Category: Tech news

 Genentech is looking to reach out to the startup community with a new competition called the Quest Award offering $50,000 in prize money for technologies that are fighting cervical cancer. Read More

 Another European startup exits to an American tech giant. Predictive keyboard app maker SwiftKey, based in London, confirmed today it has sold to Microsoft. Sources put a price-tag of $250 million on the deal, although neither SwiftKey nor Microsoft are confirming a figure. Read More

 YouTube will premiere its first original movies and series for YouTube Red on February 10. The main draws behind YouTube Red — the site’s recently launched subscription service — were always ad-free viewing and the promise of original content. Until now, though, there was no original content, so if you subscribed to Red, you basically paid Google $9.99 to remove ads (and… Read More

 Another day, another 3D-printed gun. This one comes to us from a carpenter from West Virginia who calls himself Derwood. His gun is “95 percent” 3D printed which means the important bits – springs, firing pins, etc. – are handmade or repurposed (the barrel comes from a Glock) while the stock, magazine, and upper and lower receivers are printed on a Fusion F306 3D… Read More

 Well, that’s one way to respond when someone doesn’t like your startup. After a Stanford student spotted an internship opening at The League, they declared that they were “totally and utterly ashamed that this dating service came out of Stanford,” and asked, “Is it possible to get any more elitist than this? Does it even cross your mind that you are endorsing… Read More

 The last 5-10 years have been an extraordinary time for early stage tech founders to raise money. But easy access to capital has ingrained some bad habits among founders. There has always been the risk of over-funding your company or not being able to find a funder for your next round, but now it’s far more common to see founders blithely accepting deal terms that could kill their… Read More

 Oh my god. Uber has finally done it. They’ve made my dreams come true.
Uber wants you to “paws whatever you’re doing,” because in honor of this week’s Puppy Bowl, the company is teaming up with Animal Planet, the SF SPCA, Peninsula Humane Society, and Berkeley Humane Society to deliver on-demand puppies to your house to hang out with you for a bit.
The puppy… Read More

 What’s going on in technology investing right now? Is this another 2001, when tech imploded? Another 2008, when the wider world crashed but tech powered through? Or is it like Facebook in 2012, a valuation blip and a chance to buy? Anecdotes about dead unicorns are not enough. An explanation has to start with a framework and a qualitative description of what is driving the markets… Read More

 As is clear from the front pages of newspapers recently, we are living in a world where open democratic values are under attack. Paris, Bamako, San Bernardino, Jakarta and Ouagadougou have all been targeted by terrorists. At the same time, we are in the midst of a technological revolution that is reshaping our society. The Internet of Things is driving a whole new way for businesses to… Read More

 I’m taking a last look around the room. It’s five in the morning and the black car is idling outside. The driver has already called me and I quietly whispered that I was coming down. My wife, my long-limbed and tangled in sheets, is asleep. In the small light on my bedside table I see her settle into the warm place where I just was and I wish I could lie back down to sleep.… Read More

 Wherever you turn, businesses are facing tremendous disruptive pressure. What’s interesting is that the theory about how firms should be dealing with this massive change is itself in flux, transforming if you will, as organizations come to grips with the idea that the most basic ways they do business are being called into question. Just over a year ago when I researched this topic,… Read More

 There are too many headlines and articles about bubbles, market crashes, negative interest rates and venture-backed unicorns. Why write one more? Because I believe there is a much more pragmatic way to evaluate what you are reading from all the “experts.” Experts armed with mountains of data and statistical analysis predict the stock market is going to crash, while at the same… Read More

 I’m old enough that when someone says Sidecar, I immediately think of Cointreau, lemon juice and cognac, shaken and served up. What’s remarkable to me is that the folks at GM, one of the country’s most venerable industrial enterprises, heard “Sidecar” and instead saw an interesting enough opportunity to find $39 million in cash to buy a shuttered company. Read More

 Onfleet, the company that provides infrastructure for on-demand delivery, recently powered its one millionth delivery. More than half of those deliveries occurred within the last four months, Onfleet CEO Khaled Naim told TechCrunch. Onfleet powers deliveries and logistics for companies like HelloFresh, Meadow, Doughbies, Lugg and others. To be clear, Onfleet does not provide the… Read More

 Sci-fi tech, meet Wall Street. A recent report from Goldman Sachs predicted that within 10 years, virtual reality hardware will be an $80 billion industry. This “base case” forecast assumed that adoption will be slow, as compared to that of smartphones and tablets, but, the report noted, “as the technology advances, price points decline, and an entire new marketplace of… Read More