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Amazon is quietly doubling down on cryptographic security | Ingrid Lunden | 2,018 | 8 | 30 | The growth of cloud services — with on-demand access to IT services over the Internet — has become one of the biggest evolutions in enterprise technology, but with it, so has the threat of security breaches and other cybercriminal activity. Now it appears that one of the leading companies in cloud services is looking for more ways to double down and fight the latter. has been working on a range of new cryptographic and AI-based tools to help manage the security around cloud-based enterprise services, and it currently has over 130 vacancies for engineers with cryptography skills to help build and run it all. One significant part of the work has been within a division of AWS called the Automated Reasoning Group, which focuses on identifying security issues and developing new tools to fix them for AWS and its customers based on , a branch of artificial intelligence that covers both computer science and mathematical logic and is aimed at helping computers automatically reason completely or nearly completely. In recent times, Amazon has registered two new trademarks, and , both of which have connections to ARG. Classified in its patent application as “c “prototype tool for proving the security of cryptographic protocols,” developed by the AWS Automated Reasoning Group. SideTrail is not on Github, but Byron Cook, an academic who is the founder and director of the AWS Automated Reasoning Group, has called “SideTrail: Verifying the Time Balancing of Cryptosystems.” However, the link to the paper, describing what this is about, is . The trademark application for SideTrail includes a long list of potential applications (as trademark applications often do). The general idea is cryptography-based security services. Among them: “Computer software, namely, software for monitoring, identifying, tracking, logging, analyzing, verifying, and profiling the health and security of cryptosystems; network encryption software; computer network security software,” “Providing access to hosted operating systems and computer applications through the Internet,” and a smattering of consulting potential: “Consultation in the field of cloud computing; research and development in the field of security and encryption for cryptosystems; research and development in the field of software; research and development in the field of information technology; computer systems analysis.” Added to this, in July, a customer of AWS started testing out developed by the ARG also for improving an organization’s cybersecurity — with the tools originally released the previous August (2017). Tiros and Zelkova, as the two tools are called, are that variously evaluate access control schemes, security configurations and feedback based on different setups to help troubleshoot and prove the effectiveness of security systems across storage (S3) buckets. Amazon has not trademarked Tiros and Zelkova. A , for financial services, appears to be registered as an LLC called “Zelkova Acquisition” in Las Vegas, while there is no active trademark listed for Tiros. Amazon declined to respond to our questions about the trademarks. A selection of people we contacted associated with the projects did not respond to requests for comment. More generally, cryptography is a central part of how IT services are secured: Amazon’s Automated Reasoning Group has been around since 2014 working in this area. But Amazon appears to be doing more now both to ramp up the tools it produces and consider how it can be applied across the wider business. A quick look on open vacancies at the company shows that there are currently 132 openings at Amazon for people with cryptography skills. “Cloud is the new computer, the Earth is the motherboard and data centers are the cards,” Cook said in a he delivered recently describing AWS and the work that the ARG is doing to help AWS grow. “The challenge is that as [AWS] scales it needs to be ever more secure… How does AWS continue to scale quickly and securely? “AWS has made a big bet on our community,” he continued, as one answer to that question. That’s led to an expansion of the group’s activities in areas like and beyond, as a way of working with customers and encouraging them to move more data to the cloud. Amazon is also making some key acquisitions also to build up its cloud security footprint, such as and , two AI-based security startups whose founding teams both happen to have worked at the NSA. Amazon’s AWS division pulled in with $1.6 billion in operating income, a healthy margin that underscores the shift that businesses and other organizations are making to cloud-based services. Security is an essential component of how that business will continue to grow for Amazon and the wider industry: more trust in the infrastructure, and more proofs that cloud architectures can work better than using and scaling the legacy systems that businesses use today, will bolster the business. And it’s also essential, given the rise of breaches and ever more sophisticated cyber crimes. Gartner estimates that cloud-based security services will be a $6.9 billion market this year, rising to nearly $9 billion by 2020. Automated tools that help human security specialists do their jobs better is an area that others like Microsoft are also eyeing up. Last year, it , which offers remediation services to complement and bolster the work done by enterprise security specialists. |
Firefox will soon start blocking trackers by default | Frederic Lardinois | 2,018 | 8 | 30 | Mozilla today that its Firefox browser will soon by default automatically block all attempts at cross-site tracking. There are three parts to this strategy. Starting with version 63, which is currently in testing in the browser’s nightly release channel, Firefox will block all slow-loading trackers (with ads being the biggest offender here). Those are trackers that take more than five seconds to load. Starting with Firefox 65, the browser will also strip all cookies and block all storage access from third-party trackers. In addition, Mozilla is also working on blocking cryptomining scripts and trackers that fingerprint users. As usual, the timeline could still change, depending on how these first tests work out. “In the physical world, users wouldn’t expect hundreds of vendors to follow them from store to store, spying on the products they look at or purchase,” Mozilla’s Nick Nguyen writes today. “Users have the same expectations of privacy on the web, and yet in reality, they are tracked wherever they go. Most web browsers fail to help users get the level of privacy they expect and deserve.” If you want to give these new features a try today, all you have to do is install the unstable . There, in the privacy settings, you’ll find the new tracker blocking features under the “Content Blocking” header. Once you’ve turned that on, the browser will also walk you through how all of this works and highlight that some of the more aggressive settings may break a few sites. In addition, Firefox’s private mode uses the same kind of tracking protection already, as does . Safari users, too, will have likely yawned while reading this. Apple, after all, already announced similar privacy features for its browser . The approach here is different, with Apple betting on machine learning and Firefox using more traditional block lists, but the intent is the same. As Mozilla notes, the idea here is to give users choice. Sites can still ask for a user’s data but they’ll have to ask for consent before they get it. “Blocking pop-up ads in the original release was the right move in 2004, because it didn’t just make Firefox users happier, it gave the advertising platforms of the time a reason to care about their users’ experience. In 2018, we hope that our efforts to empower our users will have the same effect,” writes Nguyen. |
OpenStack’s latest release focuses on bare metal clouds and easier upgrades | Frederic Lardinois | 2,018 | 8 | 30 | The Foundation today the 18th version of its namesake open-source cloud infrastructure software. The project has had its ups and downs, but it remains the de facto standard for running and managing large private clouds. What’s been interesting to watch over the years is how the project’s releases have mirrored what’s been happening in the wider world of enterprise software. The core features of the platform (compute, storage, networking) are very much in place at this point, allowing the project to look forward and to add new features that enterprises are now requesting. The new release, dubbed Rocky, puts an emphasis on bare metal clouds, for example. While the majority of enterprises still run their workloads in virtual machines, a lot of them are now looking at containers as an alternative with less overhead and the promise of faster development cycles. Many of these enterprises want to run those containers on bare metal clouds and the project is reacting to this with its “Ironic” project that offers all of the management and automation features necessary to run these kinds of deployments. in Ironic release OpenStack clouds to be the foundation VMs and Ironic itself isn’t new, but in today’s update, Ironic gets user-managed BIOS settings (to configure power management, for example) and RAM disk support for high-performance computing workloads. Magnum, OpenStack’s service for using container engines like Docker Swarm, Apache Mesos and Kubernetes, is now also a Kubernetes certified installer, meaning that users can be confident that OpenStack and Kubernetes work together just like a user would expect. Another trend that’s becoming quite apparent is that many enterprises that build their own private clouds do so because they have very specific hardware needs. Often, that includes GPUs and FPGAs, for example, for machine learning workloads. To make it easier for these businesses to use OpenStack, the project now includes a lifecycle management service for these kinds of accelerators. “Specialized hardware is getting a lot of traction right now,” OpenStack CTO Mark Collier noted. “And what’s interesting is that FPGAs have been around for a long time but people are finding out that they are really useful for certain types of AI, again millions of times. It’s kind of interesting to see this kind of resurgence of certain types of hardware that maybe was seen as going to be disrupted by cloud and now it’s making a roaring comeback.” With this update, the OpenStack project is also enabling easier upgrades, something that was long a daunting process for enterprises. Because it was so hard, many chose to simply not update to the latest releases and often stayed a few releases behind. Now, the so-called Fast Forward Upgrade feature allows these users to get on new releases faster, even if they are well behind the project’s own cycle. Oath, which owns TechCrunch, runs a massive OpenStack cloud, for example, and the team recently upgraded a 20,000-core deployment from Juno (the 10th OpenStack release) to Ocata (the 15th release). The fact that , a Canadian cloud provider, is already offering support for the Rocky release in its new Silicon Valley cloud today is yet another sign that updates are getting a bit easier (and the whole public cloud side of OpenStack, too, often gets overlooked, but continues to grow). |
Lenovo launched a bunch of smart home products | Brian Heater | 2,018 | 8 | 30 | null |
Lenovo’s Yoga Book C930 swaps the keyboard for an E Ink display | Brian Heater | 2,018 | 8 | 30 | null |
YouTube launches a suite of fundraising tools | Sarah Perez | 2,018 | 8 | 30 | YouTube today a suite of new features designed to offer creators and their fans new ways to contribute to charitable causes. This includes beta versions of new fundraising and campaign matching tools, as well as a variation of YouTube’s , called “Super Chat for Good.” Explains the company, YouTube creators have already been using its video platform to raise awareness about causes they care about, and bring their communities together. The launch of YouTube Giving, as this combined toolset is called, will now allow them to do more by making it easier for fans to donate to over 1 million nonprofits. With Fundraisers, YouTube creators and qualifying U.S. nonprofits (registered 501(c)(3) nonprofits) will be able to create fundraising campaigns that are embedded next to their YouTube videos. Directly beneath the video, viewers will see a “Donate” button that will allow them contribute to the campaign. YouTube says it will handle the logistics and payment processing. This is rolling out now to a small group of U.S. and Canadian creators during this beta. One example, live now, is a that’s raising funds towards animal rescue and recovery. During the beta, YouTube will cover all transaction fees, allowing 100% of donations to reach the nonprofits. Community Fundraisers, now launching in beta to U.S. creators, will allow YouTubers to team up together to co-host the same fundraiser. The feature set here is similar to regular fundraisers, but is designed so the fundraiser appears at the same time across all participants’ videos. It will also display how much money all communities have raised together. This is being kicked off with a group fundraiser by a dozen gaming creators who will raise money from their 37 million subscribers for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Campaign Matching has yet to launch, but will soon allow creators to organize fundraisers where they can receive matching pledges from other creators, brands, and businesses to increase how much they’re able to raise. The matching pledges and who they’re from will also be displayed as part of this feature. This is expected to arrive in the weeks ahead, says YouTube. Another new addition leverages YouTube’s existing Super Chat system, which allows fans to pay to have their comments highlighted. In Super Chat for Good, 100% of viewers’ Super Chat purchases will go towards the nonprofit the creator is supporting. YouTube says it will take in feedback from the community and expand the features to more creators over the next few months. Online fundraising is a popular activity today across sites like GoFundMe, Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and Patreon. Facebook also entered the market a couple of years ago. In mid-2016 it they support, before later expanding this fundraising toolset set to and broadening the of people could host. Facebook charges on some of these fundraisers, except for those for charitable organizations and personal ones. YouTube says it also won’t charge fees during the beta, but declined to tell us what its plans for fees are when the beta period wraps. The company this year has been expanding the types of things creators can do with their videos, in the face of increased competition from Facebook Watch and Amazon’s Twitch. Earlier this summer, a suite of other features like channel memberships, merchandise shelves, marketing partnerships via FameBit and the launch of “Premieres,” to offer creators a middle ground between live streaming and pre-recorded video. |
Twitter announces new policy and certification process for ‘issue ads’ | Anthony Ha | 2,018 | 8 | 30 | Twitter continues to roll out new policies aimed at increasing transparency, particularly around political advertising. Amidst ongoing concerns about Russian election interference and misinformation on social media, the company recently announced and launched an where you can find more information about advertisers. Initially, however, Twitter’s stricter standards were limited to ads for U.S. federal election candidates and campaigns. Now it’s announced a policy around the broader category of “issue ads.” In , Twitter’s vice president of trust and safety Del Harvey and its general manager of revenue product Bruce Falck said the policy affects two categories: * Ads that refer to an election or a clearly identified candidate, or
* Ads that advocate for legislative issues of national importance In both cases, advertisers will need to apply for certification, which involves verifying their identity and location in the United States. Like election ads, issue ads will be labeled as such in the Twitter timeline, and they’ll allow users to click through and learn more about the advertiser. They’ll also be included in the Ads Transparency center. As examples of the kinds of issues that would be covered, Harvey and Falck cited “abortion, civil rights, climate change, guns, healthcare, immigration, national security, social security, taxes, and trade,” though they also said that list will likely evolve over time. News organizations that want to run ads around their political coverage can apply for an exemption. (Since the definition of what is and isn’t a news organization can be blurry, there are specific criteria that they’d need to meet, like providing editorial staff information online and not being “dedicated to advocating on a single issue.”) “We don’t believe that news organizations running ads on Twitter that report on these issues, rather than advocate for or against them, should be subject to this policy,” Harvey and Falck wrote. Twitter says it will start enforcing the policy (which, to be clear, is currently U.S.-only) on September 30. |
Walmart co-leads $500M investment in Chinese online grocery service Dada-JD Daojia | Jon Russell | 2,018 | 8 | 8 | , but the U.S. retail giant is very much involved in the Chinese internet market through a partnership with e-commerce firm JD.com. Alibaba’s most serious rival, JD scooped up Walmart’s Yihaodian business and offered its own online retail platform to help enable Walmart to products in China, . Now that relationship is developing further after Walmart and JD jointly invested $500 million into Dada-JD Daojia, an online-to-offline grocery business which is part owned by JD, . Unlike most grocery delivery services, though, Dada-JD Daojia stands apart because it includes a crowdsourced element. The business was formed following a merger between JD Daojia, JD’s platform for order from supermarkets online which has 20 million monthly users, and Dada, which uses crowdsourcing to fulfill deliveries and counts 10 million daily deliveries. JD Daojia claims over 100,000 retail stores and its signature is one-hour deliveries for a range of products, which include fruit, vegetables and groceries. Walmart is already part of the service — it has 200 stores across 30 Chinese cities on the Dada-JD Daojia service; as well as five online stores on the core JD.com platform — and now it is getting into the business itself via this investment. JD.com said the deal is part of its ‘Borderless Retail’ strategy, which includes staff-less stores and retail outlets that mix e-commerce with physical sales. “The future of global retail is boundaryless. There will be no separation between online and offline shopping, only greater convenience, quality and selection to consumers. JD was an early investor in Dada-JD Daojia, and continues its support, because we believe that its innovations will be an important part of realizing that vision,” said Jianwen Liao, Chief Strategy Officer of JD.com, in a statement. Alibaba, of course, has a similar hybrid strategy with its Hema stores and food delivery service Ele.me, all of which links up with its Taobao and T-Mall online shopping platforms. , which is looking to rediscover growth in China through an alliance that will see Ele.me deliver coffee to customers and make use of Hema stores. Away from the new retail experience, JD.com has been doing more to expand its overseas presence lately. this summer which will see the duo team up to offer JD.com products for sale on the Google Shopping platform across the world. Separately, , starting in Germany, and that’s where the Google deal and a relationship with Walmart could be hugely helpful. Another strategic JD investor is Tencent, and that relationship has helped the e-commerce firm sell direct to customers through Tencent’s WeChat app, which is China’s most popular messaging service. Tencent and JD have co-invested in a range of companies in China, such as and . Their collaboration has also extended to Southeast Asia, where they are both investors in ride-hailing unicorn Go-Jek, which is aiming to rival Grab, the startup that bought out Uber’s local business. |
Everything is… less terrible | Jon Evans | 2,018 | 8 | 8 | To hack: to study a system’s flaws and emergent properties, and use them for your own ends; to instill your own instructions into a computer’s memory, and coerce its microprocessor to run them. To pick at the air gaps and missed stitches in the many overlapping layers of software from which our modern world is woven. , an entire industry, employing countless thousands. Information Security a.k.a. infosec. It is said that there are four PR people for every journalist in America, which seems high, but I expect the ratio of infosec people to actual hackers is higher yet, even if you count the proverbial script kiddies. For a long time it was where the counterculture techies went, the curmudgeons, the renegades, in black boots and leather and tattoos and colored hair. By no coincidence they also tended to include many of the smartest ones. (I’m and to this day I find interview questions about security are the best way to delineate the merely good from the excellent.) And by no coincidence they also included many angry, wounded and/or terrible people. That was when the internet was something people used from time to time, rather than the fundamental substrate of half of human activity. It was OK, as far as its users were concerned, for its walls to be built and defended (and only very rarely womanned, courtesy of infosec’s default oppressive, exclusionary and often predatory sexual culture) by a cohort of … well … cranky assholes. Not all of them, I hasten to stress. But definitely a disproportionate number. That was part of its appeal, in many ways. Bad boys in leather who could spin up hard drives and ransom data from across the planet with a few opaque, wizardly shell scripts, in green text on black, using knowledge they’d won the hard way from online duels and grimoires — that was the Hollywood myth of the hacker, and the much-less-romantic real hackers loved it, as you’d expect, whatever color their notional hats might be. It was a shitty system and a shitty subculture in many ways — colorful and dramatic, sure, but essentially shitty — and it couldn’t last. Nowadays it is big business, on the one hand, and slowly becoming more equitable and less exclusionary, on the other. Don’t get me wrong, there’s much work to be done, but the trajectory is a hopeful one. Nowadays the security biz is an iterative process rather than an exploratory frontier. Researchers discover vulnerabilities in software; they disclose them to vendors; vendors grumble and fix it. Security vendors offer a growing arsenal of tools to prevent, detect, log and attribute attacks, iterating as attackers do the same — and attackers are, increasingly, likely to be 9-5ers paid by a nation-state, rather than members of a criminal enterprise. One of the most respected teams in infosec is Google’s Project Zero, and another is their Chrome security team; both are managed by Parisa Tabriz, who gave the keynote speech at Black Hat today. She pointed out that there has been good and measurable progress in the security world over the last few years. Initially, when Project Zero started giving vendors precisely 90 days to fix their bugs before their exploits were revealed to the world, only 25 percent complied in time; now that number is up to 98 percent. Secure HTTPS traffic has risen from 45 percent to 87 percent of traffic on ChromeOS, and from 29 percent to 77 percent on Android, just over the last three years … and Tabriz attributed this to UI improvements in the Chrome browser as much as to the behind-the-scenes plumbing work. Once upon a time UX and usability were considered entirely orthogonal to security. This is probably directly attributable to the contemptuous attitudes of infosec at the time. Now, thankfully, the industry knows better. Once “community” was a dirty word among the black-clad lone wolves, and if a “vulnerability” was personal, you didn’t talk about it; now there’s an entire at Black Hat, discussing addiction, stress, PTSD, burnout, depression and sexual harassment/assault, among other issues that would have been swept under the collective rug not so long ago. Conventional wisdom has it that everything is terrible and everything can be hacked, and that “attackers have strategies while defenders only have tactics,” to quote Black Hat founder Jeff Moss this morning. And don’t get me wrong: some things do continue to be terrible. ( , anyone?) But there is room for a kind of guarded optimism. Many of the big new hacks of the last few years aren’t catastrophic flaws in widely used essential infrastructure. OK, some are, but some, like and , are astonishingly elaborate Rube Goldberg hacks. This is an extremely good sign. In the same way that airline crashes tend to have a baroque set of perfect-storm causes these days, because the simple errors are guarded against with multiple redundancy, the increasingly baroqueness of major bugs suggests that the software we use is getting noticeably more secure. Slowly. In irregular fits and starts. Over a period of decades. Sometimes in devices which cannot be fixed except by complete replacement. And reducing vulnerabilities still doesn’t fix, say, the password reuse problem. But still. We’ll see if the rise of machine learning causes a new arms race, or whether it gives us new and better tools against attackers, and/or whether convolutional pattern recognition will unearth an entire new crop of previously undetectable bugs. It’s admittedly worrying that adversarial examples are so effective at tricking current AI models. But even so, I’m inclined to agree with Tabriz that there is, at long last, cause for a certain guarded optimism, both for the infosec community and their work. |
AI training and social network content moderation services bring TaskUs a $250 million windfall | Jonathan Shieber | 2,018 | 8 | 8 | , the business process outsourcing service that moderates content, annotates information and handles back-office customer support for some of the world’s largest tech companies, has raised $250 million in an investment from funds managed by the New York-based private equity giant, . It’s been 10 years since TaskUs was founded with a $20,000 investment from its two co-founders, and the new deal, which values the decade-old company at $500 million before the money even comes in, is proof of how much has changed for the service in the years since it was founded. The Santa Monica-based company, which began as a browser-based virtual assistant company — “You send us a task and we get the task done,” recalled TaskUs chief executive Bryce Maddock — is now one of the main providers in the growing field of content moderation for social networks and content annotation for training the algorithms that power artificial intelligence services around the world. “What I can tell you is we do content moderation for almost every major social network and it’s the fastest growing part of our business today,” Maddock said. From a network of offices spanning the globe from Mexico to Taiwan and the Philippines to the U.S., the 32-year-old co-founders Maddock and Jaspar Weir have created a business that’s largest growth stems from snuffing out the distribution of snuff films; child pornography; inappropriate political content and the trails of human trafficking from the user and advertiser-generated content on some of the world’s largest social networks. (For a glimpse into how horrific that process can be, take a look at ,which looked at content moderation for the anonymous messaging service, Whisper.) Maddock estimates that while the vast majority of the business was outsourcing business process services in the company’s early days (whether that was transcribing voice mails to texts for the messaging service PhoneTag, or providing customer service and support for companies like HotelTonight), now about 40 percent of the business comes from content moderation. Image courtesy of Getty Images Indeed, it was the growth in new technology services that attracted Blackstone to the business, according to Amit Dixit, senior managing director at Blackstone. “The growth in ride sharing, social media, online food delivery, e-commerce and autonomous driving is creating an enormous need for enabling business services,” said Dixit in a statement. “TaskUs has established a leadership position in this domain with its base of marquee customers, unique culture, and relentless focus on customer delivery.” While the back-office business-processing services remain the majority of the company’s revenue, Maddock knows that the future belongs to an increasing automation of the company’s core services. That’s why part of the money is going to be invested in a new technology integration and consulting business that advises tech companies on which new automation tools to deploy, along with shoring up the company’s position as perhaps the best employer to work for in the world of content moderation and algorithm training services. It’s been a long five-year journey to get to the place it’s in now, with glowing reviews from employees on Glassdoor and social networks like Facebook, Maddock said. The company pays well above minimum wage in the market it operates in (Maddock estimates at least a 50 percent premium), and provides a generous package of benefits for what Maddock calls the “frontline” teammates. That includes perks like educational scholarships for one child of employees that have been with the company longer than one year; healthcare plans for the employee and three beneficiaries in the Philippines; and 120 days of maternity leave. And, as content moderation is becoming more automated, the TaskUs employees are spending less time in the human cesspool that attempts to flood social networks every day. “Increasingly the work that we’re doing is more nuanced. Does this advertisement have political intent. That type of work is far more engaging and could be seen to be a little bit less taxing,” Maddock said. But he doesn’t deny that the bulk of the hard work his employees are tasked with is identifying and filtering the excremental trash that people post online. “I do think that the work is absolutely necessary. The alternative is that everybody has to look at this stuff. it has to be done in a way that’s thoughtful and puts the interests of the people who are on the frontlines at the forefront of that effort,” says Maddock. “There have been multiple people who have been involved in sex trafficking, human trafficking and pedophilia that have been arrested directly because of the work that TaskUs is doing. And the consequence of someone not doing that is a far, far worse world.” Maddock also said that TaskUs now shields its employees from having to perform content moderation for an entire shift. “What we have tried to do universally is that there is a subject matter rotation so that you are not just sitting and doing that work all day.” And the company’s executive knows how taxing the work can be because he said he does it himself. “I try to spend a day a quarter doing the work of our frontline teammates. I spend half my time in our offices,” Maddock said. Now, with the new investment, TaskUs is looking to expand into additional markets in the U.K., Europe, India and Latin America, Maddock said. “So far all we’ve been doing is hiring as fast as we possibly can,” said Maddock. “At some point in the future, there’s going to be a point when companies like ours will see the effects of automation,” he added, but that’s why the company is investing in the consulting business… so it can stay ahead of the trends in automation. Even with the threat that automation could pose to the company’s business, TaskUs had no shortage of other suitors for the massive growth equity round, according to one person familiar with the company. Indeed, Goldman Sachs and SoftBank were among the other bidders for a piece of TaskUs, the source said. Currently, the company has more than 11,000 employees (including 2,000 in the U.S.) and is looking to expand. “We chose to partner with Blackstone because they have a track record of building category-defining businesses. Our goal is to build TaskUs into the world’s No. 1 provider of tech-enabled business services. This partnership will help us dramatically increase our investment in consulting, technology and innovation to support our customers’ efforts to streamline and refine their customer experience,” said Maddock in a statement. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2018, subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions. |
As California burns, climate goals may go up in smoke — even after the flames are out | Julie Cart | 2,018 | 8 | 8 | As crews across California battle more than a dozen wildfires — including the largest in state history — the blazes are spewing enough carbon into the air to undo some of the good done by the state’s climate policies. What’s even worse: Climate-warming compounds that will be released by the charred forests long after the fires are extinguished may do more to warm up the planet than the immediate harm from smoky air. Scientists say that only about 15 percent of a forest’s store of carbon is expelled during burns. The remainder is released slowly over the coming years and decades, as trees decay.That second hit of carbon, experts say, contains compounds that do more to accelerate climate change than those from the original fire. And future fires over previously burned ground could make climate prospects even more bleak. “The worst possible situation is the fire that comes through and kills everything,” said Nic Enstice, regional science coordinator for the Sierra Nevada Conservancy. “Then, 10 or 15 years later, another fire comes through and releases all the carbon left in the trees on the ground. That’s really bad.” It’s a scenario that could explode at any time. Enstice published this year that laid out a chilling tableau: California has more than a 120 million dead trees strewn around its mountain ranges, with the southern Sierra hardest hit. When fires hit those downed trees, the state will begin to experience “mass fires” spewing plumes of carbon. The resulting conflagrations, according to the researcher, will be almost unimaginable. “The emissions from those fires will be unlike anything we will have ever seen,” Enstice said. “And you won’t be able put it out.” Computing the carbon released from the fires so far this year will not happen soon. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration , gathering data, but air traffic over wildfires is tightly restricted. Scientific research is not a top priority when fires are threatening towns. But some preliminary data is available now. One method uses inventories of existing forests — surveying how many trees and which type. Those records are updated every 10 years. Researchers then overlay infrared images captured from satellites that show what’s burning and at what intensity. From that, predictions can be made about carbon emissions on any given day. Scientists say that emissions from burned forests are one of the most virulent types, called black carbon. According to the most recent accounting from the state Air Resources Board, California’s annual black carbon discharge — excluding wildfires — are equal to emissions from about 8 million passenger vehicles driven for one year. Not a small number. But when the state calculates the same annual average of black carbon coming solely from wildfires, it’s the equivalent of nearly 19 million additional cars on the road. With year-round fire seasons and fire intensity off the charts, state officials admit that wildfires could set back California’s myriad policies to offset the impacts of climate change. “It’s significant,” Enstice said. “We don’t have a lot of data to measure yet, we’re still using primitive tools. But everyone is gearing up to study this.” |
WeWork’s HQ product aims to better accommodate mid-sized companies | Sarah Wells | 2,018 | 8 | 8 | WeWork recently called “HQ by WeWork” to provide mid-sized companies the privacy, flexibility, customization and cost-efficiency they need without making a long-term brick-and-mortar commitment. According to U.S. Census data, the number of mid-sized companies with 11 to 250 employees account for 1.1 million companies in the country and employ approximately 30 million people. In many cases, these companies have begun seeing growth but are not ready (or financially capable enough) to settle into a long-term office space that they may soon outgrow. “Be it those lifestyle businesses that are going to be 30 people forever, a small law firm, or a tech firm, we believe very strongly in companies of that size and how important they are to their local economies,” WeWork Chief Growth Officer Dave Fano told TechCrunch. “Often times space is still very much a challenge for companies of that size and the way they have to make these [office space] commitments ends up probably being an inhibitor to their growth.” To better meet the needs of these companies, HQ by WeWork offers private office floors (leased and managed by WeWork) that companies can move into for flexible leasing periods — typically for a minimum of 12-24 months. But, should a company outgrow its space in six months, Fano said WeWork will work to accommodate a move to support its growth. Unlike WeWork’s model, which allows companies to bring the management of WeWork to spaces they rent themselves, companies using HQ by WeWork can leave the ins-and-outs of office real estate to the office-sharing company. HQ by WeWork offers spaces with customizable color schemes and branding incorporation, private entrances and a service-lite model of WeWork management that includes essentials (IT, AV, etc.) but without all the bells and whistles (e.g. full conference rooms, events) that come with a typical WeWork office space. This paring down of amenities allows it to offer these spaces at a lower price per person than a typical WeWork accommodation, Fano told me. That said, HQ tenants can still drop-by any WeWork facility to utilize the features their spaces lack. So far, WeWork has leased six HQ spaces in New York City and is actively working to expand HQ by WeWork into all the company’s flagship cities, such as Los Angles and Toronto. |
NASA puts $44 million toward cryogenics and mid-air spacecraft retrieval | Devin Coldewey | 2,018 | 8 | 8 | NASA has announced a set of public-private partnerships with several U.S. space companies, . Blue Origin, Astrobotic Technology, United Launch Alliance and more are the recipients of up to $10 million each for a variety of projects aimed at exploring and utilizing space safely and efficiently. The 10 awards are for “tipping point” technologies, as NASA calls them, that are highly promising but need funding for a ground or flight demonstration — in other words, to get it out of the lab. ULA is the big winner here, taking home $13.9 million split between three projects — $10 million will go to looking into a cryogenic vehicle fluid management system that could simplify and improve lunar landers. The rest of the money is split between another cryogenic fluid project for missions with long durations, and a project to “demonstrate mid-air retrieval capabilities up to 8,000 pounds… on a vehicle returning to Earth from orbital velocity.” Really, that last one is the cheapest? Blue Origin has $13 million coming its way, primarily for… yet another cryogenic fluid management system for lunar landers. You can see where NASA’s priorities are — putting boots on the regolith. The remainder goes to testing a suite of advanced sensors that could make lunar landings easier. The company will be testing both these systems on its New Shepard vehicle from as high as 100km. The other big $10 million prize goes to Astrobotic Technology, which will, like Blue Origin, be working on a sensor suite for Terrain Relative Navigation. It’s basically adding intelligence to a craft’s landing apparatus so it can autonomously change its touchdown location, implement safety measures and so on, based on the actual local observed conditions. The Mars 2020 Rover will be using its own TRN system, and the ones funded here will be different and presumably more advanced, but this gif from NASA does a good job illustrating the tech: Several other endeavors were selected by NASA for funding, and you can find them — and more technical details for the ones mentioned above — . (And naturally, my old colleague Alan Boyle has plenty of extra info .) |
New York City Council votes to cap licenses for ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft | Anthony Ha | 2,018 | 8 | 8 | The New York City Council has approved legislation that will halt the issuing of new licenses for ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft. The stated goal of the policy is to give the city time to study the industry’s impact. During that time, ride-hailing companies would only be able to add new vehicles if they’re wheelchair accessible. The legislation also allows the city to set a minimum wage for drivers. There were drivers demonstrating in favor of the bill package outside City Hall today, and the Independent Drivers Guild (which says it represents more than 60,000 drivers for ride-hailing apps in New York City) praised the decision. “We hope this is the start of a more fair industry not only here in New York City, but all over the world,” said IDG founder Jim Conigliaro, Jr. in a statement. “We cannot allow the so-called ‘gig economy’ companies to exploit loopholes in the law in order to strip workers of their rights and protections.” Uber and Lyft, meanwhile, had , saying that it would result in fewer drivers and less reliable service. They also suggested there were other ways to address the underlying issues, and in fact proposed for drivers as an alternative. Drivers demonstrating outside City Hall In response to today’s news, Danielle Filson from Uber’s communications team provided the following statement: The City’s 12-month pause on new vehicle licenses will threaten one of the few reliable transportation options while doing nothing to fix the subways or ease congestion. We take the Speaker at his word that the pause is not intended to reduce service for New Yorkers and we trust that he will hold the TLC accountable, ensuring that no New Yorker is left stranded. In the meantime, Uber will do whatever it takes to keep up with growing demand and we will not stop working with city and state leaders, including Speaker [Corey] Johnson, to pass real solutions like comprehensive congestion pricing. The company plans to explore other strategies to keep up with demand. Those include recruiting drivers with licensed vehicles who aren’t currently working with Uber, or finding additional drivers who could drive licensed vehicles at times when they would otherwise be idle. Lyft, meanwhile, sent this statement from its vice president of public policy Joseph Okpaku: These sweeping cuts to transportation will bring New Yorkers back to an era of struggling to get a ride, particularly for communities of color and in the outer boroughs. We will never stop working to ensure New Yorkers have access to reliable and affordable transportation in every borough. The New York Times that the cap will take effect as soon as Mayor Bill de Blasio signs the bill. “Our city is directly confronting a crisis that is driving working New Yorkers into poverty and our streets into gridlock,” de Blasio tweeted. “The unchecked growth of app-based for-hire vehicle companies has demanded action – and now we have it.” |
The SEC wants Tesla to explain Elon’s 420 tweet | Sarah Buhr | 2,018 | 8 | 8 | Elon Musk, billionaire founder of Tesla, startled the Twittersphere yesterday by announcing he wanted to take the company private at the price of $420 per share. While some speculated the tweet was a joke or a marijuana reference, others took to the market. The tweet sent the stock soaring up 11 percent, causing a halt in trade for a portion of the day. Now, the Securities and Exchange Commission is looking into the matter. Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) sources say the SEC has since made inquiries to Tesla to find out whether Musk’s tweet was truthful and why he chose to announce such a move on Twitter instead of through a regulatory filing. Musk could be held legally liable if regulators determine he was intentionally trying to boost the stock price with his tweet. Musk later explained in a letter to employees going private was “the best path forward” as it would shield the company from “wild swings in our stock price that can be a major distraction” and relieve pressure from quarterly earnings cycles that aren’t necessarily in the best long-term interest of the company. We’ve reached out to the SEC and Tesla for more information on the matter. Musk also indicated in the tweet he’d secured funding for the surprising move, though it’s unclear where the funding would be coming from at this time as he those details. The tweet appeared shortly after bought a $2 billion stake in Tesla and, according to the , Musk spoke with a group of Tesla’s board members last week about taking the company private. |
Disney may offer a discounted bundle of Hulu, ESPN+ and its new streaming service | Sarah Perez | 2,018 | 8 | 8 | Disney may offer its customers the option to purchase a discounted bundle of its three streaming apps — Hulu, Disney’s upcoming streaming service and ESPN+ — according to comments made by Disney CEO Bob Iger during the company’s’ earnings call this week. He said Disney would rather keep the three properties separate, rather than trying to combine them into a more robust “aggregation play,” so as to better address cord cutters’ desire to pick-and-choose the services they want. The company will own 60 percent of Hulu when its $71.3 billion . It already owns ESPN, , and is launching its own Disney-branded streaming service in 2019 that will feature Pixar, Marvel, Disney, Lucasfilm (Star Wars) and, eventually, it now says, National Geographic content. While Disney’s service is meant to be more family-friendly, Hulu will cater to a more adult market. And the plan is to keep those two separate. Iger had said the idea that a bundle could exist in the future wasn’t out of the question, but had not been definite about Disney’s plans in that area. Now, he’s making it more clear that Disney believes there’s value in offering a discounted bundle of its services, rather than combining all their content under one roof. “So rather than one, let’s call it, gigantic aggregated play, we’re going to bring to the market what we’ve already brought to market [with the] sports play. I’ll call it Disney play, which is more family-oriented. And then, of course, there’s Hulu. And they will basically be designed to attract different tastes and different segment or audience demographics,” Iger explained, in response to a question about whether or not it would ever build an aggregated streaming app instead of pursuing the different market segments. “If a consumer wants all three, ultimately, we see an opportunity to package them from a pricing perspective,” Iger continued. “But it could be that a consumer just wants sports or just wants family or just wants the Hulu offering, and we want to be able to offer that kind of flexibility to consumers…” he said. In addition to this potential bundling deal, the company took the opportunity to divulge a few more details about Disney’s streaming service this week. It noted, for example, that it will have less content that its rival Netflix, but its price point will also reflect that — meaning, it will cost less than Netflix. “We will be launching the Disney app into the market probably in about a year — sometime the end of calendar 2019,” Iger had told investors. “We’re going to walk before we run, as it relates to volume of content, because it takes time to build the kind of content library that ultimately we intend to build,” he said. “We feel that it does not have to have anything close to the volume of what Netflix…And the price, by the way, will also reflect a lower volume of product,” said Iger. He also re-confirmed the service’s lineup will initially include a 10-episode, live-action Star Wars series from director Jon Favreau that cost $100 million; new episodes of Star Wars: Clone Wars; and new series based on existing IP like Disney Channel’s “High School Musical” and Pixar’s “Monsters, Inc.” Plus, the service will stream Disney’s upcoming slate of films like Marvel’s “Captain Marvel,” “Avengers 4,” “Star Wars: Episode IX” and the live-action remakes of “Dumbo,” Lady and the Tramp,” “The Lion King” and “The Sword in the Store.” “Ultimately, National Geographic will be a contributor,” Iger noted at one point. According , the Disney exec charged with programming the new service, it will also include an original film, “Timmy Failure,” which is based on the best-selling book series about a “comically self-confident boy detective.” The report said that at least nine movies are in production or advanced development, with budgets ranging from $20 million to $60 million. This includes a period adventure story about a sled dog called “Togo;” a remake of “Three Men and a Baby;” “The Paper Magician,” which takes places at a school for magic; “Noelle,” starring Anna Kendrick as Santa’s daughter; “Stargirl,” based on a young adult novel; and a version of “Don Quixote,” The NYT additionally . There will “probably” be a new Muppets show and Marvel-themed shows, too, it said. |
Hack the planet: vulnerabilities unearthed in satellite systems used around the globe | Jon Evans | 2,018 | 8 | 8 | So this is bad. Black Hat, the king of enterprise security conventions, kicked off today, and most noticeable amid the fusillade of security research was some impressive work from of IOActive, whose team has unearthed worrying vulnerabilities in satellite communication systems, aka SATCOM, used by airplanes, ships and military units worldwide. Now, it’s not bad: In particular, while attackers could mess with or disable your in-flight Wi-Fi, conceivably try to hack into devices connected to them and/or disable all in-flight satellite comms, they couldn’t actually affect any systems that control the airplane. The bigger worries are in the military or maritime spheres, because these are vulnerabilities — anyone on the internet can hack into a connected vulnerable SATCOM device. Which is to say, presumably most of them, since communication is their whole reason for being. In the former case, in addition to the risk of attackers modifying or disabling satellite communications, devices with onboard GPS could leak the location of military units. And in both cases, this opens up the prospect of “cyber-physical attacks,” a brilliantly dystopic phrase if ever there was one; basically, if you crank enough power through a satellite antenna, it can radiate energy powerful enough that it affects biological tissue and electrical systems. Same general principle as a microwave oven. But wait, it gets worse! These are embedded systems. In general there’s no easy way to beam a remote upgrade to them; in some cases the only upgrade is a wholesale replacement. And while there are mitigations (not per se, but approaches that will reduce the severity and likelihood of attacks) for aviation and military SATCOM, maritime systems are … more problematic. So. Don’t worry much if you’re not a sailor or a soldier, your airplane won’t plunge or divert because of this … but someone sitting at a computer far away on the ground might be able to take over your in-flight Wi-Fi. Santamarta (who has a ) and IOActive are working with vendors and unspecified “government agencies” to address these vulnerabilities, but it sounds like, at least on the high seas, this problem is going to be with us for a while. (The full technical talk regarding these vulnerabilities is tomorrow; today’s press conference was merely a teaser. I’ll update this post with any important details that arise.) |
Your vegetables are going to be picked by robots sooner than you think | Jonathan Shieber | 2,018 | 8 | 8 | In the very near future, robots are going to be picking the vegetables that appear on grocery store shelves across America. The automation revolution that’s arrived on the factory floor will make its way to the ag industry in the U.S. and its first stop will likely be the indoor farms that are now dotting the U.S. Leading the charge in this robot revolution will be companies like a young startup which has just raised $2.3 million to bring its first line of robotic harvesting and farm optimization technologies to market. Root AI is focused on the 2.3 million square feet of indoor farms that currently exist in the world and is hoping to expand as the number of farms cultivating crops indoors increases. Some estimates from put the planned expansions in indoor farming at around 22 million square feet (much of that in the U.S.). While that only amounts to roughly 505 acres of land — a fraction of the 900 million acres of farmland that’s currently cultivated in the U.S. — those indoor farms offer huge yield advantages over traditional farms with a much lower footprint in terms of resources used. The average yield per acre in indoor farms for vine crops like tomatoes, and leafy greens, is over ten times higher than outdoor farms. Root AI’s executive team thinks their company can bring those yields even higher. Founded by two rising stars of the robotics industry, the 36 year old Josh Lessing and 28 year old Ryan Knopf, Root is an extension of work the two men had done as early employees at , the company pioneering new technologies for robotic handling. Spun out of research conducted by Harvard professor George Whiteside, the team at Soft Robotics was primarily comprised of technologists who had spent years developing robots after having no formal training in robot development. Knopf, a lifetime roboticist who studied at the University of Pennsylvania was one of the sole employees with a traditional robotics background. “We were the very first two people at Soft developing the core technology there,” says Lessing. “The technology is being used for heavily in the food industry. What you would buy a soft gripper for is… making a delicate food gripper very easy to deploy that would help you maintain food quality with a mechanical design that was extremely easy to manage. Like inflatable fingers that could grab things.” Root AI co-founders Josh Lessing and Ryan Knopf It was radically different from the ways in which other robotics companies were approaching the very tricky problem of replicating the dexterity of the human hand. “From the perspective of conventional robotics, we were doing everything wrong and we would never be able to do what a conventional robot was capable of. We ended up creating adaptive gripping with these new constructs,” Lessing said. While Soft Robotics continues to do revolutionary work, both Knopf and Lessing saw an opportunity to apply their knowledge to an area where it was sorely needed — farming. “Ag is facing a lot of complicated challenges and at the same time we have a need for much much more food,” Lessing said. “And a lot of the big challenges in ag these days are out in the field, not in the packaging and processing facilities. So Ryan and I started building this new thesis around how we could make artificial intelligence helpful to growers.” The first product from Root AI is a mobile robot that operates in indoor farming facilities. It picks tomatoes and is able to look at crops and assess their health, and conduct simple operations like pruning vines and observing and controlling ripening profiles so that the robot can cultivate crops (initially tomatoes) continuously and more effectively than people. Root AI’s robots have multiple cameras (one on the arm of the robot itself, the “tool’s” view, and one sitting to the side of the robot with a fixed reference frame) to collect both color images and 3D depth information. The company has also developed a customized convolutional neural network to detect objects of interest and label them with bounding boxes. Beyond the location of the fruit, Root AI uses other, proprietary, vision processing techniques to measure properties of fruit (like ripeness, size, and quality grading). All of this is done on the robot, without relying on remote access to a data-center. And it’s all done in real time. Tools like these robots are increasingly helpful, as the founders of Root note, because there’s an for both indoor and outdoor farming in the U.S. Meanwhile, the mounting pressures on the farm industry increasingly make robotically assisted indoor farming a more viable option for production. Continuing population growth and the reduction of arable land resulting from climate change mean that indoor farms, which can produce as much as twenty times as much fruit and vegetables per square foot while using up to 90% less water become extremely attractive. Suppliers like Howling Farms, Mucci Farms, Del Fresco Produce and Naturefresh are already producing a number of fruits and vegetables for consumers, said Lessing. “They’ve really fine tuned agriculture production in ways that are meaningful to broader society. They are much more sustainable and they allow you to collocate farms with urban areas [and] they have a much more simplified logistics network.” That ability to pare down complexity and cost in a logistics supply chain is a boon to retailers like Walmart and Whole Foods that are competing to provide fresher, longer lasting produce to consumers, Lessing said. Investors, apparently agreed. Root AI was able to enlist firms like . , and to back its $2.3 million round. “There are many many roles at the farm and we’re looking to supplement in all areas,” said Lessing. “Right now we’re doing a lot of technology experiments with a couple of different growers. assessment of ripeness and grippers ability to grab the tomatoes. next year we’re going to be doing the pilots.” And as global warming intensifies pressures on food production, Lessing sees demand for his technologies growing. “On a personal level I have concerns about how much food we’re going to have and where we can make it,” Lessing said. “Indoor farming is focused on making food anywhere. if you control your environment you have the ability to make food…. Satisfying people’s basic needs is one of the most impactful things i can do with my life.” |
Snapchat monitors Infowars as Alex Jones promotes ‘censorship’ gag AR filter | Ingrid Lunden | 2,018 | 8 | 8 | Snapchat has largely escaped scrutiny about fake news and election interference because its content quickly disappears and its publisher hub, Discover, is a closed platform. But now the Infowars mess that’s plagued Facebook and YouTube has landed at Snap’s feet, as conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has begun to promote an augmented reality Snapchat Lens built by someone in his community that puts a piece of masking tape with the word “censorship” written over it across the mouth of the user with a “Free Infowars” logo in the screen’s corner. He’s also encouraging his followers to follow Infowars’ official Snapchat page. The situation highlights the whack-a-mole game of trying to police the fragmented social media space. There always seems to be another platform for those kicked off others for inciting violence, harassing people or otherwise breaking the rules. A cross-industry committee that helps coordinate enforcement might be necessary to ensure that as someone is booted from one platform, their presence elsewhere is swiftly reviewed and monitored for similar offenses. The new filter to get the word out about is available now! ‼️Follow us on Snapchat: infowarslive ‼️ 👉 Screenshot the snapcode at the end of the video to get it today! 👈 — Alex Jones (@RealAlexJones) “If they can shut me down, they can shut you down,” Jones says at the start of his 42-second video. He cites Facebook, Twitter and Google among those that are getting mobilized by “the Democrats” in aid of defeating opposing candidates in future elections. (In actual fact, Twitter and related sites like have, to the consternation of many, not removed Jones’ or Infowars’ accounts from its platform, and for that matter neither has , , or . Others like and have now gotten behind a wider move to start to take action against accounts like these to reduce the amount of sensationalized information being spread around in the name of “free speech.” You can see the full list of Infowars’ and Alex Jones’ active and now inactive social accounts .) Jones himself doesn’t seem to have a Snapchat account, but Infowars’ website cites the “Infowarslive” handle as its official Snapchat profile, and it’s what Jones is now pointing fans toward. However, from what we understand from sources, the account has been inactive since early this year. Snap, according to these sources, is currently monitoring it to see what it does and whether that content violates community guidelines, which prohibit hate speech and harassment. In the meantime, say the sources, Snap is also looking into the Lens that Jones is promoting to determine whether it violates Snap’s . These guidelines include prohibiting content that m The interesting thing with a Lens, however, is that while the Lens itself may be innocuous, how it gets appropriated might be less so, and that’s not something that might get caught as quickly by Snap. Users can unlock the Lens for 24 hours with a link or screenshot of its QR Snapcode. From there they can do whatever they want with it, including reactivating it each day for further use. Lenses are one of the least ephemeral parts of Snapchat, making them a potent vector for persistently spreading a controversial viewpoint, and indeed viewpoints that might well violate those community standards, even if the Lens itself does not. The insight that’s emerging from the whole Infowars debacle is that problems exist not only with how public figures use social platforms, but with how their audiences interpret or mutate their messages as they get shared, again and again. Snap itself — as its — is still a smaller platform compared to some social networks. That’s another reason it may have avoided becoming a tool for information operations by malicious actors like the Russian agents that attacked the 2016 presidential election via Facebook. But Snapchat is in a vulnerable place right now. Yesterday’s Q2 earnings report revealed that its daily active user count actually shrank from 191 million to 188 million. It took a hard stance against fake or controversial accounts, either blocking on driving away users, that could further weigh on its growth. Snap is meanwhile starting to see momentum in its ad business, beating expectations with $262.3 million in revenue last quarter. That’s a trend it doesn’t want to mess with. Now that Jones can’t spread his false news on Facebook and YouTube, he may look increasingly to platforms like Snapchat or his mobile app that Apple hasn’t removed. And if these platforms allow him to stay, that may light a beacon attracting more questionable content creators. |
Fossil announces new update to Android Wear watches with HR tracking, GPS | John Biggs | 2,018 | 8 | 8 | Fossil’s Q watch line is an interesting foray by a traditional fashion watchmaker into the wearable world. Their latest additions to the line, the , add a great deal of Android Wear functionality to a watch that is reminiscent of Fossil’s earlier, simpler watches. In other words, these are some nice, low-cost smartwatches for the fitness fan. The original Q watches included . As the company expanded into wearables, however, they went the Android Wear route and created a number of lower-powered touchscreen watches. Now, thanks to a new chipset, Fossil is able to add a great deal more functionality in a nice package. The Venture and the Explorist adds untethered GPS, NFC, heart rate and 24-hour battery life. It also includes an altimeter and gyroscope sensor. The new watches start at $255 and run the Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 2100 chip, an optimized chipset for fitness watches. The watch comes in multiple styles and with multiple bands and features 36 faces, including health and fitness-focused faces for the physically ambitious. The watch also allows you to pay with Google Pay — Apple Pay isn’t supported — and you can store content on the watch for runs or walks. It also tracks swims and is waterproof. The Venture and Explorist are 40mm and 45mm, respectively, and the straps are interchangeable. While they’re no $10,000 Swiss masterpiece, these things look — and work — pretty good. |
Roku’s free, ad-supported streaming channel is now live on the web | Sarah Perez | 2,018 | 8 | 8 | bringing its free, streaming entertainment destination, to non-Roku devices for the first time, with a launch on both the web and on select Samsung smart TVs, ahead of a wider cross-platform rollout. The channel, which offers free, ad-supported movies and TV shows, will be available across PCs, mobile phones and tablets, the company says. In addition, Roku is updating the navigation on its own devices, including Roku players and Roku TVs, to include a new feature called “Featured Free,” which will directly point users to free content from The Roku Channel, as well as other apps, like ABC, The CW, CW Seed, Fox, Freeform, Pluto TV, Sony Crackle, Tubi and more. The Roku Channel , as a way for Roku to differentiate its connected media devices and TVs running Roku software from rivals like Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV and Chromecast. Despite Roku’s popularity — it’s — the company hadn’t really used its platform to promote its own content — the way Amazon pushes Prime Video shows on Fire TV owners, for example — until then. The channel itself is populated with movies that Roku gained access to through licensing deals with studios like Lionsgate, MGM, Paramount, Sony Pictures Entertainment and Warner Brothers. However, it also leveraged Roku’s strength as a platform by pulling in free content from its existing channel partners (with permission), including American Classics, FilmRise, Nosey, OVGuide, Popcornflix, Vidmark and YuYu. The content itself is monetized through advertising, which Roku’s in-house ad sales team is in charge of selling, with some portion going to partners. The company’s goal has been to smartly place the ads to respect the content they interrupt, and not to inundate viewers with the same ad over and over again. With the channel’s expansion to the web and other TV platforms, Roku can further grow its advertising business, while also making the case for itself as a device platform. For existing Roku device owners, the channel is just another value-add for being a Roku user — and one that may keep them from jumping ship to another player in the future. “Roku is the leading platform for free entertainment and our users love it. We’re delighted to deliver even more value to our customers without subscriptions, complicated logins or fees,” said Rob Holmes, Roku’s vice president of Programming and Engagement, in a statement about today’s expansion. “By expanding The Roku Channel to the Web, we’re broadening the access points to high-quality, free streaming entertainment. With Featured Free, we’re making it easy for our customers to see the great, free content already available on the Roku platform in one place, while creating value for our content providers by connecting them with Roku’s growing audience.” Meanwhile, Roku is again taking advantage of its platform nature with the launch of the “Featured Free” section on its home screen. This top-level navigational menu — just above “My Feed” on Roku’s home screen — will include a list of popular free content from its channel partners. The shows are identified by name and include a thumbnail image, but it doesn’t indicate which partner’s channel they’re coming from. And, when launched, customers are taken directly to the content itself. This section will include the latest in-season episodes of top network shows, full past-season catch-ups, classic series and hit movies. The news of these launches follows that claimed Roku is planning to launch its own Amazon Channels-like subscription marketplace, as well. The report said Roku would bring together a number of paid subscription services into the same section, to make it easier for consumers to subscribe to paid channels without needing to first find the right app. The “Featured Free” section paints a good picture of what this new subscription marketplace could look like — a single destination where the content itself, and not the channel it comes from, is what’s highlighted. These new features also indicate a shift in Roku’s larger business from being fully reliant on device sales, to transitioning more into services; for now, specifically ad-supported services. Roku is expected to report its later today, after the market’s close, so the timing of the launches is not coincidental. Wall Street is a net loss of $0.15 per share, down from $0.18 in the year-ago quarter, and sales up 41.46 percent to reach $99.6 million, in Q2. Overall, analysts predict Roku will report annual sales of $697.9 million. Roku says the “Featured Free” section will begin to roll out to U.S. users starting today, and will reach all customers over the weeks ahead. The Roku Channel, meanwhile, is available on the web as of now, via |
Don’t miss the interactive workshops at Disrupt SF 2018 | Emma Comeau | 2,018 | 8 | 8 | TechCrunch’s super-sized — the only Disrupt event in North America this year — takes place September 5-7. We’re not kidding when we say brace yourself for three unprecedented, program-packed days. In addition to — with a special $100,000 prize — the , and , we’ve recruited leading tech and investment movers and shakers to share their wisdom in the form of interactive workshops. You won’t want to miss out, so be sure to save time in what will no doubt be a very busy and rewarding Disrupt schedule. Here’s just a taste of our workshop offerings from organizations like NASA, All Raise, Red Bull, SONM, TomTom, Constellation Labs and more: takes place September 5-7. Whether you want to learn, network, compete, exhibit or launch your startup to the world, Disrupt SF 2018 is where it all happens. Still need tickets? . We can’t wait to see you there! |
RIP EmuParadise, a haven for retro gamers for almost two decades | Devin Coldewey | 2,018 | 8 | 8 | If you’re a fan of retro games, chances are you have a few emulators installed to let you play Mega Drive or Atari 800 titles. And if you have a few emulators installed, you probably have some ROMs. And if you have some ROMs, it’s likely that sometime since the year 2000 you visited EmuParadise, a stalwart provider of these ambiguously legal files. Well, EmuParadise is no more — at least the site we knew and loved. , acknowledging the reality that the world of retro gaming has changed irrevocably and a site like EmuParadise simply can’t continue to exist even semi-legally. So they’re removing all ROM downloads. For those not familiar with this scene, emulators let you play games from classic consoles that might otherwise be difficult, expensive or even impossible to find in the wild. ROMs, which contain the actual game data (and are often remarkably small — NES games are smaller than the image above), are questionably legal and have existed in a sort of grey area for years. But there’s no question that this software has been invaluable to gamers. “I started EmuParadise 18 years ago because I never got to play many of these amazing retro games while growing up in India and I wanted other people to be able to experience them,” wrote the site’s founder, MasJ. “Through the years I’ve worked tirelessly with the rest of the EmuParadise team to ensure that everyone could get their fix of retro gaming. We’ve received thousands of emails from people telling us how happy they’ve been to rediscover and even share their childhood with the next generations in their families.” But the games industry is changing; official re-releases of old games and the consequent legal attention that brings to sites hosting original ROMs has created an unambiguously hostile environment for them. Nintendo, it must be said, has been particularly zealous in its efforts to clear the web of ROMs, especially for its first-party games. EmuParadise and other sites have been the constant target of legal actions, from simple takedown requests to more serious allegations and lawsuits. “It’s not worth it for us to risk potentially disastrous consequences. I cannot in good conscience risk the futures of our team members who have contributed to the site through the years,” MasJ continued. “We run EmuParadise for the love of retro games and for you to be able to revisit those good times. Unfortunately, it’s not possible right now to do so in a way that makes everyone happy and keeps us out of trouble. “This is an extremely emotional decision for me after running this site for so many years. But I believe it is the right thing for us at this point of time.” Alas, they will be unavailable forever now. I can remember EmuParadise being one of the most reliable sites to get ROMs from back in the day; and in the early 2000s, when emulators were essentially the only way to play many old games — and the web was a bit more wild — it was also one of the few that didn’t attempt to load some kind of virus onto your computer at the same time. It’s always sad when a homegrown site that single-mindedly pursues a single goal, and in this case one that is arguably a public service, legal or no, is forced to bow out. It’s sad, but they can at least retire knowing that retro gaming is alive and well and finally being embraced by game distributors and makers the way it ought to have been for the last couple decades. Consoles like the NES Classic are outselling modern ones, and love for old games has not abated. Not only that, but websites like this, while they provide other services, are no longer necessary for the distribution of ROMs. What was practical in 2002 no longer makes sense, and the advent of both legal game stores on PCs and consoles, and of course torrents, mean that even rare games like Radiant Silvergun are just a click or button press away. And lastly, EmuParadise isn’t just plain dying. They plan to maintain and update their emulator database and keep the community going, and MasJ says there are plans to launch some new things as well. So, out with the old, in with the new. Thanks to EmuParadise and those running it for all their hard work, and best of luck in the future! |
null | Frederic Lardinois | 2,018 | 8 | 30 | null |
Study flags poor-quality working conditions for remote gig workers | Natasha Lomas | 2,018 | 8 | 8 | An Oxford University study of remote gig economy work conducted on digital platforms has highlighted poor-quality working conditions with implications for employees’ well-being. The research comes at a time when political scrutiny is increasingly falling on algorithmically controlled platforms and their societal impacts. Policymakers are also paying greater attention to the precarious reality for workers on platforms that advertise their gig marketplaces to new recruits with shiny claims of “flexibility” and “autonomy.” Governments in some regions are also actively reassessing employment law to take account of technology-fueled shifts to work and working patterns. , for instance, the U.K. government announced a package of labor market reforms — and committed to being responsible for quality of work, not just quantity of jobs, for the first time. The Oxford University study, entitled looks at remote gig economy work, such as tasks like research, translation and programming carried out via platforms such as Freelancer.com and Fiverr (rather than gig economy platforms such as food delivery platforms, where workers must be in local proximity to the work — albeit, those platforms have their own ). The researchers note that an estimated 70 million workers worldwide are registered on remote work platforms. Their study methodology involved carrying out face-to-face interviews with just over 100 workers in South East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa who had been active on one of two unnamed “leading platforms” for at least six months. They also undertook a remote survey of just over 650 additional gig platform workers, from the same regions, to supplement the interview findings. Participants for the survey portion were recruited via online job ads on the platforms themselves, and had to have completed work through one of the two platforms within the past two months, and to have worked in at least five projects or for five hours in total. The study paints a mixed picture, with — on the one hand — gig workers reporting feeling they can remotely access stimulating and challenging work, and experiencing perceived autonomy and discretion over how they get a job done: A large majority (72 percent) of respondents said they felt able to choose and change the order in which they undertook online tasks, and 74 percent said they were able to choose or change their methods of work. At the same time — and here the negatives pile in — workers on the platforms lack collective bargaining so are simultaneously experiencing a hothouse of competitive marketplace and algorithmic management pressure, combined with feelings of social isolation (with most working from home), and the risk of overwork and exhaustion as a result of a lack of regulations and support systems, as well as their own economic needs to get tasks done to earn money. “Our findings demonstrate evidence that the autonomy of working in the gig economy often comes at the price of long, irregular and anti-social hours, which can lead to sleep deprivation and exhaustion,” said Dr. Alex Wood, co-author of the paper, commenting in a statement. “While gig work takes place around the world, employers tend to be from the U.K. and other high-income Western countries, exacerbating the problem for workers in lower-income countries who have to compensate for time differences. “The competitive nature of online labour platforms leads to high-intensity work, requiring workers to complete as many gigs as possible as quickly as they can and meet the demands of multiple clients no matter how unreasonable.” The survey results backed the researchers’ interview findings of an oversupply of labor, with 54 percent of respondents reporting there was not enough work available and just a fifth (20 percent) disagreeing. The study also highlights the fearsome power of platforms’ rating and reputation systems as a means of algorithmically controlling remote workers — via the economic threat of loss of future work. The researchers write: A far more effective means of control [than non-proximate monitoring mechanisms such as screen monitoring software, which platforms also deployed] was the ‘algorithmic management’ enabled by platform-based rating and reputation systems (Lee et al., 2015; Rosenblat and Stark, 2016). Workers were rated by their clients following the completion of tasks. Workers with the best scores and the most experience tended to receive more work due to clients’ preferences and the platforms’ algorithmic ranking of workers within search results. This form of control was very effective, as informants stressed the importance of maintaining a high average rating and good accuracy scores. Whereas Uber’s algorithmic management ‘deactivates’ (dismisses) workers with ratings deemed low (Rosenblat and Stark, 2016), online labour platforms, instead, use algorithms to filter work away from those with low ratings, thus making continuing on the platform a less viable means of making a living. As a result of how platforms are organized, remote gig workers reported that the work could be highly intense, with a majority (54 percent) of survey respondents saying they had to work at very high speed; 60 percent working to tight deadlines; and more than a fifth (22 percent) experiencing pain as a result of their work. “This is particularly felt by low-skilled workers, who must complete a very high number of gigs in order to make a decent living,” added professor Mark Graham, co-author, in another supporting statement. “As there is an oversupply of low-skill workers and no collective bargaining power, pay remains low. Completing as many jobs as possible is the only way to make a decent living.” The study also highlights the contradictions inherent in the gig economy’s “flexible working” narrative — with the researchers noting that where workers work, in reality remote platform workers may have “little real choice but to work from home, and this can lead to a lack of social contact and feelings of social isolation.” Gig platform workers also run up against the rigid requirements of demanding clients and deadlines in order to get paid for their work — meaning there’s a whip being cracked over them after all. The study found most workers had to work “intense unsocial and irregular hours in order to meet client demand.” “The autonomy resulting from algorithmic control can lead to overwork, sleep deprivation and exhaustion as a consequence of the weak structural power of workers vis-a-vis clients,” they write. “This weak structural power is an outcome of platform-based rating and ranking systems enabling a form of control which is able to overcome the spatial and temporal barriers that non-proximity places on the effectiveness of direct labour process surveillance and supervision. Online labour platforms thus facilitate clients in connecting with a largely unregulated global oversupply of labour.” Workers that gained the most in this environment were good at mastering skills independently and navigating platforms’ reputation systems so they could keep winning more work — albeit essentially at other workers’ expense, on account of how the platforms’ algorithms funnel more work toward the best-rated (meaning there’s less for the rest). The study concludes that platform reputations have a “Our findings are consistent with remote workers’ experiences across many national contexts,” added Graham. “Hopefully, this research will shed light on potential pitfalls for remote gig workers and help policymakers understand what working in the online gig economy really looks like. While there are benefits to workers such as autonomy and flexibility, there are also serious areas of concern, especially for lower-skill workers.” |
Here are the platforms that have banned Infowars so far | Sarah Wells | 2,018 | 8 | 8 | Over the past two-and-a-half weeks, tech platforms have taken a (if sometimes meek) stance against the far-right and conspiracy theorist content of Alex Jones by removing, banning or penalizing Jones and his podcast Infowars for breaking their community and hate speech policies. These removals signify an important moment in the history of the internet’s tug-of-war with free speech. Can a platform keep all its users safe without enforcing communities standards? Can a platform keep all its users ‘free’ if it does? The conversation has really accelerated in the past few weeks, trickling down from big players like Apple to smaller platforms like Pinterest, so we’ve compiled a list to help keep track of the developments. The video platform started the conversation in late February and early March of this year when it removed a video from the channel (in which Jones a victim of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas school shooting as a ‘crisis actor’) and Jones’ channel by removing ads. These two original moves came on the heels of s of the suicide forest and YouTube’s lax content moderating. While those strikes against Jones didn’t appear to entice any other platforms into the fray, YouTube’s most recent action against him has. On July 25th the platform removed four of Jones’ videos for infringement on its hate speech and child endangerment policies. The videos contained Islamophobic and transphobic sentiments as well as the depiction of a child being shoved to the ground by an adult to demonstrate “how to prevent liberalism.” While the social network to not remove inflammatory content aimed at Special Counsel Robert Mueller from Jones’ verified page, the company did chose to take action following YouTube’s removal of Jones’ videos. On July 27 the social network removed four videos for violating its community polices against encouraging physical harm or attacks based on someone’s religious affiliation or gender identity. The action resulted in a 30-day ban from posting videos on his personal Facebook and a warning for the Infowars page that Jones moderates. Just over a week later, several of Jones’ Infowars podcast episodes from its platform on August 1, stating that the episodes violated the company’s hate content policy (which it revamped this May.) Similar to Facebook’s policy, Spotify’s states “content whose principal purpose is to incite hatred or violence against people because of their race, religion, disability, gender identity, or sexual orientation” is considered in violation, but not content that is offensive without intent to incite harm. Taking Spotify’s cue, the podcast app quickly on August 2 and became one of the first platforms to fully remove the Infowars podcast (as well as Jones’ five other podcasts) from its platform instead of targeting certain episodes. In a tweet confirming the action, Stitcher said: We have reviewed Alex Jones’ podcasts and found he has, on multiple occasions, harassed or allowed harassment of private individuals and organizations, and that harassment has led listeners of the show to engage in similar harassment and other damaging activity. Therefore, we have decided to remove his podcasts from the Stitcher platform. After a brief weekend lull, Apple started the week with a bang by removing all but one of Jones’ six podcasts from iTunes for violating its policies concerning hate speech, telling TechCrunch in a statement: Apple does not tolerate hate speech, and we have clear guidelines that creators and developers must follow to ensure we provide a safe environment for all of our users. Podcasts that violate these guidelines are removed from our directory making them no longer searchable or available for download or streaming. We believe in representing a wide range of views, so long as people are respectful to those with differing opinions Following the initial ban and strike served against Jones on July 27, , as well to announce the removal of four related Facebook pages: the Alex Jones Channel Page; the Alex Jones Page; the Infowars Page; and the InfoWars Nightly News Page. In a statement on its site explaining the new actions, Facebook said: Since [the original ban], more content from the same Pages has been reported to us — upon review, we have taken it down for glorifying violence, which violates our graphic violence policy, and using dehumanizing language to describe people who are transgender, Muslims and immigrants, which violates our hate speech policies. All four Pages have been unpublished for repeated violations of Community Standards and accumulating too many strikes. While much of the discussion around Infowars has been related to false news, which is a serious issue that we are working to address by demoting links marked wrong by fact checkers and suggesting additional content, none of the violations that spurred today’s removals were related to this. And then it all began to truly unravel. Also on August 6, Pinterest the Infowars page on its platform, saying in a : Consistent with our existing policies, we take action against accounts that repeatedly save content that could lead to harm. People come to Pinterest to discover ideas for their lives, and we continue to enforce our principles to maintain a safe, useful and inspiring experience for our users. Still on the 6, the porn streaming service of Jones from its platform, with vice president Charlie Hughes stating: Following news that YouTube, Spotify and Facebook have banned Alex Jones from their platforms, team YouPorn is joining in solidarity and announces we are banning his content as well. As one of the largest user-generated content platforms in the world, we have already removed his videos that have violated our terms of service. As an inclusive platform, hate has no place on YouPorn. On August 7 the professional networking site announced the removal of Jones from its platform, similarly stating: We have removed the InfoWars company page for violating our terms of service. We value the professional community on LinkedIn and strive to create a platform where the exchange of ideas by professionals can happen without harmful misinformation, bullying, harassment or hate. We encourage our members to report any inappropriate content or behavior. We investigate and if it is in violation take action, which could include removing the content or suspending the account And lastly (but likely not for long) the mail messaging platform on the 7 its removal of Jones from its platform, stating: We don’t allow people to use our platform to disseminate hateful content… We take our responsibility to our customers and employees seriously. The decision to terminate this account was thoughtfully considered and is in line with our company’s values On August 12th, Vimeo content a platform when it removed his account. In an email statement confirming the action, Vimeo said: We can confirm that Vimeo removed Infowars’ account on Sunday, August 12 following the uploading of videos on Thursday and Friday that violated our Terms of Service prohibitions on discriminatory and hateful content the videos were manually removed by Vimeo’s Trust and Safety Team after Jones began to upload content in mass following his removal from other sites. So who’s left? Three notables standing apart from the pack are Snapchat, Instagram, Google + and Twitter, the latter of which has recently defending its choice to keep Jones on the platform based on his tweets alone and not their context. As this situation continues to boil, time will tell where these platforms will eventually land. |
Spark Neuro raises $13.5M to measure your emotional response to ads and movies | Anthony Ha | 2,018 | 8 | 8 | I’m not immune to compliments, and Spencer Gerrol, founder and CEO of Spark Neuro, offered a real winner as he demonstrated his technology. “I love your brain,” he told me. This was after the startup’s vice president of research Ryan McGarry had strapped sensors to my fingers and head, then showed me an intense movie clip, with my attention level and emotional response displayed on a screen for all to see. That, in miniature, is what Spark Neuro does: It helps companies study the audience response to things like ads, movies and trailers. The goal is to replace things like focus groups and surveys, which Gerrol said are subject to a variety of biases, including group pressure and the desire to give the answer that you think the researcher wants to hear. For example, he showed me a that had performed poorly among men in focus groups. Spark Neuro, in contrast, found that it actually had “beautiful performance” among both men and women, and it ended up being one of the best-received ads at last year’s Super Bowl. (Apparently the guys just didn’t want to admit that they enjoyed watching a seductive cartoon man.) We’ve also written about startups that try to measure ad effectiveness using technology like and . Gerrol said those are valuable data points, and indeed, they’re part of Spark Neuro’s research. But they have their limitations, which is why the company also looks at brain and electrodermal activity. Gerrol highlighted the EEG data (i.e. data about the electrical activity in your brain) as offering “such richness and such depth.” The challenge is that “the data is incredibly noisy.” So Spark Neuro has developed tools to automatically remove the noise and make the data easy to understand. At the same time, it’s not relying on technology — Gerrol said his researchers also do one-on-one interviews with participants afterwards to get a better understanding of their responses. “The most important thing, by 100 fold, is the intellectual property around the algorithms,” he added. “The algorithms take a mess of data that’s meaningless to the human eye and turn it into something you can just understand as a marketing executive.” My own readings looked daunting at first, but they quickly became comprehensible as Gerrol walked me through them, showing me where my attention and emotions spiked. Spark Neuro is already working with a long list of clients that includes Anheuser-Busch, General Motors, Hulu, JetBlue, Paramount and Walmart. It’s also announcing that it’s raised a $13.5 million Series A led by Thiel Capital, with participation from Will Smith (yes, Will Smith) and former Disney CEO Michael Eisner. Eventually, Gerrol suggested the technology could be applied in other ways, like measuring student attention in the classroom. “There’s a million applications,” he said. “We’re very focused on being a dominating force in a discrete industry, but it’s also important to our future to set ourselves up for further applications.” |
Outgoing Facebook CSO Alex Stamos will join Disrupt SF to talk cybersecurity | Taylor Hatmaker | 2,018 | 8 | 8 | At , Facebook’s security officer Alex Stamos will join us to chat about his tenure in the top security role for the world’s biggest social network, how it feels to have weathered some of the biggest security and privacy scandals to ever hit the tech industry and securing U.S. elections in the 2018 midterms and beyond. Following his last day at Facebook on August 17, Stamos will transition to an , starting this September. Since March, Stamos has focused on election security at Facebook as the company tries to rid its massive platform of Russian interference and bolster it against disinformation campaigns aiming to disrupt U.S. politics. “It is critical that we as an industry live up to our collective responsibility to consider the impact of what we build, and I look forward to continued collaboration and partnership with the security and safety teams at Facebook,” Stamos said of the company he is leaving. At Stanford, Stamos will take on a full-time role as an adjunct professor with the university’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and plans to conduct research, as well. Stamos previously lectured a security class at Stanford and intends to expand on that foundation with a hands-on “ ” where students explore real-world hacking techniques and how to defend against them. With the class, open to non-computer science majors, Stamos seeks to expose a broader swath of students to the intricacies of cybersecurity. Prior to his time at Facebook, Stamos served as the chief information security officer at Yahoo. Stamos left in 2015 for his new security role at Facebook, reportedly over clashes at the over cybersecurity resources and the implementation of measures like end-to-end encryption. In both roles, Stamos navigated the choppy waters of high-profile privacy scandals while trying to chart a more secure path forward. The full agenda . You can purchase tickets . |
Starbucks partners with Alibaba on coffee delivery to boost China business | Jon Russell | 2,018 | 8 | 1 | Starbucks is palling up with Alibaba as it seeks to rediscover growth for its business in China. China has been a bright spot for some time for the U.S. coffee giant, but lately it has struggled to maintain growth — — and it is up against some ambitious new rivals, . One-year-old Luckin recently raised $200 million from investors and it has already built quite a presence. It claims over 500 outlets across China and it taps into the country’s mobile trends, with mobile payments and orders and delivery, too. Then there are some deep discounts aimed at getting new users, as is common with food, cars and other on-demand services. In response, Starbucks is injecting some of that ‘New Retail’ strategy into its own China presence — and it is doing so with none other than Alibaba, the company that coined the phrase, which signifies a marriage between online and offline commerce. The partnership between Alibaba and Starbucks is wide-ranging and it will cover delivery, a virtual store and collaboration on Alibaba’s “new retail” Hema stores. The delivery piece is perhaps most obvious, and it’ll see Starbucks work with Ele.me, , to allow customers to order and receive coffee without visiting a store. The service will start in September in Beijing and Shanghai, with plans to expand to 30 cities and over 2,000 stores by the end of this year. Starbucks is also building its app into Alibaba’s array of e-commerce sites, including its Tmall brand e-mall and Taobao marketplace. That’s a move that would operate “similar to the mobile app embedded right into that experience” and open Starbucks up to Alibaba’s 500 million-plus users. Finally, Starbucks is bringing its own “Starbucks Delivery Kitchens” to Alibaba’s Hema stores, which feature robots and mobile-based orders, that will combine Starbucks stores to boost its delivery capacity and speed. Starbucks, as mentioned, needed a boost in China but the deal is also a major coup for Alibaba, which is battling JD.com on the new retail front as well as ambitious on-demand service Meituan. The latter is reported to have recently filed for an IPO in Hong Kong that could raise it $4 billion. |
There’s more: Google is also said to be developing a censored news app for China | Jon Russell | 2,018 | 8 | 1 | Can Google’s week get any worse? Less than a day after , so comes another: the U.S. firm is said to be developing a government-friendly news app for the country, where its search engine and other services remain blocked. that Google is essentially cloning Toutiao, , in a bid to get back into the country and the minds of its 700 million mobile internet users. Like Toutiao, the app would apparently use AI and algorithms to serve stories to readers — as opposed to real-life human editors — while it too would be designed to work within the bounds of Chinese internet censorship. That last part is interesting because ByteDance and other news apps have . That’s resulted in some app store suspensions, but the saga itself is a rite of passage for any internet service that has gained mainstream option, so there’s a silver lining in there. But the point for Google is that policing this content is not as easy as it may seem. The Information said the news app is slated for release before the search app, the existence of which was revealed yesterday, but sources told the publication that the ongoing U.S.-China trade war has made things complicated. Specifically, Google executives have “struggled to further engage” China’s internet censor, a key component for the release of an app in China from an overseas company. There’s plenty of context to this, as I wrote yesterday: The Intercept’s report comes less than a week after . Its license was, however, revoked as news of the approval broke. The company said it had planned to open an innovation center, but it isn’t clear whether that will be possible now. that could be deployed in China. While its U.S. peer has struggled to get a read on China, over the past year or so. The company has , been part of investment rounds for Chinese companies, , and . It has also launched products, with distributed via third-party app stores and, most recently, . As for Google, the company pointed us to the same statement it issued yesterday: We provide a number of mobile apps in China, such as Google Translate and Files Go, help Chinese developers, and have made significant investments in Chinese companies like JD.com. But we don’t comment on speculation about future plans. Despite two-for-one value on that PR message, this is a disaster. Plotting to collude with governments to censor the internet never goes down well, especially in double helpings. |
Grab picks up $2 billion more to fuel growth in post-Uber Southeast Asia | Jon Russell | 2,018 | 8 | 1 | Grab, the ride-hailing service that struck a deal to take Uber out of Southeast Asia, has announced that it has pulled in $2 billion in new capital as it seeks to go beyond ride-hailing to offer more on-demand services. The $2 billion figure includes which was announced in June, and it sees a whole host of institutional investors join the Grab party. Some of those names include OppenheimerFunds, Ping An Capital, Mirae Asset — Naver Asia Growth Fund, Cinda Sino-Rock Investment Management Company, All-Stars Investment, Vulcan Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Macquarie Capital. Grab confirmed that the round is still open, so we can expect that it’ll add more investors and figures to this deal. The deal values Grab at $11 billion post-money, which is the same as the $10 billion valuation it earned following the Toyota deal. The caliber of investors certainly suggests an IPO is on the cards soon — not that it ever hasn’t been — although the company didn’t comment directly on that when we asked. This new financing takes Grab to $6 billion from investors. Some of its other notable backers include SoftBank and China’s Didi Chuxing, which which gave Grab the gas to negotiate a deal with Uber that saw . From that perspective, . In this post-Uber world, Grab is transitioning to offer more services beyond just rides. It has long done so, with its own payment service and food deliveries, but that no longer opens to a ride request page and that reflects the changing strategy of the Singapore-based company. 10 July 2018; Tan Hooi Ling, co-Founder, Grab, at a press conference during day one of RISE 2018 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre in Hong Kong. Photo by Stephen McCarthy / RISE via Sportsfile Grab said in a statement today that this new money will go towards that “O2O” [offline-to-online] strategy that turns Grab’s app into a platform that allows traditional, offline services to tap the internet to reach new customers. The trend started out in China, with Alibaba and Tencent among those pushing O2O services, and Grab is determined to be that solution for Southeast Asia’s 650 million consumers. Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest economy with a population of over 260 million, is a key focus for Grab, the company said. The company has been pushed out new financial services in the country, , and it claims it is winning “significant market share” with GMV quadrupled in the first half of this year. With Uber out of the picture, the company’s main rival for the ‘Southeast Asia Super App Crown’ is Go-Jek, the Indonesian on-demand service valued at $5 billion. Go-Jek has long focused on its home market but this year it unveiled . , and the company has plans to arrive in Thailand and the Philippines before the end of the year. Go-Jek has raised over $2 billion and it counts KKR, Warburg Pincus, Google and Chinese duo Tencent and Meituan among its backers. |
The dramatic rise and fall of online P2P lending in China | Jiefei Liu | 2,018 | 8 | 1 | post , an editorial partner of TechCrunch based in China. When Emily Zhang was interning with a peer-to-peer (P2P) lending firm in the Summer of 2016, her main task was to carry out research on other P2P lending firms. She found the rates of return tempting and some underlying assets reliable, so she decided to invest in the market herself. Until now, none of her investments have matured, but she worries about whether she can actually withdraw her profits, much less get back the principal. Even so, Zhang considers herself lucky that the companies that sold her the assets are still in business while many other P2P companies have collapsed, leaving their investors in despair. Stories have been circulating across Chinese social networks about desperate investors who have lost their life savings. Zhang Xue, for instance, a 47-year old single mother with a 13-year-old son, was her husband left her with when he died of a heart attack. “I am totally desperate. 3.8 million RMB. It’s finished, all finished,”” she told local media. Some of those affected protested in front of police stations and chanted the Chinese national anthem, , in an effort to pressure authorities. Others organized online investor rights groups, making a collective effort to get the money back. Together, the protesters made headlines in domestic media and sparked intense online debates on who is responsible for the losses and where the industry is heading. P2P lending, or online lending, is generally considered as a method of debt financing that directly connects borrowers, whether they are individuals or companies, with lenders. The world’s first online lending platform, Zopa, was founded in the UK in 2005. China’s online lending industry has seen rapid growth since 2007 without significant regulation. Default rates have been soaring since June. In May, only 10 platforms were considered in trouble. But by June, that number had increased to 63. By the end of July, 163 platforms were on the concern list. The , a platform that compiles the data, defines ‘troubled’ as companies that have difficulty paying off investors, have been investigated by national economic crime investigation department, or whose owners have run away with investors’ money. One of the key factors contributing to the sudden surge is the national P2P rectification campaign that was supposed to have been finished by June. “The due date of rectification has passed, but many P2P platforms have not met the requirements. Strict regulations have propelled a break-out of the compliance issues,” Shen Wei, Dean and Professor of Law at Shangdong University Law School, told TechNode. In late 2017, the platforms were asked to , according to China Banking Regulatory Commission, which has now merged with China’s insurance regulator to become China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission. Shen said the main purpose of the regulations is to restrict P2P lending platforms , matching borrowers and investors. Under such regulations, the platforms are not allowed to pool funds from investors or grant loans to any client or provide any credit services, which most of the platforms were doing when they first started. China’s first online lending platform, (拍拍货), launched in 2007 and went public on the New York Stock Exchange in late 2017. The industry has gone through rapid growth since then. In January 2016, there were 3,383 platforms in business with combined monthly transactions reaching 130 billion RMB, according to Home of Online Lending.
In a recent research paper, Robin Hui Huang, professor of law at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, : a high 56 percent rate of internet penetration by 2018, a large supply of available funds from investors, and financial demands of small-to-medium-sized companies that cannot be satisfied by the existing banking system. P2P lending is a tempting and easy investment option because the loans usually promise 8-12 percent interest rates, according to Home of Online Lending, of which many mature within a year, much higher than the 2.75 percent rate for three-year fixed deposits found at most banks. P2P lending is also friendlier to smaller businesses since major banks in China generally prefer state-owned enterprises or large companies. Huang cited a joint 2016 report by the Development Bank of Singapore and Ernst & Young, that only 20-25 percent of bank loans went to small to medium-size enterprises, even though they accounted for 60 percent of China’s gross domestic product. China’s financial system is still dominated by banks, especially the established ‘Big Four’ — the Bank of China, China Construction Bank, the Agricultural Bank of China, and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. Ryan Roberts, a research analyst at MCM Partners, told TechNode that about 70 percent of the banks’ loans are commercial loans, with just 30 percent for individuals. Before the government first signaled regulations in 2016, the P2P lending industry aggressively expanded. Compared with the current defaulting scandals, the situation back then wasn’t any better. By the end of 2015, there were 1,031 total troubled platforms out of 3,448 platforms still in operation. So, on average, one out of four was problematic. Chinese media reported on a number of Ponzi scheme stories concerning dubious platforms that tempted would-be investors with fat bonuses for referring family and friends, too. Despite the fact that there was no established regulatory framework, the government was watching. Since mid-2015, a series of announcements set the stage for China’s first regulatory instrument for online lending in August 2016. Called Interim Measures on Administration of Business Activities of Online Lending Information Intermediaries, violations of its articles can lead to administrative or even criminal penalties. The interim measures set the business scope of the platforms to be mere information intermediaries. It also asked all platforms to set up custody accounts with commercial banks for investor and borrower funds held by the platforms in order to reduce the risks that platform owners abscond with funds. The measures require online lending platforms to register with their local financial regulatory authority. Later, a specific timeline was set for the implementation. Provincial government agencies were told to complete general investigations into local P2P platforms by July 2016 and formulate regulatory policies based on regional conditions. Overall rectification and registration should have been completed by June 2018, the latest. It’s August now and, obviously, the work still isn’t finished. Huang said the measures, in general, have covered all the factors of the industry that should be regulated, but when it came to implementation, all we really saw was a delay. “It’s good that the measures are carried out locally, which means that local government can develop policies in line with local conditions,” Huang explained to us. However, in order to attract more capital locally, local authorities have engaged in a race to the bottom, competing with one and another to have the loosest regulations, and therefore, have been hesitant to finalize them. Moreover, the general public has a different understanding of the registration process. “Registering with local authorities doesn’t mean that local governments have recognized or will guarantee the legitimacy and quality of platforms. However, in reality, the public seems to perceive registration as official assurance,” Huang said. This has lead to very cautious approaches from government agencies towards the whole registration project since they don’t intend to be held responsible for the fallout or future wrongdoings of the P2P firms. The concern is quite reasonable. Huoq.com—a P2P lending platform launched in December 2016 and backed by state-owned enterprises—announced on July 11, 2018, that it went into liquidation. The platform is owned by Dingxi Zhuoyue Online Lending Information Intermediary. One-third of Dingxi is owned by Xinjiang Tianfu Lanyu Optoelectronics Technology while Tianfu Lanyu itself is partly owned by a state-owned company in Xinjiang. On July 10, however, owners of the platform disappeared. Neither the company nor investors were able to locate them. Their doesn’t show the slightest sign of liquidation, displaying various certificates and recognition from government agencies and industry associations. A banner at the bottom of their mobile app icon still says “Central enterprises are our majority shareholders.” The unresolved regulations are also affecting P2P lending companies listed overseas. Shares of PPDAI plummeted to $4.77 as of July 30 from $13.08 when it was first traded in late 2017. The stock price of , the first Chinese online lending company to go public overseas, dropped to $19.33 compared with $38.26 the same period last year. That the shares of these companies don’t trade well indicates that investors are skeptical towards the business, said Roberts. With the ongoing regulations, it’s still possible that regulators can outlaw and ban their businesses, he explained. Some borrowers even take advantage of the unsettled regulation and stop paying back their loans, in the hopes that the platform they have borrowed from would fail, Roberts added. In June 2018, 17.8 billion RMB worth of transactions took place on China’s P2P lending platforms and outstanding loan balance reached 1.3 trillion RMB. The number looks insignificant if compared with 1.8 trillion RMB in net new bank loans in June alone. However, they have made quite a splash. Victims of the troubled online lending platforms gathered in Hangzhou in early July, filling two of the largest local sports stadiums, which the local government had set up as temporary complaint centers. “One of the reasons why the current wave of defaults has drawn so much attention is that many troubled platforms were pretty big,” Huang said. Some of the platforms violated the rules, pooling funds illegally, and some were suffering from China’s slowing economic growth and the ongoing deleveraging campaigns. P2P lending has helped fund small-to-medium-sized enterprises in some way, but in general, the role it plays in the financial system is limited, said Shen. Most of the P2P investors are speculative and they themselves should be responsible for their losses, he added. “If the rate of return exceeds 6 percent, investors should be alert; if it is more than 8 percent, the investment is very risky, and if it’s more than 10 percent, investors should prepare themselves for losing all their capital,” said Guo Shuqing, chairmen of China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission at a finance forum in June in Shanghai, referring to financial scams that lure investors in with high returns. Although P2P lending is only a relatively small piece in China’s financial industry, there are still concerns that the collapse of these platforms should trigger systematic risks, Shen said. This also implied that Chinese investors have very limited investment options. According to research by China International Capital Corporation, experts predicted only 10 percent of the current P2P lending companies, Zhang said P2P lending needs regulations because many platforms are not innocent. “P2P platforms have high moral hazards and it’s really easy to fake borrowers’ information. However, I believe the government is supportive towards the industry and some platforms will survive till the end,” said Zhang. “I just wish I can be lucky enough to pick the right one.” |
Apple is ending its App Store Affiliate Program in October | Greg Kumparak | 2,018 | 8 | 1 | Seemingly out of the blue, Apple has just announced that its iTunes Affiliate Program will no longer include apps for iOS or macOS. These changes will go live on October 1st, 2018. The program previously allowed individuals, blogs, YouTubers, etc. to link to an app and earn a small cut of the sale if a purchase was made. When the program first launched, affiliates would make 7 percent of any app purchase (or a little less than 7 cents on a 99 cent app). In April of last year, they dropped that down to 2.5 percent. With this news, the commission is gone completely. The broader iTunes Affiliate Program itself will live on, but only for music, movies, books and TV purchases. Here’s the Thank you for participating in the affiliate program for apps. With the launch of the new App Store on both iOS and macOS and their increased methods of app discovery, we will be removing apps from the affiliate program. Starting on October 1st, 2018, commissions for iOS and Mac apps and in-app content will be removed from the program. All other content types (music, movies, books, and TV) remain in the affiliate program. For more information on commission rates, please see our Commissions and Payments page on the Affiliate Resources site. If you have questions, please visit our Helpdesk. This news hits particularly hard for indie review sites like , which rely on affiliate links in their reviews for a substantial chunk of their revenue. In a , TouchArcade editor-in-chief Eli Hodapp writes, “I really didn’t think it would be Apple that eventually kills TouchArcade.” We’ve reached out to Apple for further insight on the change, and will update if we hear back. |
Tesla is building its own AI chips for self-driving cars | Greg Kumparak | 2,018 | 8 | 1 | “We’ve been in semi-stealth mode on this basically for the last 2-3 years,” said Elon Musk on an earnings call today. “I think it’s probably time to let the cat out of the bag…” The cat in question: the Tesla computer. Otherwise known as “Hardware 3,” it’s a Tesla-built piece of hardware meant to be swapped into the Model S, X and 3 to do all the number crunching required to advance those cars’ self-driving capabilities. Tesla has thus far relied on . So why switch now? By building things in-house, Tesla say it’s able to focus on its own needs for the sake of efficiency. “We had the benefit […] of knowing what our neural networks look like, and what they’ll look like in the future,” said Pete Bannon, director of the Hardware 3 project. Bannon also noted that the hardware upgrade should start rolling out next year. “The key,” adds Elon “is to be able to run the neural network at a fundamental, bare metal level. You have to do these calculations in the circuit itself, not in some sort of emulation mode, which is how a GPU or CPU would operate. You want to do a massive amount of [calculations] with the memory right there.” The final outcome, according to Elon, is pretty dramatic: He says that whereas Tesla’s computer vision software running on Nvidia’s hardware was handling about 200 frames per second, its specialized chip is able to crunch out 2,000 frames per second “with full redundancy and failover.” Plus, as AI analyst James Wang points out, it gives Tesla more control over its own future: 4/ Apple's custom SoC effort is a key reason why the iPhone leads in performance and go-to-market. Tesla's AI chip effort will do the same—they will be able to deliver performance & features *ahead* of other auto makers that must wait for the next chip from Nvidia/Intel. — James Wang (@jwangARK) By having its own silicon, Tesla can build for its own needs at its own pace. If they suddenly recognize something the hardware is lacking, they’re not waiting on someone else to build it. It’s by no means a trivial task — but if they can pull it off without breaking the bank (and Elon says it costs them “the same as the current hardware”), it could end up being a significant strength. As for how they’ll get the chips into existing Teslas, Elon says: “We made it easy to switch out the computer, and that’s all that needs to be done. You take out one computer, and plug in the next. All the connectors are compatible.” |
NASA’s Open Source Rover lets you build your own planetary exploration platform | Devin Coldewey | 2,018 | 8 | 1 | Got some spare time this weekend? Why not build yourself a working rover from plans provided by NASA? The spaceniks at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have all the plans, code, and materials for you to peruse and use — just make sure you’ve got $2,500 and a bit of engineering know-how. This thing isn’t made out of Lincoln Logs. The story is this: after Curiosity landed on Mars, JPL wanted to create something a little smaller and less complex that it could use for educational purposes. ROV-E, as they called this new rover, traveled with JPL staff throughout the country. Unsurprisingly, among the many questions asked was often whether a class or group could build one of their own. The answer, unfortunately, was no: though far less expensive and complex than a real Mars rover, ROV-E was still too expensive and complex to be a class project. So JPL engineers decided to build one that wasn’t. The result is the , a set of plans that mimic the key components of Curiosity but are simpler and use off the shelf components. “I would love to have had the opportunity to build this rover in high school, and I hope that through this project we provide that opportunity to others,” said JPL’s Tom Soderstrom . “We wanted to give back to the community and lower the barrier of entry by giving hands on experience to the next generation of scientists, engineers, and programmers.” The OSR uses Curiosity-like “Rocker-Bogie” suspension, corner steering and pivoting differential, allowing movement over rough terrain, and the brain is a Raspberry Pi. You can find all the parts in the usual supply catalogs and hardware stores, but you’ll also need a set of basic tools: a bandsaw to cut metal, a drill press is probably a good idea, a soldering iron, snips and wrenches, and so on. “In our experience, this project takes no less than 200 person-hours to build, and depending on the familiarity and skill level of those involved could be significantly more,” . So basically unless you’re literally rocket scientists, expect double that. Although JPL notes that they did work with schools to adjust the building process and instructions. There’s flexibility built into the plans, too. So you can load custom apps, connect payloads and sensors to the brain, and modify the mechanics however you’d like. It’s open source, after all. Make it your own. “We released this rover as a base model. We hope to see the community contribute improvements and additions, and we’re really excited to see what the community will add to it,” said project manager Mik Cox. “I would love to have had the opportunity to build this rover in high school, and I hope that through this project we provide that opportunity to others.” |
There are very real differences in how women and men (and VCs) view entrepreneurship, underscores a new survey | Connie Loizos | 2,018 | 8 | 1 | In the increasingly crowded world of venture capital, many more firms are producing research as a way to differentiate themselves from the pack. Earlier this year, for example, a venture firm that focuses primarily on enterprise startups, published a state of the . The consumer-tech investment firm is becoming known for its occasional equity research report on a . Now , a nine-year-old, woman-led, early-stage venture firm that’s focused on enterprise cloud and mobile computing startups, has produced some thought-provoking research of its own around how women and male founders view entrepreneurship, from why they do it to how much support they receive from family members. First, a little about Illuminate’s methodologies. According to firm founder Cindy Padnos, the firm initially reached out to 1,200 tech founders and venture capitalists who Illuminate presented with a litany of questions about entrepreneurship and motivations and challenges that people face in starting companies. In the end, says Padnos, Illuminate had a response rate of just more than 30 percent, or slightly over 400 completed responses, which it used SurveyMonkey tools to collect. Roughly half the responses came from partner-level VCs at 150 different venture firms; the other half came from U.S.-based founders who raised venture funding in 2017. So what did they have to say? A lot. If we’re being honest, the survey was so wide-ranging as to be a bit overwhelming. (You can check out the .) In the meantime, some of the most interesting takeaways can be grouped into a couple of different categories. One of these seems to disprove old myths. Among them: Interestingly, the survey also showed a real disconnect between how VCs view founders and how founders view themselves. For example: Again, you can check out the full study . It has all kinds of interesting nuggets that could start fresh conversations about what’s happening in the startup industry right now. |
Facebook loses its chief security officer Alex Stamos | Devin Coldewey | 2,018 | 8 | 1 | Alex Stamos, Facebook’s chief security officer since 2015, announced that he is leaving the company to take a position at Stanford University. The company has been shedding leadership over the last half a year largely owing to fallout from its response, or lack thereof, to the ongoing troubles relating to user data security and election interference on the social network. “While I have greatly enjoyed this work, the time has come for me to move on from my position as Chief Security Officer at Facebook,” . “Starting in September, I will join Stanford University full-time as a teacher and researcher.” spread in March; he was said to have disagreed considerably with the tack Facebook had taken in disclosure and investigation of its role in hosting state-sponsored disinformation seeded by Russian intelligence. To be specific, he is said to have preferred more and better disclosures rather than the slow drip-feed of half-apologies, walkbacks and admissions we’ve gotten from the company over the last year or so. He said at in March that “despite the rumors, I’m still fully engaged with my work at Facebook,” though he acknowledged that his role now focused on “emerging security risks and working on election security.” Funnily enough, that is exactly the topic he will be looking into at Stanford as a new adjunct professor, where he will be joining a new group called Information Warfare, . “This fall, I am very excited to teaching hands-on offensive and defensive techniques and to contribute to the new cybersecurity master’s specialty at [the Freeman-Spogli Institute for International Studies],” Stamos wrote. Leaving because of a major policy disagreement with his employer would not be out of character for Stamos. (which of course was absorbed into Aol to form TechCrunch’s parent company, Oath) because of the company’s choice to allow U.S. intelligence access to certain user data. One may imagine a similar gulf in understanding between him and others at Facebook, especially on something as powerfully divisive as this election interference story or the Cambridge Analytica troubles. “My last day at Facebook will be August 17th,” he wrote, “and while I will no longer have the pleasure of working side by side with my friends there, I am encouraged that there are so many dedicated, thoughtful and skilled people continuing to tackle these challenges. It is critical that we as an industry live up to our collective responsibility to consider the impact of what we build, and I look forward to continued collaboration and partnership with the security and safety teams at Facebook.” Stamos is far from the only Facebook official to leave recently; Colin Stretch, chief legal officer, after more than eight years at the company; its similarly long-serving head of policy and comms, Elliot Schrage, ; WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum in April. Facebook directed me to Stamos’s post when asked for comment; we have asked Stamos for more information directly and will update if we hear back. |
Altru raises $1.3M to improve recruiting with employee videos | Anthony Ha | 2,018 | 8 | 1 | Marketers are increasingly who can promote their products with more authenticity (or at least, the appearance of authenticity) than a traditional ad. So CEO Alykhan Rehmatullah wondered: Why can’t businesses do something similar with recruiting? And that’s what Altru is trying to accomplish, powering a page on a company’s website that highlights videos from real employees answering questions that potential hires might be asking. The videos are searchable (thanks to Altru’s transcriptions), and they also can be shared on social media. The startup was part of , and it’s already working with companies like L’Oréal, Dell and Unilever. Today, Altru is announcing that it’s raised $1.3 million in new funding led by Birchmere Ventures. Rehmatullah contrasted Altru’s approach with Glassdoor, which he said features “more polarized” content (since it’s usually employees with really good or really bad experiences who want to write reviews) and where companies are often forced to “play defense.” On Altru, on the other hand, employers can take the informal conversations that often take place when someone’s deciding whether to accept a job and turn them into an online recruiting tool. Over time, Rehmatullah said the platform could expand beyond recruiting to areas like on-boarding new employees. Since these videos are posted to the company website, with the employees’ name and face attached, they may not always feel comfortable being completely honest, particularly about a company’s flaws. But at least it’s a message coming from a regular person, not the corporate-speak of a recruiter or manager. Rehmatullah acknowledged that there’s usually “an educational process” involved in making employers more comfortable with this kind of content. “These conversations are already happening outside your organization,” he said. “In the long-term, candidates expect more authenticity, more transparency, more true experiences.” |
Original Content podcast: Hulu’s ‘Castle Rock’ is full of mysteries | Anthony Ha | 2,018 | 8 | 1 | Hulu’s taking an interesting approach to adaptation with — instead of basing the series on a specific book by Stephen King, it’s telling a new story about (you guessed it) Castle Rock, the fictional town in Maine where many of King’s stories are set. The series stars André Holland as Henry Deaver, a lawyer with a mysterious disappearance in his past, and Melanie Lynskey as Molly Strand, a real estate agent with psychic powers and a similarly mysterious connection to Henry. The cast also includes veterans of previous King adaptations, including Sissy Spacek ( ) and Bill Skarsgård ( ). On the latest episode of , we’re joined by Sarah Perez to discuss our reaction to the first few episodes. It’s a show that feels more creepy and mysterious than outright terrifying, but there was at least one jump-scare that got us pretty good. It’s also a show full of — but that didn’t do much for us, since we’re casual fans at best. We also covered and . You may notice that this is a shorter episode than usual, with a distinct lack of co-host Jordan Crook (until the end). That’s not intentional. We had to edit around some technical issues, so what we ended up with was more of a highlight reel from a much longer discussion. Anyway, you can listen in the player below, or find us in your podcast player of choice. If you like the show, please let us know by leaving a review on Apple. You also can . (Or suggest shows and movies for us to review!) |
PSA: Automatic cross-posting of tweets to Facebook no longer works as of today | Sarah Perez | 2,018 | 8 | 1 | You can no longer automatically cross-post your tweets to Facebook. Twitter announced today that functionality is now coming to an end, and users will instead have to copy a tweet’s URL if they want to share a tweet to Facebook going forward. In a statement, the company attributed the change to a recent Facebook update. We’ve learned that Tweets and Retweets will no longer automatically post to connected Facebook accounts due to a recent Facebook update. Don’t worry, you have other ways to share a Tweet 😁 — Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) Specifically, the issue has to do with Facebook’s lockdown of its API platform — an overhaul that’s been underway following the where as many had their data improperly harvested and shared. Since then, Facebook has been plugging holes in its API platform to prevent future data misuse. One of those changes involves Facebook Login, back in April. The company said that apps that had been granted permission to publish posts to Facebook as the logged-in user would no longer have that permission. New apps wouldn’t be able use this feature the day the change was announced. And in the case of older apps, the permission would be revoked on August 1, 2018 — that’s today. Facebook also said developers who were previously using the API could instead turn to Facebook’s Share dialogs for , and . But Twitter’s statement didn’t mention there would be an alternative means of sharing built back into Twitter, beyond using its . This is a manual way of sharing tweets, of course, and not a replacement for what is being lost. The option to set up Facebook sharing hasn’t completely disappeared from Twitter’s app as of yet. Facebook still appears within the “Apps” section via the web, with the button “Login to Facebook” seemingly waiting to be clicked. However, this option will no longer work as of today. Instead, it returns the error: It doesn’t seem like Twitter users looking for other workarounds will have much success either, given this situation. Other apps, like IFTTT, for example, are throwing errors as of today, too. |
Grocer Kroger launches new delivery service | Sarah Wells | 2,018 | 8 | 1 | The Kroger Co. the launch of its new e-commerce grocery delivery service, Kroger Ship, which will allow customers to shop online for their favorite Kroger brands and get deliveries as quick as the next day in certain areas. Not to be confused with the grocer’s , which partners with Instacart to home-deliver groceries to customers from local store locations within two hours, Kroger Ship will help shoppers stock-up on necessary non-perishables like toilet paper and peanut butter. To start, the delivery service will launch in four cities across the Midwest and South: Cincinnati, Houston, Louisville and Nashville. That’s just a small selection of the grocery company’s 2,800 store fleet and 35-state reach. During the first phase of Kroger Ship’s implementation, customers will be able to choose from a “curated selection” of 4,500 products, as well as a selection of 50,000 household essentials. All Kroger Ship deliveries will be fulfilled through the company’s two fulfillment centers — located in Nevada and North Carolina — and will work in partnership with FedEx and USPS to ship deliveries, according to information provided to TechCrunch in an email by Kroger’s head of Corporate Communications and Media Relations. The company also has plans to break ground this fall on a new fulfillment center in Kentucky, with more centers possible in the future as Kroger Ship grows. During its launch, Kroger Ship will offer free deliveries for all purchases, as well as 15 percent off customers’ first orders with a one-time promotional code. Post launch, orders over $35 will ship for free ($4.99 shipping otherwise) and the service will offer exclusive promotional deals and codes to Ship users. While Kroger has a pretty firm foothold when it comes to brick-and-mortar groceries ( , the National Retail Federation named it the third largest retailer in the world behind Walmart and Costco), Kroger is joining a crowded online grocery delivery space. In addition to competition Kroger Delivery already faces from same-day delivery, corporate partnerships like , and Prime Now fulfillment of Whole Foods deliveries through Amazon, Kroger’s Ship service faces competition from wholesalers like Costco and its . In its own attempt at buddy-ing with a similar wholesaler, Boxed, was denied this March. |
Tesla losses wider than expected, but sticks to profitability targets | Kirsten Korosec | 2,018 | 8 | 1 | Tesla reported wider-than-expected losses in the second quarter, but is sticking to a profitable and cash flow positive forecast for the second half of the year. Tesla When adjusted for one-time items, Tesla losses were $520 million, or $3.06 per share, compared with $220 million, or $1.33 a share, in the same period last year. There were some bright spots in its second-quarter earnings, which were reported Wednesday after the market closed. Tesla’s negative free cash flow of about $740 million was lower than expected. The company ended the second quarter with $2.2 billion of cash. Tesla also reported higher than expected sales of $4 billion in the second quarter, a 46 percent increase from $2.8 billion in the same quarter last year mainly due to Model 3 deliveries. Tesla reported sales of $3.4 billion in the first quarter. Tesla’s automotive gross margin increased to 20.6 percent under generally accepted accounting principles. The company’s non-GAAP automotive gross margin increased to 21 percent. Tesla said in its second-quarter earnings that it has hit its weekly production goal of about 5,000 Model 3 vehicles multiple times since it first managed to meet its target in the last week of June. Tesla said it’s now aiming to produce 6,000 Model 3 vehicles per week by late August, and expects to increase production over the next few quarters beyond 6,000 per week, while keeping additional capital expenditures limited. The company said it will meet those production targets by improving the use of its existing lines and making selective improvements to address bottlenecks rather than creating entirely new duplicated lines. “We aim to increase production to 10,000 Model 3s per week as fast as we can,” the company said in its shareholder letter. The company said it expect to hit this rate sometime in 2019. |
Activists push back on Facebook’s decision to remove a DC protest event | Taylor Hatmaker | 2,018 | 8 | 1 | A number of activists and organizers in the Washington, DC area are disputing Facebook’s decision to for a rally organized by , the white nationalist figure who planned the deadly 2017 rally in Charlottesville, Va. Facebook removed the event, “No Unite the Right 2-DC,” after discovering that one account connected to the event exhibited what Facebook calls “coordinated inauthentic behavior.” The company defines this activity as “people or organizations creating networks of accounts to mislead others about who they are, or what they’re doing.” The Facebook page at the center of the controversy was called “Resisters.” TechCrunch confirmed that the Resisters page was created by “bad actors,” as defined by the company, who coordinated fake accounts to deceive users. Facebook ultimately removed the No Unite the Right 2-DC event due to its known interaction and engagement with the Resisters page and maintains that Resisters was an illegitimate page from its inception. As the company explained in its blog post: The “Resisters” Page also created a Facebook Event for a protest on August 10 to 12 and enlisted support from real people… Inauthentic admins of the “Resisters” Page connected with admins from five legitimate Pages to co-host the event. The company also observed that a account joined the counter-protest event as an admin, though it only served as an admin for seven minutes. (The IRA has been as a content farm likely funded by a close Putin ally with ties to Russian intelligence.) On top of that, Facebook noted that an IRA account the company was aware of shared a Facebook event hosted by Resisters in 2017. Here’s where things get even more tricky. The event that Facebook deleted had been taken over by a handful of These groups, including Smash Racism DC, Black Lives Matter DC, Black Lives Matter Charlottesville and , worked together under the coalition name “Shut It Down DC” and their actions and plans were not inspired by the “No Unite the Right 2” event, they just happened to cross paths. (Since then, the coalition has recreated the Facebook event as .”) We've since created a new Facebook event but we know real organizing comes from talking with our neighbors, and that this is a real protest in Washington, DC. It is not George Soros, it is not Russia, it is just us. — ShutItDownDC (@shutitdowndc) TechCrunch spoke with a handful of DC-based organizers, including Andrew Batcher, a Washington, DC-based activist involved with Shut It Down DC, to clarify how the local coalition of organizers became connected to an event and an account deemed illegitimate by Facebook. “It was grassroots organizing from a lot of different groups who were interested in this,” Batcher said. “A lot of groups went down to Charlottesville last year. Charlottesville is only two hours south of DC.” He explains that the group’s impetus was Kessler’s own event, not a Facebook event that organizers stumbled onto. “When we started organizing we talked about making a Facebook page and saw that this already existed,” Batcher said. “It happens pretty regularly in DC knowing how many major events take a place here.” “We asked to be made co-hosts of the event and we put our stuff up on it basically,” Batcher said. That included video calls to action, photos and other content, including the event description. “Everything that was taken down was ours.” Beyond creating the initial placeholder page, Batcher says that the Resisters page had “absolutely no involvement” in the event. “This is really outrageous for us,” Batcher said. “[It] makes it look like we’re Russian pawns. We know that we’re not, and we know that we’ve been doing this organizing.” He and other activists on the left have expressed concerns that this depiction could undermine their efforts in the mainstream and even lead to conspiracy theories like Pizzagate that spill over into real life violence. Facebook says that it reached out to the legitimate organizers of No Unite The Right 2-DC with the following message: We haven’t been able to connect on the phone yet, but I did want to make sure you know that earlier today we removed a Facebook event that you are listed as a co-host of, “No Unite the Right 2 – DC”, because one the Pages that created the event, “Resisters”, has been removed from Facebook because [it] was created by someone establishing an inauthentic account that has been associated with coordinated inauthentic behavior. I understand this may be surprising or frustrating. We are reaching out to make sure you have the relevant information and understand that this has nothing to do with you or your Page. Later today, we’ll begin providing information about the event deletion to the approximately 2,600 users who indicated their interest in the event, and the 600 plus users that said they’d attend. If you are interested in setting up another event, we would be happy to include details about it in our public communications. According to Batcher, most of the event’s organizers with Shut It Down DC did not receive any correspondence and others received an email “two lines long,” which he provided. The group is dismayed that Facebook went ahead and removed the event before making contact with more of its organizers. In interviews with TechCrunch, he and other organizers expressed a deep distrust of Facebook and a desire to see more evidence from the company that supports its recent actions. One organizer connected to the DC groups expressed concern that Facebook might be flagging activists working together using VPNs for suspicious coordinated activity. When asked about that concern, Facebook explained that VPN use and common privacy measures would not be sufficient, by Facebook’s standards, to cause an account or page to be removed. “If there was an account that did something bad, get rid of that account. It doesn’t seem to me like it would have to spread to all of this legitimate organizing,” Batcher said. “What we would like is a public apology and them letting people know that we are real people doing real organizing.” He added that Facebook did not show consideration for the potential damage to the people who organized the event together in real life. That distrust is reflected on both sides of the political spectrum. Concerns that Facebook is censoring content made by right-wing figures have and been floated among many users on the right, though there is little evidence supporting recent claims. On the left, the company has a checkered history of sometimes unwitting censorship in incidents that have affected everyone from to parts of the . In some of those cases, Facebook users were for targeted harassment, but the company was slow to address concerns or to change its policy. Facebook has also dragged its feet in confronting on its platform and recently faced criticism for that allow white nationalism while forbidding white supremacism, drawing what is widely considered to be an artificial distinction between the two. These woes don’t just affect Facebook, but the platform does appear to be a perfect storm for anyone acting in bad faith. While the counter-protest organizers have since created a new Facebook event and intend to continue their efforts, the situation is a fairly unsettling cautionary tale of a rising form of manipulation on the world’s biggest social platform. Recent revelations and those from 2017 show that a new breed of “blended” social media influence campaign — fake accounts leveraging the efforts of real, regular people — proves particularly insidious. So-called “bad actors” are infiltrating legitimate causes, creating chaos and throwing everything into question. Even when these efforts are exposed, it’s a winning formula for anyone seeking to sow further discord and doubt in the U.S. political landscape. For everyone else, the odds aren’t looking good. |
Siemens acquires low-code platform Mendix for $700M | Frederic Lardinois | 2,018 | 8 | 1 | , the giant German technology company, today that it has acquired , the popular low-code application development platform, for €0.6 billion (or about $700 million). Mendix, which was founded in the Netherlands but now has its headquarters in Boston, will continue to operate as usual and keep its name, but Siemens notes that it will also use the company’s technology to accelerate its own cloud, IoT and digital enterprise ambitions. “As part of our digitalization strategy, Siemens continues to invest in software offerings for the Digital Enterprise. With the acquisition of Mendix, Siemens continues to add to its comprehensive Digital Enterprise and MindSphere IoT portfolio, with cloud domain expertise, cloud agnostic platform solutions and highly skilled people,” said Jan Mrosik, CEO of Siemens’ Digital Factory Division. Mendix’s service is already deeply integrated into , SAP’s and ‘s cloud services. Mendix co-founder and CEO Derek Roos that his company and Siemens first discussed a strategic partnership, but as those talks progressed, the two companies moved toward an acquisition instead. Roos argues that the two companies’ visions are quite similar and that Siemens is committed to helping accelerate Mendix’s growth, extend the company’s platform and combine it with Siemens’ existing . “If you’ve ever wondered which low-code platform will have the viability to invest and win in the long term, you no longer have to guess,” Roos writes. “This commitment and investment from Siemens will allow us to accelerate R&D and geo-expansion investments significantly. You’re going to see faster innovation, more reach and an even better customer experience from us.” Over the course of the last few years, “low-code” has become increasingly popular as more and more enterprises try to enable all of their employees to access and use the data they now store. Not every employee is going to learn how to program, though, so tools like Mendix, K2 and others now make it easy for non-developers to quickly build (mostly database-backed) applications. Siemens also today a new company structure, dubbed Vision 2020+. The details of that aren’t all that interesting, but the company does note that it was to strengthen its growth portfolio through investments in fields like IoT integration services. The Mendix acquisition is part of that, but I’m sure we’ll see a few similar moves in the near future. Ahead of today’s acquisition, Mendix had from investors like , Prime Ventures and HENQ Invest. |
Fitbit stock jumps as smartwatches fuel growth | Matt Burns | 2,018 | 8 | 1 | Fitbit’s stock price jumped in after-hours trading and is currently trading around $6.00 a share, off its 52-week intraday high of $7.79. The company , which saw the average selling price of its wearables increase 6 percent year-over-year to $106 a device. New devices introduced within the last year represented 59 percent of the company’s revenue. Smartwatches were a high-point for Fitbit this quarter. The company stated that its higher-priced smartwatch wearables outsold Samsung, Garmin and Fossil smartwatches combined in North America. Smartwatch revenue grew to 55 percent of revenue, up from 30 percent on a sequential basis. “Our performance in Q2 represents the sixth consecutive quarter that we have delivered on our financial commitments, made important progress in transforming our business, and continued to adapt to the changing wearables market. Demand for Versa, our first ‘mass-appeal’ smartwatch, is very strong. Within the second quarter, Versa outsold Samsung, Garmin and Fossil smartwatches combined in North America, improving our position with retailers, solidifying shelf space for the Fitbit brand and providing a halo effect to our other product offerings,” said James Park, co-founder and CEO. Fitbit’s stock price rallied earlier this summer, hitting 7.79 — its highest selling price since early 2017. The stock has been slipping since, though this quarterly release could cause the price to jump again. |
Square’s crazy run this year dodges any major snags with a decent Q2 | Matthew Lynley | 2,018 | 8 | 1 | ÆWhile we’re talking about companies like Apple getting alarmingly close to a $1 trillion market cap, both of Jack Dorsey’s companies — Twitter (at least before its earnings last week) and Square — have been on considerable runs, and it looks like the latter won’t be coming to a major halt after today’s quarterly report. The company reported its second-quarter results today, which were somewhat mixed compared to what Wall Street was expecting but didn’t appear to raise the kinds of significant red flags Twitter raised last week that sent its stock into a tailspin. The company outpaced what analysts expected for its earnings results as its core gross payment volume continued to rise and its net losses narrowed when compared to its second quarter last year. In a year that’s included some evolution in its hardware products and a bet on Bitcoin, Square has seen its stock more than double in the past 12 months and rise 90% since the beginning of the year. The stock is down around 2.5% this afternoon after the company posted its report, but for the most part, it isn’t the kind of substantial trip-up that would have been a major setback amid an otherwise high-velocity year. Square’s additional bets beyond its core business, including subscriptions and what it calls “services-based revenue” also more than doubled year-over-year on an adjusted basis, which was driven by its ancillary products like Caviar, Square Capital, it Cash Card, and its Instant Deposit service. The company said Square Capital facilitated more than 60,000 loans totaling $390 million, which is quickly becoming one of its big businesses to run alongside its typical payments system as it looks to snap up adoption of the entire operational stack for small businesses. The company also had two other lines of revenue that are showing some growth: its hardware business, which while small, is also growing quickly as a result of Square Register and its other hardware products; and Bitcoin, another play it’s making when it comes to its Cash products. Bitcoin generated $37 million in the second quarter, while its hardware division generated $18 million. All of these are part of a way for Square to diversify beyond just being a transaction tool for businesses and look to crack into all the other operational layers of how money generally moves across different surfaces, primarily focusing on the flow in and out of businesses. |
Techmeme introduces contextual ads tied to news topics | Anthony Ha | 2,018 | 8 | 1 | Tech news aggregator Techmeme is trying out a new way to make money — ad units that are directly tied to the stories on the front page. The idea is that advertisers can specify company names or news categories that they want to target, then Techmeme will automatically include their message below relevant news stories. For example, as I write this, is about , and underneath, there’s an ad from Yelp arguing that Google is “hurting the open internet.” Techmeme founder Gabe Rivera that this could be a good way to “antagonize a particular company” or “hijack all news concerning that company on Techmeme to insert your rebuttal.” Or you could do something that’s a little less confrontational, like crypto wallet company , which will run ads alongside cryptocurrency news. The idea of using advertisers to take on your competitors or hijack their message isn’t new — for example, it’s a normal tactic to target competitors’ brand names and other keywords in search campaigns. But this allows advertisers to do so in a way that’s both automated and centered on the latest headlines. “Why is Techmeme the right venue for ads that react to news in this way? Because it’s where readers go to see ideas in conflict,” Rivera . “Techmeme is, after all, the arena where industry-driven news meets critical reaction and analysis. So by letting companies speak out and confront issues in this manner, we provide an additive, even entertaining experience for readers.” Of course, it can be hard to predict when or how a company or topic will pop up in the news (and to be clear, Rivera said the editorial news mix on Techmeme won’t be affected by who’s purchasing ads). The idea, though, is to keep running the ads alongside related stories until Techmeme has delivered the placement hours committed to the advertiser. And to provide a little extra incentive, Rivera noted that Techmeme won’t allow anyone to buy negative ads targeting current advertisers. “Gabe has kept Techmeme mostly free of advertising since its inception,” BRD VP of Global Marketing Spencer Chen told me via email. “Despite his Twitter persona, the man actually loves his readers. So anytime he rolls out a new ad product, there’s always a buzz to get in early to reach Techmeme’s highly influential and elevated audience.” |
null | Matthew Lynley | 2,018 | 8 | 8 | null |
Fashionably AI | Henry Pickavet | 2,018 | 8 | 1 | season required me to buy a new suit. I vowed to be adventurous and buy a color I normally never would have considered. Alas, I opted for a little more movie-theater usher and a little less Jidenna. Had I known about it at the time, I probably would have used , a company that specializes in creating made-to-order suits. Working with someone to create a suit can be a hard enough task. You have to consider the occasion the suit is for, body type, taste and other relevant factors. And what other suit company or department store doesn’t already do that? To differentiate itself from the crowd, Eison Triple Thread launched based on clients’ lifestyles and musical preferences. Eison founder and CEO Julian Eison was the fly kid on the playground and says his parents instilled in him a sense of presentation and to be his best when he was out and about. “In terms of style and color I was super deliberate about what I wore,” he says. “I was the kid who collected Jordans and wanted to be fashionable because I just cared. I think through that process, and as I grew, I just started to embrace it.” After six years in private equity, where he says he was able to see tech’s flow from the buy side and the sell side, Eison decided to combine his love of fashion and interest in tech. In 2014, he launched Eison Triple Thread from the garage of his San Francisco home to try his hand at creating an alternative to suit-buying at conventional big-box department stores. “When we first launched the business, it was about visualization,” Eison says. “How can you visualize your body and think about something going on your body that fits you well?” But Eison Triple Thread isn’t the only suit company that wants to outfit its customers in sleek styles in a made-to-order fashion. The likes of Indochino, Bonobos and Stitch Fix, all of which came before Eison Triple Thread, ultimately have the same goal. So what’s a suit company do to strike a difference between its competitors? Why, integrate artificial intelligence and Spotify data, naturally. “Music is at the core of a lot of everyday life; it knows no boundaries or color, and it reveals something about us that we may not know that we kind of project onto people,” Eison says. “So we’re trying to get to the core, the unadulterated piece, and that’s music, and it drives a lot of our decisions, selections, identities and moods.” During the onboarding process, users first log in to the FITS system with their Spotify credentials and take a lifestyle quiz. Questions include in which industry you work, how you dress for work, what your work commute is, how you spend your free time and which word best describes you. Eison says they can start generating data from this basic information. “We’ve turned that into a lifestyle quiz that aims to reveal as much about a person in terms of their fashion, their interests, their preferences and how they typically like things to fit. That goes into our analysis and allows us to home in on this fit and this style.” [gallery size="medium" ids="1681262,1681261,1681263,1681264,1681265,1681260"] While you’re busy thinking about yourself to the best of your ability, FITS is trolling Spotify through its API to gather data about your musical tastes: genre, when you tend to listen to music and for how long. The process from beginning to end takes only about 15 minutes — unless, like me, you have a hard time selecting just one word from a list of four to describe yourself. Reflective, intense, upbeat, energetic: I am all of these things. Once you complete the quiz, the web app returns a list of “looks,” as Eison calls them, based on data gleaned from your best answers to these questions. The looks come from a collection of images that Eison and product director Dario Smith curate regularly from the internet based on styles they deem worthy. Eison tells me they currently have 3,000 images in their database and curate additional ones seasonally to kick back to customers on a regular basis. They pull the metadata of photos, including color pairing, assumed cloth texture and other similar data, which the algorithm uses, Eison says. In the next release, he said the company will be able to identify skin tone for those who upload the required photos. In addition, the company uses available photo metadata to understand geography of fashion. When available, Eison says, they are able to gain insight into local fashion and trends to further tune the algorithm. “If there are X amount of styles, we want to make sure we have representation,” Eison says. “We can aggregate all these images and then serve those periodically based on how important or relevant they are.” For my part, I answered the questions while Spotify worked in the background to make sense of my musical predilections: showtunes (your Hamiltons, your Ragtimes, your Cabarets), Jidenna, Calle 13, selections from Moana (yeah, that’s right), Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats and a smattering of old R&B. The result was a list of 25 photos of men of varying ages, races and sizes in a wide range of suits pulled from the Eison database (see five of them below). I was excited about most of them, although there were a few too many double-breasted ones for my liking. That’s on me, I suppose, but I don’t think that’s a look I can pull off. Or maybe that’s the point of a system like this: To present something to someone that he or she might not think they’d ever look good in or visualize themselves even wearing. [gallery ids="1681254,1681255,1681256,1681257,1681258"] Once you select the look you want, there might be further details to tend to, such as number and style of jacket buttons, button-hole color, the color and fabric of the jacket lining, waistband style on the pants and anything else you can possibly think of. One thing I could see in the future is the ability to place these looks on a picture of myself. Once you make all of these very permanent decisions, you then have to be measured. Or measure yourself if you opted to do this at home. I was in the Eison studio, so Smith did the honors, measuring me in places I never thought needed to be measured. For instance, they noted posture, as well as the way my arms rest on the side of my body. Suddenly I realized why the clothes I’ve worn my entire adult life never fit me very well. About two weeks later, you have a suit that you picked out not from a rack but one suggested for you based on your lifestyle and musical tastes. And it will fit only you. My suit fits. But because it’s tailored with my measurements, I’m not so surprised by that. Not bad for a music-streaming platform and a little AI-style effort. |
Watch SpaceX’s Falcon 9 ‘Block 5’ rocket take its first re-flight | Jon Russell | 2,018 | 8 | 6 | SpaceX is sending of one of newest Falcon 9 rockets back into space for the second time this early morning U.S. time. The Falcon 9 ‘Block 5’ rocket is designed to be able to go into space and return 100 times, but these are early days. The rocket leaving today is taking Indonesian satellite Merah Putih in what will be its second trip — a re-flight — into space. If all goes well and the SpaceX robotic drone successfully collects the rocket off the Florida coast as planned, then this particular vehicle will be the first Block 5 to manage a repeat lift-off following . The next major focus for the firm is to reduce the preparation time and cost required between the relaunch of rockets. Obviously, there’s plenty of benefits for faster turnaround time and the cost-savings associated. But first thing is first and the vehicle out today could become the first Falcon 9 to go into space three times. The launch happened a few minutes ago, but you can keep up with progress via the SpaceX live feed above. |
India’s Uber rival Ola is headed to Europe with ride-hailing launch in the UK | Jon Russell | 2,018 | 8 | 6 | The UK is getting a new alternative to Uber after India-based ride-hailing company d plans to expand to the country, which will become its first market in Europe. Ola was founded in 2010 and it covers over 110 cities in India where it offers licensed taxis, private hire cars and rickshaws through a network of over one million drivers. The company has raised around $3 billion from investors that include SoftBank, Chinese duo Tencent and Didi Chuxing and DST Global. . earlier this year — it is now in seven cities there — and its move into the UK signals a further expansion into Europe. Ola’s UK service isn’t live right now, but the company said it will begin offering licensed taxi and private hire bookings initially in South Wales and Greater Manchester within the next month. Ola plans to expand that coverage nationwide before the end of this year. That will eventually mean taking on Uber and potentially Taxify — which is — in London and other major cities. So, why the UK? Ola CEO and co-founder Bhavish Aggarwal called the country “a fantastic place to do business” and added that he “look[s] forward to providing a responsible, compelling, new service that can help the country meet its ever demanding mobility needs.” It’s no secret that Uber has struggled in London, where its gung-ho attitude to business — ‘launch first, apologize later’ — has seen it run into issues with regulators. earlier this year following an appeal against the city’s transportation regulator, Transport for London (TfL) . The’ New Uber’ — under CEO Dara Khosrowshahi — is trying to right the wrongs of the past, but compliance with regulators takes time and requires wholesale changes to business, operations and company culture. Ola isn’t commenting directly on its rivalry with Uber — we did ask, but got a predictable “no comment” — but the tone of its announcement today shows it is focused on being a more collaborative player than Uber. Indeed, there’s been much groundwork. and he said in a statement released today that he plans “continued engagement with policymakers and regulators” as the Ola service expands across the UK. International expansion is very much part of Ola’s ambition to go public, which . But Ola isn’t alone in looking overseas. Didi, the firm that defeated Uber in China and has backed Ola, Taxify and many others, has also been busy moving into new markets. Last year, and it has come good on that promise by entering , and . It also landed Brazil through and , where . |
Now even YouPorn has banned Alex Jones, but he’s still on Twitter | Catherine Shu | 2,018 | 8 | 6 | Streaming adult video site , announced today that it has banned Alex Jones from its platform, following actions against the conspiracy-monger by tech companies including Apple, Facebook, YouTube and Spotify—but notably, not Twitter. Before you go “wtf,” there were indeed (non-porn) videos with Alex Jones in them on YouPorn (people often take advantage of relatively lax copyright policing on various porn sites to upload non-pornographic content). YouPorn said it’s also removed spoof videos of Jones and will not allow him to host any content on the platform moving forward. So naturally the next question is…is there lots of Alex Jones content on porn sites? AS IT TURNS OUT THE ANSWER IS YES PLS HELP — Charlie Warzel (@cwarzel) It’s easy to dismiss YouPorn’s ban as a publicity grab, but it underscores the fact that Twitter’s lack of action is increasingly notable, even though last December . Alex Jones’ , with 838,000 followers, is still up (one of his recent tweets complains about “being banned on the Internet”). In a statement, YouPorn vice president Charlie Hughes said “Following news that YouTube, Spotify and Facebook have banned Alex Jones from their platforms, team YouPorn is joining in solidarity and announces we are banning his content as well. As one of the largest user-generated content platforms in the world, we have already removed his videos that have violated our terms of service. As an inclusive platform, hate has no place on YouPorn.” For those that need a refresher, Alex Jones frequently spews hate speech against Muslims, immigrants, transgender people and other targets and also played a major role in propagating some of the most harmful conspiracy theories in recent years, including Pizzagate and the debunked claim that vaccines cause autism. His broadcasting of theories that the Sandy Hook and Parkland shootings were faked contributed to harassment against the families of victims (Jones is ). Yesterday, , which had 2.4 million subscribers, for violating its community guidelines, after . On the same day, Apple , following similar actions from Spotify and Stitcher, and Facebook for violating its policies against graphic violence and hate speech. Pinterest also following an inquiry from Mashable. This now makes Twitter an outlier, one that apparently has lower standards than YouPorn, which, after all, simply streams adult videos. Twitter, on the other hand, arguably contributes to the silencing of minority groups by giving hate speech and bullies a platform, making its inaction an object lesson in the . With many of his most active social media outlets removed or suspended, Jones now has two main pulpits: the Infowars site and Twitter. Twitter has promised to do a better job of dealing with hate speech, but come across as more hemming and hawing while real damage is being done through its platform (for example, President Donald Trump from the deputy leader of hate group Britain First’s account, which despite massive uproar and concern that it would trigger more violence and harassment against Muslims). With Apple (now America’s largest company by market capitalization), some of the biggest social media platforms and even YouPorn taking a stand against Alex Jones and Infowars, the pressure on Twitter is increasing. In response to a request for comment, Twitter said Infowars and associated accounts are not currently in violation of Twitter or Periscope’s rules. TechCrunch has also reached out to Infowars for comment. |
Surprise, no one buys things via Alexa | Devin Coldewey | 2,018 | 8 | 6 | Some numbers published in reveal that very few owners of Alexa-powered devices use them for shopping. Of about 50 million Alexa users, only about 100,000 reportedly bought something via voice interface more than once. It’s not exactly surprising, but it may still harm the narrative of conversational commerce that Amazon and others are trying to advance. The Amazon Echo and its brethren are mostly used for the expected everyday purposes of , asking what the weather will be like tomorrow and setting timers. All of these things are obviously things that phones do as well, but there’s something to be said for having a stationary hub for the more domestic tasks. But part of the expectation of seeding the home with these devices has been that users would also make purchases using them: “Alexa, order more Oreos,” or “Alexa, buy a pair of Bose noise-cancelling headphones.” This always seemed rather odd, as people tend to want to look at items before buying them, to check reviews, to shop around for better prices and so on. Who would just buy something by telling their Echo that they want to? Hardly anyone, it seems. That said, it would be a bit disingenuous to pretend that conversational commerce is anything other than one point in a litany of proposed uses for the likes of Alexa, running the gamut of credibility. As a hub for increasingly common smart home devices, Alexa is a great choice and a common one. And although groceries and impulse purchases may not be something people do via voice, an Echo is a great seller of subscriptions like Spotify and Audible, not to mention future possibilities from queries like “Alexa, call me a plumber.” And of course there’s the whole behind-the-scenes industry of ads, promotions and . Why would anyone use these devices to shop? It’s like using a laptop as a hammer. Possible, but not recommended. The other stat The Information mentions is that a million people have tried buying stuff but only 100,000 continued. It may be that this side of e-commerce is merely not “mature,” that catch-all term that could mean so many things. But it may also just be that it’s not something people want to do. Amazon indicated disagreement the numbers provided by The Information’s sources. In a statement, it said “We do not agree with the numbers represented in the article,” and that “millions of customers use Alexa to shop.” |
Amazon is working with the FTC’s fraud investigation against Sellers Playbook | Catherine Shu | 2,018 | 8 | 6 | Amazon said today it is working with the Federal Trade Commission’s investigation into consumer fraud allegedly committed by Sellers Playbook, a Minnesota-based business that . FTC and the state of Minnesota announced today that , a married couple who are not affiliated with Amazon.com, with running a large business opportunity scheme. Specifically, the FTC and the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office allege Sellers Playbook deceived consumers with a “get rich scheme,” marketing a system that it claimed could enable purchasers to make thousands of dollars per month selling products on Amazon. In their complaint, the FTC and state of Minnesota wrote the defendants “lure[d] consumers into purchasing expensive business opportunities by deceptively offering consumers a ‘full-service, turnkey package’ for getting their ‘piece of the $400 Billion Amazon Pie,” but few, if any, of the system’s users achieved those earnings. In reality, most lost money. Meanwhile, Jessie Tieva and Matthew Tieva allegedly made more than $15 million between April 2017 and May 2018, with some consumers forking over more than $32,000. The FTC says Jessie Tieva and one of her businesses, Exposure Marketing Company (also known as Sellers Online and Sellers System), previously promoted and sold a similar “how to make money on Amazon” scheme called FBA Stores, which also resulted in many purchasers losing large amounts of money. Tieva “routinely made false and unsubstantiated earnings claims during her sales presentations at FBA Stores’ live events,” the FTC wrote in its complaint against Sellers Playbook. FBA Stores after reaching a settlement with the FTC that included a judgement of more than $102 million. Amazon and the state of Washington also against FBA Stores, accusing it of “preying” on consumers. (The Tievas are not defendants in the FBA Stores case). In a statement, an Amazon spokesperson said “the entrepreneurs and small businesses selling on Amazon are incredibly important to us and our customers, and we aggressively pursue those that attempt to harm their selling experience. We invest heavily to protect the integrity of our stores and take action to protect customers and sellers, including working with consumer protection agencies and law enforcement. We have zero tolerance for fraud and abuse and will continue to cooperate with law enforcement to pursue criminals.” TechCrunch has reached out to Sellers Playbook for comment. |
Twilio came ahead of expectations and the stock is going nuts | Matthew Lynley | 2,018 | 8 | 6 | Twilio today reported a positive quarter that brought it to profitability — on an adjusted basis — ahead of schedule for Wall Street, sending the stock soaring 16 percent in extended hours after the release came out. While according to traditional accounting principles Twilio still lost money (this usually includes stock-based compensation, a key component of compensation packages), the company is still showing that it has the capability of being profitable. Born as a go-to tool for startups and larger companies to handle their text- and telephone-related operations, Twilio was among a wave of IPOs in 2016 that has more or less continued into this year. The company’s stock has more than doubled in the past year, and is up nearly 170 percent this year alone. Twilio also brought in revenue ahead of Wall Street expectations. Still, as a services business, Twilio has to show that it can continue to scale its business while absorbing the cost of the infrastructure required and acquire new customers. It also has to ensure that those customers aren’t leaving, or at least that it’s bringing on enough new developers more quickly than they are leaving. Larger enterprises, as a result, can be more attractive because they’re more predictable and can lead to bigger buckets of revenue for the company — and, well, most larger companies still need communications support in some way still today. On an adjusted basis, Twilio said it earned 3 cents per share, ahead of the loss of 5 cents that analysts were expecting. It said it brought in $147.8 million in revenue compared to $131.1 million analysts were expecting, so it’s a beat on both lines, and more importantly shows that Twilio may be able to morph its toolkit into a mainline business that can end up as the backbone of any company’s communication with their customers or users. |
Pokémon GO is getting PvP by the end of the year | Devin Coldewey | 2,018 | 8 | 6 | As popular as Pokémon GO is, it has always been missing one major feature: pitting your Pokémon directly against another trainer’s. Strange, since that was the entire basis of the franchise to begin with! But the mobile game will at last get this much-requested feature by the end of the year, . After a record-shattering debut and then a long slump as players perceived the game’s shallowness and abandoned it en masse, Pokémon GO is having something of a renaissance. Improved gym and social mechanics, better reliability and, of course, a host of new ‘mon have brought players back, and it seems that features will continue to be rolled out. What exactly the PvP mode will consist of is not clear. Chances are it will require players to be near each other, like the trading function. Though it is likely to produce some kind of reward, it likely will be limited in some other way, via a stardust or candy cost, to prevent people gaming the system. Niantic’s Anne Beuttenmüller, in her interview with Gram, didn’t get specific. She was more interested in talking about the upcoming Ingress Prime, a sort of relaunch of the game on which Pokémon GO is essentially based; that will also be released toward the end of the year. As for the highly anticipated Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, which will no doubt involve people waving their phones around and uttering magic nonsense in full view of the public, her lips were sealed. It too will release around the end of the year! It’s going to be a busy holiday season. |
Zillow gets into the mortgage business, acquires Mortgage Lenders of America | Frederic Lardinois | 2,018 | 8 | 6 | , the publicly traded real estate portal and lead generation service, has acquired . This is Zillow’s first move into originating mortgages. Until now, the company’s focus in this space was on providing home buyers with quotes from a variety of third-party lenders. The financial details of the transaction were not disclosed. Mortgage Lenders of America (MLoA) is a privately held online lender based in Kansas. It will continue to operate as usual and will continue to appear in Zillow’s existing mortgage marketplace, which isn’t going away either. “Owning a mortgage lender will allow Zillow Group to develop new tools and partnership opportunities, including for real estate brokers with existing in-house mortgage operations or mortgage affiliates,” the company says in today’s announcement. Other lenders in Zillow’s marketplace may not feel the same way. MLoA originated 4,400 mortgage loans in 2017. The company argues that this leaves “plenty of opportunity for independent lenders to continue to advertise and build their businesses on the Zillow Group platform.” In many ways, this move makes perfect sense, given the trajectory Zillow has been on in recent years. The company recently started through its Zillow Offers program in a few select cities, so this closes the loop for buyers who are using this program. “Getting a mortgage can be the toughest, most painstaking and time-consuming part of the home buying process,” said Greg Schwartz, president of media and marketplaces at Zillow Group, in a canned statement. “Now that we are buying and selling homes through Zillow Offers, we believe that having our own mortgage origination service as an option for consumers will allow us to streamline the process for people who buy a Zillow-owned home. Over time, we expect the work we do in conjunction with this new line of business will help us expand our offerings to our partners – including real estate brokers with existing in-house mortgage operations and third-party lenders who co-market with Premier Agents.” MLoA was founded in 2000 and currently has about 300 employees. It will remain in its Kansas headquarters and its CEO Philip Kneibert will continue to lead the company as general manager after the deal closes, which will likely happen in the fourth quarter of 2018. |
FCC admits it was never actually hacked | Devin Coldewey | 2,018 | 8 | 6 | The FCC has come clean on the fact that a purported hack of its comment system last year never actually took place, after a report from its inspector general found a lack of evidence supporting the idea. Chairman Ajit Pai blamed the former chief information officer and the Obama administration for providing “inaccurate information about this incident to me, my office, Congress, and the American people.” The semi-apology and finger-pointing are a disappointing conclusion to the year-long web of obfuscation that the FCC has woven. that there was a hack of the system, there have been questions about the nature, scale and response to it that the FCC has studiously avoided even under direct Congressional questioning. It was so galling to everyone looking for answers that . The letter requesting the office’s help at the time complained that the FCC had “not released any records or documentation that would allow for confirmation that an attack occurred, that it was effectively dealt with, and that the FCC has begun to institute measures to thwart future attacks and ensure the security of its systems.” That investigation is still going on, but one conducted by the FCC’s own OIG resulted in the report Pai cites. The former CIO, David Bray, was the origin of the theory, but emails in June show that . Nevertheless, the FCC has continuously upheld the idea that it was under attack and has never publicly walked it back. before the OIG publicized its report, as one does when a report is imminent that essentially says your agency has been clueless at best or deliberately untruthful at worst, and for more than a year. To be clear, the report is still unpublished, though its broader conclusions are clear from Pai’s statement. In it he slathers Bray with the partisan brush and asserts that the report exonerates his office: I am deeply disappointed that the FCC’s former [CIO], who was hired by the prior Administration and is no longer with the Commission, provided inaccurate information about this incident to me, my office, Congress, and the American people. This is completely unacceptable. I’m also disappointed that some working under the former CIO apparently either disagreed with the information that he was presenting or had questions about it, yet didn’t feel comfortable communicating their concerns to me or my office. On the other hand, I’m pleased that this report debunks the conspiracy theory that my office or I had any knowledge that the information provided by the former CIO was inaccurate and was allowing that inaccurate information to be disseminated for political purposes. Although an evaluation of Pai’s “conspiracy theory” idea must wait until the report is public, it’s hard to square this pleasure of the chairman’s with the record. At any time in the last year, especially after Bray had departed, it would have been, if not simple, then at least simpler than maintaining its complex act of knowledgelessness, to say that the CIO had made an error and there was no attack. Nothing like that has come out of the agency. One must assume the agency had reviewed the data. Bray left a long time ago; why did these subordinates of his fail to speak out afterwards? If the FCC had its doubts, why did it not say so instead of risking withering criticism by avoiding the question for months on end? When and why did Pai or his office develop the idea that the report inaccurate, if not when it was being disseminated? These aren’t trivial questions. Some of the FCC’s reticence to speak out may have even been explained as part of the request by the inspector general not to discuss the investigation. That’s an easy out, at least for some of the time! But we haven’t heard that, that I know of at least, and it doesn’t explain the rest of the agency’s silence or misleading statements. FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel deplored the rigmarole required to put this theory to bed: The Inspector General Report tells us what we knew all along: the FCC’s claim that it was the victim of a DDoS attack during the net neutrality proceeding is bogus. What happened instead is obvious—millions of Americans overwhelmed our online system because they wanted to tell us how important internet openness is to them and how distressed they were to see the FCC roll back their rights. It’s unfortunate that this agency’s energy and resources needed to be spent debunking this implausible claim. Although it’s good to have closure on the theory itself, some accountability and an explanation for the last year of mystery would be welcome. Because it wasn’t a hack, it seems that the comment-filing system, though recently revamped, needs yet another fresh coat of paint to handle the kind of volume it saw during the net neutrality repeal. Plans for that are underway, Pai wrote. The GAO investigation regarding fraud in the comment system will no doubt affect those plans. I’ve contacted the FCC and its Office of the Inspector General for more information, including the report itself, which is published at the office’s discretion. I will update this post when I hear back. |
Lyft beefs up car rental program for drivers | Megan Rose Dickey | 2,018 | 8 | 6 | As of late, Lyft has been doubling down on its messaging that it wants to reduce the amount of car ownership in the U.S. The company’s most recent example of its anti-car ownership efforts is coming in the form of a partnership with car rental company Avis. As part of a multi-year deal, Avis will add thousands of cars to Lyft’s Express Drive program, on a weekly basis from Hertz, Flexdrive and now, Avis. “Our partnership with Budget Group allows us to provide new and existing drivers who are seeking a reliable source of income with more quality options when choosing a vehicle,” Lyft COO Jon McNeill said in a press release. “And as more drivers decide to give up their own cars, they can continue to earn with Lyft as we expand the Express Drive program.” This comes on the heels of , Karim Bousta, to lead Express Drive. At Lyft, Bousta is also responsible for launching and scaling the next generation of Lyft Hubs, which are Lyft’s driver support centers. He also will be tasked with beefing up driver rewards and incentives. Similarly, via Hertz, Getaround and Fair. Uber has since expanded its partnership with Getaround to enable anyone to rent a car for personal use via the Uber app. , the platform taps into Getaround’s existing marketplace of cars that are available for instant rentals. In May, $100 million to better support its drivers by specifically putting the money toward cheaper oil changes, basic car maintenance, serviced car washes and more. Lyft also will almost double its operating hours at its driver hubs in 15 cities throughout the nation. The idea with that commitment is to help drivers make more money and maximize their earnings by offsetting the costs of driving. Other benefits will include car and SUV rentals, tax education and more. Lyft also says it expects to more than double its driver base in the next five years. Currently, Lyft has 1.4 million drivers, . |
Vans Warped Tour bands back FEND, an app educating young adults about opioid dangers | Sarah Perez | 2,018 | 8 | 6 | Can a mobile app help to address the opioid crisis in the U.S.? That’s the goal behind , an app that’s taking advantage of technology solutions like machine learning and gamification to increase young people’s understanding of opioids and to change their behaviors. It’s the first large-scale attempt at running a public health campaign in the U.S. on a mobile device in this manner. And it’s already seeing some early success thanks to its sponsorship of Vans’ Warped Tour and the endorsement of several participating bands and artists. Unlike traditional public health campaigns which use mass media, like billboards or TV ads to reach users, FEND [Full Energy No Drugs] personalizes its material for each user. The FEND app encourages downloads by promising users – young people who otherwise wouldn’t bother with an educational anti-drug app – free swag they actually care about. For example: Vans Warped tour tickets, a trip to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Vans shoes, access to acoustic sessions at the Warped Tour with bands like Waterparks and We the Kings; and in the future, if all goes well, a way to bring a concert produced by Warped Tour’s Kevin Lyman to their own hometown. The idea for FEND comes from serial entrepreneur Steve Huff, a North Carolina native who has been living in Australia for the past eighteen years. During this time he has founded and headed a number of businesses, including automated publishing solution Typefi Systems; parenting information resource Sixty Second Parent; and sustainable energy non-profit, , where he authored a report for the UN on the use of solar lighting in refugee camps, and ran a solar entrepreneurship for teenage girls in Malawi. “For me, it’s always important to combine innovation, entrepreneurship and some kind of social good,” Huff explained, as to his motivations around FEND. The problem FEND aims to address is to make public health campaigns more effective by individualizing the conversation for each user, while also using the same sort of technology social apps leverage to addict their users. The technology platform itself, , uses gamification, rewards artificial intelligence, and personalization techniques to make the information shared in the app relevant to the end users, and retain them over time. It combines the evidence-based research it aims to share with technology, its own streetwear brand and – as the means of reaching the target audience – music. While there are obviously a number of ways this platform could be used in public health education, the company is focused initially on an opioid educational campaign launched in partnership with the . A large part of FEND’s following comes from , where it has a booth and the support of many artists who mention FEND on stage, send out messages to fans, wear FEND merchandise, or even perform special sets for FEND. For example, , , , , and others have spoken for FEND. So far, FEND has been downloaded 20,000 times, Huff said. After the first 9,500 downloads, the company took a snapshot of user behavior and found its engagement rate was 80 percent. And 79 percent of the kids said they would be “very likely” to talk to a loved one or friend who might be using. In the app, users are first presented with a baseline survey to get an understanding of how much they already know about opioids. Then across four modules, they learn more about the topic through videos, infographics, quizzes, motion graphics, and more, which combined address key topics like how to spot the signs of an opioid overdose, or how to talked to a loved one about their addiction, and other information about the drugs. As users progress, the plan is to customize the app’s material to each person’s learning style – using the right material and approach, by taking advantage of machine learning to personalize the experience. Even if FEND falls short of being a success as measured by traditional app store metrics, it’s a whopper for public health campaign. And its results can be life-saving. “We’re getting a lot of feedback from the kids, who said ‘I just downloaded this app to get free stuff. But I went to a party last week, and there was a kid in the corner. I went over and their lips were blue and their fingers were blue, and I checked their breathing. I knew they were overdosing, and I called 911. I put them in the recovery position, and the paramedics came, gave them Narcan and said I saved their life,'” Huff told us over the weekend, in a backstage interview at Warped Tour. “[Some researchers are]* freaking out because they’re going to have the largest sample size for an opioid study in history,” Huff enthused. (A of opioid deaths included over 13,000 overdose cases. But many studies , in terms of participants.) https://youtu.be/YqR7SGA86N0 The company now wants to bring FEND to schools, through deals with state governments. “We’ve been talking to state governments,” Huff said, noting the feedback has been positive, but talks are in early phases – no deals have been signed. “Alabama was like, look, we have morgues where we’re putting bodies out under the trees because we don’t have enough space,” he continued. “This is way bigger than anybody knows.” “2016 was the last time the CDC reported statistics on the opioid epidemic. And at that point, we were losing 60,000 people a year to overdoses due to the use of opioids and heroin. And 80 percent of heroin users in the U.S. got their start on prescription pills,” Huff added. [He’s citing .] “The United States has 4.3 percent of the world’s population, but we consume 80 percent of the world’s opioid supply,” he said. The goal is to bring FEND to states for a pilot in five states for a period of 14 months, to further prove out the concept outside the progress made with the Warped Tour sponsorship. The tech platform behind FEND, founded in late 2015, has raised $2 million in angel funding from Huff’s network of connections. The long-term goal is to offer the platform on a SaaS [software as a service] basis or through enterprise sales. It has also researched and aims to implement its own token economy on the Ethereum blockchain. This would allow other non-profits, celebs and movements the opportunity to run their own public health campaigns using the platform. These could be offered in their own white-labeled version of FEND app, focused on their own supported initiative. For the bands involved, it could also allow those with smaller followings a way to be reimbursed in tokens for bringing their followers to FEND. The bigger picture here is about taking advantage techniques common to tech companies drug companies, and others, and leverage them for public health campaigns instead, Huff also noted. “We use the same techniques Big Pharma and Big Tobacco used to engage their users, and we turn the tables on them. And now we’re using those techniques to engage kids to use opioids,” Huff said. “I’m a tech guy, I’m not a public health guy. So this is how a tech guy would design a public health campaign,” he added. FEND is available on and . |
Chilling effects | John Biggs | 2,018 | 8 | 6 | The removal of conspiracy enthusiast content by brings us to an interesting and important point in the history of online discourse. The current form of Internet content distribution has made it a broadcast medium akin to television or radio. Apps distribute our cat pics, our workouts, and our YouTube rants to specific audiences of followers, audiences that were nearly impossible to monetize in the early days of the Internet but, thanks to gullible marketing managers, can be sold as influencer media. The source of all of this came from Gen X’s deep love of authenticity. They formed a new vein of content that, after breeding DIY music and zines, begat blogging, and, ultimately, created an endless expanse of user generated content (UGC). In the “old days” of the Internet this Cluetrain-manifesto-waving post gatekeeper attitude served the slacker well. But this move from a few institutional voices into a scattered legion of micro-fandoms led us to where we are today: in a shithole of absolute confusion and disruption. As I wrote , user generated content supplanted and all but destroyed “real news.” While much of what is published now is true in a journalistic sense, the ability for falsehood and conspiracy to masquerade as truth is the real problem and it is what caused a vacuum as old media slowed down and new media sped up. In this emptiness a number of parasitic organisms sprung up including sites like Gizmodo and TechCrunch, micro-celebrity systems like Instagram and Vine, and sites catering to a different consumer, sites like InfoWars and Stormfront. It should be noted that InfoWars has been spouting its deepstate meanderings since 1999 and Alex Jones himself was a gravelly-voice radio star as early as 1996. The Internet allowed any number of niche content services to juke around the gatekeepers of propriety and give folks like Jones and, arguably, TechCrunch founder Mike Arrington, Gawker founder Nick Denton, and countless members of the “Internet-famous club,” deep influence over the last decades media landscape. The last twenty years have been good for UGC. You could get rich making it, get informed reading it, and its traditions and habits began redefining how news-gathering operated. There is no longer just a wall between advertising and editorial. There is also a wall between editorial and the myriad bloggers who . In this sort of world we readers find ourselves at a distinct loss. What is true? What is entertainment? When the Internet is made flesh in the form of Pizzagate shootings and Unite the Right Marches, who is to blame? The simple answer? We are to blame. We are to blame because we scrolled endlessly past bad news to get to the news that was applicable to us. We trained robots to spoon feed us our opinions and then force feed us associated content. We allowed ourselves to enter into a pact with a devil so invisible and pernicious that it easily convinced the most confused among us to mobilize against Quixotic causes and immobilized the smartest among us who were lulled into a Soma-like sleep of liking, sharing, and smileys. And now a new reckoning is coming. We have come full circle. Once upon a time old gatekeepers were careful to let only carefully controlled views and opinions out over the airwaves. The medium was so immediate that in the 1940s broadcasters forbade the transmission of recordings and instead forced broadcasters to offer only live events. This was wonderful if you had the time to mic a children’s choir at Christmas but this rigidity was bed for a reporter’s health. Take William Shirer and Edward R. Murrow’s complaints about being unable to record and play back bombing raids in Nazi-held territories – their chafing at old ideas are almost palpable to modern bloggers. There were other handicaps to the ban on recording that hampered us in taking full advantage of this new medium in journalism. On any given day there might be several developments, each of which could have been recorded as it happened and then put together and edited for the evening broadcast. In Berlin, for example, there might be a bellicose proclamation, troop movements through the capital, sensational headlines in the newspapers, a protest by an angry ambassador, a fiery speech by Hitler, Goring or Goebbels threatening Nazi Germany’s next victim—all in the course of the day. We could have recorded them at the moment they happened and put them together for a report in depth at the end of the day. Newspapers could not do this. Only radio could. But [CBS President] Paley forbade it. Murrow and I tried to point out to him that the ban on recording was not only hampering our efforts to cover the crisis in Europe but would make it impossible to really cover the war, if war came. In order to broadcast live, we had to have a telephone line leading from our mike to a shortwave transmitter. You could not follow an advancing or retreating army dragging a telephone line along with you. You could not get your mike close enough to a battle to cover the sounds of combat. With a compact little recorder you could get into the thick of it and capture the awesome sounds of war. And so now instead of CBS and the Censorship Bureau we have Facebook and Twitter. Instead of calling for the ability to record and playback an event we want permission to offer our own slants on events, no matter how far removed we are from the action. Instead of working diligently to spread only the truth, we consume the truth as others know it. And that’s what we are now chafing against: the commercialization and professionalization of user generated content. Every medium goes through this confusion. From Penny Dreadfuls to , media has grown, entered a disruptive phase that changes all media around it, and is then curtailed into boredom and commoditization. It is important to remember that we are in the era of Peak TV not because we all have more time to watch 20 hours of Breaking Bad. We are in Peak TV because we have gotten so good at making good shows – and the average consumer is ravenous for new content – that there is no financial reason not to take a flyer on a miniseries. In short, it’s gotten boring to make good TV. And so we are now entering the latest stage of Internet content, the blowback. This blowback is not coming from governments. Trump, for his part, sees something wrong but cannot or will not verbalize it past the idea of “Fake News”. There is absolutely a Fake News problem but it is not what he thinks it is. Instead, the Fake News problem is rooted in the idea that all content deserves equal respect. My Medium post is as good as a CNN which is as good as an InfoWars screed about pedophiles on Mars. In a world defined by free speech then all speech is protected. Until, of course, it affects the bottom line of the company hosting it. So Facebook and Twitter are walking a thin line. They want to remain true to the ancillary GenX credo that can be best described as “garbage in, garbage out” but many of its readers have taken that deeply open invitation to share their lives far too openly. These platforms have come to define personalities. They have come to define news cycles. They have driven men and women into hiding and they have given the trolls weapons they never had before, including the ability to destroy media organizations at will. They don’t want to censor but now that they have shareholders then they simply must. So get ready for the next wave of media. And the next. And the next. As it gets more and more boring to visit Facebook I foresee a few other rising and falling media outlets based on new media – perhaps through VR or video – that will knock social media out of the way. And wait for more wholesale destruction of UGC creators new and old as monetization becomes more important than “truth.” I am not here to weep for InfoWars. I think it’s garbage. I’m here to tell you that InfoWars is the latest in a long line of disrupted modes of distribution that began with the printing press and will end god knows where. There are no chilling effects here, just changes. And we’d best get used to them. |
Google plans to roll out digital wellness features in Pie but Apple’s already got ’em | Sarah Buhr | 2,018 | 8 | 6 | Google hopes to add a few digital wellness features to its latest update, Pie (out today) but Apple is already on this health track with its latest update for iOS 12. Digital wellness allows users to keep track of time spent on and unplug from your digital device when needed. Google announced the new wellness features coming to Android at I/O in May, including a dashboard for digital wellness, or the ability to track just how much time you spend on your device, an app timer that lets you set time limits on apps, a new Do Not Disturb feature that silences pop-up notifications and Wind Down, a feature to help you switch on Night Light and Do Not Disturb when it’s time to hit the hay. Apple is also making digital wellness a focus. New features in this space announced during its WWDC conference earlier this summer and the company has included an updated “Do Not Disturb” feature in the iOS 12 update, also . have suggested the importance of unplugging and breaking our addictions to our smartphones for our sanity’s sake, and it seems Google would like to help us do just that with these new features. However, the new digital wellness features aren’t quite available in the latest Pie update, . We’ve asked Google why not and will update you when and if we hear back on that. Meanwhile, Apple continues to roll ahead, adding its own controls to help iPhone owners curb their app and screen time usage. Similar to Android’s future offerings, iOS 12 includes a dash with a weekly report on how you spend time on your device. A feature called Downtime helps you schedule time away from your screen (versus just leaving your phone somewhere, seeing a notification and being tempted to pick it up), a feature to set time limits on apps and a way to block inappropriate content from reaching your screen as well. Apple beats Android in this department for now, but those features will supposedly be made available to everyone with a Google phone eventually. For those wanting to check out the new digital wellness features for Android, you can still do that today, but only if you happen to have a Google Pixel — and only if you’ve signed up for the beta version. |
null | Josh Constine | 2,018 | 8 | 1 | null |
This hack turns your old Kindle into a clock | John Biggs | 2,018 | 8 | 6 | If you have an old Kindle e-reader lying about then you’d best dig it up. This cool hack can turn your dead e-reader into a living clock that scours hundreds of books for exact times and displays the current time in a quote. It updates once a minute. The , requires a jailbroken Kindle and little else. The app uses quotes collected by and includes writing from Charles Bukowski to Shakespeare. Creator Jaap Meijers writes: My girlfriend is a *very* avid reader. As a teacher and scholar of English literature, she reads eighty books per year on average. On her wishlist was a clock for our living room. I could have bought a wall clock from the store, but where is the fun in that? Instead, I made her a clock that tells the time by quoting time indications from literary works, using an e-reader as display, because it’s so incredibly appropriate :-) Given that our family is apparently on our fifteenth Kindle in the household it only makes sense to repurpose one of these beasts into something useful. Don’t have a Kindle? You can visit a . |
Applications extended one week for Startup Battlefield Latin America | Ned Desmond | 2,018 | 8 | 6 | null |
Google acquires GraphicsFuzz, a service that tests Android graphics drivers | Frederic Lardinois | 2,018 | 8 | 6 | Google has acquired , a company that builds a framework for the security and reliability of Android graphics drivers. The news, which was first spotted by , comes on the same day Google announced the release of Android 9 Pie. A Google spokesperson confirmed the news to us but declined to provide any further information. The companies also declined to provide any details about the price of the acquisition. The GraphicsFuzz team, which consists of co-founders Alastair Donaldson, Hugues Evrard and Paul Thomson, will join the Android graphics team to bring its driver-testing technology to the wider Android ecosystem. “GraphicsFuzz has pioneered the combination of fuzzing and metamorphic testing to yield a highly automatic method for testing graphics drivers that quickly finds and fixes bugs that could undermine reliability and security before they affect end users,” the team explains in today’s announcement. The company’s founders started their work at the at Imperial College London and received funding support from the U.K. and the EU project. While this is obviously not the splashiest of acquisitions, it is nevertheless an important one. In the fractured Android ecosystem, graphics drivers are one of the many pieces that make a phone or tablet work — and when they don’t, it’s often immediately obvious to the user. But broken drivers also expose a phone to . GraphicsFuzz uses the same kind of , which essentially throws lots of random data at a program, that’s also becoming increasingly popular in other areas of software development. |
Amazon Alexa’s new ‘Answer Update’ feature will notify you when Alexa learns something new | Sarah Perez | 2,018 | 8 | 6 | Amazon confirmed it’s rolling out a new feature called “Answer Update” to Alexa device users over the next week, which will notify users when Alexa learns the answer to a question the assistant didn’t know when first asked. The idea is to allow people to better take advantage of Alexa’s quickly improving Knowledge Graph – its informational database containing general knowledge facts and figures that Alexa uses to answer users’ questions. The feature was first spotted by , which said they were prompted to enable the feature after listening to some information a news item. Alexa then asked if the user wanted to enable “Answer Updates.” When asked what this was, Alexa replied that she could notify the user later if she learned the answer to a question. Typically, Alexa would have simply declined to answer the question when she didn’t know an answer, saying something like “I don’t know that, but I’m always learning,” “I can’t find the answer to the question I heard,” or “Sorry, I didn’t understand the question,” the report noted. Amazon tells us that customers will be able to opt into the new experience, when offered, and can later choose to opt out by saying “Alexa, turn off Answer Update.” “The Alexa service is getting smarter every day, and Answer Updates is just another way we’re continuing to expand Alexa’s Knowledge Graph,” an Amazon spokesperson said. They also clarified the prompt would be triggered when you ask Alexa a factual question she didn’t yet know the answer to, not after listening to a news item or other information about a news item. The prompt will be offered randomly to customers. Once you turn on Answer Updates, the feature will send you an on-device notification when Alexa learns an answer to a new question you asked previously, while the feature was enabled. We found we were able to turn on Answer Update on our own Alexa device by saying “Alexa, turn on Answer Update.” The assistant then responded by saying: The feature is meant to offer a challenge to Google’s Knowledge Graph, which is far more developed, and gives Google Home a competitive advantage. Though Alexa has enjoyed an early lead in smart speaker market share, , with some firms its portion of the speaker market will grow both in the U.S. and abroad in the months ahead. Alexa needs to get better at basic Q&A and quickly. For example, in a study by AdWeek last year, Google Home was found to be 6 times more likely to answer a user’s question than Amazon Alexa. The study involved asking both devices some 3,000 questions. Answer Updates is not necessarily a fix for that problem, but it could be used as a way to reach frustrated users who expect their “smart” assistant to be a bit… …smarter. |
Clear for beer: Biometrics provider now enables alcohol purchases at Seahawks and Mariners games | Devin Coldewey | 2,018 | 8 | 6 | Clear, the biometrics company you’ve probably seen at airports and at a few other prominent queues, is rolling out the capability to simultaneously verify your ID and pay for an alcoholic drink with your fingerprint. It’s only at Seattle’s CenturyLink and Safeco Fields (and only a handful of concessions stands at those), but if it’s successful you can bet we’ll be seeing more of it. That makes it the first time in the U.S. that biometrics are used for both age check and payment, but this exception will almost certainly become less uncommon in time: Clear announced its intention to pursue the payments side of biometrics . This also marks the first NFL team to partner with Clear; Seahawks fans going to home games this season will be able to use a separate Clear lane at the northwest and southwest gates. It can be quite a melee or a considerable wait getting into both venues (I’m a local), so this will almost certainly be embraced by the Clear-privileged among Seattle sports fans. Sounders games at CenturyLink, by the way, will have the same perks, as will any concerts at either venue. After you get inside the field, you’ll have to hoof it a bit to find one of the concession stands from which Clear serves. At Safeco it’s Double Play in section 136 and Shortstop Beer in 185. At CenturyLink it’s at the Delta Sky360 Club, by sections 210 and 234. So, it’s not exactly everywhere. But during the beer rush of halftime or the seventh-inning stretch at a good ballgame, it might be worth it to traverse a few sections and skip the line. Unfortunately, Clear doesn’t get you a discount on the outrageously priced drinks, so savor those $10 tallboys. Your wallet may stay in your pocket, but the money flies out of it just the same. It’s a bit remarkable to me that alcohol merchants are allowed to take anything but a state-issued ID or passport — but as at the airport, Clear has been given authority to track those IDs internally and verify their authenticity and the identity of the person. Obviously the company’s success there warmed the frozen hearts of our state’s Liquor Control Board and allowed this small divergence from the status quo. There are still plenty of Mariners games at which to test this out, and the Seahawks preseason starts Thursday, at which time the Clear lane for entry and fingerprint-powered concessions will be available to all 12s. Assuming it goes well, we can expect it to show up at other major sports venues soon. |
Facebook taps banks, but for chatbots not purchase data like Google | Josh Constine | 2,018 | 8 | 6 | Backlash swelled this morning after Facebook’s aspirations in financial services were blown out of proportion by a report that neglected how the social network already works with banks. Facebook spokesperson Elisabeth Diana tells TechCrunch it’s not asking for credit card transaction data from banks and it’s not interested in building a dedicated banking feature where you could interact with your accounts. It also says its work with banks isn’t to gather data to power ad targeting, or even personalize content such as which Marketplace products you see based on what you buy elsewhere. Instead, Facebook already lets Citibank customers in Singapore connect their accounts so they can to check their balance, report fraud or get customer service’s help if they’re locked out of their account without having to wait on hold on the phone. That chatbot integration, which has no humans on the other end to limit privacy risks, was announced last year and . Facebook works with PayPal in more than 40 countries to let users get receipts via Messenger for their purchases. Expansions of these partnerships to more financial services providers could boost usage of Messenger by increasing its convenience — and make it more of a centralized utility akin to China’s WeChat. But Facebook’s relationships with banks in the current form aren’t likely to produce a steep change in ad targeting power that warrants significant heightening of its earning expectations. The reality of today’s news is out of step with the 3.5 percent share price climb triggered by the WSJ’s report. “A recent Wall Street Journal story implies incorrectly that we are actively asking financial services companies for financial transaction data – this is not true. Like many online companies with commerce businesses, we partner with banks and credit card companies to offer services like customer chat or account management. Account linking enables people to receive real-time updates in Facebook Messenger where people can keep track of their transaction data like account balances, receipts, and shipping updates,” Diana told TechCrunch. “The idea is that messaging with a bank can be better than waiting on hold over the phone – and it’s completely opt-in. We’re not using this information beyond enabling these types of experiences – not for advertising or anything else. A critical part of these partnerships is keeping people’s information safe and secure.” Diana says banks and credit card companies have also approached it about potential partnerships, not just the other way around as the WSJ reports. She says any features that come from those talks would be opt-in, rather than happening behind users’ backs. The spokesperson stressed these integrations would only be built if they could be privacy safe. For example, signing up to use the Citibank Messenger chatbot requires two-factor authentication through your phone. But renewed interest in Facebook’s dealings with banks comes at a time when many are pointing to its poor track record with privacy following the Cambridge Analytica scandal, where people were duped into volunteering the personal info of them and their friends. Facebook hasn’t had a big traditional data breach where data was outright stolen, as has befallen LinkedIn, eBay, Yahoo [part of TechCrunch’s parent company] and others. But users are rightfully reluctant to see Facebook ingest any more of their sensitive data for fear it could leak or be misused. Facebook has recently on the use of data brokers that suck in public and purchased data sets for ad targeting. It no longer lets data brokers upload Managed Custom Audience lists of user contact info or power Partner Categories for targeting ads based on interests. It also more adamantly whose email addresses or phone numbers they upload for Custom Audience targeting, though Facebook does little to verify that consent and advertisers could still buy data sets from brokers and upload them themselves Facebook’s statement today shows more scruples than Google, which last year struck ad measurement data deals with data brokers that have in the U.S. That to the FTC from the Electronic Privacy Information Center. [Correction: Google tells us the deals are for ad measurement data, not ad targeting as we originally published. It only learns the annonymous aggregate purchase value, not what the items were bought, and the data is encrypted.] Cambridge Analytica has brought on an overdue era of scrutiny regarding privacy and how internet giants use our data. Practices that were overlooked, accepted as industry standard or seen as just the way business gets done are coming under fire. Internet users aren’t likely to escape ads, and some would rather have those they see be relevant thanks to deep targeting data. But the combination of our offline purchase behavior with our online identities seems to trigger uproar absent from sites using cookies to track our web browsing and buying. Facebook’s probably better off backing away from anything that involves sensitive data like checking account balances until Cambridge Analytica blows over and it’s proven its newfound sense of responsibility translates into a safer social networking. But at least for now, it’s not slurping up our banking data wholesale. |
Fortnite’s Android installer shipped with an Epic security flaw | Devin Coldewey | 2,018 | 8 | 24 | Google has clapped back in tremendous fashion at Epic Games, which earlier this month decided to make the phenomenally popular Fortnite available for Android . Unfortunately, the installer had a phenomenally dangerous security flaw in it that would allow a malicious actor to essentially install any software they wanted. Google wasted exactly zero time pointing out this egregious mistake. By way of a short explanation why this was even happening, Epic explained when it announced its plan that it would be good to have “competition among software sources on Android,” and that the best would “succeed based on merit.” Everyone of course understood that what he was that Epic didn’t want to share the revenue from its cash cow with Google, which takes 30 percent of in-app purchases. Many warned that this was a security risk for several reasons, for example that users would have to enable app installations from unknown sources — something most users have no reason to do. And the Play Store has other protections and features, visible and otherwise, that are useful for users. Google, understandably, was not amused with Epic’s play, which no doubt played a part in the decision to scrutinize the download and installation process — though I’m sure the safety of its users was also a motivating factor. And wouldn’t you know it, they found a whopper right off the bat. In a thread posted a week after the Fortnite downloader went live, that the installer basically would allow an attacker to install anything they want using it. The Fortnite installer basically downloads an APK (the package for Android apps), stores it locally, then launches it. But because it was stored on shared external storage, a bad guy could swap in a new file for it to launch, in what’s called a “man in the disk” attack. And because the installer , as long as the attacker’s file is called “com.epicgames.fortnite,” it would be installed! Silently, and with lots of extra permissions too, if they want, because of how the unknown sources installation policies work. Not good! Edward pointed out this could be fixed easily and in a magnificently low-key bit of shade-throwing helpfully linked to a page on the Android developer site outlining the basic feature Epic should have used. To Epic’s credit, its engineers jumped on the problem immediately and had a fix in the works by that very afternoon and deployed by the next one. Epic InfoSec then requested Google to wait 90 days before publishing the information. As you can see, Google was not feeling generous. One week later (that’s today) and the flaw has been published on the Google Issue Tracker site in all its… well, not glory exactly. Really, the opposite of glory. This seems to have been Google’s way of warning any would-be Play Store mutineers that they would not be given gentle handling. ( : Google says that the shorter disclosure timing is just normal policy when a fix is put out quickly: the official period for public disclosure is “90 days, or sooner if the vendor releases a fix.”) Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney was likewise unamused. — which, by the way, predicted that this exact thing would happen — he took the company to task for its “irresponsible” decision to “endanger users.” Epic genuinely appreciated Google’s effort to perform an in-depth security audit of Fortnite immediately following our release on Android, and share the results with Epic so we could speedily issue an update to fix the flaw they discovered. However, it was irresponsible of Google to publicly disclose the technical details of the flaw so quickly, while many installations had not yet been updated and were still vulnerable. An Epic security engineer, at my urging, requested Google delay public disclosure for the typical 90 days to allow time for the update to be more widely installed. Google refused. You can read it all at https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/112630336 Google’s security analysis efforts are appreciated and benefit the Android platform, however a company as powerful as Google should practice more responsible disclosure timing than this, and not endanger users in the course of its counter-PR efforts against Epic’s distribution of Fortnite outside of Google Play. Indeed, companies really try not to endanger their users for selfish reasons. |
Elon Musk: Tesla will remain a public company | Kirsten Korosec | 2,018 | 8 | 24 | Tesla will remain a public company, CEO Elon Musk said Friday night, less than three weeks after he announced to the world via Twitter that he was considering taking the electric automaker private at $420 a share. Musk, who posted the announcement via , said Friday that after speaking with shareholders and investigating the process of taking the company private he believes the better path is for Tesla to remain public. Musk met with Tesla’s board of directors Thursday and told them of his decision. The board agreed, he wrote. Here’s an excerpt: Given the feedback I’ve received, it’s apparent that most of Tesla’s existing shareholders believe we are better off as a public company. Additionally, a number of institutional shareholders have explained that they have internal compliance issues that limit how much they can invest in a private company. There is also no proven path for most retail investors to own shares if we were private. Although the majority of shareholders I spoke to said they would remain with Tesla if we went private, the sentiment, in a nutshell, was “please don’t do this.” I knew the process of going private would be challenging, but it’s clear that it would be even more time-consuming and distracting than initially anticipated. This is a problem because we absolutely must stay focused on ramping Model 3 and becoming profitable. We will not achieve our mission of advancing sustainable energy unless we are also financially sustainable. That said, my belief that there is more than enough funding to take Tesla private was reinforced during this process. Friday night’s announcement closes a tumultuous 17 days that began with Musk tweeting that he secured funding and was considering taking Tesla private. The tweet wasn’t warmly embraced by the Tesla board or many shareholders. It also prompted the . https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/10268726522903797 While this 17-day ride might be over, the questions over Musk’s behavior (and ) and the company’s future are likely not. |
YouTube removes Alex Jones, too | Brian Heater | 2,018 | 8 | 6 | null |
The lobbying is fast and furious as gig companies seek relief from pro-labor Supreme Court ruling | Antoinette Siu | 2,018 | 8 | 24 | For four years, Edhuar Arellano has left his house at 7 a.m. on weekdays to drive customers around the Bay Area for Lyft and Uber. Most days, he doesn’t get home to Santa Clara until 11 p.m. On weekends, he delivers pizzas to make ends meet. Like a lot of drivers plugging in to ride-hailing apps for work, he likes the flexibility the gig economy has offered. But given the choice, Arellano says he wishes he could just become an employee. That would get him paid vacation, benefits, overtime, his own health insurance and perhaps more say over his working conditions. “We need to accept whatever they want,” said the 55-year-old father of two grown children. “I can’t control anything.” That quandary is behind a ferocious battle quietly playing out in the state Capitol in the final days of the legislative session, which ends August 31. Lobbyists for ridesharing companies and the California Chamber of Commerce are scrambling to delay until next year (and the next governor’s administration) a far-reaching California Supreme Court decision that could grant Arellano’s wish — and, , undermine the entire gig economy. The , involving the nationwide delivery company Dynamex Operations West Inc. and its contract drivers, established a new test for enforcement of California wage laws, and made it much harder for companies in California to claim that independent contractors are not actually employees. Though the ruling only applies to California, the state’s labor force is so huge that it has already had national impact. Shortly after the decision, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont introduced to make a version of California’s new rule the federal standard, a move that only added urgency to employers’ calls for state lawmakers to hit the pause button on implementing the ruling. “Businesses are very concerned. The key is who’s going to be sued here in the near future,” said Allan Zaremberg, president of the California Chamber, which represents 50,000 businesses. They should be, says labor leader Caitlin Vega, who has been similarly lobbying Capitol Democrats to refrain from meddling and let the Supreme Court decision move forward. “Companies have made so much money already at the expense of workers,” Vega, the legislative director of the California Labor Federation, said Tuesday during a harried break between Capitol meetings. “We really see the Dynamex decision as core to rebuilding the middle class.” State and federal labor laws give employees a wide range of worker protections, from overtime pay and minimum wages to the right to unionize. But those rights don’t extend to independent contractors, whose ranks have grown dramatically in the gig economy. Apps such as Uber, TaskRabbit and DoorDash, which match customers and services online and in real time, have given workers an unprecedented ability to freelance but they also have blurred traditional employer-employee relationships and, labor advocates say, invited exploitation. Some 2 million people, from Lyft drivers to construction workers, consider themselves independent contractors in California. In 2017, according to the , about one in 14 workers was an independent contractor nationally. If state lawmakers don’t rewrite the law or stall its implementation for a few months, as businesses want — which the Legislature can legally do, though the clock is ticking — the Dynamex decision will subject businesses in California to a standard that is tougher than the federal government’s or most states’. Known as the “ABC test,” the standard requires companies to prove that people working for them as independent contractors are: That’s a high bar for the many companies whose bottom lines have depended on large numbers of contractors to deliver a particular service. According to the business lobby, in the months since the Dynamex decision, law firms have received 1,200 demands for arbitration and 17 class action lawsuits. Last month, business leaders to members of Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration, warning that the new test would “decimate businesses,” and urging the governor and Legislature to suspend and then limit the court’s ruling to only workers involved in the Dynamex case. The letter also asked that the decision not apply to other contractors for the next two years. Not all those contractors are in tech, Chamber head Zaremberg points out. Emergency room doctors and accountants, for example, could also be impacted. Emergency hospitals and trauma centers contract their doctors through medical groups, and doctors generally work at a combination of hospitals and community clinics. Photo: shapecharge / iStock / Getty Images Plus “A lot of our members use that model. It’s choice. They like flexibility. They like working at multiple hospitals,” Mullen said. The California Labor Federation’s Vega contends that, disruptive though it may be, the Dynamex ruling is the right one, particularly on worker exploitation. The core group affected tends to be low-income and immigrant workers, she said. “The Dynamex decision was a victory for working people — truck drivers who are cheated out of wages, warehouse workers forced to risk their health and gig economy workers who want to be treated with dignity and respect,” Vega in a Sacramento Bee op-ed. Some workers see room for hybrid solutions. Edward Escobar, a San Francisco ride-hail driver of four years and founder of the Alliance for Independent Workers, a group formed by drivers three years ago, says he has seen a big decrease in how much these companies compensate drivers without a commensurate increase in control over working conditions. Escobar believes gig companies are trying to have it both ways, and should give their workers either true independence or full employment. His proposal: Let workers choose their own classification, with wage and benefit protection for those who choose to be employees, and more control for contractors over which rides to take and what prices to set. “These tech titans have been taking advantage of these gray areas,” Escobar said. Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, a Paramount Democrat, said earlier this month that while the Legislature is eager to delve into workforce issues, leaders do not have adequate time to act on it before the session ends next week. “The Dynamex decision strikes at the core of what the future of work looks like in our society,” Rendon said in a statement. “From the decline of union membership to court rulings like the , we’ve seen the continual erosion of workers’ rights. If the Legislature is to take action, we must do so thoughtfully with that in mind. That will not happen in the last three weeks of the legislative session.” Nor are the stakes likely to be lowered for workers like Arellano. “If I don’t work, I have no money,” said the Lyft and Uber driver. “Everything is so expensive in Santa Clara and the Bay Area.” |
Facebook and Microsoft briefed state officials on election security efforts today | Taylor Hatmaker | 2,018 | 8 | 24 | So much for summer Fridays. Yesterday, reported that a dozen tech companies, including Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Snapchat, would meet at Twitter headquarters on Friday to discuss election security. For two of them, that wasn’t the only meeting in the books. In what appears to be a separate event on Friday, Facebook and Microsoft also met with the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and two bodies of state election officials, the National Association of State Election Directors (NASED) and the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS), about their election security efforts. The discussion was the second of its kind connecting DHS, Facebook and state election officials on “actions being taken to combat malicious interference operations.” The meetings offer two very different perspectives on threats to election security. States are largely concerned with securing voter databases and election systems, while private tech companies are waging a very public war against coordinated disinformation campaigns by U.S. foreign adversaries on their platforms. Social media platforms and election systems themselves are two important yet usually disconnected fronts in the ongoing war against Russian election interference. “Effectively combatting coordinated information operations requires many parts of society working together, which is why Facebook believes so strongly in the need for collaboration between law enforcement, government agencies, security experts and other companies to confront these growing threats,” Facebook VP of Public Policy Kevin Martin said of the meeting. “We are grateful for the opportunity to brief state election officials on a recent call convened by DHS and again today as part of our continued effort to develop collaborative relationships between government and private industry.” Curiously, while Microsoft and Facebook attended the DHS-hosted meeting, it doesn’t look like Twitter did. To date, Twitter and Facebook have faced the most fallout for foreign interference on their platforms meant to influence American politics, though Google was also called to Congress to testify on the issue last fall. When reached, Twitter declined to comment on its absence, though the company was reportedly playing host to the other major tech election security meeting today. The meeting with state officials sounds like it was largely informative in nature, with Facebook and Microsoft providing insight on their respective efforts to contain foreign threats to election integrity. On Tuesday, that its Digital Crimes Unit secured a court order to take down six domains created by Russia’s GRU designed to phish user credentials. Half of the phishing domains were fake versions of U.S. Senate websites. “No one organization, department or individual can solve this issue alone, that’s why information sharing is so important,” said Microsoft VP of Customer Security and Trust Tom Burt. “To really be successful in defending democracy, technology companies, government, civil society, the academic community and researchers need to come together and partner in new and meaningful ways.” |
Hear how to build a brand from Tina Sharkey, Emily Heyward and Philip Krim at Disrupt | Jordan Crook | 2,018 | 8 | 24 | For startups, especially e-commerce companies, branding is everything. A slogan, an ad, even the design of the logo can make the difference between success and failure. But understanding how to develop a brand and strategically evolve that brand over time isn’t the easiest task. Luckily, three experts are coming to Disrupt to talk through the ins and outs. Red Antler’s Emily Heyward, Brandless’ Tina Sharkey, and Casper CEO Philip Krim will join us at TC Disrupt SF in early September, and it’s a conversation you won’t want to miss. Emily Heyward cofounded Red Antler in 2007 after working in advertising at Saatchi & Saatchi. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard with a degree focused on postmodern theory and consumer culture. At Red Antler, she serves as Chief Strategist and has helped brands like AllBirds, BirchBox and Casper find their unique voice in a cluttered market. Tina Sharkey hails from Brandless, the new e-commerce company that brings its own line of household and food items to the market for $3 each. Brandless has raised nearly $300 million since launching in 2016, an impressive feat on its own. What makes Brandless so attractive to investors? Tina Sharkey’s unwavering focus on understanding her customers. Alongside democratizing these products, and bringing eco-friendly and FDA-approved ‘safer choice’ goods to the masses, Sharkey makes data around consumer behavior a priority at the company, which helps with insights on how to sell Brandless’s portfolio of more than 300 products. Heyward and Sharkey will be joined by Casper CEO and cofounder Philip Krim. Casper sprung onto the market in 2013 with a relatively simple premise: sell a quality mattress for cheaper. While it makes sense, it’s not the sexiest brand proposition. But with the help of Heyward and Red Antler, and a keen sense of the type of customer who chooses Casper over a traditional mattress, Casper has become one of the most effectively marketed brands out there right now. We’re thrilled to hear from this trio of greatness at Disrupt SF. . Tickets are still available even though the show is less than two weeks away. . |
UK phone giant EE hit by another security lapse | Zack Whittaker | 2,018 | 8 | 24 | For , U.K. phone giant EE has fixed a security lapse, which allowed a security researcher to gain access to an internal site. The researcher, who goes by the pseudonym Six, found the company’s internal training site indexed on Google. (We’re not linking to the page as it remains an active site.) Although the site required an employee username and password to log in, the researcher found that an “admin” account existed, of which anyone with the answer to the secret question could reset the password. It turns out that secret question could have been stronger. “What is your eye color,” the researcher told TechCrunch. “I tried loads of colors and they all give an error,” he said. “The answer was simply ‘brown,'” he said. From there, he gained access to the entire internal training site. EE is the largest phone network in the U.K. with more than 30 million users. TechCrunch reported the security lapse to the company on Wednesday. A spokesperson for EE said a fix was implemented early Thursday, and thanked the researcher. “This account has now been disabled and we have also changed the password and security question for the account,” said a spokesperson. “No customer data is, or has been, at risk as the user account on the training website only gave access to a dummy environment with fake accounts.” But the researcher disputed part of EE’s response, accusing the company of downplaying the security incident. The researcher shared several screenshots with TechCrunch of the site. According to the site’s login page, the portal is the “home of training” for all EE staff. Employees are given access in the first week of their start date, and can access the site for the first time with a password which is their “surname all in lower case.” Some screenshots showed dummy data, but others showed course content and employee knowledge base resources. He said that he had access to training on linked organizations, including Orange and Plusnet. Although the researcher found no employee or customer data, he said the admin account allowed him to grant himself “any permissions” he wanted, and change the access of any other group of users, he said. “I didn’t do any of that because of the law, but that doesn’t mean a malicious attacker couldn’t have done it,” he said. Earlier this week, EE fixed a vulnerability that allowed customers to gift their own or linked accounts unlimited data for free. The company fixed the bug within two days. |
Alibaba continues to gain cloud momentum | Ron Miller | 2,018 | 8 | 24 | When yesterday, the cloud data got a bit buried , but it’s worth pointing out that its cloud business grew 93 percent in the most recent quarter to $710 million. That’s down a smidgen from of last report, but their market share has doubled in just two years, and they are growing fast. As John Dinsdale, principal analyst at , a firm that keeps a close eye on the cloud market points out, the dip in growth is all about the law of large numbers. Alibaba couldn’t sustain triple digit growth for long. “Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform have recently seen similar reductions in growth rates, and if you go back far enough in time, AWS did too. The key thing is that the market for cloud infrastructure services is now very big, yet is still growing by 50% per year — and the leading players are either maintaining or growing their market share,” he said. Back in 2015, when the Chinese eCommerce giant launched as part of an effort to expand beyond its eCommerce roots, Alibaba Cloud’s president , “Our goal is to overtake Amazon in four years, whether that’s in customers, technology, or worldwide scale.” That is obviously not happening, but the company has managed to move the market share needle, doubling from just 2 percent of worldwide cloud infrastructure market share in 2016 to 4 percent today. That’s nothing to sneeze at, according to Dinsdale, but it’s also worth pointing out that most that business is in Asia, and of that, most of it is in its native China. Like all its cloud competitors, the company is concentrating on some key technologies to drive that growth including big data analytics, artificial intelligence, security and Internet-of-Things, all of which are resource intensive and help grow revenue quickly. To sustain its growth, however, Alibaba needs to begin to develop markets outside of China and Asia. Dinsdale thinks that could happen as Chinese customers expand internationally. He also recognizes the political realities that the company faces as it tries to move into western markets. “Alibaba has what it takes to seriously challenge the top four cloud providers — despite some inevitable political headwinds that it will face,” he said. While Alibaba might not reach the lofty heights of catching AWS any time soon, or probably ever, it has a good shot at IBM and Google Cloud Platform and for a company that just started taking the cloud market seriously in 2015, that’s amazing progress. |
World Bank launches first bond instrument built on a blockchain with the Australian Bank | Jonathan Shieber | 2,018 | 8 | 24 | The has launched the first with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. The A$110 million ($87 million) bond-i (blockchain operated new debt instrument) — so named, I’m assuming, because of Australia’s famed Bondi Beach (bankers have the funnies!) — is the first bond to be created, allocated, transferred and managed using distributed ledger technology. The investment is one small step for Australian finance and one giant leap for blockchains in the world (or not). Investors in the blockchain bond include CBA, First State Super, NSW Treasury Corporation, Northern Trust, QBE, SAFA and Treasury Corporation of Victoria. It’s a smorgasbord of Australian state financial institutions and makes a ton of sense, because the Australian fintech community is one that’s strong, and blockchain is something that these institutions are definitely interested in exploring. According to a statement from the World Bank, this will be one of many experiments that the global financial organization will make into blockchain research. Last June, the World Bank launched a Blockchain Innovation Lab to play around with the technology. “We are particularly impressed with the breath [sic] of interest from official institutions, fund managers, government institutions and banks. We were no doubt successful in moving from concept to reality because these high-quality investors understood the value of leveraging technology for innovation in capital markets,” said World Bank Treasurer Arunma Oteh. |
Last chance to buy a Disrupt SF 2018 Startup Alley Exhibitor Package | Emma Comeau | 2,018 | 8 | 24 | Last call, folks! Last call to take advantage of the potentially life-changing connections and opportunities that await early-stage founders in . Today is the final day you can secure an exhibit table in Startup Alley at — which takes place September 5-7. Buy your today before the clock strikes 5 p.m. PT. Picture it. You and more than 1,200 exhibitors and sponsors showcasing the latest and greatest in tech products, services and platforms. We fully expect 10,000 or more attendees to descend on Moscone Center West — we’re talking technologists, investors, tech journalists, founders, marketers and entrepreneurs. And this is the last day to snag a pass that lets you place your early-stage startup smack dab in their path. Here’s what comes with a Startup Alley Exhibitor Package: And who knows? Your startup might be one of two selected to compete as a Wild Card in — our epic pitch competition with an equally epic grand prize of $100K. If you don’t believe us, check out this story from our Wild Card winner from last year:
If you’re wondering whether exhibiting is worth your time and effort, we get it. Consider what Vlad Larin, co-founder of Zeroqode, has to say about his experience: “Startup Alley is an outstanding opportunity. We showed our technology to the world and had meaningful conversations with investors, accelerators, incubators, solo founders and developers. Give it your all, and you will not be disappointed.” Startup Alley goes down at — which takes place September 5-7. You have today and today only to grab a table. . |
DiDi’s Fengmin Gong and Duo’s Mike Hanley to talk future of security at Disrupt | Mike Butcher | 2,018 | 8 | 24 | Cyber security has never gone away as a hot topic in the technology sphere and in 2018 it remains an enormous issue. As the next 3 billion or so of the planet’s people come online, it’s never been more important to secure their safety, their privacy and the security of their personal data. As the same time we are already in the process of building the infrastructure of the future. The smart cities and the autonomous cars-to-come will all have to be secure from cyber attack, from private or state actors. It’s therefore salient that TechCrunch Disrupt feature the work of two of the key players in this space. Machine learning can help companies better protect their networks, but it also provides attackers with new tools. DiDi Labs Security VP Fengmin Gong and Mike Hanley of Duo are both are the forefront of this sector. On stage at Disrupt they will discuss how their companies use these new technologies to keep hackers at bay and how others can do the same to keep their systems secure. Hanley leads all security research, development and operations functions at Duo. Prior to Duo, he was a senior member of the technical staff at CERT/CC, working on applied R&D programs for the US Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community. Hanley pointed out that it’s a a myth that most hackers are using sophisticated tactics to access data. It’s his view that the vast majority of cyber security attacks start with phishing – where people respond to fraudulent emails and reveal their own personal information. The problem is, he thinks, is that the security industry has been slow to offer simple, efficient solutions to protect companies’ and individuals’ digital information. He thinks the industry is too focused “on complexity and not necessarily effectiveness” and that “complexity really does breed insecurity.” He’ll be joined on stage by Fengmin Gong of DiDi Labs, part of the Chinese ride-hailing startup. Gong is a well-respected cybersecurity technologist with more than 30 years of industry experience. As head of DiDi Labs, Dr. Gong currently drives R&D innovation and strategy for safety, security and user experience on DiDi platforms, and works on developing the next generation of security tools Gong has held chief scientist and R&D VP roles in a variety of large security corporations, including McAfee and Symantec JV, and served as chief security content strategy officer for FireEye, where he led the development and management of the company’s security initiatives. He is also a serial entrepreneur, having founded several leading security companies, including Palo Alto Networks and Cyphort Inc., and is an angel investor in more than half a dozen startups. Didi was given the go-ahead to start testing self-driving cars in California, as it looks to catch up with its Silicon Valley rivals’ earlier start in autonomous systems. . Tickets are still available even though the show is less than two weeks away. . |
A majority of U.S. teens are taking steps to limit smartphone and social media use | Sarah Perez | 2,018 | 8 | 24 | It’s not just parents who are worrying about their children’s device usage. According to released by Pew Research Center this week, U.S. teens are now taking steps to limit themselves from overuse of their phone and its addictive apps, like social media. A majority, 54% of teens, said they spend too much time on their phone, and nearly that many – 52% – said they are trying to limit their phone use in various ways. In addition, 57% say they’re trying to limit social media usage and 58% are trying to limit video games. The fact that older children haven’t gotten a good handle on balanced smartphone usage points to a failure on both parents’ parts and the responsibilities of technology companies to address the addictive nature of our devices. For years, instead of encouraging more moderate use of smartphones, as the tools they’re meant to be, app makers took full advantage of smartphones’ always-on nature to continually send streams of interruptive notifications that pushed users to constantly check in. Tech companies even to reward us each time we launched their app, with that keep users engaged. Device makers loved this addiction because they financially benefited from app sales and in-app purchases, in addition to device sales. So they built ever more tools to give apps access to users’ attention, instead of lessening it. For addicted teens, parents were of little help as they themselves were often victims of this system, too. Today, tech companies are finally waking up to the problem. Google and Apple have now both built in screen time monitoring and control tools into their mobile operating systems, and even dopamine drug dealers like , and have begun to add screen time reminders and features. But these tools have come too late to prevent U.S. children from developing bad habits with potentially harmful side effects. Pew says that 72% of teens are reaching for their phones as soon as they wake up; four-in-ten feel anxious without their phone; 56% report that not have their phone with them can make them feel lonely, upset or anxious; 51% feel their parents are distracted by phones during conversations (72% of parents say this is true, too, when trying to talk to teens); and 31% say phones distract them in class. The problems are compounded by the fact that smartphones aren’t a luxury any longer – they’re in the hands of , 45% of whom are almost constantly online. The only good news is that today’s teens seem to be more aware of the problem, even if their parents failed to teach balanced use of devices in their own home. Nine-in-ten teens believe that spending too much time online is a problem, and 60% say it’s a problem. 41% say they spend too much time on social media. In addition, some parents are starting to take aim at the problem, as well, with 57% reporting they’ve set some screen time restrictions for their teens. Today’s internet can be a toxic place, and not one where people should spend large amounts of time. Social networking one , reports show. But many of these networks were built by young men who couldn’t conceive of all the ways things could go wrong. They failed to build in robust controls from day one to prevent things like bullying, harassment, threats, misinformation, and other issues. Instead, these have been after the fact – after the problems became severe. And, some could argue, that was too late. Social media is something that’s now associated with online abuse and disinformation, with comment thread fights and trolling, and with consequences that range from to . If we are unable to give up our smartphones and social media for the benefits they do offer, at the very least we should be monitoring and moderating our use of them at this point. Thankfully, as this study shows, there’s growing awareness of this among younger users, and maybe, some of them will even do something about it in the future – when they’re the bosses, the parents, and the engineers, they can craft new work/life policies, make new house rules, and write better code. |
Samsung’s Galaxy Note 9 and Galaxy Watch are available now | Brian Heater | 2,018 | 8 | 24 | As for the , your guess is as good as ours. |
Waymo opens subsidiary in China | Kirsten Korosec | 2,018 | 8 | 24 | Waymo, the former Google self-driving project that spun out to become a business under Alphabet, has opened a subsidiary in China. The unit, called Huimo Business Consulting Co., opened in Shanghai on May 22, according to a filing with China’s National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System. was the first to report on the new entity. The unit, which was set up with 3.5 million yuan ($511,000), lists Waymo as an investor. A Waymo spokesperson confirmed Thursday to TechCrunch that the unit had been formed in Shanghai and that people are working there. The company declined to comment further on its plans in China. Don’t expect Waymo to launch an autonomous ride-hailing service in China, or even to test there.The filing says the subsidiary will be focused on logistics consulting, supply chain, and autonomous driving parts and product design. An unnamed source familiar with the company’s plans backed up the description in the filing and told TechCrunch that the subsidiary will be working on building out a supplier network not launching a service there. |
null | Brian Heater | 2,018 | 8 | 6 | null |
T-Mobile says hackers stole customer data in data breach | Zack Whittaker | 2,018 | 8 | 24 | T-Mobile has confirmed hackers breached its systems. The cell giant, , said that hackers customer stole names, billing zip codes, phone numbers, email addresses, account numbers, and account type — such as if an account was prepaid or postpaid — in what the company described as an “unauthorized capture of data.” No customer financial or billing data was compromised, the company said. It’s not known when the breach occurred but the unauthorized access was detected and shut down on Monday. A T-Mobile spokesperson told TechCrunch that the breach was “discovered and stopped very quickly,” and “affected a small number” of customers. T-Mobile began notifying customers of the breach Friday morning with a text message sent to affected accounts. But that drew ire from some, who said the shortlink in the text message looked like phishing. So have been sending out a breach alert (a legit one) using a short URL and a number of people think it’s . Why? BECAUSE IT LOOKS LIKE PHISHING! — 𝐎𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐇𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 ⛱ (@olihough86) This is the latest in a string of security incidents at T-Mobile in the past year. In May, a security researcher in a T-Mobile subdomain used by staff, which returned customer data without requiring a password. It was similar to a vulnerability found in another T-Mobile system , which exposed customers’ email addresses, their billing account numbers, and the phone’s IMSI numbers. T-Mobile and other carriers earlier this year were also forced to with third-parties, after Democratic senator criticized the cell giants for the practice. |
Zoox loses its CEO, Eventbrite is going public, and megarounds for Slack, One Medical, and Getaround | Alex Wilhelm | 2,018 | 8 | 24 | Hello and welcome back to , TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This week we had a full house which was super great. TechCrunch’s and held down the fort in San Francisco along with our guest, , a partner at where she works on some of the most interesting deals in the private capital space. dialed in from the home office in Providence. It was good that we had eight hands on deck as there was more than enough news to go around. We started with the recent , an autonomous car company that came up on the show a few weeks back when it . The firm is now down its CEO after he was ousted after the round. In the founder-friendly era that we find ourselves in at the moment, this is High Drama. Next up was the #breakingnews concerning Eventbrite, which to go public just before we recorded. My initial notes are , but we’re still far from knowing where the unicorn will price. That means it’s hard to say much today, aside from the fact that the company appears to be in more than rude enough health for a flotation. And then, the megarounds. There were three: All that and we managed 1.7 jokes and 2.3 puns. We’ll be back in a week, and don’t forget that we are . Stay cool! |
PayPal revamps its app to remove clutter, add more personalization | Sarah Perez | 2,018 | 8 | 24 | PayPal is revamping its mobile app. . In an effort to keep pace with newcomers like , PayPal says its new app will focus on making it easier to use its core features – that is, sending and requesting money. That means many of the app’s homescreen buttons – like Offers, Donate, Order Ahead and others are being tucked away underneath a new “More” menu to eliminate some of the clutter. The PayPal homescreen had gotten a little too busy with all the extra features it has been promoting, which aren’t central to the PayPal experience. For example, it threw in a button suggesting “Invest with Acorns,” after in the mobile investing app that rounds up purchases and automatically invests the extra change on your behalf. It has been for years, even though no one thinks to launch a payments app when they’re hungry. Now these buttons no longer get top billing and valuable homescreen space. However, even though PayPal is removing a lot of these extras from the homescreen, it’s not actually giving its “Send” and “Request” buttons more room. In fact, they’re getting a little less. Today, those buttons are in the center of the homescreen, hosted in a big, greenish-blue banner. The updated app relocates them to a bottom bar. However, it reverts the app’s color scheme to PayPal’s more familiar dark blue-and-white branding, so the relocated buttons are actually easier to see. The homescreen instead dedicates most of its room to a new personalized notifications section. Here, users will see alerts about money they’ve received or payment requests from others in big, blue cards you can swipe through horizontally. Below this, is a strip of profile icons and names of those you’ve recently paid – the theory being that PayPal is often used among the same set of family, friends or businesses. This makes it easier to make your next payment to one of your “regulars.” Beneath this strip, your PayPal balance is displayed, while other notifications and settings are accessed through small buttons at the top of the screen, as before. The overall design feels more in tune with PayPal’s brand than the last update. Though the prior big revamp, which , modernized things up a bit, it did so with too-light icons, small fonts and odd, off-brand color choices. PayPal says the new app is rolling out now on Android to select markets, including Australia and Italy. It will then roll out to the U.S. and other markets worldwide, followed by a release on iOS. |
Japanese fintech startup Paidy lands strategic investment from Visa | Jon Russell | 2,018 | 8 | 24 | , Japanese fintech startup has . Paidy didn’t disclose how much Visa put into its business, which has raised over $80 million to date, but it did say that it will work with the credit card giant to develop “new digital payment experiences” in Japan. For those in need of a refresher, the Paidy service is aimed at making it easier to shop online in Japan, which is the world’s fourth largest e-commerce market with high credit card penetration but yet many consumers opt for cash on delivery. The startup asserts that cash accounts for some 40 percent of the country’s ($148 billion) annual e-commerce spend because credit card payments are cumbersome and cash is just more simple. It’s certainly true that whipping out your card and keying in digits is a pain, while Japanese systems layer on other security checks that make the process more tedious. Paidy’s answer is an account tied to a customer’s phone number or email address that sits as a payment option at e-commerce checkouts. Payment itself requires entry of a confirmation code, and that’s it. Added to the simplicity, Paidy also offers various payback options to effectively give users the features of a credit card. The company claims there are 1.5 million active Paidy accounts and it is aiming to grow that figure to 11 million by 2020. The main rocket for reaching that ambitious target is onboarding large retailers who integrate the service into their online sales process. That’s a tactic that has worked well for Paidy so far, but it’s also clearly an area where Visa’s network can be massively beneficial, especially if they are joint products on offer. With Paidy operating like a virtual credit card system that rivals plastic cards, Visa has seen enough to warrant coming on board the project, according to Chris Clark, Visa’s Asia Pacific regional president. “We have been following Paidy’s progress and the enhanced shopping experience they provide at the time of purchase. In Japan there is enormous opportunity to bring consumers more options to pay, whether all at once or in instalments, especially when shopping across multiple channels,” Clark said in a statement. Paidy counts Itochu Corporation, Goldman Sachs, Eight Roads — the investment arm of Fidelity — SBI Holdings, SBI’s FinTech Business Innovation LPS, Arbor Ventures and SIG Asia as existing investors. |
The RED Hydrogen One won’t arrive until October, so here are some pictures instead | Brian Heater | 2,018 | 8 | 24 | null |
Alibaba’s Lazada begins to offer financing for online retailers in Southeast Asia | Jon Russell | 2,018 | 8 | 24 | Alibaba’s Lazada is introducing new credit options for SMEs as it aims to boost the number of retailers in Southeast Asia, the region with 650 million consumers. The firm announced a partnership with that will see the fintech offers its services to Lazada sellers in Singapore. There are plans to expand the arrangement to cover other parts of Southeast Asia in the future. Two-year-old Finaxar offers a range of financial products in Southeast Asia but now it has teamed up with the e-commerce company to provide a credit line option for Lazada sellers, as opposed to more structured financing such as loans. The credit line can last for up to six months, with up to SG$5,000-SG$1 million ($3,650-$730,000) on offer, the companies said. The service is priced at 0.7-1.5 percent every 30 days and at a rate that is pro-rated. Finaxar said all fees are shown transparently in the service to avoid the unwanted surprise of hidden add-ons. Finaxar founders Vihang Patel and Sian Tan told TechCrunch that a credit line gives companies the flexibility to dip into additional cash when needed, for example during peak season to buy more product, and also pay parts back when significant payment volumes come in, without the commitment of more formalized lending. The financial assessment, they explained, comes via a one-click integration with Lazada seller dashboard. When clicked, that sends the merchant to the Finaxar where they are asked to provide information; a credit assessment is delivered in under five minutes. Patel said Finaxar is currently assessing expansion to two undisclosed markets, which he said would include launches in collaboration with Lazada and potentially as soon as before the end of this year. That’s pretty crucial for the partnership to make an impact for Lazada, since most of its 300,000 retailers are located outside of Singapore. Alibaba has pumped billions into Lazada since . in a move which also saw Alibaba install Lucy Peng, one of its original 12 founders and the former Chairwoman of Lazada and ex-executive chairman of Ant Financial, as Lazada CEO. Lazada is in a dogfight with Shopee, the e-commerce firm of U.S.-listed Sea, to become the dominant e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia. , while this week . Alibaba doesn’t reveal comparable figures for Lazada. Lazada’s collaboration with Finaxar comes after Aspire Capital, an SME financing startup founded by an ex-Lazada executive, . |
Russian arms manufacturer Kalashnikov unveils its answer to Tesla | Jonathan Shieber | 2,018 | 8 | 24 | The Russian weapons manufacturer , best known for making the AK-47 * gas-operated – rotating bolt rifle with automatic capabilities, has unveiled a fleet of electric and hybrid cars, buggies and motorcycles this week — including an electric vehicle that the company says will rival Tesla. While it’s a noble goal to take competitive aim at the world’s most famous electric vehicle brand, the retro-styled concept car, , bears a closer resemblance to another, more infamous car from the Soviet era… the Trabant. That’s a vehicle, by the way, whose is best illustrated . The CV-1 is based on the retro-IZH-21252 model known as the “Combi” and is a test bed for Kalashnikov’s electric drive train, which the company said was developed in-house. The Combi has a cruising range of 350 kilometers and can go from 0 to 100 kilometers in roughly 6 seconds, so says the company. Batteries for the new electric vehicle from Kalashnikov have a capacity of 90 kilowatts per hour. At the same gun show where the new EV was unveiled, Kalashnikov also showed off a hybrid buggy and an electric motorcycle to complete its hattrick. The four-seat buggy can purportedly achieve speeds of up to 100 kilometers per hour and has separate electric engines for its front and rear wheels, along with hydraulic shock absorbers. the vehicles are a relatively recent addition to the Russian military’s mobility arsenal. Kalashnikov’s new electric motorcycle for police units Kalashnikov may have Tesla in its sights, but the car company likely has more to fear from U.S. regulators than it does from a Russian competitor. At this point, the weapons manufacturer might find more of a market for another machine it debuted at the Russian military trade show — (!!). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JWSjrZaB44 Here’s a selection of images below, courtesy of Kalashnikov, of the new electric vehicle. [gallery ids="1698553,1698555,1698556,1698557,1698558,1698559,1698554"] * |
Epic Games just gave a perk for folks to turn on 2FA; every other big company should, too | Jonathan Shieber | 2,018 | 8 | 23 | Let’s talk a bit about security. Most internet users around the world are pretty crap at it, but there are basic tools that companies have, and users can enable, to make their accounts, and lives, a little bit more hacker-proof. One of these — two-factor authentication — , the maker of what is currently The Most Popular Game In The World: Fortnite. Epic is already getting a ton of great press for what amounts to very little effort. Son: Do you know what two-factor authentication is? Me: Uh, yeah? Son: I get a free dance on if I enable two factor. Can we do that? Incentives matter. — Dennis (@DennisF) The company is giving users a new emote (the victory dance you’ve seen emulated in airports, playgrounds and parks by kids and tweens around the world) to anyone who turns on two-factor authentication. It’s one small (dance) step for Epic, but one giant leap for securing their users’ accounts. The thing is any big company could do this (looking at you Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet and any other company with a huge user base). Apparently the perk of not getting hacked isn’t enough for most users, but if you give anyone the equivalent of a free dance, they’ll likely flock to turn on the feature. It’s not that two-factor authentication is a panacea for all security woes, but it does make life harder for hackers. Two-factor authentication works on codes, basically tokens, that are either sent via text or through an over-the-air authenticator (OTA). Text messaging is a pretty crap way to secure things, because the codes can be intercepted, but OTAs — like Google Authenticator or Authy — are sent via https (pretty much bulletproof, but requiring an app to use). So using SMS-based two-factor authentication is better than nothing, but it’s not Fort Knox (however, these days, even Fort Knox probably isn’t Fort Knox when it comes to security). Still, anything that makes things harder for crimes of opportunity can help ease the security burden for companies large and small, and the consumers and customers that love them (or at least are forced to pay and use them). I’m not sure what form the perk could or should take. Maybe it’s the promise of a free e-book or a free download or an opportunity to have a live chat with the celebrity, influencer or athlete of a user’s choice. Whatever it is, there’re clearly something that businesses could do to encourage greater adoption. Self-preservation isn’t cutting it. Maybe an emote will do the trick. |
What is this weird Twitter army of Amazon drones cheerfully defending warehouse work? | Devin Coldewey | 2,018 | 8 | 23 | Here is a strange little online community to puzzle at. Amazon has developed an unnerving, Stepford-like presence on Twitter in the form of several accounts of definitely real on-the-floor workers who regurgitate talking points and assure the world that all is right in the company’s infamously punishing warehouse jobs. After called out the phenomenon, (please don’t abuse them — they get enough of that already). All with “Amazon smiles” as their backgrounds and several with animals as profile pictures. All have the same bio structure: “( @( . ( Amazonian. ( .)” All have “FC Ambassador📦” in their name. All have links to an . And all ceaselessly communicate upbeat messages about how great it is to work at an Amazon warehouse and assuring everyone that they are not being forced to do this. The messages all seem cut from the same cloth, frequently along the same exact patterns: Hello! I work in an Amazon FC in WA and our wages and benefits are very good. Amazon pays FC employess ~30% more than traditional retail stores and offers full medical benefits from day 1. Working conditions are very good- clean/well lit- Safety is a top priority at my facility! — Phil – Amazon FC Ambassador 📦 (@AmazonFCPhil) Did you know that Amazon pays warehouse workers 30% more than other retailers? I feel proud to work for Amazon – they've taken good care of me. Much better than some of my previous employers. — Shaye – Amazon FC Ambassador 📦 (@AmazonFCShaye) On the contrary, we Amazon employees get paid very well. In fact Amazon pays fulfillment center employees ~30% more than traditional retail stores. On top of that we also get full health benefits that includes dental & vision! I almost forgot to mention…we also get stocks! 💰 — Jeremy – Amazon FC Ambassador 📦 (@AmazonFCJeremy) The workers say that they don’t receive compensation for being ambassadors; it’s a “totally optional role” they have taken on voluntarily ( : it’s a bit more complicated than that — see below). They also claim to be warehouse employees in the ordinary sense. If so, they’re putting their numbers at risk by taking the time out to bang out long tweets hourly on how great they’re doing. Their most frequent topics of conversation are how they get bathroom breaks, the pleasant temperature of the warehouses, the excellent benefits and suitable wages, friendly management and how the job isn’t monotonous or tiring at all. FC Ambassador Carol, for example, is downright elated to be a picker, and is clearly a Bezos admirer. I love "couch shopping!" It's ALMOST as much fun as being here at work in the FC. As a picker, we get to see all the unique things people purchase. It keeps the night interesting, waiting to see what is going to come across my screen next. — Carol – Amazon FC Ambassador 📦 (@AmazonFCCarol) Amazon has really developed into something pretty amazing since it's start in 1994. And I, for one, am sure glad it did. I have been with the co just over a year, now and wouldn't trade my time in the FC for anything. — Carol – Amazon FC Ambassador 📦 (@AmazonFCCarol) I can safely say that none of MY ideas have panned out anywhere near what Jeff Bezos has accomplished. I am more than happy, though, to continue working here, at BFI4, in WA. I receive a (more than fair) wage and work with some really good people. Making history, every day. — Carol – Amazon FC Ambassador 📦 (@AmazonFCCarol) You can practically the smile on her face. I have a friend who worked as a picker for a while, admittedly some years back. He said it was some of the most mind-numbing yet physically demanding work he’s ever done. I understand that some folks may just be happy to have a job with full pay and benefits — I’d never begrudge anyone that — but the unanimous and highly stilted positivity on display in these ambassador accounts really seems like something else. It’s no secret, after all, that Amazon has an image problem when it comes to labor. Reports have for years described grueling labor at these “fulfillment centers,” where footsore workers must meet ever-increasing daily goals, their time rigidly structured and room for advancement cramped. Just recently Gizmodo’s Brian Menegus has had of on current — not past — labor conditions at the company, and of course there have been dozens of such stories detailing exploitation or generally poor conditions over the last few years. And not just here in the U.S., either. Certainly Amazon may have improved those conditions. And certainly they would want to get the message out. But these accounts are equally certainly not the grassroots advocacy they seem to be. (There’s already a , naturally, or perhaps one of the ambassadors slipped the leash.) I’ve asked Amazon for more details on what this program really consists of, and how it comes to pass that warehouse workers are being paid to monitor Twitter, regularly rebutting critics with clearly canned stats and the kind of forced humor one would imagine they would indulge in if their overalls hid a shock collar. I’ll update this post if I hear back. : Amazon says these “FC ambassadors are employees who have experience working in our fulfilment centers. It’s important that we do a good job of educating people about the actual environment inside our fulfillment centers, and the FC ambassador program is a big part of that along with the fulfilment center tours we provide.” The program just started a couple weeks back; there are apparently 14 total, not 15 — either I can’t count or I mistook an inactive or fake one for the real thing. Several have also disappeared from the original collection since last night. An actual former ambassador and three year Florida warehouse veteran Chris Grantham , who shared the information with TechCrunch: When I was there they just got an extra paid day off and a gift card after Peak [pre-holiday season]. This is what I got. A paid day off (that expired in 3 weeks lol) and a $50 Amazon gift card. Plus, they gave us lunch. Coldcuts and sandwich bread. I absolutely did not get paid more to train people. Ambassador isn’t a ‘job’ you do every day, its just something you are trained to do. You go to a 4 hour class and they teach you how to teach others to tie a knot using a set of instructions. This is how new hires a supposed to be taught. You are supposed to teach them right from a script using a set protocol. Becoming an ambassador was a way to get out of loading trucks, or packing boxes for 10 to 12 hrs. You may ambassador 1 day then unload trucks for the next 3. I stopped doing it after the first year I was there because it didn’t pay more. It’s voluntary. Your manager picks them. Generally speaking ambassadors are the “kiss asses” of the department. In case it isn’t obvious, Chris is no longer at Amazon and is happy to speak his mind. Thanks for helping us clear this up, Chris. |
Facebook poaches new CMO Antonio Lucio from HP | Josh Constine | 2,018 | 8 | 23 | Amidst Facebook’s biggest branding crisis, it’s just hired a veteran CMO formerly of Pepsi and Visa to boost the social network’s external image and cross-promote features inside its apps. Antonio Lucio today announced he’ll be leaving his role as HP’s CMO after three years to take that post at Facebook starting September 4th. He’s replacing Gary Briggs, who in January said he’d be after five years to advise companies and work with the Democrats. Lucio’s hispanic background and his efforts to champion inclusion will bring needed diversity to Facebook’s management, whose CEO, COO, CFO, CTO and CFO are all white. Lucio will report to Chief Product Officer Chris Cox and be part of Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg’s leadership team. Facebook confirms he’ll work across the company’s family of apps, including Instagram and WhatsApp, which both lack a named CMO. Prior to HP, Lucio was Visa’s chief marketing and communications officer for seven years, and had been at PepsiCo leading innovation and beverage marketing for eight years before that. “Facebook’s story is at an inflection point. We have never faced bigger challenges, and we have never had more opportunities to have a positive impact on the world — in our families, our friendships, our communities, and our democracy — by improving our products at their core, and then by telling the story outside that we all know to be true inside,” . “[Lucio] has been outspoken on the need to build authentic global brands with integrity and from places of principle, and also on the importance of building diverse teams at every level in the organization.” Lucio is well-versed in the flowery philosophical rhetoric common at Facebook. He describes himself on LinkedIn as someone “who’s mission in life is to build brands that stand the test of time. These brands are anchored in purpose; have a meaningful impact on people’s lives; are built through strong emotional connections; behave with integrity and are constantly reinventing themselves to deliver their purpose.” . 's global CMO discusses a new report from the company that shows how the efforts to close the diversity gap in their workforce have unquestionably led to positive business results. — Cheddar (@cheddar) Lucio’s public persona sees him frequently retweeting accolades for his female peers. He’s been named the No. 2 most influential CMO by Forbes, and has received awards from PR Week and Women In Marketing for pushing diversity. At HP, he helped launched the #MoreLikeMe campaign to increase the number of women in leadership roles, growing their percentage amongst top HP marketing jobs from 20 percent to 50 percent. He credits this with contributing to a 6 percent year-over-year boost in HP’s brand preference scores. You can see him talk more about the initiative on Cheddar above. Sandberg writes that “Antonio has a lot of experience leading marketing for major brands like HP and Visa — and he’s been recognized for both his talents and commitment to diversity.” She’ll benefit from the help repairing Facebook’s brand after a string of troubles ranging from Cambridge Analytica to election interference, slowing user growth to worries that too much Facebooking can hurt our well-being. A for the CMO role mentioned candidates would need to be able to “guide a brand’s reputation and experience in crisis management.” Facebook has recently undertaken a massive apology ad campaign on TV, bus stops and elsewhere, touting that it understands its responsibility to keep elections and users’ data safe. But Lucio will need to translate all of Facebook’s nitty-gritty behind-the-scenes work on these issues into comprehensible messaging that keeps users from straying from the social network. Meanwhile, he’ll also be in charge of Facebook product marketing. With so many features packed into the app and fighting for attention, Lucio will have to decide what to highlight and how. The question is whether he’ll think more holistically, supporting the natural cannibalization of Facebook by its fresher-faced acquisitions, or put big blue first. “Purpose and impact have been at the center of every career decision that I have ever made,” Lucio told TechCrunch in a statement. “Facebook is one of the world’s most impactful brands, at a pivotal moment in its history. I am honored to join the team and support its evolution.” Indeed, it’s time for Facebook to evolve, but Lucio will have to prove he can be the wartime leader it needs. |
Lyft is offering reduced and free rides on election day | Jonathan Shieber | 2,018 | 8 | 23 | is going to offer half-priced and free rides to polling places around the country on Election Day (November 6). The ride-hailing giant said that it’s going to give out 50 percent off promotional codes to partners that encourage voter turnout. The company has linked up with , , and others to help distribute the codes to anyone who needs them. On the day of the election the company said it will also provide a product integration that will help voters find their polling places to make it even easier to cast their ballot. This non-partisan effort to get people to the polls is only becoming more critical. Election officials in one county in Georgia because they’re not sufficiently accessible for handicapped voters. Having Lyft available to help those voters who would be impacted by the closures (some of whom would have to walk three hours to get to the nearest open polls) could certainly be a boon. As the company noted in its announcement, there’s a participation problem impacting elections in the U.S. Estimates from the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement indicate that in the 2016 election because they didn’t have transportation to get to the polls. The last presidential election was decided by , so getting out the vote and getting people to the polls clearly matters. For those underserved communities where the 50 percent discount on rides isn’t enough, the company will provide transportation free of cost through non-partisan, nonprofit organizations like Voto Latino, local affiliates of the Urban League and the National Federation of the Blind. Beyond just getting people to the polls, Lyft is providing ways for people to register to vote and learn about voting initiatives that are up for approval on election day. Through a partnerships with and the company intends to remind passengers about voter registration deadlines; give drivers voter registration handouts and voter information at ; offer in-office voter registration for employees; and offer online voter information through the company’s partner organizations. Voting access is a critical issue in making sure that every American’s voice is heard through the election process. According to studies (cited by Lyft), 46 percent of nonvoters have incomes under $30,000 compared with 19 percent of likely voters. And 43 percent of people unlikely to cast ballots are Hispanic, African American or other minorities, which is double the percentage among likely voters. |
AWS cuts in half the price of most of its Lightsail virtual private servers | Frederic Lardinois | 2,018 | 8 | 23 | , which , is Amazon’s answer to the rise of Digital Ocean, OVH and other affordable virtual private server (VPS) players. Lightsail started as a pretty basic service, but over the course of the last two years, AWS added features like block storage, Windows support and additional regions. Today, the company it is launching two new instance sizes and cutting in half the price of most Linux-based Lightsail instances. Windows instances are also getting cheaper, though the price cut there is closer to 30 percent for most instances. The only Linux instance that isn’t getting a full 50 percent cut is the $5/month 512 MB instance, which will now cost $3.50. That’s not too bad, either. Depending on your needs, 512 MB can be enough to run a few projects, so if you don’t need a full 1 GB, you can save a few dollars by going with Lightsail over Digital Ocean’s smallest $5/month 1 GB instance. Indeed, it’s probably no surprise that Lightsail’s 1 GB instance now also costs $5/month. All instance types come with attached SSD storage, SSH access, a static IP address and all of the other features you’d expect from a VPS hosting service. As usual, Windows instances cost a bit more (those Windows licenses aren’t free, after all) and now start at $8 per month for a 512 MB instances. The more usable 1 GB instance will set you back $12 per month. As for the new instance sizes, the new 16 GB instance will feature 4 vCPUs, 320 GB of storage and a generous 6 TB of data transfer. The 32 GB instance doubles the vCPU and storage numbers and offers 7 TB of data transfer. |
Teardown of Magic Leap One reveals highly advanced placeholder tech | Devin Coldewey | 2,018 | 8 | 23 | have torn the Magic Leap One augmented reality headset all to pieces, and the takeaway seems to be that the device is very much a work in progress — but a highly advanced one. Its interesting optical assembly, described as “surprisingly ugly,” is laid bare for all to see. The head-mounted display and accompanying computing unit are definitely meant for developers, , but the basic methods and construction Magic Leap is pursuing are clear from this initial hardware. It’s unlikely that there will be major changes to how the gadget works except to make it cheaper, lighter and more reliable. At the heart of Magic Leap’s tech is its AR display, which overlays 3D images over and around the real world. This is accomplished through a stack of waveguides that allow light to pass along them invisibly, then bounce it out toward your eye from the proper angle to form the image you see. The “ugly” assembly in question; pic courtesy of iFixit The waveguide assembly has six layers: one for each color channel (red, blue and green) twice over, arranged so that by adjusting the image you can change the perceived distance and size of the object being displayed. There isn’t a lot out there like this, and certainly nothing intended for consumer use, so we can forgive Magic Leap for shipping something a little bit inelegant by iFixit’s standards: “The insides of the lenses are surprisingly ugly, with prominent IR LEDs, a visibly striated waveguide “display” area, and some odd glue application.” After all, the insides of devices like the iPhone X or Galaxy Note 9 should and do reflect a more mature hardware ecosystem and many iterations of design along the same lines. This is a unique, first-of-its-kind device and as a devkit the focus is squarely on getting the functionality out there. It will almost certainly be refined in numerous ways to avoid future chiding by hardware snobs. That’s also evident from the eye-tracking setup, which from its position at the bottom of the eye will likely perform better when you’re looking down and straight ahead rather than upwards. Future versions may include more robust tracking systems. Another interesting piece is the motion-tracking setup. A little box hanging off the edge of the headset is speculated to be the receiver for the magnetic field-based motion controller. — no doubt there have been improvements, but this doesn’t seem to be particularly cutting-edge tech. An improved control scheme can probably be expected in future iterations, as this little setup is pretty much independent of the rest of the device’s operation. Let’s not judge Magic Leap on this interesting public prototype — let us instead judge them on the farcically ostentatious promises and eye-popping funding of the last few years. If they haven’t burned through all that cash, there are years of development left in the creation of a practical and affordable consumer device using these principles and equipment. Many more teardowns to come! |
Eventbrite files for $200 million IPO | Sarah Wells | 2,018 | 8 | 23 | Eventbrite filed an IPO today for $200 million, confirming that the event-planning company plans to go public later this year. According to the , the company plans to raise $200 million from selling Class A shares, but has yet to list the price per share. As for what Eventbrite intends to do with the new funds, many are pointing to the need to recover the company’s recent losses. While the company reported a net profit of $201.6 million in 2017, operating and loss expenses still left the company unprofitable that year. The company reported a net loss of $38.5 million in 2017 and a loss so far in 2018 of $15.6 million. However, the company does report a net revenue growth of 51 percent and reported a net revenue of $142 million so far in 2018. The filing lists Goldman Sachs as a lead underwriter and bolsters the company’s commitment to providing a platform to “creators of all types” as a competitive advantage. To continue this commitment, the company says it intends to add extended capabilities across categories and countries. While the company has been in the event space for a while, even older companies like Ticketmaster, StubHub and Live Nation continue to give the company a run for its money — and its customers. For perspective, in 2017, a record $10.4 billion in revenue. Social platforms like Facebook have also recently complicated this space by onto its site to direct customers to both Ticketmaster or Eventbrite. While driving one-time purchases to the services, these on-site portals keep users sequestered on Facebook and in turn don’t allow them to browse other options offered by the ticketing sites. As it stands now, prior to its stock market debut, Eventbrite has raised $332.3 million over nine funding rounds since 2006, including a debt funding round for $1.5 million in 2008, with the backing of investors like Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital and DAG Ventures. |
Why engineers are looking to animals for new technology | Sarah Wells | 2,018 | 8 | 23 | As a race, human beings have a lot of shortcomings. We’re not very fast, not all that strong and while we have been able to create technology that helps us overcome our environments, we’re not very good at adapting to them. Animals, on the other hand, have been successfully adapting and evolving to meet the world’s challenges long before we were stumbling around. While it might be too late for us to learn these lessons ourselves from our animal counterparts, it’s not too late to pass them on to our inventions. And biomimetic and bio-inspired labs across the world are doing just that. “If you think about mobility technology in the engineering world, we have airplanes in the air, ships in the water, but none of these technologies are available without our artificial modification of the environment,” Dr. Sangbae Kim, associate professor of mechanical engineering at MIT and director of the university’s Biomimetic Robotics Laboratory, told TechCrunch. “Animals have evolved to be the best at mobility, because, for most of them, it’s critical for survival.” Crafting technology to mimic nature is nothing new, Kim says. From developing aerodynamic technology to small conveniences like Velcro, humans have been taking a cue from the natural world for as long as we’ve been inventing. The field of engineering, says Kim, has this kind of inspiration as an intrinsic feature and it will be crucial to solving problems such as disaster reconnaissance, labor and even elderly care. “This is technology we must have,” says Kim. “Not just something cool to have.” With new technological developments, this kind of inspired design has gone far beyond Velcro in recent years. A prodigy of Kim’s lab, the is a designed to traverse terrain that is dangerous or inaccessible to humans (e.g. power plant inspection of natural disaster reconnaissance) with cat-like reflexes and motion. Its predecessors have been able to over obstacles in their path (granted, at a considerably slower speed than its namesake) and Cheetah 3 has the added functionality to complete all these tasks while blind. By not relying on its sensors and cameras, Cheetah 3 is designed to have a better intuitive knowledge of its environment and perform in scenarios that are either too dark or “noisy” (too visually stimulating.) Natural inspiration is not only found in robotics, but in material engineering as well. In 2002, Dr. Anthony Brennan, a material science and engineering professor at the University of Florida, was participating in Naval research to design strategies to keep vessels from growing algae and barnacles on their sides. While exploring the question, Brennan discovered that sharks — who spend their lives slowly moving through water — had answered it long ago. Examining the patterns in a shark’s scales, Brennan discovered that the unique ribbed, diamond structure of the shark’s scales discouraged microorganisms from settling on the surface. Taking this discovery beyond naval ships, Brennan founded the company in 2007 to design medical instruments built with this topology and create a non-toxic antibiotic alternative to harsh chemical cleaners. Out of Case Western Reserve University’s , this creepy-crawly bot is helping both roboticists and neuroscientists better understand a type of motion called peristalsis — or movement through contracting and expanding of muscle. While this kind of movement is not unique to earth-worms (humans, in fact, do it when swallowing), the ability to propel and maneuver their bodies through tight spaces with it is. To study this motion, the lab created the CMMWorm (Compliant Modular Mesh Worm) — a soft robot with a Lego-like capability to have segments detached and rearranged. Researchers that they hope this kind of soft robot could be useful in situations as small as medical endoscopies and as large as investigating blocked pipes. And who could forget, man’s best friend, Boston Dynamic’s SpotMini. This electric robot weighs about 66 pounds, stands at just under three feet tall and can last for 90 minutes on just one charge. held at UC Berkeley this summer Boston Dynamics announced its plans to move SpotMini into pre-production and begin selling the bot in 2019 — marking the first move toward commercialization for the company. Boston Dynamics says that SpotMini would fit well into a home or office space, but doing what exactly is still a little unclear. If you’re just looking for some canine-like companionship, you might be better off cozying up to Sony’s instead. |
Millions of Texas voter records exposed online | Zack Whittaker | 2,018 | 8 | 23 | of voter records containing personal information on millions of Texas residents has been found online. The data — a single file containing an estimated 14.8 million records — was left on an unsecured server without a password. Texas registered voters. It’s the latest exposure of voter data in a long string of security incidents that have cast doubt on political parties’ abilities to keep voter data safe at a time where nation states are actively trying to influence elections. TechCrunch obtained a copy of the file, which was first found by a New Zealand-based data breach hunter who goes by the pseudonym . It’s not clear who owned the server where the exposed file was found, but an analysis of the data reveals that it was likely originally compiled by Data Trust, a Republican-focused data analytics firm created by the GOP to provide campaigns with voter data. Chris Vickery, director of cyber risk research at security firm , analyzed a portion of the data. (It was Vickery who found a last year exposed by a similar data firm Deep Root Analytics, which sourced much of its data from Data Trust.) A spokesperson for Data Trust declined to comment on the record, but later to the Austin American-Statesman denying a breach of its systems. The file — close to 16 gigabytes in size — contained dozens of fields, including personal information like a voter’s name, address, gender and several years’ worth of voting history, including primaries and presidential elections. Granted, much of that data is public. According , that kind of voter data in Texas is already obtainable for a fee, but information relating to individuals’ political affiliations and party memberships is not. Sam Taylor, communications director for the Texas secretary of state, told TechCrunch said that Taylor added that the data exposure was not related to Texas’ statewide voter registration database. “The Texas Secretary of State’s office takes the integrity and security of Texans’ voter data very seriously, and have received no indication or evidence that our state’s voter registration database has been exposed, infiltrated, breached, or otherwise compromised,” he said. “The private entity or individual that reportedly exposed the data in their possession will have to answer questions as to why they allowed such an exposure to occur,” he added. But data-driven political firms like Data Trust use this kind of voter data for political purposes, specializing in supplementing those voter profiles with information that might help a campaign to flip a person who might not vote for a Republican candidate at the ballot box. That’s where this file fills in the gaps with dozens of other fields, which can be used by campaigns to position their political messaging. For example, the data includes fields that might score an individual’s believed views on immigration, hunting, abortion rights, government spending and views on the Second Amendment. Other fields were more relevant to the recent 2016 presidential election, in which the data predictively scored individuals on if they “trust” or have “no trust” for then-Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. The data also includes additional personal information, such as a person’s phone numbers and their ethnicity and race. It’s not known exactly when the data was compiled, but an analysis of the data suggests it was prepared in time for the 2016 presidential election. It’s also not known if the file is a subset of the 198 million records leak last year — or if it’s a standalone data set. Without an owner to inform of the exposure, it’s unclear if the data is still online. : with an additional statement from the Texas secretary of state’s office. |
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