Consumer gadgets standby Logitech has acquired JayBird, a maker of fitness-focused wireless earbuds and trackers, for $50 million in cash, the companies announced today. “The Jaybird team will have all the scope to innovate they had before,” said Rory Dooly in a post on the Logitech blog. “They’ll continue to feed the Jaybird brand and design products like the latest… Read MoreDaily Archives: April 12, 2016
Consumer gadgets standby Logitech has acquired JayBird, a maker of fitness-focused wireless earbuds and trackers, for $50 million in cash, the companies announced today. “The Jaybird team will have all the scope to innovate they had before,” said Rory Dooly in a post on the Logitech blog. “They’ll continue to feed the Jaybird brand and design products like the latest… Read More
“You never slow down, you never grow old.” Tom Petty isn’t playing the F8 after-party, but his song encapsulates the point of Facebook’s conference — a social network won’t go extinct if it’s reactive, personalized, and urgent. Everything launched today is designed to eschew the generic. To wrap around the user and bend to their whims to create a… Read MoreFacebook Alive
Ah, spring — when a young engineer’s fancy lightly turns to harvesting icy moons for rover fuel. NASA has announced the recipients of its yearly National Innovative Advanced Concepts awards, and they’re just as out there as the planets and other stellar objects they propose to mine, analyze and explore. Read MoreNASA selects 13 early-stage, high-concept moonshots for $100K funding each
We’ve written about a number of air purifiers before, but Sprimo is taking a different approach — instead of trying to clean all the air in the room, it creates a personalized stream of clean air for individual users. Now, a phrase like “personalized stream of clean air” might sound a little silly, but CEO Ray Combs and CTO Harold Han (who has a Ph.D. in chemistry from… Read MoreSprimo takes a personal approach to purifying your air
Ever hear of first-person drone racing? If not, you’re in for a treat. This kinetic and exciting sport, or competition, whatever you want to call it, is growing fast and it looks like ESPN wants a piece. The sports network signed a deal with the International Drone Racing Association today that could help bring races to the mainstream. Read MoreDrone racing organization IDRA scores broadcast deal with ESPN
There’s an epidemic of stolen videos on Facebook. Business Pages rip videos from YouTube, TV, or other Pages, and then post them on Facebook as their own to gain more engagement and fans. This is known as “freebooting”. Video makers were pissed off about it because they were losing video views to others who didn’t have permission to use their clips. Slate sounded the… Read MoreFacebook launches video Rights Manager to combat freebooting
Facebook launched its Messenger chatbot platform today, but how will it make money on it? By charging businesses to send re-engagement messages to people who’ve already voluntarily started a conversation with them. These “Sponsored Messages” are currently in testing with a small test of advertisers, and are being heavily monitored by Facebook to prevent them getting spammy.… Read MoreFacebook starts allowing “Sponsored Messages” ads
Facebook today launched the Facebook Profile Expression Kit, which gives third-party developers a way to publish videos recorded on their apps as profile pictures on Facebook. The service was announced at the company’s annual developer conference, f8, in San Francisco today. Videos that are recorded on third-party services can now be used as profile videos with the new tools. Details are… Read MoreFacebook lets users record Facebook profile videos in third-party apps
Marfeel, a startup that helps publishers adapt to mobile, now supports publishing Instant Articles on Facebook. That might not sound like a big breakthrough — basically, it just means Marfeel can repackage articles for Facebook’s new, native publishing format. However, it illustrates today’s mobile strategy means much more than just creating a mobile website or app.… Read MoreMobile publishing and monetization startup Marfeel adds support for Facebook’s ...
Messenger is all about bots now. As expected, Facebook unveiled the Send and Receive API at its F8 conference. It lets you create bots for Messenger to search for things and interact with businesses. But what if you want to use machine learning and create more complex scenarios? Meet the Bot Engine, Facebook’s more powerful bot framework. Read More