DARPA has a new Grand Challenge underway, but it’s not an automation moonshot like the self-driving car challenges of the early 2000s or the recent (and hilarious) Robotics Challenge. The Defense Department’s R&D wing wants to revolutionize something with a bit less sex appeal, but plenty of real-world applications: radio frequency spectrum splitting. The Spectrum […]
Nvidia is no newcomer to the car business. But this was the first year that the chipmaker–better known for developing GeForce GPUs for desktop gaming–chose to focus almost exclusively on automotive technology at CES. At the show, Nvidia did announce its first GPU using more advanced process technology, specifically TSMC’s 16nm FinFET+ process, but it […]
Amazon’s Kindle, and its less popular e-reader brethren, are great for fiction, but trying to consume content that isn’t meant to be enjoyed from cover to cover is an exercise in annoyance, frustration and misery. That’s a shame, because it doesn’t have to be that way. Take travel books for example. When trekking across the globe, lugging around four-and-a-half pounds worth of […]
Good news for amateur and professional photograph enthusiasts. Google has just made its Nik Collection photo editing software available completely free of charge. That collection includes seven different desktop services that fell into Google’s lap after it acquired Nik Software back in 2012. That deal was largely about getting control of popular photo app Snapseed, a pretty powerful tool […]
The colossal and highly public failure of Microsoft’s Twitter-based chatbot Tay earlier this week raised many questions: How could this happen? Who is responsible for it? And is it true that Hitler did nothing wrong? After a day of silence (and presumably of penance), the company has undertaken to answer at least some of these […]
Twitter, which turned 10 this week, has apparently made Live its entire organizing principle. At an all-hands meeting last month, Mark Zuckerberg declared live video a top priority for Facebook. Clearly, Zuck’s directing his fight toward Twitter’s Periscope, a mobile live streaming app which itself competed fiercely with Meerkat. Amazon is expanding its recently acquired […]
Today’s retail economy is focused on acquisition and retention costs. Getting into people’s homes and turning them into long-term brand buyers is the goal, and appliance makers control an untapped resource — the Internet of Things (IoT) — that can effectively extend a brand or retailer’s supply chain visibility into the home. How will the […]
Immense hype surrounds virtual currencies and distributed ledgers these days. Maybe this is inevitable if you combine an inscrutable, cutting-edge technology, its enigmatic origins, and a flow of $1 billion in venture funding thus far. But will these technologies create pathways for people in emerging economies to access and use financial services that meet their […]
In the world of gaming accessories, “budget-friendly” is not a word frequently used. Naturally, one of the biggest players industry, Razer, aims to change that with the Blackwidow X. The newest set of keyboards added to their existing lineup, the Blackwidow X has changes made not only to improve simplicity, but to promote more competitive (e.g. […]
Google is launching the Android Experiments I/O Challenge today in an effort to bring more interesting open-source apps to its Android Experiments showcase. The three winners of the challenge, which will run until April 13, will get a trip to this year’s Google I/O developer conference. The five runners-up will get Nexus 6Ps (which, in […]