Beacon, the all-you-can-fly travel startup, closes shop
Another tech startup seeking to transform aviation has closed its doors. Beacon sought to bring an all-you-can-fly option to business and leisure travelers starting on the East coast. The company’s approach was to charge membership fees, handle customers at the gate with a white-glove service and partner with regional aviation businesses to get passengers to their destinations. The… Read MoreMagic Pony’s neural network dreams up new imagery to expand an existing picture
A British startup is using the unique abilities of convolutional neural networks to do a sort of scaled-up version of Adobe’s content-aware fill — but instead of filling in the gaps in a picture, it’s imagining a whole new picture, larger and more detailed than the original. Kind of hard to believe without seeing it, right? That’s why they call their company Magic Pony. Read MoreAngel investors hope to find the best and brightest in Cuba’s emerging tech scene
President Obama’s bold new course on Cuban policy is paving the way for emerging tech to blossom in the country. A new entrepreneurial competition, 10x10KCuba, hopes to uncover Cuba’s best and brightest tech minds with an offer of mentorship and potential financing. Read MoreDinner Lab shuts down after failing to find a sustainable business model
After laying off staff in December as it shifted business models to find a sustainable operation, Dinner Lab has officially shut down, according to a blog post on the company’s site. Dinner Lab, like many startups, is facing a challenging environment for startups that lately have to find their way to profitability instead of simply fund operations with venture capital. Gumroad, for… Read MoreAmazon eyed up Everlane, Le Tote and more for acquisition in a wider fashion push
Amazon has been focusing attention on areas like media streaming, its faster delivery and pickup services, hardware and enterprise via AWS. But it’s also making an effort to reboot one of the more legacy parts of its business: fashion. TechCrunch has learned from multiple sources that the e-commerce giant has eyed up several startups in the fashion sphere as potential acquisitions… Read MoreUnreel.me allows creators to build their own video streaming sites and apps
Unreel Entertainment is launching a new platform called Unreel.me, which provides tools to build your very own video streaming site and app. Those sites can include videos that were uploaded directly to Unreel.me, as well as content posted to social networks. And they can be monetized advertising, paywalls, subscriptions and merchandise sales. As part of the launch, the company is also… Read MoreDigitalOcean gets $130 million credit line because servers are really expensive
Building a cheap cloud hosting platform like DigitalOcean requires a ton of money. The company has raised more than $120 million and is also securing credit every now and then to fuel its growth. Read MorePiano’s new Composer makes it easy for publishers to create a targeted paywall experience
Publisher tools and paywall company Piano is announcing a new tool that could give publishers more freedom to experiment with paywalls and other business models. The company was created last year from the merger of Tinypass and Piano Media. While the combined organization continues to offer a paywall system for publishers, CEO Trevor Kaufman has said that the issue is no longer a… Read MoreHitch wants to help you grow and manage your API community
Hitch — not to be confused with the dating app of the same name — is a new product from the team behind API Changelog and plays in roughly the same space. It promises to offer Software-as-a-Service to help API owners manage and grow their API community, either internally or externally. Read More
Naked Labs enters the fitness tech fray with body-scanning mirror
What if your reflection in the mirror could tell you to get your lazy butt back to the gym? We have the technology. A San Francisco startup called Naked Labs began taking preorders for its 3-D body scanning system today. CEO and co-founder Farhad Farahbakhshian says the company’s Naked 3D Fitness Tracker was designed for individuals or families who want to measure their progress on… Read MoreGilt co-founder launches photo-driven shopping startup Project September
Alexis Maybank, one of the founders of Gilt Groupe (recently acquired by the owner of Saks Fifth Avenue), has a new startup in the world of fashion and shopping — Project September. Maybank told me her aim is to “make the visual world shoppable.” In other words, if you see a photo with an item of clothing or an accessory that you love, you shouldn’t have to wonder what… Read MoreVine releases a Watch button because scrolling is too much work
Vine, Twitter’s social network turned entertainment platform, is today announcing a new way to consume content on the app. The company is introducing a “Watch” button, which will let users watch a particular channel or account without needing to scroll. When a user presses the watch button on a certain account or channel, videos in that feed will play back-to-back… Read MoreThreaded messaging is coming to Slack
In an interview with Walt Mossberg, Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield said threaded messaging — perhaps one of the service’s most important missing components — is finally coming. Butterfield told Mossberg that Slack had been using threading internally for months while testing what the best version of the tool would be for the service, which will hopefully come out in the… Read MoreMightyTV uses a Tinder-style interface to offer personal tips on what to watch next
Maybe it’s the modern-day equivalent of endless channel-surfing — turning on Netflix or some other streaming video service, then going through page after page of movies and TV shows, never quite settling on what to watch next. It’s even worse when you add another person, or a whole group, to the decision-making process. Suddenly you’re having loooooong conversations… Read MoreChris Dixon on competing with Internet giants for budding AI and VR talent
VC Chris Dixon of Andreessen Horowitz thinks it’s a lot harder to predict financial cycles than it is to see a new computing platform coming down the pike. As he noted in a recent post, new cycles tend to begin every 10 to 15 years; assuming the 2007 introduction of the iPhone kicked off the last wave, we’re fast heading toward the Next New Thing. Or things, technically… Read MoreClimb Credit looks to transform student lending with a new business model based on graduate success
The U.S. is facing a crisis in higher education. Once the ticket to the middle class life at the center of the fabled “American Dream”, the college and university experience is now under attack from all sides. Education has become pricier, while graduates are less prepared for jobs in either the white collar or blue collar workforce. Read MoreClasspass rolls out new pricing structure
Classpass made its name — and picked up 17 million reservations — around a service that let people take an unlimited number of fitness classes for a flat $100 monthly payment. Today, all of that is changing. See, Classpass functions based on the usage habits of their users. Folks who buy an unlimited membership but don’t work out that much end up compensating for power users… Read More- CRUNCH NETWORK
From Uber driver to venture capitalist
How did you get into venture capital? And why did you decide on that versus another startup? These are two questions aspiring VCs often ask. While I usually hop on 15-30 minute calls with those looking to learn more, I thought it might be more impactful to share my experience here. Although there is no guaranteed way for you to get into it, I’ve learned a lot through the stories of my… Read More Pure Watercraft brings boaters a Tesla-style motor
Obviously, water and electricity don’t mix. But one Seattle company called Pure Watercraft has taken up the engineering challenge of building a Tesla-like EV motor for boats. The startup began taking pre-orders for its Pure Outboard today with a $500, refundable deposit via its own website. A former rowing coach, Andy Rebele started Pure Watercraft in 2011 with a mission to replace… Read MoreYou looking at me? Vyking launches video ad that reacts to your facial expression
Your tolerance for watching video ads online may vary, but how would you feel if the video ad watched you back? That’s the premise of a new ad unit from Berlin-based ad tech startup Vyking. Dubbed ReactivAds, the new suite of interactive video ad formats promises to leverage “emotion, facial and gesture recognition” via any device’s webcam to offer a much more… Read More
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