Tablelist Comes to D.C.
Pretty soon, anyone will be able to use Tablelist to help plan a big night out in D.C.—the seventh city to get the Boston-based nightlife app. The service won't be widely available here until September but Tablelist has kicked off exclusive early access to top members and influencers. Those early-access users can now purchase tickets to exclusive events and member parties, meet their concierge, pay cover charges, and book private tables at a growing list of D.C. venues through Tablelist. Get more details in the news release. — Rebecca Strong
Rising cybersecurity startup FusionX is acquired by Accenture
On Tuesday, Accenture (ACN) announced the acquisition of Arlington, Va.-based cybersecurity company FusionX. The company will join Accenture’s growing global Security team. FusionX has what Accenture calls a "fundamentally differentiated approach to cyber attack simulation, threat modeling, cyber investigations and security risk advisory services." Financial details of the deal were not disclosed. FusionX specializes in cyberthreat detection and protection, rather than breach response technology/services. In the past, FusionX has worked with a number of Fortune 100 organizations in different industries, including: financial services, critical infrastructure, technology, government and manufacturing.
Steve Case is planning another startup investing bus tour
Steve Case is gassing up the bus for another “Rise of the Rest” tour starting in September. The tour is a way to highlight and support the startup activity in non-typical tech hubs, and last year it visited four cities. This time the plan is to visit five cities this year and another five in 2016. Case’s firm Revolution will also invest $1 million into startups along the way. The planned visits so far are Baltimore (Sept. 28), Philadelphia (Sept. 29), Buffalo, N.Y. (Sept. 30), Manchester, N.H. (Oct. 1) and Portland, Maine (Oct. 2). Read more in Case’s post here.
A D.C. startup is offering news in a glance
For people in a hurry to be informed, sometimes the traditional news portals aren't enough. Two Georgetown students decided to do something about that and created Vizo News, an app that digests the news for you and give you capsule summaries of the top stories. Find out how they raised more than $1 million for their app and got it pre-installed in thousands of smartphones in our full story here.
AT&T is packaging DirecTV with its phone service
AT&T is already leveraging its recent purchase of DirecTV with a new combo TV and cellular service that the company claims is the first of its kind. The plan combines DirecTV service with wireless phone plan that's relatively low-cost compared to buying the two services separately. It mostly looks like its an attempt to get more people signed up with DirecTV, but it could be just the first part of a larger plan for the telecom giant. Read more from The Washington Post here.
DHS is warning about drone terrorism
The Department of Homeland Security is warning law enforcement agencies that drones may be the new face of terrorism. In an intelligence assessment, the DHS said that even recreational drones "could be used by adversaries" in terrorist attacks. There's been no specific instance of drones used by non-governmental groups on U.S. soil to hurt people, but even the accidental problems drones cause indicates they could be dangerous. Read more from Ars Technica here.
Tesla is pushing for high fuel standards
Tesla Motors is all in favor of keeping up mileage and fuel emission standards, despite the disputations from other automakers. Considering that Tesla cars automatically have no direct fuel emissions or gasoline related mileage issues, that support is perhaps not too surprising. Still, the company plans to make a point of pushing for even tougher standards this week at a major automotive conference in Michigan this week. Read more from The Wall Street Journal here.
