Uber has been ordered by state regulators to stop using self-driving cars in California, according to the Associated Press, at least until it secures the necessary permit issued by the state to allow companies to test autonomous vehicles on public roads. The California Department of Motor Vehicles issued a statement saying Uber was expected to secure such a permit, but Uber maintained that it… Read More
In response to the news that Magic Leap’s VP of PR Andy Fouché is leaving the company for the same stealth startup its chief marketing exec left for last month, the secretive mixed reality company has released a smidgen of news related, assumedly, to its mixed reality device for consumers, the name. Magic Leap One. In a statement detailing that the company has hired National… Read More
A jovial middle-aged man pokes the order button on a touchscreen from the comfort of his armchair. Minutes later he’s ambling through the bucolic Cambridgeshire countryside at the bottom of his garden to pluck a parcel from the ground. It’s his Amazon delivery materializing like manna from heaven… Read More
When the Freedom of the Press Foundation published an open letter to Canon, encouraging the company to implement encryption features into its cameras, it missed the point. Yes, encryption per se is a great idea, but when dodging bullets in war zones, gravity friction-lock batons in tin-pot dictatorships or nasty cutlery if you’re filming gangs, it isn’t going to help you. Read More
Against the backdrop of falling bombs in Aleppo, the Freedom of the Press Foundation sent an open letter to executives at major camera companies asking them to take responsibility for the lack of encryption on today’s devices. Legacy manufacturers don’t currently offer encryption, which, in certain scenarios, can be the difference-maker in protecting valuable footage in… Read More
Is that a bufflehead? A coot? Maybe a loon? Get close enough to take a picture and the Merlin bird identification app will tell you in seconds — sort of like a Shazam for would-be ornithologists. Read More
California-based Lucid Motors revealed its first car today, a fully electric sedan aimed at the “executive” market, with a 400-mile range rating from its onboard 100kWh battery, a 2.5-second 0-60 mph time and a target market date of 2018. The vehicle prototype was shown off today at a special unveiling event in Fremont, California.
Lucid’s founding team includes CTO Peter… Read More
Update 7 PM ET- An Uber spokesperson says the incident in the video above was definitely caused by an error on the part of a human driver – full statement: This incident was due to human error. This is why we believe so much in making the roads safer by building self-driving Ubers. This vehicle was not part of the pilot and was not carrying customers. The driver involved has been… Read More
Zola, the online wedding registry for engaged couples, has confirmed that it raised $25 million in Series C funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, according to Re/code.
We first reported on the round in late November, at which time sources said the company was valued at $200 million, pre-money.
Zola lets couples put together a wedding registry online, which can include products from… Read More
Dropbox today released its latest diversity report, showing a slight increase in overall representation of underrepresented minorities at the company. Dropbox is now 3% black, up from 2% black last year, and 6% Latino, up from 5% last year. Regarding senior leadership roles, Dropbox increased the percentage of women in those roles from 21% last year to 27%. As you can see above, Dropbox… Read More
You know what it’s like… you’ve just bought the cutest little outfit for the tiniest person in your family, and they promptly go and grow out of it. If that sounds familiar, Runchkins might just be about to become your most favoritest startup. The concept is simple: You buy clothes, your kid wears ’em, and once the little one has grown out of ’em, you can sell… Read More
Yahoo has suffered another hack.
The company disclosed today that it has discovered a breach of more than one billion user accounts that occurred in August 2013. The breach is believed to be separate and distinct from the theft of data from 500 million accounts that Yahoo reported this September.
Troublingly, Yahoo’s chief information security officer Bob Lord says that the company… Read More
Do you have a second generation Apple Watch? Did you think you had a watchOS update waiting for you, only to have nothing show up when you went to grab it?
Don’t worry: you’re not crazy, nor alone. Apple has pulled the release of watchOS 3.1.1 following reports that the update was breaking watches.
3.1.1 was first released on Monday morning; by Tuesday night, Apple had pulled it… Read More
More than a year after its total privacy meltdown, Ashley Madison will settle up. After news emerged that the company was subject to an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission, the company now faces a $17.5 million settlement as a result of the multi-state investigation. Lucky for Ruby Corp., the online dating service’s rebranded parent company, it will only pay only $1.66… Read More
Periscope is slipping beneath the waves. It’s steadily dropped from No. 23 on the overall iOS app charts in January to No. 441 this weekend. Now Twitter is pulling Periscope’s live streaming abilities into its own app, something it should have done from the start. Read More
Scientists at Sichuan Revotek and the Regenerative Medicine Research Center of West China Hospital at Sichuan University have successfully embedded 3D-printed blood vessels into simian test subjects. The vessels, which are made of stem cell-based organic material, were a major breakthrough in vascular regeneration. According to 3Ders the system uses “stem cell bioink, which was prepared… Read More
In a year that has proven to have a mind of its own, America received another rattling of the cages just this past weekend, and the implications could not be more distressing. The United States of America’s presidential election and its congressional races were likely tampered with by another country. To what extent those efforts affected the outcome of the election we don’t know,… Read More
The holidays are upon us and I’m holding another micro-meetup as part of the NYSG at Houston Hall on December 21 at 7pm. This is another meet and greet event for networking and some light pitching/drinking so come on out with your demo and your pitch memorized. These are very informal events that I like to hold to keep abreast the NYC tech world so consider it a nice opportunity to meet… Read More
Selling the future when you’re still grasping at it yourself can be a tough game. Mixed reality startup Magic Leap’s VP of Public Relations and Government Affairs Andy Fouché has left the company to join a stealth startup led by Andy Rubin, Recode reports. This comes just over a month after Magic Leap’s VP of marketing left for the same startup. Thrilled to join… Read More
President-elect Donald Trump met with some of the most prominent executives from the tech industry today at Trump Tower, with investor Peter Thiel and Vice President-elect Mike Pence at his side. Trump opened the meeting with CEOs from Google, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and others by thanking Thiel for his support. “I want to add that I am here to help you folks do well. And you’re… Read More
