title stringlengths 2 283 ⌀ | author stringlengths 4 41 ⌀ | year int64 2.01k 2.02k | month int64 1 12 | day int64 1 31 | content stringlengths 1 111k ⌀ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
AI edges closer to understanding 3D space the way we do | Devin Coldewey | 2,018 | 6 | 14 | If I show you a single picture of a room, you can tell me right away that there’s a table with a chair in front of it, they’re probably about the same size, about far from each other, with the walls far away — enough to draw a rough map of the room. don’t have this intuitive understanding of space, but brings them closer than ever before. The new paper from the Google-owned research outfit was (complete with ). It details a system whereby a neural network, knowing practically nothing, can look at one or two static 2D images of a scene and reconstruct a reasonably accurate 3D representation of it. We’re not talking about going from snapshots to full 3D images (Facebook’s working on that) but rather replicating the intuitive and space-conscious way that all humans view and analyze the world. When I say it knows practically nothing, I don’t mean it’s just some standard machine learning system. But most computer vision algorithms work via what’s called supervised learning, in which they ingest a great deal of data that’s been labeled by humans with the correct answers — for example, images with everything in them outlined and named. This new system, on the other hand, has no such knowledge to draw on. It works entirely independently of any ideas of how to see the world as we do, like how objects’ colors change toward their edges, how they get bigger and smaller as their distance changes and so on. It works, roughly speaking, like this. One half of the system is its “representation” part, which can observe a given 3D scene from some angle, encoding it in a complex mathematical form called a vector. Then there’s the “generative” part, which, based only on the vectors created earlier, predicts what a part of the scene would look like. (A video showing a bit more of how this works .) Think of it like someone handing you a couple of pictures of a room, then asking you to draw what you’d see if you were standing in a specific spot in it. Again, this is simple enough for us, but computers have no natural ability to do it; their sense of sight, if we can call it that, is extremely rudimentary and literal, and of course machines lack imagination. Yet there are few better words that describe the ability to say what’s behind something when you can’t see it. “It was not at all clear that a neural network could ever learn to create images in such a precise and controlled manner,” said lead author of the paper, Ali Eslami, in a release accompanying the paper. “However we found that sufficiently deep networks can learn about perspective, occlusion and lighting, without any human engineering. This was a super surprising finding.” It also allows the system to accurately recreate a 3D object from a single viewpoint, such as the blocks shown here: I’m not sure I could do that. Obviously there’s nothing in any single observation to tell the system that some part of the blocks extends forever away from the camera. But it creates a plausible version of the block structure regardless that is accurate in every way. Adding one or two more observations requires the system to rectify multiple views, but results in an even better representation. This kind of ability is critical for robots, especially because they have to navigate the real world by sensing it and reacting to what they see. With limited information, such as some important clue that’s temporarily hidden from view, they can freeze up or make illogical choices. But with something like this in their robotic brains, they could make reasonable assumptions about, say, the layout of a room without having to ground-truth every inch. “Although we need more data and faster hardware before we can deploy this new type of system in the real world,” Eslami said, “it takes us one step closer to understanding how we may build agents that learn by themselves.” |
Facebook’s longtime head of policy and comms steps down | Taylor Hatmaker | 2,018 | 6 | 14 | A prominent figure that helped shape Facebook public perception over the course of the last decade is on the way out. In a , Elliot Schrage, vice president of communications and public policy, announced his departure. Schrage after leaving his position in the same role at Google. He had come under fire over the last year at Facebook for his influence in shaping Facebook’s highly criticized public reaction to a series of scandals that began with the platform’s policies during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. In response to questions about Facebook’s potential in influencing the outcome of the election, Mark Zuckerberg famously dismissed such concerns as a “pretty crazy idea.” via Facebook/Elliot Schrage In a , Schrage elaborates: After more than a decade at Facebook, I’ve decided it’s time to start a new chapter in my life. Leading policy and communications for hyper growth technology companies is a joy — but it’s also intense and leaves little room for much else. Mark, Sheryl and I have been discussing this for a while. I’ll lead the search to identify someone new to oversee our communications and policy teams. We expect to find someone with the same passion, integrity, determination and energy that our teams bring to Facebook every day. Mark and Sheryl have asked me to stay to manage the transition and then to stay on as an advisor to help on particular projects – and I’m happy to help. Earlier this week, Schrage reportedly for comments made in response to questions from Arjuna Capital Managing Partner Natasha Lamb during an investor meeting. Lamb inquired about Facebook’s plans to correct its gender pay gap among other uncomfortable lines of questioning for the company. Schrage reportedly told Lamb that the company would not answer her questions because she was “not nice.” It’s not clear if that event influenced the timing of Schrage’s departure. |
Developers, hack your way to free passes to Disrupt SF 2018 | Emma Comeau | 2,018 | 6 | 14 | You’ve heard how is going to be — and we’re serious. So serious, in fact, that we’re super-sizing the Hackathon, taking it online and making it global. Thousands of the world’s most talented developers, programmers, hackers and tech makers can participate and submit their hacks from anywhere in the world. The clock starts now — you have a little less than 6 weeks to build your team and start creating your projects — so . We’re asking you to show us how you’d creatively produce and apply technology to solve various challenges. Judges will review all eligible submitted hacks and rate them on a scale of 1-5 based on the quality of the idea, technical implementation of the idea and the product’s potential impact. The 100 top-scoring teams will receive up to 5 Innovator Passes for their team to attend TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2018. , the 30 highest-scoring teams will advance to the semi-finals, where they get to demo their newly created product at Disrupt SF. From there, we’ll choose 10 of those teams to pitch their hack on The Next Stage in front of thousands of Disrupt SF attendees. One of those 10 teams will win the $10,000 grand prize and be the first-ever TechCrunch Disrupt Virtual Hackathon champ. But that’s not all! We’ll also have some fantastic sponsor contests already announced from and : What can AI do for you while on the move? What will people want to do in a car that has a 49” screen and drives autonomously? How can we create an enjoyable time with a vehicle that’s able to communicate with other vehicles on the road or smart city infrastructure? We challenge you to think creatively and develop unique solutions to give people their “time to be” while on the move. Smart agendas, recommendations and digital assistants are only some of the ways we’re thinking about doing artificial intelligence during the age of autonomy. At we define ourselves by giving customers their “time to be” while in our cars through a unique user experience, interior design, and autonomous driving. The BYTON Concept is designed to make technology benefit life, providing an enjoyable time for people on the move. BYTON Life is the core of that experience. It is an open digital cloud platform that connects applications, data and smart devices. When integrated with innovative human-vehicle interaction, it takes the intelligent experience with the vehicle to a whole new level. $5,000 and an invitation to a BYTON Co-creation Event to meet the creators of BYTON Life will be awarded to the top team that utilizes existing technology and APIs of their choice to develop a unique and creative solution. Awards for second prize will be $2,000 and third prize will be $1,000. created the easy-to-use navigation device, one of the most influential inventions of all time. Since then, our software and navigation technologies have been powering hundreds of millions of applications globally. From industry-leading location-based products, mapmaking technologies, innovative apps and connected car services. We continue to shape the future, leading the way with autonomous driving, smart mobility and smarter cities. Location-based AR app on GitHub — Build an augmented reality (AR) application that demonstrates how the TomTom Maps APIs can be combined with AR technology to generate custom 3D worlds, enable location annotations or incorporate traffic-enabled directions and travel times in applications. The TomTom Maps APIs are already enabling developers to create location-aware applications that can display maps and traffic information, search for locations and points of interest and calculate traffic-aware routes and travel times. With this challenge, we want developers to enhance their solutions by combining TomTom location technology with AR technology in a mobile or web application. Creativity and innovation will be highly valued and rewarded! $5,000. allows creatives, agencies and businesses to create interactive 360° / VR experiences with drag-and-drop capabilities without the need for VR programming skills. Viond significantly reduces the effort and cost of creating 360° /VR experiences providing creatives with the tool and platform to explore this new medium. Viond provides an authoring tool to create interactive 360° experiences. The authoring tool can be downloaded on the Viond Hackathon site and is available for Mac and PC. Experiences can then be published via the Viond Cloud to the Viond player available for iOS, Android and Oculus. First place: $1,000 US + 12-month Viond Enterprise license + the chance to win the TechCrunch hackathon. Second Place: $500 US + 12-month Viond Professional license. Third Place: $250 US + 12-month Viond Professional license. It’s free to participate in our virtual hackathon and you can participate from anywhere! So what are you waiting for? Gather up a group of your closest developer friends and ! |
The problem with ‘explainable AI’ | Rudina Seseri | 2,018 | 6 | 14 | The first consideration when discussing transparency in AI should be data, the fuel that powers the algorithms. Companies should disclose where and how they got the data they used to fuel their AI systems’ decisions. Consumers should own their data and should be privy to the myriad ways that businesses use and sell such information, which is often done without clear and conscious consumer consent. Because data is the foundation for all AI, it is valid to want to know where the data comes from and how it might explain biases and counterintuitive decisions that AI systems make. On the algorithmic side, grandstanding by IBM and other tech giants around the idea of “explainable AI” is nothing but virtue signaling that has no basis in reality. I am not aware, for instance, of any place where IBM has laid bare the inner workings of Watson — how do those algorithms work? Why do they make the recommendations/predictions they do? There are two issues with the idea of explainable AI. One is a definition: What do we mean by explainability? What do we want to know? The algorithms or statistical models used? How learning has changed parameters throughout time? What a model looked like for a certain prediction? A cause-consequence relationship with human-intelligible concepts? Each of these entail different levels of complexity. Some of them are pretty easy — someone had to design the algorithms and data models so they know what they used and why. What these models are, is also pretty transparent. In fact, one of the refreshing facets of the current AI wave is that most of the advancements are made in peer-reviewed papers — open and available to everyone. What these models mean, however, is a different story. How these models change and how they work for a specific prediction can be checked, but what they mean is unintelligible for most of us. It would be like buying an iPad that had a label on the back explaining how a microprocessor and touchscreen works — good luck! And then, adding the layer of addressing human-intelligible causal relationships, well that’s a whole different problem. Part of the advantage of some of the current approaches (most notably deep learning), is that the model identifies (some) relevant variables that are better than the ones we can define, so part of the reason why their performance is better relates to that very complexity that is hard to explain because the system identifies variables and relationships that humans have not identified or articulated. If we could, we would program it and call it software. The second overarching factor when considering explainable AI is assessing the trade-offs of “true explainable and transparent AI.” Currently there is a trade-off in some tasks between performance and explainability, in addition to business ramifications. If all the inner workings of an AI-powered platform were publicly available, then intellectual property as a differentiator is gone. Imagine if a startup created a proprietary AI system, for instance, and was compelled to explain exactly how it worked, to the point of laying it all out — it would be akin to asking that a company disclose its source code. If the IP had any value, the company would be finished soon after it hit “send.” That’s why, generally, a push for those requirements favor incumbents that have big budgets and dominance in the market and would stifle innovation in the startup ecosystem. Please don’t misread this to mean that I’m in favor of “black box” AI. Companies should be transparent about their data and offer an explanation about their AI systems to those who are interested, but we need to think about the societal implications of what that is, both in terms of what we can do and what business environment we create. I am all for open source, and transparency, and see AI as a transformative technology with a positive impact. By putting such a premium on transparency, we are setting a very high burden for what amounts to an infant but high-potential industry. |
Google releases first diversity report since the infamous anti-diversity memo | Megan Rose Dickey | 2,018 | 6 | 14 | its first diversity report since the infamous James Damore memo and the fallout that resulted from it. Those are both long stories but the TL;DR is that things in a memo that went viral. He and then . That lawsuit, however, was shot down by the National Labor Relations Board in February. Then, it turned out another employee, . Now, . “I was retaliated against for pointing out white privilege and sexism as they exist in the workplace at Google and I think that’s wrong,” Chevalier told TechCrunch few months ago about why he decided to sue. “I wanted to be public about it so that the public would know about what’s going on with treatment of minorities at Google.” In court, . Earlier this month, Google’s attorney said Chevalier previously “agreed in writing to arbitrate the claims asserted” in his original complaint, according to court documents filed June 11, 2018. Now that I’ve briefly laid out the state of diversity and inclusion at Google, here’s the actual report, which is Google’s fifth diversity report to date and by far the most comprehensive. For the first time, Google has provided information around employee retention and intersectionality. First, here are some high-level numbers: Google also recognizes its gender reporting is “not inclusive of our non-binary population” and is looking for the best way to measure gender moving forward. As Google itself notes, representation for women, black and Latinx people has barely increased. Last year, Google was 30.8 percent female, 2.4 percent black and 3.5 percent Latinx. At the leadership level, Google has made some progress year over year, but the company’s higher ranks are still 74.5 percent male and 66.9 percent white. So, congrats on the progress but please do better next time because this is not good enough. Moving forward, Google says its goal is to reach or exceed the available talent pool in terms of underrepresented talent. But what that would actually look like is not clear. In an interview with TechCrunch, Google VP of Diversity and Inclusion Danielle Brown told me Google looks at skills, jobs and census data around underrepresented groups graduating with relevant degrees. Still, she said she’s not sure what the representation numbers would look like if Google achieved that. In response to what a job well done would look like, Brown said: You know as well as we do that it’s a long game. Do we ever get to good? I don’t know. I’m optimistic we’ll continue to make progress. It’s not a challenge we’ll solve over night. It’s quite systemic. Despite doing it for a long time, my team and I remain really optimistic that this is possible. As noted above, Google has also provided data around attrition for the first time. It’s no surprise — to me, at least — that attrition rates for black and Latinx employees were the highest in 2017. To be clear, attrition rates are an indicator of how many people leave a company. When one works at a company that has so few black and brown people in leadership positions, and at the company as a whole, the unfortunate opportunity to be the unwelcome recipient of othering, micro-aggressions, discrimination and so forth are plentiful. “A clear low light, obviously, in the data is the attrition for black and Latinx men and women in the U.S.,” Brown told TechCrunch. “That’s an area where we’re going to be laser-focused.” She added that some of Google’s internal survey data shows employees are more likely to leave when they report feeling like they’re not included. That’s why Google is doing some work around ally training and “what it means to be a good ally,” Brown told me. “One thing we’ve all learned is that if you stop with unconscious bias training and don’t get to conscious action, you’re not going to get the type of action you need,” she said. From an attrition stand point, where Google is doing well is around the retention of women versus men. It turns out women are staying at Google at higher rates than men, across both technical and non-technical areas. Meanwhile, Brown has provided bi-weekly attrition numbers to Google CEO Sundar Pichai and his leadership team since January in an attempt to intervene in potential issues before they become bigger problems, she said. via Google: Attrition figures have been weighted to account for seniority differences across demographic groups to ensure a consistent baseline for comparison. As noted above, Google for the first time broke out information around intersectionality. According to the company’s data, women of all races are less represented than men of the same race. That’s, again, not surprising. While Google is 3 percent black, just 1.2 percent of its black population is female. And Latinx women make up just 1.7 percent of Google’s 5.3 percent Latinx employee base. That means, as Google notes, the company’s gains in representation of women has “largely been driven by” white and Asian women. Since , Brown has had a full plate. Shortly after the Damore memo went viral in August — just a couple of months after Brown joined — Brown said “part of building an open, inclusive environment means fostering a culture in which those with alternative views, including different political views, feel safe sharing their opinions. But that discourse needs to work alongside the principles of equal employment found in our Code of Conduct, policies, and anti-discrimination laws.” Brown also said the document is “not a viewpoint that I or this company endorses, promotes or encourages.” Today, Brown told me the whole anti-diversity memo was “an interesting learning opportunity for me to understand the culture and how some Googlers view this work.” “I hope what this report underscores is our commitment to this work,” Brown told me. “That we know we have a systemic and persistent challenge to solve at Google and in the tech industry.” Brown said she learned “not every employee is going to agree with Google’s viewpoint.” Still, she does want employees to feel empowered to discuss either positive or negative views. But “just like any workplace, that does not mean anything goes.” When someone doesn’t follow Google’s code of conduct, she said, “we have to take it very seriously” and “try to make those decisions without regard to political views.” |
3,000 journalists covering Kim-Trump this week is WTF is wrong with media | Danny Crichton | 2,018 | 6 | 14 | Media businesses are in the dumper. Every week, we hear of new layoffs, budget cuts, diminished editorial quality and more, way more. And yet, somehow, miraculously, more than managed to find the funds to travel to Singapore to cover the Kim-Trump Summit Extraordinaire this week. How many journalists got to see the summit activity? : “Most notably, the number of American journalists allowed to witness the meeting between Trump and Kim was limited to — a smaller group than would usually be present for such a summit, and one that excluded representatives from the major wire services” (emphasis added). It’s a huge news story, a major historical moment in the relations between the DPRK and the United States and one that portends massive changes in that relationship going forward. The event should be fervently covered by the global press. Yet, 3,000 seems a stupendous number of people to cover an event so scripted and managed. rather than, I don’t know, a source. I notice this same dynamic watching the keynote videos of any of the top tech companies — there are hundreds if not thousands of journalists covering these events from the audience. Exactly how you build a unique story sitting there beats me. In media, one of the most critical qualities of a great story is salience — how important a story is to a particular audience. Tech readers want to know everything happening at an Apple keynote, just as much as the whole world is curious about what shakes down in Singapore. It makes sense to have a density of journalists to cover these events. The problem in my mind is the sheer duplication of work, when the increasingly precious time of journalists could be spent on finding more differentiated or unique stories that are under-reported. In Singapore, how many English-language journalists needed to be there? How many Chinese-speaking or Korean-speaking journalists? I’m not suggesting the answer in aggregate is one each, but certainly the number should be fractions of 3,000. Journalists taking pictures of a TV screen of Kim and Trump. How is this journalism? I have given a lot of thought to subscription models in media the past few weeks, arguing that consumers are increasingly facing a “ ” and fighting against the notion that . Yet, if we want readers to pay for our content, it has to be a differentiated product. This makes complete sense to every participant in industries like music, or movies, or books. Musicians may cover other artists, but they almost invariably try to perform original music on their own. Ultimately, without your own sound, you have no voice and no fan base. Nonetheless, I feel journalists and particularly editors have to be reminded of this on a regular basis. Journalists still cling to the generalist model of our forebears, rather than becoming specialists on a beat where they can offer deeper insights and original reporting. Everyone can’t cover everything. That’s one reason why people like and have grown to be so popular — they do one thing well, and don’t try to offer a bundle of content in the same old way. Instead, they have staked their brands and reputations on their deep focus. Readers can then add and subtract these subscriptions as their interests shift. The biggest block to improving this duplication is the lack of cooperation among media companies. Syndication of content happens occasionally, to provide more China-focused coverage to the U.S.-dominated readership of Politico. Those deals though tend to take months to hash out, and are often not ephemeral enough to match the news cycle. Imagine instead a world where specialists are covering focused beats. Kim-Trump could have been covered by people who specialize in Singaporean foreign affairs (as hosts, they had the most knowledge of what was going on), as well as North Korea watchers and U.S.-Asia foreign policy junkies. Clearinghouses for syndication (blockchain or no blockchain) could have ensured that the content from these specialists was distributed to all who had an interest in adding coverage. No generalists need apply. This isn’t an efficiency argument for further newsroom cutbacks, but rather an argument to use the talent and time of existing journalists to trailblaze unique paths and coverage. Until the media learns that not everyone can become a North Korea or Google expert overnight, we are going to continue to see warehouses and ballrooms filled to the brim with preening writers and camera teams, while the stories that most need telling remain overlooked. |
Samsung announces a push for renewable energy | Romain Dillet | 2,018 | 6 | 14 | Samsung has that it will use 100 percent renewable energy for all its factories and offices in the U.S., Europe and China. This is the first time Samsung has announced a public commitment for renewable energy. Greenpeace and environmental activists have been calling out Samsung for months as many tech companies have already started switching to renewable energy. Samsung is starting by the parts of its organization that it can control more easily — its own buildings, factories and offices. According to Greenpeace’s , 17 of its 38 buildings are based in the U.S., Europe and China. “Samsung Electronics is the first electronics manufacturing company in Asia to set a renewable energy target. This commitment could have an enormous impact in reducing the company’s massive global manufacturing footprint, and shows how critical industry participation is in reducing emissions and accelerating the transition to renewable energy. More companies should follow suit and set renewable energy targets, and governments should promote policies that enable companies to procure renewable energy easily,” Greenpeace campaigner Insung Lee said in the press release. It won’t happen overnight. But these buildings will run on renewable energy by 2020. Samsung says that it could increase its use of renewable energy in other countries. In addition to that, Samsung is going to install solar panels in Gyeonggi province in South Korea. Like many tech companies, Samsung also works with thousands of suppliers. So it’s not enough to use renewable energy for your own facilities. Samsung is starting small on this front and partnering with the Carbon Disclosure Project Supply Chain Program. First, the company wants to identify the energy needs of its top 100 suppliers and help them move to renewable energy. This is a multi-year project, and it’s going to be important to regularly track Samsung’s progress on this front. But it’s also good to see one of the biggest consumer electronics company in the world making strong commitments. |
Reflections on E3 2018 | Brian Heater | 2,018 | 6 | 14 | off, I returned to E3 this week. It’s always a fun show, in spite of the fact that the show floor has come to rival Comic-Con in terms of the mass of people the show’s organizers are able to cram into the aisles of the convention center floor. We’ve been filing stories all week, but here is a very much incomplete collection of my thoughts on this year’s show. I’d have thought we’d have hit peak zombie years ago, but here we are, zombies everywhere. That includes the LA Convention Center lobby, which was swarming with actors decked out as the undead. There’s something fundamentally disturbing about watching gamers get pictures taken with fake, bloody corpses. Or maybe it’s just the perfect allegory for our time. A slight adjustment in approach certainly played a role, as the company has embraced mobile gaming. But the key to Nintendo’s return was a refocus on what it does best: offering an innovative experience with familiar IP. Oh, and the compatibility was a brilliant bit of fan service, even by Nintendo’s standards. was a sort of video game blitzkrieg. The company showed off 50 titles, a list that included 15 exclusives. , stuck to a handful, but presented them in much greater depth. Ultimately, I have to say I preferred the latter. Real game play footage feels like an extremely finite resource at these events. Certainly not a new trend in gaming, but there’s something about watching someone bite off someone else’s face on the big screen that’s extra upsetting. Sony’s press conference was a strange sort of poetry, with some of the week’s most stunning imagery knee-deep in blood and gore. We saw more footage and somehow we understand the game less? is always a favorite destination at E3. It’s a nice respite from the big three’s packed booths. Interestingly, there were a lot more desktop games than I remember. You know, the real kind with physical pieces and no screens. I played Shadow of the Tomb Raider on a PC in NVIDIA’s meeting space. It’s good, but I’m not good at it. I killed poor Lara A LOT. I can deal with that sort of thing when my character is in full Master Chief regalia or whatever, but those close-up shots of her face when I drowned her for the fifth time kind of bummed me out. Can video games help foster empathy or are we all just destined to desensitize ourselves because we have tombs to raid, damn it? NVIDIA also promised me that its ray-tracing tech would be the most impressive demo I saw at E3 that day. I think they were probably right, so take that, Sonic Racing. The tech, which was first demoed at GDC, “brings real-time, cinematic-quality rendering to content creators and game developers.” At E3 two years ago, gaming felt like an industry on the cusp of a VR breakthrough. In 2018, however, it doesn’t feel any closer. There were a handful of compelling new VR experiences at the event, but it felt like many of the peripheral and other experiences were sitting on the fringes of the event — both literally and metaphorically — waiting for a crack at the big show. Sony’s Control trailer was the highest ratio of excitement to actual information I experienced. Maybe it’s Inception the video game or the second coming of Quantum Break. I dunno, looks fun. We saw a few interesting examples of this, including the weirdly wonderful , which requires you to make a bunch of faces so a fake fish doesn’t die. It’s kind of like version of that feeds on your own psychic energy. At the end of the day, though, E3 isn’t a mobile show. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbysmKY3558 Having said that, there are some interesting examples of cross-platform potential popping up here and there. The for the Switch is a good example I’m surprised hasn’t been talked about more. Along with controlling the new Switch titles, it can be used to capture Pokémon via Pokémon GO. There’s some good brand synergy right there. And then, of course, , which is also on the Switch. The game’s battle royale mode is a great example of how cross-platform play can lead to massive success. Though by all accounts, Sony . Oh, Epic Games now. Video games are art. You knew that already, blah, blah, blah. But Sable looks like a freaking . I worry that it will be about as playable as Dragon’s Lair, but even that trailer is a remarkable thing. |
Get your ticket to the TechCrunch Summer Party at August Capital | Emma Comeau | 2,018 | 6 | 14 | We’re sentimental softies when it comes to tradition, and one of our favorites is the . This marks the thirteenth year of this Silicon Valley soiree, and we’d love to see you there. Tickets are released in batches, and the first round is available now on a first-come, first-served basis. They always sell out quickly, so . The is a wonderful opportunity to enjoy an evening of cocktails and conversation — and to celebrate the spirit of entrepreneurship with your peers on the patio and grounds of August Capital in Menlo Park. Of course, every TechCrunch party holds the potential for networking magic. You never know when you might meet the perfect future investor, acquirer, partner or co-founder. One legendary example: Our founder, Michael Arrington, used to hold these TechCrunch parties in his Atherton backyard, and it’s where Box founders Aaron Levie and Dylan Smith met one of their first investors, DFJ. Who knows? Come to the party and you just might start your own legend. Here are the pertinent Summer Party details:
Get a Summer Party demo table and showcase your early-stage startup at this legendary event. Each demo table comes with four (4) attendee tickets. Learn more about demo tables . Come for the food, come for the drink, come for the magic. Or hey, come for the door prizes, including TechCrunch swag, Amazon Echos and tickets to The first batch of TechCrunch Summer Party at August Capital tickets are available now, and you can . We hope to see you there! |
SEC says Ether isn’t a security, but tokens based on Ether can be | Jonathan Shieber | 2,018 | 6 | 14 | “In cases where there is no… central enterprise being invested in or where the digital asset is sold only to be used to purchase a good or service available through the network on which it was created,” that digital asset is “out of the purview of U.S. securities laws”, , the director of the division of corporation finance at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. This (edited) statement from Hinman at the will likely be seen as the starting gun on a crypto free-for-all in the United States. Hinman’s comments were certainly a positive signal to the market. They sent the price of Ether spiking from $469 to $516 over the course of the past hour. While the markets may view this as an unadulterated victory for cryptocurrencies of all stripes, the Securities and Exchange Commission simply looks to be expanding on the fairly nuanced position it’s established with coin offerings and token sales. Earlier this month SEC Chair Jay Clayton and its place in the regulatory firmament. The key for the SEC is whether the token in question is being used simply for the exchange of a good or service through a distributed ledger platform, or whether the value of the cryptocurrency is dependent on the actions of a third party for it to rise in value. “Promoters, in order to raise money to develop networks on which digital assets will operate, often sell the tokens or coins rather than sell shares, issue notes or obtain bank financing. But, in many cases, the economic substance is the same as a conventional securities offering. Funds are raised with the expectation that the promoters will build their system and investors can earn a return on the instrument — usually by selling their tokens in the secondary market once the promoters create something of value with the proceeds and the value of the digital enterprise increases,” Hinman said. This was at the core of a 1946 case which was decided by the Supreme Court and set a standard for the SEC’s authority to oversee certain types of securities issues. That case, involved the sale of interests in orange groves to guests of a hotel. The guests could have cultivated their plots of land but instead relied on a service managed by the hotel to create value from the oranges (this is a very rough paraphrase of the facts of the case). “Just as in the case, tokens and coins are often touted as assets that have a use in their own right, coupled with a promise that the assets will be cultivated in a way that will cause them to grow in value, to be sold later at a profit. And, as in — where interests in the groves were sold to hotel guests, not farmers — tokens and coins typically are sold to a wide audience rather than to persons who are likely to use them on the network,” said Hinman. Before a network is actually created and as the tokens are marketed to investors rather than users of the token, they’re going to look an awful lot like securities to the SEC. “The token — or coin or whatever the digital information packet is called — all by itself is not a security, just as the orange groves in were not. Central to determining whether a security is being sold is how it is being sold and the reasonable expectations of purchasers,” Hinman continued. “The digital asset itself is simply code. But the way it is sold — as part of an investment; to non-users; by promoters to develop the enterprise — can be, and, in that context, most often is, a security — because it evidences an investment contract. And regulating these transactions as securities transactions makes sense.” Ultimately if the coin offering is successful, and the operations of the network become wholly decentralized, then the SEC will cease to regulate the entity as a security, says Hinman. “If the network on which the token or coin is to function is sufficiently decentralized — where purchasers would no longer reasonably expect a person or group to carry out essential managerial or entrepreneurial efforts — the assets may not represent an investment contract. Moreover, when the efforts of the third party are no longer a key factor for determining the enterprise’s success, material information asymmetries recede. As a network becomes truly decentralized, the ability to identify an issuer or promoter to make the requisite disclosures becomes difficult, and less meaningful.” For Hinman, Bitcoin and Ethereum have both hit that tipping point. Other coin offerings haven’t. “Promoters and other market participants need to understand whether transactions in a particular digital asset involve the sale of a security. We are happy to help promoters and their counsel work through these issues. We stand prepared to provide more formal interpretive or no-action guidance about the proper characterization of a digital asset in a proposed use,” said Hinman. Below are a list of queries that the SEC regulator enumerated to help determine whether an offering is a security or a utility token. And here’s another set of questions that founders and potential coin offerings should consider? |
null | Lucas Matney | 2,018 | 6 | 13 | null |
Feast your eyes on these uniquely beautiful indie games from E3 | Devin Coldewey | 2,018 | 6 | 14 | The AAA games on display at E3 this year have, as usual, an amazing array of beautiful, nearly photorealistic graphics — and while they’re amazing in their own way, I always find it fun to highlight a few games that take a totally different approach to their art. Here are a few that caught my eye this time around. is a “coming-of-age tale of discovery” set in an open world that you can explore at your own pace. The overall look of the place is rather Journey-esque, but there’s also a shade of Hyper Light Drifter in the environments. Most interesting of all, however, is the visual effect that makes the whole thing look rather like a comic book by Moebius. The effect is a bit hit or miss — some details can end up warping or looking odd — but overall it’s extremely arresting and definitely set the game apart instantly from its more realistic peers. Hopefully the writing and gameplay live up to its visual style. is a chunkily pixelated hardcore shooter-platformer with a couple of interesting twists. First of all, you die in one hit. That’s what makes it hardcore. Second, you only get 99 bullets per level, and your gun needs to cool down after firing three times. Third, whenever you beat a boss, it gives a special ability like wall climbing not to you, but to . It reminds me a bit of Abuse, a classic side-scrolling shooter with free mouse aiming and scary aliens. But its art style is far more reminiscent of the excellent Downwell, which itself was modeled on (I believe) the original Game Boy’s four-shade palette. is another recent example of successfully using this ultra-pared-down look. (Swedish for “witch”) is one I’ve actually been following for a while now. At first glance this looks sort of like a dig-’em-up, à la Terraria, but the visual and gameplay twist is that every pixel is physically simulated. That means everything in the game can be burned, exploded, melted and so on — dirt will fall, fire will spread, water (and acid, and lava) will flow and escape its container. You also create your own spells as you delve deeper into the procedurally generated caves looking for “unknown mysteries.” Well, that’s a bit redundant, but you get the idea. It looks like a real blast. goes retro, but in a much different direction than most others. Instead of recreating the beloved pixel art of the SNES or Saturn, it goes to the less-beloved chunky polygons of the PlayStation era. Think Resident Evil. I’m also reminded of the cutscenes from Another World. Although it’s hard to say exactly what’s going on from the trailer, I’m definitely digging the look and feel. The control panels, the mix of polygons and hand-drawn backgrounds, the scary, lonely air and threatening atmosphere… right up my alley. Last is , which as far as I can tell is about planting and farming strange little creatures that eventually have some kind of dance-off in the forest. It can be hard to really express a visual style in 3D, but I love what Ooblets is doing. Everything is delightfully awkward and cute, with a deliberate stiffness to it as well as a clear design. The unshaded polygons, careful lighting and modeling, it all creates a strange but compelling whole. The closest thing that I can think of to it is the Katamari Damacy series. I realize now, having written this, that I put “uniquely” beautiful in the headline and then cited similar looks or inspirations for all the games. But really, though, they do take inspiration from others, they’re definitely all doing their own thing. (Really, really, though, I just didn’t want to scroll up and change the headline.) There were plenty more striking games at the show — check your local indie games site to see what others have dug up! |
ZTE has few cards left to play to avoid ‘death penalty’ | Danny Crichton | 2,018 | 6 | 14 | It’s not every day you see a company that employs 75,000 and once had a market cap of $20 billion facing instant doom on an hour-by-hour basis. But that’s the situation that Chinese telecom firm ZTE finds itself in right now. Following revelations that the company sold equipment with U.S. technology to Iran and North Korea in violation of U.S. sanctions, President Trump . Then he decided . Now, this week, Congress is deciding whether to kill it or not, , who thought the matter closed. Senators like Tom Cotton (R-AK) this week have said they believe that the “ .” Before we go further, let’s step back for a moment and just muse about what is happening here. Congress and the White House are politicking back and forth over the fate of one of China’s crown jewel tech companies, with tens of billions of dollars and tens of thousands of jobs at stake. If that isn’t the definition of hegemonic power, I don’t know what is. And remember that both branches of government are run nominally by the same party. China has been leveraging its long-awaited approval of Qualcomm’s acquisition of NXP Semiconductors to push the Trump administration to concede to ZTE’s survival. The Trump administration has gotten that message loudly and clearly, which is among many reasons why as the penalty and trying to move on. Congress, though, knows no such logic. It can’t handle the sort of multistep logic that connects Qualcomm’s success on NXP to U.S. dominance in 5G to ZTE’s survival. That’s three steps, and that’s probably three steps too much for the collective wisdom of Congress to comprehend. ZTE’s execution has now taken on its own political momentum. Worse for ZTE, the momentum is bipartisan, with perhaps even more aggression on the Democratic side than the Republican one. Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) that saving ZTE “… would send a bad signal to anybody around the world watching that you can violate U.S. sanctions law with impunity and we shouldn’t be doing that.” For Democrats, hitting Trump hard on trade, National Security and China is a very powerful political weapon in an election year. Since the administration has come to an agreement with ZTE, its position is now fixed, allowing the senators free rein to be tougher than Trump on the issue. Ironically — and to be clear on this view, I am not getting this from sources, but rather pointing out a unique strategy vector here — it might well be Qualcomm that uses its DC policy shop to try to save ZTE. Those lobbyists protected Qualcomm from a takeover by Broadcom earlier this year, and it could try to make the case to Congress that it will be irreparably damaged if legislators don’t back off their threats. The irony of course is that the renewed trade jingoism in Congress is a function of Qualcomm’s fight against nominally Singapore-based Broadcom. Qualcomm got the deal blocked on national security grounds, and now has to face those same national security concerns hitting it on the closure of its most important corporate transaction. That classic short-term political thinking earlier this year will make moving forward for the company very difficult here. ZTE’s cards are few outside of Beijing’s direct interventions. First, it is applying for loans that might reach as much as $10.7 billion from two banks in China, . It’s also adding a slate of new directors to its board, to match its agreement with the Trump administration. That’s smart, since the more the deal seems to accomplish, the less impetus Congress has to act to kill the company. ZTE has other cards it could play. One would be to push for a massive expansion into the U.S. That, of course, contradicts its past history as well as its telco brother, Huawei, which has been . Nonetheless, given the priorities of this administration, I am surprised there haven’t been more attempts by ZTE to move jobs and manufacturing to U.S. soil as a peace offering, while gaining the vital support of at least some senators who see jobs springing up in their backyards. Another option for ZTE would be to increase its corporate transparency. Again, like Huawei, ZTE’s leadership remains relatively opaque, with Communist Party links that have never been fully explained. ZTE is a valuable asset for the Chinese government and economy, and there is a way of potentially blunting some of the momentum in Congress if it was willing to come forth with more info and commit to future work on its transparency. I don’t expect ZTE to use any of these cards. I am not even sure the Chinese government wants to prevent the company’s death. An execution ordered by Congress is about the clearest sign the CCP leadership could send to its population that economic development must continue at any cost. , and I think that is apt. If Congress kills ZTE, it won’t be the death of a major Chinese company, but rather the death of open economies and the birth of a renewed nationalism around trade. |
Seattle reverses controversial tax Amazon opposed, just a month after approving it | Devin Coldewey | 2,018 | 6 | 14 | In an embarrassing and mystifying about-face, the Seattle City Council has a tax it that would require large companies to pay a fixed amount per employee; the money would have been used to combat homelessness. Amazon was of the tax, but not the only one by far, and apparently the Council decided that fighting the business community was “not a winnable battle.” The situation was in some ways a microcosm for government and grassroots efforts to wrangle with the extremely complex relationship between the growth of tech and various housing crises. I won’t attempt to characterize it here, but Seattle had come to the conclusion that if your company had more than $20 million in receipts, it could afford to pay $275 (down from a proposed $500) per employee per year. That would have been some $11 million from Amazon alone, so it fussed mightily and halted construction on several of its skyscrapers downtown. But ultimately it and others seemed to reach an unhappy compromise with the reduced per-employee amount. Not so: After fighting to have the law modified, Amazon, Starbucks and Paul Allen’s Vulcan immediately lent their weight and cash to a referendum campaign that would put the tax up to a popular vote in November. This prospect apparently spooked the City Council so much that a special meeting was announced less than a day in advance, violating Washington’s own law requiring 24 hours’ notice. At this meeting the members voted 7-2 to repeal the tax that just a month earlier they had so confidently stood behind. Councilmembers Teresa Mosqueda and Kshama Sawant were the only holdouts, and cried shame on their peers: Sawant, known for her fiery rhetoric (perhaps too much so, as it has invited costly lawsuits), called it a “cowardly betrayal.” And indeed, the questionable merits of the proposed tax aside, it seems strange to think that the Council could feel itself so right just a month ago, and now, faced with the prospect of having to convince the public that it’s a good idea, completely abandoned that conviction. Inspiring government it isn’t. As some have said, perhaps it would be more convincing if there was a detailed and justified plan for how to address the homelessness problem in Seattle, and then a fundraising campaign — including taxes on businesses — created to enable it. Putting the latter before the former struck many as exemplary of a spendy local government of taxing first and making policy later. At any rate, it may be remembered, perhaps not entirely accurately, as a moment when Seattle tried to reach out and touch Big Tech and Amazon slapped them down. Though that oversimplifies the situation greatly, there’s an element of truth to it and we may see it referenced as others mount similar attempts. |
Netflix’s latest hit ‘The Kissing Booth’ is a Wattpad success story | Sarah Perez | 2,018 | 6 | 14 | One of the most popular movies in the U.S. is a terrible teen rom-com called “ ,” and it’s not in theaters. Instead, this Netflix Original with its paltry 17 percent critics’ score on , shot up to become the No. 4 movie on , before more recently dropping down to No. 9. Its leads, Jacob Elordi and Joey King, also became the No. 1 and No. 6 most popular stars on IMDb’s StarMeter, respectively, shortly after the film’s launch. The secret to the movie’s success, however, is not just a combination of teenagers’ questionable taste in entertainment and the power of Netflix’s distribution — though both play a major role, clearly. Instead, it’s that “The Kissing Booth” is tapping into a built-in audience: teenage Wattpad users. Yes, Wattpad. In case you’re not familiar, is an online site and mobile app where writers can share their original stories — often things like fan fiction or sappy love stories ( ) — with a wide community of readers. Today, Wattpad is by more than 65 million monthly users, who spend a collective 15 billion minutes per month reading its online stories. “The Kissing Booth” was one of its successes. The original story was started on Wattpad back in 2011, and won one of the site’s “Watty Awards” that same year for “Most Popular Teen Fiction.” The was read a whopping 19 million times while on Wattpad, before the then 17-year-old author Beth Reekles scored a three-book deal with Random House UK in 2013 — becoming the youngest Wattpad writer to earn a book deal at that time, the company notes. London- and L.A.-based Komixx Media — the movie’s producer, which specializes in finding young adult IP with commercial potential — reached out to the author of the book deal. And Netflix of “The Kissing Booth” in 2016. “The Kissing Booth is a great example of what is possible on Wattpad,” said Aron Levitz, head of Wattpad Studios, the online community’s studio arm that helps make deals for its authors. “Beth was a fresh new voice whose story connected with millions of readers all over the world on Wattpad, before becoming a published book,” he noted. “We were able to work with Netflix to market the film on Wattpad and make sure the story’s fans around the world hit ‘play’ when it started streaming. And now it’s one of the most popular movies on the planet.” Wattpad and Netflix teamed up on a writing contest that asked people to submit their stories of high school love. A number of ads for “The Kissing Booth” also ran on Wattpad, driving viewers to the film’s page on Netflix. Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos confirmed to the title is one of the streaming service’s most popular, saying that “The Kissing Booth” is “one of the most-watched movies in the country, and maybe the world.” He didn’t cite hard numbers — Netflix doesn’t do that — but the IMDb rankings indicate the movie is at least resonating with its core teen audience. Since the movie launched on Netflix, the published book has also shot up the charts. It’s in the top 10 of three “Teen” categories on Amazon, as of the time of writing, including No. 10 in the “Contemporary Teen Romance” category. Of course, going from an online story to one of the most popular releases in the country is not unique to Wattpad. “50 Shades of Grey” famously as “Twilight” fan fiction, for example. But Wattpad has a different audience for its romantic fare than the more adult “50 Shades.” And studios, both traditional and digital, are taking notice. Most recently, Sony Pictures Television the rights to Wattpad story “Death is my BFF,” which was read more than 92 million times, and to “Light as a Feather,” which saw more than 2.9 million Wattpad reads. “Cupid’s Match,” which had over 36 million reads, got a on CW Seed. Wattpad has also worked with , (a division of NBCUniversal), and , among others. Critical reviews of “The Kissing Booth,” are, as you may expect, fairly negative. It’s panned as “ ,” “ ” and just simply “ .” But critical interest in films and what people actually watch are often disconnected. That’s certainly the case here as “The Kissing Booth” has an audience score of 71 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. That’s better than the top theatrical release, “Ocean’s 8,” which has a 52 percent score; or the even the No. 2 movie, “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” which is at 65 percent. “The Kissing Booth” may not be a “good” film, but that hardly seems to matter at this point. It’s popular among a largely younger crowd — a key target for streaming services. These kids and young adults have grown up watching TV and movies on mobile and computer screens, and often stay home from theaters. And they’re reading their fiction on the web and in mobile apps, too. Netflix has catered to this young audience before, with arguably “bad” but popular original films like “ ” (26 percent critics versus 85 percent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes); or the “so bad it’s good” holiday film “A Christmas Prince.” With Netflix’s now and its in new debt financing, the service has the potential to tap into any key demographic like this time and time again, and serve up a hit — terrible as it may be. And that hit can reach a mass audience, bigger than cable TV or even the Hollywood productions in theaters, in some cases. Hopefully, at least of them will be “good” by all measures, though, not just viewership. |
Bag Week 2018: Timbuk2’s Launch featherweight daypack is tough and tiny | Taylor Hatmaker | 2,018 | 6 | 22 | If you need something small, lightweight and indestructible, might be right up your alley. The pack, constructed from famously tough Tyvek, can fit a 13″ laptop comfortably and plenty else. At only 18L, it sounds small, but due to its drawstring-top design and large main compartment, it holds more than enough to make it a functional all-purpose daypack for work or play. The Launch’s distinct look will be what makes up most people’s minds about this pack. Beyond the drawstring design and this fun lemon-lime interior color, the Launch doesn’t have too many bells and whistles. Still, it checks important boxes with the inclusion of stuff like a water bottle holder, a sternum strap and weather resistant build material. If you’re a fan of tough lightweight packs, know that the Launch’s Tyvek material gives it more structure than most stuff made out of this kind of material. That’s both a good and bad thing: more structure is great so your pack doesn’t just collapse into a little pile, but because the Tyvek lacks any stretch whatsoever both its front pocket and the top compartment that sits on top of the main part of the pack can be a little tricky to dig things in and out of. Happily, the Launch holds a laptop very well, thanks to a padded compartment accessible via a full-length side zipper — always the best way to access a laptop in a backpack! The laptop area is a nice touch for such a lightweight pack and makes Timbuk2’s Launch a unique, super-light laptop pack for everyday use, so long as you’re not carrying too much. If you’re a longtime Timbuk2 fan know that the pack both looks and feels different from most of Timbuk2’s classic designs, and unfortunately doesn’t come in the bright, playful tri-color look that some of its classic messengers do. Still, if you’re into more natural, subdued tones and really don’t want your day-to-day pack to weigh you down unnecessarily, Timbuk2’s Launch is totally worth a look. A small but not too small Tyvek daypack that carries a laptop well. A Timbuk2 design that you’re used to. Read more reviews from . |
Juul tightens up social media to focus on former smokers switching to e-cigs | Jordan Crook | 2,018 | 6 | 14 | , the company behind the ever-popular Juul e-cig, has today announced a new policy around social media. This comes in the midst of Juul’s , which has been made more arduous by the fact that the FDA has cracked down on Juul after learning how popular the device is with underage users. As part of the new policy, Juul will no longer feature models in pictures posted on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook. FWIW, Juul doesn’t even have a Snapchat. Instead of using models to market the e-cig, Juul Labs will now use real former smokers who switched from combustible cigarette to Juul. Juul has always said that its product was meant to serve as an alternative to combustible cigarettes, which are . Juul has also initiated an internal team focused on flagging and reporting social media content that is inappropriate or targeted to underage users. The company mentioned that it has worked to report and remove more than 10,000 illegal online sales since February from various online marketplaces. We reached out to Juul to see if any changes have been made to the way that Juul targets ads on social media and elsewhere. We’ll update the post if/when we hear back. Here’s what Juul Labs CEO Kevin Burns had to say in a prepared statement: While JUUL already has a strict marketing code, we want to take it one step further by implementing an industry-leading policy eliminating all social media posts featuring models and instead focus our social media on sharing stories about adult smokers who have successfully switched to JUUL. We also are having success in proactively working with social media platforms to remove posts, pages and unauthorized offers to sell product targeted at underage accounts. We believe we can both serve the 38 million smokers in the U.S. and work together to combat underage use – these are not mutually exclusive missions. In April, the FDA sent a to Juul Labs as part of a new Youth Tobacco Prevention Plan, which is aimed at keeping tobacco products of any kind out of the hands of minors. The information request was meant to help the FDA understand why teens are so interested in e-cigs (particularly Juul) and whether or not Juul Labs was marketing the product intentionally to minors. In response, Juul announced a new strategy to combat underage use, with an investment of $30 million over the next three years going towards independent research, and community engagement efforts. Since August 2017, Juul has required that people be 21+ to purchase products on its own website, but online and offline third-party retailers have not been so diligent. |
Telemundo, Universal and TreasureHunt are launching a shootout game in time for the World Cup | Jonathan Shieber | 2,018 | 6 | 14 | , , and the startup have launched a shootout game for the Instant Games platform on Facebook and Messenger. Telemundo Deportes is putting out the game in conjunction with its Spanish-language coverage of 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia. (WHICH IS CLEARLY VERY EXCITING) lets players vie for the title of penalty kick all-star so they can all bend it like the virtual Beckhams that they are. “The World Cup provides us with the opportunity to tap into the passion of soccer and engage with our viewers in different, authentic ways leading up to and throughout the tournament this summer,” said Miguel Lorenzo, director, Digital Product Development, Telemundo Deportes, in a statement. “We are excited to launch this collaborative initiative with Universal Brand Development, which is Telemundo Deportes’ first release in the games space, and we look forward to offering a high quality social gaming experience for our soccer fans.” Through the game, folks get points by successfully taking penalty kicks. Over the course of the Cup, which runs from today through July 15, players can perfect their technique by practicing against special targets, unlock new designs for soccer balls and challenge friends to beat scores. “At Universal, we want to offer games wherever people want to play them, so we are thrilled to be launching our first game on Messenger,” said Chris Heatherly, executive vice president, Worldwide Games and Digital Platforms, Universal Brand Development, in a statement. The free-to-play game developed with has to be one of the biggest opportunities yet for the young, Berlin-based startup. It was only last June that the company raised $6 million in its first institutional round of financing led by The Gauselmann Group, a Germany gaming company, with participation from angel investors. For Kyle Smith, the leader of TreasureHunt’s team of veteran game developers from companies like Electronic Arts, Zynga, Rovio and King, the goal was to appeal to the widest possible audience. “We really wanted to capture the momentum leading up to Telemundo’s coverage of the World Cup by creating a highly social, super accessible game that can be enjoyed by sports fans anywhere,” said Kyle Smith, CEO, TreasureHunt. “Our goal was to create an experience that appeals to a mainstream audience by making them feel part of this historic worldwide tournament.” The free to play is out now. [gallery ids="1656886,1656887,1656888"] |
Bag Week 2018: P.MAI’s women’s leather laptop bag is luxury packed with utility | Samantha Stein | 2,018 | 6 | 22 | I’ve always preferred carrying a backpack to work instead of a purse. Like many women, I’ve accepted that it means sacrificing style for comfort and utility. There are tons of women’s backpacks on the market with all sorts of colors, designs, materials and overall aesthetics. But the minute you look for a quality, women’s leather laptop backpack the options are sparse and divided into two camps. They seem to either be casual in aesthetic and centered around a utilitarian design, or straight off the runway and built more for show than function. surprised me in its ability to find an uncompromising middle ground between a luxury aesthetic and practical utility. Phuong Mai founded P.MAI after years of working in the world of management consulting. It is a world where consultants are expected to always be slightly better dressed than their clients, and they are constantly on the road traveling between client projects. Mai’s purse caused back pain, and her doctor recommended switching to a backpack. She couldn’t find a backpack that checked all the boxes — feminine yet durable, comfortable yet sleek, utilitarian and still beautiful. So she bootstrapped P.MAI to create it. She started by focusing on sourcing from suppliers with premium fabrics and leathers to blend beauty with durability. The backpack is constructed from full grain calf leather, two-tone nylon body fabric and poly lining. The fabrics are coated with PU to ensure water-resistance. The design is sleek with no external protruding pockets. Instead there is one zip pocket large enough for a passport on the front, and compartments designed for the modern, professional woman inside. The padded laptop compartment fits up to a 15-inch laptop. There also are three internal slip pockets and one internal zip pocket to store and organize all of your belongings. These are complemented by an elastic lined water (or wine) bottle holder, and an internal key ring snaphook for your matching P.MAI wristlet. The external details make the bag durable and travel friendly. There are four gold metal feet to prevent scratches on the bottom of the bag. There also is a built-in trolley strap, so it can easily be attached to the top of a roller suitcase. The top handle makes it easy to pick up like a handbag and slide the backpack on or off of a roller bag. While the external gold hardware is sleek and beautiful, I wish it included small holes suitable for a travel lock. Mai incorporated her doctor’s advice into the design’s comfort factor. The shoulder straps are adjustable to properly distribute weight. They also have hidden airmesh padding to cushion your shoulders. While it’s hard to find me wearing any color other than black, if black leather on black nylon isn’t your thing there are three other color combinations from which to choose; black leather and gray nylon, navy blue leather and navy blue nylon or cognac leather and navy blue nylon. By designing a bag for women that blends a luxury aesthetic with comfortable utility, the P.MAI bag quickly rose to the the “Most Wished for” laptop backpack on Amazon last holiday season. Premium materials and quality design don’t come cheap. Still, the $450 price-tag may keep this one on the wish-list for now. P.MAI is a refreshing laptop bag designed for the practical and health needs of professional women, while making them feel and look stylish. |
Meet Atoms, the minimalist startup shoes you’ll actually wear | Josh Constine | 2,018 | 6 | 14 | Image via “To make shoes better, you need to know why people wear shoes,” Atoms co-founder Waqas Ali tells me. People buy fancy dress shoes they never wear, yet feel embarrassed by the childish designs and branding on most sneakers. We perfected Atoms for your everyday routine — walking, standing and commuting,” he explains. “ That hasn’t stopped the shoes from during their beta-testing phase. Everyone who tries them on seems to rave about them. That’s driven 4,000 people to sign up on the Atoms waitlist, which you can join to be first in line. Atoms launch this summer in the U.S., with the first wave of customers getting their shoes in late June/early July. Husband and wife duo Waqas Ali and Sidra Qasim , Pakistan back in 2012. They attacked the market with one of the best qualities you can find in an entrepreneur: curiosity. Instead of coming in with preconceived notions, they traveled the world to research how people actually wear shoes. “You might assume that ‘Oh in Italy, everyone wears leather shoes,’ but the young people there were all wearing sneakers,” Waqas recalls. After launching a Kickstarter, the Alis came to Silicon Valley to go through the prestigious Y Combinator startup accelerator in Summer 2015. There, they drilled into more customer research and product design. Comfort and style were the big deciding factors in most sneaker purchases, so that’s where the couple wanted to differentiate. They discovered that more than 70 percent of people have at least a quarter-size difference in their two feet, and more than 7 percent have a half-size discrepancy. So why don’t other shoe companies offer quarter-sizes? “They make tons of different shoes,” Waqas says. Suddenly, the two guiding principles of Atoms aligned. By designing just a single unisex model in a limited set of colors, it could make quarter-sizing scalable while stripping away all the goofy extra fabrics and patterns. Indeed, 35 percent of customers already take two different sizes. That breakthrough attracted $560,000 in seed funding from LinkedIn’s ex-head of growth But Atoms is determined to avoid being labeled a Silicon Valley shoe. Rather than coders, the company wants creative types like painters and graphic designers to be its early adopters. The vision is to create a sneaker a head chef could wear all night in the kitchen without hurting, but that look elegant enough that they could stride into the chic dining room with confidence. “Most shoes in the market that claim they’re comfortable are only comfortable when you try them on,” Waqas laments. Take that other shoe startup Allbirds. They’re super-soft and made of wool, and the first steps feel like you’re wearing cloud slippers. But walk 10 blocks and you’ll find the bendy bottoms don’t protect you much. That’s why Atoms hired 18-year-veteran of the shoe business Sangmin Lee, who’s worked with Adidas and Puma out of Portland and South Korea. He prototyped tons of different versions for Atoms. The result is a strong but light outsole on the bottom with indents cut out for anti-slip traction and to reduce weight. Meanwhile, the upper’s tough mesh material breathes but holds its shape, and refuses stains. Image via The way we make our shoes environmentally friendly is that they last long,” Waqas says with a laugh. Two months of tough wear later, my Atoms are holding up great. The foamy mid-sole has frayed a tiny bit in the front like many shoes. And the knit materials ingrained some dust when I went camping in them that needed some brushing to get out. But they’ve succeeded in becoming my go-to shoe I can chill, work and play in. Now Atoms is trying to build more commerce innovation to turn buyers into lifetime wearers. It’s working on a special pattern for the insole that will rub off based on where you put your weight. The idea is that when people send their old pairs in for a discount on the next, it can analyze that insole pattern to improve the shape of future models. One day, Atoms hopes to create a completely personalized shoe shopping experience. It hopes to actually give you slightly different insoles with more or less arch support depending on how you wore the last ones. And it’s planning early access to new color combinations and laces for repeat buyers. Atoms will need loyalty in case the shoe giants come out with their own minimalist, quarter-sized sneakers. Such a limited set of colors and single style mean plenty of people will simply find them ugly or outside their taste. And no, they’re not a great fit for the gym or with a suit. But if you want understated, durable shoes you don’t have to think about, Atoms excel. The startup must rely on its nimbleness and a flawless customer experience if it’s going to gain a foothold in a business dominated by brands with huge ad campaigns and brick-and-mortar distribution. One thing it’s thankful to its shoe startup competitor for is that “Allbirds has shown the world is not just ruled by Nike and Adidas.” Luckily has strong differentiation in a world of interchangeable sneakers. One customer “thought quarter-sizing was a joke or gimmick until I tried the 10.25s,” Airbnb designer Bryce Daniel . “How will I go back to a 10.5 when 10.25 fits so well?” Personally, there hasn’t been another tech or startup product in the past 10 years beyond Apple’s AirPods that has cemented itself so deeply into my daily life. “There’s no way to hack shoes” Waqas concludes. “You just have to make a good shoe.” |
Apple will repair busted keyboards on recent MacBooks and MacBook Pros for free | Greg Kumparak | 2,018 | 6 | 22 | Back in 2016, Apple redesigned the MacBook Pro’s keyboard. It… hasn’t gone as well as they probably hoped. Complaints of failing keys quickly started popping up. Some keys had a tendency to get stuck in place; others move freely, but simply don’t respond. Two years and , Apple is officially acknowledging the issue with a free keyboard repair program. And if you already paid Apple to fix your keyboard? Give them a call. According to , they’re planning on refunding previous repair charges. To get the process started, you’ll have to take your affected laptop into an authorized service provider or an Apple retail store, or mail the whole thing in. They’ll examine it to make sure that it’s actually the keyboard’s fault (read: to make sure you didn’t spill a cup of juice on it or something), then either replace the affected key or swap out the whole board. Alas, this repair isn’t often a quick one (they have to take just about everything else out of the computer first) — so expect to be without your laptop for a few days. And before you panic that your warranty is about to expire: Apple says these keyboard repairs will be covered from four years after your original purchase date, regardless of warranty status. With design issues like this I’d hope for something a bit longer than that, but it’s a start. |
VC Brian O’Malley jumps from Accel to Forerunner Ventures | Connie Loizos | 2,018 | 6 | 22 | Brian O’Malley may be the most-poached venture capitalist in Silicon Valley. While rising through the ranks at the global investment firm Battery Ventures, where O’Malley had led deals in among others, he was plucked out of the firm by Accel Partners in 2013, where both O’Malley and Accel thought he could be even more successful. Fast-forward five years and O’Malley is announcing today ( ) that he just joined Forerunner Ventures, the top e-commerce investing firm launched in 2010 by founder Kirsten Green. That O’Malley is willing to make moves is hardly a knock. For someone whose job it is to create and manage promising portfolios, he seems to be managing his career with that same, smart mindset. The move also reflects well on Forerunner, a much younger firm than storied Accel but whose star has been soaring in recent years, thanks to early bets on companies like Bonobos ( to Walmart), Jet.com ( to Walmart), Dollar Shave Club ( to Unilever) and Hotel Tonight, among other growing brands, including the cosmetics company , the athleisure-wear company and the home furnishings company . Indeed, though Forerunner seems to be doing just fine with its current team, one can imagine that adding O’Malley to its ranks will only make fundraising easier — and our bet is the firm is fundraising right around now, based on the close of its current, third, fund in the . You can learn more about O’Malley’s newest move . In the meantime, if you’re interested in some of what’s involved in switching firms in Silicon Valley, O’Malley gave us some into these moves back in 2015, when he discussed what a VC needs to factor in when joining a new team, what happens to his or her board seats and much more. |
Konsus looks to give companies a way to get specially designed documents in under a day | Matthew Lynley | 2,018 | 6 | 22 | Fredrik Thomassen as a consultant used to have the resources to offload the annoying project tasks — like making PowerPoint presentations — but now that it’s gone, he and his team wanted to make that available for everyone. Now the startup, called Konsus, wants to turn that around even faster. is a design marketplace where companies can quickly post design projects that they need for various parts of their jobs, like presentations, and designers can pick up those jobs and submit their work back — a task that could take up a lot of unnecessary time for an employee that might be better spent working on other parts of their job. Konsus said it is compressing that even further by now looking to provide a 12-hour turnaround for those companies. The company launched out of Y Combinator in 2016. “[Employees] want to be valuable and spend time on core tasks,” Thomassen said. “The average knowledge worker, depending on various specifics, spends around 40 percent of that time on non-core tasks that should be outsourced. That’s the 40 percent we’re going after, and people quite readily understand it. Some companies have in-house design agencies and so on, and they are 3 or 4 times as expensive as we are, and they typically want to work on these larger or more grand projects and don’t want to work on the small projects that range from 10 hours to 15 hours. Most of the projects we do are these small, nominal projects that people would have had to do themselves.” Konsus hires account managers and project managers handling the relationships with the customers to ensure that they’re getting the quality they need when they are posting projects like PowerPoint presentations onto the site. But Thomassen also said there are plenty of examples of those firms finding designers and contractors that they’ve decided to bring on full-time, and he’s fine with the startup being seen as a springboard for contractors that want to polish their skills for working with western clients — and even end up with a full-time job after that. A lot of the designers are coming in from eastern Europe, southeast Asia and other parts of the world that aren’t necessarily on the radar of these western firms. Like many other modern services and marketplaces, Konsus hopes to come in at the bottom of a company and work its way up. One person or a team from a larger corporation will discover it, start using it and then eventually the startup might track that firm down and start talking about a custom team and dedicated emails. Then the outsourcers working for that firm goes through a background check, signs confidentiality agreements and goes through training on corporate branding material. Konsus’ revenue comes partly from subscriptions and people pre-paying to get a team, and the other half a pay-as-you-go model where firms get a rate and Konsus takes a commission. “If you look at [big consulting firms], they have a similar solution as we have, and you can get support for all kinds of services — data entry, PowerPoint, various graphic design tasks — that make life much, much easier,” Thomassen said. “You go home from work and then you get it back in the morning, it becomes part of your workflow. That’s what we wanted to build for everyone else. Freelancers come to us from all corners of the world, they apply on our website, and we have our own recruiter work with them. We get around 5,000 to 10,000 people who apply, and we accept 10-20 depending on how many we need. The bar is extremely high.” Of course, given that these are the kinds of tasks that firms might outsource without such a platform, Konsus has to potentially deal with larger consulting firms like Accenture, and there are looking to create an online labor marketplace that might not be targeting design just yet. But as those platforms start to put together a lot of potential customers, they’ll likely start asking for tools like Konsus — which means the company is going to have to figure out ways to outcompete early. The company has raised $1.7 million from Sam Altman, the Slack Fund, Acequia Capital, Paul Buchheit, Geoff Ralston, John Collison and Liquid2 Ventures. |
Reddit launches a ‘News’ tab into beta testing | Sarah Perez | 2,018 | 6 | 22 | Reddit is rolling out its “news” tab into beta, the company this week. The expansion follows on Reddit’s initial test of a news-related feature that this May, when an alpha version shipped to some users of Reddit’s iOS app. At the time, Reddit explained it wanted to give news its own dedicated home on its site in order to make it easier for those with a lot of subreddit subscriptions to find the news without having to hunt around. To determine what’s newsworthy, Reddit says it first figured out which subreddits were engaging with news the most. It did this by looking at the most-clicked posts by domain in the subreddits. The company came up with a list of around 1,000 domains from media publishers focused on news. This list was used to help it surface those communities where news was regularly discussed. To be clear, the domain list was only used to find the appropriate subreddits where news was often discussed – it doesn’t mean Reddit is limiting news stories it surfaces to those 1,000 domains. In addition, Reddit has a few other requirements for the communities featured in the News tab. They must have active moderation, abide by Reddit’s and its and the community has to require the post title accurately reflects the article title. The communities included in the News section of Reddit discuss a variety of topics, across business, science, sports, gaming, entertainment, tech news, and more – popular categories across Reddit as a whole. The majority of the posts are link posts, with the exception of some sports news where video is allowed. The News tab itself then organizes the posts by category, so users can filter the news for themselves. And users can further configure the tab to their own liking. While Reddit users are often known to actually break news by (sometimes unwittingly) being the first to spot things, the News tab is focused on showcasing the work from news publications. It’s more of a scannable list of top stories with an active comments section. That’s something that you don’t find on a number of news sites these day, as many have removed commenting. Meanwhile, a lot of discussion around the news takes place on social media, like Facebook and Twitter – but it’s not necessarily centralized. Given that the product is still in beta, Reddit is still listening to user feedback about the new feature. As you’d expect, – from “this is a bad idea” to “can we see the list?” to “this site is such a joke” to “this is actually controlling the bubble” to “this sounds like a sales pitch to someone who has never used Reddit” to this feels like another ‘Facebook’ style change that nobody asked for” to completely unrelated complaints about other issues. It could be that Reddit is hoping to attract some attention to its app in the wake of – its news discovery feature – from its social network. A larger audience of non-Reddit users may now be looking for another way to easily browse news on mobile – so Reddit thinks it may as well filter some of its existing content and pop it into a tab for easy access. But it’s not likely that people will turn to Reddit for news, especially when there are formidable alternatives like Google News and Apple News. The feature is in beta for the time being. The company has not said when it’s publicly launching. |
A look back at the best tech ads of the last 35 years | Sarah Wells | 2,018 | 6 | 22 | the Association of Independent Commercial Producers announced the winners of its annual awards honoring the best moving image marketing of the year and Apple’s ad took home the prize for Advertising Excellence in the single commercial category. Directed by , the person behind movies like and , the musical short film follows the journey of a young woman, , as she returns home from a challenging work day to an empty apartment. After asking Siri to “play something [she’d] like” her world is literally transformed as the music of Anderson .Paak’s spills out of her . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=305ryPvU6A8 With stunning visuals (most of which were ) and captivating choreography, Jonze breathes life into a product that got after its release in February. This made us think, what other tech commercials have grabbed our attention in the last 35 years and transformed how we think about technology? Here are a few of our favorites. It’s hard to talk about transformative tech ads without mentioning this one first. This Super Bowl ad from 1984 was directed by (who directed in 1979) and was the world’s introduction to the Macintosh personal computer. The ad draws some not-so-subtle connections between PC consumerism and soulless corporate office spaces of the 1980s to George Orwell’s dystopian In the commercial, a depiction of Big Brother speaks hypnotically to a mass of identical workers as a woman in bright colors streaks through the crowd, mallet in hand. With Olympian effort, she sends it flying into the screen, disrupting the status quo of personal computing and promising the world that with the Macintosh “1984 won’t be like ‘1984′.” Noticeably less high-concept than the introduction of the Macintosh, this 26-commercial campaign still captured a lot of attention in the earlier 2000s. The spots feature a character named Steven — a stereotypical easy-going, cool teenager who has a particular knack for charming parents into buying Dell computers for their families. A popular spot for Dell, the commercials even launched the star Ben Curtis into a little bit of fame himself. The actor recently appeared in a 2017 off-Broadway show, Confession time: I loved these commercials as a kid. Like, binge-watched-them-on-Apple.com loved them. This campaign between 2006 and 2009 and featured suit-clad John Hodgman as a PC and hoodie-toting Justin Long as a Mac. The commercials put these two computers in direct conversation with each other (quite literally) and highlighted different features of Mac computers (e.g. iMovie, Time Machine and being dual compatible with Windows) against its PC counterparts. Not biting or hostile, Mac came across as laid-back and creative — everything Apple was telling its customers could be — and left PC flustered in its wake. In 2010 Adweek of a new century. Stepping outside the world of personal computing, we can’t fail to mention this famous Verizon campaign. These spots ran between 2002 and 2011 and featured a character named Test Man, decked out in a Verizon jacket and large glasses, who traveled around to test the strength of Verizon’s network. Ever thorough, he consistently asks the tech on the other side of the line “can you hear me now?” Test Man won an award from Entertainment Weekly for “Most Mysterious Pitchman.” While the Verizon campaign ended a little less than 10 years ago, the character has been — . As another campaign of my childhood, this betrayal still stings. You might want to get some tissues ready for this one. This minimalist commercial aired during the Super Bowl in 2010 and follows the love story of a couple from their first meeting to marriage and starting a family; all within the window of a Google search. The ad was aired during the game and was actually designed by a handful of ad and design students , the commercial concept was sparked by a comment in a Google brief to “remind people what they love about Google search” and a maxim by Google Creative Lab VP Robert Wong that “the best results don’t show up in a search engine, they show up in your life.” Did we miss any ads that changed how you thought about technology? Let us know in the comments! |
Your second chance for Startup Battlefield at Disrupt SF | Emma Comeau | 2,018 | 6 | 22 | null |
Facebook mistakenly leaked developer analytics reports to testers | Josh Constine | 2,018 | 6 | 22 | Set the “days without a Facebook privacy problem” counter to zero. This week, an alarmed developer contacted TechCrunch, informing us that their Facebook App Analytics weekly summary email had been delivered to someone outside their company. It contains sensitive business information, including weekly average users, page views and new users. Forty-three hours after we contacted Facebook about the issue, the social network now confirms to TechCrunch that 3 percent of apps using Facebook Analytics had their weekly summary reports sent to their app’s testers, instead of only the app’s developers, admins and analysts. Testers are often people outside of a developer’s company. If the leaked info got to an app’s competitors, it could provide them an advantage. At least they weren’t allowed to click through to view more extensive historical analytics data on Facebook’s site. Facebook tells us it has fixed the problem and no personally identifiable information or contact info was improperly disclosed. It plans to notify all impacted developers about the leak today and has already begun. Update: 1pm Pacific: TechCrunch was provided with this statement from a Facebook spokesperson: “Due to an error in our email delivery system, weekly business performance summaries we send to developers about their account were also sent to a small group of those developer’s app testers. No personal information about people on Facebook was shared. We’re sorry for the error and have updated our system to prevent it from happening again.” Below you can find the email the company is sending: We wanted to let you know about a recent error where a summary e-mail from Facebook Analytics about your app was sent to testers of your app ‘[APP NAME WILL BE DYNAMICALLY INSERTED HERE]’. As you know, we send weekly summary emails to keep you up to date with some of your top-level metrics — these emails go to people you’ve identified as Admins, Analysts and Developers. You can also add Testers to your account, people designated by you to help test your apps when they’re in development. We mistakenly sent the last weekly email summary to your Testers, in addition to the usual group of Admins, Analysts and Developers who get updates. Testers were only able to see the high-level summary information in the email, and were not able to access any other account information; if they clicked “View Dashboard” they did not have access to any of your Facebook Analytics information. We apologize for the error and have made updates to prevent this from happening again. One affected developer told TechCrunch “Not sure why it would ever be appropriate to send business metrics to an app user. When I created my app (in beta) I added dozens of people as testers as it only meant they could login to the app…not access info!” They’re still waiting for the disclosure from Facebook. Facebook wouldn’t disclose a ballpark number of apps impacted by the error. Last year it announced However, this issue only affected apps, and only 3 percent of them. The mistake comes just weeks after . And Facebook has had problems with misdelivering business information before. In 2014, , causing significant confusion. The company has also and more . Though user data didn’t leak and today’s issue isn’t as severe as others Facebook has dealt with, developers still consider their business metrics to be private, making this a breach of that privacy. While Facebook has been working diligently to patch app platform privacy holes since the Cambridge Analytica scandal, removing access to many APIs and strengthening human reviews of apps, issues like today’s make it hard to believe Facebook has a proper handle on the data of its 2 billion users. |
Uber safety driver of fatal self-driving crash was watching Hulu, not the road | Kirsten Korosec | 2,018 | 6 | 22 | A safety driver operating an Uber self-driving vehicle looked down at a phone that was streaming The Voice on Hulu 204 times during a 43-minute test drive that ended when pedestrian Elaine Herzberg was struck and killed in Tempe, Arizona, according to a 318-page police report reviewed by TechCrunch. The Tempe Police Department released late Thursday evening the report on the fatal self-driving car crash that occurred in a Phoenix suburb in March. The lengthy report reveals that safety driver Rafaela Vasquez was streaming the show The Voice on her phone at the time of the crash. Police determined that Vasquez’s eyes were off the road for 3.67 miles of the 11.8 total miles driven, or about 31 percent of the time. Based on the data, police reported that Vasquez could have avoided hitting Herzberg if her eyes were on the road. The case has been submitted to the Maricopa County Attorney’s office for review against Vasquez, who could face charges of vehicular manslaughter. “We continue to cooperate fully with ongoing investigations while conducting our own internal safety review,” an Uber spokeswoman said. “We have a strict policy prohibiting mobile device usage for anyone operating our self-driving vehicles. We plan to share more on the changes we’ll make to our program soon.” Uber has hired former National Transportation Safety Board chair Christopher Hart as an adviser on the company’s overall safety culture. The company is reviewing internal processes, including its safety driver training practices. While the report reveals the actions of the safety driver, questions are still swirling around Uber’s self-driving technology system in the modified Volvo XC90. A found Uber’s modified Volvo XC90’s LiDAR and radar first spotted an object in its path about six seconds before the crash. The self-driving system first as an unknown object, then as a vehicle and then as a bicycle. At 1.3 seconds before impact, the self-driving system determined that an emergency braking maneuver was needed to mitigate a collision, according to the NTSB. But Uber had disabled Volvo’s emergency braking system so it didn’t work when the vehicle was under computer control to reduce the potential for “erratic behavior.” The accident occurred March 18 at about 10 p.m. when an Uber self-driving vehicle struck 49-year-old pedestrian Herzberg on Mill Avenue, just south of Curry Road, according to the Tempe Police Department. The vehicle was in autonomous mode at the time of the collision. Uber immediately halted public testing of its self-driving vehicles following the crash. At the time, Uber was testing autonomous vehicles on public roads in the Phoenix suburb of Tempe, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Toronto. Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey later suspended Uber from testing its self-driving cars in Arizona. |
WordPress.com parent company acquires Atavist | Romain Dillet | 2,018 | 6 | 22 | , the company behind WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Longreads, Simplenote and a few other things, is acquiring startup . Atavist has been working on a content management system for independent bloggers and writers. With an Atavist website, you can easily write and publish stories with a ton of media. You might think that this isn’t particularly groundbreaking as anyone can create a website on WordPress.com or Squarespace and do the same thing. But the company also lets you create a paywall and build a subscription base. Many writers don’t want to deal with the technical details of running a website. That’s why Atavist gives you the tools so that you can focus on your stories. Atavist is also running a publication called . The publication is also joining Automattic. It’s unclear if it’s going to be part of or remain its own thing. The CMS itself won’t stick around. Automattic that the publishing platform will be integrated into WordPress. And this is the interesting part. While WordPress is probably a much more solid CMS than Atavist, it could mean that Automattic wants to start offering subscriptions and paywalls. You can imagine WordPress.com websites that offer monthly subscriptions natively. 30 percent of the web . Many of them are open source instances of WordPress hosted on their own servers. But many websites are hosted by WordPress.com, including TechCrunch. Subscriptions on WordPress.com is good news for the web. Medium its subscription program leaving many independent publications in the dust. So it’s hard to trust Medium when it comes to providing enough revenue to independent writers. Automattic could create a seamless portal to manage subscriptions to multiple publications. And this could lead to less advertising and better content. |
Sphero acquires a music education startup | Brian Heater | 2,018 | 6 | 22 | We're stoked to announce the addition of Specdrums, app-enabled musical rings that turn colors into sounds, to the Sphero family. Get more details below, and be the first to know when Specdrums become available for purchase so you can stop beatboxing. — Sphero (@Sphero) |
Amazon FreeTime Unlimited finally lands on Apple’s App Store | Ingrid Lunden | 2,018 | 6 | 22 | Five and half years after it , one of the more popular apps for kids’ reading and entertainment has finally arrived on the iOS. Amazon FreeTime Unlimited, the e-commerce giant’s subscription service for children 3-12 that gives unlimited access to 10,000 books, movies and TV shows starting at $2.99 for one user per month for Prime members, and going up to $9.99 per month for non-Prime members for a family plan of up to four users across tablets, phones, e-readers, and smart speakers, is now . Apple is promoting the new app at the moment on the home page of the App Store, where a reader saw it and flagged it to us. Prime members get a discount to $6.99 per month for the family plan, but you’d need to buy that via Amazon’s site, not iTunes. “We launch new products and features as they’re ready,” an Amazon spokesperson said. “We’re excited to bring the Unlimited experience to iOS devices, including iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.” FreeTime Unlimited is already available on Amazon devices and on Android. Now, when users sign up for a subscription on any one platform, they can use it across all of them — whether it be a Fire tablet, a Fire Kids Edition tablet, compatible Android phones and tablets, or compatible Echo devices. The move is a significant one both for Apple and Amazon. At a time when other media companies are of their services that bring in more parental controls and better filters to help block out content that is inappropriate for young ones, FreeTime Unlimited has proven to be one of the most popular kids-focused entertainment apps of them all — content includes video from Disney, Nickelodeon, Sesame Street, PBS Kids, National Geographic and Amazon Originals for Kids — and yet it wasn’t available on one of the most popular (and ) tablets used by children. While Amazon initially kept it as an Amazon-only product for its early years — as a way of driving more sales to its own hardware — it finally launched a version for Android devices, but it’s taken over a year more to finally bring it to iPhone and iPad devices. One of the reasons for this could be the ongoing struggle between Amazon and Apple. In some regards, the two are complementary companies: Amazon ships a lot of Apple products, and iOS is a very strong platform for Amazon in terms of online sales, for example. But in others — such as in hardware, increasingly online entertainment and “owning” customers, and for talent to build its products — the two are rivals. Apple, for one, has not allowed apps on its iOS platform to enable Amazon book purchases directly from their apps, and Amazon doesn’t sell books and movies from its own app to avoid Apple’s cut. So it’s not surprising to see Amazon also and features from the Apple platform in some kind of tit-for-tat. I’m guessing those skirmishes will go on for a long time to come, but for now, iPad and iPhone users will have a little more Amazon than they did before on their devices. Why now? It could be that Amazon felt that user growth was tailing off on the other platforms, so now is a good time to boost with new availability. It’s also likely influenced by Apple’s increased attention to , which may have some parents feel like they have enough options to lock down their kids’ devices while still allowing them access to more wholesome and educational content. That could limit the appeal for a subscription service like Amazon’s FreeTime Unlimited. But iOS 12 – which includes the new parental controls – doesn’t launch to the public until later this fall. That gives Amazon time to attract users to its own service in the meantime. As with the existing version of FreeTime Unlimited, the app is divided into age groups and will have parental controls by way of the Amazon Parent Dashboard, as well as Discussion Cards that give them talking points about the work and summaries of what the kids are watching. There may be variations based on geographies, but in the US the content will include films like Frozen, Moana, Star Wars, and Inside Out; TV shows like Sesame Street, Arthur, and Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood from PBS; Bubble Guppies, Team Umizoomi, and Dora the Explorer from Nickelodeon; Marvel comics including Spider-man, the Avengers, and Captain America; and Amazon Originals such as Just Add Magic, The Kicks, Thunderbirds are Go, Creative Galaxy, and Tumble Leaf. One drawback to the iOS implementation of FreeTime Unlimited is that, unlike on Amazon’s own tablets, you can’t configure FreeTime Unlimited to completely reskin the device’s user interface to keep kids locked into the experience. Apple simply doesn’t allow third-party apps to have that level of control. Instead, FreeTime Unlimited works like any other app – you can launch it and exit at any time. As with other apps, subscribing to FreeTime Unlimited will come via a user’s iTunes account (and thus Apple will get a cut) and will get automatically renewed until you turn off the auto-renewal 24 hours before the renewal date. There is also a free 30-day trial. |
Lime scooters are live in Paris | Romain Dillet | 2,018 | 6 | 22 | is the hot new thing in San Francisco, but will it work in other countries? The company just launched its electric scooter service in Paris. This isn’t the first European city as Lime is also in Berlin, Bremen, Frankfurt and Zurich. But it’s a significant launch as alternative mobility solutions have all been trying to grab some market share in Paris. Yesterday, you could see 200 scooters in the South East of Paris ready to be deployed. Lime plans to expand its fleet over time. Every day, the company will collect all the scooters at 9 PM to recharge them and put them back on the streets at 5 AM. Between October and January, four bike-sharing services launched in Paris — GoBee Bike, Obike, Ofo and Mobike. GoBee Bike has the market since then because it was underfunded and suffering from too much competition. But Mobike and Ofo seem to be doing really well, especially if you compare it to the docked bikes — Vélib is more or less right now. Vélib started in 2007, years before cities like New York and London adopted a bike-sharing system. That’s why Parisians have had enough time to get familiar with the idea of sharing a bike with other members. And then, there is and , two electric scooter services (motorcycles, not standing scooters). They’re more expensive but quite popular, especially for longer distances. It leaves Lime in an awkward position. I tried a Lime earlier today and wasn’t convinced it was the right solution for Paris. First, it’s quite expensive. You pay €1 to unlock it and then €0.15 per minute. A 20-minute ride costs €4 for instance. This is more expensive than 20 minutes on a Cityscoot, and less expensive than 20 minutes using Coup. But it’s way more expensive than 20 minutes on an Ofo bike, which costs €0.50. I’m not convinced people are willing to pay eight times as much for everyday rides. Public transport options are also much more efficient in Paris than in San Francisco. Paris is also much more difficult to navigate on a Lime scooter than San Francisco. There are speed bumps made out of paving stones and narrow streets. In addition to that, you can’t brake abruptly because you’re just standing on a scooter. I had to brake constantly in order to overcome those obstacles. And yet, cities will need many different options to replace cars. There won’t be just one thing. People will use a multitude of transportation methods, from bikes to Lime scooters to electric motorcycle scooters. Now let’s see if Lime scooters won’t end up in the Seine. |
Supreme Court decision requires warrant to obtain cellphone records for tracking | Brian Heater | 2,018 | 6 | 22 | null |
Facebook prototypes tool to show how many minutes you spend on it | Josh Constine | 2,018 | 6 | 22 | Are you ready for some scary numbers? After months of Mark Zuckerberg talking about how “Protecting our community is more important than maximizing our profits,” Facebook is preparing to turn that commitment into a Time Well Spent product. Buried in Facebook’s Android app is an unreleased “Your Time on Facebook” feature. It shows the tally of how much time you spent on the Facebook app on your phone on each of the last seven days, and your average time spent per day. It lets you set a daily reminder that alerts you when you’ve reached your self-imposed limit, plus a shortcut to change your Facebook notification settings. Facebook confirmed the feature development to TechCrunch, with a spokesperson telling us, “We’re always working on new ways to help make sure people’s time on Facebook is time well spent.” The feature could help Facebook users stay mindful of how long they’re staring at the social network. This self-policing could be important since both and are launching their own screen time monitoring dashboards that reveal which apps are dominating your attention and can alert you or lock you out of apps when you hit your time limit. When Apple demoed the feature at WWDC, it used Facebook as an example of an app you might use too much. Images of Facebook’s digital wellbeing tool come courtesy of our favorite tipster and app investigator . She previously helped TechCrunch scoop the development of features like Facebook Avatars, Twitter encrypted DMs and Instagram Usage Insights — a Time Well Spent feature that to this one on Facebook. Our report on led the sub-company’s CEO Kevin Systrom to confirm the upcoming feature, saying “It’s true . . . We’re building tools that will help the IG community know more about the time they spend on Instagram – any time should be positive and intentional . . . Understanding how time online impacts people is important, and it’s the responsibility of all companies to be honest about this. We want to be part of the solution. I take that responsibility seriously.” Facebook has already made changes to its News Feed algorithm designed to reduce the presence of low-quality but eye-catching viral videos. That led to Facebook’s first-ever usage decline in North America in Q4 2017, with a loss of 700,000 daily active users in the region. Zuckerberg said on an earnings call that this change “reduced time spent on Facebook by roughly 50 million hours every day.” Zuckerberg has been adamant that all time spent on Facebook isn’t bad. Instead, as we argued in our piece its asocial, zombie-like passive browsing and video watching that’s harmful to people’s wellbeing, while active sharing, commenting and chatting can make users feel more connected and supported. But that distinction isn’t visible in this prototype of the “Your Time on Facebook” tool, which appears to treat all time spent the same. If Facebook was able to measure our active versus passive time on its app and impress the health difference, it could start to encourage us to either put down the app or use it to communicate directly with friends when we find ourselves mindlessly scrolling the feed or enviously viewing people’s photos. |
Citymapper lets you find Ofo, Mobike and scooters around you | Romain Dillet | 2,018 | 6 | 22 | Urban transportation app quietly rolled out an app update that lets you find many alternative mobility services in the app. You can now find the nearest dockless bike or electric scooter around you (not the Bird and Lime kind, the motorcycle kind). The integrations are already live in many cities. The company didn’t add new buttons for each service because it was already getting quite crowded with buses, subways and ride-sharing services. If you tap the bike button, you get a map view of the streets around you. In addition to traditional bike-sharing services, you’ll now find colored dots representing both Ofo and Mobike. Below the map, you get a list of the closest bikes. TechCrunch’s Ingrid Lunden that the Mobike integration was coming soon. But Citymapper also added a new scooter button in multiple cities. As the name suggests, this button helps you locate the closest free-floating scooter that you can unlock with your phone. In Paris, you’ll find and scooters. In Berlin, you’ll find Coup scooters. In Madrid and Barcelona, you’ll find Muving, ioscoot, eCooltra and Yugo scooters… You get the idea. Chances are all your local options will be there. Interestingly, electric scooters from Bird and Lime aren’t in there just yet. It might be what everybody is talking about, but you’ll only see Jump and Ford bikes in San Francisco. For now, all you can do is locate the nearest bike or scooter. You still have to open each individual app to scan the QR code and unlock those vehicles. But this is an interesting approach. Citymapper doesn’t operate any transportation service. It can be an agnostic player and provide a comprehensive view of what’s around you without any conflict of interest. It doesn’t have to recreate a transportation hub like Lyft or Uber as those two companies recently acquired and to provide bike-sharing services. And if you’re visiting a city for the first time, you can open the app to find out how you’ll be able to navigate that new city. |
Security, privacy experts weigh in on the ICE doxxing | John Biggs | 2,018 | 6 | 22 | In what appears to be the latest salvo in a new, wired form of protest, developer Sam Lavigne posted code that scrapes to find Immigration and Customs Enforcement employee accounts. His code, which basically a Python-based tool that scans LinkedIn for keywords, is gone from Github and Gitlab and Medium took down his . The CSV of the data and and WikiLeaks has posted a . “I find it helpful to remember that as much as internet companies use data to spy on and exploit their users, we can at times reverse the story, and leverage those very same online platforms as a means to investigate or even undermine entrenched power structures. It’s a strange side effect of our reliance on private companies and semi-public platforms to mediate nearly all aspects of our lives. We don’t necessarily need to wait for the next Snowden-style revelation to scrutinize the powerful — so much is already hiding in plain sight,” said Lavigne. Doxxing is the process of using publicly available information to target someone online for abuse. Because we can now find out anything on anyone for a few dollars – a search for “background check” brings up dozens of paid services that can get you names and addresses in a second – scraping public data on LinkedIn seems far easier and innocuous. That doesn’t make it legal. “Recent efforts to outlaw doxxing at the national level (like the Online Safety Modernization Act of 2017) have stalled in committee, so it’s not strictly illegal,” said James Slaby, Security Expert at . “But LinkedIn and other social networks usually consider it a violation of their terms of service to scrape their data for personal use. The question of fairness is trickier: doxxing is often justified as a rare tool that the powerless can use against the powerful to call attention to perceived injustices.” “The problem is that doxxing is a crude tool. The torrent of online ridicule, abuse and threats that can be heaped on doxxed targets by their political or ideological opponents can also rain down on unintended and undeserving targets: family members, friends, people with similar names or appearances,” he said. The tool itself isn’t to blame. No one would fault a job seeker or salesperson who scraped LinkedIn for targeted employees of a specific company. That said, scraping and publicly shaming employees walks a thin line. “In my opinion, the professor who developed this scraper tool isn’t breaking the law, as it’s perfectly legal to search the web for publicly available information,” said David Kennedy, CEO of . “This is known in the security space as ‘open source intelligence’ collection, and scrapers are just one way to do it. That said, it is concerning to see ICE agents doxxed in this way. I understand emotions are running high on both sides of this debate, but we don’t want to increase the physical security risks to our law enforcement officers.” “The decision by Twitter, Github and Medium to block the dissemination of this information and tracking tool makes sense – in fact, law enforcement agents’ personal information is often protected. This isn’t going to go away anytime soon, it’s only going to become more aggressive, particularly as more people grow comfortable with using the darknet and the many available hacking tools for sale in these underground forums. Law enforcement agents need to take note of this, and be much more careful about what (and how often) they post online.” Ultimately, doxxing is problematic. Because we place our information on public forums there should be nothing to stop anyone from finding and posting it. However, the expectation that people will use our information for good and not evil is swiftly eroding. Today, wrote one security researcher, David Kavanaugh, doxxing is becoming dangerous. “Going after the people on the ground is like shooting the messenger. Decisions are made by leadership and those are the people we should be going after. Doxxing is akin to a personal attack. Change policy, don’t ruin more lives,” he said. |
null | Anthony Ha | 2,018 | 6 | 14 | null |
betaworks opens applications to LiveCamp | Jordan Crook | 2,018 | 6 | 22 | Fresh on the heels of the , the startup factory is opening its doors once again as applications have opened for LiveCamp. LiveCamp is the fourth installment of betaworks’ accelerator program, following the progress of BotCamp, VoiceCamp and VisionCamp. LiveCamp is a bit less straightforward with its thesis. Inspired by Twitch streamers and platforms like HQ Trivia, LiveCamp is looking for companies that are interested in digital live experiences, where the line between performer and audience is blurred. “You can think of eSports with commenting as the 1.0,” said Camps General Manager Danika Laszuk. “HQ really brought the idea of live to a more mainstream audience. I mean, there is no game if people aren’t playing it. But there are plenty of examples, like Peloton, where you could get a bike or go to a studio, or take a live spin class right from your home on your bike, with a community all over the world.” Betaworks has always employed the “rising tide” strategy. Even years ago, with the entrepreneur in residence program, betaworks created a cohort of companies across a single vertical to give them the opportunity for early strategic partnerships. LiveCamp will work in a similar way, with some companies focused on consumer-facing live applications, and others developing middleware to enable them, while still others will build applications to enable creators themselves. Betaworks is looking for between 5 and 10 companies to join the 11-week LiveCamp program. Each company will receive a $200K uncapped SAFE note with a 25 percent discount, with 8 percent common stock in each company allocated to betaworks. Companies can apply to LiveCamp . |
MoviePass competitor Sinemia intros family plans starting at $9 | Brian Heater | 2,018 | 6 | 22 | null |
Oh, the things I would do to get this cardboard-style Nintendo Switch | Devin Coldewey | 2,018 | 6 | 25 | Nintendo is building on its with some sweet integration and a truly fabulous limited edition Switch with a faux-cardboard finish. It really is just the greatest thing and I would do terrible things to have it. Unfortunately some smart kid will probably get it, because you have to win it by designing something cool with Labo. So, first the stuff. If you have for the Switch, and you really should because it’s excellent, you can now use the Toy-Con (buildable with the Labo Variety Kit) . You twist the right “handlebar” to accelerate and rotate the whole thing to turn. This is the first game to get its own special Labo support, but the company says more are on the way. , perhaps? If you’re a creative type and you have a Labo set, you’re in luck. , and entry puts you in the running to win the amazing neutral-colored Switch shown up top. I really don’t know why I love it so much, but I do. And if you do too, you should enter. (If you’re in the U.S. or Canada. Sorry, world.) The first challenge is to create a musical instrument with the Toy-Con pieces and “craft materials.” You’ll have to document its creation and show it working on video; it’ll be judged on “Quality, Creativity, Spirit, and Sound.” Caps Nintendo’s. The second challenge is to create a game or game-like experience using Toy-Con Garage. Same judgment categories as before, minus Sound. There will be one grand prize winner and four runners up per contest. Grand prize is that amazing Switch (approximate retail value $1,000?!), plus a cool (?) Labo jacket. Runners up get a pair of cardboard style Joy-Cons and a jacket. Respectable. If you’ve been looking for a reason to pick up that Labo kit again or use some random pieces you never tried, this is surely that reason. Now get to work! |
TechCrunch is hosting an event in Hangzhou July 2-3 | Brian Heater | 2,018 | 6 | 25 | null |
Tim Cook speaks out at Fortune’s CEO Initiative on hot-button issues like immigration | Catherine Shu | 2,018 | 6 | 25 | Tim Cook at an Apple event in 2016. At , Tim Cook shared his opinion on a number of contentious issues, including immigration, political news and smartphone addiction. Here are some highlights from his conversation with Fortune executive editor Adam Lashinsky. “Apple is about changing the world. It became clear to me some number of years ago that you don’t do that by staying quiet on things that matter. For us, that’s the driving issue,” he said. Although there’s “no formula” dictating what Apple addresses publicly, Cook said the company considers “do we have a standing, do we have a right to talk about this issue?” For Apple, he said this means they “typically speak about education, privacy, about human rights, about immigration and the environment.” When asked by Lashinsky why Apple has standing to speak about immigration and human rights, Cook replied that many immigrants work at Apple, including more than 300 people protected by Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and “several thousand” employees on H1B visas. “To me, too often in the case of immigration, people quickly get to numbers, but there are real people behind this, who have real feelings and they’re a core part of the United States, so we have significant standing there,” he added. Cook also claimed that Apple doesn’t address politics directly as a company. “We stick to policy, how people are treated, what is immigration policy. We work with people from both parties or no party. Sometimes one party doesn’t like what we do, or the other one doesn’t, or both don’t.” Cook said that “news was kind of going a little crazy” and drew parallels between its approach to Apple News and the App Store, which has had relatively stringent rules about what is allowed since its inception. “Apple has always stood for curation,” he said. “We’ve always believed quality, not quantity, is the most important thing.“ “We felt top stories should be selected by humans, not to be political at all and not to check the views of these, but to make sure you’re not keeping content that just strictly has the goal of enraging people,” he added. “We hope to bring this same kind of view to different subjects over a period of time and will pick from outlets from conservative to liberal to in-between, if there is such a thing anymore.” Despite increasing media coverage about the overuse of devices and potential links to depression and a calling on Apple to research the impact of smartphones on children, Cook said the company’s actions weren’t “in response to a specific point that was made.” “But I think it’s become clear to all of us that some of us are spending too much time on our devices, and we’ve tried to think through pretty deeply about how we can help that,” he added. “Honestly, we’ve never wanted people to overuse our products. We want people to be empowered from them and do things they couldn’t do otherwise, but if you spend all your time on your phone, then you are spending too much time.” “it’s a privilege to be CEO. Hopefully I’ve got some good time left,” he said. |
DARPA design shifts round wheels to triangular tracks in a moving vehicle | Taylor Hatmaker | 2,018 | 6 | 25 | As part of its , DARPA is showcasing some that’s as futuristic as it is practical. One of the innovations, a reconfigurable wheel-track, comes out of in partnership with DARPA. The wheel-track is just one of a handful of designs meant to improve survivability of combat vehicles beyond just up-armoring them. As you can see in the video, the reconfigurable wheel-track demonstrates a seamless transition between a round wheel shape and a triangular track in about two seconds, and the shift between its two modes can be executed while the vehicle is in motion without cutting speed. Round wheels are optimal for hard terrain while track-style treads allow an armored vehicle to move freely on softer ground. According to Ground X-Vehicle Program Manager Major Amber Walker, the tech offers “instant improvements to tactical mobility and maneuverability on diverse terrains” — an advantage you can see on display in the GIF below. While wheel technology doesn’t sound that exciting, the result is visually impressive and smooth enough to prompt a double-take. The other designs featured in the video are noteworthy as well, with one offering a windowless navigation technology called Virtual Perspectives Augmenting Natural Experiences (V-PANE) that integrates video from an array of mounted LIDAR and video cameras to recreate a real-time model of a windowless vehicle’s surroundings. Another windowless cockpit design creates “virtual windows” for a driver, with 3D goggles for depth enhancement, head-tracking and wraparound window display screens displaying data outside the all-terrain vehicle in real time. |
This smart prosthetic ankle adjusts to rough terrain | Devin Coldewey | 2,018 | 6 | 25 | Prosthetic limbs are getting better and more personalized, but useful as they are, they’re still a far cry from the real thing. This new prosthetic ankle is a little closer than others, though: it moves on its own, adapting to its user’s gait and the surface on which it lands. Your ankle does a lot of work when you walk: lifting your toe out of the way so you don’t scuff it on the ground, controlling the tilt of your foot to minimize the shock when it lands or as you adjust your weight, all while conforming to bumps and other irregularities it encounters. Few prostheses attempt to replicate these motions, meaning all that work is done in a more basic way, like the bending of a spring or compression of padding. from Michael Goldfarb, a mechanical engineering professor at Vanderbilt, goes much further than passive shock absorption. Inside the joint are a motor and actuator, controlled by a chip that senses and classifies motion and determines how each step should look. “This device first and foremost adapts to what’s around it,” Goldfarb said in a video documenting the prosthesis. “You can walk up slopes, down slopes, up stairs and down stairs, and the device figures out what you’re doing and functions the way it should,” . When it senses that the foot has lifted up for a step, it can lift the toe up to keep it clear, also exposing the heel so that when the limb comes down, it can roll into the next step. And by reading the pressure both from above (indicating how the person is using that foot) and below (indicating the slope and irregularities of the surface) it can make that step feel much more like a natural one. One veteran of many prostheses, Mike Sasser, tested the device and had good things to say: “I’ve tried hydraulic ankles that had no sort of microprocessors, and they’ve been clunky, heavy and unforgiving for an active person. This isn’t that.” Right now the device is still very lab-bound, and it runs on wired power — not exactly convenient if someone wants to go for a walk. But if the joint works as designed, as it certainly seems to, then powering it is a secondary issue. The plan is to commercialize the prosthesis in the next couple of years once all that is figured out. You can learn a bit more about Goldfarb’s research at the . |
With CBD, marijuana-based medicine gets its first greenlight from the FDA | Taylor Hatmaker | 2,018 | 6 | 25 | In a news release today, the FDA announced its of a marijuana-derived drug called Epidiolex for the treatment of seizures in a subset of patients suffering from severe epilepsy. Epidiolex contains CBD, a cannabis chemical compound skyrocketing in popularity and driving what is estimated to have doubled into a in 2018. CBD is the common abbreviation for cannabidiol, a chemical derived from cannabis. In contrast to THC, the far more popular cannabinoid CBD does not produce strong psychoactive effects when consumed. The chemical’s use in seizure prevention is well-documented in reputable research, and now, after conducting its own trials, the FDA is on board. As the FDA itself notes, “this is the first FDA-approved drug that contains a purified drug substance derived from marijuana.” Epidiolex, produced by GW Research Ltd., is now approved to treat the conditions known as Lennox-Gastaut syndrome and Dravet syndrome. The FDA news signals that the DEA will likely adjust its scheduling for CBD, which is currently a Schedule I substance, denoting high potential for abuse and no medical applications. “The FDA prepares and transmits… a medical and scientific analysis of substances subject to scheduling, like CBD, and provides recommendations to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) regarding controls under the [Controlled Substances Act],” the FDA stated, indicating that it will recommend that CBD be rescheduled but the act of shifting the substance’s legality is ultimately in the DEA’s hands. Prior to the FDA decision, a press officer for the DEA that the FDA decision will prompt action from the DEA. “If they on June 27 announce that they’re approving Epidiolex, absolutely we’ll go into a different schedule. There’s no ifs, ands, or buts about it.” The FDA notes that it will still “take action” against illegal CBD products making “serious, unproven medical claims.” The medicinal acknowledgment of CBD should come as good news to marijuana startups eyeing the compound for consumer and medical consumption. Cannabis-derived CBD products are available where recreational marijuana is sold, though CBD derived from industrial hemp faces fewer regulations and is even stocked by some grocery stores. By some measures, consumer interest appears to be moving away from traditional high-potency THC-based products and toward CBD. In February, even Bon Appétit magazine got in on the trend with a story titled “ ?” Cannabis startups are likely tuned into that fact and keeping an ear to the ground for the DEA decision on what by most accounts is the next big thing in cannabis. |
AARP commits $60 million to a fund backing new treatments for dementia | Jonathan Shieber | 2,018 | 6 | 25 | Dementia, the syndrome caused by several brain illnesses affecting memory, motor skills, thinking and behavior, affects 47 million people around the world and is projected to afflict 75 million by 2030, according to the World Health Organization. It’s a syndrome that’s not only debilitating for the people who live with it but also for their families and caregivers. According to statistics from WHO the economic cost of dementia is roughly $818 billion. Yet, it’s also one that’s the most poorly understood by researchers. Now, thanks to a $60 million commitment from the US AARP, a London-based fund has closed with $350 million to invest in new medicines to combat dementia and its underlying illnesses. Initially formed by the UK Department of Health and Social Care and the charity Alzheimer’s Research UK (ARUK) alongside a consortium of pharmaceutical companies, including Biogen, Eli Lilly and Company, GSK, Johnson & Johnson, Otsuka (Astex), Pfizer and Takeda, the had initially targeted $200 million to invest in new treatments. Commitments from other wealthy individuals (like Bill Gates) and interested organizations like (ahem) the NFL Players Association, and UnitedHealth Group helped round out the commitments to get the fund closed at its $350 million hard cap. Founded in October, 2015 by , a venture capital and growth equity firm with offices in London and Boston and roughly $2.5 billion under management, the Dementia Discovery Fund has already invested in 16 companies in the U.S. and the U.K. focused on microglial biology and inflammation, mitochondrial dynamics, trafficking and membrane biology and synaptic physiology and functions. “At the DDF, we are focused on scientific approaches that look beyond the amyloid beta pathway into other areas, such as inflammation, mitochondrial function and the preservation and enhancement of healthy brain cells,” said Kate Bingham, managing partner of SV Health Investors, in a statement. “These areas are highly likely to be important to chronic traumatic encephalopathy or traumatic brain injury, leading to renewed hope for treatment of these terrible disorders.” For the AARP, the investment in finding cures for dementia is central to the nonprofit’s mission going forward, according to chief executive Jo Ann Jenkins. “ doesn’t just affect those with the disease. It takes a devastating emotional, physical and financial toll on families and caregivers. The projected doubling of the size of the 65+ population over the next generation makes finding new ways to treat , including Alzheimer’s, even more critical,” she said. |
null | John Biggs | 2,018 | 6 | 22 | null |
iOS 12 is all about making your phone work better | Romain Dillet | 2,018 | 6 | 25 | The pace of iOS innovation has been so intense that even Apple couldn’t keep up. In some ways, iOS 11’s main feature was that it was packed with bugs, with autocorrect bugs, messages arriving out of order and the Calculator app not calculating properly. iOS 12 is a nice change of pace. “For iOS 12, we’re doubling down on performance,” Apple’s SVP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi said . While there are a few interesting new features, iOS 12 isn’t a splashy release like the ones that were released over the past few years. It doesn’t change and it doesn’t open up apps with . It’s clear that all the low-hanging fruit has been addressed. Now, Apple is mostly adding new frameworks for specific categories of apps instead of releasing major platform changes that affect all third-party apps. And for the rest, it’s all about refinements, bug fixes and optimizations. Apple released the today. I played a bit with early beta versions of iOS 12, so here’s what you should be looking for. Let’s start with the updates at the operating system level. iOS 12 should be faster than iOS 11, including on older devices. You know that feeling of instant regret when you update your old iPhone or iPad to a new version of iOS. Everything seems much slower. Apple wants to reverse this trend and make iOS 12 faster for the iPhone 5s or the iPad mini 2. Apps should launch faster, the keyboard should appear more quickly, the camera should be more reactive and more. It’s hard to feel that with a beta version of iOS 12, so we’ll have to look at that statement again in September. Other than that, there is another major theme for iOS 12 — making you look at your phone less often. And this goal is reflected with three new features — Screen Time, better notifications and a more granular Do Not Disturb mode. Screen Time is a brand new feature that lets you see how much time you wasted . You’ll get weekly reports and parents can set up app limits that sync across all your iOS devices. Do Not Disturb is now more granular as you can set it up for an hour, until the end of an event or until you leave a location. Many people didn’t want to use this feature because they forgot to turn it off. As for notifications, they are now grouped by default. In my experience, it takes a while to get used to it, but it’s a big improvement for noisy apps. You can also swipe on a notification to disable notifications from a specific app or turn them into silent notifications. You’ll feel more in control of your iPhone instead of feeling like your iPhone is controlling you. Apple couldn’t stop at those improvements and had to release app updates for its own apps. Let’s look at the most memorable ones. You can finally ditch Skype for good as FaceTime now supports group conversations — at least if all your friends are using iPhones. This feature alone will definitely increase iPhone stickiness, just like the fact that you can’t participate in iMessage conversations on Android. Talking about Messages, most iPhone users won’t see a difference this year as Apple focused on the iPhone X. In addition to new Animojis, you can now create your own avatar using Memoji. I have to say that I really like Snap’s Bitmoji, so I’m quite excited to use it. The only issue is that it feels like a one-way conversation if you’re not messaging someone who is using an iPhone X. It’s the kind of features that will start to make sense after a few years when everybody has Face ID on their iPhone. Four other Apple apps got an update. Stocks and Apple News received some design improvements. Voice Memos will now store your memos in iCloud and sync them with your iPad and Mac without using iTunes (finally). Lastly, iBooks is now called Apple Books, and it now looks more like the updated App Store. With iOS 12, Apple is pursuing its big bet on augmented reality and starting something new with Siri. Those platform changes could resonate well with developers and users or could become a distraction for everyone. Apple’s augmented reality SDK is getting a major update. With ARKit 2, developers can create apps that share the same augmented reality world between multiple users. You can imagine multiplayer games and shareable worlds. Apple also worked on improving the overall performance of the framework. But does it really matter? It feels like many geeks like you, TechCrunch readers, tested ARKit apps after the release of iOS 11. But there hasn’t been a mainstream hit so far. It’s still unclear if people actually want to use their iOS device to power an augmented reality experience. And the second big thing is Siri Shortcuts. After Apple Workflow, the automation app for iOS, many people wondered what it would mean for automation fans. The good news is that Apple is completely with a set of features. App developers can now configure Shortcuts to let users add to Siri a restaurant booking, a favorite Deliveroo order or a favorite sports team. On paper, it’s quite powerful and limited at the same time. It sounds like bookmarks for Siri. Most users will stop at suggested shortcuts. But power users will be able to configure multi-step workflows in the new Shortcuts app. It’s just like Workflow, but with a new name and new home automation features. This is great news if you’re a power user, but I wonder if Shortcuts will find a mainstream audience. I couldn’t test those features as it’s not yet available in the beta. Maybe Shortcuts will be added with iOS 12.1 or 12.2. There are many small refinements in iOS 12 that I haven’t listed there. For instance, Portrait Mode has been improved and the Photos app is getting better at showing you personalized recommendations. Or if you have an iPhone X, you’ll be able to add a second face to unlock your phone. iOS 12 looks especially promising if you consider your iPhone as infrastructure. Many people want a device that is as reliable as possible. And iOS 12 should stand out on this front. |
OpenAI’s ‘Dota 2’ neural nets are defeating human opponents | Lucas Matney | 2,018 | 6 | 25 | Artificially intelligent systems taking on human competitors is a grand tradition of computer science; thankfully, we’re still in the cute stages that don’t feel quite like War Games yet. For its part, has been trying its hand at Dota 2 competitive play, and its bots are starting to win against some skilled opponents under certain conditions. The Elon Musk co-founded venture is aiming to raise awareness for where AI technologies are now and how the tech industry can promote safe advances that benefit everyone in the future. While playing an unabashedly nerdy video game better than human opponents may seem to be a weird place to expend extensive resources, it’s all the continuation of where AlphaGo and Deep Blue have taken us before: building machines that can beat humans in seemingly simple games. Unlike decidedly more turn-based games like chess or Go, Dota 2 is a title that requires plenty of real-time decision-making. While Google’s AlphaGo sometimes took minutes to decide how to respond to a particularly well-crafted move, OpenAI Five, as it’s called, does not have that luxury, as its opponent would be making moves in the meantime. These games are operating at 30 frames per second for an average of 45 minutes, OpenAI says, resulting in about 80,000 frames, of which the system analyzes one-quarter. This has plenty of the nitty-gritty technical details if you’re interested. This is plenty resource-intensive — OpenAI Five is running on 124,000 cores on Google Cloud — and while this isn’t OpenAI’s first public experimentation playing Dota 2, what makes this interesting is that, compared to its previous efforts in 1v1 matches, this is a team of five distinct neural nets working together to best human opponents. For its part, OpenAI gave some interesting data points about OpenAI Five, particularly how it learns by playing 180 years’ worth of Dota 2 games against itself every day. OpenAI is understandably still tackling the parameters of the full game and is struggling in some aspects; as a result, there are certain rules by which both OpenAI and its human opponents must operate during matches, including not using certain characters, items and strategies. Even with these current restrictions, which the group fully outlines on the blog post, the team is aiming to compete at a Dota 2 esports world championship in August, where it will be fully tested. OpenAI will be hosting a Twitch-streamed Dota 2 tourney next month to showcase what it has built as it competes against top players. At the end of the day, a lot of this “Human versus AI” excitement is a bit over-exalted; these are games being approached by insanely powerful computer programs that can do one thing and only one thing. A lot of the media narrative around how artificial intelligence is already beating human experts is valid in a certain light, but kind of undermines the complex work being done by the people building these programs. This all probably plays into OpenAI’s interests, however, which seem to be focused quite a bit on driving home how quickly we’re progressing toward artificial general intelligence. It’s going to probably be a bit before an AI-controlled system starts trouncing opponents in Fortnite, but for a fixed-perspective strategy game like Dota 2, there is room for boundary-pushing hyper-focused AI programs to bulk up on gameplay knowledge and perhaps deliver some wins. |
Apple just released the first iOS 12 beta to everyone | Romain Dillet | 2,018 | 6 | 25 | This is your opportunity to get a glimpse of the future of iOS. Apple just released the first public beta of iOS 12, the next major version of the operating system for iPhone and iPad. Unlike developer betas, everyone can download it without a $99 developer account. But don’t forget, it’s a beta. The company still plans to release the final version of iOS 12.0 this fall (usually September). But Apple is going to release betas every few weeks over the summer. It’s a good way to fix as many bugs as possible and gather data from a large group of users. As always, Apple’s public betas closely follow the release cycle of developer betas. And Apple released the second developer beta of iOS 12 just last week. So it sounds like the first public beta is more or less the same build as the second developer build. But remember, you shouldn’t install an iOS beta on your primary iPhone or iPad. The issue is not just bugs — some apps and features won’t work at all. In some rare cases, beta software can also brick your device and make it unusable. Proceed with extreme caution. But if you have an iPad or iPhone you don’t need, here’s how to download it. Head over to Apple’s and download the configuration profile. It’s a tiny file that tells your iOS device to update to public betas like it’s a normal software update. You can either download the configuration profile from Safari on your iOS device directly, or transfer it to your device using AirDrop, for instance. Reboot your device, then head over to the Settings app. In September, your device should automatically update to the final version of iOS 12 and you’ll be able to delete the configuration profile. Here’s a quick rundown of what’s new in iOS 12. The main feature of iOS 12 is a performance improvement, especially for older devices. If you have an iPhone 6 or an iPad Air for instance, you should see a big improvement when it comes to launching apps, triggering the camera and entering text. The other big theme of the year is new features to help you spend less time using your phone. There’s a new Screen Time feature to see and control how much time you spend using each app. Notifications are now grouped and you can silence them from the lock screen. You also can turn on Do Not Disturb when you’re in a meeting, for a few hours or for longer. Apple didn’t stop there, and added new power features as well. Developers will be able to take advantage of a new file format for augmented reality and new features in ARKit 2.0. Apple is releasing the Workflow app as a new Siri Shortcuts app. Developers will be able to add information to Siri, as well, so that you can add a boarding pass or a music playlist to Siri. The Photos, News and Stocks apps have been improved, as well as Apple Books (the app formerly known as iBooks). Apple is introducing Memoji on the iPhone X. It’s a customized avatar that you can use in iMessage and FaceTime to represent you. If you want to learn more, read my to get my thoughts on this release. |
Implantable 3D-printed organs could be coming sooner than you think | Jonathan Shieber | 2,018 | 6 | 25 | At , an incubator for biotech startups in San Francisco’s Dogpatch neighborhood, a team of scientists and interns working for the small startup have just taken a big step on the path toward developing viable 3D-printed organs for humans. The company, which was founded in 2016 by research scientists Melanie Matheu and Noelle Mullin, staked its future (and a small $3 million investment) on a new technology to manufacture capillaries, the one-cell-thick blood vessels that are the pathways which oxygen and nutrients move through to nourish tissues in the body. Without functioning capillary structures, it is impossible to make organs, according to Matheu. They’re the most vital piece of the puzzle in the quest to print viable hearts, livers, kidneys and lungs, she said. “Microvasculature is the fundamental architectural unit that supports advanced multicellular life and it therefore represents a crucial target for bottom-up human tissue engineering and regenerative medicine,” said Jordan Miller, an assistant professor of bioengineering at Rice University and an expert in 3D-printed implantable biomaterial structures, in a statement. Prellis uses holographic printing technology that creates three-dimensional layers deposited by a light-induced chemical reaction that happens in five milliseconds. This feature, according to the company, is critical for building tissues like kidneys or lungs. Prellis achieves this by combining a light-sensitive photo-initiator with that allows the cellular material to undergo a reaction when blasted with infrared light, which catalyzes the polymerization of the bioink. Prellis didn’t invent holographic printing technology. Several researchers are looking to apply this new approach to 3D printing across a number of industries, but the company is applying the technology to biofabrication in a way that seems promising. The speed is important because it means that cell death doesn’t occur and the tissue being printed remains viable, while the ability to print within structures means that Prellis’ technology can generate the internal scaffolding to support and sustain the organic material that surrounds it, according to the company. Prellis isn’t the first company to develop three-dimensional organ printing. There have been decades of research into the technology, and (which made its debut on the TechCrunch stage) are already driving down the cost of printing living tissue. Now called , the company formerly known as BioBots has seen its founders part ways and its business strategy shift (it’s now focusing on developing software to make its bioprinters easier to use), . Allevi has slashed the cost of bioprinting with devices that sell for less than $10,000, but Prellis contends that the limitations of extrusion printing mean that technology is too low resolution and too slow to create capillaries and keep cells alive. Prellis’ organs will also need to be placed in a bioreactor to sustain them before they’re transplanted into an animal, but the difference is that the company aims to produce complete organs rather than sample tissue or a small cell sample, according to a statement. The bioreactors can simulate the biomechanical pressures that ensure an organ functions properly, Matheu said. “Vasculature is a key feature of complex tissues and is essential for engineering tissue with therapeutic value,” said Todd Huffman, the chief executive officer of , an advanced digital tissue imaging and data analysis company (and a Prellis advisor). “Prellis’ advancement represents a key milestone in the quest to engineer organs.” Matheu estimates that it will take two-and-a-half years and $15 million to bring implantable organs through their first animal trials. “That will get a test kidney into an animal,” she said. The goal is to print a quarter-sized kidney that could be transplanted into rats. “We want something that would be able to handle a kidney that we would transplant into a human,” Matheu said. One frame of a 3D map of animal tissue from 3Scan. Earlier this year, researchers at the University of Manchester . The scientists implanted small clusters of capillaries that filter waste products from the blood that had been grown in a Petri dish into genetically engineered mice. After 12 weeks, the capillaries had grown nephrons — the elements that make up a functional human kidney. Ultimately, the vision is to export cells from patients by taking a skin graft or blood, stem cell or bone marrow harvest — and then use those samples to create the cellular material that will grow organs. “Tissue rejection was the first thing I was thinking about in how I was designing the process and how we could do it,” says Matheu. While Prellis is spending its time working to perfect a technique for printing kidneys, the company is looking for partners to take its manufacturing technology and work on processes to develop other organs. “We’ll be doing collaborative work with other groups,” Matheu said. “Our technology will come to market in many other ways prior to the full kidney.” Last year, the company outlined a go-to-market strategy that included developing lab-grown tissues to produce antibodies for therapeutics and drug development. The company’s first targeted human tissue printed for clinical development were cells called “islets of Langerhans,” which are the units within a pancreas that produce insulin. Matheu sees the technology she and her co-founder developed as much about a fundamental shift in manufacturing biomaterials as a novel process to print kidneys, specifically. “I Meanwhile, the need for some solution to the shortage in organ donations keeps growing. Matheu said that one in seven adults in the U.S. have some sort of kidney ailment, and she estimates that 90 million people will need a kidney at some point in their lives. Roughly 330 people die every day from organ failure, and if there were a fast way to manufacture those organs, there’s no reason for those fatalities, says Matheu. Prellis estimates that because of the need for human tissue and organ replacement alternatives, as well as human tissue for drug discovery and toxicology testing, the global tissue engineering market will reach $94 billion by 2024, up from $23 billion in 2015. |
An Overwatch hacker in South Korea just got sentenced to a year in prison | Taylor Hatmaker | 2,018 | 6 | 25 | A 28-year-old man in South Korea faces a year in prison for hacking Overwatch. The sentence, reported by and , handed the hacker one year in prison and two years of probation for illicit activity related to the hit online multiplayer game. The particularly steep sentence is a result of both the ongoing nature of the activity and the fact that the individual generated 200 million Korean won (almost $180,000 USD) from Overwatch-related hacks. The hacker’s charges stem from the violation of two Korean laws: the Game Industry Promotion Act and the Information and Communication Technology Protection Law. In the last year, Overwatch developer Blizzard Entertainment has worked with the Seoul National Police Agency’s cybersecurity department to crack down on hacks that compromise the integrity of the high-profile game, particularly due to its prominence in the esports world. “Cheating on the Asian Overwatch server is endemic and widespread,” reported in a story on Overwatch hacking last year. “On the Battle.net forums and Reddit, complaints about hacking South Korean players’ too-accurate headshots, immediate gun-downs and even DDOS attacks against winners in competitive mode are widespread.” Hacks for a game like Overwatch can take many forms, including scripts that enable perfect aim, match-fixing and a rank manipulation practice known as boosting. “Doing anything to manipulate your internal MMR or Skill Rating (i.e. Boosting or Throwing) is not fine,” Overwatch Creative Director Jeff Kaplan wrote in a . “Penalties for boosting and throwing are about to increase dramatically.” The new sentence to be handed down by the Korean government for game-related hacking, but given the fact that sentencing usually results in large fines, it is notably harsh. Laws meant to deter gaming hacks and stipulate that violators may face up to $43,000 in fines and up to five years in prison. |
Andreessen Horowitz has a new crypto fund — and its first female general partner is running it with Chris Dixon | Connie Loizos | 2,018 | 6 | 25 | Silicon Valley powerhouse Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) has some big, and bigger, news today. First, it closed a dedicated crypto fund late last week from a subset of its limited partners, who’ve provided the firm with $300 million in capital commitments. The fund had become the worst-kept secret in the venture industry, largely because so many other venture firms are trying to figure out their own related strategies and have been watching closely a16z’s slow but growing number of investments in crypto-related startups over the past five years. Nine-year-old Andreessen Horowitz has also, at long last, brought aboard its first female general partner: Katie Haun, whose star has quietly been rising in the Bay Area over for the past couple of years. Haun — who is leading Andreessen’s crypto fund with general partner and renowned crypto enthusiast Chris Dixon — is kind of a big deal, so it’s no surprise that a16z nabbed her. Among her other many accomplishments, Haun spent more than a decade as a federal prosecutor with the U.S. Department of Justice, where she focused on fraud, cybercrime, and corporate compliance no-no’s alongside the SEC, FBI, and Treasury. According to Haun’s bio, she was also the DOJ’s first-ever coordinator for digital assets, and she led investigations into the Mt. Gox hack and the task force that investigated and ultimately took down the online drug marketplace Silk Road. Haun is also a lecturer at Stanford Business School and she’s a director on the board of the digital exchange , which was backed early on by a16z and is where Haun got to know Dixon, who is also on the board. (Both are keeping their seats.) We talked with Dixon earlier today to learn more about the fund, including how he and Haun are thinking about “exits” in the cryptocurrency world when there haven’t been a whole bunch. Our conversation has been edited lightly for length. CD: No, we’re still full-speed ahead on all traditional areas. The fund is a way for us to double down on crypto and not in any way reduce our commitment to enterprise, consumer, or bio investing. CD: It could, but we don’t plan to. We invested in and a few others about one-and-a-half years ago when we were figuring out our new crypto strategy. Now, with the full fund and investing in both early-stage and later-stage in crypto projects, the mandate is to be investing directly, though [we] never say never to anything. CD: We’ve made about 20 crypto investments over the last five years. [Bitcoin competitor] was my first investment in January 2013 and Coinbase later in 2013, then we did 21.co, which became [and earlier this year to Coinbase]. We did a few others — and — then the space got a lot more interesting with the rise of Ethereum and talented entrepreneurs entering the space. Those [investments] will remain in the funds where we put them in. CD: We’re in process with a few, but nothing that’s been finalized. CD: Some are equity investments, but with token provisions [meaning if the teams create a token, investors get access to them]. SAFTs are another thing we’ve done. We’ve also done direct, over-the-counter purchases of Bitcoin and Ethereum. But we were running into limits with what we could do out of the main fund. Now we’ll be able to do all sorts of things, as long as [we’re talking with] great entrepreneurs who are working on big and important projects with economic terms that make sense. CD: It’s a good question. To date, we’ve never sold any of our crypto assets. A lot of people in the market are day trading but we very much see this as investing. We’d expect any investment to have a five- to ten-year holding period. Some of these projects could have tokens that are freely tradable, so there’s the potential to have an exit that way. The most likely outcome is we invest in an early-stage project and we receive coins or tokens in exchange for [our commitment] and if the project becomes successful, those digital assets appreciate when that thesis is played out. But if we invest in some project that will be used by hundreds of millions of people, we wouldn’t want to exit until that’s realized. CD: No. We have LPs who prefer fiat money. CD: The traditional venture model of owning 10 to 20 percent of a company isn’t realistic in this world. We do think that if a project is very early stage, the valuation should reflect that. But we’re thinking more in terms of value: can this investment be big enough that it returns the fund on its own? So we don’t think in terms of percentages but value. We think this next wave of companies could be 10 times as big [as their predecessors]. CD: If done the right way, we think democratizing access is a great concept. We’re fans of the idea that more people can participate. But we don’t think [ICOs as they’re widely considered today] are regulatory compliant and we’ve never gotten involved in one of those. We participated in , for example, but [its offering] was made only to accredited investors. CD: The norm in the crypto world is different than the traditional venture world. Typically in VC, you won’t invest in a direct competitor. But with crypto, there’s a different ethos. It’s more cooperative. People would rather grow the pie together rather than fight over the size of the pie. We always make sure that projects are okay with any investments that we’re considering that might be overlapping. But in emerging spaces, it’s hard to think about categories as it’s kind of fluid. I’d say standards are evolving, but I’d also say it’s okay to [back more than one currency, for example]. TC: We’ve backed both Basis and , though the mechanics are pretty different and we think can be complementary. We also spoke with both when we made our investments. We do think it’s a really important idea, to have a coin pegged to something like the U.S. dollar in order to make the experience more mainstream and accessible, [versus a world rife with] these volatile coins. We think it’s such an important piece of infrastructure that there could be multiple winners. |
Jay-Z has a new venture fund and a Silicon Valley partner | Kirsten Korosec | 2,018 | 6 | 25 | Jay-Z is behind a new venture fund called Marcy Venture Partners that is being launched with Walden Venture Capital managing director Larry Marcus and longtime business partner Roc Nation president Jay Brown, according to . The fund was first reported by . Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter is no stranger to the venture world. The rap artist, producer and entrepreneur invested in Uber’s Series B round in 2011 when the company had a pre-money valuation of $300 million. Jay-Z has also invested in and . Roc Nation backed , a decarceration startup. Jay-Z and Jay Brown were looking for a Silicon Valley partner for their . And at one time, it appeared they had landed on Sherpa Capital, a VC firm created by some of Uber’s other early investors. But that deal fell apart. Now Walden Venture Capital’s Marcus will lead Marcy Venture Partners. Marcus has deep experience as an investor as an early backer of Pandora and Netflix. Marcus has also invested in sound and voice search startup , retail tech company Skip and , which was acquired by Motorola. |
New technique brings secrets out of old daguerreotypes | John Biggs | 2,018 | 6 | 25 | Daguerreotypes – photos made with a process that used mercury vapors on an iodine-sensitized silvered plate – break down quite easily. The result is a fogged plate that, more often that not, is completely ruined by time and mistreatment. However, researchers at Western University have created a system that uses synchrotrons and “rapid-scanning micro-X-ray fluorescence imaging” to scan the plates for eight hours. The system shot an X-ray 10×10 microns thick at “an energy most sensitive to mercury absorption.” This, in turn, showed the researchers where the mercury is most prevalent, thereby bringing up the image that was lost to damage or decay. Kozachuk used rapid-scanning micro-X-ray fluorescence imaging to analyze the plates, which are about 7.5 cm wide, and identified where mercury was distributed on the plates. With an X-ray beam as small as 10×10 microns (a human scalp hair averages 75 microns across) and at an energy most sensitive to mercury absorption, the scan of each daguerreotype took about eight hours. The team published their findings in Scientific Reports. “It’s somewhat haunting because they are anonymous and yet it is striking at the same time,” said Madalena Kozachuk, a PhD student in Western’s Department of Chemistry. “The image is totally unexpected because you don’t see it on the plate at all. It’s hidden behind time. But then we see it and we can see such fine details: the eyes, the folds of the clothing, the detailed embroidered patterns of the table cloth.” The technology promises to improve the methods of conservation for old photographs and should bring many previously unusable daguerreotypes back to life. [youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4F52Gg9LIk] |
AT&T collaborates on NSA spying through a web of secretive buildings in the US | Taylor Hatmaker | 2,018 | 6 | 25 | A sheds light on the NSA’s close relationship with communications provider AT&T. The Intercept identified eight facilities across the U.S. that function as hubs for AT&T’s efforts to collaborate with the intelligence agency. The site of this kind in 2017 in lower Manhattan. The report reveals that eight AT&T data facilities in the U.S. are regarded as high-value sites to the NSA for giving the agency direct “backbone” access to raw data that passes through, including emails, web browsing, social media and any other form of unencrypted online activity. The NSA uses the web of eight AT&T hubs for a surveillance operation code-named FAIRVIEW, a program previously . The program, first established in 1985, “involves tapping into international telecommunications cables, routers, and switches” and only coordinates directly with AT&T and not the other major U.S. mobile carriers. AT&T’s deep involvement with the NSA monitoring program operated under the code name SAGUARO. Messaging, email and other web traffic accessed through the program was made searchable through XKEYSCORE, one of the NSA’s more infamous search-powered surveillance tools. explains how those sites give the NSA access to data beyond just AT&T subscribers: The data exchange between AT&T and other networks initially takes place outside AT&T’s control, sources said, at third-party data centers that are owned and operated by companies such as California’s Equinix. But the data is then routed – in whole or in part – through the eight AT&T buildings, where the NSA taps into it. By monitoring what it calls the “peering circuits” at the eight sites, the spy agency can collect “not only AT&T’s data, they get all the data that’s interchanged between AT&T’s network and other companies,” according to Mark Klein, a former AT&T technician who worked with the company for 22 years. The NSA describes these locations as “peering link router complex” sites while AT&T calls them “Service Node Routing Complexes” (SNRCs). The eight complexes are spread across the nation’s major cities, with locations in Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C. The Intercept report identifies these facilities: Among the pinpointed buildings, there is a nuclear blast-resistant, windowless facility in New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood; in Washington, D.C., a fortress-like, concrete structure less than half a mile south of the U.S. Capitol; in Chicago, an earthquake-resistant skyscraper in the West Loop Gate area; in Atlanta, a 429-foot art deco structure in the heart of the city’s downtown district; and in Dallas, a cube-like building with narrow windows and large vents on its exterior, located in the Old East district. … in downtown Los Angeles, a striking concrete tower near the Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Staples Center, two blocks from the most important internet exchange in the region; in Seattle, a 15-story building with blacked-out windows and reinforced concrete foundations, near the city’s waterfront; and in San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood, a building where it was previously claimed that the NSA was monitoring internet traffic from a secure room on the sixth floor. While these facilities could allow for the monitoring of domestic U.S. traffic, they also process vast quantities of international traffic as it moves across the globe — a fact that likely explains why the NSA would view these AT&T nodes as such high-value sites. The original documents, part of the leaked files provided by Edward Snowden, are . : A representative from AT&T provided TechCrunch with the following comment. “Like all companies, we are required by law to provide information to government and law enforcement entities by complying with court orders, subpoenas, lawful discovery requests and other legal requirements. And, we provide voluntary assistance to law enforcement when a person’s life is in danger and in other immediate, emergency situations. In all cases, we ensure that requests for assistance are valid and that we act in compliance with the law. |
Fortnite Battle Royale is getting a Playground mode, and other Week 9 rumors… | Jordan Crook | 2,018 | 6 | 25 | Whether it’s through changes in the map itself or the introduction of new weapons like the Stink Bomb and the Thermal-Scoped AR, Fortnite Battle Royale continues to evolve with each passing week. So it’s no surprise that more changes are afoot for the world’s biggest video game. First and foremost, a new Playground mode will be coming to Fortnite Battle Royale. The company Playground mode in late May, describing a mode that would let users load into the map and simply practice their game play, whether it’s learning to build quickly or practicing their aim. With Friendly Fire enabled, users can squad up and scrimmage against one another, or simply wander around and learn the nooks and crannies of the map. Stats and challenges aren’t going to be tracked in Playground mode. But it will offer users the chance to get acquainted with the feel of the game (and more importantly, learn how to build) before jumping directly into a Battle Royale game. Epic has been very clear about wanting to be as inclusive a game as possible, and giving users the chance to warm up and learn about the game before jumping into the map will likely help with retention of new users who would otherwise grow frustrated and quit. Playground mode is expected to launch tomorrow with the game’s regularly scheduled update. But there may be more in store for John Wicks and Omegas come tomorrow. is reporting on the week 9 map, allegedly leaked by , which seems to show a new building in the middle of Tilted Towers. The map for the next update! Tilted has a new Tower, Rocket in Villain lair is missing and Dusty Divot got some more trees! (full resolution image: , 40 MB) — DieBuddies (@TwoEpicBuddies) At the end of Season 3, various sections of the map, including Tilted Towers, were hit with meteors, causing varying levels of destruction. One of the main buildings in Tilted Towers, lovingly called ‘Split’ by many players, was almost entirely decimated. Construction equipment has been scattered throughout Tilted ever since, but from the leaked map image it seems that Split is not being rebuilt. Instead, it looks like a brand new building is sprouting up in its place. The leaked map also shows more trees growing in Dusty Divot. Plus, the villain’s lair near Snobby Shores, which housed a missile, now seems to be missile-less, meaning the rocket was fired off at some point? This whole piece is unclear, as last week TVs on the map showed a countdown that many expected to culminate in the launch of the rocket. But that didn’t happen. And now the rocket is missing? Perhaps this is a precursor to Season 5? |
CBS to stream NFL games on mobile | Sarah Perez | 2,018 | 6 | 25 | CBS today an expanded agreement with the NFL which will allow it to stream NFL ON CBS games through its over-the-top service, CBS All Access, through 2022. The deal includes, for the first time, rights to stream the games on mobile devices. The changes will begin this season, and will additionally include the ability for TV Everywhere subscribers (those who have an existing pay TV subscription) to stream the games on mobile, too. According to the network, the entire 2018 NFL ON CBS season, including Super Bowl LIII, will stream live on CBS All Access across all platforms. This includes not only mobile devices and the web, but also on media streaming devices like Roku, Apple TV, Chromecast, Android TV, Fire TV, and game consoles like Xbox One and Playstation, plus Samsung Smart TVs. The games will also be available to those who chose to subscribe to CBS All Access through Amazon’s a la carte TV service, Amazon Channels. CBS already had streaming rights to NFL games, starting in the 2016 season. But Verizon [disclosure: TC parent by way of Oath] held exclusive mobile streaming rights to games until their deal expired with the 2017 season. That change has broadened access to NFL games on mobile. For example, Fox’s multi-year deal for Thursday Night Football also included mobile rights, . Verizon is now streaming games through Yahoo, Go90 and other properties on mobile. And NBCU and ESPN have Sunday and Monday Night Football deals that involve mobile streaming, . For the NFL, it needs to broaden access to games on mobile devices to address issues with lower ratings that’s, in part, . And for CBS, access to the games on mobile could give its streaming service a boost in the wake of what may be growth, and the mistake of putting too much pressure on the “Star Trek” prequel to deliver subscribers. “Star Trek: Discovery” has underwhelmed some fans, leaving it with a 4.7 out 10 user score on , and a lot of reviews on IMDb. In other words, CBS can’t count on those core Trek fans to subscribe to All Access just to watch the new show, as it may have hoped. Bringing in NFL fans could help with sign-ups – as will , which accounts for some 55% of direct-to-consumer subscriptions, . |
Rumored full mouse and keyboard support for Xbox One could change the gaming landscape | Devin Coldewey | 2,018 | 6 | 25 | Microsoft may be readying a new weapon that could shift the balance in the interminable console wars: the mouse. Wait, you say, didn’t they promise that years ago, and aren’t there peripherals already available? Kind of. But going whole hog into PC-style controls allows Microsoft to create powerful synergies with Windows, performing a flanking maneuver against arch-rival Sony. Mouse and keyboard is, of course, the control method of choice for many games on PC, but it has remained elusive on consoles. Some fancy accessories have made it possible to do it, and years ago Microsoft said it would be adding mouse support to games on its console, but the feature has in practice proved frustratingly limited. More on-screen pointing has been done with Wiimotes by far. ostensibly from Microsoft that details what could be a full-court press on the mouse and keyboard front, which is one the company is uniquely suited to attempt. In fact, you may very rightly wonder why it hasn’t been attempted before now. The trouble isn’t implementing it but the changes that have to be made downstream of that implementation. One of these things? Why not? For one thing, hardly any games will support the control method out of the box. They’ve all been made with very specific hardware in mind, and it’s nontrivial to add a pointer to menus, change relative camera movement to absolute movement and so on. And for another, mouse and keyboard is simply a superior form of input for some games. Certainly for the likes of real-time strategy and simulations, which involve a lot of menus and precise clicking — which accounts for the relative lack of those on consoles. But more importantly in the gaming economy, first-person shooters are massively dominated by mouse users. That may sound sort of like a gauntlet thrown to the ground between PC and console players, but this argument has played out before many times and the mouse and keyboard players always come out on top, often by embarrassing margins. Usually that doesn’t present a big problem, since, for example, competitive Call of Duty leagues are pretty much all on console. You just don’t have match-ups between mice and controllers. That’s starting to change, however, with the introduction of major cross-platform games like Fortnite. When you have Xbox, Switch and PC players all on the same server, the latter arguably has a huge advantage for a number of reasons. You don’t bring an analog stick to a sniper fight. And on the other hand, the Xbox One is lagging behind the PlayStation 4 in sales and in attractive exclusives. A fresh play that expands the Xbone into a growing niche — say, pro and competitive gaming — would be a huge boon just about now. That’s why the document Windows Central received makes so much sense. The presentation suggests that Windows-compatible USB mice and keyboards will work with Xbox One, including wireless ones that work via dongle. That would change the game considerably, so to speak. The devices would have to report themselves and be monitored, of course: It wouldn’t do for a game to think it’s receiving controller input but instead getting mouse input. And that leaves the door open to cheating and so on, as well. So device IDs and such will be carefully monitored. Whether and how to implement mouse and keyboard controls will still be left entirely to the developer, the slides note, which of course leaves us with the same problems as before. But what allowing any mouse to be used does, combined with a huge amount of players doing so on a major property like Fortnite, is create a sort of critical mass. Right now the handful of players with custom, expensive setups to mouse around in a handful of games just isn’t enough for developers to dedicate significant resources to accommodating them. But say a few hundred thousand people decide to connect their spare peripherals to the console? All of a sudden that’s an addressable market — it provides a competitive advantage to be the developer who supports it. Mouse support may also provide the bridge that enables the longstanding Microsoft fantasy of merging its Xbox and Windows ecosystems at least in part. It unifies the experience, allows for improved library sharing, and generally shifts the Xbox One from a dedicated console to essentially a standardized low-cost, high-performance gaming PC. This may have the further effect of helping put pressure on Valve and its Steam store, which dominates the PC gaming world to the point of near monopoly. Being able to play on Xbox or Windows, share achievements and save games, have gameplay parity and so on — this is the kind of compelling multi-platform experience Microsoft has been flirting with for years. Imagine that: a Microsoft ecosystem that spans PCs and consoles, embraces competitive gaming at all levels and is easy and simple to set up. Sony would have little recourse, having no desktop business to leverage, and Valve’s own attempts to cross the console divide have been largely abortive. In a way it seems like Microsoft is poised for a critical hit — if only it manages to take advantage of it. Will this just be the latest chapter in the long story of failed mouse support by consoles? Or is Microsoft laying the groundwork for a major change to how it approaches the gaming world? We didn’t see anything at E3 this year, so the answer isn’t forthcoming, but Microsoft may be spurred by this leak (assuming it’s genuine) to publicize the program a bit more and speak in more concrete terms how this potential shift would take place. |
John Oliver is erased from Chinese internet following segment on China | Romain Dillet | 2,018 | 6 | 25 | HBO’s Last Week Tonight has led to some drastic measures in China. After an episode aired on June 17th, the Chinese government is now trying to erase all signs of John Oliver on the internet. The show had a 20-minute segment on Xi Jinping and the Chinese government. In particular, Oliver mentioned Xi’s and even compared him to Mao Zedong. Oliver also mentioned torture of political opponents, the to leverage WeChat data to give you a score and determine if you’re a good citizen, Tiananmen Square protests, Nobel Peace Prize winner recent death and, yes, online censorship. It’s a bit ironic that Oliver’s show itself is now censored in China as a result of this episode. It proves Oliver’s point that China still has a long way to go when it comes to human rights and freedom of the press. Oliver also made sure to mention that Xi doesn’t like to be compared to Winnie the Pooh. Last year, Chinese authorities all mentions of Winnie the Pooh. According to , many posts on social network platform mentioned John Oliver after the segment aired. Users didn’t specifically talked about the segment — they focused on the host. But now, if you try to write a post that says “John Oliver”, you’ll get an error message. GreatFire.org also that HBO’s website has been blocked since Saturday or Sunday. Unless you have a working VPN or proxy , you won’t find Oliver anywhere on the Chinese internet. It’s impressive to see the pace of Chinese censors. |
Agricool raises another $28 million to grow fruits in containers | Romain Dillet | 2,018 | 12 | 3 | French startup is raising another $28 million round of funding (€25 million). The company is working on containers to grow fruits and vegetables in urban areas, starting with strawberries. Bpifrance, Danone Manifesto Ventures, Marbeuf Capital, Solomon Hykes and other business angels participated in today’s funding round. Some existing investors also participated, such as daphni, XAnge, Henri Seydoux and Kima Ventures. It might sound crazy but containers can be more efficient than traditional agricultural methods. For instance, a container lets you control the temperature, the humidity, the color spectrum and more. Agricool uses a ton of LEDs to replace the sun. The result is quite telling. You can grow strawberries all year round, save water as a container is limited when it comes to space, save on transportation and more. In other words, you end up with locally-produced, GMO-free, pesticide-free strawberries. You can already buy some of those strawberries in a couple of Monoprix in Paris. Agricool plans to launch a hundred containers by 2021 in Paris and in Dubai. That’s why the company is going to hire around 200 people by 2021 to support this growth rate. Eventually, Agricool also plans to expand to other fruits and vegetables. I’ve already covered Agricool multiple times in the past. The startup is still following the same roadmap, but with more funding. And it sounds like it requires a lot of capital to build this network of containers as there are not a lot of them out there. But it’s a promising product that could help cut down on gas emissions. |
Fintech investors and founders to judge Startup Battlefield Africa | Mike Butcher | 2,018 | 12 | 3 | TechCrunch will soon be returning to Africa to hold its dedicated to the African continent. The event, in Lagos, Nigeria, on December 11, will showcase the launch of 15 of the hottest startups in Africa onstage for the first time. We’ll also be joined by some of the leading investment firms in the region. The event is now sold out, but keep your eyes on TechCrunch for video of all the panels and the Battlefield competition. Here are just some of the investors and founders who will be judging the startups competing for US$25,000. Barbara Iyayi is the chief growth officer and managing director of Africa for Element, which deploys AI-powered mobile biometrics software to develop digital platforms globally. Barbara was part of the founding team of Atlas Mara, a London stock exchange-listed company, co-founded by Bob Diamond, ex-CEO of Barclays Bank, which was the first-ever entity to raise more than $1 billion to invest in, operate and manage financial institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa. As the Regional Lead for M&A and Investments, she led investments into banks and developed the banking platform’s entry into seven countries in Africa. Notably, she led the acquisition and first-ever merger of two banks in Rwanda, to be the leading innovative retail bank — Banque Populaire du Rwanda — and led a $250 million equity investment in Union Bank of Nigeria. Sam Gichuru is founder and CEO of Nailab, one of Kenya’ s leading business incubators. His contribution in establishing the startup business ecosystem in Kenya, through Nailab, has been significant, and as a result was invited as a key speaker during the 2015 Global Entrepreneurship Summit, held in Nairobi and officiated by then U.S. President Barack Obama. Sam has been instrumental in propagating the development of a strong and vibrant entrepreneurship ecosystem, and it’s through this engagement that he was most recently selected by Jack Ma to lead, through Nailab, the Africa Netpreneur Prize Initiative, a $10 million Initiative that seeks to discover, spotlight and support 10 African entrepreneurs every year for the next 10 years. |
Tencent Music moving ahead with its $1.2B US stock market debut | Catherine Shu | 2,018 | 12 | 3 | Tencent Music Entertainment’s initial public offering is back in motion, two months after the company reportedly postponed it amid a global sell-off. In a , the company, China’s largest streaming music service, said it plans to offer 82 million American depositary shares (ADS), representing 164 million Class A ordinary shares, for between $13 to $15 each. That means the IPO will potentially raise up to $1.23 billion. The company is offering 41.03 million ADS, while selling shareholders will offer the remaining 40.97 million ADS. It will list on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol TME. According to the filing, Tencent Music’s controlling shareholder, Tencent Holdings, has agreed to buy Class A ordinary shares valued at up to $32 million. With about 800 million monthly active users, Tencent Music is not only China’s largest online music entertainment platform, but one of the biggest in the world. To put that number in context, Spotify, one of Tencent Music’s shareholders and strategic partners, currently . Tencent Music at the beginning of October, but then the WSJ reported that i because of a sell-off in global markets that hit Chinese markets particularly hard. The stock market is , however, thanks to a truce in the U.S.-China trade war. The offering’s lead underwriters are Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Deutsche Bank Securities and Bank of America Merrill Lynch. |
Apple announces its ‘Best of 2018’ lists across apps, games, music, podcasts and more | Sarah Perez | 2,018 | 12 | 3 | Apple today its Best of 2018 selections – its annual, editorial list of what it considers the best content across its App Store and iTunes, along with its top charts of the most downloaded apps and games fo the year. As in other years, Apple selected a “best” app and game for each platform, including iPhone, iPad, Apple TV and Mac. It also rounded-up several favorite Apple Watch apps, but didn’t award a winner. The best app of 2018 on iPhone was the iPhone version of the popular Procreate drawing app for iPad, Procreate Pocket. Meanwhile, the top iPad app was Froggipedia, an AR app that lets you virtually dissect a frog so you don’t have to actually dissect a frog. Both apps showcase technologies Apple aims to promote. In Procreate Pocket’s case, it’s the iPhone companion to an Apple Pencil-powered app on iPad. On the iPhone, it instead uses 3D Touch support for painting with your finger. Froggipedia turns to dissect a virtual frog. On Mac, the top app was image editor Pixelmator Pro, and top Apple TV app was the big-screened version of workout app Sweat, whose creator to lead a special session. The top games this year were: Donut County (iPhone), Gorogoa (iPad), The Gardens Between (Mac) and Alto’s Odyssey (Apple TV) – the latter which Showcasing their somewhat secondary status, Apple Watch apps didn’t get a “best of” pick for app and game, but a small group got a shoutout from Apple as being “favorites.” This includes: WaterMinder, Lifesum, 10% Happier, Carrot Weather, FunGolf GPS, Swing Tennis Tracker, Slopes, App in the Air, Overcast, and Just Press Record. In addition to its “Best of” apps, Apple also identified 2018 app trends, which included “self-care” apps in the non-gaming space, and Battle Royale-style gaming (e.g. Fortnite and PUBG Mobile) as the game trend. Notably, a self-care app – meditation app Calm – of 2017, so this is trend that’s not dying down. Though not a “Best of” pick on iPhone or iPad, Apple did give a shout-out to wellness and self-care apps, noting that Fabulous, Shine, 10% Happier and Headspace had a good year. While its “Best of” selections were editorially chosen, Apple also unveiled its year-end “Top Charts” across iPhone and iPad, which were separated by both and (free and paid). These are the most downloaded app of 2018. The lists still show Facebook, YouTube, Google, and other entertainment apps dominating the top free charts. In addition to the best content across categories, Apple the most-read stories from the “Today” section on the App Store. The revamped and more editorially-driven App Store , making this year the first full year of its existence. The store is now not just a marketplace and search engine for apps, but also a place to read about the developers who create apps, their businesses, and learn other tips and tricks. According to Apple, the top ten most-read stories included several on popular games, and a guide for parents on Snapchat, among others. The full list included: Apple also picked a few editorial favorites of its own, including: The company also unveiled its editorial and most-downloaded lists for podcasts, audiobooks, , and music. Some highlights of included Artist of the year: Drake; Breakout Artist of the Year: Juice WRLD; Song of the Year: – Cardi B featuring Bad Bunny & J. Balvin; Album of the Year: – Kacey Musgraves; Most Downloaded Podcast: ; Best Book of the year: ; and Audiobook of the year: . The 2018 Apple Books charts is , and the music charts are . Across podcasts, Apple selected a good handful of favorites, including and . The top 25 most downloaded podcasts and most downloaded new podcasts of the year are . It noted that investigate reporting continued to be a popular topic, while the News and Politics genre grew in 2018. Apple isn’t the only one with a year-end “Best of” list out now. . Its list included the best app, Drops: Learn 31 new languages, and best game, PUBG Mobile. It introduced a “fan favorites” category as well, where users got to vote on their own favorite apps and games. Those winners included PUBG again, but for best app, they chose YouTube TV. |
Quora says 100 million users may have been affected by data breach | Catherine Shu | 2,018 | 12 | 3 | said today that a security breach may have compromised data from about 100 million users. In an email sent to users today and by CEO Adam D’Angelo, the company said a “malicious third party” gained unauthorized access to Quora’s systems on Friday. Its internal security teams and a “leading digital forensics and security firm” are currently investigating the breach. Law enforcement officials have also been notified. The company believes it has identified the root cause of the breach and “taken steps to address the issue, although our investigation is ongoing and we’ll continue to make security improvements.” Quora also added that anonymous questions and answers were not affected by the breach because it does not store the identities of people who make anonymous postings. The company is currently notifying users whose data was compromised and logging out all Quora users who may have been affected as a security precaution. It is also invalidating their passwords if they used one. A FAQ about the breach has been set up . According to Quora, the following user data may have been accessed: Account and user information, e.g. name, email, IP, user ID, encrypted password, user account settings, personalization data Public actions and content including drafts, e.g. questions, answers, comments, blog posts, upvotes Data imported from linked networks when authorized by you, e.g. contacts, demographic information, interests, access tokens (now invalidated) Non-public actions, e.g. answer requests, downvotes, thanks Non-public content, e.g. direct messages, suggested edits In another , Quora said “it is confident that no partner’s financial information has been compromised.” Some access tokens associated with Stripe, the payment processing service used by the company, were “temporarily compromised,” but Quora confirmed with Stripe that no access tokens have been used since the incident and no financial information was breached. All users with Stripe accounts have also had their access tokens reset. “We are confident that no personal financial information that was accessible through Stripe has been compromised. Furthermore, no personal financial information is currently vulnerable,” Quora said. |
Will Uber gobble up Lime or fly off with Bird? | Kate Clark | 2,018 | 12 | 3 | It’s time for scooter startups to find a cozy, protective blanket to get them through the chilly months. For Lime and Bird, that could be Uber. The pair of venture capital darlings, which both operate fleets of electric scooters around the world, are said to be in talks with the SoftBank-backed ride-hailing behemoth about a possible acquisition, as first reported by . The news follows Lyft’s of bike-rental service Motivate, Ford’s of dockless bike and e-scooter startup Spin and Uber’s of JUMP Bikes. The trio of transactions are likely the first of many deals, as M&A activity in the scooter sector will inevitably heat up in the coming months. Uber, which has scooters available to rent within its mobile app in courtesy of JUMP, is looking to one of the two startups to beef up its scooter supply, though both companies are denying reports of an impending deal. Bird’s chief executive officer Travis VanderZanden told TechCrunch simply that “Bird is not for sale.” Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Lime told us they are “focused on building an independent company,” or, in other words, “Lime is not interested in Uber’s courtship.” Uber declined to comment. An acquisition of either Lime or Bird would be quite expensive. Both companies are worth more than $1 billion and would surely hike up their valuations amid M&A talks, especially considering reports that both are currently fundraising at even higher valuations. Bird, for its part, was valued at this summer and Lime boasts at least a price tag. in Lime, though, which would cheapen that deal a bit. An Uber acquisition would surely satisfy their investors, but I’d wager neither Lime nor Bird’s founders are ready to relinquish their independence. Both startups have been working tirelessly to build sustainable businesses and expand beyond bikes and scooters. Bird recently launched , an interesting new service that allows entrepreneurs to buy Bird’s scooters at-cost and rent them out themselves as a side business. Lime, a couple of weeks prior, released its first fleet of shareable vehicles that are now available to rent via the Lime app in Seattle, and it’s working on the launch of a in major U.S. and international cities. On top of that, both companies have been racing to tackle new markets around the globe, from to in 2018. Together, the two companies have raised nearly $1 billion in venture capital funding in about a year’s time. As the two leading brands, they are quickly turning e-scootering into an acceptable mode of last-mile transportation in the U.S. Their recent behavior suggests the companies are eyeing a future where they are a go-to multimodal transportation platform, like Uber, rather than the subsidiary of one. Investors, however, have a different perspective. Sources tell TechCrunch some of Lime and Bird’s backers are encouraging the companies to continue discussions with Uber. Despite being extremely young companies — some of the youngest to rack up valuations that high ever, actually — Lime and Bird are costly, which seriously limits their exit options. Lime is backed by GV, IVP, Coatue Management, GGV Capital and others. Bird is backed by investors including Accel, CRV, Greycroft, Sound Ventures and Upfront Ventures. When Uber shelled out $200 million to earlier this year and made dockless bikes and scooters rentable in select cities, it became clear the ride-hailing giant was doubling down on micro-mobility. “We see the Uber app as moving from just being about car sharing and car-hailing to really helping the consumer get from A to B in the most affordable, most dependable, most convenient way,” Uber chief executive officer at the time of the deal. “We think e-bikes are just a spectacularly great product.” He added that he’d been staring at e-scooters “quizzically on the streets” and thought they were in an “odd spot” due to regulatory issues. Well, the latter is still true in many cities, but scooters have certainly become more widely accepted as they’ve invaded neighborhoods in Seattle, San Francisco, Denver, Austin, Paris and beyond. Now that Uber is serious about scooters, it needs to increase its supply. Lime, given Uber’s existing stake in the company and its lower valuation, is a natural target. Of course, there are many, many, many other small e-scooter operators Uber could target, like and , to name a few. Spin, one of the early entrants to the e-scooter market, however, is no longer an option. The startup had raised about $8 million in venture funding and sold to Ford for around in a deal confirmed just a few weeks ago. Uber is expected to go public in early 2019. The company released its last month, reporting an increase in revenue of five percent quarter-over-quarter at $2.95 billion — up 38 percent year-over-year. Gross bookings were up six percent QoQ and 34 percent YoY at $12.7 billion. Net losses, however, were up 32 percent QoQ to $939 million on a pro forma basis. The company says it’s investing heavily in Uber Eats, its bikes and scooters, and Uber Freight as it expects each of those efforts to become even larger contributors to its overall business. Uber will likely make a move on Lime in Q1 2019, before the company closes yet another fundraising round and prices itself higher than even Uber would be willing to pay. |
Google’s call screening transcripts are live and they’re pretty rad | Brian Heater | 2,018 | 12 | 3 | null |
Apple Music is getting native Android tablet support | Lucas Matney | 2,018 | 12 | 3 | Bringing Apple Music to Android tablets probably wasn’t Apple’s biggest priority, but three years after launching support for Android phones, the bigger screens are getting some love. The update, first spotted by , is only available to Google Group beta testers for now, but should soon be rolling out widely when the 2.7 update goes out. The tablet-friendly design switches up the navigation to make use of the added screen real estate. Apple added support for Android Auto in the last big update in September. |
Credit card stealing malware on Canada’s 1-800-FLOWERS website went undetected for four years | Zack Whittaker | 2,018 | 12 | 3 | It’s going to take more than a bunch of posies to make up for this one. The Canadian branch of 1-800-FLOWERS revealed in with the California attorney general’s office that malware on its website had siphoned off customers’ credit cards over a four-year period. Four years. Let that sink in. The company said it believes the malware was scraping credit cards between August 15, 2014 to September 15, 2018, but that the company’s main 1-800-FLOWERS.com website was unaffected. “Findings from the investigation suggest that the information collected included your first and last name, payment card number, expiration date, and card security code,” the filing said. So, that’s everything that a scammer would need to rinse your credit card dry. The notification didn’t say how many customers had their data stolen, but that any hacked company has to inform customers if more than 500 California residents are affected. As bad as a four-year breach is at the best of times, bizarrely it’s only the second company to admit a security issue dating back to 2014. Marriott on Thursday revealed that by unnamed hackers over the four-year period. You know what they say: Bad news comes in threes. Bets on who’s next? |
Tim Cook addresses white supremacists in ADL address | Brian Heater | 2,018 | 12 | 3 | . embodies ADL's mission of fighting hate, and securing justice and fair treatment to all. His words inspire us to keep up the good fight. — ADL (@ADL_National) |
Don’t worry, ‘Friends’ isn’t leaving Netflix anytime soon | Kate Clark | 2,018 | 12 | 3 | Thousands of internet users were understandably this morning when a terrible rumor surfaced that “Friends” would be removed from Netflix on January 1, 2019. Despite numerous reports confirming the news, Netflix took to Twitter to confirm the beloved slapstick sitcom wouldn’t be going anywhere, at least not in 2019, and fans everywhere breathed a sigh of relief. The Holiday Armadillo has granted your wish: “Friends” will still be there for you in the US throughout 2019 — Netflix US (@netflix) But I’d advise any “Friends” virgins to start binge-watching now because the series is expected to transition to Warner Bros.’ own streaming platform in 2020, . That service is said to be launching at the end of 2019. We’ve reached out to Netflix to confirm. As we work to get to the bottom of this, please enjoy this on why Rachel Green and Ross Geller were an absolutely awful match. |
Google is building digital art galleries you can step into | Lucas Matney | 2,018 | 12 | 3 | Google wants to help you take a closer look at the art world. The company’s Arts & Culture app has long been one of the company’s cooler niche apps and one that I often feel guilty about overlooking every time I rediscover it. Today, the company has into the mix focused on collecting the known works of Dutch master artist Johannes Vermeer and curating them in a single place. The feature looks a lot like many of the company’s other deep dives, including listicles of factoids, interviews with experts and editorials. What makes this presentation unique is that the company actually constructed a miniature 3D art gallery that can utilize your phone’s AR functionality to plop into physical space in front of you. With ARCore or ARKit, you can move through the “Pocket Gallery” and get close to the high-resolution captures of the paintings while also bringing up information about the works. Having just tried it, this is one of those things that honestly doesn’t make a ton of sense to do with phone AR. Having a fully rendered gallery pop on your coffee table is an interesting gimmick, but they probably could have ditched the AR for a fully rendered 3D environment that’s more of a traversable object or just left the immersive views for VR and stuck with 2D exploration on your phone. Nevertheless, it all makes for some interesting experimentation, and it’s just cool to see Google trying out new things with experiencing digital art in a more immersive way. Google’s Arts & Culture app is available on and . |
Marriott’s breach response is so bad, security experts are filling in the gaps — at their own expense | Zack Whittaker | 2,018 | 12 | 3 | Last Friday, Marriott sent out millions of emails warning of a massive data breach — some 500 million guest reservations from its Starwood database. One problem: the email sender’s domain didn’t look like it came from Marriott at all. Marriott sent its notification email from “ ,” which is registered to a third party firm, , on behalf of the hotel chain giant. But there was little else to suggest the email was at all legitimate — the domain or have . In fact, there’s no easy way to check that the domain is real, except a buried note on Marriott’s that confirms the domain as legitimate. But what makes matters worse is that the email is easily spoofable. Often what happens after a data breach, scammers will capitalize on the news cycle by tricking users into turning over their private information with their own stream of fake messages and websites. It’s more common than you think. People who think they’re at risk after a breach are more susceptible to being duped. Companies should host any information on their own websites and verified social media pages to stop bad actors from hijacking victims for their own gain. But once you start setting up your own dedicated, off-site page with its unique domain, you have to consider the cybersquatters — those who register similar-looking domains that look almost the same. Take “ .” To the untrained eye, it looks like the legitimate domain — but many wouldn’t notice the misspelling. Actually, it belongs to Jake Williams, founder of , to warn users not to trust the domain. “I registered the domains to make sure that scammers didn’t register the domains themselves,” Williams told TechCrunch. “After the Equifax breach, it was obvious this would be an issue, so registering the domains was just a responsible move to keep them out of the hands of criminals.” Equifax, the biggest breach of last year, made headlines not only for its eye-watering hack, but its shockingly bad response. It, too, set up a dedicated site for victims — “ ” — but even the company’s own Twitter staff were confused, and concerned victims to “ ” — a fake site set up by developer to expose the company’s vulnerable incident response. With the Equifax breach not even a distant memory, Marriott has clearly learned nothing from the response. Many others have sounded the alarm on Marriott’s lackluster data breach response. Security expert Troy Hunt, who founded data breach notification site , posted on the hotel chain giant’s use of the problematic domain. As it happens, the domain dates back at least to the when Marriott used the domain to ask its users to update their passwords. Williams isn’t the only one who’s resorted to defending Marriott customers from cybercriminals. , who works at security giant FireEye, registered the similarly named “ ” on the day of the Marriott breach. “Please watch where you click,” he wrote . “Hopefully this is one less site used to confuse victims.” Had Marriott just sent the email from its own domain, it wouldn’t be an issue. A spokesperson for Marriott did not respond to a request for comment. |
Apple launches online store with 10 percent discount for active military and veterans | Brian Heater | 2,018 | 12 | 3 | Like your standard discount, the page features an opt-in. From there it will redirect to a store page, featuring the company’s current product lineup. |
null | Sarah Perez | 2,018 | 6 | 25 | null |
Tumblr will delete all porn from its platform | Lucas Matney | 2,018 | 12 | 3 | Tumblr, a microblogging service that’s impact on internet culture has been massive and unique, is preparing for a massive change that’s sure to upset many of its millions of users. On December 17, Tumblr , errr “adult content,” from its site and encouraging users to flag that content for removal. Existing adult content will be set to a “private mode” viewable only to the original poster. What does “adult content” even mean? Well, according to Tumblr, the ban means the removal of any media that depicts “real-life human genitals or female-presenting nipples, and any content—including photos, videos, GIFs and illustrations—that depicts sex acts.” This is a lot more complicated than just deleting some hardcore porn from the site; over the past several years Tumblr has become a hub for communities and artists with more adult themes. This has largely been born out of the fact that adult content has been disallowed from other multimedia-focused social platforms. There are bans on nudity and sexual content on Instagram and Facebook, though Twitter has more relaxed standards. Why now? The Tumblr app was removed from the iOS app store several weeks ago due to an issue with its content filtering that led the company to issue a statement. “We’re committed to helping build a safe online environment for all users, and we have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to media featuring child sexual exploitation and abuse,” the company had detailed. “We’re continuously assessing further steps we can take to improve and there is no higher priority for our team.” We’ve reached out to Tumblr for further comment. : In a blog post titled “ the company’s CEO Jeff D’Onofrio minimized claims that the content ban was related to recent issues surrounding child porn, and is instead intended to make the platform one “where more people feel comfortable expressing themselves.” “As Tumblr continues to grow and evolve, and our understanding of our impact on our world becomes clearer, we have a responsibility to consider that impact across different age groups, demographics, cultures, and mindsets,” the post reads. “Bottom line: There are no shortage of sites on the internet that feature adult content. We will leave it to them and focus our efforts on creating the most welcoming environment possible for our community.” The imminent “adult content” ban will not apply to media connected with breastfeeding, birth or more general “health-related situations” like surgery, according to the company. Tumblr is attempting to make aims to minimize the impact on the site’s artistic community as well, but this level of nuance is going to be incredibly difficult for them to enforce uniformly and will more than likely lead to a lot of frustrated users being told that their content does not qualify as “art.” Tumblr is also looking to minimize impact on the more artistic storytelling, “such as erotica, nudity related to political or newsworthy speech, and nudity found in art, such as sculptures and illustrations, are also stuff that can be freely posted on Tumblr.” I don’t know how much it needs to be reiterated that child porn is a major issue plaguing the web, but a blanket ban on adult content on a platform that has gathered so many creatives working with NSFW themes is undoubtedly going to be a pretty controversial decision for the company. |
Corporate food catering startup Chewse raises $19 million | Megan Rose Dickey | 2,018 | 12 | 3 | Chewse, a food catering and company culture startup, just announced a $19 million fundraising round as it gears up to expand its operations in the Silicon Valley area. This brings Chewse’s total funding to more than $30 million. Chewse’s investors include Foundry Group, 500 Startups and Gingerbread Capital. Instead of plopping down meals in the office and bouncing, Chewse aims to create a full experience for its customers by offering family-style meals. In order to ensure quality, Chewse employs drivers and meal hosts so that it can provide them with training. Chewse also offers it drivers and meal hosts benefits. “We initially started with a contractor model but then very quickly started to realize our customers often mentioned the host or the driver in their feedback,” Chewse CEO and co-founder Tracy Lawrence told TechCrunch. “I know there’s a lot of other companies that are like food tech or logistics but for us, it’s all about elevating and improving company culture,” Lawrence said. “We have technology but we’re investing in it to create an exceptional real-life experience.” “On the tech side, we’re using a ton of machine learning and algorithms to learn what people like to eat and create custom meal schedules,” Lawrence said. To date, Chewse has hundreds of customers across three markets. Chewse initially launched in Los Angeles, but paused operations for a little over one year in order to focus on achieving market profitability in San Francisco. Chewse has since relaunched in Los Angeles, in addition to launching in cities like Palo Alto and San Jose. As part of the Silicon Valley launch, Chewse has partnered with restaurants like Smoking Pig, HOM Korean Kitchen and Oren’s Hummus Shop. Within the next year, the goal is to double the number of markets where Chewse operates. But Chewse faces tough competition in the corporate meal catering space. Earlier this year, Square acquired Zesty to become part of its food delivery service, Caviar. The aim of the acquisition was to strengthen Caviar’s corporate food ordering business, Caviar for Teams. At the time, Zesty counted about 150 restaurant customers in San Francisco, which is the only city in which it operates. Some of Zesty’s customers include Snap, Splunk and TechCrunch. Zesty, which first launched in 2013 under a different name, had previously raised $20.7 million in venture funding. “Zesty is a direct competitor of ours for sure,” Lawrence said. “When we’re thinking about the things that set us apart from Zesty and ZeroCater, the investment in using the technology and building a meal algorithm — which is something we know they’re doing by hand — and then automatically calibrate when we’re getting feedback because we employ our hosts and our drivers. Yes, it’s more expensive for us but because it provides such a superior experience, we retain our customer longer.” . |
Sleep-tracking ring Oura surpasses $20 million in funding | Megan Rose Dickey | 2,018 | 12 | 3 | Oura Health, a sleep-tracking and sleep-improvement platform, just surpassed $20 million* in a funding round led by MSD Capital with participation from YouTube co-founder Steve Chen, Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin, Sunrise founder Dave Morin, JUMP founder Ryan Rzepecki and others. This round comes a the Finnish company raised €5 million from MIT Media Lab Director Joi Ito and others. Oura is a smart ring that tracks your sleep habits to help you achieve better sleep. It does this by measuring the blood volume pulse from your finger’s palmar arteries, detecting the direction and intensity of your body’s movements using a 3D accelerometer and gyroscope and by measuring your temperature through three NTC temperature sensors. “I believe has identified a challenge that faces us all, namely getting enough high-quality sleep,” Michael Dell of MSD Capital said in a statement. “ ’s design and technology show tremendous craftsmanship, and now more consumers around the world will be able to get their own ring.” The star-studded funding group also includes Shaquille O’Neil, Lance Armstrong and Will Smith (via The Dreamer’s Fund). “We are thrilled to have such a talented group of builders, champions, and creators join us as investors,” Oura Health CEO Harpreet Rai said in a statement. “It’s amazing to see how such a diverse group of investors all recognize the universal importance of sleep.” To be clear, sleep tracking and improvement is an area many startups and large companies have tried. You may remember Basis Health, which eventually sold to Intel. And then there’s Fitbit, smart ring Motiv and other wearables that track your sleep. We have yet to try this out, but we’ll report back if we do. Oura Health is currently shipping to more than 100 countries and retails from $299-$999, depending on the material you select. Meanwhile, Motiv retails for $199. |
Skype launches real-time captions and subtitles | Sarah Perez | 2,018 | 12 | 3 | Alongside news that PowerPoint is in 2019, Microsoft announced similar technology is now available in Skype. Launching today to coincide with the UN International Day of Persons with Disabilities, the new feature allows those who are deaf or hard of hearing to read the words that are spoken during audio or video calls in Skype. The option is enabled in Skype’s settings by selecting the more (+) button during the call and choosing “turn subtitles on.” It can also be set as the default under Settings, the company says. (To do so, click your Profile picture, then Settings, then Calling, then Call Subtitles, then toggle on Show Subtitles for all voice and video calls.) Once turned on, live captions and subtitles will auto-scroll during the call, but Microsoft says it’s working to offer other viewing options in the future. Specifically, Skype will soon allow you to scroll through the captions in a side window. The company claims the new AI-powered live captions and subtitles have been optimized to be “fast, continuous, and contextually update as people speak.” Real-time captions is only one way Skype has been working to make it easier to communicate. It also its real-time translation capabilities a couple of years ago, and it’s releasing translations that support more than 20 languages and dialects in the weeks ahead. When toggled on, Skype users will be able to read the subtitles in the language of their choosing during every call. The real-time captions and subtitles feature is available in Skype version 8 on Android (6.0+), Android tablet, iPhone, iPad, Linux, Mac, Windows and Skype for Windows 10 (version 14). However, it may not be immediately live for you, even if you’re on the correct version, as it’s being gradually rolled out over the weeks ahead. |
Report: Amazon is testing cashierless checkout for larger stores | Sarah Perez | 2,018 | 12 | 3 | Amazon’s cashierless checkout technology is now being tested for use in larger stores, according to a on Sunday. The system, which involves an array of cameras to track shoppers’ purchases alongside weight sensors on shelves, has been rolling out this year to smaller convenience stores across the U.S. in markets including , , and soon . The new report says Amazon is now trying out the same technology in a larger space in Seattle, where the ceilings are higher and there are more products to choose from — things that make the system more challenging to implement. The obvious use case here would be for Amazon-owned Whole Foods, which Amazon has been leveraging to grow its own grocery pickup and delivery business in the U.S. The business challenges rival grocers, as well as Walmart and grocery delivery services like Target’s Shipt, Instacart and others. In particular, it could be difficult to get a cashierless system to work with items where the size, shape and weight varies — like fresh produce, WSJ notes. Whole Foods stores are also larger, as they’re typically 40,000 sq. ft. and house some 34,000 items. But if the system were perfected, it could allow Amazon to cut or repurpose store staff at Whole Foods, as well as get a better handle on inventory levels for its delivery business. One of the challenges with ordering groceries today from places like Instacart or Shipt is that the stock levels in the app don’t match what’s actually on store shelves. Longer-term, solutions like Amazon’s Go technology could improve that. Meanwhile, a system for grocery shopping without waiting in a checkout line could save people time. Walmart is doing something to address this problem at Sam’s Club stores, where its lets customers skip the line. But it’s still more labor-intensive than simply picking up items and placing them in a cart. that was taking place across its flagship stores earlier this year. Instead, it has begun testing new technologies, including a cashierless checkout system, in . |
Investors still don’t understand the fundamentals of US/China relations | Danny Crichton | 2,018 | 12 | 3 | Donald Trump and Xi Jinping agreed to something of a détente around American tariffs on Chinese goods. Stocks across Asia swooned, for reasons that make no sense to me. Plus, Bloomberg’s spy story redux and Berlin airport fun. Trump and Xi while China offered to buy more American goods (particularly agricultural) as the two administrations try to hammer out a longer-term agreement. In Asia, . as the trade dispute between the Chinese and the Americans crescendoed. Tencent, as one example, has lost about a third of its value from its peak back in January. ZTE has lost about half of its value on its Hong Kong ticker since the beginning of the year. It makes complete sense for these stocks to take a bit of a breather now that the tariffs are going to slow down. Actually, no not really. Here’s the challenge: What exactly has changed? To me the market is deeply misjudging not only the Chinese economy, but also the American leadership as well. Chinese stocks like Tencent have slid not because of tariffs, but because of new regulations from government agencies that have . Video games are at the core of the company’s revenue mix, and new rules and controls on the industry has crushed its stock far more than a distant trade conflict. It is clear that the Chinese government is going to continue tightening social and technological controls over the country, whether through the ballyhooed , or . These controls are predominantly about keeping the state in charge over social and economic affairs, although also have the key benefit of preventing American internet companies from entering the Chinese market. In what world do these controls disappear? that “President Trump and President Xi have agreed to immediately begin negotiations on structural changes with respect to forced technology transfer, intellectual property protection, , cyber intrusions and cyber theft, services and agriculture.” (Emphasis mine). I am sure they will discuss these issues, but I am just very, very skeptical that anything will change. Meanwhile, ZTE stock is up almost 10 percent today on its Hong Kong ticker. But tariffs have never really been the challenge for the company, which as well as Five Eyes countries around whether its telecommunications equipment is really just a spying front for Beijing. due to American export bans (mostly as retaliation for industrial espionage). More recently, ZTE and Huawei have faced renewed prohibitions from , and just this weekend, . In what world do these prohibitions disappear? The U.S. national security agencies aren’t going to allow Huawei and ZTE to deploy their equipment in America. Like ever. Quite frankly, if the choice was getting rid of all of China’s non-tariff barriers and allowing Huawei back into America, I think the U.S. negotiators would walk out. And so the market misjudges all the fundamentals. Good to know we have become sophisticated on the most important economic relationship of the 21st century. WaPo media critic Erik Wemple reported this weekend that : One person who spoke with [Bloomberg reporter Ben] Elgin told the Erik Wemple Blog that the Bloomberg reporter made clear that he wasn’t part of the reporting team that produced “The Big Hack.” The goal of this effort, Elgin told the potential source, was to get to “ground truth”; if Elgin heard from 10 or so sources that “The Big Hack” was itself a piece of hackery, he would send that message up his chain of command. I think there are a couple of points worth hashing out here: This to me remains one of the most fascinating slow burn stories of the year. Can’t wait to see what ends up happening here. Berlin cityscape. Photo by Reinhard Link used under Creative Commons . I was at TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin last week, which was my first time in the city. Berlin is trending among hipster circles, as well as . I can see why: great cultural institutions from high-brow to street, cheap but great food and reasonable cost of living, all things considered. Berlin’s airports are also something of a national disgrace. The city has two airport relics, and its third airport, Brandenburg, has been under construction for almost two decades and . Compare that to China, which will construct and is slated to handle almost 72 million passengers by 2025. But an unintentional side effect of having a world-class city connected to others through airports that make LaGuardia’s main terminal seem hospitable is that it really prevents the global moneyed class from reaching the city. As one American VC mentioned to me at dinner, Berlin “is just impossible” to get to, and he visits “rarely.” There are very few direct flights between American cities and Berlin, as most carriers fly through their alliance hub (Delta through SkyTeam’s Amsterdam hub, etc.). I talk about “infrastructure” a lot particularly when it comes to startups, and perhaps one of the most important lessons is that convenience matters. Whether it is a direct flight or , those little conveniences add up very, very quickly. A little friction in the system can cause disproportionately large outcomes for a company and a region. |
Tiger Global and Accel lead facility management startup Facilio’s $6.4M Series A | Catherine Shu | 2,018 | 12 | 4 | , an IoT startup that focuses on facility management software, announced today that it has raised a $6.4 million Series A led by Tiger Global and returning investor Accel. The funding will be used to expand further in India, where Facilio has an office in Chennai, the United States and the Middle East, as well as enter new markets. Facilio is also one of the first new Indian companies Tiger Global has added to its portfolio since hitting pause on new investments there in 2015. Led by Lee Fixel, Tiger Global was among the many venture capital firms that before uncertainty about growth and valuations dampened the funding frenzy. Funding began , but this time the focus is on more mature companies like Swiggy and Zomato. Tiger Global hit a home run when one of its Indian investments, FlipKart, was and recently to focus on India, the U.S. and China. Founded in 2017 by Prabhu Ramachandran, Rajavel Subramanian, Yogendra Babu and Krishnamoorthi Rangasamy, Facilio’s software helps commercial real estate property owners keep on top of regular maintenance, make sure things like air conditioning systems and elevators are functioning properly and lower their energy consumption. In a press statement, Fixel said, “On a global basis, facilities management services and energy spend by buildings each account for more than a trillion dollars. I am optimistic that Facilio can be a true disruptor in this industry.” |
Rudy Giuliani, a Trump cybersecurity adviser, doesn’t understand the internet | Jon Russell | 2,018 | 12 | 4 | Welcome back to the latest edition of politicians don’t get technology! Our latest guest is Rudy Giuliani, former New York mayor and current cybersecurity adviser to President Trump. Rudy Giuliani doesn’t understand Twitter or the internet. It’s embarrassing enough that , but now he is doubling down on cyberstupidity by claiming that “Twitter allowed someone to invade my text with a disgusting anti-President message.” Ignorant as to what had happened, he latched on to apparent anti-Republican bias within Twitter, despite . “Don’t tell me they are not committed cardcarrying anti-Trumpers,” added Giuliani, who — we repeat — is a cybersecurity adviser to the White House. Twitter allowed someone to invade my text with a disgusting anti-President message. The same thing-period no space-occurred later and it didn’t happen. Don’t tell me they are not committed cardcarrying anti-Trumpers. Time Magazine also may fit that description. FAIRNESS PLEASE — Rudy Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) The explanation is quite simple. Mueller filed an indictment just as the President left for July he indicted the Russians who will never come here just before he left for Helsinki.Either could have been done earlier or later. Out of control!Supervision please? — Rudy Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) Giuliani’s original tweet on November 30 (above) didn’t contain a period between sentences, which created a hyperlink to . An eagle-eyed member of the public — named by the BBC as Atlanta-based marketing director Jason Velazquez — clicked through the link and, finding that it was blank, quickly registered the domain and created a website carrying the “a disgusting anti-President message” to which Giuliani referred. The G-20.in website that appears in Giuliani’s tweet “When I realised that the URL was available, my heart began to race a bit. I remember thinking: ‘This guy — Giuliani — has no idea,'” Velazquez told the BBC. “I quickly upload my files, tweeted about what I had done, and left my apartment.” The tweet itself was well-covered by media, but Giuliani’s absurd return to the topic has given the site even more coverage. Both of Giuliani’s tweets remain online and undeleted — as of 22:40 PST — but, in the positive count, it does appear that he has figured out how to create Twitter threads by replying to previous tweets. This incident follows another moment of Twitter-based comedy from Giuliani when he sent a curious message following news that Trump’s ex-attorney Michael Cohen had made a plea agreement. Kimim ° has f — Rudy Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) . |
Bringing internet to the masses and investing in telecoms at Startup Battlefield Africa | Megan Rose Dickey | 2,018 | 12 | 4 | Despite a year-end goal of 30 percent broadband internet penetration in Nigeria, the country is unlikely to hit that target. As of 2017, internet penetration in Nigeria was at 22 percent — among the lowest in the world, , which is published by the United Nations International Telecommunication Union. MainOne, a broadband infrastructure provider, is one of the operators looking to increase connectivity and access to broadband in Nigeria and beyond. In 2010, MainOne became the first private subsea cable to bring open-access broadband capacities to West Africa. Founded and led by Funke Opeke, MainOne aims to close the digital divide between West Africa and the rest of the world. , MainOne partnered with Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology to offer high-speed internet access to the MEST incubator in Ikoyi, Lagos. To date, MainOne has deployed cable landings in Lagos, Nigeria; Accra, Ghana; and Seixal, Portugal. In the near term, MainOne has its eyes on Casablanca, Morocco; Bonny, Nigeria and other African countries. At TechCrunch , we’ll hear from Opeke about what it will take to reach the goal of 30 percent internet penetration and beyond. We’ll also hear from Omobola Johnson, Nigeria’s former Minister of Communication, who was one of the people responsible for developing the broadband plan in 2013. Since developing that five-year strategy to increase internet and broadband penetration in Nigeria, Johnson has gone on to work with entrepreneurs. Currently, Johnson is a senior partner at TLcom Capital, which invests in telecom, media and technology companies. The firm startups like Andela, mSurvey, Upstream and others. The event is now sold out, but keep your eyes on TechCrunch for video of all the panels and the Battlefield competition. |
Acast raises $35M to help podcasters make money | Anthony Ha | 2,018 | 12 | 4 | Podcasting has in recent years, and a Stockholm-based company called is looking to help all those podcasters make money. Acast is announcing today that it has raised $35 million in Series C funding, bringing its total funding to more than $67 million. Investors in the round include AP1 (which manages some of the capital in Sweden’s national income pension system), as well as Swedbank Robur funds Ny Teknik and Microcap. Ross Adams, who , told me that the money will allow Acast to expand, both in terms of its product offerings and the geographies where it operates. The company has focused on bringing technology to the surprisingly old-fashioned world of podcast advertising. In fact, it pioneered the practice of dynamically inserting ads into podcasts — as opposed to the model where (as Adams put it), “When you listen to a five-year-old podcast, you’ll hear the host read a five-year-old ad.” Earlier this year, it , allowing the BBC’s podcasts to remain ad-free in the United Kingdom while inserting ads everywhere else. “We don’t mind if your show is absolutely huge or absolutely tiny,” Adams said. “The model we have allows a serious mainstream publisher like the BBC to monetize — or a bedroom podcast hobbyist.” Ross Adams At the same time, Adams wants Acast to support other business models. It’s already experimenting with paid, premium content through , but it sounds like there are more paid podcast products in the works: “We want to be that central point of monetization, [whether] they make money through advertising or they’re looking at premium offerings.” As for geographic expansion, Acast says it launched in Ireland, New Zealand and Denmark this year. It also plans to grow in the United States, which currently represents 25 percent of all listeners on the platform. Acast is also looking to bring podcast monetization into new hardware — Adams said the company has spent much of the past year focused on the smart speaker market. Those speakers present new opportunities for content (Adams said it’s less about “longer-form storytelling” and more “short-form shows for your daily consumption in the morning”), and new challenges for advertising. Adams is hoping that if Acast can solve those challenges, it won’t just be monetizing the smart home market, but also moving into cars and anywhere else you might find “voice-enabled technology.” |
These are the 15 best US tech companies to work for in 2019, according to Glassdoor | Megan Rose Dickey | 2,018 | 12 | 4 | It’s been quite the tumultuous year in the tech industry, most notably for companies like Facebook. Google, Tesla and Salesforce. And, based on Glassdoor’s latest ranking of the best companies to work for — in addition to employee protests and walkouts — it’s clear that employees are paying attention. Unsurprisingly, Facebook is no longer ranked as the top large company to work for in the United States. Following scandal after scandal, employee sentiment at Facebook decreased from an average 4.6 rating in Q1 2018 to 4.3 in Q4. Though, it still ranks seventh among companies that employ 1,000 people or more in the U.S. Meanwhile, Salesforce’s rating has dropped from 4.5 to 4.4, but its ranking has increased from 15th best overall last year to 11th best this year. It’s worth noting that no tech company achieved greater than a 4.5 overall rating. Last year, however, the top tech companies (Facebook, Google and HubSpot) came in at 4.6. TL;DR Employees are generally less satisfied with tech companies this year than they were last year. Quick sad fact: None of these companies are led by female-identifying, trans or non-binary people. But without further ado, here are the 15 best tech companies to work for in 2019. Satya Nadella, chief executive officer of Microsoft Corp., speaks during an Economic Club of New York event in New York, U.S., on Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2018. Nadella discussed the responsibility tech companies need to take over the future of artificial intelligence. Photographer: Mark Kauzlarich/Bloomberg via Getty Images “Clarity of work, growth, smart coworkers, benefits.” “Salary, hierarchical, deep rooted long term relationships/loyalties in teams made it hard for new team members.” “Great management and leadership, amazing community of staff and agents, huge emphasis on being your most authentic self and maximizing your strengths. Great benefits.” “would be great to have a 401K one day!” MUMBAI, INDIA MAY 3, 2017: Shantanu Narayen, Chairman, President and CEO, Adobe , photographed during a roundtable media conference in Mumbai. (Photo by Abhijit Bhatlekar/Mint via Getty Images) “Great culture, fun people, world class products! people were eager to help out and improve the customers experience.” “Leadership teams were distant from product capability and misunderstood how to influence product development teams.” Photographer: Martin Leissl/Bloomberg via Getty Images “Flexible, inclusive, innovative culture, generous benefits and pay packages, tons of really smart people here.” “Long hours, changes often and quickly and projects sometimes are done without good change management.” “Great pay and benefits. Strong culture of being supportive, collaborating, and giving back to the community. Interesting work and opportunities to try different types of projects at different locations.” “Mid to high amount of mandatory or non-mandatory-yet-expected overtime. Fine for young, single professionals, but demanding for those with families. “Not introvert-friendly, most rewards for dedication geared around the opportunity to spend even more time at non-work company events.” “The product is great, and I love the service/development teams.” “With the recent change in management over the sales team, culture is out the window. This company feels like Paychex from a management standpoint. Every call is recorded, every hour is tracked, and you will be told if they decide they want your opinion. Otherwise, I’ve been told in no short terms on a team call to “keep our mouths shut” unless asked. This is not the company that I was hired by 5+ years ago.” (Photo by Issac Baldizon/NBAE via Getty Images) “Great Company and Benefits, emphasis on keeping employees happy.” “Changes happen slowly, and with an emphasis on keeping employees happy, leadership is sometimes afraid to make necessary changes if it leads to making employees unhappy.” “Overall great work life balance and supportive management.” “There is no path to promotion. No HSA or gym reimbursement. No incentive for parents or daycare discounts.” (Photo by Dina Rudick/The Boston Globe via Getty Images) “I’ve been at HubSpot now for almost 4 years and there’s nowhere else I’ve even thought about working in that time. Why? HubSpot is a great place to work. I feel like I’m valued. I have a lot of autonomy in how and when and where I work. I feel strongly about the mission of the company. All in all, I’m extremely happy here.” “As the company grows, scaling communication and decision making becomes more difficult. Luckily, it’s something that’s top of mind for many people who are working to make communication easier and better.” “Very supportive environment. Unlimited learning potential. Positive company outlook and morals.” “Big company issues like politics are present and although much is said about ‘equality’ and ‘transparency,’ some divisions still have the usual corporate bullshitters. Many internal projects fail due to lack of leadership or management ability and much is swept under the rug.” “Free food, subsidised massage, good benefits are all true benefits. They also do a lot of interesting work in tech. The claimed corporate culture of openness, a flat organisational structure and acceptance of employees’ true selves is a good ideology, though clearly sometimes a failed practice.” “Google management are surprisingly penny pinching in allocating sufficient resource to projects by way of staff, office space, and budget. Success here depends on how good your boss is at politicking and how good you are at politicking with your boss, rather than actually being focused on the merits of specific investments – the scale is too large to be accurate when it comes to brass tacks.” SAN JOSE, CA – MAY 01: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks during the F8 Facebook Developers conference on May 1, 2018 in San Jose, California. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg delivered the opening keynote to the FB Developer conference that runs through May 2. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) “The challenges we face in the wake of press mentions and bad actors abusing our platform causes us to band together and focus in on fixing problems.” “ balance is terrible. Everyone in my team works outside regular hours, night and weekends. No one will explicitly say that you have to do this but given the competitive culture, you pretty much put in extra hours.” “Many of the smartest and most talented leaders in Silicon Valley are here.” “Competition among incredibly bright employees is fierce.” “Excellent culture, world class people and benefits.” Extreme growth has it’s challenges, intention is there to get things right.” “Great product, in fact, best on the market. Zoom has amazing benefits and tons of perks in the office. There are some great, integral people here at Zoom to work with. I consider many people on my team friends. CEO genuinely cares and listens to his employees.” “I’m afraid this culture has shifted in a negative way over the past year and a half. There are way too many salespeople – upper management is starting to notice, and doing drastic things to get people out. There aren’t real territories carved out, unless you’re in a higher segment. It seems that the lower segments are at the bottom of the totem pole in the organization.” |
Experian leads $10M investment in Southeast Asia fintech startup Jirnexu | Jon Russell | 2,018 | 12 | 4 | Consumer credit giant Experian is continuing to back Asian fintech startups after it led a $10 million investment in Southeast Asia’s Jirnexu. Jirnexu, which is headquartered in Kuala Lumpur, operates financial comparison services in Malaysia and Indonesia. Those services aggregate offerings and deals from banks and financial services companies, effectively acting as a user acquisition channel for reaching new audiences and customers. This round is a follow-on to , which closed in May and was led by SBI, which was the other investor in this extension. This new money takes the startup to $28 million from investors to date. The deal marks the third investment in Asian fintech for Experian, which is based in London and valued at £17.8 billion, or $22.6 billion. The firm previously backed and . As you’d expect, those deals include strategic relationships. In the case of Jirnexu, Experian said it would help with “improved performance in demand generation, better eligibility matching through analytics and more seamless consumer experiences.” There may yet be more deals involving Experian based on comments from the firm’s Asia Pacific CEO, Ben Elliott, made earlier this year. “Five or six years ago, we started to think about how we solve some bigger problems rather than just being a stoic software company. We’re looking at organizations that we think are either disruptive in the market where we have a role to play, or those that are building into something we think we can grow with,” . that Southeast Asia’s digital economy will triple in size to reach $240 billion by 2025 and Experian is far from the only one keen to get into the future of finance in the region. Ride-hailing giants Grab and Go-Jek are building their own payment and financial services, while , too. Just last week, for example, that sees it lead a $215 million investment in Voyager in the Philippines. |
Facebook ends platform policy banning apps that copy its features | Josh Constine | 2,018 | 12 | 4 | Facebook will now freely allow developers to build competitors to its features upon its own platform. Today Facebook announced it will drop , which stipulates “Add something unique to the community. Don’t replicate core functionality that Facebook already provides.” That policy felt pretty disingenuous given how aggressively Facebook has replicated everyone else’s core functionality, from Snapchat to Twitter and beyond. Facebook had previously the policy selectively to hurt competitors that had used its Find Friends or viral distribution features. Apps like Vine, Voxer, MessageMe, Phhhoto and more had been cut off from Facebook’s platform for too closely replicating its video, messaging or GIF creation tools. Find Friends is a vital API that lets users find their Facebook friends within other apps. The move will significantly reduce the risk of building on the Facebook platform. It could also cast it in a better light in the eyes of regulators. Anyone seeking ways Facebook abuses its dominance will lose a talking point. And by creating a more fair and open platform where developers can build without fear of straying too close to Facebook’s history or road map, it could reinvigorate its developer ecosystem. [Update 12/5/2018 1pm pacific: It’s now clear that Facebook changed this policy in hopes of getting ahead of damaging PR caused by the UK Parliament internal emails about Facebook’s plans to cut off competitors in the past. In one email, when asked by a Facebook engineer if they should cut off Vine’s access to Facebook data, Zuckerberg replies “Yup, go for it.” has now formally announced the policy change allowing competing apps to be built in its platform.] A Facebook spokesperson provided this statement to TechCrunch: We built our developer platform years ago to pave the way for innovation in social apps and services. At that time we made the decision to restrict apps built on top of our platform that replicated our core functionality. These kind of restrictions are common across the tech industry with different platforms having their own variant including YouTube, Twitter, Snap and Apple. We regularly review our policies to ensure they are both protecting people’s data and enabling useful services to be built on our platform for the benefit of the Facebook community. As part of our ongoing review we have decided that we will remove this out of date policy so that our platform remains as open as possible. We think this is the right thing to do as platforms and technology develop and grow. The change comes after Facebook locked down parts of its in April for privacy and security reasons in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Diplomatically, Facebook said it didn’t expect the change to impact its standing with regulators but it’s open to answering their questions. Earlier in April, I wrote a on how Facebook used Policy 4.1 to attack competitors it saw gaining traction. The article, “Facebook shouldn’t block you from finding friends on competitors,” advocated for Facebook to make its social graph more portable and interoperable so users could decamp to competitors if they felt they weren’t treated right in order to coerce Facebook to act better. The policy change will apply retroactively. Old apps that lost Find Friends or other functionality will be able to submit their app for review and, once approved, will regain access. Friend lists still can’t be exported in a truly interoperable way. But at least now Facebook has enacted the spirit of that call to action. Developers won’t be in danger of losing access to that Find Friends Facebook API for treading in its path. |
Elowan is the plantdroid you’ve been looking for | John Biggs | 2,018 | 12 | 4 | [youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rptKlKZc7cs] With , what horrible robotic hybrid is left to haunt our dreams? How about Elowan! Elowan is a project out of the MIT Media Lab and it’s essentially a mobile houseplant. The plant sends signals to a wheeled transport that rolls back and forth trying to find light. Created by , the robot senses changes in the plant’s electrochemical reactions to tell when it is thirsty for light or even when it is being hung the wrong way. Elowan is an attempt to demonstrate what augmentation of nature could mean. Elowan’s robotic base is a new symbiotic association with a plant. The agency of movement rests with the plant based on its own bio-electrochemical signals, the language interfaced here with the artificial world. These in turn trigger physiological variations such as elongation growth, respiration, and moisture absorption. In this experimental setup, electrodes are inserted into the regions of interest (stems and ground, leaf and ground). The weak signals are then amplified and sent to the robot to trigger movements to respective directions. Such symbiotic interplay with the artificial could be extended further with exogenous extensions that provide nutrition, growth frameworks, and new defense mechanisms. Will this plant eventually learn to ride toward the scent of blood and eat us? Possibly! To paraphrase Ian Malcolm, our scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could make a mobile houseplant, they didn’t stop to think if they should. I, for one, welcome our cyborg houseplant overlords. |
Faraday Future furloughs more employees as cash woes continue | Brian Heater | 2,018 | 12 | 4 | Update from Faraday Future on current business operations. — Faraday Future (@FaradayFuture) |
Commercial insurtech is like an exclusive club — and Google and Amazon aren’t invited | Chris Downer | 2,018 | 12 | 4 | Tech companies and VCs in the insurance space have probably read many of the news articles about Amazon and Google entering insurance ( , and ). Given their nearly unlimited resources, this may be intimidating to some in the industry. Whether one views these moves as a threat, a welcomed development or something in-between, it’s important to note that both Google and Amazon have focused almost exclusively on personal lines, which is only one aspect of insurance. There are many reasons for this — not least of which is Google and Amazon’s desire to add value to their customers who are, for the most part, consumers. Because the customer always comes first, most expect Amazon and Google to stay firmly focused on personal lines. There is, however, another massive tranche of insurance that is ready for innovation: commercial lines. Commercial insurance is often frighteningly complex and requires too much inside information for tech companies to find it attractive. For the time being, when it comes to commercial insurance, Amazon and Google are firmly on the outside looking in. This competitive moat is one of many reasons that interest in commercial insurtech is heating up. At the same time, there have been shockingly few commercial-focused startups so far, compared to personal lines companies. According to a from Deloitte, just over $57 million was directed to commercial insurtechs in the first half of 2018 — or 6.6 percent of total insurtech-related funding in that period. In 2017, Deloitte reported a far higher proportion of 11.4 percent. Meanwhile, our analysis at XL Innovate, based on CB Insights data, shows that over $1 billion has been invested in companies that are addressing commercial insurance since 2015, which equates to roughly 10 percent of total insurtech investment. So, regardless of how you slice it, commercial insurtech startups have been woefully underfinanced relative to insurtech companies addressing personal lines, distribution and other areas. As a result, commercial insurtech is heavily under-penetrated relative to the broader insurtech movement. The story of the first insurtech wave is similar to many stories across the tech landscape: New ventures were driven by entrepreneurs from outside the industry looking to disrupt what they knew (auto insurance, renters/homeowners insurance or distribution). It’s natural, then, that initial efforts have focused on individual policies and more evident aspects of the insurance market. Even existing commercial ventures have been concentrated in more obvious areas like distribution and auto. In fact, since 2015, those two categories account for more than half of commercial insurtech funding to date. Nearly all of the current major commercial ventures are in these spaces. Here are some of the highlights: Only a few startups are looking at more complex areas, such as providing higher-quality property intelligence for commercial underwriters. , for example, uses computer vision to extract information from aerial imagery automatically. This gives insurers access to recent, impactful data for any address across the nation, at time of rating and underwriting, and allows them to better evaluate risk throughout a policy lifecycle. Why does this matter? Well, for example, according to Cape data, 8 percent of roofs in the U.S. are of poor or severe quality. Buildings with bad-quality roofs have a 50 percent higher loss potential than those with high-quality roofs — they have both a higher likelihood of submitting a claim and, if a claim submitted, the loss payout is larger. For insurers, knowing the roof condition of a commercial building before providing a quote can help the insurer price policies more accurately and avoid heavy losses. This kind of data is indispensable to commercial insurers, but was unavailable until now. Or take , a marine risk analytics company, as another example. Windward is able to track every ship’s operational profile and can provide insights on the ship’s geography, weather, port visits, management and navigation. On a practical basis, this means Windward can track whether a ship is sailing at dangerous depths at night, as vessels traveling for longer periods at night at dangerous depths are 2.6x more likely to have contact accidents the following year. Windward can also track when a ship passes through traffic lanes. Vessels traveling for long periods in congested traffic lanes are 2x more likely to have collision accidents the following year. This is the kind of information marine insurers need to have on hand. Still, there is way more headroom in the space. Commercial has enormous potential given the magnitude of the market and relative lack of awareness of problems outside of insurance. Global commercial property and casualty insurance premiums were worth approximately $730 billion in 2017. By 2021, it will rise to almost $900 billion. Meanwhile, only insiders truly understand facultative reinsurance; or understand how hull insurance is written and who writes it; or how to improve large commercial property insurance. If an entrepreneur comes from outside the industry, these are challenging markets and workflows to understand, let alone disrupt or improve. On the other hand, insurance insiders who are intimately aware of the current status quo should be excited. The insurtech space now needs these insiders to become more involved, start new ventures, raise capital and help identify and solve the most meaningful problems in commercial insurance. Insiders, whether they be underwriters, actuaries, claims professionals or anyone else who has spent time within the industry, know the pain points, the pitfalls and the potential solutions. Tackling the commercial space will be more challenging. Assets are larger and volume smaller, meaning learnings will be slower to come by and technologies like AI less effective in the short term. For example, if an insurer is underwriting 350 marine policies and there are only 15 claims per year, when is there enough data to drive statistically significant findings? Commercial lines still rely heavily on human judgment and manual processing. This is not a problem in personal lines because of the immense volume of data that can be harnessed and analyzed. So, although the opportunity is fantastic, it is important to keep in mind that the timeline to impact will likely be longer. Those involved in the insurance technology wave have many reasons to be excited about commercial insurance, but patience will be key as new ventures look to tackle longstanding issues and as the space heats up. Luckily for entrepreneurs with a unique understanding of the industry, tech companies like Amazon and Google are not in a position to threaten the space for the foreseeable future. |
Samsung fakes test photo by using a stock DSLR image | John Biggs | 2,018 | 12 | 4 | Samsung’s Malaysian arm has some explaining to do. The company, in an effort to show off the , used a cleverly shot portrait, modified it and then ostensibly passed it off as one taken by the A8. The trouble began when Serbian photographer noticed someone had bought one of her photos from a service called EyeEm that supplies pictures to Getty Images, a renowned photo reseller. Djudjic, curious as to the buyer, did a quick reverse search and found her image — adulterated to within an inch of its life — on Samsung’s Malaysian product page. Djudjic, for her part, was a good sport. My first reaction was to burst out into laughter. Just look at the Photoshop job they did on my face and hair! I’ve always liked my natural hair color (even though it’s turning gray black and white), but I guess the creator of this franken-image prefers reddish tones. Except in the eyes though, where they removed all of the blood vessels. Whoever created this image, they also cut me out of the original background and pasted me onto a random photo of a park. I mean, the original photo was taken at f/2.0 if I remember well, and they needed the “before” and “after” – a photo with a sharp background, and another one where the almighty “portrait mode” blurred it out. So Samsung’s Photoshop master resolved it by using a different background. This move follows a with a demo photo in August. To be fair, Samsung warned us this would happen. “The contents within the screen are simulated images and are for demonstration purposes only,” they write in the fine print, way at the bottom of the page. Luckily for Djudjic, Samsung paid her for her photo. |
Electric scooters are flimsy, so Superpedestrian is making more robust ones to sell to operators | Megan Rose Dickey | 2,018 | 12 | 4 | If you’ve been on an electric scooter from Bird, Lime, Lyft, JUMP via Uber, Skip, Scoot or others, you’re probably familiar with that feeling of impending doom. , makers of the Copenhagen Wheel, is today emerging with a sturdier, safer and smarter electric scooter. But instead of operating a shared electric scooter network, the plan is to sell these scooters to the players mentioned above. Superpedestrian’s main offering is a sturdier scooter with self-diagnostic and remote management capabilities. Superpedestrian says its scooters can maintain themselves from nine to 18 months at a time, while other scooters break down more often, the company says. Superpedestrian’s scooters are equipped to self-diagnose issues that involve components, the motherboard, “So the system is smart enough to identify those common things that take place, common risks and hazards, and then it apply self-protection, which means it protects before damage occurs,” Superpedestrian founder and CEO Assaf Biderman told TechCrunch. “If the batteries are out of balance, and there’s a heating issue in part of the cells, it balances itself if temperatures continue to rise, it attenuates, consumes, less energy, it never lets it get to the point where it catches fire.” These internal systems are designed to reduce failures, decrease the amount of time human operators need to spend troubleshooting scooters and ultimately increase the supply of scooters available at any given time. Superpedestrian says it already has a big player on board, though Biderman would not disclose which one. What he would share is that the first deployment will happen in Q1 2019. |
null | Romain Dillet | 2,018 | 12 | 3 | null |
Google ‘incognito’ search results still vary from person to person, DDG study finds | Natasha Lomas | 2,018 | 12 | 4 | A of Google search results by anti-tracking rival DuckDuckGo has suggested that escaping the so-called ‘filter bubble’ of personalized online searches is a perniciously hard problem for the put upon Internet consumer who just wants to carve out a little unbiased space online, free from the suggestive taint of algorithmic fingers. DDG reckons it’s even for logged out users of Google search, who are also browsing in Incognito mode, to prevent their online activity from being used by Google to program — and thus shape — the results they see. DDG says it found significant variation in Google search results, with most of the participants in the study seeing results that were unique to them — and some seeing links others simply did not. Results within news and video infoboxes also varied significantly, it found. While it says there was very little difference for logged out, incognito browsers. “It’s simply not possible to use Google search and avoid its filter bubble,” it concludes. Google has responded by counter-claiming that DuckDuckGo’s research is “flawed”. DuckDuckGo says it carried out the research to test recent claims by Google to have tweaked its algorithms to reduce personalization. A report in September, drawing on access provided by Google, letting the reporter sit in on an internal meeting and speak to employees on its algorithm team, suggested that Mountain View is now using only very little personalization to generate search results. A query a user comes with usually has so much context that the opportunity for personalization is just very limited,” Google fellow Pandu Nayak, who leads the search ranking team, told CNBC this fall. On the surface, that would represent a radical reprogramming of Google’s search — given the company made “Personalized Search” the default for even logged out users all the way back in 2009. the expansion of the feature then Google explained it would ‘customize’ search results for these logged out users via an ‘anonymous cookie’: A couple of years after Google threw the Personalized Search switch, Eli Pariser published his now describing the filter bubble problem. Since then online personalization’s bad press has only grown. In recent years concern has especially spiked over the horizon-reducing impact of big tech’s subjective funnels on democratic processes, with algorithms carefully engineered to keep serving users more of the same stuff now being widely accused of entrenching partisan opinions, rather than helping broaden people’s horizons. Especially so where political (and politically charged) topics are concerned. And, well, at the extreme end, algorithmic filter bubbles stand accused of breaking democracy itself — by creating highly effective distribution channels for individually targeted propaganda. Although there have also been some counter claims floating around academic circles in recent years that imply the echo chamber impact is itself overblown. (Albeit sometimes emanating from institutions that also take funding from tech giants like Google.) As ever, where the operational opacity of commercial algorithms is concerned, the truth can be a very difficult animal to dig out. Of course DDG has its own self-interested iron in the fire here — suggesting, as it is, that “Google is influencing what you click” — given it offers an anti-tracking alternative to the eponymous Google search. But that does not merit an instant dismissal of a finding of major variation in even supposedly ‘incognito’ Google search results. DDG has also made the data from the study downloadable — and the code it used to analyze the data open source — allowing others to look and draw their own conclusions. It carried out a similar study in 2012, after the earlier US presidential election — and claimed then to have found that Google’s search had inserted tens of millions of more links for Obama than for Romney in the run-up to that. It says it wanted to revisit the state of Google search results now, in the wake of the 2016 presidential election that installed Trump in the White House — to see if it could find evidence to back up Google’s claims to have ‘de-personalized’ search. For the latest study DDG asked 87 volunteers in the US to search for the politically charged topics of “gun control”, “immigration”, and “vaccinations” (in that order) at 9pm ET on Sunday, June 24, 2018 — initially searching in private browsing mode and logged out of Google, and then again without using Incognito mode. You can read its full . The results ended up being based on 76 users as those searching on mobile were excluded to control for significant variation in the number of displayed infoboxes. Here’s the topline of what DDG found: DDG’s contention is that truly ‘unbiased’ search results should produce largely the same results. Yet, by contrast, the search results its volunteers got served were — in the majority — unique. (Ranging from 57% at the low end to a full 92% at the upper end.) “With no filter bubble, one would expect to see very little variation of search result pages — nearly everyone would see the same single set of results,” it writes. “Instead, most people saw results unique to them. We also found about the same variation in private browsing mode and logged out of Google vs. in normal mode.” “We often hear of confusion that private browsing mode enables anonymity on the web, but this finding demonstrates that Google tailors search results regardless of browsing mode. People should not be lulled into a false sense of security that so-called “incognito” mode makes them anonymous,” DDG adds. Google initially declined to provide a statement responding to the study, telling us instead that several factors can contribute to variations in search results — flagging time and location differences among them. It even suggested results could vary depending on the data center a user query was connected with — potentially introducing some crawler-based micro-lag. Google also claimed it does not personalize the results of logged out users browsing in Incognito mode based on their signed-in search history. However the company admited it uses contextual signals to rank results even for logged out users (as that 2009 blog post described) — such as when trying to clarify an ambiguous query. In which case it said a recent search might be used for disambiguation purposes. (Although it also described this type of contextualization in search as extremely limited, saying it would not account for dramatically different results.) But with so much variation evident in the DDG volunteer data, there seems little question that Google’s approach very often results in individualized — and sometimes individualized — search results. Some Google users were even served with more or fewer unique domains than others. Lots of questions naturally flow from this. Such as: Does Google applying a little ‘ranking contextualization’ sound like an adequately ‘de-personalized’ approach — if the name of the game is popping the filter bubble? Does it make the served results even marginally less clickable, biased and/or influential? Or indeed any less ‘rank’ from a privacy perspective… ? You tell me. Even the same bunch of links served up in a slightly different configuration has the potential to be majorly significant since the top search link always gets a disproportionate chunk of clicks. (DDG says the no.1 link gets circa 40%.) And if the topics being Google-searched are especially politically charged even small variations in search results could — at least in theory — contribute to some major democratic impacts. There is much to chew on. DDG says it controlled for time- and location-based variation in the served search results by having all participants in the study carry out the search from the US and do so at the very same time. While it says it controlled for the inclusion of local links (i.e to cancel out any localization-based variation) by bundling such results with a localdomain.com placeholder (and ‘Local Source’ for infoboxes). Yet even taking steps to control for space-time based variations it still found the majority of Google search results to be unique to the individual. “These editorialized results are informed by the personal information Google has on you (like your search, browsing, and purchase history), and puts you in a based on what Google’s algorithms think you’re most likely to click on,” it argues. Google would counter argue that’s ‘contextualizing’, not editorializing. And that any ‘slight variation’ in results is a natural property of the dynamic nature of its Internet-crawling search response business. Albeit, as noted above, DDG found some volunteers did not get served certain links (when others did), which sounds rather more significant than ‘slight difference’. In the statement Google later sent us it describes DDG’s attempts to control for time and location differences as ineffective — and the study as a whole as “flawed” — asserting: This study’s methodology and conclusions are flawed since they are based on the assumption that any difference in search results are based on personalization. That is simply not true. In fact, there are a number of factors that can lead to slight differences, including time and location, which this study doesn’t appear to have controlled for effectively. One thing is crystal clear: Google is — and always has been — making decisions that affect what people see. This capacity is undoubtedly influential, given the majority marketshare captured by Google search. (And the major role Google still plays in shaping what Internet users are exposed to.) That’s clear even without knowing every detail of how personalized and/or customized these individual Google search results were. Google’s programming formula remains locked up in a proprietary algorithm box — so we can’t easily (and independently) unpick that. And this unfortunate ‘techno-opacity’ habit offers convenient cover for all sorts of claim and counter-claim — which can’t really now be detached from the filter bubble problem. Unless and until we can know exactly how the algorithms work to properly track and quantify impacts. Also true: Algorithmic accountability is a topic of increasing public and political concern. Lastly, ‘trust us’ isn’t the great brand mantra for Google it once was. So the devil may yet get (manually) unchained from all these fuzzy details. |
Cove.Tool wants to solve climate change one efficient building at a time | Arman Tabatabai | 2,018 | 12 | 4 | Cove.Tool software allows building designers and managers to plug in a variety of building conditions, energy options, and zoning specifications to get to the most cost-effective method of hitting building energy efficiency requirements (Cove.Tool Press Image / Cove.Tool / https://covetool.com). Cove.Tool users can input granular project-specifics, such as shading from particular beams and facades, to get precise analyses . |
Qualcomm announces the Snapdragon 855 and its new under-display fingerprint sensor | Frederic Lardinois | 2,018 | 12 | 4 | This week, Qualcomm is hosting press and analysts on Maui for its annual . Sadly, we’re not there, but a couple of weeks ago, Qualcomm gave us a preview of the news. There’ll be three days of news and the company decided to start with a focus on 5G, as well as a preview of its new Snapdragon 855 mobile platform. In addition, the company announced its new ultrasonic fingerprint solution for sensors that can sit under the display. It’ll probably still be a while before there’ll be a 5G tower in your neighborhood, but after years of buzz, it’s fair to say that we’re now getting to the point where 5G is becoming real. Indeed, AT&T and Verizon are showing off live 5G networks on Maui this week. Qualcomm described its event as the “coming out party for 5G,” though I’m sure we’ll hear from plenty of other players who will claim the same in the coming months. In the short term, what’s maybe more interesting is that Qualcomm also announced its new flagship 855 mobile platform today. While the company didn’t release all of the details yet, it stressed that the 855 is “the world’s first commercial mobile platform supporting multi-gigabit 5G.” The 855 also features a new multi-core AI engine that promises up to 3x better AI performance compared to its previous mobile platform, as well as specialized computer vision silicon for enhanced computational photography (think something akin to Google’s Night Light) and video capture. The company also briefly noted that the new platform has been optimized for gaming. The product name for this is “Snapdragon Elite Gaming,” but details remain sparse. Qualcomm also continues to bet on AR (or “extended reality” as the company brands it). The last piece of news is likely the most interesting here. Fingerprint sensors are now standard, even on mid-market phones. With its new 3D Sonic Sensors, Qualcomm promises an enhanced ultrasonic fingerprint solution that can sit under the display. In part, this is a rebranding of Qualcomm’s existing under-display sensor, but there’s some new technology here, too. The promise here is that the scanner will work, even if the display is very dirty or if the user installs a screen protector. Chances are, we’ll see quite a few new flagship phones in the next few months (Mobile World Congress is coming up quickly, after all) that will feature these new fingerprint scanners. |
Consumer electronics giant Samsung just became the world’s spendiest advertiser, bypassing Procter & Gamble | Connie Loizos | 2,018 | 12 | 4 | Who rules the roost in the business world is very much in flux. We see it on a daily basis, with the mantle of “most valuable company” being passed between Apple, Amazon and Microsoft, . Another interesting data point that highlights some of the jockeying for dominance behind the scenes: For the first time, South Korea’s Samsung has beat out packaged goods company Procter & Gamble in terms of the advertising dollars it’s putting to work. , the consumer electronics and appliance maker splashed out $11.2 billion for advertising and sales promotion last year, compared with P&G, which spent an estimated $10.5 billion. Samsung, which has a $300 billion market cap, may have spent so heavily in part to counter bad press, including around its Samsung Galaxy Note 7 phone, which had the unfortunate capability of spontaneously bursting into flames. Fighting Apple for constant mindshare isn’t cheap, either. For example, you may have noticed the flurry of anti-iPhone X ads that the company churned out ahead of the release of its Galaxy Note 9 unveiling — an effort to boost its bottom line after sales of its Galaxy S9 phone . Samsung isn’t the only tech brand that’s pumping up the volume when it comes to ad spending. Amid the companies accelerating their ad budgets the most quickly are China’s biggest online retailer, Alibaba Group Holding, which reportedly more than doubled its 2017 advertising spending to $2.7 billion in 2017. And Alibaba is trailed, unsurprisingly, by one of its biggest rivals, Tencent Holdings, whose $2 billion in related spend last year was nearly double what it was in 2016. Though the two are undisputed powerhouses in China, they’re currently locked in a battle for Southeast Asia and India, and it’s a costly war to wage. Others in the tech world to dominate AdAge’s tally include Alphabet, Netflix and Amazon, which reportedly boosted their 2017 spending by . Altogether, says AdAge, the U.S. is home to 44 of the companies spending the most of marketing, followed by 13 companies in Japan, 10 companies in Germany and nine companies in France. You can dig into more of its findings, including a look at the 100 companies and industries that currently spend the most on advertising, . |
Hulu to top 23 million subscribers by year-end | Sarah Perez | 2,018 | 12 | 4 | Hulu will top 23 million subscribers by year-end, according to comments made by Hulu CEO Randy Freer speaking at Business Insider’s Ignition conference this morning. While Freer didn’t state the number outright, he said that the business will have added more subscribers in the second half of 2018 than it did in the first. Based on the numbers we already know, that would put Hulu somewhere in the 23+ to 24 million range by the start of 2019. Hulu announced at CES in January 2018 its subscriber count had . It then updated that number at this year’s NewFronts presentation. If Hulu is on track to add more subscribers in the second half of the year, then it will at least top 23 million. “I think our numbers will be really impressive,” Freer said. “But, we need to get 30, 40, 50 million homes in a way that we can scale,” he added. The exec also spoke of the potential for Hulu’s live TV business, offering another hint of how quickly that product was growing by way of a comparison with a competitor — AT&T’s DirecTV Now. “We think the live TV market is robust,” Freer said. “DirecTV Now announced their number in the third quarter and we grew 10x of where DirecTV Now was. We were growing in October and November. We had our best third quarter, our best October, our best November,” he added. DirecTV Now had 49,000 customers in the third quarter. That means Hulu’s Live TV product alone had grown by nearly 500,000 subscribers in the quarter, which would account for a big chunk of Hulu’s overall subscriber growth of 3 million-plus. The CEO didn’t talk about what’s in store for Hulu with the change in ownership, where Disney is becoming the majority shareholder by way of the 21st Century Fox acquisition. It will take a 60 percent share, leaving Comcast as a 30 percent owner and AT&T’s WarnerMedia with 10 percent. (But the latter is considering selling its stake, AT&T just told investors.) However, he did offer some hints of what’s on Hulu’s roadmap, . “We’re exploring all opportunities to expand the geography…we have support from ownership to drive that drive that opportunity,” Freer said. Freer also noted that Hulu’s ad revenue, thanks its combination of live TV and on-demand, has grown by north of 50 percent [in the Upfront] over the last year, and is continuing to grow. “The ads business is really starting to come into its own, and our ability to generate ARPU around ad subs has been terrific,” he said. He also painted a picture of the flexibility a digital TV service like Hulu offers, suggesting that consumers may one day be able to pay for individual shows on an ad-free basis, instead of having to subscribe to an ad-free tier. Or they could toggle on live TV to watch their favorite sports games, then turn it off when they ended — effectively describing a pay-per-view sports product. “We know sports has a tendency to drive subscriptions…so we will certainly be evaluating sports as an opportunity,” Freer noted. This ability to personalize your TV is one of the reasons Hulu believes the cable TV era is over, the CEO added. “The aggregated linear cable network as a business…it had a great 20 year run. I think the next decade — it’s not going to be about aggregated linear TV networks or scheduled networks,” Freer said. |
Birth control delivery startup Nurx now offers an at-home HPV testing kit | Kate Clark | 2,018 | 12 | 4 | Telemedicine startup — once dubbed the “Uber for birth control” — has launched a direct-to-consumer (HPV) testing kit. The addition means its customers can in the comfort of their own homes test for the most common sexually transmitted infection in the U.S. and a cause of genital warts and cervical cancer. The Y Combinator graduate is backed with about $42 million in venture capital funding from Kleiner Perkins, Union Square Ventures, Lowercase Capital and others. It launched in 2015 to facilitate women’s access to birth control across the U.S. with a HIPAA-compliant web platform and mobile application that delivers contraceptives directly to customers’ doorsteps. Nurx’s telemedicine platform ensure its users can communicate with doctors and are provided the resources necessary in choosing the correct method of birth control. The HPV test is free with insurance, aside from the $15 shipping and lab processing fee, and $69 for those without insurance. Beginning today, the kit is available to all current Nurx users and will be fully rolled out to new customers in 2019. In addition to birth control and the HPV test, the company also ships , a once-daily pill that reduces the risk of getting HIV. Nurx’s expansion beyond birth control is part of the company’s goal of helping people take control of their health, especially the millions in the U.S. who live in “ ,” or areas where there is no reasonable access to a public clinic. The HPV testing kit is only approved for women over 30 and is not a replacement for a Pap smear, which collects a sample of cells from the cervix to check for abnormalities. Still, the kit, which requires only a vaginal swab, is able to assess for 14 high-risks of HPV that lead to cervical cancer. The company says the test will be a game-changer for women who are not regularly able to get Pap smears or who have not had access to the , like women who live in rural areas and those without health insurance. Nurx is currently available in 22 states, including the District of Columbia. |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.