Category: Tech news

 Fintech startup Revolut just raised a ton of money. But grabbing $66 million from respected VC firms wasn’t enough (£50 million). For the second time, Revolut asked its user base to invest in the startup. Revolut was looking for $5.3 million on Seedrs (£4 million), but 40,000 customers said that they were interested in the investment opportunity. If Revolut took all the money, it… Read More

 “The attention economy” is shaping everything about contemporary life, according to Google’s former design ethicist, Tristan Harris. That economy has brought us Donald Trump by bankrupting our intelligence and exploiting our “lower level vulnerabilities”. Read More

 Apple has issued a statement regarding last night’s removal of ‘most major’ VPN apps from the App Store in China. Read More

 Elad Gil is running around the Color Genomics office when I come to meet him for a little sit-down. The place is full for a Friday afternoon. There’s a worker taking calls on the couch in the front and plenty of others pacing about in the background. The office is tucked away in an unassuming industrial area of Burlingame, California, in a building that reminds me of some… Read More

 For many, Pokémon GO is so summer 2016. But at least 20,000 people are still die-hard fans of the game, as proven by their participation in Pokémon GO Fest in Chicago’s Grant Park last week. Unfortunately, the event was a disappointment to many attendees, who could not get data service and ended up waiting on long lines without the AR-based game to keep them entertained. And beyond… Read More

 Facebook could jumpstart its Snapchat clone by letting social media stars and public figures post Stories publicly. When Facebook Stories launched globally in March, you could only share to all their friends or a subset of them. Now if you allow public followers, you can post your Story publicly so anyone can watch. Social media researcher Carlos Gil first pointed out the privacy feature, and… Read More

 Yesterday Apple removed all major VPN apps from its App Store in the country. These VPNs aided internet users there to get around the government’s vast system of censorship and access uncensored sources of media. But by doing so, Apple has clearly decided to put its business before the interests of the population, opposition leaders and activists.
For example, Golden Frog, which makes… Read More

 In 10 years, when autonomous driving is mainstream, we’ll have a fundamentally different relationship with our cars and driving in general. Every major car company is fully aware of this, but not all are reacting to this change with the same degree of urgency. Earlier this month, BMW hosted its Innovation Days at its technology office in Chicago, where the company showcased the current… Read More

 As the new administration’s rhetoric around maintaining public safety reaches a fever pitch, cutting-edge surveillance technologies are being rolled out and used on the American public — often without the public’s knowledge or consent, and often without judicial authorization. Read More

 Four years ago, the deep state was the enemy. Edward Snowden had just revealed its machinations. The head of the NSA was angrily catcalled during his Black Hat keynote. “We”–hackers, iconoclasts, individualists, and/or everyone in tech who hopes we’re building a better future–readied for a battle against surveillance capitalism and the surveillance state. How… Read More

 Carwow, a platform that helps you buy a new car, has closed $39 million in Series C funding. The round was led by new investor Vitruvian Partners, with existing investors Accel Partners and Balderton Capital also participating. At today’s exchange rate it brings total funding to approximately $62.6 million. Read More

The Bedtime feature already in your iPhone could be your path to more effective sleep.

 There’s this idea that if we quantify and track our lives, our lives will be better. But I’m not so sure about that. Over the past week, I’ve tracked both my sleep and bedroom air quality. Let’s first take a look at the Beautyrest Sleeptracker. The Sleeptracker comes with a couple of sensors that you put underneath your mattress. It tells you how much time you spent… Read More

 In an insurer’s ideal world, there’d be a profitable policy for every conceivable risk. Click once, and you’re covered. But in the real world, insurance hasn’t kept up with the changes of recent years. The millennial generation has entered adulthood intent on completing — online — any complex transaction in a couple of minutes. But insurance policies look… Read More

 I’m gearing up for another trip, but instead of taking a sleep pod bus, I’m flying (like a normal person) to Berlin. I’m going with my mom, who has never been out of the country, so I want to make sure it’s a good trip. That’s where Journy, founded by Leiti Hsu and Susan Ho, comes in. Journy is essentially a travel startup for millennials that is designed to… Read More