Maria Deutscher
Latest from Maria Deutscher
Google releases its human-sounding Duplex AI to iOS, most Android devices
Consumers and restaurant operators in the U.S. are about to get their first big taste of Google LLC’s Duplex artificial intelligence. The search giant today said it has started broadly rolling out the service, which uses an almost frighteningly realistic synthetic voice to make table reservations. Duplex is becoming available as a feature in Google Assistant ...
Pure Storage acquires file storage provider Compuverde
Six months after picking up StorReduce Inc. to gain a bigger presence in the backup market, Pure Storage Inc. has made another strategic acquisition to extend its capabilities. The company on Tuesday announced that it’s buying Compuverde AB, a Sweden-based provider of file storage software. The firm’s flagship Compuverde vNAS platform enables enterprises to organize ...
Intel refreshes data center portfolio with new server CPUs, Agilex chips
Intel Corp. today launched a new version of its market-leading Xeon Scalable processor series for servers, along with a pair of more specialized products designed to power other parts of enterprises’ technology infrastructure. The new Xeons account for the bulk of the additions, with the chipmaker set to bring no fewer than 56 chip models to market ...
Segment raises $175M for its customer data platform
Companies collect data about customers via their websites, apps and a variety of other channels, but they often can’t combine the information into a meaningful whole due to integration challenges. Segment Inc., a startup working to ease the task, today announced that it has raised $175 million from a group of top-tier investors. The round ...
Walmart and Google team up for Google Assistant-powered grocery shopping
One of the most novel concepts that Amazon.com Inc. introduced with its Alexa voice assistant is the ability for consumers to purchase goods from its marketplace by simply saying the names of products. Today, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. announced that it’s teaming up with Google LLC to introduce a competing capability. The feature, dubbed Walmart Voice ...
Intel quietly lays off ‘hundreds’ of IT staffers in new cuts
Intel Corp. has quietly carried out a round of layoffs being described as one of its biggest in three years. According to a report that appeared in The Oregonian today, the chipmaker has let go of “hundreds” of people from its internal information technology group. The insiders who spoke with the paper said that the redundancies didn’t come ...
Taking on traditional VPNs, Cloudflare launches Warp
Cloudflare Inc. is expanding its lineup of consumer-focused services today with the launch of Warp, a virtual private network that promises to make mobile connections faster and more private. All VPN services are built around the same basic principle. They encrypt the web traffic that comes out of a user’s device and route it through ...
Amazon reportedly developing a Fire TV news streaming service
Amazon.com Inc. may be gearing up to expand its presence in the fast-growing and increasingly competitive video streaming market. Citing three sources familiar with the matter, The Information today reported that the online retail giant is preparing to launch a free news service for its Fire TV family of streaming devices. The offering is expected to ...
Daimler acquires majority stake in autonomous driving provider Torc
Auto giant Daimler AG today announced it’s teaming up with Torc Robotics Inc., an early pioneer of autonomous vehicle technology, to develop self-driving trucks for the U.S. market. The company has acquired an unspecified majority stake in Torc as part of the partnership. The dollar value of the investment is not being disclosed. Blacksburg, Virginia-based Torc ...
Amazon aims to boost enterprise Alexa adoption with no-code voice blueprints
Amazon.com Inc. hopes to grow enterprise adoption of Alexa by making it easier for companies to customize the voice assistant to their needs. The technology giant on Thursday launched Alexa for Business Blueprints, a collection of templates that will enable workers to extend the service’s feature set without writing any code. They’re rolling out about ...