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YouTube will open a $100 million fund to pay Shorts creators
It could be looking to lure creators away from TikTok and Snapchat.
YouTube will 'amplify' Black creators with a $100 million fund
YouTube is creating a $100 million multi-year fund dedicated to Black creators, artists and their stories.
Criterion will stream notable titles by black filmmakers for free
Criterion Collection announced a few steps it’s taking to fight systemic racism, including lifting the paywall on select titles from black filmmakers.
Bandsintown will help artists promote livestreams
As musicians cancel concerts due to the coronavirus, bands like the Dropkick Murphys are turning to livestreams as a way to connect with fans and potentially recoup some of the money they're losing. Today, the concert-discovery app Bandsintown announced a new Watch Live feature that will let artists send push notifications when they livestream shows. Bandsintown is also launching its own Twitch channel.
Samsung reaches final settlement with cancer-stricken employees
After 11 years of controversy, Samsung has apologized for creating an unsafe work environment that resulted in a number of former employees contracting leukemia and other cancers, according to the Associated Press. The company has vowed to compensate ill workers by 2028, per Reuters. The announcement comes weeks after Samsung reached a final settlement with Banolim, a group representing ex-Samsung workers and their families.
Internet Archive gets $1 million donation from bitcoin fund
The cryptocurrency landscape has seen a flurry of activity lately as values have reached eye-watering figures and people scramble to get a piece of the digital pie -- they're even re-mortgaging their homes to get in on the action. But while many are in it for personal gain, there are those using bitcoin for more charitable causes. Namely the Pineapple Fund, a philanthropic fund set up by an anonymous bitcoin millionaire, which has just made a $1 million donation to The Internet Archive.
Samsung has a $300 million fund aimed at smarter cars
Samsung is planning to get ahead in the connected car market with a new $300 million fund focused entirely on auto-related startups and technologies. The Samsung Automotive Innovation Fund has been earmarked for smart sensors, machine vision, artificial intelligence, safety solutions and more, and will help even the playing field between the company and its biggest rivals. Intel paid $15.3 billion last month to acquire Mobileye, while Qualcomm is currently in the process of buying automotive-grade chip maker NXP Semiconductors. Samsung's first major investment with the fund -- to the tune of $89 million -- will be in networking and safety control company TTTech. The company has provided automotive technology to a number of manufacturers, including Boeing for its 787 Dreamliner, NASA for its Orion Spacecraft, and more pertinently, Audi for its A8.
Apple is investing $1 billion in Softbank's Vision Fund
At best, most consumers know Softbank as the Japanese phone carrier that owns Sprint -- but the company is much bigger than that. Softbank has its hands in robotics, smart vehicles, processors and more. It even invests in other companies, and recently set up the Softbank Vision Fund with the goal of pouring billions of dollars into promising start ups. Now that fund is getting another investor: Apple.
Canada sets aggressive targets for minimum broadband speeds
Canadian regulators have declared that all citizens should have access to high-speed internet, even in remote areas. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has ruled that minimum broadband speeds of 50 Mbps download and 10 Mbps upload speeds are now a "basic telecommunications service." Furthermore, it said all customers should have unlimited data options and not be capped, as they often are in rural areas.
'B' is for burn rate: Sesame Street launches a venture fund
PBS staple Sesame Street has come a long way since it relied on donations from viewers like you, having recently made a historic deal with HBO. Now its nonprofit arm, Sesame Workshop, will dole out capital itself via a partnership with VC firm Collaborative Ventures. Called Sesame Venture, it will help companies that are focused on education, family development, nutrition, health and social development. The newly created fund, known as "Collab + Sesame," will invest up to $1 million in promising startup firms.
Samsung agrees to compensation for employees that contracted cancer
After admitting that it didn't do enough to prevent illnesses and deaths of workers at its Korean semiconductor plants, Samsung has launched a new fund to put things right. Reuters reports that the company has set aside 100 billion won ($85.8 million) to compensate employees after it was revealed that hazardous working conditions had caused workers to contract leukemia and other incurable diseases.
Elon Musk pledges $1 million to help build Nikola Tesla Museum
Nikola Tesla just scored a very generous birthday present. The "father of electricity" was born 158 years ago today, and several fans are trying to preserve his legacy with a museum, to be built on the site of his final laboratory in Shoreham, New York. A 2012 Indiegogo campaign helped raise more than enough to cover purchasing the land, but nowhere near the $8 million that's needed to refurbish the property and actually build a museum. Fortunately, Elon Musk, the father of the modern day Tesla, has pledged $1 million and has promised to install a supercharger in the parking lot. That's still not enough to complete the project, but you can help out by making your own contribution here. [Image credit: Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe]
Cash-rich Nokia invests $100 million to boost connected car tech
Despite a huge influx of Microsoft dollars, Nokia still has to make a living in its new handset-free order and it looks set to expand one of its most profitable apps: Here. It just launched a $100 million connected car endeavor through the Nokia Growth Partners (NGP) fund to invest in technological innovations around travel and mapping. The purpose is to "grow the ecosystem around Here's mapping and location products" for cars by investing in companies developing such tech. Now that it's no longer wedded to Windows Phone, it's also pushing for native Android and iOS apps, judging by some LinkedIn ads sniffed out by NPU. One seeks iOS and Android developers to produce "industry leading mobile SDKs," while the other is looking for Here Android developers for crowd mapping. We imagine Microsoft will remain a steady customer for Here and other Nokia apps, which are some of the best on WP8. And giving Android and iOS users a solid mapping alternative can't hurt either.
Google backs French digital publishing innovation initiative with €60 million incentive
Google's long had a contentious relationship with France. But it seems the Mountain View-based company has come up with a way to squash that problem: by throwing money at it. Taking to the company's official blog today, Chairman Eric Schmidt announced the creation of a €60 million Digital Publishing Innovation Fund, in cooperation with French prez François Hollande, that will help "stimulate innovation and increase revenues" for the country's publishing houses. And in a move that's in no way self-serving as a gesture of goodwill, Google's also pledging to partner with those publishers to help monetize their digital offerings using AdSense. In the search giant's defense, it had begun to work more closely with La France back in 2011, even going so far as to create a cultural center in Paris; a city it once described as "one of Europe's fastest-growing Internet economies." So, okay, maybe there's more to this investment than beefing up the bottom line. Now, if only Google could talk to Hollande about the hashtag...
Kickstarter brings crowdfunding to the UK on Halloween
Whether you're currently keeping calm, or simply carrying on, we've got some good news for you steadfast Brits: Kickstarter makes its official launch in the UK on October 31st. Sure, its arrival was rather inevitable, but All Hallows' Eve will mark the first time that inventors outside of the US can take part in the crowdfunding website. Kickstarter visitors will find UK projects listed alongside those in the US, and inventors who think they've stumbled upon the next great mousetrap may begin work on their listing today. Naturally, Insert Coin fans are bound to find some nifty projects work their way across the pond, but in the meantime, you can check out the commerce-related details at the source link below.
Insert Coin: Connectify Dispatch lets you put all your internets together into one big internet (video)
In Insert Coin, we look at an exciting new tech project that requires funding before it can hit production. If you'd like to pitch a project, please send us a tip with "Insert Coin" as the subject line. If you've ever thought "Hey, my internet is pretty slow, maybe I can get a second line and combine them into one big, zippy connection!" then you're not alone -- those of us who are broadband-deprived need all the help we can get. But a quick tour through Google will show you the difficulty of doing that process, called "bonding," at home. So, Connectify has proposed Dispatch, software that lets you easily combine your WiFi, ethernet and 3G/4G into a single, fat pipe, at a reasonable cost. The company brings along wireless sharing know-how from its Hotspot product to the project, and promises that with every connection you combine, you'll get a corresponding bump in throughput. Also, the system will automatically failover to a good connection if one goes on the fritz, and even switch automatically between WiFi and 3G/4G to maximize speed and save money. To prove the tech, the company combined all the available open WiFi networks in a neighborhood along with a tethered Verizon mobile phone, and were able to create an impressive 85Mbs connection, as the video below the break shows. So far, Connectify has vacuumed up $30K for Dispatch toward the $50K objective, with about two weeks left. So, if you're desperate for more speed, or just want to trump your neighbor's bandwidth by stealing his WiFi and melding it with your ADSL, check the source to see how to pledge.
Stompy the giant hexapod gets hexafunded, one step closer to hexacrushing your car
So, just how many people want to see Stompy, the two-ton hexapod come to smashtastic life? Enough to fund the project in 11 days via its Kickstarter page. The folks at Artisan's Asylum dropped us a line to let us know that Sir Stompsalot has hit its $65,000 goal as of 7:30 AM this morning, with 18 days left to pledge. That list includes two backers at the $5,000 adopt-a-leg level and nine backers for the $1,000 drive Stompy mark, so unless you've got a giant insect of your own, you might want to avoid driving the streets of Somerville, Massachusetts for a while...
Bluetooth dock adapter Pear disappears from Kickstarter, founders promise return under new name
You might remember Pear, a recent Insert Coin debutant that connects your favorite iDevice dock to (almost) any Bluetooth-connected smartphone. However, you probably didn't notice its swift disappearance from Kickstarter just before the weekend. The people behind the project have contacted us, explaining that the crowdfunding site was hit with a cease and desist order for the dock converter, centering around a "trademark infringement issue." With its funding page down, Pear says it had no way to tell its supporters that product development would continue, albeit under a new name. Anyone that funded the project is advised to register at the source link below to keep up-to-date. The founders aim to return to Kickstarter in around 3-6 weeks, with several as-yet unannounced enhancements coming alongside a new logo and moniker -- something that it's going to task its backers with deciding.
Insert Coin: Botiful telepresence robot for Android (video)
In Insert Coin, we look at an exciting new tech project that requires funding before it can hit production. If you'd like to pitch a project, please send us a tip with "Insert Coin" as the subject line. Remote-controlled cameras are nothing new -- heck, some even ride atop robotic vacuums -- but this Android smartphone-powered device delivers quite a bit of versatility in a petite package with a reasonable price tag to boot. Botiful, a "social telepresence robot," serves as a roving platform for your Android smartphone. You can move the handset (and its front-facing camera) up and down as it speeds along any flat surface, responding to commands from someone on the other end of a Skype video chat. Once you connect the device to your Android phone through Bluetooth or USB, you can control its direction from a pop-up window within Skype, letting you position Botiful however you see fit. If your Android phone doesn't have a front-facing camera, you can flip it around to use the rear shooter -- of course, you won't be able to see the display in this configuration, so it won't be ideal for two-way chats. Naturally, this makes the duo a natural choice for surveillance and baby monitoring, but it can also be used to provide a more immersive experience during conference calls or for sending back video from locations that aren't easily accessible, such as the undercarriage of a car. Designed in a garage in California (no, really), Botiful is already functional, with working software as well. The current configuration requires Skype for control, though an SDK will allow developers to create other control apps for the device -- and who knows, the seemingly capable inventor could release another tool of her own before it's set to hit production later this year. With much of the design already completed, the project sponsor is turning to Kickstarter to raise the funds necessary to launch Botiful to production -- the device could ship as soon as November if it reaches a $90,000 goal before August 22nd. Available in white, blue or red, the remote-controlled rig is currently only compatible with Android, though iOS support may come if funding exceeds a $100k threshold. There's still more than three weeks to go to make your pledge, with a limited number of pre-order slots available for $199 (retail pricing is expected to come in at $299). Hit up the source link below to show your support.
Insert Coin: POP portable battery comes with 25,000 mAh of power, charges multiple devices (video)
In Insert Coin, we look at an exciting new tech project that requires funding before it can hit production. If you'd like to pitch a project, please send us a tip with "Insert Coin" as the subject line. If you're a geeky pack rat who likes to travel with a mini Radio Shack store in your bag a la Steve Wozniak, then you're likely always looking for ways to keep your precious devices powered up. One option that may be worth a peek is the POP rechargeable battery -- a portable power pack that eschews the brick-like design of many of its brethren and comes with 25,000 mAh worth of juice to help bring your gadgets back to life. According to POP creator and Edison Jr. co-founder James Siminoff, the portable battery has enough capacity to charge either 10 standard smartphones or 1 1/2 third-generation iPad tablets.
