“There are two types of competition for us at Loot: the banks and the money management apps,” Loot founder Ollie Purdue tells me. The U.K.…
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Google is using light beam tech to connect rural India to the internet
Google is preparing to use light beams to bring rural areas of the planet online after it announced to a planned rollout in India. The…
Go-Jek buys three startups to advance its mobile payment business
Go-Jek, the company leading Uber and Grab in Southeast Asia’s largest market, has bagged a hattrick of deals to advance its mobile payment strategy. Indonesia-based…
Crunch Report | FCC Kills Net Neutrality
The FCC kills net neutrality, Snapchat launches Lens Studio and Squarespace reportedly raises $200 million. All this on Crunch Report. Read More
The difference between good and bad Facebooking
“Social media” is a clumsy term that entangles enriching social interaction with mindless media consumption. It’s a double-edged sword whose sides aren’t properly distinguished. Taken…
With just one day left in open enrollment, companies turn to Stride Health for help
The compressed timelines of this year’s open enrollment period for government-mandated healthcare have left some companies in the lurch, and as the final hours to…
Ex-Zynga execs raise $15 million for their new gaming studio, Manticore Games
In the eight years since Frederic Descamps and Jordan Maynard launched their last gaming startup, the industry they helped shape now brings in more than…
What telecoms and tech companies are saying about the FCC’s net neutrality decision
The FCC just voted to eliminate the net neutrality rules established by 2015’s Open Internet Order. Here’s what has been said so far. We’re still…
Apple launches its podcast analytics service into beta
At WWDC this year, Apple announced it would soon offer its own podcast analytics service for show creators who publish on Apple Podcasts. Today, that…
Y Combinator is zeroing in on bigger, breakaway companies with a new growth-stage program
Y Combinator famously funds a lot of companies, but there’s always more it could be doing, said its president, Sam Altman, in an interview with…
A timeline of the FCC’s quest to destroy net neutrality
The FCC voted today to roll back the strong net neutrality rules established under the Obama administration in 2015. It’s distressing but at this point…
Edge Mobile Payments buys what’s left of Plastc in hopes that there’s still life left in smart cards
The death of Plastc back in April looked to many like the final nail in the smart card coffin. After all, the news came only…
Apple Maps gets indoor mapping for more than 30 airports
As of this morning, Apple Maps has expanded to include indoor layouts of 30 airports across the globe. The company has primarily hit American cities…
New York Attorney General announces a multi-state lawsuit challenging the net neutrality vote
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, a leading voice in the fight against the FCC’s net neutrality rules repeal, has stepped forward with one of…
Chromecast is back on Amazon
Amazon will once again allow sales of Apple TV and Google Chromecast on its site, after banning them two years ago in an effort to…
Taylor Swift’s new app, The Swift Life, is out now
In the midst of an reputational makeover, Taylor Swift is debuting a brand new app called The Swift Life. The app is a dedicated social…
The FCC just repealed net neutrality. What happens next?
The FCC voted this morning 3:2 to nullify 2015’s Open Internet Order and its strong net neutrality rules, substituting a flimsy replacement with a deeply…
FCC votes to repeal net neutrality
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Google AI helped find the first solar system outside our own with 8 planets
Google and NASA today announced the discovery of a new planet in solar system Kepler 90, achieved using machine learning. By applying neural networking to…
A new version of Mixer, Microsoft’s Twitch rival, hits iOS and Android
Microsoft today is officially launching a new version of its Mixer mobile gameplay streaming app, its Twitch rival. The app, which is initially available on…
Squarespace reportedly raises about $200 million at a $1.7 billion valuation
Squarespace, the 14-year-old platform that makes it easy for essentially anyone to build their own website, is raising about $200 million from General Atlantic, valuing…
Assembla’s new iOS app lets developers manage their repos on the go
Software development isn’t exactly something that naturally lends itself to mobile. Who, after all, wants to code on a virtual keyboard and a small screen.…
Facebook pushes pre-roll ads on Watch as it stops subsidizing Live
Everyone’s least favorite ads are coming to Facebook, but pre-rolls will only appear on original Watch tab videos you purposefully view and not in the…
Google adds price tracking and deals to Google Flights, Google Trips and hotel search
Google today is expanding its booking features for travelers using Google services including Trips, Flights and hotel search, with a focus on helping people find…
Observation of interstellar object ‘Oumuamua shows no evidence of artificial signals
You may recall that last week, researchers from the Breakthrough Initiatives set out a plan to observe ‘Oumuamua, an object thought to be from an…
CamSoda rolls our WebRTC for truly portable cam activities
They say the adult industry usually leads the way with new technology and CamSoda [NSFW LINK], a NSFW cam site, is no exception. The site,…
Instacart promotes Sarah Mastrorocco to new position of VP of Business Development
Instacart is going through some growing pains right now, with Amazon buying Whole Foods this summer and target picking up Alabama-based Shipt in the last…
Genalyte hires Facebook and Google exec Kevin Lo as company president
Khosla-backed one drop blood test startup Genalyte has hired former Facebook exec Kevin Lo as president of the company. Lo comes to Genalyte after leading…
Xage emerges from stealth with a blockchain-based IoT security solution
Getting the myriad of devices involved in the industrial internet of things provisioned and communicating with one another in a secure way will be one…
Snapchat launches augmented reality developer platform Lens Studio
Snapchat is finally opening up so outside developers can help it offer infinite augmented reality experiences beyond those it designs in-house. Today Snap launches the…
A week on the wrist with the Alpina Startimer
It’s refreshing to wear a mechanical watch. The soft sweep of the seconds hand reminds us of the fleeting nature of time while the endless…
Pandora listeners can now watch video ads to access on-demand music
Streaming radio and music service Pandora is today introducing a new way for people to pay for on-demand access to music, without having to upgrade…
Apple’s iMac Pro is a love letter to developers
The iMac Pro exists because it turns out that there is a lot of air underneath the aging Mac Pro and above the incredibly popular…
Canary brings person detection to its cameras to help avoid false positives
Canary’s finally bringing one of its most requested features to its full line of connected home security cameras. After spending some time in beta, person…
Andrew Ng’s Landing.ai wants to bring artificial intelligence to the manufacturing industry, starting with Foxconn
AI pioneer Andrew Ng is probably best known for his work on the Google Brain project and for leading Baidu’s AI group. After leaving Baidu…
Disney details overarching direct-to-consumer plan possible through Fox deal
Disney CEO Bob Iger positioned his company’s acquisition of Fox’s TV and movie businesses as a way for the company to prepare for a future…
Taiwanese media startup The News Lens lands deal with top video studio Dawin
Taiwanese digital media startup The News Lens launched only four years ago, but it quickly became one of the country’s most prolific news sources by…
It’s official: Disney is acquiring Fox’s film and TV divisions for $52.4 billion
We’re about to see two entertainment behemoths come together, as The Walt Disney Company and 21st Century Fox have officially announced a deal. As a…
Gingko Bioworks secures $275 million in Series D, valuing the company at over $1 billion
Boston biotech startup Gingko Bioworks has announced the raise of $275 million in Series D funding to build out its Bioworks3 production facility. The funding…
Instana raises $20 million for its microservice monitoring and management service
Instana, a company that helps enterprises monitor and manage their microservice deployments with the help of automation and artificial intelligence, today announced that it has…
Andreessen Horowitz has a new, $450 million bio fund
Almost exactly two years ago, the venture firm Andreessen Horowitz took the wraps off a $200 million “biofund” that aimed to invest at the intersection…
Alibaba will soon begin selling cars using these gigantic vending machines
Alibaba last week announced a deal to help Ford sell electric vehicles in China but, aside from the big names involved, the most intriguing part…
Helpster, a platform for temp job seekers in Southeast Asia, raises $2.5M
Helpster, a two-year-old startup that connects blue-collar workers with employers in Southeast Asia, has closed $2.5 million in new funding. The startup operates in Thailand…
Finiata, the finance platform for SMEs, freelancers and the self-employed, bags €18M funding
Finiata, the finance platform targeting SMEs, freelancers, and the self-employed that was founded by Sebastian Diemer, who previously co-founded credit scoring and loans company Kreditech,…
Paddle, the software sales platform founded by a Thiel Fellow, raises $12.5M
Paddle, a U.K. startup that offers software companies a single platform for the entire software sales process — including trials and licenses, payments, and analytics…
Teabox raises $7M for its global tea-commerce business
Teabox, the company pioneered the concept of selling tea to direct to consumers online, has served up $7 million in fresh funding to grow its…
China’s CCTV surveillance network took just 7 minutes to capture BBC reporter
It took Chinese authorities just seven minutes to locate and apprehend BBC reporter John Sudworth using its powerful network of CCTV camera and facial recognition technology.…
Exec who reportedly said Netflix doesn’t believe Danny Masterson’s accusers no longer works there
The Netflix executive who reportedly told one of Danny Masterson’s alleged rape victims that the company doesn’t believe them is no longer employed there. Andy…
SoundCloud resuscitates home screen with personalized playlists
After laying off 40% of its staff and securing $169 million in emergency funding, SoundCloud’s first product push is a much needed step in the…
Crunch Report | Glow-in-the-Dark Plants
Blue Origin’s Crew Capsule 2.0 takes first flight, scientists at MIT make glow-in-the-dark plants and Google is opening an AI center in China. All this…
Samsung refreshes its Notebook 9 laptop line
They say Christmas season gets earlier every year, and the same seems to apply to CES. The year’s biggest tech show is a little less…
Wizeline expands its outsourced IT services business into southeast Asia
Wizeline, a provider of outsourced programming services, is expanding its global footprint with agreements to partner with a slew of development shops across Southeast Asia.…
The price is right! Pace raises £2.5M to automate hotel room pricing based on demand
Pace, a London startup that has developed tech that uses machine learning to let hotels set room prices dynamically based on demand, has raised £2.5…
Plenty of Fish adds new conversation features to differentiate itself from Tinder
Match Group, which houses a large portfolio of dating app brands – including most notably, Tinder, Match, and OKCupid – is prepping a notable upgrade…
Microsoft looks to make Bing results smarter with new AI-powered features and Reddit partnership
At a special AI-focused event today in San Francisco, Microsoft announced a number of feature updates to Bing that it hopes will make results smarter…
Microsoft makes Azure Bot Service generally available for developers
Microsoft introduced the Azure Bot Framework over two years ago and companies have building chatbots for a variety of scenarios ever since. Today, the company…
The new reality of mobile AR and computer vision venture capital
Mobile AR from Apple, Google and Facebook and computer vision/machine learning (CV/ML) are focusing the minds and wallets of VCs in Silicon Valley, China and…
Half of Amazon app users have been switched to a new, swipe-based 1-Click checkout
Has Amazon’s ‘one-click’ checkout on mobile looked a little different to you lately? A number of users of Amazon’s mobile applications have recently reported seeing…
PuTTY Begone! Microsoft will ship an OpenSSH client
The first thing I download on a new Windows machine – after Chrome, of course – is PuTTY. This tried-and-true OpenSSH client has served millions…
Redbox unveils its service for digital movie purchases and rentals
Redbox, the company behind the ubiquitous supermarket kiosks for renting DVDs, is moving into the world of digital streaming. Technically, Redbox On Demand is still…
Comcast reiterates a shifting promise of ‘no paid prioritization’
Comcast has promised before that it does not and will not engage in paid prioritization, and today the company has reiterated that stance — after…
Gfycat wants to fix your low-fidelity GIFs with machine learning
We all love to share GIFs — and there are plenty of ways to do that, through online portals or keyboards — but often times…
Security robots are being used to ward off San Francisco’s homeless population
Is it worse if a robot instead of a human is used to deter the homeless from setting up camp outside places of business? One…
INSIKT raises $50 million to lend to low-income communities
Loans can be the hardest to get for the people who need them the most. An estimated 45 million Americans don’t have a credit score and others…
Here are the deadlines for all your online holiday shopping orders
While some folks still head to the stores on Black Friday and throughout December, many of us are turning to the web for Christmas shopping.…
Pepsi one-ups Budweiser brewer by ordering 100 Tesla electric semi trucks
PepsiCo is the latest company to reveal that it’s placed orders for Tesla’s forthcoming electric semi-truck – and also the company with the largest order…
Nasty Gal founder Sophia Amoruso just raised venture funding for her new company
Sophia Amoruso famously founded the retailer Nasty Gal, growing it from an Ebay store that sold vintage items to a darling of the fashion world…
Commission Impossible, part two: How enemies gathered around net neutrality
One would think that the classification of internet providers as telecoms or not, and which federal agency has authority over them, is about as in…
Google Assistant is coming to older Android phones and tablets
The Google Assistant has long been available on most modern phones and tablets. But given the fragmentation of the Android ecosystem, many older devices will…
Aurora Flight Sciences demonstrates a fully autonomous helicopter in action
Aurora Flight Sciences is a company working on making full-scale autonomous combat craft a reality, and now some of its work is ready for prime…
Lily raises $2M from NEA and others for a personal stylist service that considers feelings, not just fit
One of the reasons recently IPO’d Stitch Fix became so popular among female shoppers is because of how it pairs the convenience of home try-on…
Mario Bear has come to save 2017
It’s been a long year – it feels like it actually spanned about 50, in fact. But now, at the end, some relief: Mario Bear.…
Aiming to be the LinkedIn for creatives, The Dots raises £4m
Professional social networks like LinkedIn have long been a mainstay of business, but what if you are more of a creative bent where LinkedIn looks…
Berlin’s Joblift raises €10M to attack legacy sites, in a round led by DN Capital
Joblift, a European job site in the UK, Germany, France and the Netherlands, has raised €10 million in a funding round led by the London/Berlin…
Click-to-WhatsApp messaging buttons are now rolling out in Facebook ads
WhatsApp has always said that it has no plans to put ads into its own app, but this is not stopping Facebook, which now owns…
Target is buying Alabama-based same-day delivery service Shipt for $550 million
Target, America’s other favorite old-line retailer (the one that’s not Walmart, with the arguably better commercials), is buying the Alabama-based delivery startup Shipt in a…
NASA to screen ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ on the International Space Station
Being an astronaut living and working aboard the International Space Station shouldn’t mean that you have to miss out on much-anticipated movie releases like Star…
EBay acquires Terapeak to provide more analytics to marketplace sellers
EBay today announced another acquisition today that underscores the company’s current focus on building out better data tools for third-party sellers on its platform, to…
ispace just raised $90 million to launch two private moon missions by 2020
Japanese company ispace has raised $90.2 million in a Series A funding round, an amount it’s calling the “largest ever” Series A in commercial space…
T-Mobile plans pay TV service in 2018 fueled by Layer3 acquisition
T-Mobile is getting into the paid TV business, with the acquisition of Layer3 TV, a TV tech company, and plans announced to launch its own…
Scientists make kale plants glow in the dark with firefly enzymes
A team of MIT research have engineered plants that glow in the dark, using luciferase, the enzyme that lights up firefly butts. The answer to…
This app will help you figure out if you can fit that Costco-sized paper towel box in your apartment
You’re probably going to get a better deal when you buy consumer products — like paper towels — wholesale, but at the same time you’re…
Indiegogo now lets you fund via token sale
Crowdfunding service and Kickstarter-competitor Indiegogo is now offering an ICO service alongside its partner, MicroVentures. The company will allow users to participate in SEC-complaint ICOs…
Amazon expands same-day delivery and one-day shipping to thousands more cities
Amazon announced today it has expanded its same-day delivery and one-day shipping service to thousands more markets across the U.S., just in time for last-minute…
Amazon Echo’s multi-room music streaming feature now supports Spotify and SiriusXM
Just in time for all of those ridiculous holiday playlists, Amazon’s added two key players to the Echo’s multi-room streaming feature. Spotify and SiriusXM now…
Events management platform Bizzabo raises $15M Series B
Just eight months after its last round of funding, events management platform Bizzabo has raised a $15 million Series B. The new round, which brings…
Nvidia and construction giant Komatsu partner on AI for job site safety
Nvidia is teaming up with Komatsu, one of the largest manufacturers of heavy equipment for construction and mining in the world, to deploy AI at…
Mixbook photo book service acquires WedPics
In 2012, a Raleigh, NC-based company called WedPics launched on to the scene to make wedding photos a little less of a headache. Five years…
NSI Ventures hits first close on new $125M fund for Southeast Asia
There’s been pause since Southeast Asia last welcomed fresh venture capital, but one reload is on its way after NSI Ventures, an early investor in Indonesian…
Blue Origin flies its Crew Capsule 2.0 for the first time
Jef Bezos’ space company Blue Origin recorded a new milestone today – an inaugural flight for Crew Capsule 2.0, the latest version of the vehicle…
Apple invests $390 million in TrueDepth component maker Finisar
Apple announced a substantial investment in Finisar. Apple is giving Finisar $390 million to build a new 700,000-square-foot manufacturing plant in Sherman, Texas. Finisar is…
Line adds unsend for recalling missent messages
Messaging platform Line has added the ability for users to retrieve messages they’ve sent in error. Read More
FreightHub, a European ‘digital freight forwarder’, scores $20M Series A
FreightHub, a Berlin and Hamburg-based startup that claims to be Europe’s first fully digital freight forwarder, has raised a $20 million Series A round, just…
Uber doubles down on Indonesia after hiring its first country president
As part of its new approach to Asia, Uber has announced its first president for its business in Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest economy and the world’s fourth…
Here’s what people were Googling in 2017
There are few metrics in the world that offer as much insight into our society as Google’s annual “Year in Search.” More than any of the…
Payments startup iZettle raises $47M, reportedly at a $950M valuation
iZettle — the payments startup based out of Stockholm that competes against companies like Square, Paypal and SumUp to provide card transactions using smartphones and…
Techstars is launching its first accelerator program in Asia in partnership with Rakuten
Techstars is bringing its global accelerator program to Asia for the first time in partnership with Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten and its chat app Viber.…
Google opening a China-based research lab focused on artificial intelligence
Google has officially announced that it is opening an AI center in Beijing, China. The confirmation comes after months of speculation fueled by a major…
New York City moves to establish algorithm-monitoring task force
New York City may soon gain a task force dedicated to monitoring the fairness of algorithms used by municipal agencies. Formed from experts in automated…
Facebook Messaging VP David Marcus joins Coinbase board
Coinbase is growing up fast — or at least trying to. As an emblem of its current effort to accommodate the massive demand on its…
Lyft goes international with Toronto launch
Lyft has officially opened for business in Toronto, its first market outside the U.S. The Canadian expansion was announced last month, and December 12 is…
Alabama Supreme Court blocks order to preserve digital voting records
Following an eleventh hour order instructing voting officials in Alabama to keep the digital ballots generated in Tuesday’s controversial Senate election, the state’s Supreme Court…
To fix SoundCloud, it must become the anti-Spotify
Startups die by suicide, not competition. It wasn’t that anyone was stealing SoundCloud’s underground rappers, bedroom remixers, and garage bands. SoundCloud stumbled because it neglected these…
Target adds an e-gifting option to its website
Target today unveiled a new e-gifting feature designed for those who think gift cards are too impersonal, but who are just too busy (or too…
HotelTonight is revamping their rewards program with infinite levels
Last year HotelTonight launched HT Perks, their own twist on a hotel loyalty program. The program is level-based, meaning user “level up” as they meet…
Betting consumers are tired of bad bank behavior, Aspiration raises $47 million for its alternative
A who’s-who of celebrities, investors, and celebrity investors have come together to invest $47 million into Aspiration, the company launched by a former speechwriter for…
Hulu adds your watchlist and picture-in-picture mode to its web app
Hulu today is rolling out a handful of new features to the beta version of its Live TV service on the web, including a picture-in-picture…
Twitter officially launches ‘threads,’ a new feature for easily posting tweetstorms
Twitter today is announcing the launch of a new feature that will allow people to more easily post tweetstorms – that is, those series of…
Upstream Security reels in $9M Series A to protect connected cars
Upstream Security, a new startup founded by two cyber security industry veterans, announced a $9 million Series A today to help protect connected vehicles and…
Mindspace raises $20 million to launch co-working spaces in the U.S.
Co-working startup Mindspace recently raised $20 million as it gears up to launch its first two locations in the U.S. While Mindspace is looking to…
Adobe Lightroom’s auto setting is now powered by AI
Adobe launched an update to its suite of Lightroom photo management apps today that, among other things, brings a new machine learning-powered auto setting to…
Storify’s standalone service is shutting down next year
Storify’s eventual shuttering has been a long time coming. The social timeline curation service was acquired by commenting platform Livefyre back in 2013, which, in…
Twitch launches an Alexa skill that plays your channels on Echo Show, offers live audio streams
Twitch, the Amazon-owned video game streaming service, is now available on Alexa. The company says it has launched a new skill for Alexa device owners…
Facebook opens AR platform and “world effects” to all developers
Facebook is trying to close the augmented reality gap with Snapchat with the help of an army of third-party developers. Today, eight months after debuting…
‘The Last Jedi’ is the most moving Star Wars movie — and the funniest
One of the most common ways to praise a new Star Wars movie is to claim that it’s the best one since The Empire Strikes…
Box launches new consulting unit to help customers struggling with digital transformation
Box announced a new consulting organization today called Box Transform. It is designed to help companies understand that transformation requires a new way of working…
Clubhouse nets $10m Series A from Battery Ventures to make software development fun again
People often describe work as a rat race, but for a lot of engineers, that isn’t too far off. Take one Jira ticket off the…
Facebook will no longer always divert international advertising revenue to Ireland
Facebook today said it is shifting to a “local selling structure” in countries outside of the U.S., in which its advertising revenue in that country…
Facebook bats back after a second former exec accuses it of negatively impacting society
Yesterday, The Verge published comments made by investor and former Facebook executive Chamath Palihapitiya, quoting his interview last month at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, where…
Instagram becomes an interest network with hashtag following
Instagram has always been a social network where you follow friends and creators, but today it’s evolving with a new way to follow hashtags so…
YouTube TV hits 34 new markets
The unbundling of the cable media empire is well underway, as players like Netflix grow others like Hulu and YouTube offer live TV service. YouTube…
Algoriddim releases djay Pro 2 with AI-powered features
DJ software maker Algoriddim is releasing djay Pro 2 for macOS today. It’s a major update to the company’s flagship app. It still features what…
Review: Shinola Canfield headphones are an overpriced mess
The Shinola Canfield headphones cost $600 and does not ship with a 1/2-inch stereo adapter. That should tell you everything you need to know. But…
Nintendo sells 10 million Switch consoles since launch
Nintendo has sold 10 million units of the Switch console since launch, according to the company. The console launched back in March, and is selling…
Clap on! Clap off! It’s Clapboss!
Sure Alexa can sing you a song but can you clap back at her? A new product by the makers of the Freewrite lets you…
Apple’s iMac Pro arrives December 14, starting at $4,999
It seems like forever ago that Apple first teased the iMac Pro, the souped up, professional grade version of its all-in-one. Announced back at WWDC,…
Tinder is testing a feed of real-time updates from your matches, including posts from Instagram and Spotify
Tinder announced today it’s beginning a test of a new feature called “Feed” designed to help users learn more about their matches. The Feed, which…