Grocery startup Mercato spilled years of data, but didn’t tell its customers

A security lapse at online grocery delivery startup Mercato exposed tens of thousands of customer orders, technewss has learned. A person with knowledge of the incident told technewss that the incident happened in January after one of the company’s cloud storage buckets, hosted on Amazon

How to pivot your startup, save cash and maintain trust with investors and customers

A few years ago, founder Sean Lane thought he’d achieved product-market fit. Speaking to attendees at technewss’s Early Stage virtual event, Lane said Queue, a secure digital check-in tablet for hospital waiting rooms that reduced wait times by uniting and correcting electronic medical

Ford takes aim at Tesla, GM with its new hands-free driving system

Ford will debut its new hands-free driving feature on the 2021 F-150 pickup truck and certain 2021 Mustang Mach-E models through a software update later this year, technology that the automaker developed to rival similar systems from Tesla and GM. That hands-free capability — which uses cameras,

TikTok funds first episodic public health series ‘VIRAL’ from NowThis

TikTok is taking another step toward directly funding publishers’ content with today’s announcement that it’s financially backing the production of media publisher NowThis’ new series, “VIRAL,” which will feature interviews with public health experts and a live Q

Kroger launches its first Ocado-powered ‘shed’, a massive, robot-filled fulfillment center in Ohio

After inking a deal to work together almost three years ago, U.S. supermarket chain Kroger and U.K. online grocer Ocado today took the wraps off the first major product of that deal. Kroger has launched a new Ocado-powered customer fulfillment center in Monroe, Ohio, outside of Cincinnati, a gigant

Deepfake video app Avatarify, which processes on-phone, plans digital watermark for videos

Making deepfake videos used to be hard. Now all you need is a smartphone. Avatarify, a startup that allows people to make deepfake videos directly on their phone rather than in the cloud, is soaring up the app charts after being used by celebrities such as Victoria Beckham. However, the problem wit

MIT startup Pickle raises $5.75M for its package-picking robot

There's no doubt this past year has been a major watershed moment for the robotics industry. Warehouse and logistics have been a particular target for an automation push, as companies have worked to keep the lights on amidst stay at home orders and other labor shortages. MIT spinoff Pickle is o

Alexa von Tobel outlines how founders should manage personal finances

Few people are more knowledgable on the topic of how founders should manage their finances than Alexa von Tobel. She is a certified financial planner, started her own company in the midst of the recession (which happened to be a wildly successful personal finance startup that sold for hundreds of m

Google’s FeedBurner moves to a new infrastructure but loses its email subscription service

Google today announced that it is moving FeedBurner to a new infrastructure but also deprecating its email subscription service. If you’re an internet user of a certain age, chances are you used Google’s FeedBurner to manage the RSS feeds of your personal blogs and early podcasts at som

Coinbase opens at $381 per share, valuing the crypto exchange at nearly $100B

Today shares of Coinbase began to trade after the company executed a direct listing. From a reference price of $250, Coinbase shares opened at $381 today, a change of around 52%. At its open Coinbase was valued at $99.6 billion on a fully diluted basis. As of the time of writing Coinbase has apprec

Triller owner gets a new CEO with acquisition of Amplify.AI; also acquires livestreaming service FITE TV

Would be TikTok competitor Triller, operated by parent company TrillerNet, is gaining a new CEO, the company announced today. The short-form video app said it’s acquiring an A.I.-based customer engagement platform, Amplify.AI, whose co-founder Mahi de Silva will now become TrillerNet’s

Blue Origin launches and lands New Shepard rocket in key prep flight for human passengers

Blue Origin has launched its New Shepard rocket for the second time this year, and the 15th time overall. The mission profile saw the reusable spacecraft fly to suborbital space, and then return for a parachute-assisted landing at Blue Origin’s launch facility in West Texas. This flight was a

Uber hit with default ‘robo-firing’ ruling after another EU labor rights GDPR challenge

Labor activists challenging Uber over what they allege are ‘robo-firings’ of drivers in Europe have trumpeted winning a default judgement in the Netherlands — where the Court of Amsterdam ordered the ride-hailing giant to reinstate six drivers who the litigants claim were unfairly

How Pilot charted a course of not raising too much money

A few weeks ago, we wrote about fintech Pilot raising a $100 million Series C that doubled the company's valuation to $1.2 billion. Bezos Expeditions — Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' personal investment fund — and Whale Rock Capital joined the round, adding $40 million to a $60 million rai