blogger better: 2017-09-17

Saturday, September 23, 2017

Automakers accelerate their interest in startups

It’s no secret that automakers have shown more interest in startups lately. Nor is it any secret what’s driving that surge, given the massive shifts the industry faces from the rise of electric cars, autonomous vehicles, ride-hailing services and other emerging technologies and transportation business models. We set out to quantify combined investment by automakers in startups… Read More

http://ift.tt/2jTpMcB Automakers accelerate their interest in startups http://ift.tt/2yymgHW

Twitter today has nearly four times as many monthly active users outside the U.S. as it does in its home market — 260 million versus 68 million — and this week it quietly launched a new app in an effort to boost those numbers further. The social network is testing a Android app for Twitter Lite, a native app version of a mobile web site Twitter launched earlier this year that… Read More

from Social – TechCrunch http://ift.tt/2tUv4Ft Twitter is testing a Twitter Lite Android app, first in the Philippines Ingrid Lunden http://ift.tt/2wJxvzO
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iPhone 8 and 8 Plus cameras get top marks from testing outfit DxOMark

{rss:content:encoded} iPhone 8 and 8 Plus cameras get top marks from testing outfit DxOMark http://ift.tt/2wcpEGw http://ift.tt/2ywyAIE September 22, 2017 at 11:06PM

If our review didn’t convince you that the cameras in the latest iPhones are something special, perhaps DxOMark’s lab-heavy evaluation process will do the trick. The camera testing site unequivocally states that the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus have the best smartphone cameras it’s ever tested — though they aren’t without their flaws. Read More

How tbh hit #1 by turning anonymity positive

{rss:content:encoded} How tbh hit #1 by turning anonymity positive http://ift.tt/2xXHi5E http://ift.tt/2fnrguc September 22, 2017 at 10:25PM

The innovation of tbh, teen-speak for To Be Honest, was getting rid of the typing. Whether asking or answering questions, open text fields invite abuse when combined with anonymity. Even an innocuous question like “What do you think of me?” can lead to mean-spirited comments if responders don’t have their names, and therefore any accountability, attached. So tbh writes the… Read More

Seed funding is drying up. Accelerators are scrambling for revenue. Things are changing drastically in the startup ecosystem. So how do you raise money when your product needs more than some Django code and an AWS instance? You run an ICO, right? Read More

http://ift.tt/2jSE8tx How to run a token sale http://ift.tt/2xu8urj

Preschoolers get their own Pokémon game with launch of Pokémon Playhouse

{rss:content:encoded} Preschoolers get their own Pokémon game with launch of Pokémon Playhouse http://ift.tt/2wGyXmE http://ift.tt/2wG8XaP September 22, 2017 at 05:15PM

A new app called Pokémon Playhouse from the Pokémon Company, released this week, is bringing Pikachu and friends to preschoolers. Unlike the augmented reality game Pokémon Go, a collaboration between Niantic and Nintendo by way of the Pokémon Company, this latest game is not focused on capturing Pokémon, battling and raids. Instead, it’s filled with activities appropriate for… Read More

Thoughts on Facebook’s 9 plans to curb election interference

Election meddling is Facebook’s next adversary, and it’s got a plan to attack it just like it did with fake news. Solutions to both these scourges come too late to prevent tampering that may have aided Donald Trump winning the presidency. But at least Facebook is owning up to the problem, working with the government, and starting to self-regulate. Here’s the 9-point plan… Read More

from Social – TechCrunch http://ift.tt/2hme6yh Thoughts on Facebook’s 9 plans to curb election interference Josh Constine http://ift.tt/2hk23Bq
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As Congressional investigations into Russia’s role in manipulating the election for U.S. president deepens, tech companies are assuming a more central role in the inquiries. Both Twitter and Facebook are stepping up their efforts to cooperate with Congressional investigations into Russian interference with last year’s presidential election. Read More

from Social – TechCrunch http://ift.tt/1y6uja4 Facebook and Twitter play bigger role in Congressional election-hacking probe Jonathan Shieber http://ift.tt/2ygAgVH
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ipsy launches its beauty product e-commerce business Shopper as hit hits 3M subscribers

{rss:content:encoded} ipsy launches its beauty product e-commerce business Shopper as hit hits 3M subscribers http://ift.tt/2xqNp0B http://ift.tt/1J7rHKa September 21, 2017 at 09:00PM

ipsy, a subscription service that delivers a collection of products to its users every month, has spent the last six years building up a community with millions of people obsessed with beauty products. And now that the company has more than 3 million subscribers — with a $10 per month subscription cost — it’s ready to get a little bit more aggressive by getting directly… Read More

Flexport handles the boring logistics of a trillion-dollar business: the tranport of shipping containers around the world. Because the work of freight forwarding seemed so bland, it was long ignored by the tech world. But digitizing the paper work let Flexport speed up shipping so clients keep less inventory on hand while never running out. When you apply that optimization to how every… Read More

http://ift.tt/2jNbxpz Freight startup Flexport soars from “unsexy” to $800M valuation http://ift.tt/2xr01Fj

Instagram is making its face filters available for live video streaming through the app, the company announced today. Instagram had introduced face filters, which add visual effects to detected faces, back in May, but until now it was only available on video and images captured first and then posted to your Instagram Story after the fact. All existing face filters are now available for live… Read More

from Social – TechCrunch http://ift.tt/2ysMRpN Instagram adds face filters to live video Darrell Etherington http://ift.tt/2wCVQYc
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Co-founder Brian Fenty becomes CEO at TodayTix

{rss:content:encoded} Co-founder Brian Fenty becomes CEO at TodayTix http://ift.tt/2fdyFsk http://ift.tt/2w8UeBe September 21, 2017 at 05:16PM Brian Fenty, Merritt Baer

There’s a new CEO at TodayTix, though he’s definitely not new to the company — Chairman Brian Fenty is becoming chief executive, while his co-founder (and the previous CEO) Merritt Baer is becoming the Head of Europe. TodayTix sells theater tickets in cities across the United States (including New York, Chicago and San Francisco), but its European presence is currently limited… Read More

London and Antwerp-based Hummingbird Ventures, which counts Deliveroo and Showpad in its portfolio, has closed a new $95 million fund to invest in tech startups at the “late Seed and Series A” stage. Read More

http://ift.tt/2wJsm5S London and Antwerp-based Hummingbird Ventures closes new $95M fund http://ift.tt/2xqx3Fz

Pinterest opens up more than 5,000 interests for advertiser targeting through its Taste Graph

{rss:content:encoded} Pinterest opens up more than 5,000 interests for advertiser targeting through its Taste Graph http://ift.tt/2wJiLMo http://ift.tt/2xa2zrT September 21, 2017 at 04:00PM

Pinterest builds itself around visual discovery — the idea that you can come to the site or app, see something you like, and immediately dive down a rabbit hole. The company has built an extensive suite of tools internally to figure out which rabbit hole to divert users to, and now it’s opening up some of that knowledge to advertisers. Pinterest said today that it’s… Read More