Ahead of going public, Spotify Chief Content Officer Stefan Blom announced today he’s leaving the company, Recode first reported. “We are grateful for Stefan’s many contributions to the company over the years and we wish him the very best,” a Spotify spokesperson told TechCrunch. Read More
Source: Tech Crunch
Robots are hard. Softbank has pumped a bunch of money into them, and the best it’s come up with so far is Pepper, a friendly humanoid that stands outside of stores and restaurants, tablet in-hand. LG announced this time last year that it was planning to move before vacuuming cleaners, into a wider world of robotics, and thus far, its own products have followed a similar route.
Last… Read More
Source: Tech Crunch
Buying event tickets online isn’t a great experience. Sites like Ticketmaster are the default, but are difficult to use and expensive. A startup called Lea wants to offer a more modern experience by combining event search, discovery, seat selection and payment all in a single application that works right in Facebook Messenger. Yes, that’s right – Lea is a chatbot. And while… Read More
Source: Tech Crunch
Microsoft’s in a weird spot with Cortana. The company’s smart assistant is deployed on countless PCs, by way of Windows 10, but it’s constantly playing second fiddle to the likes of Alexa, Siri and Google Assistant. That’s in no small part because that the company hasn’t done a great job moving beyond the desktop and laptop to devices where voice control makes a… Read More
Source: Tech Crunch
Ethereum tokens (ethers) have reached $1,000 on multiple major exchanges for the first time ever. This is an all-time high and the result of a multiple-day rally. The total market capitalization of ethers currently available is now $100 billion. And yet, ethers only represent around 13 percent of all cryptocurrencies out there. 2017 may have been a huge year for cryptocurrencies across the… Read More
Source: Tech Crunch
Google Cloud today announced the launch of preemptible GPUs. Like Google’s preemptible VMs (and AWS’s comparable spot instances), these GPUs come at a significant discount — in this case, 50 percent. But in return, Google may shut them down at any point if it needs these resources. All you get is a 30-second warning. You also can only use any given preemptible GPU for up to… Read More
Source: Tech Crunch
Apple announced today it will begin allowing select publishers to waive the membership fees associated with its App Developer Program. Specifically, the new fee waivers will be offered to “nonprofit organizations, accredited educational institutions, and government entities,” says Apple. For starters, the waivers will be available in the U.S., but the company had said in December… Read More
Source: Tech Crunch
Earlier today, we reported that Didi was in the process of acquiring 99, a ridesharing company in Brazil, and now the two companies have confirmed the deal as part of Didi’s plans to expand its service into Latin America. Terms of the deal were not disclosed — we are asking — but earlier today we noted that Didi was effectively putting in $900 million — $600 million to… Read More
Source: Tech Crunch
Last October, Google announced a redesigned look and feel for Google Calendar on the desktop. Not everybody loves the design (including me, though some people have told me I’m wrong), but soon your opinion won’t matter because Google is about to upgrade your Calendar to the new design anyway. As the company announced today, G Suite users whose admins chose to be on the Rapid… Read More
Source: Tech Crunch
Daily fantasy sports platform FanDuel just announced The Bitcoin Bowl, a promotion that will last the length of the NFL playoffs and give winners a chance to win some bitcoin. They’ll be two contests – one is a single-entry free contest where the winner wins 1 bitcoin, and one is a multi-entry $3 contest that has a tiered payout – 1st place will get 2 bitcoin, 2nd place will… Read More
Source: Tech Crunch
