Localytics, the Boston-based mobile engagement platform, has acquired Berlin’s Tapglue, which offered mobile app developers an API and backend service to enable them to easily add social features to their apps. Terms of the deal remain undisclosed. Read More
Norwegian startup Gobi raised $500,000 at a $15 million valuation to take on Snapchat with its “Stories” communication tool. The platform enables users to create public and private groups where users can share photos and videos that stay around for three days before vanishing into digital pixel-dust. Read More
Type 2 diabetes is a disease affecting 415 million people globally and Virta, a Silicon Valley-based health startup, believes it has something unique to reverse it – remote monitoring of everything you eat.
Most people with the disease end up having to constantly monitor their blood sugar with the prick of a needle and diabetic pills or can “cure” it with bariatric surgery. Read More
There can be little doubt that journalism and media is under a bit of an onslaught at the moment. The desire to deliver independent, trustworthy news runs deep, but can often be at odds with pressures from owners and advertisers. To that end, 44-year-old magazine New Internationalist is turning to its readers in a “community share offer” in a bid for sustained independence. Read More
So.cl, the little-known and probably much-forgotten social network project from Microsoft Research’s FUSE Labs division, is closing down. The service was launched in late 2011 as a social community where the objective was “collaborative consumption, not communication.” Initially for students, So.cl opened up to anyone once it had gotten going and subsequently added support… Read More
Subscription gym startup KFit has continued to morph into Groupon after it acquired the third country business from the group-buying giant in Southeast Asia. Today it announced that Fave, KFit’s e-commerce offshoot, has acquired Groupon Singapore. KFit acquired Groupon Indonesia and Groupon Malaysia last year as part of a pivot to move from a business that sells fitness-based… Read More
Sources tell us that Google is acquiring Kaggle, a platform that hosts data science and machine learning competitions. Details about the transaction remain somewhat vague, but given that Google is hosting its Cloud Next conference in San Francisco this week, the official announcement could come as early as tomorrow. Reached by phone, Kaggle co-founder CEO Anthony Goldbloom declined to… Read More
We get first looks at the DevLoop being built out in the Nevada desert, Justin Kan launches Zero-F, a startup incubator, Goodyear’s tire concept can read the road and adapt and Bose and Doppler get into a lawsuit. All this on Crunch Report. Read More
Wheelys, a startup that got its start selling an all-in-one cafe on a bike, is pushing forward with another crazy local commerce idea. The company is opening up an unmanned retail store in Shanghai that will allow customers to buy chocolates, cigarettes or potato chips at any time, day or night. Read More
Wikileaks today published a trove of documents, allegedly taken from the CIA, that detail the government’s efforts to hack popular devices like iPhones, Android phones, and Samsung smart TVs. But Apple is pushing back against claims that the CIA’s hoarded vulnerabilities for its devices were effective.
The documents, if they are indeed legitimate, include charts that detail iOS… Read More
Grocery delivery startup Instacart has raised another $400 million in a new round of financing at a valuation of $3.4 billion, according to sources familiar with the deal. Axios broke news that Instacart was in talks to close the deal last week. Instacart executives declined to comment for this story. Over the past year, Instacart has weathered a number of controversies after raising… Read More
Nvidia has a new generation of its Jetson embedded computing platform for devices at the edge of a network, including things like traffic cameras, manufacturing robotics, smart sensors and more. The Jetson TX2 has twice the performance of its predecessor, the TX1, or it can also redirect efficiency to power savings, using less than half the power consumption of the original to achieve the… Read More
Heavy equipment makers Deere & Co., better known as John Deere, have forged a strategic alliance with drone-tech startup Kespry, the companies announced Tuesday in Las Vegas at CONEXPO, an international trade show for the construction industry. The deal could prove a boon for sales of Kespry’s drones and data analytics software. It could help John Deere tap into a new, high-tech means… Read More
Geography is cool, whatever middle-schoolers say. In fact, the only thing cooler is augmented reality. So what if I told you there was a gadget that combined these two cool things into one?! It’s called the Orboot, and it actually looks like it would be a lot of fun, provided your classroom is nice enough to have an iPad or two lying around. Read More
Tinder has been operating a members-only version of the platform called Tinder Select, which is meant to serve only the elite users on the app, including CEOs, super models, and other hyper-attractive/upwardly affluent types. One source who was using the app said it’s “for celebrities and people who do really well on Tinder.” It appears that Tinder has invited people to… Read More
Airbnb wants to mold its hosts into a powerful organizing force, akin to a union, to advocate on its behalf with local governments around the world and to serve as an ideological rebuke to the advances of AI at other tech firms. As part of that effort to increase engagement with hosts, CEO Brian Chesky announced today that he is embarking on a world tour, forming a host advisory board that… Read More
The all-new 2017 Land Rover Discovery — Disco to its friends — is packed from skid plates to sunroof with technology. Most of this tech falls into two segments: stuff most people will use all the time and stuff almost no one will use in their lifetimes. In the first category is the Activity Key that allows you to unlock the Discovery with a wristband; in the second, All-Terrain… Read More
The liver is a wonderful thing. It goes great on crackers and it can keep your blood from becoming septic. But it’s almost impossible to operate on that strange, fleshy mass without a little luck and a lot of preparation. Luckily there’s now a better way to prepare. For the past few months a medical student at the Jagiellonian University Medical College in Krakow, Poland, Jan… Read More
Russia’s internet regulator today confirmed that access to social networking site LinkedIn — which has been blocked in Russia since November 2016 — is not returning to Russia anytime soon, after it received a letter from the social network’s VP of global public policy stating that LinkedIn will not move Russian user data to Russian territory. LinkedIn, which is now… Read More
With controversial moves to tighten immigration in the works, visitors from abroad and U.S. citizens alike are on edge about international travel. For the organizers of South by Southwest, that climate gave rise to a public outcry over controversial language in its artist contracts.
In light of the ensuing backlash among attendees and performers, SXSW has issued a statement asserting its… Read More
