Month: February 2020
For investors, late-stage fintech startups are a lucrative bet
Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between. Over the past three months, a number of financial events have occurred in the fintech and finservices world that have caught our eye. Between two rounds at $500 million and…
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Uber and Lyft generate 70 percent more pollution than trips they displace: study
Uber and Lyft have weathered criticism about pollution and traffic congestion for years, but it’s been difficult to get an exact gauge about how much ride-hailing contributes to daily emissions. A new study released today claims to have a more precise answer to this question. According to the Union of…
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Amazon opens its first cashierless grocery store
Amazon today is opening its first grocery store to pilot the use of the retailer’s cashierless “Just Walk Out” technology that has previously powered 25 Amazon Go convenience stores in a handful of major U.S. metros. Based in Amazon’s hometown of Seattle, the new Amazon Go Grocery store allows customers…
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Our (slightly doomed) flight to an atmospheric river
A few weeks back, I found myself on a cramped and loud C130 cargo plane, flying headlong out to the middle of the North Pacific Ocean. The plane and crew were part of the Air Force’s fabled “Hurricane Hunters” — they fly into hurricanes to collect crucial data on the…
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Crunchyroll announces first slate of original animated shows
Crunchyroll is releasing its own lineup of original animated shows. The programming slate, dubbed Crunchyroll Originals, runs the gamut from family-friendly action series to dark supernatural investigations. Of the eight shows announced as part of 2020’s Crunchyroll Originals, half are co-produced shows with Japanese animation studios like Production I.G (Ghost…
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Love, Simon spinoff leads to more confusion over the Disney Plus and Hulu divide
Disney has the advantage of owning not one high profile streaming service, but several. For the sake of this story, let’s focus on its two biggest within the United States: Disney Plus and Hulu. The fluidity between the streaming services means that Disney can pluck titles from one and drop…
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