Mission Everywhere

Ian Bogost / The Atlantic : Opponents wonder if WHO's bid to add gaming addiction as a disorder, while not mentioning internet or smartphone addiction, was made under political pressure   —  The World Health Organization has proposed a behavioral addiction pathology for excessive video-game playing. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/2yUOcKd

TechCrunch’s Disrupt SF (Sept. 5-7) is our most ambitious event ever. And if we’re sure of one thing, it’s that people in the startup scene will extract more insights and inspiration from this Disrupt than any before. Here’s why… More, better programming. For the first time ever at Disrupt, we have two stages, plus two additional off-stage “Q&A” areas where Disrupt attendees can ask questions directly to speakers. Sequoia’s Doug Leone, Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd, Sinovation’s Dr. Kai-Fu Lee,  23andMe’s Anne Wojcicki are just a few of the stellar interviews TechCrunch editors will conduct on stage. Disrupt will be live streamed, but only Disrupt pass holders will be able to catch sessions they missed via video-on-demand. Precision-guided networking. We spent years refining CrunchMatch, TechCrunch’s founder-investor matching and meeting system, and we’ve got it down to a science that has already produced thousands of meetings. Investors,  use the CrunchMatch/Brella ap...

Rick Merritt / EE Times : DARPA to invest $100M over the next four years to create the equivalent of a silicon compiler aimed at significantly lowering the barriers to design chips   —  Two programs aim to craft ‘silicon compiler’  —  SAN JOSE, Calif. — The U.S. will pour $100 million into two research programs … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/2IFjd4x

Scott Porch / Fast Company : A look at the efforts of podcast platforms like Stitcher and Castbox to supplement their free ad supported offerings with premium content   —  Your favorite free podcast probably won't charge you anytime soon.  But CastBox's premium-content platform is among the new ways podcasters are getting paid. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/2KxlYq7

Starsky Robotics, a San Francisco startup that makes self-driving semi-trailer trucks, says it wants to put driverless big rigs on the road this year. That'd put the startup well ahead of Tesla, which predicts its hauler — the Semi — will go into production in 2019. Starsky Robotics' CEO says, "I don't think Tesla's in the race." You've probably never heard of Starsky Robotics , a San Francisco startup that wants to put driverless semi-trailer trucks on the road later this year. The company faces significant competition from transportation juggernauts such as Waymo, Uber, and Tesla, who are also working on big rigs that drive themselves. But Stefan Seltz-Axmacher, the 28-year-old cofounder and CEO of Starsky Robotics, says he isn't worried, simply because he doesn't think trucking is a priority for his rivals. "I don't think Tesla's in the race. Honestly, I think Waymo, Tesla, and Uber all have their leftover people working o...

Wall Street Journal : A profile of Alastair MacTaggart, a semi-retired real estate developer who spent $3M on the ballot measure that led to California's tough data privacy bill   —  After a disturbing cocktail party chat, Alastair MacTaggart bankrolled the push that led to California's landmark data-privacy bill from Techmeme https://ift.tt/2yYOteZ

Chattanooga, Tennessee has a promising startup scene that is intimately supported by the city government. The city struggled for decades in the wake of post-industrialization, but was reinvigorated by city-operated high-speed internet and pro-entrepreneur policies. AOL cofounder Steve Case highlighted the city's scene in May through his Rise of the Rest bus tour . This article is part of Business Insider's ongoing series on Better Capitalism . My introduction to Chattanooga, Tennessee hinted at what I'd find during my visit there. Mayor Andy Berke, who's led the city since 2013, visited my New York office in March accompanied by Bellhops CEO Luke Marklin, whose moving company has raised $30 million. They told me the story of the city's startup-fueled revival, and when I visited it in May, for AOL cofounder Steve Case's "Rise of the Rest" bus trip, I saw that the mayor's publicity tour alongside a local success story represented a bigger sto...

Uphold, a cryptocurrency and global currency exchange, has looked to acquisition to get the licenses necessary to trade securities in compliance with the Securities and Exchange Commission. On Wednesday, Uphold announced its plans to acquire JNK Securities Corp., a registered broker-dealer that works with institutional clients. While Uphold doesn't trade stocks, it does sell eight cryptocurrencies, and industry insiders expect the SEC to regulate some cryptocurrencies as securities in the near future. Coinbase, a competitor of Uphold, announced a similar acquisition on June 6. Uphold, a cryptocurrency and global currency exchange, just made a major move toward becoming a licensed securities trader. On Wednesday, Uphold announced its plans to acquire JNK Securities Corp., a registered broker-dealer that has the licenses necessary to trade any cryptocurrencies that may be regulated as securities by the US Securities and Exchange Commission. "We've been following wh...

Goldman Sachs is hoping a brand new technology team will help the trading giant better compete with the fastest traders on Wall Street. Raj Mahajan, who joined the firm in 2015, will run the new group alongside Konstantin Shakhnovich and Ezra Nahum. The three will report jointly to the chief information officer and the leaders of the securities division.  Large banks are looking for ways to compete more effectively with the likes of Citadel Securities and Virtu, which have shown an ability to innovate more quickly due to their smaller teams and flatter organizational structure.  Goldman Sachs is taking a bold step to improve teamwork in its securities division and better compete with the fastest traders on Wall Street. The investment bank has created an engineering unit within its sales-and-trading division that will now oversee the front-to-back development and management of trading systems, according to a series of internal memos obtained by Business Insid...