Amazon’s Tap set itself apart from its Echo brethren with better sound – positioned more as a Bluetooth speaker with Alexa functionality than an Alexa device that happened to have a speaker built in when it was introduced last year. The other key difference was right there in the name, requiring users to tap the microphone to enable voice functionality. A new over-the-air… Read More
Zenefits, which just earlier this week announced Jay Fulcher as its new CEO, is laying off 45% of its workforce, BuzzFeed reported earlier today. That means Zenefits will let go about 430 people — 250 from its San Francisco-based headquarters and 150 from its office in Tempe, Arizona, according to the internal memo obtained by BuzzFeed.
Zenefits has confirmed the layoffs to TechCrunch… Read More
GM’s Maven car-sharing service has now launched in Atlanta, its 17th North American city, where it’ll offer a fleet of 50 cars spread across 20 pick-up locations. Maven launched in January 2016, and began a rapid series of expansions that took it to locations across the U.S. throughout last year. It allows users to rent GM vehicles on-demand for short periods, similar to how Zipcar… Read More
Airbnb may have been founded on the premise of renting out spare sofa or bed space as a cheap alternative to hotels, but the company has moved upmarket in a big way, and is about to take that up another notch. The company is in the late stages of acquiring Luxury Retreats, an Airbnb-style service that focuses on high-end homes, for a price believed to be around $200 million, our sources say.… Read More
Things have been rough for wearables of late. Companies like Fitbit are struggling, while Jawbone is apparently looking for the next big move away from the consumer category. And then there’s Pebble, which simply couldn’t survive on its own in the end. But Warren Buffett is apparently still convinced that there’s a future in the space. Berkshire Hathaway’s fittingly… Read More
In addition to the $2 billion Snap committed to spending on Google cloud infrastructure over the next five years, the company also revealed today in an amended filing that it expects to spend $1 billion on Amazon’s cloud services over the same time frame. However, the company clarified that it may choose to build its own infrastructure in the future. Snap’s agreement with Amazon has… Read More
Tesla is pausing production at its California assembly plant in Fremont in order to prepare for Model 3 production, the company announced on Wednesday, and Reuters reports via separate sources that it will look to start test production of its Model 3 on February 20, ahead of planned wide-scale production beginning sometime later this year. The Model 3 is Tesla’s more affordable… Read More
When it was on the air, Deep Space Nine always seemed to be overshadowed by other Star Trek spinoffs — in the words of showrunner Ira Steven Behr, it was the “bastard stepchild” of the franchise. After all, The Next Generation and Voyager fit more comfortably into the template established by the original series, with a starship crew having new adventures on new planets… Read More
As Jawbone continues to work towards a pivot, the Up device maker also continues to talent that may not be core to its future. In the latest departure, Kelvin Kwong, who had been the Jawbone’s director of product management, has joined Big Health, maker of the Sleepio sleep improvement program, as VP of product management. Alongside that, Dr Jenna Carl is now the startup’s… Read More
iPhone rumor season is upon us — as if it ever ends — and the latest claims that the next iPhone will cost upwards of $1000 (at least, for the most expensive model). To be clear, that isn’t a huge deal considering that the top-of-the-line iPhone currently costs more than $900. Still, Fast Company reports that Apple may be switching from LCD displays to an OLED display,… Read More
Twitter’s advertising business is stalling, but the company is trying to focus on some flashes of improvement among the service — which it’s attributing to product changes, and not just to major events like presidential debates or the President’s usage of Twitter. There were some questions as to whether President Donald Trump’s usage of Twitter would be something… Read More
Shopify CEO Tobias Lütke penned an open letter in response to the ongoing barrage of communication being received by himself and other Shopify employees about their continued decision to host the online store of Breitbart, the right-wing publication which regularly publishes racist and sexist headlines and content. Lütke’s argument generally rests on a “free speech”… Read More
Hair color startup Madison Reed is on a tear. Over the past year, the San Francisco-based company quietly raised $13 million in new venture funding, landed its products on the television shopping network QVC, launched a chatbot, and opened a New York City storefront called the Madison Reed Color Bar. Such efforts helped it double revenue in 2016, says CEO and founder Amy Errett, though she… Read More
As Twitter’s growth continues to stall and increasingly becomes an issue, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s double-time running both Twitter and Square has become a big question mark — and Dorsey says he’s staying the course. “This focus, and this team, allows me and gives me a lot of confidence I can continue to focus on the meaningful things at both companies and we… Read More
Code.org, which started offering an advanced placement computer science principles this school year in partnership with The College Board, could more than double the number of underrepresented minorities enrolled in AP computer science classes across the nation. During the last school year, 8,442 underrepresented minorities (black, Latinx, American Indian/Alaska Native, Native… Read More
Twitter may have re-oriented itself and laid off part of its workforce to streamline its business, but it still doesn’t look like it is bringing in enough money to keep Wall Street happy.
Here is the biggest data point from the company’s fourth-quarter earnings report: according to the company, advertising revenue totaled $638 million, which was down slightly year-over-year. A… Read More
While delivery drones might be an excellent PR vehicle for Amazon’s Prime membership brand, they will not be an excellent vehicle for very much else — at least not in the short term. Read More
Nokia, once the world’s biggest handset maker, really wants everyone to know that it’s a software company now. And today it made a big acquisition to that end: it is buying Comptel, a company that specialises in building software-based data communications solutions for mobile carriers. Nokia’s offer is to pay €3.04 in cash, valuing Comptel at €347 million ($370… Read More
Xeneta, the Oslo, Norway-based startup that offers a crowdsourced price comparison service for ocean freight, has raised $12 million in Series B funding. Read More
Alibaba affiliate Ant Financial announced a surprise deal to acquire international payment service MoneyGram for $880 million last month, but that looks like being just the start of its M&A activities. A source at the company confirmed to TechCrunch that it is close to raising nearly $3 billion in debt financing in order to bankroll further acquisitions, as The Information and… Read More
