Our microbiomes: who understands them? Scientists? The bacteria colonizing our guts? The guy who made the Mexican food we just ate? Wrong. It’s our computers. Researchers have tasked them to create a new way to analyze and understand our microbiomes electronically. The service is called “Functional Shifts’ Taxonomic Contributors” or, obviously, FishTaco. The system,… Read More
Despite its massive success with viewers, Google always had a hard time convincing advertisers that its video platform was the best place for them to reach their target audiences. Now, Google promises to give advertisers and agencies better tools to measure their reach and target specific audiences — all with a focus on mobile. As Google notes in today’s announcement, 50 percent… Read More
I’ve done it all. I have a standing desk. I have a sitting ball. I have a treadmill. And now I just might go back to where it all started with the Edge Desk. This Kickstarter darling raised $500,000 to produce what amounts to a portable kneeling desk. It has a huge work surface – 20×30 inches – and costs $350 for the entry level model. It folds up flat for storage and… Read More
It’s official. As of about an hour ago Donald Trump is the 45th President of The United States of America. One question regarding the transition was how the social media handoff would occur between outgoing former President Obama and President Trump. And now about an hour in, some of these accounts are starting to switch over. The most important one is probably @POTUS on Twitter, which… Read More
Uber is picking up a lot of ex-Googlers lately – earlier on Thursday, I reported that ex-Google SVP of Engineering Amit Singhal was headed to the ride-hailing startup, and former Google VP of Engineering on YouTube’s ads team Kevin Thompson is also joining the company as VP of Marketplace Engineering. That means Thompson will report into his former colleague Singhal, Uber… Read More
Trump’s administration is acting quickly to dangerously reimagine reality. It has deleted all specific mentions of “climate change” and “global warming,” as well as removed an entire page dedicated to the subject at the http://www.whitehouse.gov/energy/climate-change URL, which is no longer an active link.
UPDATE: While it’s typical to archive previous… Read More
And so the transition of power begins. First up is the WhiteHouse.gov site where several pages are now changing or altogether disappearing — including a page on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights. It’s just been over an hour since Trump took office and whitehouse.gov/lgbt has now been replaced by a Trump “transitionsplash” page. Update: There’s no… Read More
A new company named Sigma, founded by alumni of mobile app search engine Quixey, aims to take records and certifications currently trapped in the analog world and bring them online. To do so, the company has raised $4.35 million in seed funding from Andreessen Horowitz and other investors. The idea originated in late 2014, during a scuba trip in Belize that Sigma cofounder and… Read More
I’ve found that the most valuable design tool in the 21st century is rather old-fashioned: customer feedback. Technology has produced huge breakthroughs in design. A product can be ideated, prototyped and finalized with little more than a keyboard and code. But the ingenuity of modern design often leads to product teams neglecting the basics. Read More
Singhal will be heading up the Maps and Marketplace departments at Uber, while also advising CEO Travis Kalanick and Uber VP of Engineering and Otto co-founder Anthony Levandowski on their efforts to build out the company’s self-driving technology. The last time we in tech news circles heard from Singhal, he was saying goodbye after a 15-year career at Google, in a farewell letter… Read More
Ford has begun testing of its new Transit Custom Plug-In Hybrid with Transport for London, working with the UK city’s local transit authority to pilot 20 of the new vehicles in use during a 12-month trial with select London businesses for commercial use. The pilot of the vehicles, which feature a pure electric range of around 31 miles according to European agency measurement standards,… Read More
Twitter thinks it has identified your BFF. The company is currently testing a new feature that will highlight the tweets from a select, single account that Twitter thinks you’ll want to see. Yes: a single person’s tweets will get their own special spot on your timeline. The feature is similar to Twitter’s “In Case You Missed It…” which rounds up the tweets… Read More
Some news today from Dwolla, the startup that competes with banks (but also works with them) to provide payments and money transfers with reduced fees by way of more efficient software. The company has raised another round of funding of $6.85 million, and at the same time it’s announcing the relaunch of its white-label API, which it is now calling Access API. The funding round was led… Read More
New York City startup Slidejoy has been acquired by South Korean competitor Buzzvil.
Both companies offer a way for Android users to earn rewards in exchange for allowing ads on their lockscreens — in Buzzvil’s case, that’s both through its HoneyScreen consumer app and through its BuzzScreen platform for publishers.
The financial terms are not being disclosed, but Slidejoy… Read More
Happy Inauguration Day (ughhh). Anti-Donald Trump protestors are outside of Uber’s San Francisco headquarters. Protestors have linked arms outside Uber’s entrance, chanting, “Donald Trump, go away. Racist sexist, anti-gay.” They’re protesting Uber because the company’s CEO, Travis Kalanick, is a member of Trump’s Strategic and Policy forum. That… Read More
AT&T’s new live TV streaming service DirecTV Now has been off to a shaky start in terms of performance, but that hasn’t stemmed the flow of sign-ups, AT&T reports. The company said the service added more than 200,000 subscribers in its first month of operations. These details were included in an SEC filing for the quarter ending on December 31, 2016. DirecTV Now launched… Read More
“We want to get closer to this kind of perfect representation, so you can capture a moment you had.” The medium of virtual reality is a new one, one that may eventually allow these perfect representations and perfect fictions, but its true power (and danger) lies in its ability to turn anything into what feels like a personal experience. Embodying the emotions of the viewer is at… Read More
Fake news has been top of mind for a lot of people as of late. After the presidential election in the U.S. and public outcry over the prevalence of false information on Facebook, the company announced measures to prevent fake news from appearing on the platform. But there are still concerns about the civic consequences of fake news and the effect it has on people once it’s already… Read More
Trump’s an unorthodox sort with, by most accounts, a fairly tenuous grasp on modern technologies. Until relatively recently, there was a seemingly open question regarding whether the soon-to-be sworn in leader of the free world ever actually used a computer.
But the guy loves his smartphone. Since the campaign, Trump has relied fairly heavily on an Android handset for sending out… Read More
Amazon has just made it easier to repurchase your favorite items from its online store. The company on Thursday added virtual “Dash” buttons to its homepage and mobile app that let you click to buy the product they represent – like diapers, paper towels, medicine, groceries, household items, pet supplies, and more. Dash buttons, in case you’re not familiar, have been… Read More
