Computer vision continues to find its way into all sorts of apps as the underlying tech powering convenience-oriented image searches. Latest — and it must be said late — to the party is fashion ecommerce player Asos, which has just added a visual search feature to its iOS app. Read More
SoftBank missed out on getting a piece of Flipkart when its deal to acquire Snapdeal, the e-commerce firm which SoftBank backed in 2015, fell apart last month, but the Japanese tech giant has finally gotten there. Flipkart today confirmed that SoftBank has invested in its business, via its $100 billion Vision Fund, as part of an extension to the $1.4 billion financing round which was announced… Read More
Glint, a stealthy London fintech startup that promises a new “global currency,” has raised £3.1 million from a plethora of individual backers in the financial services and asset management space, alongside early-stage investor Bray Capital. Read More
500 Startups continues to feel the impact of a sexual harassment scandal involving its co-founder and former managing partner Dave McClure. Two weeks after the closure of its Canada-based fund, its maiden venture in Australia is getting the chop before it even began. The U.S. firm doesn’t have a dedicated fund in Australia, but it did announce an accelerator program — 500… Read More
GM’s Maven car sharing company is expanding its Gig service across the U.S., with six new major urban markets to be added to the locations where the short-term rental service aimed at gig economy workers is available. Those include L.A., where it’s going live today, as well as Boston, Phoenix, and Washington, D.C. this fall, with Baltimore and Detroit to be added some time after… Read More
Apple Music aficionados are already acquainted with an aggravating attribute of the app: when you plug your iPhone into your car, it automatically plays the first song in alphabetical order from your library. This gets old pretty quickly, but instead of deleting that song from your music (and then gradually going down the list like Arya Stark), you can now download a new track called “A a… Read More
In a mind-boggling world first, a team of biologists and security researchers have successfully infected a computer with a into a strand of DNA. It sounds like science fiction, but it’s very real — although you probably don’t have to worry about this particular threat vector any time soon. That said, the possibilities suggested by this project are equally fascinating and… Read More
Nextdoor, the social media platform for neighborhoods, is rolling out a real estate listings feature, showcasing housing for sale in local communities. The idea is to formalize behavior that’s been happening organically. The feature isn’t just for those looking to buy homes — it also aims to help users assess the changing real estate prices in their respective communities. Read More
When AWS today became a full-fledged member of the container standards body, the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, it represented a significant milestone. By joining Google, IBM, Microsoft, Red Hat and just about every company that matters in the space, AWS has acknowledged that when it comes to container management, standards matter. Read More
Facebook has a new home for original video content produced exclusively for it by partners, who will earn 55 percent of ad break revenue while Facebook keeps 45 percent. The “Watch” tab and original shows will start rolling out to a small group of U.S. users tomorrow on mobile, desktop and Facebook’s TV apps. Read More
Subscription streaming service Seeso will be shutting down later this year. The NBCUniversal-owned service made the announcement today on Facebook. It was revealed earlier that several Seeso originals, including HarmonQuest and My Brother My Brother and Me, will be moving to Vrv, a gamer- and geek-focused streaming video service from digital media company Ellation. Read More
Tesla is working on self-driving technology specifically tied to its forthcoming electric semi-truck plans, according to a Reuters report. The tech would allow the transport trucks to move in convoy formation with a lead vehicle providing guidance for autonomous follow trucks, according to emails discovered by Reuters in which Tesla discusses the work with the Nevada DMV. Read More
For the average American, the name SoftBank doesn’t mean much. It’s neither soft nor, technically, a bank. It’s a sprawling Japanese mobile carrier, ISP and holding company. And its investment arm has bankrolled some of the world’s largest and most successful upstart technology companies. So where does that cash go, and how is it doled out to startups across the globe? Read More
Long the gold standard for bragging rights about your blazing broadband speeds, Speedtest.net has plenty of data to work with. Now, it wants to open up a new segment of that data to everyone, allowing users to compare aggregate speed reports from countries around the globe. The data will be compiled into a monthly report called the Speedtest Global Index, available now. Read More
For the third installment of this season’s Founder’s Corner podcast, I sat down with Jessie Woolley-Wilson, the inspiring edtech leader who is transforming the way students learn with DreamBox Learning. Read More
Starcraft II has been a target for Alphabet’s DeepMind AI research for a while now – the UK AI company took on Blizzard’s sci-fi strategy game starting last year, and announced plans to create an open AI research environment based on the game to make it possible for others to contribute to the effort of creating a virtual agent who can best the top human StarCraft players in… Read More
FaceApp, ignoring its own previous missteps and those of others, has wandered back into controversy with a new update launching today that adds “ethnicity change filters,” allowing users to see what it would look like if they were Caucasian, Black, Asian or Indian. Read More
Rumor is that Amazon’s AWS cloud computing platform will soon launch its own Kubernetes-based container management service. Those rumors are getting a bit more concrete because AWS today joined the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), the open-source home of the Kubernetes project, as a top-level Platinum member. Read More
Curbside, a startup powering same-day shopping experiences for traditional brick-and-mortar retailers, including CVS, is today announcing a new partnership with Yelp that will allow consumers to shop in Yelp’s app, then pick up their items locally. Read More
