All posts tagged: year

Prefab home builder Veev reportedly shutting down after reaching unicorn status last year

Published by skeptic

Veev, a real estate developer turned tech-enabled homebuilder, is on the verge of shutting down after reaching unicorn status last year, according to multiple reports. Calcalist reported on Sunday that the company – which raised $600 million in total, $400 million of which was secured in March of 2022 – has to shut down after an “abrupt cancellation of a capital-raising initiative.” Bond led Veev’s 2022 round, which also included participation from LenX (formerly Lennar Ventures), Zeev Ventures, Fifth Wall Climate Tech and JLL Spark Global Ventures.  TechCrunch has reached out to Veev for comment but had not heard back as of press time. Founded in 2008, Veev Group started its life as a traditional real estate developer and asset manager. During its time developing properties, it found new ways to improve the building process, according to CEO and co-founder Amit Haller. In 2017, Veev Group began to focus on prefabrication capabilities, and by 2018 it formally pivoted to what it described as “a vertically integrated developer focused on building innovation.” In 2019, the company …

Crypto enforcers wielded a heavy hand this year, but don’t expect it to get softer in 2024

Published by skeptic

This was quite the year for the crypto industry. From funding shortfalls to the SBF saga playing out in public, the industry and its proponents had a wild year, especially with crypto prices fluctuating more than London’s weather in April. Still, regulation of crypto and how it is being set up to be enforced was at the forefront of everyone’s minds in the crypto industry. And even though 2024 is going to distract everyone with the Presidential elections, many in the crypto industry are hopeful that clearer guidelines will be laid out in the coming months. “2023 has certainly seen some controversies, although in many ways, it has been a lull from the crypto winter and hangover from the crash of FTX and LUNA in 2022,” Jack Vinijtrongjit, co-founder and CEO of web3 infrastructure company AAG, told TechCrunch+. Multiple major scandals rocked the industry in 2022, and consequently, this year, we got front-row seats to the U.S. government’s response. This month alone was intense for the crypto industry: Early in November, FTX’s former CEO Sam …

Dear Therapist: I Don’t Want to See My Mom This Christmas

Published by skeptic

Dear Therapist, I am struggling to set a much-needed boundary with my mom around Christmas. I’m a divorced mom of one, and my ex-husband and I split the holiday. My daughter is either with me on Christmas Eve and then goes to her dad’s on Christmas afternoon or vice versa, depending on the year. We’ve been divorced since she was little, so we’ve been doing this for years. Our parents live near each other, about three and a half hours away, and we both go down to see our own moms for Christmas. My mom is toxic and guilt-trips me big-time whenever I inform her that I don’t want to come visit. Last year her reaction was so bad that I became physically ill: ocular migraine, anxiety so intense I could barely speak, etc. I caved because I just couldn’t handle her nonsense. My daughter will be 13 this year. I’ve always dreamed of a Christmas Day we could just enjoy at home, creating our own traditions. I’ve never really been able to do this, …

Labour would cut net migration to 200,000 a year, says shadow minister | Immigration and asylum

Published by Sam

A Labour government would cut net migration to a “couple of hundred thousand a year” within its first term, a shadow cabinet minister has said. The shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, Darren Jones, said the party intended to get net migration back to “normal levels”, as figures are “extremely high”. The latest official figures published last week showed the difference between the number of people coming to live in the UK and those leaving had risen to 745,000, three times higher than the level before Brexit. The increase is largely down to a rise in people coming to the UK to work in the health and social care sectors. The Conservative party’s 2019 manifesto vowed “overall numbers will come down” and “we will ensure that the British people are always in control”. But Rishi Sunak is under growing pressure to come up with an “immediate and massive” plan to cut net migration levels. When asked on BBC One’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg if Labour could bring numbers down within the first term of a …

From a judicial coup to the Hamas attack: the year that tore apart, then reunited, Israel | Israel

Published by Sam

The war is paused, but it is not over. There will be relief at the promised four days of quiet between Israel and Hamas, and there will be joy for the families waiting to be reunited with loved ones, thanks to Friday’s planned exchange of hostages held in Gaza for prisoners held in Israel. But even if the ceasefire is extended, perhaps in return for the release of more Hamas-held captives, this war will not be over anytime soon. If anything, it is likely to intensify. It is too big to stop now, it runs too deep. And it has already turned Israel upside down. You only have to spend a few days in the country to see that. The war is everywhere. In the airport, signs direct you to the nearest bomb shelter in case the siren should sound. Open Google Maps and, unprompted, it shows you where to go to take cover. By the roadside, huge billboards carry patriotic slogans – “We Will Triumph”, “We Are All One Israel” – against the rippling …

The Sudden Fall of Sam Altman

Published by skeptic

Earlier this year, I asked Sam Altman whether decisions made by OpenAI’s leaders might one day lead to unemployment among the masses. “Jobs are definitely going to go away, full stop,” he told me. He couldn’t have known then that his would be among the first. In a blog post released this afternoon, OpenAI—the artificial-intelligence juggernaut for which Altman was the CEO—announced that he would be leaving, effective immediately, because, according to the statement, “he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board.” The statement did not specify the nature of Altman’s alleged misrepresentations, but they must have concerned serious matters to merit such a dramatic and public rebuke. Altman did not reply to multiple texts seeking comment, but in a post on X (formerly Twitter), he said that he’d loved his time at OpenAI, and that it was transformative for him “personally, and hopefully for the world a little bit.” The suddenness of this announcement, and the Icarus-like fall it represents for Altman, is difficult to overstate. In 2015, Altman convened a …

This Week in Apps: Apple’s iPhone app of the year finalists, plus 7 hidden gems

Published by skeptic

Is the App Store still a source for new technology innovations or has AI development become the hotter new tech to build for these days? We pondered this question this week when Apple unveiled its iPhone App of the Year finalists, which surprisingly included a trio of longtime favorites — hiking app AllTrails, language learning app Duolingo, and travel app Flighty. Instead of highlighting new releases that caught fire in the year, as it did last year with winner BeReal or in 2021 with Toca Life World, for example, Apple has selected several high-quality apps that have been around for some time and have built a following. But Apple’s selection, which ignores the AI app boom for some reason, may lead you to believe there aren’t many new and interesting gems to be found on today’s App Store — a place where apps like TikTok, Temu, and those from Meta and Google often dominate the top charts. As it turns out, that’s far from true. However, great new apps can be harder to find these …

Will 2024 be a bounce-back year for startups?

Published by skeptic

In 2021 and early 2022, startups experienced a time of wild optimism. Capital was still plentiful and cheap, and enterprise buyers were heavily into experimentation, making it a great time to be a startup. But quite suddenly in 2022, the wind shifted, inflation reared its head, the Fed raised interest rates multiple times, and money became much more expensive. Buyers got uncomfortable, buying cycles suddenly were extended, and startups began to feel the pinch. There is a simple law of economic physics: In general the economy goes up, goes down and eventually bounces back up again. But as we approach the middle of the final quarter of 2023, and some of the economic signals have improved, is it reasonable to expect that we’ll be seeing a recovery in which startups can once again thrive? It may not be that simple this time. While IT budgets are projected to improve in the new year, it doesn’t necessarily mean that startups can take advantage of that money. Don’t forget that many major tech vendors raised prices this …

X rival Bluesky hits 2M users, says federation coming ‘early next year’

Published by skeptic

Bluesky, the company building a decentralized alternative to Twitter/X, announced today it has hit 2 million users — up by another million since September, despite remaining an invite-only app. It also revealed its timeframe regarding other key goals, indicating that it planned to have a public web interface go live by the end of the month and would launch federation by early next year. The latter is one of the most important differentiating factors between Bluesky and X, as it would allow Bluesky to function as a more open social network. This means it will work more like Mastodon where users can pick and choose which servers to join and move their accounts around at will. This is what Bluesky today says makes it “billionaire-proof” —  a swipe at Elon Musk’s ownership of Twitter, now called X. “You’ll always have the freedom to choose (and to exit) instead of being held to the whims of private companies or black box algorithms,” a company blog post explained. “And wherever you go, your friends and relationships will be …

Tell us: are you changing the way you celebrate Christmas this year? | Christmas

Published by Sam

We would like to hear about any changes you’ve made to how you celebrate Christmas, and your reasons why. Perhaps you updated your traditions to reduce waste, for example? Has your family changed how you give gifts? Or perhaps you prepare a less stereotypical Christmas dinner? Tell us all about how you celebrate below. Share your experience You can tell us about your unusual Christmas traditions using this form. Your responses, which can be anonymous, are secure as the form is encrypted and only the Guardian has access to your contributions. We will only use the data you provide us for the purpose of the feature and we will delete any personal data when we no longer require it for this purpose. For true anonymity please use our SecureDrop service instead. Source link