Maria Deutscher
Latest from Maria Deutscher
Amazon marks ‘record-breaking’ holiday season with 1.5B+ items shipped
Amazon.com Inc. kicked off the last week of 2020 this morning by sharing data about its holiday season e-commerce sales and detailing some of the operational changes it has implemented to adjust to the pandemic. Amazon delivered more than 1.5 billion items to customers worldwide this holiday, the company said. The figure only includes shipped ...
Bloomberg acquires Y Combinator-backed data startup Second Measure
Bloomberg LP has acquired Second Measure Inc., a five-year-old startup with a market data platform used by investors and tech giants to inform business decisions. The transaction was announced today. Second Measure has raised more than $25 million in funding from backers including Y Combinator, Goldman Sachs, Bessemer Venture Partners and others. Second Measure operates ...
DeepMind’s new MuZero AI develops ‘superhuman’ chess skills by making plans
Google LLC’s DeepMind artificial intelligence research unit today detailed MuZero, a deep learning system that can master Go, chess and other games even if it’s not told the playing rules. MuZero’s impressive game-solving skills stem from its ability to plan what’s the best course of action in a given scenario. It’s this planning capability that’s ...
Zoom is reportedly developing email and calendar services
Zoom Video Communications Inc. is reportedly looking to create more competition for Google LLC and Microsoft Corp. in the productivity market. According to sources who spoke to The Information for a report published today, Zoom is developing its own web-based email service and may launch an accompanying calendar tool as well. The tipsters didn’t divulge ...
Rocketing past forecasts, US 5G spectrum auction draws nearly $70B in bids
A U.S. government auction of 5G frequency rights has drawn offers worth close to $70 billion and the figure could go even higher before bidding concludes, according to a new report. The Wall Street Journal reported today that the yet-unnamed bidders have made offers totaling some $69.8 billion so far. The auction, run by the ...
Cloudflare picks up web development startup Linc to boost expansion strategy
Cloudflare Inc. today said that it has acquired Bitgenics Pty Ltd., better known as Linc, an Australian startup with technology for simplifying the development of web applications. The deal’s size was not disclosed. It’s aimed at advancing Cloudflare’s recent efforts to expand in the web application market, where the company is already a major player ...
Report: Facebook and Google agreed to cooperate against antitrust action
Facebook Inc. and Google LLC signed an agreement to cooperate with one another to fend off potential antitrust action targeting their businesses, according to a Wall Street Journal report published today. The report attributes the information to a draft copy of a lawsuit that was filed against Google last week by 10 Republican state attorneys ...
StepZen raises $8M round to simplify application data workflows
StepZen Inc., a new developer tooling startup, today launched with $8 million in initial funding and a platform that it says can enable software teams to build applications more quickly. The startup is led by former executives from Apigee, a provider of application programming interface tools that Google LLC acquired for $625 million. StepZen Chief ...
IBM to acquire Nordcloud for its public cloud know-how
IBM Corp. today disclosed that it’s buying Nordcloud Ltd., a Finland-based professional services provider that assists enterprises with their cloud projects. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. If everything goes according to plan, the transaction will wrap up in the first quarter of 2021. Nordcloud, founded in 2011, has annual revenues of ...
Google Cloud details plans for three new international cloud regions
Google LLC today announced plans to build three new international cloud regions, or data center clusters, to meet the infrastructure requirements of customers more effectively. The new cloud regions will be launched in Chile, Germany and Saudi Arabia. The regions set to be built in Chile and Saudi Arabia will be the first for Google ...