Esri helps move masses for marches

Monitoring the Boston Marathon Since President Trump took office, there have been protests large and small across the United States and around the globe. Esri, the big-data collection and analysis company, has helped communities using its services plan for these large-scale events and adapt when things don’t go as planned. “Whenever there’s a march or a disruption, there’s lots of factors to take… Read More

Tesla answers claims of poor factory working conditions and unionization efforts

FEBRUARY 4, 2015 FREMONT, CA Workers assemble cars on the line at Tesla's factory in Fremont.  (Photo by David Butow/Corbis via Getty Images) Jose Moran, who claims to be a Tesla employee working at the company’s Fremont, California assembly facility, took to Medium on Thursday to detail working conditions at the company, and to detail efforts on behalf of factory employees to unionize, an initiative in the beginning stages of being supported by the United Autoworkers Union, the U.S. automotive industry’s largest… Read More

Pandora falls 4% on earnings news

pandora_bkgd_spark Internet music giant Pandora fell 4 percent in initial after-hours trading after the company released its fourth-quarter 2016 earnings results. Pandora actually beat expectations, but this was already worked into the stock because the company announced last month that they would beat guidance. Investors were apparently looking for something better. The earnings per share loss came in at 13… Read More

Arrivo arrives as a new Hyperloop venture from a Hyperloop One co-founder

img_0574 Hyperloop One had a messy break-up with CTO and co-founder Brogan BamBrogan that ended in a settlement with terms agreed upon by both parties last November. But now the former SpaceX engineer is back in the Hyperloop business with Arrivo, a company billing itself as “the arrival company,” which could involve a lot more beyond zipping cargo and people from place to place. Read More

13 tech-inspired Valentine’s Day gifts for your significant other

echo-dominos Valentine’s Day is fast-approaching, so we polled TechCrunch to find the best gifts and tech-inspired ideas to make this year’s Valentine’s Day more fun. Because nothing ruins the moment more than unwrapping a fitness tracker, we’ve put this guide together as a launching off point. The rest of the night is up to you. Read More

Zuckerberg shows off Oculus gloves for typing in VR

oculus-gloves Oculus wants to one day let you fingerpaint, act like a super hero, and even type in virtual reality. Oculus already has its Touch controllers that are great for wielding virtual guns or picking up digital objects, but today Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed a new prototype for VR gloves in photos from his tour of the Redmond, Washington Oculus Research. Zuckerberg writes,… Read More

Cassie the ostrich bot does the bipedal robot chicken walk

cassie_head Bipedal robots are one of the most intensely researched areas of mechanical engineering, and while it’s a notoriously difficult problem, there’s no shortage of material from which to draw inspiration. Cassie, a new robot from Agility Robotics, is a great example of that: its stable yet precise gait and was based on that of birds — specifically, ostriches. Read More

Microsoft’s Cortana can now create reminders from your emails

cortana-reminders In the battle of the virtual assistants, Microsoft’s Cortana just scored. The company today is rolling out new functionality that will allow the assistant to remind you about things you haven’t explicitly told her to track. Specifically, Cortana will now be able to help you remember items you’ve promised to do in your emails, by popping up reminder suggestions. This… Read More

Twitch launches Communities to help gamers organize around their shared interests

twitch-communities-monitor Twitch’s push to broaden the scope of its video game streaming site to include more types of content continues today with the launch of a new section on its site called “Communities.” Designed to cater to users’ unique interests, this section initially contains hundreds of categories, some of which build on top of gamers’ interests as well as those that don’t. Read More

Pixl is the child-proof smartphone case that masquerades as a camera

541c44a337b355de2bc253f91f83fce0_original As a father I try to remember two things: my biological mission is complete and I am essentially fodder for the grave and my kids will probably destroy my smartphone. That’s why Pixlplay is particularly interesting. The Pixlplay is a smartphone case that looks like a big, bulky camera. You stuff the phone inside – it works with iOS phones for now – and plug a cable into… Read More

Greycroft announces $250 million growth fund

alan patricof Greycroft Partners, the venture firm co-founded by industry veteran Alan Patricof, is announcing their second growth equity fund. They will have about $250 million in capital to deploy, an increase from the $200 million in their previous late stage fund from 2.5 years ago. This is in addition to the $200 million early stage fund that they recently raised late last year. About half of their… Read More

Greylock hires a growth advisor in residence to help goose its portfolio companies

casey_winters_full_size Greylock Partners, the Silicon Valley venture firm, has hired a “growth advisor in residence” to help goose growth at its portfolio companies. Casey Winters — who spent nearly three years at Pinterest, and nearly three years at GrubHub before that — will be working with Greylock exclusively for the next six to 12 months. The idea, he explains, is to join a company… Read More