Techhub knowledge

An American giant may have figured out a way to simplify the tedious procedure of issuing driver’s licenses. And an early sneak peek of this solution is now live in parts of India. Hundreds of people who have taken the driver’s license test in Dehradun, the capital of Indian state Uttarakhand near the Himalayan foothills, in recent weeks haven’t had to sit next to an instructor . Instead, their cars were affixed with a smartphone that was running HAMS , an AI project developed by Microsoft Research team. HAMS uses a smartphone’s front and rear cameras and other sensors to monitor the driver (their gaze), and the road ahead of them. Microsoft Research team said for driver tests, they customized HAMS to enable precise tracking of a vehicle’s trajectory during test manoeuvres such as parallel parking or negotiating a roundabout. This AI technology can determine whether the driver performed any action — such as stopping in the middle of a test or course correcting by rolling forward or ...

Sarah Emerson / OneZero : An investigation into the supply chain of AmazonBasics batteries shows how Amazon masks its private label operations through a discreet network of outsourcing   —  One of Amazon's smallest and most popular products has a surprisingly large footprint  —  heard the “pop!” from my living room … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/323tBN9

Kevin Townsend / SecurityWeek : Report: 21M stolen credentials from global Fortune 500 organizations were found for sale on the dark web, 16M of which were compromised in the last 12 months   —  There have been many studies and investigations into the number of stolen credentials available on the dark web. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/31VlPVu

Namogoo , the Herzliya, Israel-based company that has developed a solution for e-commerce and other online enterprises to prevent “customer journey hijacking,” has raised $40 million in Series C funding. The round is led by Oak HC/FT, with participation from existing backers GreatPoint Ventures, Blumberg Capital, and Hanaco Ventures. It brings total raised by Namogoo to $69 million, and sees Matt Streisfeld, Partner at Oak HC/FT, join the company’s board. Founded by Chemi Katz and Ohad Greenshpan in 2014, Namogoo’s platform gives online businesses more control over the customer journey by preventing unauthorized ad injections that attempt to divert customers to competitors. It also helps uncover privacy and compliance risks that can come from the use of 3rd and 4th party ad vendors. More broadly, Namogoo says that customer journey hijacking is a growing but little-known problem that by some estimates affects 15-25 percent of all user web sessions and therefore costs e-commerce busi...

Berlin-based femtech startup Inne is coming out of stealth to announce an €8 million (~$8.8M) Series A and give the first glimpse of a hormone-tracking subscription product for fertility-tracking and natural contraception that’s slated for launch in Q1 next year. The Series A is led by led by Blossom Capital, with early Inne backer Monkfish Equity also participating, along with a number of angel investors — including Taavet Hinrikus, co-founder of TransferWise; Tom Stafford, managing partner at DST; and Trivago co-founder Rolf Schromgens. Women’s health apps have been having a tech-fuelled moment in recent years, with the rise of a femtech category. There are now all sorts of apps for tracking periods and the menstrual cycle, such as Clue and Flo . Some also try to predict which days a women is fertile and which they’re not — offering digital tools to help women track bodily signals if they’re following a natural family planning method of contraception, or indeed trying to concei...

Freetrade , the U.K. challenger stockbroker that offers commission-free investing, has closed $15 million in Series A funding. The round includes a $7.5 million investment from Draper Esprit, the U.K. publicly-listed venture capital firm, along with previously announced equity crowdfunding via Crowdcube. The funding will be used by Freetrade for further growth and product development, including “doubling down” on engineering hires. The fintech, which claims over 50,000 customers, is also planning to expand to Europe next year. In addition, Adam Dodds, CEO and founder of Freetrade, tells me there will be a marketing and content push to help reach more of the challenger stockbroker’s target millennial customers and help educate the market as a whole that investing in the stock market doesn’t have to be prohibitively expensive or complicated. Amongst a number of new stock trading and investment apps in the U.K., London-based Freetrade was first out of the gate as a bona-fide “challenge...

With CcHub ‘s acquisition of iHub in September, Nigerian Bosun Tijani is at the helm of (arguably) the largest tech network in Africa. He is now CEO of both organizations, including their robust membership rosters, startup incubation programs, global partnerships, and VC activities from Nigeria to Kenya . One could conclude Tijani has become one of the most powerful figures in African tech with the CcHub iHub merger. But that would be a little shortsighted. The techie from Lagos still faces plenty of challenges and unknowns in integrating two innovation hubs that lie 3,818 flight kilometers apart. Several sources speaking on background over the last year have indicated iHub was experiencing financial difficulties. Tijani offered TechCrunch some initial details last month on how the acquisition will fall together. Nigeria’s CcHub acquires Kenya’s iHub to create mega Africa incubator But more recently he shared greater detail on his strategy for operating the multi-country ...