Honda opened its new Innovation Lab Tokyo to press for the first time on Tuesday, and also marked the occasion by announcing the debut of a new tech R&D group within the facility called R&D Center X. The new unit will begin operations in April, and will focus on the kind of cutting edge stuff you might imagine it would – robotics, mobility services and systems, artificial… Read More
Dubuc Motors, makers of the Tomahawk all-electric supercar prototype, recently announced that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had approved its filing for equity crowdfunding under the US JOBS Act Regulation A+. The company began a Testing the Waters campaign in 2016, when it revealed the Tomahawk prototype, and raised $6.1 million in initial funding reservations. Now that the… Read More
What can you wrap up in ribbons? Stick in your sock? And what can you take out in public and not get thrown in the dock? The Kado phone charger, of course. This new product by Itay Hasid and Daniel Assis is making the rounds at MWC and is essentially the “world’s thinnest wall charger for smartphones.” Obviously a wall charger isn’t that exciting but the pair raised… Read More
Apple is said to have something special planned for the 10th anniversary of the iPhone and rumors have circulated for months speculating on different features. This report by the WSJ is the most detailed yet, citing anonymous sources who state there will be a high-end version of the next iPhone that will sport exclusive hardware. According to the report, at least one new iPhone model will… Read More
Yet more consolidation is afoot in the satellite industry and a sign of how satellite providers are hoping to build a more cost-effective satellite broadband business for the future. Today, OneWeb — which last December raised a whopping $1.2 billion from SoftBank for its yet-to-launch satellite internet service — announced that it would merge with large satellite incumbent Intelsat. Read More
As Ajit Pai took the stage for a speech at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this morning, CNBC anchor Karen Tso noted that the newly appointed FCC Chairman’s top priority has been the dismantling of net neutrality, a cause, she added, that would likely make him popular with many in attendance at the world’s largest mobile show. Pai started his talk rather humbly, telling the… Read More
Google is putting a lot of its virtual reality focus right now on its Daydream VR framework, but today Amit Singh, the company’s VP of VR, also gave an update on its earlier (and still active) effort in the area, Google Cardboard. He said that to date the company has shipped 10 million Cardboard VR sets, and it has seen 160 million downloads of Cardboard apps, with 30 individual… Read More
As LinkedIn continues to reign as the world’s largest social network for the wider working world, we are seeing the rise of alternatives that are besting and beating it in specific verticals. ResearchGate, a Berlin-based startup that provides a professional network for the scientific community to connect with each other to share and discuss research, is today announcing that… Read More
SoundCloud has rebooted its paid membership plan with a new budget option less than a year after it was first launched. The Berlin-based company today revealed a cheaper tier of $4.99 per month, down from the initial $9.99 subscription that it rolled out last March, in a bid to make its plans more appealing to users. The company isn’t abandoning that higher pricing, though, and it… Read More
Xiaomi may be skipping Mobile World Congress, the year’s biggest phone show, but it is still making news this week after it unveiled its first processor and the first phone it is powering. The device is the Mi5c, an updated model of its 5.15-inch Mi5 that it launched at Mobile World Congress last year. The Mi5c is powered by the Surge S1, Xiaomi’s first SoC chipset and its bid… Read More
Just over a year ago Cisco bought Jasper Technologies for $1.4 billion, and with that transaction, created the company’s IoT cloud business. This week, Cisco is making a series of announcements at Mobile World Congress related to expanding the platform. When a startup like Jasper gets acquired by a big company like Cisco, the standard line of reasoning goes something like this:… Read More
The de facto head of Samsung, Jay Y. Lee, is facing the potential of years behind bars after South Korean prosecutors said today that they intend to indict him on bribery charges, the Wall Street Journal reported. Lee was arrested earlier this month on bribery, embezzlement, and perjury charges related to giving $37 million to an advisor of President Park Geun-hye in exchange for… Read More
Walmart is today rolling out an updated app that will allow those visiting the store’s Pharmacy or Money Services desk to skip having to wait in line, the company says. After entering their personal information in the app, customers can order prescription refills or fill out other necessary paperwork from their phone. When they arrive at the store, they will then get in a… Read More
SpaceX is looking to fly two people around the moon and back late next year, Handle is Boston Dynamics’ newest robot, Pocket is Mozilla’s first acquisition, Uber fires exec for undisclosed harassment and WeWork gets a $4 billion investment from SoftBank. All this on Crunch Report. Read More
The problem with the ongoing discourse on innovation is that it doesn’t answer the fundamental question of what exactly is meant by the term. Rather, we are inundated with simplistic calls for more innovation in government and complaints about why there isn’t enough. Read More
Skype, the Microsoft-owned service that helped pioneer and popularize the rise of voice and video calls over the internet, is killing off one of the features that it added in later years to try to make the service more ubiquitous, especially among roaming users: on March 31, the company is killing off its WiFi service, which let users buy Wi-Fi access in paid public hotspots. Read More
Since Yahoo disclosed two mega-breaches late last year, its executives have met almost daily with CEO Marissa Mayer for working sessions focused on improving the company’s cybersecurity posture. Employees have also received weekly security presentations from Yahoo CISO Bob Lord at the company’s all-hands meetings. The new working sessions and briefings are part of an internal effort… Read More
Record labels refuse to allow streaming of remixes and hour-long DJ sets unless copyright owners get paid for every little sample. Dubset just raised $4 million to handle that legal mess so Spotify and Apple Music can offer the type of music that used to live illegally on SoundCloud. Read More
Elon Musk promised some SpaceX news today, and it looks like it just made its way out: The company is going to send two people on a trip around the moon. But don’t go getting fitted for your spacesuit just yet — the two people have already been picked. Read More
