SpaceX is using another refurbished rocket this afternoon — this one is the third Falcon 9 first-stage booster the company has refurbished and used again. This is also the second launch attempt this week, after SpaceX successfully launched a mission for client Iridium on Monday. Read More
Standalone headsets, VR replacements for your computer monitor and ways to share VR to the News Feed were highlights of today’s big Oculus conference. Click through or scroll down to get just the need-to-know info and GIFs from our in-depth coverage of Facebook’s vision for the future of virtual reality.
Read More
The drama between Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky and the U.S. government just doesn’t quit, but a new report may answer some longstanding questions. This week, The New York Times revealed that U.S. intelligence was actually tipped off about the Russian government hacking Kaspersky Lab software by Israeli intelligence officers who observed Russia in action during the course of their… Read More
Google’s TensorFlow team released TensorFlow Lattice today to help developers ensure that their machine learning models adhere to global trends even when training data is noisy. Lattice draws from the concept of lookup tables to simplify the process of defining macro rules to restrict models. Read More
One of the Amazon Echo’s biggest blindspots has just been addressed. Starting today, the company will finally start rolling out customized voice detection. That means users in multi-person homes will be able to get individualized experiences, based on voice recognition. So each user gets their personalized shopping list, music selections and the like. The feature is one of the spots… Read More
Today, Facebook’s VR ambitions looked inwards. The newly announced $199 Oculus Go headset and upcoming high-end “Santa Cruz” standalone will come with something past headsets haven’t: power buttons. Read More
Star Wars VR is going to Disneyland. Well, sort of. It’s going to the area just outside Disneyland — Downtown Disney (in Anaheim) and Disney Springs (next to Disney World in Orlando). Read More
User feedback about Hulu’s new interface has not been entirely positive. In fact, a complaint about the new user interface is the most upvoted item on Hulu’s customer feedback forums, and is then followed by dozens of similar complaints which all say the same thing: it’s too hard to find shows, the interface is too difficult to navigate, the layout is confusing, and so on.… Read More
I try not to quote directly from press releases as a rule, but sometimes a line like, “NutriBullet has taken the art of smoothie making to the next level” jumps out and you can’t really avoid it. For those who’ve been waiting for years to figure out precisely what the future of smoothie making looks like, the answer should be pretty clear: the Internet of Smoothies.… Read More
Armed with an understanding of machine learning, ROSS Intelligence is going after LexisNexis and Thomson Reuters for ownership of legal research. The startup is announcing an $8.7 million Series A today led by iNovia Capital with participation from Comcast Ventures Catalyst Fund, Y Combinator Continuity Fund, Real Ventures, Dentons’ NextLaw Labs and angels. Read More
Facebook wants to let you create virtual objects in its Oculus Medium sculpting platform or Facebook Spaces VR hangouts and then share them with friends who don’t have a VR headset. Today at Oculus Connect 4, Facebook previewed 3D posts, a new type of News Feed post where users can grab, spin and interact with a 3D object to look at it from all angles. Read More
Oculus Rift has a whole new user interface that lets you customize your VR Home space and replace your traditional computer monitor with nearly unlimited VR screenspace. Oculus Core 2.0 is rolling out in beta in December. Read More
GitHub, the online code repository, is hosting its annual user conference this week. Following long-standing tradition in the tech industry, the company used the event to announce a number of new features for its service. The announcements center around two topics: security and discoverability. Read More
Last year, Oculus gave a brief glimpse of a standalone headset concept called “Santa Cruz.” Today, we’ve learned the headsets are going to be in developers’ hands “next year,” and will work with some new motion-tracked controllers. Read More
Wow; well, after a year of the Oculus Rift and Oculus Touch shifting from being $798 to $598 to $499 to $399 to $499, it will now indeed settle at $399 as the final bundled price. That’s $399 in case you’re confused. Read More
Funds have been ballooning in size as more money continues to flood into Silicon Valley, looking for higher returns than can be found elsewhere. VCs also like raising progressively bigger funds because doing so gives them bragging rights. Now Icon Ventures has closed its sixth fund with $265 million in commitments — its largest fund to date. Read More
Oculus wants to help companies like Walmart and Deloitte build VR experiences for their clients and customers. So today it launched “Oculus for Business,” which lets companies buy $900 Oculus Rift bundles in bulk with enterprise-grade warranties, a full VR commercial license and access to dedicated customer support. Read More
Facebook plans to launch a virtual reality “Venues” app next year that Mark Zuckerberg says will allow people to “watch live concerts, and live sports, and premieres of movies and tv shows, all around the world with friends” and other people. Read More
Onstage at Oculus Connect 4 in San Jose, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled a new mobile headset called “Oculus Go.” According to Zuck, “it’s the most accessible VR headset yet;” it starts at $199 and it’s going to ship early next year. It appears that the mobile headset will be a similar experience to the Gear VR, allowing users to spin around but not… Read More
Equifax is still leaking like a sieve. Security researcher Brian Krebs has outlined a vulnerability in Equifax’s The Work Number product, a system used by credit companies to confirm your salary. The system uses a number of personal details, including your SSN and birthdate, to bring up a salary history. These are details leaked in Equifax’s 143 million record breach this year.… Read More
