Amazon today announced a notable new trick for its next-generation Echo device, the Echo Show (aka the one with the screen), which could make it a more compelling purchase: it will be able to display the live streams from a number of smart home cameras. Already, companies like Ring, Arlo, Nest, August, EZViz, Vivint, Amcrest, Logitech Circle 2, and IC Realtime have created Alexa Skills that… Read More
In the ongoing legal case between Uber and Waymo, a new filing suggests Uber knew that Anthony Levandowski possessed Google information as of last March, before Otto’s acquisition. The former Google self-driving project engineer founded Otto, and then joined Uber to lead its self-driving efforts when Otto was acquired by the ride hailing giant. Waymo’s new filing cites a response… Read More
Today, all around cool internet thing IFTTT is hooking all kinds of useful public data into its powerful platform. With the launch of its new Data Access Project, IFTTT will add support for a broad selection of government agencies, organizations and research and cultural groups. That includes public data from federal and state government feeds on down to municipal transit information. The new… Read More
Today, at Elastic’s customer event in London, the company announced it has acquired Opbeat, a SaaS-application performance management vendor for an undisclosed amount. All 15 employees have already joined the Elastic team. Opbeat focuses on monitoring applications written in Javascript. What’s more, it maps production application issues directly to the relevant developer source… Read More
As Spotify inches its way to a public listing, the streaming music company — which now has 140 million users — has made some significant changes to its board of directors. Sean Parker, the early supporter and investor who once founded digital music service Napster and helped usher Facebook into the world, has left Spotify’s board of directors, along with Klaus Hommels,… Read More
So you missed the first round of deeply discounted tickets to Disrupt Berlin 2017? It’s cool; we’ve got you. On June 29, we’ll be releasing another batch of two-for-one Disrupt tickets, giving you not just one, but two whole tickets to the best startup show in Europe for the same price. Read More
Not so long ago the administration needed to run a major construction project relied almost entirely on pen, paper, excel spreadsheets and faxes. That has provided a huge opportunity for startups to take a stab at digitising the construction industry. Brussels-based Aproplan, which bills itself as akin to “Salesforce for construction,” is one such company, and today is disclosing… Read More
JD.com, China’s second-largest e-commerce company after Alibaba, is pumping $397 million into Farfetch, a marketplace for luxury brands, as part of a new strategic partnership. JD.com founder and CEO Richard Liu will take a seat on Farfetch’s board as part of the deal, which makes JD.com one of its largest shareholders. Read More
Chinese startup Tantan, which is probably most comparable to Tinder, has raised $70 million in new capital as it looks to monetize its business for the first time and explore overseas expansion options. Three-year-old Tantan claims 60 million ‘validated’ users — i.e. not fake accounts — of which six million are active on a daily basis. Of those active users, 75 percent… Read More
Facebook is introducing a new feature to give users peace of mind around how their profile photo can be used and accessed by others.
The social network today announced a pilot program in India that is designed to protect users who are concerned about other people gaining access to their profile image. The new ‘photo guard’ feature has a range of safety measures that… Read More
Etsy has announced its second round of layoffs in as many months. In a statement today, it said it will cut 140 positions, or about 15 percent of its current workforce. When combined with an earlier downsizing announced in early May, this round brings total eliminated positions to about 230, or about 22 percent of what Etsy’s total workforce was at the end of 2016. Read More
Travis Kalanick, who last night resigned from his post as CEO of ride-share giant Uber, has taken the blame for the company’s very long list of problems, from allowing a culture of sexual harassment to thrive, to skirting the law with its Greyball program, to mishandling the medical files of a customer raped by one of the company’s drivers (for starters). But many view the VCs… Read More
Benchmark’s Bill Gurley is set to leave Uber’s board of directors, one day after the company announced the resignation of CEO Travis Kalanick following months of controversy over its corporate culture. A Benchmark spokesman told Bloomberg, which first reported the news of Gurley’s departure, that his board seat will be filled by Matt Cohler, another Benchmark general partner. Read More
The CEO of Uber, Travis Kalanick, resigns from the company, Tesla gets a new lead, Andrej Karpathy, for their autopilot program, University of Michigan students get driverless shuttles and Snapchat introduces Snap Maps. All this on Crunch Report. Read More
When Mercari became Japan’s first startup unicorn with a $75 million round last year, the funding was earmarked to fuel its goal of becoming the top secondhand marketplace app in the U.S. Now Mercari is doubling down on its efforts to succeed where no other Asian e-commerce company has. Today it launched a refreshed version of its American app and announced the hiring of John Lagerling… Read More
According to a report by the San Francisco Chronicle, the Trump administration may rescind or indefinitely delay the International Entrepreneur Rule, widely regarded as the U.S. version of a startup visa. Overseen by the Department of Homeland Security the rule is intended to “increase and enhance entrepreneurship, innovation, and job creation in the United States.” Anxiously… Read More
Russia-based online freight service Deliver (formerly iCanDeliver) has closed a seed round of $8 million. The startup automates the process of ordering freight transport and makes things more efficient by finding the closest sender. Read More
Dust off your Google Glasses, those who still have them — the $1,500 face computer is back in the spotlight today with a few updates. In its first update since September 2014, Google Glass got a “MyGlass” companion app update, some bug fixes and now supports Bluetooth. Read More
Digital assistants and bots undeniably enhance our work lives in myriad ways. They’re terrific; your wish is their command. And they literally acquire more “skills” every day. But are better bots and smarter software servants truly the best way to drive people’s personal productivity? Read More
Every time Apple’s developer conference rolls around we get a smattering of changes to the App Store Review guidelines. This corpus of rules can be, in turns, opaque and explicit, and has caused a decent amount of consternation over the years for developers as they try to read into how Apple might interpret one rule or another. Read More
