Samsung Electronics vice chairman Jay Y. Lee faces a nine-year prison term in the bribery case that contributed to the downfall of former president Park Guen-hye. Prosecutors argued that the length of the sentence is warranted because of Samsung’s power as the largest chaebol, or family-owned conglomerate, in South Korea. “Samsung is a group with […]
Amazon makes a big podcast acquisition, a Chinese robot maker raises $100 million and we review a robotic cat pillow. This is your Daily Crunch for December 30, 2020. The big story: Amazon acquires Wondery Amazon is the latest company to make a big acquisition in the podcast market — it’s buying Wondery, the podcast […]
You don’t need Qoobo in your life. Nobody needs Qoobo, exactly. In fact, first reactions tend to range from befuddlement to bemusement. The robotic cat pillow doesn’t make a ton of sense on the face of it — in part because Qoobo has no face. The handful of times I’ve interacted with the original Qoobo […]
Earlier this month, Hyundai acquired a controlling stake in Boston Dynamics that valued the company at $1.1 billion. What’s most interesting about the news isn’t the acquisition itself (it does, after all, find Boston Dynamics switching hands for the third time in seven years), but rather what the company’s evolution tells us about the state […]
SpaceX will try a significantly different approach to landing its future reusable rocket boosters, according to CEO and founder Elon Musk. It will attempt to “catch” the heavy booster, which is currently in development, using the launch tower arm used to stabilize the vehicle during its pre-takeoff preparations. Current Falcon 9 boosters return to Earth […]
The Qatar Investment Authority is investing $125 million into energy storage systems integrator and power management tech developer, Fluence, in a deal that will value the company at over $1 billion. The joint venture between the American independent power producer, AES Corp. and the German industrial conglomerate Siemens, was already worth $900 million prior to […]
How do you make a virtual event accessible for people who are blind or visually impaired? When I started work on Sight Tech Global back in June this year, I was confident that we would find the answer to that question pretty quickly. With so many virtual event platforms and online ticketing options available to […]
Amazon just announced that it’s acquiring Wondery, the network behind podcasts including “Dirty John” and “Dr. Death.” Wondery will become part of Amazon Music, which added support for podcasts (including its own original shows) in September. At the same time, the announcement claims that “nothing will change for listeners” and that the network’s podcasts will continue […]
I really want permanent residence, but I never won a Nobel prize; I’m single; and I don’t have a million dollars yet. However, I think I might qualify for an EB-2 NIW green card.
This has been the year of the social organization. As the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the world and the United States, governments and a patchwork of nonprofits and volunteer organizations sprang into action, offering everything from food and medical supplies to children’s books and clothing to individuals and families struggling in the virus’s wake. Perhaps […]
Tech got dragged into yet another irrelevant Congressional scuffle this week after President Trump agreed to sign a bipartisan pandemic relief package but continued to press for additional $2,000 checks that his party opposed during negotiations. In tweets and other comments, Trump tied a push for the boosted relief payments to his entirely unrelated demand […]
Without active involvement from business unit leaders across the company in marketing, human resources, sales and more, a company can never have a healthy risk-aware culture.
Spyware maker NSO Group used real phone location data on thousands of unsuspecting people when it demonstrated its new COVID-19 contact-tracing system to governments and journalists, researchers have concluded. NSO, a private intelligence company best known for developing and selling governments access to its Pegasus spyware, went on the charm offensive earlier this year to […]
Third Point, the activist hedge fund run by Daniel Loeb, is busy in the waning days of 2020. It’s had great returns despite huge turbulence early in the pandemic — Reuters says that it is up 12.3% for the year as of earlier this month — and the firm clearly sees more and more potential […]
As businesses around the world look to automate production lines and supply chains, companies making the robots are attracting great investor interest. The latest to get funded is Flexiv, which closed a Series B round north of $100 million from investors including China’s on-demand services giant Meituan, TechCrunch learned. Other major investors in the strategic […]
Online video platform Biteable, a startup that makes it easier to create polished and professional videos using templates and a library of images and animations, has raised $7 million in Series A funding led by Cloud Apps Capital Partners. The service today competes with products from Vimeo, Canva, Adobe and others, but focuses on creating […]
Tony Fadell can’t stop thinking about what’s next in tech. The man credited with creating the iPod, building the iPhone and founding the smart-home company, Nest, had tried to retire before he started his latest venture, Future Shape, but found that retirement didn’t really take. So the 51-year-old designer, engineer and investor, together with a […]
European Union lawmakers have set out the biggest update of digital regulations for around two decades — likening it to the introduction of traffic lights to highways to bring order to the chaos wrought by increased mobility. Just switch cars for packets of data. The proposals for a Digital Services Act (DSA) to standardize safety rules […]
While it remains an ongoing challenge to get these numbers in sync with other industries, there were two developments specifically in 2020 that may beget more action in 2021.
A new fintech startup called EarlyBird wants to help families invest in their children’s financial futures. Through the EarlyBird mobile app, parents in just a few minutes can create a custodial account, also known as a UGMA (Uniform Gifts to Minors Act) account. These accounts typically allow a parent, aka the “custodian,” to invest in […]
