Modulates Tech Media
Tesla is willing to license Autopilot and has already had “preliminary discussions” about it with other automakers
Posted on Wednesday, January 27th, 2021
Tesla is open to licensing its software, including its Autopilot highly-automated driving technology, and the neural network training it has built to improve its autonomous driving technology. Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed those considerations on the company’s Q4 earnings call on Wednesday, adding that the company has in fact already “had some preliminary discussions about licensing Autopilot to other OEMs.” The company began rolling out its beta version of the so-called ‘full self-drivin ... View More
Pro-Trump Twitter figure arrested for spreading vote-by-text disinformation in 2016
Posted on Wednesday, January 27th, 2021
The man behind a once-influential pro-Trump account is facing charges of election interference for allegedly disseminating voting disinformation on Twitter in 2016. Federal prosecutors allege that Douglass Mackey, who used the name “Ricky Vaughn” on Twitter, encouraged people to cast their ballot via text or on social media, effectively tricking others into throwing away those votes. According to the Justice Department, 4,900 unique phone numbers texted a phone number Mackey promoted in ord ... View More
Daily Crunch: GameStop becomes a meme stock
Posted on Wednesday, January 27th, 2021
Reddit users have some fun with the stock market, Facebook predicts advertising challenges and ByteDance is cutting jobs in India. This is your Daily Crunch for January 27, 2021. The big story: GameStop becomes a meme stock GameStop’s stock continued to climb today, along with Blockbuster and AMC — all stocks shorted by institutional investors. These gains were apparently driven by users in the r/WallStreetBets subreddit. We’ve rounded up the fairly non-committal statements from various tr ... View More
WallStreetBets goes dark
Posted on Wednesday, January 27th, 2021
After a wild day for public markets driven by Reddit traders commandeering stocks and combatting hedge fund short sellers, the community at r/wallstreetbets no longer has a home on Discord and its Reddit community has been locked down as an invite-only subreddit for the time being. Discord announced this afternoon that they had banned the WallStreetBets Discord server following “hate speech” violations after “repeated warnings.” On Reddit’s end it’s not quite so clear what has happen ... View More
Squarespace files privately to go public
Posted on Wednesday, January 27th, 2021
Squarespace announced this afternoon that it is going public. The online website creation and hosting service is a venture-backed entity, having raised Series A and B rounds in 2010 and 2014, respectively. Those deals were worth a combined $78.5 million, according to Crunchbase data. But Squarespace is perhaps best known for its epic 2017-era $200 million secondary round that General Atlantic financed. A secondary round is a transaction in which an external party buys share from existing shareh ... View More
IAC’s Teltech acquired encrypted mobile messaging app Confide
Posted on Wednesday, January 27th, 2021
IAC has acquired Confide, the encrypted mobile messaging that once made headlines for its use by White House staffers during the Trump administration. The deal, which closed on Dec. 1, 2020 but was not publicly announced, sees Confide joining Teltech, the makers of spam call-busting app Robokiller, which itself had joined IAC’s Mosaic Group by way of a 2018 acquisition. Teltech confirmed the Confide acquisition, but declined to share the deal terms. The confidential mobile messaging app had ra ... View More
How trading apps are responding to the GameStop fustercluck
Posted on Wednesday, January 27th, 2021
The furor surrounding GameStop and its stock price has consumed social media, business television, and the hopes and dreams of many retail investors. It has even convinced some folks that causing short-term economic damage to a few hedge funds is similar to shaking up the global financial market. It isn’t, but a lot of folks are doing some downright risky things with their personal capital all the same. And some of them are making those investments — bets, let’s be honest — on platforms ... View More
You can actually protect your noggin with this bike helmet made of fungus and hay — Future Blink
Posted on Wednesday, January 27th, 2021
The "Grow It Yourself" helmet is supposedly the first bio-fabricated bike helmet ever. Read more...More about Mashable Video, Fungus, Biking, Bike Helmet, and Compost ... View More
Electric cars and e-bikes have officially merged into one vehicle — Future Blink
Posted on Wednesday, January 27th, 2021
LEF is a three-wheeled electric car and e-bike combination with a 220V socket so you can truly take it anywhere. Read more...More about Mashable Video, Electric Vehicles, Electric Car, Electric Bike, and Charging Station ... View More
Robert Downey Jr. is launching a new ‘rolling’ venture fund to back sustainability startups
Posted on Wednesday, January 27th, 2021
A little less than two years ago, when the actor, producer, and investor Robert Downey Jr. unveiled his new, sustainability focused initiative called the FootPrint Coalition at Amazon’s re:MARS conference it was little more than a static website and a subscription prompt. Jump cut to today, and the firm now has five portfolio companies, a non-profit initiative, and is launching a rolling venture fund, Footprint Coalition Ventures, at the World Economic Forum’s Digital Davos event. With the n ... View More
