Kiran Upadhyay

Given that Amazon was tanking the price of the Fire Phone down to 99 cents two months after launch (leading to many a “Fire sale!” joke), this probably won’t come as much of a surprise: the Fire Phone isn’t a success. On the Amazon earnings call today, Amazon noted that the company was taking a $170 million writedown “primarily related” to overcommitting to the Fire Phone. They ordered too much inventory, and made promises to their suppliers that they couldn’t keep. So, just how many Fire Phones is Amazon still sitting on? Any guesses? $5 million? $20 million? The final count on Fire Phone inventory left at the end of Q3: $83 million. Eighty. Three. Million. Dollars. Who would have guessed a phone that existed pretty much solely to sell you stuff from Amazon while relying heavily on a silly gimmick wouldn’t sell well?

Eee-urrk-urrk-urrk-urk! A pair of Japanese hobbyists have built a transforming robot that can walk or, when in sports car form, drive around autonomously. It’s called the J-deite Quarter and is four feet tall. The goal, apparently, is to make a full-sized transformer… just because they can. The team consists of Kenji Ishida and Wataru Yoshizaki of Brave Robotics and Asratec. The team has been working on transformers since 2012 when they released a table-top model. They hope to make a full, eight-foot model in the next year. Some specs, for those who want to know all the details on their future robotic overlords:  Height in robot mode/length in vehicle mode: 1.3 m, weight: 35 kg, maximum battery power: 3 kw, operating time: 1 hour, number of seats: 2, controlled by V-Sido OS. Power source: servo motor manufactured byFutaba Corp.[Robot Mode SPEC] Maximum walking speed: 1 km/h, gripping weight: 0.1 kg.[Vehicle Mode SPEC] Maximum traveling speed: 10km/h, minimum road clear

The idea behind the Apple SIM that comes in the new iPads is most excellent: one SIM, many carriers. Whenever you want to switch carriers, you’d just pop into settings and pick the new one. If you want to bring your own SIM, you can — but otherwise, everything happens through software. No swapping SIMs, no ordering new SIMs, no hassle. Alas, someone had to go and throw a wrench in the gears. AT&T (who else?) is mucking up the whole thing. For now, the Apple SIM is compatible with four carriers: T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T in the US, and EE in the UK. (Note the lack of VZW support in the states; seems they’re not very into this idea just yet.) With three of those four compatible carriers, you’re free to stretch your legs, hop between the offerings, and find the carrier that fits your needs. Pick AT&T, however, and you get a nasty little prompt: “Once activation is complete,” it reads, “this Apple SIM can only be used with AT&T. You will need a new Apple

Have you tried Photomath yet? It’s brilliant. It’s a camera app that solves math equations. Just point and solve. The company launched the app earlier this week at Disrupt London, and yesterday, unseated Facebook Message to become the top free on the App Store. The app works in real time and displays the answer to an equation in an augmented reality layer. Click a button to have the app guide you through the steps needed to solve the problem. The app’s creators said at Disrupt that the app works with equations typical of middle school math. It won’t help you with trigonometry yet. Sadly, Photomath doesn’t support handwriting yet. It only works with printed equations. Photomath is free and MicroBlink doesn’t see the app as the future of the company. The company also makes optical character recognition software for banks. To them Photomath is just a proof of what the company can do and they hope the app’s success will lure more companies to the other products MicroBlink offer. As

Apple’s new payment system is live, and Apple Pay has already garnered more attention than most mobile payment efforts to date. It also has a new ad, which aired yesterday during the opening game of the 2014 World Series, from payment partner MasterCard. MasterCard’s ad accompanies its new rollout of contactless payments at food and beverage purchase points in MLB ballparks across the U.S. The program supports a range of NFC-powered mobile payment options, but MasterCard is pushing the Apple Pay angle specifically, touting the fact that it brings Apple Pay to pro sports facilities for the first time, at ballparks in both Kansas City and San Francisco. MasterCard says that the Apple Pay system works well in the ballpark setting basically because people want their franks fast. Apple Pay/MLB partnerships don’t end there, however – the company is also offering in-app purchase support for Apple Pay users for single-game tickets once those start going on sale in November, via the MLB

Facebook and Twitter are essential tools for social marketing, but user engagement on those networks doesn’t necessarily translate into more visitors to a site. Created by the founder of a former TechCrunch Disrupt winner, Spot.IM wants to solve that problem by making it possible to turn any site into a social network with two lines of code. The company says this gives site owners more control over the management and monetization of their traffic. Spot.IM was founded by Nadav Shoval and Ishay Green. Green’s previous startup, Soluto, which created software to monitor PC performance, won TechCrunch Disrupt in 2010. Then in 2013, Soluto was acquired for between $100 million to $130 million by device insurance provider Asurion. Spot.IM’s beta version is currently used on about 1,000 sites, including Time Out, Kerrang, and Suamusica. “Basically, we have built a technology that allows any website to become a social network, resulting in the first ‘everywhere’ social network, built

Google has introduced a new email app, from the same team that builds Gmail, but intended as something completely different from Gmail. Inbox is the app, and it looks like it might owe some inspiration to Mailbox, and to Google Now. The new Inbox app is available to a limited user group only, and will be expanding its user pool via an invite system similar to the one that Google used for Gmail. It is available cross-platform, however, as an app for iOS, web and Android. You can also email Google at inbox@google.com to request access, if you don’t like your chances of getting an invite from a friend. What Inbox does differently than Gmail is present you with your information in a way that’s aimed at making content contextually relevant, instead of just presented as it comes in. Email’s evolution has resulted in an unwieldy system – what began as system for occasional correspondence from a single virtual location is now something with take with us everywhere, with a volume that ca