It's a good day to be Satya Nadella. Microsoft delivered its latest round of financials yesterday evening, and things are generally looking good across the board. Revenue and per-share earnings beat estimates in Q4, but even those aren't the biggest items Microsoft reported. Instead, our focus should be on Office 365, which passed an absolutely massive milestone during the quarter.
All signs point toward Razer launching its own smartphone, and now sources have appeared claiming the handset is in the pipeline to target 'hardcore gamers.' Assuming the sources are correct, Razer is aiming to make an initial public offering in the next few months, anticipating that it will list this upcoming October. If it does, the valuation could set the maker at about $5 billion, and may help bring in funding for the phone.
Blue Apron and lesser known services like it specialize in shipping all the ingredients for dinner to your door, leaving the actual cooking process to the buyer. It has proven to be a popular option that lies between take-out food and cooking from scratch, and now it looks like Amazon is getting in on the game. A trademark application from Amazon recently appeared from Amazon Technologies detailing 'prepared food kits' with the tagline 'we do the prep, you be the chef.'
Demand for Tesla's new Model 3 sedan is already at an all-time high, meaning their Gigafactory, the huge Nevada facility where Tesla mass produces batteries for their electric vehicles and Powerpack storage systems, is going to be very busy for the foreseeable future. But while the first Gigafactory isn't even completed yet, CEO Elon Musk says they already have plans to build "2 or 3" additional facilities in the US.
Rejoice smartphone users! If you've been looking for a new messaging app and options like Facebook Messenger, iMessage, Whatsapp, Google Allo, Hangouts, Slack, Signal, Telegram, Skype, Viber, and whatever else is already installed on your phone still aren't enough, Amazon might just be working on something to meet your needs. That's right, we could soon be getting yet another messaging app, this time from the internet marketplace giant.
Amazon certainly made a lot of waves when it announced a $13.7 billion bid to add Whole Foods to its portfolio last month. Some of those waves were worrying, though, as a number of other retailers and grocery chains saw their stock price plummet after the announcement. That reality of Amazon's influence, along with some other concerning factors, are causing some US lawmakers to urge a closer look at this transaction.
When parents say that having a smartphone is a luxury, they probably don’t mean it the way Vertu does. While definitely not as big as Samsung or Apple, Vertu is famous, or infamous, for its ridiculously expensive, crystal-studded rendition of what has become an everyday tool. That, however, will now become history as Vertu itself becomes history, with the company being liquidated and employees laid off, to partly pay for its ridiculously high accounting deficit.
AT&T is finally adding the DirecTV NOW features we all want and arguably need from a modern television service, and chief among them all is cloud DVR. Yes, the entire existence of DVR on a streaming platform is a bit odd, but it's the only way you're able to skip commercials (unlike on-demand), and it'll soon be available to DirecTV NOW subscribers via a beta. Joining the cloud DVR feature are 4K HDR video options and more.
Uber announced today that they'd be taking a step up in the world by buying up a bunch of Russia's Google - Yandex. If you'll take a look at Yandex on the web, it'll become clear rather quickly what they're in a position to do. They've got all the bases covered - or nearly all the bases covered - for a Russia-based do-everything company of which Uber now owns a significant portion.
Soylent -- it's that bizarro food-drink that has both faithful fans and fervent critics. When it first launched, you had to buy Soylent as a powder, something that itself has gone through multiple iterations. In the relatively recent past, the company expanded beyond that by adding a pre-mixed liquid drink option, but you still had to order it from the company's website or through Amazon. If you're curious to try the stuff for yourself but don't want to shell out for a minimum online order, there's a new option: 7-Eleven stores.
Trump Hotels has announced another data breach, saying this one involves the Sabre Hospitality Solutions service provider used by the hotels for things like booking reservations. Per an investigation into 'an incident,' Sabre discovered that a hacker had gained access to 'account credentials' which made it possible for this person/group to access some reservation data as well as payment card data.
Microsoft wants to see broadband Internet made available throughout rural America, something that will involve using different technologies to make it financially possible, according to the company. As part of this, the company has announced its new Rural Airband Initiative, saying it is finding telecommunications partners and will be, alongside them, starting at least a dozen projects across a dozen states within the next year.
