The Daily Crunch 09/14/16 Uber begins driving itself, Geohot says he's gonna ship self-driving ASAP, and Twitter turns to TVs. All that and more in The Daily Crunch for September 14, 2016. And if you're at Disrupt, find me and say 'Hi!' and you get a free sticker. 1. All about Uber's self-driving fleet Uber started picking up passengers in its self-driving vehicles in Pittsburgh today, and TC's Signe Brewster got to take a ride in one. The trip was "boring," she told me, in a good way – boring or uneventful is exactly what you want out of your average taxi or bus ride, after all. 2. Meanwhile, aftermarket Autopilot arriving soon with a 5-minute install process Uber's got basically the top autonomous driving researchers in the world on its team for self-driving cars; George Hotz has a ragtag bunch of inspired young coders and hardware hackers, yet he's still set to launch Comma.ai's first shipping product, the Comma One, by the end of this year. 3. Twitter's TV ambitions crystallize Twitter now has smart TV apps, for Apple TV, Xbox One and Amazon's Fire TV, which gives users access to streaming video from the social network. That includes free live streams of 10 NFL games this season, through a partnership Twitter announced earlier in the year. It also shows Vines, and Periscopes, as well as top tweets. Twitter's TV transformation continues – I really believe this is where they're gonna put the bulk of their energy as they look to find a new, more growth- and advertiser-friendly identity. 4. While YouTube goes the other way with added social YouTube's going in the opposite direction, adding more community features for sharing on the creator side, with automatic GIF-making tools, a Twitter or Facebook-like feed, and everything they need to basically make their own social network around their fanbase. Google tries social again, so best of luck I guess. 5. Alexa crosses the pond Amazon has been holding its Alexa international expansion back for quite a while now, but it's finally expanding beyond the U.S. with the launch of Echo and Echo Dot in the UK and German. It's nice to see the Dot make a comeback, since it has apparently been discontinued in the US, and it's less expensive upon its return – just $50 in the US when it ships in October. 6. Apple Watch becomes what it always should've been Apple Watch Series 2 is what the Apple Watch probably always should've been to begin with – it's swim proof, and it has built-in GPS, but more importantly, it's a lot faster thanks to its new dual-core processor, in just about every situation. This could be the Watch iteration that makes it a truly break-out product. 7. Battlefield finalized I'm literally at Disrupt SF 2016 right now writing this in a mad panic before I take the stage to interview Cruise founder Kyle Vogt, and we announced our finalists who will battle it out this afternoon for the Disrupt Cup. Good crop of co's this time around for sure. | 
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.