EXCLUSIVE: AppCard, a mobile-first loyalty marketing program for small and medium-sized retailers is announcing $20 million in Series B funding, led by Alexander Rittweger, founder of Loyalty Partner and PLDT capital. PLDT Capital is the strategic investment arm of Philippine Lon … | Continue reading
Struggling Japanese electronics firm Sharp had almost secured a takeover deal with manufacturer Foxconn today, but the plans have been put on hold at the last minute. | Continue reading
PARIS (Reuters) – France is seeking 1.6 billion euros ($1.76 billion) in back taxes from U.S. Internet giant Google, criticized for its use of aggressive tax optimization techniques, a source at the finance ministry said on Wednesday. “As far as our country is concerned, back tax … | Continue reading
A new ranking of European Union member states by their technical progress has produced some surprising winners and losers that are bound to provoke some heated dissent. Most notably, France, which has been investing loads of money to promote itself as a forward-thinking, tech sav … | Continue reading
(Reuters) – Sharp has agreed to a takeover by Taiwan’s Foxconn, sources familiar with the matter said, the largest acquisition of a Japanese tech firm by a foreign company and one that will bolster Foxconn’s position as Apple’s biggest supplier. The Taiwanese firm, known formall … | Continue reading
Speaking on national television in his first public remarks since the rapid ascent of the Apple-FBI iPhone encryption debate, Apple chief executive Tim Cook said today spoke out against the notion that the controversy is boils down to the cause of privacy versus the cause of nati … | Continue reading
Sony and Naughty Dog dealt with a major goof with their otherwise brilliant Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End story trailer released today. Ubisoft’s Azaïzia Aymar noticed that the video contained an image lifted from Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag video game, and he said so on … | Continue reading
AMSTERDAM — If you spend millions of dollars on something, you would hope that you know exactly what that something is. But that was not the case for one of the biggest publishers in Eastern Europe. Wargaming, the publisher responsible for the online multiplayer shooters World of … | Continue reading
GUEST: This year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas showed the world a ton of nominally “smart” new tech. And now, with spring approaching, Mobile World Congress in Barcelona has folks from around the globe marveling at how interconnected we are with all our smart stuff and … | Continue reading
VB WEBINAR: Don’t miss this opportunity to join VB analyst Jon Cifuentes and guest panelist Move Inc. CMO Nate Johnson as they drill down into the most important things you need from an email marketing platform — and which vendors are in greatest demand, and why. Register here fo … | Continue reading
In the United States, companies spend more than $800 billion each year on salesforce compensation, making it one of the largest marketing investments for any enterprise business. But the ways for managing this model are antiquated and time-consuming, which makes it prime for a dr … | Continue reading
Andreessen Horowitz is announcing today that it has hired Martìn Casado — cofounder and chief executive of hot software defined networking (SDN) startup Nicira, which was acquired by VMware for $1.26 billion in 2012 — as a general partner of the prominent venture capital firm. An … | Continue reading
It took a few decades, but Fire Emblem is no longer one of Nintendo’s third-stringers. Fire Emblem: Fates, the latest entry in Nintendo’s tactical fantasy role-playing game (read our review) has surpassed 300,000 copies sold in the United States in its first week, according to th … | Continue reading
Following years of rumors, Microsoft has acquired Xamarin, a company that aids cross-platform development of mobile applications. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. “With today’s acquisition announcement we will be taking this work much further to make our world class developer … | Continue reading
TodayTix announced yesterday that it closed a $9 million series B round to expand its on-demand service so you can buy last-minute theater tickets today (you know I had to). Walden Venture Capital and TYLT Ventures co-led the investment. Both Walden managing director Art Berliner … | Continue reading
Google today announced updates to Google Docs that builds on the speech recognition capabilities it introduced a few months ago. “We launched Voice typing in Google Docs to help you capture ideas, compose a letter, or even write the next great novel—all without touching your keyb … | Continue reading
Two decades ago, Nintendo unleashed the first Pokémon games in Japan. This Friday, Nintendo will celebrate that milestone with fans. A Pokémon-themed Nintendo Direct livestreaming video event is coming Friday at 7 a.m. Pacific time (10 a.m. Eastern). This is not only a chance for … | Continue reading
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End’s newest story trailer is all about a dramatic choice that adventure Nathan Drake faces in the what could be the final installment in the Uncharted series. This game is probably the best thing that Sony has coming for the PlayStation 4, which has sold m … | Continue reading
Google has announced that it’s looking to bring Fiber to San Francisco and will be using the city’s existing fiber network to help accomplish that. It said that by doing so, “we can bring service to residents more quickly.” However, the company was light in terms of the details o … | Continue reading
Polish marketing startup SalesManago announced today that it closed a $6 million investment from Austria’s 3TS Capital Partners. The startup said that the round will allow it to further build its marketing automation technology and expand in Europe. SalesManago promises it provid … | Continue reading
Ashes of the Singularity is an upcoming real-time strategy game for the PC where tons of things can move around on the screen simultaneously. As such, it requires a lot of 3D graphics horsepower to run fluidly. That’s why graphics chip maker Advanced Micro Devices is teaming up w … | Continue reading
All of Warren Spector’s games over the past few decades have been about “emergent gameplay,” which give players choices so that they can solve problems in their own way. Spector has been religious about this view, which contrasts to the tastes of game writers such as Amy Hennig, … | Continue reading
Glu Mobile has seen ups and downs with its celebrity mobile games, and now it’s on the ups again thanks to its release of Kendall & Kylie, based on the lives of reality stars Kendall and Kylie Jenner. Founded in 2001, Glu toiled away for years in mobile until it scores a huge suc … | Continue reading
Yahoo today is releasing some key artificial intelligence software (AI) under an open-source license. The company last year built a library called CaffeOnSpark to perform a popular type of AI called “deep learning” on the vast swaths of data kept in its Hadoop open-source file sy … | Continue reading
One of Las Vegas’ most well-known venture capital firms is undergoing a bit of transformation. The VegasTechFund has rebranded itself to highlight its changing focus. Now calling itself VTF Capital, it’s setting out to make investments throughout the United States in startups wit … | Continue reading
SPONSORED: Big data is becoming part of the real world and every company's DNA -- not just the domain of data scientists and the enterprise. Learn how the world's leading companies, big and small, are using it to evolve their businesses for the 21st century at Structure Data, Mar … | Continue reading
PRESS RELEASE: Zero Gravity Solutions, Inc.'s (ZGSI or the Company) (Pink Sheets: ZGSI), an agricultural biotechnology public company commercializing its technology derived from and designed for Space with significant applications on Earth, has... | Continue reading
EXCLUSIVE: Mark Skaggs is a seasoned game designer whose hits such as FarmVille and Empires & Allies reached more than 365 million people. But after seven years at social mobile game giant Zynga, he resigned last fall to his next big thing. And today, he’s revealing that his futu … | Continue reading
FEATURE: Freshdesk, which offers customer support software, is today launching Hotline.io, an in-app, real-time messaging service. In an interview, Freshdesk president Dilawar Syed said he hopes Hotline.io will make Freshdesk the most robust in-app messaging support service on th … | Continue reading
Google announced today that it has finished rolling out fast-loading webpages in mobile Google search results as part of its Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) Project. These pages appear on mobile devices four times faster than the same pages built without the technology, and they u … | Continue reading
AMSTERDAM — Consumers haven’t even had the chance to buy some of the most promising virtual reality devices yet, but the industry is already looking toward a future where all VR is mobile. But if we’re going to get to that point, the industry will need to solve a few key problems … | Continue reading
Tastee Beverage Studios plans to release a sci-fi combat racing game for the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset. The title is one of many launch titles coming for the Rift, which Facebook’s Oculus VR is launching on March 28. The launch is one of the biggest events for VR, which … | Continue reading
Captain401 announced today that it has raised $3.5 million for its employee retirement platform. The round was led by SoftTech VC and included participation from SV Angel, CrunchFund, Slow Ventures, Susa Ventures, FundersClub, legendary NFL quarterback Joe Montana, and others. Wi … | Continue reading
AMSTERDAM — The price of oil continues to drop, but Saudi Arabia still has cash to burn on mobile games. Only around 30 million people live in Saudi Arabia, but that population generates approximately $350 million per year in revenues for mobile games, according to research firm … | Continue reading
How you respond to your friends on Facebook is about to change, as the social networking company begins rolling out its new Reactions worldwide. The new feedback “emotions” offer you more ways to react to someone’s post by including responses such as love, laughter, excitement, s … | Continue reading
BARCELONA, Spain — When Ashi Hoseini, manager of mobile solutions for Scandinavian Airlines (SAS), began talking to IBM about creating apps that might help its crews be more efficient, she got the kind of offer many techies can only dream about: An offer to fly to Cupertino and w … | Continue reading
ANALYSIS: So Xiaomi’s Mi5 launch event came and went today, and the Chinese smartphone maker unveiled some impressive specs for a device that will cost in the region of $350. However, Xiaomi won’t be making its grand entry into the global smartphone arena anytime soon. In the bui … | Continue reading
Virgin Pulse, a company focused on improving the lives of employees, has merged with two of its competitors —ShapeUp and Global Corporate Challenge Unite — in a move to dominate the corporate wellness market. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, and the company said it … | Continue reading
China-based smartphone maker Xiaomi has officially unveiled its new flagship phone, the first to be made available globally. As expected, Xiaomi lifted the lid on the latest device in its Mi series at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, where former Googler and current glob … | Continue reading
EXCLUSIVE: A Facebook executive said yesterday that Facebook’s Messenger would be opening itself up to marketing, but he avoided using the word “ads” to describe the service, in what appeared to be a subtle correction of a report released last week saying Facebook will soon “laun … | Continue reading
If only customer support were more … human. RevTwo is coming out of stealth mode today with a new way to offer support for people while they are using an app. It works for when you are stuck in a game and need a hint, or when your app isn’t working right. RevTwo has created […] | Continue reading
IndoorAtlas, which helps you navigate inside enclosed buildings such as shopping malls, has teamed up with Yahoo Japan to deliver indoor positioning services across Japan. Palo Alto, California-based IndoorAtlas has been conducting beta tests in places such as San Francisco for i … | Continue reading
GUEST: As I read the 100th news article about the impending collapse in early stage funding, I am reminded of the Warren Buffett quote: “You want to be greedy when others are fearful. You want to be fearful when others are greedy. It’s that simple.” ~ Warren Buffett I admit takin … | Continue reading
I’m guessing you like free games. Here’s some details about the free game’s you could get in March. Microsoft today revealed what Xbox Live Gold members will receive in March. From March 1 to March 15, Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishment for Xbox One and Supreme Commander 2 fo … | Continue reading
One of the biggest releases of 2015 is about to get even larger thanks to its community, and for once, this doesn’t only apply to the PC. Mod support is coming to the Windows version of Fallout 4 in April, according to Bethesda director Todd Howard (via an interview with Game Inf … | Continue reading
Zynga has put its San Francisco headquarters up for sale, confirming a report today from the San Francisco blog SFist. The social mobile game company’s headcount is down around 2,300 or so, significantly down from its peak above 3,500 people. That means it doesn’t need as much sp … | Continue reading
Billing platform for enterprises Aria Systems announced last week that it closed a $50 million investment. Rembrandt Venture Partners, Madison Bay Capital Partners, and Hercules Technology Growth Capital joined the round as new investors. Aria said that “investor interest was fue … | Continue reading
Battery Ventures led an $18 million investment for ecommerce analytics startup Reflektion, while private investors Marc Benioff and Ray Lane followed. The San Mateo, California-based startup, which has clients like Disney, HBO, Converse, and Uniqlo, says its Individualized Commer … | Continue reading