There is great writing. And there is content. And at this juncture in the internet’s evolution it seems very plain, Dear Online Reader, that you are mostly being served a tsunami of content — accelerated into your attention trough by click-dependent digital business models that require a steady stream of word fodder to engage eyeballs long enough to ambush them with ads… Read More
PredictSpring, a startup that helps brands and retailers build mobile apps, announced today that it has raised $11.4 million in Series A funding. Founder and CEO Nitin Mangtani has said that one of his goals is to help businesses create truly native mobile experiences that make it easy for consumers to shop. Customers include Calvin Klein, Cole Haan and Nine West, and the company says… Read More
The rules for commercial drone usage released last week by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) left some unanswered questions on the table. We discussed some of these with Thomas Gemmell, a former U.S. Air Force fighter pilot and the co-leader of the drone team at the law firm Husch Blackwell in Chicago. The rules, which concern unmanned aircraft weighing less than 55 pounds… Read More
In an email to Blue Origin fans this morning, founder Jeff Bezos announced that the company broke ground on their orbital vehicle manufacturing site in Florida. At 750,000 square feet, the new custom-built facility is designed to be large enough to accommodate manufacturing, processing, integration, and testing of orbital rockets. To put that size in perspective, SpaceX’s rocket facility… Read More
People who love Google+ sure love Google+. That hasn’t changed since Google first launched what at the time seemed like a credible Facebook competitor back in June 2011. If you’re a Google+ fan, today is a day to celebrate: Against all odds, your favorite social network turned five today. For everybody else, the fact that Google+ is still online may come as a surprise. The number… Read More
If you feel the world is in danger of under-population but your fallopian swim team is letting the side down, Sandstone Diagnostics has your back. Now FDA-approved, the company’s product Trak will be the lifestyle coach and home-diagnostics tool to help deliver happier sperm and tiny shouty miracles. Read More
Apple knows that the battle for people’s pockets is going to be fought in part in the photography space. With iOS 10, the company is making it even easier to get to the camera in a hurry, but in an effort to remind people that they’re already carrying a great camera around with them, Apple is launching a new round of its popular Shot on iPhone advertising campaign. Read More
Imagine a washer that autonomously contacts suppliers and places orders when it’s low on detergent, performs self-service and maintenance, and schedules its cycles to take advantage of electricity prices; a connected car, smart enough to find and choose the best deal for parts and services; a manufacturing plant where the machinery knows when to order repairs for some of its parts… Read More
This week is the Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition conference in Las Vegas, and Google researchers have several accomplishments to present. They’ve taught computer vision systems to detect the most important person in a scene, pick out and track individual body parts and describe what they see in language that leaves nothing to the imagination. Read More
Theranos did have a spokesperson, as in used to have one person handling all public relations efforts outwardly. We’ve confirmed Brooke Buchanan, VP of communications, left her position within the company on Friday. Buchanan could not be reached for comment on the departure but the head of comms was handling all calls, emails, and any other messages related to the troubled one drop… Read More
Twitter is beginning to devote resources toward building out a dedicated VR/AR-focused team. The social media company has hired former Apple designer Alessandro Sabatelli to lead the initiative as Twitter’s Director of VR and AR, Will Mason over at UploadVR reports. Update: Twitter has confirmed the hire and said that the Augmented Reality team will be housed within the… Read More
Visiongain, an analysis firm based in the U.K., released a report this month listing the top 20 connected car companies, which includes all the usual suspects, such as Volvo, Ford and Honda. Tesla and Toyota were also among the top 10 automotive manufacturers in the connected car market, which Visiongain projects to be worth $35.7 billion in 2016 alone.
Toyota and Tesla also made the MIT… Read More
Twitter — hot on the heels of the launch of its app for influencers, Twitter Engage — has today released yet another standalone application: Twitter Dashboard. The new service, available on both web and mobile, is aimed at businesses that want to use Twitter to connect with their customers. The app offers a suite of tools, including customized feeds of tweets, tools for… Read More
Evernote is an indispensible tool for many, and the company is always working on making it more so — “but that requires a significant investment of energy, time, and money,” it writes in a new blog post. You know what that means: price hikes. Read More
Today, NASA successfully completed a full-duration qualification ground test of the booster that is designed to lift the most powerful rocket in the world. This particular test was a cold motor test used to provide data on how the rocket motor operates at the colder end of its accepted propellant temperature range. NASA cooled the motor over the last several weeks to get temperatures down to… Read More
Connectivity, education, and entrepreneurship — these are the principles of Hillary Clinton’s technology platform, unveiled today at a Denver startup incubator. The decision to announce her technology imperatives outside of Silicon Valley may seem strange, but it represents one of the platform objectives: to democratize tech industry growth across the country, rather than just… Read More
Pinterest today has a new tool for finding things that you might want to buy — and they’ll be things you see in the real world. Here’s how it will work: go to Pinterest search and tap the visual search button, point your camera at anything you’re interested in, and it’ll automatically do a visual search for everything you see. Pinterest will populate the photo with… Read More
Facebook colonized the internet with its Like button that sees 10 billion views per day around the web. Now it’s getting a makeover for mobile alongside the launch of two new Save and Share Chrome extensions that let you capture content from any site. Together, these updates should help fill the News Feed with news stories from around the web, and turn Facebook into a more… Read More
Flip, a startup that helps tenants find someone to take over their lease, is announcing that it has raised $1.2 million in seed funding. The New York City-based company has created a marketplace where lease holders can post apartments that they need to rent out, and where pre-screened applicants can look at housing before it hits the rental market. (Depending on how badly they need to get out… Read More
Amazon Web Services (AWS) today announced the launch of its first region in India. Formally known as the Asia Pacific (Mumbai) region, this new AWS region is the company’s sixth in Asia Pacific. With this, AWS now operates 13 regions, with a total of 35 availability zones. AWS previously announced its plans for opening this new region a year ago. The company says it has more than… Read More
