These robo-fish autonomously form schools and work as search parties

Researchers at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering have created a set of fish-shaped underwater robots that can autonomously navigate and find each other, cooperating to perform tasks or just placidly school together. Just as aerial drones are proving themselves use

Venture capitalists react to Visa-Plaid deal meltdown

Congratulations, you’re no longer selling your company for billions of dollars! As strange as it sounds, that’s the leading perspective from venture capitalists concerning Plaid, now that its much-touted sale to Visa has fallen apart. The $5.3 billion deal would have see

Pat Gelsinger stepping down as VMware CEO to replace Bob Swan at Intel

In a move that could have wide ramifications across the tech landscape, Intel announced that VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger would be replacing interim CEO Bob Swan at Intel on February 15th. The question is why would he leave his job to run a struggling chip giant. The bottom line is he has a long histor

Flo gets FTC slap for sharing user data when it promised privacy

The FTC has reached a settlement with Flo, a period and fertity tracking app with 100 mlion+ users, over allegations it shared users’ health data with third-party app analytics and marketing services like Facebook despite promising to keep users’ sensitive health data private. Flo must

Facial recognition reveals political party in troubling new research

Researchers have created a machine learning system that they claim can determine a person’s political party, with reasonable accuracy, based only on their face. The study, from a group that also showed that sexual preference can seemingly be inferred this way, candidly addresses and carefully

Airbnb cancels all bookings for DC during Inauguration week

Airbnb won’t be hosting anyone in Washington DC during the week of the Presidential Inauguration, the company said in a statement. Brian Chesky took to Twitter to confirm the company’s move on Wednesday even as lawmakers in the nation’s Capitol were moving ahead with a historic vo

E-commerce optimization startup Tradeswell raises $15.5M

After launching in October, Tradeswell is announcing today that it has raised $15.5 million in Series A funding. Co-founder and CEO Paul Palmieri previously led digital ad company Millennial Media (now owned by technewss’s parent company Verizon Media), and he said the e-commerce market toda

GoPro makes stopping and starting simpler with motion, power, QR triggers

GoPro may have started out at the intersection of capability and affordability in the action cam space, but since then it has increasingly leaned toward use by professionals or deployment by businesses. The latest features, announced at CES, underline that priority, making the cameras simpler and m

Drata raises $3.2M for its compliance audit platform

Drata, a startup that helps businesses get their SOC 2 compliance, today announced that it has raised a $3.2 million seed round led by Cowboy Ventures and that it is coming out of stealth. Other investors include Leaders Fund, SV Angel and a group of angel investors. Like similar services, Drata he

Openbase scores $3.6M seed to help developers find open-source components

Openbase founder Lior Grossman started his company the way that many founders do — to solve a problem he was having. In this case, it was finding the right open-source components to build his software. He decided to build something to solve the problem, and Openbase was born. Today, the compa

Will startup valuations change given rising antitrust concerns?

The United States has, over the past few decades, been extremely lenient on antitrust enforcement, rarely blocking deals, even with overseas competitors. Yet, there have been inklings that things are changing. Yesterday, we learned that Visa and Plaid called off their combination after the Departme

Iziwork raises $43 million for its temporary work platform

French startup Iziwork has raised a $43 million funding round. Cathay Innovation and Bpifrance's Large Venture fund are participating in this funding round. The company has been building a platform focused on improving temporary employment. While it's a relatively large funding round, the s

Human AI nabs $3.2M seed to build personal intelligence platform

The last we heard from Luther.ai, the startup was participating in the technewss Disrupt Battlefield in September. The company got a lot of attention from that appearance, which culminated in a $3.2 million seed round it announced today. While they were at it, the founders decided to change the co

Blue Origin set to launch a New Shepard rocket outfitted with crew upgrades as it readies for astronaut flight

Blue Origin is set to launch one of its New Shepard rockets as early as tomorrow, January 14 at 9:45 AM CST (10:45 AM EST) for its first mission of 2021. This is a big one for the Jeff Bezos-founded space company, too — it includes upgrades to the crew capsule atop the rocket that are designe