Tech giant Apple has confirmed that it has acquired popular music-discovery service app Shazam. Both parties have been tight-lipped about the cost of acquisition, but a report in Techcrunch last week claimed that Apple has agreed to pay $400 million for this acquisition. If this is indeed true, then it means that Apple is paying significantly less than Shazam’s market valuation of more than $1 billion during its last fundraising. The U.K based Shazam Entertainment Ltd was incorporated in 1999 by four promising British entrepreneurs. After a brief struggle during the initial years, the company finally found its footprint in…
Author: Girish Shetti
Currently, there is probably not a single premium tech company in the world that has not got swept by the hype surrounding the artificial intelligence (AI). The likes of Facebook, Google, Apple, IBM and several others are at present running many mega ambitious projects to tap the potential of AI. Now another big name that has got added into this list is the American space agency NASA. According to news reports, NASA is mulling over the possibility of integrating AI technology into its space communications networks. This would help the premium space agency to precisely comprehend the ever increasing complex…
Bitcoin continues to defy all the logic as it touched a new high during the early trading sessions on Thursday morning, surpassing the level of $15,000 for the very first time. The world’s most popular cryptocurrency touched to $15,340 per unit at several indexes as of as of 10 am IST, according to data available on coingecko.com. Bitcoin was hovering at $12,000 level as early as Wednesday morning, with the latest rally adding another chapter in Bitcoin’s incredible bull run that has been continuing since the beginning of this year. Interestingly, Bitcoin’s latest record-breaking rally comes just ahead of the…
World’s largest mobile chipmaker, Qualcomm, has decided to take another shot at challenging Intel’s supremacy in the personal computers market. On Tuesday, the San Diego-based chipmaker showed off two new Windows operated laptops, a HP Envy x2 tablet and an Asus NovaGo ultrabook, at its Snapdragon Technology Forum. Qualcomm claims that all thanks to its chip, both these PCs can run for almost two days without any charge. But here is the catch and this is pretty interesting. Both these systems run on the same Snapdragon 835 that is been used inside several popular phones like the Samsung Galaxy Note…
For the first time ever Facebook has decided to open itself to kids under the age of 13, an important category that has been so far left untouched by the social media giant. On Monday, Mark Zuckerberg’s company unveiled a special Messenger Kids app that would allow all kids under the age of 13 to send/receive texts, videos and photos to & from their Facebook friends. But this freedom would come with some strings attached, since kids will have to depend on their parent’s permission before performing almost every important action through this app. This would not only include signing…
The on-going legal battle between Qualcomm and Apple has further intensified, with both parties refusing to budge. Barely days after Apple filed lawsuits against Qualcomm the latter has responded by filing fresh infringement cases. In all, Qualcomm has filed three lawsuits alleging that Apple has infringed upon 16 Qualcomm patents in several Iphone models including iPhone 7, 8, and the newly launched Iphone X. The lawsuit demands undisclosed payments from the Iphone maker and also to bar the tech giant from using these technologies that runs on the rival chipmaker Intel. Among all the infringement issues, the semiconductor giant has…
Amazon is one of the several renowned tech companies that are on roll as far as artificial intelligence (AI) is concerned. It is no secret that the e-commerce giant is exploiting AI’s potential to hilt in warehouse management. Now turning another page in this AI chapter is Amazon’s subsidiary company Amazon Web Services (AWS), which today unveiled an AI powered camera called Deeplens. The unveiling was done at AWS’ annual re: Invent conference. Deeplens has been primarily developed to take camera’s recognition capabilities to another level. This camera will seek to achieve this by its pre-trained image recognition models. By…
Co-working space giant WeWork on Tuesday announced that it has acquired 15 year old social network startup Meetup for an undisclosed amount. Meetup conducts community workshops and gatherings for people and aficionados sharing common hobbies and interests. The latest acquisition marks yet another attempt by the company to go beyond its traditional business of renting affordable space to freelancers and aspiring businesses. This year WeWork has been on a roll in trying out things that don’t conventionally fit into its business model. Be it the acquisition of coding bootcamp Flatiron School or trying to solve education problems of grade school or…
World’s most popular cryptocurrency Bitcoin continued with its ongoing bull run on Tuesday as it cruise past $10,000 level on several smaller exchanges and digital currency indexes. This is the new all-time high for the world’s most traded digital currency. However, it remained just below the milestone of $10,000 at some major trading platforms like Luxembourg based BitStamp. At BitStamp, Bitcoin hit high of $9,968 during the last trading session on Tuesday. On the CEX.IO exchange, bitcoin closed at nearly $10,234. On crypto-currency index coinmarketcap.com, it touched $10,050. In South Korean exchange, the bitcoin price has already crossed $11,000. Bitcoin’s…
Two of China’s big tech companies have decided to join hands to explore exciting opportunities in the Internet of Things (IOT) and artificial intelligence (AI). These two companies are Baidu and Xiaomi, which are recognized as powerhouses in their respective fields. While the former is a search giant with a market capitalization of whopping $86 billion, the latter is considered as Apple of China and the one that is giving Steve Job’s iconic company a real run for its money. The tie up was announced at Xiaomi’s first developer conference in Beijing today. Although the exact details of this partnership…
Paytm Mall is pursuing discussions with Japanese investment conglomerate Softbank for leading investment of nearly $500 – 600 million, sources close to the matter claimed. They have further claimed that Japanese giant has agreed to pour in only $300 million in the newly created e-commerce vertical. Paytm Mall was demerged from the digital payment firm Paytm last year and officially launched as app only online shopping service earlier this year. It is learnt that Paytm Mall’s parent company One97 Communication has still not formally discussed SoftBank’s funding proposal with the board members. Close sources inform that the shareholders want to…
Sachin Tendulkar backed gaming and virtual reality entertainment company Smaaash Entertainment has raked Rs 25 crore from Sixth Sense Ventures. According to sources, this latest capital infusion is a part of company’s much larger fund raising exercise that is expected to be completed in coming weeks. Smaaash also received Rs 43 crore from a string of high networth investors (HNIs) during last few weeks. This is according to recent company filings with the Registrar of Companies. The slew of investments have propelled company’s valuation to near $100, with this valuation likely to increase after company closes in more fundings in…