When Google turned into Alphabet back in 2015, it decided to spin off one of its internal startups, Niantic Labs (later renamed Niantic, Inc.), which had been developing augmented reality experiences. Now, seven years later, Google appears to be going into direct competition with Niantic. At its I/O conference Wednesday, Google announced that it’s offering AR developers a virtual map of the world to which developers can anchor AR graphics. This might allow them make AR experiences that ar
At the Google IO keynote on Wednesday, the tech giant announced two payment initiatives—a digital wallet and a virtual card—which are designed to both improve security and convenience for consumers. Google Wallet is a new service that will allow Android users to store everything from payment services to tickets to vaccine records. Google is a latecomer to the digital wallet space. Apple first introduced the concept with the release of iOS 6 in 2012 (though it wasn’t formally
Google announced a set of initiatives Wednesday aimed at creating a more equitable product experience for people across the skin-tone spectrum. At its Google I/O conference, the company unveiled a new, 10-point skin tone scale—that is, a set of 10 representative human skin tones that people can match to their own, or to skin tones shown in photographs—developed with Ellis Monk, an associate professor of sociology at Harvard University known for his research into skin tone and color
Not only are entrepreneurship opportunities fully available to (ahem) older people, but experience and wisdom can be secret weapons in business. To paraphrase a line in the John Mayer song, “Who Says,” it’s been a long time since 34—which is claimed by some to be the average age of successful startup founders. For me, that awkward age was marked by weekends on the sidelines of soccer games, evenings trying to catch up on endless email, and workdays making one mistake
Consolidation in the video game industry hasn’t been this robust for over a decade. And while rumors are swirling about plenty of potential next targets, no company is being talked about as frequently as Ubisoft. The gossip mill makes a lot of sense. Ubisoft’s stock is well off of its 52-week high, down 30% from the peaks it hit last May, and it’s trading for less than half of what it did in July 2018. The game publisher also has a rich catalog of O&O franchises including As
It’s rare for a tech company to issue a press release announcing that it’s discontinuing a product—especially one whose profile had already eroded into near invisibility. But there’s no mystery about why Apple chose to formally acknowledge that it’s ceasing production of the iPod Touch. Introduced in September 2007, the Touch has always been most easily described as a device that could do everything an iPhone could . . . except make phone calls. But it was also
Let me confirm what might be nagging you about the “metaverse”: There’s more to it than what you’ve been reading. The metaverse hype-men would have you believe that the ultimate purpose of this technology is a fancy ‘second life’ where consumers put on a clunky headset, create a digital twin of themselves, and buy that twin some virtual Nike shoes and artificial real estate. It’s all sneakers and NFTs; shopping, sports and concerts. It’s al
Leaders of twenty internet service providers were feted by the president in the Rose Garden Monday for agreeing to raise broadband speeds and lower prices for low-income Americans. “This is a great example of how the public sector and the private sector can work together to solve serious problems,” Biden said after asking the honchos from the big ISPs to stand up and take a bow. But, as you might expect when AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast are involved, the truth is in the details. The
As the country continues to struggle with a mental health crisis that’s only been exacerbated by the pandemic, electronic health-record startup Osmind has a rare sliver of good news: The San Francisco-based company announced on Tuesday a $40 million Series B round, which it says will allow for more hiring and critical product improvements. Osmind provides software to chart and update patient information and documents, with a focus on mental health. “Right now, what’s happeni
This article was published in partnership with New York Focus, a nonprofit newsroom covering state and local politics in the Empire State. Sign up for their newsletter here. Last month, the day after a gunman opened fire on a crowded Brooklyn subway, New York City Mayor Eric Adams went on Good Morning America to talk about his plans for improving transit security. His big idea, which he had first floated in January, involved installing artificial intelligence-driven weapons detectors in the subw