Apple is reportedly in the early stages of developing a Google Glass-like gadget. “While still in an exploration phase, the device would connect wirelessly to iPhones, show images and other information in the wearer’s field of vision, and may use augmented reality,” Bloomberg reports, citing sources. “Should Apple ultimately decide to proceed with the device, it would be introduced in 2018 at the earliest.”

The volume of merchandise sold on Singles Day—the predominately Chinese event that occurs on 11.11 and is basically the invention of ecommerce behemoth Alibaba—is jawdropping. This year, in just the first two hours of the world’s biggest shopping day, sales on Alibaba platforms alone topped $7 billion. In the hours since, they have blown past last year’s total of about $14.3 billion, and are expected to reach $20 billion. For comparison’s sake, combined Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales in the US in 2015 were about $13.5 billion—and keep in mind that’s across all retailers. The Singles Day figures above are just within Alibaba’s ecommerce ecosystem, which works differently than a …

Imagine a day when the roads talk to your alarm clock, alerting it to heavy congestion while you slumber, and automatically changing your wake-up time so you’re not late for work. On the way, traffic lights re-route your driverless car to the areas of least congestion and your phone sends your boss a text message with an estimated time of arrival that is accurate to the minute. Throughout it all, you barely lift a finger. As ridiculously sci-fi as this sounds, all of the technology needed to do these things already exists through the Internet of Things (IoT) network, according …

You could soon power wearable devices using just your body heat, thanks to a new flexible super capacitor that can charge itself using heat from the surroundings – without any external power supply or battery replacement. Researchers have developed a new concept of electrical energy storage – Thermally Chargeable Solid-state Supercapacitor. This innovative supercapacitor allows charging to be completed using heat energy in addition to the traditional electrical charging method for capacitors.

Hamad International Airport (HIA) has launched the Android version of its innovative iBeacon enabled HIA Qatar app, offering more of HIA’s customers an interactive experience when travelling through the world leading airport. It follows the success of its iOS mobile app released earlier this year. HIA has also released a major upgrade for its iOS app, which now makes use of Apple’s Indoor Positioning technology.  HIA has partnered with Apple Inc. to become one of a handful of airports globally to have implemented this capability to provide an enhanced navigation experience inside the airport based on the user’s real-time location.

A Google drone might deliver your Chipotle burrito, but it looks like it won't deliver your Starbucks coffee. The Project Wing drone delivery program, now a part of Google parent company Alphabet, has scrapped a Starbucks partnership as part of a cost-cutting move, Bloomberg reported Tuesday. The budget cuts also mean a hiring freeze and an attempt to shift employees to other projects, according to the report. The company still believes in the technology. "Project Wing has the potential to remove a big chunk of the friction in how physical things are moved around in the world," the X group said in a statement. "What we're …

Online home furnishing retailer Wayfair is releasing a new virtual reality app that lets users explore and shop for pieces from an interactive virtual showroom. The new app is called IdeaSpace and is Wayfair’s second app. IdeaSpace will be available on Google’s Daydream VR platform. “As an e-commerce company, we harness virtual and augmented reality technologies to help our customers better visualize our products,” said Shrenik Sadalgi, lead engineer at Wayfair Next. “By providing an immersive experience for our shoppers, users can explore 3-D models and virtual spaces in an inspirational setting, and discover a variety of new designs and …

Jibo, the Boston-based startup that has delayed shipment of its social robot multiple times, just raised another $13.1 million from investors. According to a Form D filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Jibo is looking to raise a total of $28 million. According to Crunchbase, Jibo has now raised a total of $65.4 million in five Rounds from 13 investors. Robotics Trends has reached out to Jibo for comment and will update this story with any new information that becomes available.

Corporate giants Microsoft Ventures, a unit of China’s HNA, India’s Tata, GE Ventures and Qualcomm Ventures will join forces with Tel Aviv University and Israel’s Pitango Venture Capital to set up a new $20 million fund to invest in Israeli startups that are developing Internet of Things (IOT) technologies, the university said. The new consortium will be called Israel IoT Innovations – i3 Equity Partners (“i3”). It was set up by the five corporations together with Pitango and the Tel Aviv University, via its RAMOT technology transfer company. The aim is to invest in early-stage Israeli ventures and help them …

The residents of two apartment buildings in the city of Lappeenranta in Finland found themselves bundling up at home when the heat in the buildings shut down. The reason for the failure wasn't an accident — it was a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack primarily using internet of things devices that lasted for several days. It's the latest in a string of attacks that have leveraged the internet of things to overwhelm systems. In this most recent case, the hackers directed traffic to the computer system that controls the heating (including the hot water heaters) for the apartment buildings. The …