Carjojo’s latest update brings some big changes to its Edge2Edge machine learning technology. The service has allowed users to search for and buy a new car since going live in November 2016, but new features make it easier to search every. single. car. on dealership lots right now — about 4 million on any given day, according to the Carjojo press release. The first improvement… Read More
In preparation for Disrupt New York and our upcoming TC Sessions series on Robotics Matt Burns and I will be heading to Pittsburgh to talk to some startups. We will meet at the Shop on April 11 at 7pm, a new place near bakery square. Please RSVP ASAP. We also need lots and lots of startups, preferably in hardware. Startups will have two minutes to pitch and two minutes of questioning from a set… Read More
Security researcher Jonathan Zdziarski revealed he was joining Apple earlier this month, and now it turns out his Mac security app, Little Flocker, has gone awol because it’s joining F-Secure. Read More
Twitter has taken the wraps off a new data-optimized version of its service that it hopes will be a hit among emerging. It’s called Twitter Lite and, unlike similar ‘Lite’ apps from Facebook and others, it is browser-based — living at mobile.twitter.com. It is essentially a data-optimized version of the regular Twitter service that, the company said, loads fast and… Read More
Uber is on the defensive after the New York Times claimed that it manipulates drivers using techniques from behavioral science in order to reduce costs and increase corporate growth. The company did not refute that it uses psychological incentives, but instead focused its response on a claim in the April 2 article that “faster pickup times for riders require a greater percentage to be… Read More
March was a busy month across Africa’s tech space. 500 Startups’ frontier and emerging markets travel series ― Geeks on a Plane ― kicked off its first Africa tour. The 12-day trek packed in events, a startup pitch battle, and visits to tech hubs in Nigeria, Ghana, and South Africa. Talking to TechCrunch about the trip, 500 Startups CEO Dave McClure confirmed “we’re… Read More
He may have shared the world’s worst handshake with its Prime Minister, but President Trump is still big in Japan. Starting in late March, a set of splashy ads depicting Trump appeared in train cars and metro stations around Tokyo. As a spokesman from Twitter Japan explained to TechCrunch, the Trump ads are one part of a new brand campaign that began on Monday, March 20 and is scheduled… Read More
The end is near for Pebble. The latest update to Pebble watches should extend their life a bit longer by removing the dependency on cloud servers. This allows the devices to work without the Pebble services that have up until now was required for many user interactions. When Fitbit purchased Pebble in late 2016, uncertainty hung over the purchase. Would Fitbit keep supporting the device?… Read More
A member of the founding team of Product Hunt and a LinkedIn veteran are teaming up to invest in early-stage startups. Sources tell us that Erik Torenberg, who was employee No. 1 at Product Hunt, and Ben Casnocha, who served as chief of staff and co-author to LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman, are raising $50 million for a new investment vehicle. Read More
Biometrics may not be the perfect solution for security, but they can be useful — as long as they’re robust and well thought out. TouchID is all well and good, but you wouldn’t secure a nuclear site with it. Well, movies aside, you probably should secure a nuclear site with a fingerprint, regardless. But this new system from Swiss researchers is a step in the right direction. Read More
London-based Triptease, a startup that offers a SaaS to help hotels increase direct sales and therefore keep more revenue, has closed a $9 million Series B. The new round was led by BGF Ventures, with participation from existing investors Notion Capital and Episode 1 Ventures. Read More
Google today announced that it will invest in a new subsea cable that will connect Singapore to Perth and Sydney in Australia (with a branch to Jakarta, Indonesia). The so-called Indigo cable will be almost 5,600 miles long and will be built by a consortium that also includes AARNet, Indosat Ooredoo, Singtel, SubPartners and Telsta. Read More
Kids everywhere are thanking the University of Utah for giving purpose to their video gaming addictions. The school is now offering scholarships to compete in its esports program, as reported by Bloomberg. The school is the first school to do so from any of the Power Five athletics conferences (Pac-12, Big 10, Big East, SEC, ACC). The esports program will be sponsored by the… Read More
Just how much is SpaceX actually saving with its reused Falcon 9 rockets? You might expect it to not be much, given that the SES-10 launch is the first time they’ve reused a rocket thus far. But SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell said the cost of refurbishing the Falcon 9 rocket was “substantially less than half” what it would have cost to build a new one. Read More
The science publishing world is a complex one, but the pendulum is currently swinging away from the paywalled mega-journals of the last decade to a more open model — but it can still be hard to find a full copy of an article you need on short notice. Unpaywall is a browser plug-in that identifies the paper you’re looking for, then checks whether it’s available for free… Read More
Yesterday Snapchat tweaked their drawing tool so you can draw thicker lines on your snapsterpieces. To change your brush size all you have to do is select a color to draw with, then use two fingers to “pinch” in or out to make the brush size bigger or smaller. Read More
Udacity’s self-driving car program has been focused on training engineers and helping progress the field with open source contributions, but now Udacity Vice President Oliver Cameron is striking out with a new company called Voyage, which was born out of Udacity’s autonomous efforts. Voyage wants to put self-driving cars on the road as part of a fleet of taxis, created using… Read More
GM’s car sharing brand has expanded to another U.S. city – Baltimore, Maryland. The new city will offer 20 pick-up points and 40 vehicles across the downtown area, with rental rates starting around $8 per hour, including gas, and without requiring any regular membership fees. The Maven fleet includes Chevy Cruze and Cruze Hatchback, as well as Malibu, Tahoe and the GMC Acadia, all… Read More
Microsoft’s name isn’t exactly synonymous with social networking, though that hasn’t stopped the company from finding angles into this space – generally, with more of a focus on the business side of socializing, as with its LinkedIn and Yammer acquisitions. It’s own efforts in social, meanwhile, have failed, as with last month’s shuttering of its social… Read More
The timing was perfect. Just as startups were settling into NYU and ffVC’s new brains-meet-money accelerator, “AI Nexus Lab,” Uber acquired Geometric Intelligence. In a stroke of luck, the startup that would become Uber’s AI lab happened to have been raised by NYU Tandon’s Data Future Labs. Uber’s interest in Geometric helped solidify New… Read More
