Oops! Don’t say ‘Google’ in your Alexa voice app, Amazon says

 The competition between Alexa and Google Assistant is fierce. How fierce? Cover all of Las Vegas in Google Assistant ads for CES fierce? Put voice assistance in weird things like a light switch or a fridge fierce? How about “don’t dare utter our competitor’s name in your voice app” fierce? Yep, Amazon has banned Alexa app developers from saying “Google”… Read More


Source: Tech Crunch

Square Cash expands bitcoin buying and selling to all users

 A few months ago we wrote that Square’s peer-to-peer payment app called Square Cash was running a bitcoin trial for select users. These users had the ability to buy and sell bitcoin using whatever payment method they had attached to the app. Well now the payments company just announced that all users (except those in New York, Georgia, Hawaii, or Wyoming) have access to bitcoin trading… Read More


Source: Tech Crunch

Polymail looks to unify business email tools into a single web app

Touchscreen Email Concept If you’re more of a Gmail power user (or even semi-power user) and other email services geared toward work, you’ve probably installed plenty of plugins like Rapportive to make your job a little bit easier. And while it’s all fine to try to pull together a suite of plugins to make that a little bit easier, a startup called Polymail is hoping to rope that all into a single hub… Read More


Source: Tech Crunch

Actress Maisie Williams to launch Daisie, a social app for talent discovery and collaboration

 Actress Maisie Williams, best known for her role as Arya Stark on Game of Thrones, is the latest celeb to venture into tech entrepreneurship, with the launch of a new company aimed at connecting creatives, called Daisie. Available later this summer as a mobile app, Daisie will offer a platform where creators can network, like, share and collaborate on projects within a social networking… Read More


Source: Tech Crunch

So, what’s up with Amazon’s Alexa Super Bowl ad?

 Ah, the Super Bowl. That magical time of year we gather around the T.V. set and pay just as much attention to the ads that run between plays. Increasingly, though, you can get much of that precious advertising viewing experience out of the way before the big game even starts.
After offering a brief online tease for its upcoming ad, Amazon’s gone ahead and posted all 90 seconds of… Read More


Source: Tech Crunch

Google is launching a new digital store to sell cloud-based software

 Google is launching a digital store that will offer cloud-based software to companies and other organizations. Bloomberg, which reported the news a bit earlier, notes the move is just the juggernaut’s latest effort to ensure that cloud leaders, and specifically Amazon Web Services, don’t leave the company in the dust. Google isn’t launching the store alone but rather… Read More


Source: Tech Crunch

Amazon’s new healthcare company could give smaller health tech players a boost

Jeff Bezoz, CEO of Amazon. JPMorgan Chase and Berkshire Hathaway have joined forces with Amazon to form a new healthcare company for all U.S. employees. Right now details are so sparse that there’s not even a name associated with the new company. However, this is big news for the industry and could possibly have ramifications not only for health insurance giants, but for also smaller tech companies that are open… Read More


Source: Tech Crunch

Apple reportedly under investigation by SEC and DOJ for phone slowdown

 The U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission are jointly investigating Apple’s communications about the software update that slowed down older models of the iPhone, Bloomberg is reporting. Citing sources familiar with the matter, the government has reportedly requested details on the company’s communications about the software update. The Bloomberg… Read More


Source: Tech Crunch

Contraception app still being probed by medical agency over unwanted pregnancies

 Is there such a thing as bad publicity? It’s an interesting and contested question. To wit: Self styled ‘digital contraception’ app, Natural Cycles — which relies on a set of proprietary algorithms and women inputting their morning body temperature to predict fertility levels each day — has claimed that negative headlines generated after a clinic reported a number… Read More


Source: Tech Crunch