| Uber takes its self-driving show to the Golden Gate city, Amazon starts flying its delivery drones and Instagram gets a memory. All that and more in The Daily Crunch for December 14, 2016. 1. Uber's self-driving cars arrive in SF In a very Uber-like launch, the ride hailing company debuted its self-driving cars in San Francisco. These third-generation vehicles use a base provided by Volvo, in the form of the new XC90 SUV, and will be picking up passengers who hail uberX at random. The launch doesn't have everyone thrilled – the California state DMV has issued a statement noting that Uber should get a permit to run its tests on state roads like everyone else. Uber says it isn't necessary, since these aren't fully autonomous vehicles yet. 
2. Amazon starts Prime Air drone delivery in the UK Everyone's starting something autonomous today – Amazon is kicking off its Prime Air trials in the UK, but with a small pilot pool of users: two. Two people can get deliveries from the drones, which are legally clear to operate in the UK while not yet cleared for autonomous use in the US. 3. Instagram lets you save pics for later Bookmarking pictures on Instagram sounds like a useful thing, right? Well now it's here! Instagram added the feature today, giving users a way to easily jump back to pictures they found particularly interesting, or wanted to comment on but hadn't yet formulated a clever enough joke about. 4. Young VC firms beat legacy at diversity It's not surprising but it could make a big difference when it comes time for star startups to pick their investment partners: a study shows that younger VC firms beat the older ones easily when it comes to the diversity of their teams. 5. Twitter's doing direct live broadcasting No more jumping out to Periscope – you can now broadcast live directly from the Twitter app itself. This is a key ingredient if Twitter wants to make this a thing more people do on its network. It's also probably overdue, given the progress of competitors like Facebook. 6. Bumble takes a stake in Chappy Dating app Bumble has invested in Chappy, a UK-based gay dating app, with a sliding scale of urgency for match selection. The investment is solely coming form Bumble here, with equity in exchange, and there's a strategic tie-up, too, so this could become an acquisition down the line. 7. Amazon Prime Video launching in over 200 more countries Amazon has long been content to play mostly int the U.S. sandbox when it comes to media, but now it's opening Prime Video to a big range of new countries. Mine included – yay. | 
No comments:
Post a Comment