Google made a number of major announcements about its Chromebook program at the Bett education technology conference in London today. Besides disclosing that there are now over 20 million teachers and students that use Chromebooks at least weekly — and that there are now over 70 million G Suite for education users — the company also demoed two new convertible Chromebooks with… Read More
Amazon has beat Netflix to a considerable honor for its efforts to create high-quality original film and TV content; the company picked up a nomination for best picture from the Oscars Tuesday, for Manchester by the Sea. The Casey Affleck and Michelle Williams-starrer was acquired by Amazon at Sundance last year, in a deal that saw Amazon Studios pay $10 million for the rights to the picture.… Read More
Connected vehicles are booming – they’re often mentioned in the same breath as autonomous cars, but are much more achievable from a technical perspective. Car makers are increasingly making on-board cellular data connections a standard option, too, and now we have some insight into why – a survey of automotive company executives found that they share the opinion that… Read More
Israel is home to around 450 active startups in the field of cybersecurity, according to a recent report in Reuters. Now, the one with perhaps the most distinctive name of them all is announcing some funding for a novel approach to authentication. Secret Double Octopus — which borrows a concept from the world of nuclear launch codes to build extra-secure, but simple, keyless… Read More
If you think it’s frustrating trying to get that last drop of ketchup out of the bottle, or toothpaste out of the tube, imagine having to waste and clean valuable and sticky substances from pipes or tanks in a factory. A startup called LiquiGlide has raised $16 million in a new round of venture funding to bring its patented slippery coatings to manufacturers around the world. Co-founded… Read More
Electric vehicles tend to be designed with a certain customer in mind, and typically this imagined buyer is probably bookish, possibly vegan and mostly concerned with getting around in maximum efficiency. Tesla shook up this stereotype a bit with its speedy sports cars, but the new Kreisel customized Mercedes G 350 d with a fully electric drive train adds another dimension to the image of… Read More
It hasn’t even been a year since EquipmentShare raised a Series A round of funding, but the “Airbnb of construction rentals,” has closed a $26 million Series B round. The Columbia, Missouri-based startup helps contractors rent out their under-utilized equipment, or rent safety tested equipment that they need from a fellow contractor. Last year, EquipmentShare also launched… Read More
Alibaba just reported a very impressive quarter of business, but there was a small nugget of notable funding news tucked away in its announcement. Koubei, an Alibaba affiliate company focused on enabling local commerce, closed a $1.1 billion financing round this month. The funding was led by Silver Lake, CDH Investments, Yunfeng Capital and Primavera Capital, Alibaba said. It isn’t… Read More
Verizon this morning reported adjusted fourth quarter earnings of 86 cents per share, on revenue of $32.3 billion. On the earnings side, that falls short of what Wall Street analysts had expected — EPS of 89 cents per share and $32.1 billion in revenue. That also marks a 5.6 percent revenue decline from the fourth quarter of 2015. Verizon said it added 591,000 postpaid wireless… Read More
Alibaba has smashed analyst estimates with its latest financials. The Chinese e-commerce giant reported (PDF) net income of RMB 17.12 billion ($2.47 billion) with total revenue of RMB 53.25 million ($7.67 billion) for its Q3 2016, the latter was a 54 percent year-on-year jump. Earning per share came in at RMB 6.94 ($1.00). This was a big win for Alibaba. Analysts predicted net income… Read More
For end users, an app’s user experience is, essentially, the product. No wonder, then, that app developers are investing more heavily in better user experience toolkits. Fuse is one example. The company aims to halve the development time of complex applications. Today, it announced a $12 million round from Northzone and Alliance Venture to open its toolkits to a wider audience. Read More
Careship is a Berlin-based startup aiming to tackle the growing problem of how we care for our elderly. It’s a big problem in Europe in particular, where people are living much longer than they used to. Careship helps families find a home-based caregiver for their loved ones. It uses as matchmaking algorithm to find qualified personnel, while advising on insurance benefits and… Read More
One of the two companies working on Hyperloop trains just held a press conference in Toulouse to announce that the company is going to have a 3,000 square meter facility (roughly 38,000 sq ft) in the French city of Toulouse. While Hyperloop Transportation Technologies seems to be lagging behind Hyperloop One, the company has been very active on the news front lately. In December, the… Read More
Illusive Networks, a cybersecurity startup based out of Israel that protects networks by building “deception” frameworks to identify and trap malicious hackers, is today announcing that it has added Microsoft Ventures — the software giant’s young investment arm — as its newest strategic investor. In keeping with the its name and purpose in this world, Illusive… Read More
Many may have stopped playing Pokémon Go, last year’s smash hit mobile game, but fans in Korea are just getting a taste of the action after it launched in their country today.
That’s right, this summer’s sensation is finally (officially) on Korean soil some six months after much of the rest of the world got into the title. The launch in Korea has been a complicated affair… Read More
Quiqup, a London-based delivery startup that offers an app and service similar to Postmates in the U.S., has partnered with take-out ordering service hungryhouse to let partner restaurants outsource delivery. Read More
Samsung today recorded its biggest leap in profits for three years,up 50 percent year-on-year, showing that there is far more to the company than the Galaxy Note 7 saga. Read More
Sprint takes a 33% stake in Tidal, The SEC is investigating Yahoo, a study from Cambridge on vaccinating fake news, Apple fixes more MacBook Pro bugs and a big Snapchat redesign hits iOS. All this on Crunch Report. Read More
The Super Bowl is in two weeks. The Patriots versus the Falcons. And Charter Communication’s Spectrum service wants you to change your wifi password to support your favorite team! Don’t do that. Change your WiFi password and show guests where your loyalty lies! #ThatsMyTeam pic.twitter.com/7kg04D7GN9 — Spectrum (@GetSpectrum) January 23, 2017 Don’t change your… Read More
