At 1:26am ET, SpaceX launched their Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral and, once again, recovered the first stage of that rocket on a drone ship floating in the ocean. More importantly, SpaceX successfully completed the primary mission of today’s launch by inserting their payload, the JCSAT-16 satellite, into Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO). First stage landing confirmed on… Read More
As the world tries to make sense of economic tremors from the Brexit fallout, upcoming U.S. elections and volatile European financial markets, it’s easy to see why investors are becoming less willing to roll the dice and throw money at oversaturated venture markets. This presents a window of opportunity for investors trying to spot, catch and ride the wave of the next… Read More
Pokémon Go has changed the trajectory of the world on a scale just slightly smaller than Google Search and Facebook — but it will be felt through all industries in the coming years. It looks like a simple game that incorporates a few unique and compelling features. But this game has taken technologies from niche research and gaming communities and thrust them into the world’s… Read More
The Gillmor Gang — Robert Scoble, Frank Radice, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor. Recorded live Friday, August 12, 2016. Why Twitter should call itself the Peacock Network, why many are fleeing Facebook until after the election, why social video is moving into corporate life, and why I’m going to help Trumpty continue his great fall. @stevegillmor, @Scobleizer, @kevinmarks, @fradice… Read More
There are neural net machine learning approaches that are simply more than “deep.” Neural networks are popular for advancing voice technologies and AI, but it’s interesting that many of the current approaches were developed for image/video processing. One, convolutional neural networks, makes it easy to see why image-processing neural nets are similar to the way our brains… Read More
Need a tiny, $5 computer to build a robot that will bring you your slippers, initiate a massage chair session, and pour out your daily dose of bourbon? The Onion Omega2 can do all that and more. This tiny board is Arduino-compatible but also runs Linux natively. This means you can plug it in and get a command line or access the system via a desktop-like web interface. It has Wi-Fi built in and… Read More
If you’re a big fan of wine but still want to run a startup, there may not be that much innovation you can get away with on the product side. Wine, when all is said and done, is still wine. That doesn’t mean you can’t turn the industry inside out by turning the traditional winery business model on its head — and that’s exactly what Naked Wines did. I decided to have… Read More
In the last year, writers, editors, producers and other content creators at “digital native” companies have won representation with the Writers Guild of America, East. These innovative, mostly younger professionals want a voice in shaping their work lives, and they recognize that collective bargaining is a vital way to engage in the decisions that affect how they work and how that… Read More
Frank Abagnale, Jr’s ignominious youth as a clever con artist was made famous in the 2002 movie, Catch Me If You Can, starring Leonardo DeCaprio as a young Frank, but Abagnale, as you might imagine, would rather talk about the life he led after he got caught, went to jail and paid his debt to society.
It was then that he turned his conning skill to good and began a 40-year career as a… Read More
Dear executives of United Airlines, I have some advice for you. 1: Fire whoever is in charge of your online security. 2: Burn down the building in which they worked; it may be tainted. 3: Salt the ground so nothing ever grows there again, to be safe. 4: Hire somebody competent who will not infuriate your users while simultaneously compromising their security. Read More
Disrupt NY winner Beam gets acquired by Microsoft, study shows VR and exoskeletons can help paraplegics, soon even our tattoos will be smart, Facebook delivers the latest adblocker punch, and a new Star Wars Rogue One trailer. All this on Crunch Report. Read More
In the year 2000, the music business was still strong. Record companies produced albums and shipped these physical objects to the stores that sold them. The internet was slowly becoming a system of mass consumption and distribution, but the majority of consumers still purchased physical media. And while the record industry was aware of piracy online, the threat seemed minimal. Then came Napster. Read More
Don’t say we don’t ever give you anything, startup fans! While early-bird ticket sales were originally slated to end today, we’ve decided to give you one more week to save $1,000 on tickets to Disrupt SF 2016. You now have until Friday, August 19, to get your Disrupt tickets for the deeply discounted price of $1,995 apiece. But don’t procrastinate; we won’t be… Read More
A San Francisco judge has sentenced former RadiumOne and Gravity4 CEO Gurbaksh Chahal to 12 months in county jail. However, the judge also granted a stay on the sentence pending an appeal from Chahal’s lawyer, according to Bloomberg’s Ellen Huet. After being accused of attacking a woman in his apartment, Chahal pleaded guilty to misdemeanor battery charges — a deal that… Read More
Mobile app Triller isn’t just a simple way to make music videos anymore — it recently added social features that allow users to follow other users and explore their videos. I should probably back up a second and explain what Triller is. It’s an iPhone and Android app that allows you to create a video by taking a snippet of your favorite song, adding a video filter and… Read More
Close partners GM and Lyft were apparently nearly even closer: The Information reports and TechCrunch has separately confirmed that the carmaker expressed its interest in purchasing Lyft, going so far as to specify a price it would’ve been wiling to pay. Lyft apparently explored what other strategic partners might be offering before deciding to say no to GM and opt instead to raise… Read More
From online gamers solving genetic puzzles that have stumped the worlds greatest super computers to the mind-reading potential of the most refined MRIs, these are a few of the innovations that most impressed director Werner Herzog as he explored the potential of the Internet in his new film “Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World.”
Premiering August 19, the new Herzog… Read More
“Stop calling Pokémon Go AR,” say the purists. But who cares what you call something that is so successful? Just be glad it happened, and let’s figure out what it means for the AR/VR industry. Read More
Facebook can’t build everything. For a decade, its strategy has been to provide the canvas, then let developers paint it however they want. That’s because there’ll always be another game. Another app. Another… selfie filter? Read More
Growing up, I can remember spending a lot of time thinking about what it would be like to be frozen in carbonite, the way Han Solo was after being betrayed by Lando on Bespin in The Empire Strikes Back. I never imagined it might feel like you were a fridge, but a new video on Adam Savage’s Tested YouTube channel has me thinking differently. The concept of the video is simple enough: Can… Read More
