way to shortcut

Joanna Glasner Contributor More posts by this contributor VCs serve up a large helping of cash to startups disrupting food US startups off to a strong M&A run in 2018 T hese days, it seems like everyone with extra cash has some kind of pricey drinking habit. It might be fine wine, craft beer or cocktails. Or it could come in the form of coconut water, cold-pressed juice or the latest frothy caffeinated concoction. No matter what your preference, startups and their backers likely have you covered. In a follow-up to our  story  earlier this month about food startups gobbling up venture funding, Crunchbase News is taking a look at beverage companies guzzling capital. We found that while drinkables receive a smaller portion of funding than edibles, it’s still a sector that draws hundreds of millions of dollars in annual investment. Where are investors pouring all that money? Some unlikely places. For instance, it appears the largest funding recipient so far this year is

The device designed to capture your dreams and offer more creative waking lives. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2MCg33M

Nissan is accused of exaggerating the benefits of its latest Leaf electric car model. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2Kxj30F

TechCrunch is excited to announce that the Startup Battlefield Latin America is coming to São Paulo on November 8 this year. This is the first event TechCrunch has ever held in Latin America, and we are all in to make it a memorable one to support the fast-emerging startup ecosystem in the region. The Startup Battlefield is TechCrunch’s premier startup competition, which over the past 12 years has placed 750 companies on stage to pitch top VCs and TechCrunch editors. Those founders have gone on to raise more than $8 billion and produce more than 100 exits. Startup Battlefield Latin America aims to add 15 great founders from Latin America to those elite ranks. Here’s how the competition works. Founders may apply now  to participate in Startup Battlefield. Any early stage (pre-A round) company with a working product headquartered in an eligible Latin American country (see list below) may apply. Applications close August 6. TechCrunch editors will review the applications and, based on

5 ways to slash your smartphone bills Remember, a smartphone is a small computer, and computers are expensive. Even older-model phones can cost hundreds of dollars, never mind the $1,149 you'd have to pay for an iPhone X with 256GB, or the Samsung Galaxy S9, which costs upwards of $950.

A lapsed gamer is challenged to spend a fortnight playing Fortnite to understand its appeal. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2Myy5nq

The smart software will help media groups debunk fake news and respond to reports of violence. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2N9tWrr

By CECILIA KANG from NYT Technology https://ift.tt/2lK1MXg

Shak Lakhani, the  21-year-old chief executive and co-founder of Avro Life Science , started researching biomaterials when he was 15 years old. Every summer and after school the teenager would travel nearly two hours by bus and train from the Richmond Hill neighborhood of Toronto where he lived to the tissue engineering lab at the University of Toronto and develop three-dimensional, in-vitro models of tumors using biomaterials. For three years, Lakhani worked in the lab, before going on to study nanotechnology engineering at the University of Waterloo a short 73 miles away. It was there, in his first year, that Lakhani met another Richmond Hill resident, Keean Sarani, and launched Avro Life Science. Sarani, also 21, had his own history in life sciences. A former epidemiologist who worked as a research assistant at the aptly named Hospital for Sick Children, Sarani spent his high school years working in community pharmacies before going on to graduate from the University of Waterloo

Navy solidifies plans to buy its 4th Ford-class aircraft carrier in mid-2020s The Navy is finalizing plans to build its fourth Ford-Class aircraft carrier in the mid-2020s as a substantial step in a long-term plan to extend surface warfare power projection for the next 100 years - all the way into the 2100s.

Anonymous browsing, converting slides, mosquito repelling apps and more: Tech Q&A I value my privacy. I hate all the tracking that happens online. Is there any way I can stop it for good?

Cashify , a company that buys and sells used smartphones, is the latest India startup to raise capital from Chinese investors after it announced a $12 million Series C round. Chinese funds  CDH Investments and Morningside led the round, which included participation from  Aihuishou , a China-based startup that sells used electronics in a similar way to Cashify and has raised more than $120 million. Existing investors, including Bessemer Ventures and Shunwei, also took part in the round. This new capital takes Cashify to $19 million raised to date. The business was started in 2013 by co-founders Mandeep Manocha (CEO), Nakul Kumar (COO) and Amit Sethi (CTO) initially as ReGlobe. The business gives consumers a fast way to sell their existing electronics; it deals mainly in smartphones but also takes laptops, consoles, TVs and tablets. “When we began we saw a lot of transaction for phone sales moving from offline to online,” Manocha told TechCrunch in an interview. “But consumer-to-c

By JOHN MARKOFF from NYT Technology https://ift.tt/2tRYvsA

Jake Bright Contributor Jake Bright is a writer and author in New York City. He is co-author of The Next Africa . More posts by this contributor Breaking down France’s new $76M Africa startup fund Africa Roundup: African startup investments turn to fintech this winter season When Nigerian logistics startup  Kobo360 interviewed for Y Combinator’s 2018 cohort, a question stood out to founder Obi Ozor. “What’s holding you back from becoming a unicorn?,” they asked. “My answer was simple,” said Ozor. “Working capital.” Kobo360 was accepted into YC’s 2018 class and gained some working capital in the form of $1.2 million in pre-seed funding led by  Western Technology Investment  announced recently. Lagos-based  Verod Capital Management  also joined to support Kobo360. The startup — with an Uber -like app that connects Nigerian truckers to companies with freight needs — will use the funds to pay drivers online immediately after successful hauls. Kobo360 is also launching th

Earlier today we revealed that Apple was re-building maps from the ground up. These are some questions from readers that came up when we went live. You can ask more questions here and I’ll try to add them. What part of Maps will be new? The actual map. Apple is building them from scratch, with its own data rather than relying on external partners. What does that mean in terms of what I’ll see? New foliage markers, showing you where ground cover like grass and trees exists more accurately. Pools, parking lots, exact building shapes, sports areas like baseball diamonds, tennis and basketball courts and pedestrian pathways that are commonly walked but previously unmapped. There are also some new features like the ability to determine where the entrances are to buildings based on maps data. Will it look visually different? Only with regards to additional detail. Maps is not getting a visual “overhaul” yet (it was implied that it will eventually) but you’ll notice differences immed

Two sites that are actively cataloging failed crypto projects, Coinopsy and DeadCoins , have found that over a 1,000 projects have failed so far in 2018. The projects range from true abandonware to outright scams and include BRIG , a scam by two “brothers,” Jack and Jay Brig, and Titanium , a project that ended in an SEC investigation. Obviously any new set of institutions must create their own sets of rules and that is exactly what is happening in the blockchain world. But when faced with the potential for massive token fundraising, bigger problems arise. While everyone expects startups to fail, the sheer amount of cash flooding these projects is a big problem. When a startup has too much fuel too quickly the resulting conflagration ends up consuming both the company and the founders and there is little help for the investors. These conflagrations happen everywhere are a global phenomenon. Scam and dead ICOs raised $1 billion in 2017 with 297 questionable startups in the mix. The

Say you have a job with a large company and you want to know how much vacation time you have left, or how to add your new baby to your healthcare. This usually involves emailing or calling HR and waiting for an answer, or it could even involve crossing multiple systems to get what you need. Leena AI , a member of the Y Combinator Summer 2018 class, wants to change that by building HR bots to answer question for employees instantly. The bots can be integrated into Slack or Workplace by Facebook and they are built and trained using information in policy documents and by pulling data from various back-end systems like Oracle and SAP. Adit Jain, co-founder at Leena AI says the company has its roots in another startup called Chatteron, that the founders started after they got out of college in India in 2015. That product helped people build their own chatbots. Jain says along the way, they discovered while doing their market research, a particularly strong need in HR. They started Leena

This orange, squishy body armor material could save lives It’s bright orange, it’s squishy, it stretches like taffy – and it is unlike any body armor you’ve ever seen.

It’s been more than four years since “The Hard Thing About Hard Things” was published and it remains — including to minds of many of us at TechCrunch — one of the best, most authentic, most instructive business books ever written. It’s partly for this reason that we’re so excited to announce its author, Ben Horowitz, cofounder of the venture firm Andreessen Howoritz, is coming to Disrupt this September. Why do people care about Horowitz’s management advice, as opposed to many other venture capitalists? Much of it boils down his operating experiences and his candid descriptions of his ups and downs on the job. Horowitz, for example, was the cofounder and CEO of Opsware (formerly Loudcloud), which was acquired by Hewlett-Packard in 2007 for $1.6 billion. But as Horowitz has very publicly elucidated, Opsware looked like a goner more than once, including when one of its biggest clients shut down in the aftermath of the dot.com bubble’s implosion. Horowitz also ran several product divisi

Apple to challenge Amazon Prime with new all-in-one subscription Apple is eyeing a completely new way of delivering its many digital services to customers, according to a new report.

I’m not sure if you’re aware, but the launch of Apple Maps went poorly. After a rough first impression , an apology from the CEO , several years of patching holes with data partnerships and some glimmers of light with long-awaited transit directions  and improvements in business, parking and place data , Apple Maps is still not where it needs to be to be considered a world class service. Maps needs fixing. Apple, it turns out, is aware of this, so It’s re-building the maps part of Maps. It’s doing this by using first-party data gathered by iPhones with a privacy-first methodology and its own fleet of cars packed with sensors and cameras. The new product will launch in San Francisco and the Bay Area with the next iOS 12 Beta and will cover Northern California by fall. Every version of iOS will get the updated maps eventually and they will be more responsive to changes in roadways and construction, more visually rich depending on the specific context they’re viewed in and feature m

TrendKite is making its first two acquisitions — according to CEO Erik Huddleston, they give the company “the last two components” needed for a complete PR analytics platform. Until now, TrendKite’s main selling point was the ability to look at the articles written about a company and measure things like the audience reached and the impact on brand awareness. But while that kind of journalistic coverage remains important, Huddleston said, “The world now is more complicated in terms of who has influence on the public.” That’s where Insightpool and its database of social media influencers comes in, allowing PR teams to find and pitch influencers who can help spread the company’s story. Union Metrics , meanwhile, provides social media analytics . As Huddleston put it, “they do the same analytics about the conversation around the story as we do around the media coverage.” With these acquisitions, he said TrendKite can build deeper integrations with products that were already being

The retailer is testing whether shoppers can buy products using an app, rather than visiting a till. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2ySumz1

Google might be planning a console. That doesn’t mean it will happen A new report suggests that Google is working on a game console, code-named Yeti. The reports about Google's game console are likely true, but that doesn't mean we will ever see it.

SimpliSafe , the company behind the well-received SimpliSafe home security service , today announced that Hellman & Friedman , the massive venture fund and private equity firm, has taken a controlling interest in the company. While the two companies didn’t disclose the terms of the transaction, sources close to SimpliSafe tell us that the deal valued the company at about $1 billion. Hellman & Friedman also currently own a number of other brands. ranging from Grocery Outlet to insurance software specialist Applied Systems (and which owned companies like Getty Images, Scout24 and others in the past ). Ahead of today’s announcement, SimpliSafe had raised about $57 million, mostly thanks to a funding round led by Sequoia Capital in 2014 . The deal is expected to close in the third quarter of 2018, “subject to the waiting period under the HSR Act and other customary closing conditions.” There will be no changes in the company’s leadership due to this acquisition. Hellman &

By J. D. BIERSDORFER from NYT Technology https://ift.tt/2MxtYYJ

By BRIAN X. CHEN from NYT Technology https://ift.tt/2Kz5MrC

Massive DOJ operation nabs illicit Darknet vendors The Department of Justice along with other agencies said a year-long campaign nabbed more than 35 Darknet vendors trafficking in illicit goods.

French startup Doctrine is raising a $11.6 million funding round (€10 million) from existing investors Otium Venture and Xavier Niel. Doctrine is building a search engine for court decisions and other legal texts. This is a key tool if you’re a lawyer or you’re working in the legal industry in general. There are now a thousand companies using the service. It currently costs around €129 per user per month. A little back-of-the-envelope calculation lets you see that Doctrine currently has a monthly recurring revenue of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Doctrine competes with Dalloz and LexisNexis. These databases have been hugely popular because it’s been so hard to list court decisions. Not only Doctrine managed to get a ton of data, but they also have better technology to search through all these entries. France is currently trying to share as much open data as possible. Eventually, court decisions could be accessible to anyone. But there are many challenges to overcome as each d

The US law is hitting the people it was supposed to protect, argue digital rights campaigners. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2KxBrKe

The ball-shaped robot that can move around in zero gravity blasts off to the International Space Station. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2KBqDed

Ryde Technologies says 2,000 "phantom bookings" have cost its drivers thousands of dollars. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2IAYoXC

And there we have it: Bird, one of the emerging massively-hyped Scooter startups, has roped in its next pile of funding by picking up another $300 million in a round led by Sequoia Capital. The company announced the long-anticipated round this morning, with Sequoia’s Roelof Botha joining the company’s board of directors. This is the second round of funding that Bird has raised over just the span of a few months, sending it from a reported $1 billion valuation in May to a $2 billion valuation by the end of June. In March, the company had a $300 million valuation , but the Scooter hype train has officially hit a pretty impressive inflection point as investors pile on to get money into what many consider to be the next iteration of resolving transportation at an even more granular level than cars or bikes. New investors in the round include  Accel, B Capital, CRV, Sound Ventures, Greycroft and e.ventures, and previous investors  Craft Ventures, Index Ventures, Valor, Goldcrest, Tusk Ve

Amazon is buying PillPack Watch out, CVS and Walgreens: Amazon on Thursday announced plans to acquire PillPack for an undisclosed sum.

M12 , Microsoft’s venture fund which was previously simply known as Microsoft Ventures, has been making a series of investments in the last few weeks. Today, it’s leading a $5 million Series A round into Cerebri AI , a startup that uses machine learning to help companies track, analyze and predict their customer’s behavior. The University of Texas Horizon Fund, WorldQuant Ventures and Leawood Venture Capital also participated in this round for the Austin-based startup, which brings Cerebri’s total funding to date to $10 million. The company plans to use the fresh cash to expand its operations. Microsoft’s involvement here is maybe no major surprise, given the company’s interest in machine learning and that the Cerebri platform sits on top of Microsoft Azure. “Cerebri has created a product that is fundamentally changing how customer-facing sales and success professionals can analyze the customer journey,”  said Elliott Robinson, a partner at  M12. “ By enabling companies to follow