-
Google’s Cloud Machine Learning service is now in public beta
Google announced a number of updates to its cloud computing services at a small event in San Francisco this morning. These updates touch Google’s machine learning services, as well as its database and analytics services, and include an update to how it supports its users. The company’s focus today, though, was clearly on machine learning. Google launched the private alpha of… Read More
-
Amazon to spend $2.5M on university competition to build “socialbot”
If you need an Uber, Amazon Alexa has your back. Unfortunately if what you need is a conversation buddy, the personal assistant isn’t quite up to the task. In an effort to bolster Alexa’s social intelligence, Amazon is putting $2.5 million into a new university competition to design and build “socialbots” for the platform. Engineers will use the Alexa Skills Kit to… Read More
-
Google launches third developer preview of Android Wear 2.0 but pushes final release to 2017
Google today launched the third developer preview of Android Wear 2.0, the next major version of its operating system for smartwatches. At the same time, though, the company also today said that it will continue the preview program into early 2017. While Google never talked about a final release date for Wear 2.0, its original schedule called for about 30 weeks of alpha and beta testing… Read More
-
Facebook’s F8 2017 conference outgrows SF, hits San Jose April 18th-19th
Facebook couldn’t fit all the developers for its F8 conference into San Francisco’s Fort Mason any more, so F8 will take place at San Jose’s McEnery Convention Center on April 18th and 19th, 2017. Registration hasn’t started yet but will follow the same rules as last year, which you’ll want to follow if you’re trying to get a seat as it always sells out quickly. Read More
-
Skymind raises $3M to bring its Java deep-learning library to the masses
Skymind, a company developing an open-source deep-learning library for Java, along with tools for implementation, today closed $3 million in financing from Tencent, SV Angel, GreatPoint Ventures, Mandra Capital and Y Combinator. Skymind was previously part of Y Combinator’s Winter 2016 batch and has taken money from Joe Montana’s Liquid 2 Ventures and a number of other… Read More
-
Zuck’s photos from Facebook’s futuristic Arctic data center
Why pay for air conditioning when you can just build a data center near the Arctic Circle and pump in the frosty winds? That’s why Facebook created these massive fans for its Luleå, Sweden data center. In hopes of proving that Facebook’s 10-year plan goes way beyond the News Feed, Mark Zuckerberg has begun sharing rare photos of the company’s technology. Here’s his… Read More
-
Crunch Network
Solve real problems, provide real solutions
We love the internet. We love apps. We love the Internet of Things. But most importantly, we love ideas. The accessibility that the internet provides, however, is also what makes it unbelievably difficult for new digital businesses to get off the ground. Read More
-
Google open sources image captioning model in TensorFlow
Pretty much 100 percent of my generation is obsessed with Instagram. Unfortunately, I left the platform (sorry all) back in 2015. Simple reason, I am way too indecisive about which photos to post and what pithy caption to give them. Fortunately, with ample spare time, those who share my problem can now use an image captioning model in TensorFlow to caption their photos and put an end to… Read More
-
Intuit wants to turn TurboTax into a platform
Intuit’s TurboTax stores highly detailed financial data for millions of users who import their W2s, their banking data, info about their mortgages and more. Right now, all of this data is locked into TurboTax, but the company is now thinking about how it can do more with it by giving its users the option to share this data with reputable third parties. As TurboTax EVP Dan Wernikoff… Read More
-
Facebook enlists developers to outdo Snapchat’s filters with Profile Expression Kit
Facebook sees 30 million updates to profiles each day, but it can’t build every tool to keep your photos and videos interesting. So today it’s globally rolling out its Profile Expression Kit to all developers. This makes it easy to add media like Vine videos, Boomerang GIFs, Beauty+ enhanced selfies, MSQRD face filters, Lollicam stickers, and Flixel cinemagraphs (seen above) as… Read More
-
InfluxData closes $16 million Series B led by Battery Ventures to organize IOT data
Imagine for a moment that you’re riding in one of John Zimmer’s proposed autonomous sleeper cars and you’re fast asleep on a road trip across the state. All of the sensors on the vehicle are collecting data so that standard components like the engine and steering systems don’t kill you. At sub-second intervals, some believe your car could generate nearly a gigabyte… Read More
-
Crunch Network
Hacking for investor profit
Just over four years ago, I sat through what still is the most viscerally disturbing information security talk I’ve ever seen. The late Barnaby Jack, a brilliant security researcher, had just demonstrated in front of 300 people how he could wirelessly take control of an Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator and cause it to discharge enough electricity to jump a 12 mm spark gap. Read More
-
Runnable wants to make developers more productive
Back in 2013, Runnable launched with the mission to become the “YouTube of code” that allowed its users to find and run code snippets on its site. Times have changed, though, and the well-funded company is going into a slightly different direction today. Runnable today is a tool for enterprises that want to give their developers the ability to quickly spin up full-stack… Read More
-
Crunch Network
The evolving road of beacon tech
When Apple launched its iBeacon protocol at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in 2013 it laid the foundation for an entire new industry — the proximity industry. Three years later, close to 500 proximity companies operate globally, and between 6 and 7 million beacons are deployed in commercial settings with the latest forecasts pointing to a total of 500 million beacons by the end… Read More
-
Cloud Foundry launches its new Docker-compatible container management system
Cloud Foundry, the Pivotal- and VMware-incubated open source platform-as-a-service project, is going all in on its new Diego container management system. For a while now, the project used what it called Droplet Execution Agents (DEA) to manage application containers. After running in parallel for a while, though, the team has now decided to go all in on its new so-called “Diego”… Read More
-
Crunch Network
What do you call a ‘non-entrepreneur? Cuba’s best hackers
What do you call an innovative person who builds a product out of nothing and launches something that will change people’s lives? Everywhere besides Cuba, you’d call this person an entrepreneur. You’d never expect in the land of communism, censorship and classic cars that you’d find a hotbed of entrepreneurship. Technically, it doesn’t exist. But in my eyes… Read More
-
GitHub gets built-in project management tools and support for formal reviews
GitHub is hosting its Universe developer conference in San Francisco today. Unsurprisingly, the company used this event to announce a number of new features for its Git-based code hosting service. The company calls it its “biggest update to the platform yet,” though how important these changes really are probably depends on how you use GitHub. If you’re working on a team… Read More
-
Sqreen’s security shield automagically blocks attacks on your web app
French startup Sqreen protects your web apps and services with little effort from your side. If you don’t want to deal with security yourself, Sqreen is a software-as-a-service product that automatically watches for attacks and protects your server in real time. The company is participating in the Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt SF. If you already have a web app up and running… Read More
-
Microsoft’s Azure Service Fabric for running and managing microservices is coming to Linux
Microsoft’s CTO for Azure (and occasional novelist) Mark Russinovich is extremely bullish about microservices. In his view, the vast majority of apps — including enterprise apps — will soon be built using microservices. Microsoft, with its variety of cloud services and developer tools, obviously wants a piece of that market. With Service Fabric, the company offers a service… Read More
Message Us