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There Are No More “Tech Issues”
Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius is not a tech founder. President Barack Obama does not have a GitHub account. The failed launch of the new health insurance e-commerce website, Healthcare.gov, came as a shock to political leaders that were too steeped in government shutdowns and the machinations of two-party infighting to understand how their hired geeks could flub a… Read More
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Yes, Only 6 Users Signed Up On Healthcare.gov Launch Day, But Don’t Panic
New documents reveal that a mere six people managed to sign up for health insurance through the government's beleaguered e-commerce website, Healthcare.gov on it's opening day. Naturally, the press is milking every last ounce of this click-bait statistic, but in reality, it probably doesn't matter. Young, uninsured consumers are compulsive procrastinators. When Massachusetts launched its own… Read More
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No, Madam Secretary, Prices On Healthcare.gov Are Not A “Hypothetical Situation”
Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, wins the award today for most creative political spin. During a congressional grilling about the failings of the federal e-commerce website, Healthcare.gov, the secretary now claims that insurance prices are merely “hypothetical situations.” The claim was in response to recent reports that Healthcare.gov is low-balling… Read More
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NSA Infiltrates Google And Yahoo Networks, Report Says
The National Security Agency has secretly taped the networks of Google and Yahoo to monitor real-time communication, according to newly revealed documents from whistleblower, Edward Snowden [PDF]. “The National Security Agency has secretly broken into the main communications links that connect Yahoo and Google data centers around the world, according to documents obtained from former NSA… Read More
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Senate Confirms Tom Wheeler As New FCC Chairman
The Federal Communications Commission finally has a new Chairman: Tom Wheeler. Yesterday, Senator Ted Cruz released his hold and Wheeler was unanimously approved. He will take over for Acting Chairwoman, Mignon Clyburn. As a former telecommunications lobbyist, there has been concern about what his priorities will be. Rather than join the speculation party, we’ll wait until his first few… Read More
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Pixta
- Size $700K
- Round Seed
- Investors Globis Capital Partners
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Coinfloor
- Size Not available
- Round Unattributed
- Investors Passion Capital, Taavet Hinrikus
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Perpetuuiti TechnoSoft Services
- Size Not available
- Round Unattributed
- Investors Intel Capital
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6Wunderkinder
- Size $30M
- Round B
- Investors EarlyBirdCapital, Atomico, Sequoia Capital
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Super
- Size Not available
- Round B
- Investors Sequoia Capital
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Thinfilm Electronics ASA
- Size $24M
- Round Unattributed
- Investors Invesco Asset Management
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Arbella Insurance Foundation
- Size $45K
- Round Unattributed
- Investors Not available
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VMob
- Size Not available
- Round Post_ipo_equity
- Investors Not available
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Blend Systems
- Size $1.3M
- Round Seed
- Investors Not available
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Lion Biotechnologies
- Size $23M
- Round Post_ipo_equity
- Investors Not available
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Nomorerack.com
- Size $40M
- Round B
- Investors Oak Investment Partners, HTV Industries
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Tappr
- Size $1M
- Round Seed
- Investors Not available
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Knotch
- Size $1.5M
- Round Seed
- Investors Not available
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SKYE Associates
- Size $2.5M
- Round Seed
- Investors Not available
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Nanocomp Technologies
- Size $6M
- Round Debt_round
- Investors Horizon Technology Finance
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Boyibang
- Size $700K
- Round Angel
- Investors Ameba Capital, Wu Jiong
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Halt Medical
- Size $3M
- Round Debt_round
- Investors Not available
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HealthScripts of America
- Size $170K
- Round Partial
- Investors Not available
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Sgnam
- Size $64.3K
- Round Seed
- Investors Club Italia Investimenti 2
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PaxVax
- Size $2.5M
- Round Debt_round
- Investors Not available
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Via Novus
- Size $590K
- Round Unattributed
- Investors Not available
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MyGrove Media
- Size $180K
- Round Debt_round
- Investors Not available
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Alector
- Size Not available
- Round A
- Investors Polaris Partners, OrbiMed Advisors
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Play-i
- Size $218K
- Round Crowd
- Investors Not available
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Contego Fraud Solutions
- Size $1.4M
- Round Unattributed
- Investors London Business Angel Investors, Rainbow Seed Fund
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Unitrends Software
- Size Not available
- Round Private_equity
- Investors Insight Venture Partners
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Svelte Medical Systems
- Size $22M
- Round Private_equity
- Investors CNF Investments, New Science Ventures
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91JinRong
- Size Not available
- Round B
- Investors CBC Capital, Matrix Partners
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FightMe
- Size $500K
- Round Seed
- Investors Not available
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Dillard University
- Size $243K
- Round Grant
- Investors Not available
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The Syrian Electronic Army Hacked Obama’s Twitter Links And Campaign Emails
“Only the links within our tweets had been hacked,” an OFA official acknowledged. “At no point did they have access to the twitter handle,” the official said. Like many companies, the Obama campaign has a separate app for their unique shortened URLs, instead of relying on Twitter’s (it’s easier to track user engagement). Quartz reports that the campaign members… Read More
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The NSA’s Website (NSA.gov) Is Down
The National Security Agency’s website has been down for at least 30 minutes. Officials have acknowledged the outage, but won’t say if it was hacked. At least a few Twitter accounts that sound like the elite hacktivist contingent, Anonymous, are taking credit. Official Anonymous channels are just making fun of the outage: To be sure, The NSA’s website has been hacked before. Read More
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Healthcare.gov Likely Broken Until Key Thanksgiving Deadline
Healthcare.gov is going to be broken until the end of November, says Jeff Zients, a consultant brought in to fix the beleaguered federal health insurance e-commerce website. On a press conference call, Zients finally acknowledged wide-spread enrollment problems, estimating that only 3 in 10 users have been able to sign up and complete an application (or a measly 700,000 total). “We’re… Read More
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Another Member Of Congress Calls Congressional Oversight Of The NSA An Utter Farce
Members of Congress calling Congressional oversight of the United States intelligence empire flaccid at best, and utterly incompetent at worst, is becoming a trend. Recently in The Guardian, Rep. Alan Grayson called Congressional oversight of the National Security Agency a “joke.” Calling oversight in Congress nothing more than “overlook,” Rep. Grayson also stated that he… Read More
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Healthcare.gov Ignores Birthdates, Dramatically Underestimates Prices
Healthcare.gov’s newest feature is presenting consumers with disturbingly misleading health insurance prices. CBS uncovered how the beleaguered federal insurance marketplace website is underestimating the actual cost of insurance by 50% or more, because–and I’m not making this up–it forgets to ask users their birth date. CBS found (and TechCrunch confirmed) that… Read More
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Who Said It? President Obama Or An Infomercial?
At today’s White House Press conference, President Obama came out to sell Americans on the Affordable Care Act and try to deflect criticism about Healthcare.gov’s continued glitches. I think most of us in the press expected him to address the shady government contract processes that allowed a mediocre web developer, CGI Global, to take on a $92 million, U.S.-government-funded e-commerce… Read More
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Panorama Education Wants To Help Fix Schools With Surveys And Analytics, Gets $4M From Zuckerberg’s Startup:Education, Google Ventures And More
Panorama Education, a fast-growing startup that crafts and administers surveys for schools to help teachers and administrators get better insight into how they are performing in areas like learning and social inclusion, is today announcing a $4 million round of seed funding, which it will be using to take its big data approach to education deeper into the U.S. market and global. Read More
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How Healthcare.gov Doomed Itself By Screwing Startups
Healthcare.gov, a government-run e-commerce website for the Affordable Care Act, does not actually need to exist. The still-dysfunctional federal site could have offloaded all of the work to startups, which were already building more sophisticated price-comparison alternatives to the official site, just like Orbitz does for airline companies. Healthcare.gov was supposed to be an information hub… Read More
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Why The Outlook For High-Skilled Immigration Reform In 2013 Remains Troubled
Coming off of what can only be called a political victory in the shutdown and debt limit crisis, President Obama is making noise about reviving comprehensive immigration reform from its dead status. Don't get too excited. Following his win, the president appears to feel it's time to push an issue that was all but written off a month ago. However, it remains unclear what, if any, momentum from… Read More
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Could San Francisco Automate BART Workers Threatening To Strike?
For the past three business days, the entire San Francisco Bay Area has been on the brink of a full-fledged train strike. The unpredictable negotiations have left commuters in limbo: it's too risky to schedule business meetings, but there is not enough uncertainty to arrange alternative transportation. As a result, BART has lost an estimated $168,000 after a 5 percent fear-based drop in traffic. Read More
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Cory Booker And The Silicon Valley Makeover Of The Democratic Party
Newark Mayor Cory Booker cruised to victory in New Jersey’s special election tonight. As a long-term presidential hopeful, he’ll instantly become one of the Democratic Party’s most powerful voices. Booker represents a permanent shift in how Silicon Valley is trying to give an ideological overhaul to the Democratic Party. Booker is a world-class tweeter, co-founder to an ailing… Read More
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LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman On Two Realistic Outcomes Of Teaching Everyone To Code
On a regular basis, we get pitched with major tech industry initiatives to broaden computer science education. A day after Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates signed on to a new initiative from Code.org to inspire 10 million new computer programmers, education startup General Assembly launched a new tool for self-taught coding. And just a few weeks earlier, Square CEO Jack Dorsey sat down with House… Read More
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Wikileaks In A Box: SecureDrop Is WhistleBlower Communication Tool For Media
In an effort to protect government whistleblowers from unprecedented levels of surveillance, the Freedom of the Press Foundation has launched SecureDrop, an anonymous submission tool for secure communications between sources and journalists. SecureDrop accepts encrypted documents and tips from sources and facilitates communication without putting journalists in jeopardy of having to reveal sources… Read More
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To Get Around US Law, The NSA Collects Email Address Books And Chat Buddy Lists From Foreign Locations
The Washington Post broke news this afternoon that the National Security Agency (NSA) is collecting huge numbers of email address books and chat buddy lists for both foreign individuals and United States citizens. It appears that the NSA lacks Congressional authority to collect buddy lists and address book information in the way that it currently does. As the Post rightly points out, address… Read More
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NSA “Is Harvesting Hundreds Of Millions Of Contact Lists,” Reports WaPo
The National Security Agency has been secretly "harvesting hundreds of millions of contact lists from personal e-mail and instant messaging accounts around the world, many of them belonging to Americans," reports the Washington Post from documents obtained by whistleblower on the lam, Edward Snowden. Read More
