FiveAI is a rather ambitious U.K. startup that’s building AI-driven software to help accelerate the development of autonomous vehicles. The young company wants to apply the latest developments in computer vision and AI/machine learning to enable self-driving cars to do more of the heavy-lifting in regards to understanding and navigating their immediate environment. Read More
About 80 percent of the U.S. adult population, aged 18 and older, fails to exercise enough each week to meet federal guidelines, according to the most recent available data from the Centers for Disease Control’s Healthy People 2020 study. That means a majority of us are pretty lazy, ‘Murica. The guidelines only call for moderate to light aerobic physical activity for 150 minutes… Read More
Comcast’s business phone service seems to be having a huge nationwide outage. While the company acknowledged that some customers may be experiencing problems with phone service, the issue seems to be pretty widespread, with reported outages in dozens of cities across the country. Apparently inbound and outbound calls are either not being completed at all, or are met with a… Read More
Samsung just mailed out invitations for its Samsung Unpacked 2016 event, where it’s expected to unveil its latest Note smartphone. The event is taking place August 2 at 11AM EST, and will be live-streamed on samsung.com. The device is likely going to be called the Note 7, something seemingly confirmed by the language on the invite itself. This is being done for unity’s sake for… Read More
Google has made another small acquisition to help it continue building out its latest efforts in social apps. The search and Android giant has hired the team behind Kifi, a startup that was building extensions to collect and search links shared in social apps, as well as provide recommendations for further links — such as this tool, Kifi for Twitter. Terms of the deal are not… Read More
The Oculus Rift launch has been a rocky one that hasn’t exactly left fans of the highly influential consumer VR platform very happy. Today, Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe announced a few things (we’re pretty sure it was him this time). He clued us into the fact that after three-and-a-half months, the Oculus team has at last caught up with pre-orders and that Oculus’s cool… Read More
Always with his finger on the pulse, Senator Al Franken today sent an official request to Niantic asking about particulars of the Pokémon Go privacy policy. “I am concerned about the extent to which Niantic may be unnecessarily collecting, using, and sharing a wide range of users’ personal information without their appropriate consent,” the letter reads. Read More
If it seems like EVs are everywhere, you’re closer to being right this year than ever before. Navigant Research expects the EV market to grow 62% year over year in 2016, which adds up to nearly 200,000 EVs being sold this year.
Navigant points to long-range battery electric vehicles (BEVs) with price tags under $40,000, like the Chevy Bolt ($37,000 MSRP) that’s expected to hit… Read More
TechCrunch is pleased to bring you Indiebio’s Demo Day this Thursday, July 14th from San Francisco. Backed by SOS Ventures, Indiebio is the largest life sciences accelerator to date. Indiebio provides each startup in the accelerator with $250,000, lab space, and expert mentors including 23andMe co-founder Linda Avey and father of the Human Genome Project, George Church.… Read More
The Washington D.C. Fire and EMS Department is considering a plan to use Uber to transport low priority 911 callers, according to NBC Washington. It’s a horrible idea.
Washington’s plan is to hire a team of nurses who could evaluate a caller’s condition over the phone and direct them to an Uber if they are deemed stable. Already this is odd given that the purpose of an… Read More
One of the striking things about the Juno probe, I remarked to one of its creators, is its simple and streamlined design — compared to other spacecraft, at least. The engineers had a hell of a time packing everything in there, but it helps when critical sensors have shrunk in size from “breadbox” to “soup cracker.” Read More
PostGhost was a service that stored and displayed the deleted Tweets of celebrities and politicians. Created as a way to keep public discourse honest, Twitter shut it down with a cease and desist warning citing a failure to comply with API rules. The resulting brouhaha led me to track down the anonymous founder and ask him or her a few questions about what happened. TC: Who are you? How… Read More
After users and press noticed that Pokémon Go on iOS requested “full access” to a user’s Google account when signing up, Niantic promised an update to modify the permissions required. Now, less than 24 hours after Niantic made that promise, the update is live, and limits asked-for info to just “Know who you are on Google” and “View your email… Read More
A controversial law that authorizes the government’s bulk collection of internet data is being tested in a federal appeals court, giving anti-surveillance advocates hope that reform might be on the horizon. The 9th Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals heard arguments last week about the warrantless surveillance of an American, Mohamed Mohamud. Mohamud was convicted of planning to bomb a… Read More
Recently departed Hyperloop One co-founder Brogan BamBrogan has filed a restraining order against the company’s former head of legal Afshin Pishevar and a lawsuit against both Afshin and his brother and BamBrogan’s former startup partner Shervin Pishevar. Hyperloop One, the brainchild of Elon Musk to transport people and goods across the country at 700 mph in a vacuum tube, has… Read More
TechCrunch Disrupt SF is taking place at Pier 48 September 12-14, and we can’t wait to see you. In honor of the occasion, we’re giving away a pair of tickets to one lucky TechCrunch reader (a $5,990 value). You can earn extra entries to the contest by sharing the giveaway link with friends and following our social accounts.
Disrupt is one of the most anticipated technology… Read More
Human locomotion has traditionally been a tough nut for roboticists to crack, but the team at Georgia Institute of Technology looks to be doing so in stride with the DURUS, a humanoid (or, rather, three-quarters of a humanoid) ‘bot that has taken to the AMBER Lab’s treadmill like a robotic fish to water.
DURUS replicates human walking in a manner much more accurately than past… Read More
Google is giving more tools to retail and travel businesses hoping to promote themselves through search results and ads.
These new features were announced at a New York City press event this morning, and then outlined in an AdWords blog post.
On the retail side, changes include a new Showcase Shopping ad format. The company says those ads are designed for broader shopping search terms like… Read More
Spending too much time on your phone? Moment can help. The mobile application that’s designed – ironically – to help you battle your smartphone addiction, can now train you over the course of a couple of weeks to change your habits and spend less time staring at your tiny screen. Launching today, Moment’s latest release offers a “Phone Bootcamp” course… Read More
The hoverboard wars are all but over with casualties on either side. Swagways, Segaways, Wamboards, and Zoomers have all been relegated to the back of the garage and now that most of these things are recalled and new ones can’t be sold. There is a vacuum forming in the “dumb little Segways for your feet” category so enter the granddaddy of two-wheeled locomotion, Segway,… Read More
