The Federal Communication Commission has declared Chinese telecom giants Huawei and ZTE “national security threats,” a move that will formally ban U.S. telecom companies from using federal funds to buy and install Huawei and ZTE equipment. FCC chairman Ajit Pai said that the “weight of evidence” supported the decision. Federal agencies and lawmakers have long […]
While there has been a wealth of bad news the past few months in the venture capital world as firms take account of the changing macroeconomic conditions in the wake of COVID-19, that hasn’t stopped some top investment firms from continuing to raise huge piles of capital and getting bolder in their investment theses. Case […]
Ready to breathe some life into your 60-second pitch? Turn your internet dial to our next Pitchers & Pitches webinar tomorrow, July 1 at 4 p.m. EDT/1 p.m. PDT. It’s free for everyone, and all you need to do is register right here. Tune in as five early-stage startup founders (all of whom you’ll find […]
In light of COVID-19 and social distancing regulations, the U.K. has been working on making it easier for people to get from point A to B in cities without resorting to buses and trains or bringing more cars to congested roads, and today that strategy took an interesting leap forward. The country’s Department for Transport […]
The COVID-19 pandemic has had an almost immeasurable negative impact on the wider economy. Specifically in the job market, there have been millions of job losses, and in the U.S. alone unemployment numbers like these have not been seen since the Great Depression. Now, tech companies are slowly stepping up to try to address the […]
All founders love “free” money, but with the pandemic going on, the necessity of free money has taken on a whole new meaning this year. First, there was the scramble to secure PPP loans a few weeks back for U.S.-based startups, and then the second wave of PPP loans when Congress offered a second tranche […]
Google today announced a couple of updates to Google Sheets that will make building spreadsheets and analyzing data in them a little bit easier. The most interesting feature here, surely, is the upcoming launch of Smart Fill. You can think of it as Smart Compose, the feature that automatically tries to finish your sentences in […]
Startups often dance between selling dreams and building products, and we’ve enlisted the help of noted investor Charles Hudson to help founders sell an idea before they’ve built a product. Hudson is speaking at TechCrunch’s inaugural, virtual event TechCrunch Early Stage. The two-day event runs July 21 and 22 and will feature sessions targeting all […]
Société Générale is acquiring French startup Shine. Terms of the deal are undisclosed. According to a source, Shine is getting acquired for around €100 million in an all-cash deal (around $112.6 million). The startup had previously raised €10.8 million ($12.2 million) in total from Daphni, Kima Ventures, XAnge and various business angels. If you’re not […]
Google confirmed today via blog post that it has acquired Canadian smart glasses company North, which began life as human interface hardware startup Thalmic Labs in 2012. The company didn’t reveal any details about the acquisition, which was first reported to be happening by The Globe and Mail, last week. The blog post is authored […]
Bay Area-based robotics startup RIOS is coming out of stealth today to announce $5 million in funding. The round is being led by Valley Capital Partners and Morpheus Ventures, with participation from a long list of investors, including Grit Ventures, Motus Ventures, MicroVentures, Alumni Ventures Group, Fuji Corporation and NGK Spark Plug Co. The move […]
Consumer spending on mobile apps and app installs grew significantly during the first half of 2020, in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to new data from Sensor Tower. In the first half of the year, consumers spent $50.1 billion worldwide across the App Store and Google Play — a figure that’s up 23.4% […]
Qualcomm today announced the launch of its new Snapdragon Wear platforms for wearables, the Snapdragon Wear 4100 and 4100+. Based on a 12nm process technology, these new platforms promise to breathe new life into the Android Wear ecosystem. One of the first things users will notice is that, compared to the previous generation of Wear […]
The U.S. government is warning that foreign nation-state hackers will “likely attempt” to exploit a new “critical”-rated security vulnerability found in a number of widely used Palo Alto Networks’ network appliances, which if exploited could allow an attacker to break into a company’s network with relative ease. That’s the warning from US Cyber Command, a […]
Venture capital has a long way to go when it comes to investing in underrepresented founders in a meaningful way. But according to The Venture Collective’s Cat Hernandez, the issue is too complex to solve by just cutting checks and spending time with entrepreneurs. “You have to be maniacally focused on solutions,” Hernandez said. So, […]
If you’re a typically terse communicator who could probably benefit from a little more civility in your everyday communications, a new Carnegie Mellon University research project could be the answer. A team at CMU created an automated way to improve the politeness of written requests and communications, which could have a number of potential applications […]
A big problem for companies these days is finding ways to connect to various data sources to their data repositories, and Fivetran is a startup with a solution to solve that very problem. No surprise then that even during a pandemic, the company announced today that it has raised $100 million Series C on a […]
Two factors defined OnePlus’s seemingly out-of-nowhere growth in the middle of the last decade: solid specs and a budget price tag. But markets change, and companies must adapt to survive. As someone who’s followed the Chinese smartphone maker since close to the beginning, I can confidently say that it hasn’t wavered from that first part. […]
The summer before Alamin Uddin was set to begin medical school, he worked in a small doctor’s office in the Bronx as a receptionist. There, dealing with the workflow of managing paper and electronic health records, organizing and scheduling patient’s visits and follow ups, he realized that one of the largest obstacles to quality care […]
Facebook announced this morning that stories with original reporting will get a boost in the News Feed, while publications that don’t clearly credit their editorial staff will be demoted. The change comes as a number of high-profile companies have said that they will pull their advertising from Facebook as part of the #StopHateforProfit campaign, organized […]
