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Earth Day, also known as April 22, 2022, is on April 22, and we are grateful that the sun sets on another week.
We don't always fit in with everyone's calendars, but we love our events. Good news: They are now available as a podcasts, so you can listen to them whenever you want.
May your weekend be filled with all the right surprises. Christine and Haje have ice cream.
The TechCrunch Top 3
Zenly doesn’t want you to miss another event: Remember the big map that used to sit in the passenger side back pocket of your parents’ car? I loved plotting different routes and checking out the graphic at the top that showed how many miles were between cities. Oh, that was just me? Well, anyway, as Romain put it today, Zenly is “making social maps cool again.” The kind where you figure out what is going on nearby and which of your friends are going to be there. The Snap-owned app is undergoing its biggest redesign, adopting a sleeker look with a black background and features to make the app easier to navigate.
Amazon has its sights set on social: At least that’s what we think with its latest move to acquire India-based social commerce company GlowRoad. The deal comes as other big retail names, like Walmart and YouTube, invest in the social commerce space. Amazon also announced the first five startups that are part of its $1 billion industrial innovation fund focused on logistics, the supply chain and customer fulfillment, all things facing a bottleneck right now.
Unicorns can check out anytime they like, but they can never leave: That seems to be the sentiment behind global companies reaching $1 billion in value but not going public. However, over in Asia, Anna found that was not a problem — nine of the 10 biggest IPOs in the first quarter came from the region — and with nearly 100 deals made during that time, dare we say it is becoming “a haven for public exits”?
Startups and VC
One of the things often described as the advantage of web3 startup is its downfall, according to Connie.
Check out the rest of the startup tech.
And they huff and they puff and they turn on noise-canceling: I took a closer look at Sennheiser’s newest earbuds that cancel out the exercise noises while you get your sweat on. In audio news, I also reviewed the curious DJI Mic product – a wireless mic set for creators that falls a little short of the mark for the price, IMO.
They have 99 problems, but the kitch’ ain’t one: Catherine explores how MadEats is a full-stack delivery startup, not just a ghost kitchen play.
Make stove, not war: Luke Hutchinson went from five years as an infantry officer to launching a restaurant booking platform, raising $3.6 million to do so.
It gets knocked down, but it gets back up again: Bipedal robots are a little creepy if you ask me, but Amazon, DCVC and Playground just plunged $150 million into Agility to bring them to a warehouse near you. Not to diminish Brian’s eloquent words, but it’s worth checking out the article just for the video.
YC or a16z … Who would win in a karaoke battle? I would totally pay money to not have to listen to either of their investment teams sing, not gonna lie – but luckily that is not the topic of the newest episode of Equity. Instead, Alex, Natasha and Mary Ann wonder who runs the best accelerator as a16z joins the fray, taking on YC on its home turf.
4 questions every CISO should be asking about the metaverse
The metaverse is still taking shape, but it is causing headaches for cybersecurity professionals.
It will definitely create a threat attack surface of titanic proportions if technology places users inside virtual environments where they can transact. David Fairman says that organizations must be able to answer these questions.
Can we protect PII (and other sensitive data) in the metaverse?
How can I authenticate users?
Can we protect users from bullying, harassment and exploitation?
Can we manage this kind of fast-growing attack surface?
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4 questions every CISO should be asking about the metaverse
Big Tech Inc.
Brian Armstrong is waging a bit of a war with Apple, saying that the tech giant’s App Store rules mean that some of Coinbase’s features are being banned. Overall, Armstrong is making the claim that Apple is not being very nice to the crypto world. Meanwhile, Stripe is having no problems with crypto, adding payouts to Connect, with Twitter being the first platform to use it.
We gleefully learned that former President Barack Obama reads TechCrunch and is taking on disinformation.
We hope you haven’t tired of social media news because there was a lot of it today. Here’s what we gathered: Consumers are finicky creatures and we demand new features all the time, so Instagram is testing something called “Templates,” which will allow Reels creators to use the same format as other videos. Next, Twitter wants to win back developers with some new tools and is testing status updates. Then TikTok rolled out an in-feed ad feature for interactive add-ons. And finally, Snapchat is testing ads on Spotlight.
Meanwhile, if you are also trying to remember if Snapchat was still a thing, its first-quarter earnings show that it very much is. And if there were any doubts, Snap and Disney are pairing up to create an augmented reality Cinderella castle mural at Disney World. Bibbidi-bobbidi boo!
Alphabet X-birthed Intrinsic made its big debut last September. The subsidiary looks to buck its parent company’s somewhat spotty robotics record with a software-first approach. Specifically, the c...A multi-year, $100 million Xprize competition for startups trying to remove or reverse carbon emissions has its first crop of big winners. Though the bulk of this Musk money won’t be given aw...Jack Dorsey, the Twitter co-founder and current Block CEO, is no longer the payments firm’s “chief executive officer.” Instead, the executive is choosing to call himself “Bl...The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled today that the first union at a major U.S. gaming company can file for a formal union election. In January, the quality assurance (QA) department of ...A new report has peeled back the curtain on big tech’s frenzied lobbying of European Union lawmakers as they finalize a major series of updates to the bloc’s digital rulebook. It reveal...The venture capital market is slowing down, which means early-stage founders are chasing a smaller pool of money. We asked VCs to name a pro forma pitch practice they think founders should retire.The internet is full of mysteries. Who really wrote “My Immortal,” and was it supposed to be a satire? Who is behind the group of hackers known as Anonymous? And why can’t Elon Mu...Emboldened by the recent results of the nearby JFK8 fulfillment center, workers at Staten Island’s LDJ5 sort center are set to hold their own vote this coming Monday, April 25th. Voting will contin...An app called BeReal, founded by former GoPro employee Alexis Barreyat along with Kévin Perreau, launched in December 2019 with its idea of asking users to post an unedited photo once per day after...Bitso, a Mexico City-based crypto exchange, is pledging to buy carbon offsets for every bitcoin transaction on its platform to compensate for the cryptocurrency’s environmental toll. It may sound g...Twitter announced today that it’s beginning to test a “CC” button that will let users turn video captions on or off. The feature is rolling out to some iOS users and will be comin...The Lapsus$ hacking group has claimed another victim: U.S. telecom giant T-Mobile. T-Mobile’s latest security incident — the seventh data breach in the past four years — was first revealed by...Twitter has been spotted working on a feature that would allow users to set a status on their profiles and tweets. According to reverse engineer Jane Manchun Wong, who searches the code of mobile a...Instagram is testing Templates, a new feature that will allow Reels creators to use the same format as other videos, according to Business Insider. The feature is currently only available to a smal...You know what it’s like; you’ve painstakingly strapped on some running shoes, and you’re plodding your way up an endless hill of abject misery, lactic acid and self-loathing. You&...Databases are an essential part of doing business in the digital world, but not every organization is achieving success with them. In a 2019 Vanson Bourne survey, enterprises said that they’v...For startups, ensuring their intellectual property and commercial contracts are in order can be helpful to achieving a smooth financing.
