Tech companies continued to rally against Trump’s immigration ban, Android Wear 2.0 finally launched, Airbnb bought up another company and Zenefits laid off 45 percent of its workforce. These are the top stories of the week. Read More
Donald Trump’s executive orders targeting Muslims, immigrants and refugees are moves that pander to the dangerous forces of racism and xenophobia. Read More
On the surface, many internet businesses might not have much in common; internally, we’ve converged around one single metric that’s applicable to almost all consumer and/or marketplace businesses that use paid customer acquisition. We’re sharing this metric here in the hope that founders can use it as one useful benchmark when evaluating the health and progress of their… Read More
In the face of criticism around its new FOIA process, the FBI moved to clarify some questions surrounding the online portal that will replace its existing process starting March 1. The FOIA changes, initially reported by the Daily Dot earlier this week, set off a chain of controversy that on Friday made it all the way to Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, an established voice in online privacy. In an… Read More
Encrypted messaging app Wire has now published an external audit of its crypto protocol, Proteus, and the implementation of the protocol across its various apps. Read More
It’s always good to hear that scientists are bringing the latest technology to the fight against cancer, but virtual reality doesn’t seem like an obvious addition to the arsenal. Yet it’s VR and 3D visualization that Cambridge University researchers are planning to explore under a multi-million pound grant. Read More
Carl Bass is sitting at his desk at Autodesk today, but he’s no longer CEO of the publicly traded design software company. He stepped down earlier this week in a move that some associated — wrongly, notes Bass — with an interview Bass granted to the outlet Pando, wherein he disparaged President Donald Trump.
This morning, we talked with Bass about his resignation, his… Read More
You know how old you are. You know how old your friends think you are. Heck, you even know how old Microsoft thinks you are. But at the end of the day, does anyone other than Amazon really matter? Until now, the only way for you to know how old Amazon thought you were was to look at products recommended to you. I apparently spent too much time researching sci-fi short stories yesterday… Read More
What wine makers are going after with applied technology and science is a more profitable piece of an already sizable market. Consumers spent $38 billion on U.S.-made wines alone in 2015 according to the annual Wine Industry Metrics report by Wines & Vines Analytics. Using tech and science to gain every possible advantage can help producers keep their costs and prices down, their… Read More
Last year Xiaomi’s market share slid notably in its native China, as the smartphone maker moved from first to fifth place (and tellingly avoided publishing its own sales figures for the first time). 2017, meanwhile, has already has seen its own share of issues for the company, with head of international Hugo Barra jumping ship a few days before it announced that it didn’t… Read More
Lucid’s Air is a 1,000 HP electric dream car, which is still in the early stages of real-world testing, but which already has more than a few EV fans excited. Now, the company is showing off its winter conditions testing, courtesy of a video shot in Minnesota that makes the state far more appealing than any tourism bureau marketing I’ve ever seen. The video includes footage shot… Read More
In a world defined by trends, we’ve been beset by a highly worrying one: There is an undeniable lack of IPOs. In 2015, 164 companies entered the public markets, which is just over half the 2014 number, when 261 took the plunge. In 2016 there were only 107. This is a big deal. Why? Because the public market is the single-most objective judge of company formation and success. Read More
You know that Twitter is getting serious about live streaming when the company starts signing deals for rugby matches just for French users. The company announced that it would stream the next 4 matches involving the French team in the 6 nations tournament.
And if you know absolutely nothing about rugby, the 6 nations tournament happens every year and is probably my favorite tournament to follow. Read More
It’s hard to say precisely what took Beats X so long to arrive. Unlike Apple’s own house-branded AirPods, the company didn’t really start from scratch. Sure, it’s a somewhat new form factor, but the wireless earbuds don’t stray all that far from the company’s existing lines.
But nearly six months after being announced, the headphones arrive this week. As… Read More
The California DMV has added Subaru as the latest member of its list of companies clear to test autonomous driving technology on state roads, bringing the exclusive club to 22 members in total. Subaru is the car-making wing of Japanese transportation company Fuji Heavy Industries, and makes vehicles including the popular Forester and Outback lines. Subaru already offers advanced driver… Read More
Quora, a crowdsourced Q&A site that’s generally smarter than Yahoo Answers, is making a big change to how anonymity works on its service. Most notably, it will begin cracking down on spam and harassment by reviewing all anonymous content before it’s distributed on its network, the company says. Anonymous users will also no longer be able to unduly influence other aspects of… Read More
Wednesday night, at a StrictlyVC event in San Francisco, venture capitalist Aileen Lee took the stage to interview Amy Chang, a former eBay product manager turned head of Google Analytics turned startup founder.
It’s a transition that has introduced Chang to night sweats, she readily admitted.
Chang’s three-year-old startup, Accompany, received one of its first checks from… Read More
Following multiple admissions last year that it had been misreporting some of its ad numbers, Facebook just announced that it has committed to an audit by the Media Rating Council “to verify the accuracy of the information we deliver to our partners.” The mistakes that Facebook revealed last year seem relatively minor, but collectively, they probably have added momentum to… Read More
With the rise of algorithmic stock trading it’s gotten harder and harder for humans to actually trade strategically. However, now that Trump’s chaotic twitter feed can make or break a company with a single mention, you can easily trade against positive or negative sentiment and make a little money in the process!
An app, called Trump2Cash, is partially tongue in cheek but quite… Read More
WhatsApp has rolled out two-step verification to all of its user base, the company quietly announced through an updated FAQ on its website. The additional security measure allows you to protect your account with 6-digit passcode that must be entered in order to register your phone number with WhatsApp. The measure can protect your account from unauthorized access, as it provides an… Read More
