Lyft has a big name new partner – Disney Parks, which will introduce on-demand transportation within select resorts as an added hospitality feature for guests. The service will employ Minnie Vans, vans painted in Minnie Mouse trademark dress in committed service to a wonderful dad joke. The vans will take guests to any destination within Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida, and… Read More
The SF-based Linden Lab is at last launching an open “creator beta” of its VR-ready universe simulation, Sansar. The world creation and exploration title is expansive in its ambitions and still has a long way to go. After a lengthy creator preview in which early access was given to a couple thousand creators, there are 1,700 worlds to explore (some better than others, I imagine). Read More
There’s a problem out there in Developer Land in that developers of apps in iOS, Android and other platforms have to manually set up every step for their application. It means they can easily customize things, but that then creates more maintenance costs. The ideal solution would be the automation of all the mobile building, testing and deployment, allowing developers the ability to… Read More
GitHub, the service that is still pretty much the de facto standard for managing source code, is suffering from a major outage today. Sometime around 9:30am PT this morning, users started to experience issues with the service and weren’t able to check in new code and make pull requests.
While the company first considered this to be a minor outage, it quickly upgraded the status to… Read More
Following the disastrous outcome of the first-ever Pokémon Go Fest in Chicago this month, Niantic has decided to delay its upcoming European events, previously scheduled for August. These events were meant to further stoke interest in the still popular mobile game, which encourages people to venture out in the real world to catch Pokémon, and compete in battles and raids. But the Chicago… Read More
Storing the energy produced from renewable sources is a significant challenge, and one that a number of players, including Tesla, are looking to address. Add Alphabet’s X (formerly Google X) to the list of those making an attempt: Its new Malta project is focused on building storage facilities that can support full-scale power grids. The Malta project, described by Bloomberg, uses… Read More
Valerie Jarrett, who served as senior advisor to President Obama, is joining Lyft’s board, the company announced Monday. The company believes that Jarrett, who previously chaired the Chicago Transit Board, “brings experience tackling the problems and opportunities related to urban transportation.” Read More
Minecraft’s “Better Together Update” is rolling out now in beta, for players on Windows 10 PCs and Android devices. That means players on either platform with the beta installed will be able to participate in games from either type of device, together in cross-platform play.
This update was originally revealed at E3 back in June, and includes other feature additions like… Read More
SoundCloud is on shaky financial footing, saying it only has enough money to last a few more months unless someone buys or invests in it. That’s sure to cause anxiety in content creators with their life’s work stored on SoundCloud. Now some new startups are nipping at SoundCloud’s heels by focusing on podcasting in ways the music streaming service never did.
Anchor is a… Read More
Discovery Communications’ $14.6 billion acquisition of Scripps Networks Interactive, announced today, combines two of cable TV’s bigger brands in an era where cord cutting has hit impacted all the major players across the board. The telcos are scrambling to offer live TV streaming bundles in an effort to shore up pay TV subscriber losses, while the networks that had once relied on… Read More
August 1st is almost upon us and the great Bitcoin “hard fork” is about to confuse the heck out of the casual cryptocurrency observer. Here’s what you should know. Quite simply, if you are using an exchange that is explicitly in support of the Bitcoin Cash or you control your own private keys then you are fine. If you are keeping your bitcoin on an exchange, like Coinbase,… Read More
We use the 25th and final episode to sit down and ask each other 10 questions, similar to those we’ve been asking our guests over the past 24 weeks. From how we both got started as designers, to the lessons that have had the most profound impact on our careers. Ghoshal breaks down the three things he takes into consideration when accepting — or even considering — a potential… Read More
And it’s about time.
Giphy, the four-year-old search engine for GIFs, is going to finally start testing monetization.
According to a source close to the company, Giphy will begin testing sponsored GIFs within messaging experiences. This means that users who search for GIFs may be served a sponsored GIF within the messaging tab.
There are some obvious use-cases here: A search for… Read More
A Japanese startup commercial rocket launch attempted to launch a 10-meter tall ‘Momo’ rocket to orbit on Sunday, but while the rocket achieved liftoff, it only made it about one-fifth of its total target altitude. The failure to reach orbit isn’t dissuading Interstellar Technologies, however – the company will try again, and should be able to improve its process… Read More
Google’s Gboard, the app that integrates Google Search and other features right into the smartphone keyboard, is being updated today with a handful of notable new additions, including the integration of key Google services, like YouTube and Google Maps. This will allow Gboard app users to share their location with friends, or any other address, directly from the keyboard, as well as… Read More
Time Inc. websites will be getting a new look over the next few months, thanks to a new in-house platform called Element. Ben Ronne, Time Inc.’s executive director, product, platforms, told me that this is part of a broader effort to centralize the company’s technology — for example, he said that in the past year, Time Inc. has gone from 14 content management systems to… Read More
Last week, Apple released the firmware of its upcoming smart speaker, the HomePod. It sounds like it was pushed out a bit earlier than expected as it isn’t supposed to come out until later this year. Steve Troughton-Smith took advantage of that to find out that the next iPhone is going to feature facial recognition and a brand new “bezel-less” design. Patents and previous… Read More
Connected home security device maker Ring has a growing product line – and it’s now three products bigger. Joining the Floodlight Cam the company debuted at CES this year, Ring is now also offering three Spotlight Cam variants, each of which offers a different power source option to work with a variety of potential installation scenarios and locations. The Spotlight Cam –… Read More
Google will reportedly debut a built-in ad blocking feature for its Chrome browser next year, and now we have the first concrete look at this addition to the web navigation software in action. In Chrome’s pre-release Canary app for Android, which previews and tests features coming later to the stable version, there is now a feature that allows users to toggle a built-in blocker for… Read More
The U.S.-Canadian border is a busy one, and a likely frequent candidate for self-driving cars to tackle in a future where streets are laden with autonomous vehicles. That’s why a forthcoming cross-border self-driving test ride (via Engadget) should be very informative. Automotive supply giants Continental and Magna are teaming up to send autonomous vehicles from southern Michigan to… Read More
