Category: Tech news

 Today, at an interview sponsored by the Benchmark-portfolio company Sailthru, legendary VC Bill Gurley appeared on stage with Bloomberg reporter Emily Chang to discuss the future of e-commerce.
Gurley spent much of the talk addressing the importance of personalization and the opportunity that companies miss when they focus on acquiring new customers rather than optimizing their services for… Read More

 Today, Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos unveiled plans around setting up a rocket manufacturing plant in good old Florida. The news was announced in Cape Canaveral, of course. The company that Bezos is using to take on SpaceX is called Blue Origin and he plans on investing $200M into getting it off of the ground…so to speak. New Shepard, a Blue Origin rocket, is already being developed… Read More

 Alphabet has hired the (soon to be) former Director for the National Institute of Mental Health (NIH), Thomas Insel for its Life Sciences group, according to a statement from the agency. Insel held the role for 13 years and will be stepping down officially on November 1st. This is a move that signals Alphabet’s interest in mental illness, a problem that is extremely underserved all… Read More

 Amazon may have made waves earlier this month with news that it would now allow users to watch Prime Instant Video titles while offline, but now other video service providers are beginning to follow suit. The latest to introduce offline viewing on mobile devices is EPIX, the premium cable channel that’s a joint venture between Viacom, Paramount Pictures, Lionsgate, and MGM.
The… Read More

Our favorite Bluetooth speaker gets an update. The new UE Boom 2 is waterproof, has better wireless range, and costs the same.

The post Review: UE Boom 2 appeared first on WIRED.

 When you connect a car to the Internet, it is no longer just a car: It is a computer on wheels. When a car can search Google, send tweets and be remotely accessed from a smartphone app, that car has more in common with your laptop than it does the Model T. Securing the next generation of connected automobiles means redefining what it means for a vehicle to be “road-ready.” The… Read More

 The Gillmor Gang — John Borthwick, Robert Scoble, John Taschek, Keith Teare, and Steve Gillmor. Recorded live Friday, September 11, 2015. Apple Tax announced, fanboys and girls prepare deep rationalization for unnecessary hardware from soup to nuts, TV takes over. Plus, the latest G3 (below) with Halley Suitt Tucker, Mary Hodder, Rebecca Woodcock, Francine Hardaway, and Tina Chase Gillmor. Read More

 Fears over privacy are nothing new. As users began to see the sheer availability of information online, and the amount of personal data being seen and used by tech companies, they became rightly concerned over how much information would be available to companies and individuals, and how that information would be used. The increasing stream of news about the scope and intensity of… Read More

 As urbanization intensifies and public sector technology initiatives advance quickly, the once-futuristic promise of “smart cities” is coming to fruition. Cities have always been “smart” to a degree, using technology to boost the productivity and efficiency of municipal services. But today, the proliferation of digital connectivity and big data explosion are creating… Read More

 Synthetics startup Ras Labs is working with the International Space Station to test “smart materials” that contract like living tissue. These “electroactive” materials can expand, contract and conform to our limbs just like human muscles when a current moves through them – and they could be used to make robots move and feel more human to the touch.
Ras Labs… Read More

 For the last 20 years VR has been just around the corner, but there have been three major hurdles in the way to mainstream adoption. Today, all three hurdles have been removed. It is no longer a case of crying wolf. The wolf is real, and standing just outside the door. Read More

 Does the Bitcoin community need another wallet? Amsterdam-based BlockTrail reckons there’s space for another player, despite some sizable and well-funded wallet entities already — such as Blockchain.info and Coinbase, to name two. Read More

 So here’s an awkward question … How many of you are reading this article without ads? Don’t be shy if you are. You’re definitely not alone. You’ll be getting even more ad-blocking options with next week’s launch of iOS 9, which is supposed to support content blocking extensions. That could be a big step forward  for the technology, which has been a… Read More

 I’ve been doing a lot of recruiting lately. My employers HappyFunCorp are in the midst of another growth spurt. One of my most illuminating questions is: “What’s your strategy for keeping up-to-date with the Cambrian explosion of technical frameworks, languages, databases, templating systems, and so forth?” Everyone has a strategy — but nobody seems to feel… Read More

 Betterment, the New York-based automated asset management company, is announcing a 401(k) retirement service, called Betterment for Business, aimed to make it easier for employers to establish, administrators to manage, and employees to monitor retirement savings plans. Read More