Technology news

Whenever a US aircraft crashes, there’s a quick response: a rescue team is dispatched to the crash site to secure the wreckage and recover the pilot, but in some cases, that can be a dangerous proposition that puts additional personnel at risk of accident or enemy fire. The Air Force wants to avoid that — or at the very least, add a new tool to its disposal when it comes to rescuing the downed pilot. According to a solicitation from the Air Force Research Laboratory spotted by Aviat

Many of the CW’s original series have found new audiences through a long-standing streaming agreement with Netflix, but that deal is coming to an end.Netflix’s agreement with The CW’s parent companies, Warner Bros. and CBS, ensured that CW series like Riverdale, Supernatural, The Flash, and Arrow automatically ended up on Netflix after a season’s initial run on network television. The deal was first signed in 2011 and re-upped in 2016, but the network doesn’t plan

Kyle Fugere Contributor Kyle Fugere is head of Ventures at dunnhumby Ventures. More posts by this contributorThe Importance Of Design Thinking For Big Data Startups
Over the past five years, there has been a clear drop in seed investing. Between 2010 and 2014 there was an influx of “micro” VCs, perfectly equipped to deploy seed capital. Since then, we have seen a gradual decline.
One key reason is that the Micro VCs were successful. Turns out that investing at the seed stage is a re

First Round Capitalhas both the Dorm Room Fund and the Graduate Fund. General Catalyst has Rough Draft Ventures. And Prototype Capital and a few other micro-funds focus on investing in student founders, but overall, there’s a shortage of capital set aside for entrepreneurs still making their way through school.
Contrary Capital, a soon-to-be San Francisco-based operation led by Eric Tarczynski, is raising $35 million to invest between $50,000 and $200,000 in students and recent college dro

Facebook is shutting down Direct, a standalone camera-first messaging app used to send Instagram direct messages. “In the coming month, we’ll no longer be supporting the Direct app,” read a message in the app announcing the shutdown. “Your conversations will automatically move over to Instagram, so you don’t need to do anything.” The announcement was first spotted by social media commentator Matt Navarra.First launched in December 2017, Direct was an apparent

Reports emerged a year ago that all the major cellular carriers in the U.S. were selling location data to third-party companies, which in turn sold them to pretty much anyone willing to pay. New letters published by the FCCshow that despite a year of scrutiny and anger, the carriers have only recently put an end to this practice.
We already knew that the carriers, like many large companies, simply could not be trusted. In January it was clear that promises to immediately “shut down,”

Eli Schwartz ContributorShare on Twitter Eli Schwartz is currently a growth advisor and the former Director of Growth at SurveyMonkey where he led the SEO strategy. Eli has been a columnist on the Huffington Post, the Y Combinator blog, Search Engine Land, Search Engine Journal and numerous other publications.Amazondominates the top ranking positions of Google for tens of thousands of ecommerce queries, but there are plenty of products in newer shopping categories where Amazon has not yet achie

With last fall’s release of iOS 12, Apple introduced Siri Shortcuts — a new app that allows iPhone users to create their own voice commands to take actions on their phone and in apps. Today, Apple is celebrating Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) by rolling out a practical, accessibility focused collection of new Siri Shortcuts, alongside accessibility focused App Store features and collections.
Google is doing something similar for Android users on Google Play.
For starters,

Pinterest(NYSE: PINS) shared lukewarm first-quarter financials on Thursday after the closing bell in what was its first earnings report as a public company.
The company, led by co-founder and chief executive officer Ben Silbermann,posted revenues of $202 million on losses of $41.4 million for the three months ending March 31, 2019. This surpassed Wall Street’s revenue estimates of about $200 million and represented significant growth from last year’s Q1 revenues of $131 million. Loss

Tesla is pushing out a software update to all Model S and X cars following two recent high-profile battery fires. The automaker said it’s issuing the update “out of an abundance of caution.”The over-the-air update will change some of the settings in the cars’ battery management software related to charging and thermal controls, though the company didn’t go into further detail. (The software of Tesla’s battery management system is one of the company’s mo

Freelance marketplace Fiverr has filed to go public on the New York Stock Exchange.
The company, which is headquartered in Tel Aviv, is losing money — its net losses grew from $19.3 million in 2017 to $36.1 million in 2018. At the same time, revenue grew by nearly 45%, from $52.1 million to $75.5 million.
“Our mission is to change how the world works together,” Fiverr says in the filing. “We started with the simple idea that people should be able to buy and sell digital s

Last month, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) held a hearing to discuss what he perceived to be a conservative bias on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. A representative from each of those companies sat before him and a panel predominantly composed of other Republicans. (Most Democratic members decided to skip the “bias” hearing entirely.)“Not only does Big Tech have the power to silence voices with which they disagree, but Big Tech likewise has the power to collate a perso

Children with vision impairments struggle to get a solid K-12 education for a lot of reasons — so the more tools their teachers have to impart basic skills and concepts, the better. ObjectiveEd is a startup that aims to empower teachers and kids with a suite of learning games accessible to all vision levels, along with tools to track and promote progress.
Some of the reasons why vision-impaired kids don’t get the education they deserve are obvious, for example that reading and writin

Ticketmaster is turning to new technology to help fight ticket fraud. The ticketing giant today unveiled its next-generation digital tickets, “Safetix,” which are tied to the ticket holder’s mobile device through an encrypted barcode that automatically refreshes every few seconds. The tickets will also support NFC technology, allowing fans to enter venues through a “tap and go” experience.
The company says ticket holders will later this year be able to add their con

The Asus ZenFone 6 has officially been announced, and where the ZenFone 5 was basically just a boring iPhone X clone, the new model is thinking way outside the box, eliminating the top bezel entirely thanks to a completely wild rotating camera.
I mean, just look at this thing:
The whole phone also represents a shift in direction for Asus, which seems determined to carve out its own niche in the phone space instead of chasing Apple or Samsung, at least from a design perspective. So, instead of a

For the last two decades, Sonyand Microsoft’sgaming divisions have been locked in all-out war against one another: on price, on hardware, on franchises, on exclusives… you name it. But it seems they’ve set their enmity aside temporarily that they might better prevent that filthy casual, Google, from joining the fray.
The official team-up, documented in a memorandum of understanding, was announced today, though details are few. But this is clear enough:
The two companies will e

Smartphones have gotten more expensive over the last few years even though there have only been a handful of recent innovations that really changed the way you interact with the phone. It’s maybe no surprise then that there is suddenly a lot more interest in mid-range, sub-$500 phones again. In the U.S., Google’s new Pixel 3a, with its superb camera, is bringing a lot of credibility to this segment. Outside the U.S., though, you can often get a flagship phone for less than $500 that

The latest entry in The CW’s Arrowverse is coming later this fall: Batwoman. At its upfronts presentation today, the network unveiled a first trailer for its next superhero series.This particular version of Batwoman follows Kate Kane (played by Orange Is The New Black’s Ruby Rose) — cousin to Bruce Wayne, who happens to be missing — as she leaves Gotham City in the midst of a crime wave. Her father, Jacob Kane, steps in with his private security firm, Crows Private Secur

What a difference a few weeks can make. Last month, I came to Chicago for the launch of Verizon’s 5G network, which is now live both here and in Minneapolis. The inaugural 5G device was the Moto Z3 equipped with Motorola’s 5G MotoMod, and my experience — and that of many other tech journalists — was less than positive: 5G coverage was exceedingly difficult to find. Speeds were noticeably faster than LTE, but not wickedly so.But today marks the release of Samsung’s

If you love the immersive experience of VR fighting games, but felt like it was lacking the actual physical harm component, this robot is for you. Robotics engineer and YouTube creator James Bruton has teamed up with University of Portsmouth students to create a robot that fights humans in real life while they’re playing in VR.The robot wheels around on a wooden base, and has pneumatic punching arms made from 3D-printed parts and foot pumps. It’s powered by an Arduino Mega interface

When Google released Live Transcribe this past February, it was a hugely important accessibility feature for people who are deaf or hard of hearing — and it still is. The feature automatically and pretty accurately transcribes the spoken word in near real time in up to 70 different languages.
Now, Google is expanding Live Transcribe with two new features. The first is important for extending it as an accessibility tool: “sound events.” In a month or so, the transcripts will be

Microsoft and Sony are announcing an unusual partnership today, allowing the two rivals to partner on cloud-based gaming services. “The two companies will explore joint development of future cloud solutions in Microsoft Azure to support their respective game and content-streaming services,” says a Microsoft statement. Sony’s existing game and content-streaming services will also be powered by Microsoft Azure in the future.
Microsoft says “these efforts will also include

NBA champion and former Beats athlete Kevin Durant has a new headphones brand to call his own, literally, after buying a stake in New York’s Master & Dynamic. Announcing the partnership this week, Master & Dynamic CEO Jonathan Levine spoke with The Verge to lay out what we can expect, stressing that it’s much more than just a paid celebrity endorsement. Durant isn’t getting paid anything, for a start.
According to Levine, the collaboration with Durant grew organically

TweetDeck is getting some much-needed core Twitter features, the company announced today, including native support for GIFs, polls, and emoji. These features have long been a part of the desktop version of Twitter and, before it got shut down last year, the dedicated Mac app version. But TweetDeck has for years languished in the periphery of Twitter’s product road map, getting new features late or not at all.Now, after polling users yesterday on the missing features people would most like

Airbnbhas made yet another addition to its board of directors as it inches toward an initial public offering, expected in the next year.
Angela Ahrendts,the former senior vice president of retail at Apple, joins as its third independent non-affiliated board member. Ahrendts joined Apple in 2014 after serving as CEO of the British fashion house Burberry for eight years. Apple earlier this year announced Ahrendts would step down in April to be replaced by the company’s HR head, Deirdre O&rsq

Kids need a good education to have the best chance of succeeding in the world, but in distant parts of developing countries there may be neither schools nor teachers. The Global Learning Xprize aims to spur innovation in the tech space to create app-based teaching those kids can do on their own — and a tie means the $10 million grand prize gets split in two.
The winners, Onebillion and Kitkit School, both created tablet apps that resulted in serious gains to literacy rates in the areas the

Despite a $5.7 million FTC fine and changes to restrict its use by those younger than 13 years old, TikTok retained its No. 1 position as the most downloaded app on the Apple App Store for the fifth consecutive quarter, according to a new report from Sensor Tower. The app saw more than 33 million App Store downloads during Q1, and was followed by YouTube, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger to round out the top five.
The No. 16 top app, Twitter, also had a good quarter, the report noted.
With 11.7

If you purchase an unlocked Google Pixel 3A or Pixel 3A XL from a handful of retailers, you can get a $100 gift card back — but only for a couple more days. This ongoing deal will last through May 18th, and several retailers are participating. The list includes Best Buy, B&H Photo, and Google Store. Target is offering a gift card with purchase, though it requires carrier activation.You can also buy the Pixel 3A from Amazon, but Amazon isn’t honoring the gift card promotion, and

Sony’s flagship Xperia 1 handset will go on sale in the US for $949 on July 12th, the company announced today. The phone was first announced back in February, and it features a super tall 21:9 4K HDR OLED display, which Sony claims is a first for a mobile device.That means it’ll be able to show most films without the need for any letterboxing, but it will also give you extra vertical space while you’re browsing Twitter or looking through your inbox. In the UK, the handset is e

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1. Trump declares national emergency to protect US networks from foreign espionage
While the U.S. already restricted government contractors and federal agencies from using technology supplied by Huawei or its subsidiaries, this new executive order gives Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and other fe

Gleb Kuznetsov refuses to settle for less. After spending years leading product design for startups and corporate clients, Gleb started a boutique branding agency, Milkinside, that helps clients translate new technologies into useful products.
Gleb and his team of experienced creators are committed to serving the end user, which is why they love taking products from zero to launch. Their services are expensive, partly due to their expertise in product development, motion graphic design and anima

With 5G, when it rains, it pours. A few hours after Verizon officially started selling the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G, Sprint announced that it will be offering two 5G devices for its network by the end of the month.
For now, it still feels like manufacturers are putting the cart before the horse here. There’s little question that 5G will become ubiquitous in the next few years, but actual opportunities to access the technology are still pretty scarce.
Among U.S. carriers, Verizon (our parent c

Sprint says it will launch its first 5G-compatible devices on May 31st. Buyers will have a choice of one phone — the LG V50 ThinQ, which was revealed in February — and the HTC 5G Hub hot spot. Preorders start on May 17th but only in four markets: Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, and Kansas City. In “the next few weeks,” they should also be available in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, Phoenix, and Washington, DC.
Sprint is touting what it calls a “limited time”