Instagram Stories now has as many users as the last number announced by Snapchat, the app Instagram copied. And it’s swiftly moving to monetize that massive audience. Along with the new 150 million daily user stat, Instagram today announced the launch of ads mixed into Stories. The unclickable five-second photo and 15-second video ads appear between different people’s stories and… Read More
Transmit Security, a new security startup that wants to make it easier for developers to implement biometric authentication, came out of stealth today with $40 million in self-funding. With all of the high-profile hacks over the last several years from the DNC to Sony to Target; it’s clear that we need better ways to prevent unauthorized access to our computer networks. One of the… Read More
A GCHQ-backed startup incubator has opened its doors in the UK, announcing its first cohort of seven startups participating in the three month accelerator program (see below for the list of teams). Read More
HOOQ, a Netflix challenger in Southeast Asia, has raised $25 million in capital from existing investors Singtel, Sony Pictures and Warner Brothers. Read More
After news broke that YPlan had been acquired by Time Out Group for significantly less than the approximately £31 million that the London startup had raised, you’d be forgiven for thinking there would be little appetite for a new events discovery and booking platform. However, that isn’t stopping Revl, a new events marketplace app for iOS, leaving stealth mode today and… Read More
Good news for those getting tired of hearing Galaxy Note 7 warnings before every flight they take, those pre-flight announcements can now cease of today. Read More
The world of mobile payments continues to consolidate and mature, and today one of the leading players among European mobile payments startups has raised a significant round of money to help keep itself on top. iZettle, the Swedish company that offers a card reader that works with your smartphone or tablet, plus a suite of financial services for the small businesses, is announcing that it… Read More
Alibaba is continuing its efforts to get into and modernize offline retail after the e-commerce giant lodged a $2.6 billion offer to fully acquire Intime. Read More
The saga of Housing.com, once a red-hot tech startup in India, has reached a conclusion of sorts after the company was sold to rival PropTiger in a deal announced this week. Read More
Fitbit acquires the Vector smartwatch, Marissa Mayer is resigning from Yahoo, Apple plans to consolidate server construction, Consumer Reports settles its differences with Apple and Ellen Pao joins Kapor Capital. All this on Crunch Report. Read More
Tonight in Chicago, President Obama bid his final goodbye. The 44th president’s political career began in the city, soaring with his election to the Illinois State Senate, and he fittingly addressed a mournful audience in the place he still calls home.
“Every day, I have learned from you. You made me a better President, and you made me a better man.” —@POTUS… Read More
Memos reportedly written by a “former British intelligence operative” and circulated throughout the U.S. intelligence committee allege that the Russian government has collected compromising information about President-elect Donald Trump over several years. They also claim that Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, met with Kremlin officials to orchestrate the release of… Read More
In a Senate hearing described as a “lovefest” by one attendee, General John F. Kelly testified about his nomination to become the fifth secretary of the Department of Homeland security. The relatively concise and often openly warm hearing got underway as Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill thanked Kelly for his prompt compliance: Unlike some of the other nominees, Kelly got his… Read More
Smartwatches aren’t for everyone. That much has been clear since day one, a fact seemingly confirmed by a recent stagnation in the space. Too many are designed to be once-size-fits-all, but ultimately are just too bulky and flashy with too many battery life compromises for most wrists. As someone who tries on a lot of these devices, I’ve always been partial to the hybrid. I used… Read More
BMW had a story to tell at CES this year, a story of what our lives might look like when there’s more continuity between what we do at home and what we do in our cars, thanks to new features coming to market, including connectivity and self-driving capabilities. I became a part of that story as I drove a prototype 5 series (fun even in manual mode) onto a public Las Vegas highway, pressed… Read More
Centrifuges are found in medical labs worldwide. But a good one could run you a couple grand and, of course, requires electricity — neither of which are things you’re likely to find in a rural clinic in an impoverished country. Stanford researchers have created an alternative that costs just a few cents and runs without a charge, based on a children’s toy with surprising… Read More
The first sequencing of the whole human genome in 2003 cost roughly $2.7 billion, but DNA sequencing giant Illumina has now unveiled a new machine that the company says is “expected one day” to order up your whole genome for less than $100. Illumina’s CEO Frank deSouza showed off the machine, called the NovaSeq, onstage at the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference in downtown… Read More
Sen. Jeff Sessions, Donald Trump’s nominee for the position of U.S. attorney general, is being grilled by the Senate today about voting rights, immigration, civil rights, prosecutorial ethics and his own voting record. But when asked about issues related to technology — including hacking, surveillance, encryption, and law enforcement access to data — Sessions’ answers… Read More
Tesla has a new vice president heading up Autopilot efforts — Chris Lattner, whose departure from Apple was reported only earlier today. Lattner worked at Apple for 11 years, where his chief contribution was creating Swift, Apple’s most recent programming language, which is relatively easy for beginners to pick up and begin using to create apps for macOS, iOS and beyond. The role… Read More
What does artificial intelligence have in common with the price of eggs? At the store, you may find one carton drawing your eye with promises of being “all natural.” This is meaningless, of course: no one has defined what “natural” is, so anyone can put it on there. The same problem is now happening in tech — but with AI. Read More
