Airbnb, now valued upwards of $30 billion and inching toward an IPO possibly as early as this year, has made an acquisition to continue to diversify its revenues beyond basic booking services for overnight accommodations in private homes. It has acquired Gaest, a startup out of Aarhus, Denmark that provides a marketplace-style platform for people…
The app that gives people free WiFi has 800 million monthly active users worldwide A service that connects people to WiFi hotspots for free turned out to be one of China’s most popular apps, nestling in the top ranks with Tencent’s WeChat messenger and Alibaba’s digital wallet affiliate Alipay. According to a report from app tracking…
Anthony Sayers, Internet of Things Evangelist at Software AG, discusses what it will take to see the Internet of Things through to maturity. NEW CONNECTIONS An occasional series of vendor perspectives on the world of connected business. As the Internet of Things (IoT) becomes more mainstream, there’s no denying that people are growing accustomed to…
A teaser image of headlights plus a few details about the upcoming electric Strike motorcycle from Lightning Motorcycles was apparently too much for some to bear. The company, prompted by an unexpectedly high number of customer requests, has now opened reservations for U.S. customers. Customers will still have to wait until March to see what the Strike…
Hugh Harsono is a former financial analyst currently serving as a U.S. Army officer. More posts by this contributor Why the future of Chinese e-commerce is in its rural areas Television content creation in China China’s fast-paced growth has resulted in it being one of the most extremely flexible nations in terms of technological integration…
Salesforce today dominates the world of CRM with its cloud-based, wide-ranging portfolio of software as a service. Now, a company founded by one of its alums thinks it can take it on with a more modern approach. Kustomer — an “omni-channel” customer support platform that can call in data from just about any other software and…
Apple’s secretive efforts to develop a self-driving car — its so-called ‘Project Titan’ — have taken a hard turn in 2019 after it emerged that the iPhone-maker has reassigned 200 employees previously involved in its development. That’s according to CNBC which, citing sources, reported that a portion of the 200 staff were moved to other…
Yesterday, enterprise tech accelerator Alchemist announced a fresh $2.5 million in venture capital funding. Today, it presented its latest cohort of startups, 19 in total, to a jam-packed audience of investors. Alchemist invests $36,000 in companies with a revenue stream that come from enterprises, not consumers, with a bent toward technical founders. Its 20th cohort included…
I wanted to love the new Aibo. Really, I did. But once I actually spent some time with it, it turned out that it was a $3,000 dog with only a handful of tricks. It seems the days of buying true robot dog companionship are still a long ways away. A few months after bringing…
Digital Catapult has joined forces with two UK manufacturers, Dyer Engineering and Special Metals Wiggin, to demonstrate the potential of industrial internet of things (IIoT) technology. The project will utilise innovations from connected factory start-ups to “unlock productivity, streamline processes, improve yield and increase quality control.” The Connected Factory Demonstrator brings together Digital Catapult with…
