Author: pekandesigns

Osmo, a Palo Alto-based education startup acquired by Indian unicorn Byju’s for $120 million this year, is expanding its product lineup to serve a new and largely untapped market: pre-schoolers. Osmo today announced Osmo Little Genius Starter Kit, a set of tools that aims to help children that have yet to enter schools to understand […]

The Echo team must have started sweating when the Lenovo Smart Clock was announced during CES. Deep inside Seattle’s Day One building, Amazon was reading the release of the Echo Show 5, a pint-sized version of the company’s smart screen that bore more than a passing resemblance to Lenovo’s Google Assistant device. Amazon, of course, […]

There is so much to write about Libra, and so much which has already been written misses the mark, mostly, I think, because most pundits haven’t spent much time in the developing world, which is very clearly the target market here. Just look at its launch video: I’ve seen apocalyptic reactions warning of Libra ushering […]

Hello, weekend readers. This is Week-in-Review where I give a heavy amount of analysis and/or rambling thoughts on one story while scouring the rest of the hundreds of stories that emerged on TechCrunch this week to surface my favorites for your reading pleasure. Last week, I talked about how the top gaming industry franchises were […]

This week, a young, New York-based startup called Alma raised $8 million in funding to expand its “co-practicing community of therapists, coaches, and wellness professionals,” which it first launched from a space on Madison Avenue last fall. As CNN was first to report, the company is charging psychiatrists, psychologists, clinical social workers and acupuncturists $165 […]

Harry Potter: Wizards Unite (think Pokémon GO, but with wands and giant spiders instead of pokéballs and Pikachus) officially launched earlier this week, but with a catch: it was only available in the US, UK, Australia, and New Zealand. Why? Amongst other reasons, a country-by-country rollout helps Niantic ensure that their servers stay stable. By […]

“When They See Us,” a new miniseries on Netflix, can be so infuriating that it’s hard to watch — especially its first hour, which depicts the arrest of the teenaged boys who became known as The Central Park Five, and shows police detectives coercing them into confessing to a brutal rape. We review the series […]

At a recent event hosted for founders by the venture firm Village Global, one of its most prominent investors, Bill Gates, sat down with Eventbrite cofounder and CEO Julia Hartz to discuss founding a company and the tough decisions necessary at nearly every turn in order to create and sustain a thriving enterprise. As part […]

NASA’s Curiosity Rover has detected high levels of methane output during its mission on the Martian surface, the New York Times reports. The discovery, found during a measurement taking on Wednesday by the robot and observed by NASA researchers, could indicate that microbial lifeforms may have taken up residence underground on Mars. Methane is often […]

Ray Dalio on the Extra Crunch stage at Disrupt SF 2019 This year at Disrupt SF, we will be hosting a special Extra Crunch stage focused on the issues that confront startup founders in building their companies. I am pleased to announce that Ray Dalio of Bridgewater fame will be sitting down for a fireside […]