We recently reported on Wavii’s possible acquisition by Google earlier this week, and it looks like the cat is officially out of the bag as the company has announced that it has indeed been acquired by Google.
The news comes from Wavii’s CEO Adrian Aoun, who published a statement on its homepage: (more…)
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There was an odd level of uncertainty surrounding Google’s reported buyout of Wavii: where Google usually mentions acquisitions in short order, mum’s been the word for much of the past week. Thankfully, we won’t be left hanging over the weekend — Wavii has stepped forward to confirm the deal is happening. Neither side has discussed the terms involved, but Wavii chief Adrian Aoun made it clear the acquisition is for the technology first and foremost. Wavii’s info summarization service will be shutting down, while the company’s expertise in natural language processing should find its way into future Google projects. It’s sad to see another independent service absorbed by a much larger company, but we’re at least likely to see the fruits of Wavii’s labor through some very public channels.
Via: TechCrunch
Source: Wavii
Facebook and Parse have both respectively announced a pending acquisition by the former company of Parse, which provides cloud-based developer tools and services. The acquisition comes shortly after Facebook’s first ever Mobile Developer Conference and the launch of new goodies for developers, such as Open Graph for mobile. Says the social network, Parse’s addition to Facebook Platform will speed up development and bring with it new features.
The big advantage to developers here will be the ability to utilize native objects with certain backend services, such as storage and notifications, reducing the overall complexity and management requirements of the project. Facebook draws on its past experience with Parse, and says that the latter company’s services and products will still be available after the acquisition goes through.
Parse had its own things to say about the pending acquisition, talking about its origins and where it has gone since then. It boasts a diverse customer base, as well as providing services to “some of the world’s best brands.” The company says that Facebook’s soon-to-be acquisition is the next step in its evolution, and that it will take Parse to a new level.
Neither Parse nor Facebook provided any particulars about the deal struck betwixt them, although Parse did say that it expects everything to be wrapped up shortly. And lest customers worry, the company has jumped on the three biggest questions it anticipates receiving: No, Parse apps will be not affected, they won’t have to use Facebook functionality, and contracts will continue to be honored.
[via Facebook]
Facebook and Parse reveal pending acquisition is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
If you’re the sort who likes to catch up on web articles through a dedicated reader app, you’re likely familiar with Instapaper and its lone creator, Marco Arment. His solo work makes for a cohesive experience and a great story, but it also involves a lot of strain — enough so that Arment is selling majority control of the app to Betaworks, the owner of Bitly and Digg. Thankfully, this shouldn’t represent a classic acquire-and-absorb deal that ultimately kills the original brand. Arment says he’ll remain involved as an advisor, and the takeover is arranged with promises that Betaworks will add staff and continue building the read-it-later tool. While neither side has said just where they’ll take Instapaper with more resources, there’s a real chance that competitors like Pocket will feel some added pressure.
Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets
Source: Marco.org
Hot on the heels of its Mobile Developer Conference, Facebook today announced its intentions to buy cloud-based app development service Parse, a company with which the site has collaborated in the past. According to a post on Facebook’s Developers blog, the purchase will go a ways toward helping devs, “rapidly build apps that span mobile platforms and devices.” The acquisition will bring a number of cloud-based tools like data storage, user management and notifications to Facebook developers. For each company’s take on the news, check out the source links below. We also spoke to a Facebook spokesperson, who told us, “This is an acquisition, not a talent deal.” As for financial terms, they wouldn’t say.
The merger between T-Mobile USA and MetroPCS has been in the works for a few months now, getting approval from several government entities, but it looks like it’s a done deal, as MetroPCS shareholders have reportedly approved the merger with number 4 US wireless carrier T-Mobile, which will see an increase an customer base thanks to the acquisition.
Both Reuters and Bloomberg have reported that MetroPCS shareholders have come around and approved the merger with T-Mobile, although it’s unknown what the reasoning behind the change of heart was, considering that these same shareholders were mostly against the merger earlier on in the acquisition.
The merger was announced back in October last year, and it has gone through several stages of approval, with the US Department of Justice slapping the approval stamp on, and the FCC putting their gold sticker on the merger a few days later. Finally, it came down to the shareholders of MetroPCS, and with that approval, MetroPCS will officially be T-Mobile’s.
The merger will give T-Mobile the opportunity to spread its LTE network to more locations throughout the US. Currently, seven markets in the US are equipped with T-Mobile’s 4G LTE, but they expect to cover 100 million by mid-year, and 200 million by the end of 2013, which seems like a Herculean task, but the carrier seems confident in their efforts.
MetroPCS shareholders approve T-Mobile merger is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Word that Google has snapped up natural language processing startup Wavii first came from TechCrunch, and now the Wall Street Journal is chiming in with its own sources claiming the deal has in fact been struck, and that an announcement is imminent. In its current form, Wavii parses a personalized news feed and distills text into a summary for the top stories, similar to Yahoo’s recently-purchased Summly. TechCrunch reports that Apple and Google were locked in a bidding war for the outfit, but the web titan ultimately won with a bid in the neighborhood of $30 million. According to the WSJ, the fledgling firm’s talent will join Page and Co.’s web search team, which means the language detection technology may bolster its Knowledge Graph, giving users better results (and direct answers) for their queries. As language recognition permeates Page and Co.’s projects, Google Now and Google Glass could potentially benefit from the acquisition as well. Mountain View has yet to acknowledge the reported purchase, but if the tea leaves are being read correctly, expect that to happen soon.
Filed under: Google
Source: TechCrunch, Wall Street Journal
Google has been said to have acquired Wavii, a natural language processing startup. Wavii is a service that is said to operate the same way as Summly, the news app that was recently swiped up by Yahoo. Both services search for news stories from all around the web, and then create short summaries of the main points of these stories. While Summly gathers separate news articles, Wavii collects entire stories, and provides links to several different sources reporting on the story.
The acquisition was tipped to TechCrunch, who say that its source is legitimate. Google was not the only company fighting to acquire Wavii. Apple was said to have tossed its hat into the ring as well, but eventually, Google was the one who triumphed in the end. Apple wanted to integrate Wavii’s services into Siri, while Google wanted Wavii to join its Knowledge Graph division, where its services would be used to enhance its search engine results.
Google is said to have acquired Wavii for at least $30 million, which is around the same price Yahoo spent on Summly. Wavii was already catching the eyes of several companies, even before it launched. Business Insider stated that the service was already receiving offers from several major companies, including Google and Microsoft. Unfortunately at the time, Wavii decided to turn their offers down.
Wavii was founded by Adrian Aoun, a former employee at Microsoft. The service uses its own natural language summarization technology, making it different compared to Summly and making it highly sought after. Wavii’s entire 25-man team will be joining Google’s division, where they will be working with Google’s team to enhance the company’s search engine. We can anticipate some more in-depth Google search results in the near future.
[via TechCrunch]
Google tipped to attain Wavii natural language startup is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
In order to provide its customers with improved software development, IBM has acquired UrbanCode, which is a provider of tools that are suited for rapid software development called DevOps. UrbanCode has provided their services to many big companies, like Wells Fargo, Fidelity, Walmart, Disney, and Expedia.
Financial terms of the acquisition have not been disclosed, but IBM says that employees of Cleveland-based UrbanCode will all remain, and will simply transition to being IBM employees. IBM noted that updating enterprise software across multiple operating systems and mobile devices is quite a huge task, but IBM is looking to take advantage of UrbanCode’s tools to automate the process.
IBM has been trying for a while now to discover new ways to make the software development process quicker and more efficient in order to compete with startups, and it seems today’s acquisition of UrbanCode looks to reinforce that idea. IBM is an old company, and it’s looking to keep up with modern times by modernizing its development processes.
Specifically, IBM wants the UrbanCode tools to be applied mostly to the legacy company’s mobile and cloud software offerings, which is a field of technology that companies absolutely have to be one step ahead in, if they want to compete and turn heads. IBM notes that current UrbanCode clients will remain on board, and will be used in a broader sense in the future.
[via Newsday]
UrbanCode acquisition made by IBM for DevOps tools is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
It’s been rumored for quite a while that Amazon would be manufacturing their own smartphone, especially considering that they have their own tablets. While still have yet to see anything official come out from that front, we’ve been treated with a report saying that the e-tailer giant has acquired Evi, which is a Siri-like voice control app.
According to TechCrunch, anonymous sources are claiming that Amazon purchased Evi for $26 million. Furthermore, it’s said that all of Evi’s directors have been replaced by Amazon’s UK legal representatives, and the company’s records show that all directors have been replaced and all loans have been paid off.
Evi has been a bit of a controversial product in the past. It was pulled from the iTunes App Store for being too similar to Siri, but was later let back in. Evi works similar to Siri, where it uses a natural language search engine to find answers for questions that are asked by users. However, Evi can learn from your questioning habits and produce better answers in the future.
Back in January, Amazon acquired text-to-speech company IVONA, but that seemed to be mostly meant for Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet lineup. However, it’s a feature that we could also see in an Amazon smartphone as well. With the acquisition of Evi, Amazon may be looking to take on Apple directly, but we’ll ultimately have to wait and see what happens.
[via TechCrunch]
Amazon reportedly acquires Evi voice-control app to take on Siri is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
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