Politicians responding to the oil troubles are heeding calls for a new way forward, centered around startups. And the efforts to foster a new approach are led by an ambitious ex-business exec, the Crown Prince of Norway and a handful of contrarian entrepreneurs. Read More
The internet has become a lonely space, and consumers are hungry for something new. We don’t talk much anymore about new processors, video cards and faster dialup modems — at least not like we used to. The technology industry, specifically the internet, continues to become further standardized and isolating, which makes it harder for new players to get an edge. Read More
Many companies have transformed and realigned their focus with great success. Avon transitioned from peddling books door-to-door to marketing beauty products. Wrigley started as a soap and baking soda company. IBM originally sold massive mainframe computers and calculators. Now, telecom companies are making similar pivots into a lucrative industry. The battle du jour is about customer data… Read More
Thirty-six years ago, futurist Alvin Toffler wrote The Third Wave, outlining the inevitable transition from a “Second Wave,” characterized by an industrial society, to a “Third Wave,” characterized by what he calls the “Information Age.” The Information Age is defined by the shift from traditional industry that the Industrial Revolution brought through… Read More
Seesaw’s educational app lets students save and share their assignments with their teachers, parents, and fellow classmates. They just snap a photo or video, draw, or write. But rather than just the finished product, students can add audio narration or doodled annotation to show how they got there. This lets teachers identify where students went wrong when they make mistakes. Seesaw… Read More
Novelist John Sundman is a national treasure. His best work, Acts of the Apostles, predicts CRISPR, advanced genetic engineering, and chip-based Trojan Horses and his writing is at once dense and thrilling. I got the chance to talk with him this week for the Technotopia podcast.
Sundman lives on Martha’s Vineyard and has been a tech contractor as well as a volunteer fireman and carpenter. Read More
The Seoul Metropolitan Government announced traffic and pedestrian signs alerting the danger of using smartphones while walking on the street, soon to be installed in five areas of the South Korean capital. The safety campaign, implemented together with the National Police Agency, specifically targets kids, teenagers and young adults, the main users of smartphones in the country. “The… Read More
TraffickCam is an app developed by the Exchange Initiative, an organization fighting back against sex trafficking. The goal of the new app is to build a national database of photos of the insides of hotel rooms to help law enforcement match images posted by sex traffickers to locations. The app will also be useful to help locate victims — and the people who put them in their predicament. Read More
There are numerous daily tasks that can be solved with ease in the U.S. In comparison, the lack of training, standardization and process in Brazil creates chronic inefficiencies in the service sector that push consumers to prefer and use mobile applications that provide everyday services in a standardized manner Read More
It has occurred to me that perhaps TechCrunch pays insufficient attention to slurry, sediment, silt, sludge, mud, and muck; to canals, earthworks, levees, dikes, dredges, and the Army Corps of Engineers; to the vast engineering works, with lifespans measured in decades, that literally reshape our world. So last weekend I boarded a bus hired by the Dredge Research Collaborative. Read More
It’s been a remarkable rise so far, but for coding bootcamps to become mainstream they must prove that the outcomes they advertise are real. In 2012 coding bootcamps began offering courses in software development and promising graduates new careers in technology. The schools, now backed by hundreds of millions in VC funding, will educate about 30,000 students in 2016, and rake in just shy… Read More
There’s a new wave of reporting focused on the post-app era. Recode announced “The app boom is over.” Quartz points out how most users never download any apps. Let me be very clear: The app boom is not over. There has never been a better time to be an apps developer. Read More
Say hello to Liam. He recently celebrated his first birthday. Not only is he a cutie, he is the last person to get a driver license. Impossible? Not in your lifetime? I don’t know if Liam will be the last person to get a driver license. It could be Sophia or Ethan. But one thing is certain: The last person to get a driver license is already born — the speed of technology… Read More
Here’s one for your Friday. An older video, unearthed by Twitter user @iamjamajesty a few days ago has been blowing up on the network. This group poem, performed by Morgan “MoMo” Butler and Malachi Byrd, is one of the best expressions I’ve seen of love and trust in the digital age. “Settings>Privacy Settings>System Services>Location… Read More
Chinese-backed electric car maker Faraday Future says it is working on a self-driving vehicle. The company not so secretly owned by LeTV joins a growing list of tech companies making autonomous cars, including Google, Tesla, Apple (big rumor) and even IBM now powers a self-driving bus. Faraday revealed its first concept car, the FFZERO1, at CES earlier this year — an electric car with… Read More
Ladar Levison’s three-year fight for freedom to speak about the government order that shuttered Lavabit, his secure email service, is finally over. Levison was finally able to confirm today that Lavabit was targeted by the government during its investigation into the Edward Snowden leaks. Although Apple’s legal battle to keep its users’ data encrypted is more widely… Read More
Earlier this week, BuzzFeed got its hands on a stock purchase offer arranged by Palantir for its employees, one that asked current and former employees to agree to a host of stipulations. Among them, the 12-year-old, data analytics outfit asked former employees to renew their non-disclosure agreements, agree not to solicit Palantir employees for 12 months, and promise not to sue the company or… Read More
I’ve been talking to Nik Cubrilovic, the founder of Sydney, Australia based Omnidrive, since I posted about the need for a good online storage service in November (see no. 1 in that post). I’ve had the chance to test it over the last few days. It’s pre-beta but will be launching soon. They’ve solved a […]
