It’s OK to leave Facebook

The slow-motion privacy train wreck that is Facebook has many users, perhaps you, thinking about leaving or at least changing the way you use the social network. Fortunately for everyone but Mark Zuckerberg, it’s not nearly has hard to leave as it once was. The main thing to remember is that social media is for you to use, and not vice versa. Social media has now become such an ordinary part of modern life that, rather than have it define our interactions, we can choose how we engage with it. That’s great! It means that everyone is free to design...

Read More

Scaling startups are setting up secondary hubs in these cities

America’s mayors have spent the past nine months tripping over each other to curry favor with Amazon.com in its high-profile search for a second headquarters. More quietly, however, a similar story has been playing out in startup-land. Many of the most valuable venture-backed companies are venturing outside their high-cost headquarters and setting up secondary hubs in smaller cities. Where are they going? Nashville is pretty popular. So is Phoenix. Portland and Raleigh also are seeing some jobs. A number of companies also have a high number of...

Read More

Ethereum wallet imToken raises $10M Series A from IDG to expand in the US, Asia and Africa

imToken, which claims to be the world’s largest Ethereum wallet, will focus on expanding in Asia and the United States after raising a $10 million Series A from IDG Capital, it announced today. The capital will also be used to add new features, including support for Bitcoin, EOS and other blockchains. imToken is the latest addition to IDG Capital’s cryptocurrency investments, which include Coinbase and Circle. In a press statement, IDG Capital partner Young Guo said “imToken has developed its product into one of the top crypto asset wallets in...

Read More

Apple Pay tests ‘order ahead’ for drinks at music festivals

{rss:content:encoded} Apple Pay tests ‘order ahead’ for drinks at music festivals https://ift.tt/2J91AuI https://ift.tt/2J8Pi5R June 01, 2018 at 07:09PM Apple is fixing one of the worst parts of the concert experience: waiting in line for a beer while you miss your favorite song. Last week’s BottleRock music festival near San Francisco was the first to try a new ‘order ahead with Apple Pay’ feature that Apple hopes to bring to more events. You just open the festival’s app, select the closest concession stand, choose your drinks, Apple Pay with...

Read More

Facebook kills its ‘Trending’ section

Facebook really doesn’t want to be a media company. The social network announced this morning it’s removing its often controversial “Trending” section from its site next week, in order to make way for “future news experiences,” it says. These experiences include things like a dedicated section for news videos on its video hub Facebook Watch, a breaking news label publishers can use on their posts, and a dedicated section called “Today In” which connects people to news and information from local publishers in their city along with updates from local...

Read More

The startup community must defend merit-based immigration

Bobby Franklin Contributor Bobby Franklin is the president and chief executive of the National Venture Capital Association and previously served as an executive vice president for the CTIA – The Wireless Association. More posts by this contributor Ensuring foreign-born founders can grow their startups in the U.S. Finally, legislation to support startups The Trump administration just moved to kill a key tool to support immigrant entrepreneurs, and the startup community must make our voice heard to save it. Supported by Republicans and Democrats,...

Read More

Apple to launch its own ‘digital health’ features in iOS 12, says report

{rss:content:encoded} Apple to launch its own ‘digital health’ features in iOS 12, says report https://ift.tt/2HcGAkV https://ift.tt/2JkuAmS June 01, 2018 at 04:16PM At Google I/O in May, the company introduced a series of time management tools for Android users that help better manage screen time, track app usage, and limit the phone’s ability to distract, including a “shush” mode which turns on Do Not Disturb by flipping the phone over, and a “wind down,” color reduction mode for bedtime. Now, it seems Apple will follow suit with its own digital...

Read More

Rebel launches new tools for developers to build marketing emails

Until now, Rebel has been known as a platform allowing marketers to incorporate interactive elements into their emails. Today, it’s launching a new version of its API that will allow developers to build entire emails, interactive or not. Co-founder Joe Teplow explained that the new Rebel Lite API was created in response to developers who were already using the company’s API. “Our customers loved being able to build these actionable modules in bite-isized chunks with our API,” Teplow said. In fact, they loved it enough that they started asking,...

Read More

Bitcoin exchange abandons Poland even as the government invites it to a working group

In a delightful bit of irony BitBay, a Central European exchange, has shut down operations in Poland even as it received an invitation by the Polish government to participate in a national blockchain working group. The news, which appeared in a Tweet, states that the group will assess regulations for cryptocurrencies, blockchain, and ICOs. “Our exchange has received an invitation from the PFSA to participate in the Blockchain Working Group. As we have recently said, we do not want to abandon crypto activity in the Polish community,” wrote BitBay. Nasza...

Read More

Steve Case and JD Vance are speaking at Disrupt SF on startup opportunities outside of Silicon Valley

We’re excited to announce Steve Case and JD Vance will sit down for a fireside chat at Disrupt SF this September. There’s plenty to talk about, too, including the pair’s latest venture: A massive $150 million seed fund backed by an impressive group of investors that are targeted at startups outside of Silicon Valley. As The New York Times put it after the fund’s announcement, the complete list of investors in the Rise of the Rest fund “may be the greatest concentration of American wealth and power in one investment fund.” It includes...

Read More

The Microsoft Launcher for Android now lets you track your kids’ whereabouts

{rss:content:encoded} The Microsoft Launcher for Android now lets you track your kids’ whereabouts https://ift.tt/2spksP4 https://ift.tt/2IYHZl7 May 31, 2018 at 07:46PM Microsoft is launching an update to its Android launcher today that gives parents the ability to track their kids’ location. This is one out of a number of parent- and kid-focused announcements the company made today. Others include the ability to block sites in Microsoft Edge on Android and the launch of MSN Kids, a new curated news website for children. At the core of these new...

Read More

Klaxoon gets $50M to try to make boring meetings more interactive and productive

If you’ve ever been in a pointless meeting at work, odds are you’ve spent part of the time responding to messages or just putzing around on the Internet — but Klaxoon hopes to convert that into something a bit more productive with more interactive meetings. The French startup today said it’s raised $50 million in a new financing round led by Idinvest Partners, with early round investors BPI, Sofiouest, Arkea and White Star Capital Fund also participating. The company offers a suite of tools designed to make those meetings more engaging and...

Read More

Klaxoon gets $50M to try to make boring meetings more interactive and productive

{rss:content:encoded} Klaxoon gets $50M to try to make boring meetings more interactive and productive https://ift.tt/2LPzpTg https://ift.tt/2smO4gU May 31, 2018 at 07:39PM If you’ve ever been in a pointless meeting at work, odds are you’ve spent part of the time responding to messages or just putzing around on the Internet — but Klaxoon hopes to convert that into something a bit more productive with more interactive meetings. The French startup today said it’s raised $50 million in a new financing round led by Idinvest Partners, with early...

Read More

This newly funded startup wants to help women gauge their reproductive health a lot sooner in life

It’s often the case that women don’t think much about their reproductive health until they have to. Sometimes it begins with an aside from a well-meaning gynecologist — or one’s impatient parents. Sometimes, it’s because a couple is ready to try conceiving and it’s proving harder than they imagined it would be. A San Francisco-based startup called Modern Fertility wants to educate women about their reproductive health much earlier in their lives, enabling them to become more “proactive” instead of reactive, says cofounder and CEO Afton Vechery,...

Read More

Scout.fm turns podcasts into personalized talk radio

Scout.fm wants to change the way people listen to podcasts. Instead of scouring through the over 500,000 available shows available in your current podcast app, this startup’s new curated podcast service will just ask you a few questions to find out what you like, then create a podcast station customized to you. The experience is primarily designed for use on smart speakers, like Amazon’s Alexa-powered Echo devices, but is also available as iOS and Android applications. The company was founded just over a year ago by Cara Meverden (CEO), previously...

Read More

iOS App Store has seen over 170B downloads, over $130B in revenue since July 2010

{rss:content:encoded} iOS App Store has seen over 170B downloads, over $130B in revenue since July 2010 https://ift.tt/2slcdnN https://ift.tt/2sAzHoD May 31, 2018 at 05:43PM The App Store has seen over 170 billion downloads over the past decade, totaling over $130 billion in consumer spend. This data was shared this morning by app intelligence firm App Annie, which is marking the App Store’s 10th Anniversary with a look back on the store’s growth and the larger trends it’s seen. These figures aren’t the full picture, however – the App Store launched...

Read More