Chinese smartphone giant Xiaomi has revealed its first electric car, a sharp-looking sedan called the SU7.
It’s the same pitch Faraday Future’s founder originally gave many years ago when promoting his original electric vehicle project in China, a part of his tech conglomerate at the time.
There are quite literal versions of this in Apple’s CarPlay and Google’s Android Auto, which mirror a phone’s software on the in-car screen.
Volkswagen tried to build up its own powerhouse in-car software team but has struggled mightily.
Tesla has developed a robust in-car software experience for its vehicles, though it has resisted CarPlay and Android Auto in favor of maintaining control of its screens.
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Members of the Congressional Black Caucus have written to the United States’ Acting Secretary of Labor, Julie Su, expressing concerns over the disproportionate impact tech layoffs could have on Black workers, according to a letter seen by TechCrunch.
More than 240,000 jobs have been eliminated this year due to layoffs in the tech industry.
The worry here is that the “last in, first out” approach to tech layoffs commonly employed at companies may impact new, less senior and “non-essential” employees, who are most likely to be minorities.
“We’ve seen that Black, Brown, and women tech workers have borne the brunt of layoffs while companies have enjoyed billion-dollar profits,” Missouri Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, co-chair of the CBC, told TechCrunch.
The Department of Labor and Su did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
It also objected to Google limiting or refusing to allow interoperability of services included in GAS with third-party services.
“We are particularly concerned about the compulsory bundling of services with great market strength and reach with services that are less strong.
“Google is also prepared to eliminate its contractual provisions on setting Google services as default applications or displaying them prominently in the infotainment platform,” the FCO also noted.
The question of whether Google’s proposals will result in an unbundled offering of Google’s services in the automotive sector will be decisive in this context,” it added.
Which may give the FCO reason enough to continue its scrutiny of Google Maps in the meanwhile.
One of the longest-running hyperloop startups is reportedly shutting its doors.
Hyperloop One, once backed by Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, will cease operations on December 31 according to Bloomberg News.
And it comes after Hyperloop One raised and spent hundreds of millions of dollars since its founding in 2014.
It took on the name Virgin Hyperloop One after Branson invested in 2017.
DP World will wind up with Hyperloop One’s intellectual property, Bloomberg reports, while the rest of its hard assets — including a test track outside Las Vegas and other machinery — will be sold off.
The responses to his tweet are split between the two factions that have appeared within venture in recent years: those who support diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts, and those who do not.
Wealthy power players like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk have been very outspoken against the premise of DEI, with their thoughts shared and spread widely throughout the ecosystem.
“DEI must DIE.
DEI received a lot of support after the murder of George Floyd back in 2020, but support has waned these past few years.
In a sense, they were right, and the decreased DEI support in business and tech has created ripple effects.
The FTC has proposed tightening up the rules protecting kids from the surveillance economy.
The updated rules would require companies to get the OK from parents before sharing data with advertisers and prohibit holding onto data for nebulous “internal operations,” among other things.
“After the FTC announced it was considering revisions to the COPPA Rule, we received more than 175,000 comments,” the agency noted in a news release.
Better justification for “nudges,” like push notifications to get kids to open an app or stay online.
The FTC rules will have to stand for a while to come.
But, when used occasionally, Cheerble and other smart toys are a great time-consuming activity.
However, the Fi Smart Dog Collar offers more than just peace of mind.
The Fi Smart Dog Collar creates a geofence for your dog and uses algorithms to detect when your dog escapes and send alerts to the app.
Petlibro’s pet water fountain is designed to entice cats to embrace their ancestral background, with its quiet, flowing stream and filtered H2O — though it’s a little more luxurious than drinking straight from a river.
However, PetLibro says the filter keeps the water clear of pet fur and saliva, so you might want to comply with the company’s guidance.
There is no question that 2023 was a tough year for the venture and tech ecosystem.
Seed valuations have remained steady through 2022 and 2023, yet achieving the necessary traction for these rounds has become more challenging, which can create misaligned expectations for founders.
In 2020–2021, it was relatively common for $3 million to $5 million seed rounds to get done with very little, if any, traction, and they were typically getting done at $12 million to $25 million valuations, depending on the space and the founders’ background.
The bar is much higher to raise an institutional seed round, and a founder/company often needs to prove a lot more in today’s market than they used to.
This dynamic means that many founders have to first raise a pre-seed round to get to those milestones and therefore raise multiple rounds to get to a Series A.
But this year, give the gift of good security (and privacy) and eschew tech that can have untoward risks or repercussions.
Location data is some of the most sensitive data belonging to a person; location can determine where someone was at a particular time, which can be highly revealing and invasive.
Even one of the better-known family tracking apps, Life360, was caught selling the precise location data of its users to data brokers.
There’s no reason why you shouldn’t discuss the benefits and pitfalls of tracking your kids with your kids.
And this year, another smart sex-toy maker exposed the user and location data of its customers thanks to its leaky servers, which the company has yet to fix.
