Maria Deutscher
Latest from Maria Deutscher
Amazon acquires smart home startup Blink
Amazon.com Inc. is heading into 2018 with a new weapon to use against the likes of Alphabet Inc.’s Nest in the competitive smart home market. News broke this morning that the retail giant has acquired Blink Inc., a startup that makes mobile-controlled home monitoring devices. It first rose to prominence in 2014 after raising $1 million on ...
Daimler signs deal to acquire a French startup taking on Uber
Auto giant Daimler AG, which owns major car brands such as Mercedes-Benz, is capping off the year with an investment in the crowded ride-hailing market. The company today announced that it has acquired a majority stake in Chauffeur Privé, a French startup competing with Uber Technologies Inc. that boasts 1.5 million customers and 18,000 drivers. Daimler plans ...
Uber hires another Expedia veteran, Barney Harford, to serve as COO
Uber Technologies Inc. this morning bolstered its leadership team with the appointment of Barney Harford (pictured), a former executive at travel aggregator Expedia Inc., as chief operating officer. Harford’s career has followed an interesting trajectory. He joined Expedia in 2004 as the president of its Asia Pacific business shortly before Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber’s chief executive ...
Apple is reportedly working to enable universal iOS and Mac apps
The next iterations of Apple Inc.’s iOS and macOS operating systems may pack a big surprise for application makers. Citing anonymous insiders, Bloomberg today reported that the iPhone maker is working on a unified development model for its devices. Application teams that wish to target both mobile and desktop users must currently build a separate ...
Mobile-first insurance startup Lemonade scores $120M round led by Softbank
Lemonade Inc., a young startup emerging as a major player in the insurance sector, this morning revealed that it has secured a $120 million funding round led by Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp. The financing included contributions from several existing backers as well. Lemonade told VentureBeat that “most prior investors” participated but didn’t point out any specific members ...
Anodot, the startup helping Microsoft and Lyft analyze their data, raises $15M
When a server or a piece of industrial equipment starts displaying unusual behavior, it can take a while for the issue to be spotted even if administrators have access to diagnostics data from the system and the appropriate monitoring software. Tel Aviv-based Anodot Ltd. is using artificial intelligence to speed up the process. The startup’s ...
Alphabet’s Waymo taps startup Trov to insure self-driving taxi passengers
Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo self-driving car group today announced a deal with Trov Inc., a venture-backed insurance startup, to provide some reassurance against unexpected events for riders who will be testing its upcoming autonomous shuttle service. The technology giant plans to make driverless taxis available to the public in Arizona starting early next year. According to ...
Microsoft cuts cloud analytics service pricing by 52 percent and adds new features
Microsoft Corp. is kicking off the week with the release of several major updates for HDInsight, one of the main data analytics services on its Azure cloud platform. The most significant of the changes revealed today is an up to 52 percent price reduction for companies using the product. The move comes a week after Google LLC, one ...
France seeks to fine Amazon for allegedly abusing its market position
Amazon.com Inc. is facing a new legal challenge in the European Union. On Monday, French daily Le Parisien broke the news that the country’s Economy Ministry has filed a complaint against the online retailer following a two-year investigation into its operations. Reuters cited the publication as saying that the probe was carried out by the agency’s DGCCRF ...
Survey shows data quality is now a top challenge for analytics projects
Finding professionals with advanced data processing knowledge isn’t as pronounced a challenge as it once was for enterprises, according to Syncsort Inc.’s fourth annual survey of the analytics landscape. The provider, which sells software that helps large companies tap the information spread out across their internal systems, polled about 200 technology professionals and executives for the study. The ...