This is the case with Snap’s new Spectacles. Buried deep in the excess of the plastic and PR lies a camera system that tells us a lot about the future of commerce, security and communication.
With rumors that Apple could design smart-glasses, and Mark Zuckerberg’s call for “camera-first” photo-sharing, it’s clear that some companies have already started to… Read More
Ava, a medical technology company focused on women’s reproductive health, announced today that it has raised a $9.7 million Series A. The investment was led by European VC firm Polytech Ventures with Blue Ocean Ventures, Global Sources and the company’s existing seed investors Swisscom and ZKB participating. Ava originally launched as part of TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield… Read More
Earlier this year, Apple promised it would clean up its iOS App Store by removing outdated, abandoned apps, including those that no longer meet current guidelines or don’t function as intended. That great App Store purge now appears to be underway, according to new data from app intelligence firm Sensor Tower. The company found that app removals increased by 238 percent in October… Read More
Facebook is unveiling a new feature that should make it easier for businesses to stay on top of conversations across Facebook, Facebook Messenger and Instagram. Benji Shomair, Facebook’s global head of Pages, described the new functionality as “one of our most frequent requests.” Previously, if a businesses wanted to respond to customers on Facebook and Instagram, they had… Read More
From rockets to planes, Facebook’s Connectivity Lab has been hedging its bets on a number of experiments to bring internet access to the far reaching corners of the globe.
The group broadly breaks up connectivity challenges by population density, using machine learning to pinpoint population centers that remain off the grid for existing data sets. Today, Facebook is releasing… Read More
Boldstart Ventures started off with $1 million in 2010 as a kind of experiment. Could a New York-based outfit find enough seed-stage, enterprise-focused, East Coast opportunities to rationalize a bigger fund? The answer, seemingly, is yes. Boldstart, founded by longtime VC Ed Sim (who’d spent the previous decade-plus an investor with Dawntreader Ventures), just closed its third fund… Read More
Amid a growing number of video streaming services, Hulu today has finalized an acquisition that will allow it to better compete on user experience, by way of improved recommendations. The company has bought the assets The Video Genome Project (The VGP), which maintains one of the largest, structured databases of video content. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, and Hulu says only a small… Read More
Rebelmail is now making its interactive email capabilities available through an API, allowing developers to take advantage of the technology and incorporate it into other applications.
The startup works with customers Airbnb, Casper and HP to help them include things like photo galleries, quizzes and purchasing capabilities in their emails — and make sure the experience works across… Read More
Osram Opto Semiconductors has announced the availability of a LIDAR package – essentially the spinning laser array found on self-driving and mapping vehicles – that costs $5 and works as well as $70,000 tower systems and hockey-puck sized $8,000 systems. This mini-LIDAR has four laser diodes connected together to ensure accuracy without tuning. The kit also includes tiny mirrors… Read More
There is nothing sexy about procurement but it’s an essential task in the day-to-day life of virtually any business, not-for-profit and school. Vancouver, Canada-based Procurify wants to take some of the pain out of this process with the help of its online and mobile purchasing and accounts payable platform. As the company announced today, it has raised a $7 million Series A round led… Read More
Jaguar’s showing off the I-PACE, an electric concept SUV that it’s aiming to bring to production sometime in 2018. The I-PACE looks like a sensible small utility vehicle, with a five-door design and performance-tuned features including a target 0-60mph time of “around” four seconds, a 310+ mile range and a 50kW DC charging mechanism that helps it reclaim 80 percent of… Read More
GE Digital today announced that it has acquired Wise.io, a machine-learning powered service that helps businesses find patterns and trends in their vast data stores. At first glance, that may seem like an odd acquisition for a company like GE. It’s important to keep in mind, though, that with Predix, GE already offers its customers a service that focuses on helping them monitor their… Read More
Super Mario Run, the iOS game Nintendo revealed at Apple’s September event, will arrive on the App Store December 15. The game will be free to download, with some elements available to try, and a $9.99 one-time in-app purchase will provide access to the full game, which Nintendo says will include three modes. The game stars the titular Mario, as he propels himself through a… Read More
Skyport Systems has released new security analytics features to complement the network security controls and virtualization tools on its cloud-managed server profudcts. The company now offers tools that can detect deviations in the administrative accounts and inappropriate credentialing that are indicative of a corporate network compromised by hackers. According to the company, the new… Read More
How does a health insurance company go about trying to help address health problems before they arise? Getting people moving is a start. After all, there are plenty of long issues that can be avoided or lessened by living a more active lifestyle, a motivation that becomes all the more apparently as our lives tend increasingly toward the sedentary. The jury’s still out on the efficacy… Read More
Gluru, a UK-based startup that’s building an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered task manager, has raised a $2 million seed round. Backers include Sussex Place Ventures, SaatchInvest, Gecad, and Playfair Capital. It brings total funding for Gluru to $3.5 million. Read More
OpenAI, the artificial intelligence research non-profit backed by Tesla’s Elon Musk, Y Combinator’s Sam Altman, a Donald Trump fan called Peter Thiel, and numerous other tech luminaries, is partnering with Microsoft to tackle the next set of challenges in the still-nascent field. OpenAI will also make Microsoft Azure its preferred cloud platform, in part because of its… Read More
Nothing in my home costs $1,500, so it’s tough to get past the sticker shock. Price aside, the June Intelligent Oven stands up to the hype. It is a classy looking appliance. The fit and finish of the product is solid and you can tell just by looking at it that it’s high-end. Read More
In the wake of the U.S. Election, as Facebook and Google come under fire for the dissemination of fake “news” in their News Feed and search results, Twitter is tackling another area that’s been a flashpoint issue not only recently, but for years: the social media platform today is unveiling some major updates to its safety policy, aimed at helping users weed out… Read More
