New Technology News

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Earlier today a video began circulating that showed what appeared to be a Yahoo project that would be aimed at the virtual assistant market currently dominated by Siri and Google Now. The video, which was posted earlier today by Android Police, shows a man driving around speaking to an app which recognizes his voice.

We did some digging and sources familiar with Yahoo’s internal projects tell us that the video is fake. Whoever made it has some interesting ideas, and a bit of video making chops, but that’s about it.

Currently, Yahoo’s acquisitions are being integrated into its product teams very quickly, on an average time scale of weeks rather than months. The company has begun integrating people and technology at a fairly rapid clip, pointing to purpose-built acquisitions.

That’s why it didn’t seem too outlandish when the Android Police story mentioned Yahoo’s SkyPhrase acquisition as something that could be behind this kind of product. We’re not sure exactly what SkyPhrase is doing at Yahoo, but this project is not it — because it’s not a Yahoo project at all.

<br /><a href=”http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x18j9t5_yahoo-voice-assistant_tech”>Yahoo! Voice Assistant</a> <i>by <a href=”http://www.dailymotion.com/lamIaml”>lamIaml</a></i>

The video displays an app that hovers over the top of the Android home screen in a manner similar to Facebook Messenger’s Chat Heads. We became suspicious of the video due to its amatuer-ish nature (we understand that most Yahoo project videos, even internal ones, are far more polished than this). The Yahoo logo is also incorrect, which led us to believe that someone had comped something together out of unofficial resources.

So, is Yahoo working on a virtual assistant project? Maybe. Is this video it? Nope. I’d personally welcome a large — somewhat agnostic — third party version of Google Now and Siri that worked everywhere without a platform agenda behind it. The more options the better.

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That Yahoo Siri/Google Now Competitor Video Is Fake

4:09 PM

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Earlier today a video began circulating that showed what appeared to be a Yahoo project that would be aimed at the virtual assistant market ...

Toronto-based Bionym turned heads with its concept for wearable hardware that authenticates a user based on their heartwave signature, which could turn the whole world of digital security on its head. It’s a key tied to your person in a very intimate sense, meaning it can’t really be stolen or lost like even a current standalone unique passkey generator can.

We met with Bionym CEO and co-founder Karl Martin at their headquarters in Toronto, where the engineering team shares relatively limited space with the rest of the folks. The team is growing at a rapid clip, however, and the plan is to move into a more accommodating space in the near future. As it stands, however, it’s kind of nice to see people soldering and testing brand new circuit boards right next to those arranging future partnerships and doing developer outreach.

Martin filled us in on the progress his startup has made since launchings its pre-order campaign back in September, and it sounds as if things are on track. Final design is still mostly up in the air, but as you can see, things have come a long way from the original prototype that Martin and his co-founder Foteini Agrafioti developed first only roughly a year ago. It’s also very interesting to hear Martin articulate exactly where he sees Nymi’s tech headed – including a long-term goal where it becomes a wearable you won’t even notice you’re wearing.

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Bionym’s Vision For A Future Where Secure Account Holders Are Their Own Credentials

3:39 PM

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Toronto-based Bionym turned heads with its concept for wearable hardware that authenticates a user based on their heartwave signature , wh...

[12/18/13, 5:12:24 PM] Bob Patterson: so this creepy santa video

[12/18/13, 5:12:28 PM] Bob Patterson: was that sent to you?

[12/18/13, 5:13:16 PM] Anthony Ha: yes

[12/18/13, 5:13:41 PM] Bob Patterson: I feel like you get an unusually large percentage of this crazy pitch email

[12/18/13, 5:13:54 PM] Anthony Ha: nope! that’s just what a lot of PR people are like

[12/18/13, 5:14:05 PM] Bob Patterson: also you may be sexually assaulted by a creepy santa is what i got out of that video

[12/18/13, 5:15:57 PM] Bob Patterson: you should write a post about how awesome xtranormal is

[12/18/13, 5:16:15 PM] Bob Patterson: if that even still exists

(Editor’s note: It doesn’t.)

[12/18/13, 5:16:19 PM] Anthony Ha: well xtranormal was used by a techcrunch writer

[12/18/13, 5:16:27 PM] Anthony Ha: to create the greatest PR-related video ever

[12/18/13, 5:18:41 PM] Bob Patterson: if I was that PR dude I would definitely go the next step and send you some coal if you didn’t write

[12/18/13, 5:19:02 PM] Bob Patterson: start leaving threatening heavy breathing voicemails, the whole 9 yards

[12/18/13, 5:19:15 PM] Bob Patterson: That’s just how business is done

(Transcript edited for brevity; video created by Plotagon.)

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I Guess It Was My Turn To Get A Creepy Pitch Video

3:39 PM

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[12/18/13, 5:12:24 PM] Bob Patterson : so this creepy santa video [12/18/13, 5:12:28 PM] Bob Patterson: was that sent to you? [12/18/13, 5:1...

Google on Tuesday released XE 12, the latest update to its Google Glass product. One of its new features lets users take a photo with a wink. "If I were Google, I'd keep quiet about ... how quickly people can take photos of unsuspecting targets," said Joshua Flood, an analyst at ABI Research. Privacy is the biggest issue on the Internet, he said. Other new XE 12 features let users listen to music on their Google Music playlists, use Hangouts to share chats and photos and make video calls, and post videos to YouTube.

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Google Glass Just Got Creepier

2:38 PM

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Google on Tuesday released XE 12, the latest update to its Google Glass product. One of its new features lets users take a photo with a wi...

Quick! Where were you last Tuesday at 6:35 PM?

If you’re anything like me, your answer is probably along the lines of “I… have absolutely no idea.” Most people’s brains just don’t work that way.

But odds are, Google knows. They probably know where you’ve been most other days, too. And they’ll happily show you, letting you relive your life one step at a time.

If you carry any Google-filled gear (like, say, an Android phone or tablet), there was a prompt during the initial setup that asked if Google could transmit your location data back to the mothership. This is that data. You know how Google Now can auto-magically figure out where you work and warn you about traffic? This is the data that makes that possible (or at least a good chunk of it.)

Now, something to note: if you’ve been paying close attention, you might have seen this before. It’s not new. In fact, it’s been around for years. And yet, I had a helluva time finding many people who knew about it, even when I asked amongst my geekier circles. So consider this a public service announcement of awesomeness. A PSAoA, if you will.

I use “awesome”, here, instead of “terrifying and creepy”, because this is all opt-in. It’s a bit spooky in its scale, of course; it’s mindblowing to think about just how much data they’re gathering. But any data that’s there is there because you gave them the thumbs up at some point, even if it was while mindlessly clicking through the setup of a new device. If you’re suddenly realizing that there’s a location or two that you’d rather weren’t sitting in your history (hey, I’m not judging), you can wipe it on a day-by-day basis or clean your entire location slate in one fell swoop.

Google launched the first version of this tool around the same time that they launched Latitude. After they killed Latitude off, they kept their location browser around, polishing it up and adding new little tricks as time went on.

One particularly cool bit: scrub your mouse cursor over the graph at the bottom. The map above will play back your day, movement-by-movement. I spent well over an hour yesterday reliving the last month of my life, trying to remember what each stop was for.

Oh, and that graph? It’s charting your distance over time relative to where you began your day (so, in most cases, your home), along with a readout of your furthest distance traveled for each day. Fun(/kind of depressing) fact: for 3 days after Grand Theft Auto IV came out, the furthest distance I went was the Jack In The Box across the street.

If you missed the link above, here’s the link to the location history browser.

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Google’s Location History Browser Is A Minute-By-Minute Map Of Your Life

2:08 PM

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Quick! Where were you last Tuesday at 6:35 PM? If you’re anything like me, your answer is probably along the lines of “I… have absolutely no...

PrivacyStar released a version of its Android app today aimed at making it easier for users to avoid calls from aggressive telemarketers and debt collectors.

The previous PrivacyStar app already provided real-time caller ID, as well as call and text blocking. (You can watch an old TechCrunch TV interview with the company’s CEO here.) It also allows users to report abusive calls and texts. Now, according to Chief Marketing Officer Jonathan Sasse, it’s using that data to create a color-coded “alert system” for calls.

In other words, when you get a call from a number that would normally be unknown to you, PrivacyStar won’t just try to tell you who it is, but also identify the caller with a color that indicates how likely they are to be an annoying telemarketer. Here’s how the company described the system:

Green: For callers not in the address book and not known to be telemarketers or debt collectors

Yellow: A reported telemarketer or debt collector, but not on the PrivacyStar list of reported offenders

Red: For callers who are telemarketers or debt collectors that are on the PrivacyStar list of reported offenders

Scammer: Known scammers, calls and texts from these numbers will be automatically blocked before reaching the user and a notification will alert the user that a scammer has been blocked

The “offenders” mentioned above are those who have allegedly violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act or the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. In fact, the updated PrivacyStar even includes an option to report offenses directly to the Federal Trade Commission from directly within the app.

I wasn’t able to test the app out, since the new features are available on Android only (Sasse said that’s because developers don’t have access to many call blocking features on the iPhone), plus I actually get very few telemarketing-type calls.

PrivacyStar is available in both free and paid versions, but the new features are available in both. You can download the app here.

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Revamped PrivacyStar App Uses Color Coding To Help You Avoid Telemarketers

2:08 PM

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PrivacyStar released a version of its Android app today aimed at making it easier for users to avoid calls from aggressive telemarketers an...

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If you’re looking for a little background on bitcoin in China – and speak Chinese – this video from our TechCrunch event in Shanghai last month may be of interest. Featuring BTCChina CEO Bobby Lee as well as bitcoin luminaries Xu Mingxing, Celso Pitta, Wang How, and Mark Mai. During the time I was there I saw a lot of excitement in regards to bitcoin but many Chinese saw it as just another fad.

Not surprisingly the panel was quite bullish on the currency and many of them recommended the viewers buy bitcoin, touting like infomercial pitch men. It’s a fun viewing but, without the benefit of the live translation it will probably be useless to those who haven’t brushed up on their Chinese.