Chinese electronics giant LeEco will not acquire U.S.-based TV maker Vizio as announced, the two companies said today. The deal has been hitting roadblocks according to recent reports, and now it’s officially ended as a result of “regulatory headwinds,” according to LeEco.
The companies are quick to note that this isn’t the end of the relationship between the two. Read More
Those little hearts you tap to signal to a live video’s creator that you’re enjoying the content might look a little different on Twitter in the future. The company announced today a new way for brands to engage fans through live video – it will now let them create their own “custom hearts” for use in Periscope’s live video. The customizations can be… Read More
And just like other big tech companies, BlaBlaCar recently faced some challenges and had to define a new strategy for the coming years. In a surprisingly candid interview, BlaBlaCar co-founder and CEO Nicolas Brusson looked back at the past few months and shared everything. The markets In 2014 and 2015, BlaBlaCar grew massively. All the news coming out of the company were about new… Read More
Freestyle Capital has raised its fourth fund to invest in early-stage startups. This time around the firm is increasing the fund size to $90 million and promoting Jenny Lefcourt to general partner. Read More
Lucid is announcing that it has raised a $60 million round led by North Bridge Growth Equity. It’s the company’s first outside funding since raising a relatively tiny $2.8 million back in 2011. Founder and CEO Patrick Comer said that in the years between, he deliberately wanted Lucid to “run really, really lean and pour every dollar into growth of product.” Now,… Read More
Microsoft today announced that it has acquired Deis, the company behind some of the most popular tools for building and managing applications on top of the Google-incubated Kubernetes container orchestration service. The companies did not disclose the price of the acquisition. Read More
Applications are open for student groups to attend Disrupt New York at Pier 36 in Manhattan on Tuesday, May 16th or Wednesday, May 17th. This is your last week to apply as applications close on Monday, April 17th, 2017. Read More
Arbitrum, a text, image and video moderation service founded by German Gedgauds, who previously headed up Ask.fm’s moderation team and product, has raised $500,000 in funding. Backing the Riga, Latvia-based startup is Balaclava Lab, the investment vehicle of Ask.fm founders Ilja Terebin, Mark Terebin and Oskar Liepins. Read More
Rochelle King is the VP of Design and Insights at Spotify. In this episode, we discuss the close relationship between design and data, define metrics in design, and talk the importance of debating your ideas within your organization. The idea that data constrains design is a fallacy. King breaks down how data should be looked at as a tool to not only aid the design process, but empower it.… Read More
In March, Google announced it was beginning to roll out support for audio-only calling in its FaceTime and Whatsapp competitor, Duo, which had previously focused on video calls. Initially, support for audio calls was available in Brazil, but the feature is now live for all users worldwide, a Google engineer and technical lead for Duo announced on Twitter late on Sunday evening. If… Read More
Tesla is still hoping to begin installations of its solar roof tile product later this year, but that’s not really a great option unless you’re building new or replacing your existing roof, so it makes sense that it would continue to also offer retrofit solar options, like the new Panasonic panels it began advertising on its site quietly over the weekend. The new roof tiles showed… Read More
With Thought Catalog, we mastered producing short-form writing for the web. We wanted a new challenge. We hoped to build a counterweight to Thought Catalog’s trendy digital brand with a more contemplative spin-off brand as a book publisher. Read More
According to new data from comScore, more than half of Wi-Fi households in the U.S. are now using at least one over-the-top streaming service, with Netflix being the primary choice. While still the leader in the streaming space, its service is facing increased competition from others, including YouTube, Amazon and Hulu. Read More
Attest, a London startup that has built a market research platform to enable companies to get market insights quicker and more often, has picked up $3.1 million in further funding. Oxford Capital, and Episode 1 led the round, with participation from a number new angel investors including London Business School Emeritus Professor of Management and Marketing Paddy Barwise. The company says it… Read More
Opinion is divided on the success of the Thor series of movies to date; at best, I think people would describe them as “fine.” But the new trailer for Thor: Ragnarok provides good reason to believe that this next installment might elevate the franchise to a whole new level.
From the meme-referencing voice over opening, to the gratuitous slow-motion glory shots, to the actually… Read More
Minecraft is getting an update this spring that will add a number of new features, but the most dramatic might be the Minecraft Marketplace, a storefront where users can buy and sell in-game creations for real money. The Marketplace will offer maps, texture packs, skins, min-games and more, all curated by the Minecraft team. The launch catalog will feature selections from a handful of… Read More
Imagine a fleet of drones, each the size of your palm blooming from a package dropped from an airplane. That’s what the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory’s tiny CICADA drone can do. And hopefully, it’ll prove it through upcoming swarm flight testing. The CICADA, or Close-In Covert Autonomous Disposable Aircraft, have pressure, temperature and humidity sensors on board, and… Read More
GM will launch its Super Cruise advanced highway automatic driving feature this fall, debuting first in the new Cadillac CT6. Super Cruise has been in the works for a few years now, and the semi-autonomous drive mode is finally almost ready for its debut, after its release date was pushed from 2016 to 2017 to give engineers more time to focus on designing the safest system possible. Super… Read More
Spotify CEO and cofounder Daniel Ek has paid a moving tribute to Chris Bevington, 41, who was among the four people killed in the Stockholm truck attack on Saturday. Bevington was a director of global partnerships at the music streaming service, which has an office in central Stockholm.
Ek said he was “devastated” by the news. “It is with shock and a heavy heart that I can… Read More
Zeta Global (previously known as Zeta Interactive) may not necessarily be a household name, but the marketing tech and analytics company, which was co-founded by former Apple CEO John Sculley, has a valuation of over $1 billion, is highly profitable (with revenue in 2016 growing about 40 percent over the $200 million it did in 2015), and has made its fair share of acquisitions recently. As… Read More
