Tech Boys

Lego has worked extremely closely with Apple over the years, experimenting with unreleased iOS tech and demoing it onstage at launch events like WWDC; this has included some pretty heavy tinkering on the augmented reality ARKit platform which they’ve integrated several of their play sets with, adding digital experiences to the physical toys. But one of the most impressive integrations between iOS tech and physical Lego bricks just popped up on the App Store, and it’s built by a team of fans. The new app Brickit is aiming to one-up what even the Lego Group has created with an app that uses computer vision tech to quickly make sense of a mountain of bricks. All users need to do is haphazardly dump legos into a single layer on the floor, from there the app is able to quickly analyze and identify bricks in the collection and serve up some fun little projects that users have all or most of the bricks they need to build. The most impressive element of the app is its speed — the app is abl...

Geoffrey Moore Contributor Share on Twitter Known for his seminal book "Crossing the Chasm," Geoffrey Moore is an author, speaker and adviser who splits his consulting time between startup companies in the Wildcat Venture Partners portfolio and established high-tech enterprises — including Salesforce, Microsoft, Autodesk, F5Networks, Gainsight, Google and Splunk. Jeff Bussgang, a co-founder and general partner at Flybridge Capital, recently wrote an Extra Crunch guest post that argued it is time for a refresh when it comes to the technology adoption life cycle and the chasm . His argument went as follows: VCs in recent years have drastically underestimated the size of SAMs (serviceable addressable markets) for their startup investments because they were “trained to think only a portion of the SAM is obtainable within any reasonable window of time because of the chasm.” The chasm is no longer the barrier it once was because businesses have finally understood ...

When Loki died at the end of Thor , it seemed like a plausible end to his character. It was not. His second sacrifice in Thor: The Dark World was a more obvious fake-out. The third time, when Thanos choked him out in Avengers: Infinity War, seemed to stick, but it only took until Avengers: Endgame to reveal the variant Loki loophole that led to the god of mischief starring in his own TV show. This is all to say that when Loki the TV series killed Loki for the fourth time by pruning his variant from the sacred timeline, you'd have to have some serious pattern recognition deficiencies if you thought he was really gone. Episode 4 of Loki took a page from Thor 's book and brought Loki back in a mid credit scene, but this one did a lot more than reveal that the Loki variant was still alive — it changed the game for what the Time Variance Authority is actually up to when they prune variants and might have opened the door to an entirely new corner of the multiverse. To begin ...

Twitter's making it rain NFTs. On Wednesday, the social media giant announced its intention to give away 140 non-fungible tokens hosted on the Rarible marketplace. Unlike Reddit, which just last week listed its own NFTs for sale , Twitter decided not to charge for these digital trading cards — perhaps in an unspoken acknowledgment that the longterm NFT value proposition is, at best, unclear. With the help of Rarible, Twitter minted 20 NFTs (i.e., created ERC-721 tokens on the Ethereum blockchain describing corresponding pieces of art) for each of the seven different pieces of digital art, sporting titles like "Furry Twitter," "Vitamin T," and "Reply Guy." Notably, those lucky enough to be gifted one of these things — the prerequisite for which (from all outside appearances) involves simply tweeting at Twitter or tweeting about the giveaway and the company DMing you directions on how to claim the NFT — don't actually own the art or any rig...

Fun fact: Alexa can speak in a variety of languages and accents that you have access to on your Alexa app. You can change Alexa’s voice settings just for kicks, sure. But the voice settings also come in handy if you have a family member or friend who speaks another language and needs to be able to use the Alexa system. Whether for practicality or just for fun, here’s how to change Alexa’s voice settings: Open the Alexa app. Tap “More” (the three lines icon). Select “Settings.” Select your “Device Settings.” You’ll see all of your Alexa devices on the next screen. Select the device you want to change. Select “Language.” You can then select the language and/or accent you want Alexa to speak in. Pick your preference, and tap “OK.” The new setting may take a few minutes to implement, but Alexa will then speak in the language/accent you selected. Amazon Help is also there for all of your Alexa needs. from Mashable https://ift.tt/3qAd0OS via IFTTT

To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here . Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for June 29, 2021. Have you ever wanted to ditch civilization and move to the woods, but still be able to work? We have good news if that’s you. Below you’ll find lots more, including Facebook’s latest product offering and how one startup wants to save bees. Enjoy! — Alex The TechCrunch Top 3 Duolingo is going public! Well-known edtech unicorn Duolingo is going public. TechCrunch has an overview of the IPO and a deeper dive into the company’s business health . Based on traffic to our coverage on the matter since last night, ya’ll are really into learning languages. Also make sure to check out the Duolingo EC-1 . Facebook launches newsletters: Say hello to Bulletin, Facebook’s new newsletter service. Competing with Substack, Twitter’s Revu and other services, Facebook signed up a Boomer-friendly list of initial au...

Mate Rimac’s founder story has the makings of automotive folklore. He started Rimac Automobili in his garage in 2009 as a literal one-person operation that has grown to a company with more than 1,000 employees, supply contracts with automakers like Porsche and a new electric hypercar moving into production. What might not be known is how close the company came to failing. “It has been such a wild ride,” Mate Rimac said during an interview at at the virtual TC Sessions: Mobility 2021 event. “The first seven years, we were like out of money and technically bankrupt all the time.” The founder and CEO of Croatian electric hypercar and components developer Rimac Automobili joined TechCrunch on our virtual stage to talk about the company’s new Nevera vehicle, his interest in electric robotaxis and the prospect of an acquisition of Bugatti. Throughout the interview, he gave a candid account of some of the company’s lowest points, how he and the company survived and what other founders can ...

Since the pandemic started, we’ve largely taken to apps and websites to uh, satisfy our needs. And while porn has seen an uptick during the pandemic in areas that have strict stay-at-home orders, studies also show that coping, boredom, and psychological distress all go hand-in-hand with greater levels of porn consumption. If you like porn but want to make things a bit more interactive, these are some popular dating sites that will help you achieve that. There’s a little something for everyone, whether you’re looking to explore your kinky fantasies, make a lasting romantic connection , are looking for senior love , simply want to hook up , or want to keep things safely socially distanced and just cam and chat . And if free videos with easy-to-search categories like Pornhub offers are what do it for you, there’s even some of those on our list too. While these sites are by no means perfect and some of them are pretty raunchy, here's the scoop on what you're getting yourself in...

Your Zoom name is boring. Sorry, someone had to break it to you. Might as well be us. No, not your actual name. We’re talking about your display name. Which may just be your actual name. But why make your actual name your display name when you can make it anything? Or add 42069 at the end? “Because you use Zoom for work and you’ll get fired?” What kind of perfectly legitimate and valid excuse is that? Well, if you do want to change your Zoom display name, these are the steps to follow: 1. Open your Zoom app. 2. Find your profile icon in the top right corner and click on it. 3. Select “Settings.” 4. Select “Profile” from the options on the left. 5. Select “Edit My Profile.” 6. Zoom will open a browser tab and prompt you to sign into your account. 7. Go to your profile. 8. Where you see your name, click “Edit” on the right. 9. Type in the display name of your choice in the text bar. 10. Scroll to the bottom and click “Save.” You are now the proud owner of a brand new an...