Mobile Technology Science / News

Google and Salesforce announced a massive strategic partnership today that’s aimed at driving value across their mutual customers. As part of the deal, Salesforce plans to use Google Cloud Platform infrastructure as a preferred partner to power the tech titan’s international expansion. Google, for its part, will use Salesforce as its preferred CRM provider for […]

(Reuters) — Amazon is cutting prices of products from third-party sellers on its website, moving beyond its more typical method of discounts on items it sells directly. The “discount provided by Amazon” applies to products including board games and technological gadgets offered by other merchants as the holiday season approaches. The retailer has been trying […]

OPINION: A trailer for Blood & Truth from Sony’s London Studio, like a preview Oculus showed earlier this month for an upcoming war title from Titanfall creator Respawn Entertainment, makes it clear that Sony and Facebook are financially supporting what its executives think gamers want to play in VR. The goal: drive the sale of more […]

GUEST: Optimizing ads are a hot topic these days, and we’re constantly witnessing disruption aimed at improving advertising transaction standards. Why? At the end of the day, it’s all about one thing — helping publishers maximize their revenue, and part of that discussion has been around a topic called header bidding. What is header bidding? Header […]

ANALYSIS: Google announced a notable update to YouTube Kids this week, one that gives parents a range of tools to tailor the app for their kids. Among the new features is one that lets parents create individual profiles for each of their offspring. They can set each kid up with their own passcode to keep siblings […]

After years of litigation in two countries, a federal court in the US has weighed in on a thorny question: Does Google US have to obey a Canadian court order requiring Google to take down information around the world, ignoring contrary rules in other jurisdictions? According to the Northern District of California, the answer is […]

Kano, the company behind the popular DIY computing and coding kits, has raised $28 million in a series B round of funding led by the Thames Trust and Breyer Capital, with participation from Index Ventures, Salesforce founder Marc Benioff, the Stanford Engineering Venture Fund, LocalGlobe, John Makinson, Collaborative Fund, Triple Point Capital, and Barclays. Founded out […]

Reaction Commerce, an open source ecommerce platform aimed at online retailers, has raised $8.5 million in a series A round of funding led by Google’s venture capital arm, GV, with participation from CrossCut Ventures, Double M Partners, Joanne Wilson, and Female Founders Fund. Founded out of Santa Monica initially as Ongo Works back in 2013, Reaction […]

(Reuters) — Several analysts downplayed concerns about Apple Inc’s iPhone X production issues and were bullish on demand and sales, pushing the company’s shares to a record on Monday. The Cupertino-based company does not provide pre-order figures on iPhones, leaving investors and analysts in the dark in trying to track output through research with its […]

GUEST: Artificial intelligence is changing almost every aspect of modern life, and the television advertising industry is no exception. Thanks to more advanced methods of data collection, AI allows advertisers to tailor their content more effectively to relevant demographics through what’s called “programmatic TV advertising.” This advertising channel is set to be largely impacted by AI […]

(Reuters) — Apple Inc quashed concerns of muted demand for its iPhone X on Friday, saying preorders for the 10th anniversary phone were “off the charts”. The company’s shares, which have fallen steadily since it announced in early September it would launch two iPhones within two months, rose nearly 3 percent in response. Pre-orders for […]

Facebook announced new advertising transparency policies today that affect all ads on the network. In addition to letting all Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger users view any ad on a devoted page regardless of whether they’re in a targeted audience, the new policies also specifically target political ads. Facebook hopes to curb election interference like the […]

This week, Travis and Stewart interview the amazing Shaul Olmert, who has grown Playbuzz from scratch to an audience of over 80 million. He tells us what it takes to not only make that possible, but maintain the community he helped build. In the news, we talk about Samsung’s developer conference and the new products […]

Back in July, eBay announced new computer vision search tools that help you find items using photos. Today, the ecommerce giant revealed that it’s making those features publicly available for the first time. By way of a quick recap, computer vision allows machines to process and analyze imagery on a pixel-by-pixel basis, rather than leaning on human-led […]

Microsoft’s Mixer is now available in 21 languages, as the company looks to grow the appeal of its game-focused video-streaming service to users globally. Support for more languages has been the platform’s number one most requested feature, according to Mixer’s community PM Josh Stein. “Our goal at Mixer has always been to connect broadcasters and […]

(Reuters) — Amazon launched a cash payment service in Mexico on Tuesday, aiming to expand its customer base in a country where shoppers are wary of credit card fraud and often earn their living in paper currency. The strategy could also help it to win market share from rival Wal-Mart de Mexico, known as Walmex, […]

Datorama revealed today that its customers have deployed more than 100,000 bots to analyze information about their marketing outcomes, as part of the AI Innovation Showcase at VB Summit 2017. When people think about marketing, they think of Don Draper on TV,” said Nate Sandford, a solution architect and evangelist for Datorama. But today, marketing […]

(Reuters) — Facebook Inc said on Monday it was testing the idea of dividing its News Feed in two, separating commercial posts from personal news in a move that could lead some businesses to increase advertising. The Facebook News Feed, the centerpiece of the world’s largest social network service, is a streaming series of posts […]