Mike Wheatley
Latest from Mike Wheatley
Google’s just killed CAPTCHAs with fluffy kittens and mouse clicks
Google has developed a new recognition system to let humans and not automated ‘bots’ access websites with a single click, replacing the hated “captchas” that have plagued the web for over a decade. Somewhat fittingly called the “No CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA”, the system alows humans to effortlessly click a single tick box to prove they are ...
Blab raises $8.8M to help brands know where and when to advertise
Predicting the future has been extremely profitable for social intelligence startup Blab Inc, which has just raised $8.8 million of its targeted $11.6 million series B funding round, pushing its total funding over $15 million. Blab doesn’t possess any magic crystal balls, but what it does have is a smart predictive algorithm that helps advertising ...
Senator Franken doesn’t want a Lyft, he wants answers
Uber’s troubles have been well documented over the previous few weeks, but though the negative press doesn’t seem to have deterred its investors, it’s biggest rival Lyft has seized on the opportunity to steal some of its business. Lyft has gone out of its way to reassure consumers it doesn’t share Uber’s carefree attitude towards ...
AWS offers big ‘reserved instance’ discounts, but Google’s still cheaper
Amazon Web Services Inc. raised a few eyebrows at its re:Invent conference last month when it didn’t announce any more price cuts. Now we know why that is – Rather than just slash prices blindly once again, it’s being a bit smarter with its discounts by offering two new billing tiers for its Reserved Instances ...
Uber’s PR problems pile up with latest privacy breach
Uber Inc. has been bedeviled by privacy concerns following revelations about its “God View” tool that grants employees access to users’ personal data. Although Uber tried to persuade its customers it can be trusted by publishing its privacy policy on its blog last month, there seems to be just no end to the negative press. ...
All-flash startup Kaminario bags $53M to scale up storage
Startup Kaminario has just announced a $53 million funding round that will fuel its push into the growing flash storage market. The new round means it’s raised a considerable $128 million, making it one of the best-funded flash startups around. And Kaminario has actually been around for a while. Founded in 2008, it’s going up ...
Hortonworks sets IPO price ahead of NASDAQ debut
Hortonworks Inc. seems keen to get on with its upcoming IPO as soon as possible. It just announced an important bit of news ahead of its NASDAQ debut. Following on from its S-1 filing last month, Hortonworks has issued an update to say it will be trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange under the ticker ...
Microsoft buys email app Acompli to revamp Outlook
Microsoft has acquired the San Francisco-based email application builder Acompli Inc., in a deal valued at $200 million. The announcement isn’t exactly a surprising one considering how Microsoft accidentally leaked the news before Thanksgiving in a blog post, but it does show how serious the company is about supporting multiple platforms. Re/Code was the first ...
CoreOS launches “container wars” with rival tech to fight Docker
Docker containers are one of the hottest technologies around at the moment, so much so that CoreOS even built its Linux-based operating system for large server deployments around the concept. But now CoreOS isn’t happy with the direction Docker is taking. Docker has a “broken security model”, and so it’s decided to build an alternative ...
FAA’s tough drone rules hold back potentially life-saving applications
Last week, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) shot down any hope of drones being used for commercial purposes in the forseeable future, in a move that threatens to stifle drone innovation and could even have potentially fatal consequences. Under its proposed ‘guidelines’ for commercial drone use, the FAA has excluded the vast majority of the ...