Samsung today showed off its successor to the microSD card, the UFS – that’s Universal Flash Storage. And the specs on the removable storage look pretty impressive at first glance. With capacities running 32- to 256GB, the slim little cards are focused on the increased storage/bandwidth needs of high-res capture devices like DSLRs, VR cameras and the like. Along with the storage… Read More
Android co-founder Rich Miner is leaving GV (formerly known as Google Ventures) to start an education project within Google Inc., the investor announced today. Miner will be running his mysterious new edtech initiative from Cambridge, Mass. with the bulk of his team in Silicon Valley.
GV representatives declined to confirm whether the project would be for-profit or part of a philanthropic… Read More
The WaterIsLife charity discovered a Venmo loophole, enabling it to blast its message to a thousand unsuspecting people earlier this week. By sending $0.01 to folks who were appearing in the Venmo feed, it was able to advertise the charity to hundreds of people. Their shitty marketing stunt kicks open the floodgate for yet another channel of spam coming at you from all sides. Yay. Read More
There was a laptop found in the Tesla Model S involved in the deadly May 7 crash using Autopilot, Florida investigators confirmed with CNBC on Thursday. Florida Highway Patrol Sgt. Kim Montes told the news outlet that a laptop and DVD player were recovered amongst the crash wreckage, but that they couldn’t determine whether Joshua Brown was using either device at the time of the… Read More
There is, to be sure, nothing new under the horological sun. However, by putting all of the old pieces together in new ways you end up with a watch that is both interesting and unique. Art Mécanique is a Swiss company that is crowdfunding a watch with a face made of concentric circles. The bottom half of the face is covered by a metal plate and you tell the time by looking at the top of… Read More
Cracking encryption is a topic of perpetual fascination. Congress has made several efforts to legislate it. The FBI tried to force Apple to do it. New messaging apps constantly debut with claims about strong encryption, and controversy bubbles when they neglect it. Read More
The end has come for Vyclone, an app that combines videos shot by different participants at the same event. With a message on its website – and a rather melodramatic introduction – the company announced today “with a heavy heart” that the Vyclone app will be switched off on July 22, 2016. Launched in 2012, the company aimed to help its users “make… Read More
Maybe it’s just FOMO, but it seems like every internet company wants to be in the car business these days, and Japan’s DeNA is no exception. The app maker’s automotive wing had a special event in Tokyo today (via Reuters) to reveal its first self-driving vehicle, a 12-person bus which will begin operating in Japan’s Chiba prefecture at a shopping center next month. DeNA… Read More
A few years ago, Microsoft launched Bing Predicts, a project that aims to correctly predict sporting events and elections by combining lots of data with machine learning algorithms. Until now, though, there wasn’t really a product that made Bing Predicts available to users. Today, however, the company launched its Cortana Intelligence with Bing Predicts service. Sadly, this… Read More
The mobile phone has transformed quite a bit in the last ten years, but the heart of it — the address book — hasn’t changed much. Drupe, with brand new funding, is looking to accelerate the evolution of the Phone Book. The company today announced $3 million in new funding from Canaan Partners Israel and Sweet Capital, a fund that was spun up by the founders of Candy Crush… Read More
It’s here. The first public beta of iOS 10 is now available to download. You can download it, even your neighbor can download it. And the good news is that you won’t have to pay $99 a year for a developer account. But remember, this is a beta.
If you can’t wait to see iOS 10 in action, Apple’s public beta program is for you. The company wants you to try out its new… Read More
Does your Facebook stream seem to mostly be reflecting your own opinions back to you from your friends? If so, you’ve seen the Echo Chamber in action. If you’re using Zolt as your news app, with an easy click its newest feature enables you to block Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Kim Kardashian and select other topics that might rub you the wrong way. Read More
What’s a poor beleaguered brand like Yahoo to do? Use its smart engineers to jump on the hottest trend, of course. Today the company is launching a bot that simulates a pet monkey for Facebook Messenger. Oh, and a few slightly more useful bots, too, like ones that will tell you about the weather, latest news and how your stock portfolio is performing. Read More
I love my Amazon Echo. And alongside checking the weather, I mostly use the voice-powered smart speaker to play music. That said, I’m not much of an Amazon Prime music user. I don’t know anyone who really is. And still, the device has defaulted to Amazon Prime Music with every single request, forcing broad requests like “Play the Beatles” or super specific requests for… Read More
If quantum computing ever lives up to its promise (and that’s still a big ‘if’ at this stage), somebody could use this technology to retroactively break any communications that were encrypted with today’s standard encryption algorithms. To guard against this, Google today announced that it will now start experimenting using post-quantum algorithms to encrypt the… Read More
I hate networking. Or at least the type of networking that consists of awkward happy hours where no one knows each other and you’re approached every five seconds by some over-eager “networker” who seemingly has an endless pocket full of business cards.
But, here’s the thing, that’s only one small type of networking. In its broader and much less aggressive form… Read More
If you have a useless Mac lying around, today is your lucky day. Apple is releasing the first public beta of macOS Sierra later today — it’s probably going to be available at some point over the next couple of hours. This first public beta is likely based on the second developer beta that was released a couple of days ago. Read More
Over the coming months, we are going to be seeing a lot more pink mustaches on Audi, BMW, and Mercedes vehicles. Today, Lyft is launching Lyft Premier. Users will be able to catch rides in luxury sedans and SUVs. Highly rated drivers with access to high-end vehicles can service rides. The cost premium for Premier rides will earn drivers additional money. Lyft will also be able to take… Read More
Tesla may be taking a page from Google’s Self-Driving Car Project’s book. A Model S was spotted near the company’s Palo Alto headquarters, strapped with Lidar sensors, as reported by Elektrek. Ironically, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has strongly dismissed Lidar in the past, relegating it to a technology that the company doesn’t need to achieve fully autonomous cars. Read More
Two months and a day after launching its impressive GeForce GTX 1080 (along with the GTX 1070) at the DreamHack gaming event in Austin, NVIDIA is back with a slightly less flashy, but no less interesting new Pascal-powered card. Most notable here is the price, which starts at $249. The GTX 1060 graphics card effectively replaces the more expensive GTX 980, promising the same performance as… Read More
