Just a day after it opened an augmented reality lab, China’s internet giant Baidu has beefed up on its AI talent after it announced the hiring of former Microsoft executive Qi Lu as COO. Read More
3D printed plastics tend to remain pretty stable over time. For example, your 3D-printed Yoda won’t turn into a Chewbacca head without some severe plastic trauma… until now. Scientists at MIT have created a 3D printing technique that allows you to change the polymers in an object after printing. This means you can grow or shrink and object, change its color, and even change its… Read More
Scott Jordan never meant to make clothes. He was a lawyer by trade and wanted something he could wear to keep his Walkman from snagging on doorknobs. A few iterations later he invented the SCOTTeVEST, a vest with loads of pockets and secret channels for headphones and other cables. Now, after more than a decade in the business, he believes that while our clothing might seem more high-tech,… Read More
A startup called StorePower wants to take a bite out of the grocery delivery business by giving supermarkets an alternative to working with courier marketplaces like Instacart, Postmates, Amazon Fresh or Google Express. The company has raised an undisclosed amount of early-stage funding from Exigent Capital and individual angels, according to co-founder and CEO Richard Demb.… Read More
On December 7, 1972, NASA’s Apollo 17 mission took off under the command of Gene Cernan. Four days later, the crew touched down on the lunar surface. It was Cernan’s third and final trip to space — and, as it would turn out, the final time to date that NASA would send a team to walk on the moon. For all the seemingly buttoned-down operations of a government organization… Read More
Chromadex, the sole supplier of anti-aging startup Elysium Health‘s two main product ingredients pterostilbene and Nicotinamide Riboside (NR), is suing the startup for failure to make payments on those ingredients and for breach of a trademark and royalties agreement. According to a document on Chromadex’s website, dated December 29, 2016, Elysium “made… Read More
A number of consumers report they’re unable to get a refund for their subscription to AT&T’s recently launched streaming service, DirecTV Now – something they’ve requested after being unhappy with the new service’s performance. According to several postings on AT&T’s official forums, customers found the only way to get help was through a… Read More
Chinese search giant Baidu is looking to further entrench itself in the world of augmented reality, announcing today that it is establishing an AR lab to research and build experiences that more tightly integrate the digital experiences we have on our devices with the world around us.
The institution is the fourth such lab to be established under the Baidu Research division, joining the… Read More
Artificial intelligence is one of the hottest topics in business and science. Developers and industry analysts are all-in, building castles in the sky with tales of an impending AI “awakening.” In preparation for this sea change, Elon Musk and Sam Altman founded OpenAI, a nonprofit with the dual mission of ensuring that AI stays safe and its benefits are widely and evenly distributed. Read More
Twitter is rolling out a new feature designed to increase the amount of visual content in users’ timelines and encourage more tweets and replies: it’s prompting users who have just updated their profile picture to post a hashtagged tweet about the change. The tweet will be appended with #NewProfilePic, which can then be seen by all the users’ Twitter followers.… Read More
Lonsdale declined to comment on 8VC’s fundraising last year. But last week, we spoke with him about the new fund and, to a much lesser extent, about Formation 8 Partners, which Lonsdale famously cofounded in 2011 with Stanford classmate Brian Koo and longtime venture investor Jim Kim before the three abruptly disbanded in 2015. One oft-cited reason for the firm’s demise:… Read More
While President-elect Donald Trump built a campaign around making America great again, his public statements don’t seem to reflect a similar focus. Because Twitter seems to be the primary source of communication, it’s worth taking a look to see what Mr. Trump prioritizes for the public. Read More
Happy Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day! In celebration of Dr. King’s birthday and his major contributions to the civil rights movement, Twitter, Asana, Etsy, Google, Box, Slack, GitHub and several other tech companies have closed their offices in honor of MLK Day, according to their employees. Some tech employees are taking that time to march in MLK Day parades. At Salesforce, the… Read More
When we reviewed Bragi’s fully wireless earbuds back in November, we wrote, “using them feels a little like you’ve finally arrived” – turns out it was a bit of unintentionally ironic foreshadowing, as the headphones encountered a few snags along the way. Just ahead of the holidays, the startup sent a note to customers with the unfortunate news that the simply… Read More
Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday our daily guided tour of the biggest tech stories from the past 24 hours will appear here on TechCrunch.com. To get The Daily Crunch in your inbox every day of the week, sign up here. SpaceX shows us a thing or two, Facebook fights fraudulent facts in German and drones are fulfilling their long-told prophecy. All that and more in The Daily Crunch for… Read More
London-based startup RentersUnion has created what it’s hoping will be a socially useful chatbot, pitching their web-based bot as a robot replacement for (expensive) housing lawyers. Read More
If you’re familiar with the watch company Romain Jerome you’d know that they do the best kind of pandering. The brand, which was once known for its odd watches made of moon rocks and metal from the Titanic, his created a series of nostalgic video game watches that are wildly overpriced but also wildly desirable. Their latest? A Donkey Kong watch that features the monkey and the… Read More
Earlier this month, The Wall St. Journal reported how Apple is working to bring in veteran producers to help create original content, including TV series and movies for an expanded Apple Music service. Now, Apple Music head Jimmy Iovine has offered additional insight about Apple’s plans in this space, as well as how it hopes to differentiate itself from existing streaming competitors,… Read More
French startup Qonto has some ambitious goals and wants to become the best bank account you can get when you start a company in France. Just like N26 wants to be a more modern bank for everyone, Qonto wants to do the same thing, but for business accounts. The company recently raised $1.7 million (€1.6 million) from Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures and Alven Capital. Valar Ventures is also… Read More
The way children watch TV is changing – shifting away from the big screen in the living room to tablets and other mobile devices. In order to better cater to the needs of this more digital audience, PBS has now launched a new 24/7 TV channel, PBS KIDS, which is available on television through PBS member stations, but also as a streaming service via the web and the PBS KIDS app.… Read More
