Reports of the Instagram outage began around 10:35am Pacific, though by 11:04am some users in the states and U.K. were regaining access to the website. At that time, Instagram tweeted that it is aware of and working on the issue. Read More
Boom has set itself with arguably one of the most ambitious tasks taken on by a startup: To restore the age of the Concorde, but bigger, better, and more sustainable than ever. We took a trip to Colorado and visited Boom’s airport HQ to find out exactly what it looks like to be a company with fewer than fifty employees trying to make supersonic consumer flight a practical reality. We got… Read More
When DJI announced the Mavic Pro last year they also teased a pair of FPV goggles that could be used to see first-person video from DJI’s drones. But we didn’t get many more details than that… until now. Read More
Back in February, the Facebook-led Telecom Infrastructure Project led a call to put $170 million into startups focusing on solutions to improve infrastructure: the switching technologies, engineering, cabling and other components that go into building networking for internet and other communications services. Today comes one more advance on that front: Facebook and the TIP are working… Read More
Spotify is said to be exploring the launch of branded wearable, according to rumors floated by a “trusted source” at Zatz Not Funny. There’s little information out there at this early stage, though a job listing posted by the company does lend some validity to the project. Based at the streaming service’s global headquarters in Stockholm, the position involves, among… Read More
Google announced today it’s making its business reviews easier to access and read when you’re traveling by performing automatic translation. The company says it will now translate the user reviews that appear in Google Search results and Google Maps into the language you have set on your device, so you can read them in your own language. This allows you to get more information… Read More
Microsoft announced some significant integrations between LinkedIn, the professional social network it bought last year for over $26 billion and Microsoft Dynamics 365, the company’s CRM and ERP suite. It was clear that when Microsoft paid that much money for LinkedIn, it had plans to use that data in other Microsoft products. Those ideas began to emerge last summer with some Office… Read More
Interactive storytelling startup Hullabalu has spent the last several years producing a series of apps for kids based around a group of characters it has developed. But after making multiple apps of its own, the company has decided to open up its creative tools to other interactive storytellers. Read More
Tesla is getting ready to produce the Model 3 at volumes unprecedented for the company, but it hasn’t forgotten about that other key ingredient in the electric vehicle mix – charging infrastructure. The automaker announced today that while it began 2017 with over 5,000 Superchargers installed globally, it will end the year with double that, offering 10,000 Supercharger… Read More
Ever since the financial crisis of 2008, investors have been wary of investing in real estate. But startups have emerged over the last decade to help provide more transparency and accessibility to an industry that until recently had suffered from antiquated technology and a business based mostly on personal relationships between real estate investors, developers and property managers. Read More
A new hardware/app device called Revolar aims to make it safe to walk the streets. This tiny button will notify your friends and family if you’re scared and the authorities if you’re in trouble — and will even simulate a phone call if you need to get out of a sticky situation.
It works with iOS and Android and ships in May. Read More
Scott Belsky is the co-founder of Behance and investor at Benchmark Capital. In this episode, we discuss how to maximize your creative output, how constraints can – and should – be used to boost productivity, and the patterns most seen in successful businesses. Read More
Reefill is a New York-based company that wants you to stop buying bottled water. Their system, which will be installed in delis and fast food restaurants, lets you refill your water bottle for free with filtered tap water that should, in theory, be better than the swill you currently get from water fountains. The founders, Jason Pessel, Andrew Betlyon, and Patrick Connorton, first worked on… Read More
Recharge, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose app enables users to book a stay in a hotel for just 66 cents a minute, is opening in select New York hotels today, after testing its service over the last year in San Francisco. In New York, customers can now book rooms at The Pierre, W New York, The Knickerbocker and 1 Hotel Central. Read More
The New York Times announced today it’s joining Snapchat Discover – the feature in Snapchat which includes updates and news from a variety of media publications. The paper’s “daily edition” on Snapchat will include a handful of The NYT’s stories, distilled down to the quick, more consumable format that’s common on the medium, and will heavily focus… Read More
This is the best new social app feature in a long time. Twitter should copy it. Instagram should copy it. Facebook probably already is copying it. I’m talking about Pinterest’s “Instant Ideas” button that started testing in February but is slowly rolling out to more people. As soon as I tapped it, I was hooked. Read More
Amazon has a team dedicated to driverless technology, the Wall Street Journal reports, but their focus isn’t on building self-driving cars or trucks; instead, the Amazon squad acts as a kind of braintrust looking at how to best employ autonomous vehicle technology to serve the ecommerce giant’s business goals. The Amazon team was set up just over a year ago, and it’s… Read More
Nintendo is discontinuing the NES Classic Edition. While this decision is still puzzling, you might still be looking to buy one before it disappears into the ether forever. Best Buy stores have some of the last units starting today. If you plan on buying one, I’d head to the closest Best Buy store right now as these units won’t be available on Best Buy’s website. Nintendo… Read More
Tesla’s making a bet on its production process for the Model 3 that defies accepted industry know-how – which is not at all an unusual strategy for the young carmaker. Basically all of Tesla’s success thus far has been due to its ability to defy accepted industry wisdom, but with the Model 3 production line, the risk centers around skipping a step in the manufacturing process… Read More
Can a machine learn aesthetics in a way a human would? Could it then look at a set of photos, and draw on those same aesthetics to reproduce a different set? It’s a big question because it has long-term implications for how AI is going to develop. What are aesthetics anyway? Is it just what you “like”? How does it all work? When you as a human find it hard to express what… Read More
