Faraday Future partners with Chevy Bolt-supplier LG Chem on batteries

Faraday Future concept car CES 2016 How do you prove you’re serious about making electric cars? A partnership with one of the suppliers currently producing batteries at scale for shipping vehicles is a good start. Faraday Future announced such a union today, with a new agreement with LG Chem, the lithium-ion cell manufacturer that provides the powerhouses for vehicles including the Chevrolet Bolt EV. The partnership… Read More

WalmartLabs open sources the application platform that powers Walmart.com

SPRINGER, NM -  MAY 15:  A Wal-Mart truck sits on the side of the highway May 15, 2005 near Springer, New Mexico.  Wal-Marts are now nearly ubiquitous on the American landscape, with over 3,000 stores coast-to-coast.  With growth, Wal-Mart continues to weather criticism of low wages, anti-union policies as well as accusations that it has homogenized America's retail economy and driven traditional stores and shops out of business. (Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images) Walmart probably isn’t the first company that comes to mind when you think about open-source software (or the second or third, really), but WalmartLabs, Walmart’s innovation-focused tech division, has already launched a number of open-source projects into the wild. The most interesting of these so far was OneOps, its DevOps platform, but today it is launching a similarly… Read More

StubHub launches the first ticketing app for Apple TV

stubhub-appletv Apple TV is getting its first ticketing application today with the launch of StubHub, which will allow owners of the fourth-generation Apple TV device to search for concert tickets, and even see what the view from a given section of seats would look like. However, when it comes time to actually make a purchase, the Apple TV app will redirect you back to your mobile phone to complete the… Read More

Dohop lets you book flights without worrying about price changes

screen-shot-2016-10-03-at-11-46-25-am Dohop (as in “Do hop on a plane and bring those human transplant organs with you, would you, dear?”) is a newly reorganized flight, hotel, and rental car search service that was launched in 2005 but relaunched worldwide a few years ago.
The service now offers FLYR Fare Protection, as well, which means you can “hold” a fare for 30 days without worrying about price… Read More

Google Docs for life sciences startup Benchling raises $7 million in growth funding from Thrive Capital

science lab Benchling, a biotech company out of Y Combinator providing cloud-based software for researchers, tells TechCrunch it has raised $7 million in growth funding to continue creating tools to help the science community access research from big pharma and other leaders in the space.
You might think of Benchling as the Google Docs portion of the life sciences industry. While IT solutions software… Read More

What to expect from Google’s October 4 Pixel and hardware event

pixel-cw-1 Google’s big October event is tomorrow, and rumors suggest we’ll see a ton of new hardware unveiled, including new Pixel smartphones running stock Android (replacing the Nexus lineup of devices). The event will also tell us more about Google Home, the Amazon Echo competitor that Google previewed at I/O earlier this year, including likely when you can get your hands on one.… Read More

Heek is a chatbot that can build you a website

screen-shot-2016-10-03-at-11-32-21-am A startup called Heek wants to make building websites as simple as chatting over text and answering a few questions. Using a conversational interface, the bot asks you questions about yourself, your business and your site, then lets you click to see different designs you can customize to meet your needs. The bot will even prompt you to save your work, as you get further into the site… Read More

Honest Co. is reformulating its soaps after ingredients controversy

Jessica Alba of The Honest Company The consumer products startup founded by Jessica Alba, The Honest Co., on Friday told The Wall Street Journal that it plans to reformulate its dish soap, laundry detergent and other cleaners after an earlier controversy over their ingredients.
The Honest Co. markets its products as gentler, healthier and more environmentally sustainable than those of mainstream brands in the U.S.
However… Read More

Meerkat, star app of 2015, is officially dead

mk Remember Meerkat? It came out of nowhere in early 2015 — a star of SXSW, in particular — and was on everyone’s tongue for weeks. Then came Periscope, a strikingly similar competitor built mostly in stealth mode, and word that Twitter had acquired it for nearly $100 million dollars before much of the world even knew it existed. Suddenly, interest in Meerkat fizzled. A year and… Read More

Here’s how you can stop jumping back and forth between Google’s calendar and map apps

Google Brings Quirk And Clout To New DC Digs Logistics are difficult, especially when every day you’re trying to keep track of 9 meetings, 13 phone calls, a dinner, a post-dinner, and a post-post-dinner. In a recent update, Google has decided to do its part to make daily logistics easier by more fully integrating its Maps and Calendar offerings for Android users worldwide. Now when you open Google Maps, you’ll be able to… Read More

Twitch announces Twitch Prime, Loyalty Badges and video uploads

twitch Twitch, the video game live-streaming service acquired by Amazon for nearly a billion dollars back in 2014, kicked off its annual TwitchCon conference this afternoon with a keynote. With keynotes generally come a bit of news… and sure enough, here’s what’s new: Twitch Prime: As we scooped right before the Keynote, Twitch officially confirmed Twitch Prime. Included for free… Read More

Rosetta goes out in a blaze of glory — and science

rosetta-homepage Let’s all take a moment and pour one out metaphorically for Rosetta, the pioneering spacecraft that gave our newly spacefaring race its first comet landing. The orbiter performed its final task early this morning, making a controlled crash into the comet’s surface, destroying itself in the process but gathering valuable data down to the last minute. Read More

Weekly Roundup: Snapchat’s new Specs, Beyoncé is a tech investor and SpaceX’s plans to colonize Mars

snapchat-spectacles This week, Elon Musk revealed SpaceX’s plan for humans to inhabit Mars, Google rebranded its cloud services and rumors swirled about a Twitter bid. These are the top stories of the week, and you can also receive them in your inbox. Read More

Apple is screwing up HomeKit; here’s how they can fix it

homekit-glitched The real magic of the Internet of Things happens when devices work together. It will be magic when Siri, on your iPhone, can adjust your thermostat or confirm you locked the back door; when your door lock can tell your sound system you’re home and start the music. That’s not the reality we live in, because most devices can’t talk to each other. Without a common language,… Read More

Nutanix up 131% on first day of trading

nutanix Nutanix made its stock market debut with a bang. After pricing shares at $16, the enterprise data storage company saw 131 percent gains on its first day of trading.
With clients like Toyota and Best Buy, Nutanix aims to make it easier for businesses to manage their data centers. Its cloud offerings are making infrastructure “invisible, so the businesses can focus on applications and… Read More