Gmail announces a pair of updates on its 15th birthday, Mark Zuckerberg wants a seat at the regulation table and Airbnb continues its acquisition streak ahead of its highly anticipated IPO. Here's your Daily Crunch for April 1, 2019. 1. Gmail turns 15, gets Smart Compose improvements and email scheduling Exactly 15 years ago Google launched what would become one of its most successful products to date. To celebrate its birthday, the Gmail team has announced a couple of improvements to its autocomplete tool, Smart Compose, and a new feature that lets you schedule a time for your email to send. The new updates are available on all Android devices and will arrive on iOS devices soon. 2. Mark Zuckerberg actually calls for regulation of content, elections, privacy Mark Zuckerberg published a letter on his own Facebook page this weekend attempting to get ahead of looming government regulation. The Facebook CEO noted that if he had to do it all over again he'd ask for external scrutiny in four key areas: harmful content, election integrity, privacy and data portability. 3. Airbnb confirms $150-200M investment in India's OYO Airbnb's acquisition streak is chugging along as the company expands beyond "unconventional" hotels ahead of its highly anticipated IPO this year. This morning, Airbnb announced a stake in OYO -- an Indian startup that manages budget hotels and other stays. Although both companies declined to confirm the size of the investment, an industry source told TechCrunch the deal is between $150 million and $200 million. This comes just six months after OYO pulled in a massive $1 billion Series E round. 4. The Niantic EC-1, Part 1: The Origin Story Welcome back to our ongoing series of deep dives into unicorn companies. This time around the EC-1 is examining how a Google side project evolved into a $4 billion company, Niantic. 5. CMU team develops a robot and drone system for mine rescues DARPA's new Subterranean Challenge is in full swing as robotics teams around the country compete for a $2 million prize to design a system capable of navigating complex underground terrains. Brian Heater and Veanne Cao caught up with one team at a coal mine in Pittsburgh to see a fleet of robots made to travel where human rescuers can't -- or, at the very least, shouldn't -- go. 6. In San Francisco, a fight over a homeless shelter shines a harsh light on a conflicted population A new GoFundMe campaign is stirring up controversy in San Francisco, as the city continues to grapple with a sharp rise in homelessness. The campaign, which is closing in on its goal of $100,000, aims to obtain legal counsel to push against the creation of a shelter along the city's eastern waterfront region. In response, a rival campaign has emerged with the backing of Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff. 7. Impossible Foods and Burger King announce an Impossible Whopper This is not an April Fools' Day joke. |
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