Alexa’s new features will let users personalize the AI to their own needs

Amazon is preparing to roll out a trio of new features that will allow consumers to further personalize their Alexa experience by helping train the Alexa AI using simple tools. In a few months’ time, consumers will be able to teach Alexa to do things like identifying specific sounds in their

Hospitals/clinics patient platform Heydoc raises $8.3M Series A led by Smedvig Capital

Heydoc,?a system for managing the medical data and admin tasks in medical practitioners, has closed an $8.3 million Series A round led by Smedvig Capital with existing investors Hambro Perks, Triple Point?Ventures?and?InHealth Ventures also participating. This brings the total?amount?ra

Amazon takes on Fitbit with the $80 Halo View

A year after launching its original exercise band, Halo, Amazon just dropped the follow-up, Halo View. The company's not quite ready to go full bore into the smartwatch category just yet, but it clearly has the Google-owned Fitbit brand directly in its sights with the newly announced Halo View.

New Amazon Echo devices will have local voice processing, giving users more privacy

When you speak to an Amazon Echo device, so far in its history, Alexa would connect to the internet to process requests and deliver a response. Of course, this has sparked concerns among some consumers, since it might feel worrisome to have a Wi-Fi-connected smart device listening for you to say a

Amazon introduces Amazon Glow, an interactive, video calling device for kids and families

Amazon today introduced Amazon Glow, a new, interactive device aimed at families that allows kids to interact with family members and other remote loved ones over video calls. While something of a competitor to Facebook’s line of Portal devices, which are also largely aimed at connecting fami

Disney and Amazon partner on a custom voice assistant, ‘Hey, Disney!’ and Echo rollout to Walt Disney World Resort hotels

Amazon, for the first time, is making another voice assistant available on Echo devices. The company at its fall event today announced a new voice assistant, “Hey, Disney,” developed by Disney and built on top of Alexa technology. The assistant will have its own unique voice and over 1,

Amazon's newest Echo Show is a 15-inch, wall-mounted digital picture frame

Amazon just took the wraps off the latest — and largest — addition to the Echo Show family. The Echo Show 15 takes the company's smart screen technology to the wall in the form of a 15.6-inch 1080p display that doubles as a massive digital picture frame. The $250 device is certainly

Amazon launches a $60 smart thermostat

Amazon kicked off its big hardware event today by announcing a new smart thermostat. The company worked with Honeywell (and Resideo) to create the device, but is keeping its own branding on the product (rather than, say, Ring, Blink or any of the other smart home companies it owns). The device runs

Notion now offers free credits to any startup globally, partners with AWS and Stripe

Two years ago, Notion partnered with dozens of accelerators and incubators to provide free credits for its work collaboration platform to their portfolio startups. The firm is now aggressively making the program open to all startups. Notion is launching a new startup program Tuesday to offer a cred

Sisu Data raises $62M to stop companies from making clouded business mistakes

Sisu Data, which aims to help businesses make better decisions, announced today it has raised $62 million in a Series C round of funding led by Green Bay Ventures. Existing backers Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and NEA also put money in the round, along with new investor Geodesic Capital. The financin

Four days left to save $100 on passes to TC Sessions: SaaS 2021

Tick-tock, folks! Our TC Sessions: SaaS 2021 countdown clock says only four days remain before the early bird flies away with $100 clutched in its tight little beak. If you want to take part in our global SaaS conference on October 27 — and save $100 while you're at it — purchase your early

Fairmat creates a new material based on recycled carbon fiber composite

Meet Fairmat, a new French startup that wants to improve the recycling process for sophisticated composite materials. The company wants to produce new kinds of materials from material waste and sell them to industrial companies. Fairmat just raised a $10 million funding round (€8.6 million) led b

Guardian backed-fund invests in Unlock, an NFT protocol designed for subscriptions and memberships

Monetization for the creator economy continues to be a huge issue and opportunity, but creators mostly have to lock themselves into platforms like Patreon to realize their value. A better method would be to have a membership system for creators which sat across several platforms. Now, GMG Ventures

Federated Genomic data startup Lifebit raises $60M round led by Tiger Global

Genomic data is considered to be the key to unlocking so-called “precision medicine”. Some estimates suggest that by 2025, 500 million human genomes will have been sequenced, but only a fraction of it is being utilized for drug discovery and precision medicine. One of the key startups t