David Lidsky's Blog, page 2771
March 10, 2016
Extended Whole Foods Partnership Bodes Well For Instacart
The companies announced on Thursday that they would continue their deeply integrated partnership.
Among the cart of services lining up to deliver your groceries—Uber, Postmates, Amazon, Google—Instacart is distinct in that it integrates deeply with some partners' operations. While a Postmates driver might stop at a grocery store, purchase an item, and deliver it, since signing on to a partnership with Whole Foods in September 2014, Instacart has hired employees who it trains specifically to shop in 80 Whole Foods stores and, in some cases, even has a dedicated checkout line in those stores.
Genetic Testing Needs To Get Better, And The FDA Wants To Help
For about $1,000, companies can read your DNA, but not without mistakes. The U.S. government is trying to help them do a better job of it.
Your genome, the strands of DNA in the cells of your body, contains more than 3 billion base pairs—chemical bonds that act like letters of code. Amazingly, new technologies can take a drop of blood or saliva and read someone's whole genome in about a day, for as little as $1,000 (down from close to $47,000 six years ago). Unsurprisingly, they don't get everything right. No one knows for sure how far off the results are, and how much the accuracy varies from one test and company to another.
Cola Wants You To Spend As Little Time As Possible In Its New Messaging App
The app's polling, location, and scheduling features streamline all the chat debates that normally require dozens of text messages.
For any new smartphone messaging app, the biggest hurdle is getting people to switch over from the ones they already use, such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and even plain old SMS. To win their hearts and minds, new messaging apps have to walk a tightrope between introducing new features and aping the de facto standard interface that users know and love. The startup Cola's new app, launched on Wednesday, toes that line while offering additional chat functions to keep your conversations short and productive—so you can get on with the rest of your day.
Roku And Best Buy Offering Super-Cheap 4K Smart TVs
Super-popular streaming box and smart TV platform goes 4K for cheap in TVs from Best Buy.
Streaming video is everywhere today, and 4K/UHD TVs are headed that way, too. Starting out as behemoths costing as much as a midsize car, 4K sets are now available at human scale, some priced below $500. Today Roku announced some of the cheapest smart TVs with 4K screens—available from Best Buy ranging from $400 for a 43-inch screen to $650 for a 55-inch set. By comparison, a 4K Vizio smart TV with a 43-inch screen sells for $500 on Best Buy's site.
How To Avoid Another Crisis Like Flint
Addressing the inequality in how we run our cities won't be easy. That's why we have to do it.
The tragedy that is Flint, Michigan, should not be possible in the 21st century. In this time of Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, it's inconceivable that almost no one in the world knew that 100,000 people in the United States were without clean drinking water for more than a year. How could we so publicly fail to protect thousands of poor people of color only 10 years after Hurricane Katrina? Why in the richest country in the world were there still lead pipes delivering water to kids despite decades-old legislation against lead in water, air, and more starting in 1970? We cannot allow this to happen again.
March 9, 2016
How Pollsters Got Blindsided By Bernie Sanders's Upset Win In Michigan
The democratic socialist won the state's primary by a narrow margin after pollsters had predicted a double-digit Clinton win.
The pollsters made their biggest error in 30 years when they predicted Hillary Clinton would defeat Bernie Sanders by a double-digit margin Tuesday night in the Michigan primary.
More Communities Join Obama's TechHire Initiative To Close Tech Talent Gap
Now more than 40 communities are committed to helping Americans get access to IT educations and jobs.
One year ago, President Obama announced a new initiative aimed at filling America's 500,000 vacant tech jobs. The TechHire initiative has two goals: make it easier for people to obtain an IT education, and help employers find and hire these people based on their actual skills, rather than requiring a computer science degree. Today, the president announced the program is expanding.
Your Facebook Feed Will Soon Be Filled With Strange Faces
Facebook has acquired video filter app MSQRD, in what looks like an attempt to spice up its video content—and catch up to Snapchat.
Facebook just scooped up Masquerade, the Belarus-based company behind MSQRD, an app that specializes in zany video filters—which means it's just a matter of time before you start seeing videos in your news feed tricked out with Snapchat-style filters. Neither company has disclosed how much Facebook paid for the acquisition.
WeWork Valuation Soars To $16 Billion
The office-rental company is now the sixth most valuable private company, tied with Snapchat.
Just nine months after investors placed a $10 billion valuation on WeWork, the office-rental company has raised another round of funding at a $16 billion valuation, according to documents filed on Tuesday in Delaware.
Watch The Video Footage Of Google's Self-Driving Car Hitting A Bus
Last month, one of Google's self-driving Lexus SUVs caused a collision with a public bus—and it was caught it on camera.
A Lexus SUV from Google's squad of self-driving cars was involved in a minor collision with a public bus last month, marking the first time one of the vehicles was directly responsible for an accident. The incident was caught on video by a camera in the bus, which was obtained by the Associated Press and posted to YouTube on Wednesday.
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