Apple has shelved a novel wireless technology project that would have allowed people with iPhones to reach nearby companions in areas without cellular coverage, such as on ski slopes or on hikes in remote areas, said two people familiar with the project.Although the reasons for s … | Continue reading
One passenger in a Waymo self-driving car complained that the awkward end to his ride felt like he was getting dropped off by his dad. Others said their Waymo rides made them late to work. Another praised his car for coping admirably with “idiot drivers” of the human variety duri … | Continue reading
One passenger in a Waymo self-driving car complained that the awkward end to his ride felt like he was getting dropped off by his dad. Others said their Waymo rides made them late to work. Another praised his car for coping admirably with “idiot drivers” of the human variety duri … | Continue reading
Inside a conference room at Facebook headquarters in January 2018, a discussion among senior executives—a group known within the company as the “M Team”—turned to Instagram, the photo-sharing app that Facebook acquired in 2012 for roughly $1 billion.Facebook’s chief operating off … | Continue reading
Inside a conference room at Facebook headquarters in January 2018, a discussion among senior executives—a group known within the company as the “M Team”—turned to Instagram, the photo-sharing app that Facebook acquired in 2012 for roughly $1 billion.Facebook’s chief operating off … | Continue reading
Inside a conference room at Facebook headquarters in January 2018, a discussion among senior executives—a group known within the company as the “M Team”—turned to Instagram, the photo-sharing app that Facebook acquired in 2012 for roughly $1 billion.Facebook’s chief operating off … | Continue reading
Venture capitalists and entrepreneurs have been making fun of each other on Twitter and Instagram practically since the platforms launched. Over the years, a few parody accounts have gained fame by skewering the VC universe with an edgy mix of performative politeness, obvious aph … | Continue reading
In some parts of the open source community—the loosely affiliated bands of developers who work on free software projects—Amazon Web Services is viewed as a mooch, a company that makes money from those projects without contributing enough to their advancement. It turns out executi … | Continue reading
Apple has said upcoming changes to its iPhone operating system will better protect the privacy of users. But a group of app developers recently told Apple some of those changes will hurt their businesses, while accusing the company of anti-competitive behavior in the way it subje … | Continue reading
Apple has said upcoming changes to its iPhone operating system will better protect the privacy of users. But a group of app developers recently told Apple some of those changes will hurt their businesses, while accusing the company of anti-competitive behavior in the way it subje … | Continue reading
Digital media publisher Axios is planning to enter a new business that includes selling software for helping companies create newsletters for their employees. The move comes at a moment when more media businesses are seeking to diversify their revenue through software sales.Axios … | Continue reading
Toptal, a service that connects companies with freelance software engineers, is a Silicon Valley success story. Founded in 2010, it soon attracted funding from well-known investors including Andreessen Horowitz and hired scores of employees who were promised stock if things went … | Continue reading
Toptal, a service that connects companies with freelance software engineers, is a Silicon Valley success story. Founded in 2010, it soon attracted funding from well-known investors including Andreessen Horowitz and hired scores of employees who were promised stock if things went … | Continue reading
An issue that has long vexed many iPhone users—the inability to play music from Spotify using Siri, Apple’s voice assistant—may soon be a thing of the past.Spotify, the world’s most popular streaming service, is currently discussing a plan with Apple to let iPhone users tell Siri … | Continue reading
When Palmer Luckey was raising money for his defense-technology startup Anduril, he got an unusual gift from a venture capitalist interested in investing: a comic book depicting Anduril’s team as superheroes.The comic book portrayed a “magical chest filled with money with [the fi … | Continue reading
Apple is taking a swipe at Facebook and other messaging apps by making a small but significant change to its mobile operating system.The change will restrict a feature that apps like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp used to make voice calls over the internet. Right now, the callin … | Continue reading
Former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick lately has gone on a hiring spree to staff his latest startup, CloudKitchens—snapping up at least four senior engineers from Uber. And that appears to have sparked an unusual warning from Uber Chairman Ron Sugar at the company’s latest board meetin … | Continue reading
In mid-January, Eventbrite co-founder and CEO Julia Hartz gathered staff at the company’s San Francisco headquarters to lay out her strategy for the year ahead. A few months removed from the excitement of going public, Ms. Hartz described ambitious plans to expand into dozens of … | Continue reading
In mid-January, Eventbrite co-founder and CEO Julia Hartz gathered staff at the company’s San Francisco headquarters to lay out her strategy for the year ahead. A few months removed from the excitement of going public, Ms. Hartz described ambitious plans to expand into dozens of … | Continue reading
In a big shift, Facebook plans to signal its control of Instagram and WhatsApp by adding its name to both apps, according to three people familiar with the matter. The social network will rebrand the apps to “Instagram from Facebook” and “WhatsApp from Facebook,” the people said. … | Continue reading
In a big shift, Facebook plans to signal its control of Instagram and WhatsApp by adding its name to both apps, according to three people familiar with the matter. The social network will rebrand the apps to “Instagram from Facebook” and “WhatsApp from Facebook,” the people said. … | Continue reading
In a big shift, Facebook plans to signal its control of Instagram and WhatsApp by adding its name to both apps, according to three people familiar with the matter. The social network will rebrand the apps to “Instagram from Facebook” and “WhatsApp from Facebook,” the people said. … | Continue reading
China’s Huawei and Google were working together on a new Huawei-branded smart speaker right before President Donald Trump restricted Huawei’s access to U.S. tech suppliers, say people familiar with the situation. The collaboration, which was suspended in May, shows that the compa … | Continue reading
Website-design software maker Webflow is expected to raise at least $20 million in new funding led by venture firm Accel at a pre-investment valuation of more than $200 million, according to a person briefed on the deal.Initially backed by startup fund Y Combinator, Webflow is on … | Continue reading
China’s Huawei and Google were working together on a new Huawei-branded smart speaker right before President Donald Trump restricted Huawei’s access to U.S. tech suppliers, say people familiar with the situation. The collaboration, which was suspended in May, shows that the compa … | Continue reading
In February, a month after Thomas Kurian became CEO of Google’s cloud computing unit, he pledged publicly that Google Cloud would compete “much more aggressively” than in the past, promising to significantly expand its sales force in order to land more Fortune 500 companies as cu … | Continue reading
Driverless cars may be years away from being practical, but a key independent supplier of software to the self-driving vehicle industry, Scale, is having a breakout moment with investors as its business booms.The company is nearing the completion of a new round of financing led b … | Continue reading
Last October, after spending almost a year examining trends among Facebook users, a senior data scientist at the company named Tom Cunningham painted a bleak picture of one possible future for its flagship Facebook app.At the time, Facebook noticed that users of the app—known int … | Continue reading
Since Amazon stumbled into the cloud computing business 13 years ago, its Amazon Web Services division has soared to more than $25 billion in annual sales, accounting for nearly 59% of the internet retailer’s operating income. In contrast, it has taken Salesforce—no slouch in the … | Continue reading
Last October, after spending almost a year examining trends among Facebook users, a senior data scientist at the company named Tom Cunningham painted a bleak picture of one possible future for its flagship Facebook app.At the time, Facebook noticed that users of the app—known int … | Continue reading
In late 2017, with prices of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin surging, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong faced a tough choice: Would his company, the leading U.S. cryptocurrency exchange, become more like a traditional financial services company or would it lean into the industry’s wild … | Continue reading
One of the most important social questions of the next few decades is clearly going to be how we respond as a society to the overt growing inequality in the United States.As this discussion becomes more mainstream, the narrative that gets shared blames some combination of technol … | Continue reading
In late 2017, with prices of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin surging, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong faced a tough choice: Would his company, the leading U.S. cryptocurrency exchange, become more like a traditional financial services company or would it lean into the industry’s wild … | Continue reading
A task-management and note-taking app maker called Notion Labs is raising $10 million at a paper valuation of $800 million in what it calls an “angel round,” according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Notion is part of a crowded field of “productivity” tools designed for … | Continue reading
A task-management and note-taking app maker called Notion Labs is raising $10 million at a paper valuation of $800 million in what it calls an “angel round,” according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Notion is part of a crowded field of “productivity” tools designed for … | Continue reading
Six years ago, a warehouse employee at one of Apple’s top suppliers, Jabil, stole thousands of iPhone 5C casings from a factory in China before the product was announced. The employee, with help from a security guard, falsified documents and avoided security cameras as he drove a … | Continue reading
Six years ago, a warehouse employee at one of Apple’s top suppliers, Jabil, stole thousands of iPhone 5C casings from a factory in China before the product was announced. The employee, with help from a security guard, falsified documents and avoided security cameras as he drove a … | Continue reading
Several key Tesla engineering managers working on its Autopilot semi-automated driving feature left the company after CEO Elon Musk told some employees he was unhappy with the progress in developing fully automated driving capabilities, according to one current and one former Tes … | Continue reading
The wintertime was bleak for Bird. In this year’s first quarter, the electric scooter operator lost nearly $100 million while revenue shrank sharply to only about $15 million, people familiar with the matter said. In the spring, it told people it was down to about $100 million in … | Continue reading
In early June, Netflix content chief Ted Sarandos met with several dozen of his middle-ranking and senior film and TV executives and delivered a blunt message: Be more careful with money.Mr. Sarandos told the group that spending on film and TV projects, particularly big budget mo … | Continue reading
Several key Tesla engineering managers working on its Autopilot semi-automated driving feature left the company after CEO Elon Musk told some employees he was unhappy with the progress in developing fully automated driving capabilities, according to one current and one former Tes … | Continue reading
As buzz about Alexa, Amazon’s voice-activated assistant, spread throughout tech in early 2016, Uber pounced on the opportunity to let people summon cars with a simple command: “Alexa, ask Uber to request a ride.”More than three years later, Uber receives orders for only a few hun … | Continue reading
Last March, when Tina Sharkey stepped down as CEO of Brandless—a maker of inexpensive foods and household items bearing generic labels like “Avocado Oil” and “Dog Shampoo and Conditioner”—she explained the move by saying she wanted to “wear fewer hats” at the company and focus in … | Continue reading
In the run-up to Uber’s IPO, the company presented a new face to Wall Street. Two relatively new executives, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi and CFO Nelson Chai, appeared at investor meetings around the country. Former CEO Travis Kalanick wasn’t even on the stock exchange podium the day of … | Continue reading
Huawei has indefinitely postponed the announcement of a new laptop computer that was originally scheduled for this week, as the U.S. government’s trade sanctions have blocked the Chinese tech giant’s access to Microsoft’s Windows operating system and Intel’s processors, Huawei em … | Continue reading
Apple is in talks to buy a key part of Intel’s smartphone modem business—its German operations—in a deal that could boost the iPhone maker’s plans to internally develop a modem for its devices, according to four people briefed on the discussions.The talks come as Intel considers … | Continue reading
Uber’s sluggish public market debut has meant losses for some investors. But CEO Dara Khosrowshahi is sitting on healthy paper gains, thanks to changes that were made to his stock options before the company went public. The exercise price of Mr. Khosrowshahi’s options was lowered … | Continue reading
In the middle of April, Honda Motor CEO Takahiro Hachigo hopped into a self-driving car prototype made by General Motors’ Cruise Automation for a demonstration ride. It didn’t go well. About 20 minutes in, the car’s software suddenly turned itself off even as the car kept moving. … | Continue reading