Marqeta is a platform that rewards customer loyalty, which can replace messy incentive programs. Marqeta created the +M Platform to help serve the needs of large enterprises, membership organizations, and affinity groups. Marqeta has raised $14 million in a new round of funding from Greylock IL (an affiliate of Greylock Partners), Granite Ventures, Commerce Ventures, and other strategic investors.
Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) has partnered with NASA’s Ames Research Center to study ways that quantum computing can improve science and solve technology problems using machine learning. Google’s Director of Engineering Hartmut Neven said that the new lab is called the ‘Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab.’ The lab will house a quantum computer from D-Wave Systems and the Universities Space Research Association (USRA).
Luvocracy is a social shopping service that has a similar user interface as Pinterest. Luvocracy allows users to buy products recommended by friends. The company has raised $11 million in funding from Kleiner Perkins, Google Ventures, Marissa Mayer, Ali Pincus, Jim Lanzone, Tony Robbins, CrunchFund, RPM Ventures and XG Ventures. Bing Gordon of Kleiner Perkins is joining the Luvocracy board of directors. Luvocracy was co-founded by Nathan Stoll and Roger Barnett.
Opera Software has ended a lawsuit against former employee and contractor Trond Werner Hansen. Opera claimed that Hansen took trade secrets from Opera to their rival Mozilla. Opera wanted 20 million Norwegian Krone (roughly $3.4 million) in damages.
Mellanox Technologies, Ltd. (NASDAQ:MLNX), a provider of Ethernet and InfiniBand host bus adapters, based in Sunnyvale, California and Yokneam, Israel, has acquired a photonics startup company called Kotura for $82 million in cash. This deal is expected to close in the second half of 2013. Kotura is known for designing photonics chips that lets signals pass between chips using light instead of electronics. This makes the communication of chips faster, which is essential for data centers.
Google is not happy about the way that the YouTube app was designed on Windows Phone 8. This is why Google sent Microsoft a cease-and-desist letter demanding that Microsoft withdraws their redesigned YouTube app for Windows Phone 8 because it violates their Terms of Service. The Terms of Service says that the Microsoft YouTube app violation has to do with the way that ads are being blocked and how the app allows videos to be downloaded.
At the Google I/O Developer conference, Google announced new software called Google Android Studio. Google Android Studio is a new Android development environment that is based on IntelliJ IDEA. Google Android Studio is similar to Eclipse with the ADT Plugin and it provides integrated Android developer tools for development and debugging. It can be considered a replacement for Eclipse. Android Studio is available as an early access preview on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.
Atlantis Computing is a company that optimizes the way that storage-intensive applications use data center storage when virtualized to reduce the amount of storage consumed. The company can also optimize the use of shared storage, boost performance, and reduce operational risks. Atlantis’ ILIO solution enables the deployment of the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure and virtualized XenApp with no physical storage. Atlantis has raised $20 million in Series D funding led by Adam Street Partners.
