Microsoft’s 15-month long love affair with Bitcoin may be coming to an end, with the tech giant quietly removing the option to pay for items using the cryptocurrency in the Windows 10 and Windows Mobile stores at some point in the last week. There was no official announcement from Microsoft, however, a page appeared in ...

The so-called encryption wars have spread to a new front with news over the weekend that the Department of Justice (DOJ) has a new target: the Facebook-owned messaging app WhatsApp. According to an exclusive story from The New York Times, DOJ prosecutors have been “discussing how to proceed in a continuing criminal investigation in which a ...

Japanese technology firm Fujitsu Limited, and subsidiary Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd., along with bank Mizuho Bank, Ltd. have announced that they have successfully completed a trial of a Blockchain-derived platform for carrying out cross-border securities transactions. The trial, which ran for two months and finished at the end of February, was aiming to see whether using ...

The United Kingdom’s Central Bank, the Bank of England, is working with researchers at University College London to design a Bitcoin clone of its own, according to a new report. MIT Technology Review details how the Bank began researching the idea of issuing digital currency early last year, one that could make retail payments more efficient ...

On-demand massage startup Soothe, Inc. has raised $35 million Series B in a round led by The Riverside Company. The valuation on the round was not disclosed. Founded in 2013, Soothe offers on-demand massage in 22 cities in the United States from 3,000 independent message therapists who are claimed to earn three to four times ...

It’s official: Apple has sent out invites for a new launch event to be held March 21st at its campus in Cupertino, California. The invite doesn’t give any details away as to what is being launched, saying only rather obscurely “let us loop you in” (perhaps in reference to Apple’s address of 1 Infinite Loop) ...

Cloud maintenance and asset management platform maker Maintenance Assistant, Inc. has raised $5 million Series A in a round led BuildGroup. Founded in 2008, Maintenance Assistant develops maintenance software solutions that are said to transform enterprise maintenance operations by eliminating waste and costly downtime, while at the same time managing risk. The company offers software in ...

On-demand hybrid cloud software startup Velostrata, Inc. has launched in general availability software that promises to move business application workloads to the cloud in minutes. The new technology is claimed to be the industry’s first software that removes the barriers to the public cloud for business application work without changing the applications and without moving ...

Brain rehabilitation app maker Constant Therapy, Inc. has raised $2 million Series A in a round led by Golden Seeds that included Kapor Capital, Launchpad Venture Group, Pond Capital and Community Health Network of Connecticut. Founded in 2013, Constant Therapy provides iPad tools for continuous and personalized therapy to people with cognitive, language, communication and ...

Virtual reality is getting social with an announcement that the Oculus-powered Samsung Gear VR is getting friend support. Starting Thursday people who own a Samsung Gear VR will now be able to create a public profile and then search for others on the platform by real name or Oculus username. To compliment the new feature ...