Electric scooter startups Bird and Skip have landed permits to operate in Portland under a new pilot program that aims to gauge how the controversial form of micro-transportation will fit in the city. And already there’s a bit of drama, or call it skeptical-scooter feelings, scuttling about. The permits issued by Portland Bureau of Transportation…
Machine learning is everywhere these days, but it’s usually more or less invisible: it sits in the background, optimizing audio or picking out faces in images. But this new system is not only visible, but physical: it performs AI-type analysis not by crunching numbers, but by bending light. It’s weird and unique, but counter-intuitively, it’s…
When we called the ACLU’s Amazon’s Rekognition press release an “attention-grabbing stunt” when we wrote about it earlier today, well, consider that attention grabbed. Several Democratic members of Congress have responded with a strongly worded letter to founder Jeff Bezos. Reps. Jimmy Gomez and John Lewis issued a letter to Bezos, after the ACLU noted that…
If you missed the first few rounds of excitement about Nintendo’s mini nostalgia machines, you’ve got another shot at paying a normal price. Nintendo’s NES and SNES Classic consoles aren’t always easy to find, but they’re now available from Amazon for $59.99 (NES Classic) and $79.99 (SNES Classic). You can place an order for either…
With today’s announcement from Atlassian that it was selling the IP assets of its two enterprise communications tools, Hipchat and Stride, to Slack, it closes the book on one of the earliest competitors in the modern enterprise collaboration space. It was also a clear signal that Slack is not afraid to take on its giant…
President Trump today took to Twitter to do what he does best: Make false, inflammatory statements as loudly as possible. Trump, though, only deserves part of the blame on this one. Twitter “SHADOW BANNING” prominent Republicans. Not good. We will look into this discriminatory and illegal practice at once! Many complaints. — Donald J. Trump…
Almost three years after the arrest of two young Dutch brothers, who pleaded guilty to their involvement in creating and distributing CoinVault ransomware malware, a district court in Rotterdam today sentenced them to 240 hours of community service. In 2015, the two suspects — Melvin (25-year-old) and Dennis van den B. (21-year-old) — were arrested…
The UK parliament has provided another telling glimpse behind the curtain of Facebook’s unregulated ad platform by publishing data on scores of pro-Brexit adverts which it distributed to UK voters during the 2016 referendum on European Union membership. The ads were run on behalf of several vote leave campaigns who paid a third company to…
TechCrunch will partner with Greylock for Include Office Hours on September 4th from 2-4pm. The day before TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco, Greylock investors Sarah Guo, Saam Motamedi, Matt Heiman, and Seth Rosenberg will meet with underrepresented and underserved entrepreneurs to provide key feedback and advice. Founders, apply here! Founded in 2014, TechCrunch launched the Include…
Jeffrey Katzenberg’s new mobile video startup NewTV, which snagged Meg Whitman as CEO in January, has now closed on $1 billion in funding, according to a report out today in CNN. Investors in the round include Disney, 21st Century Fox, Warner Bros, Entertainment One and other media companies, with a combined $200 million investment, while institutional…
