PayPal this morning is launching a new bot aimed at making it easier for Slack users to send money without ever leaving their preferred work chat platform. This is the first time PayPal has launched a bot, the company claims, though it’s not the first time PayPal has integrated with a larger communication service. This past fall, for example, PayPal deepened its relationship with… Read More
The weather and its many faces have served as an inspiration for many musicians, who have crooned about the London fog, the Sun coming out, stormy weather, and the clothes you wear for a season. Now Spotify is teaming up with AccuWeather to build on that, with a new service called Climatune — playlists that are based on the weather in your location in real-time, and the mood that… Read More
Jon Zornow, the founder of Sewbo, made waves in September after announcing that he had built the first robot to sew a t-shirt without human intervention. Using a robot arm and an automatic sewing machine, Zornow took some carefully prepared material and ran it through a pre-programmed series of moves. It worked. Out popped a t-shirt. This seemingly simple process is actually wildly important.… Read More
Newly emboldened by its return to webcammery last September, Logitech is going big with the Brio, a new 4K model. It’s hard to say precisely why one would need that sort of resolution for videoconferencing – for some of us even HD feels like pushing it when beaming out images of our face to world. But here it is, and it’s a pretty affordable $199. Of course, there may be… Read More
Shortly after a Bloomberg report indicating that PayPal and Amazon have been discussing ways to work together on payments, Amazon unveiled a new milestone for its own payments business. The retailer said this morning that over 33 million customers have now used Amazon Payments to make a purchase – a figure that’s up 10 million from the 23 million it had in April of last… Read More
Over the years, Druva has developed services for protecting and managing data and tools for governance and compliance. Today, it took that idea one step further when it added ransomware and anomaly detection. The company decided to develop a ransomware detection tool after finding that customers were using Druva to help manage the ransomware recovery process. Restoring data has always been… Read More
The 3DRudder began its peculiar life as a foot-powered mouse, designed by an architectural student looking for an alternate input for created designed in CAD programs. By the time it hit the market a while back, it had transformed into a clever take on the problem of virtual reality locomotion, moving the player around in a game with the tilt of a side. A new software update is returning… Read More
Connected car dongle maker Automatic started out as a consumer-focused company that sought to help give customers more insight into their driving habits, with the aim of helping to gamify things like fuel efficiency, and generally offer up tips for improved driving. It was only natural that it would take its data-collecting dongle and driver improvement business and partner up with… Read More
Just about everyone can benefit from an extra ear listening in at the right time. And while an ear dedicated to helping me remember the items my housemate asked me to pickup at the store last week has yet to be commercialized into a startup, Chorus.ai is riffing off the concept to deliver a solution to help sales teams close more deals. The Chorus team is announcing a $16 million Series… Read More
Some car makers are experimenting with putting Alexa in their vehicles, making it possible for drivers to access Amazon’s voice assistance while driving, but Logitech has a new feature that makes it possible to get in-car Alexa access without waiting for infotainment system integration. The new Logitech collaboration with Amazon’s Alexa service adds Alexa voice control to the suite… Read More
Twitter hinted last week that it would soon more thoroughly address the issues of safety and abuse on its network, and today it has announced a series of changes to its service as a result. The company says that it will now stop the creation of new, abusive accounts, offer safer search results, and collapse abusive or low-quality tweets. Often, people who create abusive accounts on Twitter… Read More
WaystoCap is an e-commerce firm taking part in the current Y Combinator program.
Wait…
“E-commerce, meh, done to death…” I hear you say….
True in part. Yes, in the U.S., Europe, Asia and elsewhere the consumer platforms are already in place. But there remains much more to be done across the world, particularly in markets were internet access is nascent and… Read More
Hootsuite, the startup and platform that lets marketers manage a company’s interactions across a range of social media networks, is getting into the business of paid content. Today, it is announcing that it has acquired AdEspresso, a company that has built a set of tools to create, A-B test, and post advertisements on Facebook and Instagram. It will sit in a relaunched version of… Read More
Here’s the thing about online dating: Not all of us are good at it. But if you, like me, suspect that you could benefit from a helping hand, a startup called Ona is offering professional support. After all, I’m guessing that many of you have already asked friends for advice on how to improve your Tinder profile, or what to say in your first message, or what to wear on a date.… Read More
DreamHost today announced the launch of Remixer, its new website click-to-edit website builder for users who simply want an easy-to-maintain website without having to touch any code. The new platform is included with any DreamHost hosting plan. If you’ve used similar platforms in the past, Remixer will likely feel familiar. You start with a pre-made theme (there are currently 13… Read More
Google’s video powerhouse YouTube is today taking its latest step to compete with Facebook Live and Twitter’s Periscope to be the go-to platform for live video streaming, specifically of the unscripted, on-the-fly kind. YouTube today is turning on live video recording directly from its mobile app for creators who have at least 10,000 subscribers. And on top of this… Read More
Tesla’s P100D variant Model S has hit a new low – a record low time for a 0 to 60 mph acceleration, that is, in a new test conducted by Motor Trend using a stock vehicle with Ludricous+ mode. The new track test time, via Electrek, also included a 10.5 second quarter-mile, both of which represent new records in terms of measured sprints. The Model S P100D becomes the first… Read More
Dutch startup Revue, which offers a tool to create and send your own personal newsletter, is launching a new product today to make it easier to discover other newsletters to subscribe to. Read More
Brad Stone’s new book, The Upstarts, recounts the surprising rise – and possible fall – of the sharing economy. By looking at Uber and AirBnB, Stone brings life and drama to the origin stories of how a few lucky guys made the right decisions at exactly the right time. What follows is an excerpt detailing the rise of Uber.
Back in the summer of 2013, just as Silicon Valley… Read More
HPE today announced that it has signed a global reseller agreement with Mesosphere to bring that company’s container-centric DC/OS platform to its customer’s data centers. HPE’s interest in Mesosphere is no secret, especially given that it also led Mesosphere’s $73.5 million Series C round last year. “At the time, we believed Mesosphere DC/OS to be one of the… Read More
