In his iconic Star Wars series, George Lucas envisioned a world in a galaxy far, far away, where, among other things, doctors were droids and bots. Lucas viewed medical care as algorithmic, and therefore well within the capacity of intelligent machines. Does the world of healthcare in the Star Wars films — where bots are the new docs — mirror our own not-so-distant future of medicine? Read More
Google’s Project Fi wireless service has long allowed its subscribers to take their phones to more than 135 countries without having to worry about getting a huge bill for international data usage. That’s because international data is simply included in the company’s plans without a surcharge. Until now, though, you would only get 2G speeds when traveling abroad, but… Read More
HealthTap, a six-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based telehealth startup that says 102,000 doctors now use its platform to connect with patients, has officially snapped up DocPhin, whose app made it easier for doctors to find and read medical research. DocPhin was founded five years ago and had raised roughly $1.6 million from investors, including Rock Health, Startup Health, and Romulus… Read More
Sisense, a company which helps customers link multiple data sources and summarize them in a single dashboard view, has been working on ways to understand the data outside of the context of a computer. Today, the company announced an initiative called Business Intelligence Virtually Everywhere. That could involve asking questions to a voice-driven system like the Amazon Echo or… Read More
Freshly is announcing that it has raised $21 million in Series B funding. The New York City-based company delivers healthy meals for a price of around $11 per meal — which may make it sound like many other food startups, but CEO Michael Wystrach (pictured below with his co-founder Carter Comstock) said the model is different in some key ways. Unlike a meal kit service such as Blue… Read More
The European Commission has formally adopted a new framework for governing personal data transfers between the EU and the US, replacing the prior Safe Harbor agreement which was invalidated last fall, and aiming to end nine months of uncertainty. Read More
Codecademy, an online coding school with 16 million registered users, has built out its footprint without charging its students a penny to use it. Now, as more questions arise about how and when the startup might start monetizing its services, it is announcing $30 million in new funding that could be an indication of what might come next. Naspers, the (for-profit) media giant based out of… Read More
After last summer’s vicious fight between Uber and the City of New York there hasn’t been much talk about the state of ridesharing in the Big Apple. But today a research report from Morgan Stanley, shared by Recode, shed some light on how ridesharing has been growing in the city. The report compares ride numbers from NYC Taxis (which are released by the city) to the number of… Read More
Pokemon Go adds $9 billion to Nintendo’s value, Walmart has a free shipping week because of Prime Day, Pokemon Go rakes in $1.6 million a day in revenue, Pokemon Meetups are happening all over the place, robbers target Pokemon Go players. All this on Crunch Report! Read More
Tor has been the go-to for anonymous communication online for years now — and that has made it one of the juiciest targets possible to the likes of the NSA and FBI. A new anonymizing protocol from MIT may prove more resilient against such determined and deep-pocketed attackers. Read More
For many businesses, ownership of the Internet of Things lies within a number of C-suite titles. But IoT demands an interdisciplinary approach, whether the desired outcome is to streamline internal processes, introduce new customer experiences or uncover new revenue. This requires collaboration among multiple business units, some of which traditionally work independently from each other. Read More
Pokemon Go is exploding. It’s a pop culture phenomenon unlike anything we’ve seen before. Think I’m crazy? If you live in anything resembling a major city, go stop by a mildly popular landmark — if you don’t see a dozen people staring at their phone and flinging Poké balls, you have your eyes shut. Already into Pokémon Go? Want to get better, faster? I’ve… Read More
The zero marginal cost of information is turning everything upside down. Albert Wenger, Partner at Union Square Ventures asserts in our latest interview, “We are just at the beginning of this inversion.” Although the changes this inversion is bringing to many associated industries like traditional publishers, crowdfunding sites, and biotech companies are still in their infancy,… Read More
Mobile events and conferences company DoubleDutch announced today that it will be laying off 55 of its employees as a part of a company-wide restructuring. The company, founded in 2011, has raised over $78 million in funding to power its mobile tools which allow event organizers to create dedicated app experiences that give them the ability to easily share information with attendees… Read More
Universal Avenue, the Stockholm-headquartered startup that lets companies access a local sales force on demand, has closed a deal of its own.
The company has raised $10 million in fresh Series A funding, adding to the $5 million “extension” to its seed round a little under a year ago and bringing total funding to $17 million. Read More
A NASA camera on board the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite captured a rare lunar transit across the face of a sunlit Earth. The images, which feature a fully lit far side of the moon, were captured between July 4 at 11:50 pm ET and July 5 at 3:18 am ET. This was actually the second time a lunar photobomb was photographed by DSCOVR; the first occurred about a year ago, on… Read More
Tesla is under investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, The Wall Street Journal reported, for a possible securities law breach. What’s at issue is whether the electric vehicle company should have notified shareholders immediately following a fatal accident on May 7 that killed a Tesla Model S owner who was using Autopilot at the time of the crash. A spokesperson… Read More
How do you rescue a brand like Ashley Madison after it becomes synonymous with infidelity, poor security, a fateful hack, a massive breach of privacy and at least two suicides? That was the challenge thrown in the lap of the company’s new CEO and president. The new leadership team’s answer is a complete overhaul of the brand and what it stands for — but will it be enough? Read More
Sharing economy startups like Airbnb and Uber have gone nuclear to defend their business model, suing city governments or shuttering their services entirely when they don’t get their way. Airbnb recently sued the City of San Francisco over legislation that would require Airbnb to boot hosts off its platform if they don’t register with the city. Uber and Lyft haven’t had… Read More
