Technology news

GUEST: The history of family offices – private wealth management vehicles established by high net worth families – has long been entwined with that of venture capital. Indeed, several leading VC firms, including Bessemer Venture Partners, Greylock Partners, Frog Capital and Atomico, have emerged from family offices, while many wealthy families have built their fortunes through entrepreneurship or by investing in (or managing) early-stage businesses, and thus have it in their blood.
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SXSW is 10 days of fun. Many of colleagues (I see you Brett Williams) teased me (on Slack) for having a "great time with all the work down there."
But, hey, it's actually work. Attending panel after panel, speaking on your own panels, BBQ after BBQ, happy hour after happy hour isn't easy — no matter how fun it looks from everyone's Snapchat (or Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, Facebook) Stories. 
SEE ALSO: Ride-hailing in Austin: Life without Uber and Lyft is a fun sh*tshow
When I came

In the coming weeks, Lyft will introduce a new program called Round Up & Donate, which will allow riders to make a charitable contribution when they take a ride with the service.Riders will be able to opt into the program, which will automatically round up their fare to the nearest whole dollar. The company announced the program in an ad in The New York Times, stating that “parking your backsides in the back seats across the nation is a way to rebuild our communities around people, not

Rogue One, A Star Wars Story will soon be available on DVD and Blu-ray (the digital version was released on Friday), but there’s one format that the film won’t be released in: VHS. A fan-made commercial imagines how such a release might have been advertised in the 1980s.From the commercial’s editing to Anthony Sevins’ dramatic voiceover, the short is a perfect throwback to the VHS era. The grainy footage and retro box art looks exactly like something one would have found

There's a sixth ranger in the new Power Rangers film you may have never expected to see. No, we're not talking about the Green Ranger or the White Ranger.
This one actually has a mix of Green, White and even some Red.
SEE ALSO: The Internet is so not feeling the new 'Power Rangers' suits
Meet Krispy Kreme, the unexpected hero of the action movie. Did Krispy Kreme pay for the entire production of Power Rangers? I'm not even mad. Sequel please! #PowerRangersMovie pic.twitter.com/1zFlqciYSl
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Vainglory’s spring season championships will take place at London’s O2 venue. Teams from North America and Europe will compete in the first unified championships for Vainglory, which is Super Evil Megacorp’s mobile multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) esport game.
The event will take place in London from May 19 to May 21. The best six teams from North America and Europe’s best six will battle it out in front of a live audience to determine which region can cla

In response to United Airline's legging-gate, women are speaking out. 
Two young girls wearing leggings were banned from a flight on Sunday morning due to a violation of the airline's internal dress code. The situation, which was live-tweeted by activist Shannon Watts, sparked outrage from thousands on social media who called out the company for policing the girls' attire.  
Author Dana Schwartz was one of those that spoke out against United Airlines, and asked women on Twitter to shar

Parenting 101: Trolling your kids is the best way to get them to do something. 
Imagine you're a young Cavs fan, eager to watch LeBron James dominate in person. You turn on the TV to watch the game and you see... this. Whose dad is this #Cleveland? 😂 @cavs pic.twitter.com/F2NZIEzD0Q
— Mona Kosar Abdi (@MonaAbdiWEWS) March 25, 2017Poor Thomas. His dad printed the sign with a sad emoji and everything. 
SEE ALSO: LeBron James to LaVar Ball: 'Keep my kids' name out of yo

Awarded annually, the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer is given to a writer just starting out their career. While some of these authors go on to huge careers, such as Orson Scott Card, John Scalzi, or Naomi Novik, discovering newcomers as their career is just starting can be challenging, so one author has collected the stories of this year’s eligible authors into a single, 1,200 page anthology.The Event Horizon 2017 anthology consists of two volumes containing nearly 400,000 word

GUEST: One of the first questions many founders ask is whether and when they should form an advisory board. Advisors can be valuable extended members of the management team. Good advisors can share their experience on a range of subjects – technology, go-to-market, personnel, etc. – and they can make introductions to customers and employees. They lend their personal brands to early stage companies and can even mentor new executives.
But sometimes, when advisors do little or nothing,

Stephen Hawking's synthesized voice is perhaps just as famous as his brilliant mind.
The theoretical physicist and cosmologist has "spoken" using the same Intel-made computer system for the past two decades. Now, however, Hawking says he's ready for a replacement.
SEE ALSO: Stephen Hawking has a message for Trump: Don't ignore climate change
In a spoof video, the English scientist sifts through audition tapes from celebrities vying to provide Hawking's new voice.Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miran

Like most geek-friendly blockbusters coming out of Hollywood these days, Lionsgate's Power Rangers reboot sets up the sequel with a "stinger" — a scene inserted into the end credits.
That's what I'm here to fill you in on. Needless to say, spoilers ahead.
SEE ALSO: 7 butt kickin' secrets you probably didn't know about the 'Power Rangers'
Midway through the credit roll we're treated to a familiar scene: our beloved heroes, fresh from saving the planet, are back in detention. A teacher calls

Another weekend, another pile of money for Disney.
Beauty and the Beast finishes its second weekend at the domestic box office with an estimated $88.3 million. It's another #1 weekend for the live-action remake of Disney's animated classic from 1991.
SEE ALSO: Well, what do you know: 'Power Rangers' is surprisingly OK
No one expected Beauty to come close to its debut, which clocked in at a record-setting $174.8 million. But don't read too deeply into the seemingly large 49 percent audience decli

United Airlines is in hot water after a dress code incident on Sunday morning. 
In a series of live tweets, activist Shannon Watts explained that two girls who were wearing leggings were asked by the United Airlines gate agent to either change clothing or not board their flight to Minneapolis. 
SEE ALSO: Teenagers spot fire on plane flying overhead, avert major disaster1) A @united gate agent isn't letting girls in leggings get on flight from Denver to Minneapolis because spandex is no

This morning, a United Airlines passenger took to Twitter to complain that a gate agent refused to let three passengers board because they were wearing leggings. The airline said that its rules allow airline personnel to refuse service for passengers who aren’t properly attired.The incident appears to have happened during boarding for a flight headed to Minneapolis from Denver. Twitter user Shannon Watts noted that her complaint originated when the gate agent refused to allow three girls t

GUEST: I always feel sorry for Canadian smartphone users. Every time they open the app store they find dozens of new apps, sometimes buggy, sometimes lacking important features. That’s because almost every mobile marketer targeting an international release has the same idea: “Let’s do a soft launch in Canada!”
It made sense in the past: Canada is an English-speaking, developed market with similar consumer behavior and GDP as the U.S., but with a smaller populati

Some physicists use their degree to study space. Some research materials to aid technology product designs, like headphones or batteries. Others, like one Daniel Perlman of Brandeis University, put his brain where it really matters: designing a wine bottle that doesn’t drip.
A biophysicist and inventor, Perlman said the trick to this design is an additional two-millimeter groove added to the tip of the bottle that helps to catch the liquid as the bottle gets tilted back up. The conclusion

It's tough to swallow the fact all our invitations were lost in the mail to Samira Wiley and Lauren Morelli's wedding, but thankfully we got a glimpse of a photograph from the celebration to ease the FOMO.  
The couple met on the set of Orange is the New Black, where Wiley plays Poussey Washington and Morelli is a producer and writer for the show. They tied the knot on Saturday in Southern California. Martha Stewart Weddings shared exclusive, beautiful pictures of the two in Christian Siria

Popeye was fond of cramming cans of spinach to beef up his cartoon biceps. Now scientists say the leafy green really could help build a real-world muscle, only this time, it's the human heart.
A team of U.S. researchers found a way to use the veins of the spinach leaf to build a miniature version of a beating heart muscle.
Their discoveries offer a potential solution a major challenge confronting biomedical engineers: how to repair and regenerate damaged organs and tissues. 
SEE ALSO: Micro

Ted Price and Jason Rubin were pioneers at the start of the console video game business. Price started Insomniac Games in 1994, making games, such as Spyro the Dragon and Ratchet & Clank. Rubin cofounded Naughty Dog, maker of titles, such as Crash Bandicoot, in 1986.
Now they’re pioneering another new medium for games, virtual reality. Price is still at Insomniac, which is working on a new Spider-Man game and published two VR titles last year. Rubin is vice president of content at Ocul

Image: Library of CongressFounded in 1762, the small city of Hagerstown, Maryland sits just south of the Mason-Dixon line and changed hands several times during the Civil War.In October 1937, Farm Security Administration photographer Arthur Rothstein, in the course of his assignments covering everyday life across the country, passed throughHe paused there for an afternoon, strolling the streets of the humble town, documenting the residents milling about on the main thoroughfare, chatting, shoppi

It seems like just yesterday the members of One Direction were young kids on The X Factor, but in news that might make you feel very old, some of the guys now have kids themselves.
Liam Payne is the second member of the boy band to welcome a little one into the world. On Saturday, he shared an Instagram post announcing the birth of his son with English singer Cheryl Cole and explained exactly how he felt about being a new father. 
SEE ALSO: Mother shares hilarious picture of her babysitter

GUEST: The politics of protectionism are turning America inward at roughly the same moment high valuations have forced Chinese firms to seek profits abroad. From a macro perspective, globalization marches on, albeit with a different leader. But if Chinese firms will increasingly be at the center of a global economy, the nature of that market will certainly reflect the Chinese style – one that is noticeably distinct from the American and European styles of business. What will that developme

Here's a fun bit of triviaPirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales is actually the second longest title in the series. It falls one short of the 10-word mouthful that was Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.
Javier Bardem is an angry ghost pirate in Disney's next Pirates adventure. If you're looking for a reason to go — any reason at all — there it is. The latest trailer peers into some of the backstory that turned Bardem's Captain Armando Salazar into a Ja

Weird Phone Case of the Month is a monthly series in which we live with, and subsequently review, our time with a phone case. Phone cases are one of our only ways to express individuality with our smartphones, so what do our phone case choices say about us?
I first bought a green glittery phone case. Then a purple one. I’m sticking with the purple. When I made the switch from Samsung to Apple, part of my reasoning hinged on the fact that iPhones often have better case choices than Android

If you were raised in the '90s, it's not that far of a reach to say that television played a sizable role in your upbringing. Luckily for us '90s kids, we just happened to grow up with some of the best television in recent memory and everything seemed to have a specific life lesson embedded into its content. 
For instance, Kenan & Kel was packed with life lessons. Whether it was "don't do drugs" or "Kel loves orange soda (LOL)," each episode seemed to hammer home a point about life. But

Westworld won't be back on our screens until 2018 — so it's no surprise that the spoiler-averse showrunners, Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, kept a lid on any details about Season 2 at the show's PaleyFest panel on Saturday night.
That didn't stop fans or the intrepid moderator from trying, of course: They grilled Nolan on everything from whether we'll see other theme parks in Season 2, like the previously teased Samurai World ("That'd be cool, wouldn't it?" Nolan coyly deflected), to whether

Earlier this week, United States and United Kingdom officials announced new restrictions for airline passengers from eight Middle Eastern countries, forbidding passengers to carry electronics larger than a smartphone into an airplane cabin. According to a security source, the ban was prompted in part by a plot involving explosives hidden in a fake iPad.The Guardian reports that the bans were “were not the result of a single specific incident but a combination of factors,” and that on

Bixby, announced this week and scheduled to make its debut on March 29, is Samsung’s new intelligent assistant. The service is expected to be inside the Galaxy S8 at launch and to eventually be included with all Samsung appliances.
Samsung is setting high expectations for Bixby. That’s a risky move, as anyone who has spent time interacting with bots — even the likes of Alexa or Google Assistant — knows that things go wrong, and that setting realis

The Stad Penninsula in Norway has one of the most dangerous coastlines in the region. As the meeting place between the Norwegian Sea and North Sea, the turbulent waters have claimed the lives of dozens sailors over the last several decades. Which may explain why Norway’s top coastal agency wants to dig a $272 million, mile-long “ship tunnel” to create a safer passage for commercial vessels.Designed to accommodate ships as massive as Norway’s Hurtigruten cruise vessels, th

Blizzard Entertainment announced today that it will be remastering its classic real-time strategy games StarCraft and StarCraft: Brood War, as StarCraft: Remastered, which it anticipates releasing this summer .StarCraft: Remastered will remastered graphics of the original games in 4K Ultra High Definition. It will also include a number of updates, such as remastered sound, new additional illustrations for the campaign missions, new matchmaking capabilities, the ability to connect to Blizzard App

The dinosaur world is buzzing this week because of a new paper that suggests the way we classify dinosaurs may be very wrong.Back in 1888, a paleontologist named Harry Seeley said that all dinosaurs fall into two categories: bird-hipped (Ornithischia) and lizard-hipped (Saurischia). This has been accepted ever since. But a study published this week in Nature suggests that this division is wrong, essentially challenging the most basic division of dinosaur genealogy.Under Seely’s original or

ANALYSIS: As London reels in the aftermath of yet another horrific terrorist attack, the U.K. government has reignited the debate on the use of encryption in mobile messaging services.
The attack in Westminster last Thursday left four people dead and many more injured, and reports have since surfaced that the perpetrator, British man Khalid Masood, was using WhatsApp minutes before he mowed down pedestrians on Westminster bridge and fatally stabbed a policeman. However, police have so far indica

CNBC reports that after more than two decades of bad blood and legal wrangling between states and the online giant, Amazon will collect sales tax in all states that have such a levy. Collection in Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, and New Mexico, the final four states where shoppers don’t pay required tax through the site, will begin on April 1st.
Amazon will still not charge sales tax in Alaska, Delaware, Oregon, Montana, or New Hampshire, which don’t have state sales taxes.
A 1992 Supreme Cour

Lyft is taking a page right out of Ride Austin‘s book with a feature that allows riders to donate part of their fare to charity. Called Round Up & Donate, the feature being tested by the on-demand ride hailing service involves rounding up fares to the nearest dollar, with the remainder donated to a specific charity. So if your standard fare was $12.57, for example, Lyft would charge you $13.00 and allow you to donate the $0.43 to a select organization.
Round Up & Donate i

Blizzard Entertainment just announced that it will launch StarCraft: Remastered, a remade version of the real-time strategy hit that debuted in 1998.
The remake will have 4K graphics and 1080p cinematics, upgraded audio, and a comics-like mission narrative and introduction. The gameplay will be “precisely” the same as the original title. StarCraft is one of the most celebrated games of all time, and it is a national pastime in South Korea, where it has carried on as an esport for alm

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is known for short bursts of activity on Twitter, oftentimes answering fans and reporters questions on the social media platform.
On Friday, as Musk was on a flight to Cape Canaveral—presumably to attend to business related to SpaceX, the aerospace company he also runs—the billionaire entrepreneur shared a number of new details about the Model 3, a video, and even the solar roof tiles Tesla plans to sell.
Here’s what we learned:
First the basics, Musk wanted

GUEST: Many high-end celebrities and fashion models use personal shopping assistants or stylists to help find the best clothes for them.
For many women, however, that’s not really an option. We often rely on friends or family to give a thumbs up or thumbs down on potential clothing purchases, but that’s about the extent of it.
This may be about to change.
Lily is a virtual AI shopping assistant that learns about your style and how you feel in your clothes.
The app just won the 2017 S

Nintendo is testing out its upcoming online shooter Splatoon 2, and it turns out that the game is a lot more of the same except it’s on the Switch. But that means you can play the game anywhere you have an Internet connection, which is an exciting possibility for anyone with a smartphone that can turn into a Wi-Fi hotspot.
For one of Nintendo’s hour-long Splatoon 2 Global Testfire events today, I turned my Samsung Galaxy phone (may it never explode) into a hotspot and connected my Sw

Technology can be a wild beast.
Anyone who lives and breathes tech knows the rules are always changing. One day a certain smartphone, say the Google Pixel, is the coolest thing ever, the next you find out everyone has moved on to some other Android model. You try a new travel website that uses machine learning to find the best deals, and then you realize there’s a new app for your tablet that works much better.
Driving today is equally variable. Climb into a Ford Escape and you’ll se

GUEST: 2016 was a huge year for bots, with major platforms like Facebook launching bots for Messenger, and Amazon and Google heavily pushing their digital assistants. Looking forward to 2017, we asked 21 bot experts, entrepreneurs, and executives to share their predictions for how bots will continue to evolve in the coming year.
1. Andy Mauro, CEO, Automat
“In 2017, brands will realize that conversational marketing is a better way to learn about and build relationships with their customer