Waze for Work? Navigation Apps Come to Mazelike Offices

Firas Ajam has been a resident physician at Jersey Shore University Medical Center for three years, but he’s still unfamiliar with parts of the 26-acre, 3 million-square-foot campus in Neptune, N.J. When a patient got sick a few months ago in a unit where Dr. Ajam had never been, he navigated using a Waze-like app on his smartphone. He ran through the hospital listening to the app’s directions and watching the map as it tracked his location, down to about 3 feet, to guide him through the labyrin…

The Office of Tomorrow

WeWork Hits the Brakes in New York, London After IPO Debacle

WeWork’s days of breakneck expansion are over, at least for now. New leases by the flexible office firm nosedived in New York and London, its top two markets, in the final quarter of last year, CoStar Group Inc. data show. It signed just 64,000 square feet (5,946 square meters) of space in Manhattan, the lowest in more than five years, while the 49,000 square feet in London was the least since the U.K.’s Brexit vote in the second quarter of 2016.

Triplemint triples down on its predictive analytics

In a recent episode of “Million Dollar Listing New York,” the show’s newest cast member, Tyler Whitman, beat out celebrity broker Ryan Serhant on a listing. “I’m just super-excited that Bubblemint gum finally has their first listing,” said Serhant, flubbing the name of Whitman’s brokerage, Triplemint, and shrugging off the loss. How staged the scene was is anyone’s guess, but Serhant’s confusion rings true. Outside of some small circles in the proptech and residential brokerage worlds, Triplemin…

Pilotless air taxi from China’s Ehang takes flight in the US for the first time

Chinese drone maker Ehang demonstrated its autonomous air taxi in the US for the first time. The all-electric two-seater took flight for five minutes above a test track south of Raleigh, North Carolina, on Tuesday afternoon, with approximately 100 people, including the state’s governor, Roy Cooper, looking on. It represents the first time that Ehang has received permission to fly from the US Federal Aviation Administration, and it helped set the stage for it to receive approval for passenger dem…

Toyota to build ‘city of the future’ at the base of Mount Fuji

Toyota Motor Corp. plans to build a prototype “city of the future” at the base of Mount Fuji, powered by hydrogen fuel cells and functioning as a laboratory for autonomous cars, smart homes, artificial intelligence and other technologies. Toyota unveiled the audacious plan for what it plans to call “Woven City,” in a reference to its origins as a loom manufacturer, on Monday at the big CES annual consumer electronics trade show. “It’s hard to learn something about a smart city if you are only bu…

L.A.’s booming tech scene gets its own publication to cover it, with all-star investors

When Spencer Rascoff moved back to Los Angeles four years ago, he discovered a broad and vibrant tech economy taking root in his hometown. The only thing it lacked: a homegrown tech press to tell the world about it. Rascoff had seen the impact that a tech-specific publication could have firsthand while living in Seattle, where he co-founded and then ran the digital real estate platform Zillow for nearly a decade. He appreciated how the local site Geekwire helped create a sense of community in th…

Brickvest Administration Shows Fragility Of PropTech Business Model

One of the first major insolvencies in the PropTech sector highlights how difficult disrupting real estate can be. Brickvest was one of the leading lights of PropTech, particularly in the field of capital markets. The crowdfunding platform, which allowed investors to buy into real estate deals in the UK, U.S. and Europe for an investment of as little as $1K, had achieved a level of success. It had raised more than £15M of equity to grow its business from a variety of investors including two Germ…

Venture Firms’ Dry Powder Reaches Record Level

Venture firms are sitting on a mountain of cash, as more venture firms raise billion-dollar funds and late-stage growth funds. Dry powder, or cash that firms have raised but not invested, rose for a seventh consecutive year to roughly $276 billion in 2019, nearly triple what it was in 2012, according to data provider Preqin.

Welcome to Walmart. The Robot Will Grab Your Groceries.

In the backroom of a Walmart store in Salem, N.H., is a floor-to-ceiling robotic system that the country’s largest retailer hopes will help it sell more groceries online. Workers stand on platforms in front of screens assembling online orders of milk, cereal and toilet paper from the hulking automated system. Wheeled robots carrying small baskets move along metal tracks to collect those items. They are bagged for pickup later by shoppers or delivery to homes. Walmart is one of several grocers in…