Praveen chintu

Fintech startup Bnext has raised a $25 million funding round. The Spanish company is building a banking product and has managed to attract 300,000 active users. DN Capital, Redalpine and Speedinvest are leading today’s funding round. Existing investors Founders Future and Cometa are also participating. Other investors include Enern, USM and Conexo. When you open a Bnext account, you get a card and you can upload money to your account. Bnext accounts aren’t technically bank accounts — the company has an e-money license. You can then use your card and spend money anywhere around the world without any foreign transaction fee. You can also freeze and unfreeze your card from the app. “As of now we'll stick to the e-money license, as our international expansion plans complicate potential passporting of banking licenses. We will first need to understand in which countries makes more sense to get a banking license, and then we'll make a decision,” co-founder and CEO Guillermo Vica

Berlin-based recruitment chatbot startup Jobpal has closed a €2.5 million (~$2.7M) seed round of funding from InReach Ventures and Acadian Ventures . The company, which was founded back in 2016, has built a cross-platform chatbot to automate candidate support and increase efficiency around hiring by applying machine learning and natural language processing for what it dubs “talent interaction”. The target customers are large enterprises with Jobpal offering the product as a managed service. For these employers the pitch is increased efficiency by being able to rapidly respond to and engage potential job applicants whenever they’re reaching out for more info via an always-on channel (i.e. the chatbot) which is primed to respond to common questions. Candidates can also apply for vacancies via the Jobpal chatbot by answering a series of questions in the familiar messaging thread format. Jobpal says its chatbot can also be used to screen applicants’ CVs and recommend the most promisi

Channel 4 and Virgin Media are adopting Sky's AdSmart advertising system. Sky says it can put viewers into groups of 5,000 or more based on age, location, lifestyle, and "even if they have a cat" from WIRED UK https://ift.tt/2o6EAa4

Could admissions around buses, kissing kippers and saying he’s the “model of restraint” really downplay negative search results? It's unlikely to be a longterm tactic from WIRED UK https://ift.tt/2o0qpDJ

Destruction of the forests can be swift. Regrowth is much, much slower. from Phys.org - latest science and technology news stories https://ift.tt/2oQx0kB

Adam Neumann’s fall from grace was astonishingly swift once his company, WeWork, filed to go public in August. Even while his spending was fairly well-documented across time (as were his apparent conflicts of interest ), he was humiliated for enriching himself, then ultimately kicked out of the corner office before the company, in the least surprising turn of events in recent weeks, today yanked its S-1 registration. Neumann never exactly hid who he is or how he operates, so what suddenly sparked the ire of reporters — and investors — around the world? What, exactly, in an ultimately unsurprising IPO filing had people coughing up their morning coffee? Boiled down to the worst offense among many (including, most notably, selling his own company the trademark “We” for $5.9 million in stock ) was very likely the lock on control that Neumann had set up through a multi-class voting structure that aimed to cement his control — not just for 5 or 10 years after the company went public but, u

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Even as tens of millions of Indians have come online for the first time in recent years, most businesses in the nation remain offline. They continue to rely on long notebooks to keep a log of their financial transactions. A nine-month old startup that is helping them digitize their bookkeeping and accept online payments just raised a significant amount of capital to expand its operations. Khatabook , a Bangalore-based startup, said on Tuesday it has raised $25 million in a new financing round. The Series A round for the startup was funded by GGV Capital, Partners of DST Global, RTP Ventures, Sequoia India, Tencent, and Y Combinator. A clutch of high-profile angel investors including Amrish Rau, Anand Chandrasekharan, Deep Nishar, Gokul Rajaram, Jitendra Gupta, Kunal Bahl, and Kunal Shah also participated in the round. The startup has raised $29 million to date. Khatabook operates an eponymous Android app that allows micro, small and medium-sized businesses to keep a digital log of th

You may know Max Deutsch from Month to Master , his yearlong self-improvement program where he tried to master one “expert-level” skill each month — such as solving a Rubik’s Cube in 20 seconds, holding a 30-minute conversation in a foreign language and even  challenging world champion Magnus Carlsen to a game of chess (Deustch lost). Now, Deustch and his co-founder Valentin Perez are launching Monthly , which Deustch told me is designed to “leverage technology to help scale this kind of learning to many more people.” Specifically, Monthly offers 30-day classes taught by experts and celebrities— the instructors often have hundreds of thousands or millions of YouTube subscribers. For example, Andrew Huang is teaching a class on music production, Daria Callie is teaching a class on realistic portrait painting and  Stevie Mackey is teaching a class on singing. When you enroll in a class, you’ll be assigned a different task every day; you might watch an instructional video one day,

Hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe, packs a powerful punch. And because it contains no carbon, it produces only water when used as a fuel. But on Earth, hydrogen most often exists in combination with other elements, which means it needs to be extracted. from Phys.org - latest science and technology news stories https://ift.tt/2n4yxmq

Each summer, the University of Chicago welcomes high school students from around the world for a unique course on paleontology, which culminates with two weeks of fieldwork spent hunting for fossils. from Phys.org - latest science and technology news stories https://ift.tt/2nQLX5D

The hot outer layer of the sun, the corona, has a temperature of over a million degrees Kelvin, much more than the surface temperature of the Sun which is only about 5500 degrees Kelvin. Moreover, the corona is very active and ejects a wind of charged particles at a rate equivalent to about one-millionth of the moon's mass each year. Some of these particles bombard the Earth, producing auroral glows and occasionally disrupting global communications. There are two important, longstanding, and related questions about the corona that astronomers are working to answer: how is it heated to temperatures that are so much hotter than the surface? And how does the corona produce the wind? from Phys.org - latest science and technology news stories https://ift.tt/2nR2PsP

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers have designed a new class of 3-D-printed lattice structures that combine lightweight and high stiffness, despite breaking a rule previously thought to be required to exhibit such properties. One of the new structures additionally displays perfectly uniform response to forces in all directions. from Phys.org - latest science and technology news stories https://ift.tt/2oC0dQ3

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An element called gadolinium delivered into cancer cells releases killer electrons when hit by specially tuned X-rays. The approach, published in the journal Scientific Reports, could pave the way towards a new cancer radiation therapy. from Phys.org - latest science and technology news stories https://ift.tt/2nT1sty

Chinese social media and gaming giant Tencent is taking a 29% stake to become the largest shareholder in Oslo-based Funcom . The indie games developer is responsible for multiple adaptations involving the Conan the Barbarian franchise, such as Age of Conan and Conan Exiles , as well as a number of other multiplayer titles — including a forthcoming open world sandbox game that will be set in the Dune sci-fi universe. The news that Tencent has entered into a share purchase agreement to acquire almost a third of the company was announced in a press release today. The Chinese giant has agreed to acquire all the shares belonging to the Norway-based KGJ Capital AS, which is currently the largest shareholder in Funcom. Commenting in a statement, Funcom CEO Rui Casais said: “Tencent has a reputation for being a responsible long-term investor, and for its renowned operational capabilities in online games. The insight, experience, and knowledge that Tencent will bring is of great value t

A community garden occupies a diminutive dirt lot in Phoenix. Rows of raised garden beds offer up basil, watermelons and corn, making this patch of land an agricultural oasis in a desert city of 1.5 million people. In fact, this little garden is contributing in various ways to the city's environmental sustainability goals set by the city council in 2016. The goals consider matters such as transportation, water stewardship, air quality and food. from Phys.org - latest science and technology news stories https://ift.tt/2n25RKL

A Waseda University-led research uncovered the molecular mechanism of how a particular cancer-causing oncogene could trigger an onset of acute myeloid leukemia (AML). from Phys.org - latest science and technology news stories https://ift.tt/2nSZg5C

In a good news for the users who want to top up their Tesla using an extra-speedy V3 Supercharger, the EV maker said that 26 of the 46 Supercharger stations under construction along the Trans-Canada Highway will be V3 models. from Gadgets Now https://ift.tt/2nMozWW

Google is under an anti-trust probe over a new Internet Protocol that could give the tech giant an unfair competitive advantage, the media reported. from Gadgets Now https://ift.tt/2meycgB

Such technology has also been currently deployed at 3,145 kilometres-lengthy Unites States-Mexico border. from Gadgets Now https://ift.tt/2n1PayX

Leading consumer durable maker Samsung, is expecting double-digit growth in TV panel market, during this festive season sales. from Gadgets Now https://ift.tt/2mifl4g

How do weapons inspectors verify that a nuclear bomb has been dismantled? An unsettling answer is: They don't, for the most part. When countries sign arms reduction pacts, they do not typically grant inspectors complete access to their nuclear technologies, for fear of giving away military secrets. from Phys.org - latest science and technology news stories https://ift.tt/2mcuHXS

All technology and innovation have a science base but to get there requires patience, as the journey from curiosity-driven basic research to a world-changing technology can take six months or 50 years, a panel of Nobel and Kavli prize laureates has said. from Phys.org - latest science and technology news stories https://ift.tt/2owZbVp

If you are planning to buy AirPods for your iPhone then this may be the best time to buy. As part of the festive sale, both Amazon and Flipkart are offering discounts and no-cost EMI options on the AirPods. from Gadgets Now https://ift.tt/2n1owWZ

Data shared by both marketplaces indicate that most of these shoppers used some kind of financial affordability construct like EMI or product exchange offers to make purchases, especially on electronics. from Gadgets Now https://ift.tt/2mQaWG6

Amboss , the Berlin-based ‘medtech’ startup that originally offered a learning app for students but has since pivoted to a knowledge platform for medical professionals, has raised €30 million in Series B funding. The round is led by Partech’s growth fund, with Target Global acting as a co-investor. Existing investors, Cherry Ventures, Wellington Partners and Holtzbrinck Digital, also participated. Launched in 2014 as a study platform for medical students, Amboss has since evolved to offer what it claims is the “most comprehensive and technologically-advanced” knowledge platform for medical professionals. It has been developed by a group of 70 doctors and 40 software engineers who work together in small cross functional teams. “Medical Knowledge does not find its way into practice efficiently,” argues Ambross co-CEO Benedikt Hochkirchen. “This has two main root causes: the way we educate doctors is outdated, and the way doctors access knowledge is inefficient”. Specifically, he says

Researchers at Microsoft have uncovered a new malware campaign that is infecting thousands of computers across the world. from Gadgets Now https://ift.tt/2mhQJbU

Musk oversaw Tesla's illegal anti-unionisation efforts, reports of a WhatsApp backdoor for law enforcement aren't quite what they seem from WIRED UK https://ift.tt/2meET2f

Microsoft's Windows 10 is now the world's most popular desktop operating system. But if you want to control how it uses your data, here are a few top tips from WIRED UK https://ift.tt/2mZyuIm

After a widely-used vaccine was drawn into question, trust in immunisations plummeted. Now the Philippines is in the grip of multiple severe outbreaks from WIRED UK https://ift.tt/2ouGfql

Chinese mobile-phone and device maker  Transsion has listed in an IPO on Shanghai’s STAR Market, a Transsion spokesperson confirmed to TechCrunch.  Headquartered in Shenzhen, Transsion is a top-seller of smartphones in Africa under its Tecno brand. The company has also started to support venture funding of African startups. Transsion issued 80 million A-shares at an opening price of 35.15 yuan (≈ $5.00) to raise 2.8 billion yuan (or ≈ $394 million). A-shares are the common shares issued by mainland Chinese companies and are normally available for purchases only by mainland citizens.   Transsion’s IPO prospectus is  downloadable (in Chinese)  and its STAR Market listing  application available  on the Shanghai Stock Exchange’s website. STAR is the Shanghai Stock Exchange’s new Nasdaq-style board for tech stocks that went live in July with some 25 companies going public. Transsion plans to spend 1.6 billion yuan (or $227 million) of its STAR Market raise on building more phone as

The Delta EcoFlow is a new battery generator available on Kickstarter with incredible claimed features. Most are true, some are not. Device like the Delta offer incredible battery storage capacity. Designed for more than just recharging phones and tablets, these can run refrigerators, pumps, power tools and medical equipment. They’re great for emergencies, camping and general use where power is not available. Similar devices have been on the market for some years so I was eager to verify EcoFlow’s claims. The EcoFlow Delta can recharge from a wall outlet to 80% in an hour. It’s amazing. The GoalZero Yeti battery of a similar size takes 25 hours. This capability means the Delta can be used and then reused more than competitors. The device is currently on Kickstarter where it quickly acquired over $2 million from over 2,000 backers. The device’s features listed on the Kickstarter page are clear, but after testing a pre-production unit, I found several of these advertised capabilities

According to Dropbox CEO Drew Houston, 80% of the product’s users rely on it, at least partially, for work. It makes sense, then, that the company is refocusing to try and cement its spot in the workplace; to shed its image as “just” a file storage company (in a time when just about every big company has its own cloud storage offering) and evolve into something more immutably core to daily operations. Earlier this week, Dropbox announced that the “new Dropbox” would be rolling out to all users . It takes the simple, shared folders that Dropbox is known for and turns them into what the company calls “Spaces” — little mini collaboration hubs for your team, complete with comment streams, AI for highlighting files you might need mid-meeting, and integrations into things like Slack, Trello and G Suite. With an overhauled interface that brings much of Dropbox’s functionality out of the OS and into its own dedicated app, it’s by far the biggest user-facing change the product has seen since

What’s the lesson of WeWork? Here’s a startup that has been a darling of Silicon Valley investors for years, whose offices and CEO have been stunningly painted across the covers of major trade magazines and strategically deployed across major tech conference stages, including our very own . At its peak, the company commanded a valuation of tens of billions of dollars and was supposed to be on course for the stratosphere, joining companies like Google and Facebook. And then it all came crashing down, in literally a handful of days. It’s easy to point to WeWork’s potentially 75%+ valuation drop, its looming layoffs, the firing of its CEO, and the seeming compression of a whole heck of a lot of investors and employee equity as a sordid disaster tale of capitalism, and venture capitalism in particular. VCs — none more so than Masayoshi Son at SoftBank — constantly overbought, oversold, and overcommitted to a company that had pretty much no business fundamentals whatsoever. So what’s th

Patricia Nakache Contributor Patricia Nakache is a general partner at Trinity Ventures . More posts by this contributor Defensible strategies for food tech entrepreneurs facing the Amazon juggernaut How Startups Are Making Real Estate Businesses More Efficient Across the political, social and economic stage, women’s issues are finally receiving heightened attention and priority. There are  more women than ever seeking political office ;  funding for female-founded startups is reaching record levels  (even if they still have a long way to go to reach gender parity);  a sizable cohort of female-founded and led companies have achieved billion-dollar unicorn valuations ; and several women-led companies, including  PagerDuty ,  The RealReal , and  Eventbrite , have entered the public markets with successful IPOs. What’s driving so much positive change? Clearly, broadened awareness of gender and power issues, largely due to #MeToo, as well as an increase in the number of f

Let us connect some dots. Five years ago, Facebook acquired VR pioneers Oculus for $2 billion. This week, it snapped up neural-interface pioneers CTRL-Labs for somewhere north of $500 million, and announced that its own massively multiplayer VR shared universe Horizon will launch early next year. Oculus became (somewhat creepily named) Facebook Reality Labs , headed by Andrew Bosworth , one of the company’s first 15 engineers, who also headed the company’s transition from desktop to mobile advertising. It doesn’t take much imagination to see that he’s now in charge a much more interesting, and longer-term, transition: from the World Wide Web to whatever lies beyond. Their big multibillion-dollar bet, the vision floating in Mark Zuckerberg’s crystal ball, is clearly that this new frontier is “cyberspace,” to use William Gibson’s term, or “the Oasis,” to borrow from READY PLAYER ONE, a copy of which was once issued to every new Oculus employee. Virtual reality, in other words, and/o