Liz Gannes

Google Formally Petitions to Publish Statistics on FISA Requests

The company says it hasn’t been able to accurately defend itself from PRISM news reports.

Liz Gannes in News
June 18, 2013 at 1:52 pm PT

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Corning Invests in Perhaps the Biggest Smart Device Yet: View’s Intelligent Glass

Liz Gannes in News on June 18 at 4:30 am PT

Milpitas, Calif.-based View makes something called “dynamic glass,” which adjusts its tint automatically based on how bright the light is, and can also be wirelessly controlled from an app.

NSA Leaker Edward Snowden Says Tech PRISM Denials Were “Misleading”

Liz Gannes in News on June 17 at 9:06 am PT

In a live online Q&A at the Guardian today, Edward Snowden, the man who revealed the PRISM documents and much more, said the leaks were having his desired effect.

Until the Self-Driving Car for All, What Is Tech Doing Now to Drive Us to Non-Distraction?

Liz Gannes in Mobile on June 17 at 8:15 am PT

Before we get autonomous cars, apps like voice news readers and context-dependent personal assistants might help drivers be a little more safe.

News Byte

San Francisco and New York City Mayors Team on Tech

Liz Gannes in News on June 13 at 9:46 pm PT

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg will on Friday announce a technology partnership between their cities. A press conference is scheduled at the offices of Square at 1:30 pm PT, with a livestream here.

Sequoia Leads $12.5M Funding Round for Thumbtack Local Services Marketplace

Liz Gannes in Commerce on June 13 at 10:00 am PT

Founded in 2009, Thumbtack has been working at the local marketplace problem for a while.

Udacity Hires Former Zynga COO Vish Makhijani to Lead Operations

Liz Gannes in News on June 13 at 9:15 am PT

“This company is more missionary than mercenary,” Makhijani said.

News Byte

The Pinterest API Is Coming; Head of Marketing Developer Partnerships Joins Up

Liz Gannes in Social on June 12 at 4:35 pm PT

The broader social media industry eagerly awaits the Pinterest API. The popular social collection service recently launched various retailer tools, and it has said for a while (years now) that a fuller API will be available to outside developers. But now it has hired John Yi to lead marketing developer partnerships, per his LinkedIn profile (and confirmed by a Pinterest spokesman). Yi previously headed similar efforts at Facebook, where he worked for the past four years.

What Did You Expect the Austrian Founder of a Fitness App Startup to Be Like?

Liz Gannes in Mobile on June 12 at 4:05 pm PT

Runtastic CEO Florian Gschwandtner would be happy to demo his apps for you.

News Byte

Now You Can Play Old-School Pong Via Newfangled Web Video Tech

Liz Gannes in News on June 12 at 11:10 am PT

Google has made another one of its nifty “Chrome Experiment” demos to show off new Web technology. It’s called Cube Slam and, using WebRTC, you can play the arcade game Pong face to face with a friend without installing any plugins (on desktop Chrome or Chrome OS, not mobile yet). Since you control the Pong paddle via off-camera arrow buttons, the live video part is kind of odd — so make sure to psych yourself up to trash-talk and be extremely visually expressive before you send your friend an invite link.