Best known as leading purveyors of device teardowns, iFixit today announced that it has turned much of its focus to even more pressing matters. For two months, the site had roughly half of its staff turn its focus to the creation of a medical repair database — one it has labeled the “world’s largest.” That […]
With more than 1,200 employees distributed across over 65 countries and a valuation of nearly $3 billion, GitLab is one of the world’s most successful fully remote startups. Describing it as a textbook example of a remote company would be redundant, because the company actually wrote a textbook about it. I recently had a chance […]
Porsche has been placing more resources into developing digital services as it tries to match the tech demands of its customers. The latest effort from its Porsche Digital subsidiary is an app that lets U.S. buyers who have ordered a 911 sports car track its progress from production to the dealership. The app, which is […]
Notion, a popular note-taking and wiki-creation app, revamped their personal pricing plans today stripping many of the user limitations from the free tier, bringing it on par with the functionality offered by the $5 per month paid plan of yore. The company’s previous free tier had a fairly low usage limit (1,000 “blocks,” which are […]
Over the years I’ve seen hundreds, probably thousands, of data breach notifications warning that a company’s data was lost, stolen or left online for anyone to grab. Most of them look largely the same. It’s my job to decode what they actually mean for the victims whose information is put at risk. Data breach notifications […]
Over the past couple of years, Spotify has demonstrated a long-term commitment to the podcasting format by shelling out money hand over fist. The music streaming service has made a number of high-profile acquisitions, including production company Gimlet and editing tool Anchor, but today’s news may well be the biggest of all. The company has […]
GM has a “big team” working on an advanced version of its hands-free driving assistance system, Super Cruise, that will expand its capability beyond highways and apply it to city streets, the automaker’s vice president of global product development Doug Parks said Tuesday. GM is also continuing to improve its existing Super Cruise product, Parks […]
I’m supposed to get photos as soon as I take something out of the box. I know better. The rule is not to play with the gadget first. I’m going to crash the drone; I always do. I crashed the DJI Mavic Air 2 and broke a landing peg. I flew the drone before I […]
Boasting a technology that can dramatically increase the capacity of existing polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing used to identify people infected with COVID-19 and other illnesses, ChromaCode has attracted new funding from Bill Gates-backed Adjuvant Capital. “We want a good solution for a resource-limited environment,” says ChromaCode founder and executive chairman Alex Dickinson, a serial entrepreneur […]
When he was still running Microsoft, Steve Ballmer caused quite the stir in the tech world by screaming “Developers! Developers! Developers!” Since the executive retired to spend more time with his basketball team, however, the tech giant’s current CEO is decidedly more…subtle in his approach. In the kickoff keynote to the first all-virtual Build conference, […]
Starting today, you’ll be able to browse and buy products directly from a business’ Facebook Page or Instagram profile. Both Facebook and Instagram already supported a degree of e-commerce — for example, Facebook has its Marketplace and will likely make a bigger push through its Libra cryptocurrency initiative, while Instagram allows users to buy products […]
“We’re living through extraordinary times,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said as he opened his Build 2020 keynote on a somber note. It was an odd tonal shift following the event introduction by hosts Seth Juarez and Dona Sarkar. The pair kicked off the 48-hour live stream standing a CDC-approved social distance from one another behind […]
TikTok enlists a big name from Disney as its new CEO, Walmart is shuttering its Jet e-commerce brand and EasyJet admits to a major data breach. Here’s your Daily Crunch for May 19, 2020. 1. Disney streaming exec Kevin Mayer becomes TikTok’s new CEO Mayer’s role involved overseeing Disney’s streaming strategy, including the launch of […]
One usual characteristic of a bootstrapped company is that its growth is slower than its VC-backed competitors. Bootstrapped marketing spend relies on revenue, revenue often relies on marketing spend, and the tension between the two can force slower growth. VC-backed companies, in contrast, can afford to spend ahead of revenue, often allowing them to grow […]
As cashiers across the country take precautions to limit interactions with customers in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s hard to think of a better time for the rollout of an Amazon Go vision of autonomous retail. Standard Cognition CEO Jordan Fisher has been building towards that future for the past several years. His […]
During his Build keynote, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella today confirmed that the company has acquired Softomotive, a software robotic automation platform. Bloomberg first reported that this acquisition was in the works earlier this month, but the two companies didn’t comment on the report at the time. Today, Nadella noted that Softomotive would become part of […]
Roelof Botha’s career is the stuff dreams are made of — that is, if the dream is to become one of the topmost investors in the U.S. venture capital industry. Not only has Botha had tremendous success in his investing career, including an early bet on the mobile payments company Square (on whose board he […]
Xiaomi on Tuesday unveiled the global version of MIUI 12, the latest update to its Android -based operating system, for hundreds of millions of smartphones as the Chinese electronics giant pushes to broaden its services ecosystem. The world’s fourth largest smartphone firm said it is delivering a range of new features to its overseas users […]
At its Build developer conference, Microsoft today put a strong emphasis on machine learning. But in addition to plenty of new tools and features, the company also highlighted its work on building more responsible and fairer AI systems — both in the Azure cloud and Microsoft’s open-source toolkits. These include new tools for differential privacy […]
