Specializing in Computer Repair, Networking, Internet Solutions, Web Designing, Hybrid App Designing and Windows Operating systems.
New York Times:
The Boeing 737 Max's MCAS anti-stall software was designed to rely on data from two types of sensors, one of which was later removed undisclosed to regulators — SEATTLE — The fatal flaws with Boeing's 737 Max can be traced to a breakdown late in the plane's development, when test pilots …
Which Movie Featured A Different Ending Depending On Which Theater You Saw It In? |
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Tony Romm / Washington Post:
Sources: FTC and DOJ have reached an agreement to divvy up antitrust oversight of Google and Amazon, putting Amazon under FTC's watch and Google under DOJ's — Antitrust regulators have divvied up oversight of Amazon and Google, putting Amazon under the watch of the Federal Trade Commission and Google under the Justice Department.
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Beam Dental, which uses brushing stats collected by its connected toothbrush to lower dental insurance premiums, raises $55M Series D — When was your last dental checkup? According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than a third of U.S. adults haven't sat in a dentist's chair within the past 12 months.
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
The General Court of the EU agrees to hear a legal challenge to the EU-US Privacy Shield data transfer legislation, sets the hearings date for July 1 and 2 — A legal challenge to the EU-US Privacy Shield, a mechanism used by thousands of companies to authorize data transfers from the European Union …
Steve Dent / Engadget:
Sony's new IoT chip can transmit up to ~60 miles via Sony's low-power wide area ELTRES network, launching this fall, and work on objects moving at high speeds — Sony is quietly launching a chip that could change how e-bikes, cars, street lamps and all kinds of other connected devices can relay information.
Slack is one of the most iconic enterprise companies to come out of Silicon Valley. Part of the reason is the mythos surrounding the startup’s founding as a games company and later pivot into workplace communication. But what’s the story behind the story of the high-flying company? Who supported the company every step of the way?
Our venture capital reporter Kate Clark has the history and background on Slack, soon to be trading as WORK on the NYSE.
“We realized, wow, this is hugely a productive way of working and I think all of us agreed we wouldn’t work without a system like this again and maybe other people would like it,” Butterfield said in a recent video released by Slack ahead of its June 20 direct listing on the New York Stock Exchange.
So the team reimagined their future and looked to their investors for support.
Accel, sources tell TechCrunch, remained committed. Andreessen Horowitz, however, had a more complicated response. According to sources familiar with the matter, a16z was highly skeptical of Butterfield and whether he could succeed in the enterprise space. When Tiny Speck went out to raise its first round of capital as an enterprise software upstart in what would technically be its Series C, a16z hesitated.
A source close to Slack told TechCrunch that a16z put the company “through the ringer,” telling Butterfield that enterprise “wasn’t in his DNA.” A16z denies these accounts citing their close relationship with Butterfield and the business in 2019. Admittedly, it’s unclear how much capital a16z may or may not have funneled to Slack at the Series C but given it currently owns nearly 10 percent less of Slack than Accel, a fellow early investor, its likely to have cut back its capital commitments around the time of Tiny Speck’s pivot.
It’s been about 15 weeks since we launched Extra Crunch. Since then, we have covered everything from deep dives into Patreon and Niantic (Unity is coming right up – I’ve been editing the drafts) to growth tactics and how to raise venture capital really, really fast, to building out a Verified Experts list of top startup professionals.
Brian Burlage / VICE:
A self-described Reddit “karma whore” shares how he learned to make Reddit posts go viral and reflects on his years-long unfulfilling journey to 8M+ karma — My years-long journey to the top of Reddit's karma leaderboards has only made me feel more alone.
BlackBerry Messenger is no more. The long-lived and once-popular messaging service just couldn’t compete in a word filled with Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, and all of the other messaging apps consumers can choose to use instead. RIP BBM.
Emtek, which acquired the licensing rights to BlackBerry Messenger, has shut BBM down for good. The company made the decision in April 2019, and finally shut BBM down for good on May 31, 2019. This leaves the last remaining users seeking alternatives.
On the BBM Blog, the company opined that “in spite of our substantial efforts, users have moved on to other platforms, while new users proved difficult to sign on.” Therefore, “the time has come to sunset the BBM consumer service, and for us to move on.”
PING !!!
Today is the last day to use BBM ??
Thank you for all the support and memories that you have spent together with BBM ?
As an alternative, you can use BBM Enterprise. Check the following link for more details https://t.co/uKmBGP3CQI pic.twitter.com/BnwaoGYehc
— BBM (@BBM) May 31, 2019
While many modern smartphone users will wonder what the fuss is about, BBM launched in 2005 at a time when most people were still using SMS. And BlackBerry Messenger introduced many of the features we now take for granted when using messaging apps.
What has specifically shut down is BBM Consumer. However, BBM Enterprise (BBMe) is still very much alive, and available on Android and iOS (as well as Windows and Mac). What’s more, BlackBerry Messenger will continue to work on BB10 and BBOS devices.
Download: BBM Enterprise for Android and iOS
While some people will be genuinely disappointed to lose access to BBM, most of that will be based on nostalgia. However, the rest of us should remember how BlackBerry Messenger “helped shape messenger platforms to become what they are today.”
If you’re a former BBM user now searching for a new messaging app, there’s always WhatsApp. Or, if you refuse to use WhatsApp, here are the best WhatsApp alternatives. None of which will engender those same feelings BBM did back in the day.
Image Credit: Maurizio Pesce/Flickr
Read the full article: RIP BBM: BlackBerry Messenger Shuts Down
If you’re tired of feeling stressed, overwhelmed, anxious, and chronically busy, this is the book for you.
All around us we see people in a constant hurry. Smartphones and laptops dominate our attention. We wear our “busyness” like a badge of honor. We neglect our friends and family in favor of work. Our ambitions are pushed aside simply so we can keep on top of the to-do list.
But escaping this vicious circle is possible.
How to Relax is a free ebook that will show you how to finally slow down, relax and get better results, all while doing less.
In this free ebook, you will finally learn how to combat busyness, and how to:
In a world of constant distraction and always-on connectivity, slowing down and relaxing is a skill we must all develop, and this ebook will help you do exactly that.
Are you finally ready to regain control over your life? Simply click here to download How to Relax from TradePub. You will be required to complete a short form to access the ebook, but it’s well worth it!
Read the full article: How to Relax—Stop Being Busy and Get Better Results (Free Ebook)
There’s some obvious overlap between “Tuca & Bertie” and “BoJack Horseman” — they’re both talking animal cartoons on Netflix; they have a similar look, courtesy of Lisa Hanawalt (designer on “BoJack Horseman” and creator of “Tuca & Bertie”); and “BoJack” creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg co-wrote the first episode of the new show.
Plus, their respective first seasons follow a similar arc, kicking off with rapid-fire humor, then increasingly shading the jokes with serious character exploration as you get further into the story.
But as guest host Brian Heater helps us explain on the latest episode of the Original Content podcast, “Tuca & Bertie” is a distinct show, with a distinct sense of humor — it’s zanier and raunchier, with a refreshing frankness about sex, not to mention a talented, diverse cast of voice actors led by Tiffany Haddish (Tuca) and Ali Wong (Bertie).
And where “BoJack” went deep into an exploration of its protagonist’s depression, “Tuca & Bertie” is more interested in the complexities of female friendship, all while remaining a funny show about birds that talk, go on dates and have jobs at companies like “Conde Nest.”
You can listen in the player below, subscribe using Apple Podcasts or find us in your podcast player of choice. If you like the show, please let us know by leaving a review on Apple. You can also send us feedback directly. (Or suggest shows and movies for us to review!)
If you want to skip ahead, here’s how the episode breaks down:
0:00 Intro and a Very Serious Discussion about laugh tracks
8:47 Spoiler-free review of Tuca & Bertie
24:43 Spoiler discussion
Neil Cybart / Above Avalon:
By having an estimated one billion active device users, Apple has a self-sufficient level of ecosystem strength to thrive despite slowing user growth — Apple's ecosystem is massive. Approximately a billion people are using more than 1.4 billion Apple devices.
Hello and welcome back to Startups Weekly, a newsletter published every Saturday that dives into the week’s noteworthy venture capital deals, funds and trends. Before I dive into this week’s topic, let’s catch up a bit. Last week, I wrote about the sudden uptick in beverage startup rounds. Before that, I noted an alternative to venture capital fundraising called revenue-based financing. Remember, you can send me tips, suggestions and feedback to kate.clark@techcrunch.com or on Twitter @KateClarkTweets.
Here’s what I’ve been thinking about this week: Unicorn scarcity, or lack thereof. I’ve written about this concept before, as has my Equity co-host, Crunchbase News editor-in-chief Alex Wilhelm. I apologize if the two of us are broken records, but I think we’re equally perplexed by the pace at which companies are garnering $1 billion valuations.
Here’s the latest data, according to Crunchbase: “2018 outstripped all previous years in terms of the number of unicorns created and venture dollars invested. Indeed, 151 new unicorns joined the list in 2018 (compared to 96 in 2017), and investors poured more than $135 billion into those companies, a 52% increase year-over-year and the biggest sum invested in unicorns in any one year since unicorns became a thing.”
2019 has already coined 42 new unicorns, like Glossier, Calm and Hims, a number that grows each and every week. For context, a total of 19 companies joined the unicorn club in 2013 when Aileen Lee, an established investor, coined the term. Today, there are some 450 companies around the globe that qualify as unicorns, representing a cumulative valuation of $1.6 trillion. 
We’ve clung to this fantastical terminology for so many years because it helps us classify startups, singling out those that boast valuations so high, they’ve gained entry to a special, elite club. In 2019, however, $100 million-plus rounds are the norm and billion-dollar-plus funds are standard. Unicorns aren’t rare anymore; it’s time to rethink the unicorn framework.
Last week, I suggested we only refer to profitable companies with a valuation larger than $1 billion as unicorns. Understandably, not everyone was too keen on that idea. Why? Because startups in different sectors face barriers of varying proportions. A SaaS company, for example, is likely to achieve profitability a lot quicker than a moonshot bet on autonomous vehicles or virtual reality. Refusing startups that aren’t yet profitable access to the unicorn club would unfairly favor certain industries.
So what can we do? Perhaps we increase the valuation minimum necessary to be called a unicorn to $10 billion? Initialized Capital’s Garry Tan’s idea was to require a startup have 50% annual growth to be considered a unicorn, though that would be near-impossible to get them to disclose…
While I’m here, let me share a few of the other eclectic responses I received following the above tweet. Joseph Flaherty said we should call profitable billion-dollar companies Pegasus “since [they’ve] taken flight.” Reagan Pollack thinks profitable startups oughta be referred to as leprechauns. Hmmmm.
The suggestions didn’t stop there. Though I’m not so sure adopting monikers like Pegasus and leprechaun will really solve the unicorn overpopulation problem. Let me know what you think. Onto other news.
Image by Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
CrowdStrike has set its IPO terms. The company has inked plans to sell 18 million shares at between $19 and $23 apiece. At a midpoint price, CrowdStrike will raise $378 million at a valuation north of $4 billion.
Slack inches closer to direct listing. The company released updated first-quarter financials on Friday, posting revenues of $134.8 million on losses of $31.8 million. That represents a 67% increase in revenues from the same period last year when the company lost $24.8 million on $80.9 million in revenue.
Online lender SoFi has quietly raised $500M led by Qatar
Groupon co-founder Eric Lefkofsky just-raised another $200M for his new company Tempus
Less than 1 year after launching, Brex eyes $2B valuation
Password manager Dashlane raises $110M Series D
Enterprise cybersecurity startup BlueVoyant raises $82.5M at a $430M valuation
Talkspace picks up $50M Series D
TaniGroup raises $10M to help Indonesia’s farmers grow
Stripe and Precursor lead $4.5M seed into media CRM startup Pico
Maveron, a venture capital fund co-founded by Starbucks mastermind Howard Schultz, has closed on another $180 million to invest in early-stage consumer startups. The capital represents the firm’s seventh fundraise and largest since 2000. To keep the fund from reaching mammoth proportions, the firm’s general partners said they turned away more than $70 million amid high demand for the effort. There’s more where that came from, here’s a quick look at the other VCs to announce funds this week:
This week, I penned a deep dive on Slack, formerly known as Tiny Speck, for our premium subscription service Extra Crunch. The story kicks off in 2009 when Stewart Butterfield began building a startup called Tiny Speck that would later come out with Glitch, an online game that was neither fun nor successful. The story ends in 2019, weeks before Slack is set to begin trading on the NYSE. Come for the history lesson, stay for the investor drama. Here are the other standout EC pieces of the week.
If you enjoy this newsletter, be sure to check out TechCrunch’s venture-focused podcast, Equity. In this week’s episode, available here, Crunchbase News editor-in-chief Alex Wilhelm and I debate whether the tech press is too negative or too positive in its coverage of tech startups. Plus, we dive into Brex’s upcoming round, SoFi’s massive raise and CrowdStrike’s imminent IPO.
Cade Metz / New York Times:
DeepMind researchers detail how they designed automated “agents” that exhibited humanlike behavior when playing the capture the flag game mode inside Quake III — Chess and Go were child's play. Now A.I. is winning at capture the flag. Will such skills translate to the real world?
Jeffrey Mervis / Science:
IEEE bans Huawei staff from journal article peer-reviews since papers may contain non-public Huawei ban-related info, keeps Huawei's other membership privileges — A major scientific society has banned employees of Huawei, the Chinese communications giant, from reviewing submissions …
Prior to 1976, London Cab Drivers Could Be Fined For Not Keeping What In Their Cab? |
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Amy Maxmen / Nature:
As anonymized phone records of millions of people in low-income countries are used in big data projects for saving lives, critics worry about potential misuse — Researchers have analysed anonymized phone records of tens of millions of people in low-income countries.
