Android creator Andy Rubin’s startup, Essential Products, born out of his incubator Playground Global, may be on the sales block. The startup, which raised about $300 million from Amazon, Tencent Holdings, Redpoint Ventures and Hon Hai Precision Industry (Foxconn), ceased development of a new smartphone, say sources, and hired Credit Suisse Group to advise on its sale. Reportedly, Essence has already piqued the interest of one potential buyer. The original Essential smartphone, manufactured by Foxconn, debuted last August. Continue reading Essential Kills Next Smarthone and Is Reportedly Up for Sale

Yahoo now hosts daily and one-week fantasy sports games, one of the most popular activities on the Internet, with an estimated 57 million fans in the U.S. and Canada. Yahoo, similar to other online destinations, has long hosted season-long fantasy sports but the daily segment has grown rapidly in the last two years. Yahoo stands to make hundreds of millions in new revenue, say analysts. Two companies dominate the category: FanDuel and DraftKings, which are now drawing interest from big name investors. Continue reading Yahoo Hosting Lucrative Daily and One-Week Fantasy Sports

Disney is reportedly investing $250 million in DraftKings Inc., a Boston-based online fantasy sports startup. DraftKings enables fans to play fantasy sports on a per-game basis with real money. As part of the deal, DraftKings has committed to spending more than $500 million in future advertising on ESPN’s platforms. While sports fans have enjoyed a variety of options for fantasy leagues from CBS, ESPN, Yahoo and others, the model involved tracking performances across an entire season — and did not involve playing for cash payouts. Continue reading DraftKings: Disney Investing in Online Fantasy Sports Business

Twitter has traditionally relied upon other apps to help make its service more accessible. However, after it largely cut third-party access to the Twitter API, many developers were put off. Today the social media company is hosting its first developer conference in four years. Twitter is expected to announce Fabric, a suite of tools aimed at making programming easier. Rather than focusing on apps that build on Twitter, executives will speak more generally about app development.

Continue reading Fabric: Twitter to Introduce New Suite of Development Tools