The European Commission and the European Investment Fund have announced a new pan-European venture capital funds-of-funds programme that will raise €2.1 billion in total to invest in VC funds around Europe. VentureEU will be made up of six funds. To date, the EU has pumped €410 million into this programme with a total target of €2.1 billion.

There’s one shadowy figure that will likely linger in the minds of Germans on Sunday as they head to the voting booths to elect the country’s government: the hacker. Chancellor Angela Merkel and her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party are expected to retain their position in government with a coalition of other parties.

In early 2014, the Winter Olympics were in full swing in Sochi, on the Black Sea, offering President Vladimir Putin the opportunity to show off the glory of his beloved Russia. Government authorities left very little to chance, running the event with an iron grip. The Guardian reported that as part of that effort, the Russian security service, the FSB, would be conducting “some of the most invasive and systematic spying and surveillance in the history of the Games.”.

The legal profession is not known for embracing technological innovation. The legal profession is perhaps more associated with bulging files of papers, odd clothing and arcane procedures than with technological innovation. But several start-ups are trying to give this most conservative - and sometimes vexing - of professions a digital makeover.

The days of startups moving fast and breaking things has seemingly come and gone. Paris-based ridesharing app maker Heetch found this out the hard way. Founded in 2013, its app was launched as a P2P service where anyone could sign up as a driver and give rides to users. The service was primarily marketed as a night-time service for young people getting home from nights out.

The event provided investors and startups opportunities to network and potentially make deals, headlined by a contest for CEE startups that leads to the Seedstars finals in Switzerland next April. Communications startup, EVE.Calls, a smart replacement for call centres, came out victorious and will advance to the finals in 2018.

President Trump’s decision to kill key FCC privacy rules adds further stress to the already strained U.S. Privacy Shield agreement. Moves by the Trump administration to roll back key internet privacy rules have spooked the European Union over the stability of the Privacy Shield agreement. Last week, the European Parliament voted on a resolution asking the European Commission, the E.U.’s executive arm, to ensure that the Trump administration will guarantee safeguards for the protection of Europeans’ data.

While crypto startups and ICO issuers worry about social media platforms cutting their ads, they could be missing an even more intimidating threat – regulators. Crypto entrepreneurs reeled late last month after Facebook announced it would be banning “misleading or deceptive” ads about financial products and services, including bitcoin and ICOs.

A man walks up to the front door of a jeweller in the centre of Rotterdam and buzzes to enter but it doesn’t budge. He waits. While he lingers by the door, a facial recognition camera quickly scans his face and cross references the image with a watch list of known shoplifters from the local police department.

Biometric logins like facial recognition are often discussed as being the real alternative to traditional passwords. But as companies develop apps that verify identity with a snapshot of the user's face, few are considering whether that method is accessible to people with visual impairments. According to the World Health Organization, there are 285 million people in the world with visual impairments of some sort, 39 million of which are blind.

In 2012, Matt McCann visited London thinking he had booked the perfect hotel room. Beyond searching for a good price and decent location, he needed a hotel designed with accessibility in mind. McCann has cerebral palsy and uses a rolling walker to get around, and found a place that seemed to meet his needs.

When visiting Florida earlier this year, Parisian Charlotte de Vilmorin — who has been in a wheelchair her entire life — was desperately searching for a car adapted for people with disabilities. She finally found one, but soon discovered how expensive it was to rent — for 10 days, it cost her approximately $1,000.