Category: Tech news

Here’s the fundamental physics behind every class of robots in the showdown.

Plus: why self-driving car developers should be aiming lower.

It’s a molecular Parent Trap: Stick two atoms in a vacuum chamber, and steer them together with lasers.

How scientists can repurpose a bacterial immune system to alter DNA, making everything from cheap insulin to extra starchy corn.

More companies like Uber and Instacart are using Checkr, which promises streamlined background checks through automation and integration with hiring apps.

The latest Honda hybrid uses two motors, an engine, and a bevy of buttons, paddles, and pedals—and can leave drivers feeling like symphony conductors.

More than 1 million tons of radiation-laced water is already being kept on-site in an ever-expanding forest of hundreds of hulking steel tanks.

From posting “boner killers” to helping law enforcement, victims of nonconsensual pornography are fighting back.

Facebook ads will appear on TV, online, in movie theaters, and on public transit and billboards.

No Words With Friends for British Airways pilots, it’s all about fuel calculations, safety notices, and maps.

The culmination of 10 years and 18 movies is something that’s virtually impossible to repeat.

A new search tool on Pinterest aims to surface more content showing people of all skin tones when you search for beauty tips and products.

Back in 2016, Apple swapped out the graphic used for its gun emoji, replacing the realistically drawn handgun with a bright green water gun.

Just a few days ago, Twitter followed suit.

And now, it seems, so will Google . The gun emoji on Android will likely soon appear as a bright orange and yellow super soaker lookalike.

As first noted by Emojipedia, Google has just swapped the graphics in its open Noto Emoji library on GitHub. These are the Emoji that Android uses by default, so the same change will presumably start to roll out there before too long.

At this point, Google making this change seemed inevitable. It seemed likely to happen as soon Apple made the jump; once others started following suit (Twitter earlier this week, and Samsung with the release of the Galaxy S9) it became a certainty.

It’s a matter of clarity in communication. If a massive chunk of people (iOS users) can send a cartoony water toy in a message that another massive chunk of people (Android users) receive as a realistically drawn handgun, there’s room for all sorts of trouble and confusion. Apple wasn’t going to reverse course on this one — and now that others have made the change, Google would’ve been the odd one out.

Trying times in Menlo Park, it seems: Amid assaults from all quarters largely focused on privacy, Facebook is shifting some upper management around to better defend itself. Its head of policy in the U.S., Erin Egan, is returning to her chief privacy officer role, and a VP (and former FCC chairman) is taking her spot.

Kevin Martin, until very recently VP of mobile and global access policy, will be Facebook’s new head of policy. He was hired in 2015 for that job; he was at the FCC from 2001 to 2009, Chairman for the last four of those years. So whether you liked his policies or not, he clearly knows his way around a roll of red tape.

Erin Egan was chief privacy officer when Martin was hired, and at that time also took on the role of U.S. head of policy. “For the last couple years, Erin wore both hats at the company,” said Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone in a statement to TechCrunch.

“Kevin will become interim head of US Public Policy while Erin Egan focuses on her expanded duties as Chief Privacy Officer,” Stone said.

No doubt both roles have grown in importance and complexity over the last few years; one person performing both jobs doesn’t sound sustainable, and apparently it wasn’t.

Notably, Martin will now report to Joel Kaplan, with whom he worked previously during the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2000 and for years under the subsequent administration. Deep ties to Republican administrations and networks in Washington are probably more than a little valuable these days, especially to a company under fire from would-be regulators.

Particle, a developer of networking hardware and software for connected devices, has released an LTE-enabled module for product developers.

The new device specifically targets folks whose devices were reliant on retiring 2G and 3G networks, according to the company, and includes built-in cloud and SIM support.

Even as big telecom companies and vendors move ahead with 4G and now 5G networking equipment, those technologies aren’t necessarily the best for most networked devices, according to Particle .

LTE hardware is cheaper and has better battery life and ranges that are more appropriate for industrial devices that may need to communicate across distances or through obstacles (like walls, other machines, doors or floors).

Particularly, Particle sees demand for its devices in hard-to-reach or widely dispersed sensor networks — like industrial factory floors or in an agricultural monitoring setting for a farm or field.

“As US carriers are quickly moving to end 2G and 3G support, and global carriers plan for LTE network rollouts, the timing for an LTE strategy is more critical than ever,” according to a statement Bill Kramer, EVP of IoT Solutions at KORE, which provides managed IoT networks, application enablement, location-based services. 

The new LTE product is part of a suite of offerings from Particle — including a device cloud, operating system and developer toolkit, the company said.

By providing a pre-integrated solution, Particle said that its hardware represents a faster, far less complicated path to market.

“We launched our cellular development kit, the Electron, to give our developer community access to the power of cellular,” said Zach Supalla, co-founder and CEO of Particle, in a statement. “The following industrial E Series line made go-to-market with 2G/3G scalable for enterprises. Now with our LTE module, businesses will evolve alongside the quickly-changing cellular landscape without missing a beat.”

Particle’s new lineup now includes two LTE CAT-M1 models (LTE B13 and LTE B2/4/5/12) and is fully certified, low profile, surface mountable for industrial environments and powered by Qualcomm’s MDM9206 IoT Modem and u-blox’s Sara-R410-02B module.

The new LTE hardware evaluation kit ships for $89 with an evaluation board, a sample temperature sensor and accessories to build out a proof of concept, the company said. Individual modules are priced at $69.

Particle counts 8,500 customers and more than 140,000 developers among its customers building networking technologies for consumer and industrial devices. The company says its customers range from global energy provider Engie and design studio Ideo to indoor crops provider Grow Labs and coffee pioneer Keurig .