Precursor Ventures, a 3.5-year-old, seed-stage investment firm in San Francisco, just closed its second fund with $31 million in capital commitments, roughly double what it raised for its debut effort in 2017. Somewhat amazingly, it has 75 portfolio companies to show from that first fund, and many more that it has been quietly funding with…
It’s been a long time since Sony was a leader in the mobile industry – certainly not after the rise of Android and iOS. In the years since it’s delivered some decent handsets under the Xperia family, but few that have truly stood out in an increasingly crowded market. But now Sony is looking for a…
Cybersecurity researcher at Google’s Project Zero division has publicly disclosed details and proof-of-concept exploit of a high-severity security vulnerability in macOS operating system after Apple failed to release a patch within 90 days of being notified. Discovered by Project Zero researcher Jann Horn and demonstrated by Ian Beer, the vulnerability resides in the way macOS…
Massive-scale predictive analytics is a relatively new phenomenon, one that challenges both decades of law as well as consumer thinking about privacy. As a technology, it may well save thousands of lives in applications like predictive medicine, but if it isn’t used carefully, it may prevent thousands from getting loans, for instance, if an underwriting…
Changes are afoot at WarnerMedia. Last week, Richard Pleper announced that he was leaving the CEO role at HBO, following reports that WarnerMedia and its new corporate parent AT&T were pushing for network to get bigger and broader. Turner President David Levy is also departing. Today, WarnerMedia announced that former NBC Entertainment Chairman Bob Greenblatt…
Sometimes the “smartest” gadgets come with the shoddiest security. Alan Monie, a security researcher at U.K. cybersecurity firm Pen Test Partners, bought and tested a pair of Chips 2.0 wireless speakers, built by California-based Outdoor Tech, only to find they’re a security nightmare. The in-helmet speakers allow users to listen to music on the go,…
Late last week, we announced the schedule for April 18’s TC Sessions: Robotics + AI event at U.C. Berkeley, including some heavy hitters like Marc Raibert, Melonee Wise and Ken Goldberg. At the time, we noted that still had some big names left to reveal — and we weren’t joking. Today we’re excited to announce…
As you may have gathered from our review of Samsung’s Galaxy S10, it’s a very solid phone with lots of advanced features. But one thing that’s especially difficult to test is the absolute quality of the displaymate — which is why we leave that part to the experts. And this expert says the S10’s screen…
The story we’re used to hearing is that women get paid less than men. In Google’s case, according to its own internal pay audit, it turned out male-identified Level 4 Software Engineers received less money than women in that same role. That led to Google paying $9.7 million to adjust pay for 10,677 employees. It’s…
Big four accountancy group PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has issued a special bulletin connecting the Iranian nationals behind notorious SamSam ransomware and the incredibly infamous cryptocurrency exchange WEX (formerly BTC-e). The report alleges SamSam creators Faramarz Shahi Savandi and Mohammad Mehdi Shah Mansouri used the WEX exchange service to launder sizable chunks of the $6 million in Bitcoin BTC generated…
