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Manish Singh / TechCrunch : Khatabook, which helps small Indian businesses record financial transactions digitally, raises $25M Series A from investors including GGV Capital, Sequoia India   —  Even as tens of millions of Indians have come online for the first time in recent years, most businesses in the nation remain offline. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/2mtZvU9

Jane Manchun Wong / @wongmjane : Uber is testing a safety feature to let passengers record and send audio to the company if they are “uncomfortable” during a ride   —  Uber is testing “Record Audio” in case the rider is uncomfortable with the ride https://twitter.com/... from Techmeme https://ift.tt/2o9aPW7

Jonathan Shieber / TechCrunch : Dave, which offers money management tools to let its 4M users avoid overdraft fees, raises $50M, says it now has a valuation of $1B+   —  Two years after the Los Angeles-based fintech startup Dave launched with a suite of money management tools to save consumers from overdraft fees … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/2o0XNu0

Adam Neumann’s fall from grace was astonishingly swift once his company, WeWork, filed to go public in August. Even while his spending was fairly well-documented across time (as were his apparent conflicts of interest ), he was humiliated for enriching himself, then ultimately kicked out of the corner office before the company, in the least surprising turn of events in recent weeks, today yanked its S-1 registration. Neumann never exactly hid who he is or how he operates, so what suddenly sparked the ire of reporters — and investors — around the world? What, exactly, in an ultimately unsurprising IPO filing had people coughing up their morning coffee? Boiled down to the worst offense (including selling his own company the trademark “We” for $5.9 million in stock ) was very likely the lock on control that Neumann had set up through a multi-class voting structure that aimed to cement his control. And by ‘cement,’ we mean he would enjoy overwhelming control for not just for 5 or 10 year...

Tom Warren / The Verge : What to expect from Microsoft's event on October 2: Surface Pro 7, Surface Laptop 3, an ARM-based Surface, and at least a teaser of a dual-screen device   —  Surface Pro 7, Surface Laptop 3, and some mysterious new hardware  —  Microsoft is holding a big Surface hardware event in New York City on Wednesday, October 2nd. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/2mwVZIO

Jon Fingas / Engadget : Twitter is rolling out a filter that moves unwanted DMs containing questionable language or spam to an “additional messages” folder on Android, iOS, and the web   —  Twitter is quickly acting on plans to filter potentially offensive direct messages.  It's rolling out the filter to all users on Android, iOS and the web. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/2oJ9ENr

Nick Statt / The Verge : Leaked images reveal the upcoming Surface Pro 7, Surface Laptop 3 (13-inch and 15-inch), and an ARM-powered Surface 2-in-1 device   —  Well dang, there they are  —  Microsoft's new Surface lineup appears to have leaked almost in its entirety, thanks to product images obtained by journalist and leaker Evan Blass. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/2oLjApL

Even as tens of millions of Indians have come online for the first time in recent years, most businesses in the nation remain offline. They continue to rely on long notebooks to keep a log of their financial transactions. A nine-month old startup which is digitizing the bookkeeping and allowing merchants to accept online payments just raised a significant amount of capital. Khatabook , a Bangalore-based startup, said on Tuesday it has raised $25 million in a new financing round. The Series A round for the startup was funded by GGV Capital, Partners of DST Global, RTP Ventures, Sequoia India, Tencent, and Y Combinator. A clutch of high-profile angel investors including Amrish Rau, Anand Chandrasekharan, Deep Nishar, Gokul Rajaram, Jitendra Gupta, Kunal Bahl, and Kunal Shah also participated in the round. The startup has raised $29 million to date. Khatabook operates an eponymous Android app that allows small and medium businesses to keep a log of their financial transactions and accep...

A pilot project at Rotterdam airport plans to capture CO2 from the air and turn it into jet fuel. from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8290670 https://ift.tt/2nfOK8f

Jules Wang / Android Police : Google confirms it is testing Duplex-powered Assistant for Chrome, initially with movie ticket booking websites like AMC and Fandango   —  Back at I/O, Google announced a major expansion to its Assistant-based concierge automation engine, Duplex.  Up until then, it would help people book restaurant tables … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/2o0Tq1U

Ryan Broderick / BuzzFeed News : Twitter to leave up a tweet about a “full-blown “hot” civil war” by a far-right militia with almost 24,000 followers; the militia was quote-tweeting Trump   —  When is promoting violent extremism not promoting violent extremism?  When Twitter says so. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/2nYigzC

You may know Max Deutsch from Month to Master , his yearlong self-improvement program where he tried to master one “expert-level” skill each month, which ultimately saw him challenging world champion Magnus Carlsen to a game of chess (Deustch lost). Now, Deustch and his co-founder Valentin Perez are launching Monthly , which Deustch told me is designed to “leverage technology to help scale this kind of learning to many more people.” Specifically, Monthly offers 30-day classes taught by experts and celebrities— the instructors often have hundreds of thousands or millions of YouTube subscribers. For example, Andrew Huang is teaching a class on music production, Daria Callie is teaching a class on realistic portrait painting and  Stevie Mackey is teaching a class on singing. When you enroll in a class, you’ll be assigned a different task every day; you might watch an instructional video one day, and then do something more hands-on the next. While the classes are online, yo...

Mehedi Hassan / Thurrott : Microsoft now lets OneDrive users expand 1TB storage in 200GB increments and launches OneDrive Personal Vault, to protect folders using 2FA, available globally   —  Microsoft announced two major features for OneDrive back in June: Personal Vault and expandable storage.  Both of the features are launching worldwide today. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/2ndDV6E

Jason Torchinsky / Jalopnik : Videos of owners trying Tesla's new Smart Summon feature, which show Teslas autonomously driving to owners with varying degrees of success, go viral   —  Just a few days ago, Tesla announced their new Version 10 software update, which included such things as the ability to play Cuphead … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/2mmvipY

Annie Palmer / CNBC : Verizon to acquire the software and technology assets of VR startup Jaunt XR, which raised $100M in funding from Disney, GV, and others; Jaunt is pivoting to AR   —  - The start-up develops tools that enable brands and consumers to make high-quality VR content, among other things. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/2mWSsUr

McDonald’s first foray into the plant-based protein patty market in North America is launching today in Canada . The company’s “P.L.T.” (plant, lettuce, and tomato) sandwich, which uses patties from Beyond Meat, is now on sale at several locations in Canada. This isn’t the first new vegetarian sandwich to launch at a “Golden Arches” location this year. Back in April, the company launched a new vegan sandwich for customers in its franchise locations across Germany. McDonald’s has had vegetarian and vegan sandwich options on its international menu sporadically for years. Two years ago, it partnered with a specialty Norwegian food company called Orkla to launch its McVegan burger in Finland and Sweden. With the launch in North American locations, McDonald’s is taking another step down the path toward potentially adding a vegetarian sandwich option to its menu in the U.S. As the largest fast food restaurant in the world, any steps McDonald’s takes to move to adopt a plant-based prot...