• Snips brings its privacy-focused voice assistant to cars

    Snips brings its privacy-focused voice assistant to cars

    French startup Snips is announcing two things for its voice assistant SDK. First, the company is showing off an interesting use case in Nuremberg with a Snips-powered voice assistant in a car. Second, you can now build voice assistants in German. Snips isn’t technically competing with Alexa Voice Service or Google Assistant SDK as they’re not designed…

  • MyBagCheck lets you drop off your bags anywhere

    MyBagCheck lets you drop off your bags anywhere

    MyBagCheck is a clever system that ensures you’ll be able to spend those extra few hours in a foreign city without having to lug around 50 pounds of Samsonite. The founder, Micah B. Lewis, created the app to allow people who have bags to get those bags picked up and stored during the day, something…

  • Product Hunt launches no-spam tech news digest app Sip

    Product Hunt launches no-spam tech news digest app Sip

    “We didn’t want to create another app thirsty for attention” writes Product Hunt CEO Ryan Hoover. So instead of a constant stream of fresh stories and alerts, Product Hunt today is releasing what’s essentially a tech industry newsletter in iOS and Android form. Sip distills the day’s big headlines into a set of Twitter Moments-esque…

  • Anchor’s new app offers everything you need to podcast

    Anchor’s new app offers everything you need to podcast

    Broadcasting app Anchor, which helps anyone record and share audio, is relaunching its app today with a new focus on serving the larger podcaster community. While in the past, Anchor was carving out a niche for itself in the short-form, social audio space, the new version – Anchor 3.0 – aims to be everything you…

  • Twitter is (finally) cracking down on bots

    Twitter is (finally) cracking down on bots

    Twitter is cracking down on bots after it announced changes to its API that will massively reduce the impact of services that allow links and content to be shared across multiple accounts, i.e. the software that powers Twitter bots. So that means an end to services that let those controlling large numbers of accounts to…

  • Snapchat responds to the Change.org petition complaining about the app’s redesign

    Snapchat responds to the Change.org petition complaining about the app’s redesign

    Snapchat has posted an official response to users who signed a petition on Change.org asking the company to reverse its controversial update, which people say makes the app more difficult to use. In the response, Snapchat promises to make a few more changes to the Friends and Discover section in order to address user complaints.…

  • ‘Alto’s Odyssey’ is now available on iOS and it’s wonderful

    ‘Alto’s Odyssey’ is now available on iOS and it’s wonderful

    Alto’s Adventure could be my most-played game on iOS. I spent countless hours on flights getting lost in the serene landscape offered in the game. To me it’s a satisfying mix of adventure and mindless pleasure. The sequel is now available on iOS and it’s even better than the first. As Darrell explains here, the…

  • Cognoa’s AI platform for autism diagnosis gets first FDA stamp

    Cognoa’s AI platform for autism diagnosis gets first FDA stamp

    Cognoa has gained regulatory recognition for its machine learning software as a class II diagnostic medical device for autism — meaning the digital health startup is now positioned to submit an application for full FDA clearance. It’s a first but important regulatory step for a business that was founded back in 2014, and plays in a…

  • Amazon expands its Techstars Alexa Accelerator to London, starts search for second cohort

    Amazon expands its Techstars Alexa Accelerator to London, starts search for second cohort

    Amazon continues to tap into the developer community to expand the ubiquity of its Alexa voice-based assistant, and it’s taking the strategy international. Today the company opened applications for the Alexa Accelerator, the program for startups building solutions and services for voice-based assistants, which Amazon runs in conjunction with Techstars. Most notably, as part of…

  • Facebook’s plan to unite AR, VR and News Feed with 3D posts

    Facebook’s plan to unite AR, VR and News Feed with 3D posts

    What if you could digitally sculpt a 3D object and share it on Facebook, play with it in virtual reality or insert it into your world with augmented reality? Facebook is polishing up stages one and two today after debuting posts of interactive 3D models in News Feed in October that you can move and…