Alibaba’s healthcare unit invests $35M in a medical imaging company

 If you live outside of China, it can be easy to forget that Alibaba’s business aspirations go far beyond e-commerce and into many aspects of daily life. This week, the company took another step toward building its health business by making an investment worth RMB 225 million (about $35 million) in a medical imaging company […]

Foxconn confirms Sharp takeover for a reduced price of $3.5B

Foxconn’s proposed acquisition of Sharp, a deal that was sensationally put on hold last month after Sharp had announced it, has been completed today after both companies confirmed the agreement. Read More from TechCrunch http://ift.tt/1WX8N1uFiled under: U Tagged: TechCrunch

Washing machine with googly eyes is force-fed a brick, has a freakout

Laundry doesn’t always have to be boring. YouTuber bootsowen has made chores fun — and this classic video relevant again — by sticking huge googly eyes on a washing machine and feeding it a brick, thereby causing the machine to dance then self-destruct. This might be how we defeat the robots someday, so take note. […]

Prince William and Kate Middleton will visit the Taj Mahal during their India trip

Fans can expect some memorable photographs when the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge visit the Taj Mahal during their six-day tour to India and Bhutan from April 10 to 16. See also: Leonardo DiCaprio became the latest celebrity to visit the Taj Mahal. Here are the others. This is both Prince William and Kate Middleton’s […]

This panda cub is living the life being carried around like a king

Why walk or crawl when you have a human at your disposal to carry you anywhere you want to go? This baby panda obviously knows that crawling from point A to B on its own is for commoners, which is why it hitched a ride on its human to the other side of the panda […]

Angry K-pop fans demand refund for Exo’s 30 minute concert in China

Chinese fans of popular 12-member K-pop boyband Exo were left disappointed and fuming when they turned up at Shanghai Gymnasium in China on Sunday to watch their favourite band perform a 3-hour concert — only to get a measly 30-minute performance instead. Each fan paid at least 4,000 yuan ($617) per ticket for the “K-Friends” […]

Frichti grabs $13.4 million for its full stack food delivery service

 French startup Frichti is making the news again with yet another round of financing. This time, the company is raising $13.4 million (€12 million) from Idinvest, existing investor Alven Capital, as well as busin Read More from TechCrunch http://ift.tt/1RJZkGhFiled under: U Tagged: TechCrunch

Microsoft’s Tay chatbot returns briefly, swears a lot and brags about smoking weed

Oh, Microsoft. Last week, the company pulled its Tay chatbot from Twitter after some users trained it to become a racist jackass.  On Wednesday, Tay was brought back online, sending thousands of tweet replies. The vast majority of these were just “you are too fast” messages indicating the bot is overwhelmed with messages, many of them […]

Microsoft AI bot Tay returns to Twitter, goes on spam tirade, then back to sleep

 Near a week after being silenced because the internet taught her to be racist, Microsoft’s artificial intelligence bot “Tay” briefly returned to Twitter today, whereon she went on a spam tirade and then quickly fell silent again. Read More from TechCrunch http://ift.tt/1Ti0OgrFiled under: U Tagged: TechCrunch

These 1955 record store listening booths were very space age

Nov. 24, 1955 Image: John Drysdale/Keystone Features/Hulton Archive/Getty Images Taking its name from the title of a Francis Barraud painting of a dog listening to a gramophone, His Master’s Voice (HMV) was the unofficial name for the Gramophone Company’s record label The company opened its first HMV record store in London in 1921, and expanded […]

Kanye kissing Kanye artist will paint over mural if someone buys $100,000 print

A mural of Kanye West kissing Kanye West in Australia has become a miniature tourist attraction, with some even joining in the fun and making out in front of it. But the painting along a wall in the inner-city Sydney suburb of Chippendale appears to have ruffled feathers all the way back to the U.S., according […]

Grinning British man with Egyptair hijacker wanted the ‘selfie of a lifetime’

LONDON — The grinning man in that photo with the hijacker of an EgyptAir flight yesterday basically just did it for the “selfie of a lifetime.”  He’s 26-year-old Ben Innes, who is from Leeds and lives in Aberdeen. He told The Sun: “I’m not sure why I did it — I just threw caution to the […]

Relaxing of foreign investment rules set to shake up India’s e-commerce market

 India’s e-commerce space might be about to get a shake-up after the government appeared to open the door to overseas companies owning majority stakes in domestic internet sales companies. Read More from TechCrunch http://ift.tt/1MAyYL8Filed under: U Tagged: TechCrunch

5 useful microwave hacks that will make you better at life

If you’re only using your microwave for reheated soup and defrosting clusters of frozen vegetables, you could be so much better than that. These microwave hacks by Australian retailer Appliances Online will show you how to create scrambled eggs, vegetable chips and hard taco shells like it is no big deal.  No word on how […]

Your cheap dinner may come at a cost to the cyclist delivering it

Two popular food delivery startups, Deliveroo and Foodora, are making their bicycle couriers work as contractors rather than as employees in Australia, allowing them to be paid as little as A$10 per delivery. According to a report by Fairfax Media, while they can be seen darting through the streets wearing Deliveroo and Foodora’s T-shirts on bicycles carrying […]

Gaiman / New Wales in Patagonia

Argentina has no shortage of bookstores. In some of the busier shopping districts of Buenos Aires, it’s not unusual to see half a dozen of them in a single block—all apparently doing brisk business. We visited many of these, and showed uncharacteristic restraint, leaving with just a few books altogether. Of course, the selection of […]

10-year-old designs ridiculously awesome glitter cannon prosthetic attachment

School craft projects tend to be notoriously dull, unless, of course, a glitter cannon’s involved. Ten-year-old Jordan Reeves recently participated in a design contest known as the Superhero Cyborg Project. Children who have upper arm difference are encouraged to design their own prosthetic devices. So Reeves came up with something glamorous: a prosthetic attachment that […]

Twitter is now more accessible for the visually impaired

Twitter is now more accessible to the visually impaired, introducing descriptions to images with screen readers and braille displays. SEE ALSO: The best and worst U.S. states for people with disabilities Twitter announced the new feature Tuesday, which will be available on the Twitter app for iOS and Android. This isn’t an automatic update — […]

A peek inside the script for this week’s excellent ‘American Crime Story’

With only one episode left, the penultimate episode of FX’s exceptional American Crime Story saw the case against O.J. Simpson take a major hit.  In the episode, titled “Manna from Heaven,” racist cop Mark Fuhrman took the stand and helped Johnnie Cochran achieve what director Anthony Hemingway calls a “subtle victory.”  SEE ALSO: ‘Black Sails’ producers take […]