Author: TechBrunch

In the wake of prolific venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and Lerer Hippo announcing a pivot away from consumer technology in early 2024. social media discussion As to whether there is still a chance. Jim Scheinman and Sara Deshpande of Maven Ventures say yes. And to prove it, they raised $60 million in his fourth fund to support “massive consumer technology trends.” They say “massive” because this is the company that created companies like video conferencing giant Zoom and self-driving car maker Cruise. Scheinman, a founding managing partner, is also credited with coming up with the name Zoom. As for…

Bay Area artist Daniel Baskin isn't a first-time founder, but this is the first time he's launched a technology company that isn't a performance art piece or an elaborate joke. Still, she has a tongue-in-cheek tagline to market her latest venture: “It's her SaaS for witches.” She's not kidding. Moonlight is a free online tarot platform where you can draw your own tarot cards, have multiplayer readings in his rooms, and even book sessions with hand-picked tarot experts. (This is where the SaaS part comes in handy). Some founders die for just one good idea. Baskin has so many great…

Substack is adding new features to its Twitter-like Notes functionality and strengthening its integration with the social network now known as X. The company announced Tuesday that users can now post videos directly to their Substack app and to their Notes on the web. . Users can now also embed notes in external web pages. The new feature release comes a year after Substack introduced Notes in April 2023. At the time, the companies were aiming to capture users who had fled Twitter after Elon Musk took over the reigns of the social network in late 2022. Notes allows users…

The app becomes even more useful for people who use WhatsApp like an inbox. WhatsApp on Tuesday announced several new chat filters for the app that allow you to easily access certain types of messages: All, Unread, and Groups. The “All” filter is selected by default, which displays an unfiltered version of your inbox. The “Unread” filter helps you see messages you haven't seen yet. It also helps you zero out your inbox and get rid of those annoying unread chat indicators. Notably, WhatsApp already had a way to see unread messages through filters in the search bar. However, a…

Virtualizing a Kubernetes cluster may seem contradictory. After all, these are abstractions of the virtual machines themselves, popularized by his VMware in the early 2000s. Loft Labs recognized the same problem with resource utilization in Kubernetes clusters that VMware saw with server utilization and built virtualization tools that increase efficiency by sharing a common underlying application. did. Today, the startup announced a $24 million Series A. There are a set of applications that run in any Kubernetes environment, such as Istio, Rancher, and Vault, and managing and running them across multiple containers becomes expensive and unwieldy, especially as you scale.…

Hotel chain Omni Hotels & Resorts has admitted that cybercriminals stole customers' personal information in an apparent ransomware attack last month. In an update posted to its website on Sunday, Omni said the stolen data included customer names, email addresses and addresses, as well as guest loyalty program information. The company said the stolen data did not include financial information or social security numbers. Omni said it took down the system on March 29 after identifying the intruder to the system. Guests reported widespread outages throughout Omni's properties, including phone and Wi-Fi issues. Some customers reported that their room key…

Spotify isn't the only company dabbling in AI playlists. On Tuesday, Amazon announced it would do the same. Amazon Music is currently testing Maestro, an AI playlist generator. This allows U.S. customers using both iOS and Android to create playlists using voice or text prompts, which can also include emojis. Amazon suggests that customers can create prompts that include activities, sounds, or emotions in addition to emojis. If you don't know what to write, you can also choose from the suggestions that appear at the bottom of the screen. After a few seconds, you should see an AI-generated playlist containing…

Tim Golzer and Curtis Mason have been building things together since high school, when they were co-captains of their school's robotics team. While in college, Golzer and Mason worked with Sean Doherty, whom Mason met while an undergraduate at Boston University, to develop Hang, an app for scheduling hangouts with friends. Fast forward to 2022, and Golzer and Mason, along with Doherty, felt the entrepreneurial spirit calling again. After considering several ideas, they decided to pursue a largely unaddressed market: tools that help small businesses secure U.S. government contracts. “In the federal contracting community, we've seen the small business industrial…

For a company that bills itself as “deep tech's first check,” the final check for SOSV's latest $306 million fund took a little longer than founder Sean O'Sullivan had hoped. This is probably more an indictment of the macroeconomic environment than a reflection on the company. Ask any venture capitalist and they'll tell you that the past few years haven't been the best time to raise money. “If you consider our track record, our profitability, our proven success, and all the unicorns that have come out of SOSV in the past, you can imagine that we could shut down SOSV…

A new social media app called Indaband allows musicians and vocalists to collaborate with others and make music with people around the world. This app is designed to help those who normally play their own instruments feel like they're part of a world-class band (get it, Indaband?). If you record a video of yourself playing an instrument, someone else can paste a video of themselves playing their instrument over the original recording. All you need to get started with Indaband is headphones and a smartphone to record yourself. You can upload pre-recorded files as new tracks, or open the app's…