The fintech revolution continues apace, and while many startups are hoping that newer and better tech will help them take business away from traditional banks, today a company has received a large round of funding to help those incumbent institutions better compete.
10x Future Technologies is a startup that has built a ground-up platform that incorporates machine learning, cloud services… Read More
Today at TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2017 we sat down with three experts from the esports world to explain why you should start paying attention to the industry. To kick it off, Heather Garozzo, a former competitive Counter Strike player and current Director of Fan Marketing for Team Dignitas, told us what a day in the life of a professional esports player is like. And surprisingly, it’s not… Read More
Earlier today at Disrupt, Kirsten Green, founder of the early-stage, San Francisco-based venture firm Forerunner Ventures, sat down for a quick conversation about her work. Green has become one of the most sought-after e-commerce investors in the country. Read More
In a fairly epic new Vanity Fair profile, the magazine reports that Peter Thiel is the frontrunner to become the chair of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board (PIAB), a meta intelligence entity that functions independently from the nation’s spy agencies. Read More
There are tons of companies trying to solve the problem of managing, monitoring and paying musicians for the songs they make. The latest entrant into this competitive marketplace is HAAWK, which just scored $2.5 million in new financing for its technology. Read More
Uber’s first-ever chief brand officer, Bozoma Saint John, spoke today at TechCrunch Disrupt about the challenges ahead of her in her new role focused on transforming the Uber brand. The executive, who most recently led the global consumer marketing division for Apple Music and iTunes, had only been working at Uber for a matter of days before embattled CEO Travis Kalanick resigned… Read More
In a first for national grocery chains, Albertsons is buying the healthy meal kit delivery startup Plated for an undisclosed amount, brokered by Credit Suisse Group AG. Read More
Tesla is reportedly developing its own processor for artificial intelligence, intended for use with its self-driving systems, in partnership with AMD. Tesla has an existing relationship with Nvidia, whose GPUs power its Autopilot system, but this new in-house chip reported by CNBC could potentially reduce its reliance on third-party AI processing hardware.
AMD would help provide Tesla with… Read More
Delphi is planning to launch its own autonomous driving solution for car manufacturers and mobility service fleet operators in 2019, and it announced today that it will use BlackBerry QNX as the operating system for the automated drive solution. Both BlackBerry QNX and Delphi are long-time auto industry stalwarts who have been reconfiguring their businesses to focus on the opportunity… Read More
Facebook failed to foresee how turning user-written interests and employer information from profiles into ad targeting options could turn offensive. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg has apologized for the situation, and announced that Facebook will now manually review all ad targeting options. Read More
Digital Ocean today announced Spaces, its object storage service. This complements the company’s block storage service. Both of these services have different use cases, of course; unlike the block storage service, Spaces, as an object store, can scale up far beyond the 16TB limit of the block storage service because it’s not volume-based and not about connecting storage to a… Read More
SpaceX has previously discussed its plans to put a satellite-based broadband Internet network into operation, as a way of supplementing its bottom line with a brand new revenue stream. Now, we know what SpaceX might call its new broadband product: Starlink.
The name comes from documents filed by SpaceX to obtain the trademark rights to “Starlink,” as reported by GeekWire. The… Read More
According to its chairman, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence intends to call Facebook to a public hearing on Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. North Carolina Senator Richard Burr made remarks to reporters on Tuesday confirming the committee’s interest in speaking with Facebook, the Hill reports. Read More
The new Apple Watch is mostly an iterative update over its predecessor, but for one major feature: LTE. The addition of cellular connectivity has been touted as everything from “nice” to “game changing,” but reviewers appear to have early issues in testing. Read More
During a tense exchange, Judge William Alsup allowed an Uber lawyer to disclose that Alphabet’s Waymo is seeking $2.6 billion for the highest value of a series of stolen trade secrets. There are currently nine trade secrets in question that were allegedly compromised by Anthony Levandowski.
Waymo’s lawyers, who took time to consider whether to attempt to keep the number private… Read More
Holly Maloney McConnell has joined the venture firm General Catalyst Partners as a managing director, operating out of its Boston office. McConnell joins the firm from North Bridge Growth Equity, which was rebranded last month as Guidepost Growth Equity. Read More
Tech giants are once again being urged to do more to tackle the spread of online extremism on their platforms. Leaders of the UK, France and Italy are taking time out at a UN summit today to meet with Google, Facebook and Microsoft. This follows an agreement in May for G7 nations to take joint action on online extremism. Read More
Autonomous trucking is an area where a growing number of companies are competing for talent and funding, but newcomer Embark is on a bit of a hot streak when it comes to funding, talent acquisition, product development and more. Read More
Fox is partnering with Twitter to promote its fall TV shows by airing select episodes and other related content on Twitter’s social network. This includes the new comedy series “Ghosted,” which will air nightly on Twitter for several days in September, before its television debut on October 1st. While TV networks have traditionally turned to social media to promote their… Read More
HubSpot announced this morning that it has acquired chatbot startup Motion AI.
Motion AI launched in 2015 and offers an editor for building chatbots that work on websites, Facebook Messenger, SMS and Slack, no coding required. Even before the acquisition, the tool was already integrated into HubSpot Free CRM.
The entire Motion AI team, including founder and CEO David Nelson, will be joining… Read More
