MightyTV, an app that helps you figure out what to watch next, is now available on Android.
The startup is led by AdMeld co-founder Brian Adams, and it presents users with a stack of movie and TV recommendations which you swipe through, Tinder-style. If you’ve seen something already, you can say whether or not you liked it, which will influence the recommendations you see next. If you… Read More
Seems like we’ve been waiting forever for the big showdown between Team USA and Japan. We’re seemingly no closer at the moment, but at least the team at MegaBots can offer a bit of good old-fashioned destruction to tide us over before the massive machines go toe-to-toe. In the premier of its new web series (the trailer for which was shown off at Disrupt the other week), the… Read More
Akamai released its quarterly State of the Internet reports today, one detailing quality of access and the other attacks on companies and infrastructure. The slow march continues towards a better and faster internet for everyone — and that includes hackers. Read More
Online grocery service Instacart is facing a boycott from shoppers who are unhappy about the company’s decision to eliminate tips in favor of raising guaranteed delivery rates. Although Instacart positioned the move as a way to smooth out the earnings curve for its shoppers, some of those affected by the change say it will instead reduce their incomes dramatically. In the case of top… Read More
VR filmmaking could use some more big-name talent, and ILMxLAB‘s latest project does indeed offer that: The director attached is Alejandro G. Iñárritu, the visionary behind The Revenant and Birdman.
A bit of news @slashfilm about an exciting #VR project we are working on with filmmaker Alejandro G. Iñárritu https://t.co/iCnVMdXcfn
— ILMxLAB (@ILMxLAB) September 29… Read More
Home Chef just announced that it’s raised a new $40 million round of funding. This Series B comes on top of the $10 million round that Home Chef raised earlier this year. It was led by L Catterton, the private equity firm formed by the recent merger of Catterton with the PE arm of luxury conglomerate LVMH. Founder and CEO Pat Vihtelic has argued that Home Chef differs from other… Read More
In May, Ralph Pini was given the somewhat unenviable task of heading up BlackBerry’s device team. The announcement of his promotion to that role came roughly a month after the one-time smartphone leader announced yet another troubled quarter, with a nearly 30-percent revenue drop.
Five months later, the company put the final nail in the coffin of its in-house hardware development team… Read More
A startup called Dozr Inc. has raised CAN $2.5 million (or $1.9 million USD) in seed funding to help contractors rent heavy industrial equipment from other construction professionals who have it, but aren’t using it. Based in Kitchener, Ontario Dozr’s marketplace lets builders rent equipment, like excavators, skidsteers or one day drones and industrial robotics, either alone, or with… Read More
Joining celebrity investors like Snoop Dogg, Ashton Kutcher, and Justin Bieber, Queen Bey is bringing her supreme business skills to the tech world. Beyoncé and the management company she started called Parkwood Entertainment have invested $150,000 into Sidestep, an app for buying concert merchandise and skipping the line to pick it up at the show. Sidestep originally started selling… Read More
Mobile chipmaker Qualcomm is looking to shrink the silicon space a bit further with a potential acquisition of Netherlands-based NXP Semiconductors, in a deal that could be worth over $30 billion according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal. The deal could be finalized in as few as two months from now, according to the report. If it goes through, it could signal a big move for… Read More
Yesterday, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen told lawmakers that she’s not ready to hold interest rates low for much longer, but she isn’t raising them right now. Afterward, we talked about the news and what it might augur for startups with Venky Ganesan, a managing director at Menlo Ventures, the early-stage firm that led Uber’s Series B round (among its many other… Read More
Avast, ye hearties! Prepare for your wrists to be boarded by these massive Bell & Ross mechanical watches. B&R is most famous for the aviation-themed pieces – all of them black and square with huge readable faces and handsome straps. Now they’ve taken that same aesthetic and pushed it out to sea, creating three fascinating pieces that look like a cross between a Bioshock… Read More
Apple is releasing a new video advertisement for the iPhone and iOS. Like previous ads, this video shows a stark departure from its predecessors. You can feel Tor Myhren’s influence on this ad. The recently hired VP of Marketing Communications has an impressive background in the advertising industry and is now in charge of Apple’s ads. That’s probably the reason why these… Read More
Google announced a number of updates to its cloud computing services at a small event in San Francisco this morning. These updates touch Google’s machine learning services, as well as its database and analytics services, and include an update to how it supports its users. The company’s focus today, though, was clearly on machine learning. Google launched the private alpha of… Read More
Google announced today that its now ten-year old service Google Apps for Work (formerly Google Apps for Your Domain), is getting rebranded yet again. This time around, the company will call it “G Suite.” Sounds more hip, right? Alongside the news, Google also noted a handful of upgrades and improvements in G Suite’s existing product lineup, which includes apps like Drive,… Read More
Tesloop’s first vehicle, a Tesla Model S they put into service in July 2015, has reached a new milestone: 200,000 miles on the odometer. Tesloop, you’ll recall, ferries passengers between Los Angeles and Las Vegas in electric Tesla vehicles, making it easy to rack up that many miles in a year. Not many electric cars of any make or model have reached this kind of mileage, so I… Read More
Unconscious biases can play a role in what type of people get hired, promoted and fired in the workplace. Unfortunately, we all have unconscious biases. Though, some have more problematic (racist and/or sexist) ones than others. That’s why diversity consulting startup Paradigm and HR platform Emtrain have co-launched an online course to teach people how to manage their unconscious… Read More
If you need an Uber, Amazon Alexa has your back. Unfortunately if what you need is a conversation buddy, the personal assistant isn’t quite up to the task. In an effort to bolster Alexa’s social intelligence, Amazon is putting $2.5 million into a new university competition to design and build “socialbots” for the platform. Engineers will use the Alexa Skills Kit to… Read More
Google today launched the third developer preview of Android Wear 2.0, the next major version of its operating system for smartwatches. At the same time, though, the company also today said that it will continue the preview program into early 2017. While Google never talked about a final release date for Wear 2.0, its original schedule called for about 30 weeks of alpha and beta testing,… Read More
For startup CEOs, tough economic periods are like stressful stretches in a marriage: They test your mettle while making ugly truths impossible to hide. These days, amid industry-wide belt-tightening, “down rounds” and a still-moribund IPO market, many venture-backed CEOs are baring it all to their board members. But how should you communicate with your investors when navigating a… Read More
