Google announced an update to Google Maps today that will make it easier for its users to find parking when they drive into town. For a while now, Google Maps users in the U.S. were able to see if parking at their destination was likely going to be difficult or not, thanks to the “parking
SQL is about as easy as it gets in the world of programming, and yet its learning curve is still steep enough to prevent many people from interacting with relational databases. Salesforce’s AI research team took it upon itself to explore how machine learning might be able to open doors for those without knowledge of
Another automaker is vowing to turn its entire lineup a little more green: Aston Martin told the Financial Times that it’ll offer vehicles exclusively with hybrid and electric cars by the middle of next decade. It’s not as audacious a goal as it might’ve seemed even just a few years ago; Volvo has committed to
There was a time when two-factor identification (2FA) was nice to have, but times have changed as hackers get ever more sophisticated and users need whatever edge they can get. Perhaps that’s why Okta, the cloud identity company that went public earlier this year, announced that it’s making 2FA the standard for all its customers.
Busy parents could benefit a lot from ridesharing, but they can’t send their children alone in an Uber until they are 18 years old. That’s why several startups are trying to build an “Uber for kids” concept, acting as a shuttle to take kids from school to soccer practice or home. There’s HopSkipDrive and Shuddle (which
As Rafiki once said, “It is time.” Tinder Gold, the dating app’s new premium subscription tier (which includes a feature that lets you see who’s already liked you without any swiping) is finally rolling out to the U.S. Tinder Gold and Likes You were originally tested in Argentina, Australia, Canada and Mexico at the end
We get a lot of weed-related pitches at TechCrunch, but most of them don’t come with the pedigree of Herb‘s investors. Herb is announcing today that it has raised $4.1 million in seed funding led by Lerer Hippeau Ventures, with participation from Slow Ventures, Buddy Media co-founder Michael Lazerow, Shiva Rajarama, Liquid 2 Ventures (the firm
Another major automaker is setting up a dedicated joint venture to build EVs for the growing demand in China, joining Ford and Volkswagen: This time, it’s Nissan-Renault, which will work with China’s Dongfeng Motor, an automaker it partnered with last year to open its first factory in China. Automakers from outside China basically need a
When VMware, Pivotal and Google announced a containerization partnership this morning at VMworld, it sounded more like the introduction to a joke — Google, VMware and Pivotal walked into a bar… But in fact, it’s probably not a coincidence that these three companies have joined together. They actually have a long and intertwined history —
There is a general misconception that Apple is strictly about consumer tools, but the fact is that the company has a big presence in the enterprise just by the sheer number of iPhones and iPads in the business world. It also has some high-profile partnerships with hefty enterprise vendors like IBM, SAP and Cisco. Today,
Sonos is almost certainly going to throw its hat in the smart speaker ring on October 4, when it’s hosting an event in NYC. We know about its forthcoming voice-enabled speaker because such a device was filed with the FCC, and the filing describes a speaker with voice control and far field microphones capable of
CNET interviews three Amazon execs about the growth of voice computing. Subscribe to CNET: http://cnet.co/2heRhep Check out our playlists: …
Pivotal, VMware and Google have teamed up on a containerization project that the companies say should simplify creating, deploying and managing container projects at scale. The companies are taking what is a set of open-source products and providing a commercial underpinning with the various parties in the partnership bringing the product to market. Google will
Even as Amazon steps up a groceries war in the US following its $13.7BN acquisition of Whole Foods — cutting prices at the chain this weekend to amp up the pressure on rival Walmart — other supermarket players are figuring out their own strategic responses to Jeff Bezos’ big food fight. UK online supermarket brand Ocado has today
Gigster is shifting from letting anyone outsource full-stack app development to building next-gen tech projects for big companies. If an enterprise needs machine learning and vision, data visualization, blockchain, React or Swift work done and doesn’t want to hire full-time employees, Gigster assembles a squad of freelancers and guarantees the work at a fixed price.
There are an increasing number of startups trying to bring more transparency — and, dare I say it, disruption — to various element of sea freight or the shipping industry. These include Freightos, the well-funded freight marketplace and freight-forwarding quote price comparison site, and, more recently, Shipamax, which is trying to drag bulk shipping into
Bunch, a newly-launched startup operating out of Berlin, is aiming to be something akin to a “Google Analytics for company culture”. It offers a SaaS to let companies and company teams quantify internal company culture, and then use this data as the basis to screen job candidates to help ensure that they will also be
Uber’s engineering blog has just posted an interesting piece on the company’s web-based tool for exploring and visualizing data from self-driving car research. It’s a smart look at an impressive platform, and definitely has nothing to do with a long piece published last week lauding a similar platform in use by one of Uber’s most
Western Digital has today announced that it purchased Upthere for an undisclosed amount. Upthere had previously raised $77 million from an impressive list of investors, with KPCB and Western Digital Ventures leading the round, along with Floodgate, Elevation Partners, GV, NTT Docomo Ventures and Square 1 Bank. Upthere wants you to think of its service
Engineer Julio Vazquez wanted to help his friend Rami Wehbe play the Nintendo Switch after he lost the use of his right hand due to a cerebrovascular accident. Wehbe couldn’t play Breath Of The Wild with the Joy-Con controllers because he needed both hands to manage the two sticks. Vazquez built a few simple prototype
If you like to keep on top of the latest display tech, you’re probably familiar with Ray Soneira’s exhaustive testing of the screens on the newest smartphones and other devices. His latest target is the Galaxy Note 8, and it turns out Samsung’s excellent phablet sports the best screen they’ve ever seen on a phone.
Fraud detection is a huge problem for retailers and the banking industry. But as companies fortify their defenses against fraudsters, the criminal element finds new weaknesses to exploit. The latest tactic has been phone spoofing, and fraud at the call center itself. Helping to ward off the latest wave of fake accounts is Next Caller,
Although Expedia CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has yet to officially accept the chief executive officer position at Uber, Expedia Chairman Barry Diller believes “it is his intention to accept,” according to an SEC filing. Just yesterday, it came out that Uber offered the CEO job to Khosrowshahi. In an email to Expedia employees, Diller wrote: As you
Who is Dara Khosrowshahi? Also, we talk about back to school hacking and our latest Road Trip feature on Angola. Good morning from CNET NY Studios while …
Skidos, an edtech startup based in Copenhagen after relocating its HQ from New Delhi, offers an SDK to help games developers turn casual games into “learning apps”. The idea, co-founder and CEO Aditya Prakash says, is to flip the existing model where educational games often do a poor job of mimicking popular non-educational gaming titles.
Facebook says it’s taking another step against Pages that share fabricated news stories. The company has already been working with outside fact-checkers like Snopes and the AP to flag inaccurate news stories. (These aren’t supposed to be stories that are disputed for reasons of opinion or partisanship, but rather outright hoaxes and lies.) It also
When VMware announced it was partnering with AWS last fall, it turned more than a few enterprise heads. After all, we’re talking about one company that dominates virtual machines on-prem, and the other in the public cloud. Together, the two companies make a powerful combination — and VMware made the whole shebang official today at
It looks like Sonos is nearing the release of a speaker that has a built-in voice control assistant. According to an FCC filing found by Dave Zatz, the company is seeking to get approval from the US government to sell a speaker that sports “integrated voice control functionality with far field microphones” and “multiple voice
VMware, the company that gave rise to the virtual machine concept in the enterprise data center, announced a series of products and services today at VMworld in Las Vegas that show a company clearly shifting to managing hybrid environments. The hybrid strategy really began to gain momentum last year when the company forged agreements with the
Reports say Google will introduce a new Chromebook. Here’s what it needs to be great. Subscribe to CNET: http://cnet.co/2heRhep Check out our playlists: …