Indiegogo, the nine-year-old, crowdfunding site, is changing things up, it announced today. Not only can startups now raise money through the site, but in what seems like a natural evolution, they can now sell what they make once their goods are in production. In what seems a bigger twist, the San Francisco-based company will also now sell other items, too, opening its new platform —… Read More
The executive tasked with building back community trust in Upload, the VR startup shaken by a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by a former employee earlier this summer, has quit less than six weeks after officially announcing she had joined the team as COO, multiple sources tell TechCrunch. Anne Ahola Ward joined as COO of Upload, which runs co-working spaces in its LA and SF offices as well as… Read More
It’s easy to miss the forest for the trees without a comprehensive view of what the proverbial forest looks like. As a result, here’s a compiled a list of all of the decentralized blockchain-based projects that I have been following, and was able to dig up through research, along with recommendations from friends in the ecosystem. Read More
Netflix today once again showed that its subscriber growth is on a tear — especially its growth internationally — but a note in the report may indicate one of the biggest challenges the company faces going forward. Netflix took home 20 Emmy awards this year, and that’s thanks to its enormous investments in original content. Shows like “Stranger Things,”… Read More
It’s been a while since we last heard from Project Wing, X’s moonshot drone delivery project. But after a few fallow months, the team posted an update today and it looks like the project has made quite some progress. Alphabet’s X unit is now testing the Project Wing drones in southeastern Australia, where its flying machines are making deliveries right to its testers’… Read More
Netflix is still on its rounded-up-to-pretty-great run as it continues to add more and more subscribers, and once again is outstripping its own estimates for growth. Today the company said it added 5.3 million new total subscribers, with 850,000 coming in the U.S. and 4.45 million coming from international markets. Netflix is spending very aggressively on original content, and so far it looks… Read More
Facebook wants tbh to be its next Instagram. Today, Facebook announced it’s acquiring positivity-focused polling startup tbh and will allow it to operate somewhat independently with its own brand. Read More
Google today is rolling out a revamped version of its longtime Security Checkup feature – a service that helps users make sure their Google accounts are safe by checking those items that could impact your account’s security. This includes connected apps, connected devices, account permissions and other things. Now, Security Checkup will be improved by offering more personalized… Read More
There’s a fundamental incongruency between being pro ‘free speech’ and operating a global social network for civil public discussion. Twitter is struggling with it. Facebook is struggling with it, too. And it can’t be solved by a little more transparency or by hoping average citizens will do the right thing. The principle of free speech on which the United States… Read More
The early 2000s were the era of user-generated content. Companies like Associated Content and Shareasale rewarded content producers richly – one friend of mine made millions on YouTube in 2004 because he was one of the few serial content producers on the platform. The future was going to be broadcast in all of its gritty glory. Bloggers would win forever and ever. The voices of the… Read More
While Expedia and Priceline roll out ways to encroach on Airbnb’s space with their own private home listings for travellers, the $31 billion venture-backed Airbnb is also looking at new ways to boost its own traffic and bookings. Airbnb is now rolling out a new call for affiliate partners, where high-traffic sites with over 1 million visitors can embed Airbnb property listings and… Read More
Boston and its surrounding universities are jam-packed with big ideas, but the problem is that many of them never get out of the lab. MIT president Rafael Reif recognized this and decided the city needed an engine to push those ideas and The Engine — part venture capital firm, part business incubator — was born. When smart people are working on hard problems inside a lab, they… Read More
It’s that time of the year again: earnings season. It’s a finance nerd’s dream, but for the rest of the world, it’s important because some of the biggest technology companies in the world spill their guts to the public. We get to see who’s winning, who’s losing and what’s going wrong. So, on that note, here are a few big story lines we’re… Read More
Minecraft players will now be able to easily save their in-game creations as 3D models. A new update adds the capability, but it’s among the few features that can only be enjoyed by players on the Windows 10 edition of the game. Read More
If you’re a pet owner who uses Google Photos, you’ve probably typed in “dog” or “cat” before in order to surface photos of your furry pal – like anytime someone asks you about your pet, for example, which clearly means they would like to see a picture of Mr. Fluffypants. Today, Google is introducing an easier way to aggregate your pet photos in its… Read More
This year the market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies has grown from about $13 billion to well over $150 billion, fueled by infusions of capital from all different types of investors. But regardless of this extreme growth, it’s still very complicated for most people to invest in cryptocurrency. So one startup is launching a private index fund designed to let you passively hold a… Read More
Google today announced a fun update to Google Maps that’ll allow you to virtually visit a dozen additional planets and moons in our solar system. The company has added to its lineup imagery of Pluto, Venus and several moons and also made it easier to find them in Maps. In total, Google Maps now features imagery of 16 celestial bodies. It’s worth noting that while Google has… Read More
North Korea’s cyber forces may never top the scalp of hacking Sony, an attack that successfully derailed plans to release a movie viewed as critical of the country, but the totalitarian state also performed a similar hit on British broadcaster Channel 4, it has emerged.
A detailed New York Times report on the development of North Korea’s cyber hacking prowess, which was once… Read More
Security researcher Mathy Vanhoef publicly disclosed a serious vulnerability in the WPA2 encryption protocol today. Most devices and routers currently rely on WPA2 to encrypt your WiFi traffic, so chances are you’re affected. Read More
IBM today announced two new services that are meant to make it easier for businesses to move their data and applications to the cloud. The company says the IBM Cloud Migration Services and IBM Cloud Deployment Services will make it easier and more affordable to migrate their existing workloads to the public cloud. Cloud Migration Services, as the name implies, helps businesses get ready to move… Read More
