Articles by Rachelle Dragani

Investors didn't share the same excitement for King Digital Entertainment stock as Candy Crush fans do for the mobile game, sending King shares down nearly 16 percent in Wednesday's disappointing first day of trading. It slipped a further couple of percentage points on Thursday King's stock debuted at US$22.50, but dropped 15.6 percent to close at...

Disney this week announced it would acquire Maker Studios, a provider of short-form videos, for at least US$500 million -- a number that could go up if Maker meets performance targets Maker's videos account for more than 5.5 billion monthly views on YouTube -- it has 380 million subscribers. The company's content lineup includes popular YouTube cha...

Nuzzel, a service that helps users pick out the most popular items from their social media feeds, launched to the public last week The aggregating network made its debut in 2012, but until last week, it required an invitation to join. Now anyone can use the service, which is spearheaded by Friendster founder Jonathan Abrams....

Apple reportedly is working on a health and fitness tracking app called "Healthbook," which could be a one-stop shop for iOS users interested in using mobile tech to better keep track of their progress toward health goals The app would help users monitor their health information including blood pressure, hydration, weight, respiratory rate, nutriti...

Yahoo and Yelp on Wednesday announced a new partnership to display Yelp ratings with Yahoo's search results, a move designed to snag some market share from Yahoo's larger search competitors. Now, when someone uses Yahoo to search for a local business, that business' Yelp rating will pop up in the right-hand panel of the search results. Users will ...

Google on Monday launched a referral program for its office apps. It will hand out $15 referral bonuses to Google Apps customers who convince new users to sign up for the service Word-of-mouth praise already has attracted many new users for services including Gmail for businesses, Google Calendar, Docs, Slides, Hangouts and Google Drive, Google sai...

The Democreativity initiative is calling for gaming ideas from anyone and everyone, with the hope of turning the best of them into hit video games. The initiative is led by Visit Sweden, the Swedish Institute and Business Sweden. Through Democreativity's new site, which launched last week, anyone can post video game ideas -- concepts, heroes and ...

Kickstarter announced it hit a new milestone Monday: It has surpassed US$1 billion in pledges to crowdfund projects worldwide In total, 5.7 million people have chipped in to fund Kickstarter campaigns, with about 1.6 million people backing more than one project. The pledges have come from 224 countries and all seven continents. The U.S. led the way...

eBay on Wednesday announced it was leading a US$134 million investment in Snapdeal, which claims to be India's largest e-commerce marketplace eBay's first investment in Snapdeal came in mid-2013, when it poured $50 million into the company. Snapdeal merited additional financing because of its complementary business model and strong overall brand, e...

Dropbox reportedly has secured US$350 million in a new round of funding to further its growth The funding round generated at least $325 million but that figure could swell to as much as $450 million, according to documents filed Tuesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Facebook on Wednesday announced the acquisition of WhatsApp in a US$19 billion deal geared toward increasing its global connectivity The company paid $4 billion in cash, $12 billion worth of Facebook shares and an additional $3 billion in restricted stock to acquire WhatsApp. Facebook was drawn to the company's ability not only to connect mobile us...

Google's Android and Apple's iOS led the global smartphone operating system market in 2013, a year in which worldwide shipments surpassed 1 billion units for the first time, according to IDC The two OSes accounted for 93.8 percent of global smartphone shipments for the year. Both still found room to grow: Together, they made up 95.7 percent of the ...

Researchers have developed a new technique for printing live cells by drawing inspiration from an ancient Chinese method of woodblock printing Scientists have been experimenting with different methods of printing cells, including using inkjet printers to build 3D cell layers. The method has been successful in several instances, including a recent s...

An amputee was able to feel sensations in a prosthetic hand temporarily wired to nerves in his upper arm Silvestro Micera, Ph.D., led a team of researchers at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switerland and Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna in Italy in testing the bionic hand prototype last year. Dennis Aabo Sorensen, a Danish man who lost...

The U.S. Department of Transportation on Monday announced it would move forward with a plan that would make car-to-car communication mandatory among light vehicles, a measure that could lead to safer roads Vehicle-to-vehicle, or V2V, communication allows cars to share data including speeds and brake applications with nearby cars. That data can then...

Less than two years after Google's US$12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility was finalized, Google on Wednesday announced that Lenovo would be purchasing Motorola Mobility in a $2.91 billion deal Google will be retaining the vast majority of Motorola's patent portfolio, including current patent applications and invention disclosures. Lenovo wil...

Starwood Hotels & Resorts is rolling out a program in two of its hotels -- one in New York City's Harlem and one in Cupertino, Calif. -- that will allow customers to try a new lock system. Guests can download a mobile app that will allow them to virtually check in once they've arrived at the hotel. Then they'll be able to open their room door with the tap or wave of their smartphone instead of a plastic key card...

Avegant's Glyph, the which combines high-quality headphones with a retinal display for an all-in-one audiovisual device, has far surpassed its US$250,000 Kickstarter goal since its Wednesday launch The Glyph blew past its target within four hours, and by mid-day Friday had drawn $608,002 from 1,264 contributors. Backers who donate $499 or more ear...

HP launched a marketing campaign over the weekend advertising that Windows 7 was "back by popular demand." On the shopping pages of its website, HP highlighted a handful of devices that run on the older version of Microsoft's operating system, and it is selling the Core i5 and i7-powered machines at a US$150 discount HP didn't actually resurrect Wi...

Rdio announced Thursday that its Web users will have free, unlimited access to content, an update that came on the heels of similar news from Spotify Spotify started offering free streaming music for iOS and Android mobile devices last month, and on Wednesday announced that it was eliminating time limits for all of its Web users. There were never r...