As Apple gears up for its developer keynote conference tomorrow, one of its bigger announcements is likely to be new changes coming to its augmented reality platform. Since announcing ARKit last year, the tech giant has hardly been sheepish about its belief in AR’s potential. “I think AR is big and profound,” Apple CEO Tim Cook told CNBC. “I don’t think there is any sector or industry that will be untouched by AR,” he told Vogue. “I think AR is that big, it’s huge. I get excited because of the things that could be done that could improve a lot…
Author: geekfenceblogger
Ben Dickson Contributor Ben Dickson is a software engineer and the founder of TechTalks. More posts by this contributor Unlocking the potential of eye tracking technology Can you trust crypto-token crowdfunding? A while back, a blockchain startup approached me with their pitch, a decentralized social media application in which users can earn money by simply doing what they already do on other platforms, such posting updates, photos and videos. I would have been intrigued had they sent me the message a couple of years ago. But not so much after observing the space for more several years. Several blockchain applications…
New reports out of Redmond this weekend have Microsoft set to purchase the popular coding site GitHub. Bloomberg is citing “people familiar with the matter,” stating that the deal could be announced as early as tomorrow. The new story follows similar reports late last week of discussions between the two parties. The deal certainly makes sense for Microsoft, as the software giant continues to actively court developers. As for GitHub, the company is said to have been “impressed” by Satya Nadella, who has actively courted coders and coding initiatives since taking the reins at the company, back in 2014. “The opportunity…
Global venture capital firm White Star Capital has closed a second fund of $180 million, money it plans to invest in “transatlantic” companies that need help to go international. The VC already has a presence in London, New York, and Montreal, and as part if its new fund is adding Paris and Tokyo to the list. Oversubscribed from an initial target of $140 million, apparently, White Star says it will invest in around 20 new companies from the new fund, writing opening cheques of between $1 million and $6 million. White Star’s first fund of $70 million closed in 2015…
Sanjit Dang Contributor Share on Twitter Sanjit Dang is an investment director at Intel Capital. More posts by this contributor What’s holding back VR? Online Commerce Needs An Offline Experience Every year, Time magazine gets swamped with pitches from thousands of companies, all convinced their product deserves to be included in Time’s “25 Best Inventions” list. This past December, the magazine reserved its cover for a Pixar-like, 11-inch armless robot named Jibo. Jibo — a so-called “social robot” — is just the latest example of a clear phenomenon: A new generation of exponentially more intelligent and capable robots is on the way. In fact, they’re already…
Podcasts are television for the earbud generation. And podcasts have been around for a surprisingly long time. If you’re one of the folks who got hooked on podcasts around 2014, when Sarah Koenig and other producers from This American Life launched the wildly popular Serial podcast, you might think that it’s a brand new medium. But podcasts — audio that’s packaged and syndicated over RSS — have been around since the early 2000s. And although many podcasters make money, typically through sponsorships, the podcasting industry (such as it is) hasn’t received much in the way of venture funding until quite recently.…
There’s no secret the tech industry suffers a reputation for harmfully disrupting a community. But not everyone in tech is to blame for the negative effects. In 2015 Ben Kovacs and Joel Lunenfeld founded the non-profit Guardian Gym, a buy-one give-one mixed martial arts gym/after-school program that now boasts over 300 adult members and youth mentees. Kovacs attributes the success of the gyms growth partly to Dick Costolo’s example at Twitter. “He talked to the people, he made everyone feel important, everyone thought he was their friend,” Kovacs said. “And I realized that we needed to build a similar type…
Netflix’s revival of Arrested Development may have had a mixed reception from critics and fans, but the dysfunctional Bluth family isn’t done yet. Five years after the premiere of the much-anticipated fourth season, Arrested Development is back for season five — or rather, the first eight episodes of the season, with more to follow later this year. On the latest episode of the Original Content podcast, we’re joined by TechCrunch’s Lucas Matney to discuss our thoughts on the show. For many fans, this new season may feel like a return to form. Not everything works — there’s still some awkward…
Fen Zhao Contributor Share on Twitter Fen Zhao is an early stage investor at Alpha Edison who previously developed public private partnerships at the National Science Foundation in the areas of data science and cybersecurity. For most people, the thought of a smart device sharing their intimate conversations and sending those recordings along to their acquaintances is the stuff of dystopian nightmares. And for one family in Portland, it’s a nightmare that became all too real when their Amazon Echo sent a recording of a private conversation to a random contact in their phone book. Mercifully, the recorded conversation was…
“Despite many pronouncements that 2016 was the year of VR, a more apt word for virtual reality might be absence,” The Economist observed caustically last summer, noting that during that year forecasts of combined sales of VR hardware and software dropped from $5.1bn to $3.6bn to the harsh reality of $1.8bn. But hey, one rough holiday season does not an industry make, right? Surely in 2017 things began to — — oh. “Shock Stat: In 2017, VR Headset Shipments For Most Top Brands Went DOWN Compared To 2016.” So much for the many predictions that VR headset shipments would grow…