Amazon really wants to deliver to Americans via drones. At a NASA conference in Silicon Valley today (July 28), the retailer outlined its vision for how drones could be incorporated into the national airspace.
Backordered. Shipping soon. Coming this fall. Invariably, whenever you come across a nifty new product idea on Kickstarter, it won’t be shipped to you any time soon, even if you back it. Amazon wants to change this. Its new LaunchPad program will allow startups and crowdfunded projects to sell on the world’s largest online retailer.
The slow death of Google+ continues. Today Google announced that it will be slicing out its social network from the rest of its services, meaning users won’t be forced to set up a Google+ account to comment on YouTube videos or use Google Photos. Soon, you’ll be able to use Google services with just a private Google account.
Maybe we should take the warnings of RoboCop more seriously. Famous scientists, engineers, and businessmen are banding together to call for a ban on autonomous weapons development.
IBM’s Watson, the cognitive computing system that beat two smart humans at Jeopardy!, is slowly working its way to wrangling all of the world’s data. It can help figure out proper cancer treatments, answer your questions about Singapore’s tax code, and even tell you where to eat in Austin, Texas.
There is a massive square-city-block building in West Oakland called American Steel. It used to be a repair shop for huge cargo ships. But as the industry left Oakland, the giant, rusted hull of a building took on a new purpose, housing artists, tinkerers and makers who need space to build big projects. It has a crane that they can use to lift objects up to 10 tons, like old cars they’re fixing up, huge steel statues, or in MegaBots’ case, giant fighting robots.
Despite all the fanfare, 3D printing has yet to hit its stride. Up until now, its best uses have been in designing, prototyping, and making creepy copies of yourself. This tends to stem from the fact that you can generally only print with one material at a time, and in most cases, it’s faster to use traditional manufacturing methods than 3D printing. But Voxel8 wants to change that: Its printer can print circuits right into other objects.
The Japanese are now soccer world champions. Robot soccer champions, at least.
You’ve done a lot of interesting things in your life, but how many of them can you list right now? How well do you actually remember them? Google’s next version of its head-mounted Glass wearable could make forgetting a thing of the past.
One of the world’s newest sports has its first champion. The winner of the inaugural US national drone racing championship was crowned at the California State Fair in Sacramento on July 17. Although it was a US competition, the nationals were won by an Australian, Chad Nowak. But that’s ok.
The first drone delivery approved by the Federal Aviation Administration went off without a hitch last week in Wise County, Virginia. Flirtey, an Australian drone-delivery startup, piloted a drone carrying medical supplies from an airfield to a medical clinic.
Sacramento, California
Sacramento, California
Even with all the obsessive marketing and design awards handed out over the years, most smartphones pretty much look the same. They’re all basically colored rectangles with a smaller black rectangle for a screen on the front. But a new patent awarded to Google suggests the phones of the future might not look like they have screens at all.
Faster than a speeding bullet! More powerful than a locomotive! Able to leap tall buildings at a single bound!
T-Mobile US announced today that starting July 15, it’s letting its customers call Mexico and Canada for no additional fee. It’s calling the move “mobile without borders,” which is slightly less grand than than similarly entitled Doctors Without Borders initiative, but important nonetheless.
Amazon is planning on having some sort of self-flying drone delivery system in place in the next year, but Swiss Post—the national postal service owned by the Swiss government—could beat it to the punch. On July 7, Swiss Post announced that it will be testing out a drone delivery system this month.
This post has been corrected.
Setting up service for your mobile phone can be a hassle. It often involves endless paperwork, long lines, confusing pricing structures, undertrained staff, and large bills. Google’s new wireless service, called Project Fi, wants to change that. It launched in April, but has taken some time to proliferate. Now the reviews are rolling in, and so far they’re looking rather favorable.
In a recent interview with his hometown newspaper in New Hampshire, NBA power forward Matt Bonner covered a range of subjects, from how he’s spending the offseason to the basketball camp he runs at a local middle school. The story, published July 5 on the Concord Monitor’s website, also included this scoop: Bonner attributes his poor shooting form last season to a bout of “tennis elbow” he believes came from using his iPhone too much.
If you’ve ever pretended you were a director, framing shots with your fingers, the next version of Google Glass might be able to make your directorial dreams become reality—sort of. A future Google wearable may let users take photos using just their fingers.
Andrea Pirlo—perhaps Italy’s greatest soccer player since the days of Roberto Baggio and a man whose sublime playing style is only matched by his hairstyle—will join New York City FC on July 21.
GoPro’s tiny, mountable cameras, which have fueled an entire industry of extreme videos, make it easy for rowdy, adventuresome types to film their antics and still have their hands free. Today, GoPro announced the HERO4 Session, a cube-shaped camera that’s smaller than any cameras the company has previously released.
This post has been updated with comments from MegaBots.
