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Amazon today said it would make a bid to acquire Whole Foods for $13.7 billion, making it the largest acquisition for the company by far. The next-closest acquisition in price is $1.2 billion for Zappos, which happened all the way back in 2009. Since then it’s made a few big-ticket purchases like Twitch (around $1 billion) and Kiva Systems (a bunch of robots for around $775 million),… Read More
Source: Tech Crunch
Samsung’s much-touted, but mostly absent, smart assistant continues to amble its way to the U.S. After a big false start during the Galaxy S8’s launch, Bixby Voice is finally making its stateside debut. At least kind of, sort of. The company is positioning this is a “sneak peak” for the feature that was initially planned to debut on its new flagship phones. Starting… Read More
Source: Tech Crunch
Amazon was recently granted a patent that could be used to prevent brick-and-mortar retailers from leveraging technology in their stores that could stop shoppers from comparing prices of in-store products to those online. Yes, it appears that a new patent that could prevent the practice of “showrooming,” is now, hilariously, in the hands of Amazon – the very company that… Read More
Source: Tech Crunch
It’s only been a few days since she started her new job, but Alda Leu Dennis, the newest partner (and COO) of Initialized Capital, seems like she’s ready to hit the ground running. Given her background, that’s not surprising. Dennis just joined the 15-person, San Francisco-based firm from the secondary investment firm 137 Ventures, where she led investments in Planet Labs,… Read More
Source: Tech Crunch
The race to crown a winner in the AI-powered recruiting software space is on. With both Workey and Mya nabbing rounds in the last few weeks, the timing is prime for a few players to seek advantage in the form of growth capital. This seems to be exactly what Entelo, a six year old player in the space, is doing. The company is announcing a $20 million Series C round of financing today led by U.S. Read More
Source: Tech Crunch
In April we reported that Justin.tv founder and Y Combinator alum Justin Kan had assembled a team to “disrupt the legal industry” and was raising $10 million to do so. This week Kan confirmed that the company has completed its fundraising process, raising $10.5 million in what ended up being one of the biggest “party rounds” I’ve ever seen. Read More
Source: Tech Crunch
When it looks, feels and is packaged like a competitor’s, is it really competition or just a knockoff?
The Juiced Board comes dangerously close to echoing that sort of sentiment. Juiced and Boosted are words that loosely share the same meaning, but it’s the appearances where both electric skateboards really seem to converge.
Until now, I never would have recommended a sub-$1,000… Read More
Source: Tech Crunch
A series of policy changes at Amazon that detail how advertising will be supported within Alexa’s voice-enabled apps, called “Skills,” have now had their first casualty: VoiceLabs. The startup was the leading way for third-party developers to make money from their Alexa applications, through the use of VoiceLab’s “Sponsored Messages.” Unlike traditional… Read More
Source: Tech Crunch
The potential for VR truly boggles the mind. In the future, it’s easy to imagine the various use-cases in education, entertainment, business, and social. But like any new technology, VR needs a ‘gateway drug’, and thus far that initial use-case has been gaming. Sony is pushing PlayStation VR hard with a handful of new games, some existing and others brand new. Nintendo is… Read More
Source: Tech Crunch
Live TV streaming service Sling TV is today rolling out an improved DVR feature, while also making the option to record TV shows available on more devices and channels. The DVR is one of the key selling points for Sling TV, given the increased competition in the live TV space from newcomers like YouTube TV, Hulu (which recently added live TV), and AT&T’s DirecTV Now. According to… Read More
Source: Tech Crunch