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Tesla calls claims of unintended acceleration in NHTSA petition ‘completely false’ Tesla pushed back Monday against claims that its electric vehicles may suddenly accelerate on their own, calling a petition filed with federal safety regulators “completely false.” Tesla also questions the validity of the petition, noting that it was submitted by a Tesla short-seller. Last week, the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration said it would […]
Court rules Mike Rothenberg must fork over more than $31 million to settle SEC allegations Mike Rothenberg, the once high-flying VC bent on bringing the party to Silicon Valley, must now pay a whopping $31.4 million to settle a California federal court ruling in favor of Security and Exchange Commission allegations. TechCrunch deemed Rothenberg a ‘virtual gatsby’ back in 2016, when we first broke the news about the downfall of […]
Rocket Lab’s first launch of 2020 is a mission for the National Reconnaissance Office Rocket Lab has announced its first mission for 2020 – a dedicated rocket launch on behalf of client the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) with a launch window that opens on January 31. The Electron rocket Rocket Lab is using for this mission will take off from its Launch Complex 1 (LC-1) in New Zealand, […]
Israel’s cybersecurity startup scene spawned new entrants in 2019 The Israeli cybersecurity industry saw a 35% increase in investments from 2018, with overall funding for startups totaling almost $1.4 billion.
Diligent’s Vivian Chu and Labrador’s Mike Dooley will discuss assistive robotics at TC Sessions: Robotics+AI Too often the world of robotics seems to be a solution in search of a problem. Assistive robotics, on the other hand, are among one of the primary real-world tasks existing technology can seemingly address almost immediately. The concept for the technology has been around for some time now and has caught on particularly well […]
Soft Robotics raises $23 million from investors including industrial robot giant FANUC Robotics startup company Soft Robotics has closed its Series B round of funding, raising $23 million led by Calibrate Ventures and Material Impact, and including participation from exiting investors including Honeywell, Yahama, Hyperplane and more. This round also brings in FANUC, the world’s largest maker of industrial robots and a recently announced strategic partner for […]
Decrease user churn by better managing expectations Plus, competitor ads analysis for Facebook, budget explainer ads and more.
Three takeaways from the 2019 venture capital market Hello and welcomebackto our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between. Today we’re digging into the Q4 venture capital market — specifically unpacking three pieces of data that stood out as we read the Crunchbase News Q4 global report — and Pitchbook and NVCA’s comparative, U.S.-focused Q4 data […]
Fable Studio founder Edward Saatchi on designing virtual beings In films, TV shows and books — and even in video games where characters are designed to respond to user behavior — we don’t perceive characters as beings with whom we can establish two-way relationships. But that’s poised to change, at least in some use cases. Interactive characters — fictional, virtual personas capable of personalized […]
Google’s Sundar Pichai doesn’t want you to be clear-eyed about AI’s dangers Alphabet and Google CEO, Sundar Pichai, is the latest tech giant kingpin to make a public call for AI to be regulated while simultaneously encouraging lawmakers towards a dilute enabling framework that does not put any hard limits on what can be done with AI technologies. In an op-ed published in today’s Financial Times, Pichai […]
The marketplace of ideas is a weapons market now The most interesting thing I saw online this week was Venkatesh Rao’s “Internet of Beefs” essay. I don’t agree with all of it. I’m not even sure I agree with most of it. But it’s a sharp, perceptive, well-argued piece which offers an explanation for why online public spaces have almost all become battlefields, or, […]
Max Q: SpaceX succeeds with a spectacular Crew Dragon test launch Max Q is a new weekly newsletter all about space. Sign up here to receive it weekly on Sundays in your inbox. We’re off and running with good milestones achieved for NASA’s commercial crew program, which means it’s more likely than ever we’ll actually see astronauts launch from U.S. soil before the year is out. […]
Google takes on AWS and Azure in India with Airtel cloud deal Google has inked a deal with India’s third-largest telecom operator as the American giant looks to grow its cloud customer base in the key overseas market that is increasingly emerging as a new cloud battleground for AWS and Microsoft . Google Cloud announced on Monday that the new partnership, effective starting today, enables Airtel to […]
France improves stock options policies for startup employees A couple of weeks ago, France’s digital minister Cdric O announced some changes when it comes to stock options in France. President Emmanuel Macron is going to talk about the new policy today ahead of the World Economic Forum. While I don’t want to be too technical, here’s a quick overview of the changes. First, […]
Catalyst Fund gets $15M from JP Morgan, UK Aid to back 30 EM fintech startups The Catalyst Fund has gained $15 million in new support from JP Morgan and UK Aid and will back 30 fintech startups in Africa, Asia, and Latin America over the next three years. The Boston based accelerator provides mentorship and non-equity funding to early-stage tech ventures focused on driving financial inclusion in emerging and frontier […]