San Francisco
Latest
The Eye-Sync system can diagnose concussions in one minute
Concussions are no joke -- just ask Cam Newton -- but a new diagnostic system developed in conjunction with Stanford University could revolutionize the way these head injuries are determined. The Eye-Sync, from the SyncThink company, uses a modified VR headset and custom software running on a consumer tablet to diagnose concussions in just one minute.
Spherica creates nausea-free immersive video
Typically, 360-degree VR video comes in two varieties: static, wherein the camera remains motionless while the onscreen action unfolds around it, and vomit-inducing, where the camera moves but instigates severe motion sickness in the viewer. The San Francisco-based motion picture startup, Spherica, aims to create a third option: immersive VR video that can track, tilt and pan without making the audience lose their lunch.
Caption contest: Tim Cook shows Maddie Ziegler the iPhone 7
Apple unveiled its newest iPhone in San Francisco today and, despite some backlash over its "courageous" stand in removing the handset's conventional headphone jack, the iPhone 7 seemed well-received by the crowd. Among those in attendance: Maddie Ziegler, Sia's dancer/mini-doppelganger. After the keynote, Apple CEO Tim Cook showed off some of the phone's new features, but what was on the screen that has Ziegler so entranced?
The After Math: iPhone 7 edition
The newest iPhone is out -- well, all of it except for the headphone jack. But that's not all Apple announced during its press conference in San Francisco this morning. The company also showed off its new Apple Watch, boasted about its wildly popular App Store and Music service, explained the 7's dual-camera system and debuted some fancy new wireless earbuds. We broke out the numbers, because how else will you know how much it'll cost to replace those AirBuds you've already lost?
I went on a Pokécrawl and all I got was this lousy Bulbasaur
"This is going to be awesome," I thought as I climbed the steep grade up to the statue of Hidalgo in San Francisco's Mission Dolores Park. I was there for a Pokécrawl, you see, but after a week of local news stories and Twitter hype, all signs pointed to it being a circus. And who doesn't love the circus?
UberEats is coming to 10 more towns
Uber announced on Wednesday that it is expanding the number of cities served by its beta UberEats program. The service enables users to order food from local restaurants and have it delivered by Uber drivers -- essentially the same service as Eat24 or Seamless but with Uber's existing driver infrastructure.
Dear Veronica: STEM gifts and holiday disasters
#fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-860048{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-860048, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-860048{width:570px;display:block;}try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-860048").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Looking for that perfect gift for your sweet little munchkin this holiday season? We have some great ideas for the STEM-curious set out there!We also get suggestions for that perfect geeky getaway to San Francisco and Los Angeles from Morgan Webb and Broke-Ass Stuart Schuffman.Don't worry, we have a few more of your holiday tech support disasters. Have a safe and happy holiday, everyone!
Airbnb rolls out a pricing recommendation tool for hosts
If you try to book a hotel room in San Diego in September, you can probably get one for around $200-300 a night. If you try to do the same in mid-July during Comic-Con? You'll likely have to cough up close to $1,000 a night, and that's if you can get a room at all. If you're an Airbnb host, it'd behoove you to know about these sorts of surges in demand, so you can price your room appropriately. Today, Airbnb has rolled out a tool called Price Tips that lets you do just that. It utilizes Airbnb's own machine learning tool called Aerosolve that'll suggest room pricing based on the demand for rooms, its location, travel trends, the listing type and so forth.
Wax Woz is coming to Madame Tussauds in San Francisco
Step inside the Madame Tussauds in San Francisco and you'll find waxworks of Barack Obama, Mark Zuckerberg and other American icons. Steve Jobs is also present, but for many Apple fans there's something amiss about his model. The problem? There's no Steve Wozniak standing alongside him. Following a public competition to decide the next "tech innovator" waxwork, Madame Tussauds has agreed to immortalize the Apple cofounder next to his friend and fellow tech visionary. Woz now needs to visit the museum and conduct a two to three hour sitting, during which 250 measurements will be taken to ensure his model is accurate. Sculpting should take three to four months, and when the finished article is unveiled in the fall, Woz will be there for a quick side-by-side comparison. "I can't wait to see my figure next to Jobs – it'll be just like old times," he says.
San Francisco's One Stockton Street Apple Store gets a temporary fountain
Those of you who follow Twitter and Instagram were probably chuckling yesterday afternoon when folks in San Francisco started sending out images of a huge fountain next to the Apple Store at One Stockton Street. Twitter user @its__amandaaa (Amanda Hoac) took the photo above as well as a fun slo-mo video of the fountain in action that was featured on ABC7 News' Facebook page. The fountain isn't a new architectural feature for the store that's going to be closed when a new flagship Apple Store is opened; rather, it was a side "benefit" of construction work that seems to have been going on forever in the area. A construction worker apparently hit a fire hydrant with a piece of equipment, causing the waterworks to erupt until workers were able to shut it off.
San Francisco's public defecation map highlights a shitty situation
Wondering what that smell near the Civic Center is, San Francisco resident? As far as serious interactive maps go, Human Wasteland is one of the strangest we've seen. Created by civil-engineer-turned-web-developer Jennifer Wong, the project plots human excrement "incidents" reported by the public to SF311. Her project won an internal hacking contest for employees of a real estate website, an ironic honor considering the city's contentious housing issues. The highest concentration of crap is at a downtown alley next to the financial district, right in a high-traffic area frequented by tourists.
What a treat: Play tons of indie games free on Saturday in SF
The second annual Day of the Devs, an independent game showcase hosted by Double Fine and iam8bit, kicks off on Saturday, November 1 at Mint Plaza in San Francisco. It's free, open to all ages, and runs from 4 - 11PM PT. And it's probably tons of fun. Games on display and available to play include Costume Quest 2, Axiom Verge, Escape Goat 2, Classroom Aquatic, Gang Beasts, GNOG, Grim Fandango Remastered, Hyper Light Drifter, Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime, Massive Chalice, Night in the Woods, Push Me Pull You, Titan Souls and Videoball. There will also be musical entertainment from Doseone, Disasterpeace, David Kanaga, Lifeformed and Fez-developer-turned-DJ Phil Fish. Hear some of Fish's mixes here. If you're not in San Francisco this weekend, you can follow along with the fun live on Twitch, streaming the show from 4PM - 11PM PT on Double Fine's channel. Last year's Day of the Devs drew in more than 1,800 fans.
Sidecar is the first ride-sharing app to officially serve San Francisco airport
One of San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón's many complaints about ride-sharing services is that none of them had the permits necessary to take customers to SFO. Sidecar, however, has ticked that box by obtaining official permission to take passengers to and from their flights, albeit with two pretty big caveats. The first is that the permit is for a pilot program that SFO is running to study traffic congestion, so there's no word on how long this license will last for. Second, is that ride-sharing -- enabling several people to share a single car and reduce congestion -- is still not permitted at the airport, thanks to the California Public Utilities Commission. It's an odd piece of logic that Sidecar CEO Sunil Paul is more than happy to point out, and hopes that the CPUC iron out the holes in its thinking sooner rather than later. For the rest of us, we can be comforted in the knowledge that Sidecar will resume airport rides within the next 30 days.
Even San Francisco is thinking about cracking down on Uber
The world's authorities must have something of a love/hate relationship with ridesharing companies. On one hand, it's a disruptive new technology that encourages competition, which they love, but it's also a regulatory nightmare for all involved. After all, someone has to think about the unwitting customers who expect that these cars have the same rules and regulations as a licensed taxi, which isn't often the case. That's what prompted the district attorneys of both San Francisco and Los Angeles to write a letter to Uber, Lyft and Sidecar to warn them that if they don't change their business practices, they could face some serious consequences.
The Uber effect: how San Francisco's cab use dropped 65-percent
Hailing a ride has never been easier -- just take out your phone, tap on an app and wait for your internet-wrangled chauffeur to arrive. Companies like Uber and Lyft are reinventing the transportation industry, and traditional taxi services are feeling it. According to Kate Toran, interim Taxis and Accessible Services director for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, the average taxi is only making about 504 trips per month. Two years ago (specifically, in March of 2012) the average trip per taxi averaged at 1,424.
Jawbone knows how many of its users were roused by the Napa earthquake
Think you could sleep through an earthquake? Probably not, judging by data from Jawbone. The company says that almost everyone using its Jawbone Up device to track their sleep near South Napa was awakened by yesterday's earthquake. About 90 percent of its users were asleep, and the closer you were to the epicenter, the more likely it is you woke up. Farther out, about half the users in San Francisco and Oakland arose; almost nobody was disturbed 75 to 100 miles away in Modesto. Since Jawbone's fitness trackers push data to smartphones and other devices, the company was able to get a quick and detailed look into how the locals felt. The stats are interesting, to be sure, but may give you pause if didn't realize Jawbone could publish your exercise stats at a moment's notice.
Police say Apple's anti-theft switches have dramatically reduced iPhone thefts
When mobile sales are booming, smartphone thefts are almost certain to rise. That's something San Francisco and New York prosecutors George Gascón and Eric Schneiderman have been telling smartphone makers for over a year, but now they're finally making some headway. After pressuring Apple to implement a "kill switch" inside its devices, the New York Times reports that police officers in London and San Francisco saw iPhone robberies in the cities fall by 24 percent and 38 percent respectively in the six months before and after the company implemented its Activation Lock feature inside iOS 7. Over in New York, robberies were down by 19 percent and those involving grand larcenies dropped 29 percent when the police compared data in the first five months of 2014 with the same period from 2013.
Another Uber SUV cab service comes to San Francisco
We've all suffered that problem when we've got too many friends to share a single cab, but not really enough to justify splitting into two groups. Uber understands our pain, and has launched UberXL, specifically for medium-sized groups of partygoers to get around in an SUV instead of a sedan. Now, if we're honest, we have no idea how this is going to shake out compared to UberSUV, which also offers SUV-sized transport, but costs twice as much to use. We have asked the company, and will let you know what we learn. Still, UberXL, which is already available in Singapore and Chicago is now coming to San Francisco, just in time for the annual Bay to Breakers race-cum-city-wide-rave. Compared to UberX, you'll pay a $5 base fare and a minimum $8 fee, but that's a small price to pay not to break up the party. Update: So we've heard back from Uber, who explained that UberSUV uses TCP-licensed drivers for luxurious transit, whereas UberXL is just for larger groups of regular folk.
Google Glass community goes on charm offensive, plans a #glassnightout
Glass has gotten a bad rep over the past few months, particularly in bars where other patrons mistakenly think Explorers are recording their every move (or they actually are). To help improve that image, Google is encouraging owners to go out on the town this Saturday night wearing their high-tech glasses. To some, a bar full of Glass wearers might sound like the Worst Saturday Night Ever, but the hope is the cyborg masses will be able to educate the public a little better than when they're flying solo. The #GlassNightOut also offers the opportunity to mix and mingle with other Explorers -- a rare experience if you're living somewhere outside of San Francisco, and probably a lot more fun than going on Field Trip by your lonesome. If you're interested in checking out one of the Meetups this weekend, hit the source link for a full list of participating cities and locations. Not a people person? Well, Google Glass might be the wingman you've been looking for. Image credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
GaymerX2 funded, upcoming event to feature WWE guest Darren Young
All-inclusive gaming convention GaymerX2 met its funding goal in the first 48 hours of its recently launched Kickstarter campaign, securing July weekend dates for the upcoming San Francisco event. Launched last year, GaymerX is an LGBTQ-friendly expo celebrating diversity and inclusivity in gaming. Along with a series of panel discussions, this year's convention will feature a gaming space curated by IndieCade, a multi-musician concert, and a guest appearance by Fred Rosser (WWE Superstar Darren Young). The event will also host a public wedding, following up on a proposal accepted during last year's GaymerX. Organizers note that tickets will likely sell out prior to the event, making the Kickstarter project a reliable way to reserve entrance badges. Though the convention's initial funding goal has been met, continued backer support will fund additional bands, celebrity appearances, and game tournament prizes, among other announced stretch goals. [Image/Video: GaymerX]
