Golden Gate Ventures And JFDI.Asia Announce Strategic Alliance For Asian Startups

Top Southeast Asia VCs Golden Gate Ventures and JFDI.Asia have announced a new strategic alliance that will focus on supporting early-stage digital startups as they transition from concept to substantial pre-Series A funding.

The program will include intensive mentoring from both early-stage funding specialists to help companies gain market traction.

Golden Gate Ventures has offices in Singapore and San Francisco. It operates a seed investment program for digital start-up companies that have alr...

Read the source article

Microsoft Heeds Gamer Feedback, Dumps Xbox One DRM RestrictionsComments Off

xboxdrm Attention gamers: you win. The folks at Redmond infuriated many when it revealed that the Xbox One would come with a long list of potential caveats — there was the automated 24 hour check-in to keep the console in playable condition, and the restrictions on who you could share disc-based games with, not to mention the fact that it would shipped region-locked.

Unsurprisingly, the gaming community lashed out in a big way, and Microsoft is finally doing something about it. According to a recent mea culpa from Microsoft Interactive Entertainment President Don Mattrick, the company has suddenly decided to drop all that nonsense due to an outpouring of (largely negative) feedback.

Twitter Acquires Local Discovery Startup Spindle, Will End Spindle ServiceComments Off

photo-3 Twitter acquired Spindle, an app for local discovery, today. The Spindle team will move to San Francisco and shutter the Spindle app.

“By joining forces with Twitter, we can do so much more to help you find interesting, timely, and useful information about what’s happening around you,” the company wrote in a blog post today.

Stratasys Acquiring MakerBot In $403M Deal, Combined Company Will Likely Dominate 3D Printing IndustryComments Off

6F9A6772 Today Stratasys announced that it has acquired MakerBot, as we reported, in a stock deal worth $403 million based on the current share value of Stratasys. The combination of the companies brings together a leader in 3D industrial printing and manufacturing, with the emerging leader in desktop 3D printing, which the companies said in a press release should help drive “faster adoption of 3D printing” across all categories.

Microsoft Was Close To A Nokia Acquisition Before Talks Broke Down Recently, WSJ ReportsComments Off

ms-nokia Microsoft and Nokia have gotten pretty cosy over the past few years, and at the time of the announcement of the Finnish company’s decision to use Windows Phone OS to power its smartphones, many speculated it was the first overture for a coming acquisition. And that is apparently where things were headed, according to the Wall Street Journal, but the proposed deal has since fallen apart.

Google’s Dart SDK and Editor Hit Beta With Improved Performance, Smarter Code Completion And MoreComments Off

dart_logo Google today launched the first beta version of its Dart SDK and Editor. With this update, Google says, the SDK can now produce significantly smaller and faster JavaScript code and make it easier for Dart developers to deploy their code. The Dart Editor now features an analysis engine that’s 20 percent faster at parsing and analyzing code as you type it, making it a bit less likely that your code won’t run because of a typo.