You asked for an extension on cheap tickets to Disrupt SF 2016, and we delivered. But the clock is still ticking. You now have just four days left to save $1,000 by purchasing early-bird tickets to Disrupt for just $1,995 apiece, so get on over to our ticketing page to score your deeply discounted tickets before the price jumps to $2,995 after the 19th. Read More
In what Edward Snowden deems “not unprecedented” hackers calling themselves the Shadow Brokers have collected NSA-created malware from a staging server run by the Equation Group, an internal hacking team. The Shadow Brokers published two chunks of data, one “open” chunk and another encrypted file containing the “best files” that they will sell for at least… Read More
Ultrathin laptops help you find information, but writing things down, on paper, in a notebook, helps you learn and remember. Wireless headphones make your music better and more portable, but earplugs ensure sleep. And though your smartphone is the camera you always have with you, an instant camera creates actual moments you share with just one person, not the world (on purpose or accidentally). Read More
Google has rolled out an update to search aimed at helping U.S. users find out how they can vote in the upcoming November election. This includes information on what sort of ID you need to bring with you to your polling places, voting deadlines, details on early voting and mail-in ballots and more. The added guides will appear in Google search when certain phrases are googled, like “how… Read More
The big risk of Facebook launching the Messenger platform was that spammy bots could drown out your friends. Now Facebook is formalizing rules to prevent that. Messenger API experiences may only respond to users who initiate conversations. They can only reply within 24 hours, and once more after that for reengagement. Subscription Messaging that requires an opt-in to spontaneously ping people… Read More
Vettery, a startup offering an alternative to the traditional recruiting process, has raised $9 million in Series A funding. On the Vettery website, the company pairs potential job-seekers with a “talent executive” who helps them through the process of creating a profile and looking over interview requests from employers. If they accept a job, Vettery will give them a $1,000… Read More
Your speech-recognizing friends at Nuance are back with a major update to their flagship app, Dragon. The popular productivity software is now in its 15th version, an update that promises some substantial improvements in accuracy courtesy of the company’s own deep learning tech, which forms the basis of its speech engine. According to Nuance, this latest upgrade brings… Read More
Amazon this morning announced that, for the first time ever, it will begin distributing its Original Series from Amazon Video to social media sites, including Facebook and YouTube. Pilot episodes from ten primetime and kids series are now available in both places, in their entirety, allowing anyone – including non-Amazon Prime members – to watch.
While the company has before… Read More
DraftKings has been in the news a lot over the last 12 months. But almost everything you’ve read has probably been about their efforts in passing legislation to explicitly legalize daily fantasy sports – an industry that had sort of an identity crisis a year ago when state governments around the nation decided they weren’t sure exactly how to regulate it.
And now that the… Read More
The Third Industrial Revolution is already happening. We now have a choice: Do we take advantage of technology and create an incredibly better world for the entire human race, or do we let all of the gains continue to consolidate and grow societal conflict to the breaking point? Read More
Happy Gamescom week, everyone. The folks at Lenovo are celebrating Europe’s biggest gaming event with a pair of PCs aimed at embracing virtual reality, doing so with an almost sci-fi-like panache. The desktops are constructed from all sorts of strange and dissonant angles, culminating with a glowing red “Y.” And while they certainly look the part, it is, naturally,… Read More
Shoptiques has been making big moves of late, opening up business in Australia and the Netherlands and updating their app and website. But perhaps more interesting is that Shoptiques has revealed how the platform has transformed the boutique shopping industry as a whole. The company says that retailers that are using the platform see sales growth increase 157 percent month over month in… Read More
While not quite a flagship (an honor that goes to its more mainstream sibling, the Galaxy S), Samsung’s Note line is undoubtedly one of the most iconic handsets around, with a strong enough following to redefine the way in which the industry at large approaches screen size. That first generation’s 5.3-inch display transformed the word “phablet” from similar tech… Read More
It’s hard to believe, but the company unveiled the original Gear VR two years ago next month. At that point, the hardware was focused on bringing developers on board, with two early hardware releases going out to interested parties prior to the device’s initial consumer release in late 2015. The headset sits comfortably in the wide swath of space between Cardboard and… Read More
Carmakers continue to look to the Valley for help paving the way for the future of cars – Ford has teamed up with Baidu to jointly invest $150 million in Velodyne, a company making LiDAR sensors in California’s technology hotspot. The money will help Velodyne quickly ramp up efforts to make its LiDAR sensors at scale while retaining and increasing quality, which will help… Read More
Ida Tin, co-founder and CEO of digital female health company Clue, will speak at Disrupt SF this fall. Clue’s app is known for its user-friendly menstrual cycle tracking abilities and its mission to bring feminine health into the age of data. Period tracking has long been a way to understand the correlation between menstruation and fertility for those trying to conceive. Apps that… Read More
China’s UnionPay is bringing its mobile payment system to North America, starting with a launch today in Canada. The UnionPay International subsidiary of China’s interbank network in China, which creates a unified debit and credit card payment network for the country’s banks. UnionPay is actually the third-largest payment network in the world, behind Visa and MasterCard, owing… Read More
In a year where money is harder to come by, especially from conventional venture capital sources, Rubrik is a notable exception, announcing a $61 million Series C round from several brand-named Silicon Valley venture firms. The round was led by Khosla Ventures with participation from existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners and Greylock Partners, and unnamed angel investors coming… Read More
After getting on top of some teething problems with shipping to domestic buyers, Facebook-owned Oculus Rift has opened up pre-orders for its VR headset outside the U.S., announcing today that the kit is available to buyers in Europe (UK, France and Germany) and Canada, with a ship date of September 20. Read More
