Many executives and employees have need for a role that’s basically a “chief of staff” — someone who keeps track of all the details about everyone they encounter and are headed off to meet in their professional careers. But there’s plenty of information that they might be missing out on, and as you head downstream to smaller companies those roles are just as… Read More
It’s an interesting time for Dropbox’s document-building tool, Paper. Quip, in a similar vein to Paper, was bought for a whopping $750 million by Salesforce earlier this week. This deal surprised a ton of people, but made a lot of sense given that Salesforce has seemingly been dipping its toes into collaboration software. So Quip is a great, and natural, fit for Salesforce and… Read More
Ripple has acquired Hoodline, a deal that combines two different approaches to covering local news.
Founded by former Viki CEO Razmig Hovaghimian, Ripple launched earlier this year and taps community contributors for its coverage. Hoodline, meanwhile, has an editorial team (led by TechCrunch’s former co-editor Eric Eldon) taking advantage of local data to cover neighborhood news. Read More
In recent years, venture capital has poured into food companies, from meal kit and grocery delivery services to the makers of environmentally sustainable, or health-promoting food products.
Now, investors and entrepreneurs from tech, food and the restaurant industry have launched a firm, and closed a $42 million debut fund called Powerplant Ventures, to invest specifically in… Read More
It’s hard standing out in the smartphone market. Of late, ZTE’s primary focus has been on pricing – a strategy epitomized by the recent launch of the company’s $99 Android phablet. But that’s become something of a race to the bottom as manufacturers rapidly work to undercut one other.
Now the Chinese smartphone maker is looking outward for inspiration. Today it… Read More
Google today released a new application designed to get kids to explore the world using maps and 3D imagery. The new app, which the company describes as “an experiment,” takes advantage of Google Maps’ 3D imagery of the Himalayas but combines it with a bit of gameplay to make the idea of zooming around the 3D scene more fun and engaging.
Called “Verne: The… Read More
This is where Facebook will prototype its solar drones, Internet-beaming lasers, VR headsets, and next-gen servers. The problem with moving faster than most companies is that Facebook was plagued by delays whenever it had to outsource prototyping and testing of its gadgets and gizmos. With so much hardware on its 10-year roadmap, and quarter after quarter of profits stacking up, it made sense… Read More
Pepper has been picking up retail work all over Asia, including a high profile gig working at Pizza Huts in Japan, but Softbank’s humanoid robot hasn’t had too much luck finding work here in the States. But now that the company is working toward a US release timed for later this year (following its first overseas launch in Taiwan), we’re likely to see it start popping up… Read More
Polar goes back. Way, way back. Back to the early 80s, when the Finnish company launched its first portable heart rate monitor, the Sport Tester PE 2000. Back when wearable fitness devices weren’t really a thing.
Of course, being the first doesn’t mean you’ll always be on top. While the company has had a longstanding relationship with professional athletes (with Olympics… Read More
Not to be outdone by Twitter – who, yesterday introduced followable Moments and other means of tuning into Olympics news via its network – Facebook is rolling out a number of ways for its users to show support for their favorite teams plus track the Olympics news they care about in a dedicated section of the News Feed, the company announced this week. Naturally, the social… Read More
While social games company Zynga’s push into real-money gambling may have had some hiccups, a group of alums who built a startup dedicated specifically to the genre have sold their company for up to $170 million. Rocket Games, a social gambling company based out of San Francisco, has been acquired by Penn National Gaming, the slot machine, video gaming machine, and casino company.… Read More
An Altanta-based startup called Florence Healthcare has raised $1.7 million in seed funding to help drug companies and researchers at hospitals or other trial sites to exchange information about clinical trials in the cloud.
Ultimately, helping these groups share information with each other, and with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, could speed up the time it takes to get much-needed… Read More
Samsung wants to make cars. Or at least, make parts of cars, in a similar supply-side capacity to the position it currently occupies in the mobile device and television world. A new Bloomberg report suggests Samsung is in talks with Fiat Chrysler to acquire some or all of parts-making subsidiary Magneti Marelli, which provides lighting, in-car entertainment and telematics to OEMs for use in… Read More
Hulu has become even more of a major media company mashup – Tim Warner is joining Disney, Fox and Comcast with a sizeable ownership stake of the streaming entity, picking up 10 percent (culled from a cumulative drawing down of the thirds owned by each of the other big media co’s previously) for a reported $583 million. Hulu’s over-the-top bundle, which is set to launch… Read More
Moon Express has officially become the first private company in the world to receive permission to travel beyond Earth’s orbit. After months of conversations with government officials, the company received the green light from the FAA to venture to the moon in 2017.
“We are now free to set sail as explorers to Earth’s eighth continent, the Moon, seeking new knowledge and… Read More
Soon, hundreds of millions of mobile users in China will have direct access to an augmented reality smartphone platform on their smartphones. Baidu, China’s largest search engine, unveiled an AR platform today called DuSee that will allow China’s mobile users the opportunity to test out smartphone augmented reality on their existing devices. The company also detailed that they… Read More
Panoply.io, a startup that wants to make setting up a data warehousing and analytics infrastructure as easy as spinning up an AWS server, today announced that it has raised a $7 million Series A round led by Intel Capital, with participation from previous investor Blumberg Capital. This follows Panoply’s $1.3 million seed round from late last year. “It’s remarkable that… Read More
London-based City Pantry, which operates an office catering platform to make it easier to order in food for staff and company meetings, has raised £1.1 million in new funding. The investment comes from Angel Co Fund, and The London Co Investment fund (both of which are part-funded by tax-payer money), and various angels and existing investors. Read More
Gogoro’s electric smartscooter is pretty snazzy… but unless you live in Taiwan, chances are you haven’t actually seen one in person. The scooters require a network of battery-swapping terminals to work as intended, so they’re shipping out one country at a time — and so far, “one country at a time” means “one country”: Taiwan. That changes… Read More
Bitfinex, one of the most popular cryptocurrency exchanges online, has suffered a major hack. The company has posted a note on their website detailing the security breach, and while it doesn’t mention a total amount, one of their employees confirmed on Reddit that the total amount stolen was 119,756 bitcoins. That amount converts to about $77,000,000 based on a price of $650 USD… Read More
