Friday, August 7, 2015

Education Startup Panaroma Raises $12 Million in Funding

Panorama Education secured $12 million in new funding to help schools better understand their students. The company seeks to find the best ways to gather and organize feedback from students to their schools.


“‘’There’s all this talk about data and education, but ‘data’ has really been a buzzword and not very meaningful because we’re still looking at test scores, not at how engaged students are,’ says Feuer. ‘There’s a disconnect between the things we care about and the things that we’re actually measuring and judging schools by.’”

Source: Tech Crunch

Thursday, August 6, 2015

Netflix Launches First Market in Asia

Netflix announces it will launch in Japan, making it the first country in Asia to receive the video-streaming service. The company already has markets across the Americas, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

Source: Venture Beat

Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Facebook's Mission To Connect Internet With Drones

As one of their missions, Facebook wants to connect rural areas with the Internet using drones. The company uses balloons to life the drones up to 90,000 feet, which will fly up to three months and transmit information.

“'We want to actually speed up Internet adoption -- and in order to speed that up we need to work on the infrastructure challenges we’re working on today,' said Jay Parikh, Facebook’s vice president of engineering. 'Our mission in the company is to connect everybody in the world.'"

Source: Bloomberg

Tuesday, August 4, 2015

Security Firm Zscaler Lands $100 Million in Funding

Zscaler, a cloud-based security company, has raised $100 million in its second round of funding led by TPG Growth. The business focuses on "making it safe for enterprise networks to connect to the internet by scanning and filtering traffic for possible malware, viruses, or advanced persistent threats -- anything that indicates network information has leaked."

To date, the company has secured 5,000 enterprises and 13 million users globally, with about 50% of sales from the United States.

Source: Venture Beat

Monday, August 3, 2015

Samsung Creates Fund For Cancer Stricken Workers

Samsung Electronics Co Ltd said it will create a 100 billion won ($85.8 million) fund to compensate workers plagued with cancer and their families. Aside from compensation Samsung also plans on using the funds to prevent such diseases at its chip and display factories. The South Korean activist group Sharps says they’re aware of around 200 workers who’ve fallen ill after working at a Samsung plant and about 70 of them have died. This proposal stems from negotiations between the South Korean firm, workers and their families, and outside experts over the company’s responsibility for the workers who attribute the illnesses to prolonged exposure to radiation or dangerous chemicals used in Samsung’s factories.

Source: Reuters

Saturday, August 1, 2015

Latest View of Tesla's Gigafactory

Tesla's new gigafactory in the desert near Reno, Nevada is soon to become the biggest battery factory in the world. These batteries will be needed to launch the company's first electric SUV, the Model X, and the Model 3 in 2017.

Source: Bloomberg