Eric David
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Kik maker launches cryptocurrency to fight Internet ‘giants’
Kik Interactive Inc., the maker of anonymous-chat app Kik, announced today that it is launching its own cryptocurrency called Kin in order to push back against what Chief Executive Ted Livingston calls the “copy-and-crush strategy” of giant Internet companies. “We’ve reached a worrying point in the evolution of the internet: More and more of our everyday ...
VR optimism helps game engine maker Unity raise $400M in private equity
Unity Technologies Inc., the maker of the video game industry’s most popular third-party game engine, has raised an impressive $400 million in funding from private equity firm Silver Lake. According to the Wall Street Journal, Unity’s latest financing now places the company’s value at more than $2.8 billion. To compare, Chinese conglomerate Tencent paid $330 million for ...
Facebook defends content policies after leaked documents stir controversy
With close to 2 billion monthly active users, Facebook Inc. has found itself in the tough position of policing content posted by more than a quarter of the world’s population. Over the weekend, leaked documents published by The Guardian revealed just how difficult it is for moderators to decide what is and is not allowed on the social ...
Embrace.io raises $2.5M to tell devs when their apps are broken
Analytics startup Embrace.io says it can tell mobile developers if their user experience is broken by bad app performance. Today, the company raised $2.5 million in seed funding to develop its platform and scale its business. The funding was led by Eniac Ventures, with additional investments from The Chernin Group, Techstars Ventures and BoxGroup. Founded less than a year ...
Google’s AlphaGo AI narrowly beats the world’s top human Go player
Google Inc. may soon be able to claim that AlphaGo is unbeatable, as the Go-playing artificial intelligence has won yet another landmark game. On Monday, AlphaGo managed to narrowly win its first of three matches against Ke Jie, a 19-year-old Go prodigy from China who is currently ranked as the top player in the world. Ke Jie opened ...
In a turning point, Ford replaces CEO Mark Fields with self-driving car boss
In a sign that autonomous cars are the future of the automobile industry, Ford Motor Co. announced early today that it is replacing Chief Executive Mark Fields with Jim Hackett, who currently serves as the head of Ford’s self-driving car initiative. The last few years have been hard on Ford, which saw its shares drop ...
Uber may fire top self-driving car engineer for refusing Waymo court order
Uber Technologies Inc. has threatened to fire Anthony Levandowski, the head engineer of its self-driving car division, if he does not comply with a court order in the ongoing Waymo v. Uber legal battle. A former employee of Google Inc.’s self-driving car unit, Levandowski is at the center of Waymo Inc.’s claim that Uber’s self-driving car initiative ...
EU fines Facebook $122M for ‘misleading information’ in WhatsApp deal
Facebook Inc. has been fighting a number of battles with regulators in the European Union over the last few years, including in countries like Germany and Belgium, but so far most of these conflicts have not resulted in any serious direct penalties on the social network. That changed today. The European Commission has fined Facebook €110 million ($122 million ...
Facebook wants to block clickbait with this one weird trick
Social media platforms have become a haven for clickbait titles, which try to trick users into following a link with vague descriptions such as “When She Looked Under Her Couch Cushions And Saw THIS … ” Facebook Inc. says it wants to put a stop to clickbait for good, so today the social network announced a ...
Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike raises $100M amid renewed security fears
The recent WannaCry ransomware attacks have reminded businesses that cybersecurity is more important than ever, which is good news for security providers such as CrowdStrike Inc., which today announced that it has raised a large $100 million Series D funding round. The round was led by Accel, and it included existing investors CapitalG and Warburg Pincus, ...