Tech Roundup: Are Uber and Lyft cruising back into town?

by Kelly O'Halloran
May 18, 2017

Texas Senate passes ridesharing regulation that could lead to the return of Uber and Lyft

On Wednesday, the Texas Senate voted to move House Bill 100 to the governor's office for signature — which will likely lead to the return of ridesharing moguls Uber and Lyft in Austin. The two companies fled town last year after the city voted in May 2016 to mandate driver fingerprinting tests. Under the new state-wide regulation, ridesharing companies would have fewer safety mandates to meet. The new rules would go into effect in September. [Austin Business Journal]

 

CognitiveScale welcomes new CSO

Dr. Joydeep Ghosh has been named CognitiveScale's new Chief Scientific Officer. Gosh joins the machine intelligence software company with over 30 years of experience in machine learning, data-web mining and related artificial intelligence fields. His research has appeared in more than 400 peer-reviewed papers that have been cited over 20,000 times. [Press Release]

 

Forcepoint names another VP to lead global operations

Last week, the cyber security company Forcepoint announced two key roles to extend their global reach. This week, the company named Stefan Maierhofer as area vice president of Central and Eastern Europe operations. In addition to overseeing the growth strategy in these regions, Maierhofer will also be in charge of strengthening partner relationships and extending Forcepoint’s leadership in data and insider threat, cloud security, network security and global governments. [Press Release]

 

B8ta opens new location in Austin, largest storefront yet

B8ta, a retail location for techies to experience connected devices and buy the latest consumer technology, will open their fourth location and first in Austin this weekend. The 3,000-square-foot store —b8ta's largest location to date — is located at The Domain NORTHSIDE and will feature more than 100 products, including the connected home robot by OhmniLabs, musical art by Soundwall, 3-in-1 earbuds by Doppler Labs Inc., and Neo's Bluetooth powered Smartpen. [Press Release]

 

Austin ranks as top city to start a career

Coming in behind Salt Lake City and Orlando, Austin was ranked the third best city in America to start a career. WalltHub released the report earlier this week comparing relative market strength and overall livability of the 150 largest cities using 23 key metrics, including the availability of entry-level jobs, average starting salary and workforce diversity. [WalletHub]

 

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