Scientists use technology to save a dying fish species in the hottest place on Earth.
Source: CNET
Scientists are racing to save the endangered Devils Hole pupfish, which lives in one of the most inhospitable places on Earth.
Source: CNET
The wallpaper archives to end all wallpaper archives.
Source: CNET
Ladies and gentlemen, step right up and get your student discounts!
Source: Wired
Defense Distributed sparked a controversy that has little to do with 3-D printing and everything to do with the tiny hunk of metal that makes a gun a gun.
Source: Wired
Social media could help monitor air pollution that physical monitors miss.
Source: Wired
Tencent, Asia’s most valuable tech firm, delivered a surprise drop in profit on account of lower investment gains.
The firm recorded strong growth with revenue up 30 percent year-on-year to reach 73.7 billion RMB ($10.7 billion) in Q2 2018. But net profit slipped by two percent annually to reach 17.9 billion RMB, or around $2.6 billion.
That breaks a growth streak that stretches back more than a decade and, more crucially, it comes at a time of relative crisis for Tencent . The company became Asia’s first $500 billion tech business last November, but it has endured a torrid 2018 with its share price slipping more than 25 percent since a January high — controversy around a banned game knocked it down further this week.
Gaming has always been Tencent’s strongest point — it helped the firm log a 60 percent profit jump in the previous quarter — but there are concerns.
Sources told Bloomberg that there has been a freeze in awarding game licenses in China as part of changing within the agency that approves them. That’s impacted mobile, PC and console and it has particularly rattled Tencent, which is one of the major players.
Not only did China clamp down on popular title Monster Hunt, but Tencent still doesn’t have approval to bring PUBG or Fortnite to PC in China, and its financial results show some slowing. Its PC gaming business recorded a five percent yearly drop to 12.9 billion RMB. The smartphone games business — which includes smash hits PUBG and Fortnite — posted 19 percent year-on-year growth to hit sales of 17.6 billion RMB, but that was done 19 percent on that previous blockbuster quarter.
“In China, DAU for our smartphone games grew at a double-digit rate year-on-year, but monetization per user declined as users shifted time to non-monetised tactical tournament games,” Tencent said in a filing.
The company has vowed to “reinvigorate” the mobile games until through a mix of more monetizing, deeper engagement and widening its selection on the market. The firm also said it will push its successful China games overseas, presumably into other parts of Asia where Tencent has seen traction and revenue before.
Those strategies will take some time to generate results, but for now the company said it is happy with user engagement, and particularly the daily gamer numbers.
That hasn’t impressed investors, who sent the stock price lower following the announcement of these financials.
Source: TechCrunch
Femaleness, Asian-ness, even beauty—the Miss Asian Global pageant aims to celebrate qualities that are often barriers in Silicon Valley. But can it transport its contestants from sexist trope to beyond the bamboo ceiling?
Source: Wired
In an exclusive interview, Sonos’ chief product officer charts the company’s history and hints at where it could go in the future—like outside your house.
Source: Wired
Daniel Kim and Jay Lee, the two founders of AuditBoard, a Los Angeles-based provider of a risk and compliance software service for large businesses, grew up middle school friends in Cerritos, Calif.
It was from their hometown Los Angeles exurb, that Kim and Lee first began plotting how they would turn their experience working for PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Ernst & Young (respectively) into the software business that just managed to rake in $40 million in financing led by one of venture capital’s most-respected firms, Battery Ventures.
Kim, who had moved on from the world of the big four audit firms to take positions as the head of global audit at companies as diverse as the chip component manufacturer, International Rectifier and the surf and sportswear-focused clothing company, Quiksilver, had complained to his childhood friend about how little had changed in the auditing world since the two men first started working in the industry.
For Kim, the frustration that systems for accounting for risk and compliance — requirements under the Sarbanes Oxley Act passed in 2002, were still little more than Excel spreadsheets tracking information across different business lines.
He thought there had to be a better way for companies to manage their audit and compliance processes. So with Lee’s help, he set out to build one. The two men touted the company’s service and its ability to create an out-of-the-box system of record for all internal audit, compliance and risk teams.
“It had been ten years since I had left audit. I couldn’t believe there wasn’t a software for compliance and risk,” Lee said. “Companies still manage Sarbanes-Oxley in Excel.”
There are other tools out there, IBM has OpenPages and ThomsonReuters developed a tool for audit and risk and compliance, but these software services pre-dated Sarbanes-Oxley, and were not made with a modern organization in mind, according to Lee and Kim.
The company counts major clients like TripAdvisor, Lululemon, HD Supply, Express Scripts and Spirit Airlines, among its roster of customers and will use the funding led by Battery to further expand its sales and marketing and product development efforts.
“We were impressed with AuditBoard’s product and its customer traction. With more CFOs now turning to dedicated, cloud-based software tools for various tasks, from ERP to tax compliance to procurement, we see a big opportunity for AuditBoard to continue to grow,” said Michael Brown, a general partner with Battery Ventures and the latest board member on AuditBoard’s board of directors. “We have invested before in similar companies that sell technology to CFOs — ranging from Avalara* and Intacct* to Outlooksoft* and Bonfire*– and we are excited to partner with Daniel, Jay and their team, who have already built a significant business in a short amount of time.”
AuditBoard raised a small seed round from friends and family, and followed that up with Donnelly Financial Solutions, a strategic investor who partnered with AuditBoard in 2017 to further develop its Securities and Exchange Commission reporting and Sarbanes-Oxley toolkit.
Now, AuditBoard joins a growing list of Los Angeles business-focused software companies that are beginning to scale dramatically in the city.
Long known for its advertising, marketing, and entertainment technology companies, large business-to-business software vendors are cropping up across the Los Angeles region. In addition to AuditBoard’s big round, companies like ServiceTitan, which raised $62 million in funding through an investment round led by Battery Ventures earlier in the year, are also making a splash in the Los Angeles business tech scene.
Earlier big rounds for companies like InAuth, the security firm; Factual, a location-based targeting service; PatientPop, the management tool for physicians offices; RightScale, a cloud management and cost optimization service; and Oblong Industries, a collaboration and computer interface developer, all speak to the breadth of the business-to-business talent that’s emerging from Hollywoodland.
Source: TechCrunch