Leo Tolstoy’s descendent, Fekla Tolstaya, continues her digital revolution as she finds new ways to bring the works of her ancestor and other Russian classics online. In doing so, she is transforming the way people can consume and share classical literature all over the world. “The original idea was inspired by the words of my …
WikiLeaks’ document releases, along with many of Julian Assange’s statements, have often benefited Russia, at the expense of the West — whether by conviction, convenience or coincidence, writes the New York Times. WikiLeaks neither targets not spares any particular nation, Assange indicated in an exchange with the US newspaper, but rather works to verify whatever material …
How Russia often benefits when Julian Assange reveals the West’s secrets Read More
After Prisma, the much-hyped mobile app that instantly transforms pictures into artwork, and Artisto, a similar app for videos, Russian programmers are affirming their particular talent in developing technologies inspired by neural networks. This time, this approach is being applied to food recommendations with ‘Borsch,’ a new mobile service launched over the past weeks in …
Russian programmers launch neural network-based food discovery app in US cities Read More
Yesterday Yandex.Taxi, the taxi booking service of Russian search giant Yandex, announced its launch in the Georgian capital Tbilissi. The service, which involves 200 cars from 11 taxi parks, is available in Georgian, Russian and English languages. Launched in 2011, Yandex.Taxi already operates in 30 cities of Russia as well as in Minsk (Belarus), Almaty (Kazakhstan) …
Yandex.Taxi launches in Georgia — before Ukraine, Estonia and Latvia Read More
Last week Mail.ru Group, a major, LSE-listed Russian Internet group, released Artisto, an app which allows users to edit short videos, processing them in the style of famous artworks or any other source image. Using a neural network-inspired technology, the app is now available globally on the App Store and Google Play. Artisto now processes 10-second videos and offers 14 filters to …
On the steps of Prisma: Mail.Ru Group applies neural network technologies to videos Read More
What should a startup do when it find itself sitting on one of the hit apps of the year? Make it available to more people, of course. And that’s exactly what the Russian team behind the much-hyped Prisma has done with the Android launch over the weekend of an app that had been restricted to iOS for the past six …
VKontakte (VK), Russia’s leading social network, is to introduce subscription for its music services, the Izvestia newspaper reported Wednesday. Users will still be able to listen to music on the site for free, but some paid functions will appear at the start of 2017. “Users will still be able to listen to audio recordings for free …
The FindFace mobile app, which makes it possible to find a random person’s social-media page on Vkontakte after taking a photo of them in the street, has made news headlines for its use in experimental art projects and bullying women who appear in pornography. Daniil Turovsky, special correspondent for independent online publication Meduza, sat down with the authors …
SBT Venture Capital, the venture arm of Russian state-controlled savings bank Sberbank, appears to be among the participants in Uber’s latest equity funding round. Led by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, this $3.5 billion deal took place this spring, valuing the US startup at $62.5 billion. SBT’s participation was revealed by BNE Intellinews, an online …
Russia’s Sberbank participated in Uber’s latest equity round Read More
As reported earlier this week by East-West Digital News, a quirky mobile photo app named ‘Prisma’ has been leading Apple’s App Store ranking in Russia and several neighboring countries since June 20 — just ten days after launch. Among its millions of users are a bevy of Russian celebrities, from Russian Prime Minister DMitry Medvedev, to supermodels Irina Shayk …
Russia’s Federation Council, the upper house of parliament, has approved a law requiring foreign companies to pay value added tax (VAT) of 18 percent on online content, the Interfax news agency reported Wednesday. The bill, nicknamed the “Google tax law”, will also require companies who distribute or sell online applications, games, music, or other content …
Russian parliament approves ‘Google Tax’ for foreign app stores Read More
Russian Q&A service TheQuestion is opening representative offices in London and Berlin to develop internationally, while keeping its R&D capacities in Moscow, Russian magazine Sekret Firmy reported last week. The move comes just after the company completed a $500,000 round of funding, following an initial round of the same amount. Among the investors are “owners of media …
Q&A service TheQuestion raises $500,000, opens offices in Berlin and London Read More
