Just a remind that I’m holding one of our patented MicroMeetups in Muscat, Oman on Thursday November 9th from 3pm to 6:30pm. We will meet at the Sheraton Oman. There is no RSVP list so just show up! You can also apply to pitch on stage. If you do not receive an email that you have been chosen to pitch you are not pitching. You can sign up to pitch here. I will pick eight companies to… Read More
It’s been some time since Samsung mocked Apple with videos on the inferiority of the iPhone — the exploding Note 7 set that argument back a fair amount — but the Korean firm has removed the gloves again with a new video released right after last week’s iPhone X launch. The gist of it is a common argument laid out by Android fans: that Apple adopts every feature… Read More
TechCrunch Disrupt is returning to Berlin for the first time since the original Disrupt Europe in 2013. Disrupt Berlin 2017 is one of the largest TechCrunch events we’ve held in Europe and general admission and exhibitor packages are still available. You’re not going to want to miss this. The show is jam-packed, and just like every Disrupt, the focus is on startups and the… Read More
There’s more funding for Southeast Asia’s growing local services space after Kaodim, a Malaysia-based startup that operates in four countries in the region, raised $7 million. Founded three years ago, Kaodim is a service for booking for hiring a range of services that include cleaning, moving, appliance care, and even photography. The round was led by Square Peg Capital, a… Read More
Grab, Uber’s fierce rival in Southeast Asia, announced today that its service has crossed one billion completed rides. The firm hit the milestone on October 26 when 66 concurrent trips from across its seven markets took it into ten-figure territory . The company started out in Malaysia in 2012, and today it covers 142 cities across Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam,… Read More
Red Hat is still best known for its Linux distribution, but the company has also long offered its own OpenStack distribution and additional services as well. Today, the company launched version 12 of the Red Hat OpenStack Platform. This update includes all of the usual stability improvements and bug fixes, but what’s probably most important for the distribution in the long run is that… Read More
As more media companies realize Russia bought advertising space or promoted news stories — fake and otherwise — on their platforms, covert influence has become the new money laundering. Both activities hide below the surface of legitimate enterprises, cast a shadow of disrepute on those very enterprises and can be neutralized through transparency and accountability. Read More
The proposed tie-up between two American telecom giants was formally called off this weekend. Sprint and T-Mobile had been negotiations for months but ultimately decided not to go forward with a deal. “The companies were unable to find mutually agreeable terms,” the businesses announced in a joint press release Saturday. Last week, reports suggested that the deal was on the verge… Read More
Catch up while you can — all 12 seasons of the popular FX show It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia will no longer be available on Netflix after December 8th, according to Netflix Life. The departure is due to the end of a licensing agreement with 20th Century Fox that, unfortunately, doesn’t look like it will be renewed. Fox and FX shows have been slowly disappearing over… Read More
As far as gimmicks go, PowerWatch’s is pretty good. After generations of wearables with 24-hour battery lives, the promise of never having to charge your smartwatch again falls firmly into the realm of too good to be true. But the PowerWatch does exist. It’s already started shipping to backers and is available for $169 through the company’s site. The device works by… Read More
Shenzhen-based Tencent Holdings Limited, the parent company behind extremely popular services like WeChat and QQ, today announced that it is joining the OpenStack Foundation as a Gold Member. OpenStack members at the Gold level pay annual dues of 0.025 percent of their revenue with a minimum of $50,000 per year and a maximum of $200,000 to support the development of the open source cloud… Read More
Quite a few people were upset upon discovering Twitter had blocked the search for the word “bisexual” in photos and news earlier today. However, Twitter says the removal of search results for certain terms were “an error.” We’ve identified an error with search results for certain terms. We apologize for this. We’re working quickly to resolve & will… Read More
OpenStack, the massive open source project that provides large businesses with the software tools to run their data center infrastructure, is now almost eight years old. While it had its ups and downs, hundreds of enterprises now use it to run their private clouds and there are even over two dozen public clouds that use the project’s tools. Users now include the likes of AT&T,… Read More
Here are Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’s tips about inspiration, work-life balance, and how to be an inventor. Oh, and how it felt getting doused with champagne at his rocket landing. The world’s richest person displayed an unprecedented level of candor during an interview at in Los Angeles this weekend at invite-only getaway Summit Series, a favorite amongst tech founders which we… Read More
Millions of dollars are at stake in a legal battle between Ron Conway and his former SV Angel partner David Lee, according to a suit filed last week in Marin County Superior Court and first reported by Axios. Lee filed the complaint claiming Conway has not paid him in previously promised fees and agreed-upon shares in investments in companies such as Airbnb, Pinterest and Snapchat. Lee was… Read More
Some people are griping about Face ID, noting that sometimes their siblings can open their iPhone Xs using Face ID. There’s a simple reason for this. When your sibling who kind of looks like you unsuccessfully tries to unlock your phone using their face and then you enter your password, you’re accidentally training Face ID on your sibling’s face. Therefore, if that same… Read More
When it comes to virtual reality, we’re in a classic tech-industry moment: lots of chatter but seemingly little movement. We hear future-focused cheerleading from all corners about VR’s incredible potential, yet the 6.3 million headsets shipped last year is hardly cause for a ticker-tape parade. So what’s holding back VR? Read More
How’s this for a press release headline? “Saga: the e-reader that changes the game of digital reading.” Compelling, right? within the first two sentences, Bookeen calls its new reader “disruptive” and “a whole new reading experience and adventure.” I could go on, of course, but the it’s really just the same hyperbole all the way down.
It… Read More
How do you know that Hillary Clinton exists? I’m serious; or, at least, I’m making a point. Bear with me. Think about it. You don’t know her personally, after all. You’ve never met her. You’ve maybe been in the same room as a woman who was introduced to you as her – but probably not. So how do you know there truly is a real person named Hillary Clinton… Read More
In a move sure to shock the business world, Saudi Arabia last night announced the arrest of at least eleven princes, including renowned billionaire investor Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, as part of a sweeping corruption investigation. Prince Alwaleed controls the investment firm Kingdom Holding and is one of the world’s richest men, owning or having owned meaningful positions in satellite… Read More
