Meta is scaling back its plans for its augmented reality (AR) glasses and is pivoting its Portal smart display device away from the consumer market, according to a new report from The Information. The report notes that the company had originally planned to launch the first version of its AR glasses, which are codenamed Project
Earlier this year, the news of multi-factor authentication attacks began to surface. MFA is supposed to be a technique to limit attacks. If someone gets hold of a password, an MFA request usually prevents them from getting any further, but this year’s attacks showed that even MFA can be vulnerable under the right circumstances. Xage
Last year, U.K. cybersecurity startup CybSafe, a “behavioral security” platform, raised a $7.9 million Series A. This SaaS product with a per-user-based, subscription licensing model has a “behavior-led” platform that manages people-related security. In other words, it uses behavioral science and data analytics to help employees be more cybersecurity aware. Users get microlearning content and
Amazon is tapping into augmented reality in an attempt to appeal to sneakerheads shopping its site. The retailer this morning announced a new feature called Virtual Try-On for Shoes that will allow customers to visualize how a pair of new shoes will look on themselves from multiple angles using their mobile phone’s camera. The company
With more and more people ordering food from home — a trend that gathered momentum at a time when it was safer to eat at home than in restaurants — the proliferation of so-called “ghost kitchens” is continuing apace. These kitchens focus on takeaway orders and need a layer of technology to keep things running
Product research generally involves determining whether an idea for a new product might be successful and how to best develop and sell that product. It’s a straightforward process, in theory, but the basic definition belies the barriers that can crop up. Research is often costly — software-as-a-service companies spend an estimated 23% of their revenue
Jailed Kremlin critic, Alexey Navalny, has hit out at adtech giants Meta and Google for shutting off advertising inside Russia following the country’s invasion of Ukraine which he argues has been a huge boon to Putin’s regime by making it harder for the opposition to get out anti-war messaging. The remarks came after Navalny was
The founders of DigitalBrain have quite a back story, a pair of immigrants living in a hacker house in San Francisco, the two paid bills for a time by competing at hackathons and winning. When they came up with an idea for a business called DigitalBrain, they were able to get into Y Combinator in
The reconfiguring of Russia’s digital landscape in the wake of Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine continues to play out at a macro and micro level. Here’s a development on the latter front: Local tech giant Yandex has quietly removed national borders from its maps product. Users of Yandex’s maps app, which is popular in countries
Last year, leaked photos of Meta’s smartwatch with a camera made the rounds. But the product may never make it to the light of day: according to a report in Bloomberg, the parent company of Facebook has halted its development. The report does not give a reason for the about-face, but in April, the tech
Yahya Bouhlel started coding in his early teens. Within this timeline, he interned at several companies in Palo Alto, California. Most of his work revolved around building apps and iPhone games. When he came home to Tunis, he met many students who wanted to build products like him each summer. And it was one such
No matter whether you prefer to track the public or private markets, 2022 has proven to be a messy year for software companies. After a bullish 2021, when investors sent software stocks into the stratosphere, startups rode the same wave of enthusiasm to new heights. Since then, we’ve tracked the pullback in value that software
More updates from not-for-profit climate action search engine Ecosia: It’s given itself its first major branding refresh since launch back in 2009 at the same time as announcing a shift from 3-year to 20-year contracts for its tree planting projects — idea being to ensure that the trees planted with profits from its search ads
Continual, a startup that focuses on simplifying operational AI on top of a modern data stack, today announced that it has raised a $14.5 million Series A funding round led by Innovation Endeavors. In addition, the company today announced that its cloud platform is now generally available. The company, which focuses its AI efforts on
Google is expanding a verification program for financial services ads that it launched in the UK last summer after seeing what it describes as a “pronounced decline” in reports of ads promoting financial scams. First in line to get the requirement, as part of a phased expansion of the policy, are Australia, Singapore and Taiwan.
TikTok users regularly complain of hours lost on the platform, thanks to the video app’s unmatched ability to distract, entertain and engage users by way of its advanced recommendation technology. Its addictive nature has been the subject of numerous psychological studies and parents’ concerns, as TikTok becomes one of the most-used apps among children. In
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SCiFi Foods, formerly Artemys Foods, is combining plant-based and cultivated meat technology to create its first burger product, and its mission just got a big venture capital boost. The Bay Area–based food tech startup announced Wednesday a $22 million Series A round led by a16z. This brings the company’s total funding to $29 million since
TestBox, an early stage startup, has a goal of making it easier to test software you want to purchase in your own environment. What’s more, it comes pre-populated with synthetic data that is similar to yours. Today, the company announced a $10 million seed round to continue building the solution. For now, the company is
In recent years startups have turned their attention to what’s known as ‘home setup services’. This is where utilities and moving-in are all aggregated into one package which is managed digitally, (hopefully), making two whole moving home process a lot easier and a lot less stressful. Updater in the US launched over 10 years ago
One of the challenges faced by people with Parkinson’s disease is the possibility of “freezing” during normal movement, causing falls and lack of mobility. Surprisingly, small external cues can help them escape freezes or avoid them altogether — and De Oro has raised $2.8 million to commercialize its NexStride portable gadget, which provides those cues
The news that Apple would offer its own “buy now, pay later” service splitting any Apple Pay bill into installments hit the fintech lending world like a thunderbolt. But it turns out the new feature, while simple for consumers, necessitated a bit of backstage reorganizing at Apple, including a whole new subsidiary that will run
Sophie Alcorn Contributor Sophie Alcorn is the founder of Alcorn Immigration Law in Silicon Valley and 2019 Global Law Experts Awards’ “Law Firm of the Year in California for Entrepreneur Immigration Services.” She connects people with the businesses and opportunities that expand their lives. More posts by this contributor Dear Sophie: How do we qualify
Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single topic, think about a question and unpack the rest. As the team takes a break this week, we decided to replay
TikTok announced today that it’s launching a new Avatars feature that is designed to help users showcase their individuality on the app. The launch makes TikTok the latest social media app to add an avatar feature, as it now joins the likes of Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram and more. You can access the new avatar feature
GitHub today announced that it will sunset Atom, the text editor for software development that the company introduced in 2011. In a blog post, GitHub said that it will archive the Atom repository and all other repositories remaining in the Atom organization on December 15, 2022. Atom served as the foundation for the Electron framework,
WhatsApp has been warned by European regulators it has one more month to fix its confusing terms of service, the Commission said today. The Meta-owned messaging platform has been under investigation by the bloc following a series of consumer protection complaints lodged against it by the Consumer Protection Cooperation (CPC) Network, led by Sweden’s national
Apple had a ton of big hits in its iOS 16 announcements including a lock screen revamp, updates to Photos, and improved Mail app experience. Apart from that, there were a ton of things that the company skimmed over briefly or didn’t mention at all. As more people are testing the iOS 16 developer beta,
Embedded finance — where financial services companies and others bring in different kinds of fintech technology by way of APIs to enhance their own offerings with more data and functionality — remains a growing opportunity, both to help fuel new business and to help incumbents get up to speed with their disruptors. In the latest
Salary Hero wants to provide lower-income Thai workers with more financial flexibility. The startup, which focuses on earned wage access and finance education, with plans to add neo banking products, too, announced today it has raised $2.8 million. The funding included participation from Global Founders Capital, M Venture Partners, 500 Global, 1982 Ventures, Titan Capital