Duncan Riley

Duncan Riley is a senior writer at SiliconANGLE covering Startups, Bitcoin, and the Internet of Things. Duncan is a co-founder of VC funded media company B5Media and founder of news site The Inquisitr, and was a senior writer at TechCrunch in its earlier days. Tips? Press releases? Intersting startup? email: duncan@nichenet.com.au or contact Duncan on Twitter @duncanriley

Latest from Duncan Riley

Awww: Buzzfeed launches Tinder-like Cute or Not app for rating pet pictures

Buzzfeed Inc. has launched a new app for rating pet pictures called Cute or Not. The app offers Tinder-like functionality for voting for pet pictures: you swipe right if the animal is cute, or swipe left if the dog or cat you’re viewing doesn’t rate as being given a cute swipe. Along with rating other people’s pets, ...

Lizard Squad hacks Lenovo.com, replaces site with High School Musical tune and emo kid pics

Notorious hacking group Lizard Squad is being blamed for a hack of Lenovo Group Ltd.’s main group site at Lenovo.com According to reports the hack went live around 4pm EST Wednesday when users visiting the site saw a carousel of pictures featuring various snaps of an emo kid, along with the song “Breaking Free” from High School Musical being played ...

Another one for the list: Bitcoin miner Aquifer files for bankruptcy

California based Bitcoin miner Aquifer LLC has filled for Chapter 11 bankruptcy as the continuing low price of Bitcoin makes it difficult for large scale mining operations to produce a profit. In a filing to the US Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of California February 19th, Aquifer said it had between $1m and $10m in assets, ...

SaaS accounting firm Xero raises $110.8 million in post IPO funding

Cloud accounting software and services company Xero Ltd. has raised $110.8 million in post IPO funding in a round led by Accel Partners that included current investor Matrix Capital Management. Listed on the New Zealand Stock Exchange, Xero offers software as a service (SaaS) accounting solutions to small to medium enterprises (SME’s.) Features include automatic bank and ...

Google acquires Facebook marketing company Toro, but we’re not quite sure why

Google Inc. has acquired Facebook marketing company Toro (Red Hot Labs Inc.) for an undisclosed price. Based in San Francisco, Toro claims its services offers the best way to run high performance Facebook campaigns for mobile apps. Their service offers split testing (A/B testing), lookalike targeting, and automatic bidding optimization, all packaged in what is ...

Good buy: Cloud comms company Twilio acquires 2FA startup Authy

Cloud communications company Twilio Inc. has acquired Authy Inc., a provider of two-factor authentication (2FA) for large-scale web and mobile applications. The price of the acquisition was not disclosed. Founded in 2012, Authy claims that it is the simplest way to add two-factor authentication to any website or app. Authy provides a simple API for developers to ...

Google bans sexually explicit material, graphic nudity on Blogger

Is Google now a massive multi-billion dollar prude? It could well be, with the tech giant announcing that it is banning publicly viewable sexually explicit material and graphic nudity on its blogging service Blogger. The company started to inform users Monday of the forthcoming change, and also posted a notice on its support pages explaining what was ...

Apple reported to have acquired audio software maker Camel Audio

Apple Inc. is reported to have acquired audio software maker Camel Audio Inc. for an unknown sum. There’s no official announcement about the acquisition, but it has been confirmed by way of company registration in the United Kingdom. According to Macrumors Camel Audio has appointed Apple Europe lawyer Heather Joy Morrison as its director and changed its registered ...

E-commerce giant Rakuten may start accepting Bitcoin payments

Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten Inc. may start accepting Bitcoin after CEO Hiroshi Mikitani confirmed the company was considering the move. “We are thinking about it, and we probably will,” Mikitani told the audience at the Rakuten Financial Conference, “We would like to be open [to Bitcoin].” According to Wall Street Journal Mikitani declined to specify when the ...

Mintpal scammer Ryan Kennedy arrested in U.K. over theft of 3,700 Bitcoins

Former Moolah CEO Ryan Kennedy has been arrested over the theft of 3,700 Bitcoins from the now defunct Bitcoin exchange Mintpal. Troubles at Mintpal first emerged in July 2014 when the company reported that it had been “hacked” and had lost a large amount of a different cryptocurrency called VeriCoin. It turns out that was ...