Category: Tech news

Pandora is getting a little more expensive. Starting in May, and for new subscribers, the Pandora One monthly subscription service will cost $5. Existing subscribers that remain active will keep paying $3.99 a month to listen to Pandora without any ads. Read More

Pebble is one company that came to mind when Google unveiled its Android Wear smartwatch (and eventually, other wearables) development platform. The small startup has been creating smartwatch hardware for years now, first as the Allerta inPulse smartwatch for BlackBerry devices, and then reinvented as the Pebble, the Kickstarter success that proved to the world smartwatches could be more than just… Read More

Nuzzel, the social news service created by Friendster founder Jonathan Abrams, is leaving beta testing and opening to all users.

Previously, you had to request an invite before you could use Nuzzel. In the year-plus since I first covered the company, Abrams said Nuzzel has brought on about 3,000 testers, but now it’s time to see whether the product appeals to a broader audience. Read More

So, this happened Today: Google Co-Founder Sergey Brin hung out with whistleblower Edward Snowden, who was attending the TED conference via a telepresence robot. You may want to read that last sentence again to let it sink in. Despite the very careful legal dance that tech giants have had to walk around the National Security Agency scandal, Snowden has been welcomed as a hero. In public… Read More

Cloudera, the startup that commercially distributes and services Apache Hadoop based data management software and services, has raised $160 million led led by T. Rowe Price, and including an investment by Google Ventures and an affiliate of MSD Capital, L.P., the private investment firm for Michael S. Dell. This brings the company’s total funding to $300 million. Read More

In case you hadn’t heard, there’s a new book out about Apple by ex-WSJ reporter Yukari Iwatani Kane called Haunted Empire. Kane covered the Apple beat at WSJ for years, and her book deals specifically with how the culture changed between Steve Jobs’ tenure and the succession of Tim Cook as CEO. Cook has just issued the following statement about the book to CNBC’s Becky… Read More

At Facebook, the security team isn’t holed up in some basement wearing tinfoil hats. It’s embedded across the company so any department dealing with sensitive data or access has security researchers inside it. Hinting at protecting against government surveillance, Facebook’s chief security officer Joe Sullivan said today that he’s confident enough in the company’s technical security that “Everyone… Read More

Boostable, which is part of the current class of startups at incubator Y Combinator, says it’s giving the individual sellers on online marketplaces a smarter way to promote themselves. If someone’s trying to promote (say) their products on Etsy, or their events on Eventbrite, or their housing on Airbnb, they can already buy ads for themselves. However, co-founder and CEO Selcuk Atli (pictured)… Read More

Anonymous social networking is the new social media. (Or the new “SoLoMo.” We’ll see.) Developers are attacking the space right and left these days, it seems, despite the controversies surrounding the ethics and morality of these services, which include apps like Secret, Whisper, Wut and YikYak, to name a few. The latest to join the fray is Sneeky, a new photo-sharing app which… Read More

There’s no question that the future of commerce lies in providing a more personalized experience to consumers. And Birchbox has quietly created an $80 million business out of a subscription e-commerce platform for beauty and grooming brands. In a post-Amazon world, creating a commerce brand, especially using the subscription model, is a huge feat. And Birchbox founders Hayley Barna and Katia… Read More

Entrepreneurs in India’s nascent but fast growing startup ecosystem are realizing that getting an early investor who appreciates their idea is increasingly becoming difficult. Sometimes it’s even tougher than finding their first paying customer. While there are active angel networks in the country, the early money and guidance is never enough for startups attempting to get the best… Read More

With its $930 million acquisition of business-to-business travel software provider TravelClick, private equity firm Thoma Bravo is showing that it’s more than just venture capital firms that are interested in the travel business. The private-equity firm, with offices in San Francisco and Chicago, is buying TravelClick from Genstar Capital and Bain Capital Ventures, which had put the company… Read More

The new HTC One might be the most leaked phone in history. Pics, specs, camera details release date and new features have leaked over the last few months long ahead of its March 25th debut. Even HTC itself got into the action with a series of videos. HTC clearly understands that a big reveal will have little impact on the HTC One’s future. Read More

It seems like we can’t go a week these days without hearing about some new startup making a new 3D printer that wants to be better and cheaper than everything else.

MadeSolid, a YC-backed company out of Emeryville, CA, is going after the 3D printing market from the other end: they want to fix the materials we 3D print with. Read More

OneNote for Mac has become most popular free Mac app in the App Store in a single day, besting OS X update Mavericks, which was released in October. The app is now available across both major PC platforms and all three mobile platforms for free. Response has been strong so far. Racking up more than 600 reviews in a day, OneNote for Mac is overwhelmingly rated highly, with more than half of them… Read More