Luna Display adds a teleprompter mode

I really like the Luna Display. The dongle still occupies a spot in my travel-cord bag. But like the bag it resides in, the iPad accessory hasn't gotten much use in the past year. 2020 has no doubt been a tough time for the company, which was already reeling from Apple's introduction of Sid

SpaceX will launch Masten’s first lander to the moon in 2022

SpaceX has secured a contract to act as the launch partner for Masten Space Systems, one of the companies awarded a NASA launch contract under that agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. Masten’s first lunar mission is set to take place in 2022 if all goes to plan, a

The bullish case for Palantir’s direct listing

The Palantir S-1 finally dropped yesterday after technewss spilled a bunch of its guts last Friday. You can read the filing here, if you are so inclined. Today, however, instead of our usual overview, I have a different goal: We’re going to be a bit more specific. It’s

The Positive Grid Spark is a versatile smart amp perfect for guitarists stuck at home

Powered amps for electric guitars have gotten some neat tricks powered by modern mobile tech over the years, but the new Positive Grid Spark ($299) might be the one that packs the most intelligence and versatility into a single package. From a companion app, to voice commands, to tunable modeling a

Twitter experiments with adding a ‘Quotes’ count to tweets

[Update: it's live as of 8/31/20] Twitter wants to make it easier to see the conversations taking place around a tweet. This May, the company rolled out a change to its user interface that allowed users who clicked on the “Retweets” metric beneath a tweet to view both those Retweets

The H-1B visa ban is creating nearshore business partnership opportunities

In June, President Donald Trump signed an executive order temporarily suspending work visas for H-1B holders, which includes skilled workers like software developers. Considering that 71% of workers in Silicon Valley and other tech hubs are international, the order poses a number of logistical and

Microsoft researcher Dr. Cecily Morrison will discuss keeping AI ‘personal’ at Sight Tech Global

For Dr. Cecily Morrison, research into how AI can help people who are blind or visually disabled is deeply personal. It's not only that the Microsoft Principal Researcher has a 7-year-old son who is blind, she also believes that the powerful AI-related technologies that will help people must th

Course Hero, a profitable edtech unicorn, raises rare cash

Like any successful founder, Andrew Grauer had bright, long-term ambitions for Course Hero from the moment he launched it in 2006. He started the business to create a place where students could ask questions and get answers similar to Chegg, which launched 15 months before Course Hero. But as he sl

Dear Sophie: Latest immigration and H-1B updates

Here’s another edition of “Dear Sophie,” the advice column that answers immigration-related questions about working at technology companies. “Your questions are vital to the spread of knowledge that allows people all over the world to rise above borders and pursue their dreams,” says

Synthetic biology startups are giving investors an appetite

There’s a growing wave of commercial activity from companies that are creating products using new biological engineering technologies. Perhaps the most public (and tastiest) example of the promise biomanufacturing holds is Impossible Foods. The meat replacement company whose ground plants (an

Benchmark’s Peter Fenton is joining us at Disrupt

Benchmark used to be the quintessential Silicon Valley venture firm. It was small. It was focused. It was aggressive while also remaining founder friendly. It stuck to its knitting when it came to its fund size, raising fund after fund in the $450 million range. Over the years, the world changed. S

Mobile voting can ease polling place unease in the COVID-19 era

A bitterly divided nation heads into the 2020 presidential election with accusations of potential voter fraud, calls for delays and charges of voter suppression as state and local election officials cope with the ongoing threat of COVID-19. Their challenge: Keep the polling places safe and e

Bingie is an app for all your streaming recommendations and debates

If you’re overwhelmed trying to choose the next movie or TV show to watch on Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, HBO Max or any other streaming service, Bingie could be the app for you. You may recall a previous wave of TV recommendation apps from a decade ago, like Viggle and GetGlue. Those apps have l

Many Canon cameras can now automatically back up pictures to Google Photos

Canon and Google today announced a new software integration that enables automatic Google Photos backup of pictures taken with select Canon cameras — a full list is available here, but it’s most of their recent interchangeable lens cameras dating back basically to when they started getting