Desktop Metal has had no issues raising interest (or funding) in the manufacturing world. The metal 3D printing company announced today that it’s score another $65 million in backing, bringing its total to $277 million. This latest round was led by Ford, and also includes addition money from previous backer, Future Fund. Ford’s interest in […]
BLOG
This 3D-printing startup helps orthodontists straighten your teeth
It’s time to welcome another startup to the clear teeth aligner market. Meet ArchForm, a Y Combinator-backed teeth aligner software startup that lets orthodontists create, design and 3D print aligners within their own offices. The idea is to provide orthodontists with a way to better compete against some direct-to-consumer teeth aligner startups and cut down […]
AWS Key Management Service Now Offers FIPS 140-2 Validated Cryptographic Modules
Today we’re announcing that the AWS Key Management Service (KMS) provides customers with more assurance around the secure use and management of their keys. Customers now get assurance that keys are created and used by hardware security modules (HSMs) in KMS that meet Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) Publication 140-2 requirements. Customers can also choose […]
Google Play Instant lets you try games without having to install them
Last year, Google launched Instant Apps, a way for developers to give users a native app experience that didn’t involve having to install anything. Users would simply click on a link on the search results page and the instant app would load. Today, the company is extending this program to games. Thanks to this, you […]
YouTube is testing a picture-in-picture mode on the desktop
Some YouTube users on the web have been opted in to a test of a new picture-in-picture mode, which allows you to continue watching a YouTube video in a small window even as you navigate elsewhere on YouTube’s website. A similar feature already exists today on YouTube’s app for both iOS and Android. The site […]
Uber self-driving test car involved in accident resulting in pedestrian death
An autonomous Uber test SUV driving in Tempe, Arizona was involved in a fatal collision last night, and the Uber vehicle was in autonomous mode at the time the accident occurred, according to Tempe Police (via Daisuke Wakabayashi). The Uber SUV was driving northbound, and a woman crossed in its path outside of a crosswalk, […]
Original Content podcast: We take a drink with season two of ‘Jessica Jones’
Netflix recently released the second season of Marvel’s Jessica Jones, which finds the titular private detective dealing with unwanted fame and investigating the mysterious organization that gave her superpowers. Despite successfully confronting her nemesis Kilgrave at the end of season one, Jessica (played by Krysten Ritter) remains as prickly as ever — and just as […]
Magic Leap opens up its ‘Creator Portal’ with SDK and design guidelines for devs
After maintaining a quiet presence for quite a while, Magic Leap is finally feeling a bit more chatty, at least when it comes to what they’re sharing with developers. As the Game Developers Conference kicks off in San Francisco this week, Magic Leap is opening up their “Creator Portal” to developers sharing their SDK, tutorials, […]
Facebook builds Patreon, Niche clones to lure creators with cash
Facebook is eager to displace YouTube and Patreon in order to become the home of online content creators, so it’s testing a bunch of new ways for them to earn money and connect with fans. Facebook’s dedicated Creator app that launched in November on iOS will come to Android soon, and it’s also starting a closed […]
Walmart to sell Handy’s in-home installation and assembly services in over 2,000 stores
Walmart this morning announced a partnership with home services provider Handy, which will allow customers to purchase in-home installation and assembly assistance in over 2,000 of Walmart’s stores. News of the deal follows IKEA’s recent launch of its own in-home assembly service through TaskRabbit. It will also challenge Amazon’s growing Home Services business, which includes assembly […]
Facebook lets all PC games Live stream and reward viewers
Facebook is challenging Twitch and YouTube for video game live streaming supremacy with the release of its new Games SDK for PC. After testing Live streaming from games like Overwatch from developers like Blizzard, today Live broadcasting from PC games to the News Feed opens to all developers. And Facebook will let them reward fans […]
Why Process Is U.S. Health Care’s Biggest Problem
ilbusca/Getty Images A lot of money has been spent on information technology in health care with little to show for it. To understand why we must pay a visit to the hospital. It only takes 10 minutes of direct observation of a nurse in a hospital to understand care-delivery processes are not standardized and are […]
What Kind of Leadership Works Best at Your Company?
Kenneth Anderssson for HBR Inventive companies like Amazon and Tesla are constantly churning out new products and services, but there is something else that they, and other distinctive enterprises, are also in the business of producing: their version of leadership. A research project we just completed suggests there might be something important and innovative going […]
LinkedIn now lets job seekers ask for referrals with a click of a button
LinkedIn this morning is rolling out a new feature for job searchers that allows them to better leverage their network of connections when looking for a new job. The company is introducing “Ask for a Referral,” which places a button next to the jobs where you know people who work at the company advertising open […]
Pinterest is slowly rolling out its automated shopping ads to more marketers
Pinterest is looking to continue to increase its portfolio of ads, though some can sometimes that can take a little while to see the light of day — and that includes a new-ish tool called Shopping Ads that’s slowly getting opened to more developers. Getting new ad formats is important for a smaller company looking […]
Bear Flag Robotics wants to sell an autonomous tractor for farms
Autonomous vehicles are increasingly becoming the shiny object in Silicon Valley. But the opportunity doesn’t just extend to cars driving around the streets of a major metropolitan area, and Igino Cafiero and Aubrey Donnellan hope to take it somewhere a little less obvious: the middle of an orchard. Cafiero and Donnellan are building an autonomously-driven tractor […]
Biomedical startup AesculaTech is creating a new, more patient-friendly drug delivery system
“Reverse chocolate” — that’s how AesculaTech co-founder and chief science officer Niki Bayat describes the material created by its proprietary technology. Chocolate is solid until heated, when it melts deliciously into liquid. AesculaTech’s material, on the other hand, is a liquid at low temperatures, turns into a gel when heated and then reaches its final, […]
Google introduces ‘Shopping Actions’ to help retailers in their battle with Amazon
Google announced this morning a new plan to help retailers take on Amazon – and give Google a cut of their sales in the process. The search giant will allow retailers to list their products across Google Search, in its Google Express shopping service, and in the Google Assistant app for smartphones and on smart […]
Players Lounge lets gamers make money off their eSports skills
Online gamers love to talk a big game, but how willing are they to put their money with their mouth is? Players Lounge is a home for gamers looking to make friendly wagers with strangers and friends in head-to-head matches. When we first covered the startup back in 2015, the team was getting people together […]
Volkswagen’s I.D. R Pikes Peak all-electric race car will tackle the iconic climb
Volkswagen wants to make sure people are aware of just how versatile their forthcoming MEB platform, which will prove the base for all of its all-electric I.D. vehicles, really is. The MEB-based I.D. R Pikes Pace, a prototype all-electric race car, will take on the famous Pikes Peak hillclimb in June in Colorado to help […]
Pockit Loqbox promises to help the UK’s ‘unbanked’ improve their credit score
Building up your credit history or improving your credit score often presents somewhat of a catch-22 situation. You’ll need to take out some form of credit to do so, such as a loan or credit card, but if your score is too low or your history too chequered, you’ll typically be offered a very bad […]
HTC’s Vive Pro headset will retail for a steep $799, and that doesn’t even include controllers
The top widely-available VR headset that money can buy is… gonna take a lot of money to buy. HTC has released pricing info for its Vive Pro headset that the company showed off at CES and it ain’t cheap. The company had previously detailed that they would begin selling the system as a headset-only package […]
9 Exciting Jobs with the Fastest Growing Pay
Looking for a new gig and not willing to take a pay cut? You’re in luck. There are a handful of jobs that boast solid median base pay as well as a strong track record of pay growth. Glassdoor’s Local Pay Reports show that there are now a wide variety of positions that have been seeing […]
Jay-Z’s Roc Nation and First Round Capital invest $3 million in bail reform startup Promise
Nationwide, 62 percent of the jail population accounts for people who can’t afford bail, according to the Vera Institute of Justice. A lot of these incarcerated individuals are behind bars because they committed crimes at the misdemeanor level or lower. This is a significant statistic from a human rights perspective, as well as an economic […]
Amazon’s new GameOn API helps developers add eSports competitions to their games
Here’s a curious bit of news for your Monday morning: Amazon wants to be the backend for gaming tournaments. They’ve built a new, AWS-powered platform called “GameOn” for third-party developers, allowing them to easily add things like leaderboards and leagues to their games. Fittingly for Amazon, there’s a product fulfillment aspect to the new API […]
Ask An Interview Coach: What Hiring Managers Want to Hear from Candidates in a Phone Inter…
Companies are increasingly using phone interviews at the early stages of screening candidates, before inviting them on-site for in-person interviews. This is a way to efficiently screen through large candidate pools, as the average job has over 250 applicants. Moreover, the phone screen is typically conducted by recruiters, many of whom may be remote so […]
America’s Loneliest Workers, According to Research
Dave Wheeler for HBR/Getty Images A hundred fifty years ago, poet Emily Dickinson described loneliness as “the horror not to be surveyed, but skirted in the dark.” Had she been running a modern company, she might have felt differently. Loneliness should be as important to managers, CFOs, and CEOs as it is to therapists. The […]
Uber said to be negotiating sale of self-driving tech to Toyota
Uber might begin selling its autonomous driving systems to outside companies, including major automakers, according to a new report from Japan’s Nikkei. The report claims that Uber has had talks with Toyota regarding supplying the automaker with self-driving tech, and that the two are currently in negotiations around how this would work, with talk of […]
18 Instagram Apps to Make Your Posts Stand Out
SearchInk rebrands as omni:us, aims its hand-writing reading AI at insurance industry
Back in 2016 a startup called SearchInk, launched out of Berlin with the aim of combining machine learning with handwriting recognition. The upshot would be the ability to semantically label handwritten documents. Pretty nifty. It went on to raise €4.2 million in seed funding, but after developing this AI to read hard-written documents, it went […]
VentureFriends, the Athens-based VC, outs new €45M fund
VentureFriends, the Athens-based VC that has backed the likes of Homie and Weengs, is announcing its new fund, with a first closing of €45 million. ‘VentureFriends II’ sees the VC firm pick up where its original €20 million fund left off, with a remit to do seed investments in Greek startups and beyond that have […]
Episode 8: How to Find Your Best Possible Self
The Science of Happiness Learn research-tested strategies for a happier, more meaningful life, drawing on the science of compassion, gratitude, mindfulness, and awe. Hosted by GGSC Director Dacher Keltner. Co-produced by the GGSC and PRI. All Episodes
If You’re Procrastinating on a Project, Do the First Piece of It
We all have tasks that we put off and put off, but actually accomplishing them is rarely as bad as we expect. Sometimes beating procrastination is about just getting over the initial hurdle. Instead of forcing yourself to tackle the entire task at once, focus on the first piece of it. Start by thinking about […]
Alibaba doubles down on Lazada with fresh $2B investment and new CEO
Alibaba is increasing its control of Lazada, its e-commerce marketplace in Southeast Asia it acquired control of in 2016, after it injected another $2 billion into the business and replaced its CEO with a long-standing Alibaba executive. Alibaba’s first investment came in April 2016 when it bought 51 percent of Lazada for $1 billion, and […]
Andrew Yang is running for President to save America from the robots
Tom Goodwin Contributor More posts by this contributor The battle for consumers gets physical (instead of virtual) In the new age of ubiquitous connectivity the message is the medium Adriana Stan Contributor Adriana Stan is the public relations director of W magazine and a writer on media, culture and technology. She is also the co-founder […]
The Best of B2B Marketing Content: 10 Examples
💡 Daily Inspiration: Get lost in a beautiful new place, with beautiful people! 🌟 by @marketingmuses 💫 marketingmuses.com ⭐️✨
View on Instagram http://ift.tt/2FJLLNy
Wing It is a Facebook Messenger bot meant to get you out of the house
“I should go on a weekend trip,” you think to yourself. “I’ll go to the mountains!” And then the weekend comes and all the hotels are booked and you’re tired and the mountains are far and hey look, Netflix! Wing It is a Facebook Messenger bot that tries to get you out of that rut. […]
Aalo is do-it-yourself, customizable, re-purposable furniture
Buying furniture sucks. Getting rid of it later is worse. Aalo, part of the Y Combinator Winter 2018 class, is trying to fix both sides of that equation. They want you to design and build your own furniture… and when you’re done with it, turn it into something else. They’ve built a system of interlocking, […]
Phlur, a fragrance startup launched by a former Ralph Lauren exec, is raising fresh funding
There’s no shortage of ideas being backed when it comes to direct-to-consumer e-commerce companies that are cultivating their own brands. We’ve seen everything from slippers to toothbrushes to, perhaps most famously, razor blades. Among the newer frontiers being funded right now: ingredient-conscious perfumes. The New York-based, venture-backed cosmetics company Glossier began marketing a proprietary perfume called […]
What it’s like using the Owl car security camera
When you get a new car, and you’re feeling like a star, the first thing you’re probably going to do is ghost ride it. This is where the Owl camera can come in. I’ve been testing Owl, an always-on, two-way camera that records everything that’s happening inside and outside of your car all day, every day for […]
Here are the top states and cities for startups in the South
The American South may not be the first region that comes to mind when you hear the phrase “hotbed of tech entrepreneurship,” but, slightly misguided perceptions aside, it’s home to a diverse and growing collection of startups. Here, we’re going to take a deep dive into the startup funding data for the region. What is […]
💡 Daily Inspiration: Take the plunge! 🌟 by @marketingmuses 💫 marketingmuses.com ⭐️✨
View on Instagram http://ift.tt/2FLupA5
EdTech is having a renaissance, powered by the emerging world
So-called ‘EdTech’ has seen many false dawns over the years. After being lauded as the teaching platforms of the future, most MOOCs (Massive Open Online Course platforms) have not quite lived up to the superlatives made for them, and the sector has had trouble coming up with more innovative ideas for a while. But that […]
💡 Green Body + Mind! 🌟 by @marketingmuses 💫 marketingmuses.com ⭐️✨
View on Instagram http://ift.tt/2pmISHn
💡Create a clutter-free workspace!🌟 by @marketingmuses 💫 marketingmuses.com ⭐️✨
View on Instagram http://ift.tt/2tVJXvp
The rise of experiential commerce
Sunny Dhillon Contributor More posts by this contributor Mixed reality arcades are the next big market opportunity — but not for VCs Virtual reality in Japan “$43 million and the only thing you can buy in it is a coffee.” So said Samsung’s Senior Director of Store Development Michael Koch about the company’s flagship Manhattan […]
VR, presence and the case of the missing killer app
Sibjeet Mahapatra Contributor Compelling virtual reality shipped to developers and consumers nearly two years ago. The first flagship headsets arrived from Oculus and HTC back in the spring of 2016, offering enough resolution, frame rate, field of view, latency mitigation and position-tracking to produce believable visual immersion. But no one seems to know what to […]
💡 Daily Inspiration: If you have love in your life, you have everything that matters! 🌟 by @marketingmuses 💫 marketingmuses.com ⭐️✨
View on Instagram http://ift.tt/2IudcbU
Late-blooming startups can still thrive
Joanna Glasner Contributor More posts by this contributor What does it take to be a startup that raises huge sums quickly? Not a minimalist? Startups will gladly store, manage and deliver your items It seems like startup news is full of overnight success stories and sudden failures, like the scooter rental company that went from […]
Aerones makes really big drones for cleaning turbines and saving lives
Enthusiasts will talk your ear off about the potential for drones to take over many of our dirtiest, dullest and most dangerous tasks. But most of the jobs we’ve actually seen drones perform are focused on the camera — from wildlife surveying to monitoring cracks on power plant smokestack. Aerones is working on something much […]
Education quiz app Kahoot raises another $17M at a $100M valuation
When we wrote about gaming startup Kahoot passing significant milestones of 70 million users on 51 million educational quizzes in January, we mentioned that the Oslo, Norway-based startup was closing another round of funding. Now, that has come to pass: Kahoot has announced that it has raised $17 million, at a valuation that sources close to […]
AWS Elemental MediaTailor Now Supports VPAID Standard and CloudWatch Metrics
Also announced today, AWS Elemental MediaTailor now supports CloudWatch Metrics. In addition to CloudWatch debugging logs, you can use Amazon CloudWatch to build dashboards and alarms for key metrics related to the stability and monetization progress of video streams. These metrics include Fill Rate, Ad Server Error Rate, Origin Errors, Manifest Errors, and others. AWS […]
Enterprise subscription services provider Zuora has filed for an IPO
Zuora, which helps businesses handle subscription billing and forecasting, filed for an initial public offering this afternoon following on the heels of Dropbox’s filing earlier this month. Zuora’s IPO may signal that Dropbox going public, and seeing a price range that while under its previous valuation seems relatively reasonable, may open the door for coming […]
💡Do what you love each and every single day! 🌟 by @marketingmuses 💫 marketingmuses.com ⭐️✨
View on Instagram http://ift.tt/2IrqKEZ
Zscaler soars 106% on first day of trading
It was a big debut for enterprise cloud security company Zscaler, which saw its shares skyrocket 106% on its first day of trading. After pricing at $16, shares opened at $27.50, and closed at $34. This was also well above the original expected price range for its IPO of $10 to $12. The company ultimately raised […]
FTC shuts down crypto Ponzi schemers
The FTC has announced that they’ve issued temporary restraining orders and frozen the assets of a team of three defendants who pitched investment advice as the Bitcoin Funding Team and My7Network. The FTC claims that the defendants “promised big rewards for a small payment of bitcoin or Litecoin.” From the report: According to the FTC, […]
The next frontier for robotics? Jazz marimba
[embedded content] Watch out all you well-paid, fat-and-sassy jazz marimba players: Shimon, the marimba playing robot is after your jobs. Shimon is the brainchild of the Robotic Musicianship Group at Georgia Tech and I’ve been following his career for a few years now. In this video, taken at the Ferst Center Presents as part of […]
GrokStyle’s visual search tech makes it into IKEA’s Place AR app
GrokStyle’s simple concept of “point your camera at a chair (or lamp, or table…) and find others like it for sale” attracted $2 million in funding last year, and the company has been putting that cash to work. And remarkably for a company trying to break into the home furnishing market, it landed furniture goliath […]
SpaceX is making big money moves
Planning a mars mission, a global telecommunications network for inexpensive internet service, and creating an interplanetary hedge against world war three isn’t cheap, so it’s no wonder that SpaceX is closing on $500 million in new cash through a financing round led by Fidelity, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the round. Responding to clamoring […]
💡 Daily Inspiration: Let someone know you care about them today. 🌟 by @marketingmuses 💫 marketingmuses.com ⭐️✨
View on Instagram http://ift.tt/2FOIbh3
6 Ways to Counteract Your Smartphone Addiction
John Holcroft/Getty Images We are living in an era of technology obsession and smartphone addiction. I hear it all the time: “I can’t go anywhere without my phone” or “I feel anxious when I’m not able to check email” or “If I’m not on my social feeds, I feel like I’m missing out.” Not surprisingly, […]
Anker’s Nebula Capsule portable projector is a pocket powerhouse
Anker is a devie maker that’s rapidly become a go-to brand for affordable, quality accessories include cables, chargers and backup batteries. More recently, it’s started to branch out into additional areas, including projectors through its Nebula brand. The Nebula Capsule is the latest product from that line, a super portable projector with an Android-based OS, […]
Village Global raises $100M seed scout fund from Zuck, Bezos…
It takes a village to grow a startup, so Village Global is offering access to a deep network of top tech execs to lure founders to its seed fund. Today, Village Global announced it’s raised $100 million for that fund that was first unveiled in September. In exchange for equity, portfolio companies get investment plus […]
NexGenT wants to rethink bootcamps with programs for network engineering certifications
Developer bootcamps — several-month training programs that are designed to help people get up to speed with the technical skills they need to become a developer — exploded in popularity in the early part of the decade, but there’s been a bit of a shakedown on the space recently. And that could be a product […]
Small businesses love free stuff, so Gusto is giving them free HR Basics
Gusto, formerly ZenPayroll, is the rare startup unicorn that has stayed relatively mum on its product and growth — it’s last press release, for instance, was more than a year ago. The company’s core offering remains payroll for small businesses, and it has been working to expand its customer base across the nation, including have […]
Zoosk relaunches dating app Lively as a way to meet new people while playing trivia games
Hoping to capitalize on the popularity of trivia applications like HQ Trivia, dating app maker Zoosk has just released an experimental app that combines trivia with the potential for meeting someone new. The app is a relaunch and complete makeover of Zoosk’s Lively, which first debuted in July 2016 as a dating app that used […]
Tokyoflash has created a radar watch that scans the skies (or your wrist)
Tokyoflashis one of my favorite watchmakers. Unabashedly analog, the watches pay homage giant robots and old tech, looking like a cross between something that you could find in the hatch in Lost and a Shinjuku fever dream. Now the company has launched the Radar LED watch, a clever piece that shows the time with sweeping […]
10 High-Paying Jobs With Tons of Open Positions
Cloud security startup Zscaler opens at $27.50, a pop of 72% on Nasdaq, raising $192M in its IPO
The first big tech IPO of the year has opened with a bang. Zscaler, a security startup that confidentially filed for an IPO last year, started trading this morning as ZS on Nasdaq at a price of $27.50/share. This was a pop of 71.9 percent on its opening price of $16, and speaks to a […]
Socially Responsible Business Can Only Succeed If It Becomes a Movement
Tim Ellis/Getty Images What does it take to cause something big about a community to change — something that no one individually has much power over, even something as big as a prevailing mindset? We know what it takes: a social movement. And social movements aren’t only the domain of community organizers and college students. […]
How to Prepare for a Crisis You Couldn’t Possibly Predict
Phil Ashley/Getty Images On the morning of May 18, 2012, at precisely 11:05, Nasdaq planned to execute the first trade in in Facebook’s hotly anticipated initial public offering. The opening trade was an auction of sorts—buyers and sellers entered orders, and Nasdaq calculated a price that would cause as many shares as possible to change […]
How to Tell If You’re a Toxic Client
Google Lens arrives on iOS
On the heels of last week’s rollout on Android, Google’s new AI-powered technology, Google Lens, is now arriving on iOS. The feature is available within the Google Photos iOS application, where it can do things like identify objects, buildings, and landmarks, and tell you more information about them, including helpful details like their phone number, […]
Ava DuVernay will direct a ‘New Gods’ movie for DC
A Wrinkle in Time director Ava DuVernay is closing a deal with Warner Brothers to direct a movie based DC’s New Gods comics. The news was first reported in Deadline, and DuVernay seemed to confirm it by subsequently tweeting a tribute to New Gods creator Jack Kirby. While beloved by many comics fans, The New […]
Watch Thanos explain his simple plan in new ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ trailer
[embedded content] The new trailer for Avengers: Infinity War is here, and it gives us a look at Thanos with a helmet on, and provides some signet into what he hopes to accomplish by invading Earth (kill half the people on it). Also, there are still a ton of characters in this movie, and it […]
Alexa’s new ‘Brief Mode’ replaces verbal confirmations with chimes
Alexa is rolling out an optional “Brief Mode” that lets users configure their Echo devices to use chimes and sounds for confirmations, instead of having Alexa respond with her voice. For example, if you ask Alexa to turn on your lights today, she will respond “okay” as she does so. But with Brief Mode enabled, […]
Apple is holding an education event March 27
Apple has a long legacy of providing services to schools and teachers, but the industry has changed in recent years as the Chromebook has completely changed the way classrooms work. The company is no doubt looking to take back some of that mindshare. This morning, it sent out invites for an event, asking attendees to […]
Finding New Ideas When You Don’t Have a Broad Network
juan díaz-faes for hbr People who study creativity and innovation talk a lot about the value of “recombination” — bringing existing ideas, practices, processes, or technologies together in new ways or applying them in fresh contexts or markets. It’s a model that has led to many popular consumer products, such as leak-proof water bottles that borrow […]
Why You Need an Untouchable Day Every Week
Hayon Thapaliya/DUCEPT Pascal/ hemis.fr/Getty Images I hate meetings. They sit subconsciously in my brain, taking up space. I prepare for them in my notebooks. I travel to them, and then back again, in the middle of my work days. And what do most meetings usually result in? You guessed it — more meetings. When I […]
7 Signs You’ve Found the Perfect Job for You
Experiencing successful career development across our lives requires a consistent evaluation of our long-term goals while balancing our need for instant gratification versus our delayed benefits. It can also require us to follow our gut and learn when to say “yes” or “no” to opportunities that come our way. We look at what we have […]
4 Ways to Get Back to Work When You (Really) Don’t Want to
You know you need to work, but you really don’t want to. Millions of distractions — some worthier than others — compete for your time and attention. How do you drown out the voice of procrastination? Here are four ways that will get you working again, even when you’d rather be doing anything else. 1. Reward […]
How The Internet of Things (IoT) Is Changing Customer Relationships [Video]
Does Buying Instagram Followers Work?
You might know your Instagram content is good, but imagine how much better it will seem if it looks like 10,000 people agree. Whether you’re trying to become a social media celebrity or simply looking to spread brand awareness on Instagram, it can seem tempting to pay for your first couple thousand followers. There are […]
Li Ka-Shing to step down as chairman of CK Hutchison, owner of 3 and other tech holdings
A significant changing of the guard is underway in the world of telecoms and tech out of Asia. CK Hutchison, a Hong Kong conglomerate that owns the European mobile carrier 3 among other mobile and tech holdings, has announced that Li Ka-Shing is stepping down as the company’s chairman and executive director, after 46 years […]
Detectify raises €5M for its crowdsourced website vulnerability scanner
Sweden-based Detectify, which offers a website vulnerability scanner that is in part powered by the crowd, has raised €5 million in new funding. The round was led by New York-based venture capital and private equity firm, Insight Venture Partners. Existing investors, Paua Ventures and Inventure, also participated. Founded in late 2013 by a self-described group […]
AirAsia, Southeast Asia’s low-cost airline, is considering an ICO
AirAsia, the low-cost airline in Southeast Asia, is considering an initial coin offering (ICO) as part of a push into financial services. Tony Fernandes, CEO of the $3 billion Malaysia-based company, told TechCrunch that he is analyzing the potential to hold an ICO that would raise money by introducing its own cryptocurrency. “We have two […]
To Be Friends with Your Employees, Set Clear Boundaries
It’s possible to be friends with someone who works for you, but you need to set boundaries. For example, there may be times when you’re privy to information that will affect your friend, but it would be improper for you to share it. To make the friendship work, be transparent about what you can and […]
Amazon Redshift Spectrum Launches in Two Additional AWS Regions
Redshift Spectrum is a feature of Amazon Redshift that extends analytics to data stored in your Amazon S3 data lake, with no loading or transformations needed. Redshift Spectrum supports open data formats, such as Avro, CSV, Grok, Ion, JSON, ORC, Parquet, RCFile, RegexSerDe, SequenceFile, TextFile, and TSV. You can query data across Redshift and S3 […]
Amazon Redshift Doubles the Number of Tables You Can Create in a Cluster
The maximum number of tables you can create per cluster is 20,000 for 8xlarge cluster node types, and 9,900 for large and xlarge cluster node types. The limit includes user-defined temporary tables and temporary tables created by Amazon Redshift during query processing or system maintenance. Views are not included in this limit.
Blog SEO: How to Search Engine Optimize Your Blog Content
Does Blogging Help With SEO? Blogging helps boost SEO quality by positioning your website as a relevant answer to your customers’ questions. Blog posts that specifically use a variety of on-page SEO tactics can give you more opportunities to rank in search engines and get customers to visit your site. Search engine optimization is incredibly […]
Amazon SageMaker notebook instances now offer lifecycle customization and option to disable internet access
You can extend the customization of your notebook instances using the lifecycle configuration option. This feature will allow you to invoke a custom script at designated stages of a notebook instance’s lifecycle – such as every time the notebook instance is instantiated, or just when it is first created. You also now have the choice […]
This Is How You Tell a Story (and Other Things SXSW Taught Me)
I write a lot about creating an experience. About humanizing. About authenticity. About telling a story. About being helpful. In a marketing context, much of this boils down to the idea of your brand: about who you are, what you can do, and how that shapes the messages you send your audience, and how you send […]
Lyft is testing monthly subscriptions for riders
Lyft is testing a monthly subscription plan for people who tend to take a lot of rides, The Verge first reported. This is no surprise, given Lyft CEO and co-founder Logan Green said earlier this week Lyft would like to achieve in transportation what Netflix achieved in streaming media with subscriptions. There seems to be […]
4 Pro Tips For Your Next Big Job Interview
Once you have a couple of interviews under your belt, you usually understand the basics: make sure to present yourself professionally, maintain eye contact, play up your strengths, etc. But it can take quite a while before you really take your interviewing game to the next level — after all, there’s a big difference between […]
Google adds a wheelchair-accessible option for transit maps
Google Maps has a pretty solid set of data for taking transit from here to there, but anyone with a physical disability knows it isn’t quite that simple. Some stations may be wheelchair-unfriendly, have out-of-service elevators, that kind of thing. A new update to the service adds an option for you to specify a wheelchair-accessible […]
💡 Daily Inspiration: LOVE is all that matters! 🌟 by @marketingmuses 💫 marketingmuses.com ⭐️✨
View on Instagram http://ift.tt/2HFlk8q
Intel announces hardware fixes for Spectre and Meltdown on upcoming chips
When the Spectre and Meltdown bugs hit, it became clear that they wouldn’t be fixed with a few quick patches — the problem runs deeper than that. Fortunately, Intel has had plenty of time to work on it, and new chips coming out later this year will include improvements at the hardware/architecture level that protect […]
FitHouse aims to make fancy fitness classes more affordable
Fitness-oriented New Yorkers aren’t facing a shortage of classes that they can sign up for, but the prices can add up — Clément Benoit, founder of a new startup called FitHouse, said boutique classes cost an average of $35 per session. FitHouse, on the other hand, is charging $99 per month for unlimited classes. Contrast […]
Abra adds twenty cryptocurrencies to its wallet app
Abra, a global currency wallet that was the belle of the early Bitcoin ball, has just added twenty cryptocurrencies and fifty fiat currencies, a feature that allows you to top up and send cash and cryptocurrencies from inside the wallet. “Bitcoin, Ether, Litecoin, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum Classic, Dash, Zcash, Bitcoin Gold, Stellar Lumens, DigiByte, […]
TheSkimm raises $12 million for its snarky newsletters
Seven million women (and men) love TheSkimm. With its daily newsletters designed to keep you in the loop on the latest news and pop culture, TheSkimm has developed a loyal following, and even recruits fans called “Skimm’bassadors” to help spread the word. That word-of-mouth hype is helping and the startup has seen enough growth to […]
AWS CloudTrail Log Search Using Amazon Athena
AWS CloudTrail makes it easier to search CloudTrail log files using the power of Amazon Athena. Previously, you had to manually create a CloudTrail table using the Athena console or AWS CLI and ensure you had the proper configuration and data definitions to match the CloudTrail log format. Now, from within the CloudTrail console event […]
Lightning Labs just raised millions from Jack Dorsey and others to supercharge blockchain transactions
Lightning Labs, a young, Bay Area-based startup, is trying to make it easier for users to send bitcoin and litecoin to each other without the costly and time consuming process of settling their transactions on the blockchain. It has investors excited about its work, too. The company is announcing today that it has raised $2.5 […]
Volley’s voice games for smart speakers have amassed over half a million monthly users
The rapid consumer adoption of smart speakers like Amazon Echo and Google Home has opened opportunities for developers creating voice apps, too. At least that’s true in the case of Volley, a young company building voice-controlled entertainment experiences for Amazon Alexa and Google Home. In less than a year, Volley has amassed an audience north […]
Why We Don’t Let Coworkers Help Us, Even When We Need It
Chris Madden/Getty Images When colleagues display helpful and cooperative “citizenship behaviors,” research has shown, they tend to develop high-quality social connections, which can improve individual and team performance through enhanced coordination, communication, and shared understanding within organizations. But there’s an obstacle to reaping those benefits — social psychologists have also found that people often react […]
Teacher in Ghana who used blackboard to explain computers gets some Microsoft love
Teaching kids how to use a computer is hard enough already, since they’re kids, but just try doing it without any computers. That was the task undertaken by Richard Appiah Akoto in Ghana, and his innovative (and labor-intensive) solution was to draw the computer or application on the blackboard in great detail. His hard work […]
Three New Amazon Connect Integrations Offer Contact Center Solutions from Qualtrak Solutions, VoiceBase, and Perficient
Amazon Connect integrations are automated deployments that extend the cloud-based contact center functionality provided by Amazon Connect with popular services and solutions from AWS partners. You can use Amazon Connect integrations to easily set up and manage your contact center in the AWS Cloud with key solutions for customer relationship management (CRM), workforce optimization (WFO), […]
Google spent about $270K to close pay gaps across race and gender
Google says there are currently no ‘statistically significant’ pay gaps at the company across race and gender. This is based on the company’s most recent pay analysis, where it looked at unexplained pay discrepancies based on gender and race and then made adjustments where necessary, Google wrote in a blog post today. In total, Google […]
Rihanna calls out Snapchat for tone-deaf ad that made light of domestic violence
Rihanna is not happy with Snap for the tone-deaf ad the company let run on Snapchat. A couple of days ago, an advertisement on Snap appeared that alluded to Chris Brown’s violent assault on Rihanna back in 2009. The advertisement, which was for a game called “Would You Rather,” asked if people would “rather slap […]
6 Ways to Pay the Bills When Pursuing Your Passion
As a child, you usually have big dreams of what you’re going to be when you grow up: a famous actor, a professional athlete, a beloved author. In certain cases, these childhood dreams lead to well-paying, in-demand jobs — just ask doctors or police officers. But unfortunately, more often than not, you learn that if […]
CloudFront now Supports ECDSA Certificates for HTTPS Connections to Origins
Starting today, you can now use Amazon CloudFront to negotiate HTTPS connections to origins using Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA). ECDSA uses smaller keys that are faster, yet, just as secure, as the older RSA algorithm. The smaller keys will also increase the number of TLS handshakes that your origins can process per second, […]
Facebook launches Express Wi-Fi app for its local-operated hotspots
Facebook wants you to pay it for Internet. This week TechCrunch was tipped off that Facebook had quietly launched an Express Wi-Fi Android app in the Google Play store that lets users buy data packs and find nearby hotspots as part of Facebook’s distributed Wi-Fi network. The company’s Express Wi-Fi program is live in five developing […]
Ford is changing the way it builds vehicles
Ford is a 115 year old company and has changed much over the years. The car maker seems ready to change again. Today, Ford gathered several hundred journalists in a theater deep in its Dearborn, MI development center. The building is surrounded by engineering labs and test facilities. A Ford proving ground is across the […]
Ford says its electric SUV will be famous without having to shoot it into space
Ford is committed to electric vehicles and today revealed more details about its upcoming performance electric SUV. Jim Farley, President of Ford Global Markets, speaking a media event today, called the upcoming vehicle low-slung like a Mustang. The company is targeting 2020 release and Farley promised that it will be famous without having to shoot […]
Ford takes aim at Toyota’s hybrid market lead with its new SUV lineup
Ford detailed a bunch of its roadmap for the next few years at a special media event today, and one of the key takeaways is that it’s going all-in on hybrids with its SUV lineup. Ford estimates that SUVs could make up as much as half the entire U.S. industry retail market by 2020, and […]
Repl.it lets you program in your browser
No matter whether you are a seasoned programmer or you simply want to take your first steps in writing code, Repl.it wants to help you get from idea to result as fast as possible — without complicated installs and setup procedures getting in your way. The Y Combinator-funded project, which released version 1.0 of its service […]
Airbnb makes service more accessible to people with disabilities
Airbnb has made some changes to its platform in order to make it easier for people with disabilities to find accommodations that suit their needs. The 21 new accessibility filters Airbnb has added enable people to find homes and apartments that have step-free entry to rooms, entryways wide enough to accommodate a wheelchair, elevators, roll-in […]
💡 Daily Inspiration: Let’s go on an adventure together! 🌟 by @marketingmuses 💫 marketingmuses.com ⭐️✨
View on Instagram http://ift.tt/2FD3TbJ
PUBG soft-launches on mobile in Canada with Android release
Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds, the ‘battle royale’ style game where everyone tries to be the last player standing while scrounging for supplies to keep them alive, has launched on Android in Canada MobileSyrup reports, which could presage a future release in the U.S. The arrival of the mobile version of the game more generally known as […]
Why We Don’t Let Coworkers Help Us, Even When We Need It
Chris Madden/Getty Images When colleagues display helpful and cooperative “citizenship behaviors,” research has shown, they tend to develop high-quality social connections, which can improve individual and team performance through enhanced coordination, communication, and shared understanding within organizations. But there’s an obstacle to reaping those benefits — social psychologists have also found that people often react […]
Here’s why Spotify will go public via direct listing on April 3rd
Spotify explained why it’s ditching the traditional IPO for a direct listing on the NYSE on April 3rd today during its Investor Day presentation. Spotify described the rationale for using a direct listing to go public with five points: List Without Selling Shares – Spotify has plent of money with $1.3 billion in cash and securities, […]
CrunchMatch Connects Investors and Founders at Disrupt SF 2018
Disrupt San Francisco 2018 promises to be our biggest Disrupt event ever — with three times the convention floor space and more than 10,000 attendees. That’s incredibly exciting, and it also presents a challenge for startup founders and tech investors eager to network and connect. Who wants to waste valuable time talking to the wrong […]
Blue Apron will start selling its meal kits in stores
Blue Apron announced today it will bring its meal kits to stores. The news arrives at a time when the meal kit subscription company is struggling to grow and retain its users, who are often put off by the expense of the direct-shipped meal kits and the need to commit to an ongoing subscription. In […]
Android Wear is becoming ‘Wear OS by Google’
Android Wear has exactly been the rocket ship of success Google was no doubt banking on when it was launched four years ago this week. After a slow start, the company issued a 2.0 refresh of the wearable operating system in early 2017 — but the update was fairly minimal and didn’t appear to move […]
GM will build its production autonomous Cruise cars at Michigan assembly plant
GM revealed today that it’s going to be starting proper production of its Cruise autonomous vehicle at its Orion township assembly plant in Michigan, with the roof modules for the vehicles assembled nearby at its Brownstown battery assembly plant. Alongside the Cruise AV, Orion will also continue to build the Bolt EV, as well as […]
SwiftKey gets stickers
Back in 2016, Microsoft bought the popular SwiftKey keyboard for Android and iOS for $250 million. It’s still one of the most popular third-party keyboard on both platforms and today, the company is launching one of its biggest updates since the acquisition. With SwiftKey 7.0, which is out now, the company is adding stickers — because […]
We want to hear about your robotics company
As you might have heard, last year’s TC Robotics event in Boston was such a hit we’ve decided to do it again — only on the West Coast, this time. On Friday, May 11, we’ll be holding TC Sessions: Robotics on the U.C. Berkeley campus. We’ve got a lot of big industry luminaries lined up […]