LinkedIn — the Microsoft-owned platform for those who want to network with professional contacts and advance their own careers — has been in the middle of a long-term makeover of its social tools, as it looks to drive more usage. Today comes the latest chapter in that story: the site is unveiling a new smart reply feature in its messaging app, which gives users prompts with… Read More
The iPhone 8 and iPhone X sport wireless charging and there are a handful of car manufacturers that already include Qi charging pads. Basically, Apple says, most of these wireless charging pads will work though there are some outliers. The main exception is some of the pads are not large enough for the iPhone 8 Plus so in that case, you’ll have to plug your phone into a cable to charge. Read More
DVR maker TiVo today officially confirmed the launch of its new DVR, the TiVo BOLT VOX, and its smaller counterpart, the TiVo Mini Vox, following yesterday’s leak. As had been reported, the biggest change is that these are the first TiVo DVRs to include a voice remote control, which allows users to search across live TV, DVR, video-on-demand and online streaming services just by… Read More
Derq aims to make cars smarter and recently raised $1.5 million in seed funding from Techstars Mobility Accelerator. In addition to growing its team and opening an office in Detroit, the company plans on using the cash to advance its tech that aims to reduce vehicle accidents by improving how cars and infrastructure talk to each other. The company sees its product integrating into existing… Read More
You couldn’t blame AppDynamics co-founder Jyoti Bansal if he took some time off after selling his company to Cisco for a cool $3.7 billion in January. But Bansal is an entrepreneur and he didn’t stop to enjoy the moment. Instead, he did what entrepreneurs do — he looked for a new problem to solve. Today, he announced two new projects . For starters, Bansal teamed up Rishi… Read More
When Google was founded in 1998, its goal was to organize the world’s information. And for the most part, mission accomplished — but in 19 years the goal post has moved forward and indexing and usefully presenting information isn’t enough. As machine learning matures, it’s becoming feasible for the first time to actually summarize and contextualize the world’s… Read More
The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) is probably best known for being the home of the Kubernetes container orchestration project, but there plenty of other projects that now fall under the organization’s umbrella. All of them focus on bringing the kind of modern cloud-native tooling that companies like Google, Microsoft, Facebook and others take for granted to a wider range… Read More
Blickfeld, a Munich-based startup developing a low-cost light detection and ranging (LiDAR) system to let autonomous vehicles “see,” has raised $4.25 million in seed funding. Read More
China is a tough nut to crack, no matter how much money U.S.-based companies have to throw at it. That’s the overarching takeaway tonight, given the news — first reported by Bloomberg — that Hong Ge is abandoning his post as the head of Airbnb’s China business for a new, as-yet-undisclosed opportunity. Why does the departure matter? For starters, Ge was appointed to… Read More
French startup iAdvize raised another $37.6 million (€32 million) from Idinvest, Bpifrance and Quadrille Capital. The company wants to convert casual website visitors into clients. Thanks to iAdvize, companies can track what you’re doing and engage with you to convince you that you should open a bank account, buy a coat or upgrade your subscription. With today’s funding round,… Read More
Cars congesting roads is a problem in just about every major urban center around the world, but some areas are worst in this regard than others. Singapore is one of those, and it’s going to do something about it – the government there has announced that it will cut the annual growth rate of cars and motorcycles allowed on roads in the country from 0.25 percent to zero starting… Read More
Microsoft said it will drop its lawsuit against the Department of Justice over gag orders that prevent companies from telling customers when their personal data has been accessed by investigators. Its decision came after the DOJ issued a new binding policy that requires prosecutors to give more detailed reasons when applying for gag orders and makes it much harder to seek one that lasts… Read More
Wibbitz, which uses artificial intelligence to create short videos based on text news stories, has raised $20 million in Series C funding. The money comes from some of big names in the media world, with Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments (a subsidiary of German media conglomerate Bertelsmann) leading the round and participation from The Weather Channel, The Associated Press and TF1.… Read More
Today’s Stories Cisco scoops up BroadSoft for $1.9 billion to boost communications tools portfolio WeWork acquires Flatiron School Essential Phone gets a $200 price drop, existing customers get credit Credits Written by: Tito Hamze Hosted by: Tito Hamze Filmed by: Tito Hamze Edited by: Chris Gates Notes: I don’t know what to wear on Crunch Report (It’s a hard decision and… Read More
Under the nom de guerre of Redrock Biometrics, two former Leap Motion execs are waging war on the world’s legions of identification cards, pin numbers, passwords, and voice identification technologies with a combination of off-the-shelf hardware and proprietary software to identify palm-prints to verify user identity. Read More
Oh, to work at Disney, to have a hand in creating those lusciously detailed 3D worlds, every character lovingly rendered, every animal sidekick unique and hilarious, every tree… filled with leaves. Designed and placed individually. In movies that take place in forests. There has to be a better way. What if you could just 3D scan some leaves and then tweak them to your liking? Read More
Facebook has caused a 60-80 percent drop in referral traffic to news outlets in six countries due to a test that removed Page posts from the News Feed and relocated them to a separate, hard-to-find Explore Feed. But now Facebook’s VP of News Feed writes “We currently have no plans to roll this test out further.” Read More
Consumer group Which? is unhappy with the U.K. data protection bill and has called on the government to amend the draft legislation to allow third-party organizations to seek collective redress for data breaches on behalf of consumers. Read More
Creating avatars. Who’s got time for it?! Computers, that’s who. You’ll never have to waste another second selecting your hair style, skin tone or facial hair length if this research from Facebook finds its way into product form. Read More
Shift Technology is raising a Series B round of $28 million from Accel and General Catalyst. Accel had already led the company’s previous round. Existing investors Elaia Partners and Iris Capital are also participating in today’s round. Read More
