Instead of commercial aspirations, SpaceIL wants to inspire a future generation of scientists. It is among 18 teams striving to reach the moon by the end of 2015. Read more »
Tests show that Samsung devices running Android 4.4 KitKat no longer run code to boost their benchmark scores. Read more »
More than one out of two people browsing the web in North America on an Android device do so on on a Samsung. The company picked up usage share according to Chitika, while HTC and Motorola declined. Read more »
Superangels including Joseph Alsop chip in for the new $3 million round, which brings total AppZero funding to about $14 million. Read more »
GoDaddy, formerly a CloudStack supporter, is the latest corporate sponsor among many of the OpenStack Foundation. Read more »
Home security is one of those emerging areas where the crowdfunding crowd sees an opportunity to provide something smarter, cheaper and disruptive to the existing industry. With $10 million, Canary hopes to invade the biz. Read more »
Capitalizing on the growing angst over privacy in today’s surveillance state, virtual operator FreedomPop has started selling a smartphone that routes all data traffic over a secure VPN and uses 128-bit encryption for VoIP calls and IP messaging. The device, which FreedomPop has dubbed the “Snowden Phone,” is actually a Samsung Galaxy S2 loaded with security software from Private Communications Corporation, which FreedomPop is pairing with a 500 MB, unlimited talk and text plan for $10 a month. Customers can change phone numbers as often as they like and even pay for the phone and service anonymously with Bitcoin.
Flipboard, a leading mobile news-reading and content-sharing app, is acquiring one of its main competitors — an app called Zite — from CNN for a reported $60 million and forming an advertising and content partnership with CNN for all of the media giant’s content Read more »
The Mophie Space Pack isn’t perfect, but it’s the most useful iPhone case I’ve ever tested. Read more »
Twitch’s latest SDK allows users to livestream plays of their favorite mobile games. Read more »
Competition is heating up in the larger Chromebook space. Toshiba’s Chromebook 13 gets reviewed and next month, Samsung’s Chromebook 2 arrives; both have large displays. And Chrome for Android gains a hidden new Chromecast trick: we tell you how to enable it. Read more »
Before we get drowned in cheap batteries, we’ll need better software to monitor and manage them, both optimizing their batteries use and keeping them safe. Read more »
Game developers live and die by the quality of their player experience. Poor performance can result in 70 percent less revenue on installs. Learn directly from game developers that your most important customer isn’t your next one from marketing but one struggling invisibly who could be saved by devops. Read more »
The company, which boasts 20 million active monthly users, now has a mobile app that lets users transfer up to 10GB in pictures and videos. Read more »
More than two years after making its debut on Android and iOS, the Facebook Messenger app is now available for Windows Phone. Although Windows Phone already has built-in support for Facebook messaging, the dedicated app adds features like group chat, location sharing, picture messaging and stickers. It’s still missing some features from its iOS and Android counterparts, though, like voice messaging. Still, it’s another positive step toward closing the app gap between Windows Phone and the competition.
Verizon Ventures leads an $11.2 million Series C round that will fund more product development and an expanded sales effort around the Java-based PaaS. Read more »
As Bitcoin works out its issues, the newest cryptocurrency startup accelerator backed by Match.com’s founder brings Ripple into the spotlight. Read more »
Google Capital is taking a foray into real estate with a large investment in Auction.com. Read more »
In the two months since Overstock started accepting Bitcoin payment, the e-commerce giant has accepted $1 million worth of sales in the cryptocurrency. What’s more, the firm, which partnered with Coinbase to handle the payments, said late Tuesday it now expects Bitcoin-based sales of between $10 to $15 million this year, which is twice or three times what it originally estimated. It’s still a small proportion of Overstock’s revenue, but it comes as validation for Bitcoin during troubled times, particularly as Overstock and Coinbase noted how low Bitcoin transaction fees improve net profitability for the retailer.
SU targets recent graduates, executives and startups with a curriculum and support focused on fast-changing technologies. Its goal is clear: shape the world’s discourse on inventions that could radically change the way we live. Read more »
Steve Mollenkopf became the third CEO of Qualcomm Tuesday, ending the reign of the Jacobs family over the 28-year-old business. Mollenkopf replaces Dr. Paul E. Jacobs, who will become the executive chairman as part of a transition plan that was announced in December. Paul Jacobs had risen to CEO in 2005 after his father and the inventor of CDMA, Irwin Jacobs, stepped down from the role. Qualcomm has managed to continue growing the company even as its CDMA technology has become a casualty of time and GSM networks, and Mollenkopf will see it expand beyond mobile into the internet of things.
A Huntsville, Ala., company is moving from the machine-to-machine world into cloud platforms and big data. Here’s how it did it and how it thinks its work could actually end up saving lives. Read more »
Dish may only have one broadcaster on board for its planned internet TV service, but the deal nonetheless represents a big step for the TV industry, and for people sick of paying for expensive bundles. Read more »
While the smart-grid sector and the oil and gas sector have a multitude of differences, they share a common trend: Both are adopting M2M to help lower costs and drive efficiencies. Read more at Gigaom Research »
Red Hat Enterprise Linux is, as of today, available on Amazon GovCloud, the separate U.S. cloud region for workloads that must meet certain federal regulations and compliance requirements. RHEL has been available on other Amazon EC2 regions since 2011, and last year Red Hat made a free tier of RHEL service available to some qualified users. RHEL is seen as the standard Linux for enterprise accounts that need to show they are supported by their vendors for compliance and legal reasons.
A Japanese tax on Bitcoin could mean that it’s no longer viewed as a currency, but a commodity. Read more »
Roku just introduced a new streaming stick that looks a lot like Chromecast, but is still a Roku device at heart. Read more »
Snapchat hired away a top Google engineer, then there was a story about it, and that’s where the trouble began. Read more »
Looking for a 13.3 inch Chromebook? At the moment, you have one and only one option: Toshiba’s Chromebook 13. For $299 or less, you get a solid performer with decent battery life but I hope you like plastic. Read more »
NCR isn’t just going after Square with its iPad point-of-sale terminal Silver. It’s now challenging loyalty platform startups like Belly in its attempts to crack the small brick-and-mortar business. Read more »
You can get a Kindle Paperwhite for $99 or a Kindle for as low as $49. Read more »
There are plenty of ways to do a backup. When it comes to virtual machines, you need the right approach. Why? VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V are incredible platforms, and you may miss out on the best restore scenarios. In case you care about that part. Read more »
Even if your data plans are as noble and necessary as they come, a failure to earn buy-in will leave you facing significant opposition. Read more »
This latest round brings the company’s total funding from an array of institutional investors and VCs to a whopping $210 million. Read more »
Didn’t get enough of the Samsung Galaxy S5 last week? No worries as Samsung shared a detailed look at the new phone today, showing a refined, simpler experience combined with new, useful features. Read more »
An e-commerce startup called Reflektion has raised an $8 million series B round of venture capital for its technology that helps retailers personalize the online shopping experience for consumers. Intel Capital led the round, and Nike and several private investors also pitched in. This seems like the latest thing in marketing — not just targeted advertising but entire tailored experiences for individual shoppers. It does add an Amazon-like recommendation experience, although one might fairly question whether most product catalogs are large enough to warrant it.
The UK-based Wellcome Trust, the world’s second-largest funder of medical research behind the Gates Foundation, has launched a free online magazine called Mosaic that is dedicated to longform science writing. The site will be run by former Times science editor Mark Henderson — who was involved with a monthly science magazine published by the Times called Eureka, which was shut down in 2012 — and will publish a new 3,000-word piece on a scientific topic every Tuesday. In an unusual twist, the content will be free for anyone to use under a Creative Commons license, provided they include attribution.
It’s an unprecedented moment in Myanmar’s history as the country opens up to financing, technology and connectivity. Will mobile payments play a role in transforming the country? Read more »
Facebook is reportedly in talks to acquire a drone company as a way of expanding its Internet.org initiative. Read more »
A new app lets you fight parking tickets right from your iPhone. Read more »
