Microsoft’s dumping of 7,800 employees and taking a $7.6 billion write-down related to its purchase of Nokia’s phone manufacturing operation was a cheap price to pay to vanquish the ghost of the Steve Ballmer era.
Given that the world is full of hunger, volatile food prices, and social unrest, a pair of recent MIT Sloan Business School graduates have launched a mobile application called Spoiler Alert to make it quick and easy for companies to sell or donate millions of tons of surplus food.
Global venture capitalists invested $56.31 billion in 4,894 deals during the first half of 2015–the lowest number of deals recorded by the Pitchbook blog over a six month period in the last 25 years. The major reason for a smaller number of companies being funded is that venture capitalists are throwing huge amounts of money at a small number of “unicorns.”
“Live under the stars in the great outdoors of Silicon Valley for a mere $900 a month.” A Mountain View, California man is renting out a tent in his backyard.
On the heels of Apple Music’s $9.99 streaming service getting the bodyslam from a 99-pounder named Taylor Swift, Google has just rolled out “Play Music,” which will offer a free, ad-supported streaming music service. Combined with their “All Access” subscription product released in May, Google appears positioned to crush both Spotify and Apple Music.
Marketing company Turn Inc. of Redwood City has been sued in what looks to be a huge mass tort lawsuit alleging a conspiracy with telecommunications giant Verizon Wireless to engage in undisclosed tracking and storing of Internet browsing histories.
If Robin Leach visited the headquarters of Fibit, Inc. in San Francisco today, it would be all “champagne wishes and caviar dreams” as the leading wearable fitness tracker raised $793.5 million at a stunning valuation of $4.1 billion in the largest initial public offering (IPO) by any consumer electronics company in history.
The California Labor Comission just ruled that Uber must treat its drivers like normal employees, rather than independent contractors, potentially forcing the company to pay benefits and cover expenses. The decision is being hailed as a victory for worker rights and a major blow to the growing billion-dollar transportation startup.
After top tech talent from Silicon Valley helped rescue President Obama’s disastrous healthcare website launch, he decided that there was much more the brightest in Silicon Valley could do for the federal government. According to an interview with Fast Company, the President has been personally recruiting top talent from the likes of Google and Facebook to build next-generation government services.
The “gig economy” is the term for corporations embracing the “on demand economy,” “collaborative consumption” and “sharing economy” bandwagons to restructure “work” into small projects of limited duration so that big business can justify legally dumping employees and hiring contractors. With employee benefit costs exceeding 46 percent of wages and workplace litigation spiking, “employees” don’t exist in the future of work.
Google has just announced a brand new initiative to improve city life, Sidewalk Labs, which will tackle cost of living, transportation, and the environment for urban citizens. While details are scant, it’s worth noting that suburban-based Google is just the latest influential tech giant to join the “cities” bandwagon.
Strange Loop, an annual tech and innovation conference in St. Louis, Missouri, is facing allegations of political intolerance after disinviting a software engineer and influential political theorist from its 2015 lineup. Software engineer Curtis Yarvin was scheduled to give a
With San Francisco offering massive tax incentives to redevelop 77 dilapidated warehouse buildings into a “Twitter Town” for the “digerati” venture capital crowd, the adjacent Mission District community is now in turmoil, as the city’s poor are being booted to make room for new buildings and Airbnb vacation rental conversions.
Bay Area employees are trading in their caffeine for dancing with a new trend that has hit San Francisco: early morning dance parties, minus the booze.
A new economic analysis finds that Santa Clara Country could completely end its homeless problem at zero net cost by providing public housing for every single person living on the street. The study, from the Knowledge for Greater Good Economic
Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel revealed Tuesday at the California Code Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes that the company is planning for an initial public offering (IPO). He said the company, recently valued at $15 billion, had no desire to be acquired in a merger like the Facebook’s $3 billion offer two years ago. Then, in a refreshing twist for such a young captain of industry, Spiegel warned that the Fed’s “easy money policy” and low interest have created a tech bubble and it’s only a “matter of time till it bursts.”
Buying AOL, Inc. was a deal Verizon had to make, given that Verizon’s bundled telephone, Internet and pay-TV services seem headed toward serious decline.
Going “clear” is in this year. First as a perfect score for horse jumping; then in Alex Gibney’s Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival; and now as the new project of Ethan Czahor, who had to resign as Chief Technical Officer (CTO) of the Jeb Bush Presidential campaign over some nasty old offensive tweets. Czahor has just launched a new iOS app called “Clear” to purge offensive “stuff” you may have posted on social media.
The Bloomberg Innovation Index, which ranks countries based on tech developments including research and development, tech education, and patents, placed the United States in sixth place with regard to overall innovation, research and development (R&D), and education. The U.S. followed South Korea, Japan, Germany, and Finland.
Last week, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler announced, via an op-ed in Wired, magazine, that the FCC would reclassify the American Internet infrastructure as a utility under Title II of the Telecommunications Act of 1934.
Until recently, Apple, like the queen in Snow White, may have been the fairest visionary company of all, but there’s a Snow White company challenging Apple as the cutting edge of business: Tesla.
Consumer Electronics Show 2015 opened Monday morning in Las Vegas to throngs of the digerati hoping to get a peek at the latest technology trends and styles. Unlike shows in the past that featured connected gadgets and media, this year’s focus seems to be on the automobile as the ultimate connected consumer electronics platform.
