The woolly mammoth is long extinct, but it’s beginning to look like they might make a comeback — or a comeback of sorts — as a hybrid elephant genetically edited to display many mammoth traits. A team of Harvard researchers presented their progress in making this happen, and, according to team leader Professor George Church, they’re closer than you might’ve believed. Read More
Thailand-based casual game studio Playlab has turned investor after it invested $1 million into Cupcake Entertainment, a Brazil-based game maker. Read More
Meal kit delivery startups, at this point, are nothing new. They send pre-measured ingredients in an insulated package right to a subscriber’s door, and promise to alleviate the inconvenience of grocery trips. One company in this burgeoning channel of food retail, Sun Basket, has just raised $15 million in a Series C round of venture funding to put a health-conscious twist on the meal… Read More
DriveTribe, the content startup aimed at motoring enthusiasts, was launched last year by former Top Gear presenters Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May as a new approach to the realm of online community. It was a natural move to leverage their global fame into a new project — but DriveTribe isn’t just another website about cars. Read More
Nvidia’s business is increasingly the business of artificial intelligence, and its latest partnership fits with that new role. The graphics processing maker is supplying the Tokyo Institute of Technology for the GPUs that will power its new AI supercomputer, which will be the fastest of its kind in Japan once completed. Nvidia Tesla P100 GPUs, which use Pascal processing architecture,… Read More
As Spotify continues its reign as the world’s biggest consumer music streaming business, a startup from its backyard in Stockholm (and even backed by Spotify itself) has raised a large growth round to take a leading place in providing music streaming services to businesses. Soundtrack Your Brand, started by an ex-Spotify executive and one of the co-founders of Beats (now part of… Read More
Yesterday I caught up with Tom Blomfield, co-founder and CEO of digital-only or ‘challenger’ bank Monzo. In our call, we talked about why Blomfield and his 80-plus team are building a new bank, whether or not we are in a fintech bubble and what he thinks the impact will be of upcoming EU regulation intended to force incumbent banks to open up. Read More
Samsung vice chairman/heir apparent Jay Y. Lee has been arrested in Korea on charges of corruption.
Lee is accused of paying bribes to an advisor of President Park Geun-hye in exchange for political favors. The New York Times reported that he is alleged to have given a total of $36 million to Park’s secret advisor in order to win government support for a merger between two Samsung… Read More
Apple’s WWDC moves to San Jose, an update on Elon Musk’s tunnel project, Google makes an update that plays piano duets and Google Home steps on Alexa’s turf. All this on Crunch Report. Read More
He might not want to run for office any time soon, but Mark Zuckerberg has perfected the time-honored political art of talking a lot without saying anything. In a sprawling letter consisting mostly of feel-good mumbo jumbo and a light sprinkling of feature ideas, the Facebook visionary laid out 5,700 words’ worth of nonspecific stuff that sounds nice. Like fellow Facebook feel-gooder… Read More
Yet more developments for Beepi, the used car marketplace that had raised $150 million but then went bust: The company has completely shut down and has been sold off in parts to repay creditors. Read More
The good news: the 80+ new Pokémon that were supposed to hit Pokémon GO “later this week”? They just went live. I caught a Chikorita!
The bad news: If you were a player in the early days, things might look pretty familiar right now… in that you might just be looking at an error screen. The server seems to be having a hard time at the moment, with players reporting issues… Read More
According to Loom founder Chase White, there’s a familiar cycle that tech entrepreneurs go through: When they’re first getting started, they sell equity to angel investors, then they use the money to hire developers to actually build the product. Read More
Betsy DeVos was barely confirmed last week as the new Secretary of Education –- or should I say bearly. In her welcome address to the Department of Education on Wednesday, Secretary DeVos made light of her remark about schools needing guns to protect children from grizzly bears: “For me, personally, this confirmation process and the drama it engendered has been a … bit of a… Read More
Facebook wants to give you the power to define what is and isn’t objectionable, and influence the local defaults of those who don’t choose voluntarily. You’ll eventually be able to select how much nudity, violence, graphic content and profanity you’re comfortable seeing. Read More
Many studies have been done on the potential effects of semi trucks being able to travel in platoons. It could be more fuel efficient, it could be safer, it could be easier on the drivers. And now, it could be coming to a highway near you. Peloton Technology has partnered with Omnitracs, a fleet management company, to provide platooning technology this year. Read More
Mike Rothenberg has been in a heap of trouble over a series of purportedly fraudulent transactions within his investment firm Rothenberg Ventures and his virtual reality startup River Studios. Now Transcend VR, as first reported in The Wall Street Journal, is suing the venture capitalist on allegations of fraud, breach of contract and deceptive diversion of funds. Read More
Twitter will no longer notify you about replies in conversations started by people you’ve either blocked or muted, Twitter said today. You will, however, still get notified if someone you follow directly mentions you in the thread. Twitter made this decision after hearing “consistent feedback from the safety community regarding notifications from conversations started by… Read More
Meetup, the site that helps people organize get-togethers like hiking trips and cooking classes, is taking a very solid political stance in the face of the new administration’s policies here in the U.S. — a move that has angered Trump supporters, who are deleting their accounts and calling for a boycott. While Meetup’s platform is open to anyone on both sides of the… Read More
LG is doing a downright terrible job keeping the lid on the G6 ahead of its launch at Mobile World Congress in a couple of weeks. Numerous leaks involving the handset have popped up recently, and today the company just went ahead and offered up a whole slew of information through its official channels — confirming a number of reports and adding some new insight into what the handset… Read More
