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The technology that might one day transform our eating out experience. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/3ePY9ZZ

Can hydrogen - a relatively clean source of fuel - help power the economy of the future? from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2BXVWgc

It said the group seeks violence and is loosely affiliated with the far-right Boogaloo movement from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2VzwMvp

TransferWise , the London-headquartered international money transfer service recently valued at $3.5 billion , has secured an additional license with U.K. regulators to enable it to offer investment products in the future. This will mean that U.K. customers who have money deposited in a TransferWise multi-currency or so-called “borderless” account will be given the option to make that money work harder on their behalf. Total deposits currently sit at £2 billion, so there is quite a lot of customer cash potentially idle. However, the company isn’t revealing much detail on its future investments product, except to say that it will initially offer “simple, affordable funds from reputable providers” so that customers can earn a return on their balances. Up to £85,000 of money held as investments within a TransferWise account per customer will be protected under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. The new offering is still in development and will launch “in the next 12 months.”

Hunters, a Tel Aviv-based cybersecurity startup that helps enterprises defend themselves from intruders and analyze attacks, today announced that it has raised a $15 million Series A funding round from Microsoft’s M12 and U.S. Venture Partners. Seed investors YL Ventures and Blumberg Captial also participated in this round, as well as new investor Okta Ventures, the venture arm of identity provider Okta. With this, Hunters has now raised a total of $20.4 million . The company’s SaaS platform basically automates the threat-hunting processes, which has traditionally been a manual process. The general idea here is to take as much data from an enterprise’s various networking and security tools to detect stealth attacks. “Hunters is basically this layer, a cognitive layer or connective tissue that you put on top of your telemetry stack,” Hunters co-founder and CEO Uri May told me. “So you have your [endpoint detection and response], your firewalls, cloud, production environment sensors

Welcome back to the second half of our two-part Boston investor survey. Catching you up, TechCrunch reached out to a host of Boston-area venture capitalists to get their take on the current state of their market, and what they think might be coming up in the future. More VCs than we initially anticipated got back to us, so we broke the survey into two pieces so that there was enough room to include everyone. Today, in contrast, we’re looking a little further ahead: Are they seeing green shoots? When is a recovery likely to begin? What’s making them feel hopeful in this tenuous era? Here’s who took part: Lily Lyman , Underscore VC Rudina Seseri , Glasswing Ventures Jamie Goldstein , Pillar VC The Victress Capital team ( Lori Cashman, Suzanne Norris, Kate Castle, Madeline Keulen, Molly Sellers ) Rob Go, NextView Ventures Bill Geary , Flare Capital Michael Greeley , Flare Capital Jeff Bussgang , Flybridge Ventures Neeraj Agrawal , Battery Ventures Boston VC’s vision of t

There’s a lot of complexity around managing data lakes in the cloud that often requires expensive engineering expertise. Upsolver, an early stage startup, wants to simplify all of that, so that a database administrator could handle it. Today the startup announced a $13 million Series A. Vertex Ventures US was lead investor with participation from Wing Venture Capital and Jerusalem Venture Partners. Today’s investment brings the total raised to $17 million, according to the company. Co-founder and CEO Ori Rafael says that as companies move data to the cloud and store it in data lakes, it becomes increasingly difficult to manage. The goal of Upsolver is to abstract away a lot of those management tasks and allow users to query the data using SQL, making it a lot more accessible. “The main criticism of data lakes over the years is they become data swamps. It’s very easy to store data there very cheaply, but making it [easy to query] and valuable is hard. For that you need a lot of eng

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The boss of European outdoor clothing firm Patagonia warns advertising may not return to Facebook. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/3eORGyj

In 2019, in the US alone, more than 10,000 startups raised more than $133 billion in venture funding , with a large proportion of that equity investments. Today, a company building a platform to help startups consider alternative routes to financing — specifically less dilutive options that give up less or no equity in the process — is announcing a round of funding of its own to ramp up its activity. Capital, which has built an AI-based platform called the “Capital Machine” that ingests details about your company to provide tips on how to optimise it and — if you make at least $5 million in annual recurring revenue — to provide offers of financing (typically between $5 million and $50 million, at a 5-15% interest rate, and typically within a day of asking for it), has raised a further $9 million, a “Seed 2” that it will use to continue expanding the Capital Machine’s functionality. The funding is coming from an interesting group of investors. It’s being led by AME Cloud Ventures (th

Video game avatars have been changed to display pro-Trump messages in a hack targeted at children. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/3iiAS4M

The organisers of one of the world's biggest car shows have seen weak demand for next year's event. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2Zgkucw

Willa , the Sweden and U.S.-based fintech that wants to help freelancers request payment and get paid immediately for a fee, has raised $3 million in funding. The company’s founders are former early members of Spotify’s growth team and also created influencer marketing platform Relatable. Leading the seed round is EQT Ventures. Also participating is ex-Atomico partner Mattias Ljungman’s Moonfire Ventures, Nordic Makers, Michael Hansen and Johan Lorenzen. Willa says the injection of cash will enable it to launch “Willa Pay,” an app that promises to remove the paperwork required when billing corporations for freelance work and comes with a payment process that claims to make it easier to collect payments. One you’ve completed a job, you use the Willa Pay app to enter the details of the work, how much you are supposed to get paid, and who you did the job for. Willa Pay then contacts the corporation and issues the paperwork. If you wish to get paid earlier than a corporation’s standard

By BY STEVE LOHR from NYT Technology https://ift.tt/3ihq9aQ

DeepSpin , a Berlin-based startup that is developing what it describes as a “next-generation, AI-powered MRI imaging machine”, has raised €600,000 in seed funding. Backing the round is APEX Digital Health, with participation from existing investors Entrepreneur First (EF) and SOSV, along with a number of unnamed angel investors. Including grants and earlier investment, it brings the total raised to €1 million pre-launch. DeepSpin is a graduate of EF’s company builder programme, where its two founders — Clemens Tepel, a former McKinsey consultant, and Pedro Freire Silva, a PhD researcher from KIT — decided to partner in September 2019. Freire Silva drew on his research into small-scale, mass-manufacturable MRI systems and pitched the idea to his future co-founder. “From the beginning I found the idea very intriguing and so we directly jumped into attempting to prove its feasibility,” says Tepel. “Within 4 weeks we were able to prove it in simulation, get industry-leading advisors o

The Indian government says it has banned 59 apps with links to China on national security grounds. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2VxTAM9

How to find everything Microsoft knows about you It’s no secret how much Big Tech companies know about all of us. I bet Google comes to mind first. Tap or click here to see everything Google has on you with one quick download.

The move comes as internet companies face a backlash over racist content and hate speech. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2NIj2KI

Uber has reportedly made an offer to buy food delivery service Postmates, according to The New York Times . According to the Times, the talks are still ongoing and the deal could fall through. For those that have been paying attention to Uber, this appetite is not new, albeit consistent. A little over a month ago, the ride-hailing company was reportedly pursuing an acquisition of Grubhub,   another food delivery company. Grubhub was ultimately acquired by Just Eat Takeaway in a  $7.3 billion deal , but only after the deal with Uber fell through over a variety of concerns. Food delivery market has set to benefit largely from the COVID-19 pandemic, as stores remain shuttered or switch operations to takeout only. Latest earnings from the public ride-hailing company show that its ride-hailing business is slowing while its food delivery service is growing like hell . Gross bookings for Uber Eats last quarter were $4.68 billion. So even though Uber still loses a ton of money ( $2.94 b

Despite the Wirecard fallout , German fintech startup solarisBank has raised a Series C funding round of $67.5 million (€60 million). Following today’s funding round, solarisBank is now valued at $360 million (€320 million). solarisBank doesn't have any consumer product directly. Instead, it offers financial services to other fintech companies through a set of APIs. With solarisBank, you can build a fintech startup and leverage solarisBank’s line of products to do the heavy lifting. It’s an infrastructure company in the banking space. While solarisBank might not be a familiar name, some of its clients have become quite popular. They include challenger banks, such as Tomorrow , Insha and a newcomer called Vivid , business banking startups, such as Penta and Kontist , trading app Trade Republic , cryptocurrency startups Bison and Bitwala , etc. Overall, solarisBank works with 70 companies that have attracted 400,000 clients in total. HV Holtzbrinck Ventures is leading the ro

Pentagon will deploy its new B-21 stealth bomber to Pacific The Pentagon plans to deploy its emerging B-21 stealth bomber in the Pacific as part of a decided effort to ensure technical superiority, sustain deterrence and, if needed, hold potential adversaries at risk. 

Army AI-enabled robots may fire weapons in war to defend against attacks What if artillery rounds, mini-drone swarms of explosives, rockets and even air-fired missiles are all approaching forward-positioned Army troops at the same time? Imagine that these incoming weapons are dispersed, varied and fast approaching. How do ground commanders avoid being overwhelmed and destroyed? Could AI help solve this lethal predicament? 

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Reddit bans page used by Trump supporters Reddit says the pro-Trump community hosted and promoted rule-breaking content, antagonized other communities and that the group's leaders have failed to meet basic expectations.

YouTube bans David Duke, Richard Spencer, more for hate speech YouTube has banned several prominent white supremacist channels, including those belonging to David Duke and Richard Spencer.

Jeff Bezos' Twitch temporarily bans Trump for 'hateful conduct' Streaming platform Twitch has temporarily banned President Trump’s account for 'hateful conduct' stemming from footage of the president’s speeches.

By BY KELLEN BROWNING AND JACK NICAS from NYT Technology https://ift.tt/3inOyf8

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As several big brands shun the social network, should Facebook be worried? from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/31rulyN

Ashley Paston Contributor Share on Twitter Ashley Paston  is an investor at  Bain Capital Ventures , where she invests primarily in financial technology and services companies.  If you have bought a house in the last decade, you likely started the process online. Perhaps you browsed for your future dream home on a website like Zillow or Realtor, and you may have been surprised by how quickly things moved from seeing a property to making an offer. When you reached the closing stage, however, things slowed to a crawl. Some of those roadblocks were anticipated, such as the process of getting a mortgage, but one likely wasn’t: the tedious and time-consuming process of obtaining title insurance — that is, insurance that protects your claim to home ownership should any claims arise against it after sale. For a product that is all but required to purchase a home, title insurance isn’t something many people know about until they have to pay for it and then wait up to two months

Today Personal Capital , a fintech company that had attracted over $265 million in private funding , announced that it is selling itself to Empower Retirement , a company that provides retirement services to other companies. The deal is worth $825 million upon closing, with another $175 million in what are described as “planned growth” incentives, according to a release. The deal is a likely win for Personal Capital . According to Forbes the firm was worth $660 million around the time of its Series F round of funds, which it raised in February of 2019. The company was valued at around $500 million in December of 2016 , meaning that investors who put capital in at that point, or before, likely did well on their investment. Venture groups who put capital in later, unless they had ratchets in place, likely didn’t make as much from the deal as they originally hoped. Regardless, a $1 billion all-inclusive exit is nothing to scoff at; Facebook once bought Instagram for that much money, an

Early-stage startups are confident of re-opening their offices in the wake of the COVID-19 within the next six months. But there will be changes. An exclusive survey compiled by Founders Forum , with TechCrunch, found 63% of those surveyed said they would only re-open in either 1-3 months or 3-6 months — even if the government advises that it is safe to do so before then. A minority have re-opened their offices, while 10% have closed their office permanently. However, there will clearly be long-term impact on the model of office working, with a majority of those surveyed saying they would now move to either a flexible remote working model (some with permanent offices, some without), but only a small number plan a “normal” return to work. A very small number plan to go fully “remote.” Many cited the continuing benefits of face-to-face interaction when trying to build the team culture so crucial with early-stage companies. Massive office closures during pandemic Of the 349 that answe

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In a new software update, Apple will alert iPhone owners when the clipboard is accessed by an app. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/3dKLBBw

The Indian government on Monday evening said it was banning 59 apps developed by Chinese firms over concerns that these apps were “engaged in activities which is prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, and security of state and public order” in what is the latest standoff between the two most populated nations in the world. ByteDance’s TikTok, which counts India as its biggest market , Community and Video Call apps from Xiaomi, which is the top smartphone vendor in India , UC Browser, UC News, Shareit, CM Browser, Club Factory (India’s third-largest e-commerce firm), ES File Explorer are among the 59 apps that India’s Ministry of Electronics and IT have ordered to ban. Tarun Pathak, an analyst at research firm Counterpoint, said the order would impact roughly one in three smartphone user in India. “The Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN) has also received many representations from citizens regarding security of data and breach of privacy impact

Zuoyebang, a Beijing-headquartered startup that runs an online learning app , said on Monday it has raised $750 million in a new financing round as investors demonstrate their continued trust in — and focus on — Asia’s booming edtech market. U.S. investment firm Tiger Global and Hong Kong-based private equity firm FountainVest Partners led the six-year-old startup’s Series E financing round. Existing investors — including SoftBank’s Vision Fund, Sequoia Capital China, Xiang He Capital and Qatar Investment Authority — also participated in the round, which brings the startup’s to-date raise to $1.33 billion. As we have previously noted in our coverage , Zuoyebang’s app helps students — ranging from kindergarten to 12th-grade — solve problems and understand complex concepts. The app, which offers online courses and runs live lessons, also allows students to take a picture of a problem, upload it to the app and get its solution. The startup claims it uses artificial intelligence to

Lord Puttnam warns the landmark online regulation law could be delayed until as late as 2024. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/3dHs0lR

Agora isn’t the only company headquartered outside the United States aiming to go public domestically this quarter. After catching up on Agora’s F-1 filing , the China-and-U.S.-based, API-powered tech company that went public last week , today we’re parsing DoubleDown Interactive’s  IPO document. The Exchange is a daily look at startups and the private markets for Extra Crunch subscribers; use code EXCHANGE to get full access and take 25% off your subscription . The mobile gaming company is targeting the NASDAQ and wants to trade under the ticker symbol “DDI.” As with Agora, DoubleDown filed an F-1 , instead of an S-1. That’s because it’s based in South Korea, but it’s slightly more complicated than that. DoubleDown was founded in Seattle, according to Crunchbase , before selling itself to DoubleU Games, which is based in South Korea. So, yes, the company is filing an F-1 and will remain majority-held by its South Korean parent company post-IPO, but this offering is more a local