Shopping online for electronics can be overwhelming. First you have the tech blog reviews, and then the forums, and then the product page itself. Finding the right product, at the right price, can be difficult. That’s where Grover (formerly ByeBuy) comes in. For roughly 5 percent of the retail price, users can rent electronics for a month and try before they buy. Plus, users can extend… Read More
Print your own triple-axis tourbillon (trust me, it’ll be cool)
In the world of horology there are few things fancier than the tourbillion and there are few things extra fancier than a triple-axis model. Originally invented by Abraham Louis Breguet, the tourbillion was a modification designed to ensure that a watch would keep good time in any number of positions – in a pocket, on a desk, or jostling around in a bag. It does this by spinning… Read More
Inkbox’s short-term tattoos raise $1M from Alison Sweeney, Jeff Probst and more
Inkbox’s two-week tattoos made waves when the company debuted its product on Kickstarter last year – Toronto-based founders Tyler and Braden Handley raised nearly $300,000 for their organic limited-time body art invention, which was a refinement of their original product offering that cut application time to just 10 minutes. A year later, they’ve raised $1 million in seed… Read More
Tinder Social, helping friend groups plan their night out, launches globally
Get ready for a new era — Tinder is about to launch Tinder Social globally. What is Tinder Social, you might ask? Well, Tinder Social is exactly the social planning app that has failed in the past, but backed by the world’s biggest young adult dating app. Tinder, the dating app to rule them all, has long teased other verticals for meeting and creating connections with the people… Read More
Apple just dropped another iOS 10 public beta for you crazy testers
That didn’t take long. Just a day after releasing the third iOS 10 developer beta, the second public beta of iOS 10 is now available to download. The second public beta of macOS Sierra was also released today. And of course, you won’t have to pay $99 a year for a developer account. But things are still rough at this stage so I wouldn’t recommend installing it on your main… Read More
Lockheed Martin’s Hydra Fusion builds 3D maps in real time from drone footage
A drone is a great eye in the sky, but if you want richer data than what its cameras show — for example, detailed 3D maps — you might be looking at a few hours of processing time. That is, unless your HQ is rocking Lockheed Martin’s cool-sounding Hydra Fusion tools, which can build that 3D map in real time from just video. Read More
Get lost in 10,000 square miles of multiplayer VR with MetaWorld later this year
Virtual reality as it exists currently is generally an isolating experience. Plenty of VR worlds are sparsely populated, inhabited by robots, or empty. There are social platforms for VR already, but MetaWorld, an upcoming collaboration between UK-based Improbable and Berkeley-based HelloVR, will expand the horizons of social VR – expand them nearly 10,000 square miles, to be exact.… Read More
Goldman Sachs leads $10M investment in Brazilian trucking startup CargoX
CargoX, a Brazilian startup that has been described as “Uber for trucks,” is announcing that it has raised $10 million in Series B funding. The analogy is kind of irresistible, since Uber co-founder Oscar Salazary is one of CargoX’s investors — he’s certainly seen his share of “Uber for X” pitches, but he told me he sees a big opportunity here due to… Read More
Doppler Labs raises another $24m to put a computer in your ear
Doppler Labs, the makers of the Here Active Listening system and the Here One headphones, has today announced the close of a $24 million follow-on Series B funding round led by Peter Chernin and The Chernin Group. New investors also contributed, including Kevin Efrusy, David Geffen, Dan Gilbert, Henry Kravis and Anton Levy, among others.
Doppler Labs has been on the scene since 2014, slowly… Read More
The Yamaha LL-TA Guitar turns a lonely little room into a concert hall
“Well you’re in your little room,” wrote the bard. “And you’re working on something good. But if it’s really good you’re gonna need a bigger room.” With the Yamaha LL-TA you can have just that. The $1,600 Yamaha LL-TA – the TA stands for Transacoustic – is an acoustic guitar with a built-in effects processor and actuator that augments… Read More