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Five UK broadband and landline providers will now compensate users when services do not work. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2TOILl2

By ERIN GRIFFITH from NYT Technology https://ift.tt/2JReGBP

Crypto promoter unmasked, accused of fraud in luring investors A crypto promoter was unmasked and being accused of fraud in luring investors via YouTube.

Crypto promoter unmasked, accused of fraud in luring investors via YouTube A New York City crypto promotor seen wearing in an Anonymous hacktivist mask in a YouTube video promoting his company has been accused of fraud, according to reports.

The 7 technological wonders of the 21st century The Royal Academy of Engineering in the U.K. has come up with a list of the seven engineering wonders of the 21st century.

Watch out for these clever tax scams In a few weeks, the dreaded tax season will be over. We loathe those oddly titled documents with the tiny print. We wonder what number – refund or remainder – those mysterious equations will spit out. As more of us sign up as part-time contractors, driving for Lyft and selling crafts on Etsy, our taxes get more complicated. We get anxious.

An investigator working for Jeff Bezos says Saudi Arabia accessed data on the Amazon boss's phone. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2JT8IAx

By MIKE ISAAC from NYT Technology https://ift.tt/2TJkFIG

By KAREN WEISE from NYT Technology https://ift.tt/2I08CUZ

By KAREN WEISE from NYT Technology https://ift.tt/2UneIFv

Mark Zuckerberg writes an open letter calling for new laws to monitor internet content. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2WF2qGd

Jason Rowley Contributor Jason Rowley is a venture capital and technology reporter for Crunchbase News . More posts by this contributor To get big faster, younger unicorns start buying startups sooner Small VC funds continue to raise, despite pressure from above After years of fierce competition as private companies, Uber and Lyft are  going public  on U.S. markets. Scooter service providers, the transportation trend du jour,  raised hundreds of millions of dollars to scatter scooters on city sidewalks (to the chagrin of residents and regulators alike) throughout 2017 and 2018. On the other side of the Pacific, Grab  and  Go-Jek  are  raising gobs of cash  as they continue to scale upward and outward. Of all the seed, early and late-stage venture funding raised over the past couple of years, how much of the total went to companies in the ride-hailing, food delivery and last-mile transportation categories (which encompasses bikes and scooters)? Probably not as much as you

Lyft completed its long-awaited IPO this week , trading 21 percent higher Friday than its initial offering price of $72 per share . It closed its first day of trading at about $78 per share, up roughly 9 percent. I spoke to IPO guru Brian Hamilton, the CEO of banking software company Sageworks, about Lyft’s offering to get a sense of how Wall Street views the buzzworthy tech unicorn. As I wrote earlier this week, Wall Street doesn’t seem to care about profitability , prioritizing growth instead. Lyft is definitely growing, quickly, and working hard to shrink its losses. Hamilton said the price per share was reasonable, and, given Lyft’s positive cash flows, he seemed confident the company will fare well on the Nasdaq this year. He was especially clear about one thing: Lyft’s offering is nothing like Snap’s. “The camera company,” if you remember, had posted only $404.5 million in revenue ahead of its IPO, which valued it at $23.8 billion: “It’s not crazy land; it’s not nuts; it’s not

Hackers can take over heart devices, DHS warns Any connected device these days is a potential target of hackers — and that now includes defibrillators.

Cyberwar, discount cables and more: Tech Q&A An annoying co-worker sent an important email. I never got it. Later, I found it my junk folder. How can I make sure this does not happen again? He was gloating over my mistake.

6 spring gadgets to help you enjoy the warmer weather The snow is finally melting and the sun is shining. That can mean only one thing for tech lovers: Time to get outside and enjoy the weather, relying on these trendy gadgets to help you stay connected with the world, get into shape, and spend time with friends and family.

Whatever Happened to the National Do Not Call Registry? Legislators tried to tackle the scourge of robocalls in 2003, but violators weren't phased by civils fines; Jacqui Heinrich reports from New York.

Restaurant sales hit $825 billion last year in the U.S. , but with margins averaging at only three to five percent per business, they’re always looking for an edge on efficiency and just generally running things in a smarter way. A startup called Toast , which has built a popular platform for restaurant management, has closed a hefty round of funding to double down on that opportunity to do that. The company has raised $250 million on a valuation of $2.7 billion, money that it will use to invest in building technology to help restaurants with marketing, recruitment and operational efficiency, as well as start to think about expanding to more territories outside the U.S. The basics of the funding were flagged earlier today by Prime Unicorn Index and we reached out to the company to confirm. It is being led by TCV and Tiger Global Management, with participation from Bessemer Venture Partners and T. Rowe Price Associates funds and other existing investors. This Series E is a big bump u

Hello and welcome back to  Equity , TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. Sure, we just aired a new episode , but things keep happening, and after talking about this crop of IPOs for so long, we can’t help ourselves. (You can follow us on Twitter, here and here , by the way, if Equity isn’t enough for you.) Lyft, as you know, started trading today, closing the loop on a long saga that brought the smaller of the two domestic ride-hailing unicorns to the public markets. After so much speculation about which of the two would get out the door first, Lyft did, and now we get to see what sort of pricing shenanigans happen next. Does Uber drop rates and punish Lyft? Or does Uber work to cut its losses, lowering its expenses and providing a clearer path toward  profitability before its April IPO roadshow kicks off? (Not a path to profitability, mind; Uber and Lyft need to show a path to the direction of profitability first.)

Amid calls for a dozen different global cities to replace Silicon Valley — Austin, Beijing, London, New York — nobody has yet nominated “nowhere.” But it’s now a possibility. There are two trends to unpack here. The first is startups that are fully, or almost fully, remote, with employees distributed around the world. There’s a growing list of significant companies in this category: Automattic, Buffer, GitLab, Invision, Toptal and Zapier all have from 100 to nearly 1,000 remote employees. The second trend is nomadic founders with no fixed location. For a generation of founders, moving to Silicon Valley was de rigueur . Later, the emergence of accelerators and investors worldwide allowed a wider range of potential home bases. But now there’s a third wave: a culture of traveling with its own, growing support networks and best practices. You don’t have to look far to find startup gurus and VCs who strongly advise against being remote, much less a nomad. The basic reasoning is simple:

Chinese firm selling dating app Grindr amid national security concerns A Chinese firm is seeking to sell the popular gay dating app Grindr after a U.S. government national security council deemed the app a security risk, Reuters reported Tuesday.

Pink confetti fell from the ceiling Friday as Lyft co-founders Logan Green and John Zimmer celebrated their company’s IPO. The stock offering was a bonafide success, with shares selling for $87.24 apiece Friday morning — 21 percent higher than Lyft’s initial $72 share price — and closing at about $79 per share. Lyft raised roughly $2.3 billion Thursday evening, hours before ringing the opening bell of the Nasdaq on Friday around noon Pacific. The IPO gave Lyft an initial market cap of about $24 billion, representing an 11x revenue multiple and a 1.6x step-up from its most recent private valuation of $15.1 billion.  On Bloomberg TV, Lyft’s co-founders discussed the company’s long-term prospects, including international growth, autonomous vehicle plans, the future of car ownership and insurance. “We are confident that the business will be very profitable,” Green told Emily Chang. “We are making tremendous progress going after this once-in-a-generation shift where this entire industr

Apple has canceled the AirPower product completely, citing difficulty meeting its own standards. “After much effort, we’ve concluded AirPower will not achieve our high standards and we have cancelled the project. We apologize to those customers who were looking forward to this launch. We continue to believe that the future is wireless and are committed to push the wireless experience forward,” said Dan Riccio, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Engineering in an emailed statement today. After a delay of over a year since it was first announced in September of 2017, the AirPower charging mat has become something of a focal point for Apple’s recent habit of announcing envelope tickling products and not actually shipping them on time. The AirPods, famously, had a bit of a delay before becoming widely available, and were shipped in limited quantities before finally hitting their stride and becoming a genuine cultural moment. AirPower, however, has had far more time to marinate i

1stdibs began pushing the antiques business into the 21st century long ago. Apparently, investors think it can push further and faster with $76 million in new funding. That’s how much the now-18-year-old, New York-based company says it just closed on for its Series D round, led by T. Rowe Price Associates, with participation from earlier backers Index Ventures, Benchmark and Spark Capital. The company now boasts a valuation of well over $500 million, it tells the WSJ . 1stdibs has always been an interesting startup, one that’s both loved by the antiques dealers who use it, and, apparently, feared. When, in 2016, 1stdibs became heavier-handed about enforcing the commissions from each sale on its platform — and on which it relies for revenue — more than 30 dealers reportedly met at a design store in lower Manhattan to grouse about the development , complaining that the company had begun prizing revenue growth over its relationships. Of course, with venture-capital funding — and the

Political parties, campaigns and brands can’t get an accurate and cost-effective understanding of opinion in small geographic areas, like the constituencies of lawmakers. This is a big problem in political campaigning. And all political campaigning now has a huge online element, as we know. We also know political turbulence is one of the defining themes of our age. But one thing is clear: All the players want faster, cheaper, more accurate and a more granular understanding of consumers and voters. In the age of AI, survey predictions are influenced as much as so many other machine-learning technology products. Focaldata is a U.K. startup that thinks it has some of the answers to these quandaries. Their integrated consumer analytics and survey workflow application claims to give customers a more accurate and granular picture of consumers than traditional polling using machine learning. At the same time, they say their workflow software cuts down on the cost and time that market resea

Lyft shares, Apple TV+, and those times when tech gets it right. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2TIeXXh

Investigators are looking into claims that a killing was arranged and paid for via covert net forums. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2CI4aH6

I’ve never had a meeting quite like the one I had with Built Robotics . Within about 10 minutes of meeting Built’s co-founder Noah Ready-Campbell, we’re steering an 80,000-pound construction excavator around what is basically his company’s back yard. He wants me to see what it’s like to drive one; how much skill and finesse it takes to safely and efficiently move mountains of dirt around with this massive machine. The answer? Lots. That’s why his company wants these machines to drive themselves. Built is taking the concepts and technology that others are using to build self-driving cars and adapting them for a whole different vertical: construction. They’ve built a kit that retrofits existing construction equipment with hardware like lidar, GPS and Wi-Fi, giving it the ability to autonomously map and navigate its surroundings. Rather than trying to build its own dozers and excavators and fight its way into an already dominated market, Built is aiming to make a kit that works acro

By KATE CONGER and MICHAEL J. de la MERCED from NYT Technology https://ift.tt/2uBkJ2O

By KEVIN ROOSE from NYT Technology https://ift.tt/2YAUask

A year ago, Apple acquired the digital newsstand app Texture to form the basis of its new subscription-based service, Apple News+, which launched on Monday. As some have expected, the standalone Texture app will soon shut down as a result. According to emails sent to current Texture subscribers pointing to a FAQ on the company’s website, Texture’s last day of service will be May 28, 2019. Existing customers will be offered a one-month free trial to Apple News+ to make the jump. A closure like this was bound to come. It doesn’t make sense for Apple to continue to operate both Texture and Apple News. But not everyone is thrilled about this change, of course. Specifically, Android users and other subscribers without any Apple devices will now no longer have a way to access Texture, they’ve realized. That means they’ll lose access to the service entirely when it closes down in May ( unless they buy a Mac or iOS device .) @texture I'm not happy about this. I'm able to save

Nativo has acquired SimpleReach , a move that Nativo CEO Justin Choi said will pair his company’s distribution system for native ads with SimpleReach’s measurement tools. “If you can’t measure the impact of something, it’s difficult to scale spend in that area,” Choi told me. “When we say measurement we’re actually talking about connecting content to outcomes.” To be clear, Nativo already offers measurement tools of its own, but apparently they’re limited to content that the brand or marketer is publishing on their own sites. SimpleReach, on the other hand, can measure sponsored content programs published elsewhere on the web, so Choi said it provides a “complementary measurement technology.” Both Nativo and SimpleReach are long-standing players ( and partners ) in the native advertising and content marketing industry. Choi said Nativo has succeeded by “focusing on content,” and on the “mid-funnel” of the customer purchase journey. “Almost all our relationships involve … the actu

Google pulls gay conversion therapy app from Play Store following outcry Google has pulled a controversial conversion therapy app from its Play Store following an outcry from LGBTQ groups.

If you took the photos and videos out of pornography, could it appeal to a new audience? Caroline Spiegel’s first startup Quinn aims to bring some imagination to adult entertainment. Her older brother, Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel, spent years trying to convince people his app wasn’t just for sexy texting. Now Caroline is building a website dedicated to sexy text and audio. The 22-year-old college senior tells TechCrunch that on April 13th she’ll launch Quinn , which she describes as “a much less gross, more fun Pornhub for women”. TechCrunch checked out Quinn’s private beta site , which is pretty bare bones right now. Caroline tells us she’s already raised under a million dollars for the project. But given her brother’s success spotting the next generation’s behavior patterns and turning them into beloved products, Caroline might find investors are eager to throw cash at Quinn. That’s especially true given she’s taking a contrarian approach. There will be no imagery on Quinn. Caroline

It’s not uncommon to hear CEOs and business leaders talk about focusing on the consumer. But the only way to build for the consumer is to hear what they want, which can be a resource-intensive thing to retrieve. User Interviews , an ERA-backed company out of New York, is looking to lighten that load with a fresh $5 million in seed funding from Accomplice, Las Olas, FJ Labs, and ERA. User Interviews actually started out as Mobile Suites, an amenities logistics platform for hotels. It was a dud, and the team — Basel Fakhoury, Dennis Meng and Bob Saris — decided to do far more user research before determining the next product. In the process of talking to customers to understand their pain points, they realized just how difficult collecting user feedback could be. That’s how User Interviews was born. The platform’s first product, called Recruit, offers a network of non-users that can be matched with companies to provide feedback. In fact, User Interviews’ first sales were made by simp

Hello and welcome back to  Equity , TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This week we had the full gang around, with Connie Loizos in the studio with Kate Clark and our guest Barrett Cohn from Scenic Advisement. Alex was on the line from Providence. Lucky for us, news of Lyft’s IPO pricing broke right before we hit record. That shook things up a bit, but it was far better to have it break as we were getting our notes together rather than after we kicked off. Let’s start there. Lyft is going out at $72 per share , the top-end of its boosted range. The firms fully diluted $24 billion valuation (give or take) will be supported by around $2.4 billion in new capital, giving Lyft fresh runway to continue its expensive growth strategy. Next, we turned to podcast industry stalwart Casper. Fret not podcast fans, the D2C mattress company has $100 million more in the bank , a fresh $1.1 billion valuation and IPO plans on the ho

Amazon Prime subscribers get a year of Nintendo Switch Online for free There's a good chance of some overlap between those of you who subscribe to Amazon Prime and also happen to have a Nintendo Switch in your home.

NASA is paying 24 people $19G to stay in bed NASA has created the perfect job for anyone who really enjoys staying in bed all day, as long as they don't mind continuing to do just that for 60 days without a break.

By JAMIE CONDLIFFE from NYT Technology https://ift.tt/2I0o2Ze

The new rules, are part of attempts by the social network to clamp down on election abuse. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2uzwJ4V

The former programmer could get a jail sentence of nine years for stealing terabytes of sensitive data. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2V5UVHY

The company faces a fine of 250,000 euros per day for not complying with a request to delete personal data. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2UjrIfk

By RAYMOND ZHONG from NYT Technology https://ift.tt/2HMbTIk

Betaworks Studios, the brainchild of New York City seed-stage venture capital fund Betaworks, has amassed the support of WeWork, or The We Company, as they now call themselves. JLL Spark Ventures and the co-working giant have led co-led a $4.4 million investment in the membership-based co-working club described as a supportive community for builders. Launched in 2018 , Betaworks Studios offers entrepreneurs, artists, engineers and creatives a place to work on projects and accumulate a network, similar to a WeWork hub. Betaworks Ventures, which filed today to raise a $75 million sophomore fund , and BBG Ventures have also participated in the funding for Betaworks Studio, which previously raised a pre-seed round led by BBG. Founded in 2008 by John Borthwick, Betaworks operates an investment fund, an accelerator and builds companies internally with spinouts including Giphy, Digg and Bit.ly. The idea for Betaworks Studios was to expand its resources and network to the greater entrepre

By CECILIA KANG from NYT Technology https://ift.tt/2FId6OE

DoorDash  launched a new initiative today called Kitchens Without Borders, which it says is designed to promote business owners who are immigrants and refugees. It’s starting out with 10 restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area: Besharam, Z Zoul Cafe, Onigilly, Los Cilantros, Sabores Del Sur, West Park Farm & Sea, Little Green Cyclo, Afghan Village, D’Maize, and Sweet Lime Thai Cuisine. The entrepreneurs behind each of these businesses is profiled on the Kitchens Without Borders site . Their restaurants will also get promoted within the DoorDash app, and they’ll receive $0 delivery fees for up to six weeks. A DoorDash spokesperson told me the initial 10 participants were selected from 60 applicants, and that the program will be expanding to include other restaurants across the country in the coming months. This announcement comes a month after DoorDash  announced that it had raised another $400 million in funding . The company also drew criticism earlier this year for its dr

By MICHAEL J. de la MERCED and KATE CONGER from NYT Technology https://ift.tt/2JMvr0X

Lyft raised more than $2 billion Thursday afternoon after pricing its shares at $72 apiece, the top of the expected range of $70 to $72 per share, CNBC reports . This gives Lyft a fully-diluted market value of $24 billion. The company will debut on the Nasdaq stock exchange Friday morning, trading under the ticker symbol “LYFT.” The initial public offering is the first-ever for a ride-hailing business and represents a landmark liquidity event for private market investors, who had invested billions of dollars in the San Francisco-based company. In total, Lyft had raised $5.1 billion in debt and equity funding, reaching a valuation of $15.1 billion last year. Lyft’s blockbuster IPO is unique for a number of reasons, in addition to being amongst transportation-as-a-service companies to transition from private to public. Lyft has the largest net losses of any pre-IPO business, posting losses of $911 million on revenues of $2.2 billion in 2018. However, the company is also raking in the

Two years ago, former Amazon product manager Xiao Wang stood on the stage at TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco and made the case for a platform meant to help couples apply for marriage green cards, a complex process made worse by bureaucracy and red tape. Called Boundless , the startup had spun out of Seattle startup studio Pioneer Square Labs and raised a $3.5 million seed round. Now, Foundry Group’s Brad Feld has led a $7.8 million Series A in the startup, with participation from existing investors Trilogy Equity Partners, PSL, Two Sigma Ventures and Founders’ Co-Op. “Families have really only had two choices, they could spend weeks or months trying to figure this out on their own, or they can spend thousands and thousands of dollars on an immigration attorney,” Wang, Boundless co-founder and chief executive officer, told TechCrunch. “What we are trying to do is basically give everyone access to the information, the tools and the support that was previously only available to thos