After weeks of intense debate, the French government has released its contact-tracing app StopCovid. While it was supposed to be released on both iOS and Android six hours ago, it is only available on the Play Store right now. It’s unclear what is causing the bottleneck on iOS, as the government sent me a beta […]
Apple has quietly expanded its original podcast efforts with Friday’s launch of The Zane Lowe Interview Series, available on Apple Music, Apple Podcasts and via RSS. Though technically not Apple’s first-ever podcast, the new series is the first series aimed at Apple’s consumers that focuses exclusively on entertainment content. The episodes in the series will […]
Atlassian today launched a slew of DevOps-centric updates to a variety of its services, ranging from Bitbucket Cloud and Pipelines to Jira and others. While it’s quite a grab-bag of announcements, the overall idea behind them is to make it easier for teams to collaborate across functions as companies adopt DevOps as their development practice […]
Overjet, a startup focused on using AI to help dentists and insurance companies understand dental scans, today announced that it has raised $7.85 million in what it describes as a seed round. According to Overjet’s CEO Wardah Inam (an MIT PhD in electrical engineering and computer science), the company raised the funds from Crosslink Capital, […]
Over the weekend, music industry execs Jamila Thomas and Brianna Agyemang called on fellow industry members to protest police violence against black people by pausing operations for the day. The pair created the site and hashtag #theshowmustbepaused, which spread quickly throughout social media as people looked for a way to offer solidarity with nationwide and […]
Cybersecurity is by far the most important area in any industry. Without it, we would be in hacker open season. But cybersecurity is difficult to get right. One wrong move and you can leave the door open for data breaches, ransomware and nation state-backed espionage. That’s why there’s such an intense focus on cybersecurity from an […]
Roku is expanding its free live, linear channel lineup that’s part of its free movies and TV hub, The Roku Channel. In the U.S., Roku customers will now be able to stream from more than 100 live channels, including those offering free access to news, sports, movies, TV, kids and family programming, lifestyle content and […]
It was a busy week in security. Newly released documents shown exclusively to TechCrunch show that U.S. immigration authorities used a controversial cell phone snooping technology known as a “stingray” hundreds of times in the past three years. Also, if you haven’t updated your Android phone in a while, now would be a good time […]
TVSmiles, a Berlin-based mobile native advertising app whose users earn digital currency in exchange for engaging with branded content such as quizzes, apps and videos, has suffered a data breach. Security researcher UpGuard disclosed in a report today that it found an unsecured Amazon S3 bucket online last month — containing personal and device data […]
The COVID-19 pandemic will have a profound impact on robotics, as more companies look to automation as a way forward. While wide-scale automation had long seemed like an inevitability, the pandemic is set to accelerate the push as corporations look for processes that remove the human element from the equation. Of course, Locus Robotics hasn’t […]
Facebook is introducing a new tool to help users batch-delete old posts and shrink their digital footprint on the aging social network. Called “Manage Activity,” the new feature lets users prune their posts in bulk, making it less of a headache to delete content aging badly or anything else unnecessary that’s built up from years […]
I’m eligible to receive a visa and a work permit under my husband’s visa. Can I form my own startup with that dependent visa and work permit or do I need to find a job with an American company?
Alibaba.com is introducing new tools targeted specifically at U.S. merchants. It sounds like the Chinese e-commerce giant has already been making inroads in the United States. John Caplan, the North American and European president of Alibaba.com (the B2B marketplace that serves as the core business of Alibaba Group), said at an online press briefing that […]
Meal kits have had a rush of interest in recent months, with people turning to them to vary the pace of (and in some cases, completely replace) making meals at home, or ordering take out, at a time when many of us are spending a lot of time at home. Now a startup that has […]
Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between. Used-car marketplace Vroom continued its march towards going public yesterday with the release of an updated IPO filing. The documents it filed provides pricing information for a somewhat odd public offering. As a business, the heavily […]
LinkedIn is announcing some new features for advertisers — retargeting capabilities tied to video ads and lead-generation forms, as well as new brand safety integrations for the LinkedIn Audience Network. Abhishek Shrivastava, the senior director of product for LinkedIn Marketing Solutions, told me that his team has been shifting its product plans in response to […]
OurCrowd, the Israeli crowdfunding venture investment platform, today announced the launch of its Pandemic Innovation Fund, with plans to raise a total of $100 million. The money will be invested in “urgent technological solutions for the medical, business, educational and social needs triggered by global pandemics and other health emergencies.” The fund will invest in […]
“Employee Wellbeing” SaaS platforms have been around for some time. Both regulation and increasing stress levels and health problems in the workplace have fed the rise of this sector of tech, and with many corporates painting long-term contracts with providers, it’s a lucrative business. Furthermore, with the COVID-19 pandemic ongoing, large remote-workforces look here to […]
Pollen, the U.K.-headquartered travel and events marketplace, describes its company culture as built on principles of “freedom” and openness, including a well-publicised pay transparency policy. However, that doesn’t appear to always be the case with regards to the treatment of recently departing employees. When the word-of-mouth marketing company laid off 69 staff from its various […]
With the renewed push for more of the services we use everyday to be accessible online and in a non-physical way, a company out of Switzerland that builds tools for financial services companies to interact better with their customers via the web is today announcing a round of funding to expand its operations. Appway, which […]
