Author: pekandesigns

 In November, the popular lip-syncing app Musical.ly announced its acquisition by Chinese social media giant Toutiao, owned by Bytedance, in a deal sources said was valued at $800 million to $1 billion. Today, the acquisition has completed, with Musical.ly officially joining Bytedance, the companies said. In addition, Musical.ly announced the launch of a $50 million […]

 Twitter’s big news this week is its announcement that it’s now enforcing its new policies around hateful content and abuse, but today the company is rolling out something new for developers, as well: an enterprise-level API providing access to real-time activities like tweets, retweets, likes and follows. The addition of the API is part of […]

 Tesla has another new high-profile customer – UPS, which has placed the largest order yet for Tesla Semi advance reservations. The shipping giant pre-ordered 125 Tesla Semi trucks, besting PepsiCo’s 100 vehicle order from last week. UPS has a fleet of around 8,500 alternative fuel vehicles already in service around the world, the company says, […]

 Who would have thought that the president who writes in 140-character missives would suddenly be interested in 70 Gbps wireless internet access? The White House released its congressionally-mandated National Security Strategy report (warning: PDF) yesterday. Tucked away in a section on improving America’s infrastructure was this action item: “We will improve America’s… Read More Source: […]

 On the heels of Lemonade raising $120 million from Softbank for its new “peer-to-peer” spin on insurance services, another company aimed at disrupting the insurance market is announcing a major round of its own. Bima, a Munich-based startup that builds and sells “microinsurance” services for low-income consumers in Africa, Asia and Latin America, has raised […]

 Echo Buttons got lost in the deluge of Alexa products announced by Amazon a few months back. Understandably so — they were fun, but weird additions to company’s portfolio of smart home products. The little glowing devices finally start shipping today, priced at $20 for a two-pack, and Hasbro’s offering one of the more compelling […]

 Google is going to start blocking certain ads in Chrome, the company announced earlier this year. But now we know exactly when: February 15, 2018 (via VentureBeat) is the go-live date provided by the company for introduction of its built-in enforcement of the standards established by the Coalition for Better Ads, of which it is […]

 Softbank’s Vision Fund has finally made a good tech investment around real estate. After investing $4.4 billion in what is essentially a bespoke office space rental business (WeWork) and another $450 million in Zillow for rich people (Compass), the gargantuan Japanese tech investor is leading a $120 million round of funding for Lemonade, a startup […]

 Few mainstream business leaders have taken to the blockchain quite like Patrick Byrne. The founder of Overstock.com has been accepting Bitcoin since 2014 and has been talking about disrupting the payments world with transparent, low-cost, and sane blockchain-based systems. With tZero, he just started his roll toward full blockchain adoption. TZero, at its core, is […]

 Facebook, like every social media platform, has issues with harassment and bullying. In order to prevent certain types of harassment, Facebook is introducing some new features to help prevent unwanted friend requests and messages. “We’ve heard stories from people who have blocked someone only to encounter the same harasser using a different account,”Facebook Global Head […]