Since its launch several years ago, the deal-finding browser add-on Honey has grown its install base to 4.4 million users on Chrome, in addition to its smaller presence on Firefox and Safari. Initially conceived as an easier way to find savings by tracking sales and retailers’ promo codes, the company is now expanding its selection of online shopping tools to include an Amazon price… Read More
from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/30/deal-finding-browser-tool-honey-now-tracks-amazon-price-drops-offers-hotel-savings/?ncid=rss
Today’s Stories Blue Apron IPO off to a rough start Microsoft confirms Cloudyn acquisition, sources say price is between $50M and $70M Instagram implements an AI system to fight mean and harassing comments Uber crosses the 5 billion trip milestone amid ongoing issues A brief history of the iPhone Credits Written and Hosted by: Anthony Ha Filmed by: Matthew Mauro Edited by: Joe… 
In the nascent connected speaker market, consumers appear to be gravitating towards the more affordably priced Amazon’s Echo Dot, according to new e-commerce sales data released this morning by Adobe. However, Google’s decision to release its Echo competitor, Google Home, in November paid off well, the study found. During the 2016 holidays, Google Home was able to outsell both… 
Back in April, we began we began hearing that Microsoft was in the process of buying Israeli cloud startup Cloudyn, a company that helps customers manage their cloud billing across multiple clouds. It’s taken a while to work through the terms, but today Microsoft finally made it official. Sources tell TechCrunch the price was between $50 million and $70 million. In a company blog… 
Amazon just announced its third annual Prime Day, the retailer’s answer to Black Friday that originally started to celebrate its 20th anniversary. While Amazon had previously said they would be doing a third year of Prime Day, this is the first time we’re getting the actual date and previews of some of the sales. Amazon is tempting Prime customers by saying there will be… 
Today Democratic Congressman Ted Lieu of California wrote to the NSA in an appeal for the agency to do anything in its power to stop the spread of the global ransomware (or potentially just disguised as ransomware) attack that began yesterday. Lieu seeks to hold the NSA accountable for its leaked exploit, known as EternalBlue, which appears to have facilitated the malware’s spread.… 
Amid tech’s current rally, Seattle is enjoying the updraft. Amazon, one of the area’s two critical tech companies, is busy setting records. Shares of Amazon, the e-commerce and cloud computing leader, have busily risen, recently cresting the $1,000 per-share mark. That per-share price is up from Amazon’s 52-week low of $682 and change. Driving that valuation is continued… 
TechCrunch is pleased to offer Microsoft Accelerator’s Tel Aviv demo day event today at 6:30 p.m. local time, 8:30 a.m. PST. The Microsoft Accelerator is an immersive three- to six-month program aimed at helping entrepreneurs get through the challenges of building a company, finding customers and scaling to global markets. There are seven accelerators located around the world, from… 
Drop-In is a strange and mostly ill-advised feature. It’s a way of offering instant communication between Echo devices — essentially a phone call that doesn’t require the receiver to pick up in order to initiate. Hence, “dropping in.” Amazon introduced it with the new Show and is rolling it out to older Echo devices as a way of facilitating the new intercom feature… 
When I spoke to Box CEO Aaron Levie last year at the Boxworks customer conference, I had to ask the obligatory machine learning question. Surely Box was of sufficient size with enough data running through its systems to take advantage of machine learning. All he would say was they were thinking about it. Today, the company announced a deepening relationship with Microsoft in which Box will… 
We already knew that the next version of Windows 10, the Fall Creators Update, will feature a large number of new tools for consumers. While it was always clear that business users would also get their fair share of updates, Microsoft remained pretty quiet about what those would look like. That’s changing this week, as the company today announced a number of new security features for… 
Instacart CMO Cheryl Law is no longer at the company, Techcrunch has learned. Instacart confirmed the departure. We were tipped off about her departure a bit before the whole Amazon making a $13.7B bid for Whole Foods thing went down, but the company has now confirmed that she is no longer there. Law joined Instacart at the beginning of the year and was previously the CMO of… 
Amazon will officially release the Show in a few days, but in the meantime, the company is introducing a long-awaited intercom feature for existing Echo devices. The addition uses Drop-In, a teleconferencing feature introduced on the Show that lets close friends and family members call into one another’s device with little warning. I really didn’t like the feature when I tested… 
Today Facebook, Microsoft, YouTube and Twitter collectively announced a new partnership aimed at reducing the accessibility of internet services to terrorists. The new Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism adds structure to existing efforts by the companies to target and remove from major web platforms recruiting materials for terror groups.