Ten years ago, Montenegro became an independent country, separating from Serbia by a narrow margin of less than 1 percent of required votes in an independent referendum. This new independence meant many changes for a country that’s roughly the size of Connecticut. One of those important changes was something few expected: the country’s new domain name extension. Read More
GoFundMe has made a name for itself as a go-to platform for individuals looking to raise money for good causes — a business that has been a big success, raising $3 billion since 2010 from 25 million+ donors across over 2 million campaigns. Now, the company is expanding: GoFundMe has acquired CrowdRise, a fundraising platform for charities and other non-profits, as well as… Read More
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: a big, light up sign designed to be displayed on the roof of a car carrying paid passengers. It’s not exactly the sort of invention that’ll catch the world on fire – especially with all of those yellow, checkered cars driving around with a something similar on top. At the very least, however, Uber’s new patent could… Read More
Ladder, the new life insurance startup looking to bring policy enrollment as easy as picking up a mobile phone, has launched in its first market — California.
That’s right, citizens of the “Eureka” state are now able to select a life insurance policy right on their phones or their computers.
Ladder was born out of Jamie Hale’s own experience struggling with the… Read More
An accelerator for hardware and robotics startups called HAX is holding its 9th Demo Day in San Francisco today. Startups pitching investors there span industries from education to agriculture and medicine. Examples include: FLASH Robotics’ “social robot” that teaches kids how to speak a new language; Amber Agriculture’s bean-shaped sensors that monitor corn in… Read More
Google’s somewhat aging VoIP calling service, Google Voice, is preparing to roll out a significant update, the company has confirmed. Several Google Voice users this week reported seeing an upgrade link touting “the new Google Voice” on the web version of the service, along with a link that would let them try it out. Clearly, the message was posted too early because the… Read More
Good news! Chelsea Peretti, genius comedian, Brooklyn 99 star, and my own personal spirit animal, will be joining us once again to host the 10th Annual Crunchies Awards. The Crunchies is the one night a year where the tech elite and up-and-coming members of the startup community can come together to celebrate their achievements (not to mention, dress up in fancy clothes). The awards show is… Read More
At CES this year, Mercedes-Benz brought a polished, complete version of their drone delivery van to display, complete with drones nested up on the roof, and a working intelligent front LED display. The van was impressive in person, a Cylon-esque facade hiding a working mobile warehouse within. Mercedes-Benz and drone startup Matternet unveiled the concept in September, which they refer to as… Read More
Ellen Pao, the former interim Reddit CEO, former partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and co-founder of diversity and inclusion organization Project Include, has joined Kapor Center for Social Impact. More specifically, Pao will serve as Kapor Capital’s chief diversity and inclusion officer, as well as venture partner. To be clear, Kapor Capital is the venture firm inside of… Read More
Last month, Consumer Reports came up with some interesting battery test results with the latest MacBook Pro models. Results ranged from 3.75 hours to 19.5 hours. Many in the Apple community thought that something was off, either a software bug or a benchmarking issue — it turns out it was both. Apple worked with Consumer Reports over the holidays to find out why the battery test… Read More
The European Commission has set out proposals for updating rules which govern the use of personal telecoms data that would expand their remit to cover email and mobile messaging data for the first time — meaning the ePrivacy regulation would also apply to web companies such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Apple and Google. Read More
There are quite a few telemedicine startups to choose from these days including Doctor on Demand, HealthTap and even some of the older, more established companies like MDLive or American Well but Remedy is a new one we’ve just been turned onto promising high-quality doctors at a lower cost per visit with the use of what it refers to as artificial intelligence to help diagnose what… Read More
Three stories:
An accelerator I talked to the other day offers two things. If you don’t make it into their “real” accelerator – a multi-month program with all the regular perks – you can go into their month-long $5,000 “accelerated” program where they work on your business plan and give you some free AWS credits and a pat on the back. You pay for… Read More
For all the hype around augmented reality, Google’s Tango technology hasn’t exactly set the world on fire. In fact, the second handset to support the tech – the ASUS ZenFone AR — was only announced last week at CES. But there’s certainly a chance for Tango to have life beyond the consumer space. The Detroit Institute of Arts is looking to the tech as a way to… Read More
Apple has earned the title of greenest tech company in the world for the third year in a row, according to a new report from environmental organization Greenpeace. In a new report, “Clicking Clean: Who is Winning the Race to Build a Green Internet,” Apple lead the pack with an “A” grade and a clean energy index score of 83 percent. Facebook and Google also did well,… Read More
Elon Musk spoke to Y Combinator’s Sam Altman in a sit-down interview last year where he discussed, among other things, his apprehensions about the possible implications of developing advanced AI. But when the interview was over and the camera was still rolling, Altman asked Musk for recommendations about good video games to play. Musk’s immediate response was… Read More
An in-car display is a terrible thing to waste, but Delphi’s new multi-layer dash screen technology could help automakers do something more interesting with all that in-car real estate. The infotainment and instrument panel-focused tech looks outstanding in person, as I discovered at CES, and Delphi CTO Jeff Owens says it’s ready to roll for OEMs looking to spark something new in… Read More
ForUsAll, which has risen to $100 million in AUM after less than two years in business, isn’t proposing any radical changes to the ways people save for retirement. But through the company’s use of technology, it is doing what it can to fix a service that has become incredibly broken. Read More
Announced in October, Windows 10 Creators Update is still a ways off — slated to be released this spring – but Microsoft’s already testing new features galore by way of its Windows Insider preview. The latest edition includes a number of usual updates for the forthcoming OS that are shaping up to make a pretty compelling upgrade. On the list of new offerings in the latest… Read More
