With $5M in tow, Eero will make your Wi-Fi better cover your entire house — not just one corner February 3, 2015 6:00 AM | Kia Kokalitcheva Last week, my upstairs neighbor asked me to use my apartment’s Wi-Fi. Her roommate had tinkered with theirs because he felt his room wasn’t receiving a strong enough signal, but ended up taking down the whole network instead.
DataStax acquires Aurelius, the startup behind the Titan graph database February 3, 2015 5:00 AM | Jordan Novet Addition of graph capability by acquisition is an interesting growth strategy for a NoSQL database startup.
Accel Partners invests $15M in KnCMiners to build a 16 nm processor February 3, 2015 4:30 AM | Ruth Reader Cloud Bitcoin mining operation KnCMiners is announcing a new round of funding just five months after its last round.
NeuCoin raises $2.5M to be a headache-free take on Bitcoin February 3, 2015 4:00 AM | Ruth Reader Today, NeuCoin, a new alternative digital currency, is announcing a raise of $2.5 million in investor funding. The fresh cash will help the company build its consumer-aimed cryptocurrency.
Herein lies the tale of a tongue toothbrush, YouTube, and ‘reverse marketing’ February 3, 2015 4:00 AM | Barry Levine The team that video marketed the hugely successful tongue toothbrush Orabrush and its dog version, Orapup — and the software that they developed for handling the variations and the targeting — is spinning off as Molio.
Guardant Health takes another $50M for ‘liquid biopsy’ cancer test February 3, 2015 3:00 AM | Mark Sullivan The Foster City, Calif.-based company has developed a blood test that can detect changes in the genetic structure of cancer cells.
Amazon may buy some RadioShack stores in latest quest to be more like Apple February 3, 2015 2:43 AM | Chris O'Brien If such a deal comes to pass, it’s likely driven by Amazon’s desire to have a place where consumers can see and touch its growing array of electronics hardware, including the Fire Phone, Fire TV, and Kindle Fire.
5 B2B marketing ‘don’ts’ we learned from Super Bowl 2015 February 2, 2015 8:00 PM | Peter Isaacson, Demandbase GuestWhether you were rooting for the Patriots, the Seahawks, the Budweiser puppy, or Missy Elliot’s revival, this Sunday’s Super Bowl experience was full of moments that made us think, “Um….”
Why over-funded crowdfunding campaigns can really suck February 2, 2015 6:00 PM | Jonas Gyalokay, Airtame GuestYou put your campaign up on Kickstarter or Indiegogo, and it’s just been overfunded like crazy. Great, right? Well, yes, it’s the greatest thing that could happen. But it comes with a lot of problems.
Samsung will unveil its much-hyped Galaxy S6 smartphone March 1 in Barcelona February 2, 2015 4:41 PM | Mark Sullivan Samsung will finally debut its much-hyped Galaxy S6 smartphone March 1 at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.
Uber plans its own driverless car research center with Carnegie Mellon February 2, 2015 4:14 PM | Mark Sullivan The new research-and-development facility, the Uber Advanced Technologies Center, will be near Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh.
In a major policy shift, FCC will regulate Internet as a public utility (report) February 2, 2015 3:23 PM | Mark Sullivan The Federal Communications Commission will later this week propose a plan to regulate the Internet in the way it might regulate a public utility.
FCC’s Wheeler takes aim at state laws that hinder community broadband February 2, 2015 3:10 PM | Mark Sullivan Community broadband has always been hindered by state laws — often advanced by local Big ISP lobbyists — designed to control or discourage their growth. The Federal Communications Commission may finally be preparing to take action on the problem.
VMware brings its OpenStack distribution to market February 2, 2015 1:06 PM | Jordan Novet VMware today announced that its distribution of the OpenStack open-source cloud software is now available for the taking.
Manic arousal of an entire city during the Super Bowl, as told through heart rate (in 1 chart) February 2, 2015 1:00 PM | Gregory Ferenstein Heart rate: It’s awesome.
Apple will open a $2B data center on the site of failed iPhone screen manufacturer February 2, 2015 12:46 PM | Mark Sullivan Apple had financed the facility to provide a place in which Arizona-based GT Advanced could manufacture sapphire screens for iPhones.
White House open-sources budget data on GitHub February 2, 2015 12:10 PM | Daniel Terdiman The Obama Administration is inviting anyone to create their own products or visualizations using the FY 2016 budget data.
Tinder’s paid undo button and travel feature will hit the U.S. in March February 2, 2015 12:04 PM | Kia Kokalitcheva Back in November, Tinder said it was running tests in seven markets, including Brazil, the U.K., and Germany, and that it would be priced between $1.99 and $19.99.
Mobile developers: Announcing VB’s Great White North(west) roadshow February 2, 2015 11:13 AM | John Koetsier VB InsightWe’re coming to town to share the results of our massive 4-part mobile developer research project, based on the contributions of over 1,500 developers.
Apple releases iOS 8.2 Beta 5, with latest set of WatchKit developer tools February 2, 2015 11:07 AM | Mark Sullivan Apple sent out the fifth beta of its iOS 8 mobile operating system to developers Monday, along with a new set of tools for developers creating apps for the forthcoming Apple Watch.
Funding Daily: Today’s tech funding news, in one place February 2, 2015 11:03 AM | Kia Kokalitcheva Here’s a list of today’s tech funding stories, updated as the day unfolds. Tip us here if you have a deal to share.
Three months in, Android Lollipop finally grabs 1.6% adoption February 2, 2015 10:51 AM | Emil Protalinski Until now, Lollipop wasn’t showing up because its usage was negligible.
The star of the new Steve Jobs flick, Michael Fassbender, looks nothing like Jobs February 2, 2015 10:41 AM | Mark Sullivan Michael Fassbender and Seth Rogen were in Apple’s home town of Cupertino, California filming for the new Steve Jobs movie, Jobs, last week, and some production stills have now surfaced.
LinkedIn launches its ‘Connected’ networking app for Android February 2, 2015 10:24 AM | Paul Sawers Seven months after LinkedIn launched a standalone app to help you keep in touch with your network, the hitherto iPhone-only affair has finally landed on Android too.
GradeBack lets students grade their university professors anonymously February 2, 2015 9:42 AM | Paul Sawers Over the past year or so, “Tinder for [insert app name]” has become the core pitch for countless digital services — ones that let you rate things by swiping.
Here’s why a font giant just spent $27M on … stickers February 2, 2015 9:20 AM | Harrison Weber Today typography giant Monotype Imaging announced a strange move: the $27 million acquisition of Swyft Media, a startup that specializes in creating and licensing branded stickers for messaging apps like Kik.
The holy grail of app retention and monetization: VB Webinar wrap-up February 2, 2015 9:15 AM | VB Staff VB Webinar95% of all apps fail but it doesn’t have to be that way. Catch a wrap-up of the VB webinar that shared essential learning about what it takes to get on the winning side of that daunting spread.
Apps move from the smartphone to a world of connected devices February 2, 2015 8:00 AM | Mark Ghermezian, Appboy SponsoredThe Internet of Things presents more and more opportunities for investors, as well as brand marketers ready to access the consumer in a new way.
Intel acquires smart home startup Lantiq as it takes on Internet of Things rivals February 2, 2015 7:44 AM | Dean Takahashi The move counters Qualcomm’s push into smart homes at CES.
IDC: Tablet shipments decline for the first time in Q4 2014, leaders Apple and Samsung both lose market share February 2, 2015 6:31 AM | Ruth Reader Amazon declined the most overall, with Lenovo offering one bright spot.
Netflix will raise $1B in debt, in part to buy and create new content February 2, 2015 6:13 AM | Chris O'Brien The size of the debt is testament to just how competitive the market for video-streaming services is becoming.
SanDisk targets the connected car movement with new ‘automotive grade’ flash storage February 2, 2015 6:01 AM | Paul Sawers Flash memory behemoth SanDisk has announced a “new suite of robust, automotive-grade” storage cards and drives to cater to the burgeoning connected car movement.
Ad tech firm Inneractive launches Story, so native video ads can finish what they started February 2, 2015 6:00 AM | Barry Levine If a user moves away, Story will insert the same video ad in the next ad opening — and it will start playing from exactly where it left off.
HP gave CEO Meg Whitman a $1.9M raise in 2014 as revenues fell and employees’ heads rolled February 2, 2015 5:21 AM | Chris O'Brien Hewlett-Packard might be three years into a troubled turnaround program, but you’d never know it based on the latest compensation package for chief executive Meg Whitman.
Time to panic yet? Yahoo took more U.S. search share from Google in January February 2, 2015 3:32 AM | Chris O'Brien This marks the second month in a row Yahoo gained share, thanks in large part to the deal to replace Google as the default search engine on Mozilla’s Firefox browser.
RepairPal Hits 1,000 Shop Growth Milestone February 2, 2015 1:32 AM | Business Wire Press ReleaseRepairPal, the leading resource for consumer car care, is proud to announce the RepairPal Certified shop network now has over 1,000 trusted auto repair shops nationwide. RepairPal performs an intensive audit to verify a shop’s business…
Windows 10 is coming to the new Raspberry Pi 2 February 2, 2015 1:14 AM | Paul Sawers On the same day the second incarnation of the Raspberry Pi mini computer for hardware hobbyists was unveiled, Microsoft revealed that Windows 10 will support the Raspberry Pi 2.
Raspberry Pi 2 gets 6X more processing power, 2X more memory in same credit card-size $35 package February 2, 2015 1:00 AM | Dean Takahashi The full ecosystem of Raspberry Pi apps will run on the new version.
Accenture unveils its vision for five big tech trends in 2015 February 1, 2015 11:00 PM | Dean Takahashi Big companies are embracing the Internet of Things and creating digital ecosystems that transcend any one business or industry.
Coke ad injects the Internet with sugar, and Weight Watchers slams fast food February 1, 2015 7:52 PM | Mark Sullivan The two best ads of Super Bowl 2015 were strangely related.