Liberis, the London-based fintech that provides finance for small businesses, has raised £57.5 million in new funding to help support the company’s growth. The alternative finance provider makes loans against a company’s future credit and debit card sales. The majority of the new capital being raised by Liberis is debt, which in turn will enable […]
We all know that mindfulness can ease stress, but when you’re a working parent, it feels hard to find the time to fit in anything — even 10 minutes of meditation. Luckily, you can build mindfulness into your busy routine. Spend a few minutes writing down the activities you do each day: drop the kids […]
Boris Teksler Contributor Boris Teksler is the former licensing chief at Apple and current chief executive of the patent licensing company Conversant IP. Joe Silino Contributor Joseph Siino is the former intellectual property chief at Yahoo and the current president of Via Licensing. Ira Blumberg Contributor Ira Blumberg is the vice president of IP at […]
How can an electric scooter ride-sharing company like Bird possibly make money? If you live in a select number of cities in the U.S., it’s hard not to see electric scooters appearing on sidewalks all over the place. Electric scooter ride-sharing services are also remarkably cheap: $1 to start a ride and another $0.15 per […]
You can now use Apache Spark 2.3.0, Apache HBase 1.4.2, and Presto 0.194 on Amazon EMR release 5.13.0. Spark 2.3.0 adds several new features and updates, including continuous processing mode in Structured Streaming for lower end-to-end latency, an improved ORC file format reader that supports vectorized reads and improves scan throughput, PySpark and Pandas interoperability […]
For CPU-based training scenarios, the AMIs now include TensorFlow 1.7 built with Intel’s Advanced Vector Instructions (AVX), SSE, and FMA instruction sets, to accelerate vector and floating point computations. The AMIs are also fully configured with Intel MKL-DNN to accelerate math routines used in neural network training on Intel Xeon Platinum processors powering Amazon EC2 […]
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The app permissions that led to 87 million Facebook users’ data being harvested and sold to Cambridge Analytica may have also allowed access to those users’ inboxes, the company confirmed today. This wasn’t achieved by any underhanded means, exactly, but people might not have realized that they were granting permission to read and record their […]
Runaway ETL jobs may occur due to coding errors or data anomalies, and they can continue to consume resources without making progress. AWS Glue gives you the ability to set a timeout value on any new ETL job that you create, and edit existing jobs to specify a timeout value or use the default value. […]
Okay, Apple, now you’ve got my attention. Not content with landing an Amazing Stories reboot from Steven Spielberg, multiple series from Reese Witherspoon, a space opera from Ron Moore and much more for its upcoming original TV initiative (which might launch next March), Apple is also developing a series based on Isaac Asimov’s Foundation books. […]
Spotify’s got something big up its sleeve, that much we know for sure. The music streaming service has a big event in the works for April 24 in New York — though it hasn’t really offered up anything useful beyond that. A revamped version of the company’s free tier could certainly make sense for the […]
While many of us in the tech world are familiar with Facebook’s business model, there is a common misconception among people that Facebook collects information about you and then sells that information to advertisers. Zuckerberg wants everyone (especially the U.S. Senate) to know that’s not the case, and has laid forth the most simple example […]
The death spiral of blood-testing startup Theranos just became even more real today for the bulk of its remaining employees. The Wall Street Journal reports that the company has laid off the majority of its staff as part of a “last-ditch effort” to save cash and avoid bankruptcy. The layoffs have taken the staff from […]
Myst holds a special place in the hearts of many. Released in 1993, it was unlike any video game most had seen at the time — and yet, its DNA lingers in countless games released today. It was also the game that made tens of thousands of kids beg their parents for a CD drive. […]
Today’s testimony by Mark Zuckerberg in front of a Senate joint committee was often boring or redundant with previous statements. But there was an exchange near the two hour mark that was pleasantly refreshing: Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) doggedly pursuing a common-sense answer from Zuckerberg on the question of whether it had any real competition. […]
Facebook’s founder said last month that the company is open to being regulated. But today he got asked by the US senate what sort of legislative changes he would (and wouldn’t) like to see as a fix for the problems that the Cambridge Analytica data scandal has revealed. Zuckerberg’s response on this — and on […]
Amazon SNS is a reliable, scalable, and fully-managed pub/sub messaging service. With AWS PrivateLink, you can provision and use VPC endpoints to access SNS and other supported services hosted in the AWS Cloud. AWS PrivateLink provides a highly available and scalable way to access AWS services while keeping all the network traffic within the AWS […]
You can also now use the Amazon Resource Name (ARN) of a stack set in Identity and Access Management (IAM) policies to create resource level permissions for StackSets. Previously, you could not create an IAM policy for a specific stack set. Now, you can set the access control of specific stack sets to specific roles […]
There is a classic stereotype of the Silicon Valley entrepreneur: often a computer science nerd, almost certainly male, ambitious, and most importantly, young — very young. Founders who have been covered extensively by the media, like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg, started their companies still glimpsing their teenage years, and that reputation has […]
AWS Glue is a fully managed extract, transform, and load (ETL) service that makes it easy for you to prepare and load your data for analytics. With this release, your ETL jobs and development endpoints will now run on a serverless, fully managed Apache Spark 2.2.1 environment. AWS Glue is available in the AWS Regions […]
Ilya Strebulaev Contributor An expert in corporate finance, venture and angel capital, innovation financing, corporate innovation and financial decision-making, Ilya Strebulaev is the David S. Lobel Professor of Private Equity and Professor of Finance at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. A $1 billion valuation was until recently a significant badge of honor for a […]
It is a best practice to use the latest version of the ECS-Optimized AMI when you create a new EC2 cluster for Amazon ECS, as new releases include bug fixes and feature updates. Previously, to ensure you were using the latest AMI meant checking the AWS Documentation or subscribing to the ECS-AMI SNS topic. You […]
In testimony before the Senate Judiciary and Commerce, Science, and Transportation committees, Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said that his company did not notify the Federal Trade Commission about the initial user data leak that triggered its most recent privacy scandal. “They considered it a ‘closed case’,”Zuckerberg said in response to a question over whether […]
At the core of Facebook’s “well-being” problem is that its business is directly coupled with total time spent on its apps. The more hours you pass on the social network, the more ads you see and click, the more money it earns. That puts its plan to make using Facebook healthier at odds with its […]
In his opening statement in today’s Senate hearing with Mark Zuckerberg, Senator Thune (R-SD) noted that Cambridge Analytica, the company most associated with the ongoing privacy debacle, will be examined separately at another time. “There are plenty of questions about the behavior of Cambridge Analytica and we expect to hold a future hearing on Cambridge […]
This isn’t really surprising if you’ve been following Uber’s legal woes. But the Court of Justice of the European Union has confirmed to Uber France that Uber is operating a transportation company. Member countries can prohibit or punish Uber in their own countries without involving the European Union. Over the past few years, Uber has […]
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Facebook has become the de facto way people today keep up with their friends and family and, at times, their wider network of professional acquaintances and colleagues. But its inattention to user data protection is leading some people looking for an out. A new app called Garden, officially launching today, wants to offer people a […]
It’s hard to #DeleteFacebook with no viable alternative, but at least you can export all your data. There’s no such option on Instagram. That lack of data portability puts users at the mercy of Instagram’s product and policy decisions. And it could even put users at risk as those who seek to backup their accounts […]
Alex Wilhelm Contributor Alex Wilhelm is the editor-in-chief of Crunchbase News and co-host of Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast. More posts by this contributor Spotify steadies, DocuSign’s big year, and scooters are the new blockchain Live from Disrupt SF: Equity talks Slack, Lyft and flying cars Today Carbon Black filed to go public, publishing its S-1 […]
It’s Equal Pay Day today — that is, the day women had to work full-time this year to make up the difference between what men made working full-time last year. The actual date is mostly symbolic, but while it’s been narrowing, the gender pay gap is real. Earlier this month, I had a chance to […]
Entrepreneurs have it rough in Africa, India, Pakistan — places where VC cash doesn’t fall from the sky and necessary infrastructure like reliable banking and broadband can be hard to come by. But companies grow and thrive nevertheless in these rugged environments, and DFS Lab is an incubator focused on connecting them with the resources […]
Uber is rolling out a new app for drivers starting today. The hope with the redesign is to make it easier for drivers to access the information they need the most, while ensuring the app is not a distraction while behind the wheel, three Uber driver app product leads told TechCrunch last week. Earnings and […]
So far we’ve been telling you about all of the awesome humans we’re going to have at TC Sessions Robotics next month in Berkeley — humans like Boston Dynamics’ Mark Raibert, Playground’s Andy Rubin, Fetch’s Melonee Wise and Pieter Abbeel, Ken Goldberg and Robert Full from U.C. Berkeley. But what of the robots? Don’t worry, […]
b8ta, the store founded by Nest alums to sell trendy gadgets, is entering new territory. Today, the startup is launching “Built by b8ta,” which functions as a retail-as-a-service platform for brands that want a physical presence. Building off the success of its own retail stores, b8ta is confident it can provide an easy, cost-effective solution […]
Vimeo today announced the launch of a new Mac app that will give video creators using Final Cut Pro more control over their file formats and video codecs. The app expands upon the existing integration with Final Cut Pro, which already offered the ability to upload to Vimeo. With the new app, creators can upload […]
Julia is Sesame Street’s first autistic character and her mission is to make neuroatypical kids feel more comfortable and understand that there are kids out there just like them. She’s a sweet little muppet and now she’s getting her own Kickstarter campaign. The campaign is raising $75,000 to produce content and a free book featuring […]
B.S.P.I./Getty Images Lately, we have been hearing a lot from our clients about “toxic” coworkers and teammates. This issue isn’t new; there have been bad coworkers since the beginning of organized work. But these days, their impact feels bigger and more destructive. Businesses need teamwork to function. And teams need to be more collaborative, adaptable, […]
tim evans for hbr Few people today call a doctor when they feel a bout of nostalgia coming on. But for 200 years, nostalgia was considered a dangerous disease that could trigger delusions, despair, and even death. A 17th-century Swiss physician coined the word to describe the debilitating algos (pain) felt by people who had […]
Daniel Grizelj/Getty Images No one wants to think they got to the top through an unfair advantage. You want to feel that you’ve earned it — that your hard work and carefully honed skills have paid off. But the evidence on diversity in the workplace is conclusive: There are lots of people held back by bias. And […]
Cambridge, U.K.-based startup Spectral Edge has closed a $5.3M Series A funding round from existing investors Parkwalk Advisors and IQ Capital. The team, which in 2014 spun the business out of academic research at the University of East Anglia, has developed a mathematical technique for improving photographic imagery in real-time, also using machine learning technology. As we’ve reported […]
There’s a new venture fund in town from some familiar faces. Carey Lai, who previously worked at Intel Capital and IVP, is joining forces with Paul Yeh, formerly of Kleiner Perkins. They’re calling it Conductive Ventures and it’s launching with $100 million under management. They’ll be investing in “expansion stage” companies across enterprise software and […]
Sam Kim, co-founder and CEO of Lucidity, said blockchain technology offers a solution to cut down on fraud and bring more transparency to digital advertising. Kim was previously chief operating officer at The Mobile Majority, a mobile ad company where he said he saw the challenges of reconciling the data used by different parts of […]
By now it’s crystal clear to just about everyone that the password is a weak and frankly meaningless form of authentication, yet most of us still live under the tyranny of the password. This, despite the fact it places a burden on the user, is easily stolen and mostly ineffective. Today, two standards bodies, FIDO […]
Landing pages might not sound like the most exciting problem for a startup to tackle, but Tyson Quick, founder and CEO of Instapage, said that they’re a real issue for marketers. Quick was previously working on a marketing product called Jounce, where he was frustrated by the fact that even after someone had clicked on […]
Walmart is expanding its grocery delivering business with the help from new partner, Postmates, the retailer announced this morning. Postmates will initially begin Walmart Online Grocery Delivery in Charlotte, North Carolina with plans to reach other markets in the months ahead. Postmates joins Walmart’s existing delivery partners Uber and Deliv, who have been helping Walmart […]
Bernhard Lang/Getty Images Leaders today hear a lot about the importance of having good networks. For example, firms with better-connected CEOs can obtain cheaper financing, and firms with well-connected board directors see better performance. We wanted to explore whether the diversity of CEOs’ networks might affect their firms. Our study, published in the Journal of […]
In a perfect world, an employer pays you, not the other way around. The internet is ripe with job scams that seem too good to be true but are designed to take your money instead. Consumer Affairs notes that good old-fashioned check fraud is still a preferred method scammers use to steal money. But tricks are becoming […]
Sometimes a job seems right on paper, but once you actually start, you find that you have made a terrible mistake. Maybe the hiring manager painted an untrue picture, maybe you approached the job wearing rose-colored glasses or maybe you were so eager to get out of your last position that you leapt without looking. […]
Google and Netflix today announced the launch of Kayenta, a new open source project that aims bring the canary analysis tools Netflix developed internally to a wider audience. Kayenta is integrated into the Netflix-incubated Spinnaker continuous delivery platform, which works across virtually every public and private cloud. While Spinnaker is the focus of this release, though, […]
When you’re on the job hunt, you’re not always looking for a job that pays well, but, rather, you’re looking for a job you’re passionate about–and a company that shares your values. But, if you find a great job at a dream company and the salary doesn’t stack up to all the work you’re putting […]
Education is often touted as the key to overcoming inequity. And on the surface, it makes sense — in order to enter into the highest-paying jobs, you often need technical, highly specialized degrees, which have traditionally been male-dominated. However, Glassdoor’s 2017 economic study reveals that even within the same major, there can be a significant […]
Some folks I met in Chicago are holding an amazing event at a great place on South Canalport Avenue. This former macaroni factory now builds startups and I’ll be helping judge their pitch-off alongside some Chicago luminaries. You can RSVP here and sign up for a spot to pitch here. We’ll choose eight startups to […]
Splunk has always been known as a company that can sift through oodles of log or security data and help customers surface the important bits. Today, it announced it was going to try to apply that same skill set to Industrial Internet of Things data. IIoT is data found in manufacturing settings, typically come from […]
In 2012, J.C. Penney stopped promoting sales and offering coupons. Instead, they advertised new “everyday low prices” — which seems like a pretty good idea, right? Except, in 2012, sales for J. C. Penney actually dropped 25%. J.C. Penney found they actually made more money when they raised the prices of their products and then […]
When people see the word “introvert,” they often think of qualities that don’t actually describe introverted people at all.
Fleetsmith, a startup that wants to make it easier for companies to manage their Apple devices, announced a $7.7 million Series A round today led by Upfront Ventures. Seed investors Index Ventures and Harrison Meta also participated in the round. The company has raised a total of $11 million. They also announced that Luke Kanies, […]
A report by US reseller ThredUP estimates that second-hand fashion will soon overtake “fast fashion”, with an expected market worth of $41 billion USD by 2022. According to the site, in 2017 resale equated to six percent of the fashion market, with fast fashion at nine percent. By 2027 however, it’s projected to sit at […]
Cliff diving isn’t a typical activity for a person who’s afraid of heights. But Mike, a 20-year-old intern living in Atlanta, skydives and cliff-dives as often as he can. Sophie cycles, climbs, runs, and travels. She tried skydiving but didn’t enjoy it because she says she’s not into high-adrenaline activities. For Sophie, satisfaction comes from […]
If a picture is worth a thousand words, a stunning product picture is worth a thousand website visits. I don’t have data to back up that statement (yet). Nevertheless, product photography can become this valuable to your ecommerce website strategy. According to Trellis, 51% of Americans with internet access prefer to shop online, and that […]
Google’s two smart speaker products — the Google Home and Google Home Mini — and its Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL smartphones are now available in India following a launch event in the country. The devices are priced at Rs 9,999 ($154), and Rs 4,499 ($69), respectively, and Google confirmed that they are available for purchase online via […]
