Original author: Maureen Kelly

September 6, 2017

I woke up from a dream about being in my early 20’s. It was a complicated one that included struggling to finish my graduate degree (yup – that’s clearly an anxiety dream) along with meeting with Bill Gates and trying to sell him my company (something that never happened but clearly has some fantasy element to it.)

As I was brushing my teeth, parts of the dream stuck with me, as some do. In my waking haze, I inhabited some of my memories from my early 20’s. The fantasy meeting with Bill Gates led to the Microsoft / Lotus battle for #1, which reminded me of several Lotus meetings I attended with my Uncle Charlie when I was in college and he was CIO for Frito-Lay (I can’t remember his exact title – I think it was something like VP MIS, but he was what we would call a CIO today). Mitch Kapor loomed large there and at MIT, even after he left Lotus and started On Technology.

I flashed to a meeting in my late 20’s with Dan Bricklin at a restaurant in the Boston suburbs where I met with him and the founding team of Trellis when I was considering joining them as president or CEO (I can’t remember what the title was going to be – but Dan and I were going to be partners.) This was during a phase after Feld Technologies when I was making lots of angel investments and considering being founding-CEO of a company for a year at a time and then hiring a CEO and becoming chairman. This led to a memory of meeting Lisa Underkoffler, the aunt of John Underkoffler (close friend and CEO of Oblong) in the kitchen of my fraternity. I think Lisa ran product for TK Solver, the product from Software Arts (Dan’s company) product that came out after VisiCalc was a monster hit (the first killer app for the Apple II.)

Lotus 1-2-3 was the killer app for the IBM PC, so there’s Mitch again. By this point, the dream was merely wisps as I thought about the early entrepreneurial heroes of mine. Steve Case then popped into my mind, and I remembered how central AOL was to my life at the time. The “bfeld” moniker that I use came from my AOL address, long before I was using it anywhere else.

Robert Merton’s On the Shoulders of Giants was a powerfully important book that I read in graduate school. As we fetishize today’s entrepreneurial heroes in the software industry, let us not forget that we are standing on the shoulders of many giants. Mine include Bill Gates, Mitch Kapor, Dan Bricklin, and Steve Case. There are many more, but these four shaped my entrepreneurial path and shone a bright light of inspiration that lit the way.

Also published on Medium.

Previous PostEnjoy Every Day

Original author: Brad Feld

Snapchat's latest original is a fashion-based reality show which will feature two aspiring stylists competing against one another to craft the perfect look.The show will be hosted and judged by celebrity stylist Sophie Lopez, the stylist for actress Kate Hudson "Nail The Look" is being produced by Thumb Candy Media, a newly formed digital division of television production company B17 Entertainment. 

As Snapchat looks to grow its stable of original series, it has set its sights on beauty and fashion content.

The platform's latest original will feature two aspiring stylists competing against one another to style the perfect look based on a given theme. The reality series will be hosted by celebrity stylist Sophie Lopez (the stylist for actress Kate Hudson among others), who will critique their final looks, offer tips on what styles to buy as well as how to wear them.

"Nail The Look" premieres on Snapchat Discover tomorrow on September 7, coinciding with the start of New York Fashion Week. The show will air every Thursday for the next eight weeks, with stylists putting together outfits based on a new theme every episode, from a job interview to an outdoor music festival.

The first episode will see two aspiring stylists attempt to come up with the perfect streetwear look for New York Fashion Week.

"Nail The Look" is being produced by Thumb Candy Media, a newly formed digital division of television production company B17 Entertainment. Thumb Candy is being led by B17 principals and veteran TV producers Rhett Bachner and Brien Meagher, who have served as producers for a variety of popular shows including ABC’s Emmy-nominated "Shark Tank" and AMC’s "The Pitch," among others.

“Snapchat understood the power of mobile from a programming perspective and was willing to take chances on a variety of content and formats,” Bachner told Business Insider. "We’re firm believers in the platform."

"As producers, we go where the eyeballs are," added Meagher. "And right now, all eyeballs are on Snapchat."

"Nail The Look" is Snap's latest bid to become a destination for exclusive shows, with the company planning to have as many as three shows airing per day on Snapchat Discover by the end of the year. In recent months, Snap has announced deals with a number of leading TV networks and entertainment studios to develop and produce shows exclusively for Snapchat.

Snapchat’s efforts seem to be striking a chord. Shows have an especially strong reach with younger users on average, with 75% of daily viewers between the ages of 13-24, according to the company. Further, originals are also seeing significant growth in viewership, the company said. NBC's "The Voice" on Snapchat, for example, has grown 45% in viewership in its second season.

While Snap hasn’t explicitly specified a bent toward nonfiction programming, news and reality TV genres seem to have been an ongoing focus for the company compared to scripted shows, at least for now. In addition to "Nail The Look," the platform also has a makeover show in the works, Business Insider has learned.

"It’s not a surprise that Snap is focusing on reality content, given the fact that its core audience has grown up with it," said Tom Buontempo, president at social agency Attention. "And there are inherent speed and cost efficiencies compared to scripted content."

Further, reality and unscripted content just makes business sense, since it often revolves around news and current events, which are inherently “social” by design, he added.

"It encourages frequent tuning in," said Buontempo. "You can also see the opportunities to build packages around cultural moments and marry it with live programming, while capturing the earmarked ad revenue along the way."

Thumb Candy is one of the first independent production companies tapped by Snap to produce original Shows Discover. B17 and partner Core Media Group are working to develop and produce additional shows for Snap’s mobile-first audience, and have assembled a staff of 12 video and graphic artists as well purchased equipment specifically to support, record and edit vertical video.

“It’s an unlearning process from how you approach traditional TV production, you really have to rethink your practices for mobile,” said Bachner. “The mobile viewer is looking for storytelling that is less filtered and less produced, but from a photography or graphic standpoint, we still need to push stylistic boundaries.”

Get the latest Snap stock price here.

Original author: Tanya Dua

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A Google Street View car. Flickr / Sancho McCann

You're about to see a lot more on Google Street View — and Street View's about to see a lot more of you.

Google has upgraded the cameras for its mapping service for the first time in eight years, with the new kit capturing sharper imagery with more detail as of August.

According to a profile in Wired, the new cameras are so sharp they might be able to see a store's opening hours from a sign. And they're feeding all that granular data back to Google's machine learning algorithms.

As per usual, the new cameras will sit atop Google-branded cars capturing information about the world. They capture still HD images on either side of the car.

Better imagery should mean the service becomes more useful. Google's mapping vice-president, Jen Fitzpatrick, said people no longer just search for their own addresses on Google Street View.

"People are coming to us every day with harder and deeper questions," she told Wired. Such as: "What's a Thai place open now that does delivery to my address?"

Google has already invested huge amounts into artificial intelligence and machine learning, and is using that technology to scan Street View data to answer conversational queries.

Eventually Fitzpatrick wants people's questions to become even more conversational, like asking what the pink-coloured building down the road is.

"These are questions we can only answer if we have richer and deeper information," she said.

What is less obvious is what else Google can figure out from the new Street View data, and how it might use the information.

Wired reports that a team of Stanford researchers — including Google's own chief scientist at its cloud division Fei-Fei Li — found they could use Street View data to predict income, race, and voting patterns. The team used software that analysed the make, model, and year of cars from Street View photos.

At the time, the team said: "Using the classified motor vehicles in each neighborhood, we infer a wide range of demographic statistics, socioeconomic attributes, and political preferences of its residents."

What could Google figure out by itself with even more detailed data?

When Wired asked Google if it planned anything similar, a spokesperson only said the firm was always looking for ways to use Street View data to improve the company's platforms — including beyond maps.

Get the latest Google stock price here.

Original author: Shona Ghosh

Facebook is offering music publishers hundreds of millions of dollars so that its users can legally use popular songs in videos they upload, Bloomberg reports.

Citing several people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg claims that Facebook has been negotiating with music publishers for several months, with former YouTube exec Tamara Hrivnak leading the discussions for Facebook.

Video content has become incredibly popular on Facebook over the last few years but many of the videos posted on the social media platform contain music that Facebook doesn't have the rights to.

Music rights holders currently have to ask Facebook to take down videos that breach copyright laws but it looks like Facebook is keen to find a solution to the matter.

Facebook has reportedly promised to create a system that can identify and tag music that breaches copyright. However, Bloomberg sources allegedly said it could take two years to build, adding that the time frame is not realistic for either side.

Therefore, Facebook is keen to make a deal sooner rather than later with the music publishers in a bid to avoid further annoying users who've seen their videos removed.

The Bloomberg report comes as Facebook is rolling out a new video hub on its platform called Watch, which is intended to go head-to-head with YouTube and could provide Facebook with billions of dollars in additional ad revenue.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's CEO, told investors on the company's second quarter earnings call that video is becoming increasingly important to Facebook, and said that it will overtake text and photo sharing on the platform in the future.

Music rights holders have seen their fortunes rise in recent years off the back of a number of deals with large tech companies, such as Apple, Spotify, and SoundCloud. 

Original author: Sam Shead

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Deutsche Bank CEO John Cryan speaks during the bank's annual general meeting in Frankfurt, Germany May 18, 2017. Reuters/Ralph Orlowski

John Cryan, the chief executive of Deutsche Bank has warned that a "big number" of staff at the company will ultimately be replaced by robots and other forms of technology as the firm embraces a "revolutionary spirit" going forwards.

Speaking at the Handelsblatt banking conference in Frankfurt on Wednesday morning, Cryan told the audience that the era of accountants and bankers acting like "abacusses" is coming to an end.

"In our banks we have people behaving like robots doing mechanical things, tomorrow we’re going to have robots behaving like people," he said, according to a report from the Financial Times.

"We have to find new ways of employing people and maybe people need to find new ways of spending their time... The truthful answer is we won’t need as many people."

Cryan did not give any concrete indication of how many staff may eventually be replaced by technological advances, but said it would be a "big number." Deutsche Bank currently employs around 100,000 staff globally.

"We need to admit that what we had is nice but it’s not necessarily for the future," he added. "We need more revolutionary spirit."

Technological advances in banking and the wider jobs market mean that many believe that a large number of more straightforward jobs, such as data entry, will soon be replaced by automation.

A 2016 report from the World Economic Forum argued that automation will lead to a net loss of over 5 million jobs in 15 major developed and emerging economies by 2020.

Certain banking roles are already being impacted with the rise of so-called "robo-advisors" which are able to give financial advice to customers without relying on an actual person.

HSBC is one major bank to roll out robo-advice, launching a service in June that "will use data and algorithms to deliver tailored advice and will make personal recommendations based on an individual’s unique circumstances."

During the same speak, Cryan said that Frankfurt — the location of Deutsche Bank's headquarters — must invest heavily in infrastructure if it is to take over from London as Europe's financial hub after Brexit.

Original author: Will Martin

Harlequins players line-up for a training drill. Catapult / Harlequins

GPS tracking devices, drones, apps have infiltrated Premiership Rugby clubs and changed the way coaches train players. A Harlequins sports scientist showed Business Insider the extent of how technology is at the forefront of a top rugby club's training sessions. Innovations include Harlequins players sitting inside IMAX video booths and watching drone footage of their performances.

Premiership Rugby is undergoing a technological revolution and it is changing the way coaches prepare training sessions and how they analyse player performance.

Business Insider visited Harlequins Rugby Club during a pre-season training session at Surrey Sports Park in Guildford. We were given a glimpse of how Harlequins coaches use performance tracking tech to ensure players are prepared for the 2017-2018 Premiership season.

The tools include:

Global Positioning System (GPS) devices — handheld systems that are placed into a pouch on the back of each player's shirt. Drones and fixed "lamppost" cameras — training sessions and live matches are filmed from unique vantage points so coaches can analyse drills and passages of play from all angles. Phone apps — players fill out surveys on a daily basis so coaches can monitor sleeping patterns and live match recovery.

Meshing sport and tech is not a new phenomenon. Aussie Rules has used GPS since 2004, Premier League football clubs also get players wearing tech during training sessions, and NFL teams have toyed with drones since 2015. Now it's rugby's turn.

"Technology has gotten into sport just like it has gotten into every part of life," said Tom Batchelor, the lead sports scientist at Harlequins. He went through each piece of tech with BI before a midweek morning training session in August. Here is what he said:

1. Global Positioning System (GPS) devices

Athletes wear GPS devices on their backs. Harlequins / Catapult

"When I first started my career, we would work with athletes on a one-to-one basis," Batchelor says. "You could have a conversation for an hour in the gym and understand how they're feeling, how sore they feel, and whether any old injuries are recurring.

"But when you scale that up to 60 athletes at a Premiership rugby club, there are just not enough coaches to give that level of one-to-one support on a daily basis. GPS allows us to get as close to that level as possible. GPS gives us the ability to track exactly what's happening on the pitch."

The GPS system that Harlequins uses is a Catapult OptimEye S5 device. The unit, pictured above, is wearable technology used by 10 of the 12 Premiership rugby clubs, five-time football World Cup winners Brazil, and the 2017 NBA champions Golden State Warriors.

The units fit into a pouch on the back of each and every athlete's training kit and a powerful microprocessor computes 1,000 data points per second during training sessions.

For Harlequins, the data points the club is most interested in, includes:

How far each athlete has run (distance) Sustained high-speed running (time spent at maximum velocity) How quickly each athlete changes direction (turn of pace) How fast each athlete can accelerate How quickly each athlete can decelerate When "significant load" has the potential to cause an injury (sharp changes of direction can impact mechanical load on the body) Total time spent on the field

"Of all the data points GPS gives, we focus more on the ones that are related to performance," Batchelor says. "We can see how hard the players are working and whether they are doing what the coaches set them out to do. For instance, we can monitor 'kick chase periods.' This is when somebody sends a kick up the field and we can monitor how many guys are actually approaching their high velocities when chasing after the ball."

Scrum algorithms have also been developed. When five Catapult GPS devices units are aligned at certain angles, the algorithm understands a scrum must be happening.

"The units don't talk to each other, but sync in a way where you can have them collectively tell you how long the scrum goes on for and how many scrums there were," Batchelor explains.

Wearable tech comes with algorithms that understand when scrums are happening. Warren Little / Getty Images

A meaningful pace for each athlete is determined using a standard test — a six-minute run consisting of laps around the rugby pitch. "That six-minute pace you get to, the average pace, is the meaningful pace. Anything below this is a speed your body won't find tiring. Above this, what we call high-speed running, would physically fatigue your body."

Batchelor stresses that meaningful paces can vary according to each athlete and also according to position. "Generally wingers are fast whereas guys who weigh 120 kilograms are not as fast. But we've got British Lions prop Kyle Sinckler who is not only rapid, he's 120 kilograms. Individual thresholds are therefore taken into account."

He adds: "Everything gets tracked. Everything. Tackle completion, line-up completion, scrum completion, system errors in defence, you name it, it gets tracked."

Then it's about crunching the data.

"After a training session, we plug all of the GPS units into a dock and, via USP, the data is pulled into a console. We then sync that up to our cloud. The cloud lets us take relevant data from it and we can then build a database of knowledge as training sessions turn into weeks, weeks into months, months into years, and so on.

"A cloud system means we can access all information regardless of which teams, units, are training away, or at home. Over time, you can track what each athlete's highs are, what the lows are, and what is average."

Sports scientists in rugby will be used to charts such as these. Harlequins

Batchelor tracks player performance for certain drills — high-speed running, scrum completion, tackle completion, and more — with charts like the one above.

The acute-chronic ratio line is at zero during off-season, or rest days. When this line rises, it means the player is performing well against his averages. When it falls, it may not necessarily mean the player is under-performing, but rather that the athlete is getting more and more accustomed to the drill or exercise in question.

"My background is in banking, working as a prime brokerage relationship manager for Paribas," Batchelor says. "This means I'm handy with a spreadsheet. It's probably one of the reasons Quins hired me five years ago!"

2. Drones and fixed "lamppost" cameras

Drones fitted with cameras allow coaches and players to analyse the footage. David Rogers / Getty Images

"At training, Harlequins have what I call 'lampost cameras,'" Batchelor says. "They sit at one end of the pitch and provide the coaching staff with really high-quality images.

"We've used drones before, too. Drone operators sit at one end of a pitch and move the drones around manually. You get completely different camera angles and perspectives throughout the training sessions and throughout a live game.

"This high-level tech — the video, the GPS — is great as it makes our lives as coaches easier. But it is important to have specialists, high-level coaches, and sports scientists, who can interpret the data from that tech, correctly."

Coaches review footage with players in IMAX-filled analysis rooms.

"Every single training session is reviewed from a really basic stationary skill session, to a full rugby session, in an analysis room.

"There are five IMAX booths set up in there. Our players can log in at any time and we see how often they watch and which clips they watch. All training clips, all match clips, and all individual clips are available, so every athlete can watch what ruck they've hit, even going back years and years. Most of our boys tend to watch the entire games back."

How has drone use, lamppost camera footage, and IMAX booths assisted the rugby coaching process? "If one player has had a conversation with a coach and has been told his defence wasn't great, he can then watch every tackle he made and every miss-tackle, over a two year period, in ten minutes.

"The coach can then sit down with them and say 'you're positioning is wrong,' or 'your tackle choice is wrong.'" Solutions to the positioning, or tackle choice, can then be discussed.

3. Phone apps

The work-related apps rugby players have downloaded on their phones fall under two categories. The first is for video use and the second is for wellness.

"We use Vimeo," Batchelor says. "Players log in via Vimeo to have access to our private videos." These private videos loops back to footage Quins filmed during training sessions and competitive rugby.

"Our boys also use wellness apps, too," Batchelor adds. "Every morning, at 8 a.m, they will have answered a series of questions." Here's a selection:

How well did you sleep? How well do you feel? How well recovered do you feel? Do you have lower back pain? Do you have any previous injuries that are causing you issues?

"Our guys score them on a scale of one to 10 of how bad they are, 10 being awful. That comes in centrally to us. We see it in Google Docs and put that in a spreadsheet so we can track that as the season progresses."

Players are expected to register scores of eight or nine the morning after a competitive rugby game. Coaches then expect that score to reduce down to two or three as the week progresses. However, if nines are continually logged, then Batchelor would have a one-to-one with the player in question, pull them out of a training session so they have a better chance to recover, and potentially send them for additional massage or ice baths.

"We use the data we receive from the phone apps on our athletes phones, to direct where the players are going on a day to day basis. Whether that is full contact rugby training sessions, all the way through to rest sessions."

A problem of soreness can sometimes be down to something simple — like a lack of sleep. "We'd certainly talk if they had a bad night's sleep as there are things we can do to help."

All players also have access to psychologists.

Tech is revolutionising rugby

Rugby is an unpredictable game. Batchelor's job at Quins can therefore present more problems than if he were working in another sport.

Harlequins star Tim Visser. Getty

He explains: "In rowing and cycling the sports are black and white. If you can produce x-number of watts for x-amount of time, then you will win the Olympics. More watts generated means you go faster and means you win.

"In rugby we are talking about a ball that is purposely designed to not bounce evenly. There's even more variables. There's weather, there's 15 individuals, and you've got an outcome that isn't 'do it fastest.' You don't even need to score more tries to win. It's a more difficult sport to go x = y."

The technology detailed here — from the Catapult OptimEye S5 GPS devices and drone use to wellness phone apps — eases Batchelor's job and he says the technology, as well as the interpretation of data, "has been revolutionary" during his five years at Harlequins.

The Premiership rugby season kicked off last weekend. Harlequins had its first match on Saturday but lost 39-29 at London Irish. It will be back to the IMAX booths to analyse what went wrong.

"The goal is to push into the top four. We are trying to get back into Premiership title-winning contention, winning Europe, and everything else," he says. "We are an ambitious squad, improve, get better, those are the ambitions."

Original author: Alan Dawson

Original author: Ben Gilbert

Taxify launched in London on Tuesday as a cheaper competitor to Uber. We gave the new service a try to see how it compares, and fares were much cheaper — or even free. But there were definitely some early drawbacks, from stories of disgraced ex-Uber drivers to a very suspicious smell.

Taxify CEO Markus Villig Taxify

If you feel like booking a cab on Uber is getting a little expensive in London, there's now a cheap new rival.

Taxify is an Estonian competitor which launched in the British capital on Tuesday, with a hefty 50% off fares to get people on board, plus £3 off for people who persuade friends to sign up.

The company promises to always be cheaper than Uber. Perhaps counterintuitively, it also promises to pay drivers better, taking a 10-15% commission fee versus Uber's 20-35% commission fee. 

Taxify's app is almost identical to Uber's in design, but looks a little less slick. Click on the app icon, and you'll see a map showing your location and address. Clicking the small car icon at the bottom of the screen lets you request a driver.

The design can be a little confusing — it isn't clear whether you're meant to enter your destination or your current location on the screen. Still, anyone who has used Uber can probably get the hang of it.

Taxify has stiff competition in Uber, which has dominated London with a combination of sheer availability of drivers, reasonable prices, good service, and the convenience of not paying cash. Taxify CEO Markus Villig told Business Insider that thousands of drivers had signed up to the app, so theoretically there shouldn't be any shortage of rides.

But what's it actually like to use? Three Business Insider journalists gave it a go — here's what we found, from apparently free rides to a very suspicious smell:

Chiswick to Tulse Hill, £8

After a meal in Chiswick on Monday evening, I downloaded the Taxify app, found a promo code posted by some random person on Twitter, and requested a taxi to Tulse Hill, some 9.6 miles away. It was going to cost around £11, minus the £3 from the promo code. Bargain! 

A driver accepted almost immediately but there was one small problem: it was going to take him 22 minutes to arrive. That's not "on demand," I thought. Fortunately, the driver quickly cancelled and another came to the rescue — promising to arrive in just seven minutes.

After getting slightly lost, the new driver arrived in more like 10 minutes. But not in the car the app said he was going to be in (he was in a Toyota Prius instead of a Seat).

A Toyota Prius. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

My girlfriend and I jumped in regardless and he asked for our postcode, despite the fact I'd already entered the address into the app when I requested the taxi. He proceeded to enter our postcode into Google Maps, claiming it was better than Taxify, and we were off.

But there was another problem. And a fairly big one at that: the whole of the back seat was slightly damp and the car had a distinct whiff of sick to it. Oh no. Has someone just been sick in here?

The driver, who was very friendly overall, said the car had just been cleaned but he didn't elaborate and we didn't probe. It's perfectly possible that the car smelt a bit funny because the dirty seats had reacted badly with the cleaning products. But we were too afraid to confirm our suspicions because, well, we just didn't want to know.

I immediately received a follow up email after the ride asking how it was from a Taxify employee. I shared this story and he offered me a £5 discount on my next ride.

Oh well, maybe I'll take a bit of a sicky bum if it means I can ride across London for £7.90. (The same ride with Uber would have cost £19-£26, for what it's worth.)

— Sam Shead.

Finsbury Park to Aldgate East, £0?

First things first, it's a taxi.

Companies like Taxify can talk about how it looks after its drivers, and can compete on prices — but the end user experience is basically the same. If you’ve ever used Uber you know what I’m talking about: The app boots into a map, you request a vehicle, you hop in, and you’re off on your way.

I caught a car to our Aldgate, East London office from my flat in North London around lunch time, after working from home in the morning. The vehicle was a comfy, clean BMW, and my driver was perfectly friendly.

We did have some issues with traffic, however. I can’t blame Taxify for that — but it did underestimate how long navigating the city would take. When I ordered it, it promised it’d arrive in 3 minutes, but took closer to 8. And my journey had an estimated arrival time of 27 minutes, but took 38.

Also: The app doesn’t seem to have charged me anything, and won’t provide a receipt, which is weird but definitely not something I’m going to complain about. (There's nothing on my bank statement either.)

My driver had previously driven for Uber, and now planned to do both 50:50. He believed the competition would be good for drivers, and said that the perception was that Uber cares more about its passengers than its drivers.

So, yes, it's a perfectly ordinary taxi — which is exactly what you want. I'd definitely consider using it again, particularly given the current 50% off fares. And if the competition can mean a better deal for drivers (rather than driving down prices, and subsequently wages, as I worry), then I'm all for it.

— Rob Price

Aldgate East to Clerkenwell, £3.20

The Hammersmith Apollo in London. Guled Ahmed/Flickr (CC)

I didn't have any luck the first time I tried to order a cab on Taxify. I was with my boyfriend after a show at west London's Hammersmith Apollo on Monday night. Not willing to join the crowds surging towards the tube station, we opened Taxify and tried to get a cab towards Holloway in north London.

There were no drivers around — Taxify was officially meant to launch the next day — so we opted for the 45-minute tube journey instead. (Other journalists have also reported similar issues, even after its official launch.)

I had better luck on Tuesday, ordering a cab from Business Insider's offices in east London to a meeting in Clerkenwell, north London. Using the app was pretty similar to Uber, and it took my driver 12 minutes to arrive. He was in a Toyota Prius — the same vehicle you'll see most Uber drivers using.

It turned out my driver, Hamza, was also an Uber driver, and I was his third Taxify passenger so far.

I wasn't totally sure about Taxify's vetting processes, so I used the app to share my location with my co-workers so they knew where I was. I didn't have any reason to be suspicious, since Taxify's CEO had told me the company had met every registered driver on its platform and that they all hold the correct licenses, but I was a woman travelling alone and it seemed sensible to take precautions on a new service.

The service was just as good as Uber, with the added bonus that Hamza told me what he thought about Taxify. He said the competition was a good thing, since the increased competition might push Uber to treat drivers better. And relying on two ride-hailing apps meant he could boost his earnings rather than waiting around for someone to summon a ride on Uber. He did find Taxify's app slightly confusing to use, and said the company could make improvements.

One worrying early trend: he said he knew of drivers joining Taxify who had been booted from Uber's platform for various reasons — like customer complaints or poor service. He said Uber was fairly strict about standards and sent text reminders to drivers about good behaviour. But with Taxify on the scene, he said, Uber might stop doing that to try and keep more drivers on board.

I found this slightly worrying — I don't really want to risk a cab driver who's been booted off Uber because of complaints.

Overall, the service felt just like Uber, but cheaper. Taxify did successfully get me from A to B — and while my ride this time was perfectly pleasant and safe, I think I'd try and travel with another passenger for any future journeys.

– Shona Ghosh

Original author: Shona Ghosh, Sam Shead and Rob Price

10 things in tech you need to know, September 6 - Business Insider

Original author: Rob Price

Original author: Alexei Oreskovic

The cord has officially been cut. Roku, the hardware and software maker that lets you stream content to your TV, announced on September 1 it was going public. As we can see in this chart from Statista, the company has been holding its own against significantly larger tech companies that have much deeper pockets. According to data from comScore, Roku beat out Amazon, Google, and Apple for household penetration during April of 2017.

In its S-1 filing, Roku wrote that it has 15.1 million active user accounts, and streamed 6.7 billion hours of online video on its platforms during the first half of 2017. Although the company is losing money, its revenues rose to $199.7 million during the first half of this year, up 23% from the same period in 2016. This is not to say the company will remain in the lead. To survive it needs access to the content people want to watch. It currently must secure agreements with Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and others,. If any of those companies decide they no longer want to work with Roku, the company could be in a tough spot. 

Anaele Pelisson/Business Insider

 

Get the latest Google stock price here.

Original author: Caroline Cakebread

FiveAI CEO Stan Boland. FiveAI

FiveAI, a UK startup developing an autonomous driving system, announced on Wednesday that it has raised £26.8 million from public and private investors.

The UK government has awarded the two-year-old startup a £12.8 million grant, while venture capitalists have backed the company with £14 million in a series A funding round that was led by Lakestar Capital.

The research-intensive company, which has teams in London, Cambridge, Bristol, Edinburgh and Oxford, claims that it is "well on its way" to building self-driving tech that can deal with busy roads, cyclists, and pedestrians.

FiveAI CEO Stan Boland said in a statement that his aim is to reduce the amount of people travelling individually, adding that FiveAI's efforts could eventually lead to large-scale autonomous public transport.

The government grant will go to the StreetWise consortium, which was announced in April and is led by FiveAI.

The consortium — which also includes McLaren, Oxford University, and the Direct Line insurance group — is aiming to launch a driverless car service in London before 2020 and competes directly with Google's Waymo and Uber.

A computer generated image of a British self-driving car. Catapult Central

Business and energy secretary, Greg Clark, said in a statement: "Low carbon and self-driving vehicles are the future and the UK has a great opportunity to lead this technology revolution. The government is determined to ensure the UK becomes the go-to place for the development of the next generation of vehicles as part of our Industrial Strategy.

"Government investment, through our Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, in the StreetWise Consortium has helped FiveAI to attract significant inward investment for a project that will help build on our expertise and reputation in self-driving technology and support our clean growth, low-carbon agenda."

Lakestar Capital's Dharmash Mistry, who will join the FiveAI board on completion of the funding round, added: "FiveAI is a fantastic example where the UK has the talent, ambition and market to build a truly successful technology-led company.

"Dense European cities present totally different technical, behavioural, regulatory and infrastructure challenges to their US and Chinese counterparts for safe urban driverless technologies. By assembling its talented team in the UK and seeking to support London's transport objectives in partnership with the city itself, FiveAI can play a vital role in reducing congestion, emissions, costs, accidents and journey times, boosting the city economy at the same time."

Original author: Sam Shead

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Original author: Jason Guerrasio

September 5, 2017

Ted Rheingold just passed away. He was an amazing guy beloved by many. Endlessly joyful, inspiring, and loving.

His autoresponder (typos and all) is one for the books, and like great poetry, worth reading over and over.

My cancer (ccRCC, metastic) has gotten the upper hand and I’ll be
putting all my resources into managing it.

In my stread, please keep these very important messages in place:

* be good to each other

* enjoy evert day

* wanting is suffering

* The journey is still the destination, now more than every

* the trend of purpose is coming like a tidal wave, get out a heard of
it. enjoy the ride. die fulfilled.

* Reframe your thinking of “what your career can do for you,” into
“what can your career do for others,” and wonderful, meaningful work
awaits you.”

Jeff Clavier introduced me to Ted in 2006 and we both invested in Ted’s company Dogster. We crossed paths periodically, usually online.

My last email to Ted was a few months ago, where I wrote “Sending you some love this morning” followed by

He responded quickly with:

Thanks Brad.

Sincerely.

Every day is hard these days.

Nonetheless, I’m very happy to be alive and keep fighting through.

t-

At some level, it’s all pretty simple.

Enjoy Every Day.

Ted – thank you for the gift of you.

Also published on Medium.

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Original author: Brad Feld