BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) has acquired a minority stake in U.S. healthcare IT firm NantHealth. BlackBerry and NantHealth are working together on a smartphone to meet the needs of the healthcare sector with an expected launch of late 2014 or early 2015. The terms of the deal were undisclosed.
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) stopped selling Windows XP in 2010, but is still generating millions of dollars from the twelve-year-old operating system. Around 44% of businesses still depend on Windows XP, according to Fiberlink. Microsoft is generating millions of dollars through custom support contracts where Microsoft will still fix bugs found in XP for them.
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Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) wants ad buyers to have confidence that it is seeing a return on investment. Google is testing the ability to track purchases that people make at brick-and-mortar stores after clicking a Google search ad for a store or product.
Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) has patented technology that involves cameras embedded into contact lenses, which could photograph what the wearer sees and provides input for the visually impaired.
Oculus VR is a virtual reality headset company that was acquired by Facebook for $2 billion and is led by chief executive officer Brendan Iribe. Iribe spoke at a conference last week about how the deal was put together. Iribe said that he met with Facebook CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg and got along well with him.
Kevin Spacey, the star of House of Cards, is now the commercial spokesperson for E*Trade. E*Trade is generally known for using talking babies in their ads. The talking babies appeared in ads at six consecutive Super Bowls starting in 2008. Spacey plays a “talent scout” in this ad and he spots a potential E*Trade customer grabbing a plate at a buffet. Spacey compliments the man on his trading skills and culinary insights.
Brandon Eich worked as CEO of Mozilla for a short period of time and now Mozilla has named Chris Beard as the interim CEO. Beard will also joined the Mozilla board of directors. Beard has worked through several positions at Mozilla. He joined Mozilla around eight years ago before joining Greylock Partners as an executive-in-residence in July 2013.
This week, Y Combinator has added four new partners to the team under new president Sam Altman. Altman made the announcement in a blog post. Y Combinator’s outreach director Kat Manalac was promoted to the partner position. Stripe CEO Patrick Collison, Science Exchange CEO Elizabeth Iorns, and AeroFS CEO Yuri Sagalov are joining as part time partners. The three of them are all Y Combinator alumni.
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