https://ift.tt/2JEQhuD

Runvi’s A.I.-infused smart insoles help runners correct their form

https://ift.tt/2Ml0des

We’ve seen a lot of smart exercise tools designed to help runners get faster and more efficient, including a host of fitness trackers, smart shoes, and apps. Now you can add smart insoles to the list as well, as a new product called Runvi promises to be an artificial intelligence-driven running coach to help you achieve your running goals.

Runvi, which launched on Kickstarter on Tuesday, June 12, consists of the aforementioned smart insoles and an iOS app — complete with Apple Watch support — which work in tandem with one another to offer insights into a runner’s performance. For instance, each of the insoles is equipped with 30 advanced pressure sensors and two accelerometers to collect an accurate representation of an athlete’s form while running. The device can tell whether or not the user pronates his or her foot, has too slow of a cadence, or is a heel striker, all of which can impact running efficiency.

That data is then compiled and examined by A.I. to offer real-time feedback to the runner on how to improve their form. That feedback can even come in the midst of a run, with a voice in their headphones making suggestions on how to correct inefficiencies while on the go. The goal is to eliminate excess fatigue, avoid injuries, and improve their speed, too.

But that is just the tip of the iceberg. Runvi can also use a runner’s historical data to create personalized training plans to assist in their long-term fitness goals too. Users are able to set goals for themselves within the app, which analyzes the workout data collected by the smart insoles to suggest a workout schedule custom built to help them achieve their objectives. If you want to run faster, the system can suggest drills to help you do that, and if you want to run further, it can help with that, too. Runvi is reportedly smart and adaptive enough that it can assist both beginning runners who are just starting out or experienced athletes preparing for a marathon.

The creators of Runvi are hoping to raise bout $59,000 to get the device into production. If successful in those efforts, they plan to begin shipping the final product this fall at a price of $235. Early bird supporters will find substantial discounts for getting in on the action early, but as always it helps to understand the risks that come along with backing any crowdfunding campaign.

Find out more on the Runvi website.

• Your running form sucks. Lumo Run is here to fix it
• Studio’s new running class takes its workout show on the road
• Digitsole’s A.I.-powered insoles strive to improve your cycling performance

Digital Trends

via Digital Trends https://ift.tt/2p4eJdC

June 12, 2018 at 10:12AM

https://ift.tt/2Mo3wBw

In an Exclusive Clip From AMC's Humans, the Synth Family Experiences Growing Pains

https://ift.tt/2sTC9Y0






Digital Trends

via Gizmodo http://gizmodo.com

June 12, 2018 at 10:12AM

https://ift.tt/2JEQ5LV

Relax In This Discounted Zero Gravity AmazonBasics Chair

https://ift.tt/2JNIC0l






Digital Trends

via Gizmodo http://gizmodo.com

June 12, 2018 at 10:12AM

https://ift.tt/2JPmoey

Apple previews the Apple Books app replacing iBooks on iOS this fall

https://ift.tt/2t3b6ZB

First previewed during WWDC, Apple has just given us another peek at the iBooks revamp (a version of which has been floating around for some time now). Apple Books is launching on iOS during the fall. The “biggest books redesign ever” features a newer, cleaner UI, with a larger focus on cover art than its predecessor.

Also new here is the inclusion of an editorial section. That’s similar to what the company’s been doing with services like Apple News and the App Store, bringing human writers in to editorially curate book picks. Audiobooks are being served up more prominently here, as well, with the addition of a devoted tab.

The new Reading Now tab, meanwhile, is pretty much what it sounds like, offering up a place to jump back into titles users are currently reading/listening to. It also houses a Want to Read wishlist and curated recommendations, based on your reading habits. The bottom is rounded out with Book Store and Library tags.

The new version presents a conscious uncoupling from iTunes, from which various multimedia offerings have been spun off over the past several years as standalones. It also represents a clear stab the Kindle. Amazon’s offering has long been the leader in digital books, and its 2008 Audible acquisition has helped make audiobooks a much more prominent part of the equation.

The new version of the app is arriving in the fall, with Book Store content available in 51 countries. The macOS version of the app is also being renamed Apple Books, for the sake of consistency.

Digital Trends

via TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com

June 12, 2018 at 10:05AM

24 hours left to apply for Startup Battlefield at Disrupt SF ’18

https://ift.tt/2JBLYQN

This is it, the absolute last chance for the professional-grade procrastinators out there. It’s do-or-die time. If you’re an early-stage founder who dreams of launching your business to the world, you have 24 hours left to stop dreaming and take action. Get your keister in gear and apply to Startup Battlefield right now.

Startup Battlefield, the premier startup-pitch competition and the best platform for launching your company to the world, takes place at Disrupt San Francisco 2018 on September 5-7. This year we’re producing our biggest, boldest, most ambitious Disrupt ever, with three times the floor space, more than 10,000 attendees and more than 400 accredited media outlets.

Yeah, that’s a big deal, and we’ve doubled the Startup Battlefield prize to match this super-sized event: $100,000 (we’re talking equity-free cash, folks). Don’t pass up this opportunity to compete with the very best. Yes, it’s a competitive vetting process. TechCrunch editors will review all applications and select between 15-30 of the top early-stage startups. Our acceptance rate ranges from three to six percent. But hey, if you’ve got the stuff, it won’t matter. We’ll see it.

It won’t cost you a thing to compete or to participate, and every team gets free pitch coaching from our Startup Battlefield-tested TechCrunch editors. Each team gets six minutes on the Disrupt Main Stage to pitch their company to a panel of judges — consisting of well-known investors, entrepreneurs and technologists — and then answer any questions they may ask. The judges will choose five teams to enter a second and final round of pitching to a fresh team of judges.

That panel of judges determines the overall winner, who will claim the largest Startup Battlefield prize in TechCrunch history — along with the Disrupt Cup, bragging rights and an enormous amount of investor and media interest.

Every moment of Startup Battlefield takes place in front of a live audience numbering in the thousands, and it’s also live-streamed around the world (and available later on demand) on TechCrunch.com, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. Every competing team receives an inordinate amount of exposure.

You’ll get even more exposure exhibiting in Startup Alley — our exhibition hall will showcase more than 1,200 early-stage startups — for all three days of the conference. It’s free for Startup Battlefield competitors, and it’s a huge networking opportunity.

And, of course, you can take advantage of Disrupt’s three content-packed days of exciting and inspiring tech programming, world-class speakers, Q&A Sessions, the Virtual Hackathon and world-class founder-to-investor networking made easy with the CrunchMatch platform.

So much potential. So many benefits. So little time left to apply. Disrupt San Francisco 2018 takes place on September 5-7 at Moscone Center West. You have just 24 hours left. Apply to Startup Battlefield right here.

Digital Trends

via TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com

June 12, 2018 at 10:03AM

Instagram adds shopping tags directly into Stories

https://ift.tt/2HH88z6

Instagram’s shoppable tags are about to pop up in Stories. The company first started testing the feature back in 2016 with a limited set of 20 partners. Since then it’s been a hit, expanding broadly to regular brand posts in the feed. Starting today, hitting a little shopping bag sticker in a Story will lead you to more details on the cute and/or dope thing that caught your eye and how to score it.

It’s a simple addition, but given the success of Stories it’s a potent one for brands that drive sales on the platform.

“With 300M using Instagram Stories everyday, people are increasingly finding new products from brands they love,” Instagram said in a press release.

“In a recent survey, Instagrammers said they often watch stories to stay in the-know with brands they’re interested in, get an insider view of products they like, and find out about new products that are relevant to them.”

As a longtime daily Instagram user, I used to be skeptical that people really engaged with brands like this and not just their friends or dogs they know. Now, after seeing my fiancée’s considerable #engagement around makeup brands running wildly popular accounts, Stories and all, I get it. Well, I don’t get it, but I get that some people get it and that the often vast and expertly crafted brand Stories are a logical evolution for a platform trying to get more users buying more stuff in the product categories that call to them.

Digital Trends

via TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com

June 12, 2018 at 10:00AM

https://ift.tt/2sWpqDc

Finally, Facebook Will Let You Report Ads That Trick You Into Buying Total Crap

https://ift.tt/2l68Xcf






Digital Trends

via Gizmodo http://gizmodo.com

June 12, 2018 at 09:48AM

https://ift.tt/2sRHDmh

Primary Venture Partners raises $100M to invest in NYC startups

https://ift.tt/2JNZmEJ

Primary Venture Partners, a seed firm that invests exclusively in New York City startups, has raised a second fund of $100 million.

That focus is unusual — even Lerer Hippeau, a firm that’s closely associated with New York, makes some investments outside the region.

Primary’s Ben Sun (pictured above with his co-founder Brad Svrluga) said he’s betting, in part, on the New York workforce, particularly “the talent that came into the tech ecosystem post-financial crisis” — a shift that gave the city more talented entrepreneurs, plus a talent pool that they could draw from to build their companies.

After all, Sun noted that employment in New York’s tech sector grew by 57 percent between 2010 and 2016.

He also said that Primary (formerly known as High Peaks Venture Partners) offers more support and services than many seed firms — for example, Cat Hernandez, Primary’s partner focused on “human capital,” has been directly involved in hiring nearly 200 employees at the firm’s portfolio companies. Primary is able to offer that level of support with a team of 13 people, Sun said, by leveraging local connections and expertise.

The investment team has also grown, with the addition of Steve Schlafman as venture partner last month — Sun described him as “a super highly networked guy who has a really good nose for talent.” (When we talked to Schlafman prior to today’s announcement, he managed to dodge a question about the firm’s fundraising.)

“With a singular focus on this market, we were able to build an operating and portfolio impact model that provides concentrated, on-site support to our portfolio companies in a way that wouldn’t be possible across geographies,” Svrluga said in an emailed statement. Raising this second fund not only gives us the capital to continue to be a high-conviction seed round leader, but to continue to expand our Portfolio Impact team so that we can be an even better partner to our founders on their journey from Seed to Series A.”

Primary’s approach has resulted in some big successes already, like Jet.com (acquired by Walmart for $3.3 billion) and Coupang (valued at $5 billion). Even beyond the most attention-grabbing deals, Sun pointed to the fact that of the 15 companies in the Primary portfolio that have tried to raise Series A rounds, 13 of them have succeeded.

As part of this announcement, VCs that Primary has worked with in the past also offered their praise, with Spark Capital’s Kevin Thau describing the firm as a team that “knows the New York Seed market better than anyone,” and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers’ Eric Feng saying it’s “one of the top partners to startups in the city, providing true value guiding their portfolio companies from seed to Series A.”

While the firm raised significantly more this time around (Primary’s first fund was $60 million), Sun said it will remain focused on seed deals — with the occasional incubated startup, like dog food company Ollie. It will, however, be able to write slightly larger checks, say in the $1.5 million to $2 million range, with additional funding reserved for follow-on rounds.

“What we’re going to do with this $100 million is follow the same strategy,” Sun said.

Digital Trends

via TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com

June 12, 2018 at 09:47AM

https://ift.tt/2JMMZsp

Senators Have a New Plan to Wreck ZTE, Despite Trump's Deal

https://ift.tt/2MkgfW5

The saga of ZTE is a never-ending roller coaster. After violating sanctions in Iran, ZTE was banned from buying parts and components from all American companies. And then suddenly it wasn’t, after President Trump and the Department of Commerce inked a deal that gave ZTE another lease on life. But now, it seems the ban could be back on.

Under the terms of the DoC’s previous deal, ZTE would have been forced to pay an additional $1 billion in fines (on top of the $900 million it already paid) and place another $400 million in escrow to cover potential future penalties. But thanks a new bipartisan amendment to the upcoming “must-pass” National Defense Authorization Act, it seems ZTE’s one remaining lifeline would disappear by retroactively reinstating the original seven-year ban.

In a statement to reporters, amendment co-sponsor Sen. Tom Cotton (R) said “ZTE said they couldn’t remain in business, or at least not remain anything other than a cell phone hand-held business, if the denial order from March was in effect. And this would essentially put the denial order back into effect.”

The fear among U.S. intelligence agencies is that Chinese telecom equipment makers such as ZTE and Huawei pose a threat to national security, with even leaders of organizations including the NSA and FBI concerned that ZTE and Huawei could be using their devices and equipment to spy on Americans.

By shoehorning an amendment into the National Defense Authorization Act, the senate has made it much more difficult for President Trump to undo or remove ZTE’s ban. This puts the ball back in Trump’s hands, who despite his campaign rhetoric about how Chinese workers have been stealing jobs from Americans, seemed quite proud to tweet out that he was working on a deal with Chinese President Xi Jinping to get ZTE “back into business, fast.”

[NBC]

Digital Trends

via Gizmodo http://gizmodo.com

June 12, 2018 at 09:36AM

Dreamit Ventures launches new security vertical

https://ift.tt/2HFxBJj

Dreamit Ventures, a Philadelphia-based early stage investor and accelerator, announced it was moving into security today. To that end, it also announced it was bringing on Bob Stasio, an industry vet with roots in startups, IBM and work in the military and the NSA to run the new division.

The company is adding security to its existing verticals, health technology and urban technology. In fact, the news comes just weeks after announcing that Tampa Bay Lightning owner Jeff Vinik has invested $12 million in the company to move the urban vertical forward.

As for SecureTech, the company sees a big opening in this area as Fortune 500 organizations struggle with security in a constantly changing landscape. They want to find early stage startups wherever they are in the world with creative ideas on how to solve security problems.

Dreamit wants to connect these young startups with companies looking for solutions they can trust. Bringing in Stasio should help. His most recent job was Chief of Operations at IBM X-Force Command Center and prior to that he was global head of threat intelligence at Bloomberg and chief of operations branch at the Cyber Center, a branch of the NSA. That kind of background has built up connections and as his colleagues have moved into CISO positions at prominent companies, he can use his network to help his charges at Dreamit.

Stasio, who had his own attempts at the startup life, knows it’s not always easy for technically minded folks with a good idea to get in front of an executive at a big company and hit a home run. It takes coaching and practice.

“The really hot agile startups with really good tech tend to fail when they get in front of front of an enterprise CISO (chief information security officer) because they don’t know how to pitch. They don’t know the kinds of problems and trials and tribulations that go on at an enterprise. So we’re going to help coach them to get them to that point, so that their business model and what they’re doing, how they’re going to implement their solution is ready for a large company,” Stasio told TechCrunch.

The company is looking at security in three areas: logical, physical and social. Logical is the more traditional kind of cybersecurity software and hardware approaches with artificial intelligence, threat hunting and threat intelligence, but they also want to look at areas that are frequently ignored involving the physical side of security. That could include drones, imagery analysis, physical security of buildings, protection of people and places, VIP security and so forth. The social side is looking how to protect against dissemination of false information, a growing problem.

They run a couple of cohorts a year for each vertical. Typically they take no more than 10 companies and that’s out of about 300 applications per vertical, so it’s very selective, says Steve Welch, founder and chairman at Dreamit. The companies go through a 14 week program, after which they can choose to write a check or not (and the company still gets the benefit of having been in the accelerator).

“They give us an investor right to write a check for up to $500,000 at a 20% discount, the 20% discount, which is the value we think of the 14 weeks of going through Dreamit. And we only get the discount if we write the check,” Welch explained. Their goal is getting the participants to the next funding round, which is well aligned with the goal of the startup itself. If they get that round, then Dreamit writes a check too with the 20 percent discount.

They said being Philadelphia, allows them to bring their charges in for the program, and then allow them to present to executives in New York and DC, where a huge chunk of business is going to be.

Digital Trends

via TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com

June 12, 2018 at 09:34AM