Facebook Live, the social network’s live video streaming platform, received a series of updates this week, the most notable being the ability for broadcasters to “go live” from their desktop and laptop computers. Video creators will be able to stream from their web browser directly to their Facebook Page, the company explains, which makes the system ideal for certain types… Read More
If you’re old enough to remember the Concorde, then startup Boom‘s plans to bring supersonic flight back to commercial passenger air travel is huge. Now Boom is one step closer, as it reveals the XB-1 Supersonic Demonstrator, a 1/3-scale prototype of its Boom supersonic passenger aircraft, which will be doing its first supersonic test flights later this year. The scale… Read More
The European Union is not happy with the explanation provided by the US government for why its domestic spy agencies co-opted Yahoo to scan all emails of users of its webmail service during a six month period in 2015, Reuters is reporting. Read More
Betaworks startup studio is today announcing the second in its line of accelerator camps in the form of voicecamp. And no, this won’t make you a better chorus member. Earlier this year, betaworks launched botcamp as a way to better understand and fuel growth of the chatbot space. With today’s announcement, betaworks wants to apply the same model to a new vertical with voicecamp.… Read More
Twitter will be streaming Donald Trump’s inauguration for the top political job in the U.S. starting at 11 AM ET on Friday, January 20 in partnership with PBS NewsHour. The feed will be available on Twitter apps, and at inauguration.twitter.com. Trump’s official office-taking event has been the subject of a lot of attention in the lead-up to the day, since the Trump administration… Read More
It’s no secret that Apple has had its eye on original programming for a while. The hardware giant has already dipped its toes in the water with the purchase of James Corden’s perennially trending Carpool Karaoke, along with a smattering of documentaries for Apple Music. There’s also that biographical series based on the life of DJ/rapper/producer/headphone mogul Dr. Dre in… Read More
It looks like one of the more notable stalls in the world of on-demand rides is going to get another change to see if it can drive ahead. TechCrunch has learned and confirmed that Karhoo — a failed on-demand offering that aggregated drivers and ride options from hundreds of existing fleets of car services in an Uber-like app — has been brought out of administration. It will… Read More
Amazon has debuted its first own-brand subscription video-on-demand channel, part of the Amazon Channels offering it provides with content from partners including HBO and Showtime. This is the first time Amazon has created its own sub-channel, as it has instead focused on building the general Amazon Prime Video library and VOD offerings. Amazon will be doing more of this kind of tailored… Read More
When Stadium Goods opened shop in New York’s Soho district in 2015, it looked like an Apple-inspired spin on the consignment shop, appealing to men in search of authentic, collectible sneakers and streetwear. In the short time since it started, Stadium Goods has evolved into an online brand with distribution of its “authenticated” kicks, and a branded presence everywhere… Read More
Two years ago, Google bought Launchpad Toys, the company behind the popular Toontastic kids app for iOS that allows you — whether you are a kid or not — to easily tell your stories through animations. Today, Google is launching the first major new version of Toontastic for Android and iOS since it acquired the company. With this update, Toontastic is going 3D, though not in… Read More
If there is one thing we learned last week at CES, it’s that the power of voice is coming soon to a device near you — even your fridge. Synqq released an update in the iOS App Store this week, that brings voice and artificial intelligence to its calendar and notes app. What’s more, the app works with Apple’s AirPod wireless headphones, introduced last summer, giving… Read More
One of Southeast Asia’s longest-serving seed-stage investors has reloaded its coffers for more deals after East Ventures closed its fifth fund, worth $27.5 million. Read More
London fintech startup Curve has always talked a good game when it comes to the bigger picture. That is, helping to converge disparate financial services into a single platform to help you manage your money better. Read More
Talend, the big data integration vendor that went public last July, announced its winter release today with new tools to help automate data preparation, a sticky problem for enterprise customers. Surely, there are ever-increasing amounts of data and companies struggle to keep up. There aren’t enough data scientists in the world to fill the need. It requires software to pick up some of… Read More
She’s a supermodel, TV producer, entrepreneur, educator…and now you can add emoji character to the list. The tireless Tyra Banks is announcing her latest project, TyTyMoji, which just launched in the iTunes store. The new app means your favorite Tyra moments from “America’s Next Top Model” and more will be encapsulated in stickers that you can send your friends… Read More
Browsers have gotten boring. After a flurry of innovation, especially around the time Google launched Chrome, things slowed down over the last few years. We’ve seen a few interesting experiments, mostly from smaller players like Yandex, Brave and Vivaldi, but the largest players have pretty much stuck to their script. Opera, which was sold to a consortium of Chinese companies last year,… Read More
Do recruiting “hacks” work? Can you get a big company’s attention through wacky (or not so wacky) antics? One man, John Washam, tried and his story is, at the very least, interesting. Washam wrote about his quest to work for Google on his blog, Googley As Heck. He posted his educational milestones on his way to learning software engineering with the explicit goal of working… Read More
Madrona Venture Group, the Seattle-based early-stage venture capital firm, today announced that it has appointed S. “Soma” Somasegar to the role of Managing Director. Somasegar joined Madrona as a Venture Partner in 2015. Before that, he was the Corporate Vice President in charge of Microsoft’s Developer Division. There, he managed products like Visual Studio and… Read More
Amazon’s cloud storage business AWS has been gradually expanding into a range of cloud services for people not to simply host their business or app with AWS, but to use the platform for productivity and their own work purposes, too. Today came the latest development on that theme: AWS launched re:Start, a new portal for IT skills training, specifically in cloud computing, and job… Read More
Internet of things news in the wake of CES is a bold move, but Roambee isn’t letting the over-saturation of connected everything (hairbrushes!) get in the way of its mission to take the pain out of asset monitoring for businesses. The startup just closed a $3.1 million strategic investment from Deutsche Telekom Strategic Investments and secured a partnership with the group’s… Read More
