The Model Sondors 3-wheeled electric vehicle is the latest automotive startup to take advantage of new rules to raise funds. Sondors is using equity crowdfunding, “where a crowd of accredited and nonaccredited investors alike can invest up to $1 million in an early-stage company,” according to Grant Harvey, who is working with the company on this campaign. This particular type… Read More
Google has announced exactly when you’ll be able to get your hands on Daydream View, the new headset it created for Daydream-ready Android phones, including the Pixel and Pixel XL. The View headset will arrive in the Google Store online, and at retailers in the US, Canada, the UK, Germany and Australia on November 10 for $79 US. Pricing in the other countries varies, but is mostly in… Read More
Think back to the last time you had to do a corporate training. More likely than not it was a frustrating experience that you simply tried to survive rather than learn from. (If you feel otherwise, I’m genuinely worried about you). With $27 million in fresh funding led by JMI Equity and BDC Capital, Axonify, wants to hack your brain to help everyone get away with doing less while taking… Read More
Hulu said today it has partnered with Disney and 21st Century Fox for its upcoming live TV streaming service, launching next year. The deals involve Fox’s news, entertainment, sports, and other properties, along with Disney’s portfolio of networks from is ABC Television Group and ESPN, among other things. In total, the two agreements will bring more than 35 TV networks to… Read More
Michael Levit knows a thing or two about China. As an executive vice president at the e-commerce services company Vendio, he stayed with the company for six months after Alibaba agreed to acquire it in 2010. (It marked the Chinese conglomerate’s first U.S. acquisition.) Levit says it was long enough to develop a consumer shopping project called Dealio that Alibaba had no interest… Read More
Ever since Warby Parker gave fancy accoutrements the old ecommerce treatment everyone from bag manufacturers to watchmakers have gone high tech. This is especially true in the realm of shaving where you can either pay a dollar for a razor or $299 for a razor that looks like it was handcrafted by Elvish silversmiths. The OneBlade is basically a fancy single-blade razor designed like one of… Read More
Instagram’s app and website have been struck by a service today. At around 11:06am, users in the US, Europe, India and elsewhere began a downpour of “Is Instagram down?”. Instagram confirmed the downtime with the statement on Twitter: [Update: However, Instagram soon deleted that tweet as it managed to get its app and site back online around 10:35am PT] The outage came at… Read More
Whenever a new developer and compute platform comes along — whether that’s the mobile phone or a VR headset — games are quick to follow as one of the first ever use cases. That’s the case now with Blackstorm, a development platform that’s geared toward different platforms like Messengers and the browser that can easily be accessed without having to download a… Read More
Lyft is partnering with JetBlue in a new arrangement that will see Lyft riders earn JetBlue loyalty rewards for using the service, as well as direct integration in the JetBlue mobile app, and a new pick-up and drop-off zone at Terminal 5 of NYC’s JFK airport. The tie-up is designed to give travelers a more comprehensive way to manage their trip from door to door, and to reward them for… Read More
These days, musician is pretty far down on Will.i.am’s resume. The lead Black Eyed Pea has been kicking around the halls of CES a bunch over the past several years with a series of often odd takes on various consumer electronic categories.
Remember the foto.sosho, the $475 iPhone camera case he launched with the guy who made the JooJoo/Grid 10? Or how about that giant Puls smart bracelet? Read More
CNN is launching a new app for Amazon’s Alexa platform and its line of Echo speakers that will connect the news network’s TV network more directly with the voice-based computing platform. With the new CNN skill, the company is making its on-air content available to Echo owners and other Alexa-powered devices as quickly as five minutes after it has been broadcast on television,… Read More
It seems that after about nine months of irrational exuberance followed by roughly six months of equally as irrational disconsolation, venture investors have gotten their groove back. At least that’s the conclusion lawyers from Cooley LLP are drawing from their latest analysis of the state of the venture market these days. The firm’s latest report illustrates that (barring a few… Read More
Politwoops, the service that preserves politicians’ deleted tweets for posterity and to hold them to account, has a new parent: nonprofit, public interest investigative journalism corporation ProPublica. Read More
Teforia has raised $12 million in a Series A round of venture funding to take its smart kitchen appliances mainstream. The company’s flagship product is an internet connected tea infuser that can brew teas from the company’s own line of pre-packed “Sips,” or from loose leaf teas that customers pack into the machine’s “infusion globe” on their own.… Read More
You can now cast Harry Potter spells from your Android phone, thanks to Google and Warner Bros. Pictures, who have teamed up to promote the new movie, “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.” This clever trick, which Google tells us is part of a wider partnership between the two companies, lets you speak to Google’s voice assistant by saying “OK Google,” followed… Read More
IBM has made another acquisition to beef up Watson, a week after it announced a raft of new features and milestones for its artificial intelligence effort: it has acquired a business called Expert Personal Shopper (XPS), a platform, and bot, that holds conversations with people online to help figure out what they need to buy, and to help them buy it. XPS had originally been built by Fluid,… Read More
There’s nothing quite so quotidian as getting caught up with the day’s news, which is probably why the New York Times’ new The Daily 360 project has such strong support from Samsung. Samsung is providing Gear 360 cameras and other equipment to Times reporters for capturing 360-degree footage while in the field, and NYT is committing to publishing at least one immersive… Read More
Twitter has been expanding the customer service side of its product, with recent additions including a Customer Service settings page for businesses. Today it’s adding a couple more features — namely, an automated welcome message that shows up whenever a customer starts a Direct Message conversation with a business’ account, and “quick replies” that ask the… Read More
With Alexa and Google Assistant are gunning for control over the general voice-driven experience with technology, that might open doors for some more targeted verticals that are centered around voice. It’s not an unheard of strategy — building services and tools around specific experiences rather than trying to do it all at once has been an effective approach for many startups… Read More
Following its acquisition by Pinterest in August, Instapaper’s premium version will now be to all users, the company said today. As part of the acquisition, Instapaper’s team would begin working on Pinterest’s core experience. But the company also said that the app would live on as a separate entity and continue to get updates from the Instapaper team at Pinterest. Now, under… Read More
