Category: Tech news

 I’ll be in Chicago this week and I’d love to meet some startups. I’m thinking about holding a micro-mini-meetup on Tuesday, July 26 at a location to be determined. Here’s what I need from you all: Email or tweet me with recommendations where we can meet. I like to just hang out in bars but I could do a co-working space. I know there are a few in town but I’ve… Read More

 Researchers and companies have been exploring new ways to improve buildings through analytics software, prefabrication, connected devices, new materials and construction automation. It’s striking that most of these efforts are trying to patch problems within the legacy framework of “permanent” construction. Could it be that the one thing that is taken for granted is the… Read More

 Last year around this time, NASA released the first image of Earth taken by the EPIC camera on the DSCOVR satellite. Since then, that camera has captured a full year of our planet from its location at Lagrange Point 1 about one million miles away. Compiling over 3,000 images, NASA put together a video showing a sunlit Earth age one full year.   EPIC takes at least one set of images… Read More

 The Princeton Review and U.S. News & World Report recently published rankings of university entrepreneurship. Among the top 12 schools, the two lists share but a single institution. How can two highly regarded agencies compile lists of excellence with virtually no overlap? It’s hard to measure success when you don’t know what that success looks like. So what is the role of… Read More

 Cola, a messaging app that integrates apps into chats, is opening up its developer kit today to enable anyone to build new apps.
The updated version available today comes with 12 “bubbles” that are essentially applications that run inside the messaging app. Users can share weather and flight information, gifs, and more without creating accounts with individual tools. The… Read More

 As the graphics in games and movies edge closer and closer to photorealism, even the subtlest tricks of the light must be simulated. For years an especially tough one has been recreating the sparkling, uneven surfaces of water, metals and other materials — but these glints can now be rendered 100 times faster than before thanks to a new technique from computer scientists at UC San Diego. Read More

 Although Pao was seen as the driving force behind efforts to make Reddit respectable enough to appeal to advertisers, the company continued its clean-up after her departure, making diverse hires and keeping up with the anti-harassment policy instituted during Pao’s tenure. But Reddit, led by CEO Steve Huffman, seems to be struggling with its reform. Over the past six months, over a… Read More

 Pandora, in a story we’ve seen before with many other maturing companies, is facing an existential crisis.
The company now finds itself fighting for its life against competition from the core platforms its service exists on: Android and iOS. Both of them — and Amazon as well — have launched their own music-streaming products, and they’re baked into the core experience. Read More

 Monotype, a publicly traded company focused on font design and technology, announced today that it’s acquiring Olapic, a startup that helps brands promote themselves with user-generated photos. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter of this year — at that point, Olapic will operate as a division of Monotype. The purchase price is $130 million, plus $19 million in… Read More

 Mercedes-Benz parent company Daimler intends to up its spending on research and development, the company revealed during its quarterly earnings call on Thursday. The high-end car maker is going to route a lot more money toward areas key to the future of driving, including autonomous driving tech, a brand new generation of batteries for electric vehicles and alternative drive… Read More

 Donald J. Trump is, to put it gently, not well liked within the Silicon Valley tech industry — and not because it is the liberal bastion it’s often portrayed to be. Mary Meeker, Meg Whitman and other tech leaders are die-hard members of the Republican Party and plenty of those among the valley’s tech elite, including Marc Andreessen, Sean Parker and Elon Musk have given… Read More

 Roger Ailes has officially resigned as chairman and CEO of Fox News, according to an announcement from parent company 21st Century Fox.
The resignation follows a lawsuit alleging that Ailes sexually harassed Gretchen Carlson, a former Fox anchor. (Ailes claimed that the suit was retaliation for Fox’s decision not to renew Carlson’s contract.) There are reports that an internal… Read More

 Poke failed. Slingshot failed. But Facebook is still trying to mimic Snapchat with a new Stories-style feature it’s been testing called “Quick Updates”. These 24-hour ephemeral updates are buried in a special part of the app, and won’t show up in News Feed or on your profile. We received these screenshots from our reader Tiffany Zhong of Binary Capital who is one of… Read More

 PayPal reported earnings after the bell on Thursday, showing $2.65 billion in revenue for the quarter, when analysts were expecting $2.6 billion. Adjusted earnings per share was also in line with Wall Street estimates at 36 cents. Shares ticked up 2 percent in after-hours trading, in part because of a Visa announcement that was timed with earnings. The new partnership with Visa emphasized… Read More

 Wall Street quieted Pandora today following mediocre earnings and news that Pandora’s board rejected a $3.4 billion acquisition offer at about $15 per share from SiriusXM radio owner Liberty Media, according to The Wall Street Journal. That would have been a few dollars higher than its existing price, signaling high hopes for the company from leadership despite this quarter’s… Read More