Category: Tech news

 Like most small products with a cult following, SCiO has its fans and detractors. Those detractors took to the Internet recently to complain that the handheld molecular scanner, which raised $2.5 million in 2014, still hasn’t shipped. The result? Negative press and plenty of Tweets. I asked SCiO’s creator, Dror Sharon, what was going on with the device and when it would ship and,… Read More

 There’s no denying that app fatigue is posing a challenge not just for new app discovery, but for new behavior discovery. So why don’t the most popular apps just enable the latest, greatest use cases and create an “open loop,” networking their existing apps? This article examines how the big players are campaigning to be the all-in-one app — and who stands a chance… Read More

 As robotics begins to leave controlled environments and navigate the real world alongside humans, the question remains: How will this affect the way we interact, work and talk to not only robots, but one another? Read More

 What do you call an innovative person who builds a product out of nothing and launches something that will change people’s lives? Everywhere besides Cuba, you’d call this person an entrepreneur. You’d never expect in the land of communism, censorship and classic cars that you’d find a hotbed of entrepreneurship. Technically, it doesn’t exist. But in my eyes… Read More

 The Sofort is a strange duck. It’s a $300 instant camera by premium manufacturer Leica that looks a bit like a real world version of the Instagram logo. The price puts it well over Fujifilm’s offerings that also run on the Japanese company’s Instax technology, but this Leica we’re talking about here, so it’s really only natural that there will be a notable premium… Read More

 The first consumer VR headset to integrate eye-tracking is about ready for primetime. Fove will begin taking pre-orders for the eye-tracking headset, now officially called the Fove 0, at 8am PST on November 2. There is still no word on an official launch date or a final price. There were a number of production issues that pushed back the rollout of the Kickstarter-backed headset until fall from… Read More

 We’re hearing from our sources Unilever has been in serious talks with the Honest Company, and may very well win the bid for the e-commerce startup, though our sources stressed that the deal is in early stages.
As usual, the deal is fluid and the final details could change (or not happen at all), and the exact price in the conversation could not be learned, though one source said the… Read More

 After more than a year of hinting, Spotify is finally coming to Japan this month. The Swedish music streaming service will go live in the country before the end of September, a source at the company confirmed to TechCrunch. Read More

 Boston-based Rize Inc has developed a new type of 3D printing which eliminates the need for lengthy post-printing clean-up processes. Its printers are able to imbue plastics with features they didn’t usually have. For example, it will be easier to remove 3D printed products from the build surface and it’s possible to inject dyes into the product. Read More

 After a failed stint in the 1990s, virtual reality made its reappearance last year with headsets such as Samsung Gear VR, Google Cardboard and Oculus Rift. But this time, it’s here to stay and, in less than a year, it’s already drawn attention and investment from venture capitalists and tech giants such as Facebook, and has made huge impact across a great many industries,… Read More

 Optimizely has helped to popularize A/B testing — the idea of trying out different versions of a website or mobile app to see which one performs better.
However, co-founder and CEO Dan Siroker said the practice has largely been limited to marketers testing relatively superficial changes, such as the text or the layout of a page. So today, at its Opticon user conference, the company… Read More

 I’ve spent the last couple of days at a Northwest Automotive Press Association driving event, and the last car of the two dozen or so I drove was the 2017 Volvo S90 with the latest version of IntelliSafe, which includes City Safety, Pilot Assist, and more. I’ve already put my name on the list for a more extensive test drive, but even with less than 30 minutes of drive time, I… Read More

 Twitter’s big day is finally here. Tonight is the first night of NFL’s Thursday Night Football, which will be streamed all season on Twitter (as well as CBS and NFL Network as cable partners). Twitter reportedly beat out companies like Facebook and Amazon for the exclusive mobile stream, and at the time it was a big win for the company under the then new CEO Jack Dorsey. Now… Read More

 We all suspected the Echo’s purpose was – at least in part – to drive more Amazon sales. And that’s exactly what’s happening, according to a new study by NPD Group. The research company found that owners of the Echo spent around 10 percent more after they bought the voice-powered smart speaker than they did before. The NPD Group’s Checkout Tracking… Read More

 There’s another round for an artificial intelligence startup in Asia that’s focused on e-commerce. Fresh from a Sequoia-led investment in Mad Street Den, Singapore-based ViSenze has closed a $10.5 million Series B raise. Read More