tech:

taffy

Slack acquires Astro

Slack has acquired Astro, a company with expertise in email infrastructure and makers of the Astrobot for Slack. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. 

“In Astro, we’re bringing on an incredible team that collectively have built the industry’s best mail and messaging tools like Zimbra, Acompli (acquired by Microsoft, and the foundation for Outlook Mobile), and Mumbo (acquired by LinkedIn). We see this as a natural next step as channel-based collaboration becomes the default way of working,” Slack said in a statement.

The Astro apps for Mac, iOS, Android, Amazon Alexa, and Slack will be discontinued from October. Astro has also disabled signups of new users, Andy Pflaum, Astro CEO said in a statement. Current users of the Astro app are being requested to switch to email apps from Google, Microsoft, Apple or other providers.

Read a post by the Slack team on the acquisition here: https://slackhq.com/slack-acquires-astro-to-help-email-and-channels-work-together

[Image courtesy: Slack]

Just in

UnitedHealth Group has paid more than $2 billion to providers following cyberattack — CNBC

UnitedHealth Group said Monday that it’s paid out more than $2 billion to help health-care providers who have been affected by the cyberattack on subsidiary Change Healthcare, writes Ashley Capoot.

Dell tells remote workers that they won’t be eligible for promotion — Ars Technica

The upcoming policy update represents a dramatic reversal from Dell's prior stance on work from home (WFH), writes Scharon Harding.

Hippocratic AI raises $53M

Palo Alto, Calif.-based Hippocratic AI, a company building a Large Language Model (LLM) for healthcare, has closed a $53 million Series A funding round.