Category: Tech news

 Cape Cod fishing guide Eric Stapelfeld trusted me to look after his website the same way that I trust him to find fish. Until a few weeks ago, I believed I had the easier part of the bargain. After all, what’s hard about maintaining a simple WordPress site with a phone number and lots of striped bass pictures? As it turns out, everything is hard, really hard, when hackers go to work on… Read More

 With virtual reality, Hollywood and Silicon Valley have never been more closely aligned in their desire to push the boundaries of how people emotionally interact with technology. Video games may be drawing in a huge deal of interest but there are also an army of filmmakers and creatives looking at how they can use VR to draw viewers in and experience something breath-taking. Today, Tribeca… Read More

 Do you really need a screen? That’s the question Fossil is asking with their clever and handsome Fossil Q Hybrid smartwatch, an analog watch that hides all of its smarts behind an understated face. This type of watch has become more common with watchmakers like Skagen and Michael Kors jumping on the bandwagon. Many of the manufactures use movements from MMT and others and most of them… Read More

 Snap debuts as a public company in soaring IPO, AWS suffers major outage and Nokia is reviving Snake. These are the top tech headlines of the week explained. Read More

 Uber is using a tool called “Greyball” to work identity requests made by certain users and deny them service, according to Mike Isaac reporting for the New York Times. The software, later renamed the “violation of terms of service” or VTOS program, is said to employ data analysis on info collected by the Uber app to identify individuals violating Uber’s terms… Read More

 In preparation for Disrupt New York in May I’m going to hold a few pitching workshops in New York for you all. We’ll listen to and critique ten pitches on March 13th at 7pm at the Knotel space at 22 West 38th Street, 3rd Floor. This is an informal pitch-off but the two best teams will get two tickets to Disrupt New York and the undying admiration of millions of people (actually… Read More

 The time U.S. users are spending in mobile apps is continuing to grow; according to new data released this week by analytics firm Flurry, we’re up to 5 hours per day on our mobile devices. This follows on news from January that said the time spent in mobile apps had increased 69 percent year-over-year. Read More

 Peter Thiel has been at Donald Trump’s side since the Republican National Convention, guiding the then-candidate on technology policy and brokering a meeting between him and top tech executives. Now Thiel has secured a place for one of his top aides in Trump’s White House — Michael Kratsios, formerly chief of staff at Thiel Capital, will step into the role of deputy chief… Read More

 The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is creating huge opportunities in the water and wastewater industries, adding value to both the utility and the consumer. Connected machines are reshaping the way these utilities operate, allowing them to make smarter and more informed decisions. By driving up innovation, water utilities are driving down cost. Here’s what they’re up to. Read More

 NextGen Venture Partners,  a young, Washington, D.C.-based venture firm that’s quarterbacked by a handful of investors but fueled financially by a network of hundreds of part-time investors who help with its portfolio, has raised $22 million for its debut fund. (This if you don’t count a $1 million pool of capital that it raised from its network in 2015.) We had a quick chat… Read More

 Another day, another allegation against Uber. Keala Lusk, a former Uber software engineer, just posted to Medium her story of sexism, disrespect and condescending behavior at the hands of a female manager at Uber. Read More

 Atom Bank, a startup out of the U.K. that has built a mobile-only bank targeting consumers between the ages of 18 and 34, has raised another £83 million ($102 million) in funding led by BBVA, the Spanish bank and owner of Simple in the U.S. The funding gives Atom a post-money valuation of £261 million ($320 million), TechCrunch has confirmed with the company. BBVA also led… Read More

 World View’s new spaceport in Tucson, Arizona is focused on a unique task: Launching high altitude balloons that will take equipment, and eventually people, to the Earth’s stratosphere to do work in an edge-of-space operating theater. We got the chance to go to the facility’s grand opening, and interview CEO and co-founder Jane Poynter, as well as co-founder and former… Read More

 Traders who have an idea for a money-making algorithm have two choices: learn to code themselves, or hire a great engineer. But neither of these two options are realistic, especially for part-time traders who don’t have a large bankroll behind them. Meet Algoriz, a startup participating in Y Combinator’s Winter 2017 batch. Read More

 Snap Inc., the parent of Snapchat, has been off to the races with its debut on the stock market.
Yesterday, the stock closed at $24.48, a 44% gain from the IPO price of $17. And today it’s gone up a bit further, surpassing $29 at one point, an almost 20% increase from the close of yesterday. Shares later fell to $27, but it’s still on track for a 10% gain for day two.
This is… Read More