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…
Finally a little justice for the scammers who prey on the unsuspecting. Twenty four more phone scammers have been received prison sentences of up to 20 years for fraud and money laundering. The extent of their efforts was truly staggering. One defendant, Miteshkumar Patel of Illinois received 240 months in prison followed by three years…
More posts by this contributor Update: EV startups Alta, Energica, and Zero could reboot the motorcycle industry MallforAfrica and DHL launch MarketPlace Africa global e-commerce site Kenya based Sokowatch aims to shake up the supply chain market for Africa’s informal retailers. The B2B e-commerce company closed a $2 million seed investment led by 4DX Ventures. Others to join…
The tech gods and goddesses must adore procrastinators, because we were suddenly compelled to extend our early-bird pricing on passes to Disrupt San Francisco 2018. It kills us to see folks paying more than necessary, so you now have until August 1 at midnight PST — another full week — to get your tickets and…
The pre-social media phenomenon that was early 2000s American Idol might be a weird place to spend a lot of focus when it comes to thinking about the future. But it’s also worth noting how little these types of shows adapted to build themselves into the fabric of live social commentary. Twitter has offered a…
Virtu, which is best known for its email encryption service for both enterprises and consumers, is announcing a partnership with Google today that will bring the company’s encryption technology to Google Drive. Only a few years ago, the company was still bolting its solution on top of Gmail without Google’s blessing, but these days, Google…
For the past few months, Facebook has been testing something it calls “Watch Party”. It’s a feature that would let Facebook Groups host shared video streaming sessions, with everyone in the group being able to see/comment on the same videos at the same time. Take the Facebook Live concept and swap in a queue of…
PicsArt, the company behind the photo-editing app of the same name, has hired Tammy Nam as its first chief operating officer. Nam was most recently the CEO of Viki, the Rakuten-acquired video streaming service, and before that served as a marketing executive at Viki, Scribd and Slide. PicsArt said Nam will report to founder and…
The promises of VR are heavily focused on the idea that users can grow more enveloped in the digital environments they explore, but also central to the experience is that they become more connected with their virtual representations. BinaryVR’s central focus has been on a system of computer vision face-tracking particularly focused on the mouth…
Last month, Uber hit 10 billion completed trips across rides and deliveries, the company announced today. This comes about one year after Uber hit five billion trips. Lyft, Uber’s main competitor in the U.S., hit half a billion rides last October. Uber officially hit the milestone on June 10, 2018 when 173 trips and deliveries simultaneously…
