British media company Sky just disclosed an investment of $4.5 million (€4 million) in French startup Molotov. From what we’ve heard and according to Sky’s statement, this is just a fraction of a bigger round that is going to be announced at a later date. “This investment is part of a larger Molotov financing round,” the release says. The reason why Sky is announcing… Read More
Where to start? There’s the weight: 17 pounds. The screen: 21 inches, 2560 x 1080, curved. The power supplies: two. The fans: five. Rear ports: 21. Or how about the gaming pad that flips over, trap door style to reveal a number pad? Most ridiculous of all is the fact that, in spite of everything, the Acer Predator 21 X still somehow qualifies as a laptop – though actually trying to… Read More
Sony has issued a notice that YouTube will no longer work on some 2012-era smart TVs. But it’s not Sony’s fault, guys! It’s YouTube and the dastardly engineers who pushed the YouTube app past the TV’s performance capabilities thus proving once again it’s best to offload smart capabilities to set-top boxes. The app will be removed from 2012 Bravia TVs on… Read More
While Elon Musk isn’t building a Hyperloop transportation system himself (he clearly has a lot on his plate already), SpaceX is building a test track for Hyperloop pods from others. SpaceX is hosting a Hyperloop Pod Design Competition for student and engineering teams, and 23 winners were selected earlier this year to build their pod prototypes and race them on the test track, a 1-mile… Read More
Razer is doing some housecleaning with a fall refresh of its laptops, just in time for the Penny Arcade Expo. This includes a crucial tweak for their Blade Stealth ultrabook: a larger 53.4WH battery. For comparison’s sake, it’s bigger than the 38Wh on the HP Spectre and the 37Wh on the Surface Pro. This is a welcome change, since my main issue with the first Stealth was its… Read More
Robots are friends! Or at least, at Haneda Airport if you see one of the little buddies above, you can feel confident approaching it and ask it for help. The Hitachi EMIEW3 humanoid robot begins its first proof-of-concept tests at the major international airport in Tokyo today, opening in Passenger Terminal 2 and providing helpful info to travellers in both English and Japanese. The EMIEW3 is… Read More
After raising $4.5 billion at a $60 billion valuation earlier this year, Alibaba affiliate Ant Financial — which operates the Alipay payments service — is hungry to put some of that money to use to build out its business. The company, alongside key Alibaba investor Primavera Capital, is investing $460 million into Yum China, a new spinout from Yum Brands — the parent company… Read More
Nintendo wants to harken back to its heydays with the new, unreleased Nintendo NX console in more ways than one: A new WSJ report says it’ll use cartridges in place of discs, which have been standard on the game company’s home consoles since the introduction of the GameCube in 2001. Cartridges are still in common use elsewhere in the Nintendo console lineup – it’s… Read More
Bower & Wilkins, a British audio company started in 1966, is releasing a Bluetooth version (that means wireless, friends) of their well-received P7 headphones. I had the chance to review the wired pair a year ago, and said they’re where “audiophiles meet the bourgeois“.
After all, the earcups are made from memory foam and the hinge design looks more like a fine art… Read More
LG’s SmartThinQ Hub looks a lot like the Amazon Echo. It’s the first thing that occurred to me when it was announced right around CES of this year, and it was probably the first thing that occurred to you, too. And like the Echo, LG’s tall black speaker tower connects to various smart home devices, streams music and offers up notifications. When it was announced, it appeared… Read More
I mean, yeah, it sounds good. It’s a $3,200 Walkman. It had better sound good. And hey, it sounds even better when paired with a $2,300 pair of Sony headphones (MDR-Z1R) and that new $2,200 Sony headphone app (NW-WM1Z). That’s a grand total of $7,700 for me to listen to a really crisp cello cover of “Every Breath You Take.” Is it worth it? That’s not for me to… Read More
At the end of this month, the US government will finally give up “control” of the internet. In a quiet blogpost, Larry Strickling, the US government’s assistant secretary for communications and information announced that he had “informed ICANN…that…[the US government] intends to allow the IANA functions contract to expire as of October 1”. That sentence may… Read More
After three years of development, starting at Motorola then transferred to Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects group, Project Ara is being “suspended” and ultimately, is cancelled.
Even after selling Moto to Lenovo in 2014, Google has touted the modular smartphone project as not only an alternative to current smartphone design, but the future… Read More
SpaceX rocket explodes at Cape Canaveral, DraftKings raises $150 million, Periscope adds a new way to monetize, Facebook launches Instant Video, and Apple is set to clean its abandoned apps from the App Store. All this on Crunch Report. Read More
Tech innovators tend to operate with an ethos that they consider diametrically opposed to that of government, frequently leading to friction. Given the current regulatory, legal and political climate in our country, and while technology becomes increasingly more pervasive in our society, there is a need for the tech community to devote greater attention to what’s happening in… Read More
