All posts tagged: the techcrunch minute

This robotic wheelchair can climb stairs

This robotic wheelchair can climb stairs

Published by skeptic

Korea’s Institute for Machinery and Materials unveiled a pretty cool robotic wheelchair this week. By creating a compliant wheel that conforms to the terrain around it, these engineers have created an early version of a wheelchair that can climb stairs and traverse rocky terrain. The wheel uses a “smart chain” structure, which means that a chain on the wheels attaches to spokes that change tension when confronted with changes in the terrain. The team says that this design was inspired by the surface tension properties of water droplets, which are rounded by gravity. On today’s TechCrunch Minute, we’re looking at how these wheels work. Source link

When did iPads get as expensive as MacBooks?

When did iPads get as expensive as MacBooks?

Published by skeptic

Apple’s iPad event had a lot to like. New iPads with new chips and new sizes, a new Apple Pencil, and even some software updates. If you are a big fan of Apple hardware, well, it was probably a good day. Now you can get an updated and thinner iPad Pro, if that’s your jam. But while watching the event and parsing its news in the immediate aftermath I ran into a personal sticking point. While it’s welcome that iPads are getting more and more powerful, their price point is challenging and even surpassing those of many computers. Which seems a little bit backwards. Here’s how TechCrunch reported on the matter: It’s also an expensive machine: The iPad Pro starts at $999 for the 11-inch model. The 13-inch version costs $1,299. And the iPad Pro doesn’t come with a keyboard or a pencil in the box, so you often end up paying more than the price of a MacBook Air. Those prices go up by $200 if you want cellular connectivity. So if you wanted a …

TechCrunch Minute: Spotify’s move to paywall lyrics is putting pressure on free users

TechCrunch Minute: Spotify’s move to paywall lyrics is putting pressure on free users

Published by skeptic

Spotify’s slow movement to put lyrics behind its paid service wall in its music service are about as popular as you would expect. Precise details of the update are evolving but what we can say at this point is that it seems that Spotify has a new feature up its sleeve to try and get free users to convert to is paid service. The why behind the move matters more than the what. Sure, it’s a little weird that Spotify is going to start putting information that is freely available online behind a paid wall, but the company is in a slightly difficult position today. Thanks to an early start and attractive pricing, Spotify is huge. It does billions in revenue, and helped shake up the music industry for good. That said, it largely offers paid access to other peoples’ music. Other companies do the same. Apple is one of them. That means that Spotify’s pricing power is modest at best. Features like its yearly music review are neat, but don’t allow Spotify to charge more …

TechCrunch Minute: Where CZ’s sentencing leaves the state of crypto

TechCrunch Minute: Where CZ’s sentencing leaves the state of crypto

Published by skeptic

Four months behind bars and a massive fine, that’s what CZ is getting from the government for his crypto exchange’s misdeeds. Regardless of how you view the verdict — too much, too little, just right — his sentencing is a big deal for web3. Potentially in a positive way. There’s effort by some in crypto to promote the technology element of blockchains over their well-reported ability to generate new gambling opportunities. Chris Dixon of a16z frames this in ‘computer v casino’ terms, which I think is reasonable. If you are in favor of the computer over the casino you probably want the crypto market to be as in-line with financial norms as possible. Why? Because that means that crypto can itself sit very close to the larger world economy, and thus the computing elements of blockchain tech can shine, attract investment, and provide the most use. If you are more in favor of the casino side of the conversation — line go up, memecoins, bitcoin maximalism, etc — you might not be a fan. After all, …

Watch: Between Rabbit’s R1 vs Humane’s Ai Pin, which had the best launch?

Watch: Between Rabbit’s R1 vs Humane’s Ai Pin, which had the best launch?

Published by skeptic

After a successful unveiling at CES, Rabbit is letting journalists try out the R1 — a small orange gadget with an AI-powered voice interface. This comes just weeks after the launch of the Humane Ai Pin, which is similarly pitched as a new kind of mobile device with AI at its center. While we’re still waiting on in-depth reviews (as opposed to an initial hands-on) of the R1, there are some pretty clear differences between the two devices. Most noticeably, the Ai Pin is screen-less, relying instead on a voice interface and projector, while the R1 has a 2.88 inch screen (though it’s meant to be used for much more than typing in your WiFi password). And while the AI pin costs $699, plus a $24 monthly subscription, the R1 is just $199. Both, according to TechCrunch’s Brian Heater, show the value of good industrial design. It sounds like neither the Ai Pin (which got some truly scathing reviews) nor the R1 makes a fully convincing case that it’s time to replace our smartphones — …

Watch: How Headspin’s founder fraudsters almost get away with lying to investors

Watch: How Headspin’s founder fraudsters almost get away with lying to investors

Published by skeptic

News that the former founder of HeadSpin is headed to prison for fraud was further evidence that the last boom in the paired worlds of startup and venture capital led to more than just a little bit of fraud. Manish Lachwani, founder in question, is getting prison time and a massive fine for lying to investors, lies that allowed his company to raise nine-figures worth of funding. The company persists, and would likely prefer to let the entire situation fade from the public eye. Fair enough, but the tale of Lachwani — the New York Times reports that Lachwani inflated “HeadSpin’s revenue nearly fourfold, making false claims about its customers and creating fake invoices to cover it up” — is not an isolated case. Even past the somewhat dated frauds at Theranos and Rothenberg Ventures, there’s been a lot to cover lately. From investor complaints about Bolt’s fundraising, to BloomTech, Nikola, Binance, and FTX, we’ve seen a lot of financial shenanigans. Why are we seeing so much fraud and related behavior from upstart tech companies? …

TechCrunch Minute: Where the Apple Vision Pro stands now the launch day hype has dropped off

TechCrunch Minute: Where the Apple Vision Pro stands now the launch day hype has dropped off

Published by skeptic

A few months after its launch, how is Apple’s Vision Pro faring? The company’s ambitious bet on computers that nestle on your face instead of sit on your desk made a huge splash when it was announced and later release. However, the hype has since seemingly come back down to Earth. I am a long-term bull on augmented reality, virtual reality, and face-computers in general. I still recall my first session with what became the Microsoft Hololens project as one of the most impactful moments for my excitement for technology. So it is to my partial chagrin that the hype around the Apple Vision Pro has faded more rapidly than I anticipated. Of course, with its Pro moniker, expensive price tag, and uneven developer support thus far, the new Apple device has a long road ahead of it. But I anticipated the Apple brand to keep the hardware in the news — and atop our collective minds — longer than it managed after its launch. For now, we remain mostly in the dark regarding the …

Watch: Amazon bets B on Anthropic’s success

Watch: Amazon bets $4B on Anthropic’s success

Published by skeptic

The current AI wave is a never-ending barrage of news items. To understand what I mean, ask yourself how long you spent considering the fact that Amazon put another $2.75 billion into Anthropic AI last week. Right? We’ve become inured to the capital influx that is now common in AI, even as the headline numbers get even bigger. Sure, Amazon is slinging cash at Anthropic, but single-digit billions are chump change compared to what some companies have planned. Hell, even smaller tech companies — compared to the true giants — are spending to stay on the cutting edge. So as we digest Amazon’s latest, let’s do a quick rewind through some of the largest AI rounds in the last few quarters, and ask ourselves just why we’re some big tech corps get busy with their checkbooks. Source link

TechCrunch Minute: Sam Bankman-Fried’s sentencing marks an end to the FTX saga

TechCrunch Minute: Sam Bankman-Fried’s sentencing marks an end to the FTX saga

Published by skeptic

After a lengthy trial and conviction, we finally learned how long former crypto baron Sam Bankman-Fried will be behind bars: up to 25 years. It’s a lengthy sentence, but one that given the scale of the crimes he was convicted of, doesn’t come as a shock. For the crypto industry, it’s also the final page […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only. Source link

TechCrunch Minute: You’re likely seeing less news and politics on Instagram. Here’s why

TechCrunch Minute: You’re likely seeing less news and politics on Instagram. Here’s why

Published by skeptic

  As the election cycle heats up, Instagram and Threads will be cooling down the amount of political content entering many users’ feeds. These changes, which limit the reach of political content from accounts users don’t already follow, are enacted by default. If you’re already wondering how to get that kind of content back into your feed, you can follow our guide on changing Instagram’s political settings here. Meta has made an effort to decrease the reach of news and political content across its platforms, especially in regards to content that is algorithmically recommended versus being surfaced from a direct connection to an individual or account. Threads will host, but not “amplify” news, per remarks from its head Adam Mosseri’s last year. And Facebook is shutting down the News Tab as it continues to block news content in Canada in an ongoing dispute with legislation requiring platforms to pay publishers for content. And what posts and topics will Instagram actually deem to be political? The answer, as expected, is both far-reaching and vague, covering anything …