Articles by Rachelle Dragani

Pharmaceutical giant AbbVie on Wednesday announced it was teaming up with Google-fundedCalico, the life sciences initiative aimed at helping patients deal with diseases and other negative effects associated with aging. Under the terms of the partnership, both AbbVie and Calico will invest up to $250 million in the project, with the possibility of ...

Uber is attempting to polish its image with a defense of its driver recruitment tactics following publication this week on The Verge of accounts of sabotage, dirty tricks and generally ruthless behavior toward Lyft and other competitors in the ride-sharing space. "We want to make sure everyone has access to Uber's unmatched economic opportunity," ...

Twitter last week reported success with its BotMaker spam-prevention system Because Twitter operates in real time, BotMaker is designed to work fast to eliminate spammers. Its main goals are to bar spam accounts from being created, to reduce the time they spend on Twitter if they do show up, and to reduce Twitter's reaction time in responding to sp...

Google has launched a new service that lets advertisers track their ads' success at generating phone calls following user clicks The AdWords tool, called "Website Call Conversions," is designed to help marketers tweak their online ads to prompt more valuable phone inquiries....

Pinterest announced Wednesday that it has signed a deal that will allow users to create boards that include their favorite Vevo music videos They now will be able to share, search for and watch Vevo videos on Pinterest, as well as pin videos to Pinterest straight from Vevo.com or the Vevo iOS app....

NPR last week launched a mobile app that gives modern listeners a new way to access personalized radio content NPR One provides mobile device users a stream of news stories based on their preferences. They can curate a playlist of their favorite NPR podcasts -- such as Fresh Air, for instance -- as well as stories aired on their local public radio ...

Smartphone maker Xiaomi has been on a tear. It has risen from a lowly device maker to king of the Chinese market in just a year, according to a new report from Canalys A year ago, Xiaomi held a 5 percent of China's second-quarter smartphone shipment rankings. By the first quarter of this year, the company had achieved a 10.7 percent market share, b...

Google on Wednesday unveiled a handful of new features for Google Apps for Business designed to attract more enterprise customers Google Hangouts, its video chat service, will be further integrated into Google's enterprise suite, entitling Google Apps for Business customers to the same level of support they get with services like Google Drive and b...

Bubblews, a social media platform that offers to pay users for their posts, last week moved out of its testing phase, which began in 2012. It emerged with a new look designed to attract users who might be dissatisfied with other social media offerings Bubblews is attempting to build a self-sustaining ecosystem in which users who create engaging pos...

Facebook this week launched a feature that allows users to save content from their News Feed that they might want to read or watch later Called "Save," it is designed help users who may be inundated by links to articles, music clips and videos to separate the wheat from the chaff....

Secret last week announced that a recent round of funding, to the tune of US$25 million, would help it expand its reach in the social networking space Since its launch about six months ago, Secret has provided a platform for users to post anonymous notes on topics ranging from the ridiculous to the sublime....

Sprint last week unveiled a mobile hotspot designed to satisfy all the wireless needs of a consumer in one 4.7 x 4.7-inch device Sprint LivePro, which went on sale Friday, is a multifunctional device that acts as both a mobile hotspot and a mini projector. Users connect via Sprint's 4G LTE Spark network -- the company's enhanced LTE service that la...

Mobile payment app Isis is focusing on rebranding following the emergence of the militant Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS ISIS has gained notoriety in recent weeks for its links to violent strikes in Iraq. Not wanting its company to be associated with that group, Isis announced Monday that it will be working on a rebranding strategy over t...

Google on Monday announced that it is bidding farewell to Orkut, its first attempt at a social network, which saw fair international success before Facebook took over the scene Launched in 2004, Orkut provided a place for users to display profiles, hang out and connect with others. The site gained popularity outside the U.S., particularly in Brazil...

Salesforce and Philips last week announced they had teamed up on a cloud computing initiative designed to transform existing healthcare platforms The companies plan to create an open cloud-based healthcare platform that will allow everyone from software developers to health insurance companies to connect and exchange information via Salesforce's he...

The German Publishers and Booksellers Association (Borsenverein) on Tuesday complained to German antitrust authorities that Amazon was in violation of competition regulations Amazon has delayed the shipment of books from publisher Bonnier following a disagreement over dividing the revenue from e-book sales, the association said.

Cruise aims to spark a revolution among autopilot technology with a US$10,000 accessory that consumers can use to create a self-driving car, of sorts. At the heart of the Cruise RP-1 system is a sensor pod that gets mounted on the roof of a car. It utilizes cameras, data and radar to analyze the vehicle's surroundings. With that information, it ca...

The United States' hopeful tinkerers and entrepreneurs gathered Wednesday on the White House lawn to showcase their innovative ideas at the Maker Faire ...

Facebook on Monday unveiled an iPad app update designed to make the site a hub for game, video and content discovery. A new panel appears on the right-hand side of the iPad providing news and entertainment Games are heavily featured. More than 70 percent of Facebook for iPad users played a Facebook-connected game in the past 90 days, the company no...

Amazon is planning to test a local marketplace that could make it a one-stop shop for local services, according to Reuters. Those services could include anything from dog walking to a plumbing Backed by Amazon's already established ratings and recommendations infrastructure, the service could take on sites like Yelp, Angie's List and Craigslist. It...