Spotify’s first original videos, a music cartoon series called “Deconstructed,” may have been something of a dud, but don’t count out Spotify’s entire lineup of originals just yet: the company has now debuted its new series called “Landmark,” which starts off by chronicling the band Metallica’s rise to fame. “Landmark – Metallica:… Read More
NASA is giving us some more insight into its plans to get humans to Mars, under the blanket mission called ‘Journey to Mars,’ and during the press conference, NASA Deputy Associate Administrator for Exploration Systems Development Bill Hill revealed that the current hope is to hand off control of the International Space Station to a commercial owner by sometime around the mid… Read More
Google has detailed a slew of updates over at its Developers Blog aimed at making Street View rendering less crummy, courtesy of some tweaks to the Maps JavaScript API. Among the resulting improvements are smoother transitions from place to place, thanks to more frames and better loading animations, as the system has switched from repeating old images, which resulted in a stuttering effect to… Read More
Human’s team will join Mapbox and work on Mapbox’s mobile SDK and real-time maps. I’ve covered Human quite a few times over the years. It’s a well-designed fitness app that was ahead of the current trends in fitness tracking. Human turned the simple habit of moving around the city into human-readable data for yourself and your friends. Over time, Human started using… Read More
In Atlassian‘s view, video is the next battlefield in the enterprise chat wars (a war it is mostly fighting with Slack, it seems). Its HipChat group messaging app launched one-on-one video chats back in 2014, but today, it is pushing this further by launching group video chats, as well.
To enable this, Atlassian built a new video platform based on its acquisition of BlueJimp and that… Read More
Facebook may try to compete with Steam, or at least win back revenue lost when casual gaming shifted to mobile. Today Facebook formally announced it’s working with game engine Unity to build a dedicated, downloadable desktop gaming platform, plus it’s broadening the Facebook.com experience for gamers.
Both will allow publishers the offer their iOS and Android games on desktop in… Read More
Turns out, most people aren’t all that into their day jobs. According to a study performed by Wakefield Research, around 75 percent of 2,000 respondents said they are unfulfilled by their current job. Part of that comes from the fact that work is work, but the entrepreneurial attitude seems to be spreading, with 44 percent of people showing more interest in starting a side business than… Read More
The internet is all about sharing information, but for the more than 285 million people around the world who are visually impaired, browsing the ‘net can be a less than fruitful experience. Braigo Labs is today launching a service to help blind and visually impaired people make sense of text on images. Read More
From single-player, 16-bit 2D arcade games to free-to-play online multi-player games, the gaming industry has come a long way in the last decade. We can only watch with awe as newer games surprise us with their stunning graphics and engaging game play. However, more and more game developers have jumped into the fray and started catering to the online multi-player games genre. Read More
Wannabe ad industry nemesis Shine has chalked up another telco to commit to deploying its mobile ad blocking technology which uses deep packet inspection to detect and eject ads at the network level — its third such telco deal. Read More
In an age dominated by short attention spans, Boston Dynamics has managed to capture our imaginations time and again through sometimes frightening, sometimes adorable and always fascinating robots. But the company’s creations are far more than viral video machines. And now the founder and CEO Marc Raibert will join me for a fireside chat at Disrupt SF. Formed in 1992 by former… Read More
Part of the arrangement that will bring self-driving Uber on-demand vehicles to Pittsburgh roads by the end of this year will also help Volvo bring its own self-driving cars, for use as either personal vehicles or as autonomous taxis, to market by 2021, according to the WSJ. The two companies are investing a combined $300 million, roughly split between the two, in a deal that will seek to… Read More
Uber revealed today that it would put self-driving Volvo SUVs on the road in Pittsburgh, picking up actual passengers, with a driver on board only to make sure everything goes smoothly. It’s a launch of near-complete autonomous vehicles that seemed to come out of nowhere – just like Uber itself. In Bloomberg’s telling of the launch of Uber’s self-driving program, they… Read More
Uber is making yet another big push in the self-driving car space. In addition to launching self-driving rides in Pittsburgh with the help of Volvo, the company is acquiring Otto and its all-star team according to a new report from Bloomberg. Otto has been focusing on self-driving technology that could be fitted into trucks that are already on the road now. In other words, Otto didn’t… Read More
In an interview with Bloomberg, CEO Travis Kalanick revealed that the company is preparing to introduce self-driving cars to its fleet of drivers in Pittsburgh this month. The company will deploy around 100 modified Volvo XC90s outfitted with self-driving equipment. Read More
What growth there is left in the smartphone market continues to center on emerging markets where consumers are upgrading from feature phones. Read More
One of the few remaining universal truths is that healthcare costs are too high. Insurance companies are bucking under the pressure from the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and they are willing to try almost anything if it means reducing costs. With a shiny $8.5 million Series A from Norwest Venture Partners, NextHealth will be making that exact promise of reducing healthcare costs to U.S.… Read More
Nokia has reduced the price of its high end VR camera Ozo by $15,000. The new global price-tag for the teardrop-shaped device, which captures 360° spherical video and 360×360 surround sound to create immersive content for viewing via virtual reality devices, is $45,000. Read More
Many speculated that India is the next battleground for Uber after it agreed to sell its China business last month, and the U.S. company certainly does seem to be increasing its focus on India after it launched two new features that, while subtle, could help it win more customers in the country. Read More
