Hollywood vs. VR

batman-vs-superman Let us all take a moment to celebrate the remarkable resilience of Hollywood. As “the music industry finds itself fighting over pennies while waving goodbye to dollars,” to quote the New York Times; as the publishing industry finds itself increasingly eclipsed by Amazon; as “the number of people watching TV is falling off a cliff,” as Business Insider puts it —… Read More

The gig economy as a driver of innovation

uberX_Driver2_Color If you are reading this article, chances are you have taken an Uber, are familiar with Upwork and maybe even sold something on Etsy. Business models that fall under the “gig economy” umbrella have been proven for business-to-consumer and peer-to-peer markets because they make it possible to crowdsource products and services from huge communities of people. Read More

IoT and the development of a circular economy

Few topics receive greater hype in the media today than the Internet of Things (IoT), and still a report produced by McKinsey & Co. last summer argued that the potential impact of IoT technologies might actually be understated. An estimated economic impact of $3.9-11.1 trillion a year by 2025 was the bottom line of McKinsey’s research. Read More

Blue Origin releases video from third launch and landing of New Shepard

new shepard landing Remember when Blue Origin made history by vertically landing a rocket after launching it into space? Remember when they reused that same rocket and then landed it again? Well, today Jeff Bezos’ rocket company, once again, launched that very same New Shepard rocket and successfully landed it for a third time.

At 11:28 AM EST, Bezos announced the successful landing of the New Shepard… Read More

Why it’s so easy to ignore your to-do list app but get distracted by Twitter

mhfOvYR I’ve spent the past month in a daze, trying to make sense of my own tasks and responsibilities while forcing myself to adhere to a system I came up with that simply doesn’t work. You can never anticipate how your “perfectly designed” task-management system can fail. It’s our own nature — we’re so sure of ourselves — that makes us think our idea… Read More

Citi Field, home of the New York Mets, gets some upgrades

citifield TechCrunch went out to the ballpark this week — specifically Citi Field, home of the New York Mets.
Granted, it wasn’t the most tech-centric event, but the stadium has seen some changes between seasons — including the addition of a big LED Coca-Cola sign, which looms over the new Coca-Cola Corner in right field. Apparently, the sign is the second largest “freeform… Read More

Moneyball is dead. Long live Moneyball!

moneyball While it seems the term has been around baseball forever, the concept of “moneyball” – coined to describe the Oakland Athletics’ approach to building competitive teams despite being hamstrung with one of the sport’s lowest payrolls – entered the popular lexicon with Michael Lewis’ Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, in 2003 (followed by the… Read More

How to approach machine learning as a non-technical person

machine-learning The last few years have seen an explosion of interest in machine learning technology and potential applications. As a non-expert you’ve probably either had to assess ML technology for your product and business or as a potential investment. The jargon around machine learning technology is vast, confusing, and unfortunately increasingly being hijacked by overeager sales teams. Read More

5 apps that could help you in an earthquake

earthquake shutterstock Several countries have been conducting earthquake drills and various forms of disaster preparedness activities in anticipation of this potentially cataclysmic earthquake. Technology companies have mobilized as well, with a number of apps on the market that can help provide information and communication in the event of an earthquake, or another natural or manmade disaster. Read More

Hardware is hard: How we built a hardware startup with two engineers and some free time

twoworkers Hardware is hard. Building a hardware startup is even harder. The good news is that the staggering amount of innovation in rapid prototyping, 3D printing and backend-as-a-service platforms has made hardware development move at Internet-development speeds. It’s not easy, but it is faster. Read More