A Weekend With The All-Electric BMW i3
I’ve never driven a BMW, or an electric car, so I might have been an odd choice to test drive the new BMW i3, the German car maker’s all-electric hatchback, which packs the equivalent of 170 HP into its electric engine. But an unexpected reviewer might be the perfect candidate for an unexpected car. Read More
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Spark Labs Raises $4.9 Million For An Internet Of Things OS
Spark Labs, the same folks who made this open-source Nest-like thermostat, has raised $4.9 million in Series A funding led by Lion Wells Capital, and with participation from O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, SOSventures, and Collaborative Fund, as well as a host of angel investors. Read More
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BlackBerry Is One Of The Hottest Stocks Of 2014, Seriously
Don’t look now, but BlackBerry — you know, the butt of most cell phone jokes — is mounting an impressive comeback. BlackBerry’s stock is up 50 percent on the year and one of the best performers in its sector. BlackBerry has been written off as dead countless times. The company is often viewed as a relic of a bygone era. Its CEO is a blowhard, not afraid to take spats… Read More
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Apple Patents A Way To Make All-Glass iPhones, iPads, Monitors And TVs
Apple has patented a method for building devices with all-glass outer casings (via AppleInsider), by fusing pieces together for a completely seamless final look. The all-glass device casings could be used to hold the internals of an iOS device, or to house a TV or monitor, too. Read More
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4 MusicTech Insights From Wall Street Journal Writer Taylor Swift
When millions of people point camera-phones at you while you sing, you learn a thing about music and technology. You could laugh at pop starlet Taylor Swift for her fluffy teddy bear of a column in the Wall Street Journal today, or chide the WSJ for printing it, but there are some poignant nuggets of knowledge in there.
Swift (and her ghost writers) prefaces the whole discussion with some… Read More
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General Harmonics Is Basically Pied Piper From “Silicon Valley”
General Harmonics is a small startup from Canada that’s looking to revolutionize the way we stream media. Rather than risk sounding like I’m writing some kind of self-parody, I’ll be blunt about it: they’re basically Pied Piper from HBO’s Silicon Valley, only with a few decades more experience and technology that’s way farther along. Read More
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Airbnb Showdown On San Francisco’s November Ballot Averted For The Time Being
It looks like Airbnb is going to get a reprieve on facing a huge regulatory showdown on November’s ballot in San Francisco. A former planning commissioner and affordable housing activists had paired up to put new regulation on the ballot that would have clarified rules on short-term rentals throughout the city. It would have been far stricter than a set of rules supervisor David Chiu… Read More
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BlackBerry Explains The Passport, Its Square Tablet… Phone Thing
BlackBerry previously gave us a sneak peek at a device that’s as category-busting as the revolutionary Padfone, called the Passport. I expressed my …uncertainty regarding the wisdom of the design decisions made in creating this 4.5-inch square thing with a hardware keyboard then. But now it’s BlackBerry’s turn to articulate some of its reasoning behind the Passport, with… Read More
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Keith Rabois’ Homebuying Startup OpenDoor Raises $9.95M From Everyone
Well.
It seems like a lot of Valley investors want to see the process of buying homes become a lot more efficient.
After Khosla Ventures VC and former Square COO Keith Rabois teased that he was working on a project to make buying homes as simple as clicking a few buttons, a horde of Valley angels and VCs started circling. Read More
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Facebook Tries Being A TV Channel With New Mobile Video Player
If you watch one of a friend’s videos, Facebook will now try to get you to watch more with a new carousel of suggested videos that appears after you view one in the mobile News Feed. Reminiscent of YouTube’s Related Videos, Facebook confirms the existence of this fresh laidback experience in Facebook for iOS that I spotted over the weekend. It lets you quickly watch a series of… Read More
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