BetterCloud, the 5-year old startup that launched originally as a way to manage G Suite (nee, Google Docs), has been in the midst of a transformation — rebuilding its entire product from the ground up with the goal of making it a generalized SaaS management dashboard. Today, it unveiled the new platform. The company completely redesigned the service, according to CEO David Politis,… Read More
David Rutter, founder and CEO of the four-year-old, New York-based blockchain startup R3 took the stage at Disrupt London this morning to discuss the progress of his company and underscore Wall Street’s enthusiasm over digital ledger technologies more broadly.
While on stage, he also confirmed earlier reports that R3 is in the process of raising a $150 million round, saying that it… Read More
Berlin-based startup N26 got its own banking license a few months ago. As N26 is building a mobile-first bank without any physical branch, the startup can expand to new countries much more easily. N26 co-founder and CEO Valentin Stalf is announcing on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt that the startup is now active in 17 countries across Europe. As a European banking license works across the… Read More
Open Bionics is a U.K. startup making bionic hands for patients needing prosthetics and co-founder of the company Samantha Payne came onstage today at TechCrunch Disrupt London to tell us about a new deal between Open Bionics and the National Health Service (NHS) to bring new technologies to amputees.
The deal involves a feasibility study with the NHS through SBRI Healthcare to see if Open… Read More
What if the drug that could effectively treat amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the paralyzing neurological disease that skyrocketed into the public consciousness thanks to the ice bucket challenge, already exists? That’s the question confronting Jackie Hunter, CEO of BenevolentBio. Hunter runs the biomedical arm of the artificial intelligence firm BenevolentAI, applying machine learning… Read More
European long distance travel booking platform GoEuro is in talks with Uber about an integration to cover the last mile of a journey, an area GoEuro does not focus on. The startup does share an investor with Uber — with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers joining its $70M Series C round last month. Read More
VR systems like the HTC Vive and the Oculus Rift are really cool but also really expensive. That’s why RiftCat created a new app, VRidge, that lets you play rich PC-based VR content on small devices like Google Cardboard and Gear VR, giving you the opportunity to try VR games without spending a few hundred dollars. The app basically mirrors your VR screens on the mobile device and,… Read More
It’s Wroclaw Meetupin’ time! I’ll see you all tomorrow and Friday in Wroclaw and it’s going to be a hoot! I’ll be hosting two meetings next week and I want you to come to one or both. The first meetup is part of ImpactCEE and will be held on Wednesday, December 7. You can RSVP here. It’s primarily Fintech-related but, again, you’re welcome to come along… Read More
The Startup Battlefield finalists have been announced, but there is still a full day of Disrupt left. We’ll be joined by serial founder Jason Goldberg, Citymapper’s Azmat Yusuf, and Facebook’s Julien Codorniou, among many more. And then we’ll head into the Battlefield finals, where our five finalists companies will battle it out for the ultimate prize: the Disrupt Cup.… Read More
German hotel booking site Trivago updated its plans for a U.S. IPO in a filing that came out on Monday. The company expects to price its shares between $13 to $15, a $428 million offering at the top end of the range. Officially named Travel B.V., the company will change its name to Trivago to match its popular web property, before completing the IPO later this month. Expedia will still own… Read More
The U.S. federal appeals court has ruled in United States v. Mohamud, a case that began with a 2010 holiday bomb plot and will end with unique implications for the private digital communications of American citizens.
Digital privacy advocates had hoped that the appeals case might prompt reform for a contentious portion of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) known as Section 702. Read More
It’s Computer Science Education Week, in case you didn’t know, and in honor of this hallowed period Microsoft is publishing the thoughts of a few of its scientists and engineers on what will change in the tech world over the next decade. Read More
A survey asking users about “misleading language” in posts is the latest indication that Facebook is facing up to what many see as its responsibility to get a handle on the fake news situation. Read More
Web-hosting firm GoDaddy is beefing up its services after it acquired WP Curve, a startup offering services and support for WordPress websites. The deal is undisclosed, but it will see NYSE-listed GoDaddy pick up WP Curve’s customer base, assets and “a few dozen” of its 39-person team, the firm told TechCrunch Read More
Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and YouTube today announced they would cooperate on a plan to help limit the spread of terrorist content online. The companies said that together they will create a shared industry database that will be used to identify this content, including what they describe as the “most extreme and egregious terrorist images and videos” that have been removed… Read More
Can social media even exist without political debate? What about trolls? Hacker News, the social news site run by Y Combinator, is trying to find out.
The head of the Hacker News community since 2014, Daniel Gackle (whose HN handle is “dang”) on Monday initiated a site-wide “Political Detox Week.”
To introduce the temporary ban on political content, Gackle… Read More
IDC’s latest world wide wearable numbers are in, and everything looks to be coming up Fitbit. As smartwatch numbers declined, the larger wearable space is up overall, thanks in no small part to the Charge manufacturer. According to IDC’s numbers, Fitbit commanded nearly a quarter of the entire category at 23 percent, a year-over-year increase of 22 percent, with total device… Read More
Sometimes you see a gadget and think simultaneously, “that’s insanely clever,” but also just “that’s insane.” The RokBlok was one of those situations for me: Who but a mad genius would have thought of a record player that propels itself along the groove like a little remote control car? Read More
Artificial intelligence is all around us. It’s in our cars, our homes and our pockets. With all this information, this intelligence, at our fingertips and lips, shouldn’t our educational system catch up? Teaching not rote facts and figures, but instead teaching students the paths to find this knowledge on their own. Teaching students — as we do with computers through AI… Read More
Android 7.1.1 starts going live today as an over-the-air update — a roll out that will continue through the next several weeks to a select number of Google-approved devices, including the Nexus 6, Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, Nexus 9, Pixel, Pixel XL, Nexus Player, Pixel C and General Mobile 4G (Android One), along with devices enrolled in Google’s Android Beta Program. Those devices… Read More
