Jeff Bezos aims Blue Origin at the Moon
Today at a packed event blocks from the White House, Jeff Bezos took the stage in front of select members of the media, executives, government officials and a gaggle of middle schoolers to reveal new details of his plan to get to the Moon by 2024. Blue Origin is going to send humans to space […]
Hong Kong insurance tech startup OneDegree extends its Series A to a total of $30 million
OneDegree, an insurance technology startup based in Hong Kong, announced today it has extended its Series A round to $30 million, up from the $25.5 million it announced in September. Its extension, which the company is calling its “A2” round, was led by BitRock Capital, an investment firm that focuses on financial tech. Cyberport Macro […]
Justice Department charges Chinese hacker for 2015 Anthem breach
U.S prosecutors have brought charges against a Chinese national for his alleged involvement of the 2015 data breach at health insurance giant Anthem, which resulted in the theft of 78 million medical records. Fujie Wang, 32, and other unnamed members of a China-based hacking group, are charged with four counts of conspiracy to commit fraud, […]
AWS remains in firm control of the cloud infrastructure market
It has to be a bit depressing to be in the cloud infrastructure business if your name isn’t Amazon. Sure, there’s a huge, growing market, and the companies behind Amazon are growing even faster. Yet it seems no matter how fast they grow, Amazon remains a dot on the horizon. It seems inconceivable that AWS […]
An unsecured SMS spam operation doxxed its owners
A massive SMS spamming operation kicked out tens of millions of text messages, pestering unsuspecting recipients with links to fake sites flogging loans and free money. The operation was simple but smart. The system processed vast batches of phone numbers and curated custom messages on the fly with links to the fake sites. These fake […]
Printify raises $3M to expand its marketplace for custom printing
Bling Capital, YouTube co-founder Steve Chen, Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin and several others have participated in the round.
VW’s new electric hatchback receives 10,000 pre-orders in first 24 hours
Volkswagen opened up pre-orders in Europe at a launch event Wednesday for a special edition of the first model in its new all-electric ID brand. Within 24 hours, the company received more than 10,000 registrations, a result that suggests growing demand for electric vehicles. VW revealed Wednesday the name, some pricing and range specs for […]
Meet ‘The Prepared,’ the media company pitching disaster preparedness for everyone
A little over two years ago, The New Yorker ran a story about the survivalism craze sweeping Silicon Valley. The moneyed elite behind the tools of convenience that make modern life were, it turned out, making detailed contingency plans for the collapse of the civilization they’d help architect. Now, there’s a media company for that. The […]
Against the Slacklash
Such hate. Such dismay. “How Slack is ruining work.” “Actually, Slack really sucks.” “Slack may actually be hurting your workplace productivity.” “Slack is awful.” Slack “destroys teams’ ability to think, plan & get complex work out the door.” “Slack is a terrible collaboration tool.” “Face it, Slack is ruining your life.” Contrarian view: Slack is […]
Smartphone shipments hit a five year low in North America
More dismal news from the smartphone number crunchers. New figures out of Canalys put the North American smartphone market at five year low for the first quarter of 2019. That’s…bad. But also, pretty inline with what we’ve been seeing globally. The market has stagnated, and while manufacturers aren’t in full on panic mode, there’s certainly […]
