Frederic Lardinois
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The Latest from Frederic Lardinois
Microsoft’s Cortana drops consumer skills as it refocuses on business users
With the next version of Windows 10, coming this spring, Microsoft’s Cortana digital assistant will lose a number of consumer skills around music and connected homes, as well as some third-party
DocuSign acquires Seal Software for $188M to enhance its AI chops
Contract management service DocuSign today announced that it is acquiring Seal Software for $188 million in cash. The acquisition is expected to close later this year. DocuSign, it’s worth notin
Amazon Transcribe can now automatically redact personally identifiable information
Amazon Transcribe, the AWS-based speech-to-text service, launched a small but important new feature this morning that, if implemented correctly, can automatically hide your personally identifiable inf
Cartesiam helps developers bring AI to microcontrollers
Cartesiam, a startup that aims to bring machine learning to edge devices powered by microcontrollers, has launched a new tool for developers who want an easier way to build services for these devices.
Freshworks acquires AnsweriQ
Customer engagement platform Freshworks today announced that it has acquired AnsweriQ, a startup that provides AI tools for self-service solutions and agent-assisted use cases where the ultimate goal
Strattic raises $6.5M to bring static WordPress to the masses
WordPress remains the juggernaut of content management systems, even though it now often gets used in ways it was never intended. And with that, managing the life cycle of WordPress sites has only got
Elementor raises $15M for its WordPress website builder
WordPress has become so ubiquitous, it’s easy to forget that it still drives a huge ecosystem of startups that build tools and services around the platform. One of these is Elementor, a graphica
D-Wave launches Leap 2, the next version of its quantum cloud service
D-Wave today announced the launch of Leap 2, the latest version of its quantum cloud service that gives developers real-time access to its hardware quantum systems. As the company notes, Leap 2 was bu
Salesforce co-CEO Keith Block steps down
Salesforce today announced that Keith Block, the company’s co-CEO, is stepping down. This leaves company founder Marc Benioff as the sole CEO and chair of the CRM juggernaut. Block’s bio h
Mirantis co-founder launches FreedomFi to bring private LTE networks to enterprises
Boris Renski, the co-founder of Mirantis, one of the earliest and best-funded players in the OpenStack space a few years ago (which then mostly pivoted to Kubernetes and DevOps), has left his role as
Databricks makes bringing data into its ‘lakehouse’ easier
Databricks today announced the launch of its new Data Ingestion Network of partners and the launch of its Databricks Ingest service. The idea here is to make it easier for businesses to combine the be
Leanplum raises another $27M, shakes up its executive ranks
Customer engagement platform Leanplum today announced that it has raised a $27 million extension to its 2017 $47 million Series D round. This additional funding was led by previous investors Norwest V
Thomas Kurian on his first year as Google Cloud CEO
“Yes.” That was Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian’s simple answer when I asked if he thought he’d achieved what he set out to do in his first year. A year ago, he took the helm of
Google launches the first developer preview of Android 11
With the days of desert-themed releases officially behind it, Google today announced the first developer preview of Android 11, which is now available as system images for Google’s own Pixel dev
Google Cloud opens its Seoul region
Google Cloud today announced that its new Seoul region, its first in Korea, is now open for business. The region, which it first talked about last April, will feature three availability zones and supp
Google Cloud acquires mainframe migration service Cornerstone
Google today announced that it has acquired Cornerstone, a Dutch company that specializes in helping enterprises migrate their legacy workloads from mainframes to public clouds. Cornerstone, which pro
Adobe celebrates Photoshop’s 30th anniversary with new desktop and mobile features
Adobe’s Photoshop celebrates its 30th birthday today. Over that time, the app has pretty much become synonymous with photo editing and there will surely be plenty of retrospectives. But to look
Alphabet takes the wind out of its Makani energy kites
Alphabet today announced that it is calling it quits on its efforts to build and monetize its Makani wind energy kites. Makani, which was founded in 2006, came into Google/Alphabet seven years ago as
How Spotify ran the largest Google Dataflow job ever for Wrapped 2019
In early December, Spotify launched its annual personalized Wrapped playlist with its users’ most-streamed sounds of 2019. That has become a bit of a tradition and isn’t necessarily anythi
Intuition Robotics raises $36M for its empathetic digital companion
Intuition Robotics, the company best known for its ElliQ robot, a digital home companion for the elderly, today announced that it has raised a $36 million Series B round co-led by SPARX Group and OurC