Salesforce may have missed out on buying LinkedIn, but it has had a whopper of an acquisitions spree so far this year anyway. The enterprise cloud and CRM services company put down over $4 billion to buy eight startups in areas like workplace productivity, machine learning and e-commerce solutions, according to the company’s 10-Q filed with the SEC today. The majority of that $4… Read More
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When Salesforce introduced its Wave analytics product back in October, 2014, it was mostly framed as a tool for managers to get a grip on the sales pipeline in a visual way. In a series of announcements today, Salesforce made it clear that it’s taking Wave vertical with a variety of job-specific Wave applications. Since its launch, much like Salesforce CRM itself, Wave has grown… Read More
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Q: Gil Penchina (the top-ranked angel on AngelList) said one of the things he has learned about investing is how little control he has on the outcome. Do you feel the same way?
Absolutely. Most investors like to pretend they add a ton of value and expertise but they don’t. I am clear about it. The value I add is in having a good enough relationship with the founder so that when things… Read More
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HSN is looking for the next big American consumer product. Today, 100 makers and entrepreneurs from around the U.S. will pitch their products for a chance to win airtime on HSN, a listing on HSN.com, a piece in Good Housekeeping magazine and its “Seal of Approval,” following testing. The products will come from across categories, like home, kitchen, toys, productivity, and yes,… Read More
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Salesforce earnings came out today! They’re not great, either, and it looks like a weak outlook for the company’s third quarter is doing some damage to its shares, which were down as much as 8 percent. For a company that literally defined the phrase “software as a service” — basically, running your business online — and one that’s had a decent year… Read More
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Redwood City-based Glint has raised $27 million in a Series C round of venture funding for software that helps companies figure out how their teams are experiencing problems, or why and when solid employees may leave, undesirably. Glint replaces the traditional 360-review tools used by corporate HR teams and executives with short, anonymous surveys sent out once in a while to specific groups… Read More
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The US Department of Energy has awarded $8 million in Small Business Vouchers to 43 businesses, including ten projects aimed at making hydrogen fuel cells cheaper and more efficient, and six projects that will improve vehicle fuel efficiency, including better batteries.
In addition to funding from the DOE, participants in this second round of the SBV project will be working with 12 of the… Read More
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With new 360 video cameras hitting the shelves — alongside matching headsets — in time for the holiday season, millions of new users will be looking to consume VR content. Facebook recognizes that one of the biggest impediments to the enjoyment of 360 video is excess motion.
The company released a demo today of its new 360 video stabilization technology. The new technology… Read More
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Today, Facebook is releasing its Zstandard compression algorithm into the wild as open source. The lossless compression technology is aimed at replacing existing libraries like zlib that are powered by the outdated Deflate compression algorithm. In addition to Zstandard, Facebook is also dropping its MyRocks storage engine as open source. MyRocks is currently being used by Facebook to… Read More
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The Galaxy Note 7 seems like a pretty decent phone if you like phones literally the size of the galaxy (Brian does) — but be aware that Samsung’s curvy-screened flagship device may be prone to, well, exploding. Fear not, however: Samsung is looking into it.