Babylon Health, the U.K. startup that offers a digital healthcare app using a mixture of artificial intelligence (AI) and video and text consultations with doctors and specialists, has raised $60 million in new funding. Read More
JD.com, China’s second-largest e-commerce company after Alibaba, will create a new business group called JD Logistics. Not to be confused with a Wisconsin-based company that has a similar name, JD Logistics will take advantage of the company’s existing delivery and warehouse infrastructure. Read More
Once derided as a silly novelty, emojis are coming into their own as a communication tool. New app Wemogee uses the ideograms to help people with aphasia, a language-processing disorder that makes it difficult to read, write or talk. Read More
Earlier this month, a Tor node operator in Russia was arrested in a potential misunderstanding about the nature of the decentralized network. Dmitry Bogatov, a lecturer at the Moscow Finance and Law University, was taken into custody on April 6 and charged with organizing mass unrest, which was later appended with the more serious charge of incitement to terrorist activity. He remains in… Read More
Make way for another juggernaut amongst enterprise startups: Rubrik, a data backup company that only emerged from stealth in 2015, is in the process of raising between $150 million and $200 million on a valuation of $1 billion as the company enters a period of strong demand for its storage and data management products, according to sources. TechCrunch first learned of the new fundraise via… Read More
Today’s Stories Uber responds to report that it tracked devices after its app was deleted LinkedIn hits 500M member milestone for its social network for the working world Amazon’s driverless tech team focuses not on building it, but on how to use it DJI’s new FPV goggles let you control your drone with head movements The NYT brings its news – and a mini crossword… Read More
With fake news continuing to dominate the discussion about the future of the media and role of social networks in spreading it, many in the tech world have tried to come up with ways to fight this new cancer. Various pronouncements have been made by Google, Facebook and Twitter about tweaking their algorithms. But it’s hard to get away from the fact that human beings are probably going… Read More
The Juicero story is a funny one in some ways and a sad one in others, so let’s just assume they cancel each other out and admire the machine itself in a nice judgment-free moral vacuum. Read More
What are tech titans Google, Amazon and Uber agitating for to further the march of machine learning technology and ultimately inject more fuel in the engines of their own dominant platforms? Unsurprisingly, they’re after access to data. Lots and lots of data. Read More
Soylent, the meal replacement drink/powder that frees people from the pesky task of eating so they can “use less, do more,” has recalled its Soylent 1.8 powder over the potential presence of dairy. Soylent 1.8 is specifically listed on the company’s website as “lactose-free.” Whoops. Read More
Facebook may have the generalist social network on lockdown, but when it comes to communities based around special interests, the playing field remains full of promise. Today, a U.K. startup called LoveCrafts, aimed at knitters and other home craft makers with a platform that is part social network and part e-commerce marketplace, is announcing a significant growth round to seize that opportunity. Read More
Seattle will move forward with plans to restrict how many units its residents can list on short-term rental platforms like Airbnb and VRBO. Keeping things a little more lax than cities that have adopted a one-host, one-home policy, Seattle’s proposal would allow each short-term rental host to list their own place of residence coupled with one extra housing unit. Read More
So it begins: FCC Chairman Ajit Pai appears to be showing his cards regarding his promised rollback of net neutrality rules. He is slated to speak on “the future of internet regulation” on Wednesday. Pai previously said at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that he considers the FCC’s approach to regulating the internet heavy-handed and old-fashioned. Read More
The Eurographics conference is underway in Lyon and among the more technical offerings from computer graphics specialists are a few cool enough for just about anyone to appreciate. Unless you’re afraid of clowns. In that case, don’t click. Read More
Uber has another lawsuit on its hands. This time, it’s about Uber’s alleged use of a program called “Hell.” The plaintiff, Michael Gonzales, drove for Lyft during the time Uber allegedly used the software. He’s seeking $5 million in a class action lawsuit. Read More
Scrumpt, the healthy lunch for kids startup that debuted at TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco in 2015, recently launched lunch meal kits with fresh food. Before, Scrumpt was only focused on non-perishable foods and required parents to supplement the lunches with items from home. Read More
Grocery delivery startup Instacart recently closed a $400 million Series D round of funding at a valuation of $3.4 billion. Now, the company is putting that capital to work by accelerating its expansion across the U.S., and offering free Instacart Express memberships to entice new users wherever it goes. Read More
According to newly unsealed documents, a federal court in California ruled that it is unlawful for Adobe to remain under an indefinite gag order regarding a search warrant for one of its users. In the ruling, the Los Angeles court concluded that the government had not made a sufficient argument to support the ongoing nature of a gag order it issued to Adobe in 2016. Read More
Something about the polychromatic pointillism of lidar imagery has always intrigued me, but as a writer I can’t say I have many opportunities to use the technology. That’s why I’m excited about a lovely looking new game from the creators of Prison Architect in which you are exploring a pitch-black cave with nothing but lidar. Read More
The Galaxy S8 experience is something of a mixed bag – but it’s certainly not a bomb. As ever, Samsung isn’t giving out exact numbers, but the company is happily reporting that the new flagship has seen a 30-percent increase in pre-orders over its predecessor, here in the States. The new sales figures technically account for two separate handsets – the S8 and S8+… Read More
