The fact that plain passwords are no longer safe to protect our digital identities is no secret. For years, the use of two-factor authentication (2FA) and multi-factor authentication (MFA) as a means to ensure online account security and prevent fraud has been a hot topic of disc … | Continue reading
This election cycle, the tech elite are almost exclusively backing liberals: Tesla’s Elon Musk donated to Hillary Clinton, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg gave handsomely to the San Francisco Democratic Party organization, and Microsoft’s Bill Gates gave to three Democratic congressme … | Continue reading
The future of apps is apps. Read More | Continue reading
London-based SAM Labs just announced that it raised $4.5M from a group of investors led by Imperial Ventures. In addition, the round was padded out with smart money from a number of angels specializing in high growth education technology. The investment will help the company cont … | Continue reading
Twitter’s stock is cratering this week following its earnings report on Tuesday, down around 15% and shaving more than a billion dollars off its market cap — again. This isn’t even an all-time low for Twitter. But the company is a long, long ways from its successful run after its … | Continue reading
The day I met Keith Block at the Salesforce World Tour in Boston he was relaxing in a suite at the Heinz Convention Center, a man at ease with his considerable responsibilities as vice chairman, president and COO at Salesforce. His Twitter bio, like mine, also lists him as a Bost … | Continue reading
There has been a huge disconnect between private and public company valuations over the last few years. This isn’t the first time I’ve said it. It probably won’t be the last. During this period of froth, companies were able to raise capital at increasingly ludicrous valuations, a … | Continue reading
After 4 billion years of evolution by one set of rules, our species is about to begin evolving by another. Overlapping and mutually reinforcing revolutions in genetics, information technology, artificial intelligence, big data analytics, and other fields are providing the tools t … | Continue reading
Former Clinton Administration staffer Dan Rosenthal says entrepreneurs need to think about local regulations and policy landscape. Read More | Continue reading
Are you looking to clean out your closet and make money while doing it? You no longer have to haul your used items to a consignment shop. A number of apps have made selling used things easier than ever, and we’re not talking about eBay. TechCrunch tested out and chose our favorit … | Continue reading
From programs that help the visually impaired and safety features in cars that detect large animals to auto-organizing untagged photo collections and extracting business insights from socially shared pictures, the benefits of image recognition, or computer vision, are only just b … | Continue reading
The fascination and rapid development of portable vaporizers for ground, plant-based material is hard to ignore, if you’re not living under a rock. Typically, an expensive gadget, Grenco Science has tasked itself with creating a vape for the people, with specs and science that pu … | Continue reading
Prompted by the ongoing refugee crisis affecting much of the western world, new initiatives have emerged to provide solutions to the many challenges facing the beleaguered masses. In a sea of clueless government bureaucrats and fearful citizens, these new startups want to tap int … | Continue reading
While Snapchat Stories may be the feature that brings the company the revenue model it needs to validate its $16 billion valuation, and while the ephemeral messaging feature may be what initially attracted the hordes of millennials sending digital ephemera to each other billions … | Continue reading
I’ve spent the last week trying to pretend the new Kindle Oasis is the same as reading a real book. It’s not. I love books. I love Kindle’s e-readers and was hoping this was the melding of the two. That real book feel was part of the inspiration for the latest Kindle in the famil … | Continue reading
The Gillmor Gang — John Taschek, Frank Radice, John Taschek, Keith Teare, and Steve Gillmor. Recorded live Friday, April 29, 2016. Apple dips and Twitter flutters, but the Gang won’t bet against them as new media picks new winners. Plus, the latest G3 with Halley Suitt Tucker, El … | Continue reading
I hear a lot of horror stories about investors. Many are misunderstandings. Some are just outright false. Then there are those that are true. Sadly, there are a lot of those. This kills companies. I’ve watched great entrepreneurs with brilliant ideas sink because they’ve been fuc … | Continue reading
With yet another push from President Obama to revive initiatives to develop “smart gun” technology, it’s time to once again revisit the issue. The most common question I got in response to my previous piece on smart guns is, “why is the NRA so opposed to smart guns?” The NRA’s of … | Continue reading
“How long will it take?” demand managers, clients, and executives. “It takes as long as it takes,” retort irritated engineers. They counter: “Give us an estimate!” And the engineers gather their wits, call upon their experience, contemplate the entrails of farm animals, throw dar … | Continue reading
Have you ever wished you could stand on deck as a 160-foot rocket lands an arm's length away from you, after a short trip into space? Yeah, me too, but perhaps watching it on VR is a the slightly safer option. SpaceX just shared a gorgeous 360-degree video with the world, and if … | Continue reading
As instant messaging and voice control takes off, it increasingly seems that apps are not the solution for everything. Read More | Continue reading
Digital media company Issuu has been trying to offer a better way to present content online. Now it’s a promising a better way for teams to work together on creating that content too, with the launch of a new product called Collaborate. Issuu, for those of you who don’t know, all … | Continue reading
Big, complex things running on tiny things is a common theme this week. Earlier we had a hack that put Counter-Strike on Android Wear, and today some maniac has installed Windows 95 on his Apple Watch. At last it’ll do something worthwhile! That is, of course, if you can find the … | Continue reading
Its story is that of an epic battle. Mankind versus machine in a race for dominance. Only one can win. In practice, thankfully, it’s much, much more adorable. A four-wheeled robot that looks remarkably like an RC car crossbred with a shoebox , programmed to give athletes somethin … | Continue reading
Getting around, drinking and dining at the Kentucky Derby this year should prove a lot easier for fans and employees. According to Churchill Downs’ General Manager Ryan Jordan, the famed horse racing venue on Friday launched a Churchill Downs Racetrack app, powered by VenueNext, … | Continue reading
Last night a single tweet on everyone’s favorite news platform was heard ’round the world. No, I’m not talking about the tweet that cost a NFL draft prospect $14M dollars. Or Drake’s tweet dropping his new album, Views.I’m talking about Apple marketing boss Phil Schiller taking t … | Continue reading
A report from Science shows that academic paper piracy site Sci-Hub is not a niche product catering to cheapskates and isolated mad scientists: it’s as popular as it is illegal, and its millions of users span the globe, from Tehran to Boston. Read More | Continue reading
The technology industry has a problem with retaining qualified female employees. According to a study by the Center for Work-Life Policy, 56 percent of women in computing jobs will leave their positions at the “mid-level” point, right when it is most costly to the companies that … | Continue reading
Gillmor Gang – Frank Radice, Keith Teare, Kevin Marks, John Taschek and Steve Gillmor. LIVE recording session today at 1pmPT/4pmET. Gillmor Gang LIVE chatroom during live show recording Gillmor Gang on Facebook HEREOther Gillmor Gang Studios shows:G3 : Complete catalog of show ar … | Continue reading
Home Chef, one of several startups delivering recipes and ingredients to take some of the hassle out of home cooking, is announcing that it has raised $10 million in Series A funding. Founder and CEO Pat Vihtelic told me that Home Chef stands out from similar-sounding companies i … | Continue reading
This week was completely loaded with earnings reports from some of the biggest tech companies in the world — and it was a crazy week of swings for most of the companies that reported. There’s a running theme here: growth is being heavily rewarded — and lack of growth, punished — … | Continue reading
Chalk one up in Fitbit’s column. An International Trade Commission judge ruled in Fitbit’s favor on a series of patent disputes brought forth by Jawbone. This ruling seems to make it less likely that Fitbit would face an import ban of its wearable fitness trackers.In this case IT … | Continue reading
Samsung worries about your child. Are they sleeping well? Do they miss you when you’re away on business? Can they put on a VR headset without their parents’ help? That last one is pretty important. Because Samsung wants your kids to experience the joy of VR just before bed instea … | Continue reading
It’s not exactly a Netflix or YouTube rival, but AT&T-backed Fullscreen is hoping to carve out its own niche in the now-crowded subscription video market with its new service, launched this week. The $5 per month offering includes a mix of shorter, original content alongside full … | Continue reading
As Twitter tries out bigger things to spur growth activity — like changing the order and length of Tweets — it is turning away from others. Twitter has quietly retired Magic Recs, a strikingly effective bot account that used to send you DMs recommending viral accounts or Tweets t … | Continue reading
Chris Sacca, the angel investor in companies like Twitter, Uber and Instagram, gets it. He understands that diversity is simply good for business. “There is a greed case for diversity,” Sacca told CNN’s Laurie Segall at the Collision Conference yesterday. “Diverse perspectives br … | Continue reading
Here’s what it sounds like when artificial intelligence learns to play “Ode To Joy” in the style of EDM, Brazilian guitar, and The Beatles’ “Penny Lane”:The Sony Computer Science Laboratory in Paris was challenged to re-orchestrate the theme song of the European Union. Using the … | Continue reading
There’s an epidemic in Canada. That epidemic is a mentality that leaves top talent with no option but to leave the nation’s borders and with them, everything they learned. It undervalues breakthroughs developed and paid for by Canadian taxpayers. It’s a mindset that resents the s … | Continue reading
Here’s what it sounds like when artificial intelligence learns to play “Ode To Joy” in the style of EDM, Brazilian guitar, and The Beatles’ “Penny Lane”. The Sony Computer Science Laboratory in Paris was challenged to reorchestrate the theme song of the European Union. Using the … | Continue reading
Microsoft PowerApps allows anybody to build basic business apps without having to touch any code. These apps can run on the web and on mobile (through the PowerApps apps for iOS and Android). Microsoft first announced a private preview of this project last November but starting t … | Continue reading
A quick scan of LinkedIn for former employees underscores the point. Of Uber’s roughly 6,700 employees, only a tiny fraction have left, and in most cases, those hires weren’t around long enough to be worrying about vested options. Employees of privately held companies have long w … | Continue reading
CloudMagic, an email application that today has grown to 4 million users, has just added a useful feature that can aid those who receive a lot of inbound email from unknown persons: Sender Profile. Similar to services like LinkedIn’s Rapportive or newly launched Connect from Clea … | Continue reading
Razer has released a new ultrabook as it continues to stamp its name on more categories of gaming gear. Read More | Continue reading
This week, earnings reports continued, Elon Musk announced plans for SpaceX’s first Mars mission, we spoke with the Reverend Jesse Jackson about diversity in the tech industry and more. These are the stories everyone in tech is talking about. Read More | Continue reading
Amazon shares opened at $665.55 this morning, up 10.6 percent compared to yesterday’s closing price of $602. In other words, Amazon’s market capitalization just grew by nearly $30 billion. Yesterday, Amazon announced some blockbuster earnings. This was the company’s most impressi … | Continue reading
News that Google would soon begin testing a new mobile travel application leaked out last week, and now we have more details, including screenshots, of what that app will look like. The app, called Trips, is being trialed with a small group of testers, and will allow users to kee … | Continue reading
Look what I found on Craigslist. This is the best deal ever. If you browse the “antiques” category, you’ll find an offer you can’t refuse. For a mere $8 billion, you could buy Yahoo! Read More | Continue reading
Mayfield, the 46-year-old Sand Hill Road firm, has raised $525 million across two new funds, including a $400 million early-stage firm and a $125 million fund that will be used to support those of its portfolio companies that gain traction and need later-stage funding. Mayfield h … | Continue reading