sky News of 07/09/20

Skygauge’S Innovative Tilting Rotor Drones Are Up For Pre-Order, With Deliveries In 2021

I have had a few occasions to see Skygauge’s drones in-person, primarily on visits to Asia. The Canadian team is involved in HAX’s program and has spent time working out of their Shenzhen offices. In fact, they competed at our last hardware ...

President Trump Signs Executive Order Temporarily Suspending Work Visas For H-1b Holders

President Trump signs executive order temporarily suspending work visas for H-1B holders image President Donald Trump signed an executive order temporarily halting work visas like the H-1B visa program for highly-skilled workers, cutting off a critical source of foreign labor for tech companies already complaining about tech talent shortages. ...

Rocket Startup Skyrora Achieves A Successful Sub-Orbital Launch From Scottish Island

This past weekend was a busy one for rocket launches, including for new launch companies hoping to join the ranks of SpaceX and Rocket Lab as private, operational space launch providers. Edinburgh-based Skyrora achieved a significant milestone ...

API Startups Are So Hot Right Now

Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between. A cluster of related companies recently caught our eye by raising capital in rapid-fire fashion. TechCrunch covered a few of them, ...

Microsoft Updates Teams With New Automation And Scheduling Tools, NDI Support For Broadcasting And More

Microsoft updates Teams with new automation and scheduling tools, NDI support for broadcasting and more image At its (virtual) Build developer conference, Microsoft today announced a slew of updates for its Teams collaboration and communications platform. Given that Microsoft now sees Teams as its hub for teamwork and collaboration through calls, chats, ...

Why Is Eugene Kaspersky Funding A Travel Accelerator During COVID-19?

Eugene Kaspersky made a name for himself in cybersecurity as CEO of Kaspersky Labs, but the Russian security expert has a new passion project: he’s funding an online accelerator that aims to support entrepreneurs who are building travel and ...

Is It Better To Be A Private Or Public Company Right Now?

Hello and welcome back to  Equity , TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. Every week we write this post with some opening line akin to  wow, what a week, huh?  This is yet another one ...

Top VCs Discuss How COVID-19 Is Impacting Robotics

In the space of several weeks, COVID-19 has transformed countless industries and will continue to do so in ways we can only imagine. The pandemic has also spurred many to find new ways to work and keep society moving amid physical distancing, ...

The Station: Audi Punts On Level 3, Lyft Layoffs And Nio’S $1 Billion Deal

The Station: Audi punts on Level 3, Lyft layoffs and Nio’s $1 billion deal image The Station is a weekly newsletter dedicated to all things transportation.  Sign up here — just click The Station — to receive it every Saturday in your inbox . Hi readers. Welcome back to The Station, a weekly newsletter dedicated to the ...

Tech For Good During COVID-19: Sky-High Gifts, Extra Help, And Chips

Tech for good during COVID-19: Sky-high gifts, extra help, and chips image When Roger Lee, the co-founder of Human Interest , heard that San Francisco imposed shelter-in-place orders, he started blogging about layoff news and posting crowdsourced lists of employees who were laid off. His goal was to increase awareness ...

SkyCell Raises $62m For Smart Containers And Analytics To Transport Pharmaceuticals

While human travel has become severely restricted in recent months, the movement of goods has remained a constant priority — and in some cases, has become even more urgent. Today, a startup out of Switzerland that builds hardware and operates a ...

Airbnb Ups Its Debt By $1bn Amid The Coronavirus Travel Crunch

Airbnb ups its debt by $1BN amid the coronavirus travel crunch image Airbnb has secured commitments of $1 billion for a syndicated term loan from institutional investors, it said . The emergency cash injection comes as the coronavirus travel freeze continues to hammer vacation rentals, with holidaymakers locked ...

Starship Technologies Is Sending Its Autonomous Robots To More Cities As Demand For Contactless Delivery Rises

Starship Technologies has launched a robot food delivery service in Tempe, Arizona, as part of the autonomous delivery startup’s expansion plans following a $40 million funding round announced last August. Starship Technologies, which ...

WhatsApp Introduces New Limit On Message Forwards To Fight Spread Of Misinformation

WhatsApp introduces new limit on message forwards to fight spread of misinformation image WhatsApp is imposing additional restriction on how frequently a message can be shared on its platform in its latest effort to curtail the spread of misinformation. The Facebook -owned instant messaging service said today that any message that ...

Airbnb Turns To Private Equity To Raise $1 Billion

Airbnb said Monday that it has raised $1 billion in debt and equity from private equity firms Silver Lake and Sixth Street Partners, even as the online rental marketplace has seen its business plummet due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Terms of the ...

Apple Acquires Dark Sky, Android Version Shutting Down In July

Dark Sky, the popular weather app, has been acquired by Apple . News of the acquisition comes by way of Dark Sky’s own blog. The company says that there will be “no changes” for users on iOS right now — but for DarkSky users ...

Microsoft Teams Is Coming To Consumers — But Skype Is Here To Stay

Microsoft Teams is coming to consumers — but Skype is here to stay image Microsoft today announced that later this year, it will launch what is essentially a consumer version of Teams, its Slack-like text, audio and video chat application. Teams for your personal life, as Microsoft likes to call it, will feature a ...

Rocket Startup Skyrora Shifts Production To Hand Sanitizer And Face Masks For Coronavirus Response

One of the newer companies attempting to join the rarified group of private space launch startups actually flying payloads to orbit has redirected its entire UK-based manufacturing capacity towards COVID-19 response. Skyrora , which is based in ...

The Best Video Chat Apps To Turn Social Distancing Into Distant Socializing

The best video chat apps to turn social distancing into distant socializing image The vicissitudes of social distancing have taken many people by surprise, making video calls a new necessity for distant socializing. But which of the two dozen apps out there should you and your (perhaps not as tech-savvy) friends and family use? ...

Mattermost CEO Ian Tien On Building A Successful Remote Team

Mattermost CEO Ian Tien on building a successful remote team image Mattermost is pretty open about what it is: an open-source, self-hosted alternative to Slack .  The team didn’t originally set out to build a messaging tool at all; they wanted to build video games. A few years and one huge pivot later, ...