Researchers at CMU’s Future Interfaces Group reckon they’ve come up with a quicker, less expensive and less cumbersome way to create a smart home. And one that might have some privacy benefits too. Just plug in their single ‘super sensor’ and play… Read More
Microsoft doubled down on its commitment to what it called “mixed reality” today at its Build developer conference, revealing motion controllers that work closely with VR headsets from Acer. With a $399 bundle containing all you need coming later this year, it could be one of the more affordable ways out there to get into the VR game. Read More
Taser’s decision to relaunch itself as Axon and give away thousands of body cameras could have been interpreted either as a growing company looking to expand or a desperate one scrambling for purchase. Fortunately it appears to be the former: Axon is growing and the next year may be even bigger. Read More
Earlier this week, Harman Kardon announced the Invoke, its Cortana-enabled Amazon Echo competitor. While Harman Kardon was the first company to integrate Cortana into this kind of device, it’s not going to be the only one for long. As Microsoft announced today, HP has also signed on to build similar devices. Intel, too, is getting into this game. Read More
Amazon’s Echo Show killer feature is video calls. If you buy a couple of devices, you can call each other using the device. And it should be so easy that young kids and grandparents will be able to use it in no time. If that sounds familiar, it’s because Amazon invested in a startup called Nucleus then built a copycat. And today is a rough day for the young startup. Nucleus spent… Read More
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have created a new way to turn almost any surface into a touchpad with just a little conductive spray paint. The system, called Electrick, uses a technique called “electric field tomography.”
Created by CMU Ph.D. student Yang Zhang, Electrick uses small electrodes attached to the edges of a painted surface and it can turn wood, plastic… Read More
Nixie (“Numeric Indicator eXperimental No. 1”) tubes were displays used for digital readouts before the advent of the LED. Popular with James Bond villains who wanted to rule the world yet whose bomb timers stopped at exactly 007 when Bond figured out what wire to cut (and with scientists), the tubes once graced the highest of the high tech circa 1950. Now, however, they’re… Read More
The Urban-X investors showcase is a closed-door event that shows off eight different incubated startups to potential investors and press. I stopped by earlier this week to see what the fuss was about. Of the eight companies in Urban-X’s 02 cohort, I picked four that tackled problems relating to pollution, the visually impaired, urban deliveries and maintaining public cleanliness:… Read More
Becoming a parent brings drastic change in the household budget. As such, new and expectant parents are a favored demographic among marketers. Startup founders and their backers have also taken an interest, applying technology and business model innovation to the increasingly tech-intensive art of watching, feeding, entertaining and transporting tiny humans. Read More
With titanium 3D printers, electrostatic charge tables, and a giant slide, Playground Global lives up to it’s a name. Here we take you on a tour of Android operating system inventor Andy Rubin’s hardware startup incubator that’s backed by a $300 million fund. Check out how the whimsical space lets scrappy hackers compete with Facebook and Google to recruit top talent. If… Read More
