Back in March the Vector — a smartwatch with an e-ink LCD screen — made its debut in a number of reviews in the tech press. Of note was the unusual 30-day battery life and a smartphone control app which worked across iOS, Android and Windows phones. What wasn’t elucidated in detail at the time was that the startup not only planned to release an API to developers, allowing them… Read More
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Ordering your food or beverages by smartphone and then paying for it via an app is quickly becoming the new normal. Starbucks already allows for this across thousands of its stores in the U.S. Meanwhile, Burger King and Firehouse Subs announced integrations with MasterCard’s MasterPass digital payment solution just this week, and Taco Bell’s own mobile ordering solution is powered… Read More
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Pay-Per-Virtual Reality could become a thing thanks to AltspaceVR. The VR chat room and communication platform just raised $10.3 million to give us a digital place where we can hang out. But with this funding, which brings AltspaceVR to $15.7 million, comes a need to devise a business plan. While AltspaceVR is focused on growth now, its co-founder and CEO Eric Romo tells me it could… Read More
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Korea’s LG shipped a (then) record 14.5 million smartphones in the second quarter of 2014, but now, a year later, it’s a different story. The firm just revealed its Q2 2015 financials and, while not as disastrous as HTC’s, the company itself describes them as “modest.” Read More
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If a city knows what intersections are full of smog, it could add trees or change stop light schedules to improve the air its citizens breathe. Google Earth’s Outreach program that equips nonprofits and public-benefit organizations with data wants to give the world these insights. So today, Google revealed that it’s been working with SF startup Aclima for the last year-and-a-half… Read More
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At Pixable, we — like almost every digital property — are in the eyeball game. We are one of thousands of media companies competing for attention, and, in our case, we seek the attention of young, highly social readers with seemingly infinite interests. It goes without saying that attention grabbing begins with a catchy headline, but the real challenge is this: After getting the… Read More
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Legacy Republic, which is building a freelance workforce to help families digitize their photos and videos, just acquired competitor Yarly.
Digitization company YesVideo launched its Legacy Republic initiative last fall. Yarly, meanwhile, has a similar mission of digitizing photos or, as Legacy Republic Brian Knapp put it, of “preserving family memories.” Read More
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Launched about a week ago, Beme is a new video-sharing app built by viral filmmaker Casey Neistat and Matt Hackett, former VP of Engineering at Tumblr and Hacker-in-Residence at betaworks. The duo raised $2.6 million in seed funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, and have been working on the project together for about a year. Read More
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Something that you’ve likely never heard uttered is that an industry should look to the National Football League (NFL) for social cues. The league has been scandal-ridden for decades, and has consistently fallen flat in its responses to domestic abuse, cheating, health and wellness and drug scandals. Read More
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At some point inside the next 24 hours, Window 10 will “launch” in New Zealand, before spreading out across the globe. To a certain extent. Of course, for the more than 5 million folks currently testing the software, its “launch” is almost a non-event. For the following cycles of individuals and businesses that will get the code over the coming weeks and months, the… Read More
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