A former Magic Leap engineer believes the problem with most consumer-facing augmented headsets on the market is their bulky size. “You wouldn’t want to wear them for more than one hour,” Xu Chi, founder and chief executive officer of Nreal told me as he put on a bright orange headgear that looked just like plastic Ray-Ban […]
View More China’s Nreal raises $15M to shrink augmented headsets to size of sunglassesCategory: engineer
The Da Vinci Drawmaton is a blast from the Renaissance
Robert Sabuda makes mechanical books – pop up books with mechanical features that make them move and change while you read them – and he’s made it to the top of the New York Times best seller list multiple times. Now he’s taking on a new challenge: rebuilding and selling a version of Leonardo da […]
View More The Da Vinci Drawmaton is a blast from the RenaissanceThe ultimate guide to gifting STEM toys: tons of ideas for little builders
The holiday season is here again, touting all sorts of kids’ toys that pledge to pack ‘STEM smarts’ in the box, not just the usual battery-based fun. Educational playthings are nothing new, of course. But, in recent years, long time toymakers and a flurry of new market entrants have piggybacked on the popularity of smartphones […]
View More The ultimate guide to gifting STEM toys: tons of ideas for little buildersBig tech must not reframe digital ethics in its image
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s visage loomed large over the European parliament this week, both literally and figuratively, as global privacy regulators gathered in Brussels to interrogate the human impacts of technologies that derive their power and persuasiveness from our data. The eponymous social network has been at the center of a privacy storm this year. And […]
View More Big tech must not reframe digital ethics in its imageA Twitter employee groomed by the Saudi government prompted 2015 state-sponsored hacking warning
An explosive report in The New York Times this weekend sheds new light on the apparent targeting of Twitter accounts by “state-sponsored actors” three years ago. It comes in the wake of the confirmed death of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi on Friday, two weeks after he disappeared in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Khashoggi […]
View More A Twitter employee groomed by the Saudi government prompted 2015 state-sponsored hacking warningHow an artist is making acoustic electronic music using robots
Moritz Simon Geist is a musician and robot engineer who is dedicated to finding the perfect sound for his unique kind of electronic music.
Geist builds mechanical robots which create the sounds and beats in IRL. Just like the argument between d…
Weed in space is going to be a thing now
Scientists interested in cannabis as a subject for pharmaceutical studies may find an unlikely new home for their research into the plant, its byproducts and biochemistry aboard the International Space Station. Yes, weed is going to space thanks to the work of a small Lexington, Ky.-based startup called Space Tango. The company makes a “clean […]
View More Weed in space is going to be a thing nowKZen raises $4 million to bring sanity to crypto wallets
KZen, a company run by former TC editor Ouriel Ohayon, has raised $4 million in seed to build a “better wallet,” obviously the elusive Holy Grail in the crypto world. Benson Oak Ventures, Samsung Next, Elron Ventures invested. Ohayon, who has worked at Internet Lab and founded TechCrunch France and Appsfire, wanted to create an […]
View More KZen raises $4 million to bring sanity to crypto walletsMeet the startups in the latest Alchemist class
Alchemist is the Valley’s premiere enterprise accelerator and every season they feature a group of promising startups. They are also trying something new this year: they’re putting a reserve button next to each company, allowing angels to express their interest in investing immediately. It’s a clever addition to the demo day model. You can watch […]
View More Meet the startups in the latest Alchemist classImplantable 3D printed organs could be coming sooner than you think
At MBC Biolabs, an incubator for biotech startups in San Francisco’s Dogpatch neighborhood, a team of scientists and interns working for the small startup Prellis Biologics have just taken a big step on the path toward developing viable 3D printed organs for humans. The company, which was founded in 2016 by research scientists Melanie Matheu […]
View More Implantable 3D printed organs could be coming sooner than you thinkThe race to build autonomous delivery robots rolls on
It’s been a busy year in delivery robot land. Starship Technologies sounded the starting gun to bring autonomous delivery vehicles to market with a $17.2 million round led by Daimler back in January 2017. Then in January this year the Mountain View, Calif.-based company Nuro, raised the curtain on its own vision for robo-delivery with a […]
View More The race to build autonomous delivery robots rolls onThis DIY smart mirror is small, stunning and full of features
Several years ago Google X engineer Max Braun published a medium post on a smart mirror he made and now he’s back with a new version that’s smaller and smarter. This is a smart mirror I can get behind though I still find smart mirrors completely frivolous. He published his project on Medium where he […]
View More This DIY smart mirror is small, stunning and full of features