Day: February 13, 2019

It’s well understood that many network breaches begin with phishing emails designed to trick users into giving hackers their credentials. They don’t even have to work to find a vulnerability, they can just waltz in the front door. Elevate Security, a San Francisco startup, wants to change that by helping employees understand phishing attacks better […]

Last year, Amazon introduced Alexa Blueprints, a way for an Alexa device owner to create their own customized voice skills and Alexa responses without needing to know how to code. These skills — like family trivia or tips for your babysitter — could then be published for personal use. Later, Amazon added the ability to share […]

JibJab, one of the first companies that let people insert selfies into videos, gifs, and e-cards, has been acquired by Catapult Capital. The Los Angeles-based private equity firm announced the deal today, but did not disclose financial terms. A portion of financing was provided by investment firm Cloud Capital. According to Catapult Capital’s site, it […]

Debra Berlyn Contributor Share on Twitter Debra Berlyn is the president of Consumer Policy Solutions and the executive director of Project GOAL, a project to raise awareness of both the benefits and challenges of innovative new technologies for the aging community. The 2018 mid-term elections, for the first time in U.S. history, resulted in a […]

Fiverr is acquiring ClearVoice, a company that helps customers like Intuit and Carfax find professionals to write promotional content. The two companies seem like a natural fit, since they both operate marketplaces for freelancers. Fiverr covers a much broader swath of freelance work, but CEO Micha Kaufman (pictured above) said the marketplace’s professional writing category […]

Smart mattress company Eight Sleep is announcing its newest product today, The Pod. Co-founder and CEO Matteo Franceschetti described it, succinctly, as “Nest for your bed.” Eight has been focused on bed temperature for a while, first by offering a smart mattress cover and then a smart mattress that allows owners to adjust the surface […]

European deep tech and ‘industrial tech’ startups working in the field of industrial applications get a shot in the arm today with the news that btov Partners has secured €80 million ($90 million) in backing for the second close of its new btov Industrial Technologies Fund. btov Partners is a European venture capital firm with […]

Payment giant PayPal has closed its office in Malaysia as part of a restructuring of its customer support teams. The office, located in capital city Kuala Lumpur, was home to a team of customer service agents that catered to PayPal users across Asian region and beyond. Now, its responsibility will be assumed by other offices, […]

Following the pre-Christmas drone debacle in the U.K. — which plunged thousands of people into travel misery after repeated drone sightings closed the runway at Gatwick, and later also briefly suspended departures at Heathrow — consumer drone maker DJI has announced it’s upgrading its geofencing system across Europe. It says its Geospatial Environment Online (GEO) 2.0 system […]

As ever more transactions move onto digital platforms, a startup that is building a Swiss army knife of financial services — from payments to currency transfers, ID verifications and card issuing for companies to use by way of a single API — is announcing funding. Rapyd, a “fintech as a service” startup akin to AWS for […]