Peter Thiel is supporting Donald Trump, and it’s time to for Silicon Valley to take sides. Is it for Peter Thiel or against him? Furthermore, should Y Combinator president Sam Altman resign if he can’t bring himself to fire Thiel as a part-time partner? These were actual questions posed publicly yesterday, I’m sorry to note. It’s clear that Trump is about as popular… Read More
With new legislation that would inflict heavy fines on Airbnb hosts sitting on New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s desk, Airbnb is proposing last-minute concessions to address the concerns over affordable housing that are driving the legislation. Among the company’s proposals is a new “one host, one home” rule that would allow New York users to only list one space for rent… Read More
Along with a series of new integrations Facebook announced today, which bring features like food ordering and ticketing to Facebook business pages through third-party services, Microsoft this morning also rolled out an integration of its own: appointment bookings, via its recently launched Microsoft Bookings service, a part of the Office 365 suite. The new feature allows business… Read More
Hi. I know, I know. But listen, it’s only 19 more days. And at the very least, tonight’s third and final presidential debate is bound to offer the sort of entertainment value rarely seen outside of NASCAR crash compilations. Because, while we’re in a year of historically low approval ratings, the Nielsens are off the chart. And now, apparently, the “shackles” are off. Read More
Productboard, the makers of a product management system that helps to organize user research and prioritize development tasks, has raised $1.3 million in seed funding to further its business. The round was co-led by Index Ventures and Credo Ventures, and included participation from Spread Capital. The service only officially launched last month at TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2016, following its… Read More
LinkedIn — the social platform where people go to network and look for jobs, which is currently getting acquired by Microsoft for $26.2 billion — continues to add more features both to ramp up usage and provide richer data around the 450 million profiles registered on its platform. Today it’s the turn of Endorsements, the part of LinkedIn that lets you and your peers tag… Read More
Hiring startup HigherMe is announcing that it has raised $1.5 million in seed funding. It’s also brought on some big names as customers, including Dunkin Donuts, Panera Bread — and most recently, fast food chain White Castle. Co-founder and CEO Rob Hunter (a past owner of multiple Marble Slab Creamery locations) has said that when employers hire hourly workers, location,… Read More
Given there are apps for everything, it seems inevitable there will soon be bots trying to do everything, And while it remains to be seen which of these AI-powered chatbots will prove to have lasting utility, right now it’s all about the experimentation. Read More
Facebook wants you to participate in your community, not just talk about it, with a slew of new features launching today. From Facebook Pages, you’ll now be able to order food through Delivery.com and Slice, request an appointment through MyTime, get a professional services quote, or buy movie and event tickets through Ticketmaster and EventBrite without leaving Facebook. This is the… Read More
ShotTracker, a company that got its start by launching a wearable sensor to track and analyze your basketball shots, has announced a $5M seed round that includes participation from basketball legend Magic Johnson and former NBA Commissioner David Stern. R/GA and Elysian Park Ventures, which manage the LA Dodgers’ sports accelerator also participated, as well as Greycroft Partners.… Read More
Amazon’s ambitions to go deeper into the education market are crossing over into another interesting opportunity for the tech giant: online recruitment and job hunting. Today, the e-commerce company’s AWS cloud services division announced that AWS Educate — originally launched last year as a resource library (and promotional platform) for students and educators to use… Read More
Two spacecraft are making their final approaches to mars as part of the European Space Agency and Russian Federal Space Agency’s joint ExoMars mission, including an orbiting craft designed to detect trace amounts of gas in the atmosphere, and a landing craft that will attempt to touch down on the surface of the Red Planet. The arrival of both space craft at Mars will be broadcast live by… Read More
In the digital era of big data, polling is ironically more fraught. The reasons offer a microcosm of both the promise and perils of Big Data. Read More
After raising $50 million earlier this year from Fidelity, security startup Malwarebytes said that it would use some of the funding for acquisitions, and today comes some related news. The company is acquiring a startup out of France called AdwCleaner, whose product specifically tackles and removes adware and has seen a total of 200 million downloads across Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, 8.1, 10… Read More
According to a new report from the Anti-Defamation League, anti-semitic hate speech targeting journalists has seen a meteoric rise on Twitter — thanks to the rhetoric in the 2016 Presidential Campaign. Read More
Some people get really uncomfortable when talking about salary, so Glassdoor has released a new tool to help people better determine their worth in compensation. Know Your Worth aims to help people gain insight into how much money they make in comparison to other people working the same or similar job. The tool asks you for your job title, employer, current salary, location and years of… Read More
Razer acquires audiovisual icon THX, Facebook opens up a live streaming scheduling and lobby feature, London wants Uber drivers to take English tests, Zenefits releases its second-generation HR platform and GoFundMe passes $3 billion raised on the platform. All this on Crunch Report. Read More
PR recovery 101: when you screw up this reality, move on to the next one.
Twitter seems to be slowly building up its AR/VR hires as its other real-world hopes and dreams rise and fall around it. News broke today that the company has hired former AngelHack founder Greg Gopman to start working on virtual reality efforts at the company.
Twitter has yet to really announce any major… Read More
Armed with new research, civil rights organizations are urging the Justice Department to investigate law enforcement’s excessive use of face recognition technologies. A coalition of more than 50 civil rights organizations asked the Department of Justice today to investigate the use of face recognition technology by local and state police and the FBI, after a report by the Georgetown… Read More
We know machine learning is already proving its worth in the financial services sector, so there’s no reason why it can’t lend a hand to enterprise technology. And more specifically, the process that time forgot — the tedious expenses process. Read More
