Autodesk puts up $100M fund for 3D printing companies

Posted on by

Gigaom

Autodesk is gearing up to release its open-source 3D printer and accompanying software, both of which it hopes will spur growth in the 3D printer industry. But today it announced another effort to encourage the growing industry: $100 million it will award to the most promising 3D printer companies.

“We will look carefully at companies small or large that are able to both innovate and enhance the ecosystem,” Autodesk consumer group vice president Samir Hanna said in an interview. “We want to make sure we bring the best minds together … that will develop in the fastest possible way the 3D printing ecosystem, hopefully at a much faster pace than has happened to date.”

The fund is aimed at both software and hardware companies. Hanna described the selection process as “deliberately open,” so anyone is encouraged to apply.

Autodesk surprised the industry back in May with the announcement of the 3D printer–its…

View original post 97 more words

It doesn’t matter if deep learning mimics the brain or Watson is cognitive. It matters if they work

Posted on by

Gigaom

I spent half an hour speaking with IBM Watson VP John Gordon on Tuesday, and no matter how many ways I asked it, he would not acknowledge a gap between peoples’ perceptions of Watson and what the “cognitive computing” system is actually capable of doing. I know there’s misunderstanding out there — I just know it — but Gordon spun his responses to focus on inspiration rather than disappointment, about how easy it is to learn Watson and build new applications now that it’s available as a set of software products and cloud APIs.

It annoyed me at first, but the more I think about it, the less I can fault his strategy. It wasn’t so long ago, he noted, that it was still only Ph.Ds. in IBM Research programming Watson systems for early users; today, pretty much anybody with an application and some data can start experimenting with it. There’s not a lot…

View original post 993 more words

More fun with low-power Wi-Fi and IP cameras from Homeboy

Posted on by

Gigaom

People are keen on security cameras in their homes, but frustrated by the massive cord plugging those cameras into the wall and limiting their potential placement. But making a Wi-Fi camera that can operate for any length of time sans a plug is tough given the power demands of both Wi-Fi and taking video.

That’s why this adorable, round camera from a Sydney, Australia-based company called Homeboy is so interesting. It’s a $149 IP camera that sits on your wall for about three months before needing a recharge on its battery. When it needs more juice, you unstick it from the base (where it attaches using magnets) and plug it in via USB. While it’s on the wall (or wherever you want to put it) it can shoot 30 seconds of video when it detects motion. It also has an If This Then That integration that allows you to set…

View original post 133 more words

The future of content consumption, through the eyes of Yahoo Labs

Posted on by

Gigaom

After years struggling through a public identity crisis it appears [company]Yahoo[/company] has decided, for better or worse, that it’s a content company. There will be no Yahoo smartphones or operating systems, no Yahoo Fiber, and no Yahoo drones, robots or satellites. But that doesn’t mean the company can’t innovate.

When it comes to the future of web content, in fact — how we’ll find it, consume it and monetize it — Yahoo might just have the inside track on innovation. I spoke recently with Ron Brachman, the head of Yahoo Labs, who’s now managing a team of 250 (and growing) researchers around the world. They’re experts in fields such as computational advertising, personalization and human-computer interaction, and they’re all focused on the company’s driving mission of putting the right content in front of the right people at the right time.

Really, it’s all about machine learning

However, Yahoo Labs’ biggest focus appears to…

View original post 1,275 more words