Early this afternoon, a new type of phishing attack popped up, targeting Google Docs/Gmail users and spreading like crazy. Well-disguised and infuriatingly subtle, just a click or two (on what was an actual Google-hosted URL, no less) handed some mystery attacker the ability to read your Gmail and forwarded the phishing attack to everyone you’d ever emailed.
The attack was simple, but… Read More
An important breakthrough has been made in the eradication of AIDs. Scientists have found they can successfully snip out the HIV virus from mouse cells using CRISPR/Cas9 technology. Read More
Mark Zuckerberg believes Facebook has leapfrogged Snapchat in the race to provide visual communication thanks to the launch of Facebook’s augmented reality Camera Effects platform. Read More
WhatsApp’s version of Snapchat Stories is already pulling in around 15 percent of the messaging app’s 1.2 billion users. Mark Zuckerberg today announced that WhatsApp Status now has 175 million daily users after only launching in mid-February. That’s made more impressive because Status lives in a separate tab of WhatsApp, instead of showing up at the top of the home screen. Read More
Intel isn’t the only tech company with a political action committee funneling money into Congress. But some of Intel’s recent donations — including to politicians known for opposing marriage equality like North Carolina Senator Richard Burr and Minnesota Representative Tom Emmer — have alarmed shareholders, who are now proposing a resolution that would force the… Read More
As huge tech companies continue to dump money into VR and AR technology looking to convince us digital objects in front of us are actually real, they’re still having a tough time figuring out how to make them feel real. Ultrahaptics is working on a technology that uses ultrasound waves to construct 3D objects in the air that users can feel. Read More
FBI Director James Comey has hinted at growing consensus between technology companies and intelligence agencies over the controversial issue of how to access encrypted data. He also supported what appears to be a fresh push by Senator Dianne Feinstein to introduce legislation to enable courts to order access to encrypted devices. Read More
Fitbit shares are up 10 percent on the news that the company beat Wall Street’s expectations. Fitbit today reported a loss of 15 cents per share rather than 18 cents per share. Reported revenue also came in above analysts expectations: $299 versus $280.8. This release shows Fitbit is keeping pace with the market and turning past customers into repeat customers. Read More
Amazon’s AWS cloud computing division today once again dropped the prices for some of its reserved instances, as well as its M4 general purpose instances. For some of these reserved instances, prices are dropping by up to 17 percent and for convertible reserved instances with three-year commitments, prices are dropping by 21 percent. While Amazon’s pricing structure… Read More
Tesla today re-affirmed that the production of its next car, the Model 3, would begin in July — and that the company had $4 billion in cash-on-hand heading into the second quarter this year. Both of those are going to be critical as Tesla, which reported its first-quarter earnings today, heads into the back half of the year. Read More
Hulu officially announced the launch of its live TV streaming service this morning at its Upfront presentation in New York. The service has a robust channel lineup, cloud DVR and combines Hulu’s existing on-demand library, including its Originals, with streaming TV and on-demand content from its broadcast partners. However, a key part is the revamped, redesigned Hulu experience. Read More
Facebook had another strong quarter, beating estimates to start 2017. It scored $8.03 billion in revenue and $1.04 GAAP actual EPS in Q1 compared to $0.87 EPS estimate. It earned that from 1.94 billion users, up from 1.86 billion last quarter, growing at a faster 4.3 percent compared to 3.91 perecent last quarter. Steady Growth, Strong Profits At this rate Facebook should hit 2 billion… Read More
Square, the payments company founded and run by Jack Dorsey, released its quarterly financial results for the first quarter after the bell on Wednesday. The company beat expectations, bringing in $462 million in revenue, when investors were forecasting $451 million. This is a 22 percent increase from the same period last year. Read More
A new Google Docs phishing scam just reared its head a few hours ago, and it’s spreading like wildfire. Google appears to be taking action to stop it, but in the meantime: be super, super wary of Google Doc invites for now. If you fall for this one (and plenty of otherwise eagle-eyed people have already), it’ll blast out the bait to everyone on your contact list. Read More
This is the story of how a candy factory by the name of Startup became one of the few accredited code schools for startups 140 years later in the heart of Provo, Utah. Read More
Goldman Sachs is leading a $13 million investment in Nav, a startup that helps small businesses with financial advice and credit scores. Billionaire Steven Cohen’s Point72 Ventures is also investing, along with Clocktower Ventures and the CreditEase Fintech Investment Fund. This follows $25 million that was invested in the company last year, and is considered part of the same Series… Read More
Not many companies would dare to fight with Amazon, Microsoft and Google at the same time, but three-year-old Paperspace thinks it can carve out a cloud computing niche by rolling out the red carpet for data scientists. Today it launched new GPU-powered virtual machines that utilize Nvidia’s Pascal cards. Read More
Autonomous driving company Waymo alleged today in court that the formation of rival Otto was a ruse concocted between its founder Anthony Levandowski and eventual acquirer Uber to hide the fact that he immediately went to work for the ride-hailing company after leaving Waymo’s parent company, Google. Read More
A tiny bit more VC money sloshing around Europe. This time it’s the turn of Greece-based VC fund VentureFriends, which is announcing the final closing of a €20 million fund to invest in Greek software and “high tech” startups at the seed stage. The two Partners of the fund are Apostolos Apostolakis and George Dimopoulos, with Stefanos Katsimpas also acting as a senior… Read More
Only a few days after announcing that it was selling 29 of its data centers to Equinix, Verizon today announced that it is selling its cloud and managed hosting business to IBM. The acquisition is expected to close later this year.
This move pretty much puts an end to Verizon’s loftier ambitions in the cloud — an area it started pursuing in earnest back in 2011 when it acquired… Read More
