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After SXSW, here’s a roadmap for how the tech industry can change the world this year
Brian Reich
2,016
3
20
The SXSW Interactive Festival once again attracted thousands of the smartest, most creative and passionate people to Austin for discussions about the latest innovations in technology, media and design. The most notable attendee this year was President Obama, who used his Keynote Conversation on the first day to implo...
These are testing times: mavericks vs. ice people
Jon Evans
2,016
3
20
One of my earliest engineering jobs, before I fled hardware in favor of the (relative) ease and lucre of software, was in chip design. I remember being shocked when I learned just how much of the processor in question was devoted to test circuitry. I thought, Oh, how young and incredibly stupid I was. The practice ...
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Shelly Kapoor Collins
2,016
3
2
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Israel’s desert city of Beersheba is turning into a cybertech oasis
Dennis Mitzner
2,016
3
20
Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben Gurion famously said that the future of Israel lies in the Negev, a desert located in southern Israel. Ben Gurion’s prophetic words ring true today as Beersheba, Israel’s southern capital, is morphing into a tech oasis. The military’s massive relocation of its prestigious tech...
Jury awards Hulk Hogan $115M in sex tape lawsuit against Gawker
Anthony Ha
2,016
3
18
A Florida jury sided today with wrestling star Hulk Hogan (real name Terry Bollea) in his lawsuit against Gawker. — $55 million for economic injuries and $60 million for emotional distress. That’s even more than the $100 million that Hogan was seeking, and the jury’s scheduled to return Monday to deal with punitive da...
How international startups are supporting New York City
Ramphis Castro
2,016
3
18
Immigrants make up in the U.S., which is the highest percentage the country has seen in more than 100 years. Now let’s put this into perspective: in the U.S. are immigrants — almost triple the percentage of immigrants in the country. Many immigrants are pushing innovation in the U.S, aiding the country economical...
Jack Dorsey says Twitter is keeping its 140-character limit, but maybe don’t get too excited
Anthony Ha
2,016
3
18
Has Twitter reversed course on plans to increase the character limit on tweets? That’s what you might think when reading of , but I’m not convinced that there was really a big change of heart. You may recall in January that Twitter was looking at a “10,000 character limit for tweets.” That didn’t mean, however, th...
This system instantly edits videos to make it look like you’re saying something you’re not
Greg Kumparak
2,016
3
18
Once upon a time, a photo of something was enough to believe it was real. Sure, you’d have to deal with the occasional Big Foot hoax, but for the most part, those who had the time or talent to create believable fakes were in the minority. Then came the age of Photoshop. Edits and fakes are prolific enough that “FAKE!” ...
2016 Honda Civic: autonomous features for $20K
Kristen Hall-Geisler
2,016
3
18
When that 20 manufacturers had agreed to include automatic emergency braking (AEB) systems as standard equipment on all new cars by 2022, many people noted that plenty of cars you can buy right now have this technology on board. You might think that in 2016, this is expensive equipment available only on luxury cars, ...
Meter Feeder lets you ditch coins and codes, pay for parking with GPS
Josh Constine
2,016
3
18
Parking tickets actually earn cities less money than when people pay the meters like they should. The problem is that even new meters that let you pay by phone or credit are such a hassle that people don’t use them — and hope they don’t get caught. But Y Combinator startup has built a way to pay for parking that is e...
SoundCloud confirms its deal with Sony Music, paving the way for its subscription service’s launch
Sarah Perez
2,016
3
18
Streaming music service SoundCloud today  that it has finalized a deal with Sony Music, confirming  this week citing sources who claimed the deal had finally been done. The deal will increase the number of songs listeners can access via SoundCloud and will allow Sony Music Entertainment artists to make money off of t...
Gillmor Gang LIVE 03.18.16
Steve Gillmor
2,016
3
18
Gillmor Gang – Dan Farber, John Taschek, Keith Teare, Kevin MArks, and Steve Gillmor. LIVE recording session has concluded for today. Gillmor Gang’s Facebook page G3’s Facebook page
Your optimized brain: Exploring the frontier of neurostimulation
Dr. Daniel Chao
2,016
3
18
From Hercules to Superman, humankind has always been fascinated by characters who defy the natural limits of the human body. Scientists haven’t yet figured out how to give us flight, but we know that increased cognition, strength and motor function are all possible using . This technology, which carefully applies ma...
Coach gives tutors and other freelancers tools to build an online business
Anthony Ha
2,016
3
18
If you’re a tutor looking to offer your services online, a startup called aims to give you the tools you need. CEO Spencer Fry created a similar platform, in some ways, when he co-founded  , which offers designers and artists an easy way to showcase their portfolios online. He said there’s a bigger challenge with Coa...
Sexism is still a thing at Microsoft’s GDC party
Megan Rose Dickey
2,016
3
18
Microsoft hired a bunch of women wearing very little clothing to dance and socialize with people at the company’s official Game Developers Conference after-party last night in San Francisco, . It’s crazy that Microsoft would so blatantly sexualize women — for a few reasons. For one, don’t tech companies realize that i...
I tried out Nike’s self-tying shoes, the HyperAdapt 1.0
Anthony Ha
2,016
3
18
I’ve spent a lot of time over the past few days with the folks at Nike, who were showing off a whole bunch of new and upcoming products at their Innovation for Everybody event. was the HyperAdapt 1.0 — namely, self-tying shoes. Nike had already toyed with the idea of emulating by with star Michael J. Fox. HyperA...
Get ready for the new iPad
Romain Dillet
2,016
3
18
Rumor has it that Apple is about to introduce a successor to the iPad Air 2 at . According to , the device could move away from the $499 entry-level price. Next week’s 9.7-inch iPad could start at $599 with 32GB of storage. There are a few reasons why Apple would make a more expensive iPad. First, according to Gurman...
Sony’s PlayStation VR headset bundle will cost $500, pre-orders start March 22
Jordan Crook
2,016
3
18
Earlier this week, that its PlayStation VR would be available for the low price of just $399. Given that competing VR headsets like the Oculus are at least $200 more expensive, people were pretty excited about it. In fact, purchases of the PlayStation camera went up 3000 percent on Amazon (Move controllers went up 10...
Chatfuel lets publishers — and anyone — build bots for messaging apps
Jon Russell
2,016
3
18
Chat bots are one of the hottest tech topics of the year. Inspired by trends from Asia, messaging apps like and have adopted bots — automated accounts from third partners like publishers and brands — to serve users news, entertainment and other information inside the chat experience. Facebook has seemingly observed...
Grammy-nominated rapper Wale discusses technology, startups, and social media
Fitz Tepper
2,016
3
18
I recently sat down with Grammy-nominated rapper to talk about his views on technology, social media, and the music industry. Like most artists, Wale has a dedicated following on all major social media platforms, and has an interesting perspective on how each one gives him a different relationship with his fans. He...
Progress lets you visualize your weight loss by taking perfectly aligned daily selfies
Sarah Perez
2,016
3
18
For those who struggle with their weight, one of the more challenging things to deal with beyond, of course, the lifestyle changes that have to accompany any attempts at weight reduction, is our inability to see our own progress. Because weight loss is often very slow and incremental, many get frustrated with a perceiv...
YC-backed Perlstein Lab continues their rare disease drug discovery
Jay Donovan
2,016
3
18
, or PLab as it is also known, continues to hone its automated drug discovery platform and presents its latest iteration Wednesday March 23rd at . The platform they created helps the bio startup focus on finding cures for rare diseases rather than common ones. This novel approach is different from most Big Pharma labs...
CoreOS takes its Clair container security tool out of beta
Frederic Lardinois
2,016
3
18
CoreOS the first preview of , a tool that scans Docker containers for security vulnerabilities, last November and today, with the , it is ready to take the beta label off the service. Given that developers often rely on pre-packaged containers — or regularly recycle the same ones — ensuring that the software includ...
Evernote’s founding CTO Dave Engberg is leaving in May; new wave of execs announced
Ingrid Lunden
2,016
3
18
We’ve been documenting   decline in the last several months, and today comes two more waves of news that speak both to how the company continues to be in turmoil, but is also trying to rebuild itself. TechCrunch has learned that , the company’s founding CTO, is leaving the company in May. The news comes at the same ti...
The real cost of robotics
Dmitry Slepov
2,016
3
27
Before we begin, I feel compelled to make an important disclosure: I love robots! Robots are cool. To me, robots are cooler than people, who are only cool occasionally. I especially love industrial robots: They help us “make” things. Now please allow me to make an obvious observation: Like me, many folks think robots...
Dell reportedly near closing the sale of its IT services unit to Japan’s NTT Data
Catherine Shu
2,016
3
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is reportedly finalizing the sale of its IT consulting unit to for $3.5 billion. , the deal, which will help Dell pay down debt from its , may officially be announced today. If the sale goes through, it will help NTT Data, a subsidiary of Japan’s NTT, grow its business in the United States. Like SoftBank, another ...
Review: The ProDrone BYRD
Signe Brewster
2,016
3
27
in drones is growing more sophisticated. The industry is improving so quickly that major new features are released every year, if not every few months. If a company wants to sell to the increasingly savvy entry-level quadcopter space, it needs to build a drone that can do more than simply fly. In an attempt to stand o...
Longtime VC Michael Goguen was just hit with an explosive lawsuit
Connie Loizos
2,016
3
11
Michael Goguen, a longtime partner at Sequoia Capital who joined the tony Sand Hill Road firm roughly 20 years ago, has been named in an extraordinary  that accuses him of sexually mistreating a woman he met in 2001, then refusing to honor a financial arrangement they made in more recent years to keep her from suing h...
The 50-year digital relationship
Sam Jeffers
2,016
3
27
I occasionally meet people who think the Internet is going to go away someday. Yes, some of its pieces do move around a bit. Bye, Friendster! Hello, Peach!* But its core benefit — your ability to find any information, any time and to build around common interests at any distance — aren’t going anywhere. Ever. Why w...
Astronaut Scott Kelly will retire from NASA next month
Emily Calandrelli
2,016
3
11
After his nearly year-long on the International Space Station (ISS) and 20 years of service with NASA, Astronaut Scott Kelly will retire from the agency, effective April 1st. “This year-in-space mission was a profound challenge for all involved, and it gave me a unique perspective and a lot of time to reflect on what...
5 housing communities changing the way we live
Brad Hargreaves
2,016
3
11
Living communities and the people who build them are unique, but they share many common threads: a mix of private and community spaces, a set of shared rules and a commitment to friendliness and warmth rather than the anonymity and awkwardness of a typical residential high-rise. Changing the way people live together ...
DoorDash says its new service fee isn’t really a new fee
Anthony Ha
2,016
3
11
Consider this a public service announcement for customers. In the coming weeks, you’re going to start seeing something new on your bills — a service fee. However, a spokesperson for the food delivery service said it’s not a new fee, and the total cost won’t change. Instead, it’s a new way to present the fees you we...
Snapchat has a secret team possibly building a pair of smart glasses
Lucas Matney
2,016
3
11
Snapchat has been known for some bold (and perplexing) moves in regards to content features, attempting to revamp event marketing through Stories, redefine journalism through Discover and rethink the selfie through Lenses. They’ve tackled software features, but now they may be looking to master hardware. When you’re va...
AI is closer than we know
Christoffer O. Hernæs
2,016
3
11
Artificial intelligence is one of the hottest subjects these days, and recent advances in technology make AI even closer to reality than most of us can imagine. The subject really got traction when Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk and more than 1,000 AI and robotics researchers signed an open letter  last year. The follow...
What Obama said about encryption and tech’s double-edged sword at SXSW
Josh Constine
2,016
3
11
“[Technology can] empower individuals to do things they could have never dreamed of before, but also empower folks who are very dangerous to spread dangerous messages” President Barack Obama said today. Obama took the stage at South By Southwest to discuss how technology could be used to enhance civic engagement. But t...
Obama: ‘We don’t want government to look into everyone’s phones willy-nilly’
Josh Constine
2,016
3
11
Encryption with a backdoor accessible to very few in important situations is what President Barack Obama says he suspects is the answer to the digital privacy versus security debate. That contradicts the position of many in the security industry who believe that would inevitability lead to abuses of such a backdoor. Wh...
GenZe 2.0 electric scooter brings electric power to the people
Kristen Hall-Geisler
2,016
3
11
, the India-based manufacturing giant, wants to offer more people the chance at a cleaner commute. The electric scooter carries one person, a couple big bags of groceries, and a price tag of just $3,000. As a former scooter commuter myself (on a 50-cc gasoline-powered bike), I was eager to take the GenZe 2.0 on a wee...
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Sarah Perez
2,016
3
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Gillmor Gang LIVE 03.11.16
Steve Gillmor
2,016
3
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– John Borthwick, Robert Scoble, Daniel Ilkovich, Keith Teare, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor. Gillmor Gang on Facebook Connect with our other show – G3 – on Facebook …and
The New York Times acquires influencer marketing agency HelloSociety
Anthony Ha
2,016
3
11
The New York Times is expanding its native ad studio with the acquisition of , a digital marketing agency owned by Science, Inc. Los Angeles-based Science both invest in startups and builds its own companies. It launched HelloSociety (which it fully owned) back in 2012 as . Since then, it’s broadened beyond Pinterest...
Watch Obama address the tech community at SXSW live right here
Romain Dillet
2,016
3
11
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhFibpHSJFE While most people think about hashtags, marketing stunts and when they hear about the Interactive part of SXSW in Austin, this year is going to be a bit different as President Barack Obama is about to give a keynote. The event should start at . We have a live team on the g...
Instacart cutting wages for shoppers starting March 14
Megan Rose Dickey
2,016
3
11
Instacart, the $2 billion grocery delivery startup that recently  , has slashed pay for its drivers and shoppers in major markets like San Francisco and Los Angeles, Here’s a nugget from the email, obtained by TechCrunch, that Instacart sent to shoppers in the SF Bay Area: Instacart is a growing company. From time-to-...
Riff wants to replace YouTube for TV show reaction videos
Romain Dillet
2,016
3
11
YouTube is a beautifully weird world full of surprises. It turns out there’s a big community of TV show and movie reaction YouTubers out there. have hundreds of thousands of subscribers and millions of views. And yet, it seems like YouTube isn’t the right platform for these kinds of videos due to copyright laws. Meet...
White House draft policy wants federal agencies to find open source religion
Ron Miller
2,016
3
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By now, the advantages of open source are there for all to see. When you give people access to the underlying code, good things happen. People find bugs and security holes. They make it better. They adapt it to different needs. They . It’s become so ubiquitous in the private sector that the government has begun to see...
Microsoft targets Evernote users with software that makes it easy to switch to OneNote
Sarah Perez
2,016
3
11
Microsoft today a new tool that will make it easier for users of Evernote’s note-taking service to make the transition to rival application OneNote, a part of the Microsoft Office suite. The “ ,” as the software is called, aims to address the switching costs that can hold back users from making a move to a competing ...
Amazon Alexa can now pay your Capital One bill
Sarah Perez
2,016
3
11
Amazon’s virtual assistant Alexa, embedded in devices like the Echo speaker and Fire TV, is today taking on a new role: she’s now a banking assistant, too. announced this morning the rollout of a new “skill” (like an app for Alexa-powered devices), which will allow consumers to do their banking by voice, including ch...
13 TechCrunch stories you don’t want to miss this week
Anna Escher
2,016
3
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This week, Facebook made a selfie filter app acquisition, Google surprised us with the Android N preview and we ate bugs. Yeah, seriously. Silicon Valley is eating bugs now. These are the tech headlines you don’t want to miss this week. Google unexpectedly  — and it’s available as an over-the-air update. Google says t...
NASA’s next Mars mission scheduled for May 2018
Emily Calandrelli
2,016
3
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NASA that it will send its next lander to Mars, known as the  Mars lander, in May of 2018. The mission was originally on schedule to launch later this month, but a technical issue found late last year put the InSight launch on hold. The new launch date comes as great news to the InSight team because there was a poss...
Your favorite accelerator programs, ranked
Connie Loizos
2,016
3
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For the fifth year in a row, biz school professors Yael Hochberg of Rice University and Susan Cohen of the University of Richmond have ranked the many accelerator programs now up and running in the U.S. as a way of helping making sense of which are worth the time, effort, and, often, equity that founders give them. It’...
Cyan Banister joins Founders Fund as partner
Connie Loizos
2,016
3
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Cyan Banister, a renowned angel investor and startup founder, has joined . She’s the 11-year-old firm’s first female investing partner. According to a , investors at the San Francisco-based outfit now include its billionaire cofounder Peter Thiel; cofounder Ken Howery; managing partner Luke Nosek; managing partner Bri...
Uber announces a more immersive ‘Ride Request’ option for third-party apps
Jon Russell
2,016
3
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to let third-party apps add the ability to order a car last year, but today a more feature-rich option that it is specifically targeted at developers in Asia. The company has unveiled a ‘Ride Request Widget’ which it claimed is an easy way to add Uber’s native features into a third-party app. In particular, Uber sai...
Planday, the workforce management solution for shift-based businesses, scores $14M Series B
Steve O'Hear
2,016
3
29
, the Danish startup that offers a cloud-based “shift planning” solution for various types of businesses that employ a flexible workforce, such as restaurants, hotels, stores, call centers and gyms, has scored $14 million in Series B funding. The round was led by new investor Idinvest, with participation from existing ...
Amazon bans the sale of rogue USB-C cables
Jon Russell
2,016
3
29
There’s good news in the fight against rogue USB-C cables, some of which have with smartphones and laptops, after Amazon tightened the regulations around the type of cables that it sells. The online retail giant has added non-compliant USB-C cables to its list of items prohibited for sale on its website, which alread...
Apple strikes a deal with MLB to put iPads in dugouts
Fitz Tepper
2,016
3
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The MLB is taking a page from the NFL’s playbook and to use during games for the 2016 season. But, instead of Microsoft Surface Tablets, the MLB has made a deal with Apple to provide all 30 MLB teams with iPad Pros to use. The iPads will give coaches the ability to get historical game statistics, pull up video from pr...
What’s trending in the IoT space
Bernard Moon
2,016
3
29
Our team has been active as investors in the of and hardware space over the past two years. We have read pitches from hundreds of companies, met with dozens, read hundreds of research reports and spoken with various experts. We have invested in six IoT/hardware companies from our global seed fund and seven from o...
A rant about why Snapchat 2.0 is no disappearing teen fad
Josh Constine
2,016
3
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Add me on Snapchat at “JoshConstine” or scan this QR Snapcode with the app’s camera With today’s launch of , Snapchat wants to be your phone. Here’s a list of the new features:
Spotify raises $1 billion in debt with devilish terms to fight Apple Music
Josh Constine
2,016
3
29
On-demand streaming music is inevitable, so Spotify is taking whatever fuel it can get to win the race against Apple. Whoever can sign up customers faster to consume their data and network effect could earn money off them for a long, long time. So it makes sense that Spotify would be willing to raise money at ugly, exp...
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Scott Maxwell
2,016
3
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eBay acquires Cargigi to expand its eBay Motors team, improve tech for auto dealers
Sarah Perez
2,016
3
29
Ebay announced this afternoon that it’s acquiring an auto industry technology company known as , a large provider of advertising and marketing services on a number of popular free classified websites, like Craigslist and others. Deal terms were not revealed, though eBay described the acquisition as “small.” Cargigi’s ...
Seven things to watch for at Strata + Hadoop World 2016 in San Jose
Josh Klahr
2,016
3
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With Strata + Hadoop World kicking off, it’s always fascinating to step back and look at the contents of the sessions as a way of understanding what’s happening in the world of big data. For those of you who have attended this conference for the more than five years that the event’s been kicking, you’ve likely seen i...
Facebook, Apple, Google, other tech CEOs demand North Carolina repeal anti-LGBT law
Megan Rose Dickey
2,016
3
29
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and Equality NC just released a letter addressed to North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory, urging him to repeal the provisions of House Bill 2. H.B. 2 . More specifically, it forces transgender students in public schools to use bathrooms and other facilities that are inconsistent with the...
Experts think the IPO window could finally bust open in the second quarter
Connie Loizos
2,016
3
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, the IPO research firm, has published a of this year, and, as you might expect, it doesn’t paint a pretty picture. For starters, it notes the U.S. IPO market hit the lowest levels in the first quarter since the financial crisis of late 2008. It notes that not a single deal priced outside of the health care sector (w...
Razer takes aim at game streaming community with Ripsaw capture card
Devin Coldewey
2,016
3
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Long ago, when capturing video of the game you were playing was something only pros and highly motivated gamers (the term had not its current currency and was, at the time, pejorative or at least belittling) attempted to do, and with as little glory as attended such vocations and avocations at the time, there was speci...
Will capitalism survive the robot revolution?
Zoltan Istvan
2,016
3
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Economic experts are trying to figure out a question that just two decades ago seemed ridiculous: If 90 percent of human jobs are replaced by robots in the next 50 years — something now considered  — is still the ideal economic system to champion? No one is certain about the answer, but the question is making ever...
Women aren’t the only ones who feel they’re not paid fairly in tech
Megan Rose Dickey
2,016
3
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, the Glassdoor-like platform for self-reporting employment and compensation data, has released some data around culture at tech companies. Within a couple of weeks of launching, over 2,000 people have submitted data around what it’s like working at their respective companies in tech, if they believe they’re paid fairl...
Instagram needs editing tools to make new 60-second videos tolerable
Josh Constine
2,016
3
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Most people are terrible at shooting video. Any longer than 15-seconds and it will probably be boring. That’s why Instagram capped videos at a quarter-minute when it launched the feature in 2013. Yet today it for user-shot or uploaded videos. That’s why I have a hunch that Facebook and Instagram are preparing to laun...
FTC files false advertising lawsuit against VW
Kristen Hall-Geisler
2,016
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This morning, the filed a lawsuit against , charging that it “deceived customers with the advertising campaign it used to promote its supposedly ‘clean diesel’ VWs and Audis,” according to the . As I’m sure you recall, these are the vehicles that were caught cheating on emissions tests in October 2015. The lawsuit ...
The future of interactive music is here, courtesy of Jeff Buckley
Haje Jan Kamps
2,016
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For his most recent cover of Bob Dylan’s Just Like a Woman, ‘s creative team has pulled out all the stops. Dropping today is an interactive music video with a gabazillion possible iterations for the viewer to explore, creating a unique listening experience every time. Not too shabby for an artist who shuffled off this...
Lyft gets back to Zimride roots with Lyft Carpool
Sarah Buhr
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Back in 2007 co-founders John Zimmer and Logan Green envisioned a new kind of mass transportation carpooling system connecting riders and drivers across the nation. They called it . But it turned out a lot more people wanted to get around the city than wanted to go the distance and the parent company was supplanted wi...
Google Fiber’s latest innovation is a landline
Devin Coldewey
2,016
3
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Google Fiber may be the holy grail of Internet service for many, but many people still rely on landlines for everyday communication purposes or emergency use. In order to allow its subscribers to sever connections with the old local ISPs and telecoms completely, Google home phone service for Fiber subscribers. For $1...
Apple teams up with Cookie Monster to sell you on hands-free Siri
Matthew Panzarino
2,016
3
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If I had to choose a sound to identify the second year of my daughter’s life it would probably be one of the collaborations between Sesame Street superstar Cookie Monster and one of the hot pop stars of the day. Although “ ” will never win any lyricist awards, it was catchy, taught patience and provided the kind of cul...
SpoonRocket finds a home with Brazil-based iFood
Megan Rose Dickey
2,016
3
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SpoonRocket, the on-demand food delivery startup that  in the U.S., has a buyer. That buyer is Brazil-based , a food delivery platform looking to dominate the on-demand economy in Latin America, as well as other emerging economies. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. iFood, which has raised nearly $62 million in fu...
Why Latin American economies are turning to bitcoin
Sonny Singh
2,016
3
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The economic prospects for America in 2016 are grim. With political instability in some of the region’s largest  as well as a general slump in prices in oil and other commodities, businesses and consumers are facing a depression and, in the case of Venezuela, economic collapse. The crash of the Chinese stock marke...
Apple looks to Google’s Cloud Platform as it diversifies its infrastructure
Ron Miller
2,016
3
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:
Oculus shows off first-look of Minecraft for Gear VR and it’s mehhh
Lucas Matney
2,016
3
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in all its blocky glory is setting up shop on mobile virtual reality on the Samsung Gear VR. I had a chance to demo the game at an Oculus media event during GDC in SF this week and there was a decent amount of hype surrounding the wildly popular game making its mobile VR debut. Microsoft is already set to launch a ver...
Munchery’s chief customer experience officer leaves company
Megan Rose Dickey
2,016
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Munchery, the on-demand meal delivery startup with over $117 million in funding, has lost Pascal Rigo, . Rigo had formerly spent three years at Starbucks as SVP of food, after the coffee giant bought La Boulange, the bakery chain Rigo founded in 1996. Rigo resigned because he didn’t share Munchery’s strategy for growt...
US Senate bill would give FAA 2 years to create rules for delivery drones
Frederic Lardinois
2,016
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The U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation today the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reauthorization bill. In to the bill filed by Senators Heller and Cantwell, the Senate committee instructs the FAA to create rules for delivery drones within the next two years. It’s worth noting that ...
Nike just unveiled the first real power-lacing sneaker, the HyperAdapt 1.0
Fitz Tepper
2,016
3
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It’s finally here. After teaming up with Michael J. Fox to on Back To The Future day in October, Nike has finally announced a mass production shoe that will feature real-life power laces. Meet the . Announced today at the Nike Innovation Summit, the HyperAdapt 1.0 will be the first shoe to take advantage of Nike’s a...
Bullish: What’s driving the maker movement
Megan Rose Dickey
2,016
3
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The maker movement is hot. Worldwide, there are about 2,000 maker spaces and 26 percent of cities in the U.S. have them. I sat down with Inventables CEO Zach Kaplan to learn about what’s driving the movement and where it’s headed. “I think it’s a bunch of things,” Kaplan said. “One, access to all these technologies i...
Human Ventures turns ‘normals’ into founders
Connie Loizos
2,016
3
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A number of startup studios are in the midst of a years-long experiment, providing back-end assistance, office space and mentoring to talented, ambitious people in order to create a startup with them, often based around their expertise. was the first to try it, opening its doors in New York roughly  . Others, includin...
Steve Wozniak discusses his inaugural Silicon Valley Comic Con
Fitz Tepper
2,016
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Last week I sat down with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak to hear about his newest creation, . The event, which will be held this weekend at the San Jose Convention Center, will play host to celebrities like Michael J. Fox, William Shatner and Stan Lee. Woz and his team expect almost 30,000 attendees throughout the w...
The Apple Watch hack: Bringing design expertise to reinvent the wearable
Kevin Young
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I bought an six months ago. This was no casual purchase. As an Apple fan, a watch collector and with more than 20 years of experience in the design innovation space, I had extremely high expectations of the purchase. While I have enjoyed the stylish Apple Watch’s features and functions, I have occasionally felt fru...
Microsoft partners with Commonwealth of Virginia, Dominion on 20 MW solar project
Frederic Lardinois
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Microsoft today that it is partnering with and the to build a 20 megawatts solar energy plant in Virginia. Microsoft — like its competitors AWS, Google and others — has long been investing in renewable energy projects. Most of these investments focused on powering its data centers. Microsoft’s new deal is differe...
This team has built adorable tiny backpacks for pigeons to track air pollution
Romain Dillet
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It’s time to take wearable devices to the next level. and have teamed up for an interesting experiment. What if pigeons could fly around London with tiny backpacks to measure air pollution during peak hours? I’m not sure if they were drunk when they thought about this idea, but 10 pigeons are currently flying above...
AliveCor unveils Kardia Band, a medical-grade EKG band for Apple Watch
Sarah Perez
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A medtech startup called today unveiled what may be the first medical-grade EKG band for the Apple Watch, , pending its FDA clearance. The product is intended to help wearers detect cardiac arrhythmia conditions that can cause stroke, as well as indicate whether your heart rate and rhythm are normal. The band work...
Google’s latest mobile search algorithm update makes having a mobile-friendly site even more important
Frederic Lardinois
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If your site isn’t easy to use on mobile, Google penalizes it by ranking it lower on its mobile search results pages. To give publishers even more of an incentive to offer mobile-friendly pages, Google today announced that, in May, it will  the importance of having a mobile page, and sites that are not mobile-friendly...
Jawbone doubles down on its allegations against Fitbit
Matt Burns
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For nearly a year Jawbone and Fitbit have been in the courts and Jawbone just threw down new allegations. In a motion to amend the original filing, Jawbone wants to add a new defendant to the case that formerly worked at Jawbone but defected to Fitbit, bringing a host of confidential information along with her.  Last M...
Local deals site LivingSocial lays off 280, over 50% of staff, outsources customer services
Ingrid Lunden
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More bad news for  , the beleaguered commerce platform that competes with the likes of Groupon in offering deals on events and services local to its users. Today, LivingSocial announced that it would lay off 160 employees, and over the next two months, it will shut down its customer services operations in Tucson, AZ, a...
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Ingrid Lunden
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In Africa, Watson’s sister Lucy is growing up with the help of IBM’s Research team
Jake Bright
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IBM Research Africa is entering its third year in Kenya. The blue chip company opened its Nairobi lab in 2013, launching a $100 million initiative to create a Watson-inspired tech platform that finds “ to the continent’s grand challenges.” Three years out, Watson’s African equivalent—Lucy—is shaping up and IBM’s Afric...
Super hot Korea gets a new startup fund
Connie Loizos
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Korea is sizzling, and the fact isn’t lost on or its backers. The early-stage venture firm, with an office on Sand Hill Road and in Seoul, has just raised an oversubscribed $110 million fund to invest exclusively in the country, the second fund of its type for Altos, which raised its last Korea-focused fund with $60 ...
Samsung Pay just launched in China, but already faces fierce competition
Catherine Shu
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Samsung Pay is now available in China, about . According to the China Internet Network Information Center, . Unsurprisingly, Apple and Samsung consider China a top priority for their mobile payment services, but they face an uphill climb for users. Apple Pay and Samsung Pay already have to compete with Alibaba’s Alip...
Homebrew’s Satya Patel on his firm’s investment thesis and how startups should approach investors
Harry Stebbings
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Still, some firms, and their partners, are managing to do it well. And Satya Patel at is a perfect example. Further, the two investors have a bottom up thesis on the market. “Technology is a great democratizer,” says Patel. “It’s impacting individuals, groups and industries now in a way that it hasn’t historically,...
A new accelerator report suggests that independent work is most effective
Connie Loizos
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Today, a $2.3 million private-public partnership called the Global Accelerator Learning Initiative (GALI) is releasing its  , in collaboration with Village Capital, a seed-stage accelerator that operates development programs for early-stage entrepreneurs around the world. Led by the Aspen Network of Development Entrepr...
Oculus Rift is amazing, but you probably shouldn’t buy one
Lucas Matney
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The Oculus Rift has been a long time coming. After delays upon delays, customers finally started receiving their Rift consumer units today, and Oculus will continue working to fulfill pre-orders of their virtual reality headset which is currently back-ordered until July. I’ve spent what is likely an unhealthy amount ...
Shootlr lets you take a ‘someone-elsie’
Haje Jan Kamps
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What do you call it when you have an app that lets your friends take a photo of you, using your own phone? It’s not a selfie… It’s not a portrait… Let’s call it a   today launched an iOS and Android app that is attempting to take this brave new frontier of photography to the masses: an app that enables you to compel yo...
Justice Department drops lawsuit against Apple as FBI has now unlocked Farook’s iPhone
Romain Dillet
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unlocked Farook’s iPhone 5c involved in the San Bernardino shooting using an alternative method that didn’t involve Apple. Given this new development, the Department of Justice is dropping the case. The government has been evasive about this alternative method and didn’t provide additional details. The filing is very ...
Watch us unbox and poke around the Oculus Rift for the first time
Greg Kumparak
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The Rift is here! The Rift is here! After years of build up and pre-release developer kits, the first deliveries of the consumer version of the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset started arriving this morning. Lucas and I got to spend time with the Rift over the past few days ( ) — and, though we rarely do unboxings...
Revisiting Brian Eno’s ‘The Studio as a Compositional Tool’
Dylan Eller
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In 1979, Brian Eno gave a lecture at the inaugural New Music America Festival in New York on a very Brian Eno-ish topic. Titled “The Recording Studio as a Compositional Tool,” it is most definitely worth a   or a  . In the lecture, Eno discusses the ever-evolving relationship music has with technology, beginning with...
Turning your idea into a funded company
Adam Quinton
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The cost of entry to the startup world has decreased dramatically in the last decade. We’re now at the point where the tools that were once only available to enterprise users have made their way the hands of everyday users. Access to bleeding-edge innovation is no longer limited to an elite few. This transformation...