After quite a few leaks ruined the surprise, Asus took to the stage at CES to announce the reveal of ZenFone AR, the first smartphone to boast support for both Google’s Daydream and Tango VR/AR platforms. The device is rocking Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 821 processor as well as 6GB (!!!) of RAM to keep the virtual/augmented experiences running at full capacity. The ZenFone AR… Read More
Okay, try not to get too excited: LG today unveiled a smart fridge at a big event ahead of CES in Las Vegas. It has a big touch screen and lets you control a whole host of things — which is fine. However, the most interesting part here is that the fridge is integrated, along with a whole host of other devices this year, with Alexa. With that, users can tap into Alexa to order food… Read More
We had incredible technological and societal changes throughout 2015 and 2016. Checks were being written for companies shaping the circular and sharing economies, content and social media, new influencer networks, wearables, virtual reality, artificial intelligence and big data analytics. Up until this point it felt like a test run. Read More
Intel already has a dedicated functional group targeting the automotive industry, and now it also has sub-brand devoted to all things car tech. The Go brand covers products including in-vehicle automated driving development platforms, a 5G communication platform that’s intended to help carmakers get ready for broader rollout of 5G wireless tech in 2020, and an SDK aimed at helping… Read More
Tier 1 auto supplier ZF just launched ProAI at CES, a production self-driving system that uses the Drive PX 2 AI computing platform created by Nvidia. The Drive PX 2 was announced last year at CES, with the company describing the in-car compute platform as a “supercomputer in a lunchbox” because of its unmatched processing power and size. The PX 2 has roughly the equivalent… 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. Faraday flubs the finale of the future, Zuck strives to meet new people in 2017 and Fitbit scrambles for ways to broaden its appeal. All that and more in The Daily Crunch… Read More
Connected doorbell maker Ring is adding another product to its lineup, the Ring Floodlight Cam, a replacement for your standard outdoor wired floodlight that includes HD 1080p video recording and streaming capabilities, cloud video storage, 270-degree motion detection, a microphone and speaker for intercom functions and a 100db siren to hopefully scare off anyone captured on camera who… Read More
As Slack’s rapid growth begins to slow a little bit, the company is looking to become a wider productivity platform — and that includes getting as many developers as it can building applications that can figure out new and unique use cases for it.
That’s part of the reason it established the Slack Fund, which makes investments in startups that are building tools on top of Slack. Read More
Mark Zuckerberg is not limited to just two years working in the government while still controlling Facebook, as has been widely misreported. A closer examination of SEC documents reveals Zuck only needs to still own enough Facebook stock or have the board’s approval to be allowed to serve in government indefinitely.
Combined with Zuckerberg’s announcement yesterday that his 2017… Read More
Lucid Motors brought its alpha prototype of its first production luxury EV to CES 2017. There’s a small fleet of these early test cars, but the one that made it to Las Vegas is the one in full camouflage. “We wanted it to be like the dazzle ships in World War I,” said Lucid CTO Peter Rawlinson. Then he pointed out that the camo is actually the word Lucid exploded across the… Read More
Disappearing messages don’t impress security professionals, given how flimsy a privacy protection they offer, but despite an inherently fickle form the feature keeps recurring on comms platforms. Read More
Babylon Health, the U.K. startup that offers a digital healthcare app via a mixture of artificial intelligence (AI) and video and text consultations with doctors and specialists, has scored a potentially significant trial with the National Health Service (NHS). Read More
Following from the company’s successful Theta S, Ricoh today flirtatiously lifted the veil on an upcoming product that will make live streaming 360-degree content a breeze. For now, the company is making a camera available for developers to start building their own applications. The dev kits are slated to ship in Q2 this year. Read More
Hyundai’s driverless Ioniq pulls up smoothly up to pick up me and TC’s Rebecca Friedman – though a driver is actually in the cockpit at this point, controlling the vehicle, so its performance is hardly noteworthy. But on the outside, the Hyundai Ioniq hybrid vehicle is equally lacking in distinguishing traits – beyond the body wrap emblazoned with Ioniq autonomous… Read More
When we first heard about LG’s Hub robot, it sure sounded a lot like a cross between an Amazon Echo and a Roomba. Turns out the company has gone for a much more friendly robot approach to the tech. The Hub is a peanut shaped bot designed to hang out on a desktop or table, with a display that doubles as its face. The company isn’t talking much about the Hub’s functionality,… Read More
Tesla’s massive Nevada Gigafactory has started producing lithium-ion battery cells in mass capacity, with the aim of supplying products including the upcoming Model 3 electric vehicle and the Powerwall 2 home energy supply unit, and the Powerpack 2 commercial solar energy storage product. It’s a big step for the automaker, since production volume of the batteries it produces… Read More
Facebook pulled the world back into the silent film era with its muted, auto-play videos, but its latest tool could make it easier to repurpose traditional clips. Facebook has launched a free, automatic video captioning tool to all US English Facebook Pages. TechCrunch and some other Pages only recently began seeing the quietly launched option, though Facebook responded to our inquiry saying… Read More
Freshdesk announced today that it has acquired Banglaore-based startup Pipemonk for an undisclosed amount. Pipemonk helps companies move data between cloud platforms, which should come in handy for Freshdesk and its partners.
Pipemonk, which was born as ZapStitch, had raised just over $2 million since it launched in 2014, with its primary funding round coming in May, 2015, when it landed $2… Read More
Automaker BMW is teaming up with suppliers Intel and Mobileye to deploy a fleet of test vehicles, numbering 40 in total, targeting a street date of sometime during the second half of 2017. The fleet deployment was announced Wednesday by the three partners at CES, and follows their July announcement of their initial decision to partner. Between July and now, BMW, Mobileye and Intel have… Read More
Americans suck at managing their money. As the country heads into the New Year, it’s clear that more than 57% of us are struggling financially, according to a study from the Center for Financial Services Innovation. And many of us will make New Year’s resolutions to be better about it. We’re planning to cut our credit card debt, manage our finances and start saving. We all… Read More
