A couple of weeks ago, we saw an Indiegogo campaign launch from Insta360 for an Android-only 360 camera accessory that attached to the headphone jack of the phone. As with most VR-related (and headphone jack-related) things, iPhone users were left in the cold. Today, Giroptic is introducing a camera that brings 360 photo and video capture to the iPhone along with instant stitching that… Read More
A bit of a mutual admiration society has developed between the two finalists in Qualcomm’s $10 million Tricorder XPRIZE competition. Whatever animus might have developed in the nearly half-decade since the contest was announced at CES 2012 has seemingly taken a back seat to an appreciation for what the other team has accomplished. In fact, at one point during our meeting ahead of… Read More
Cloudflare announced today that it has acquired Eager, a tool for easily integrating apps into any website. The company did not disclose the purchase price, but Eager’s four employees will be joining Cloudflare, and continuing to work out of their Cambridge, MA office, at least for the time being. Eager was founded in 2014 by two former Hubspot employees, Zack Bloom and Adam Schwartz.… Read More
Tinder’s latest app is actually designed for collaborative consumption. The practice of Tindering for friends is hardly a secret, but now the dating app-maker is acknowledging that impulse and making it easier to group swipe with a new Apple TV app (built into the existing iOS one) that puts potential matches on the big screen, and lets you swipe either left or right using the Apple… Read More
Microsoft’s virtual assistant might soon appear in a whole lot more places – wherever there’s a screen and the ability to run Windows 10 IoT Core, the lightweight version of Windows 10 that’s designed for things like refrigerators and connected thermostats. At a recent event as detailed by MSPoweruser, Microsoft revealed that Cortana will be available to any device… Read More
As more and more people use SMS and messaging apps like Facebook Messenger to interact with friends, it’s only logical that they want to interact with business that way too — and today Salesforce launched LiveMessage, a tool that helps customer service reps manage messaging traffic just like any customer interactions in Service Cloud. For starters, it supports SMS/MMS and… Read More
Lygos uses microbugs to convert low-cost sugar into specialty chemicals used in manufacturing and is now releasing a technique to make malic acid, an ingredient needed in the mass production of electronics.
To do so, the company announced today it has raised $13 million in Series A funding lead by OS Fund and IA Ventures, with participation from First Round Capital, Y Combinator’s… Read More
Clear Labs, a genomic data platform hoping to stop E-coli outbreaks in your favorite burrito chain before they start, has pulled in $13 million in Series B funding to build a next generation sequencing-based (NGS) microbiome test and grow the business. It’s often hard for food manufacturers to know the origins of an infected batch before it goes out to the public. However, Clear Labs… Read More
Opera’s latest trick for its desktop browser is built-in currency conversion. The company added a VPN and an ad blocker in two major releases this year, and now it is simplifying things for the growing numbers of people who make online purchases from overseas. Read More
There are a plethora of companies in the ‘media monitoring’ space, such as Cision, Factiva and Meltwater, but London-based Signal Media reckons that it can give them all a run for their money.
By employing AI, the company claims to be able to offer more certainty that a news source can be trusted and that a story is relevant, thus helping to reduce the impact of rumour and false… Read More
Android Pay continues its international rollout with a launch in Japan today, some six weeks after Apple’s own mobile payment service reached Japanese shores. Read More
Google has reportedly shelved its long-standing plan to develop its own autonomous vehicle in favor of pursuing partnerships with existing car makers. Read More
Instagram Live is rolling out to all users, Microsoft Ventures opens an AI fund, JetSmarter has a $105 million funding round, Apple’s new app sort of unifies TV and Super Nintendo World theme park is slated to open in 2020. All this on Crunch Report. Read More
Facebook’s standalone Events app that launched in October on iOS is launching on Android today. The app will go live on Google Play soon. The Facebook Events app helps you browse nearby happenings, see the dates of your upcoming Facebook Events as well as imported calendars and aggregates wall posts and alerts from Events to declutter your main app’s notifications. The Events… Read More
Serious motion capture setups often involve dozens of optical markers, inertial sensors or both, making them a pain to set up and tear down, and producing a ton of data. This Disney Research project produces high-quality results from just a handful of sensors by making some smart assumptions about how the body works. Read More
You may remember that time Google was under fire for wrongfully indicating that photos of black people were gorillas, and the time Microsoft’s AI bot named Tay turned incredibly racist. Today at Google’s Mountain View headquarters, the company acknowledged its shortcomings, as well as the shortcomings of other technologies in relation to racism and bias, at Decoding Race, the… Read More
A company’s logo is an important part of its identity, but the process behind defining, registering and protecting these trademarks is a convoluted and rather archaic one. A startup called TrademarkVision aims to simplify that with what amounts to a machine-learning-powered reverse image search. This isn’t in some lab, either: The EU just switched their whole image trademark… Read More
It’s getting nigh on Holiday Season and how better to celebrate the old Yule log than with a nice herbal vaporizer. The Firefly 2 is a very clever and very well-built convection vape that creates a smooth, flavorful draw and can extract the maximum in herbal pleasure out of a little bit of material. Like Pax the Firefly 2 is foremost about function. The system heats herbs to 400… Read More
SpaceX had intended to launch its first Dragon capsule with a human crew on board in 2017, as part of a NASA mission. The planned launch has been pushed back to 2018, however, representing a delay of around half a year. SpaceX has pushed back the timing for the momentous mission as it revamps its fueling procedures for Falcon 9 rockets following a launchpad explosion this September.… Read More
Did someone order their chicken extra risky? KFC has alerted members of its Colonel’s Club loyalty system in the U.K. that its website had been targeted and several accounts potentially compromised. Read More
