Monarch is a new platform from surgical robot pioneer Frederic Moll

Auris Health (née Auris Surgical Robots) has done a pretty good job flying under the radar, in spite of raising a massive amount of capital and listing one of the key people behind the da Vinci surgical robot among its founders. With FDA clearance finally out of the way, however, the Redwood City-based startup medical startup is ready to start talking. This week, Auris revealed the Monarch Platform, which swaps the da Vinci’s surgical approach for something far less invasive. The system utilizes the common endoscopy procedure to a insert a flexible...

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Facebook was warned about app permissions in 2011

Who’s to blame for the leaking of 50 million Facebook users’ data? Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg broke several days of silence in the face of a raging privacy storm to go on CNN this week to say he was sorry. He also admitted the company had made mistakes; said it had breached the trust of users; and said he regretted not telling Facebookers at the time their information had been misappropriated. Meanwhile, shares in the company have been taking a battering. And Facebook is now facing multiple shareholder and user lawsuits. Pressed on...

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JASK and the future of autonomous cybersecurity

There is a familiar trope in Hollywood cyberwarfare movies. A lone whiz kid hacker (often with blue, pink, or platinum hair) fights an evil government. Despite combatting dozens of cyber defenders, each of whom appears to be working around the clock and has very little need to use the facilities, the hacker is able to defeat all security and gain access to the secret weapon plans or whatever have you. The weapon stopped, the hacker becomes a hero. The real world of security operations centers (SOCs) couldn’t be further from this silver screen fiction....

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Hip hop finds its beat in the startup scene

Hip hop stars are taking their reputations to Wall Street and Sand Hill road. Unlike their rock star brethren, who’ve historically been disinterested in dabbling with startups, quite a few hip hop artists have amassed good-sized portfolios. They’ve seen a few big hits too, most recently including a massive up round for zero-commission stock trading platform Robinhood, which counted Jay-Z, Nas and Snoop Dogg among its earlier backers. But just how deep does the hip hop-startup relationship go and where is it headed? To shed some light...

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Cambridge Analytica raided by UK data watchdog

The UK’s data watchdog, the ICO, finally obtained a warrant to enter and search the offices of Cambridge Analytica late Friday — carrying out an evidence gathering sweep of the company into the small hours of Saturday morning. Cambridge Analytica is at the centre of a data misuse storm that’s wiped billions off the value of Facebook since newspaper revelations late last week revealed the extent of data swiped by the UK political consultancy which intended to use the information for the Trump campaign. In a statement on its website today, the...

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House and Senate put Zuckerberg on notice: “You are the right person to testify before Congress”

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been rather scarce lately, despite a host of woes besetting his company — but Wednesday he emerged from his cocoon to offer a limp apology, admit they had no control over data like that used by Cambridge Analytica, and that he “will happily” testify before Congress if he’s the right person to do so. Well, Congress has taken him at his word. “You are the right person to testify before Congress,” wrote the leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee in a letter detailed early this morning. His capacity as CEO...

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How Raya’s $8/month dating app turned exclusivity into trust

The swipe is where the similarity ends. Raya is less like Tinder and more like a secret society. You need a member’s recommendations or a lot of friends inside to join, and you have to apply with an essay question. It costs a flat $7.99 for everyone, women and celebrities included. You show yourself off with a video slideshow set to music of your choice. And it’s for professional networking as well as dating, with parallel profiles for each. Launched in March 2015, Raya has purposefully flown under the radar. No interviews. Little info about the...

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How Raya’s $8/month dating app turned exclusivity into trust

{rss:content:encoded} How Raya’s $8/month dating app turned exclusivity into trust https://ift.tt/2G2sZ4c https://ift.tt/2GmOZGt March 23, 2018 at 08:50PM The swipe is where the similarity ends. Raya is less like Tinder and more like a secret society. You need a member’s recommendations or a lot of friends inside to join, and you have to apply with an essay question. It costs a flat $7.99 for everyone, women and celebrities included. You show yourself off with a video slideshow set to music of your choice. And it’s for professional networking as...

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How Raya’s $8/month dating app turned exclusivity into trust

The swipe is where the similarity ends. Raya is less like Tinder and more like a secret society. You need a member’s recommendations or a lot of friends inside to join, and you have to apply with an essay question. It costs a flat $7.99 for everyone, women and celebrities included. You show yourself off with a video slideshow set to music of your choice. And it’s for professional networking as well as dating, with parallel profiles for each. Launched in March 2015, Raya has purposefully flown under the radar. No interviews. Little info about the...

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Rainforest Connection enlists machine learning to listen for loggers and jaguars in the Amazon

{rss:content:encoded} Rainforest Connection enlists machine learning to listen for loggers and jaguars in the Amazon https://ift.tt/2IMwp8I https://ift.tt/2IP9QjR March 23, 2018 at 08:40PM The vastness that makes the Amazon rainforest so diverse and fertile also makes it extremely difficult to protect. Rainforest Connection is a project started back in 2014 that used solar powered second-hand phones as listening stations that could alert authorities to sounds of illegal logging. And applying machine learning has supercharged the network’s capabilities. The...

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Dropbox and Box were never competitors

As Dropbox had its IPO moment this morning, more than 10 years after launching, we can finally put one myth to rest. Dropbox and Box were never targeting the same customers. As Anshu Sharma, founder at Prekari, a stealth startup and former partner at Storm Venture tweeted earlier today: If you are a VC and still don't get why Box and Dropbox are fundamentally different businesses, maybe stay away from SaaS. https://t.co/4O7Xks8Dbb — Anshu Sharma (@anshublog) March 23, 2018 Same goes for investors, analysts and journalists. If you don’t believe...

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Facebook knows literally everything about you

Cambridge Analytica may have used Facebook’s data to influence your political opinions. But why does least-liked tech company Facebook have all this data about its users in the first place? Let’s put aside Instagram, WhatsApp and other Facebook products for a minute. Facebook has built the world’s biggest social network. But that’s not what they sell. You’ve probably heard the internet saying “if a product is free, it means that you are the product.” And it’s particularly true in that case because Facebook is the world’s second biggest advertising...

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Facebook knows literally everything about you

{rss:content:encoded} Facebook knows literally everything about you https://ift.tt/2ud1Aaj https://ift.tt/2pzEeXt March 23, 2018 at 07:59PM Cambridge Analytica may have used Facebook’s data to influence your political opinions. But why does least-liked tech company Facebook have all this data about its users in the first place? Let’s put aside Instagram, WhatsApp and other Facebook products for a minute. Facebook has built the world’s biggest social network. But that’s not what they sell. You’ve probably heard the internet saying “if a product...

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