Author: pekandesigns

UnitedMasters came out of stealth about a year ago with a plan to help artists have a more direct relationship with their customers and fans and, more importantly, retain more control over their actual recordings. With $70 million from Alphabet, a16z, Floodgate and 20th Century Fox — as well as founder Steve Stoute, the former […]

A report by England’s children’s commissioner has raised concerns about how kids’ data is being collected and shared across the board, in both the private and public sectors. In the report, entitled Who knows what about me?, Anne Longfield urges society to “stop and think” about what big data means for children’s lives. Big data practices […]

Netflix has persuaded everyone’s favorite naturalist, David Attenborough, to voice its forthcoming original nature documentary series, Our Planet, which is slated to put conservation squarely in the frame, not just offer glorious animal eye-candy. It’s a timely moment to focus on conservation, with climate change posing existential threats to global biodiversity — unless humans act to […]

Still crying in your Red Bull because you missed the deadline to compete in Startup Battlefield at Disrupt Berlin 2018? Don’t despair. You have one more chance to step onto the Main Stage and go head-to-head against some of the best pre-series A startups across Europe. How? Grab an exhibitor’s table in Startup Alley. Every exhibitor […]

Xiaomi’s expansion into Europe continues at speed after the Chinese smartphone maker announced plans to open its first retail store in London. The company is best known for developing quality Android phones at affordable prices and already it has launched devices in Spain, Italy and France. Now, that foray has touched the U.K., where Xiaomi […]

Attention coders, designers and all other builders: the TechCrunch China Hackathon is returning to Shenzhen, the city known as the hardware capital of the world, this month and we want you to take part! So if your inner being is to code, design, build and hack cool things; if you want to have fun with others like […]

Walmart has just announced its plans to launch what it’s calling an Intelligent Retail Lab inside one of its stores in Levittown, New York. The idea is to test both associate and customer experiences. For example, Walmart wants to use artificial intelligence to better identify when items are running low on stock so that it […]

Just kidding. Please don’t buy me these collectible trading cards featuring Silicon Valley venture capitalists for Christmas. But if you are in the market for a gift for a VC — or aspiring VC — they’d probably appreciate a set. Yes, they really exist! TouchBase is selling a line of the VC trading cards, featuring Y Combinator co-founder […]

SpaceX’s planned communication satellite constellation, known as Starlink, will now be targeting a much lower orbit than originally planned, at least for over a thousand of the satellites, the company revealed in an FCC filing. The move should help mitigate orbital debris and provide better signal for the company’s terrestrial users as well. Starlink plans […]

Organizers of the massive walkouts at Google last week are — rightfully so — not letting up on their demands. Earlier this morning, Google CEO Sundar Pichai responded to some of their demands, outlining how Google is getting rid of forced arbitration for sexual harassment and sexual assault claims, offering more transparency around those investigations […]