Why pay for air conditioning when you can just build a data center near the Arctic Circle and pump in the frosty winds? That’s why Facebook created these massive fans for its Luleå, Sweden data center. In hopes of proving that Facebook’s 10-year plan goes way beyond the News Feed, Mark Zuckerberg has begun sharing rare photos of the company’s technology. Here’s his… Read More
Nvidia’s work in reinventing itself as a leader in automated-car technology continues with the launch of a new system-on-a-chip, called Xavier and launched today at the GPU Technology Conference Europe. The Xavier SoC manages 20 trillion operations per second, while only using 20 watts of power. Xavier is designed to be used as an AI brain for use in self-driving cars specifically,… Read More
It’s a foregone conclusion that in the near future everything will be captured on camera. Unveiled at SXSW four years back, the Narrative Clip was part of a small contingent of hardware solutions that really leaned into the notion. The square device was designed to sit on the wearer’s lapel, taking photos at 30 second intervals, regardless of subject matter or focus. I tried the… Read More
There are multiple approaches to tackling self-driving; one is to program algorithms or rules that will tell a car how to behave in specific situations. Nvidia is using a deep learning approach, however, by providing its autonomous system with real-world data from humans drivers and letting it learn how to drive on its own – like a supercharged, AI-powered teenager getting behind the… Read More
We’ve long extolled the virtues of Moore’s Law in terms of delivering faster, better processors to power our individual computers, but Kuffner says that the rapid, continuous evolution of wireless broadband internet speeds is just as crucial to a future in which robotics help solve everyday problems. Kuffner is delivering the opening keynote for San Jose’s RoboBusiness… Read More
Finally, finally, Twitter has rolled out a version of its storytelling feature called Moments that it should have released at launch. Today, the company says that it’s opening up the Moments platform so anyone can create their own stories using tweets and photos uploaded to the service. We already knew this day was coming: in August, Twitter expanded access to Moments to also include… Read More
TechCrunch is headed to Seoul, South Korea and we can’t wait to see what kind of gadgets and services are coming out of one of the biggest technology hubs in the world. We’re bringing the TC Meetup + Pitch-off to Seoul on October 27, and we need your help! If you are a founder or entrepreneur working in the area, we want you to pitch your product to a panel of expert judges and… Read More
Today, goTenna is taking pre-orders for their new product, a device called the goTenna Mesh that lets smartphone users text and share their GPS locations, off-grid and across miles of terrain. The new device works like goTenna’s flagship product did in that it can be used where normal cellular, satellite or wifi services are not available. And like the company’s flagship goTenna,… Read More
b8ta, the retail store that sells trendy tech gadgets, recently raised a $7 million Series A round led by TriplePoint Capital with participation from Khosla Ventures, Fifth Wall Ventures, Macerich and Eniac Ventures. b8ta also received $8 million in debt funding and previously raised a $4.5 million seed round. b8ta launched its first store in Palo Alto last December. Since then, things have… Read More
Got iOS 10? Want to mess with your friends? A hilarious new iMessage App called Phoneys lets you prank others by sending stickers that look exactly like iMessage text bubbles. And thanks to the new layering feature in the updated version of iMessage, you can place these stickers – which say things like “My political views are totally wrong” or “I have terrible taste… Read More
Back in June, Raymond Wu stopped by our New York office to show off what he had been working on. It was small and conical, with holes on all sides. It looked like a desktop speaker or maybe some startup Amazon Echo competitor. Turns out Wu’s company was getting ready to leap headfirst into the decidedly less sexy world of air purification. The hardware startup has the fairly… Read More
Consumer packaged goods are big business — valued at more than $2 trillion — with much of that market share dominated by CPG powerhouses like Unilever, P&G and Nestlé. These CPG leaders know a lot about packaged goods — a lot about how to manufacture and market and sell at scale. But, as is becoming more and more apparent, they don’t really know very much at all… Read More
Uber today announced yet another rewards program for its drivers and riders, this time in partnership with retailer Sears and its “Shop Your Way” loyalty platform. The program offers drivers points redeemable for products at Sears, Kmart and Lands’ End, as well as discounts on vehicle maintenance and repairs at Sears Auto Centers. Meanwhile, riders who sign up will earn… Read More
Looking to surf the mobile web privately, but generally prefer the Google Search app over standalone browsers like Safari or Chrome? Then you’ll appreciate the latest update to the Google Search app for iOS, which now introduces an “incognito mode” that you can further protect using Touch ID, along with a host of other changes. While private browsing has long been an option… Read More
On this week’s episode of TCBC, after a brief Disrupt-induced hiatus, longtime TechCruncher Greg Kumparak dishes on Pokémon Go – what made it so appealing at launch, what’s going on with product development, and where he’d like to see it go in the future.
Greg and I are both big Pokémon fans, so it’s a subject about which we have no shortage of things to say. Read More
Interface design collaboration tool Figma is launching its Multiplayer feature, which allows designers to collaborate in real time on the same projects. Read More
Slowly but surely, Amazon is incorporating Alexa functionality into its numerous existing hardware lines. A few weeks ago, the company announced an update that would bring its friendly voice assistant to its TV streaming hardware solutions, the set top Fire TV and its smaller dongle-based brethren, the Fire TV Stick. A newly announced version of the latter will now ship with that… Read More
Techstars has selected the first class for its New York-based internet of things accelerator. It’s the first program that Techstars has done with a consortium of industry partners instead of just linking up with a single, large corporate partner. For the accelerator, the first class is the culmination of a year of work putting the pieces together for the new initiative. One of the big… Read More
Former smartphone giant Blackberry has said it will no longer manufacture its own devices. Instead it intends to outsource hardware making to development partners, although the core focus of its business is firmly on software services at this point. Read More
