Kiran Upadhyay

As widely speculated, India's biggest e-commerce website Flipkart has acquired eBay India. The company announced this on Twitter. Flipkart has also raised $1.4 billion from Tencent, eBay and Microsoft. This is the biggest round of funding by an Indian internet company till date. With this latest round of funding, Flipkart valuation has reached $11.6 billion and US software giant Microsoft joins the marketplace as a strategic investor. In exchange for an equity stake in Flipkart, US-based eBay will make a $500 million cash investment and sell its eBay.in business to the e-commerce major. Bengaluru-based Flipkart will own and operate eBay.in business once the transaction is closed, which is expected by the end of this year. eBay and Flipkart have also entered into an exclusive agreement in which they will jointly pursue cross-border trade opportunities. "We are delighted that Tencent, eBay and Microsoft — all innovation powerhouses — have chosen to partner with us on thei

RIP Pebble… The wearable maker that pioneered wrist-based notifications before Apple and many others waded into the smartwatch space has confirmed it’s closing its doors as an independent entity. Late last month rumors emerged that Fitbit was set to acquire Pebble — with our sources telling us the price-tag was between $34 million and $40M, a figure they said “barely” covered the startup’s debts. Although the company avoided an explicit confirmation of the rumor by tweeting a shrug emoji until now. Today Pebble’s CEO Eric Migicovsky has published a blog with official confirmation of the acquisition and details of what will happen to Pebble products. The post does not confirm the acquisition price, however. “We have made the tough decision to shut down the company and no longer manufacture Pebble devices,” he writes. “While dissolving Pebble as you know today is difficult, I am happy to announce that many members of Team Pebble will be joining the Fitbit family to continue their

Slack announced a strategic partnership with Google Cloud this morning, which will bring a number of new features, including deeper integrations with Google services, to its collaboration platform for teams. Among the additions are new bots for notifications, as well as support for Google’s recently launched Team Drives, document previews, permissioning and more. The move comes at a time when Slack is facing new competition from Microsoft and Facebook, who have each launched their own rival products in recent weeks. Microsoft Teams is basically a Microsoft Slack clone, but has the added advantage of being able to tie into Microsoft’s suite of services, including Skype and Office 365. Slack, as an independent company, doesn’t have the same, native ability connect deeply to other products and services that a business may use – instead, it relies on third-party integrations. Google and Slack have already worked together on that front, though not via formal arrangement like this. Go

Facebook has risen to the top spot among tech companies on the annual Glassdoor Best Places to Work U.S. rankings. That seems fitting for the company in a year when it is taking on Slack, Microsoft-owned Yammer, and other workplace collaboration platforms with its own Facebook Workplace. Facebook’s Head of People, Lori Matloff Goler, told TechCrunch that the social media giant focuses on being a “strengths-based organization” and wants to be known as an employer that “takes good care of its people overall.” She said, “Most employees speak favorably about their ability to have a real impact here. Many talk about the flexibility in the way we work. Your manager is there to care for you, set context and help you play to your strengths, give you feedback and goals, but let you do whatever you need to get there. It’s not about how much time you spend in the office. This is great for families but was inspired by engineers who, as you know, like to or need to work at different hour

After a couple years of being driven primarily by the startups, the virtual reality industry is growing to be one increasingly dominated by the big dogs. There’s still a sizable amount of fragmentation in the industry as well a high chance of failure for many of the efforts currently being undertaken. For these reasons some of the biggest names in the industry, Google, HTC, Oculus, Samsung, Sony and Acer have joined forces to create the Global Virtual Reality Association (GVRA) which aims to “unlock and maximize VR’s potential,” but its really not clear what this all means for consumers. What many in the VR community have been thirsting for is some unification of standards in terms of software and hardware. Games bought in the Oculus store don’t play on the Vive or PS VR. Sensors for the Vive don’t work on Oculus. Sony doesn’t play nice with anyone else’s standards etc. etc. Valve, which makes the Steam store and SteamVR platform for the HTC Vive and others, is notably not a m

Native mobile advertising startup Avocarrot — which, interestingly, was in the first cohort of company builder Entrepreneur First — has been acquired by adtech company Glispa Global Group. Terms of the deal remain undisclosed, though TechCrunch understands from sources that the headline price is around $20 million. That’s likely a mixture of cash and stock and may also include various earn-out stipulations. It should also be noted that EF won’t make a dime out of this exit. Avocarrot joined the London-based company builder, which targets technical graduates to help them become entrepreneurs, before it started investing in the startups it puts through its program. In other words, as was the case when CustomInk was bought for a reported $100 million, EF didn’t have an equity stake in Avocarrot. How times have changed. That said, the exit does provide a little more validation that EF’s unique model works. Described as a native advertising Supply-Side Platform, Avocarrot offers a

Some interesting consolidation afoot in the travel industry: Concur, the travel and expense platform that was acquired by SAP in 2014 for $8.3 billion, is today making its own acquisition: it is buying Hipmunk, the travel search startup. The companies are not disclosing the terms of the deal but we are trying to find out. Hipmunk had raised around $55 million since being founded in 2010, but its valuation has never been sky-high. Some clues to the value of this deal: Its last valuation as of 2014 (ahead of two small venture rounds) was around $96 million, according to PitchBook.  We at TechCrunch had last heard around April 2016 that it was trying to raise money, but in a down-round. In the event, Hipmunk picked up a small $5.75 million in venture funding that very month. Hipmunk will be integrated into Concur’s platform (which currently has search already, but as a Concur user, I can attest to the fact that it’s not that great and will be very much improved by adding Hipmunk).

By now everyone has heard of Google’s RankBrain, the new artificial intelligence machine learning algorithm that is supposed to be the latest and greatest from Mountain View, Calif. What many of you might not realize, however, is just how fast the SEO industry is changing because of it. In this article, I’ll take you through some clear examples of how some of the old rules of SEO no longer apply, and what steps you can take to stay ahead of the curve in order to continue to provide successful SEO campaigns for your businesses. So what is artificial intelligence? There are generally three different classifications of artificial intelligence: Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI): This is like AI for one particular thing (e.g. beating the world champion in chess). Artificial General Intelligence (AGI): This is when the AI can perform all things. Once an AI can perform like a human, we consider it AGI. Artificial Superintelligence (ASI): AI on a much higher level for all things

Facebook is removing the messaging capability from its mobile web application, according to a notice being served to users: “Your conversations are moving to Messenger,” it reads. Welcome news to the millions like me who switched to the web app in order to avoid Messenger in the first place! At the moment, you can just dismiss the notice and go about your business. But this summer the warning will become an impenetrable wall, and your only option will be to download the official Messenger app. I’m a little worried about this, because surely the mobile site is much used by people who have good reason not to download the app. People whose phones don’t have official clients, for instance, or who can’t upgrade to the latest version of an OS, and must access via the web. And really, it strikes me as quite a hostile move, as it did before when they axed messaging from the main app. If, as everyone in the company is constantly repeating, mantra-like, that they want to connect the

For more than a month, users of the remote login service TeamViewer have taken to Internet forums to report their computers have been ransacked by attackers who somehow gained access to their accounts. In many of the cases, the online burglars reportedly drained PayPal or bank accounts. No one outside of TeamViewer knows precisely how many accounts have been hacked, but there's no denying the breaches are widespread. Over the past three days, both Reddit and Twitter have exploded with such reports, often with the unsupported claim that the intrusions are the result of a hack on TeamViewer's network. Late on Friday afternoon, an IBM security researcher became the latest to report a TeamViewer account takeover. "In the middle of my gaming session, I lose control of my mouse and the TeamViewer window pops up in the bottom right corner of my screen," wrote Nick Bradley, a practice leader inside IBM's Threat Research Group. "As soon as I realize what is hap

Over 30 million Americans have used an online dating service or mobile dating app, according to Pew Research Center. Yet Black online users face apparent bias: Data collected from 25 million OkCupid accounts demonstrated that when users rated their matches they penalized Black men and women. Bae :: Before Anyone Else, a mobile dating app created by Jordan Kunzika, Brian Gerrard and Justin Gerrard, hopes to make online dating a better experience for Black people. Bae founders cultivated their user base by going directly to the communities they believe need the app. They hosted an HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) tour which consisted of parties and mixers where people who matched on Bae could meet in person. All attendees had to have Bae downloaded to participate. Within a few weeks of their April 2015 launch, they reached 17,000 downloads, and have grown over ten times since. Bae’s founders are from the community they are building for–an essential dimension of th

Gmail supports encryption in transit using Transport Layer Security (TLS), and will automatically encrypt your incoming and outgoing emails if it can. Some other email services don't support TLS, and therefore messages exchanged with these services will not be TLS encrypted. In Gmail on your computer, you can check that a message you’ve received was sent over TLS by clicking the small down arrow at the top-left of the email and reading the message details. If you see a red open padlock icon  on a message you’ve received, or on one you're about to send, it means that the message may not be encrypted. If you see the red padlock while composing a message Don’t send confidential material, like tax forms or contracts, to that email address. If you see the red padlock when viewing a received message This message was sent unencrypted. In most cases, there’s nothing you can do. If it contained particularly sensitive content, you should let the sender know and they can cont

Today was a huge day for Alphabet — the first day it finally broke out its “other bets” in its earnings report — and boy did the company not disappoint. The company smashed expectations on both ends, bringing in $21.3 billion in revenue and earnings of $8.67 per share. Analysts were expecting earnings of $8.09 on $20.8 billion in revenue. And with that, Alphabet became the most valuable publicly-traded company in the world — coming in at a market cap $558 billion after jumping about 8% after the company reported its fourth-quarter earnings, and passing Apple, which sits at a market cap of $535 billion. There weren’t any huge surprises on the earnings call that caused the stock to dip, but its ranking still depends on whether or not the company gives up those gains in extended trading. Either way this is a significant moment for the company and the technology market in general. Alphabet had a huge opportunity to finally pass Apple as the most valuable company in the world. T

Shodan, a search engine for the Internet of Things (IoT), recently launched a new section that lets users easily browse vulnerable webcams. The feed includes images of marijuana plantations, back rooms of banks, children, kitchens, living rooms, garages, front gardens, back gardens, ski slopes, swimming pools, colleges and schools, laboratories, and cash register cameras in retail stores, according to Dan Tentler, a security researcher who has spent several years investigating webcam security. "It's all over the place," he told Ars Technica UK. "Practically everything you can think of." We did a quick search and turned up some alarming results: The cameras are vulnerable because they use the Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP, port 554) to share video but have no password authentication in place. The image feed is available to paid Shodan members at images.shodan.io. Free Shodan accounts can also search using the filter port:554 has_screenshot:true.

Bolt is a San Francisco-based startup that makes electric motorbikes. The bikes are handmade in a small garage on the edge of town and come with the same type of lithium-ion batteries used in Teslas. Co-founder Nathan Jauvtis grew up riding and assembling motorcycles and bikes, but he really liked the idea of building his own bike – one that would be clean and easy to ride. He started Bolt out of his garage not long ago and just started taking the first orders for these $5,000 vehicles. The price seems steep, considering a brand new Vespa goes for a little less than that, but Jauvtis’ bikes also come with a few key tech innovations that set this bike apart from the rest. The Bolt M-1 is the first Bolt bike off the line. The bike is keyless and can start with a unique passcode or from your smartphone. The Bolt app will locate your vehicle, should any harm come to it. Parents will also enjoy some controls on the app that will allow them to limit the top speed of the bike and keep

A lot of people are aware that third-world countries still need Internet access. That’s why there’s Facebook’s sometimes controversial Internet.org. What not a lot of people are aware of is that one out of every four people living in the U.S. don’t have Internet at home. One in four. When I heard that census data, I was floored. I had first heard this thrown out as an anecdote when I visited Kansas City a few years ago, but it’s true. The White House wants to change this through its new ConnectHome initiative. Its mission: Every child should be given the same opportunity to build a brighter future and to achieve their dreams. Internet in the home can help build that brighter future by connecting families with information they need to get ahead in school and career life. There are quite a few reasons why not everyone in the United States has Internet access at home (mind you, 98 percent of Americans have access to Internet of some sort), but a lot of it has to do with whe

“We know the algorithm isn’t perfect” News Feed Product Manager Greg Marra tells me. So to make sure Facebook stays entertaining and addictive, it’s giving users more direct control over what they see by revamping News Feed Preferences Facebook is rolling out to the U.S. a way to choose friends and Pages they want to “See First” atop the feed, after I spotted it testing the feature last month. The upgraded settings section will now display who’s shown most in your feed and let you unfollow them, refollow people you’ve hidden, and discover Pages based on your interests. It’s coming tothe U.S. on iOS today and other platforms soon. After years of suggesting who we should add as friends, Facebook is finally helping us to cull and coordinate who appears in our News Feeds. That could ensure our best friends don’t get drowned out by distant acquaintances. The “Discover New Pages” section could better map interests to connections by letting us explicitly volunteer information, improvin

LOS ANGELES—While Microsoft's pre-E3 press conference focused largely on newer video games, the event also filled in a pretty major gap for hardware-upgrading holdouts: backward compatibility. Starting later this year, the company's newest console, the Xbox One, will support a limited number of older Xbox 360 games—and Xbox One preview program users will get a shot even sooner than that. Gamers will have two ways of playing old games that are part of the backward-compatible initiative. If users already purchased the games digitally through Xbox Live, they can simply log in and re-download the game on Xbox One without paying any additional cost. If they own the game as a disc, they'll have to download the game to their Xbox One hard drive, and the system will then check for the disc before launching the game. Technical details on how this works are still unknown. The hardware of the Xbox 360 is very different from the hardware of the Xbox One, and pure emulation of th

Lavu, an Albuquerque-based startup that provides iPad-centric point of sale systems for restaurants, has raised $15 million in new funding led by Aldrich Capital Partners. Previously bootstrapped, Lavu has been profitable since its second month in operation, according to founder Andy Lim. The company charges a licensing fee (around $1k per POS terminal) and a recurring monthly fee determined by the size of the restaurant. Lim says that Lavu is currently being used by over 4,000 restaurants in 86 countries. Australia, Thailand, and Singapore are a few regions with especially high adoption. The $15 million will be used to ramp up sales and marketing efforts. “That’s what we lack; we don’t really do quite well in terms of sales and marketing… the investment is really to get those resources and connections to reach out to more of the big chains,” Lim says. By partnering with an international fast food chain, for example, Lavu would be able to scale its platform globally at a r

The Federal Communications Commission today said it plans to fine AT&T $100 million for throttling the wireless Internet connections of customers with unlimited data plans without adequately notifying the customers about the reduced speeds. "The Commission charges AT&T with violating the 2010 Open Internet Transparency Rule by falsely labeling these plans as 'unlimited' and by failing to sufficiently inform customers of the maximum speed they would receive under the Maximum Bit Rate policy," the announcement said. The action isn't yet final. The FCC issued a Notice of Apparent Liability against AT&T that includes the proposed fine and provisions designed to bring AT&T into compliance with the commission's rules about making proper disclosures to customers. AT&T can ask the commission to reduce or eliminate the fine, which would be deposited into the US Treasury. But even if AT&T opposes the fine, the commission says the company