The Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday approved a broad overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws, sending the potential landmark bill to the full Senate, where it will be debated beginning of next month.

There are many people and business interests who are lobbying for the bill, from immigrant advocates to farm producers and low wage employers.  But one group that is pushing for the immigration overhaul has backers from both Republicans and Democrats; it is the tech community.

Executives from Silicon Valley companies were pushing to expand the numbers of temporary work permits, known… Read More

One of the leading Korean companies, Kakao, has been on the headlines a bunch the past couple of weeks. Fresh off their new deal with IGAWorks, they announced their first international ad partner for their rapidly growing games platform, which is Tapjoy. Tapjoy is Kakao’s first big deal with an ad space provider that has global operations. Kakao Games only launched just last year, but it is already generating a monthly revenue of about $40 million and over 130 games have been released for the service so far. Expect those numbers with the new partnership with… Read More

The TMI Holding Corporation from Taiwan has recently announced that they are investing in software-based startups that are also located at the island. The TMI was jointly founded by ITRI, Kaifu Lee, former head of Google China, and the WI Harper Group as the three startups are Citesocial, Driving Curve, and PeerIdea. Citesocial is an online mall focused on design and fine foods. Brands such as Lavie and Braun are some of the higher profile folks on board for the startup. It is also known for promoting the “ostrich pillow” in recent months, which has been… Read More

A Massachusetts company is eyeing the early 2020’s to start selling a flying car to the public.  The car is more of a plane that can be driven with wings that can fold up on the ground.

The company is Terrafugia and the futuristic flying car is called the TF-X. The flying car is also like a helicopter in that it can take off vertically from your driveway, using electric-powered rotor blades mounted on each side.  The vehicle will be made of carbon-fiber.

Like the US Marines’ V-22 Osprey airplane, the rotor blades… Read More

Android run smartphones continue to increase their market share, according to Gartner, which has just released its Q1 figures for mobile handset sales. Android now accounts for 75% of all handset sales, a jump of almost 20 percent from a year ago.  That means in this quarter, 156 million Android devices were sold out of a total of 210 million units.  Overall the 210 million smartphones are half of all mobile phones, about 425 million total. But clearly it is smartphone sales that are the driver of all mobile phones, with 63 million more… Read More

This month in “Tech Picks from Kickstarter” features two gadgets that you don’t expect at first, but have the potential to be revolutionary for their respective areas in the world of tech. From a smartwatch with an Android OS and bluetooth capabilities to a lamp with easy LED lighting, everyday tools we use on a regular basis just got even better. Let’s a closer look at this month’s tech picks from the premier crowdfunding website below.

The VACHEN Smartwatch is just the beginning of the age of the “smartwatch” according to its creator Won Rhee from San… Read More

Visualead, an Isreali startup that focuses on making QR codes that are barely visible, has recently won an award to start off their launch in China. They were able to win the Growth Stage Competition at the Global Mobile Internet Conference. It only launched earlier this year and winning a big award this quickly means a lot especially at one of the bigger startup competitions in China. Visualead is all about letting anyone making their own QR code. It can be simply done by just uploading a photo to its website and then a code gets merged… Read More

Evernote, the US-based startup, is starting to focus more on mobile messaging and the social arena by announcing a new partnership with Korea’s Kakao. The Korean company behind Kakao Talk has more than 90 million registered users and now add another two million from Evernote’s userbase for an increased presence at Korea. Kakao Talk is also installed in the majority of Koreans’ smartphones, but there are no details yet on how the Evernote stuff will be integrated. However, the Evernote additions will be accessed by the in-chat window in Kakao Talk just by sideswiping when talking… Read More

Silicon Valley-based BootstrapLabs, a Silicon Valley-based seed plus venture capital fund that invests in foreign startups to relocate to Silicon Valley and build global companies, and Malaysia-based MAD Incubator yesterday announced the formation of BootstrapAccelerator Asia.

BootstrapAccelerator Asia will become the first Southeast Asia-focused accelerator for tech startups with a Silicon Valley fast track.

BootstrapAccelerator will focus on early-stage capital efficient startups that leverage the speed of internet distribution and the scalability of cloud infrastructure. Selected startups will receive a substantial package of cash grants and other perks valued at over US$35,000. Additionally, the… Read More

Chinese social network Sina Weibo, otherwise known as the country’s version of Twitter, has recently announced that they are revamping its core interface to integrate third party apps. This approach is all in part of a more mobile focused direction than desktops. Twitter has lot of third-party support now from various versions of the microblogging site, photo/video services, and more, so it is no surprise Sina is finally taking this route now. Sina has also put up a new feature including previews to articles that is similar to Twitter’s cards. As mentioned earlier, the more important… Read More