You likely won’t be surprised when I tell you that building a self-driving car is difficult and complex. Udacity has tried to help address that difficulty with flexible, online education for self-driving engineers through its Self-Driving Cars Nanodegree program, and now it’s expanding its offerings with a new Intro to Self-Driving Cars Nanodegree being introduced at TechCrunch… Read More
Online education company Udacity is growing its new Nanodegree program yet again – it’s adding two entirely new programs to the roster, including a new entry-level self-driving Nanodegree, as well as a brand new one focused on ‘flying cars’ (though it’s actually a bit more nuanced than that). The Flying Car program will include course material created by… Read More
It seems Skully, the AR helmet company that crashed and burned in July of 2016 after the former CEO Marcus Weller refused to sign a confidentiality deal with investors is trying to make a comeback. Read More
This summer the TC team took a brief trip to Shenzhen, where I met Wells Tu, whose company TimeKettle has made an earpiece that translates spoken Chinese to English and vice versa in near real time. Having created a functioning prototype (it isn’t vaporware; we tried it, as you can see above) he and the team are now heading to Kickstarter to raise the money for their first run of the… Read More
After months and months of beta, iOS 11 is finally here — and it’s a huge update. In particular, Apple has tucked away many little features that you won’t see right away. If you want to impress all your friends with your mad iOS skills, here is a list of some of these features. I also wrote a short and sweet review of iOS 10 if you want to learn more about all the changes… Read More
After reading back the preview I wrote back in June, the dominant tone was that iOS 11 is so different that it takes a while to get used to it:
I’m not going to lie to you. It takes time to get used to those new gestures. I’m not there yet, and I often find myself thinking about what I’m supposed to do to pull up Spotlight, look at my Today widgets and find an app that I… Read More
Apple has just released the final version of iOS 11. This update is packed with new features for the iPad and new core frameworks for the iPhone. The update is currently rolling out and is available both over-the-air in the Settings app, and by plugging your device into iTunes for a wired update. Many people try to download these major updates at the same time. Apple usually implements a… Read More
YouTube today is taking on Twitch with the launch of a new program that will allow gamers to make money from their channels through the use of sponsorships. Like Twitch’s subscriptions, which offer fans access to custom emotes, special badges and other perks, YouTube’s sponsorships also include a similar set of perks, like custom badges, custom emoji in chat, and access to… Read More
Xiaomi is one of the most valuable startups in the world and has become a big icon in smartphone design, sometimes suggested as an analog to Apple in China. The company’s flagship phones receive a ton of press in the U.S., too, but they aren’t available in the U.S. just yet. Instead, Xiaomi is looking to emerging markets like India in addition to getting its phones into the hands… Read More
Chalk up another coup for digital media hiring as the media company mitú, focused on digitally distributed content for Hispanic audiences, has managed to score the longtime entertainment executive Herb Scannell as its new chief executive. Read More
Today at Disrupt SF, we got our first look at Flippy in its final form. Miso Robotics has been showing off its burger-flipping “robotic kitchen assistant” for several months now, but today’s food robotics panel marks the first time we’ve actually seen it put to work in a real-world kitchen. No surprise, Caliburger is the first restaurant to get its hands on a Flippy.… Read More
Hilton and Amazon have teamed up on a new initiative that will allow member of Hilton’s Honors loyalty program to shop Amazon using their points. This is the first time a hotel brand has offered such a deal, Amazon says, and will be available to all Hilton Honors members. To use the new benefit, Honors members have to link their account to their Amazon profile. This is a one-time… Read More
The best is yet to come, and babe, won’t it be fine? Disrupt Day 2 kicks off right now, and thanks to the live stream, no one will be left behind. Today, we’ll be joined by Sebastian Thrun, Apple’s Lisa Jackson, 23andMe’s Anne Wojcicki, the co-founders of Houzz Adi Tatarko and Alon Cohel, as well as NBA MVP Kevin Durant and his business partner Rich Kleiman. And, as… Read More
Stack Overflow, the popular developer community and job board, is launching a new tool for developers today that will allow them to find out what other developers in their area are making. The data behind the new developer salary calculator is based on information from the Stack Overflow community and the site’s annual developer survey, which includes questions about salary data. For… Read More
Patreon upgrades content creation from a passion to a profession by paying artists 95% of subscription payments from fans instead of 55% of skimpy ad revenue like Facebook and YouTube. Now Patreon itself is getting paid with today’s official announcement of the big Series C funding round TechCrunch broke news of last week. Patreon has raised $60 million led by Chris Paik at Thrive… Read More
Google Cloud announced two updates this morning to its Natural Language API. Specifically users will now have access to content classification and entity sentiment analysis. These features are particularly valuable for brands and media companies For starters, GCP users will now be able to tag content as corresponding with common topics like health, entertainment and law (cc: Henry).… Read More
Google’s search app for iOS is today introducing a feature that will keep users browsing the web, instead of exiting back to their homescreen to use other mobile application. The app is being updated to include a “related content” section that will appear at the bottom of the web pages you visit while using the Google app. That is, if you search for a topic on Google, then tap… Read More
Nikola Motor Company, the Utah-based company that is working on building heavy-duty transport trucks using hybrid hydrogen-electric powertrains, announced today that it’s partnering with global automotive industry supply leader Bosch to design and build said powertrains. The company also revealed the first ever image of its Nikola Two truck design (above), with a smaller, ‘day… Read More
There’s no shortage of startups building their brands around AI for enterprise. And within the enterprise, few spaces are as competitive as AI-powered voice analytics. TalkIQ is the latest company in the space to carry home a large round of financing with promise. With $14 million in Series A funding, the TalkIQ team is hoping its proprietary tech stack and engineering-heavy team will… Read More
Minio has a plan to become the neutral object storage layer, while still maintaining Amazon S3 object storage compatibility. That may seem like an odd strategy, but as CEO Anand Babu Periasamy, co-founder and CEO of Minio points out, there is a clear market need.
By building a solution that enables customers to store data across a variety of solutions including S3, he believes he is giving… Read More
