Author: pekandesigns

A couple of weeks ago, when Pinterest filed its S-1, its AWS bills raised eyebrows and questions about cheaper alternatives for startups. Render is a small startup with a big idea to provide infrastructure services for developers, who might be looking for a cheaper and easier alternative to bigger more familiar names. The company launched […]

New Enterprise Associates, the 42-year-old venture capital firm, has invested in the $23 million Series B round for Mejuri, a startup capturing millennial women’s penchant for affordable and treat yo’ self type of jewelry rather than diamonds and precious stones for special occasions. It’s the latest instance of startups drawing investor interest with their direct-to-customer […]

The Entrepreneurs’ Roundtable Accelerator is today presenting yet another batch of startups to the world at its Demo Day in NYC. ERA has already launched a total of 180 startups which have raised more than $300 million and are collectively valued at more than $2 billion. This sixteenth class is comprised of 13 companies across […]

Adobe today used the OFFF festival in Barcelona to show off an experimental feature for its Illustrator vector drawing application. The basic idea here is to allow Illustrator users to easily experiment with color palettes based on photos and other images. That makes it incredibly easy to create new variations of an existing drawing, based […]

Walmart this morning unveiled a new “store of the future” and test grounds for emerging technologies, including A.I.-enabled cameras and interactive displays. The store, a working concept called the Intelligent Retail Lab — or “IRL” for short — operates out of a Walmart Neighborhood Market in Levittown, New York. The store is open to customers […]

For the last year or so, you could ask the Google Assistant on your Google Home device to read your kids a story. Today, just in time for National Tell a Story Day, Google is bringing this feature to Android and iOS phones, too. It’ll be available in English in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia […]

Analysts have been all too happy to discuss 5G’s cart and horse problem, even as they wax poetic about the wireless technology’s future. Networks require devices and devices require networks. And while many have positioned 2019 as the year of 5G, both seem to be trickling out at a 2G rate. Verizon (disclosure: our parent […]

Coursera, an online learning startup that offers free and paid short courses, skills certifications, and complete degrees in partnership with universities and businesses, has raised another $103 million to scale out its business into new geographies, subject areas and products — a Series E led by a strategic investor, the Australian online recruitment and course directory […]

Want your video game character to look just like you? Soon you’ll be able to scan an in-game code with Snapchat to play as your personalized Bitmoji avatar on PC, console and mobile games. Today Snapchat announced its new Bitmoji for Games SDK that will let hand-selected partners integrate 3D Bitmoji as a replacement for […]

Shopify is expanding its efforts in brick-and-mortar retail with the launch of its new retail hardware collection. The company is best-known as a platform for building online stores, but it also offers point-of-sale software for physical stores, and it launched a credit card reader a couple of years ago. With the new collection — which […]