Elon Musk’s The Boring Company, which he dreamed up while sitting in traffic because he wanted to go under said traffic, has permission to dig a two-mile test tunnel in Hawthorne, California. The approval for the test dig comes from the Hawthorne City Council, which voted four to one in favor of the move. It’s not a cross-country Hyperloop network, but it’s a start. Read More
It seems that even scientific endeavors fall victim to feature creep — or in the case of an effort to scan all fishes that has expanded to include all vertebrates, creature creep. More than a dozen learning institutions are pooling their resources to create detailed 3D scans, inside and out, of more than 20,000 animals. Read More
Staying on the cutting edge has always been pricey, but it’s starting to get a little wild. A report today in the New York Times suggest that Apple’s new high-end bezel-less iPhone is going to have quite the price bump, starting at $999. The price hike would undoubtedly be a rather significant one over past models. Unlocked models of the company’s current generation iPhone… Read More
There are more than 1 billion cellphone users in India, which abruptly went cashless last November. These two developments play nicely into the vision of Ezetap, a six-year-old, Bangalore-based startup whose software as a service is used by more than 200,000 merchants. Read More
The Daily Stormer, a white supremacist website that has become a sort of football to be kicked around in the current controversy around hate speech, was briefly reinstated on DreamHost earlier today. Very briefly. Read More
On Thursday, a D.C. court ordered DreamHost to comply with the Department of Justice’s request for data related to the anti-Trump protest website disruptj20.org — with some meaningful stipulations. Following the hearing DreamHost published a blog post hailing the court proceedings as a win, though acknowledging that it still viewed the DOJ’s modified request as… Read More
Tesla’s already announced plans to reveal at an event in September an all-electric semi truck designed for cargo hauling, but we don’t know much about it beyond that yet. Now, Reuters reports that the vehicle will get between 200 and 300 miles of range per charge, which means it can manage medium-length routes without much issue. As the report notes, this doesn’t put the… Read More
Oculus’s Head of Video Eugene Wei has left Facebook, according to an update on his personal blog. Wei joined the virtual reality company in late 2015 to lead video efforts after previously holding product exec roles at Flipboard and Hulu.
Wei detailed that he left the role in mid-July. The exit would have come just a few weeks after Facebook suddenly shut down Oculus’s in-house… Read More
As a fan of wine and guides, WineryGuide got my attention. Created by Aga and Mariusz Andryszewski, the service offers detailed guides to wineries in Napa Valley in a compact and smart way. “The WineryGuide app puts all of the expertise of a professional wine concierge or tour guide with years of experience in Napa Valley at users’ fingertips. We use latest technology to answer… Read More
Netflix’s subscriber count is soaring and the company is investing billions into original content, but according to a new report published by Marketing Charts today, live TV is still the first place around half of TV viewers go first when they want to watch a show. However, for roughly one in five viewers, or 19 percent, their “default” source for TV programming is now Netflix. Read More
San Francisco-based Blend is simplifying the process of mortgage applications for both borrowers and lenders, but is looking to expand into other lending products. To do that the company has raised $100 million in new funding led by Greylock, with participation from a bunch of existing investors. Read More
SpaceX has succeeded with a launch of one of its Falcon 9 rockets today, for client Taiwan National Space Organization (NSPO). The rocket took off from SpaceX’s launch facility 4E at California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base as planned, carrying the NSPO’s FORMOSAT-5 satellite to orbit, where it was deployed successfully. This marks an even dozen launches for SpaceX for the… Read More
Adding real-world diversity to emoji is a work in progress, but with platforms spanning the entire globe, it’s clearly important to big companies like Facebook. The social network just rolled out a set of new “family” emoji that, while they don’t yet capture the full spectrum, at least let your partner and kids have something other than yellow skin. Read More
SpaceX has a launch scheduled for today, with a 42-minute launch window opening at 11:51 AM PDT (2:51 PM EDT). The launch is for Taiwan’s National Space Organization (NSPO), which is aiming to put satellite FORMOSAT-5 into low-Earth sun synchronous orbit, where it will be used to beam back high-resolution global imagery, and probe Earth’s ionosphere for research purposes. For the… Read More
The UK government has warned of the risks of the Internet being ‘Balkanzied’ by the application of different rules in different geographies, suggesting that data localization efforts could throttle competition and innovation and weaken security. Read More
HTC, whose mobile handsets ruled the smartphone world of yesteryear, is working with an adviser to examine some pretty significant “strategic options” as it aims to find a path forward, Bloomberg reports. These steps include the possibilities of selling its Vive virtual reality arm or simply spinning it off into a separate venture. We’ve reached out to HTC for comment.… Read More
It’s official…Amazon says its purchase of Whole Foods will close on Monday. According to the release, “the two companies will together pursue the vision of making Whole Foods Market’s high-quality, natural and organic food affordable for everyone. As a down payment on that vision, Whole Foods Market will offer lower prices starting Monday on a selection of… Read More
All right, startup guys and gals. Time is almost up. Disrupt SF 2017 is literally right around the corner. Soon, thousands of tech enthusiasts, investors and entrepreneurs will descend on San Francisco’s Pier 48 for the best startup show in the Bay Area. Will you be among them? Read More
WeWork just announced that it’s receiving a massive $4.4 billion investment from SoftBank Group and SoftBank Vision Fund.
It’s been less than a month since WeWork announced $500 million in funding for a standalone WeWork China business, which SoftBank participated in. It’s also launching in Japan through a joint venture with SoftBank — so this funding deepens an… Read More
Descartes Labs is announcing a $30 million Series B this morning in a large round led by March Capital. This comes just three months after one of Descartes’ largest competitors, Orbital Insight, closed its own $50 million Series C with Sequoia. Both Descartes and Orbital are playing in the emerging market of geospatial analytics. These companies use machine learning to produce insights… Read More
