Praveen chintu

Despite economic turmoil in the tech world, an Oakland-based startup shows that moonshots are still getting funded. Felt, co-founded by Sam Hashemi and Can Duruk , wants to disrupt the role of maps in society, and rethink how we think about the medium. The startup allows users to build a map with datasets integrated into it, and work with each other to showcase impact in a less static way than your average Google maps query. Despite a massive mission — proving that maps are a forgotten yet fundamental medium worth renovating — the co-founders cited proven business models from Figma and Notion, both valued in the billions, as reason to believe in their work. The aforementioned companies both succeeded in rolling out to users for personal use, then pivoting to the enterprise, a playbook that Felt wants to follow (and that VCs can certainly speak the language of). “That kind of business model and go to market is — I don’t want to say immune, but is a little bit removed from the kind o

It’s been a bumpy ride for Netflix recently, and the announcement that it will be charging for password sharing hasn’t gone as smoothly as it might have hoped, a new report claims. Subscribers in Peru who were opted in to new password-sharing restrictions have reported confusion over Netflix’s loose definition of “household” and noted the lack of clarity around the differing charges imposed on consumers. Global tech news site Rest of World informally surveyed more than a dozen Netflix users in Peru, after Netflix’s March announcement that it would be asking customers in the country — as well as in Chile and Costa Rica — to pay extra when sharing their account passwords outside their homes. Central and South America represent Netflix’s lowest revenue per user, which helps to explain the markets’ selection. The majority of those surveyed by Rest of World in Peru said that they have still not received uniform messaging around the new charges, even though it’s been over two months aft

Britain's finance ministry set out plans on Tuesday for adapting existing rules to deal for any major stablecoin collapses, such as with TerraUSD this month. from Gadgets Now https://ift.tt/pXrZi9s

Accounts of conservatives have seen a sudden influx in the number of followers, while liberals have lost out on followers after news broke that the tech billionaire bought Twitter in a $44 billion deal, which he has put on hold over the presence of fake accounts. from Gadgets Now https://ift.tt/aRet26J

Foxconn is aiming to become the first electric vehicle (EV) maker "not short on material supplies," Liu said, referring to a prolonged global chip shortage that has forced carmakers to halt production and hurt smartphone production, including for Apple Inc, a major client. from Gadgets Now https://ift.tt/ETLCoyI

The National Health Authority (NHA) under its flagship scheme of Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) on Monday launched a public dashboard for near real-time information on the scheme. from Gadgets Now https://ift.tt/W4YiqCe

Given the likely global recession, small businesses are reaching for new kinds of financing. Thus, the Buy Now Pay Later business model is now expanding into this B2B world at a rate of knots. Playter has raised backing to do this, as has Hokodo, Billie and Tranch, to name a few other players. But in Germany, B2B Payments company Mondu has emerged as a significant entrant to the market. Mondu has now raised a $43M Series A round led by US-based venture capital fund Valar Ventures, and will use the funding to expand into more European countries later this year. Previous investors Cherry Ventures, FinTech Collective, and tech entrepreneurs and senior executives from Klarna, Zalando, and SumUp, also participated. The company has now raised $57M to date. Mondu’s BNPL for B2B solutions for merchants and marketplaces offers the main payment B2B payment options and flexible payment terms. Malte Huffmann, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Mondu, said in a statement: “The concept of BNPL isn’t new

The app is available in multiple languages and aims to reach and impact over five million chronic disease patients within a span of five years, the app developers said. from Gadgets Now https://ift.tt/2vDi5JO

Tech billionaire Elon Musk said that his aerospace company SpaceX will soon accept Dogecoin as a payment option for merchandise, joining Tesla. from Gadgets Now https://ift.tt/rDBwCIP

India's Supreme Court in 2018 upheld the validity of the Aadhaar, but flagged privacy concerns and reined in a government push to make it mandatory for everything from banking to telecom services. from Gadgets Now https://ift.tt/vnV3UkO

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Indonesia’s sprawling archipelago has long been a headache for logistics companies, but there’s no lack of brave challengers. Jarkata-based Astro, which provides 15-minute grocery delivery, has recently closed a $60 million Series B financing round, lifting its total funding to $90 million since the business launched just nine months ago. The Series B round was led by Accel, Citius and Tiger Global, with participation from existing investors AC Ventures, Global Founders Capital, Lightspeed and Sequoia Capital India. The company declined to disclose its post-money valuation. The speed at which Astro is attracting investment goes to show the need for hefty upfront investment in the grocery delivery race, which is about establishing a logistics infrastructure quickly and locking in loyal customers ahead of rivals. Founded by Tokopedia veteran Vincent Tjendra , Astro plans to spend its funding proceeds on user acquisition, product development, and hiring more staff to add to its current

India has withdrawn a warning that asked users to not share photocopies of their national biometric ID following a widespread uproar from users on social media, many of whom pointed that this is the first time they were hearing about such a possibility. A regional office of UIDAI, the body that oversees the national biometric ID system Aadhaar, warned users on Friday that “unlicensed private entities” such as hotels and theatre halls are “not permitted to collect or keep copies of Aadhaar card,” a 12-digit unique number that ties an individual’s fingerprints and retina scan, and individuals should avoid sharing photocopies of their Aadhaar to prevent misuse. The warning prompted an immediate and wide backlash from individuals. “I might have stayed in almost 100 hotels who kept a copy of my Aadhaar! Now this,” an individual tweeted, summing up the dilemma of tens of millions of people in the country, if not more. UIDAI has now woken up after everyone's distributed photocopies o

You can navigate to existing shortcuts, get step-by-step directions, and get the current ETA for your commute on Apple Watch. You won’t have to glance at your phone as well as the directions come right on your wrist. from Gadgets Now https://ift.tt/ymEZoIv

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ZeroAvia has raised $115 million from United Airlines, Alaska Airlines, British Airways and Amazon on a promise to fly a zero-emission hydrogen fuel cell regional passenger plane as soon as next year. Now the startup has set itself a slightly less high-flying goal: building a hybrid aircraft. This new experimental plane, which is under construction in California, is a 19-seat Dornier 228 that will have “a hybrid engine configuration that incorporates both the company’s hydrogen-electric powertrain and a conventional engine,” according to a recent press release . ZeroAvia declined to tell TechCrunch why it had altered its plans. A hybrid system could reassure regulators that the Dornier can fly safely for tests, while the company continues to develop the world’s largest aviation hydrogen fuel cells. The decision to build a hybrid plane follows a previously unreported statement from the UK’s Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) into the April 2021 crash of the moonshot project th

All is not well in smartphone land. The industry was headed for a slowdown well before SARS-CoV-2 entered the picture. The glory days of expanding markets and bi-annual upgrades are seemingly at an end, and things have only been exacerbated by two years of financial hardships and supply chain constraints. For all these reasons, it’s not surprising that manufacturers are pulling back on manufacturing. A new report from South Korea’s Maeil Business News has the world’s leading smartphone maker ramping production down by 30 million units for 2022. The news comes as sales are further hampered by the conflict in Ukraine. In March, the company followed fellow tech giants Microsoft and Apple by suspending sales in Russia . Apple, too, has been feeling the pain. Recent Bloomberg reports noted that the iPhone maker is throttling plans to manufacture an additional 20 million phones in 2022. Instead, its numbers are reportedly going to remain flat from 2021. Those reports follow several quar

Hey all. Welcome back to Week in Review, the newsletter where we recap some of the top stories to cross TC’s front page over the last 7 days. The most read story on our site this week was about Flowcarbon — a new company and “blockchain-based redemption story” (as Anita put it) launched by WeWork founder Adam Neumann. The goal, writes Anita, is to “sell tokenized carbon credits to companies looking to reduce their carbon footprint,” to which the only response I can think of is that Jennifer Lawrence “ok” gif . Why is it on the blockchain? What’s a “Goddess Nature Token”? Find out in Anita’s post here , then listen to Lucas and Anita go deep on the topic on this week’s Chain Reaction podcast. other stuff Here are some of the other most read TC stories from this week: Jack Dorsey steps down from Twitter’s board:  For the first time since its founding in 2006, co-founder Jack Dorsey is no longer officially involved in the operation of Twitter. Late last year, he stepped away from th

It’s Friday and the world is falling apart, so let’s just take a short mental health break with some interesting news out of the field of archaeology, where tech is enabling some fascinating new discoveries. A new lidar-powered analysis of land in the Amazon basin has provided evidence of a previously unknown urban center of “mind blowing” complexity. To be clear, that doesn’t mean ancient aliens or long-lost technology, just that it far exceeds the expected levels of organization and population that scholars considered possible for Amazonians of 1,500 years ago. “Nobody expected that kind of society in that region … pyramids 20 meters high,” said Heiko Prümers, of the German Archaeological Institute, in a video produced by Nature . “The whole region has been so densely habitated during the pre-hispanic time, that’s incredible to believe. There is a new civilization, new culture, waiting for us to study them.” Until recently it was thought that the Amazon had nothing but smaller tr

As global markets continue to face downward trends, crypto markets are anticipating greater adoption as people see the digital asset sector as a hedge against inflation (even though some prices are currently down from their 52-week marks). Whether it’s first-time buyers of cryptocurrency or people learning more about NFTs, Bitcoin and the general crypto ecosystem, there has been an uptick globally in crypto awareness and, in turn, adoption, data indicates. About half of all crypto owners in the U.S., Latin America, Asia Pacific, Brazil, Hong Kong and India bought digital assets for the first time in 2021, marking a major breakthrough for the nascent industry, according to a Gemini report . Globally, 41% of individuals surveyed who did not own crypto said they were interested in learning more or buying it in 2022, the report added. TechCrunch+ is having a Memorial Day sale. You can save 50% on annual subscriptions  for a limited time. At the end of 2021, the global crypto market h

Elon Musk announced in a tweet on Friday that Starlink, the satellite internet service launched by SpaceX, his space exploration company, has been approved in Nigeria and Mozambique. This news is coming three days after Musk answered a tweet about the service launch in Africa. “Yes, first countries in Africa to be announced coming soon,” he tweeted. “Starlink will serve everywhere on Earth that we’re legally allowed to serve.” Starlink operates in more than 30 countries where it is legally approved, in essence, where it has required licences to provide internet services. Its launch in Africa, particularly in Nigeria, has been in the works since 2021. Last May, SpaceX sent some representatives to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), the country’s telecommunications regulator, to discuss the possibility of obtaining a license to operate Starlink in Nigeria. According to reports from local press, Nairametrics , the NCC has approved this license, corroborating Musk’s tweet

Japanese buyout firms Japan Industrial Partners (JIP) and Polaris Capital Group are each considering participating in bids for Toshiba Corp , two people familiar with the matter said on Friday. from Gadgets Now https://ift.tt/wz7iUVm

Eric Landau Contributor Before Eric Landau co-founded Encord , he spent nearly a decade at DRW, where he was lead quantitative researcher on a global equity delta one desk and put thousands of models into production. He holds an S.M. in Applied Physics from Harvard University, an M.S. in Electrical Engineering and a B.S. in Physics from Stanford University. In 2015, the launch of YOLO — a high-performing computer vision model that could produce predictions for real-time object detection — started an avalanche of progress that sped up computer vision’s jump from research to market. It’s since been an exciting time for startups as entrepreneurs continue to discover use cases for computer vision in everything from retail and agriculture to construction. With lower computing costs, greater model accuracy and rapid proliferation of raw data, an increasing number of startups are turning to computer vision to find solutions to problems. However, before founders begin building AI

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Image Credits: TechCrunch Plenty of entrepreneurs have used the crypto boom to plot the next step of their Silicon Valley character arcs, but few of them have an active television series chronicling their misdeeds. This week, Adam Neumann made his post-WeWork debut, co-founding a blockchain-based carbon credits market, and — more impressively — raising $70 million in funding for it, about half of which came from VCs with the other portion coming from a private token sale. The news of the deal, led by Andreessen Horowitz, made waves on Twitter, so naturally we had to discuss it this week… Hello and welcome back to the  Chain Reaction   podcast, where we unpack and explain the latest crypto news, drama and trends, breaking it down block by block for the crypto curious. This week, we dove into the Neumann news while also dissecting Andreessen Horowitz’s latest crypto mega-fund, which has quite a few zeroes. The $4.5 billion Crypto Fund IV doubles the size of the firm’s last fund

The world’s richest man isn’t above trying to get a discount, apparently. In a new lawsuit , Twitter shareholders are suing Elon Musk, alleging that he manipulated the price of the company’s stock for his own benefit in the course of agreeing to buy the company . The lawsuit represents a group of Twitter investors but would allow any shareholders to receive financial compensation. The suit was filed Wednesday in federal district court for Northern California and argues that Musk intentionally drove down the company’s stock to secure a better deal. “The fair market value of Twitter securities has been adversely affected by Musk’s false statements and wrongful conduct,” the complaint states. The lawsuit cites Musk’s decision to waive due diligence as a condition of the acquisition and his subsequent suspiciously timed claim that Twitter had misrepresented the number of bots on its platform. “At the time, Musk was well aware that Twitter had a certain amount of ‘fake accounts’ and ac

I was in Berkeley a couple of months back, helping TechCrunch get its proverbial ducks in a row before our first big climate event ( coming in a few weeks, folks ). Professor Ken Goldberg, who’s helped play a big role in a number of our robotics events, kindly gave me a tour of BAIR, the Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Research department. It’s a newly renovated space on the UCB campus, where students and faculty are working on some cutting-edge robotics research. I got previews of a number of projects I hope to share with you in the newsletter soon, but one that really caught my eye was FogROS , which was just announced as part of the latest ROS (robot operating system) rollout. Beyond a punny name that is simultaneously a reference to the cloud element (fog/cloud — not to mention the fact that the new department has killer views of San Francisco and frequent visitor, Karl ) and problematic French cuisine, there’s some really compelling potential here. I’ve been think

China's search engine giant Baidu Inc surpassed quarterly revenue estimates on Thursday as a resurgence of COVID-19 in China and accompanying restrictions boosted demand for its cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) products. from Gadgets Now https://ift.tt/TnEFCUa

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If you’re having problems accessing Instagram today, you’re not alone. The social media giant is currently experiencing some problems, according to reports on third-party web monitoring service Downdetector . The website indicates that issues began at around 12:30 p.m. EDT. NetBlocks, which tracks global internet usage and disruptions, has also noted that Instagram is facing intermittent international service outages. Reports indicate that users are experiencing various issues with the service, including not being able to log back in after being logged out. Some users also reporting seeing a “Welcome to Instagram” message when logging on as though they have a new account. Others are unable see past a few posts or only seeing posts that were uploaded weeks ago. Some users are also reporting that they’re unable to refresh their home screen and are seeing a “we’re sorry, but something went wrong” notice. Instagram and its parent company Meta have yet to acknowledge the issues. TechCrun

Igor Bonifacic Contributor Igor Bonifacic is a contributing writer at Engadget . More posts by this contributor Mercedes-Benz shows off the interior of the 2023 EQS SUV Microsoft shuts down AltspaceVR’s social hubs to combat harassment The world’s fifth-largest automaker will reportedly soon plead guilty to end a multi-year investigation into its efforts to conceal the amount of pollution created by its diesel engines. According to Reuters , the US Justice Department and Dodge parent company Stellantis could announce as early as next week that the automaker has agreed to pay $300 million to settle allegations of crminal fraud. Stellantis declined to comment on the report. The Justice Department began investigating Stellantis around 2019 when the automaker recalled nearly 1 million vehicles in the US and Canada for not meeting federal tailpipe emission standards. As of last year, the agency has announced criminal charges for just three Stellantis employees . The probe i