Maria Deutscher
Latest from Maria Deutscher
FedEx ends ground deliveries for Amazon as onetime alliance turns into rivalry
FedEx Corp. will stop shipping packages for Amazon.com Inc., the logistics company has said. FedEx told Bloomberg today that it will allow its ground delivery contract with the online retail giant to expire at the end of the month. The move comes weeks after the company in a surprise announcement revealed plans to stop flying air ...
Amazon’s Scout robot rolls into California to start delivering customer packages
Amazon.com Inc. has deployed autonomous delivery robots in Irvine, California, to ferry packages to consumers’ homes. The self-driving couriers, which were put into service today, are part of the online retail and tech giant’s Scout project. The Scout (pictured) is a six-wheeled rover about the size of a cooler that can travel on sidewalks at ...
Cybereason bags $200M in funding to make enterprise security more efficient
Boston-based Cybereason Inc. can now count itself among the best-funded startups in the cybersecurity market thanks to a newly closed $200 million round that was announced today. SoftBank Group Corp. and affiliates provided the entirety of the new capital. The Japanese carrier has been a Cybereason investor for four years, since before it launched the SoftBank ...
Cisco scoops up Voicea to infuse more AI into its collaboration products
Cisco Systems Inc. today announced that it’s bolstering its family of collaboration products with the acquisition of Voicea, the maker of a voice assistant for business meetings. Voicea, incorporated as Rizio Inc., has raised $20 million in funding since hitting the scene three years ago. Cisco’s venture capital arm contributed to the startup’s Series A ...
Slack courts enterprises with new mobile-centric security features
Slack Technologies Inc. today debuted a set of new security tools that will enable enterprises to control with more granularity who can access employee chat channels and how. Some of the features are available today, while the rest will launch further down the road. They’re all rolling out for Slack Enterprise Grid, the version of the chat platform geared ...
Alphabet’s GV co-leads $55M round into database startup Cockroach Labs
Cockroach Labs Inc., a fast-growing database startup led by former Google LLC engineers, today announced that it has closed $55 million in fresh funding. The round was co-led by Alphabet Inc.’s GV venture capital arm, Altimeter Capital and Tiger Global. They were joined by five other institutional backers, including Redpoint Ventures, which was the biggest ...
Doubling down on the retail market, Microsoft acquires ad startup PromoteIQ
Microsoft Corp. today revealed that it has acquired Spotfront Inc., a New York startup that does business as PromoteIQ and provides ad management technology for retailers. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. PromoteIQ listed 41 employees on LinkedIn before taking its page offline and has raised more than $6 million in private funding. ...
Intel’s new PAC D5005 card is a beefed up, programmable server accelerator
Intel Corp. today introduced the PAC D5005, a new accelerator card that enables data center servers to run workloads such as analytics and artificial intelligence software faster. An accelerator card is a device that can be plugged into a server to supplement its built-in processor. Habana Labs Ltd.’s recently unveiled Gaudi card, for instance, provides extra ...
FTC reportedly examining Amazon’s e-commerce partnership with Apple
A high-profile e-commerce deal between Amazon.com Inc. and Apple Inc. has drawn the attention of the Federal Trade Commission, The Verge reported today. The two companies agreed in November to set up a dedicated storefront for Apple products on Amazon’s marketplace. The page enables shoppers to order devices directly from the iPhone maker and its network of authorized ...
Amid scrutiny, Apple freezes human reviews of Siri conversations
Apple Inc. has put the brakes on an internal quality assurance program in which contractors listened to voice recordings captured by Siri. The iPhone maker announced the move early this morning, saying the pause will give it time to conduct a review of the operation. Additionally, Apple pledged to release an opt-out choice as part ...