The topic of open source has been a touchy one for MakerBot over the past decade. The one-time 3D-printing darling was the subject of some serious smack talk when it stopped disclosing machine design in 2012. MakerBot Labs doesn’t mark a full return to those roots, but it is carving out a niche for the DIY community that was once a driving force in its rapid growth. Read More
There isn’t much to say about the new Sonos One that hasn’t been said about Sonos already. The company has long been the gold standard in wireless whole-home audio and their speakers, while small, are powerful and more than usable for music, home entertainment, and general merriment. So how do you make a good speaker better? Just add Alexa. The new Sonos One is a $199 fully… Read More
AdHawk is announcing that it has acquired one of its competitors, Y Combinator-backed Automate Ads. Even if you weren’t a customer, Automate Ads may sound familiar because it was previously known as Kuhcoon, a social advertising startup co-founded by Andrew Torba, who has since been in the news for getting banned from the YC alumni network and for his social network Gab.ai, which has… Read More
How fast the landscape seems to shift. SoftBank has been making waves in Silicon Valley since announcing its Vision Fund earlier this year. Now, one of SoftBank’s besties — the sovereign wealth fund of the United Arab Emirates, called the Mubadala Investment Company — is also making a splashy debut onto the scene. Read More
Google wants to make Gmail the place where you check all your email accounts, not just your Google accounts. The company announced this week it’s testing a new version of the Gmail app on iOS that will allow users to add their non-Google accounts, including those from Outlook (including Hotmail or Live), Yahoo, and elsewhere. The announcement, which was sent out via a tweet from the… Read More
Since Isaac Asimov first laid out the three laws of robotics in 1942, human safety has been the No. 1 concern of the inventors, innovators and futurists who have pondered our place in the age of robots. But for robots to be able to ensure human safety, those robots must be able to see humans and recognize them as humans. That’s where Veo Robotics comes in. Read More
Facebook’s tests of an alternative News Feed dubbed the “Explore” feed have progressed to a full rollout, the company now confirms. Previously available on mobile devices in the main navigation, Facebook’s new Explore Feed is now appearing for users on the desktop, as well. Facebook tells TechCrunch this is the beginning of the official rollout of the Explore feed. On… Read More
The MysteryVibe is a snake-shaped vibrator that took the Internet by storm and is still going strong. This week I talked to the co-founder of the company, Stephanie Alys, about the future of pleasure and sex toys. It’s safe to say that this episode of Technotopia is a little NSFW. The future, suggests Alys, will feature smart tools that will help with our sex lives and our relationships.… Read More
CNN has won an interesting waiver regarding its commercial drone operating license with the FAA – an exemption that allows it to fly its Vantage Robotics Snap drone over open-air crowds of people at altitudes of up to 150 feet. This is a new precedent in this kind of waiver: Previous exemptions allowed flight of drones over people in closed set operations (like for filmmaking purposes)… Read More
Adobe today announced that it has acquired KyleBrush.com, a service that offers digital brushes for Adobe’s Creative Cloud tools, and hired the service’s creator, Kyle T. Webster. Webster’s more than 1,000 brushes will now be exclusively available for Creative Cloud subscribers, something not all of his users are happy about because they were previously able to use his tools… Read More
Toyota is debuting a new concept vehicle for the forthcoming Tokyo Motor Show, and it’s a fuel cell vehicle that’s designed to get around 1,000 km (around 621 miles) on a single hydrogen pack that can be refuelled in about 3 minutes total. The concept looks like an aggressively future-styled minivan, though it’s billed as a “premium saloon,” and it’s got… Read More
A one-year-old data transfer mechanism that’s used by thousands of companies to authorize transfers of personal data between the European Union and the U.S. for processing has been given the thumbs up after its first annual review. Read More
It was just a matter of time, really. Motorola’s been teasing Alexa integration since Mobile World Congress in February. Back then, the company previewed a sort of “experimental” Mod for the Moto Z sporting Amazon’s insanely popular smart assistant. The add-on is finally really real and set to start shipping next month.
The AI has already slowly made its way onto a… Read More
Nielsen is hoping to make the viewership numbers for the shows airing on streaming services a little less of a mystery. The company is today announcing a new service, Nielsen Subscription Video On Demand (SVOD) Content Ratings, to measure streaming services’ programs in a way that’s comparable to linear TV. That includes ratings, reaches, frequency and segmentation reporting,… Read More
Flexibits, the company behind popular calendar app Fantastical, is releasing a new app for macOS today. Cardhop is another take on a default productivity app. This time, the company is trying to improve the Contacts app. It is available on the Mac App Store for $19.99, with a $14.99 introductory sale. I’ve been using Cardhop for a few weeks, and it’s been a breath of fresh air when… Read More
When one self-driving technology entrepreneur highlights the efforts of another company working on autonomous vehicles, you pay attention: That’s what happened with Voyage co-founder MacCallister Higgins, who tweeted a short video of the top of Apple’s ‘Project Titan’ test Lexus SUV, outfitted with a suite of sensors and autonomous hardware. This isn’t the first… Read More
Wattpad, the company behind a suite of apps for reading and sharing stories – including a fairly popular “chat fiction” app Tap, a rival to Hooked – is today adding its first ever subscription plan for its flagship application. The option, called Wattpad Premium, will remove the ads from Wattpad’s otherwise free app – a feature users have been requesting… Read More
London is staring up a pilot test of its electric black cabs (via Engadget), otherwise known as the TX5, after first revealing the vehicles back in 2015. The cars have 70 miles of pure EV range on their built-in battery pack, but can also go up to 400 miles using the onboard gas engine to generate the power for the battery and motor. The vehicles meet the conditions for London’s… Read More
Thanks to the Internet, you can order regular deliveries of everything from clothing to razors to geeky memorabilia. With Bespoke Post, you’re not just limited to one type of products — it ships its customer “box of awesome” that could be focused on style, travel, alcohol or something else entirely.
Co-founder and CEO Rishi Prabhu explained that the goal is to curate… Read More
Lego has a new set that originated by a member of its Lego Ideas fan-sourced creation platform: The Women of NASA, a package that includes NASA pioneers Nancy Grace Roman, Margeret Hamilton, Sally Ride and Mae Jamison, as well as a space shuttle model, the Hubble telescope and display stands for all.
The Lego set was originally proposed by MIT News deputy editor Maia Weinstock on the Ideas… Read More
