We knew Google had an Echo Show competitor or three up its sleeve, but the company still managed to surprise us. Instead of just launching its own version of Amazon’s touchscreen assistant, the company has employed the help of some third-parties who know a thing or two about making hardware. Maybe Google got cold feet after a recent string of hardware bumbles — or perhaps the… Read More
09
Jan
2018
Lenovo launches a Google Assistant-powered Echo Show competitor
We knew Google had an Echo Show competitor or three up its sleeve, but the company still managed to surprise us. Instead of just launching its own version of Amazon’s touchscreen assistant, the company has employed the help of some third-parties who know a thing or two about making hardware. Maybe Google got cold feet after a recent string of hardware bumbles — or perhaps the… Read More
Alexa continues to make its way to the TV – going beyond attached players like Amazon’s Fire TV and Fire TV Sticker or the Fire TV Edition televisions. At CES, a number of TV manufacturers announced their plans to integrate Amazon’s voice-controlled smart assistant into their own sets, either for the first time or as an expansion on earlier efforts, including Hisense, Sony… 
Money transfer company TransferWise has begun a private launch of its “Borderless account” for consumers. It marks the first time the European unicorn has offered a debit card, a move that is bound to draw further comparisons with newer fintech upstarts such as Revolut. 
Facebook VP of VR Hugo Barra made a surprise announcement during Qualcomm’s press conference at CES. Barra previously led Xiaomi’s international efforts. So it wasn’t that surprising to see him announce a new partnership between Xiaomi, Qualcomm and Facebook. 
Digital whiteboards are a curiously popular project for big companies to dabble with lately. It’s one of those things companies build because they can – because they’ve already figured out all the tech involved with their other projects. Google has the Jamboard. Microsoft has the Surface Hub. And now, Samsung has the Flip. Details are still light, but the company dropped word… 
Practice Fusion, a 12-year-old, San Francisco-based start-up backed by the likes of Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, was written about several years ago as a company on the brink of going public. In 2015, JPMorgan, working with Practice Fusion, estimated that the company could be assigned a valuation of around $1.5 billion if it went public in 2016, a figure based off estimated revenue of… 
Onstage at Baidu’s CES 2018 press conference today, Baidu COO Qi Liu was joined by Udacity founder Sebastian Thrun to announce a new collaboration between the two companies. Thrun revealed that Baidu and Udacity will collaborate in a number of areas, including, “for the first time, building courses together with both a Chinese and an American company” for the online… 
For Sony, CES is a show of sheer, brute force. It’s all about a big, flashy showing from a consumer electronics giant. And unlike big competitors like Samsung and LG, Sony hasn’t spent much of the past few weeks showing its hand, so there’s going to be plenty of unknown here. That said, if past years are any indication, this is going to be a big show for TV and audio offerings. 
Between ARM-powered PCs, standalone VR headsets and the abundance of smart assistants, Qualcomm’s got its fingerprints everywhere at this CES. At a press conference today, the company debuted a number of new chips. One of the more interesting of the bunch is the Low Power Bluetooth SoC QCC5100 — a chip designed specifically for wireless earbuds. The company’s claiming…