Eric David
Latest from Eric David
Townsquared raises $11M to expand social network for local businesses
Townsquared, an online community for small businesses, said today it has raised $11.05 million in a Series B funding round led by Intuit Inc. and Sierra Ventures, bringing the company’s total funding to $16.4 million. The San Francisco-based startup also said Andy Bryson, former director of product management and growth at SurveyMonkey, has joined the Townsquared ...
Tesla Motors and SolarCity join forces thanks to $2.6 billion merger
Solar energy provider SolarCity Corp has agreed to accept a $2.6 billion merger deal from Tesla Motors, Inc., creating what the two companies say is “the world’s only vertically integrated sustainable energy company.” Tesla founder Elon Musk included a possible merger with SolarCity in his “Master Plan, Part Deux,” which he outlined earlier this year. “[We plan ...
More Kickass Torrent mirrors spring up as others are taken down
One of these days, Hollywood may finally realize that permanently closing torrent sites is an all but impossible task, but until then, the major film studios will continuing playing whack-a-mole with sites like Kickass Torrents (KAT). KAT went down less than two weeks ago after Polish authorities arrested the site’s alleged founder, Artem Vaulin. Within hours, around ...
Niantic cracks down on third-party Pokemon Go tracking sites
Pokemon Go is the most popular broken app to ever hit the market, and its legion of fans has been hard at work creating third-party tools to make up for the game’s shortcomings. Unfortunately, the studio behind the game, Niantic Inc, would rather have players wandering around aimlessly hoping to stumble upon Pokemon than allow ...
CuratedAI is a literary magazine written by robots
Robots are already replacing millions of jobs across the world, and now it looks like the poets and authors might be next. This week, CuratedAI launched as a new literary magazine “by machines, for people” that showcases poetry written by artificial intelligences. The new publication is open to anyone who creates software that writes poetry ...
Disney patent would track park goers by their shoes
The Walt Disney Company’s theme parks see tens of millions of visitors each year, and keeping track of all of those people once they are inside the park is almost impossible. However, according to a patent application filed by the company, Disney may have found a novel—and slightly creepy—way to identify and monitor its visitors: taking ...
Computers may understand you better thanks to new MIT database
Computers are already getting pretty good at deciphering human speech thanks to advancements in natural language processing (NLP), but so far most of these programs have been trained to understand native speakers talking in their own languages. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) want to change that, and today they announced that they have ...
Lockheed designs spider robot that repairs holes in airships
Aerospace engineering company Lockheed Martin Corp has created a small, spider-like robot that is designed to track down and repair leaks in the company’s massive Hybrid Airships. Lockheed Martin’s airships, which are essentially high tech blimps, are meant to transport heavy loads, such as construction equipment, to remote locations that do not have roads. The Hybrid Airships can move payloads weighing ...
Facebook’s Q2 earnings skyrocket thanks to massive growth in ad revenue
Facebook continues its quest for world domination, and after looking at its latest Q2 earnings results, the social media giant may be well on its way. According to Facebook’s second quarter numbers, the company’s gross revenue has increased by a staggering 59 percent year-over-year, reaching over $6.44 billion primarily thanks to advertising revenue, which itself increased by over ...
Reddit will let brands sponsor user-submitted posts
Monetizing a site based on user created content is not easy—just ask Tumblr—but Reddit thinks it may have found an answer. Starting August 4, Reddit will allow advertisers to sponsor posts created by regular users that happen to mention their brand. Here is Reddit’s official explanation for how the new sponsored posts will work: A redditor creates ...