Social media plays a large role in politics today, from the election of Donald Trump to those now resisting his policies, such as through the grassroots-born movement that was the Women’s March on Washington. The movement began as a Facebook page for frustrated voters, then morphed into an event that drew in an estimated 5 million participants, thanks to its sister marches beyond D.C.… Read More
Faraday Future is scaling back some of its ambitions, according to Reuters, taking its planed product portfolio from seven electric vehicles to just two, and also reducing the size of its planned assembly factory in Nevada. The factory size reduction was confirmed by a North Las Vegas city manager, and will see the facility occupy less than a third of its original planned footprint. The… Read More
Initially used to improve the experience for visually impaired members of the Facebook community, the company’s Lumos computer vision platform is now powering image content search for all users. This means you can now search for images on Facebook with key words that describe the contents of a photo, rather than being limited by tags and captions. To accomplish the task, Facebook… Read More
August’s Smart Lock gets a bit more useful today, thanks to newfound integration with connected home app, Wink. The app is already compatible with a number of third-party smart home devices, including a couple of connected locks from Kwikset. Compatibility with August means that owners of the lock will be able to monitor their locks remotely and lock or unlock the thing from afar.… Read More
Disruptor Beam has raised another $8.5 million to turn some of the best-known entertainment franchises into mobile games. It released its first title, Game of Thrones Ascent, in 2013, with Star Trek Timelines following last year. (The latter offers a particularly novel approach to Star Trek, combining space combat with roleplaying elements as characters from different Trek TV shows and… Read More
Just when you thought it was safe to slip your card in a slot ATM skimmers have gotten just a bit smarter. New devices called Shimmers can now read your card number and, in certain instances, access your card’s chip. While the technique isn’t new – Shimmers began appearing in 2015 – they are still a huge security hole and far more dangerous than standard skimmers.… Read More
You have approximately four days to apply to the pitch-offs in D.C. and Miami. I tell you this because inevitably, at every single meetup, some founder walks up and asks if they can pitch because they missed the application window. Please don’t be that person. Be the one that gets up on that stage and turns skeptics into customers in a matter of 60 seconds. The pitch-off will showcase… Read More
Ahead of 2020’s Summer Olympic games in Tokyo, Japan will be asking members of the public to donate old phones and appliances, as it works to pull together enough material for the 5,000 bronze, silver and gold metals that will be handed out at the games. All in all, the committee is looking to collect up nearly eight tons of metal for the Olympic and Paralympic games. The move is part of… Read More
The venture arm of Caterpillar Inc., a major manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, has invested in San Francisco drone tech startup Airware. Rather than make its own unmanned aerial vehicles, Airware has focused its efforts around providing software and services that help large enterprises use drones throughout their operations. Airware’s cloud-based software helps… Read More
Here’s one more app you can delete from your iPhone: that QR code and barcode scanner you only occasionally use. With an update rolling out today, Google’s Chrome mobile browser can do the job instead. The app now includes built-in scanning functionality, which you can access either via 3D Touch on the app’s icon, or you can do a search for “QR” in spotlight.… Read More
That’s kind of the thing about pilot programs – they don’t always result in a successful launch. Less than a year after beginning testing at select locations in the San Francisco Bay Area, Google is pulling the plug on its Hands Free payment system. The company notified users of the unceremonious wind down via email and a notification on its site. A week from yesterday,… Read More
European antitrust regulators have opened an investigation into the Steam games distribution platform operator, Valve, and five PC games publishers to determine whether geo-blocking agreements between them amount to a breach of the region’s competition rules. Read More
I was excited by the promise of Xnor.ai and its technique that drastically reduces the computing power necessary to perform complex operations like computer vision. Seems I wasn’t the only one: the company, just officially spun off from the Allen Institute for AI (AI2), has attracted $2.6 million in funding from its parent company and Madrona Venture Group. Read More
While messaging app watchers are waiting for Snap Inc. to announce its IPO, another app has appointed a new CEO. Viber — the messaging app that was acquired by Rakuten in 2014 — has announced Djamel Agaoua as its new CEO. This is significant because Viber — which has had a promising 800 million downloads but has seen active user growth stall as others like… Read More
Sony’s PlayStation business was one of a few bright spots from its latest financial report, which was overshadowed by a near billion-dollar write-down for its film business. The Japanese tech giant posted a 19.6 billion JPY ($169 million) profit on revenue of 2,397.5 billion JPY ($20.7 billion) for Q3. Revenue was down seven percent year-on-year, but net profit sunk by 84 percent… Read More
Uber is suspending its service in Taiwan following an ongoing stand-off with the government. The ride-sharing firm confirmed in a blog post that its service will be “paused” from February 12. Uber isn’t saying when it will resume in the country, where it is present in four cities, but it hopes that the move will “reset the conversation” and help push through… Read More
Twitter is the primary communication platform for U.S. President Trump, but that hasn’t stopped staff of the social media company from donating to one of the most prominent organizations opposing him. Nearly 1,000 employees made a $1.59 million donation to ACLU, which fought Trump’s recent executive order banning citizens of seven countries from entering the U.S. and is… Read More
Grab is upping its battle against Uber in Southeast Asia by announcing a flurry of new initiatives in Indonesia, the region’s largest economy and world’s fourth most populous country, which include setting aside $100 million to invest in startups. Today the Singapore-based company, which is valued at $3 billion and claims 33 million downloads, announced what it is dubbing… Read More
Kickstarter acquires video streaming company Huzza, Amazon is planning to build a $1.5 billion air cargo hub and MIT creates a robot with a soft touch. All this on Crunch Report. Read More
Pokémon Go was 2016’s rocket ship — it broke download records and it raced to $500 million in revenue quicker than any app in history. Now it won yet another accolade, the fastest game to reach $1 billion. That’s according to a new report from app analytics firm Sensor Tower. To give the record some context, a recent App Annie report estimated that iOS and Android… Read More
