Skip to main content
https://www.highperformancecpmgate.com/rgeesizw1?key=a9d7b2ab045c91688419e8e18a006621

Daily Crunch: Amazon acquires Wondery

Amazon makes a big podcast acquisition, a Chinese robot maker raises $100 million and we review a robotic cat pillow. This is your Daily Crunch for December 30, 2020.

The big story: Amazon acquires Wondery

Amazon is the latest company to make a big acquisition in the podcast market — it’s buying Wondery, the podcast network behind shows like “Dirty John” and “Doctor Death.”

Although Wondery is becoming part of Amazon Music (which added podcast support in September), the company also says that “nothing will change for listeners” and that Wondery’s podcasts will continue to be available from “a variety of providers.”

The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Startups, funding and venture capital

China’s adaptive robot maker Flexiv raises over $100M — Wang Shiquan, an alumnus of Stanford’s Biomimetics and Dexterous Manipulation Lab, founded Flexiv with a focus on building adaptive robots for the manufacturing industry.

Biteable raises a $7M Series A for its template-based online video builder — The product is designed for creating video assets that have more staying power than temporary social videos.

An earnest review of a robotic cat pillow — It’s cute!

Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch

On the diversity front, 2020 may prove a tipping point — VCs have talked about diversity for eons without doing much about it.

2020 will change the way we look at robotics — From logistics to food prep, robots are custom-built to help mankind survive a pandemic.

Dear Sophie: Tips for getting a National Interest green card by myself? — The latest edition of Dear Sophie, attorney Sophie Alcorn’s advice column answering immigration-related questions about working at technology companies.

(Extra Crunch is our membership program, which aims to democratize information about startups. You can sign up here for a holiday deal good through January 3. Read more about the deal here.)

Everything else

Section 230 is threatened in new bill tying liability shield repeal to $2,000 checks — The move seems more like a political maneuver than a real stab at tech regulation.

NSO used real people’s location data to pitch its contact-tracing tech, researchers say — Researchers say NSO’s use of real data “violated the privacy” of thousands of unwitting people.

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 3pm Pacific, you can subscribe here.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Uber co-founder Garrett Camp steps back from board director role

Uber co-founder Garrett Camp is relinquishing his role as a board director and switching to board observer — where he says he’ll focus on product strategy for the ride hailing giant. Camp made the announcement in a short Medium post in which he writes of his decade at Uber: “I’ve learned a lot, and realized that I’m most helpful when focused on product strategy & design, and this is where I’d like to focus going forward.” “I will continue to work with Dara [Khosrowshahi, Uber CEO] and the product and technology leadership teams to brainstorm new ideas, iterate on plans and designs, and continue to innovate at scale,” he adds. “We have a strong and diverse team in place, and I’m confident everyone will navigate well during these turbulent times.” The Canadian billionaire entrepreneur signs off by saying he’s looking forward to helping Uber “brainstorm the next big idea”. Camp hasn’t been short of ideas over his career in tech. He’s the co-founder of the web 2.0 recommendatio
Post a Comment
Read more

Drone crash near kids leads Swiss Post and Matternet to suspend autonomous deliveries

A serious crash by a delivery drone in Switzerland have grounded the fleet and put a partnership on ice. Within a stone’s throw of a school, the incident raised grim possibilities for the possibilities of catastrophic failure of payload-bearing autonomous aerial vehicles. The drones were operated by Matternet as part of a partnership with the Swiss Post (i.e. the postal service), which was using the craft to dispatch lab samples from one medical center for priority cases. As far as potential applications of drone delivery, it’s a home run — but twice now the craft have crashed, first with a soft landing and the second time a very hard one. The first incident, in January, was the result of a GPS hardware error; the drone entered a planned failback state and deployed its emergency parachute, falling slowly to the ground. Measures were taken to improve the GPS systems. The second failure in May, however, led to the drone attempting to deploy its parachute again, only to sever the line
Post a Comment
Read more

How the world’s largest cannabis dispensary avoids social media restrictions

Planet 13 is the world’s largest cannabis dispensary. Located in Las Vegas, blocks off the Strip, the facility is the size of a small Walmart. By design, it’s hard to miss. Planet 13 is upending the dispensary model. It’s big, loud and visitors are encouraged to photograph everything. As part of the cannabis industry, Planet 13 is heavily restricted on the type of content it can publish on Instagram, Facebook and other social media platforms. It’s not allowed to post pictures of buds or vapes on some sites. It can’t talk about pricing or product selection on others.   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Morgan Celeste SF Blogger (@bayareabeautyblogger) on Jan 25, 2020 at 7:54pm PST Instead, Planet 13 encourages its thousands of visitors to take photos and videos. Starting with the entrance, the facility is full of surprises tailored for the ‘gram. As a business, Planet 13’s social media content is heavily restricted and monito
3 comments
Read more