Category: Tech news

 The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) issued a warning against the hazards of cellphone radiation this week. Yes, the thing we are all addicted to and can’t seem to put down is leaking electromagnetic radiation and now California has some guidance to safeguard the public. Read More

 What the frak is this? According to a report from Deadline, Apple may have actually gotten its hand on a good show – a new space drama from “Battlestar Galactica” creator, Ronald D. Moore – to aid in its ambitions in building out its original video content. The still untitled series comes from Sony Pictures Television and Moore’s Tall Ship Productions, and has… Read More

 Vevo, the music video service backed by major record labels, just announced that its CEO Erik Huggers is departing. Huggers previously worked at the BBC, at Verizon (which owns TechCrunch) and elsewhere. He joined Vevo in 2015. Under his leadership, Vevo was working to become less reliant on YouTube (which was its major syndication partner) by developing more apps and products like the… Read More

 It’s one thing for an autonomous car to strut its stuff on a smooth, warm California tarmac, and quite another to do so on the frozen winter mix of northern Finland. Martti, a self-driving vehicle system homegrown in Finland, demonstrated just this in a record-setting drive along a treacherous (to normal drivers) Laplandish road. Read More

 Freight and logistics in the U.S. alone account for nearly $1.5 trillion annually. As the world’s economies scale up, that number is only expected to increase. The industry, however, is not prepared for growth, as it sits on top of an infrastructure prone to systematic inefficiencies and rampant fraud. However, disruption is coming in the form of blockchain technology. Read More

 Amazon this week officially launched the first skills for Alexa offering premium content that customers can purchase while using the voice apps – a move the company had announced was in the works back in November. The ability for developers to generate money from their skills comes at an opportune time, as it turns out, given that new data indicates the rate of skill growth is beginning… Read More

 It looks like Wag may get another huge injection of cash following a big financing round earlier this year, according to a report by Recode, and also based on what we are hearing. We had heard a bit ago that Wag was looking to raise around $100 million, which the Recode report also suggests. But it now looks like Softbank is in talks to invest around $300 million in the dog-walking app.… Read More

 EyeEm is unveiling new tools to help the brands and marketers using the site to source their images. Underlying these tools is a technology called EyeEm Vision, which we described in-depth earlier this year. The goal is to expand image recognition so that it’s not just identifying the objects in the photo, but also its aesthetic qualities. EyeEm’s co-founder and chief product… Read More

 Described to me as “American Idol meets musical.ly,” startup Spotlite recently raised more than $10 million from Sequoia Capital and BlueRun Ventures. The plan is to use the funding to build out the product, make key hires and expand its marketing and advertising efforts. Read More

 Fitbit is, again, not having a good day after spending the year in mostly middling status as it looks to prove there’s a market for fitness trackers and its own smartwatch. The culprit today: a Wall Street firm slapped a “sell” rating on the company’s stock, which often results in a rejection of its potential and sparks a sharp drop-off in the company’s share value. Read More

 Mudbound, a Dee Rees-directed film currently streaming on Netflix, is both epic and intimate, telling the intertwined stories of two families (one black, one white) farming on the Mississippi delta. That description might make the movie sound like a home work assignment, or perhaps a too-neat dissection of race relations in the American South. On the latest episode of the Original Content… Read More

 Huddly has built a smart camera that only has one mission: make your video meetings more productive. Now for the most part, you probably don’t think much about what camera you use for your video conferences. They are pretty much all the same, after all. But Norway-based Huddly thinks its smart wide-angle GO camera, which is now shipping for $499 through its resellers and which will be… Read More

 Google has officially announced that it is opening an AI center in Beijing, China. The confirmation comes after months of speculation fueled by a major push to hire AI talent inside the country. Google’s search engine is blocked in China, but the company still has hundreds of staff in China which work on its international services. In reference to that workforce, Alphabet chairman… Read More

 New York City may soon gain a task force dedicated to monitoring the fairness of algorithms used by municipal agencies. Formed from experts in automated systems and representatives of groups affected by those systems, it would be responsible for closely examining algorithms in use by the city and making recommendations on how to improve accountability and avoid bias. Read More

 Coinbase is growing up fast — or at least trying to. As an emblem of its current effort to accommodate the massive demand on its platform, the mainstream U.S. cryptocurrency exchange just added Facebook Vice President of Messaging Products David Marcus to its board of directors. Read More