According to numerous eyewitness reports, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket just exploded during a test on a launch pad at Cape Canaveral. This rocket was set to launch on Saturday, September 3 on a mission to deliver Facebook’s first satellite to orbit. Reuters is reporting that SpaceX has confirmed that there were no personal injuries in the blast but the rocket and payload were destroyed.… Read More
BMW buyers will now have the option to get CarPlay installed in their new rides. But for a cost. BMW is charging $300 to add the service to new vehicles making the German auto maker the first to charge buyers for access to CarPlay.
This sits as a starch difference from other manufacturers which either include CarPlay as a standard feature or bundle it in a technology package. BMW is selling… Read More
Move over Cortana – another voice-powered smart assistant might be on its way to Windows PCs. That’s according to a new report from CNET, which cites confirmation of talks between Amazon and Lenovo by an unnamed Lenovo executive as the source of the info. There’s no further detail on how far the talks progressed, but a PC-based presence for Alexa could have big benefits for… Read More
Neato, the other company that produces robot vacuums (no, the other, other company), is back with two new entries in its floor cleaning robo-servant line. The latest additions, debuting at IFA this week, continue the company’s (relatively) low-entry point and a focus on connectivity, which – in that respect, at least – leapfrogged iRobot a while back. The base-level D3 runs… Read More
Multitenancy was the single-biggest technology breakthrough in SaaS. It not only allowed for higher gross margins, it made it viable to serve small and medium businesses with world-class software — at a profit. Similarly, serverless compute is both a new way of building apps and a new way of consuming and paying for it. Serverless takes the promise of multitenancy to a whole new level. Read More
Plex, a popular personal media player system that lets you stream from your own library, including music, photos, TV and movies, across devices, is today rolling out DVR functionality. The software will now allow you to watch and record their favorite programs, by pairing Plex with any digital antenna and an HDHomeRun digital tuner. This allows you to use Plex to watch TV on any device,… Read More
Salesforce may have missed out on buying LinkedIn, but it has had a whopper of an acquisitions spree so far this year anyway. The enterprise cloud and CRM services company put down over $4 billion to buy eight startups in areas like workplace productivity, machine learning and e-commerce solutions, according to to the company’s 10-Q filed with the SEC today.
The majority of that $4… Read More
What is the Pavilion Wave? It’s a question as old as time, dating at least as far back as the early hours of this morning when HP showed off its strange new cloth-covered bit of hardware. It most closely resembles a speaker, complete with a Bang & Olufsen logo on the front – in fact, that’s the only bit of branding you’ll see if you look at it face-on. The answer,… Read More
Smartphone sales have peaked, but if you’re looking for places in the world where the trend is still upwards and the surface is just being scratched, then Southeast Asia is one place to keep in mind. Read More
I am admittedly the jumpy sort, so maybe the bar was low, but this AI-created trailer for upcoming sci-fi thriller Morgan definitely sent chills up my spine. And this is the ultimate troll because Morgan is actually about a humanoid robot with advanced AI that essentially rebels against its creators. WATSON IS PLAYING WITH US. Seriously though, it’s more than a little terrifying that… Read More
DJI hopes you’re tired of shaky and embarrassing smartphone videos. The Osmo Mobile is a handheld 3-axis stabilizer gimbal for smartphones. Just strap a phone to the top and a similar gimbal used in the company’s drones will keep the video silky smooth. The kit works similar to the DJI Osmo except this new version lacks a built-in camera. It uses the capable camera in a… Read More
When Salesforce introduced its Wave analytics product back in October, 2014, it was mostly framed as a tool for managers to get a grip on the sales pipeline in a visual way. In a series of announcements today, Salesforce made it clear that it’s taking Wave vertical with a variety of job-specific Wave applications. Since its launch, much like Salesforce CRM itself, Wave has grown… Read More
Not notebooks – smart notepads. Or, “smartpads” for those looking to save a little time and precious syllables. At IFA this week, the pro tablet manufacturer is issuing two updates to its line designed to combine physical note-taking with digitization. The two devices are fairly similar, utilizing Wacom’s priority EMR (Electro Magnetic Resonance) technology to bridge… Read More
Less than a month after raising $35 million in new financing, social commerce and classifieds startup Carousell has made its first acquihire. The Singapore-based company has picked up most of the team from Watch Over Me, a safety app for principally for women that is based on Malaysia, in an acquihire deal to beef up its engineering chops. Read More
Sony knows from phone cameras. After all, it’s the company’s companents that fuels the competition’s hardware. As such, it makes sense that it’s opted to focus on the feature for a pair of new additions to its Xperia X line, the flagship 5.2-inch XZ and 4.2-inch Compact. The company has moved to what it’s called triple image sensing technology, built around… Read More
Not every product briefing involves a large hidden speaker trucked in to reproduce plane noise. But Sony clearly very psyched about the noise canceling capabilities of its new wireless headset. In fact, the reps who did presentation even went so far as activating the white noise hum while I was listening to music, in order to affect surprise when I took them off. Fair play.
And indeed, the… Read More
License on Transfer (LOT) Network is looking to make it even easier for smaller startups to sign up for its cross-licensing patent “immunization” organization, which includes members like Google, Netflix and Uber. Between now and March 1, 2017, any new members that join LOT Network that have annual revenues below $5 million won’t have to pay the standard annual membership… Read More
Renoviso thinks it can take the hassle out of home redecorating. Instead of searching for the right contractor, Renoviso determines which local partner can help you on projects like replacing your windows or getting new floors. And the Boston-based startup is now raising $3.5 million in funding to execute their vision. The round was led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with existing… Read More
A bunch of new products out of Huawei this morning, as the company kicked the second day of IFA press conferences. In addition to two new entries in the company’s mid-tier Nova line, it also introduced a new 8.4-inch tablet the MediaPad M3.
At the center of the tablet is a 2560 x 1600 2K wide-angle display with a 359PPI pixel density. That’s all wrapped up in a slim full-metal body. Read More
Huawei kicked off its IFA keynote this morning by debuting Nova, a new mid-tier line of handset line offering up solid specs on a budget. The line kicks off with two devices, the simply named Nova and Nova Plus. The two handsets are largely the same, though the Plus, as the name pretty clearly implies, is the larger of the two, at 5.5 inches to the Nova’s five inches. It’s also got… Read More
