Twitter bans James O’Keefe of Project Veritas over fake account policy

Twitter has banned right-wing provocateur James O’Keefe, creator of political gotcha video producer Project Veritas, for violating its “platform manipulation and spam policy,” suggesting he was operating multiple accounts in an unsanctioned way. O’Keefe has already announced

Daily Crunch: Google Earth gets an update

Google Earth gives users a new look at a changing planet, Facebook tests new business discovery features and Autodesk acquires Upchain. This is your Daily Crunch for April 15, 2021. The big story: Google Earth gets an update Google is describing this as Google Earth’s biggest

Should Dell have pursued a more aggressive debt-reduction move with VMware?

When Dell announced it was spinning out VMware yesterday, the move itself wasn’t surprising; there had been public speculation for some time. But Dell could have gone a number of ways in this deal, despite its choice to spin VMware out as a separate company with a constituent dividend instead

E-commerce investor Upper90 raises $55M for equity investments

It might be strange to hear this from a firm that just raised a $55 million equity fund, but the team at Upper90 would like to remind you that equity isn’t the only funding that’s available. Upper90 is led by CEO Billy Libby (former head of quantitative education sales at Goldman Sachs)

You can now pay for BART using an iPhone or Apple Watch

Good news, Bay Area! Apple Pay now works with Clipper cards. That means you can now use an iPhone or Apple Watch to pay for BART. Or Muni. Or Caltrain. Or the ferry! Or (almost) any other transit-related thing you’d otherwise use the plastic Clipper card for. Clipper has a pag

MEPs call for European AI rules to ban biometric surveillance in public

A cross-party group of 40 MEPs in the European parliament has called on the Commission to strengthen an incoming legislative proposal on artificial intelligence to include an outright ban on the use of facial recognition and other forms of biometric surveillance in public places. They have also urg

How startups can ensure CCPA and GDPR compliance in 2021

Data is the most valuable asset for any business in 2021. If your business is online and collecting customer personal information, your business is dealing in data, which means data privacy compliance regulations will apply to everyone — no matter the company's size. Small startups might

Facebook brings software subscriptions to the Oculus Quest

Subscription pricing is landing on Facebook’s Oculus Store, giving VR developers another way to monetize content on Facebook’s Oculus Quest headset. Developers will be allowed to add premium subscriptions to paid or free apps, with Facebook assumedly dragging in their standard percentag

Billion-dollar B2B: Cloud-first enterprise tech behemoths have massive potential

More than half a decade ago, my Battery Ventures partner Neeraj Agrawal penned a widely read post offering advice for enterprise-software companies hoping to reach $100 million in annual recurring revenue. His playbook, dubbed “T2D3” — for “triple, triple, double, double, double,” referri

Can the tech trade show return in 2021?

The past year has been a devastating one for the conference industry. It's certainly an issue we've grappled with here at technewss, as we've worked to move our programming to a virtual setting. Clearly each individual case calls for an individual solution, dependent on geography, atte

Do you fit the mold for the next generation of values-driven VCs?

More individuals than ever are donning the investor cap. Almost a fifth of U.S. equity trading in 2020 was driven by mom-and-pop investors — up from around 15% in the previous year. With such impressive returns to be made, many are deciding to set up a full-fledged investment business. With t

Consumer groups and child development experts petition Facebook to drop ‘Instagram for kids’ plan

A coalition of 35 consumer advocacy groups along with 64 experts in child development have co-signed a letter to Facebook asking the company to reconsider its plans to launch a version of Instagram for children under the age of 13, which Facebook has confirmed to be in development. In the letter,

Japanese VC Samurai Incubate closes $18.6M fund for African startups

Samurai Incubate, a Tokyo-based venture capital firm, announced today it has closed its “Samurai Africa 2nd General Partnership” fund, totalling 2.026 billion yen (~$18.6 million). According to the firm, the fund was oversubscribed as it targeted 2 billion (~$18.4 million) and a total o

Hadrian is building the factories of the future for rocket ships and advanced manufacturing

If the eight person team behind the new startup Hadrian has their way, they’ll have transformed the manufacturing industry within the next decade. At least, that’s the goal for the new San Francisco-based startup, founded only last year, which has set its sights on building out a new mo