The Google Maps Platform, the developer side of Google Maps, is launching a new service for on-demand rides and delivery companies today that ties together some of the platform’s existing capabilities with new features for finding nearby drivers and sharing trip and order progress information with customers. This isn’t Google Maps Platform’s first foray into […]
TikTok says it has rolled out a new notification system to users worldwide that will offer more clarity around content removals. The system, which had been in testing for a few months ahead of its global release, informs a TikTok user when their video had been removed and which policy it violated. It will also […]
Smart thermostats are fairly ubiquitous these days, but depending on which one you’re using, you could be getting a lot more from your home heating and cooling – with relatively simple DIY upgrades. The Flair Smart Vent system is one such upgrade, and though it costs a bit upfront to get going (each register is […]
Instacart is making its grocery delivery and pickup services more accessible to lower-income customers by offering customers the ability to pay for groceries using their SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits. This is the first time Instacart shoppers have been able to use government assistance programs when paying for groceries, and follows earlier moves by […]
New numbers from Canalys point to a strong growth in smart speaker shipments in Mainland China this year. The market is on track to grow 2020, having gotten the COVID-19 pandemic mostly under control in recent months. The rest of the world — much of which continues to struggle with the virus — is only […]
Productivity software has had a huge couple of years, yet for all of the great note-taking apps that have launched, consumers haven’t gotten a lot of quality options for Google Calendar replacements. This week, Woven, a calendar startup founded by former Facebook CIO Tim Campos is shaking up the premium tier of their scheduling software, […]
Here.fm, a new web-based communication platform founded by Jesse Boyes and Seth Harris, has today announced the close of a $2.9 million seed round from FirstMark with participation by Y Combinator and a group of angel investors. Here is all about giving people the chance to create personal, shareable and flexible video chat rooms. Boyes […]
Yuanfudao, a homework tutoring-app founded in 2012, has raised $2.2 billion from investors, surpassing Byju’s as the most valuable edtech company in the world. The Beijing-based company is now worth $15.5 billion dollars, almost double its valuation set in March. The company views the new capital as two separate extension rounds of its March raise, […]
Lyft riders will soon have the option for paying and splitting fares using Venmo, the company said in a blog posting this morning. Venmo joins Lyft’s other payment methods of PayPal, credit cards, debit cards, Lyft Cash and more. To enable the payment method, users need to authorize Venmo in the Lyft app. Lyft says […]
It’s only been a few months since Lili announced its $10 million seed round, and it’s already raised more funding — namely, a $15 million Series A. The startup, founded by CEO Lilac Bar David and CTO Liran Zelkha, is creating a bank account and associated products designed for freelancers, with features like early access […]
Six years ago, Amazon essentially created a new consumer electronics category. Expectations weren’t particularly high when the first Echo device debuted in November of 2014. Amazon, after all, has never shied away from throwing a new device against the wall to see what sticks — if anything, that’s become a defining characteristic of the last […]
Facebook has been making a big play to be a go-to partner for small and medium businesses that use the internet to interface with the wider world, and its messaging platform WhatsApp, with some 50 million businesses and 175 million people messaging them (and more than 2 billion users overall), has been a central part […]
Buildings are the bedrocks of civilization — places to live, places to work (well, normally, in a non-COVID-19 world) and places to play. Yet how we conceive buildings, architect them for their uses, and ultimately construct them on a site has changed remarkably little over the past few decades. Housing and building costs continue to […]
Three months on since the former founders of SoundCloud launched their e-bike subscription service, Dance they are today announcing the close of a $17.7 million (€15 million) Series A funding round led by one of the larger European VCs, HV Holtzbrinck Ventures. Founded by Eric Quidenus-Wahlforss (ex-Soundcloud), Alexander Ljung (still at Soundcloud as chairman) and […]
Smartphone shipments reached an all-time high in India in the quarter that ended in September this year as the world’s second largest handset market remained fully open during the period after initial lockdowns due to the coronavirus, according to a new report. About 50 million smartphones shipped in India in Q3 2020, a new quarterly […]
Geocoding startup what3words — which chunks the world into 3mx3m squares, giving each a unique three-word label to simplify location sharing — has nabbed another in-vehicle integration, via a partnership with Here Technologies. The pair said today that OEMs using Here’s navigation platform can include what3words as an in-car nav feature directly through the Here […]
The trial of Samsung leader Jay Y. Lee, who is accused of accounting fraud and stock price manipulating, held its first hearing today at the Seoul Central District Court. The Seoul Central District Court denied prosecutors’ arrest warrant request for Lee in June, stating that even though they had secured a “considerable amount of evidence,” […]
Silverflow, a Dutch startup founded by Adyen alumni, is breaking cover and announcing seed funding. The pre-launch company has spent the last two years building what it describes as a “cloud-native” online card processor that directly connects to card networks. The aim is to offer a modern replacement for the 20 to 40-year-old payments card […]
Facebook’s dating bolt-on to its eponymous social networking service has finally launched in Europe, more than nine months after an earlier launch plan was derailed at the last minute over privacy concerns. From today, European Facebook users in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Croatia, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, […]
French startup Alan is building health insurance products. And 100,000 people are now covered through Alan . I caught up with the company’s co-founder and CEO Jean-Charles Samuelian-Werve so that he could give us an update on the product. Alan has obtained its own health insurance license and is a proper insurance company. It doesn’t […]
