As we continue to see a proliferation of wireless connected devices make their way into the mainstream consumer electronics market, there has been growing attention on a key issue that will be central to making all these devices work: efficient power supplies, and specifically practical battery systems. Today, one of the startups that’s hoping to lead the conversation on how this will… Read More
SpaceX has now managed to land a total of 16 Falcon 9 first stage orbital boosters, and it’s been a while since it lost one in the attempt. But things didn’t always go so smoothly: It took a number of failures, resulting in what are cheekily known in the industry as ‘rapid unscheduled disassembly events’ (aka explosions) for SpaceX to refine its process. Those attempts… Read More
Not to be outpaced in the connected car market by other tech giants, today the world’s largest smartphone maker, Samsung, announced two major pieces of news to take its automotive strategy up a gear. It has launched the Samsung Automotive Innovation Fund, a $300 million fund to back startups and other interesting bets in the automotive market. And as a first investment out of that… Read More
Google is increasing its focus on India with plans to introduce a localized digital payment service as soon as next week, according to a report from India-based news site The Ken. The publication claims Google ‘Tez’ — meaning fast in India — will offer a comprehensive set of payment options beyond existing products like Google Wallet or Android Pay. Tez, for one thing,… Read More
The facial recognition system built into the iPhone X raises plenty of questions. Can I fool it with a photo? (No.) Will it work if I’m sleeping and someone puts my iPhone up to my face? (It shouldn’t, unless you sleep with your eyes open.)
Who better than Apple’s Craig Federighi to answer all these burning questions? No one — no one except for a fake Craig Federighi… Read More
Facebook bans monetization of hate, porn, drugs and violence on its platform, some shake-ups happen at Baidu and WhatsApp, and North Korea is allegedly targeting bitcoin exchanges. All this on Crunch Report. Read More
Investors may not be done shoveling money into Magic Leap’s augmented reality ambitions quite yet. The Plantation, Florida-based startup is reportedly in talks with Singapore-based Temasek Holdings to raise upwards of $500 million, valuing the AR company at around $6 billion, Bloomberg reports. Sources also told Bloomberg that Magic Leap will likely begin shipping devices to a… Read More
A friendly letter from Senator Al Franken (D-MN) to Apple requests that the latter provide a few more details on the tech behind its Face ID system, which allows users to unlock their iPhone X using facial recognition. It’s very far from a nastygram; the Senator pretty clearly just wants to cover a bit more ground than Apple had time for in its presentation yesterday. Read More
Nintendo announced a few items today to hold gamers over until the holiday season — and to appease would-be SNES Classic buyers. It announced a few details of its most anticipated upcoming games and even a demo (remember those?) of a throwback title from Square Enix that caught everyone’s eye way back at the Switch launch event. Read More
Tesla had previously set September as the timeframe for their big unveiling of an all-electric semi truck created by the company. The big rig is now set to be shown off for the first time on October 26, however, in Hawthorne, California. Read More
As we close in on a week since Equifax announced the massive hack that could potentially have exposed the financial information of 143 million consumers in the U.S., we have been left with many questions. How could a firm entrusted with our most sensitive financial data allow this to happen? Well, security researcher, Brian Krebs (who broke the Target breach story in 2014), reports… Read More
Three months after the General Services Administration removed Kaspersky Lab from a list of approved federal vendors, Homeland Security is banning the Russian security software maker outright. Read More
Americans spent nearly a billion hours watching YouTube videos on Android this past July, according to new data released today by App Annie. That’s the largest amount of time spent in any one streaming video app in a month. The figure is yet another data point showcasing the shift in the way people are consuming video content – less in the living room, over traditional pay TV… Read More
There’s a new czar running Facebook’s developer platform tools. Because Facebook’s classifieds feature Marketplace is growing, it will now command the full attention of Deb Liu, who previously ran Platform. She’s now formally the VP of Marketplace. Eddie O’Neil, who was a director of product management after coming from Salesforce engineering, will be the new head… Read More
After a sold-out run in 2016, South of Market: The Musical returns to San Francisco this fall with v2 of the musical revue that pokes fun at the year’s trends, issues and absurdities within the Bay Area’s tech culture. We have tickets for the show on Thursday, October 12, to be distributed on a first-come, first-serve basis. Attendees will also be invited to a private pre-show party. Read More
Making the rounds today is a chatbot that claims it will let you sue Equifax for thousands of dollars in small claims court without using a lawyer. The Verge boldly stated you can claim up to $25,000 dollars, and the chatbot says that it’s the “first case of a fully automated lawsuit.” While it would be cool to fill out a form and get a check a few months later, this… Read More
Japan’s SoftBank Group, U.S. investment group Dragoneer and Chinese rideshare giant Didi Chuxing are close to finalizing their investment in Uber via a joint venture, sources tell TechCrunch. The tender offer is on track to launch by the end of the month and includes a direct investment in the company, as well as the purchase of shares from employees and early investors. Read More
Apple’s flashy new iPhones are hogging the spotlight right now, but iOS 11 is arriving before they do – on September 19, the major mobile software update will be available for existing iPhone and iPad devices. It’s bringing a lot of new features, especially to the iPad and iPad Pro, but it’s got two under-hyped payloads that could drastically change mobile apps,… Read More
With the border wall fight looming large in Congress, another kind of battle at the border is heating up. On Wednesday, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit with the Department of Homeland Security over warrantless border searches. In the case, Alasaad v. Duke, two organizations will represent 11 individuals who had U.S.… Read More
Going beyond the bounds of our planet is the future. That explains why Infostellar, a platform that enables antenna sharing to enable better communication for satellites and spacecrafts, exists — and also why it has raised $7.3 million to build out its business. Infostellar, in the most basic terms, is Airbnb for satellite antennas. Read More
