February 28, 2017
Nissan’s self-driving test car tackles London streets
Nissan is testing its self-driving vehicles on European streets for the first time, with a rollout begun Monday in London. The tests, reported by Reuters, involved modified Nissan Leaf electric…
Breather wants to save you from unwanted office distractions with the Nope button
In what is clearly a marketing ploy from workspace rental service Breather, the company is launching a Chrome plug-in called the “Nope Button.” The idea here, according to the company,…
eMarketer: Snapchat growth driven by older users, as usage among young adults declines
Snapchat has a reputation for being an app that’s confusing to the “olds” – something the company tried to address with a redesign just ahead of filing for its IPO. In…
Lux Capital closes $400 million fund to back startups ‘inventing the future’
Lux Capital’s portfolio companies sound like they ripped their product concepts from the pages of science fiction. Among these are self-driving car startup Zoox, a company gathering oceanographic data from…
Hyperloop One is in early talks with the Indian government
Hyperloop One could bring its high-speed, tube-based transportation system to India, and will make a call by the end of this year whether it’s feasible to operate in the country,…
Pypestream raises $15M for its customer messaging platform
Pypestream is announcing that it has raised $15 million in Series A funding. When the startup launched more than a year ago, founder and CEO Richard Smullen was pitching text…
Ford lets passengers stream live TV in-car with the 2018 Expedition
Ford’s putting traditional TV service into its vehicles, starting with the Expedition, which gets streaming cable capabilities thanks to a partnership with Slingbox. This will pipe that hot cable into…
Verst is a blogging platform with all the optimization tools you need
Meet Verst, a brand new product from the company that brought you DWNLD. It’s a blogging platform like WordPress or Squarespace, but with all the optimization and analytics tools you…
Simple’s new kind of shared bank account targets unmarried partners, roommates & more
Online banking service Simple today is launching a new type of banking product aimed at a younger generation of customers who want to be able to collaborate on finances with others,…
Starsky Robotics’ autonomous transport trucks also give drivers remote control
Starsky Robotics has already used its autonomous trucks for paying gigs, including a 5,000-lb haul covering 140 miles, with 120 of those driven by the truck itself. It’s also moved…
Breaking Into Startups: How a 16-year-old dropout became a senior engineer at Slack
This week’s Breaking Into Startups episode features Rodney Urqhart, who talks about how he acquired the skills to become a Senior Engineer at Slack after he dropped out of high…
The Xbox Game Pass is a $9.99 Spotify-like game subscription
Having free games with Xbox Live Gold was one thing, but Microsoft wants to go one step further. The company is launching a new service called the Xbox Game Pass.…
People now watch 1 billion hours of YouTube per day
A few minutes of short-form video here and there can really add up – YouTube’s average video length may be quite constrained, but in aggregate, viewers are watching a billion…
The $10 Raspberry Pi Zero W is the teeniest little Wi-Fi-enabled computer you’ve ever seen
When the original $5 Raspberry Pi Zero came out – to much fanfare, I might add – users connected it to all sorts of things. They made micro gaming rigs…
Honda’s new R&D Center X will focus on robots, energy and AI
Honda opened its new Innovation Lab Tokyo to press for the first time on Tuesday, and also marked the occasion by announcing the debut of a new tech R&D group…
Dubuc Motors, makers of the Tomahawk all-electric supercar prototype, recently announced that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had approved its filing for equity crowdfunding under the US JOBS Act…
What can you wrap up in ribbons? Stick in your sock? And what can you take out in public and not get thrown in the dock? The Kado phone charger,…
Apple to release $1k iPhone with curved screen and USB-C, WSJ says
Apple is said to have something special planned for the 10th anniversary of the iPhone and rumors have circulated for months speculating on different features. This report by the WSJ is the…
OneWeb to merge with Intelsat in $13B deal, SoftBank to put $1.7B in newco
Yet more consolidation afoot in the satellite industry — a sign of how satellite providers are hoping to build a more cost-effective model to deploy and operate satellite services in the…
FCC Chairman pledges to roll back net neutrality regulations during European address
As Ajit Pai took the stage for a speech at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this morning, CNBC anchor Karen Tso noted that the newly appointed FCC Chairman’s top priority…
Google has shipped 10M Cardboard VR viewers, 160M Cardboard app downloads
Google is putting a lot of its virtual reality focus right now on its Daydream VR framework, but today Amit Singh, the company’s VP of VR, also gave an update on its…
ResearchGate raises $52.6M for its social research network for scientists
As LinkedIn continues to reign as the world’s largest social network for the wider working world, we are seeing the rise of alternatives that are besting and beating it in specific verticals. ResearchGate, a Berlin-based startup…
I’ve tested Volvo’s Pilot Assist and Park Assist Pilot in the Volvo XC90 and Pilot Assist II when I briefly drove the Volvo S90 last fall. But I hadn’t yet…
SoundCloud revamps its subscription service with cheaper $4.99 option
SoundCloud has rebooted its paid membership plan with a new budget option less than a year after it launched. The Berlin-based company today revealed a cheaper tier of $4.99 per month, down from the initial…
Xiaomi’s new Mi5c is the first phone to be powered by its custom chipset
Xiaomi may be skipping Mobile World Congress, the year’s biggest phone show, but it is still making news this week after it unveiled its first processor and the first phone it…
