Today, the International Space Station completed its 100,000th orbit around the Earth since its first module was launched on November 20th, 1998. To celebrate that milestone, NASA teamed up with Snapchat for a space-themed Live Story called Day in Space. Up on Snapchat now, the f … | Continue reading
I’ve long been an activity tracker kind of guy. I strapped them all onto my fleshy wrist: the Fitbits, the Nikes, the Polars. I’ve watched circles fill up on my Apple Watch and I’ve watched ghost competitors race me on early GPS watches. But for the past few months I abandoned an … | Continue reading
What does the future of food look like? Former Vice President Al Gore and 40 entrepreneurs and CEOs in the food industry recently convened in London to try to answer just that. Read More | Continue reading
So I know some of y’all were worried about me after I agreed to have my face shaved at Disrupt NY to raise money for the Red Hook Initiative. I just wanted to check in and let you know what life post-beard is like. Read More | Continue reading
Apple’s interests in China, its second-largest regional market, expand far beyond their recent $1 billion investment in Didi Chuxing. As the company eyes a larger presence in China, they’re also looking to capture the country’s creativity and imagination with their content creati … | Continue reading
One limitation of run-of-the-mill 3D printers is that the structure must essentially be built as a series of layers, each one supporting the next. A new device from Harvard’s Wyss Institute allows metal filaments to essentially be drawn in midair with no support whatsoever. And i … | Continue reading
As merchants like Walmart move ahead on their own mobile payment strategies, a consortium that once counted Walmart — along with a number of other big retailers and brands — behind it, has taken a step back. Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX) today announced it would postpone a nat … | Continue reading
Debra Lee, who has been CEO of Viacom’s Black Entertainment Television (BET) since 2005 and its chairman since 2006, has joined the board of Twitter. She tweeted out the news earlier today.Thrilled to be joining the @twitter board. It’s transformed the media and the world like fe … | Continue reading
The widespread conversations about AI took a new turn in March 2016 when Microsoft launched, then quickly unplugged, Tay, its artificial intelligence chat robot. Within 24 hours, interactions on Twitter had turned the bot, modeled after a teenage girl, into a “Hitler-loving sex r … | Continue reading
StarVR was undoubtedly overshadowed by larger names during its debut at E3 last year, but those who did manage to demo the high-end headset seemed to walk away impressed.Among other things, Starbreeze’s hardware device offers a wider field of view than either Oculus or HTC, at 21 … | Continue reading
Australian physicists, perhaps searching for a way to shorten the work week, have created an AI that can run and even improve a complex physics experiment with little oversight. The research could eventually allow human scientists to focus on high-level problems and research desi … | Continue reading
“Someone is always leaving everywhere”: that’s the idea behind Roadie, a peer-to-peer package delivery service launched last year by Marc Gorlin. There are something like 250 million vehicles on the road every day, Gorlin said, so he decided to take advantage of this resource by … | Continue reading
Jason Stirman is part of a select group of early Web 2.0 builders in Silicon Valley. He was there at the beginning of Twitter, jumped to with Ev Williams to Obvious Corp and then Medium and is now working on a passion of his – mindfulness for athletes. His new app, Lucid, launche … | Continue reading
GoButler, the startup that originally offered a virtual assistant that let you request anything on-demand, appears to be pivoting for a second (and maybe final) time. This time the New York-headquartered company is shuttering the GoButler consumer-facing service altogether in fav … | Continue reading
For all of the talk there is in how virtual reality is going to usher in some dark, utopian age where people are huddled in corners with VR headsets strapped to their faces… That’s just not where things are headed right now. VR has a lot of impact for social change. We’ve talked … | Continue reading
And now, the moment all foodies in New York have been waiting for… David Chang, owner of the wildly popular line of Momofuku restaurants, is today launching Ando, the latest to join the franchise. But Ando isn’t quite like the Ssäm Bar or the Noodle Bar or even the Milk Bar. To t … | Continue reading
Google-owned navigation app Waze is expanding its ride-sharing ambitions with the launch of a pilot program in the San Francisco Bay area which will allow employees of select companies to carpool to and from work via Waze’s carpooling service. This program is similar to the servi … | Continue reading
500 Startups’ 16th demo day just wrapped up, and the firm is already turning its eyes to its next batch of companies. More than 40 startups are participating in this batch of companies. From softer baby products to tools for creating and distributing vertical videos (a big focus … | Continue reading
It seems like every week brings a new activity tracker from Garmin. And hey, like clockwork, the navigation-turned-fitness-wearable manufacturer kicked off the week with a new one – or, rather, an upgrade to an old classic. The Vivosmart HR+ is, as the name not so subtly implies, … | Continue reading
Google is not giving up on its social ambitions, it seems, despite its failures with Google+. The company announced this morning a new social app called Spaces, which focuses on group sharing. The app allows small groups of users to tap into other Google services, including Googl … | Continue reading
The Gillmor Gang —Kevin Marks, Keith Teare, Frank Radice, and Steve Gillmor. Recorded live Saturday, May 14, 2016. The Gang poles down the Big Muddy of what used to be 3 channels and rabbit ears. Now it’s the phoneopoly vs. the live sports legacy advertising buy. In the middle a … | Continue reading
AT&T announced this morning that it will acquire Quickplay Media, a video streaming platform that powers over-the-top video and “TV Everywhere” services that helps its customers stream their video content to any device, including mobile phones. Deal terms were not disclosed, but … | Continue reading
Blockchain, the company behind the world’s most popular bitcoin wallet, has been quietly working on an interesting project called Thunder. The Thunder network is an alternative network of nodes that lets you make off-chain bitcoin payments in seconds and settle back to the bitcoi … | Continue reading
A new paradigm of economic cooperation is underway — a digital democratization of business. It’s not crowdfunding a product, an artwork, or a new cryptocurrency. It’s crowdfunding — or more accurately, crowd-founding — a corporation called “The DAO” — a corporation whose bylaws a … | Continue reading
Instagram is preparing to launch a series of new tools for the businesses and brands using its platform, including business profiles with contact buttons and access to maps and directions, as well as tools for tracking the analytics around posts, and a mobile ad-buying experience … | Continue reading
No one will be talking about crowdfunding in five years. The term is inherently flawed; it focuses on the wrong side of any investment: the donor/investor. And it’s become too broad to be meaningful. The missions of the leading players are widely misunderstood, even by their own … | Continue reading
The BBC may be looking to build a Netflix-style streaming subscription service for the UK, according to a report this morning out of the Telegraph.The service would be built in conjunction with ITV, BBC’s commercial rival in Great Britain, and would use BBC’s iPlayer to stream co … | Continue reading
We first took a look (or, rather, a listen) at the BoomStick right around CES of this year. The unassuming plug-in promised a peculiar sort of magic, souping up the sound quality of existing audio hardware with the press of a button. The little device is essentially a way of inco … | Continue reading
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway holding company today disclosed in a regulatory filing that it owns around 9.81 million shares of Apple — worth around $1.07 billion at the end of the quarter — as Apple shares have taken a huge dive in the past year. Apple shares have slid to … | Continue reading
GCHQ, the UK spy agency which specializes in garnering intelligence from communications, has officially joined Twitter — posting a “Hello, world” inaugural tweet from its blue check verified account. Read More | Continue reading
Alibaba Pictures, the film and television subsidiary of Alibaba Group, has raised a 1.7 million RMB (about $260 million) Series A for its online ticketing platform, Taobao Movie. According to a filing made with the Hong Kong stock exchange, the investment gives Taobao Movie a pos … | Continue reading
As you may have noticed we’ve announced our very first formal Meetup + Pitch-off in Tel Aviv, presented by Leumi Tech, with participation from Blonde 2.0. The event will be on June 22, at Trask, between 6-10 p.m. Applications for the pitch-off and ticket sales are now open. You c … | Continue reading
The future of mobile messaging is pointing towards serves, but don’t assume that only applies to digital offerings like money transfers and shopping. Japan’s Line, one of the world’s most used chat apps, has just made a move into on-demand services. Read More | Continue reading
Didi Chuxing, the ride-sharing firm that leads Uber in China, has denied that it plans to go public in the U.S. next year following a report from Bloomberg. Read More | Continue reading
Amazon will soon roll out its own private-label brands of common household items like coffee, diapers, and other perishable groceries, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. The offerings will consist of perishable goods like baby food, tea, coffee, spices, and non-p … | Continue reading
When you pull the pin on a hand grenade, you have four seconds from the time you release the spoon — the aluminum lever that holds down the fuse trigger — until it explodes. Four seconds can be a very long time. Read More | Continue reading
Who remembers Pokemon Snap? The game was released in 1999 for N64 as a rail “shooter”, and let you take pictures of Pokemon while riding through different courses. But while your path through each level was predetermined, the photographs were not. Meaning users had free control o … | Continue reading
Although there is still a lot of hype surrounding 3D printing and how it may or may not be the next industrial revolution, the cost of printing continues to drop while the quality of 3D prints continues to rise. This development can be traced to advanced 3D printing technologies … | Continue reading
Last year was a massive year for mergers, with industry giants like Dell and Aol finally closing deals that were large enough to make 2015 a record-breaking year. Predictions mostly held that 2016 would be another huge year for mergers, as they are one of the best ways to continu … | Continue reading
Fundraising is a game of competition. VCs compete against other VCs to fund the latest startups. Startups compete with other startups to attain funding from the brand name VCs.So, to be successful fundraising, “the founder must create a competitive process between VCs,” according … | Continue reading
Internet accessibility for all people, of all ages and in all places has unleashed unprecedented resources and opportunities. It also unlocked our digital and physical security. The sacrifice of safety is an unintended consequence of the Internet age. Can the tools that caused th … | Continue reading
Power now resides with massive centralizing corporations like Google and Facebook and thus the Internet no longer reflects the interests of its users. So, the digital revolution has pretty much failed, according to Union Square Ventures partner Albert Wenger. But not all is lost. … | Continue reading
In the ever-shifting landscape of cyberthreats and attacks, having access to timely information and intelligence is vital and can make a big difference in protecting organizations and firms against data breaches and security incidents. Malicious actors are getting organized, grow … | Continue reading
Asem Hasna, 22, heard dead silence for five minutes after a shell blew his left leg off in a small town southwest of Damascus in April 2013.A mathematics student turned volunteer paramedic Hasna had opened the ambulance door after loading injured rebels from the battlefront in Kh … | Continue reading
The online game BREAKAWAY culminates with a girl being abducted, forced into a locker and left there after continual bullying and abuse. But the game is not glamorizing gangs, instead it’s trying to teach boys and girls between the ages of 9 and15 what constitutes –- or doesn’t c … | Continue reading
Attendees of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this year were confronted with a head-spinning volume of smart-home devices. From $5,000 refrigerators that can communicate when you’re running low on milk and eggs, to the ability to control lights, locks and thermostats fr … | Continue reading
The doors to TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2016 opened May 9 at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal. The three-day conference hosted 2,300 attendees and hundreds of thousands more tuning in online. Indeed, Disrupt NY 2016 was the first media conference to stream on Facebook Live in full, making … | Continue reading
You don’t have to look hard to see why the startup community in Latin America has long faced a lack of capital and resources to fuel significant growth. Many Latin American entrepreneurs have endured decades of political and economic hardships that left the investment landscape i … | Continue reading