Pigeon, a ‘Waze for public transit’ from Google’s Area 120, expands across the U.S. – TechCrunch

Crowdsourced transit app Pigeon, developed within Google’s Area 120 lab for experimental projects, is today rolling out to five new cities across the U.S., in addition to New York — including Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington D.C. Unlike traditional transit apps that rely on schedules and updates from a local transit authority,…

UPS and CVS deliver prescription medicine via drone to U.S. residential customers for the first time – TechCrunch

UPS is rolling along with its drone delivery program, working with partner CVS Pharmacy to deliver prescription drugs to customer doorsteps via its newly deployed commercial drones. UPS delivered medications to two paying customers on November 1, using the M2 drone system that the logistics company developed in partnership with Matternet. UPS got approval from the…

Chronosphere launches with $11M Series A to build scalable, cloud-native monitoring tool – TechCrunch

Chronoshere, a startup from two ex-Uber engineers, who helped create the open source M3 monitoring project to handle Uber-level scale, officially launched today with the goal of building a commercial company on top of the open source project. It also announced an $11 million investment led by Greylock with participation from venture capitalist, Lee Fixel.…

Nio, Intel’s Mobileye partner to build self-driving electric cars for consumers – TechCrunch

Mobileye, the Israeli-based automotive sensor company acquired by Intel in 2017 for $15.3 billion, is partnering with Chinese electric car startup Nio to develop autonomous vehicles that consumers can buy. The companies, which describe this as a “strategic collaboration” aims to bring highly automated and autonomous vehicles to consumer markets in China and “other major…

The Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 is a truly great game controller – TechCrunch

Microsoft’s original Xbox Elite controller was a major step-up for gamers, with customizable buttons, changeable physical controls and adjustable sensitivity for serious personalization. The new Xbox Elite Controller Series 2 has just landed, and it offers similar features, but with new and improved features that add even more customization options, along with key hardware improvements…

Oxfam used Ethereum for insurance claims, but farmers prefer cash

Oxfam in Sri Lanka has announced early success with its blockchain-based microinsurance system in Sri Lanka, revealing the first successful pay-outs to local farmers. The protocol, built in partnership with global professional services firm Aon and blockchain startups Etherisc and InsurTech, leverages the Ethereum ETH blockchain to finalize insurance claims with tokens. Press materials released…