The struggle is real for Samsung. The Korean electronics giant’s operating profit plunged 30 percent year-on-year as the effects of the Galaxy Note 7 crisis begin to take a financial toll. Read More
Facebook recently fired the entire Trending Topics team of human editors amid accusations they were promoting specific agendas and biasing what news was deemed “important.” Now the company is relying on machine learning algorithms to manage Trending Topics — and finding that keeping the results free of hoaxes and fake news isn’t always easy. Read More
Elon Musk began Tesla’s earning call regarding its third-quarter results on an up beat: He suggested that Q4 will also be strong for the company, deflating some analyst commentary that the results for this most recent reporting period might’ve been up at the expense of the next one. “We currently believe Q4 will be profitable excluding non-cash stock-based expenses,”… Read More
MIT is getting into the incubator business in a big way with “The Engine,” a major fund and accelerator space aimed at nurturing early-stage companies solving big, difficult problems in tech and science. After The Engine raises its targeted $150 million fund, up to 60 companies at a time will benefit from the university’s equipment, services and considerable pool of expertise. Read More
When Elon Musk revealed Tesla’s plan to ship all Tesla’s made going forward with all the hardware they need to achieve full autonomy, the company noted that car owners would not be able to use their future self-driving Teslas to drive for Uber or Lyft. Instead, they’d be able to rent out their cars on demand using Tesla’s own Tesla Network for ridesharing. On… Read More
The big night is tonight! At 6pm, the TC Meetup + Pitch-off is going down in Seoul, South Korea. We’ll be joined by some of the brightest minds in the local tech scene to discuss going global and diversity, and then we’ll dive straight into the Pitch-off itself. Each of these 10 companies will have exactly 60 seconds to pitch their wares to a panel of expert judges, including local… Read More
Verizon is buying Vessel, the subscription video service founded by Jason Kilar (Hulu’s former CEO) and Richard Tom (its former CTO). Vessel enlisted YouTube stars and other video creators, offering early access to their videos for $2.99 a month. It raised more than $130 million from investors, including Benchmark, Greylock, Bezos Expeditions and Institutional Venture Partners. Tom… Read More
OpenStack, the open source cloud computing platform that allows enterprises to essentially run their own version of AWS in their data centers, was founded by NASA and Rackspace in 2010. Today, it’s being used by the likes of Comcast, PayPal, Volkswagen, CERN, AT&T, China Mobile and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs in the U.K. The OpenStack Foundation’s bi-annual… Read More
Some significant consolidation is going down in the world of daily deals — going down being the operative phrase here. Today, Groupon announced it would acquire LivingSocial, its onetime big rival that was partly owned by Amazon, for an undisclosed sum. Lest you think that this is a power move made by companies at their peak, think again: the news comes as a quiet sidenote… Read More
For years we’ve been skeptical, and rightly so, of the “art filters” you can put on your photos, webcam videos and so on. But Google may have made them relevant again — or at the very least, interesting — by letting you mix and match them in real time using a single specialized neural network. Read More
This week’s TCBC podcast is all about events: Microsoft’s and Apple’s, both of which happen this week and both of which will be covered by Romain Dillet, who joins as my guest for the episode. We’re fresh from watching and writing about Microsoft’s event earlier today, where it revealed its Surface Studio PC and a host of software improvements coming to Windows… Read More
Well that was unexpected — Tesla reported today in its third-quarter that it had earnings of 74 cents per share, compared to Wall Street’s expectations of a loss of 54 cents per share.
In other words: Tesla said it actually made a profit this quarter on a GAAP basis. Tesla shares quickly jumped around 5.5 percent following the company posting a rare profit for the… Read More
23andMe won’t continue with next-generation DNA sequencing and has reportedly laid off the lab working on the project. About half-a-dozen workers were laid off from the Salt Lake City, Utah-based lab, according to BuzzFeed, which first reported the news. By our own count based on LinkedIn, at least five members of the lab have been let go, including its chief medical officer, Dr.… Read More
While Uber and others fight over private car transportation, there remains an elephant in the room which has simply not been disrupted yet and which actually carries far more people on the planet: Buses. You may laugh at the idea, but we are not talking about creating an “Uber for buses” here. The complication for passengers is not the bus coming to you, but the ability to… Read More
In May earlier this year, Snapchat raised around $1.8 billion in a financing round that valued it at around $18 billion — and now it looks like that valuation could double in its upcoming IPO. Bloomberg is reporting that Snapchat is looking to raise as much as $4 billion in its initial public offering that could value it as high as $35 billion. Previously, the company was reportedly… Read More
Airbnb recently released its 2016 diversity report, showing a 57% white workforce (last year, Airbnb was 63% white) and 43% female workforce — a 3% decline from last year. Although Airbnb lost some female employees, the company noted that it has doubled the number of women in senior leadership roles and increased the number of women in technical roles. Regarding underrepresented… Read More
Strange is it sounds, Microsoft Paint is once again a Windows focal point. Thirty-one years after its introduction with the first version of the operating system, the software giant has given the application one of biggest revamps, putting it at the center of a 3D content ecosystem that will play a key role in future hardware and software offerings. When you get a chance to sit down with… Read More
Lifestage, Facebook’s newer “teens-only” app designed to counteract the Snapchat threat by giving younger users a place to connect outside of Facebook’s larger social network, has now arrived on Android. Previously an iPhone-only application, this experimental app represents Facebook’s attempt to woo the high schooler crowd, while also testing other features… Read More
If you’ve been waiting for Apple’s AirPod wireless headphones to go on sale, you’re going to have to wait a little longer. Apple says that they are not ready and they it will need ‘a little more time’. “The early response to AirPods has been incredible. We don’t believe in shipping a product before it’s ready, and we need a little more time… Read More
YouTube today officially launched a new feature for video creators called End Screens, which are designed to keep users engaged with the YouTube app and creators’ content. The feature, which places thumbnails at the end of the video, can be used to prompt viewers to watch more of the creator’s videos when they finish watching the first one, or take other actions, like subscribing… Read More
