carrying size newborn through size 6 diapers. However, shoppers will have to request an invite to purchase the items, as they’re still being launched. The arrival of Amazon’s… Read More
SpaceX suffered an explosion of one of its Falcon 9 rocket engines during qualification testing at its facility in McGregor, Texas, per The Verge. The failure resulting in the explosion occurred on Sunday, and the company is now underway with investigations designed to determine what went wrong that resulted in the incident. The Merlin engine explosion did not result in any injuries to… Read More
Advocates for a bitcoin hard fork have now decided to cancel plans for the so-called SegWit2x fork. The bitcoin blockchain was supposed to split into two blockchains in roughly 8 days. But it looks like SegWit2x backers couldn’t convince enough people in the bitcoin community to make the SegWit2x blockchain the new mainstream bitcoin blockchain. The SegWit2x fork should have increased… Read More
Founder Gym, co-founded by Mandela Schumacher-Hodge and Gabriela Zamudio, is unveiling its online platform to support and train underrepresented founders building tech startups. Instead of describing it as a school, bootcamp or incubator, Founder Gym describes itself as a topical, four-week training program that covers topics like fundraising, pitching, user growth and problem validation. Read More
