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This is a preview of The Smart Speaker research report from Business Insider Intelligence. Purchase this report. Business Insider Intelligence offers even more technology coverage with Connectivity & Tech Pro. Subscribe today to receive industry-changing connectivity news and analysis to your inbox. The smart speaker has been a runaway success in the handful of years since it hit the market, catapulting from obscurity to the peak of sales lists and cementing itself in the public consciousness. Business Insider Intelligence According to primary survey data from Business Insider Intelligence, as many as half of US respondents reported living in a home with a voice-enabled AI device. See the rest of the story at Business Insider See Also: Verizon and AT&T new pricing options could help attract prepaid subscribers amid economic downturn Sony's move to sell its AI-embedded cameras under a SaaS model will help it capture more value Boston's move to ban facial r...

If you play Forza Horizon or Forza Motorsport , you have some freedom to personalize cars in the game, even adding your own custom designs. One popular example: players have used the feature to recreate the General Lee , the 1969 Dodge Charger from The Dukes of Hazzard , in almost every single Forza game since at least 2007 . But the General Lee famously includes the controversial confederate flag on its back — and Microsoft has just announced it will ban players who use that symbol (among others) in the game. In a statement posted on Twitter last Friday, Microsoft updated its enforcement guidelines to have a zero-tolerance policy for any player using the confederate flag or other symbols that represent “ notorious iconography ,” including... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2ZtuCyy via IFTTT

You’ve likely heard the phrase Internet of Things, or IoT, at some point if you have been following any tech news in the last several years. Business Insider Intelligence But at the same time, you might be scratching your head figuring out what it is or what it means past a flashy buzzword. See the rest of the story at Business Insider See Also: Sony's move to sell its AI-embedded cameras under a SaaS model will help it capture more value Boston's move to ban facial recognition could pressure big tech players to exit the market Verizon and AT&T new pricing options could help attract prepaid subscribers amid economic downturn from Feedburner https://ift.tt/2IYFAoX via IFTTT

When in 2010, former VC Michael Kim set out to raise a fund that he would invest in a spate of micro VC managers, the investors to which he turned didn’t get it. Why pay Kim and his firm, Cendana Capital ,  a management fee on top of the management fees that the VC managers themselves charge? Fast forward to today, and Kim has apparently proven to his backers that he’s worth the extra cost. Three years after raising $260 million across a handful of vehicles whose capital he plugged into up-and-coming venture firms, Kim is now revealing a fresh $278 million in capital commitments, including $218 million for its fourth flagship fund, and $60 million that Cendana manages expressly for the University of Texas endowment. We talked with Kim last week about how he plans to invest the money, which differs slightly from how he has invested in the past. Rather than stick solely with U.S.-based seed-stage managers who are raising vehicles of $100 million or less, he will split Cendana into...

Facebook’s recently launched app, Hobbi , an experiment in short-form content creation around personal projects, hobbies, and other Pinterest-y content, is already shutting down. The app first arrived on iOS in February as one of now several launches from Facebook’s internal R&D group, the NPE Team. Hobbi users have now been notified by way of push notification that the app is shutting down on July 10, 2020. The app allows users to export their data from its settings. In the few months it’s been live on the U.S. App Store, Hobbi only gained 7,000 downloads, according to estimates from Sensor Tower. Apptopia also reported the app had under 10K downloads and saw minimal gains during May and June. Though Hobbi clearly took cues from Pinterest, it was not designed to be a pinboard of inspirational ideas. Instead, Hobbi users would organize photos of their projects — like gardening, cooking, arts & crafts, décor, and more — in a visual diary of sorts. The goal was to photograph ...

Lyft’s self-driving vehicle division has restarted testing on public roads in California, several months after pausing operations amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Lyft’s Level 5 program said Tuesday some of its autonomous vehicles are back on the road in Palo Alto and at its closed test track. The company has not resumed a pilot program that provided rides to Lyft employees in Palo Alto. The company said it is following CDC guidelines for personal protective equipment and surface cleaning. It has also enacted several additional safety steps to prevent the spread of COVID. Each autonomous test vehicle is  equipped with partitions to separate the two safety operators inside, the company said. The operators must wear face shields and submit to temperature checks. They’re also paired together for two weeks at a time. Lyft’s Level 5 program — a nod to the SAE automated driving level that means the vehicle handles all driving in all conditions —launched in July 2017 but didn’t starting t...