Daily Archives: April 13, 2017



 What will Facebook launch next week at its F8 conference? The schedule reveals plans to give Instagram offline features that are already in testing, opening its Camera Effects Platform to developers so they can create more powerful photo and video overlays for people to use, and a Places Graph for developers to do more with Facebook’s location database beyond the existing APIs. Most of… Read More

Facebook’s F8 plans include camera effects platform, offline Instagram



 Google is getting into the restaurant delivery and home services businesses – nope, not in the U.S., but rather in parts of India. The company has quietly launched a new app called Areo which currently only works in Bangalore and Mumbai, India, allowing users to order meals from nearby restaurants or schedule appointments with local service professionals, including electricians,… Read More

Google Areo is a new app for ordering food or ...


 When it comes to home surveillance cams there are two kinds of cams – low-end, highly-motorized, wireless IP cams that are (typically) fairly insecure and higher-end cloud service systems like Dropcam that offer secure but more expensive cameras. SpotCam seems to land squarely in the middle with their SpotCam Sense Pro line. I tested two models and found them more than acceptable for… Read More

SpotCam connects you to your home, outside and in



 When it comes to home surveillance cams there are two kinds of cams – low-end, highly-motorized, wireless IP cams that are (typically) fairly insecure and higher-end cloud service systems like Dropcam that offer secure but more expensive cameras. SpotCam seems to land squarely in the middle with their SpotCam Sense Pro line. I tested two models and found them more than acceptable for… Read More

SpotCam connects you to your home, outside and in


 Christopher Ward is a relative newcomer to the watch scene and has long produced simpler, less expensive pieces for the fashion set. Now, after a bit of a rebirth, the British company is finally releasing pieces a techie would love. Take the euphoniously-named C60 Trident Chronograph Pro 600, a $1,750 watch with a large, thick 43mm case made of stainless steel, a ceramic bezel, and a nice… Read More

The Christopher Ward C60 Trident Pro 600 is the sea ...



 Founded in 2012 with the small goal of enabling connectivity-free communication, goTenna has ballooned to over 23 employees and delivered real hardware to market in the process. Today the startup is adding another $7.5 million to its coffers in the form of a Series B led by Union Square Ventures. goTenna’s full suite of products effectively convert phones into walkie-talkies, allowing… Read More

goTenna Series B fuels vision to make short-range communication possible ...


 “Move last and take things” seems to be Facebook’s new motto. Now the parent company’s top Snapchat clone Instagram Stories has hit 200 million daily active users, surpassing the last count of 161 million that Snapchat announced alongside its IPO. Instagram Stories launched in August, hit 100 million dailies in October, and 150 million in January, so it’s… Read More

Instagram Stories hits 200M users, surpassing Snapchat as it copies ...



 Microsoft just sent out invites to members of the media for its big reveal of Xbox Project Scorpio, the upgraded console that will be the “first true 4K console for gamers” according to the company. We’ve long expected E3’s press event to be the big consumer debut for Scorpio, but Microsoft spelled out that it will indeed be the star of the show in a blog post on… Read More

Microsoft will reveal Project Scorpio Xbox console details at E3 ...


 Amazon is making the technology that makes its Echo line of devices so good at picking up your voice commands available to third-party device makers. That includes the microphone array that helps Echo pick up speech even in a fairly noisy room, as well as Amazon’s own proprietary software for recognizing wake words, reducing background noise and cancelling out echoes in large open rooms.… Read More

Amazon offers Echo’s excellent voice recognition tech to other device ...