At TechCrunch Disrupt SF this year, famed iPhone and PlayStation hacker George Hotz unveiled the first official product of his automotive AI startup, Comma.ai. The Comma One is a $999 add-on shipping before the end of the year, with a $24 monthly subscription for its software, which Hotz says will be able to drive your car from Mountain View to San Francisco without requiring a driver to touch… Read More
Entrepreneurs building tech products for women spoke at TechCrunch Disrupt SF today, and called on their peers in the industry to set a high ethical bar when it comes to using or sharing women’s intimate data. Janica Alvarez’s startup Naya Health makes a smart breast pump and bottle to help nursing mothers know exactly how much milk they’re producing and how much their babies… Read More
Some interesting consolidation afoot in the travel industry: Concur, the travel and expense platform that was acquired by SAP in 2014 for $8.3 billion, is today making its own acquisition: it is buying Hipmunk, the travel search startup. The companies are not disclosing the terms of the deal but we are trying to find out. Hipmunk had raised around $55 million since being founded in 2010, but… Read More
Neal Stephenson, who inspired much of the current VR industry with his novel Snow Crash, explained why he’s excited about virtual reality and augmented reality — and it’s for less technical reasons than you might think. In addition to his work as a science fiction writer (he appeared at Disrupt SF today to promote his novel Seveneves), Stephenson is chief futurist at secretive… Read More
DropIn, an LA-based startup wants to change the way the insurance companies process claims with two-way video claims processing and drone-based appraisals.
The company, which launched in 2015, provides on-demand live video streaming services to help insurance companies improve the claims and underwriting process. The solution relies on a drone equipped with a camera or a smartphone camera… Read More
Reuters is the latest major news agency to embrace content automation. Reuters isn’t replacing human reporters and editors with software and self-flying cameras quite yet.
But the news organization has struck partnerships with Graphiq Inc. and Wibbitz Ltd., to automate the creation of simple graphics and video clips, respectively, to run alongside relevant, human-reported Reuters news… Read More
Affectiva CEO Rana el Kaliouby made a pair of announcements at TechCrunch Disrupt today that should bring the company’s emotion-detecting systems to quite a few new people. First, the Affdex SDK and APIs are now free to any company that learns less than a million dollars a year. Read More
U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter argued the case for splitting up the leadership of the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command on stage at Disrupt SF, while stressing, “We haven’t made any decisions in that regard yet.” Carter also discussed the recent Equation Group hack, the ongoing encryption debate, and the Department of Defense’s role in… Read More
Earlier this year, Andreessen Horowitz investor Chris Dixon noted that how challenging it’s become for investors to help groom promising AI startups, given how quickly Facebook, Google, and Amazon are bringing aboard related talent. Dixon noted, for example, that Wit.ai, a Y Combinator startup that built voice-activated interfaces that Facebook bought and which now powers its… Read More
Apple is having a rough day with the rollout of its new software platforms: in addition to the bug that was bricking users’ iPhones when upgrading to iOS 10, the new version of iTunes – iTunes 12.5.1 – is also having issues connecting to iCloud Music Library this morning. This is a notable update for iTunes, which is likely prompting a surge of downloads, but it’s… Read More
It was a full house with hundreds of apps and products on display Startup Alley at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco this week. One of the teams that caught our eye was Chatscene, an app for meeting and finding people nearby. While there are many messaging apps out there, Chatscene hopes that its hyperlocal focus will set it apart from the pack. The platform makes it easy to find and… Read More
Email was the original killer app for the internet, but Easythingy shows that the decades-old standard still has some life in it. Launched at TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Alley today, the company’s product turns your e-mails into the ultimate travel app. Read More
Swarm, Foursquare’s app to let you check into locations, today launched a new feature that makes it possible to finally spend those coins you’ve been amassing. Starting today, you can exchange coins for perks. Read More
Update: It seems this error is fixed, according to Apple. The company provided the following statement to TechCrunch. “We experienced a brief issue with the software update process, affecting a small number of users during the first hour of availability. The problem was quickly resolved and we apologize to those customers. Anyone who was affected should connect to iTunes to complete… Read More
Reiterating its intention to “piggyback” on the work that the intelligence community has done with In-Q-Tel, the Defense Department will start making venture investments, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter said onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt. The initiative will build off of work that the Central Intelligence Agency has been doing for years. Financed by Congress, the CIA began planning… Read More
Melonee Wise of Fetch Robotics gave her insights on robotics and how robots are going to enhance our future. Fetch Robotics specialized in warehouse robots so that humans don’t have to walk around all day long. But even before Fetch Robotics, Wise has been active in the open-source community when it comes to building the software for our robots. TechCrunch’s Devin Coldewey asked… Read More
At Disrupt in San Francisco this morning, in front of a packed audience, Greylock investors Reid Hoffman and Josh Elman talked about some of the trends that they’re tracking in the startup universe. Among them: the opportunity to create technologies that enhance self-driving cars. “It’s clear that self driving revolution is upon us,” said Hoffman. “If you have… Read More
Ride hailing services aimed at women drivers and passengers are a small but growing niche. See Jane Go is officially up and running today; drivers and passengers can download the app on iOS or Android to get started. SafeHer will be launching in Boston this fall with plans to expand to four cities soon after. In reporting on See Jane Go and SafeHer (the ride hailing service known briefly… Read More
Facebook Messenger has built an unlaunched feature called Rooms that lets groups publicly chat about different subjects and events. Buried in Messenger’s iOS app’s source code are multiple references to the feature, with some explanation of how it works. The code shows: “Introducing rooms”, “Rooms are for public conversations about topics and interests. Each room… Read More
Foursquare has today unveiled Foursquare 10, a redesigned version of the app that puts search front and center. J Crowley, head of product at Foursquare, told TechCrunch that most people get on Foursquare with a clear intent, making the original featured content on the homepage mostly irrelevant. “Previous versions of the products were based on the theory that people wanted a laid back… Read More
