PayPal today launched a new service called Business in Box aimed at bringing more U.S. small business owners to its payments platform. The service offers merchants a suite of tools for running their online businesses, including an online storefront, accounting tools, the ability to apply for working capital from PayPal and support for taking payments either online or offline, via PayPal. Read More
In this episode of Technotopia I talk to Greg Mark, founder of Markforged. Mark recently made news with his new metal printing technology that heats metallic objects in a microwave, reducing by hours the time it takes to make metal parts. He believes that 3D printing is the future, but not in the low-quality, stringy and plasticky way we expect. Mark said that rapid prototyping has gotten… Read More
Jive, a community collaboration software company that was one of the biggest Enterprise 2.0-era success stories, going public in 2011, announced today it had agreed to be acquired by ESW Capital’s Wave Systems for $462 million. It will become part of the Aurea family of companies. Read More
MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab has figured out a way to measure walking speed to within 95 and 99 percent accuracy — all without requiring a wearable or other on-body measurement device. The tech uses wireless signals, dubbed “WiGait” by the research team, sent out by router-like devices within the home to track walking speed and stride length… Read More
Verizon has invested in self-driving software startup Renovo, which wants to become an autonomous operating system provider to leading automakers and fleet operators. The investment comes as part of a new $10 million round led by True Ventures, The Wall Street Journal reports, and boosts the total funding raised by the company to $14.5 million across two rounds. Read More
SpaceX recovered its Falcon 9 first-stage rocket after succeeding in launching NROL-76 for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Organization today. The recovery attempt saw the first-stage rocket fall back to earth under a controlled descent after separating from the second stage and mission payload a few minutes after launch. Read More
SpaceX succeeded in its second attempt to launch NROL-76, a classified payload and its first big contract for the U.S. military via the National Reconnaissance Organization (the NRO). While SpaceX couldn’t reveal what the rocket was taking to orbit, it still broadcast the rocket taking off from is LC-39A facility at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Read More
Twitter’s always-on video programming plans didn’t take long to come to light: The company’s COO and CFO Anthony Noto discussed the idea just last week, and then late Sunday The Wall Street Journal revealed that it would make good on this first with new media company Bloomberg, which will offer 24/7 video news broadcasts on Twitter starting this fall. Read More
SpaceX is taking its second shot at NROL-76, a Falcon 9 mission launching from LC-39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Station. The launch was originally scheduled for Sunday, April 30, but that attempt was scrubbed due to a sensor issue. Read More
Elon Musk, the CEO of at least three companies that we know of, was onstage at the 2017 TED conference in Vancouver last Friday, mostly blowing minds with a demonstration video for his vision of how a network of underground tunnels might ease traffic concerns. Read More
Australia-based cross-border payments startup Airwallex has closed a $13 million Series A round to expand its reach across Asia Pacific and into Europe. The deal was led by Chinese internet giant Tencent — marking its first investment in an Australian startup — with participation from Sequoia China, Mastercard and other undisclosed investors. Airwallex was founded last year… Read More
Africa’s startup boom is moving into the used-vehicle space. Nigeria based Cars45.com raised a $5 million Series A round from the Frontier Cars Group, a holding company whose backers include Balderton Capital, EchoVC, TPG Growth, and NEA. Cars45 will deploy the capital to improve its platform that buys, sells, prices, and rates the condition of pre-owned autos. “The used-car… Read More
New parents are faced with many conundrums and one of the most nerve-wracking is how to check a diaper without waking a sleeping baby. Korean startup Monit’s new Bluetooth sensor wants to make sniff tests a thing of the past by alerting parents as soon as their baby’s diaper is soiled. Later on, the sensor can be turned into a portable air quality and temperature monitor, extending… Read More
Silicon Valley is a bubble. Go into any SoMa coffee shop and you’ll hear founders and investors alike singing the praises of Hyperloop and flying cars — sci-fi tropes reincarnated by billionaires with a god complex. This isn’t to say these technologies shouldn’t be pursued, but sometimes it’s healthy to remember that we are effectively pulling a Facebook… Read More
The following is an excerpt from The Way to Design, a guide to becoming a designer founder and to building design-centric businesses. Adapted and reprinted with the author’s permission. Until very recently, success in Silicon Valley required focusing almost single-mindedly on an organization’s technical prowess. It meant having an unimpeachable technical founder, 10X engineers,… Read More
After announcing that it would shift some of its emphasis away from non-lethal weapons to police body cameras, for a fleeting moment it felt like the company synonymous with sticks that electrocute people was showing an interest in police accountability. Analysis from the Intercept and a 2017 “Law Enforcement Technology Report” by Taser suggest that the reality might be more… Read More
After the NSA’s surprise announcement that it would pull back on a contentious surveillance tactic, privacy advocates found themselves in a strange place in 2017: They’d actually won a thing. With a mix of cautious optimism and rightfully cynical pragmatism, the organizations and figures so often quietly waging a thankless war to protect the online privacy of American citizens… Read More
Hack Harassment, founded by Vox Media, Intel and Lady Gaga’s youth-focused Born This Way organization, will gear up to fight online harassment with the introduction of its first advisory board. Comprised of members from anti-bullying research groups, AAA game developers, and some things in between, the board will bring the collective experience of the multi-disciplinary leadership to… Read More
Gig, a new car-sharing app created by the emergency roadside assistance service AAA rolled out to the Bay Area today. The startup comes out of A3 Ventures, AAA’s venture arm and the new one-way car sharing service is now active in Oakland and Berkeley, California. Gig is similar to other temporary car share services like Enterprise CarShare or Zipcar. But unlike the traditional car… Read More
The Wynd smart air purifier is designed to create “bubbles” of fresh air — small, one-person respites from pollution, allergens and other detrimental particles floating in the ether. It feels almost dystopian, a world in which we’re required to arm ourselves against the air around us, but the product clearly struck a nerve. Read More
