Cell phones
Nothing isn’t one to be quiet about new releases. The London-based phone company’s media push largely relies on trickling out information about devices bit by bit. It’s been a solid…
Google Fi drops prices for its unlimited plans and adds more data
Google Fi, Google’s cell network provider, has dropped the pricing for its mobile plans by $5 to $10 per month, depending on the customer’s plan. The company decreased the price…
OpenPhone raises $40M to replace your work phone and office PBX with an app
Pam answering the phone at Dunder Mifflin became one of the most iconic refrains from “The Office,” and it’s really no wonder that it did: Businesses big and small have…
AWS will buy a SaaS company, and other 2022 enterprise predictions
It’s always a sticky business predicting what’s going to happen in tech, because who knows what’s going on behind the scenes or what’s coming next.
Amazon workers at two Chicago warehouses walk out to demand better treatment
This morning, dozens of warehouse workers at two Amazon facilities near Chicago staged a pre-Christmas walkout during the busiest time of the year to demand better treatment and higher wages.…
Bellabeat’s Ivy bracelet tries to do it all — but it can only do some
Wellness startup Bellabeat, which has primarily marketed its wearable health trackers to women, recently introduced Ivy, a stylish, comfortable health tracker with a long-lasting battery life, poised as a prettier version…
Did you hear it? FEMA just ran its first nationwide test of the U.S. emergency alert system since the pandemic. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, tested both the…
Meet Justos, the new Brazilian insurtech that just got backing from the CEOs of 7 unicorns
Here in the U.S. the concept of using a driver’s data to decide the cost of auto insurance premiums is not a new one. But in markets like Brazil, the…
I cover a lot of data breaches. From inadvertent exposures to data-exfiltrating hacks, I’ve seen it all. But not every data breach is the same. How a company responds to…
A new technique can detect newer 4G ‘stingray’ cell phone snooping
Security researchers say they have developed a new technique to detect modern cell-site simulators. Cell site simulators, known as “stingrays,” impersonate cell towers and can capture information about any phone…
Decrypted: As tech giants rally against Hong Kong security law, Apple holds out
It’s not often Silicon Valley gets behind a single cause. Supporting net neutrality was one, reforming government surveillance another. Last week, Big Tech took up its latest: halting any cooperation…
Featured Article
Decrypted: The tech police use against the public
In this week’s Decrypted, we look at the technologies that police use against the people.
A newly released draft intelligence bill, passed by the Senate Intelligence Committee last week, would require the government to detail the threats posed by commercial spyware and surveillance technology. The…
Apple has new hardware coming, the U.S. government may use cell phone data to track the spread of COVID-19 and Fox acquires a streaming company. Here’s your Daily Crunch for…
US government reportedly in talks with tech companies on how to use location data in COVID-19 fight
U.S. government officials are currently in discussion with a number of tech companies, including Facebook [update: Facebook now says that it is not in discussions to give the government any…
The coronavirus pandemic has left governments floundering, businesses unprepared and citizens scrambling for hand sanitizer like it’s worth its weight in gold. The sense of general unpreparedness has a lot…
Remember when “mobility” meant laptops and cell phones? Those were quaint times. Now the category encompasses the future of transportation — everything from flying cars and autonomous vehicles to delivery…
Arm focuses on AI with its new Cortex-M CPU and Ethos-U NPU
Arm today announced two new processors (or one and a half, depending on how you look at it). The company, which designs the chips that power the majority of the…
Kaszek Ventures raises $600 million in two funds as Latin America’s startup market booms
Kaszek Ventures, the investment firm that has been one of the primary architects of the recent boom in startup financing and growth in Latin America, has just raised $600 million…
Lambs, the radiation-proof underwear company formerly known as Spartan, is now selling beanies
Earlier this year, Spartan, the French manufacturer of a silver-lined underwear designed to block EMF radiation from cell phones and wireless routers, relocated to the U.S. and raised some capital…
Featured Article
We found a massive spam operation — and sunk its server
For ten days in March, millions were caught in the same massive spam campaign. Each email looked like it came from someone the recipient knew: the spammer took stolen email addresses and passwords, quietly logged into their email account, scraped their recently sent emails and pushed out personalized emails to the recipient of that sent…
To accurately forecast the weather, you first need lots of data — not just to train your forecasting models but also to generate more precise and granular forecasts. Typically, this…
China’s Nreal raises $15M to shrink augmented headsets to size of sunglasses
A former Magic Leap engineer believes the problem with most consumer-facing augmented headsets on the market is their bulky size. “You wouldn’t want to wear them for more than one…
Alchemist is the Valley’s premiere enterprise accelerator and every season they feature a group of promising startups. They are also trying something new this year: they’re putting a reserve button…
AT&T has sealed the deal to buy Time Warner in a major piece of media and technology consolidation. The deal — which is $85.4 billion and a total of $108 billion with…
Congress should close the loophole allowing warrantless digital car searches
Most Americans expect the Fourth Amendment — which protects individuals from illegal searches — to extend to their digital lives. In general, this expectation matches reality: unless law enforcement comes…
Phone-addicted teens aren’t as happy as those who play sports and hang out IRL, new study suggests
To no parent’s surprise, too much smartphone use makes teens unhappy. So says a new study from San Diego State University, which pulled data from over one million 8th-, 10th-, and…
T-Mobile is giving every customer a share of its stock
T-Mobile had another of its un-carrier events today, which now have so many regular giveaways they are starting to look like an episode of Oprah. First, the company announced that every…
“Desksourcing” Is A New Labor Market Concept In The Mobile-First World
I’ve always been fascinated by how labor markets work. People are the foundation for how things get done. How we organize across and within companies impacts both creativity and efficiency.…
Google To Launch Project Ara Market Pilot In Puerto Rico Later This Year
Today Google announced that it will launch its modular smartphone, known as Project Ara, with a limited market pilot in the US territory of Puerto Rico later this year.
