Chinese smartphone firm Xiaomi, which is headed for IPO in Hong Kong, just announced its newest flagship smartphone and a bunch of other products at a launch event in Shenzhen today. Xiaomi has long been accused of copying Apple, but in recent years its design seemed to develop a little more independence than before. Well, that all changes with the Mi 8, which — design-wise — is a pretty clearly focused on the iPhone X. The Mi 8 is Xiaomi’s first phone to sport a notch. While it is true that many in the industry have copied Apple so mercilessly that…
Author: geekfenceblogger
Mining hardware is weird stuff. Either it’s commodity hardware used – inefficiently – for complex computation or specifically-designed, expensive boards that can be used to bring in Bitcoin and little else. Asus, a motherboard maker of some renown, is now helping bridge the gap. The H370 Mining Master is a basic motherboard that supports 20 graphics cards, the boards used for Ethereum and other less resource-intensive scripts. The cards connect via PCIe-over-USB and each port has is individually controlled and managed by on-board diagnostics. This lets you ensure that each graphics card is running properly and fully connected. From the…
Jake Bright Contributor Jake Bright is a writer and author in New York City. He is co-author of The Next Africa. More posts by this contributor Africa Roundup: Safaricom unveils Bonga, Africa’s Talking gets $8.6M, TechCrunch visits Nigeria, Ghana Safaricom rolls out Bonga social networking platform to augment M-Pesa Seeking to tap into Africa’s informal savings groups the Nigerian investment startup Piggybank.ng closed $1.1M in seed funding and announced a new product — Smart Target, which offers a more secure and higher return option for Esusu or Ajo group savings clubs common across West Africa. The financing was led with a $1 million commitment from LeadPath Nigeria,…
Google is increasing its focus on India after it released a new social app that’s aimed at building neighborhood communities within cities in the country. The company’s ‘Next Billion’ team in charge of emerging markets has dedicated significant resources to India. Its initiatives include data-friendly versions of YouTube and other popular services, its Tez mobile payment app, a food delivery service and a national WiFi network initiative. Now it is adding one more to the list with the release of Neighbourly, a Q&A app for sharing local knowledge. The basic goal is to give local communities an outlet to seek answers…
Starting in July, Australians will be blocked from ordering items on Amazon’s United States site. The company said today that shoppers in Australia will be redirected to its local site, Amazon.com.au, and that its international sites, including Amazon.com, will no longer ship to Australian addresses. The change is in response to a new tax regulation that goes into effect on July 1 and requires businesses earning more than $75,000 AUD a year to charge Australia’s 10% Goods and Services Tax (GST) on low value items imported by consumers. Called the “Amazon tax,” the new policy was introduced following concerns about…
At the Code Conference tonight, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi spoke about the company’s relationship with drivers, autonomous driving, uberEATS having a $6 billion bookings run rate, taking over as CEO and flying taxis, obviously. Just this week, San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera sent subpoenas to Uber and Lyft seeking information on driver pay, benefits and classification info. Uber wasn’t available for comment at the time, but now it seems that the company is looking at ways to offer benefits and insurance to drivers. Specifically, Uber is looking at an economically-sound way to offer drivers a benefits and insurance package…
SenseTime, the world’s highest-valued AI company with a valuation of over $4.5 billion, is back in the money again. The company raised $600 million in an Alibaba-led financing round announced last month, and now it has added a further $620 million to that with a “Series C+” round announced today. Alibaba led the previous deal, and this time around the investors include more traditional names such as Fidelity International, Hopu Capital, Silver Lake and Tiger Global. Qualcomm, which previously backed the firm, was also in this round, SenseTime confirmed. The new money takes SenseTime to $1.6 billion from investors to date.…
Google has continued its slow and steady China strategy after it launched Files Go, a files management service for Android devices. The app launched to global markets last year but today it landed in China via four third-party app stores. Named ‘Google 文件极客’ in China, the app helps users keep within the storage limits of their device by suggesting files to delete if they need to free up space. It also includes feature for finding files and sharing them to local devices without an internet connection. Like a solid internet connection, keeping enough free space on a device is critical to…
Google is slowing piecing together a strategy for China to ensure that it doesn’t miss out on the growth of technology in the world’s largest country. It’s been months in the making through a series of gradual plays, but further evidence of those plans comes today via a product launch. Files Go — a file manager for Android devices released last year — has made its way to China today. Not a huge launch, for sure, but the mechanisms behind it provide insight into how Google may be thinking about the country, where it has been absent since 2010 after redirecting its Chinese…
Diversity and inclusion is a trash fire in Silicon Valley and in the business world at large. But let’s just focus on tech for now. At the Code Conference this evening, All Raise and Cowboy Ventures Partner Aileen Lee, shift7 CEO Megan Smith and Stubhub President Sukhinder Singh Cassidy talked about the state of diversity and inclusion in tech. Lee kicked things off with how the idea and statement that someone is such a “good guy” bothers her. Often times, she said, that’s the qualification for how many of these men get the opportunity to invest in companies or work at…