Day: February 2, 2018

 Thirty-nine million Americans now own a smart speaker device, but the voice app ecosystem is still developing. While Alexa today has over 25,000 skills available, a number of companies haven’t yet built a skill for the platform, or offer only a very basic skill that doesn’t work that well. That’s where the startup Storyline comes […]

 Remember the iced tea company that changed its name to Long Blockchain and immediately shot up by 500 percent on the stock market? Well, it turns out it may not be getting into the blockchain after all. The company has decided to back off from its pledge to buy 1,000 bitcoin mining machines — just […]

 Die With Me is a (paid) app that can only be used for chatting when your phone (and your interlocutors’ phones) are at 5% or less battery left… Read More Source: New feed

 This morning, Dell confirmed previously published reports in an SEC filing, that it is considering various options to possibly reorganize itself. Reports emerged last week suggesting the Dell board was planning a meeting to discuss options for dealing with the enormous debt it took on when it acquired EMC in 2015 for $67 billion. The SEC […]

 YouTube CEO  Susan Wojcicki took to the service’s Creator Blog last night to issue some broad goals for the year forward. The plans largely revolve around increased transparency on the company’s part and tightening enforcement — a pretty clearly reaction to multiple creator controversies over the past year and change, including, most recently, the suicide […]

 When is a bike light not a bike light? When it turns itself off automatically and can signal that you’re braking even before you stop. The Lucnt SRL1 is just that kind of light. Created by a pair of SF-area brothers, the light is hand-made and is rechargeable via USB. It connects to your bike […]

 A group of students from the Warsaw University of Technology and the Jagiellonian University in Krakow built an indoor location system for disabled students. They’re rolling out the app, created during a local Campus App Challenge/hackathon. The creators, Łukasz Ławniczak, Jakub Kmiotek, Tomasz Urbaszek, Miron Marczuk, and Szymon Stankiewicz, used a tool called IndoorWay to […]

 YouTube today said it’s launching a change to its service that will offer viewers more transparency around where news broadcasters get their funding. According to a company announcement, YouTube will now add notices below videos that are uploaded by broadcasters who receive some level of government or public funding. “Our goal is to equip users with […]

 The Matt Hancock app, which launched this week and quickly ran into a storm of criticism for displaying an unfortunately lax attitude to privacy, has caught the attention of the UK’s data watchdog. Awkward. Read More Source: New feed

 Spotify addressed one of the long-standing complaints about its service with the introduction of a new songwriter credits feature, which is initially available on the Spotify desktop app. The streaming service has had a contentious history with songwriters, who have continuously accused the company of not licensing or paying them for the use of their music. […]