TechCrunch is building an epic Disrupt SF (September 5-7) and we’re proud to announce another major building block for the show, this one in line with TechCrunch’s Include program and the Justice/Diversity track at Disrupt. The recently launched All Raise will run a three-part workshop for women founders over two days at Disrupt SF. In case you missed the news, All Raise launched in April thanks to the efforts of 36 women partners at venture firms committed to promoting diversity among “funders & founders.” “Our mission is simple — to accelerate the success of female funders and founders,” All Raise co-founder Aileen…
Author: geekfenceblogger
Less than a month after announcing its “hateful content” and “hateful conduct” policy, Spotify is backing down from one half of the equation. Following staunch criticism, the company has issued updates to its guidelines, noting that the roll out arrived in contrast to the company’s own longstanding policies. In a news release the company acknowledged that the initial implementation was “too vague,” creating confusion around precisely what shape it would ultimately take. “We created concern that an allegation might affect artists’ chances of landing on a Spotify playlist and negatively impact their future,” the service writes. “Some artists even worried…
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 officials and organizations. Over 80 news publishers are currently testing…
Helm is an open source project that enables developers to create packages of containerized apps to make installation much simpler. Up until now, it was a sub-project of Kubernetes, the popular container orchestration tool, but as of today it is a stand-alone project. Both Kubernetes and Helm are projects managed by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF). The CNCF’s Technical Oversight Committee approved the project earlier this week. Dan Kohn, executive director at the CNCF says the two projects are closely aligned so it made sense for Helm to be a sub-project up until now. “What’s nice about Helm is…
Back in 2016, Kanye West announced that his latest album be available exclusively on Tidal. This morning, its follow up, the simply titled ye, arrived on that service, Spotify and Apple Music all at the same time. The move is a blow for the artist-owned music streaming service, which has amassed much of its fanbase by launching exclusives from top music acts like West and Tidal investor Jay-Z, who made his own 4:44 an exclusive on the service. Of course, West’s own relationship with Tidal (among other things) has been rocky, at best. Last July, the embattled rapper reportedly claimed…
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, the International Entrepreneur Rule (IER) operates like a startup visa and allows foreign-born founders to launch new…
The question at this point, really, is which platforms Fortnite isn’t being planned for. The Amazon Echo, maybe? Fitbit? Honestly, those are probably just a matter of time, too, as Epic’s massively popular sandbox survival title steamrolls its way across the industry. The latest rumor finds Fortnite headed for the Nintendo Switch, just in time for E3, later this month. The rumor arrives through what appears to be a one-two punch of leaks spotted by Eurogamer. First, an image said to be of Nintendo’s E3 booth layout and, more convincingly, the Korean ratings board, which has been something of a…
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 wellbeing features in an upcoming release of the iOS mobile operating system, a new report claims. According to Bloomberg, Apple will introduce a new set of digital wellbeing features for iOS users…
Seeing a tremendous opportunity to leverage machine learning technologies in the healthcare industry, Bessemer Venture Partners is launching a $10 million early-stage seed program to back new startups. Led by the firm’s celebrity healthcare investor, Steve Kraus (seriously: the guy has his own podcast), and its head of investments in Israel, Adam Fisher, the Deep Health Seed Program will place bets of anywhere between $100,000 and $2 million into early stage companies using machine learning to solve problems in healthcare. It’s no exaggeration to say that machine learning can transform the healthcare industry entirely. The proliferation of data brought on…
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-sized chunks with our API,” Teplow said. In fact, they loved it enough that they started asking, “Could we build the entire email with your API?” So with the…