TechCrunch24

Greatfire, a service that monitors blocked websites in China, is suffering from a DDOS attack that is sending 2.6 billion requests per hour to its servers – a 2500% increase in traffic – with the aim of destroying the business. The company is currently seeing $30,000 in bandwidth fees per day and but is hoping for amnesty from Amazon who hosts its data. NGO’s use the service… Read More - TechCrunch24

As the ranks of super unicorns continues to grow, such as with Pinterest’s shiny new $11 billion valuation, analysts are increasingly scrutinizing these prices and whether they signal a new tech bubble. Bill Gurley, the Uber investor and partner at Benchmark, argued at SXSW this week that there will be “dead unicorns” among some of these high-priced companies. Another angle… Read More - TechCrunch24

The FAA just released a statement indicated that Amazon now has limited permission to test and develop drones in the United States. It’s not a blank check, though. The FAA gave Amazon strict rules and regulations. Read More - TechCrunch24

On-demand alcohol startup Thirstie has raised a $1.1 million seed round. At this point, there are a bunch of startups that want to help bring booze to your doorstep. Just in the past few months, we’ve written about Minibar and Swill. Read More - TechCrunch24

Many hospitals in America have made the switch to Electronic Health Records (EHR) systems to manage patient medical information in the last couple of decades. This is supposed to make record-keeping easier and more efficient, but the systems are different for each hospital and often can’t communicate with each other. This makes it hard for health app developers to design apps that run… Read More - TechCrunch24

Swifty is an app that provides an interactive set of tutorials that gradually guide you through the basics of Swift on your iPhone or iPad, from the very basics of variables and data types to the essentials of object-oriented programming. Read More - TechCrunch24

Graphic India, a Bangalore-based digital media company, has landed $2.8 million in its continued quest to develop a comic book and animation business that represents India and Indian culture. Read More - TechCrunch24

Magic Leap is showing what it might look like to use its hardware for augmented reality gaming in the future, with a new demo of what the team is apparently “playing in the office” right now. The interface, which includes non-game interaction and then a short demo of an in-office virtual shooter experience, was created in tandem with Weta Workshop, a concept art studio responsible… Read More - TechCrunch24

Launched in U.C. Berkeley’s AMPLab in 2009, Apache Spark has begun to catch on like wildfire during the last year and a half. Spark had more than 465 contributors in 2014, making it the most active project in the Apache Software Foundation and among big data open source projects globally. Read More - TechCrunch24

In the past year, we saw a string of companies release diversity reports that exposed the numbers behind the underrepresentation of women and minorities in tech roles. Along with those reports came commitments to do better. Entelo thinks its algorithm can help tech companies follow through on those promises. Entelo is a platform that businesses can use to search for job candidates that has… Read More - TechCrunch24

The Pebble Time Kickstarter for Pebble’s second-generation smartwatch has exceeded all expectations, but the company is still revealing more about the upcoming device: Today, it’s announcing a $1 million fund to support the development of smartstraps, the add-on accessories that are open to hardware makers and that will add functionality to Pebble Time via add-on sensors, batteries… Read More - TechCrunch24

Remember the early days of web surfing? You’d be happily browsing through your favorite sites, clicking links – then, boom! – your screen was littered with pop-up advertisements! The problem became so prevalent, people began installing pop-up blocking software on their PCs as a solution to the ongoing annoyance. Today, as users make the transition to mobile, a new irritation… Read More - TechCrunch24

Former Global Consulting Managing Partner at Mazars Miguel de Fontenay is joining Paris-based accelerator TheFamily as a full-time partner. He will be in charge of handling relationships between TheFamily’s startups and France’s biggest public companies. These big French companies present two opportunities for TheFamily. First, when it comes to finding investors, TheFamily is… Read More - TechCrunch24

Android Auto has gone live, for devices running Android 5.0 and up, so long as users have a car stereo system that’s compatible with the in-car software. For now, that means a range of Pioneer headings, which are already available for sale in the U.S. and the U.K. This also marks the beginning of support for third-party Android Auto apps, which Google is now making available on Google… Read More - TechCrunch24

While the main focus of today’s Tesla press call was the software update meant to end range anxiety“, Elon also dropped a few details on other things they’re working on right now for release in the coming months… and, well, they’re pretty damned cool. Self-steering cars, anyone? This next update — the “range anxiety” update, or Version 6.2,… Read More - TechCrunch24

Giphy, the betaworks-backed Google of gifs, has today announced its first acquisition. Nutmeg, an Gif messaging app, will be joining the Giphy squad. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Giphy founder Alex Chung says that Nutmeg will remain alive with the entire Nutmeg development team joining Giphy. Giphy’s focus moving forward is mobile, according to Chung. Read More - TechCrunch24

Silicon Valley, Uncle Sam needs you! No, I’m not talking about just your checkbook. Many of us who work in tech and live in California are accustomed to calls from candidates and campaigns asking for money every couple of years. But this request is much different. Members of a new White House effort, the U.S. Digital Service (USDS), have been making house calls, from Sand Hill Road to… Read More - TechCrunch24

Five years ago, Dave McClure decided to strike out on his own and start a little venture firm called 500 Startups. At the time, the pure ambition of giving his seed-stage investment fund that name sounded crazy (classic Dave!) and many questioned his plan to invest small amounts of capital in a massive number of startups. Read More - TechCrunch24

Remember Baxter, the robotic arm with a smiling face that you can teach to do simple, repeatable tasks? Well he has a little brother! Rethink Robotics’ Sawyer is a smaller, lighter Baxter with a higher-precision hand. While Baxter was designed to, say, place items in a box over and over again, Sawyer can be used for “tasks that require significant agility and flexibility.”… Read More - TechCrunch24

When it comes to cloud security these days, most enterprises are forced to choose between either making their data accessible, or making it secure. A company called Kryptnostic has technology that could enable them to retain control over their data with fully homomorphic encryption while also having the ability to search within it. Read More - TechCrunch24

A few days ago, Elon musk pledged to “end range anxiety” for Model S owners by way of an over-the-air software update. Today, he’s detailed how he plans to do that. The short version: the Model S will now run constant calculations (regardless of whether or not you’re using the built in turn-by-turn system) on how far you are from a supercharger. If you are about to… Read More - TechCrunch24

It is very hard to convey how cool virtual reality experiences are if you haven’t had a chance to try it out for yourself using devices like the Oculus Rift, but this new EVE: Valkyrie trailer does a pretty good job. For added immersive effect, take your phone, put it at the bottom of a sock, and stretch the sock over your face while watching the above in full-screen mode. Or, you can… Read More - TechCrunch24

Quid just announced that it has raised $39 million Series D. Quid describes itself as “the artificial intelligence company that accelerates research and insights to address the world’s most complex issues.” More specifically it points to its ability to process millions of documents and create a visual map of the results — for example helping a business visualize the… Read More - TechCrunch24

While the world lauded Nigeria’s noteworthy successes and worried about Boko Haram’s kidnappings and murders, most media ignored a troubling and growing kidnapping-for-profit racket. If Nigeria wants to convince the world she’s open for business and can lead the so-called MINT economies (Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria, Turkey), this kidnapping industry has to stop. Read More - TechCrunch24

Sir Richard Branson’s numerous companies build and sell everything from rockets to cell phones. And now the billionaire founder of Virgin Group has indicated his sights might be set on chasing Elon Musk on the ground as he already does in space. Branson recently spoke to Bloomberg where he said his racing company has “teams of people working on electric cars,” adding,… Read More - TechCrunch24

A new study out this morning from Pew Research takes a deep dive into the impact that internet access is having on emerging markets, especially in terms of how it’s shaping public opinion. Today, tech companies like Facebook and Google have made significant investments in bringing internet access to developing countries, the former with initiatives like Internet.org designed to offer… Read More - TechCrunch24

This morning at Baselworld, the world’s premiere luxury watch show, there was ample news about wearables. That’s a sign that wearable tech is coming of age in some ways, but this represents the award teen years, not the arrival of adulthood and maturity. The announcements at this event felt like when the music stops in a game of musical chairs, not like the culmination of a… Read More - TechCrunch24

Ever spend more time looking for something to watch on Netflix than actually watching something on Netflix. That’s because of the site’s addiction to brevity. Titles are hidden by sliding bars that requires clicking to reveal more titles. This bookmarklet fixes the issue. It’s called God Mode and I love it. Read More - TechCrunch24

Amazon announced this morning that customers in Miami and Baltimore will now be able to use the company’s one-hour delivery service known as Prime Now, which represents the first expansion for the service that was previously only available in New York. The service, which offers access to tens of thousands of products from Amazon’s website, is offered as a benefit to current… Read More - TechCrunch24

Urban transportation company Uber is having a rough week. The company is encountering legal struggles in a few of its international markets. On Monday, around 25 armed police officers searched the company’s office in Paris. In Germany, a court ordered a nationwide ban on Uber’s cheaper ride-sharing service UberPOP. In South Korea, executives and employees were charged with… Read More - TechCrunch24

Editor’s Note: Christine Magee is an editor for CrunchBase. If Hollywood’s depiction of artificial intelligence were accurate, we would be falling in love with operating systems, sharing our homes with Stepford wives, and fending off cyborg attacks by now. While movies like Ex Machina and Her stoke the fears and desires of our imaginations, new innovations in robotics and… Read More - TechCrunch24

Late last year the UK government commissioned an independent (or not-so independent) report into the so-called sharing economy, epitomised by companies such as Airbnb and Zipcar, and how to position the country to be a leader in the space. That report — headed up by Debbie Wosskow, CEO of holiday home-swapping startup Love Home Swap — was issued a few months later, and today (to… Read More - TechCrunch24