On the heels of faculty backlashes to massive open online courses, three universities have pulled out of an online learning program with education company 2U. Read more »
… according to new statistics from Onavo, which tracks actual use of mobile apps and games by “millions” of iOS users. Read more »
Sprint buyout of U.S. Cellular in Chicago and St. Louis closed Friday, and it won’t keep its networks running for long. Customers can either trade in their U.S. Cellular devices with Sprint or look for a new carrier. Read more »
RapidShare used to be the world’s most popular one-click hoster, used by millions to store and share files. Now, it has to lay off 75 percent of its staff. Read more »
Reports indicate Apple is still working out the licensing details with music publishers for its “iRadio” service. Read more »
When soap operas “One Life to Live” and “All My Children” moved online, it wasn’t clear how fans would watch them. It turns out that most viewers are binge-watching — so the soaps’ production company is cutting back on the number of new episodes each week. Read more at paidContent »
Looking for a book suggestion? Culling information from your Twitter feed and turning that into accurate recommendations is harder than it looks, but Parakweet is looking to use natural language procesing to do just that. Read more »
Meridian works with companies that want to bring detailed location awareness to their mobile apps using their Wi-Fi networks as guideposts. If you’re Aruba, that’s not a bad feature to have in your access points. Read more »
It’s easy to characterize the cloud computing market as being Amazon Web Services’ to lose, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. McDonald’s dominates the fast food world, but life isn’t exactly bad for its dozens of competitors. Read more »
It’s an unfamiliar role for an Apple executive to be in. But Tim Cook will say that while he believes 35 percent is too high of a corporate tax, he also doesn’t think “zero” taxes on that money is reasonable. Read more »
In response to a question at a Google I/O talk on Thursday, luminaries from Google Research took a stab at predicting life 10 years from now. Here’s what they had to say. Read more »
The internet of things may be largely about connecting everyday objects, but who says design shouldn’t be a major focus? Not Berg and Benetton, who are partnering up on an Italian R&D facility called Sandbox. Read more »
While not exactly part of Siri, it is her voice that speaks to you. Spoken notifications come in handy for hands-free situations where you can’t pick up your phone, like driving, riding a bicycle or working out at the gym. Read more »
BeyondCore combines the power of machine learning and advanced statistical analysis with the simplicity of visual analysis and reporting. BeyondCore Light brings BeyondCore’s Automated Insight Discovery to business users at just $5,000 with a 100 percent satisfaction guarantee. Sign up today. Read more »
Book publishers discussed digital-first and digital-only initiatives at the Making Information Pay conference this week. Read more at paidContent »
With a team of reporters, GigaOM was all over Google I/O. Now that the news has settled, listen in on this week’s podcast to hear what it all means for the future of Google, Chrome, Android and you. Read more »
Startup Re:char hopes to deliver a low cost Android gadget plug-in that can test the moisture content and fertility of soil. Kenyan farmers get ready to meet the latest in data analytics and cloud services. Read more »
Yahoo wants to buy Tumblr. We hear Facebook might spoil the party. But the question is: is Tumblr the fountain of youth that Yahoo badly needs or will this be case of a pathetic old-middle aged guy hanging with youngsters trying to be hip. Read more »
To make sure the response time for their increasingly interactive sites stays low, Chrome developers might want to look at ways to make use of the graphic processors embedded in consumer devices. Read more »
Google’s support for the Bluetooth Smart Ready platform in Android is one step forward for the radio technology’s dominance in the internet of things. But the Bluetooth SIG has a lot more up its sleeve. Read more »
Tableau’s initial public offering is on Friday, and expectations are high. The company has inspired much of the next-generation analytics space, and how it fares could be telling about just how powerful the data movement is. Read more »
Former Groupon CEO Andrew Mason and App.net’s Dalton Caldwell are joining Y Combinator as new part-time partners, in addition to each running their new companies. Read more »
ViaSat-1 went up about 18 months ago, but the satellite broadband company is already planning its next-generation bird, ViaSat-2. The high-Earth orbiter will far exceed Via-Sat-1′s already impressive 140 Gbps of total capacity. Read more »
Google and the Catlin Seaview Survey are working as fast as they can to map the world’s coral reefs in Google Streetview. But the project’s founder fears he may be too late. Read more »
How do you deliver a new mobile operating system version without actually making it available for download? Give developers the tools to add new features through APIs and services: No muss, no fuss, and no additional device fragmentation. Read more »
My post about the Google+ redesign and the shift in direction from Facebook design has met with some well reasoned argument. Here I present my own arguments, and reason why I think the two design philosophies are moving in different direction. Read more »
Jelly has raised a Series A round to continue hiring and prototyping the mysterious mobile product from ex-Twitter executives. Still no word on what the company’s working on. Read more »
The first fully integrated nanosystem for artificial photosynthesis is developed for producing hydrogen with cheap components and biomimicry. Read more »
Google Glass is still leagues short having the thriving developer community of Android, but at I/O Google began seeding that app ecosystems with the help of six big-name web and media brands. Read more »
Startup Raise Labs wants to rethink college financial aid with a model that enables students to earn micro scholarships over the course of their high-school careers. Read more »
As a boom of solar panels continues to be installed on buildings throughout the U.S., companies, groups and even every day people can make money off of funding this clean energy transition. Read more »
Google launched its own music subscription service Wednesday. Currently, it’s not very different from all the other services out there. So how does it want to compete? Read more at paidContent »
Verizon’s prepaid plans are still more expensive than other no-contract operators, but you can now get 2 GB of 3G data on the $60 plan and 4 GB on the $70 plan. Read more »
It may not be pleasant for the competitors, but cloud competition is nothing but good for cloud consumers — whether they’re startups or Fortune 100 companies. Read more »
Blind trust in black box, or click-and-run, software is a growing problem in science, and the concern extends to big data and high performance computing. Read more »
Journalists and organizations now have the ability to use sensors to collect their own real-time data and report on it. The practice raises both practical and ethical questions, Columbia’s Emily Bell said Thursday. Read more at paidContent »
Google CEO Larry Page, who has been suffering from vocal cord issues, showed up at the end of the Google I/O keynote and spent some time talking about his vision of technology and took questions from the audience. And that’s when the fun started. Read more »
The new Google Hangouts brings together all of Google’s messaging services and will soon see SMS integration. So where does this leave Google Voice in the big picture? Read more »
Google said Thursday it is establishing a Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab to trigger the next phase of machine learning with the power of quantum computers. The efforts could trickle down to ordinary people. Read more »
The titans of the web are rebels, playing by their own rules. That is to be applauded at times, but we should also be thinking about the wider, long-term implications for society and fair competition. Read more »
