By many measures, Castro might seem modest. The company that makes the freemium podcast-listening app doesn’t disclose usage numbers, stating only that it’s among the top 10 podcast apps for iOS—a market segment dominated by Apple’s bundled Podcasts, which overshadows everything else. Castro might have as many as the low hundreds of thousands of users, the vast majority paying nothing. But Castro has ambitions. While the podcast industry raked in over $300 million in ads in 2017, that number is estimated at $400 million for 2018, and is expected to cross $600 million by 2020, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau. That’s a tiny sum relative to newspaper and radio ad sales, which are around $17 billion each. Still, it’s up from nearly nothing in just a few years. Castro would like a piece of that future, and the two-man band that developed the app— Pádraig Ó Cinnéide and Oisín Prendiville—recently sold their … [Read more...] about Pump up the volume: Podcast apps keep pushing toward the money
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LA Auto Show: Rivian unveiling electric truck
Eric D. Lawrence Detroit Free Press Published 8:00 AM EST Nov 26, 2018 You won’t mistake the Rivian R1T for any other vehicle — and that’s the intention. The truck has a “very identifiable face,” according to the company’s CEO and founder, RJ Scaringe. The nontraditional front end, without the big grille seen on internal combustion engine trucks, features a daytime running light strip across the width of the truck in front of the hood, broken up by a pair of vertical “stadium" headlights. The look is meant to convey a “friendly but tough” vibe. It’s a design theme expected to carry across Rivian’s planned product line, which should begin coming into view this week as the startup unveils its first concept vehicles — the R1T and an electric SUV — in connection with the Los Angeles Auto Show. The truck is scheduled to be shown first, at LA's Griffith Observatory on Monday. The … [Read more...] about LA Auto Show: Rivian unveiling electric truck
Cop cameras can track you in real-time and there’s no stopping them
A police officer is patrolling the neighborhood when he gets an urgent notification on his phone: the face of a passerby matches that of a suspect in a police database. He touches a button to request backup and glides his hand to his holster. For Rick Smith, the energized chief executive of police supplier Axon, formerly known as Taser, this “Robocop”-like vision is a tantalizing possibility in a larger vision of AI-assisted policing. In the case of a cop killer on the loose, Smith told me in 2016, “we can’t expect an officer to not get that alert if there’s official information on this guy.” Face databases used by local law enforcement now contain over half of the U.S.’s adults, many of them people who have never committed a crime, according to a 2016 study by researchers at Georgetown University Law Center. As internet companies gather their own collections of faces–encouraging users to upload them themselves–researchers are … [Read more...] about Cop cameras can track you in real-time and there’s no stopping them
This Is Drew Houston’s 2007 Y Combinator Application For A Company That’s Now Worth $US4 Billion, Dropbox
In 2007, an MIT graduate named Drew Houston was trying to get his startup, Dropbox, off the ground. He didn’t have another co-founder because the person who had agreed to work with him fell through. He had been programming since age 5, and he was trying to get Y Combinator to invest in his file storing and sharing startup. He told Y Combinator he was determined to see the idea through…although if someone offered him $US1-2 million for Dropbox after six months of work, he’d have trouble walking away. It’s a good thing no one made Houston that offer, because now he’s worth much more than that, and his company is worth multiple billions. Here’s the application he submitted to Paul Graham back then. Y Combinator Funding ApplicationSummer 2007Application deadline: 12 midnight (PST) April 2, 2007. Please try to answer each question in less than 120 words. We look at online demos only for the most promising applications, so don’t skimp on the … [Read more...] about This Is Drew Houston’s 2007 Y Combinator Application For A Company That’s Now Worth $US4 Billion, Dropbox
Entrepreneur of the Week: 14-Year-Old CEO Chental-Song Bembry
Page: 1 2Name: Chental-Song Bembry Age: 14 Hometown: Monmouth Junction, NJ School: South Brunswick High School Business: The Honeybunch Kids Mission: To provide quality literature that entertains and educates children between the ages of 7 and 12. To launch a literacy campaign that will one day change the way children think about reading. To inspire children to set goals for themselves. When you think of an author, the term entrepreneur doesn’t necessarily come to mind; but more book writers are beginning to realize that being an author takes a certain entrepreneurial spirit if you really want to move volumes. Just ask 14-year-old Chental-Song Bembry, who sold more than 500 books last year and is aiming to double that with the release of her second book this fall. The teenpreneur has the hustle it takes and attends trade shows, events, conferences, writing camps, and holds book signings at her church to market her book. Bembry, a high school freshman, authored and … [Read more...] about Entrepreneur of the Week: 14-Year-Old CEO Chental-Song Bembry