The tech industry is opening its eyes to the possibilities of raising money using cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and Ethereum through ‘initial coin offerings,’ and it’s about to see the first ICO from a major venture-backed company. Last week, Kik, a messaging app popular with young people in North America, announced an ambitious plan to launch its own currency as a basis for… Read More
Uber has terminated the employment of Anthony Levandowski, the co-founder of self-driving trucking company Otto and Uber’s former self-driving project engineering lead. The New York Times reported first on Levandowski’s firing, which was made official to employees via an internal staff email circulated on Tuesday. Levandowski is at the heart of an ongoing legal battle between Uber… Read More
Amazon’s own take on a QVC-like home shopping experience, “Style Code Live,” has gone off the air. The live program, first launched in March 2016, was streamed online and via mobile to Amazon shoppers, who could learn about fashion and beauty tips from style experts, then instantly shop the products being featured on the show. Read More
The makers of Epic!, one of many apps jockeying to become a “Netflix for books,” have raised $8 million in a round led by Reach Capital, the education-specialized venture firm. Epic! at its core is an on-demand digital library that includes about 25,000 different books and videos appropriate for kids in elementary school, or between the ages of about five and twelve. Read More
Twitter will now allow you to review Direct Messages received from people who you don’t follow before responding to them in a consolidated inbox, adopting a feature that Facebook has long used for its own messaging feature and app. The new DM review inbox function works for anyone who’s turned on the setting that allows receipt of messages from people they don’t follow, and… Read More
In this episode of Judah vs. the Machines, Judah visits UC Berkeley’s Robot Learning Lab to meet Brett, a robot still in testing that was designed to learn like a human. Brett’s creators hope that he could some day take on menial human tasks with the ability to adapt and learn new ways of accomplishing a goal, something that most other robots are incapable of doing. Read More
Taxi drivers in Spain are protesting against ride-hailing apps Uber and Cabify today, holding strikes in multiple cities and a protest march in the capital. Early reports suggest 20,000 protestors took to the streets in Madrid. Meanwhile, both companies are continuing to recruit drivers — using another Spanish startup, Jobandtalent, to help them do so. Read More
An ex-Apple designer and former Twitter engineer have teamed up for a new take on iPhone photography, with today’s launch of their iOS camera app called Halide. The idea is to offer a variety of high-end tools for taking quality photographs, but packaged in a way where accessing those controls via gestures becomes like muscle memory – similar to using the dials on a camera.… Read More
AT&T’s live TV service, DirecTV Now, is today launching on another major platform, with its added support for Roku. However, the service itself has already lost momentum in terms of new subscribers – according to a recent Bloomberg report, DirecTV Now peaked in January with about 328,000 subscribers, but then lost 3,000 customers in February and saw flat growth in March.… Read More
Samsung’s favorite pen tool, the S Pen — with a 0.7mm tip, Windows Ink support, the capability to detect more than 4,000 levels of pressure and which hasn’t been featured since the Note 7 — has found its next host, a Surface Book competitor: the Samsung Notebook 9 Pro. It’s not exactly similar in design approach to the Surface Book; the Notebook 9 Pro has a… Read More
Smartphones are already computers in our pockets, but Intel’s new Compute Card turns an actual PC into something you can take with you wherever you go. Equipped with a range of processor options, including an ultra-efficient Celeron, and notebook-class Core i5s, this slab that looks like a USB backup battery is attracting a range of interest from Intel OEM partners hoping to use it… Read More
Russia search and internet technology giant Yandex is showing off the self-driving vehicle prototype developed by its Yandex.Taxi on-demand ride service for the first time, and the video above is the first footage of the car in action. The prototype is meant to help Yandex test its software, which the company thinks it’s uniquely well-positioned to develop for this emerging space.… Read More
When the lights go out and the entire world is thrust into the technological nether, we’ll need board games like Turing Tumble. Created programmer Paul Boswell – he’s well known for programming complex games for Texas Instruments calculators – and maker Alyssa Boswell, the Turing Tumble lets you use small parts to create logic flows in order to solve puzzles.
Boswell… Read More
Ever wonder what an autonomous vehicle ‘sees’ via its sensors, on-board computing and sensor fusion system? This video from Civil Maps, the high-definition maps technology company backed by Ford, reveals some of what’s going on when it comes to combining detailed 3D maps with sensor data culled from LiDAR, optical cameras, radar and other on-board vehicle hardware used to… Read More
Have a robotic startup or project? We want you on stage at TechCrunch Sessions: Robotics this July 17 at MIT. We’re looking for students to demo and early stage startups to pitch. If selected, both will get free tickets and exhibit space at the event. Use this form to apply. This opportunity will put participants in front of the companies, founders and engineers driving the robotics… Read More
Twitter over the weekend announced another live streaming partnership, this time with the BBC. The new deal will bring live video and breaking news from the BBC’s U.K. election coverage to Twitter’s network. This is the first time Twitter has ever partnered with the BBC on streaming video, the company notes. The deal specifically involves five BBC election specials, including… Read More
The Kitty Hawk Flyer is a sort of a flying car except it’s not a car at all – it’s much more like a flying ATV, which is probably more legitimately all-terrain than most. Linguistics aside, it’s a very cool piece of tech that’s backed by Google co-founder Larry Page, and it’s already in the ‘working prototype’ phase of development. Business… Read More
Tusk Ventures has hailed the former general manager of Uber’s New York operations, Josh Mohrer, as its new managing director. Mohrer’s departure comes at a tough time for Uber. The company is still recovering from a series of very public missteps involving payments to drivers, sexual harassment, potential intellectual property theft, bad executive behavior, and the deployment… Read More
At launch the HTC Vive VR headset definitely had its shortcomings, but the people at HTC seem to have decided that there’s no point waiting for a second generation to correct some of these issues. The Deluxe Audio Strap, a $100 add-on that brings integrated audio and superior ergonomics to your Vive VR headset, is the first such upgrade available. Generally speaking, I’ve found… Read More
