As reported on The Verge. By Adrianne Jeffries With a deluge of apps coming to the car, it’s time to start taking distracted driving as seriously as drunk driving Morgan Webb, the gaming and tech personality, stood on a purple-lit stage between a Chevy Impala and a Corvette and raised her arms triumphantly. The candy-apple-red cars looked ordinary, if a little shinier than normal, but it was what was inside that mattered: LTE connectivity and an…
As reported on Engadget. BY ROSS RUBIN Some of today’s leading wearable devices are, at their core, little more than souped-up pedometers. Their once-dim monochrome LCD screens have migrated from atoms to bits that connect to the internet, allowing them to display information in a more engaging way and track it over time. They have been a big win for output, but with essentially the same input. Indiegogo in particular has been a fertile launchpad for…
As reported on Wired. BY BEN PAYNTER Monsanto’s new veggies are sweeter, crunchier, and more nutritious—with none of the “Frankenfoods” ick factor. Nicholas Cope In a windowless basement room decorated with photographs of farmers clutching freshly harvested vegetables, three polo-shirt-and-slacks-clad Monsanto executives, all men, wait for a special lunch. A server arrives and sets in front of each a caprese-like salad—tomatoes, mozzarella, basil, lettuce—and one of the execs, David Stark, rolls his desk chair forward, raises…
As reported on Wired BY MARCUS WOHLSEN ADVERTISEMENT SIMILAR GALLERIES Delivery Drones Already Exist — And They’re Way Bigger Than Amazon’s Giant Fembots Dance With Dinosaurs in the Weirdest Show on Earth The Next Big Thing You Missed: If the Apple Store Sold Groceries Google Channels Pixar to Change Storytelling as We Know It Nest Gives the Lowly Smoke Detector a Brain — And a Voice Box.com Melds Google and Microsoft Into Document Engine of the…
As reported on TechCrunch. by Ryan Lawler More and more urban commuters are embracing cycling as a way to get to and from work and around the city, and more and more cities are embracing cyclists by adding bike lanes and making commutes safer and more fun. But bicycle safety is still a huge issue in even the most bike-friendly cities. A new startup called Blaze hopes to improve rider safety by reimagining the classic bike light. Blaze’s…
As reported on TechCrunch. by Sarah Perez Andreessen Horowitz-backed music lyrics and annotations Rap Genius was the latest to stray over to the darker side of so-called “growth hacking,” with its spammy SEO tactics disguised as an affiliate program. Called out, exposed and now punished by Google, the site’s traffic has tanked. But Rap Genius, thanks in part to that $15 million investment, will probably recover. They’ll clean up their links, make amends, and maybe even get back into Google’s good graces.…
As reported on The Verge. By Katie Drummond Colorado’s marijuana dispensaries opened their doors to recreational users this morning, but their first customer was far from someone just looking to have a good time: Sean Azzariti, a Denver-area veteran of the Iraq war who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), instead purchased weed to help alleviate symptoms of his illness. Azzariti’s purchase was largely a symbolic one, orchestrated by activists who led the charge to…
As reported on TechCrunch. by Catherine Shu This year, several notable apps that connect users with house cleaners have launched or gained traction. These include Homejoy,Exec and laundry service Prim. There are a lot of benefits to hiring a professional cleaning service but, unfortunately, I live outside the area covered by these apps. Letting people I don’t know into my apartment also makes me feel exposed. I just don’t like having strangers judge my lovingly curated collections of masking…
As reported on The Verge. By T.C. Sottek Researchers from UC Irvine have found that people with extraordinarily accurate memory are as vulnerable to the inception of fake memories as others, indicating that perhaps nobody is protected from memory distortion. The study, published last month inProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, focused on people with highly superior autobiographical memory (HSAM), who are able to recall highly specific facts about their lives, like what they ate for lunch, going…
As reported on Engadget. BY JON FINGAS If you need an illustration of the problems with overly stringent copyright laws, look no further than the British Library. The institution has just made its archive of UK website domains available to the public, but you can’t actually visit it from the web — the Legal Deposit Libraries Act requires that you stop by one of six libraries in the country to take a look. While reforms may be coming, the British Library…