Another day, another Spectacles vending machine location. This is the fifth place the Snapbot has appeared, to sell its first-person video capturing sunglasses to droves of willing Snapchat fans (or at least people hoping to turn a tidy profit by reselling them on eBay). Today’s spot is in Pasadena, at the Rose Bowl Stadium where there’s a USC/UCLA game later today. The previous… Read More
from Social – TechCrunch http://ift.tt/2g8sJR1 Snapchat Spectacle vending bot lands at the Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena Darrell Etherington http://ift.tt/2gvERiy
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The precise information you need, delivered exactly when and where you need it. Personalized engagement and experiences. Easy step-by-step navigation. These are just some of the things you get with indoor location-based services. Similar functions have existed outdoors for years, but indoor location services have seen much slower adoption. But that’s about to change. 
A guy like Ralph Clark has a tough job: if all goes according to his business plan he’ll put himself out of business. He is the CEO of ShotSpotter, a surveillance system for cities that triangulates gunfire in 90 cities. I asked him if he’d ever have to shut down. “You know, sadly, in the US that won’t be the case,” he said. The company is coming under fire for… 
It might be time for movie lovers to add another streaming service to their monthly subscriptions — FilmStruck, a new service created by Turner Classic Movies. Services like Amazon and Netflix are building up libraries of originals (starting with TV, but also including films), and they’re striking deals to get high-profile new releases. But if you’re a particular kind of… 
It seems everyone is interested in big data these days. From social scientists to advertisers, professionals from all walks of life are singing the praises of data science. In the social sciences, many scholars apparently believe it will lend their subject a previously elusive objectivity and clarity. However, when it comes to the social sciences, big data is a false idol. 
Facebook today said it is authorizing a $6 billion stock buyback that will go into effect in the first quarter next year. Facebook in its last earnings call also said that its growth would likely slow as a result of the company reaching its maximum advertising load. While Facebook has historically grown at a very fast clip, the company is now in a position that it needs to find additional… 
Play-Doh has come to the iPad. With the newly launched toy set for kids, Play-Doh Touch Shape to Life Studio, Hasbro has made a solid attempt at bringing the joy of Play-Doh to digital through an iOS app that brings kids’ creations to life. But the combination of physical play and digital is not a skill set that’s easily mastered even by top kids’ brands — just ask… 
Cogito, a real-time feedback platform for customer service agents, added $15 million to its coffers today in the form of a Series B. This brings the company’s total fundraising to $22.5 million. The MIT Media Lab spin off is applying the principles of behavioral science to call centers around the world to improve customer experiences. Cogito compares the characteristics of a current… 
It’s getting harder to get people to try new mobile applications, according to a new state of the industry report out now from Adobe, as consumers are sticking to what they know when it comes to the apps on their smartphones. App abandonment is also climbing, and app installs are only up 6 percent year-over-year, the report states. Meanwhile, launches of existing apps are much higher… 
San Leandro based Airspace Systems is making a business out of solving the toughest problems facing the emerging drone industry. The company designed a drone of its own, jam packed with sensors and machine intelligence, to autonomously intercept threatening drones at high speeds and carry them away from large crowds. If you think this sounds difficult, you would be right. The company employs… 
A new mobile application called Listen wants to make phone numbers smarter by giving you more control over who’s texting and calling, thanks to a variety of features like whitelists, reminders, auto-responders, mute buttons, and more. The idea, explains the company, is to offer one “inbox” for everything that comes in via your phone number. The end result is a number you can… 
500 Startups just wrapped up its 18th batch of company launches last month — which means it’s already looking forward to the next one. This time around, in its 19th batch, the program (no longer called an accelerator, ironically) has 44 companies ranging from business-to-business software and beauty products. You’ll find everything from software for managing fitness businesses… 
As of today, founders have a lot of options as to what kinds of accelerator programs they might want to look into trying to get in to. There’s Y Combinator, TechStars, and 500 Startups, among many others. But with so many choices, it might be easy for an outside observer to not really directly distinguish between them. For Dave McClure — who wants to show that his firm 500 Startups… 
Sesame Ventures, the venture fund formed by Sesame Workshop and New York-based Collaborative Fund in May, has made its first investment in a tutoring platform called Yup. Specifically, Yup (formerly known as MathCrunch) has raised $4 million in a seed extension round led by Sesame Ventures, bringing the company’s total capital raised to date to $7.5 million. Yup connects students with… 
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