In Jakarta, Indonesia, only 50 percent of the population has access to the piped sewerage system. More than 500,000 residents practice open defecation, and more than one million people discharge wastewater directly into the river, resulting in deteriorated groundwater quality and putting residents at risk to waterborne diseases. The better news: The city has a master plan to improve the… Read More
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Vevo, the music video service backed by major record labels, just announced that its CEO Erik Huggers is departing. Huggers previously worked at the BBC, at Verizon (which owns TechCrunch) and elsewhere. He joined Vevo in 2015. Under his leadership, Vevo was working to become less reliant on YouTube (which was its major syndication partner) by developing more apps and products like the… Read More
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It looks like Wag may get another huge injection of cash following a big financing round earlier this year, according to a report by Recode, and also based on what we are hearing. We had heard a bit ago that Wag was looking to raise around $100 million, which the Recode report also suggests. But it now looks like Softbank is in talks to invest around $300 million in the dog-walking app.… Read More
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Fitbit is, again, not having a good day after spending the year in mostly middling status as it looks to prove there’s a market for fitness trackers and its own smartwatch. The culprit today: a Wall Street firm slapped a “sell” rating on the company’s stock, which often results in a rejection of its potential and sparks a sharp drop-off in the company’s share value. Read More
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Adobe announced a record quarter yesterday with $2.01 billion in revenue for Q42017. That represents a healthy 25 percent year over year increase for the company, but about half of that continues to come from Creative Cloud. Experience Cloud, which includes Adobe Marketing Cloud, Adobe Analytics Cloud and Adobe Advertising Cloud in many ways represents promise for even greater revenue in… Read More
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“Social media” is a clumsy term that entangles enriching social interaction with mindless media consumption. It’s a double-edged sword whose sides aren’t properly distinguished. Taken as a whole, we can’t decide if it “brings the world closer together” like Facebook’s new mission statement says, or leaves us depressed and isolated. Read More
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In the eight years since Frederic Descamps and Jordan Maynard launched their last gaming startup, the industry they helped shape now brings in more than $100 billion in revenues globally. There’s been a resurgence in gaming on PCs. User-generated content has produced a string of wildly popular hits. Those trends are exactly what the two are hoping to harness with Manticore Games. Read More
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In the midst of an reputational makeover, Taylor Swift is debuting a brand new app called The Swift Life.
The app is a dedicated social network for Swift’s fans, letting them communicate with each other as well as get exclusive pictures, video, news and more direct from T-Swift herself.
And they can communicate with Swift, too. Using an ‘extremely rare and valuable Taymoji’… Read More
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Microsoft today is officially launching a new version of its Mixer mobile gameplay streaming app, its Twitch rival. The app, which is initially available on Android with iOS arriving soon, was first introduced into beta testing this fall, with a focus on improvements to its overall user experience, content discovery, performance and personalization features. For example, the beta build… Read More
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Squarespace, the 14-year-old platform that makes it easy for essentially anyone to build their own website, is raising about $200 million from General Atlantic, valuing the company at a $1.7 billion valuation, Bloomberg reports. The plan with the funding is to buy stock from early employees and investors, giving them a way to cash out if they’re not trying to wait around for an IPO. Read More
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