Year: 2018

 Media executives sometimes say that their companies are like a startup — but in the case of This Old House, that’s actually kind of true, since Time Inc. sold the 40-year-old brand (best known for the home improvement TV show of the same name) Eric Thorkilsen and TZP Growth Partners less than two years ago. Thorkilsen, who now serves as CEO of This Old House Ventures, has a… Read More

 A few months after hearing closing arguments in the Lawson v. GrubHub case, Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley has ruled Raef Lawson, the plaintiff, was indeed an independent contractor while driving and delivering food for GrubHub. “We’re extremely satisfied with today’s ruling in Lawson v. Grubhub, which validates the freedom our delivery partners enjoy from deciding when, where… Read More

 Deliv, the crowdsourced same-day delivery service which today partners with retailers like Macy’s, Best Buy, Petsmart and Walmart on various initiatives, today announced a new service to offer same-day delivery of prescription medications. At launch, Deliv Rx, as the service is being called, will power same-day delivery of prescriptions for select Walgreens, as well as Kay Pharmacy,… Read More

 There’s been a lot of hand-wringing about the future of blockchain lately. With cryptocurrency prices reaching all-time highs and total market capitalization topping $800 billion recently, everyone wants to know if we’re witnessing the second coming of the internet or the craziest bubble of all time. If you ask me, it’s a bit of both. Read More

 The recent arrival of the Apple HomePod and Google Home Max have demonstrated, if nothing else, what a smart speaker can be when it’s music first. On the other hand, audio’s never been as much of a driver on Amazon’s Echo line, though the company did take a small step in that direction with its recent refresh. This week, the company’s adding another small but useful… Read More

 Avid audiobook nerds tired of dealing with Audible’s nonsense or long library queues now have a new way to get a steady stream of the good stuff. Scribd just announced it will be reinstating an unlimited plan offering relatively unfettered access to e-books, audiobooks, news, magazines, documents and sheet music. Read More

 The blockchain is the buzziest thing on the internet these days and now MIT professor and godfather of the Human Genome Project George Church wants to put your genes on it. His new startup Nebula Genomics plans to sequence your genome for less than $1,000 and then add your data to the blockchain through the purchase of a “Nebula Token.” Read More

 Twitch today is announcing an update to its Community Guidelines that aim to clarify how the company will enforce its existing anti-harassment and hateful content policies, while also ramping up the attention paid to those channels that breach its sexual content guidelines. In the case of the hateful content and anti-harassment guidelines, Twitch says that any hateful conduct will result in… Read More

 Earlier this week, iOS source code showed up on GitHub, raising concerns that hackers could find a way to comb the material for vulnerabilities. Apple has yet to confirm or deny the legitimacy of the posted material, but all signs point to it being the real deal — a fact seemingly confirmed by a DMCA takedown notice issued to the platform. Read More

 The world needs more emojis. Ever since emojis became a cultural phenomenon, tech companies have been working together to add new smileys, animals and objects. And the Unicode consortium just published this year’s list of new emojis. While many glaring omissions have been fixed in recent years, the Unicode consortium has accepted 157 new emojis. But who are these people who get to… Read More