Technology news

Zendesk has mostly confined itself to customer service scenarios, but it seems that’s not enough anymore. If you want to truly know the customer behind the interaction, you need a customer system of record to go with the customer service component. To fill that need, Zendeskannounced it was acquiring Base, a startup that has raised over $50 million.
The companies did not share the purchase price, but Zendesk did report that the acquisition should not have a significant impact on revenue.
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These days, having your own cozy little home on the world wide web is no longer reserved for the über geeky or forward-thinking business owner, but is quite the wise move for many of us. You can use that website as a springboard for a burgeoning freelance career in your chosen field, to advertise homemade wares, to provide directions for your wedding, or simply to publish your ideas and expertise in blog form. That’s the beauty of having your own web space, after all. It’s wonde

Last week’s Tesla security update may have been more urgent than the company let on. Researchers at KU Leuven have figured out a way to spoof Tesla’s key fob system, as first reported by Wired. The result would let an attacker steal a Tesla simply by walking past the owner and cloning his key.
The attack is particularly significant because Tesla pioneered the keyless entry concept, which has since spread to most luxury cars. This particular attack seems to have only worked on Model

SoundCloud has announced a new personalized playlist for users called SoundCloud Weekly. Updated every Monday, the playlist appears at the top of your SoundCloud account under the “Discover” tab.
Like Spotify’s Discover Weekly, which has been around for three years, SoundCloud Weekly should reflect your listening habits and serve up 30 tracks and DJ mixes that fit what you’ve played recently. Aside from plays, SoundCloud also takes into account the tracks you like and sh

Vertical Aerospace is a British startup that has built and flown a fully electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. As strange as it may seem, that doesn’t make them particularly unique in the year 2018; there is a surfeit of drone-helicopter hybrids being tested around the globe. What does make Vertical standout is the company’s more realistic approach to the utility of so-called “flying cars.”“we are trying to apply that to something that’s rea

The new iPhones Apple will announce on Wednesday may have dual SIM card support, according to an image posted on China Mobile’s Facebook page on September 6th. We already saw leaks of a dual SIM card tray in a new Apple device, but the post from a company’s social media account feels like more legitimate confirmation, as spotted by GSMArena.
The image is an illustration of an apple (the fruit) with two SIM cards poking into it. The large text on the top says, “New Apple with d

Samsung is releasing a SmartThings tracker that’s powered by LTE-M (instead of Bluetooth) to help you find stuff. The cellular network allows it to be used for real-time location tracking for your pets and kids as well as misplaced items. The power button on the tracker, when pressed twice, will send its location through the SmartThings app, and there’s also an option to send an SOS.
The tracker is compatible with other Samsung SmartThings devices so it can be used in conjunction wi

Evaneos, the online marketplace for tailor-made travel experiences, has picked up $80 million in Series D funding. Leading the round is Partech, and Level Equity, with participation from Quadrille Capital, and existing backers XAnge, Serena Capital, and Bpifrance.
The injection of cash is to be used to international development, including increasing headcount from the current 180 employees. It brings total funding to around $108 million since being founded in 2009.
Competing primarily with tradi

Welcome to Cheat Sheet, our brief breakdown-style reviews of festival films, VR previews, and other special event releases. This review comes from the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival.
Netflix is currently fighting a battle on at least three fronts. Even in the wake of a huge number of freshly launched competitors, the streaming giant has a serious advantage in the war to carve out and retain a sizable paying audience. Its owners got into the streaming business early, achieved a high ra

Sphero has announced another rolling ball robot called the Sphero Bolt. The Sphero Bolt follows in the company’s ethos of having a commitment to education-based products, but it comes with some upgrades that give it more capabilities than the original Sphero and Sphero Spark+.
The biggest and most noticeable difference with the Sphero Bolt is that it comes with an animated and programmable 8 x 8 LED screen so it can show a winking smiling face when a task has been completed or an arrow fo

Intel today is announcing another acquisition as it continues to pick up talent and IP to bolster its next generation of computing chips beyond legacy PCs. The company has acquired NetSpeed Systems, a startup that makes system-on-chip (SoC) design tools and interconnect fabric intellectual property (IP). The company will be joining Intel’s Silicon Engineering Group, and its co-founder and CEO, Sundari Mitra, herself an Intelvet, will be coming on as a VP at Intel where she will c

It’s been two and a half years since Qualcomm last released a major new smartwatch chip, and in the time since, Android smartwatches have languished. But in the coming months, they could finally start seeing some meaningful improvements: Qualcomm is releasing a new processor for watches, called the Snapdragon Wear 3100, that’s meant to extend battery life, enhance always-on displays, and offer more versatility when it comes to sports devices and fitness sensors.
The new chip’s

It's Monday, which means it's time to get back to the grind. That means returning to the office or classroom and making sure you're prepped and pumped for another week. It also means deals on laptops that will definitely make that grind significantly easier courtesy of Amazon and Walmart.
SEE ALSO: 10 of the best 2-in-1 laptops for beginners, experts, and everyone in between
If you're looking for a laptop that's reliable and affordable, there's the Lenovo Ideapad. You have the choice of the 320,

In 2014, the Federal Communications Commission received thousands of letters from NFL fans asking for it to keep a sports blackout rule intact — a policy that allowed the NFL to block TV stations from airing games that weren’t sold out. The Wall Street Journal reports today that many of the letters appear to be fake: some signatures used fake names like The Hobbit’s Bilbo Baggins, and others used real email addresses but owners denied ever writing those letters.
Due to travel

The leaks keep coming ahead of Google’s October 9th #madebyGoogle event, as multiple internet ads and a new video point to the possibility that a Pixelbook 2 is in the works. We’ve seen a stream of Pixel 3 leaks, but a second-generation Pixelbook has also been rumored since July, according to this tweet from Evan Blass.The most tangible piece of evidence can be seen in the video above, which was pulled from the Chromium Bug Tracker by Brandon Lall, as reported by Chrome Unboxed. The

On Monday, Mercedes-Benz unveiled the Vision Urbanetic, an all-electric, autonomous concept that the German auto giant thinks will redefine mobility. It’s a sign that smartphone makers aren’t the only ones that occasionally flirt with modular designs. Big automakers are increasingly interested in powertrain platforms — the undercarriage of a car or van — that can accommodate a bunch of different vehicle bodies on top.The Urbanetic isn’t just one type of vehicle; it

Aside from slimming down its display bezels and adding Face ID, Apple’s next iPad Pro could be making a major I/O change. As noted by 9to5Mac, reliable analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says that the next high-end version of the tablet will switch over to USB Type-C.Now, it seems pretty hard to believe that Apple would already start moving away from its own Lightning connector in 2018; my first instinct was that this report simply means they’ll be including a Lightning-to-USB-C cable and USB-C c

Over the weekend, China’s OneSpace startup launched a rocket from the Gobi Desert, and the entire thing was captured by a satellite orbiting 332 miles above Earth.Truly god view, Jilin-1 video satellite shot @OneSpace01 OS-X1 suborbital rocket's launch at JSLC this noon. pic.twitter.com/KposRHZc4D— dafeng cao (@dafengcao) September 7, 2018OneSpace was testing the solid-fueled booster of its OS-X1 rocket, according to the GB Times. The rocket took off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launc

Nintendo is releasing a special Pokémon: Let’s Go-themed Switch for the games’ upcoming release. The pokémon-stamped Switch includes Pikachu and Eevee-themed Joy-Con, a Poké Ball Plus, and a dock featuring both mascots. Two different versions of the bundle will be available, one with Let’s Go, Pikachu! and one with Let’s Go, Eevee!.Nintendo hasn’t announced a price for the new Switch yet, though a previously revealed bundle with the Poké

Let the computers do the legal busy work so attorneys can focus on complex problem solving for their clients. That’s the lucrative idea behind Atrium LTS, Twitch co-founder Justin Kan’s machine learning startup that digitizes legal documents and builds applications on top to speed up fundraising, commercial contracts, equity distribution and employment issues. For example, one of its apps automatically turns startup funding documents into Excel cap tables.
Automating expensive legal

OnePlus has confirmed that its next smartphone of 2018, the OnePlus 6T, will have an in-display fingerprint sensor. The company has dubbed its implementation of the technology as “Screen Unlock,” according to CNET. “We unlock our phones multiple times a day, and Screen Unlock reduces the number of steps to complete the action. By adding this feature as an addition to other display unlocking options such as Face Unlock, users will have options to unlock the display in a way tha

Welcome to Cheat Sheet, our brief breakdown-style reviews of festival films, VR previews, and other special event releases. This review comes from the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival.
It’s easy to lament Hollywood’s love of reboots, remakes, and sequels as a sign of modern-day creative stagnation, but the truth is that the entertainment industry has always loved retelling the same stories. Whether filmmakers are recycling familiar genre archetypes or giving an old classic a

Toshihiro Nagoshi’s team behind the Yakuza series at Sega has announced its next major work. The PS4 game is called Judge Eyes: Shinigami no Yuigon in Japanese and carries the working title of Project Judge in English. Like Yakuza, Project Judge is a gritty real-world drama set in present-day Japan, but flips the stakes altogether by casting the player character as a former lawyer turned detective.
While the excellent Yakuza 6 featured megastar actor Beat Takeshi in a key role, Sega has m

Today you can have a fully connected home complete with sensors to monitor temperature, humidity, air quality, energy usage, and more, and check in on almost any appliance from anywhere in the world with just a smartphone. But even with all of the various connected appliances, virtual assistants, and copious sensors that can be installed in a modern smart home, the “smart” side of things is still rather lacking.It’s perhaps best then to think of today’s smart home as a r

Welcome to Cheat Sheet, our brief breakdown-style reviews of festival films, VR previews, and other special event releases. This review comes from the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival.Warning: mild spoilers for the Halloween franchise below.Horror movie franchises aren’t necessarily known for their thoughtfulness. Films that spawn decades of sequels initially become part of the zeitgeist for a reason, no doubt, and broad trends in the genre often reflect the cultural anxieties of

There are two types of people in this world: those who like fat-tire bikes and those who don’t. I’m very much of the fat tire persuasion, which is why I just had to test the new Mate X electric folding bike. There’s something about those big knobby wheels that speaks to my desire to forge a new path, to take the road less traveled. To explore strange new worlds and go where no one has gone before, even if that’s just to the corner store.
My brain has evolved to filter In

In what looks like an undeniably good strategic fit, U.K.-based business reporting software startup Supdate has been acquired by equity crowdfunding platform Crowdcube. Terms of the deal remain undisclosed, although I’m told it was an all-cash acquisition.
I understand that Crowdcube is essentially buying the Supdate user base and tech/IP, and that Supdatefounder Duane Jackson is not joining Crowdcube but will be helping on the technical side during the handover. The idea is that Supdate w

OneDegree, a Hong Kong-based insurance technology startup, announced today that it has closed a Series A totaling HKD $200 million (about $25.5 million). Half of that amount was pledged by investors to OneDegreepending regulatory approval through the Hong Kong Insurance Authority’s new fast-track licensing program for online-only insurers. The company, which participated in Cyberport, the Hong Kong government’s startup incubator, claims this is the largest ever fundraising round

Perlego, which has been dubbed the ‘Spotify for textbooks,’ has closed $4.8 million in finding. Leading the round is ADV, with participation from existing angel investors, including Simon Franks (co-founder of Lovefilm), Alex Chesterman (founder of Zoopla), and Peter Hinssen.
Founded by Gauthier Van Malderen and Matthew Davis, Perlegoprovides students and professionals unlimited access to hundreds of thousands of academic and professional eBook titles for £12 a month.
To be abl

Generally, Apple’s app stores are considered to be the hosts of secure apps, but a bunch of apps from the Mac App Store are silently spying on the browser data of the users. On the list, there are several top apps such as Adware Doctor, Adware Medic, Dr. Cleaner, Dr. Unarchiver and more. Most of these apps distributed by Trend Micro. Inc were collecting browser history from Chrome, Safari, and Firefox and uploading it to the company’s servers. These apps duped users into giving

The Tor Project is building a new web browser for Android that’ll make it easier to access sites anonymously and without being tracked – and you can try an early version right now. It’s called Tor Browser for Android, and it’s based on Firefox v60. It’ll improve on the organization’s other browser, Orfox, by negating the need for a separate app to connect you to its proxy network so you can get around firewalls and avoid being spied on. Orfox, meanwhile, will