FCC Chairman Ajit Pai today made good on his long-standing pledge to tackle regulations established in the last administration designed to protect the distribution of internet content. Pai distributed to the other commissioners at the FCC a draft of his suggested rule changes, a move that sets up a December 14 vote at the FCC that could have broad ramifications for the entire internet Read More
Google’s YouTube TV app has received a recent update that allows for picture-in-picture on Android phones running Nougat or Oreo. Google first announced YouTube TV back in February, and rolled the service out in April, launching in five major U.S. cities. YouTube TV is meant to kill the cable box, offering popular cable channels like ABC, Fox, CBS, CW, NBC, Disney, ESPN and 40+ more for… Read More
A company called Confido raised a small ICO by selling special CFD designed to allow “safe and trustless cryptocurrency payments. According to ICODrops they raised their goal of about $400,000 and quickly disappeared, taking the cash with it. The site is currently a parked web server that points to nothing. The apparent founder and former eBay employee, Joost van Doorn, posted a message to… Read More
Google.org is donating $7.5 million to racial justice organizations Vera Institute for Justice, LatinoJustice, The Leadership Conference and R Street’s Justice for Work Coalition. This brings Google.org’s total amount of funding to racial justice organizations to $32 million since 2015. Google.org’s racial justice portfolio arc has focused on the three Ps: policing,… Read More
Monzo, one of a number of “challenger” banks in the U.K. aiming to re-invent the current account, is assembling quite an array of backers, many with a U.S. bent. Its most recent round, which gave the startup a £280 million post-money valuation, saw the likes of Goodwater Capital, Stripe, and Michael Moritz invest, and before that Thrive Capital became a backer. Now TechCrunch… Read More
In October, Sonos launched the Sonos One, raising the bar on what is already the gold standard in wireless whole-home audio. The big new feature? An integrated microphone that added support for Amazon’s Alexa. However, there was one big caveat: While Alexa was integrated to control music services like Apple Music, Google Play Music, Soundcloud and others, it was missing a major player in… Read More
Grindr is updating its popular queer dating app to be more inclusive of transgender and non-binary users. In an announcement timed to mark the end of Transgender Awareness Week, Grindr said changes will include new profile fields for gender identity and the use of gender-neutral language throughout its app and website. Read More
An investigation by Quartz has revealed that Android devices send cell tower location data to Google even if the user has disabled location services for apps in their device settings. Read More
Dabbl is giving users a straightforward reason to interact with ads — the ads earn them money in the form of gift cards. For example, when I signed up for Dabbl this morning, I was presented with a menu of several different campaigns. The first one that I chose was from Oreo, where I answered a bunch of questions about how I feel and what I know about Oreo products. The whole thing… Read More
If hardware is hard, rockets must be even harder. Natalya Bailey should know. She’s the co-founder and CEO of Accion Systems, a startup spun out of MIT’s Space Propulsion Laboratory that is developing a new type of propulsion for spacecraft. Today we’re announcing she’ll take the Disrupt Berlin stage along with Shasta Ventures founder and managing director Rob… Read More
PayPal and Facebook are expanding their integrations today with the launch of an extension for Messenger that allows PayPal sellers to invoice buyers directly through private messaging. The feature is ideal for use with Facebook’s numerous Buy and Sell groups as well as Facebook Marketplace, in addition to being an easy way to send PayPal invoices in general. The launch comes on the heels… Read More
Hybrid smartwatches are a weird category right now. No one’s really mastered the perfect balance between the smart and dumb, though a handful of products have done a decent job, most notably Withings/Nokia’s Steel/Steel HR line. Fossil-owned wearables company Misfit has made some valiant efforts, as well, including the Phase — though the model was a bit of a mixed bag. Read More
If every company is truly a software company, Capital One is out to the prove it. It was one of the early users of Critical Stack, a tool designed to help build security into the container orchestration process. In fact, it liked it so much it bought the company in 2016, and today it’s releasing Critical Stack in Beta. This is a critical step toward becoming a commercial product, giving… Read More
Toyota has a new, third-generation humanoid robot bears the charming name “T-HR3” and is designed to be a helpful and safe assistant to humans. It also features a so-called “master maneuvering systems,” which is essentially a VR-powered remote operating platform that a human can use to have the T-HR3 mirror its movements. Yes, kind of like a jaeger from kaiju movie… Read More
Listen up, investors at Disrupt Berlin 2017. This one’s for you. We’re thrilled to announce that you can now peruse the companies that will be on display in the Startup Alley at Disrupt Berlin 2017 on our handy Startup Alley Hub. The hub is separated into days and categories, making it simple to keep track of the companies you’re interested in talking to. Read More
When HPE acquired Nimble Storage in March for a cool billion dollars, it knew it was getting some nifty flash storage technology. But it also got Nimble’s InfoSight artificial intelligence capabilities that not only monitored the underlying storage arrays, but all of the adjacent datacenter technology. Today, the company announced it has enhanced that technology to provide… Read More
Chinese internet giant Baidu is continuing its push into the automotive space after it led a RMB 1.3 billion ($195 million) Series B investment in Shouqi Limousine & Chauffeur, an offshoot of the state-owned Shouqi Group which was Beijing’s first licensed ride-hailing app. NIO Capital, the investment arm of billion-dollar electric car startup NIO, and Silk Road Huachuang joined… Read More
Taking another step toward shedding its reputation as the tech industry’s most notorious patent troll, Intellectual Ventures is launching the first company from its incubator. The company’s ISF Incubator has licensed technology to LexSet to roll out a suite of augmented reality tools for interior design and furniture assembly. Read More
Uber and Lyft have made it easier to get around town, but the service isn’t designed for young people. Unaccompanied passengers under the age of 18 are forbidden from ordering cars. So how are children supposed to go from one activity to the next when their parents are busy? Well, there’s carpools or nannies, but a ridesharing startup called HopSkipDrive is combining these concepts… Read More
Uber has been slapped with an $8.9 million fine in Colorado after state criminal investigators found it had allowed 57 individuals with past criminal or motor vehicle offenses to drive and pick up passengers on its platform over the past year and a half. Read More
