The Portal line has always been a kind of odd duck in the world of smart screens. Facebook’s most significant contribution to the category is almost certainly Smart Camera, which uses AI to track a subject and pan and zoom accordingly to keep them in frame. It was the first big line to bring the…
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It’s that time of year again. Summer is winding down, the leaves are starting to change color and Apple’s getting ready to drop a brand new iPhone on the world. Today’s big event arrives less than a year after the last big iPhone event, as Apple seems to be back on schedule, after some early…
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The JioPhone Next, the much-awaited smartphone designed by Google and India’s Jio Platforms to tap hundreds of millions of users in the world’s second largest internet market, won’t launch on Friday, the Indian technology giant said Thursday midnight. In a statement issued just now, Jio Platforms said it has been testing the smartphone with a…
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The Roomba is easily among the most ubiquitous robots in the world — but it has never been one of the smartest. On the whole, that’s not a major issue. The top-selling vacuum is good at what it does: cleaning floors. But a roboticist’s work is never done; iRobot has turned the vast majority of…
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A stealthy startup co-founded by a former senior designer from Apple and one of its ex-senior software engineers has picked up a significant round funding to build out its business. Humane, which has ambitions to build a new class of consumer devices and technologies that stem from “a genuine collaboration of design and engineering” that…
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Jeff Morin Contributor Jeff Morin is the co-founder and CEO of Liteboxer, an at-home fitness company that creates immersive workouts. Startups are hard work, but the complexities of global supply chains can make running hardware companies especially difficult. Instead of existing within a codebase behind a screen, the key components of your hardware product can…
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One of the consequences of rising CO2 levels in our atmosphere is that levels also rise proportionately in the ocean, harming wildlife and changing ecosystems. Heimdal is a startup working to pull that CO2 back out at scale using renewable energy and producing carbon-negative industrial materials, including limestone for making concrete, in the process, and…
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What does a company have to do to differentiate wireless earbuds in 2021? The near ubiquity of good hardware has made this an increasingly difficult question to answer. I’ve probably tested around 10 different sets of buds over the last year or so, and honestly, they were all pretty good. Companies like Nura and Nothing…
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When it comes to e-paper devices, the Kindle is of course the first brand people think of, though I’ve done my best to spread the Kobo and reMarkable gospel as well. Chinese e-reader maker Boox is a relatively new entrant to the space, and its devices are experimental but useful options in the niche market…
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Kanye (or “Ye,” as it were) is going all out in the promotion of his upcoming tenth studio album, “Donda” (named for his late-mother, Donda West). In July, there was a massive listening party at New Orleans’ Mercedes-Benz Stadium (where he also took up residence in a locker room). For an upcoming listening party in…
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