TechTaffy

tech:

taffy

OpenTable Acquires Rezbook

By TechTaffy Desk

UrbanspoonUrbanspoon is partnering with online restaurant reservation provider OpenTable to power reservations on Urbanspoon. OpenTable
 is also acquiring Urbanspoon’s Rezbook reservation system for restaurants.

Matt Roberts (CEO, OpenTable): We’re looking forward to introducing more diners to the convenience of online booking by powering reservations across our more than 20,000 restaurants on the Urbanspoon site and mobile apps. We’re also excited about welcoming Rezbook and its approximately 2,000 restaurant customers to the OpenTable family.

OpenTable seats more than 12 million diners per month via online bookings across more than 28,000 restaurant customers worldwide. In the first quarter of 2013, reservations booked on mobile devices accounted for 36 percent of the 34 million diners OpenTable seated in North America.

Urbanspoon is owned by local advertising business CityGrid, which is part of IAC. Urbanspoon’s website publishes reviews, photos and dining data on restaurants.

[Image courtesy: Urbanspoon]

Just in

AI

Generative AI arrives in the gene editing world of CRISPR — NYT

New AI technology is generating blueprints for microscopic biological mechanisms that can edit your DNA, pointing to a future when scientists can battle illness and diseases with even greater precision and speed than they can today, writes Cade Metz.
AI

Estée Lauder, Microsoft to build AI Innovation Lab

The Estée Lauder Companies (ELC) and Microsoft Corp. announced the creation of an AI Innovation Lab to expand their global strategic relationship.
Around the web

Mark Zuckerberg says Meta will offer its virtual reality OS to hardware companies, creating iPhone versus Android dynamic — CNBC

Meta will partner with external hardware companies, including Lenovo, Microsoft and Asus, to build virtual reality headsets using the company’s Meta Horizon operating system, writes Kif Leswing. 
IT

Nvidia to acquire Run:ai

Nvidia announced an agreement to acquire Run:ai, a provider of Kubernetes-based workload management and orchestration software.
Around the web

Windows 11 Start menu ads are now rolling out to everyone — The Verge

Microsoft is starting to enable ads inside the Start menu on Windows 11 for all users, writes Tom Warren.