Category: Tech news

 Despite a miserable macro-economic mix of circumstances, including the worst recession in almost 100 years, the biggest corruption scandal Brazil has ever seen, and calls for President Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment, Brazil’s tech industry is thriving. Read More

 Prime Minister Narendra Modi told Mark Zuckerberg that social media can show governments where they’re going wrong, and allow heads of state to connect more personably than ever before. During a townhall Q&A at Facebook’s Menlo Park headquarters, the two leaders talked about the modernization of India and discussed topics from the 40,000 questions and comments submitted by… Read More

 Protecting privacy in an age of big data, cloud processing and increasingly interconnected digital services demands a structural shift in how software is developed. Read More

 Blockchain technology has been described as email for money, but it has the potential to be so much more. Blockchain technology is a hyper-secure record of digital events that is distributed among many different computers. Blockchain technology is best known for its connection to the cryptocurrency, Bitcoin. It’s what enables transactions to happen without middlemen or a central body,… Read More

 To date, Augmented Reality has been referred to as “the biggest technological advancement of our lifetime,” a mere “gimmick” or, worst yet, the next iteration of the QR code. The divisive term was introduced more than 25 years ago, but if there’s one thing AR proponents and its naysayers can agree on, it’s the simple fact that AR, as we know it today, has… Read More

 It wasn’t until I conquered my first dungeon in The Legend of Zelda at my friend’s house that I decided to throw a convincing tantrum at my parents about why I also desperately needed my own Nintendo Entertainment System. Fast forward a few years and the global gaming market is expected to rake in $86.1 billion in revenue in 2016. Driving this projection is the expected quick… Read More

 Remember the hotness that was Turntable.fm? It was a one of my favorite apps of a few years ago (2011 to be specific), since it was social and focused on music. For those who aren’t familiar with it, you’d have a little avatar that entered themed rooms where you could chat and you’d take turns being the DJ…playing your favorite music. Unfortunately, it shut down… Read More

 I’m here to praise Apple again. Sorry. I have to do it. It’s not in my contract nor am I paid to do it – imagine if we were! We’d be rich! – but after manhandling the iPhone 6S Plus it’s abundantly clear that Apple has discovered another breakthrough. And they are surprisingly nonchalant about it. Apple’s first interface breakthrough happened when… Read More

 We’re bullish on Europe, and that strikes some folks in the U.S. as a bit strange. It’s not that Europe is all we know — we’re an investor in early venture stage funds (an “LP”) in the US, Europe and Israel. Our portfolio skews towards the U.S.; and within the U.S., to the Bay Area. Over the last 18 months or so, we’ve been crossing and re-crossing… Read More

 Peer-to-peer ride-sharing startup Lyft informed 20 members of its San Francisco-based customer support team this week it will be relocating them to Nashville, Tennessee. Lyft is building out its new customer service headquarters in Nashville, where overhead such as rent and salaries are cheaper. It will also help Lyft’s east coast support. The ride-sharing startup is asking customer… Read More

 It was a big week in tech, including everything from Disrupt SF 2015, the launch of the new iPhone 6s and 6s Plus and a big Oculus announcement. But before we get into the top stories of this week, a quick recap of Disrupt. This year, Agrilyst, a startup that helps greenhouse operators run their operations more efficiently, took home the Disrupt Cup as well as the $50,000 Startup Battlefield… Read More

 The Firesign Theatre
A conversation with David Ossman and Philip Proctor
The two surviving members of the Firesign Theatre took to Skype to remember their late colleagues Phil Austin and Peter Bergman. The group’s final show was in 2011, and Peter Bergman died in 2012. Phil Austin died June 18 at his home on Fox Island, Washington; he was 74. Read More

 Intuit recently released an eye-opening new survey reporting that there are currently 3.2 million American workers who participate in the on-demand economy. By 2020, it’s estimated that there will be almost 8 million of these on-demand workers. Many (including Intuit) praise this on-demand movement as supporting a “new class of entrepreneur,” giving workers the tools they need… Read More

 Most of the successful peer-to-peer marketplaces are purchase-oriented. There are two fundamental problems with rental marketplaces: The average order value for most of them is too low, and frequency from demand-side renters is too low. Incentivizing supply in any marketplace is really important to get liquidity. Read More

 A few weeks ago, I was having lunch with Darrell Jones III, who heads up business development at Clef, at the southern restaurant Pican a few blocks away from the Oakland building that 3,000 Uber workers are slated to move into by 2017. Jones, who is half-black and half-Filipino and grew up partly on the North Side of Chicago, makes a point of being a patron at mostly black-owned businesses in… Read More