 Jeff Bezos: I Spend My Billions On Space Because We're Destroying Earth
In an interview with Norah O'Donnell of "CBS Evening News," Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos explained why he's investing much of his Amazon fortune in the development of space technologies through his aerospace company Blue Origin. Why? "Because I think it's important," Bezos said. "I think it is important for this planet. I think it's important for the dynamism of future generations. It is something I care deeply about. And it is something I have been thinking about all my life." From the report: Bezos -
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To Foil Hackers, 'Morpheus' Chip Can Change Its Code In the Blink of An Eye
Todd Austin, a professor at the University of Michigan, is working on an approach known as Morpheus that aims to frustrate hackers trying to gain control of microchips by presenting them with a rapidly changing target. At a conference in Detroit this week organized by the U.S. Defense Department's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Austin described how the prototype Morpheus chip works. MIT Technology Review reports: The aim is to make it incredibly difficult for hackers to explo
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 Congressional testimony reveals some faults in Facebook's digital currency plans
As Facebook continues to lay the foundation for getting some of the world’s largest payment processing and technology companies a seat at the global monetary policy table, the company faces significant obstacles to enacting its plans from both sides of the Congressional aisle. In the second of what’s sure to be many (many many many) […]
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'The Raspberry Pi 4 Needs a Fan'
Author and programmer Jeff Geerling explains in a blog post why the new Raspberry Pi 4 needs a fan. Unlike previous Pis that didn't require a fan or heatsink to avoid CPU throttling, the Pi 4 is a different beast and "pretty much demands a fan," writes Geerling. "Not only does the CPU get appreciably hot even under normal load, there are a number of other parts of the board that heat up to the point they are uncomfortable to touch." After 5 minutes at idle, he recorded the CPU/System-on-a-Chip (
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EBay picks 5.5% stake in India's Paytm Mall
EBay said today it is buying a 5.5% stake in e-commerce marketplace Paytm Mall as the global firm makes another push to gain footprint in India's fast-growing e-commerce market. The two firms did not disclose financial terms of the deal, but a source familiar with the matter told TechCrunch that EBay has invested between $150 […]
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Georgia Tech's ant-sized micro-robots move through vibration
The above image is a shot of Georgia Tech's latest robot posed next to a penny. The 3D printed bot is roughly two millimeters in length — or about the size of the world's smallest ants, per the school. The tiny devices are designed to move using vibration from a variety of sources, ranging from […]
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Banking startup N26 raises another $170 million at $3.5 billion valuation
Fintech startup N26 is raising $170 million a few months after raising $300 million. While it's technically structured as a new round, the company considers today's new funding as an extension of the Series D round. N26 has only reached out to existing investors. All the investors in the Series D round are investing again, […]
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California Awards $70 Million To State Schools To Replace 200 Polluting Diesel School Buses With All-Electric Buses
The California Energy Commission has awarded nearly $70 million to state schools to replace more than 200 diesel school buses with new, all-electric school buses. Electrek reports: The commission approved the funding this week. A total of $89.8 million has now been earmarked for new electric buses at schools in 26 California counties, as the commission's School Bus Replacement Program works toward this goal. A study published in Economics of Education Review last month showed diesel retrofits ha
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Oakland Becomes Third US City To Ban Facial Recognition
Oakland, California has followed San Francisco and Somerville, Massachusetts in banning the use of facial recognition in public spaces. Motherboard reports: A city ordinance passed Tuesday night which prohibits the city of Oakland from "acquiring, obtaining, retaining, requesting, or accessing" facial recognition technology, which it defines as "an automated or semi-automated process that assists in identifying or verifying an individual based on an individual's face." The ordinance amends a 201
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How a Hong Kong startup gets caught up in US-China trade war
Taylor Host has been operating his artificial intelligence startup out of Hong Kong for more than two years. The American entrepreneur has clients from Europe, North America and Asia, but he settled in the city for its adjacency to Southeast Asia and mainland China’s massive market. Miro, which Host co-founded in 2017 with British software […]
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TurboTax Started Charging the Disabled, Unemployed and Students To Make Up For Trump Tax Law
The 2017 tax overhaul directly threatened the lucrative business of Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, so it pushed students, the disabled, and unemployed to a paid tier to make up for the lost profits. ProPublica reports: Although the company draws in customers with the promise of a "free" product, its fortunes depend on getting as many customers as possible to pay. It had been regularly charging $100 or more for returns that included itemized deductions for mortgage interest and charitable donatio
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Making the Case For a Microsoft Surface Phone That Runs Android
Zac Bowden from Windows Central makes the case for why Microsoft may want to make a Surface phone that runs Android. An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from the report: While a Surface Phone running Android would never sell to the quantity that Samsung smartphones do (or at least not a first- or second-generation phone), Microsoft could utilize the Surface brand to showcase the best of Microsoft's Android efforts all in one place, just like it has done for Windows PCs. I'm picturing a Surface
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Google's Project Dragonfly 'Terminated' In China
An executive at Google said the company's plan to launch a censored search engine in China has been "terminated." The project was reportedly put on hold last year but rumors that it remained active persisted. From a report: "We have terminated Project Dragonfly," Google executive Karan Bhatia told the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. Buzzfeed, which reported the new comments, said it was the first public confirmation that Dragonfly had ended. A spokesman for Google later confirmed to the site th
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Netflix Stock Tumbles After US Subscribers Drop For the First Time Ever
Netflix saw its first-ever decline in paid U.S. subscribers in the second quarter, losing 126,000 U.S. users when Wall Street was expecting 352,000 domestic adds. Barron's reports: The slight drop in Netflix's U.S. subscriber base, combined with fewer-than expected international adds in the second quarter, sent the company's stock tumbling over 10% in after-hours trading Wednesday. The streaming company still reported better-than-expected earnings, but investors tend to focus on its subscriber t
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Amazon Faces Antitrust Probe In Europe Over Use of Merchant Data
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Wall Street Journal: Amazon faces a formal European Union antitrust investigation (Warning: source paywalled; alternative source) into its dealings with merchants that sell goods on its site, marking an expansion of a multi-pronged regulatory push that has ensnared other U.S. tech giants like Facebook and Google. The European Commission, the EU's top antitrust enforcer, said Wednesday that its investigation will examine whether Amazon is abusing its d
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Firefox To Warn When Saved Logins are Found in Data Breaches
Starting in Firefox 70, Mozilla aims to have the browser report when any of your saved logins were found in data breaches. This will be done through their partnership with the Have I Been Pwned data breach site. From a report: Mozilla is slowly integrating their independent Firefox Monitor service and the new Firefox Lockwise password manager directly into Firefox. Mozilla is also considering premium services based around these features in the future. As part of this integration, Firefox will sc
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Delta, Alaska, and American Airlines Have All Been Sued Over Their Uniforms.
Rashes, blisters, and hair loss have all been reported. So has vomiting, migraines, and shortness of breath. All of these -- and more -- are symptoms reported by flight attendants after their airlines got new uniforms. But no one knows why. From a report: Delta is the latest airline to have flight attendants report health issues possibly related to their uniforms, and employees at the airline filed a lawsuit in May against the manufacturer, Lands' End. But flight attendants have been battling he
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The $20B Plan To Power Singapore With Australian Solar
The desert outside Tennant Creek, deep in the Northern Territory, is not the most obvious place to build and transmit Singapore's future electricity supply. Though few in the southern states are yet to take notice, a group of Australian developers are betting that will change. From a report: If they are right, it could have far-reaching consequences for Australia's energy industry and what the country sells to the world. Known as Sun Cable, it is promised to be the world's largest solar farm. If
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40 Years Later, Lessons From the Rise and Quick Decline of the First 'Killer App'
It was the first killer app, the spark for Apple's early success and a trigger for the broader PC boom that vaulted Microsoft to its central position in business computing. And within a few years, it was tech-industry roadkill. From a report: The story of VisiCalc, a humble spreadsheet program that set the tech world ablaze 40 years ago, has reverberated through the industry and still influences the decisions of executives, engineers and investors. Its lessons include the power of simplicity and
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How Many Kinds of USB-C To USB-C Cables Are There?
From a blog post: Classic USB from the 1.1, 2.0, to 3.0 generations using USB-A and USB-B connectors have a really nice property in that cables were directional and plugs and receptacles were physically distinct to specify a different capability. A USB 3.0 capable USB-B plug was physically larger than a 2.0 plug and would not fit into a USB 2.0-only receptacle. For the end user, this meant that as long as they have a cable that would physically connect to both the host and the device, the system
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Twitter launches the 'Hide Replies' feature, in hopes of civilizing conversations
Twitter today is beginning its test of a radical and controversial change to its service with the launch of a new “Hide Replies” feature. Effectively, this option gives users the ability to wrestle back control over a conversation they’ve started by hiding any replies they feel aren’t worthy contributions — for example, replies that are […]
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Bluetooth Exploit Can Track and Identify iOS, Microsoft Mobile Device Users
A flaw in the Bluetooth communication protocol may expose modern device users to tracking and could leak their ID, researchers claim. From a report: The vulnerability can be used to spy on users despite native OS protections that are in place and impacts Bluetooth devices on Windows 10, iOS, and macOS machines. This includes iPhones, iPads, Apple Watch models, MacBooks, and Microsoft tablets & laptops. On Wednesday, researchers from Boston University David Starobinski and Johannes Becker pre
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AI Photo Editor FaceApp Goes Viral Again on iOS, Raises Questions About Photo Library Access
FaceApp, an app that applies filters to photos, is having another moment in the spotlight this week. An anonymous reader shares a report: The app has gone viral again after first doing so two years ago or so. The effect has gotten better but these apps, like many other one-off viral apps, tend to come and go in waves driven by influencer networks or paid promotion. We first covered this particular AI photo editor from a team of Russian developers about two years ago. It has gone viral again now
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Instagram will now hide likes in 6 more countries
Would the internet be a better place if we all paid a little less attention to fake internet points? Instagram is still trying to figure it out. Just a few months back, Instagram started testing a design tweak that would no longer show the total number of “likes” other users’ posts had received. You could […]
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Microsoft To Explore Using Rust
Microsoft plans to explore using the Rust programming language as an alternative to C, C++, and others, as a way to improve the security posture of its and everyone else's apps. From a report: The announcement was made yesterday by Gavin Thomas, Principal Security Engineering Manager for the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC). "You're probably used to thinking about the Microsoft Security Response Center as a group that responds to incidents and vulnerabilities," Thomas said. "We are a re
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Daily Crunch: Neuralink prepares for brain-computer testing
The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here. 1. Elon Musk's Neuralink looks to begin outfitting human brains with faster input and output starting next year Musk said that in […]
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Nintendo Unveils New Switch Model With Better Battery Life
This August, Nintendo is releasing a new Switch model with a longer battery life. It will be priced the same as the current model and, aside from the improved battery, feature the same specs. From a report: The new model's battery life will last between 4.5 and 9 hours, depending on the game. For Breath of the Wild, for example, the battery life will last for an estimated 5.5 hours. In comparison, the current model has a battery life that's between 2.5 and 6.5 hours, depending on the game. Once
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HBO Max is bringing back 'Gossip Girl'
“Gossip Girl,” the soapy CW drama about wealthy teenagers behaving badly in New York City’s Upper East Side, is returning to TV thanks to HBO Max. Specifically, the streaming service has placed a 10-episode, straight-to-series order for an updated version of the show. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Joshua Safran (a writer and executive producer […]
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FaceApp gets federal attention as Sen. Schumer raises alarm on data use
It's been hard to get away from FaceApp over the last few days, whether it's your friends posting weird selfies using the app's aging and other filters, or the brief furore over its apparent (but not actual) circumvention of permissions on iPhones. Now even the Senate is getting in on the fun: Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has asked the FBI and the FTC to look into the app's data handling practices.
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Trump: We 'Will Take a Look' Into Peter Thiel's Claims of Google Working With China
President Trump said this week his administration will "take a look" into Google following statements made earlier this week by billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel. From a report: "Billionaire Tech Investor Peter Thiel believes Google should be investigated for treason," Trump said in a tweet. "He accuses Google of working with the Chinese Government... A great and brilliant guy who knows this subject better than anyone! The Trump Administration will take a look!" On Sunday, Thiel, a Facebook
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For World Emoji Day, the Unicode Consortium redesigns its site to be more user-friendly
Ahead of World Emoji Day on Wednesday, July 17, Apple and Google announced plans to bring an expanded set of emoji to their respective platforms. Today, the Unicode Consortium, the nonprofit organization responsible for determining which emoji get the green light, is relaunching its website with an updated, modern design that aims to make its […]
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Microsoft, AT&T Sign Cloud Deal Worth More Than $2 Billion
Microsoft and AT&T on Wednesday said they reached a deal under which the telecommunications company will tap Microsoft's Azure cloud service for its computing needs and use Microsoft 365, which includes Office productivity software, for much of its 268,000-strong workforce. From a report: Under the deal, Microsoft and AT&T will also work together on so-called edge computing, which will see Microsoft technology deployed alongside AT&T's coming 5G network for applications that need ext
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Pearson Ditches Print Textbooks For College Students in Digital-First Strategy
Texbook publishing giant Pearson will soon be publishing a lot fewer textbooks. It said this week it's ending regular revisions of all print textbooks in its higher-education category. As Pearson faces mounting pressure from the resale market, the move signals a growing shift in the publishing industry to a "digital-first" model. From a report: Instead of revising all 1,500 of its active titles every three years according to the print schedule, the British education publisher said it will focus
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Facebook's regulation dodge: Let us, or China will
Facebook is leaning on fears of China exporting its authoritarian social values to counter arguments that it should be broken up or slowed down. Its top executives have each claimed that if the U.S. limits its size, blocks its acquisitions or bans its cryptocurrency, Chinese company’s absent these restrictions will win abroad, bringing more power […]
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Justice John Paul Stevens, Dead At 99, Promoted the Internet Revolution
Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens passed away Tuesday evening of complications following a stroke he suffered on July 15. He was 99 years old. An anonymous Slashdot reader shares a lightly edited version of Ars Technica's 2010 story that originally marked his retirement from the Supreme Court: In April 2010, the Supreme Court's most senior justice, John Paul Stevens, announced his retirement. In the weeks that followed, hundreds of articles were written about his career and his lega
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Peloton's new automated vehicle system gives one driver control of two trucks
The trucking world has been inundated in recent years by startups and large companies alike pitching an array of automated driving technology and business strategies, all aiming to solve the big three problems with freight: safety, fuel costs and driver shortages. For Peloton Technology, a Silicon Valley company that launched in 2011, the answer doesn’t […]
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SpaceX's 'Starhopper' bursts into flames during static fire test
SpaceX's test vehicle, a small-scale demonstration craft for some Starship components, caught fire after what appears to be a fuel leak or dump following an otherwise successful static fire test last night. It's not clear why the craft suddenly burst into flames, or whether it was seriously or even superficially damaged.
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Dust Identity secures $10M Series A to identify objects with diamond dust
The idea behind Dust Identity was originally born in an MIT lab where students developed a system of uniquely identifying objects using diamond dust. Since then, the startup has been working to create a commercial application for the advanced technology, and today it announced a $10 million Series A round led by Kleiner Perkins, which […]
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Netflix will roll out a lower-priced subscription plan in India
Netflix said on Wednesday that it will roll out a cheaper subscription plan in India, one of the last great growth markets for global companies, as the streaming giant scrambles to find ways to accelerate its slowing growth worldwide. The company added 2.7 million new subscribers in the quarter that ended in June this year, […]
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DJI introduces a Ronin stabilizer for mirrorless cameras
The camera stabilizer has been an interesting piece of DJI's product play. A kind of offshoot of the company's advanced drone-based imaging systems, the Ronin line has allowed it to appeal to photographers and videographers of the terrestrial variety. And as with its drone line, the accessories have grown at an impressive rate, becoming one […]
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Peer-to-peer car sharing marketplace Turo raises $250M at over $1B valuation from IAC
Car-sharing startup Turo has raised $250 million in a Series E round of funding from IAC, the internet media company that owned and spun out Match.com, and OKCupid. This round pushes Turo into Unicorn territory, with its valuation now “past the billion-dollar” mark according to Turo CEO Andre Haddad. This late round of funding brings […]
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Amazon amends seller terms worldwide after German antitrust action
Amazon has agreed to make a raft of changes to the business terms it offers sellers on its marketplaces following an intervention by Germany’s Federal Cartel Office (FCO). The regulator instigated an investigation in November last year after receiving a large number of complaints from sellers pertaining to Amazon’s German marketplace, amazon.de: The largest of […]
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Snyk brings in new CEO to help lead future expansion
Startup founders typically face a management challenge. They often began their careers in technical engineering jobs, and are thrust into the CEO role when starting a company. Sometimes it makes sense to bring in a more experienced executive to guide a fast-growing startup, and that is what Snyk announced it’s doing today, shifting founder/CEO Guy […]
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Toyota locks in more than a supply of EV batteries in deal with China's CATL
Toyota needs more than a secure and steady supply of batteries if it hopes to meet its ambitious global sales goal for electric vehicles. If it hopes to compete, the Japanese automaker will need better quality lithium-ion batteries that don’t squeeze profit margins. The automaker is turning to Chinese EV battery supplier CATL for the […]
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Altitude Angel launches an API for safer drone flights
Altitude Angel, a U.K. startup that provides safety, data and traffic management systems for drones, is launching a de-confliction service for drone flights — available via its developer API platform. “The dynamic system will continuously monitor the airspace around an aircraft for the 'unexpected' such as other aerial vehicles or changes to airspace (such as […]
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Apollo 11 Had a Hidden Hero: Software
"Monday's Wall Street Journal includes a special Apollo 11 feature," writes Slashdot reader Outatime in honor of the 50th anniversary since Apollo 11's Saturn V launched from the Kennedy Space Center. "[O]f particular interest to many Slashdot nerds is the piece on the pioneering computer hardware and software that took three astronauts, and landed two, on the moon." Here's an excerpt from the report: The [MIT Instrumentation Laboratory or I-Lab] was housed in a former underwear factory overlook
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Coinbase tells you if top holders are buying or selling a crypto asset
Coinbase is taking advantage of its significant user base to give you more information about trading behavior and price correlation. Given that there are now 15 cryptocurrencies on Coinbase that you can trade, the new features should provide some signals. In addition to price and variation information, you can see what Coinbase customers with large […]
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How much HR does a scale-up need?
Nora Jenkins Townson Contributor Share on Twitter Nora is an unconventional HR expert based in Toronto. After helping successful startups like FreshBooks and Wealthsimple grow, she founded Bright + Early, an HR consultancy focused on helping scaling companies build impactful people programs. There is a special chaos that happens when a startup reaches 30 employees. […]
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Microsoft has warned 10,000 victims of state-sponsored hacking
Microsoft said it has notified close to 10,000 people in the past year that they have been targeted by state-sponsored hackers. The tech giant said Wednesday that the victims were either targeted or compromised by hackers working for a foreign government. In almost all cases, Microsoft said, enterprise customers were the primary targets — such […]
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Fifth Wall Ventures raises $503M for second real estate fund
Fifth Wall Ventures, an investor in Clutter, b8ta, ClassPass, Lime and others, has raised $503 million for its sophomore venture capital fund. The firm, which closed on $212 million for its debut fund in May 2017, prefers to invest in the burgeoning real estate industry but has made opportunistic investments in other sectors. The Los […]
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Google's Area 120 launches Byteboard to improve technical interviews
Area 120, Google’s lab for experimental projects, is launching Byteboard today, a new tool that aims to make the technical interview experience less tedious and more effective. The team argues that today’s interview process for software engineers just doesn’t cut it since it doesn’t really measure how well somebody would do in a day-to-day engineering […]
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10x Ascend aims to help tech talent with job negotiations
10x Ascend is a new firm that helps software development, cybersecurity and data science professionals negotiate for better deals. Founders Michael Solomon and Rishon Blumberg started out in talent management for the music industry (their clients still include musicians like Vanessa Carlton), then moved into representing tech freelancers with their firm 10x Management. More recently, […]
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Let CrunchMatch simplify your networking at Disrupt SF 2019
Set in the city where startup dreams began, TechCrunch’s flagship tech conference — Disrupt San Francisco 2019 — takes place October 2-4. And with more than 10,000 attendees converging on Moscone North Convention Center, the networking possibilities can seem downright daunting. More like a contact sport than a business opportunity, right? Why waste your valuable […]
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AT&T signs $2 billion cloud deal with Microsoft
While AWS leads the cloud infrastructure market by wide margin, Microsoft isn’t doing too badly, ensconced firmly in second place, the only other company with double-digit share. Today, it announced a big deal with AT&T that encompasses both Azure cloud infrastructure services and Office 365. A person with knowledge of the contract pegged the combined […]
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ClassPass introduces a corporate wellness program
ClassPass has set up yet another revenue stream, signing on partners like Facebook, Glossier, Google, Morgan Stanley, Under Armour, Etsy, Southwest Airlines and Gatorade to a corporate wellness program. The program will give employees at these companies access to the ClassPass network of more than 22,000 studio partners across 2500 cities around the world, which […]
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FaceApp responds to privacy concerns
FaceApp, the AI-powered selfie-editing app that’s been having another viral moment of late, has now responded to a privacy controversy that we covered earlier here. We’ve pasted the company’s full statement at the bottom of this post. The tl;dr here is that concerns had been raised that FaceApp, a Russian startup, uploads users’ photos to […]
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Elon Musk Unveils Neuralink's Plans For Brain-Reading 'Threads' and a Robot To Insert Them
Neuralink, the secretive company developing brain-machine interfaces, held a press conference today where it unveiled some of the technology it's been developing to the public for the first time. The first big advance is flexible "threads," which are less likely to damage the brain than the materials currently used in brain-machine interfaces and create the possibility of transferring a higher volume of data.
"The threads are 4 to 6 micrometers in width, which makes them considerably thinner
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