Category: Tech news

 Language learning service Babbel is one of Berlin’s quiet startup success stories. While it was once on the brink of shutting down, today it’s a thriving company with hundreds of employees who work in a sprawling office in the middle of Berlin — and it’s the market leader in large parts of Europe. Unlike competitors like Duolingo, though, Babbel is a paid service. Read More

 With titanium 3D printers, electrostatic charge tables, and a giant slide, Playground Global lives up to it’s a name. Here we take you on a tour of Android operating system inventor Andy Rubin’s hardware startup incubator that’s backed by a $300 million fund. Check out how the whimsical space lets scrappy hackers compete with Facebook and Google to recruit top talent. If… Read More

 After drones became available to private citizens around the world, bad actors found ways to use them for nefarious purposes like spying on corporations, carrying contraband across borders and into prison yards, and sadly, turning the aerial robots into weapons. Drone crashes also put people and property in harm’s way. Provo, Utah-based Fortem Technologies Inc. has raised $5.5 million in… Read More

 The Gillmor Gang — Keith Teare, Frank Radice, and Steve Gillmor. Recorded live Friday, May 5, 2017.
Plus the latest G3: Serf City recorded Thursday, May 4, 2017 with Halley Suitt Tucker, Elisa Camahort Page, Maria Ogneva, and Tina Chase Gillmor.
@stevegillmor, @kteare, @fradice
Produced and directed by Tina Chase Gillmor @tinagillmor Read More

 Becoming a parent brings drastic change in the household budget. As such, new and expectant parents are a favored demographic among marketers. Startup founders and their backers have also taken an interest, applying technology and business model innovation to the increasingly tech-intensive art of watching, feeding, entertaining and transporting tiny humans. Read More

The U.S. Department of Justice has opened an investigation into Uber’s use of Greyballing, we get the first look at the rumored Amazon Echo device and Facebook shuts down its VR filmmaking division. All this on Crunch Report. Read More

 Private emails from the campaign of the leading candidate in France’s presidential election, Emmanuel Macron, have been posted online by an unknown source. The politician confirmed the leak in a statement, warning that this was, like other recent hacks, an attempt to interfere with the election and that fabricated content was mixed in with genuine emails. Read More

 Made In Space is known as the company behind the 3D printers on board the International Space Station. Astronauts have used the startup’s Additive Manufacturing Facility to churn out everything from finger splints to tools — and even other printer parts. Now the company is revealing a video rendering of its larger Archinaut system, a factory in the sky operated by autonomous robots. Read More

 Yard Club, a startup founded to make more efficient use of construction and other heavy equipment, has been acquired by Caterpillar. Terms were not disclosed, but Yard Club CEO Colin Evran confirmed the deal had closed earlier this week. Read More

 It’s truly amazing, the wealth of information we all have at our fingertips — that is, of course, unless your fingertips are how you have to access that information. An innovative new tablet that uses magnetically configurable bumps may prove to be a powerful tool for translating information like maps and other imagery to a modality more easily accessed by the visually impaired. Read More

 I went digging recently for another minimalist wallet and boy did I find one. My old one, two pieces of titanium attached with a rubber band, was getting too old and things were falling out. I did a quick hunt and found a few very flat minimalist wallets, but nothing that seemed to be rugged and clever. Enter Trayvax. I tried the Trayvax Element, a leather and stainless steel monster with… Read More

 Facebook is rolling out a new feature called “Latest Conversations” in its search results that will show the most recent public posts about timely topics that a lot of people across its network are discussing. The unit gives you a wider view of what people are saying about a news story or other subject by exposing you to sentiments being expressed outside your social circle. Read More

 I sat down with The RealReal founder and CEO Julie Wainwright, who is renowned in startup circles for a variety of things, including her role in winding down Pets.com during the dot.com era; being one of the bigger personalities in the industry; and launching what’s become one of the fastest-growing consignment startups. Read More

 Just six months into its life, Growlabs, a startup using machine intelligence to support outbound sales teams, has raised a $2.2 million seed round. Growlabs helps businesses reduce their customer acquisition costs by enabling smalls sales teams to do more with less. Read More

 Spotify has taken a tip from Snapchat with its new feature for sharing music via scannable images. The new Spotify Codes feature creates a unique barcode and album cover image for every song, artist and playlist. Scan these Spotify Codes with the new camera in the Spotify app’s search bar to instantly play that music. Read More