Klook, a Hong Kong-based startup developing a travel activities platform, has pulled in $200 million in new capital to fuel a major expansion into the U.S. and Europe. A spokesperson confirmed to TechCrunch that the round values the company at more than $1 billion, although the company didn’t provide an exact figure. Klook sets out…
Amazon said today it is working with the Federal Trade Commission’s investigation into consumer fraud allegedly committed by Sellers Playbook, a Minnesota-based business that claimed to help Amazon sellers make more money. FTC and the state of Minnesota announced today that they have charged Sellers Playbook and its owner Jessie Tieva and CEO Matthew Tieva,…
As popular as Pokémon GO is, it has always been missing one major feature: pitting your Pokémon directly against another trainer’s. Strange, since that was the entire basis of the franchise to begin with! But the mobile game will at last get this much-requested feature by the end of the year, the company told Polish…
The removal of conspiracy enthusiast content by InfoWars brings us to an interesting and important point in the history of online discourse. The current form of Internet content distribution has made it a broadcast medium akin to television or radio. Apps distribute our cat pics, our workouts, and our YouTube rants to specific audiences of followers,…
Another acquisition for French carpooling platform BlaBlaCar: It’s picked up Russian Internet giant Mail.Ru’s relatively recent rival offering, BeepCar, in what’s being billed as both an acquisition and a partnership. BlaBlaCar says the move is aimed at consolidating its international growth. “Through this acquisition, we are doubling down our commitment to develop carpooling in Russia,…
Is the dystopian future of shoestrong budget weaponized drone attacks here already? The BBC and AP are reporting claims by the Venezuela government of an assassination attempt on its president using a couple of drones carrying explosives. President Nicolás Maduro was giving a speech at a military event in Caracas which was being screened live on television…
Apple touts the cybersecurity of its iPhone, but less can be said for the exclusive manufacturer who makes the processor for the iPhone. Semiconductor foundry TSMC, or Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, was hit by a virus late Friday night, which forced it to shut down several factories according to Debbie Wu at Bloomberg. The virus…
“I tried walking around in a Homer mask, but the latex is hard to breathe in. My head gets so sweaty and my glasses fog up. It’s not worth it for me,” Matt Groening laughs. “But what a way to go, suffocating on a Homer Simpson mask.” The cartoonist bemoans his inability to go incognito…
Sometimes smart contracts can be pretty dumb. All of the benefits of a cryptographically secured, publicly verified, anonymized transaction system can be erased by errant code, malicious actors or poorly defined parameters of an executable agreement. Hoping to beat back the tide of bad contracts, bad code and bad actors, Sagewise, a new Los Angeles-based startup,…
A company called Rentlogic has raised $2.4 million to take the guesswork out of determining whether that cheap, beautiful New York apartment is actually a deathtrap wrapped in a brownstone’s clothing. Renting in New York is murder already, but using Rentlogic, apartment hunters can figure out if their new housing situation could actually kill them (or put them…
