Friday Five: February 19 - 23

  • D4ed5751bf8328329533721cfc292e8a Technology
  • Readingtime icon Read in: 4 mins
  • by: Jerry Caggiano

This week the Friday Five covers technology that will revolutionize the world like AR, smart speakers, wearables, and Geo-fencing/Micro-Fencing.

 

Nissan and DeNa will begin testing a self-driving taxi service in Japan next month. (TechCrunch)

With the goal of launching in the next couple years, Nissan and DeNa will begin testing their  self-driving taxi service next month. The self-driving taxis will begin running on a set 4.5 -kilometer drive. The goal is to have the self-driving taxi service ready by the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympic Games. 

 

Heads-up: Google’s official AR apps are coming to these phones (CNET)

With the public release of the ARCore 1.0, developers are able to publish augmented reality apps to the Google Play Store. The ARCore 1.0 allows developers to create an augmented reality app, and then place those virtual reality images in the real world. This will allow more developers to create apps that are similar to the Pokemon-Go app that utilizes AR and geo-location.

 

Combining augmented reality, 3D printing and a robotic arm to prototype in real time (TechCrunch)

MIT and Cornell have created a joint project that allows designers to create 3D printed models faster, and easier. The project is called the Robotic Modeling Assistant, or RoMA for short, and uses AR, robotics, and a 3D printer.

 

Apple plans upgrades to popular AirPods headphones (Bloomberg)

With wearables revenue growing 70% last year, Apple announces that it has a few upgrades for their very successful AirPods. The new AirPod2 will be able to more readily access Siri and become water resistant. The AirPod2 is said to be released as early as this year.

 

Is Spotify getting ready to challenge Apple with its own speaker? (The Guardian)

As the world's largest music streaming service, with over 60 million paying users, Spotify may be entering the smart speaker and wearables markets. The company posted three jobs that stated: “Spotify is on its way [to] creating its first physical products and set-up an operational organization for manufacturing, supply chain, sales, and marketing.”

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