The mobile phone has transformed quite a bit in the last ten years, but the heart of it — the address book — hasn’t changed much. Drupe, with brand new funding, is looking to accelerate the evolution of the Phone Book. The company today announced $3 million in new funding from Canaan Partners Israel and Sweet Capital, a fund that was spun up by the founders of Candy Crush… Read More
It’s here. The first public beta of iOS 10 is now available to download. You can download it, even your neighbor can download it. And the good news is that you won’t have to pay $99 a year for a developer account. But remember, this is a beta.
If you can’t wait to see iOS 10 in action, Apple’s public beta program is for you. The company wants you to try out its new… Read More
Does your Facebook stream seem to mostly be reflecting your own opinions back to you from your friends? If so, you’ve seen the Echo Chamber in action. If you’re using Zolt as your news app, with an easy click its newest feature enables you to block Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Kim Kardashian and select other topics that might rub you the wrong way. Read More
What’s a poor beleaguered brand like Yahoo to do? Use its smart engineers to jump on the hottest trend, of course. Today the company is launching a bot that simulates a pet monkey for Facebook Messenger. Oh, and a few slightly more useful bots, too, like ones that will tell you about the weather, latest news and how your stock portfolio is performing. Read More
I love my Amazon Echo. And alongside checking the weather, I mostly use the voice-powered smart speaker to play music. That said, I’m not much of an Amazon Prime music user. I don’t know anyone who really is. And still, the device has defaulted to Amazon Prime Music with every single request, forcing broad requests like “Play the Beatles” or super specific requests for… Read More
If quantum computing ever lives up to its promise (and that’s still a big ‘if’ at this stage), somebody could use this technology to retroactively break any communications that were encrypted with today’s standard encryption algorithms. To guard against this, Google today announced that it will now start experimenting using post-quantum algorithms to encrypt the… Read More
I hate networking. Or at least the type of networking that consists of awkward happy hours where no one knows each other and you’re approached every five seconds by some over-eager “networker” who seemingly has an endless pocket full of business cards.
But, here’s the thing, that’s only one small type of networking. In its broader and much less aggressive form… Read More
If you have a useless Mac lying around, today is your lucky day. Apple is releasing the first public beta of macOS Sierra later today — it’s probably going to be available at some point over the next couple of hours. This first public beta is likely based on the second developer beta that was released a couple of days ago. Read More
Over the coming months, we are going to be seeing a lot more pink mustaches on Audi, BMW, and Mercedes vehicles. Today, Lyft is launching Lyft Premier. Users will be able to catch rides in luxury sedans and SUVs. Highly rated drivers with access to high-end vehicles can service rides. The cost premium for Premier rides will earn drivers additional money. Lyft will also be able to take… Read More
Tesla may be taking a page from Google’s Self-Driving Car Project’s book. A Model S was spotted near the company’s Palo Alto headquarters, strapped with Lidar sensors, as reported by Elektrek. Ironically, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has strongly dismissed Lidar in the past, relegating it to a technology that the company doesn’t need to achieve fully autonomous cars. Read More
Two months and a day after launching its impressive GeForce GTX 1080 (along with the GTX 1070) at the DreamHack gaming event in Austin, NVIDIA is back with a slightly less flashy, but no less interesting new Pascal-powered card. Most notable here is the price, which starts at $249. The GTX 1060 graphics card effectively replaces the more expensive GTX 980, promising the same performance as… Read More
As our phones become our primary computing devices, major iOS updates affect the workflow and lifestyle of hundreds of millions of people. Even minor changes can have major implications. So let’s dive into iOS 10 with an early look at Apple’s next mobile operating system. iOS 10 will be released this fall as a free update. Every year, a vast majority of iOS users update to the… Read More
Berlin is having a moment. In 2015, the city I live in was the fastest-growing startup ecosystem in the world and received the most venture capital investment of any city in Europe. Startups headquartered in Berlin have become global giants, and many startups across the Atlantic run their European operations from here. Seemingly overnight, we have become Europe’s next great tech hub. Read More
The driver death resulting from a Tesla Model S Autopilot crash on May 7 has ramifications that extend well past a federal investigation in the United States. In fact, government officials from the Canadian province of Ontario told Reuters that the fatal accident has further scrutinized its own autonomous driving technology and that it may have set back the development of its overall… Read More
If there is anyone who knows where the future is headed it’s Neal Stephenson. The author of the classic cyberpunk novel, Snow Crash, and, most recently, Seveneves, Stephenson has long been a voyager in lands unexplored by the common mind.
And now he’s going to join us on stage at Disrupt SF 2016, a unique treat. We’ll be talking about his latest book, his vision of the the… Read More
Photography is a more expensive hobby than a recreational drug habit, it is said. Whether that’s true or not I wouldn’t know, but Parachut, launching in beta today, is here to alleviate the burden a bit with a subscription library service for photography and video fans. As long as you keep paying your subscription fee, you’re free to return and check out as much fancy gear as… Read More
Sure the actual Summer Olympics only last for 16 days, but now you can carry your allegiance to the games around in your pocket for the next two or so years until you upgrade your phone (just in time for the 2018 Winter Games in South Korea, no less). To mark the Rio games, Samsung is issuing a commemorative Olympic Games Limited Edition of its Galaxy S7 Edge handset, handing out 12,500 of… Read More
In a blog post this morning, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced that long-time COO Kevin Turner would be leaving after 11 years at the company.
At the same time, Citadel Securities announced on its website home page this morning that Turner would be coming on board as CEO.
Nadella gave the expected platitudes in the announcement, while thanking Turner for his service to the… Read More
The HTC Desire 530 is $179 unlocked. That’s the main thing you need to know about it. Everything else about the handset is pretty underwhelming at best – and reviewers haven’t exactly been heaping praise on the thing. But it’s $179 unlocked and it’s arriving this month in the States. The company debuted the phone at Mobile World Congress back in February, leading… Read More
Amazon-owned Audible announced a new service called Channels today, one that differs from its typical audiobook business in offering more bite-size content from original content producers, as well as recordings of news stores from NYT, WSJ, The Washington Post and others. The original programming will be rolling out over time, covering comedy, investigatory journalism (think Serial) and… Read More
