Category: Tech news

 After Uber and Lyft emerged to fundamentally challenge taxis and change on-demand transit, a wave of bus startups has cropped up to address group and scheduled transportation. Chariot, a bootstrapped San Francisco-based startup that got off the ground earlier this year with a line from the Marina to downtown is taking a slightly novel approach to generating ideas for new routes.… Read More

 UpWest Labs was founded in 2012  with a simple idea. Israel has tons of startup talent, but much of the funding is in the U.S. The founders decided to put the two together and bring a small group of promising Israeli entrepreneurs to the U.S. for four months to meet customers, partners and investors. Today marks the 8th graduating class. Today’s graduating group is comprised of 7… Read More

 Google’s Chrome OS may be a long-term sleeper hit thanks to a growing user population among U.S. students – IDC’s new figures for tablets and laptop sales in K-12 education finds that Chromebooks as a category constitute the best-selling device across the entire category in 2014.
Chromebooks are probably succeeding in schools due to a few factors, including Google’s… Read More

 Another billion-user milestone for Facebook: The company now has over 1 billion messaging users, after today announcing that it has passed 500 million monthly active users for Messenger, on top of the 600 million active users that Facebook-owned WhatsApp now has. In Facebook’s last earnings presentation, CEO Mark Zuckerberg noted that “products don’t really get that… Read More

 I think, and this is more of a guess than anything else, that Senator Cruz is indicating that the FCC putting in place net neutrality regulations that will preserve the open Internet and keep the web a level playing field for all players regardless of their size or wealth, is quite similar to a healthcare law that involves state and federal insurance exchanges, special taxes on medical… Read More

 Nothing sells like “free.” Microsoft Word is now the number one free iPhone and iPad application on iTunes, closely followed by other Microsoft Office apps including Excel and PowerPoint. The apps have shot up to the top of Apple’s App Store after last week’s pricing changes. Before, Microsoft had required iPad users to subscribe to Office 365 in order to create… Read More

 This morning President Barack Obama presented a net neutrality plan, advocating for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to reclassify broadband under Title II of the  Telecommunications Act. That solution has long been the favorite of the most ardent net neutrality advocates. The FCC’s Chairman Tom Wheeler quickly replied, noting just how far along the comment, and… Read More

 Apple has been building up its regional presence outside of Cupertino, and the United Kingdom appears to be one of its latest targets. The company is reportedly “weeks” away from opening a new office in the university town of Cambridge, UK — news that comes on the heels of Apple quietly hiring five employees from the defunct London-based mapping app Pin Drop. Taken… Read More

 Unemployment in the U.S. is declining, as demand for new jobs picks up across the country, and nowhere is the need more acutely felt than in tech industry. With its heady mix of Horatio Alger rags-to-riches success stories, its emphasis on individualism and privileging hard work and education, no industry is a better poster child for post-industrial American capitalism than the startup world… Read More

 Firefox is turning 10 today and to celebrate, Mozilla is launching a couple of new projects today, including a new privacy initiative and the Firefox Developer Edition, a new version of Firefox that puts the browser’s developer tools front and center. Read More

 Meet Mooltipass, a device taking aim at the password problem — the problem being we desperately need better passwords to secure our digital stuff but our feeble human minds have trouble remembering enough complex strings to maintain robust security across a range of services. Read More

 DogVacay has just raised $25 million in Series B1 funding, according to a report from Fortune. DogVacay confirmed the funding to TechCrunch. The company, which provides a service to replace kennels for dog owners, has been operating since 2012 and has now raised a total of $47 million. One year and one month ago exactly, in October 2013, DogVacay raised a $15 million Series B led by… Read More

Belkin’s Smart LED Bulbs don’t break any new ground, but the WeMo starter kit does offer some genuinely useful automation options that other Wi-Fi bulbs lack.

The post Star Light appeared first on WIRED.

 Springleap has traveled from its offices in Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa, to Brooklyn to set up its global headquarters and bring a new model for crowdsourced design to the “Mad Men” of Madison Avenue. The company started as a design competition website, allowing brands to post competitions and offer prizes to the best designers for various campaigns. “That in… Read More

 Hey, remember ReservationHop? You know, the much-criticized service that promised to sell restaurant reservations to users? Well, founder Brian Mayer is officially abandoning the idea. The service seemed to attract the hatred of pretty much every tech journalist on Twitter (or at least the ones I follow) back in July — in fact, it spurred our own Josh Constine to write a post asking… Read More