Bone conduction has been around in some form or another for some time now, but the technology still hasn’t managed to crack the mainstream. New York-based hardware startup AfterShokz may have come the closest with its line of crowdfunded Trekz wireless headphones.
The Bluetooth sport bands offered up good design and patented bone conduction technology that manages to vibrate their… Read More
Apple may not have yet launched its own TV streaming service, but there’s now another way to watch live television on Apple’s set-top box: Sony’s PlayStation Vue’s Apple TV application has arrived. The service, which is available on Apple TV 4th-generation devices, offers all of Vue’s standard features, including its cloud DVR and support for simultaneous… Read More
In a month of unexpected outcomes, we have also seen some tech partnership announcements, ones we thought we might never see. In fact, just this week we witnessed Microsoft joining the Linux foundation and Google joining Microsoft’s .NET foundation. You cannot minimize just how at odds these announcements are with what has been the reality of the tech industry over the last 20 years.… Read More
Y Combinator has developed a reputation under its president, Sam Altman, for iterating — a lot. The accelerator program’s newest twist? Temporary or “visiting partners” who will be asked to become highly involved with a particular “batch” or YC class based on their particular expertise. The partners will be a bit like YC’s “part-time… Read More
Though not quite as destructive as MegaBots, or as humbling as Boston Dynamics, Reach Robotics’ MekaMon might just be the most fun and accessible robot on the market. Leveraging augmented reality, anyone interested in a good time can whip out their smartphone to battle their bots in the physical and virtual worlds at the same time. Quite a bit of technology goes into the four-legged… Read More
Lyft has released extended comments regarding the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration’s guidelines on autonomous driving, released earlier this year. Lyft’s formal comments address a number of areas where it thinks the NHTSA policy is spot-on, including vehicle interiors designed to maximize passenger safety, but also outline some parts where they feel the… Read More
While most people might know Niantic for building the hype-monster that is Pokémon GO, GO wasn’t the company’s first big release. That title goes to Ingress, an equally (if not more) location-centric game. Just days after Ingress’ fourth birthday, Niantic is shaking things up with the introduction of a feature they’ve been working on for months: the ability for players… Read More
Sam Ramji, the founding CEO of the open source platform as a service Cloud Foundry foundation, is joining Google in a yet-to-be-disclosed executive role. Abby Kearns, the current VP of Industry at the Cloud Foundry Foundation and an industry veteran, will take over as Executive Director while Chip Childers will become the organization’s CTO. Ramji is leaving Cloud Foundry at a time… Read More
The makers of Firefox are today introducing a new mobile web browser for iOS users that puts private browsing at the forefront of the user experience. Called Firefox Focus, the mobile browser by default blocks ad trackers, and erases your browsing history, including your passwords and cookies. The end result is a simplified browser that may load web pages more quickly, the company claims,… Read More
Everyone says that dogs are a huge responsibility, but it’s hard to feel the weight of that responsibility until you own one. Dog Parker, a new startup out of ERA, is looking to take out some of the stress of owning a dog in New York. As you might imagine from the name, Dog Parker is a service that lets you park your dog outside of a grocery store or coffee shop while you are inside.… Read More
A week or so after Luma announced Alexa integration, it’s Eero’s turn. It’s not really all that surprising that the former got the head start here, of course – after all, the company lists Amazon among its big investors, but in the push to make its AI assistant a ubiquitous presence in high tech homes, the retail giant isn’t likely to turn down too many… Read More
Apple has opened up registration for its Hour of Code workshops in partnership with Code.org. This year, Apple will host Hour of Code workshops every day for one week — in conjunction with Computer Science Education Week — from December 5 to December 11 at all of its nearly 500 Apple retail stores across the world. In the past, Apple offered just one day’s worth of… Read More
The Mi Box is Chinese smartphone company Xiaomi’s play to take on devices like Roku, Apple TV, Android TV, and Fire TV. Priced at only $69, and sporting features like integrated Google Cast and voice search, the 4K- and HDR-supporting device seems worth a look. But at the end of the day, Mi Box is still an Android TV player, and subject to limitations of that platform, which are… Read More
New York marketing tech firm Sprinklr has acquired Portland-based LittleBird, according to Sprinklr founder and CEO Ragy Thomas. LittleBird was founded in 2011 to help researchers quickly find the top experts and influencers on any given subject via Twitter. It raised $4.8 million in venture capital to build its analytics platform from Mark Cuban, Jason Calacanis, Oregon Angel Fund and… Read More
Another day, another seemingly random location drop for Snapbot, your friendly neighborhood Snapchat Spectacles vending machine. Today’s lucky destination is Santa Monica, bucking the recent trend of out-of-the-way spots for one just up the coast a bit from its original Venice Beach location in LA. Snap, Inc. began selling Spectacles without much in the way of warning last Friday,… Read More
Google’s smart virtual helper Google Assistant is finding its way into everything from the company’s chat app Allo to Pixel smartphones and its Amazon Echo rival, Google Home. Now it appears that Apple is considering following suit in at least one of those areas. A newly unearthed Apple patent indicates the company is looking into integrating Siri into its own messaging platform… Read More
The adoption of the Cloud is booming (of course). But at the same time SaaS services are exploding. That means companies need developer resources to integrate all these inter-locking services. But there’s a problem. They spend huge amounts of time and money manually transferring data between services and are, once again, hamstrung by a lack of developer resources. Playing in this… Read More
Uber’s trip data tells it a lot about how to optimize its services, including routing and pickup spots, but the info also reveals incidental patterns that don’t necessarily apply to its core goals of delivering transportation services, but that are useful nonetheless. That’s why it’s putting some of its data to work with its new Uber Restaurant Guide, a Michelin for… Read More
Slow Ventures — a previously small-ish fund founded by former Facebook employees — is raising a much larger fund as it looks to grow into something more like a traditional venture firm. Founded by Kevin Colleran and Dave Morin — with former Facebooker Sam Lessin also recently joining — Slow Ventures has raised $145 million for its latest fund. While Slow will continue… Read More
Managed By Q, the office management platform for products and services, has today inked a new deal with Staples. As part of the partnership. Staples customers will now have access to Managed By Q’s full suite of services, including IT specialists, handyman, cleaning services and even workplace yoga. The idea here is two-fold: Staples’ small- and medium-sized business clients will… Read More
