LG’s V30 is clearly the most hyped handset at this year’s IFA, but Motorola’s got a surprise contender for the most interesting. While the Lenovo-owned company is clearly pumping most of its resources into its Z line of modular flagships, its return to the mid-range X line actually packs a couple of compelling surprises. The company made its intentions to embrace Amazon… Read More
Ever wanted to build an R2-D2 to call your own? You could drop a few million dollars to get all the screen-used parts/props… Or you could spend a few weeks in the shop bangin’ on scrap metal to build one from scratch. Or you could grab littleBit’s new Droid Inventor Kit and call it a day. It’s pint-sized and not quite as intense as the aforementioned options, but hey… Read More
Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley has dismissed a lawsuit involving Uber’s alleged use of a program called “Hell.” The lawsuit was originally filed in April by Michael Gonzales, who drove for Lyft during the time Uber allegedly used the software. He sought $5 million in a class action lawsuit. Today, Judge Corley granted Uber’s motion to dismiss the claim with leave to amend. Read More
The Destiny 2 live action trailer is officially out, and it’s one of the most comical video game trailers ever. The live action trailer heralds the coming of the new game, which is set to drop on September 6. The trailer stars Cayde-6, voiced by Nathan Fillion, and was directed by the same guy who directed Kong: Skull Island, Jordan Vogt-Roberts. Oh, and it doesn’t show a single… Read More
Sony just announced a new camera called the RX0, but breaking from the trend of lower number = fancier camera, this one is a tiny device that combines an action-cam form factor with some traditional imaging prowess. It’s an unusual combination, yet somehow tempting. Read More
A long-time Facebook brand marketing exec has been tapped to lead marketing efforts at Oculus. Rebecca Van Dyck will be joining the virtual reality team as CMO. Her challenge will be making the sell to consumers for the company’s current and future virtual reality products. Read More
With technology and curious minds, several founders not only built great products and companies, they created the foundation for a strong and resilient technology sector that has been an economic driver and job creator in a country looking for stable footing. Read More
More details have emerged about a controversial 2015 patient data-sharing arrangement between Google DeepMind and a UK National Health Service Trust which paint a contrasting picture vs the pair’s public narrative about their intended use of 1.6 million citizens’ medical records. Read More
All 50 states offer some form of Lyft service but now even rural areas in most states can catch a Lyft. According to a company statement out today, Lyft can now pick up customers in 94 percent of the country, reaching 287 million people looking for a ride. Read More
On the heels of setting the date for its big fall iPhone event, Apple is coming out swinging for net neutrality. In a letter to the FCC, Apple’s U.S. Vice President for Public Policy Cynthia Hogan advocates for the open internet, cautioning against practices that would allow providers to favor some forms of traffic while throttling the speed of others. Read More
Microsoft’s mobile game streaming app Mixer Create is launching out of beta testing today on iOS and Android, allowing gamers to broadcast the games they’re playing right from their phone. This feature works on Android with all games, but is more limited on iOS. On iPhone, select games that have enabled Apple’s ReplayKit functionality will work, the company notes. That… Read More
Strivr Labs, a virtual reality training startup with some big partners, including Walmart and the NFL, has added some new talent to the team. The company has hired a new CFO and CTO to help the company expand as it adds more customers excited about the prospect of training employees and specialists using immersive virtual reality video. Nathaniel Jewell will be joining as the company’s… Read More
The future of conversational AI is not a league of anthropomorphic voice assistants that we address by name to handle our problems. We will not unlock our iPhones and ask for Alexa when we need to dim our lights. We will not ask Alexa through our Echo to ask Siri to play a song. Asking your personal assistant for what amounts to a warm intro to another assistant is absolute lunacy. Read More
dApps, or decentralized apps, are open-source applications built on top of a blockchain. But here’s the thing – users usually can’t interact with these dApps unless they have tokens issued by these projects. For example, both Augur, a decentralized prediction market and REXMLS, a free global listing network for real estate, require tokens to interact with.
But if you… Read More
Back in July, Niantic introduced a new concept to Pokémon GO: Legendaries. Meant to be some of the hardest to catch, Legendary Pokémon are ultra-strong, appear only for a limited time and require players to form “raid groups” take them down. Later today, the first set of Legendary Pokémon are leaving — and, perhaps a bit surprisingly, three new ones are already prepped to… Read More
Miss out on the first two rounds of tickets to the hackathon at Disrupt SF 2017? Don’t fret. Today, we’re releasing a new batch of hackathon tickets, so everyone out there who has been waiting to get tickets to the best hackathon in San Francisco can get in on the action. Read More
Amazon has a new fantasy series coming to its streaming service, which is “a fantasy-noir set in a neo-Victorian city,” according to Deadline. All eight episodes of the show, called Carnival Row, were picked up by Amazon, which means it won’t go through the usual pilot process Amazon uses to test much of its Prime Video original programming.
That’s probably because… Read More
Facebook is planning to open source LogDevice, the company’s custom-built solution for storing logs collected from distributed data centers. The company made the announcement as part of its Scale conference. Read More
As part of its Scale conference today in San Jose, Facebook’s computational photography team is announcing the completion of an internal research project dedicated to helping you clean up your poorly taken 360 photos. The team used a deep neural network to identify crooked 360 photos and reorient them to maintain realism. You’ve probably used leveling tools before on your smartphone… Read More
Treebo Hotels, one of the most prominent members of India’s emerging budget hotel networks, has closed a $34 million Series C round. The deal was led by new backers Ward Ferry Management and Karst Peak Capital, two Hong Kong PE firms, with participation from existing investors SAIF Partners, Matrix Partners India and Bertelsmann India Investments. Before this deal, two-year-old Treebo… Read More
