Author: TechBrunch
Mindfulness and meditation apps have great potential in the world of augmented reality. The complete immersion created by headsets like the Meta Quest and Apple Vision Pro offers great potential for starting a practice like this, which is notoriously difficult to start and maintain. So it's no surprise that leading meditation app Headspace is partnering with Quest maker Meta. This morning the companies announced a partnership with multimedia design firm Nexus Studios to customize the experience of augmented reality headsets. The aptly named Headspace XR features guided practices by the app's mindfulness/meditation instructors Dora Kamau and Kesonga Giscom. If you've…
Spain's data protection authority has ordered WorldCoin to temporarily stop collecting and processing personal data from its marketplace. You must also stop processing any data you previously collected there. The controversial eye-scanning blockchain crypto project founded by Sam Altman began operating on the market in July last year as part of its global expansion. Spanish authorities are using the “emergency procedure” powers contained in the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to temporarily suspend data processing. This means the order could last up to three months (i.e. until mid-June). “The Spanish Data Protection Agency (AEPD) has ordered the Tools…
Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello. Welcome to Equity, the startup business podcast. Uncover the numbers and nuances behind the headlines. This is a Wednesday show that focuses on important news in startups and venture capital. If you are a founder or an investor, this is for you! Here's a summary of the day: OpenAI hits back at Musk: Following a lawsuit from former backer Elon Musk, OpenAI is submitting receipts and claims that Musk wanted to run the company's commercial division. It's hard to argue against what you wanted to do, right? Monzo raises mega round:…
“One day we'll put this in every school and every apartment building,” Babylon Micro-Farms CEO Alexander Oleson said in an email exchange. This is a great vision and the level of belief/commitment required to run a startup, especially in a challenging field like vertical farming. However, the STEM Garden costs $6,500, so it is unlikely to reach many households in the short term. It would be great to start your own vertical farm in your Queens apartment, but that dream will probably have to wait a decade or more (at least until you leverage your tech reporter job into the…
Making a successful video game is already difficult. Doing this while complying with the growing number of child safety laws and regulations around the world is an almost insurmountable challenge. A new technology company called k-ID is making this process easier for game makers by providing a framework that protects publishers and developers from the pitfalls of non-compliance, such as regulatory sanctions, reputational risk, and other consequences. We aim to make it much easier. K-ID, co-founded by CEO Kieran Donovan, is a lawyer by trade who provides global compliance advice to tech and gaming companies, and is a leading company…
What does cryptocurrency smell like? According to Binance's new fragrance “Crypto”, ozone, salt, and moss. Binance is the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, but the company faces serious challenges. The company and co-founder Zhao Changpeng have pleaded guilty to money laundering charges and agreed to pay a $4.3 billion fine to the U.S. Department of Justice. Since then, Binance has laid off two-thirds of its staff and trading revenue has fallen by 75%. Meanwhile, Binance's marketing department is working on a different kind of problem: one with a lower risk of fraud. To celebrate International Women's Day, Binance…
A Korean startup called QuotaLab is trying to follow in the footsteps of Carta, a cap table management company used by many American startups and investors. Carta started life as “eShares” in 2012 as a capital table management service that startups could use to issue stock to investors and employees. Currently, its stable service offering has expanded from valuation and stock management to bookkeeping, risk assessment, and brokerage services. The company also operated a secondary stock market that investors could use to trade shares in startups, but shut down that service earlier this year after a bit of controversy. QuotaLab,…
ChatGPT, OpenAI’s text-generating AI chatbot, has taken the world by storm. What started as a tool to hyper-charge productivity through writing essays and code with short text prompts has evolved into a behemoth used by more than 92% of Fortune 500 companies for more wide-ranging needs. And that growth has propelled OpenAI itself into becoming one of the most-hyped companies in recent memory, even if CEO and co-founder Sam Altman’s firing and swift return raised concerns about its direction and opened the door for competitors. What does that mean for OpenAI, ChatGPT and its other ambitions? The fallout is still settling,…
In the world of HR technology startups, there are Davids and Goliaths. Diehl and Rippling are Goliaths, both raising millions of dollars in venture capital. But Remofirst, which just secured $25 million in Series A funding, is proving to be a very valuable asset. Remofirst, an HR technology startup, advertises that it hires its clients' employees and contractors on its clients' behalf in more than 180 countries, without the need for those companies to set up local subsidiaries. According to CEO and co-founder Nurasyl Serik, this will help these companies save both time and money, while also helping to strengthen…
Welcome to Elon Musk’s Twitter (now X), where the rules are made up and the check marks don’t matter. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO announced his bid to buy Twitter in April 2022, zealously driven to rid the platform of spam bots and protect free speech; now, it’s the one-year anniversary since he made his dramatic entrance to the company in October 2022, and the platform has changed so much that even its name is different. “This is just my strong, intuitive sense that having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important to the…