Six months after introducing Juicero to the market, Doug Evans left his role of CEO of he founded after selling off Organic Avenue in 2012 (that juice company would go on to file for Chapter 7 in 2015). In October, the luxury juice squeezing startup brought former Coca-Cola North America president Jeff Dunn on in his stead. Just last week, the company slashed the price of its appliance nearly… Read More
Target’s CartWheel application has grown to some 27 million shoppers who have used it over the past three years following its debut to save over $600 million at checkout. Now, the retailer hints it may be adding mobile payments to the app, and potentially its main Target application, as well. The company didn’t confirm which of the two, or if both, would be updated to include… Read More
Ford has picked up a new executive with a strong history of success in marketing and communications across a range of verticals; the automaker announced today that Musa Tariq will join as vice president and chief brand officer at the company, acting as the senior-most creative and strategic branding employee at the company across its global operations. Tariq will join Ford on January 30,… Read More
Amazon has a new wake word for its Echo speakers, letting you trigger the Alexa voice assistant by uttering “Computer” aloud. It’s far more susceptible to accidental activation, yes, but it’s also a dream come true for Star Trek fans who watched both original series and TNG crew members address the Enterprise’s on-board computing systems directly. I have tried… Read More
Box Notes, a productivity tool at Box, is announcing updated functionality and a new design. The platform, which Box says is used by nearly 40% Fortune 500 companies, will now let users view and edit all notes within a single browser, without having to leave Box Notes to search folders. They will also be introducing desktop apps, to make it easier to access Box Notes on both Mac and PC,… Read More
Microsoft today announced Intune for Education, a new tier of its existing enterprise application and device management service that’s specifically meant for school. In addition, the company announced that a number of its partners will soon start shipping a wider variety of affordable Windows 10 PCs. This move comes shortly after Google announced yet another push for its Chromebooks… Read More
If you haven’t been following the enterprise space of late, you may well have missed the memo that collaborative white boards are the hot newness. Microsoft has one and Google has one, and really, it was only a matter of time before those stalwarts of workplace hardware Cisco got in on the fun.
As its name implies, the Cisco Spark Board is built around the company’s proprietary… Read More
I was enjoying burgers with an economist friend who is interested in the world of venture. We were bouncing ideas around about where venture is heading, especially at the earliest stages, where I spend my time. His questions resonated with my inner econ nerd. And having thought about it since, I believe that the market for making seed investments remains quite attractive. Read More
Pokémon has another official new mobile game that isn’t Pokémon GO – it’s a strategy battle game called Pokémon Duel where you collect virtual figures and fight them in an attempt to take over territory from your rival. The Duel element involves actually battling your figures, which you can select in teams of six. These individual Pokémon have stats, including how many… Read More
Corporations could be a lot more efficient with their travel spend, believes booking platform TripActions. Today, the company is announcing $14.6 million in funding from Zeev Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners to fulfill that mission. Based on the idea that people spend more money when it’s on their company’s dime, the startup offers employees rewards for staying under a… Read More
French startup Spendesk might be just a few months old, but the company is currently firing on all cylinders. Spendesk just raised $2.2 million (€2 million), just rebranded the company, and is about to launch mobile apps and corporate plastic cards for everyone. Let’s start with the funding round. The company started out as an eFounders startup. It is now ready to fly on its own and… Read More
The next mainstream computing platform may not be bots, AR, or VR, but rather voice-based computing. According to a new state of the industry report from VoiceLabs, it’s estimated that there will be 24.5 million voice-first devices shipped this year, which will lead to a total device footprint of 33 million devices in circulation. If the prediction holds true, this would be a… Read More
Microsoft announced this morning that it has tapped Kevin Scott as its new Chief Technology Officer. The c-level promotion is an expansion of Scott’s current role as Senior Vice President of Infrastructure at LinkedIn, a move designed to “drive strategic, cross-company initiatives” between the business social networking platform and its parent, according to Microsoft. Scott… Read More
Max Friefeld, Jonathan Schwartz, and Oliver Ortlieb aren’t just co-founders – they’re roommates. These three formerMakerbot employees are working on creating Voodoo Manufacturing, an effort to “combine software and hardware to build a new-age robotic factory.” Say, for example, you wanted to build hundreds of small velociraptors. You could make a mold and create a… Read More
Donald Trump met with top execs at all three major U.S. automakers on Tuesday, in a sit-down in which he laid out his desire to see the car companies create new factories in the U.S. and boost their stateside output. His comments at the meeting echoed sentiments expressed by Trump throughout the campaign and early into his presidency on Twitter and elsewhere. Trump said at the meeting… Read More
Tumblr today is launching two new tools for creative expression, stickers and filters, which could become another revenue stream for the Yahoo-owned company, if it chooses to go in that direction in the future. Available only on mobile, users will be able to decorate their photos or GIFs using color filters or stickers from either the main Tumblr app on iOS or Android, or Tumblr’s… Read More
Cleanshelf wants to get you off the hard stuff. Now run by Slovenian CEO Dusan Omercevic, the app watches and manages your SaaS subscriptions, ensuring you’re not paying for stuff you’re not using and helping you find stuff that you might need. While this might not sound great for companies whose business model is forcing users to pay monthly and then hoping they forgot the signed… Read More
CES was, predictably, all about TVs, appliances and the odd the gadget (flying speakers, helper robots) for LG. There were even a few phones, but the company was clearly waiting a few months for Mobile World Congress – or at very least, a few weeks for the obligatory pre-MWC product shot leak — to debut a new flagship. The Verge has seemingly gotten its hands on one… Read More
Google’s Lunar XPrize competition is nearing its zenith – the slate of competitors is down to five finalists, all of whom are competing to be the first private company to launch a spacecraft destined for the moon by the end of 2017. The five remaining teams include SpaceIL, Moon Express, Synergy Moon, Team Indus and Hakuto. The teams need to not only fly to the moon in order to… Read More
Google announced that its G Suite for Education, which was previously known as Google Apps for Education, now has 70 million users worldwide. That’s up from 60 million a year ago and 50 million in October 2015. That’s a pretty steady growth rate for Google’s student/teacher-centric productivity suite. Like all of Google’s productivity apps, G Suite for Education got… Read More
