Wednesday, 18 April 2018
With loans of just $10, this startup has built a financial services powerhouse in emerging markets
Peris Kimeli and Betsy Cheruyot were students at Kenyatta University thinking about launching a business when they applied for their first loans from the mobile lending company, Tala. Hoping to get a clothing business off the ground and make some money to live on while going to school, the two young Kenyans downloaded the Tala […]
This VR experience shows what it’s like to be an escalator (no, really)
If you thought your job was monotonous, spare a thought to the humble escalator. Yes, I know it’s hard to feel empathy for an everyday object that lacks sentience, but hear me out. These revolving carousels of metal and rubber exist simply to move people between floors. They go up and down, and that’s about it. There’s no variety in their day-to-day lives. They silently do their job, unnoticed and unappreciated. A bit like me, really. KONE, a Finnish manufacturer of lifts and escalators, wants to tell the story of these unsung urban heroes. To do this, it has partnered…
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The world's largest aircraft may finally take off this summer
Turns out there's a reason Stratolaunch has been ramping up its taxi tests: The company has revealed at the 34th Space Symposium that it's planning to conduct the massive plane's first flight this summer. With a wingspan measuring 385 feet, the 500,0... 
Cloud.gov makes Cloud Foundry easier to adopt for government agencies
At the Cloud Foundry Summit in Boston, the team behind the U.S. government’s cloud.gov application platform announced that it is now a certified Cloud Foundry platform that is guaranteed to be compatible with other certified providers like Huawei, IBM, Pivotal, SAP and — also starting today — Suse. With this, cloud.gov becomes the first government […] 
Squarefoot raises $7M to give offices an easier way to find space
While smaller companies are seeing a lot of new options for distributed office space, or can pick up a couple offices in a WeWork, eventually they get big enough and have to find a bigger office — but that can end up as one of the weirdest and most annoying challenges for an early-stage CEO. […] 
Hyperloop TT plans to build a working line in Abu Dhabi in 2019
Hyperloop Transportation Technologies has announced that it has signed a deal to begin construction on a working Hyperloop in 2019. The company will work with Aldar Properties PJSC, an Abu Dhabi-based real estate developer, on both a route, innovatio... 
Use Chevy's in-dash system to pay for your Shell gas
If you have a 2017-and-later Chevy with access to GM's on-board marketplace, you might be able pay for gas without having to take out your wallet. The automaker has teamed up with Shell to roll out what it says is the first in-dash fuel payment in th... 
StudioBricks is a Barcelona-based startup that sends you a studio in a box
My friend Rick is a voiceover artist and works in Ohio – right along the flight path for jets taking off and landing at the Columbus airport. As a result, he said, he had to record late at night when the airport closed, a limitation that he found exasperating. Enter StudioBricks, a cool startup from […] 
Amazon recruits Best Buy to sell Fire TV Edition smart TVs
Best Buy has partnered with Amazon to sell voice-controlled Fire TV Edition branded TVs in its stores and on its website, the companies announced. CEOs Jeff Bezos from Amazon and Best Buy's Hubert Joly said the retailer will sell 11 Amazon-powered TV... 
Amazon taps Best Buy to begin selling its smart TVs with Alexa
Amazon is looking to sell its Fire TV Edition smart televisions in a big box store, but thankfully it’s not Whole Foods. Instead, Amazon will be tapping a retailer whose life it has made incredibly difficult over the years, Best Buy, to begin selling smart televisions with its Fire TV capabilities baked in. The displays […] 
Russia stops at nothing to silence Telegram
The protracted fight between the Russian government and encrypted messaging app Telegram is coming to an end. Last week, the country's court granted a request for the app to be banned, enabling officials to begin work on booting it out of the country... 
Voicera scoops up AI note-taking app Wrappup
Voicera wants to be the company that eliminates the need for human note taking once and for all. Their vision is an AI-driven voice recognition system that not only takes notes, but identifies speakers and summarizes key points and action items. Today, the company announced it had acquired a similar startup, Wrappup, an AI-fueled note […] 
Basis, a year-old startup that’s building a price-stable cryptocurrency, just raised $133 million from top investors
If you own any Bitcoin, you’re probably in the habit of watching its price fluctuate wildly. What you aren’t doing is using your Bitcoin to buy things. It’s too valuable, not to mention unpredictable. Enter Basis, a year-old, 10-person, Hoboken, N.J.-based cryptocurrency startup at work on a “stable coin” whose elastic supply will ostensibly expand […] 
Airbnb just opened an 'Office of Healthy Tourism'
In a bid to counteract tourist saturation in major cities around the world, Airbnb is opening a new global Office of Healthy Tourism. The move is designed to bring the economic benefits of tourism to small businesses and local residents in destinatio... 
Wonolo picks up $13M to create a way to connect temp workers with companies
AJ Brustein was out spending time with a member of his merchandising team when a nearby store ran out of stock of some goods — but there was no one on staff responsible for that location. Fortunately, the employee he was with had already showed him how to restock the shelves, and he offered to […] 
Here’s the 23rd batch of 500 Startups companies
500 Startups may soon be coming up on the one-year mark for the end of a tumultuous saga involving its founder, but its accelerator classes still continue to plug along — and its next batch is now getting ready to roll. The firm’s 23rd batch of startups this year consists of the usual mix of […] 
The Morning After: IRS' payment system went down on tax day
Hey, good morning! Happy hump day! An accidentally discovered enzyme can eat up plastic, and the IRS' online payment system went down at the worst possible moment: on tax day. We also have EMG wristbands that can type with your thoughts... at some po... 
Why Android notifications are better than the iPhone’s
Everybody hates notifications, but why? In this episode of Processor, Dieter Bohn examines what Apple and Google are doing to manage them on iPhone and Android — and why Android's notifications are more humane. Subscribe: https://goo.gl/G5RXGs Check out our full video catalog: https://goo.gl/lfcGfq Visit our playlists: https://goo.gl/94XbKx Like The Verge on Facebook: https://goo.gl/2P1aGc Follow on Twitter: https://goo.gl/XTWX61 Follow on Instagram: https://goo.gl/7ZeLvX Read More: http://www.theverge.com
Google Chrome now mutes annoying videos that autoplay with sound
There’s good news for Google Chrome users, the latest version of the world’s most popular web browser has arrived with a new feature that prevents websites from automatically playing sound. That means that pre-loaded videos, and other content that involves sound, won’t blare out unless you specifically choose to enable it to. Aside from being […] 
Leak reveals Microsoft's new Xbox Avatar system
Microsoft's new Xbox Live avatars have been on the cards for a while now, with the company last year promising more diversity and customization. Now, a leaked video (allegedly from a former Microsoft designer and since removed from YouTube) has revea... 
Report: Alibaba finally overtakes Amazon in the race for ecommerce supremacy
The data in our new 2018 Q2 Digital Statshot show that Alibaba has overtaken Amazon as the world’s most popular ecommerce platform. Some of the supporting data even comes from Amazon itself, via the company’s Alexa analysis platform. Taobao up to tenth Alexa’s latest ranking of the world’s top websites shows that Alibaba-owned Taobao.com has moved up to tenth position, one place ahead of Amazon.com.According to Alexa’s own description, these rankings are calculated “using a combination of average daily visitors and pageviews over the past month.†Alexa reports that shoppers are spending longer on Taobao, too. On average, visitors spend…
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How your business can do good (and still make money)
In theory, civilization should prosper with commerce. But as companies acquire more resources, global citizens are getting left behind. In 2017, 82 percent of newly generated wealth went to the richest one percent of the global population, according to Oxfam. Examine patterns at the country level, and you’ll see some surprising trends. In the United States, corporate profits are soaring. But benefits aren’t trickling down to worker and pay is stagnant. Corporate conglomerates, struggling to stay afloat are shutting down stores and initiating mass layoffs to keep their businesses afloat. People are losing their jobs, dealing with unmanageable student debt…
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Facebook, Microsoft and others sign anti-cyberattack pledge
Microsoft, Facebook and Cloudflare are among a group of technology firms that have signed a joint pledge committing publicly not to assist offensive government cyberattacks. The pledge also commits them to work together to enhance security awareness and the resilience of the global tech ecosystem. The four top-line principles the firms are agreeing to are […] 
Facebook explains how it will comply with the EU's GDPR
After a lot of scandal and a great deal of confusion, Facebook has finally made clear what its privacy settings will look like in the wake of Europe's forthcoming GDPR (the General Data Protection Regulation). In a news release, the company said that... 
Plover lets you share files between any devices over Wi-Fi, AirDrop-style
Apple’s AirDrop service is great for beaming files between your iOS and Mac devices over Wi-Fi – but it sadly doesn’t work with other platforms. Thankfully, a bunch of young developers have built a handy tool to make it just as easy to transfer files over your local network, using anything that has a web browser. It’s called Plover, and it’s dead-simple to use: just point your browser to this page, and you’ll be assigned a private ‘room’ (which is restricted to your Wi-Fi network) and an animal avatar to identify your device. Fire up the site on another device…
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