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Actress Maisie Williams to launch Daisie, a social app for talent discovery and collaboration
Actress Maisie Williams, best known for her role as Arya Stark on Game of Thrones, is the latest celeb to venture into tech entrepreneurship, with the launch of a new company aimed at connecting creatives, called Daisie. Available later this summer as a mobile app, Daisie will offer a platform where creators can network, like,…
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Apple could let you run iPad apps on your Mac
Apple is working hard on the next major versions of its operating systems — macOS, iOS, tvOS and watchOS. While iOS is the big elephant in the room, the most intriguing new feature could be for macOS. According to reports from Bloomberg and Axios, Apple will let you run iPad apps. Yesterday, Axios first reported…
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Asana raises $75M Series D led by Al Gore’s Generation Investment Management
Asana, the productivity and collaboration service, is getting a major infusion of cash after Generation Investment Management, a London-based firm backed by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, led a $75 million investment. Investment Management was joined in this Series D round by existing backers 8VC, Founders Fund, Y Combinator President Sam Altman who also participated…
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Bench bookkeeping service raises $18 million in funding
Bench, the TechStars-backed bookkeeping service for SMBs, has today announced the close of an $18 million B-1 funding round led by iNovia Capital. Existing investors, including Bain Capital Ventures, Altos Ventures, and Silicon Valley Bank, also participated in the round. Bench first launched out of TechStars NYC in 2012. Back then, the company was called…
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Google Play hit record 19 billion+ downloads in Q4 2017, its highest quarter ever
Smartphone adoption in emerging markets just delivered the highest number of app downloads Google Play has ever seen in a quarter. According to today’s report from App Annie, Google Play app downloads topped 19 billion in Q4 2017, a new record. That also makes Google Play’s download lead over iOS its largest ever, at 145…
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Apple could be redesigning the iBooks app
As AppleInsider first spotted, the first beta of iOS 11.3 includes a subtle change. iBooks is now called Books. And Mark Gurman thinks it could be a sign that there will be bigger changes with Apple’s ebook reading app. According to Bloomberg, Apple is working on a new design for the iBooks app on the…
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Uber’s wrongs show we need better workers’ rights, says UK PM
A backhanded compliment for Uber snuck into UK prime minister Theresa May’s speech to the World Economy Forum in Davos this afternoon — when she said the company’s behavior had made the case for laws being strengthened to stop gig economy workers from being exploited by overly powerful tech platforms. So, at long last, an…
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Snapchat VP of Product Tom Conrad will disappear from tech
One of Snap CEO Evan Spiegel’s top lieutenants Tom Conrad will leave Snapchat, and the whole tech industry, in March. Coming roughly two years after he joined the company as VP of Product, a source tipped off TechCrunch to Conrad’s impending departure, which Snap now confirms to us. Snap’s director of growth Jacob Andreou who…
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Subscription service for Mac apps Setapp has 15,000 subscribers a year after its launch
Meet Setapp, the Spotify of Mac apps. For $9.99 per month, you can download and use more than a hundred Mac apps without spending another cent. All those apps are usually paid apps, but Setapp wants to change the model. Setapp was founded by MacPaw, an independent Mac development company based in Ukraine. While they…
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Print book sales rose 1.9% in 2017
In what amounts to faint praise for the strength of the physical book NPD reported that print book sales rose 1.9 percent in 2017, less than the 3 percent growth posted in 2013-2016. NPD tracks book sales in the US. They write: “Returning from the huge sales of ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’ in…
