Cloud-Based IT Monitoring Software Numerify Raise $37.5M

It’s easy enough for IT costs to get out of control. That’s where Numerify, a software service that helps large companies keep track of choke points and better manage their internal IT services, comes in.

The company raised $37.5 million in venture financing led by Tenaya Capital, with Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners participating. Numerify’s goal is basically to make IT more efficient by monitoring operations like support tickets, and ensure that the costs don’t spiral out of control and departments are still able to help employees in a timely manner. Basically, making sure IT departments don’t lose sight of the whole reason they exist.

Here’s an example of how it might work: service desk employees may find themselves repeatedly dealing with tickets for resetting passwords. Using Numerify, the company can map the origin of all of those reports back to an event — like a software update that requires employees to reset their passwords — and help remove those chokepoints in the future.

“These are all illustrations of how you can use analytics to streamline your service delivery, through an early warning system like a backlog, or through reflective analysis such as understanding what types of incidents are best suited for a self-service paradigm versus others,” CEO Gaurav Rewari said. “It’s using analytics to really optimize your service delivery across the board.”

Xiaomi Launches A Self-Balancing Scooter And New Mi TV

Xiaomi made its name with affordable Android smartphones, but the Beijing-based company’s future lies in creating a diverse ecosystem of consumer hardware. Today Xiaomi announced that it will add a self-balancing scooter and new smart TV to its lineup.

The television isn’t a big surprise—called Mi TV 3, it’s a larger (60-inch) version of Xiaomi’s smart TV with a LG 4K display. It’s most significant upgrade, however, is a mainboard that connects to the Mi TV’s display with a single wire and replaced separately without having to buy an entire new smart TV. Like Xiaomi’s smartphones and other smart TVs, Mi TV 3 runs on MIUI, an operating system based on Android.

Facebook’s Working On A Tool To Help The Blind “See” Images

Facebook connects 1.5 billion people all over the world, but for the blind and visually impaired, it can be difficult to gain access to what has become a vast platform for connectivity. That’s where Facebook’s accessibility team, led by Jeff Wieland, comes in. The sole purpose of the accessibility team is to help people with disabilities have a seamless experience on Facebook, and ultimately help the social network achieve its mission of connecting the world.

Right now, blind and visually impaired people who have access to screen readers — tools used to identify what’s displayed on a screen — can listen to what people are writing on Facebook, but there’s currently no way to figure out what’s going on in the millions of photos shared on Facebook every day.

“You just think about how much of your news feed is visual — and is probably most of it — and so often people will make a comment about a photo or they’ll say something about it when they post it, but they won’t really tell you what is in the photo,” Matt King, Facebook’s first blind engineer, told TechCrunch. “So for somebody like myself, it can be really like, ‘Ok, what’s going on here? What’s the discussion all about?’”

That’s why Facebook is currently working on an artificial intelligence-based object recognition tool to help blind users get an idea of what’s in all of the photos people share on Facebook. King, who started at the company just three months ago, recently showed me how he uses a screen reader to navigate Facebook.

“My view of the page is totally sequential,” King explained to me. “I can’t see the whole thing at one time. I see a little piece.”

As he scrolled down the page, the screen reader would tell King that he’s at a list of six items, which referred to the number of notifications he had at the time. It also told him when he reached a “convo box,” which signaled to him that he could interact with that element and leave a comment.

King eventually scrolled to a friend’s post that featured text and a photo. His friend, Anne, wrote, “Ready for picture day of first grade” accompanied with a photo. Thanks to the object recognition technology Facebook is prototyping, King heard: “This image may contain, colon, one or more people. Child.” Without it, all King would’ve known was that Anne wrote, “Ready for picture day of first grade,” and that she posted a photo — but nothing about what was in the photo. For another photo, the tool told him: “This image may contain colon nature, outdoor, cloud, foliage, grass, tree.” 

In the photo gallery below, you’ll see what a blind person hears read aloud when they’re using a screen reader to browse photos on Facebook.

Salesforce Earmarks $100M To Invest In European Cloud Startups

Salesforce Ventures, the investment arm of the cloud services giant, has pumped half a billion dollars into over 150 cloud and enterprise startups since 2009. But with most of those investments focused on the U.S., Salesforce Ventures is now getting more serious in the Old World. Today, the group is announcing that has earmarked $100 million to invest specifically in European startups.

Of the 150+ companies in Salesforce Ventures’ portfolio today, only 17 come from Europe. Considering that proportion, today’s news is a big step ahead for the business.

“It’s now the right time for us in Europe,” John Somorjai, Salesforce’s EVP of Corporate Development and Salesforce Ventures, said in an interview. “Europe is adopting the cloud very rapidly, and the opportunities are immense for us with an enormous pipeline for us to invest in.”

He cites figures from IDC to back up his belief: the analysts believe that European business investment in cloud-based software and services will grow twelve times faster than other IT segments, with €33.3 billion put into cloud services by 2019.

Somorjai said that five investments have already been made out of SV’s $100 million budget that will be announced in the next couple of months. The sizes of the rounds will vary, he added.

Microsoft Launches The Surface Book, A Convertible Laptop Done Right

Microsoft unveiled its first laptop. Called the Surface Book, it doesn’t look like a Surface at all. It has a 13.5-inch display, a trackpad made of glass, a backlit keyboard and a machined magnesium body. Microsoft has one trick up its sleeve — the screen is detachable.

It has the latest generation of the Intel Core processor and an Nvidia GPU with GDDR5 memory. According to Microsoft, it’s the fastest 13-inch laptop ever made. In addition to that, it has 12 hours of battery life. The keyboard is said to be very quiet, and the display has a good pixel density of 267 ppi.

With this device, Microsoft doesn’t compete with the iPad and Android tablet. It competes with the MacBook Pro, Lenovo laptops and more.

With a discrete GPU, the Surface Book is supposed to be twice as fast as the 13-inch MacBook Pro. The company is probably comparing graphics performance, which is unfair as the 13-inch MacBook Pro doesn’t have a discrete GPU.

Yet, it is still impressive that the company managed to fit so much battery life in a powerful 13-inch laptop. Microsoft launched Adobe Premiere Pro and showed how fast you could edit a video on this machine.

And then there is the detachable screen, which is 7.7mm thick and weighs 1.6 pounds. If you want to take advantage of all the machine performances, you need to plug it in to the base, because that’s where the GPU is. And of course, the display is a touch screen. In other words, it’s a convertible laptop done in a good way.

YouNow, a “Live” Social Network, Raises $15 Million in Fresh Funding

YouNow, a four-year-old, New York-based social network that connects audiences and broadcasters in real time, has raised $15 million in new funding co-led by earlier backers Venrock and investor Oren Zeev, with participation from Comcast Ventures.

The company has now collected $30 million altogether from investors, including Union Square Ventures, which led its Series A round in 2013.

VCs are likely drawn to a number of YouNow’s features, beginning with the highly participatory nature of the platform. Specifically, the person being filmed engages in real time with his or her audience as they post comments to the site. More, unlike other live streaming services, there’s no limit to how long a YouNow broadcast can be. And the broadcasts can be watched — or fast forwarded, or rewound — up until a broadcaster starts streaming anew.

Perhaps it’s no wonder that YouNow is gaining momentum. Though he won’t share the number of users on the platform, YouNow founder and CEO Adi Sideman says the service is averaging 100 million user sessions a month and 150,000 live broadcasts a day. We asked him about those numbers and more in an email exchange last night.

Records Of 15 Million T-Mobile Customers Swept Up In Experian Hack

T-Mobile announced on Thursday the personal information of about 15 million customers was swept up in a hack on Experian, a vendor that processes the phone company’s credit applications.

The breach affects new applicants who required a credit check for service or a new device between Sept. 1 and Sept. 15. Experian said the hack did not affect its consumer credit database.

The hackers obtained encrypted information from the records, including Social Security Numbers, drivers’ license numbers and Passport information. The hack involved names and addresses, but bank information and payment card numbers were not swept up in the breach.

“Obviously I am incredibly angry about this data breach and we will institute a thorough review of our relationship with Experian, but right now my top concern and first focus is assisting any and all consumers affected,” wrote T-Mobile CEO John Legere in a blog post. “I take our customer and prospective customer privacy VERY seriously. This is no small issue for us.”

Since the massive breach of Target customers’ financial information in late 2013, it seems a new major hack comes to light every few weeks. From Home Depot to Anthem to the Office of Personal Management, it seems no sector is safe.

Experian said that upon discovering the hack, it notified consumers that may be affected, secured its servers, began an investigation and notified law enforcement. It also is offering consumers two years of identity resolution services.

All in all, Experian did everything right after the hack occurred. This breach just once again underscores that companies need to do more to prevent data breaches before they happen.

T-mobile and Experian both warned that if you were a customer affected by this breach, you should not provide personal information to anyone who says they are asking for it in connection with the hack. Because no financial information was impacted, affected consumers do not have to close bank accounts or credit cards. They are at an increased risk of identity theft.

At this time Experian says it does not know who is responsible, but it is cooperating with law enforcement.

LuckyTrip Lets You Find Your Next Trip In One Tap

I’m a sucker for apps that, on the surface at least, appear incredibly simple and reduce cognitive load considerably. LuckyTrip is one of those apps. Available for iOS, it lets you find a trip in just one tap.

Perhaps taking its inspiration from Google’s original ‘feeling lucky’ search engine, after setting your budget via the onscreen slider, you tap the ‘Lucky’ button and LuckyTrip presents you with three prospective trips after searching for flights, accommodations and rail travel. Don’t like any of the suggestions? Then simply tap the ‘Lucky’ button again. And again.

“For too long now the process of finding and booking a trip has been time consuming and complicated. The traditional travel sites are cluttered, with hundreds of choices that easily overwhelm you. The average user visits 7 different platforms, spending over 6 hours researching a single trip,” says LuckyTrip co-founder Tiff Burns when asked to describe the problem the app solves.

“We use the cheapest flights from Skyscanner, the best places to stay from Booking.com and unique handpicked things to do chosen by us. If you don’t like a trip, keep on tapping ‘Lucky’ to generate trips to new locations. Save trips, share them with friends and book, all on your phone,” he adds.

The result is a nicely designed and single use-case app that aims to encourage people to be “spontaneous, explore and go on new adventures,” perfect for those who like to take the odd long weekend city (or otherwise) break.

“Quite often people just go with what they already know, choosing the same tourist spots as everyone else. We think this is because of the way traditional travel companies work. They all like to ask us ‘where do you want to go?’. But what if you don’t know where to go? We think for a lot of people a much more relevant question is ‘how much do you want to spend?’ LuckyTrip searches by budget, not by location. Tell us how much you want to spend and LuckyTrip does all the hard work for you.”

Noteworthy is that Burns and his brother and co-founder Alex Burns initially tested the premise behind LuckyTrip without building a functional MVP. Instead the pair put up a one page website with the concept of the app and invited people to register their interest. However, to be added to the invite list they were required to answer a questionnaire about their travel habits.

“A few weeks later we had a huge surge of traffic, and loads of really interesting answers to our questionnaire. We used this as proof of concept, and it really helped our decisions early on,” says Burns.