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This ultrasonic gripper could let robots hold things without touching them Jan 23, 2020

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If robots are to help out in places like hospitals and phone repair shops, they’re going to need a light touch. And what’s lighter than not touching at all? Researchers have created a gripper that uses ultrasonics to suspend an object in midair, potentially making it suitable for the most delicate tasks. It’s done with an array of tiny speakers that emit sound at very carefully controlled frequencies and volumes.

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Your Sonos system will stop receiving updates if you have an old device Jan 22, 2020

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Your Sonos system will stop receiving updates if you have an old device Smart speaker manufacturer Sonos has announced that the company is going to drop support for some of its products. Sonos stopped selling these devices a few years ago. While nothing lasts forever, dropping support is going to have a lot of implications and shows once again that the connected home isn’t as future-proof as expected. Sonos points out that 92% of the products that it has ever sold are still in use today.

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Apple Card users can now download monthly transactions in a spreadsheet Jan 22, 2020

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One of the big questions I got around the time the Apple Card launched was whether you’d be able to download a file of your transactions to either work with manually or import into a piece of expenses management software. The answer, at the time, was no. Now Apple is announcing that Apple Card users will be able to export monthly transactions to a downloadable spreadsheet that they can use with their personal budgeting apps or sheets.

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Deep tech VCs on what they view as some of the most impactful young startups right now Jan 21, 2020

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Deep tech VCs on what they view as some of the most impactful young startups right now During this week’s Democratic debate, there was a lot of talk, unsurprisingly, about ensuring the future of this country’s children and grandchildren. Climate change was of particular interest to billionaire Tom Steyer, who said repeatedly that addressing it would be his top priority were he elected U.S. president.

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Max Q: SpaceX succeeds with a spectacular Crew Dragon test launch Jan 21, 2020

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Max Q is a new weekly newsletter all about space. Sign up here to receive it weekly on Sundays in your inbox. We’re off and running with good milestones achieved for NASA’s commercial crew program, which means it’s more likely than ever we’ll actually see astronauts launch from U.S. soil before the year is out.

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The last radio station Jan 20, 2020

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North of Silicon Valley, protected by the Point Reyes National Seashore, is the only operational ship-to-shore maritime radio station. Bearing the call sign KPH, the Point Reyes Station is the last of its kind. KPH is divided between two physical stations: one, knows as the voice, is responsible for transmitting; the other half of the station, known as the ears, was where human operators listened for incoming messages.

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The paradox of 2020 VC is that the largest funds are doing the smallest rounds Jan 20, 2020

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I talked yesterday about how VCs are just tired these days. Too many deals, too little time per deal, and constant hyper-competition with other VCs for the same equity. VCs are just tired One founder friend of mine noted to me last night that he has already received inbound requests from more than 90 investors over the past year about his next round — and he’s not even (presumably) fundraising.

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Xiaomi spins off POCO as an independent company Jan 17, 2020

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Xiaomi said today it is spinning off POCO, a sub-smartphone brand it created in 2018, as a standalone company that will now run independently of the Chinese electronics giant and make its own market strategy. The move comes months after a top POCO executive — Jai Mani — and some other founding and core members left the sub-brand. The company today insisted that POCO F1, the only smartphone to be launched under POCO brand, remains a “successful” handset.

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Chrome gets global media controls Jan 17, 2020

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Here is a small but useful new feature in Google Chrome: global media controls that allow you to control all of the audio and video sources in your current tabs from a single widget. With this, you can switch to the next song from your favorite web-based music streaming service, start and stop a YouTube video that’s playing the background or switch back and forth between what’s playing in multiple tabs without having to hunt around your browser for the right tab.

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Hipmunk’s co-founders tried to buy it back before the shutdown Jan 16, 2020

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In a little over a week, the travel metasearch engine Hipmunk will shut down. It’s an abrupt and disappointing end for a product acquired by SAP Concur around three and a half years ago. It didn’t have to go this way, though. We’re now hearing that Hipmunk co-founders Adam Goldstein and Reddit CEO Steve Huffman (both of whom left Hipmunk in years prior) made an offer to buy the company back rather than have it shutdown, to no avail.

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