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New York’s Taxi and Limousine Commission approves minimum wage rules for app-based drivers | Anthony Ha | 2,018 | 12 | 4 | The New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission has approved new rules designed to provide a minimum hourly wage of $17.22 (after expenses) for drivers who work with app-based services like Uber, Lyft, Via and Juno. that the rules try to deliver that wage by requiring drivers be paid according to a formula that incorporates mileage, time and utilization rate (the average percentage of time drivers have passengers in their cars). They also call for a higher payment when drivers have to take passengers far outside the city (to compensate for them for the return trip). A proposed bonus payment for drivers offering Uber Pool and other shared-ride options appears to have been removed from the rules. The Independent Drivers Guild, a labor organization that advocates for drivers, has been advocating for these changes, and it praised the TLC vote in a press release. “Today we brought desperately needed relief to 80,000 working families,” said IDG founder Jim Conigliaro, Jr. “All workers deserve the protection of a fair, livable wage and we are proud to be setting the new bar for contractor workers’ rights in America. We are thankful to the Mayor, Commissioner [Meera] Joshi and the Taxi and Limousine Commission, City Council Member Brad Lander and all of the city officials who listened to and stood up for drivers.” And The New York Taxi Workers Alliance issued a statement from Executive Director Bhairavi Desai: It’s the first real attempt anywhere to stop app driver pay cuts, which is an Uber and Lyft business practice at the heart of poverty wages … Ultimately, the TLC needs to regulate Uber and Lyft passenger rates, guarantee that app drivers get 80 percent of those rates, and regulate the yellow/green meter to charge the same minimum rates, so drivers across the industry can earn a raise. Uber and Lyft, meanwhile, criticized the decision, though with careful wording emphasizing that the companies aren’t opposed to ensuring that drivers receive a living wage. “Uber supports efforts to ensure that full-time drivers in NYC – whether driving with taxi, limo or Uber – are able to make a living wage, without harming outer borough riders who have been ignored by yellow taxi and underserved by mass transit,” said Uber Director of Public Affairs Jason Post in a statement. “The TLC’s implementation of the City Council’s legislation to increase driver earnings will lead to higher than necessary fare increases for riders while missing an opportunity to deal with congestion in Manhattan’s central business district.” Post argued that the rules do not account for the bonuses and other incentive payments that Uber and other companies might make. He criticized the TLC for adopting “an industry-wide utilization rate that does not hold bases accountable for keeping cars full with paying passengers.” And here’s the statement from Lyft: Lyft believes all drivers should earn a livable wage and we are committed to helping drivers reach their goals. Unfortunately, the TLC’s proposed pay rules will undermine competition by allowing certain companies to pay drivers lower wages, and disincentive drivers from giving rides to and from areas outside Manhattan. These rules would be a step backward for New Yorkers, and we urge the TLC to reconsider them. Specifically Lyft says that companies would be able to essentially pay drivers less by claiming a higher utilization rate than the industry average. It also says that it will be nearly impossible to implement the higher out-of-town payment rates in the 30-day window before the new rules take effect. You can . “Convenience costs, and going forward, that cost will no longer be borne by the driver,” said TLC Chair Meera Joshi in a statement. “Today’s rules will raise driver earnings by on average $10,000 a year and require companies to be completely transparent on how they calculate pay and car leasing costs.” And here’s a statement form Via: “As the industry leader in driver earnings in New York City, we are looking forward to working with the TLC on implementing this rule.” |
Uber Eats test lets restaurants trade discounts for ranking boost | Josh Constine | 2,018 | 12 | 4 | Uber Eats has effectively invented its own native ad unit. Uber confirmed to TechCrunch that a test quietly running in markets around India allows restaurants to bundle several food items together and sell them at a discounted price in exchange for promoted placement by Uber Eats in a featured section of local “Specials.” In some cases, restaurants foot the cost of the discount, while in others Uber pays for the discounts. The Uber Specials feature demonstrates the massive leverage awarded to food delivery apps that restaurants. Users often come to Uber Eats and its competitors without a specific restaurant in mind. Uber can then point those customers to whichever food supplier it prefers. The suppliers in turn will increasingly compete for the favor of the aggregators — not just in terms of food quality, speed and review scores, but also in terms of discounts. The aggregators will win users if they offer the best deals; creating a network effect makes restaurants more keen to play ball. TechCrunch first learned of Uber’s ambitions in the space from a mock-up of the Promoted Items Value Section feature spotted in its app by mobile researcher and frequent TC tipster . The fictional food items included “Best Beer” that “is made from only the finest gutter swill” and “Weird Fries” that “will so utterly decimate your sense of good food that you will be permanently reduced to a whimpering shell of your former self!” This jokey text that seemingly was never meant for public viewing also noted that the fries are so good you should “throw all your other food in the garbage right now!” Uber assured us these weren’t real. But what it did confirm is that the discounts for promoted placement test is live in India. “We’re always experimenting with ways to make it easier to find your favorite foods on Uber Eats,, according to a statement provided by an Uber spokesperson. The feature allows restaurants to create a bundled meal at a certain price point, such as a chicken sandwich, french fries and a drink at a price that’s less than the sum of its parts. The company tells me the goal is to take the friction out of ordering by giving people pre-set meals at a better price prominently available in the app. Attracting more customers that have plenty of other options could offset the discount. Businesses could also use it to bundle high-margin items, like soft drinks, with meals, or to get rid of overstock. Ben Thompson’s aggregation theory describes how power accrues to aggregators that match supply with demand It’s already common for restaurants to make “specials” out of food they have too much of. That butternut squash ravioli might only be featured because they can’t get rid of it. In that sense, you could think of Uber Specials as the inverse of surge pricing. When supply is too high, restaurants can offer discounts to gain more demand. It’s also not far off from Google Search’s keyword ads where business pay for more visibility. Uber wouldn’t discuss whether it plans to bring the strategy to other markets, but it makes sense to assume it’s considering expansion. Done wrong, it could look a bit like Uber Eats is pressuring restaurants to surrender discounts if they want to be discoverable inside its app. If restaurants within Uber Eats get into heated competition to offer discounts, it could drive down their profits. |
Taiwan-based travel startup AsiaYo raises $7M Series B led by Alibaba Taiwan Entrepreneurs Fund | Catherine Shu | 2,018 | 12 | 5 | , a travel accommodation booking platform based in Taipei, Taiwan, has raised a $7 million Series B led by Alibaba Taiwan Entrepreneurs Fund, a nonprofit initiative run by the Chinese e-commerce giant, and China Development Financial. Darwin Ventures and Delta Ventures also participated in the round, which brings AsiaYo’s total raised since its launch in 2014 to $10 million, including a $3 million Series A. Founded by CEO C.K. Cheng, AsiaYo has grown over the past four years to a team of about 100 people and now claims about 300,000 members on its site. In addition to Taiwan, the platform operates in Japan, Korea, Hong Kong and Thailand, and says overseas bookings account for 60 percent of its business. AsiaYo’s new funding will be used to launch in new markets, with operations in Singapore and Malaysia and a new Japanese website slated to launch next year. Cheng told TechCrunch that it picked Singapore and Malaysia as its newest markets because of the amount of travel between the two countries, which are next to one another. AsiaYo works with 50 partners, including Hong Kong Airlines, KKday and Rakuten LIFULL STAY, to provide reward programs and deals on vacation bookings. The website is currently available in English, Chinese and Korean and claims 60,000 listings across 60 cities. The startup targets younger tourists traveling within Asia with what it calls “hyper-personalized journeys” created with the help of its AI-based algorithm AYSort, which analyzes user behavior to provide booking suggestions. In a press statement, Alibaba Taiwan Entrepreneurs Fund executive director Andrew Lee said “With rapid economic development across Asia, we have seen a significant rise in inter-regional tourism. AsiaYo has capitalized on this trend, demonstrating its growth potential. We’re currently working with AsiaYo to further develop technological capabilities in the travel industry.” AsiaYo’s listings include a combination of rooms, apartments, hostels and hotels, which means it competes against a wide variety of other accommodation booking sites, like Airbnb, Agoda and HotelQuickly. The startup differentiates, however, by verifying listings with landlords before they go live for quality assurance and to “inspire travelers to step out of their comfort zone,” said Cheng. The company also provides multi-lingual customer support through several channels, including Line, Facebook, WeChat and its own help lines. |
Announcing the final batch of judges for Startup Battlefield Africa | Mike Butcher | 2,018 | 12 | 5 | in Lagos, Nigeria, is coming up fast. As usual, we have a great lineup of panels that will include investors and founders discussing issues such as blockchain, raising venture capital on the continent and beyond and more. And of course companies will compete in Startup Battlefield, our premier startup competition. Startup Battlefield consists of 15 teams competing in three preliminary rounds — five startups per round — which have only six minutes to pitch and present a live demo to a panel of expert technologists and VC investors. Five of the original 15 startups will be chosen to pitch a second time to a fresh set of judges. One startup will emerge the winner and receive a US$25,000 no-equity cash prize and win a trip for two to compete in the Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt in 2019 (assuming the company still qualifies to compete at the time). The event is now sold out, but keep your eyes on TechCrunch for video of all the panels and the Battlefield competition. And now to announce our next batch of judges who will be grilling the startups after their pitches. See you next week! Jason Njoku is the founder and CEO of Iroko, the home of Nollywood content. He has pioneered the African digital content market by bringing Nollywood (Nigerian cinema) to a global audience, and in the process has raised more than $40 million in investment from international VCs, including Tiger Global, Kinnevik, RISE Capital and Canal+. In 2013, Njoku was crowned as the CNBC Africa West Africa Young Business Leader, and in 2014, he was recognized as one of Fast Company’s Top 1000 most Creative People in Business. Dapo Olagunju is head of West Africa at J.P. Morgan. In this capacity, he represents J.P. Morgan’s global platform to clients, regulators and other stakeholders in the region. Prior to joining J.P. Morgan, he was a general manager at Access Bank Plc where he oversaw the financial markets division of the bank. He was a member of the bank’s Digital Council, which had overall responsibility for the bank’s digital strategy, approved partnership with fintech companies and monitored the implementation of digital initiatives. He was, at different times, a consultant on peacekeeping financing at the United Nations in New York and chief dealer at Investment Banking & Trust Company Limited (now Stanbic IBTC Bank Plc, a member of the Standard Bank Group). He was also co-founder of 234Give.com — an online fundraising platform. Konstantinos Papamiltiadis is the director of developer platforms and programs for Facebook, supporting the company’s product and platform strategy through partnerships with technology companies and programs for startups. Prior to that he supervised product and engineering at Taptu (sold to Mediafed) a Cambridge, U.K.-based startup. Prior to Taptu, he led the Yahoo EMEA mobile product team. His team supervised the development and launch of mobile sites for Search, Mail and IM across Europe, as well as News, Sports and Finance for iPhone and Blackberry apps. Before joining Yahoo he was a product manager at Skype and Vodafone R&D. Bosun Tijani is the co-founder and CEO of Co-Creation Hub, a social innovation center based in Nigeria dedicated to accelerating the application of social capital and technology for economic prosperity. In pursuit of an active lifestyle, he also founded and serves as the CEO and founder of Truppr, an emerging fitness brand in Africa that connects users to fitness events across the world. In addition, he is a partner at Growth Capital, Nigeria’s first social innovation fund for high-potential, early-stage businesses. He has more than 15 years of experience across public and private corporations, including Pera Innovation Network (U.K.), Hewlett Packard (EMEA) and International Trade Centre (UNCTAD/WTO), both in Geneva, Switzerland. |
Netflix rival Iflix launches $5M search for up-and-coming filmmakers in Asia | Jon Russell | 2,018 | 12 | 5 | Netflix is increasing its efforts in Asia after and began , but one local rival is hitting back with a program to spotlight promising creators in the region. Malaysia-headquartered Iflix, which operates in 26 countries across Africa, the Middle East and Asia, today announced a $5 million program to find 30 filmmakers across four of its largest markets: Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh and the Philippines. The company, which has that , offers a freemium service with a paid tier that costs around $3 per month. It claims an audience of “millions” of users. The 12-month initiative will be run alongside Next 10 Ventures, , with the aim of helping would-be or part-time filmmakers to fully pursue their passion. “There’s ad revenue in some markets but it may not be sufficient enough to enable you to have a full-time career,” Grubbs, who was previously YouTube’s global director of top creator partnerships, told TechCrunch in an interview. “A things people want to do without waiting for brand sponsorship.” In addition to financing, the program will provide mentoring, equipment and other assistance to produce content exclusively for Iflix. , and Craig Galvin — the company’s global head of content — said that the initiative isn’t just limited to creators’ local markets, which might be a logical assumption, given Netflix’s more global approach. Instead, Galvin — who earlier this year — argued that there is the potential to reach Iflix’s global viewers. “We do see our pathway to be more local-centric, but I do believe some of this content will travel well beyond their territories,” he told TechCrunch. “For many, the remuneration isn’t quite there yet,” Galvin added. “So for us, it’s allowing them some scope to help reach their full potential.” The short videos supported by the program won’t be quite as brief as the seconds-long shorts you’ll find on TikTok, the fast-growing video platform, since Galvin and Grubbs are seeking more episodic content. However, they remain open to “exploring experimentation” — potentially series of one-minute shorts — if such proposals are judged to resonate with audiences. “There’s no definitive number, but we’re expecting around 1,500 pieces of content as part of this program,” Galvin said, adding that he hopes to expand the program to cover more, or all, of Iflix’s markets in the future. Filmmakers wanting to apply to the program can do so . One obvious comparison to the Iflix initiative is , a Singapore-based streaming service that features short video content from independent filmmakers in Asia and beyond. Founded in 2012, , and it recently introduced that allows filmmakers to raise money directly from its global audience. The company has also helped filmmakers to find brand sponsors in order to get the checks required to fund production. |
Chinese stocks plummet as Huawei CFO arrest raises trade fears | Rita Liao | 2,018 | 12 | 5 | A string of Chinese stocks fell hard on Thursday after the in Vancouver deepened concerns over U.S.-China trade tensions. The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index of Chinese companies listed in Hong Kong was off 2.76 percent as of 12:40 p.m. On the Mainland side, the CSI 300 index of the top 300 stocks trading in Shanghai and Shenzhen fell 2.1 percent. The U.S. stock market is closed Wednesday to honor former U.S. President George H.W. Bush. The crash arrived after Canadian officials detained Meng, daughter of Huawei’s founder and chief executive officer Ren Zhengfei, on suspicion that Huawei . Meng is facing extradition to the U.S. Shares of Huawei’s main rival ZTE nose-dived nearly 6 percent in Hong Kong by midday. Meng’s news also hit the suppliers of Huawei across the Asian stock markets. Among the worst performers is Shennan Circuit, which slipped nearly 10 percent in Shenzhen as of this writing. Huawei and its main rival ZTE have been targets of the U.S. government that worries about the alleged ties between the telecom equipment makers and the Chinese government. The U.S.’s ban on ZTE sparks concerns that Huawei will face a similar fate. In April, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced that would restrict American component makers from selling to ZTE, which in 2017 to violating sanctions on Iran and North Korea. Chinese stocks had been on a downward trend prior to Meng’s arrest as a result of rising U.S. tariffs over the last few months. In October, the Shanghai benchmark index dropped to a . |
Google is killing off Allo, its latest messaging app flop | Jon Russell | 2,018 | 12 | 5 | It’s official: Google is killing off Allo. but it was pretty much flawed from the word go, with limited usage. Google was, once again, painfully late to the messaging game. earlier this year, and now it has announced that it’ll close down in March of next year. “Allo will continue to work through March 2019 and until then, you’ll be able to export all of your existing conversation history from the app,” Google said in a blog post. “We’ve learned a lot from Allo, particularly what’s possible when you incorporate machine learning features, like the Google Assistant, into messaging.” Google said it wants “every single Android device to have a great default messaging experience,” but the fact remains that the experience on Android massively lags iOS, where Apple’s iMessage service offers a slick experience with free messages, calling and video between iPhone and iPad users. Instead of Allo, Google is pushing ahead with RCS (Rich Communication Services), an enhanced SMS standard that allow iMessage-like communication between Android devices. But “could” is the operative word. The main caveat with RCS is that carriers must develop their own messaging apps that work with the protocol and connect to other apps, while the many Android OEMs also need to hop on board with support. As I wrote earlier this year, with RCS, Google is giving carriers a chance to take part in the messaging boom, rather than be cut out as WhatsApp, Messenger, iMessage and others take over. But the decision is tricky for carriers, who have traditionally tightly held any form of income until the death. That’s because they , for one, . Another problem: RCS is not encrypted, which flies in the face of most messaging apps on the market today. Elsewhere, Google is keeping Duo — the video chat service that launched alongside Allo — while it continues to develop Hangouts into an enterprise-focused service, much like Slack. |
Japan’s Sansan raises $26.5M to help Southeast Asia get more from business cards | Jon Russell | 2,018 | 12 | 5 | The humble business card is a target for disruption in Southeast Asia after Japanese contacts management startup Sansan raised JPY 3 billion ($26.5 million) to expand its business into the region. Founded way back in 2007, Sansan helps bring business intelligence to companies through a system that helps build connections between users and both internal employees and external contacts using, among other things, business cards. “Our purpose is to use tech to enhance the utility and value of business cards,” Sansan co-founder and director Kei Tomioka told TechCrunch in an interview. “They are customary for business in most parts of the world, especially Japan, but there’s no easy way to digitize them.” This new round will bring that focus to Southeast Asia, where Sansan already has an office in Singapore. The capital — which is a Series E round — was provided by Japan Post Capital, T. Rowe Price, SBI Investment and DCM Ventures, and it takes Sansan to around $100 million raised to date. Sansan claims that 7,000 corporations use its core product — also called Sansan — which helps build and organize networks. At its core, users scan another person’s business card, which is then digitized, uploaded to the cloud and made part of their database. The Sansan system then allows interactions, such as meetings, calls, notes and more to be added to the entry to help track interactions. The resources are held within companies, rather than employees themselves, which means strategies around sales, marketing and more can be kept organized and centralized. In addition, Sansan operates a LinkedIn-like service called Eight which is available for free and is linked to the core product, allowing users to update their job, company, etc. without having to provide a new business card. Eight has some two million users today, according to Sansan. Unlike LinkedIn, however, which is commonly used for finding jobs, Tomioka suggested that Eight and Sansan help maintain networks and increase communication and engagement. Sansan CEO Chikahiro Terada started the business in 2006 alongside fellow co-founders Kei Tomioka, Joraku Satoru, Kenji Shiomi and Motohisa Tsunokawa Tomioka — who previously worked for Oracle in Thailand — said that he sees much potential for the services in Southeast Asia, where , albeit with a greater focus on SMEs rather than Japan-style mega corporations. Already, Sansan has picked up some 100 or so clients in the region — mostly by targeting Japanese corporations in Singapore — while Eight has reached 100,000 registered users across Southeast Asia since a soft launch in October 2017. “We want to expand globally and Singapore is our first step,” said Tomioka, indicating that there are future plans to look at business in India, Europe and potentially the U.S. further down the line. Elsewhere, the firm is hiring data scientists as it aims to bring additional smarts to its services. The proposition is interesting — personally speaking I have multiple stacks of business cards sitting idle — but it remains to be seen how open businesses in Southeast Asia will be to paying for the service, even with clear benefits. SaaS as a model is still establishing its roots among SMEs, while there are already popular options. LinkedIn is, of course, the de facto professional social network, while Facebook, , is also a popular option. |
And Uber is going with Bird (looks like) | Connie Loizos | 2,018 | 12 | 5 | Five months ago, the Bay Area-based electric scooter rental company joined forces with the ride-hailing giant Uber, which both invested in the company as part of a $335 million round and said it was going to promote Lime in its mobile app. It’s looking now like that may have been a mistake for Lime. Though Lime presumably shared information with its investor, Uber is now on the cusp of acquiring Lime’s fiercest rival , according to several sources, none of whom quite knows at what price as of this writing. What we’re hearing at the moment: talk in the neighborhood of $2 billion. That’s that Bird was assigned in the spring by investors when it raised its most recent round of $300 million, and it’s the same valuation that was being discussed recently by investors who contemplated giving the company an extension of that last round. It’s also a price tag that could potentially double if the deal is an all-equity offering and Uber, currently valued at roughly $60 billion, is able to go public at a $120 billion valuation. Crazy as it sounds today, bankers have . A request to Bird for comment from this afternoon was not returned before we published this piece, though founder and CEO Travis VanderZanden now tells us the company “is not for sale.” As originally noted, VanderZanden has also told employees the company is not for sale. For his part, Lime co-founder Brad Bao was also asked about acquisition talks with Uber and said at a Business Insider conference today that he was “very flattered to be part of the speculation” but, like VanderZanden, he insisted that Lime . The Information had that Uber has held talks recently with both Bird and Lime. Altogether, Bird, founded just 19 months ago, has raised $415 million. Its backers include Goldcrest Capital, Tusk Ventures, Craft Ventures (the investment firm of serial founder David Sacks), Index Ventures, Valor Venture Partners and Sequoia Capital, which led the company’s most recent round. If Uber chooses Bird over Lime, few industry observers will be surprised, given that the two have always seemed similar culturally. Before founding Bird, VanderZanden worked for Lyft as its COO, and was later by the company for allegedly breaking a confidentiality agreement after he left to join Uber as its VP of Global Driver Growth. From the outside, at least, VanderZanden — who with Lyft for undisclosed terms — seemed a man after the heart of Uber’s original and highly hard-charging CEO, Travis Kalanick, whose tenure at the company ended in over its many cultural missteps. (Kalanick was later replaced by current CEO Dara Khosrowshahi.) Even the way that Bird launched was highly reminiscent of Uber, barreling into numerous cities without first securing their explicit approval. That strategy backfired in some places, including San Francisco, which later forced Bird, Lime and every other scooter company that dumped its hardware on the city’s streets to remove their scooters and apply for permits first. The city then gave out permits to , neither of which was Lime or Bird. Still, by then, Bird had already generated “cool” cred with users that it may still enjoy to a greater extent than Lime, which launched at nearly the same time but began renting electric bikes and only layered in electric scooters after watching Bird’s rise. A months-old deal with Uber may not have helped Lime as much as the company expected, either. It was back in July that Lime joined forces with the ride-hailing giant, which invested in Lime as part of a $335 million round and planned to promote Lime in its mobile app as part of the deal. According to Bloomberg, Uber also planned to plaster its logo on Lime’s scooters. The deal looked to potentially be the first step toward a permanent tie-up, based on a particular precedent. To wit, Uber had struck a similar arrangement with the electric bike company JUMP bikes before spending $200 million to acquire the company in the spring. Yet while Uber has been featuring Lime within its own heavily downloaded app, the company hasn’t made a major push to promote Lime — which has raised $467 million altogether — otherwise. As one source familiar with Uber said about whether its intentions all along were to collect data from Lime or otherwise use its pact as leverage against it, “I could see Travis Kalanick doing that. I don’t think it fits Dara’s [modus operandi], but you never know.” What clearly fit into Khosrowshahi’s mandate is finding ways for Uber to thrive, especially as its zooms inexorably toward its IPO. On this front, Bird may be able to scoot the company along faster. Though Bird and Lime compete neck-and-neck, largely using scooters from the , Bird’s first-mover advantage, plus VanderZanden’s history with the company, may be enough to seal the deal in this case — at least as of this moment. Of greater interest is whether either company can help Uber reach a far richer valuation than it already enjoys, and that’s . |
Apple’s HomePod will be available in China starting early next year | Catherine Shu | 2,018 | 12 | 5 | “嘿 Siri!” Apple’s HomePod will be available for sale in China early next year. A , with the smart speaker , or about 17 percent more than its $349 price in the United States. Though Apple doesn’t list an exact shipping date for Chinese buyers, it says the HomePod will be available in early 2019. HomePod rivals Amazon Echo and Google Home haven’t launched in China, but Apple’s smart speakers will compete with a host of homegrown devices, including Tencent’s Tingting, which integrates with WeChat, Alibaba’s Tmall Genie, several models by Baidu, Mobvoi’s TicHome Mini and Xiaomi’s Mi Bluetooth speaker. Several of these smart speakers are much, much cheaper than the HomePod; for example, the Tmall Genie, Tingting and Baidu’s Xiaodu have each been offered at a discounted price of about $15. But in spite of its significantly higher price, the HomePod will probably still be an attractive option for iOS users. Despite formidable competition from Samsung, Huawei and Xiaomi, Apple as of the second quarter of 2018, according to Gartner. The HomePod launched in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia in February before rolling out over the succeeding months in France, Germany, Canada, Mexico and Spain. |
Magic Leap loses two women from top executive positions | Lucas Matney | 2,018 | 12 | 5 | Magic Leap’s executive team is pretty heavy on the dudes these days. The augmented reality startup’s two female C-suite executives, Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Business Officer , have recently both stepped back into advisory roles at the company, TechCrunch has learned. Freeman joined the startup two years ago from National Geographic. Bhasin joined the company as chief business officer in October of 2015. With the two executives, both women of color, taking a step back from the startup’s C-suite, there seems to be a strong lack of diversity among the startup’s top executives, a group that includes a chief games wizard and chief futurist but does not appear to have a single female chief officer. “Freeman will be taking on a new role for Magic Leap as Special Projects Advisor reporting to the CEO,” a Magic Leap spokesperson told TechCrunch. “[Bhasin] is now transitioning to a senior advisory role at Magic Leap reporting to the CEO.” Full comment from Magic Leap: — Lucas Matney (@lucasmtny) We have reached out to Freeman and Bhasin for comment on the scope of their continued involvement with Magic Leap. Problems surrounding leadership diversity at Magic Leap have been highlighted in the past. Early last year, the company’s former VP of Marketing Tannen Campbell sued the company for gender discrimination after she was fired when she “ The suit, which was later settled, cast a negative light on the startup, which has raised more than $2.3 billion to build an augmented reality headset akin to Microsoft’s HoloLens. The company released its Magic Leap One Creator’s Edition earlier this fall. The startup placed a major emphasis on diversity during the opening keynote for its first developer conference this October. Freeman helped kick off the event with a proclamation of support for underrepresented creators, an apt topic for many in the game development industry where female and minority representation has typically been quite low. “We are committed to making significant investments to support the efforts of female and minority creators, it’s not just the vision, it’s brave leadership and we are going to make this real,” Freeman told the crowd. “We can’t underestimate the power of that trickle down effect, because when every voice is heard and people see themselves represented, it inspires and really energizes the next generation of creators.” |
Putting the band back together, ExactTarget execs reunite to launch MetaCX | Jonathan Shieber | 2,018 | 12 | 5 | Scott McCorkle has spent most of his professional career thinking about business to business software and how to improve it for a company’s customers. The former president of ExactTarget and later chief executive of Salesforce Marketing Cloud has made billions of dollars building products to help support customer service, and now he’s back at it again with his latest venture . Alongside Jake Miller, the former chief engineering lead at Salesforce Marketing Cloud and chief technology officer at ExactTarget, and David Duke, the chief customer officer and another ExactTarget alumnus, McCorkle has raised $14 million to build a white-labeled service that offers a toolkit for monitoring, managing and supporting customers as they use new software tools. For the company’s customers, MetaCX provides a dashboard The Indianapolis-based company is one of the latest spin-outs from High Alpha Studio, an accelerator and venture capital studio formed by Scott Dorsey, the former chief executive officer of ExactTarget. As one of a crop of venture investment firms and studios cropping up in the Midwest, High Alpha for the viability of the venture model in emerging ecosystems. And, from that respect, the success of the MetaCX round speaks volumes. Especially since the round was led by the Los Angeles-based venture firm Upfront Ventures. As a result of the investment, Upfront partner Kobie Fuller will be taking a seat on the MetaCX board of directors alongside McCorkle and Dorsey. |
Huawei CFO arrested in Canada, awaits US extradition | Kate Clark | 2,018 | 12 | 5 | Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei, the world’s and has been arrested in Vancouver, Canada on suspicion she violated U.S. trade sanctions against Iran, as first reported by . Huawei confirmed the news with TechCrunch, adding that Meng, the daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, faces unspecified charges in the Eastern District of New York, where she had transferred flights on her way to Canada. Per The Globe and Mail, Meng, the company’s deputy chairwoman, was arrested on December 1; a bail hearing has already been set for Friday. Tensions between U.S. authorities and have been high since 2016 and have taken a turn for the worse as the U.S.-China trade war has heated up. Citing national security concerns, President Donald Trump in August that would ban government agencies from using products and services from Huawei and its Chinese competitor ZTE. Meanwhile, in a recent letter addressed to Canadian Prime Minister U.S. lawmakers have Canada to keep Huawei out of its 5G plans. |
Neuron Mobility raises $3.7M to bring e-scooters to Southeast Asia’s cities | Jon Russell | 2,018 | 12 | 5 | Despite the rise in electric scooters in the U.S., you’d be forgiven for thinking that Asia — the region where bike-sharing foreshadowed the rise of e-scooters — has been left off the party. But e-scooters have quietly been in the region for some time and now they are beginning to ramp up. Singapore-based Neuron Mobility is one such riser, and the company announced today that it has raised a SG$5 million ($3.7 million) seed round to explore overseas growth opportunities. The money comes from a collection of investors that include SeedPlus, 500 Startups, SEEDS Capital, ACE Capital, undisclosed angels and family offices. Founded in 2016, Neuron has offered electric scooters in Singapore since last year. That fleet is currently downsized, CEO Zachary Wang told TechCrunch in an interview, because the startup is awaiting new regulation from the Singapore government. He expects that to take another one or two months. At its peak, Wang said, Neuron was Singapore’s latest provider with around 1,000 e-scooters on the island nation, although the number is down to “a few hundred” right now. have been impounded in Singapore in recent times because they have been parked in illegal areas. Singapore currently prohibits scooters from being left in public places, such as subway stations, but pre-defined adjacent spaces are OK. As such, Neuron charges users a $5 fee when they leave their ride in the wrong place. That’s detected by geo-fencing tech and the charge covers the cost of sending a staffer to move it, Wang explained. Despite it forcing the startup to slim down its operations, Wang is supportive of the Singapore government’s moves. Admitting that on-demand bikes and scooters can pile up “like rubbish on the streets in many cities,” the Neuron CEO said that “multi-use of sidewalk pavements [from scooters and other services] is here to stay and regulation brings rights to operate, which is a good thing.” [Left to right] Neuron Mobility founders Harry Yu and Zachary Wang started the Singapore-based company in 2016 It has trodden carefully, however. In Bangkok, Neuron is working with real estate giant Sansiri to offer last mile options around that includes retail, residential and education facilities in close proximity. In Chiang Mai, it is offering transportation in the old part of the city, which is popular with Chinese tourists and where bike-sharing services like Mobike are popular. When pressed on safety, Wang said that keeping the focus on specific parts of the city is important. Indeed, Asia’s mega cities are frankly dangerous for even seasoned motorcycle or bike drivers, let alone part-time electric scooter riders, while a number of people in the U.S. have died following collisions with e-scooters. With that in mind, Neuron said it is also planning a “ride responsibility” campaign. Looking beyond Malaysia, Wang said that Neuron aspires to be in other parts of Southeast Asia — which houses more than 650 million people — as well as cities that are comparable to Singapore, such as those in Australia. Those expansions, however, won’t happen until the startup raises another round of funding; that’s something that he anticipates could come in the first half of 2019, although Wang is coy on details at this point. Speaking more broadly about the expansion of e-scooter startups like and , which have moved into Europe and , Wang — the Neuron CEO — stressed the importance of local players. “The Southeast Asia game must be played by Southeast Asia players because the region is so fragmented,” he said. “Traditionally, it is very difficult to penetrate markets, so the hyper-local approach becomes all important.” Beyond working with regulators, Wang said another example of its local approach is that it is developing its own bespoke scooters, rather than going with off-the-shelf products from the likes of Xiaomi-owned Ninebot, which is outfitting most U.S. startups. Neuron’s “next-gen” scooter will “come to market pretty soon,” he said. Neuron has occupied a unique position since it has been around since before bike-sharing startups flooded Southeast Asia last year following the trend in China. Unlike Ofo, oBike and countless others who expanded and then fled Southeast Asian markets, Wang believes that e-scooters are more sustainable as a business because the unit economics are healthier. “Our rides can be benchmarked against taxi rides,” he explained. While, more generally, e-scooters are “priced between public transportation and taxis” rather than being cheaper than both, as is the case for dockless cycles. |
Still a year away from launch, Meg Whitman and Jeffrey Katzenberg’s Quibi keeps adding talent | Jonathan Shieber | 2,018 | 12 | 5 | Video won’t start rolling on Meg Whitman and Jeffrey Katzenberg’s new bite-sized streaming service with the billion-dollar backing until the end of 2019, but talent keeps signing up to come along for their ride into the future of serialization. The latest marquee director to sign on the dotted line with is Catherine Hardwicke, who will be helming a story around the creation of an artificial intelligence with the working title “How They Made Her,” according to an announcement from Katzenberg onstage at the . Hardwicke, who directed “Thirteen,” “Lords of Dogtown” and, most famously, “Twilight,” is joining Antoine Fuqua, Guillermo del Toro, Sam Raimi and Lena Waithe in an attempt to answer the question of whether Whitman and Katzenberg’s gamble on premium (up to $6 million per episode) short-form storytelling is a quixotic quest or a quintessential viewing experience for a new generation of media consumers. Katzenberg also that Quibi would be working on a basketball-related series with Steph Curry’s production company. He wrote: I announced a new docu-series by called “ ” coming exclusively to Quibi. “Benedict Men” will be executive produced by Stephen Curry’s Unanimous Media and will give viewers an inside look at one of the most unique high school basketball teams in America at St. Benedict’s Prep in Newark, New Jersey. St. Benedict’s Prep is an all-boys secondary school founded on the core belief ‘What Hurts My Brother Hurts Me,’ and aims to foster a legacy of strong character, community, leadership, and faith. As one of the top athletic high schools with a storied basketball program and the highest graduation rate in New Jersey, the series will follow the brotherhood of young men who seek to balance life in complicated surroundings. In some ways, the the former chairman of Walt Disney Studios and founder of WndrCo, and every major Hollywood studio — including Disney, 21st Century Fox, Entertainment One, NBCUniversal, Sony Pictures Entertainment and Alibaba Goldman Sachs — is the latest in an everything old is new again refrain. If blogs reinvented printed media, and podcasts and music streaming reinvented radio, why can’t Quibi reinvent serialized storytelling. Again and again, Whitman and Katzenberg returned to an analogy from the early days of the cable revolution. “We’re not short form, we’re Quibi,” said Whitman, echoing the tagline that HBO made famous in its early advertising blitzes. That Whitman and Katzenberg’s project to take what HBO did for premium television and apply that to mobile media is ambitious. Now industry-watchers will have to wait until 2019 at the earliest to see if it’s also successful. In the interview onstage at a , Katzenberg cited Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code” as something of an inspiration — noting that the book had more than 100 chapters for its 500 pages of text. But Katzenberg could have gone back even further to the days of Dickens and his serialized entertainments. Quibi is offering its production partners a sweetheart deal. After seven years the production company behind the Quibi shows will own their intellectual property, and after two years those producers will be able to repackage the Quibi content back into long-form series and pitch them for distribution to other platforms. Not only that, but Quibi is fronting the money for over 100 percent of the production. Katzenberg said that it “will create the most powerful syndicated marketplace” Hollywood has seen in decades. It’s a sort of anti-Netflix model where Katzenberg and Whitman view Quibi as a platform where creators and talent will want to come. “We are betting on the success of the platform — and by the way, it worked brilliantly in the ’60s and ’70s and ’80s.” Katzenberg said. “ In addition to the business model innovations (or throwbacks, depending on how one looks at it), Quibi is being built from the ground up with a technology stack that will leverage new technologies like 5G broadband, and big data and analytics, according to Whitman. Indeed, launching the first platform built without an existing stable of content means that Quibi is preparing 5,000 unique pieces of content to go up when it pulls the curtains back on its service in late 2019 or early 2020, Whitman said. And the company is looking to big telecommunications companies like Verizon (my corporate overlord’s corporate overlord) and AT&T as partners to help it get to market. Since those networks need something to do with all the 5G capacity they’re building out, high-quality streaming content that’s replete with meta-tags to monitor and manage how an audience is spending their time is a compelling proposition. “We want to work to have video that looks good on mobile [and] ramp up content in terms of quantity and quality,” Whitman said. That quality extends to things like the user interface, search features and analytics. “W Questions remain about the service’s viability. Like what role will the telcos actually play in distribution and development? Can Quibi avoid the Hulu problem where the various investors are able to overcome their own entrenched interests to work for the viability of the platform? And do consumers even want a premium experience on mobile given the new kinds of stars that are made through the immediacy and accessibility that technology platforms like YouTube, Instagram and Snap offer? |
Duet Display 2 uses hardware acceleration to catch up with Luna Display | Romain Dillet | 2,018 | 12 | 5 | is an app that lets you turn your iPad into a second Mac monitor. And the team behind it just released a major update that makes it much more efficient — it consumes less CPU resources and is now recognized as a true external display. If you’ve used Duet Display over the past few years, you may have seen a change that made it worse, not better. At some point, Apple updated macOS and broke Duet Display’s method. Duet Display had to use AirPlay as a fallback method. It made the app much less versatile as you were restricted to a handful of 16:9 resolutions with black bars. But this is a thing of the past as Duet Display found a way to leverage GPU acceleration. It means that your iPad now appears as a display in macOS settings. It also should be more energy-efficient. In my experience, it’s now much closer to a normal external display. If you’re traveling and need a lot of screen real estate, it’s a good solution. has been able to do the same thing using a hardware dongle. Duet Display is now catching up with its competitor by releasing this update. Version 2.0 is a free update. Make sure to download the latest version on your iPad and your Mac. For new users, Duet Display costs $10. You can optionally pay $20 or $25 per year for additional features, such as wireless connectivity and Apple Pencil support. Here’s what Duet Display has to say about Luna Display: To be clear, it's not catch up. We are faster, entirely in software & cost nearly 10 times less, so more like Luna is obsolete — Duet Display (@duetdisplay) |
Where Facebook AI research moves next | Lucas Matney | 2,018 | 12 | 5 | lot of time in the tech industry. Darling startups find ways to crash and burn. Trends that seem unstoppable sputter-out. In the field of artificial intelligence, the past five years have been nothing short of transformative. Facebook’s AI Research lab (FAIR) turns five years old this month, and just as the social media giant has left an indelible mark on the broader culture — for better or worse — the work coming out of FAIR has seen some major impact in the AI research community and entrenched itself in the way Facebook operates. “You wouldn’t be able to run Facebook without deep learning,” Facebook Chief AI Scientist Yann LeCun tells TechCrunch. “It’s very, very deep in every aspect of the operation.” Reflecting on the formation of his team, LeCun recalls his central task in initially creating the research group was “inventing what it meant to do research at Facebook.” “Facebook didn’t have any research lab before FAIR, it was the first one, until then the company was very much focused on short-term engineering projects with six-month deadlines, if not less,” he says. LeCun Five years after its formation, FAIR’s influence permeates the company. The group has labs in Menlo Park, New York, Paris, Montreal, Tel Aviv, Seattle, Pittsburgh and London. They’ve partnered with academic institutions and published countless papers and studies, many of which the group has enumerated in this handy five-year anniversary timeline . “I said ‘No’ to creating a research lab for my first five years at Facebook,” CTO Mike Schroepfer wrote in a . “In 2013, it became clear AI would be critical to the long-term future of Facebook. So we had to figure this out.” The research group’s genesis came shortly after LeCun stopped by Mark Zuckerberg’s house for dinner. “I told [Zuckerberg] how research labs should be organized, particularly the idea of practicing open research.” LeCun said. “What I heard from him, I liked a lot, because he said openness is really in the DNA of the company.” FAIR has the benefit of longer timelines that allow it to be more focused in maintaining its ethos. There is no “War Room” in the AI labs, and much of the group’s most substantial research ends up as published work that benefits the broader AI community. Nevertheless, in many ways, AI is very much an arms race for Silicon Valley tech companies. The separation between FAIR and Facebook’s Applied Machine Learning (AML) team, which focuses more on imminent product needs, gives the group a “huge, huge amount of leeway to really think about the long term,” LeCun says. I chatted with LeCun about some of these long-term visions for the company, which evolved into him spitballing about what he’s working on now and where he’d like to see improvements. “First, there’s going to be considerable progress in things that we already have quite a good handle on…” A big trend for LeCun seems to be FAIR doubling down on work that impacts how people can more seamlessly interact with data systems and get meaningful feedback. “We’ve had this project that is a question-and-answer system that basically can answer any question if the information is somewhere in Wikipedia. It’s not yet able to answer really complicated questions that require extracting information from multiple Wikipedia articles and cross-referencing them,” LeCun says. “There’s probably some progress there that will make the next generation of virtual assistants and data systems considerably less frustrating to talk to.” Some of the biggest strides in machine learning over the past five years have taken place in the vision space, where machines are able to parse out what’s happening in an image frame. LeCun predicts greater contextual understanding is on its way. “You’re going to see systems that can not just recognize the main object in an image but basically will outline every object and give you a textual description of what’s happening in the image, kind of a different, more abstract understanding of what’s happening.” FAIR has found itself tackling disparate and fundamental problems that have wide impact on how the rest of the company functions, but a lot of these points of progress sit deeper in the five-year timeline. FAIR has already made some progress in unsupervised learning, and the company has so that, in practical terms, users needing translations from something like Icelandic to Swahili aren’t left out in the cold. As FAIR looks to its next five years, LeCun contends there are some much bigger challenges looming on the horizon that the AI community is just beginning to grapple with. “Those are all relatively predictable improvements,” he says. “The big prize we are really after is this idea of self-supervised learning — getting machines to learn more like humans and animals and requiring that they have some sort of common sense.” |
null | Frederic Lardinois | 2,018 | 12 | 4 | null |
Gift Guide: Ideas for bullet journalers | Catherine Shu | 2,018 | 12 | 5 | Since digital product designer Ryder Carroll’s list-based method for organizing his life first went viral five years ago, has become a movement of its own, helping people take charge of their time with a notebook and pen. The system’s flexibility means it can be used for many things: time management, academic note taking, mental health tracking, meal planning, project management, scrapbooking and more. While Carroll’s own approach is minimalistic — a simple system of lists and symbols — others have turned their bullet journals (or “bujos”) into elaborate works of art, with hand-lettering, embellishments and illustrated “trackers” for to-do lists and goals. In his new book, “The Bullet Journal Method,” Carroll explains that he began developing his “cross between a planner, diary, notebook, to-do list, and sketchbook” that eventually evolved into the bullet journal to cope with attention deficit disorder. Much of bullet journaling’s effectiveness comes from writing tasks out by hand: researchers have found that handwriting activates parts of the brain that typing doesn’t, helps people retain information and, as Carroll puts it, “allows us to form new connections that can yield unconventional solutions and insights.” If you know someone who’d be into bullet journaling, the end of the year is a great time to help them get the ball rolling. Veteran bullet journalers, meanwhile, probably won’t mind some new pens or stationery. This list also has suggestions for people who prefer digital journaling, too. Sure, there are already a lot of bullet journaling guides online, including , but even seasoned bullet journaling fans can still get a lot out of his new book “The Bullet Journal Method: Track the Past, Order the Present, Design the Future.” It includes the basics, but also motivation for people who are turning to bullet journals to help overcome hardships or achieve major life goals. Carroll is a thoughtful writer, and his chapters on how bullet journaling can guide people to live more intentional, meaningful lives is a big step above the standard productivity book. The print edition ( ) is a beautifully produced hardback that makes a great gift.
Many bullet journalers prefer to use notebooks with dotted grid paper that helps them keep things neat but also gives them more flexibility than lined or graph paper. Notebooks by , a new U.K. brand, are gaining popularity among bullet journalers because their 100gsm paper allows them to be used with a wide variety of pens, markers and even watercolors. Hardcover Moleskine ( ) and Leuchtturm1917 notebooks ( ) are often used for bullet journals because of their durability and paper quality. In fact, Leuchtturm1917 offers with a guide, three page markers and stickers for labeling entries. Bullet journals include “collections,” or individual sections dedicated to specific projects or goals. Because collections can become lengthy, some bullet journalers prefer to use travelers’ notebooks, which are several slim notebook inserts gathered in a flexible cover. The inserts can be swapped in and out, making the journal even more customizable. Japanese stationery company Midori makes the original and best-known version with leather covers ( ). For non-leather ones, check out . A lot of bullet journalers prefer fountain pens because they perform especially well on the high-quality paper used in notebooks like Moleskines and Leuchtturm1917s. The Lamy Safari ( ) is a popular “starter pen” because of its ergonomic grip and wide variety of colors and finishes, while the Pilot Vanishing Point ( ) has a retractable nib, making it ideal for people who like the feel of a fountain pen, but prefer the convenience of a click pen. Pre-filled ink cartridges are available for and pens (and many other fountain pen brands), but if you really want to get fancy, give your recipient a set of three mini Pilot Iroshizuku ink bottles ( ), known for their unique colors, smooth ink flow and quick drying times. If your recipient does a lot of sketching, they will appreciate a . For marathon journalers, gel pens are a good option because the ink, pigment suspended in a water-based gel, glides onto the page and can help alleviate writer’s cramp. The Uni-ball Signo UM-151 is one of the most popular versions and comes in many colors. JetPens currently has a . Highlighters help keep bullet journals organized, but if your recipient isn’t into blinding neon colors, try a set of Zebra Mildliners ( ). As their name suggests, Mildliners are highlighters that come in subtle colors.
One of the biggest draws of bullet journals is how customizable the system is. If your recipient is a stationery fan, consider giving them a subscription to ZenPop’s for one month. For artists, (subscriptions start from $24 each month for U.S. plans; there are international options available, too). Many people turn their bullet journals into a personal scrapbook or use it for project planning. Fuji Instax is a simple way to add photos and its Mini 70 model ( ) weighs just 10 ounces. For die-hard smartphone photographers who still want the look of instant film, the lets them print photos on Fuji Instax mini film ( ). Other options include the HP Sprocket ( ), which prints photos onto HP ZINK sticker paper ( ), and the Canon Selphy CP1300, one of the most popular compact photo printers ( ). Pen and paper not your recipient’s thing? Consider gifting a popular app for digital bullet journalers because it does a great job of replicating the experience of writing on paper (its handwriting search function is also very useful). The app has a marketplace of downloadable bullet journaling spreads and templates created by other users. Digital bullet journals are also a good excuse to gift a stylus: an Apple Pencil for iOS users ( ) or Adonit Droid ( ) for Android fans. Your bullet recipient will probably need a way to keep their notebook, pens and other supplies together. Vitra’s Toolbox ( ) is a desk caddy that comes in 11 colors and is an attractive and portable alternative to clunky desk organizers. The Lihit Lab Teffa Bag in Bag ( ) fits an A5 size notebook and keeps stationery, coins and other small things from getting lost in the bottom of their bag. Japanese stationery company is like a lightweight, grownup version of the pencil cases kids use in elementary school. |
Apple puts third-party screen time apps on notice | Sarah Perez | 2,018 | 12 | 5 | A number of app developers building third-party screen time trackers and parental control applications are worried that Apple’s increased scrutiny of their apps in recent weeks is not a coincidence. With Apple’s , the company has implemented its own built-in screen time tracking tools and controls. Not long after, developers’ third-party screen time apps came under increased review from Apple, and, in some cases, rejections and removals from the App Store. The impacted developers have been using a variety of methods to track screen time, as there has not been any official means of tracking this data. This included the use of background location, VPNs and MDM-based solutions, and sometimes a combination of methods. A small crowd of a half-dozen or so developers began to discuss their troubles amongst themselves over the past couple of months. But not all wanted to go on record. After all, publicly criticizing Apple is not something many developers feel comfortable doing, especially when their business is at risk. In October, for example, the digital detox app called around the same time that many other screen time tracking apps had been put on notice. Then three-year-old after its removal from the App Store in November. They were not alone. Several others, which did not want to be quoted, were also facing rejections. Some of the developers, we understand, were told they were in violation of , which specifies when multitasking apps are allowed to use background location. Specifically, developers were told they were “ Others were told their app violated , which references using public APIs in an unapproved manner. And others, still, were told the way they’ve implemented screen time and parental controls was no longer permitted. In an odd turn of events, after Space and Mute published on their company to complain, they received a call from Apple and had their apps reinstated on the App Store. The Apple reps asked the companies about , and that requires location-based services in order to legitimize their use of such an approach, they reported. “We are of course hugely grateful that Apple has chosen to continue to allow our business to operate,” said CEO Georgina Powell. But these were not isolated incidents. Across the third-party screen time app industry, apps were coming under review — in some cases, after operating for years without incident. But at the same time, some apps were getting a pass — as if Apple is making its decisions on a one-off basis. For example, an app called Moment — which TechCrunch has covered a over the past four and has been featured by Apple — also received a call from Apple, we learned. Apple had some questions for Moment, which they answered to Apple’s satisfaction. The app was not removed or threatened. Asked if they were concerned at all about the increased scrutiny, Moment’s creator Kevin Holesh responded, “I do feel confident about Moment’s future after talking to Apple.” But he added he’s now “mostly watching to see how things play out with this issue going forward.” The makers of the screen time app solution and hardware device is also unaffected, we were told. (But then, imagine the consumer backlash if just stopped working.) Though not all apps were getting the boot, it seemed, Apple did seem to have a problem with screen time apps that took advantage of mobile device management (MDM) and/or VPNs to operate. For example, the developer behind had implemented a combination of MDM and a VPN for screen time and parental controls. The app tracks the time the device is connected to the VPN for screen time, which Apple said it could no longer do. Kidslox CEO Viktor Yevpak tried to explain a VPN was necessary for more than just screen time. The app also includes a feature that checks websites against a blacklist to allow for kids to safely browse when they were connected through the VPN. “I said, there has to be a middle ground, because you’re pretty much killing the entire company,” Yevpak told TechCrunch, recalling his conversations with Apple’s app review. “We have over 30 people working on it, and you’re us telling us to shut down,” he had told them. After several rejections of updates to Kidslox’ year-old app, the developer finally took to for what it believed was the “systematic destruction” of the third-party screen time management industry. Like many we spoke to, he’s highly suspicious about the timing of Apple’s review, given that iOS 12’s screen time feature has just launched. Kidslox remains available on the App Store today but its updates are not being approved. Yevpak says the company has been discussing ways to pivot the business, as it seems its time is up. Apple, of course, never intended for VPNs to be used for screen time tracking or parental controls, nor did it want the enterprise-focused MDM technology to be implemented in consumer-based apps. And by permitting its use to date in apps like these, Apple had given up control over how its devices can be used by consumers. But its policies have not matched up with its App Store approvals. Apple has greenlit — and it has been directly aware of — screen time apps using MDM in ways that violated its guidelines for years. One case in point is (specifically, its OurPact Jr. product), an app that leverages MDM technology to allow parents to control if and when kids can use certain apps on their phone, block texting, filter the web and much more. Its apps — one designed for the parent and the other for the child — have been live for four years. OurPact now says that Apple will no longer allow the company to use MDM for its purposes. “Our team has received confirmation from Apple that managing application access and content outside of iOS Screen Time will not be permitted in the Apple device ecosystem,” says Amir Moussavian of OurPact parent company Eturi Corp., in a statement provided to TechCrunch. “It’s incredibly disappointing that Apple is choosing to dissolve the iOS parental control market at a time when childhood and adolescent screen time management is finally being understood as a necessity.” The company says its OurPact Jr. app, the app designed for the child’s device, is impacted by the change. But its parent app will continue to operate. Apple’s permissiveness to allow these “rule-breaking” apps signaled to developers entering the screen time space anew that MDM was being tacitly approved in these scenarios, even if Apple’s own terms and agreements said otherwise. Developer Andrew Armour of said he decided to implement MDM for a screen time management solution for iOS after seeing many other developers already had been doing the same thing for years, he told TechCrunch. “I have sunk my entire life savings into the development of this mobile application to provide families with a solution to better regulate and manage screen time and at the same time promote physical activity,” Armour said, speaking about his app’s App Store rejection. “After two years of hard work and determination, my entrepreneurial journey to introduce ACTIVATE Fitness to the world has come to an end due to an Apple rejection in a flawed and unfair review process,” he lamented. Apple could choose to release an official Screen Time API or carve out exceptions for screen time apps that use MDM or other technologies. Its decision to instead put the entire third-party industry on notice after rolling out its own screen time solution, however, seems to indicate it now wants to control the experience of monitoring screen time usage on iOS, and not leave it up to these third parties. At the end of the day, the decision is bad for consumers because Apple’s solution doesn’t offer many of the features of the MDM-based solutions focused on parental controls. For example, parents using third-party screen time solutions can hide certain apps from kids’ homescreens and control when those apps function. Apple declined to comment on the matter. But sources familiar with Apple’s thinking dismissed this as being some sort of targeted crackdown against third-party screen time apps. Rather, the pushback developers received was part of Apple’s ongoing app review process, they said, and noted that the rules these apps violate have been in place for years. That’s a fair point. Apple can opt to enforce its rules at any time, and building apps in violation of those rules is never a great idea — especially when developers are knowingly taking advantage of technologies in ways they had to know Apple never intended. That being said, a decision to purge the App Store of third-party screen time and parental control apps is one that may come across to the impacted end users of these apps as being in poor taste. In recent months, big tech companies — including the likes of and — have been made aware of the we use and the on our . They have all been rolling out solutions to counter this problem. For Apple to be seen as tamping down on the very apps that have been trying to battle these problems for years — before Silicon Valley took notice — is not a great look. |
Hit the trackless nuclear wastes with this Laco RAD-AUX watch | John Biggs | 2,018 | 12 | 5 | is a small German watch company famous for its Flieger watches — pieces featuring big crowns and legible faces designed for pilots. Now the brand has teamed up with on a Fallout-themed watch that looks like something pulled out of a deserted vault. The $2,950 watch contains ETA 2824.2 movement and features a massively distressed case and band along with a clever case that hearkens back to 1950s A-Bomb/military design. It’s limited to 143 pieces and you can . The entire package looks like something out of the Fallout game. Bethesda is not involved in the product, incidentally, but the entire thing is an homage to the Fallout universe. From the site: On the outside of the heavily-worn tin box, we see a stamp showing that it was issued to the Overseer of Vault #43. Inside the box, you’ll find the Laco RAD-AUX, a user manual, and an accumulation of a few odds and ends. Presumably, the additional artifacts were collected by the owner of the Laco RAD-AUX before it was discovered. There are realistic Polaroid-style photos depicting abandoned landscapes, mutated plant-life, and a curious panther named Gloria. A bottle cap bearing the mark of a sunset, which has been turned into a pin. There is also a New California Republic ’protection postcard’ which instructs you to place it near the entrance of your domicile, and each item included looks realistically tattered and aged. The most interesting thing about this watch is the partnership with A Blog To Watch, a popular watch blog run by Ariel Adams, and Laco. These sorts of partnerships usually result in a boring, branded watch with an ugly blog logo hidden somewhere on the case. This partnership is more about Laco and Adams’ imagination taking flight over a mushroom cloud. Regardless, this is a great piece for folks who haven’t yet picked up a . Good luck, Vault Dweller! |
Malfunction mars the landing for SpaceX’s latest Falcon 9 resupply mission to the ISS | Jonathan Shieber | 2,018 | 12 | 5 | The latest Falcon 9 mission launched successfully, but its reusable booster just missed sticking the landing thanks to a stalled hydraulic pump on the grid fin, by Elon Musk. Grid fin hydraulic pump stalled, so Falcon landed just out to sea. Appears to be undamaged & is transmitting data. Recovery ship dispatched. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) Footage for the launch, managed to record the whole missed landing. And, as the footage shows, the Falcon 9’s first stage booster just missed the landing zone at Cape Canaveral. The Tuesday flight from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida is delivering 5,600 pounds of equipment and supplies to the International Space Station that are supporting roughly 250 science experiments expected to occur on the station. And the flight marks the 16th supply run SpaceX has made out to the Space Station. The Dragon craft separated from Falcon 9’s second stage as planned — at about roughly 10 minutes after liftoff. It’s now headed to the space station where it will attach on Saturday, December 8, according to a statement from the company. It’s the second flight out to the ISS for this particular Dragon spacecraft, which made its first run out in February 2017. The next critical step for the latest SpaceX mission will be attaching the Dragon spacecraft to the station. To do that, ISS crew members will use the station’s 57.7 foot robotic arm to catch the capsule and attach it to the station’s orbiting laboratory. The Dragon is scheduled to return to Earth in early January with about 4,000 pounds of cargo; it will splash down in the Pacific Ocean just off the coast of Baja, Calif. SpaceX has had a busy week already. Yesterday the company launched a commercial flight with a payload of 64 small satellites commissioned by the private space scheduling and freight hauling company . It was the first commissioned flight from Spaceflight, which has raised more than $200 million in venture capital financing to build a private spaceflight scheduling and rideshare service. The first dedicated mission from Spaceflight to low Earth orbit proved successful as it launched the largest single rideshare mission from a U.S.-based launch vehicle to date. Included in that mission were 15 microsats and 49 cubesats from commercial and government entities, including universities, startup companies and even a middle school, according to a statement from SpaceX. In all, 17 countries were represented in the launch, including the U.S., Australia, Italy, Netherlands, Finland, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, the U.K., Germany, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Thailand, Poland, Canada, Brazil and India. |
You can now once again flip the camera during FaceTime calls with just one tap | Greg Kumparak | 2,018 | 12 | 5 | With the release of iOS 12, Apple hid the button that lets you jump from front camera to rear camera (or vice versa) during a FaceTime call. Previously a one-click thing, it was suddenly shoved away into a menu as if it wasn’t something you might use a half dozen times per call. Don’t like the change? Good news! Apple is undoing it. As of iOS 12.1.1, released today, the camera swap button is returning to the main call screen. Basically every FaceTime call I’ve had since this change was made has started with someone asking “Wait, how do I flip the screen. What the hell, where’d that button go?” so changing this back is the only right call. This build also reintroduces the ability to take Live Photo captures during a one-on-one FaceTime call, both people in the call have the feature toggled on. Don’t want anyone grabbing Live Photos mid-chat? A switch in FaceTime’s settings lets you disable it. Beyond those two things, this update mostly polishes up existing features. According to the patch notes: real-time text now works when using Wi-Fi calling, Dual SIM support has been added for additional carriers, you can now hide the sidebar in the News app on the iPad and it has all the usual bug/performance fixes. |
Floom, the online marketplace and SaaS for florists, receives $2.5M seed | Steve O'Hear | 2,018 | 12 | 2 | , the online marketplace and SaaS for independent florists, has raised $2.5 million in a seed funding. The round was round led by Firstminute Capital, and will be used by the London-headquartered startup to continue to expand to the U.S., where it already operates in New York and L.A., and to further develop its software offering. Additional investors include Tom Singh (founder of New Look), Pembroke VCT, Wing Chan (CTO digital experiences of The Hut Group) and Carlos Morgado (former CTO of Just Eat). Morgado has also joined Floom’s board. Founded by 31-year-old Lana Elie in 2016, Floom bills itself as a curated marketplace for independent florists. Alongside this, the company’s technology platform gives florists the software and tools they need to create and deliver “beautifully crafted bouquets” to customers. It’s this SaaS play that Elie says sets Floom apart from competitors. “We rely on a network [of florists], like many of the bigger competitors, so that we can offer same-day delivery without the risk of holding stock ourselves,” she tells me. “But instead of telling the florists what to create and what to hold in stock, we built them an Etsy-like UI to design and deliver beautifully crafted bouquets to our online communities themselves.” This sees florists provided with a “backend management dashboard” to create, allocate and manage inventory, and to co-ordinate with Floom’s marketplace. The software manages and tracks delivery, too. “Customers receive more bouquet options, in more areas, by vetted florists, with the ultimate convenience of a seamless check-out and what everyone really wants: confirmation of safe receipt in their loved one’s hand,” explains Elie. “If the final product doesn’t match the picture, they get their money back, something that most competitors can’t offer, but we solved this by relying on the florists to generate the bouquet catalog themselves.” On the flower delivery front, Floom’s main competitors are Interflora in the U.K. (owned by 100-year-old conglomerate FTD in the U.S.), as well as 1-800-flowers and Teleflora. “There have been some new players in the flower space, but none solve the problem by creating better technologies,” argues the Floom founder. “Floom’s not just a flower delivery service but a tech company. I wanted to solve a problem: showing customers all the amazing artisanal florists in their home cities, and making the experience of sending flowers enjoyable and hassle-free. On top of that, we wanted to create a fresh brand that appealed to an audience of my generation… and different from how you might typically think of the flower industry.” With that said, Elie concedes that there is other florist software in existence, but says it doesn’t really consider the florists as a customer in the same way that Floom does. This is especially true in how the startup understands that the “brand and UI is just as important as functionality.” “Florists are creative, skilled in a way that I’m definitely not, but when it comes to something like a website build, they’re paying the wrong people much more than they need to build badly UX’d sites,” she adds. “Florists are given no chance to really compete in a world where everything is digital. Building a management tool that speaks to all florists’ consumer-facing channels (phone, email, chat, webshop, POS etc) will ultimately mean cost and time savings for the florist, less unnecessary waste for environmental purposes, and better products and delivery experiences for the customer.” |
AWS wants to rule the world | Ron Miller | 2,018 | 12 | 2 | AWS, once for Amazon’s e-commerce business, has grown over the years into a behemoth , one that’s still growing at around 45 percent a year. That’s a highly successful business by any measure, but as I listened to AWS executives last week at their in Las Vegas, I didn’t hear a group that was content to sit still and let the growth speak for itself. Instead, I heard one that wants to dominate every area of enterprise computing. Whether it was hardware like and AWS Outposts, or and a , if AWS saw an opportunity, they were not ceding an inch to anyone. Last year, AWS announced an astonishing 1,400 new features, and word was that they are on pace to exceed that this year. They get a lot of credit for not resting on their laurels and continuing to innovate like a much smaller company, even as . The feature inflation probably can’t go on forever, but for now at least they show no signs of slowing down, as the announcements came at a furious pace once again. While they will tell you that every decision they make is about meeting customer needs, it’s clear that some of these announcements were also about answering competitive pressure. In the past, AWS kept criticism of competitors to a minimum, maybe giving a little jab to Oracle, but this year they seemed to ratchet it up. In their keynotes, AWS CEO Andy Jassy and Amazon CTO Werner Vogels continually flogged Oracle, a competitor in the database market, but right now. They went right for Oracle’s market, though with a new on-prem system called AWS Outposts, which allows AWS customers to operate on prem and in the cloud using a single AWS control panel or one from VMware if customers prefer. That is the kind of cloud vision that Larry Ellison might have put forth, but Jassy didn’t necessarily see it as going after Oracle or anyone else. “I don’t see Outposts as a shot across the bow of anyone. If you look at what we are doing, it’s very much informed by customers,” he told reporters at a press conference last week. AWS CEO Andy Jassy at a press conference at AWS re:Invent last week Yet AWS didn’t reserve its criticism just for Oracle. It also took aim at Microsoft, taking jabs at Microsoft SQL Server, and also announcing a tool specifically designed to move Microsoft files to the AWS cloud. Google wasn’t spared either when launching Inferentia and , which put Google on notice that AWS wasn’t going to yield the AI market to Google’s TPU infrastructure. All of these tools, and much more, were about more than answering customer demand, they were about putting the competition on notice in every aspect of enterprise computing. The cloud market is , and as market leader, AWS has been able to take advantage of its market dominance to this point. Jassy, echoing Google’s Diane Greene and Oracle’s Larry Ellison, says the industry as a whole is still really early in terms of cloud adoption, which means there is still plenty of market share left to capture. “I think we’re just in the early stages of enterprise and public sector adoption in the U.S. Outside the U.S. I would say we are 12-36 months behind. So there are a lot of mainstream enterprises that are just now starting to plan their approach to the cloud,” Jassy said. Patrick Moorhead, founder and principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, says that AWS has been using its market position to keep expanding into different areas. “AWS has the scale right now to do many things others cannot, particularly lesser players like Google Cloud Platform and Oracle Cloud. They are trying to make a point with the thousands of new products and features they bring out. This serves as a disincentive longer-term for other players, and I believe will result in a shakeout,” he told TechCrunch. As for the frenetic pace of innovation, Moorhead believes it can’t go on forever. “To me, the question is, when do we reach a point where 95 percent of the needs are met, and the innovation rate isn’t required. Every market, literally every market, reaches a point where this happens, so it’s not a matter of if but when,” he said. Certainly areas like the announcement showed that AWS was willing to expand beyond the conventional confines of enterprise computing and into outer space to help companies process satellite data. This ability to think beyond traditional uses of cloud computing resources shows a level of creativity that suggests there could be other untapped markets for AWS that we haven’t yet imagined. As AWS moves into more areas of the enterprise computing stack, whether on premises or in the cloud, they are showing their desire to dominate every aspect of the enterprise computing world. Last week they demonstrated that there is no area that they are willing to surrender to anyone. |
Lime tries to back-peddle on VP’s line on why it hired Definers | Natasha Lomas | 2,018 | 12 | 2 | Scooter startup Lime has sought to back peddle on an explanation given by its VP of global expansion late last week when asked why it had hired the controversial PR firm, Definers Public Affairs. The opposition research firm, which has ties to the Republican Party, has been at the center of a reputation storm for Facebook, after a New York Times report last month suggested the controversial PR firm sought to leverage anti-semitic smear tactics — by sending journalists linking anti-Facebook groups to billionaire George Soros (after he had been critical of Facebook). Last month it also emerged that other tech firms had engaged Definers — Lime being one of them. And speaking during an on stage interview at TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin last Thursday, Lime’s Caen Contee claimed it had not known Definers would use smear tactics. Yet, as we , a Definers employee sent us an email pitch in October in which it wrote suggestively that “Bird’s numbers seem off”. This pitch did not disclose the PR firm was being paid by Lime. Asked about this last week Contee claimed not to know anything about Definers’ use of smear tactics, saying Lime had engaged the firm to work on its green and carbon free programs — and to try to understand “what were the levers of opportunity for us to really create the messaging and also to do our own research; understanding the life-cycle; all the pieces that are in a very complex business”. “As soon as we understood they were doing some of these things we parted ways and finished our program with them,” he also said. However, following the publication of our , a Lime spokesperson emailed with what the subject line billed as a “statement for your latest story”, tee-ing this up by writing: “Hoping you can update the piece”. The statement went on to claim that Contee “misspoke” and “was inaccurate in his description of [Definers] work”. However it did not specify exactly what Contee had said that was incorrect. A short while later the same Lime spokesperson sent us another version of the statement with updated wording, now entirely removing the reference to Contee. You can read both statements below. As you read them, note how the second version of the statement seeks to obfuscate the exact source of the claimed inaccuracy, using wording that seeks to shift blame in way that a casual reader might interpret as external and outside the company’s control… Statement 1: Our VP of Global Expansion misspoke at TechCrunch Disrupt regarding our relationship with Definers and was inaccurate in his description of their work. As previously reported, we engaged them for a three month contract to assist with compiling media coverage reports, limited public relations and fact checking, and we are no longer working with Definers. What was presented at Disrupt regarding our relationship with Definers and the description of their work was inaccurate. As previously reported, we engaged them for a three month contract to assist with compiling media coverage reports, limited public relations and fact checking, and we are no longer working with Definers. Despite the Lime spokesperson’s hope for a swift update to our report, they did not respond when we asked for clarification on what exactly Contee had said that was “inaccurate”. A claim of inaccuracy that does not provide any detail of the substance upon which the claim rests smells a lot like spin to us. Three days later we’re still waiting to hear the substance of Lime’s claim because it has still not provided us with an explanation of exactly what Contee said that was ‘wrong’. Perhaps Lime was hoping for a silent edit to the original report to provide some camouflaging fuzz atop a controversy of the company’s own making. i.e. that a PR firm it hired tried to smear a rival. If so, oopsy. Of course we’ll update this report if Lime does get in touch to provide an explanation of what it was that Contee “misspoke”. Frankly we’re all ears at this point. |
Welcome to the stochastic age | Jon Evans | 2,018 | 12 | 2 | In 1990, Kleiner Perkins , while investing in 12 new companies a year. Those investees made Kleiner Perkins “ ,” boasting “returns of about 40 percent per year, compounded, for coming up on thirty years.” Nowadays, the Valley’s VC poster child is Y Combinator, which invests in more like 250 companies annually. They’re famously selective, accepting something like , but still noticeably less selective than Kleiner Perkins in its heyday. They invest less money (though not necessarily that much less; KP bought 25 percent of Netscape for back in 1994) in more companies. In 1995, three networks controlled , and made only enough to fill the week; nowadays there is so much TV that you could binge watch a new scripted series every day of the year. In 1995, the top 10 movies of the year were responsible for of the total box office. So far in 2018, the top 10 have claimed a full of the total gross. Something similar happened in publishing; the so-called “midlist” was largely replaced by a “bestseller or bust” attitude. In 1995, if you were a journalist, your readership was dictated almost entirely by who published you. No matter how compelling your piece in the Halifax Daily News may have been, the same number of people would glance at your headline as at the others in that issue, and that number would be drastically smaller than that of any article, no matter how buried, in The New York Times. Now, the relative readership of any article, both between and within publications, is determined mostly by social media sharing, and inevitably follows a , such that a surprisingly small number of pieces attract the lion’s share of readers. What do these fields have in common? The number of “hits” has remained relatively constant, while their value has grown, and the number of “swings” has grown to the point where it is difficult for any person, or even any group, to pay close attention to them all. And the outcomes inevitably follow a power law. So it doesn’t make sense to focus on individual outcomes any more; instead you focus on cohorts, and you think stochastically. “Stochastic” means “randomly determined,” and your initial inclination may be to recoil — of course producers and investors and publishers aren’t acting randomly! They put enormous amounts of analysis, effort and intelligence into what they do! Which is true. But I put it to you that as gatekeepers’ power has diminished, and the number of would-be directors, CEOs and pundits has skyrocketed, while the costs of trying have shrunk — randomness has become a more and more important factor. It’s easy to cite anecdotes. What if Excite had bought Google ? How far were we, really, from a world in which ? Any honest success story will include elements of luck, which is, in this context, another word for randomness. My contention is that the world’s larger trends — greater interconnectedness, faster speed, democratized access to technology — make randomness an ever-more-important factor. This is not automatically a good thing. People talk about “stochastic terrorism,” a.k.a. “The use of mass public communication, usually against a particular individual or group, which incites or inspires acts of terrorism which are statistically probable but happen seemingly at random.” Think of killers who dedicate their attack to ISIS after the fact despite no previous communication with them, or, more generally and contentiously, political violence promoted by broadcasting hatred and extremism. And it seems that climate change is increasingly a stochastic disaster. Warmer weather means more energy in the atmosphere, which means more volatile behavior, which means more catastrophes like droughts, wildfires, hurricanes. Does climate change cause those things? Not directly. It increases the probability of them happening. It means both more and bigger hits, if you will. This doesn’t apply to every field of human endeavor. But it seems to apply to essentially every field driven by unusual, extreme successes or failures — to to use Nassim Taleb’s term. Extremistan seems to everywhere be growing more extreme, and there’s no end in sight. |
Bright spots in the VR market | Andy Kangpan | 2,018 | 12 | 2 | Google Trends highlighting search trends related to virtual reality over time; the “Note” refers to an improvement in Google’s data collection system that occurred in early 2016 Gartner’s hype cycle for “Human-Machine Interface” in 2018 places many related VR related fields (e.g. mixed reality, AR, HMDs, etc.) in the “Trough of Disillusionment” However, most of the decline in growth rate can be attributed to two factors. First, screenless viewers have seen a significant decline in shipments as device manufacturers have stopped shipping them alongside smartphones. In the second quarter of 2018, 409,000 screenless viewers were shipped compared to approximately 1 million in the second quarter of 2017. Second, tethered VR headsets as manufacturers have slowed down the pricing discounts that acted as a steroid to sales growth in 2017. Looking at the market for standalone HMDs, however, reveals a more promising figure. Standalone VR headsets grew 417 percent due to the global availability of the Oculus Go and Xiaomi Mi VR. Over time, these headsets are going to be the driver of the VR market as they offer significant advantages compared to tethered headsets. The shift from tethered to standalone VR headsets is significant. It represents a paradigm shift within the immersive ecosystem, where developers have a truly mobile platform that is powerful enough to enable compelling user experiences. IDC forecasts for AR/VR headset market share by form factor, 2018–2022 There are a few names that come to mind when thinking about products that are available for purchase in the VR market: Samsung, Facebook (Oculus), HTC and PlayStation. A plethora of new products from these marquee names — and products from new companies entering the market — are opening the category for a new customer segment. For the past few years, the market effectively had two segments. The first was a “mass market” segment with notorious devices such as the Google Cardboard and the Samsung Gear, which typically sold for less than $100 and offered severely constrained experiences to consumers. The second segment was a “pro market,” with a few notable devices, such as the HTC Vive, that required absurdly powerful computing rigs to operate, but offered consumers more compelling, immersive experiences. It’s possible that this new emerging segment will dramatically open up the total addressable VR market. This “premium” market segment offers product alternatives that are somewhat more expensive than the mass market, but are significantly differentiated in the potential experiences that can be offered (and with much less friction than the “pro market”). The Oculus Go, the Xiaomi Mi VR and the Lenovo Solo are the most notable products in this segment. They are the fastest growing devices , and represent a new wave of products that will continue to roll out. This segment could be the tipping point for when we move from the early adopters to the early majority in the VR product adoption curve. A number of other products that fall into this category have also been released throughout 2018, such as Lenovo’s Mirage Solo and Xiaomi’s Mi VR. Even more so, Oculus recently announced that they’ll be , which will sell for $399 and will be the most powerful example of a premium device to date. The all-in price range of ~$200–400 places these devices in a segment consumers are already conditioned to pay (think iPad’s, gaming consoles, etc.), and they offer differentiated experiences primarily attributed to the fact that they are standalone devices. Nearly two years ago, it would be hard to point to any one experience that had mass appeal unique to the features of VR . Now, there are a growing number of titles that fit this description. Aaron Bradbury’s Vestige, which premiered at Tribeca Film Festival this year, is a perfect example. The experience transports the viewer into a room scale film where you wander through an ethereal blackness sporadically highlighted by fading memories of a young wife (Lisa) and her husband (Erik) throughout the course of their relationship . The viewer is guided through the experience by Lisa’s voice, which narrates the happiest and darkest memories of their relationship. The film was acquired by U.K. based distributor, , ahead of its world premiere at Tribeca and is set for distribution in the Spring of 2019. Major franchises are also making bets on the VR medium. Titles from to are producing content for major platforms. This indicates that the media and entertainment industries are taking this market seriously. In 2017, the Academy Awards even gave VR recognition as a legitimate creative canvas a special award. While the academy doesn’t have a specific Oscar dedicated to VR content, the fact that they awarded a special prize is monumental. The last time a special Oscar was created was for Toy Story in the 90’s. In a , Owen Gleiberman wrote “Carne y Arena demonstrates that the VR revolution — the immersive, big-wow, I can’t believe what I’m seeing one — is here, and that it’s an experience that has the potential, like movies, to mutate into a major entertainment and popular art form.” The confluence of better, more powerful headsets with a growing creative ecosystem that is maturing in its expressive capacities could shift VR into a meaningful, mainstream platform. While this evolution will take longer than some had hoped, there will be many opportunities for successful companies to emerge in this space. |
Winter is ending: China to restart game approvals | Rita Liao | 2,018 | 12 | 20 | As 2018 draws to a close, China’s gaming industry — which has been beaten by a nine-month-long freeze in license approvals — woke up to exhilarating news as officials announced that they have started to review new titles again. The much-coveted game licenses are essential for developers to legally monetize their work in China. “We’ve finished reviewing the first batch of games,” said Feng Shixin, a senior official from the propaganda department of the Chinese Communist Party, at an industry symposium on Friday. He added that the ideology watchdog will assign licenses soon, though there are many applications sitting in the pipeline. Shares of Tencent, the country’s largest games publisher, jumped 4 percent on Friday, while its smaller competitor NetEase is up 1 percent. China’s regulatory bodies for games stopped approving new titles in March as they underwent a major reshuffle that would eventually place the State Administration of Press and Publication under direct control of the propaganda organ. The shakeup is meant to give the central government more scrutiny over the billion-dollar market. For one, regulators are looking to clamp down on illegal games that contains pornography, gambling, violence and content deemed inappropriate by Beijing, including titles that rewrite the history, according to Feng. In March, Tencent’s blockbuster mobile game Honor of Kings by the Communist Party’s official paper for misrepresenting certain historical Chinese figures. Secondly, China is calling game developers to have “a stronger sense of social responsibility,” especially when it comes to protecting minors from addiction and illegal content. Beijing went as far as blaming video games for In response, Tencent and NetEase among other major publishers have placed a time limit on underage players. Regulators have also ordered studios to improve game quality and encouraged them to expand overseas. Local titles could be an engine to “promote Chinese culture, propagate Chinese values and showcase Chinese tastes” as they go global, said Feng. The long halt in game approvals has taken a toll on the world’s largest gaming market. Chinese games are one way to generate $40 billion in revenues in 2018, according to market researcher However, the massive industry saw its slowest growth over the last 10 years as it grew 5.4 percent year-over-year during the first half of 2018, according to a by Beijing-based research firm GPC and China’s official gaming association CNG. The world’s largest game publisher, Tencent (also the developer behind China’s largest messenger WeChat), for instance, could not cash in on popular titles. The giant saw gaming revenues slip by four percent during the third quarter. To offset the pressure in its consumer-facing gaming business, Tencent went through a in October to put more focus on enterprise services. Tencent said during its Q3 earnings call that it had 15 games with monetization approval in its pipeline, which means that gaming revenues may get back on track when those games attain the desired licenses. “This is clearly very encouraging news for China’s gaming industry,” Tencent said in a statement on Friday. Smaller players may also have a chance to race ahead in the revived market. “The size of the gaming company does not matter. It matters how fast the company can be adapting to the new set of rules and guidelines,” said Ilya Gutov, business development director at APPTUTTi, a company that helps overseas games enter China. “Having said so, larger companies have more resources to work out the compliance. However, they have more internal process to go through — they are not as flexible as small companies — so it’s really [a question of] how fast people can react to the new approval process.” |
SoftBank’s Vision Fund is preparing to invest $1 billion in Grab | Jon Russell | 2,018 | 12 | 20 | SoftBank’s Vision Fund is set to continue its recent spree of investments in Asian tech unicorns. The mega fund — — is planning A SoftBank representative did not respond to a request for comment. Grab declined to comment. The Vision Fund has made significant investments in three billion-dollar Asian companies in recent months. ( ) in September, writing in November and co-leading alongside Alibaba earlier this month. There is a pattern that SoftBank appears to be following here. In all three cases, the Japanese company was an existing investor and, having transferred its stakes to the Vision Fund, it then doubled down and invested again via the Vision Fund itself. That’s also the plan for this Grab deal, TechCrunch understands. , filed in November, explains that it plans to move its stakes in ride-hailing firms Uber, China’s Didi, India’s Ola and Grab over to the Vision Fund. But that hasn’t happened yet and it isn’t clear when it will. “The Company expects that the necessary procedures will be made in the future to obtain applicable consent from limited partners of the Fund and regulatory approvals for the transfer,” it explained in the report, which doesn’t include a projected time frame. One source told TechCrunch that the investment in Grab is contingent on that equity transfer being made, as was the case with Tokopedia and Coupang, which saw SoftBank-owned stakes transferred to the fund in Q3 of this year. Grab CEO and co-founder Anthony Tan [Photographer: Ore Huiying/Bloomberg/Getty Images] Grab operates across eight markets in Southeast Asia, where it claims over 130 million downloads and more than 2.5 billion completed rides to date. earlier this year in a deal that saw the U.S. company pick up a 27.5 percent stake in Grab and turn their rivalry into a partnership. The merger deal, however, was criticized by regulators and, in Singapore, for violating anti-competition laws. Grab is Southeast Asia’s highest-valued tech startup, having commanded an $11 billion valuation through this Series H round. It isn’t clear how much that figure will increase if/when this Vision Fund investment closes. The company has raised around $6.8 billion to date from investors, . |
At Blind, a security lapse revealed private complaints from Silicon Valley employees | Zack Whittaker | 2,018 | 12 | 20 | trusted Blind, an app-based “anonymous social network,” as a safe way to reveal malfeasance, wrongdoing and improper conduct . But Blind left one of its database servers exposed without a password, making it possible (for anyone who knew where to look) to access each user’s account information and identify would-be whistleblowers. The South Korea-founded company made its way into the U.S. in 2015, when it quickly became a highly popular anonymous social network for major tech companies, touting employees from Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Twitter, Uber and more. Blind last month secured in new funding after a $6 million raise in 2017. But it was only when the social network became the root of several high-profile scandals that Blind gained mainstream attention, including revealing allegations of sexual harassment at Uber — which later on its corporate network. The exposed server was found by a security researcher, who goes by the name Mossab H, who informed the company of the security lapse. The security researcher found one of the company’s Kibana dashboards for its backend ElasticSearch database, which contained several tables, including private messaging data and web-based content, for both of its U.S. and Korean sites. Blind said the exposure only affects users who signed up or logged in between November 1 and December 19, and that the exposure relates to “a single server, one among many servers on our platform,” according to Blind executive Kyum Kim in an email. Blind only pulled the database after TechCrunch followed up by email a week later. The company began emailing its users on Thursday after we asked for comment. “While developing an internal tool to improve our service for our users, we became aware of an error that exposed user data,” the email to affected users said. Kim said there is “no evidence” that the database was misappropriated or misused, but did not say how it came to that conclusion. When asked, the company would not say if it will notify U.S. state regulators of the breach. Blind’s chief executive Sunguk Moon, who was copied on many of the emails with TechCrunch, did not comment or acknowledge the exposure. At its core, the app and anonymous social network allows users to sign up using their corporate email address, which is said to be linked only to Blind’s member ID. Email addresses are “only used for verification” to allow users to talk to other anonymous people in their company, and the company claims that email addresses aren’t stored on its servers. But after reviewing a portion of the exposed data, some of the company’s claims do not stand up. We found that the database provided a real-time stream of user logins, user posts, comments and other interactions, allowing anyone to read private comments and posts. The database also revealed the unencrypted private messages between members but not their associated email addresses. Blind claims that its email verification “is safe, as our patented infrastructure is set up so that all user account and activity information is completely disconnected from the email verification process.” It adds: “This effectively means there is no way to trace back your activity on Blind to an email address, because even we can’t do it.” Blind claims that the database “does not show any mapping of email addresses to nicknames,” but we found streams of email addresses associated with members who had not yet posted. In our brief review, we didn’t find any content, such as comments or messages, linked to email addresses, just a unique member ID, which could identify a user who posts in the future. Many records did, however, contain plain text email addresses. When other records didn’t store an email address, the record contained the user’s email as an unrecognized encrypted hash — which may be decipherable to Blind employees, but not to anyone else. The database also contained passwords, which were stored as an MD5 hash, a long-outdated algorithm that is nowadays easy to crack. Many of the passwords were quickly unscrambled using readily available tools when we tried. Kim denied this. “We don’t use MD5 for our passwords to store them,” he said. “The MD5 keys were a log and it does not represent how we are managing data. We use more advanced methods like salted hash and SHA2 on securing users’ data in our database.” (Logging in with an email address and unscrambled password would be unlawful, therefore we cannot verify this claim.) That may pose a risk to employees who use the same password on the app as they do to log in to their corporate accounts. Despite the company’s apparent efforts to disassociate email addresses from its platform, login records in the database also stored user account access tokens — the same kind of tokens that recently put and accounts at risk. If a malicious actor took and used a token, they could log in as that user — effectively removing any anonymity they might have had from the database in the first place. As well-intentioned as the app may be, the database exposure puts users — who trusted the app to keep their information safe and their identities anonymous — at risk. These aren’t just users, but also employees of some of the largest companies in Silicon Valley, who post about sexual harassment in the workplace and discussing job offers and workplace culture. Many of those who signed up in the past month include senior executives at major tech companies but don’t realize that their email address — which identifies them — could be sitting plain text in an exposed database. Some users sent anonymous, private messages, in some cases made serious allegations against their colleagues or their managers, while others expressed concern that their employers were monitoring their emails for Blind sign-up emails. Yet, it likely escaped many that the app they were using — often for relief, for empathy or as a way to disclose wrongdoing — was almost entirely unencrypted and could be accessed, not only by the app’s employees but also for a time anyone on the internet. |
Defense Secretary James Mattis steps down | Taylor Hatmaker | 2,018 | 12 | 20 | The man who led the Department of Defense for the first two years of the Trump administration will wrap up his tenure early next year. Retired Marine General James Mattis will leave his post by February 28, 2019. Mattis, who retired from the Marine Corps in 2013, received a to serve as defense secretary. President Trump characteristically announced the retirement in a pair of tweets, followed by a full resignation letter from Mattis. Defense Secretary James Mattis has resigned. Here’s the letter: — Elizabeth McLaughlin (@Elizabeth_McLau) In the letter, Mattis alludes to his fundamental ideological differences with Trump in leading the U.S. and interacting with its allies: “My views of treating allies with respect and also being clear-eyed about both malign actors and strategic competitors are strongly held and informed by over four decades of immersion in these issues,” Mattis writes. “Because you have the right to have a secretary of defense whose views are better aligned with yours… I believe it is right for me to step down from my position.” |
IBM Africa and Hello Tractor pilot AI/blockchain agtech platform | Jake Bright | 2,018 | 12 | 20 | Jake Bright is a writer, author and advisor with a focus on global business, politics, and technology. From 2017 to 2020, he was a contributing writer and advisor at TechCrunch where he published on Africa, mobility and politics. Bright helped spearhead consistent Africa coverage and co-produce the first Startup Battlefield competitions in Africa and Africa focused programming on the Disrupt San Francisco mainstage. Bright’s first book, (Macmillan 2015), forecast the rise of Africa’s venture backed startup scene. Prior to this he worked in international finance and as a speechwriter in Washington, DC. Bright continues to contribute occasional guest pieces at TechCrunch. IBM Research and agtech startup have developed an AI and -driven platform for Africa’s farmers. The two companies will pilot the product in 2019 through an ongoing partnership co-financed by IBM. Dubbed Digital Wallet in beta, the cloud-based service aims to support Hello Tractor’s business of connecting small-scale farmers to equipment and data analytics for better crop production. “Agriculture is a complex industry that can have so many different variables. We’re bringing a decision tool to the Hello Tractor ecosystem powered by AI and blockchain,” Hello Tractor CEO Jehiel Oliver told TechCrunch. The startup joined IBM Research to demo the new service at Startup Battlefield Africa in Lagos. Available to Hello Tractor clients, the online platform will use a digital ledger and machine learning to capture, track, and share data, while “creating end-to-end trust and transparency across the agribusiness value chain,” according to an IBM release. Digital Wallet will draw on remote and IoT-based weather-sensing methods and AI to help farmers determine crops and inputs, choose when to plant and optimize and predict crop yields. The cloud-based dashboard also employs a blockchain ledger to improve multiple points of Hello Tractor’s business. “We’re an agricultural technology company. Our platform connects farmers who need tractor services to tractor owners who own these assets as a business. We create that marketplace to bring supply and demand together,” said Oliver. The demand stems from the 80 percent of Sub-Saharan Africa’s crops harvested without tractors or machinery and the 50 percent of the continent’s farmers who suffer post-harvest losses annually, and the . IBM and Hello Tractor’s Digital Wallet will also loop in data from fleet owners regarding tractor use, track and predict repairs and servicing and build credit profiles to open bank financing for farmers. Hello Tractor is a connecting service — neither the startup nor its farming clients own tractors. Founded in 2014, the venture began operations in Nigeria and has expanded into Kenya, Mozambique, Senegal, Tanzania and Bangladesh within the last year, according to its CEO. A for-profit entity, Hello Tractor has raised funding from private investors, DFI grants and a seed round. The company currently generates revenue by selling the tractor-monitoring devices and software subscriptions for its app, according to Oliver. Hello Tractor doesn’t yet charge transactional fees for connecting tractors to farmers, “but we’ll be testing that next year,” he said. The startup also plans to create broader revenue opportunities from data analytics. “At this phase we focus primarily on mechanization, but coupling the insights being generated through that device with the IBM platform solutions specifically for agriculture can extend the value we offer our customers and…be monetized,” said Oliver. He estimates the business of connecting small-scale farmers to tractors as a “multi-billion market” globally and pointed to Nigeria as the African nation with “the largest inventory of arable-uncultivated farmland,” , according to World Bank data. IBM Research’s co-financing to build Digital Wallet does not include any equity stake in Hello Tractor, IBM confirmed. The collaboration aligns with , embedded largely in its Watson AI business platform and global agtech partnerships. As , IBM partnered with Kenyan agtech startup Twiga earlier this year to introduce to Twiga’s network of vendors a blockchain-enabled working capital platform. IBM Research views the partnership “as scientific research collaboration,” according to VP Solomon Assefa. “Through all its touch points — farmers, machinery, dealers, crop yields, data inputs — Hello Tractor is convening the whole agricultural ecosystem,” he said. As discussed at , Africa is shaping its own blockchain-focused startups and use cases — characterized more by utility than speculation. On the crypto-side, there were several 2018 ICOs, including remittance startup , payments venture and one by South African solar energy startup . IBM Research and Hello Tractor teams will continue to build out the blockchain-enabled Digital Wallet on a lab, engineer and business level throughout 2019. “We’re cultivating the partnership… including the executive and go-to-market side. You also have to focus on how you scale,” said Assefa. |
Twitter stock down after analyst calls it ‘Harvey Weinstein of Social Media’ | Ron Miller | 2,018 | 12 | 20 | was down 11 percent today after a report called the platform, the “Harvey Weinstein of social media” and set a low target price of $20. As of publishing today, the stock was down more than 11 percent at $29.29 a share. In Citron did not mince words, basing their conclusions on an Amnesty International Report claiming widespread abuse on the Twitter platform. “Citron has been following Twitter for years and when we read the just published piece from Amnesty International, we immediately knew the stock had become uninvestable and advertisers will soon be forced to take a hard look at all sponsorships with Twitter,” Citron wrote. Citron was reacting to an Amnesty International report that took Twitter to task for not doing more to curb abusive behavior. “We have built the world’s largest crowdsourced data set about online abuse against women… Twitter is a place where racism, misogyny and homophobia are allowed to flourish basically unchecked,” the report stated. The report went on to call out Twitter for not doing more. “To be clear: it is NOT our job as a human rights organization to be analyzing abusive tweets on this platform – it’s Twitter’s. “But [the company’s] refusal to make public this information, while allowing abuse to flourish basically unchecked, meant we had to do this study for them,” the report said. For its part, Twitter says it’s been working to reign in the kind of abuses that the Amnesty report criticized them for. “Our abusive behavior policy strictly prohibits behavior that harasses, intimidates or silences another user’s voice. We are also investing in better technology and tools to enable us to more proactively identify abusive, violative material, to limit its spread and reach on the platform and to encourage healthier conversations,” a Twitter spokesperson told TechCrunch. Vijaya Gadde, Legal, Policy and Trust & Safety Global Lead at Twitter, defended his company, claiming that it wasn’t clear how Amnesty defined abusive language in the report. “With regard to [the] forthcoming [Amnesty International] report, I would note that the concept of ‘problematic’ content for the purposes of classifying content is one that warrants further discussion. It is unclear how [Amnesty has] defined or categorized such content, or if [they] are suggesting it should be removed from Twitter. We work hard to build globally enforceable rules and have begun consulting the public as part of the process — a new approach within the industry,” she said in a statement. |
Zynga to acquire Small Giant Games, the maker of Empires & Puzzles, for $700M | Kate Clark | 2,018 | 12 | 20 | Social game developer Zynga has entered into an agreement to acquire Small Giant Games, the startup behind the popular mobile game Empires & Puzzles, in a deal expected to total $700 million. Zynga, which has tumbled since its , will initially acquire 80 percent of Small Giant Games for $560 million, composed of $330 million in cash and $230 million of unregistered Zynga common stock. Zynga will fund part of the transaction with a $200 million credit facility. “We’ve been impressed by the quality and momentum of Empires & Puzzles as we add another Forever Franchise into Zynga’s portfolio,” Zynga chief executive officer Frank Gibeau said in a statement. “Small Giant has created an innovative game that delivers a unique player experience that engages over the long term.” The deal is expected to close on January 1. Zynga will purchase the remaining 20 percent of Small Giant over the next three years “at valuations based on specified profitability goals.” Helsinki-based Small Giant Games had raised in equity funding from EQT Ventures, Creandum, Spintop Ventures, Profounders and others since it was founded in 2013. The company reported $33 million of revenue for Empires & Puzzles, its most popular game, 10 months after its launch in 2017. Small Giant, which is also behind Alliance Wars and Season 2: Atlantis, says they exceeded 2017’s revenue just four months into 2018. “Our studio was founded on the idea that small, skillful teams can accomplish giant things, and I am confident that partnering with Zynga is the right next step in our evolution,” Small Giant CEO Timo Soininen said in a statement. “We will now operate as a separate studio within Zynga, maintaining our identity, culture and creative independence. By leveraging the expertise and support from the wider Zynga team, we will amplify the reach of Empires & Puzzles and the new games in our development pipeline.” Zynga, founded in 2007, is the developer of FarmVille, Zynga Poker, Words with Friends and several other mobile games. The company of $248.88 million for the quarter ended September 2018, failing to meet analyst estimates. Zynga expects to bring in $243 million in revenue in the fourth quarter of 2018. |
In revamped transparency report, Apple reveals uptick in demands for user data | Zack Whittaker | 2,018 | 12 | 20 | Apple’s transparency report just got a lot more — well, transparent. For years, the technology giant released a twice-a-year report on the number of government demands it received. It wasn’t much to look at in the beginning; a seven-page document with only two tables of data. Once in a while, Apple would tack on a new table of data as the government would ask for new kinds of customer data. But that wasn’t sustainable, nor was it particularly easy to read — especially for the hawkish handful who would obsessively read and digest each report. As other companies, like and , received more demands over the years, they began to expand their own reports to help users to better understand who wanted their data, why and how often. Apple knew its document-only reports didn’t cut it, and took a leaf from its Silicon Valley neighbors and pushed ahead with its own plan to publish its biannual numbers in a way that ordinary people — like its customers — can read and understand. The company’s latest transparency report, out Thursday, still comes in its for those who don’t like change, but of Apple’s website. The new site breaks down the figures by country — but also historically to provide trends, patterns and context over years’ worth of reporting cycles, in a way that’s more in line with how other tech giants report their government data demands. And, the company , containing raw data for academics to drill deeper down into the numbers. Apple has also reworked how it discloses national security requests, such as FBI-issued subpoenas like and orders issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA). Since the introduction , passed in response to the NSA surveillance scandal in 2013, companies were of reporting their secret orders — including the numerical bands it can release under what time period. Most companies disclosed the secret requests in bands of 500 with a six-month reporting delay to avoid any inadvertent interference with active investigations. Apple originally released its figures in bands of 250 requests, but is now expanding that to bands of 500 requests to standardize its reporting with other tech companies. It’s also breaking out its FISA content (such as photos, email, contacts and device backups) and non-content requests (like subscriber records and transactional logs). As for the figures, the reveals a rise in worldwide demands for data. According to the report, Apple received 32,342 demands — up 9 percent on the last reporting period — to access 163,823 devices in the first half of the year. The report found Germany as the top requester, issuing 13,704 requests for data on 26,160 devices. Apple said that the figures were due to the high volume of device requests due to stolen devices. The U.S. was in second place with 4,570 requests for 14,911 devices. Apple also received 4,177 requests for account data, such as information stored in iCloud — up by almost 25 percent on the previous reporting period — affecting some 40,641 accounts, a four-fold increase. The company said the spike was attributable to China, which asked for thousands of devices’ worth of data under a single fraud investigation. And, the company saw a 30 percent increase in requests to preserve data for up to three months to 1,579 cases, affecting 4,033 accounts, while law enforcement obtained the right legal process to access the data. The company also said it received between 0 and 499 national security orders, including secret rulings from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, affecting 1,000 and 1,499 accounts. As the company is subject to a six-month reporting delay, the updated figures are expected out in the new year. Apple did not reveal in this latest report any national security letters where the gag orders were lifted. |
Slack shuts down accounts belonging to Iranian expats and users who visited Iran | Taylor Hatmaker | 2,018 | 12 | 20 | A number of Slack users report that they have suddenly lost access to their accounts with no warning in what appears to be an aggressive implementation of U.S. sanctions on Iran. In some cases, users have reported seeing revoked their access to free, public Slack groups, while . Administrators of the public accounts were not notified of the account terminations affecting their group’s members. include a University of British Columbia PhD student, a researcher studying at the Technical University of Munich and many other Twitter users who reported personal travel to Iran in recent years. Affected users reported receiving the following letter: When questioned about the recent action taken against some users, Slack provided TechCrunch the following statement: Slack complies with the U.S. regulations related to embargoed countries and regions, as does every U.S.-based company. We updated our system for applying geolocation information, which relies on IP addresses, and that led to the deactivations for accounts tied to embargoed countries. We only utilize IP addresses to take these actions. We do not possess information about nationality or the ethnicity of our users. If users think we’ve made a mistake in blocking their access, please reach out to feedback@slack.com and we’ll review as soon as possible. Right now, it looks like any travel to Iran (and the associated Iranian IP address) were sufficient to flag an account under Slack’s new geolocation update that triggered the bans. We’ve reached out to Slack with additional questions about when these accounts should expect to be reinstated, assuming that Slack doesn’t double down on its aggressive policy implementation. |
‘Aquaman’ is a ridiculous superhero epic | Anthony Ha | 2,018 | 12 | 20 | it. Even when executed well, superhero origin stories on the big screen have become depressingly formulaic — and with the exception of “Wonder Woman,” the ones in the DC Extended Universe haven’t been executed well. And although I was I’ll admit the Aquaman material didn’t inspire a lot of confidence in the character’s solo film. Jason Momoa’s charm couldn’t obscure the fact that he was largely reduced to grunting catchphrases like “My man!”, or that the one or two scenes delving into his backstory were easily the least comprehensible parts of an often incomprehensible film. But now that “Aquaman” is about to open domestically (a couple weeks after kicking off ), I have to tell you: I loved it. It certainly has its flaws, like a script full of clunky exposition, stretched out by fetch quests that were transparently designed to keep our heroes occupied until the grand finale. It’s also insanely overstuffed, trying to make room for a star-crossed romance, an Indiana Jones-style archaeological adventure, a fantasy epic with giant sea monsters and the standard reluctant hero beats, all in a runtime that’s a hair under two-and-a-half hours. But that four-films-for-the-price-of-one quality is exactly why I liked it so much. “Aquaman” is a big, crazy movie, full of big, crazy moments. And while some of those moments are pretty dumb (this movie is absolutely unafraid of looking dumb), very little of it is boring. Take the opening, which doesn’t actually start with Aquaman. Instead, we see a lighthouse keeper (Temuera Morrison) stumbling across a mysterious, wounded woman from the sea (Nicole Kidman). The romance that ensues may be pretty standard fare, but Morrison and Kidman are talented enough to make it funny and — when circumstances inevitably pull them apart — a little sad. Of course, the couple has a son, and that son grows up to be played by the hulking Momoa. The adult Arthur Curry can talk with fish and other sea animals, and he’s also got superhuman strength and toughness. Plus, he’s the firstborn heir to the throne of Atlantis — a fact that becomes more pressing with the arrival of Mera (Amber Heard), who’s hoping to enlist him in her plans to stop his brother Orm (Patrick Wilson) from declaring war on the surface world. Soon enough, Arthur and Mera are searching for a mythical trident while being hunted by Orm and the vengeful pirate Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II). Like I said, that search involves several more steps than necessary, but I really didn’t mind. Although Momoa’s version of Aquaman as a gruff, hard-drinking superhero bro can be grating (particularly in a solo movie, where he doesn’t have the counterbalance of a Wonder Woman or a Flash), I found myself warming to him as the story went on. And most of the action scenes are impressively staged, particularly a long, brutal fight between Aquaman, Mera and Black Manta in Sicily. That scene aside, the movie is at its best when it stays underwater, where director James Wan and his design team have created a vivid fantasy world. It can take a few minutes to get used to the wavy hair and distorted speech (because they’re speaking underwater, see?), but once you do, you’ll enjoy the sight of royalty riding sharks and manta rays, and you’ll get to visit kingdoms where fish people and crab people rule. (My zoological knowledge may be failing me here, but I think the movie actually has different kinds of crab people.) Is it silly? Of course. But the instant I saw a manta ray shooting laser beams, I was on-board. And when Aquaman and Mera entered the sprawling, psychedelically colored city of Atlantis, my inner 13-year-old nearly fainted from excitement. That was all before the final battle, which saw vast armies of underwater creatures charging at each other while colossal sea beasts erupted from the ground beneath their feet. It’s like a deranged cross between “Lord of the Rings” and “Pacific Rim,” and it is glorious. This movie isn’t for everyone, but I think I’ve figured out a simple litmus test to determine whether you’re in the target audience: Do you want to see Jason Momoa face off against a multi-tentacled monster? And what if that multi-tentacled monster was voiced by Julie Andrews? If that’s what you’re looking for, “Aquaman” will not disappoint. |
FCC fines Swarm Technologies $900K over unauthorized satellite launch | Devin Coldewey | 2,018 | 12 | 20 | Back in March came the surprising news that a satellite communications company still more or less in stealth mode had launched several tiny craft into orbit — . The company, Swarm Technologies, now faces a $900,000 penalty from the agency, as well as extra oversight of its continuing operations. Swarm’s SpaceBEEs are the beginning of a planned constellation of small satellites with which the company . Unfortunately, the units are so small — about a quarter the size of a standard cubesat, which is already quite tiny — that the FCC felt they would be too difficult to track, and did not approve the launch. SpaceBEEs are small, as you can see. Credit: Swarm Technologies Swarm, perhaps thinking it better to ask forgiveness than file the paperwork for permission, launched anyway in January aboard India’s PSLV-C40, which carried more than a dozen other passengers to space as well. (I asked Swarm and the launch provider, Spaceflight, at the time for comment but never heard back.) The FCC obviously didn’t like this, and began an investigation shortly afterwards. According to an FCC press release: The investigation found that Swarm had launched the four BEEs using an unaffiliated launch company in India and had unlawfully transmitted signals between earth stations in Georgia and the satellites for over a week. In addition, during the course of its investigation, the FCC discovered that Swarm had also performed unauthorized weather balloon-to-ground station tests and other unauthorized equipment tests prior to the small satellites launch. All these activities require FCC authorization and the company had not received such authorization before the activities occurred. Not good! As penance, Swarm Technologies will have to pay the aforementioned $900,000, and now has to submit pre-launch reports to the FCC within five days of signing an agreement to launch, and at least 45 days before takeoff. The company hasn’t been sitting on its hands this whole time. The unauthorized launch was a mistake to be sure, but it has continued its pursuit of a global constellation and launched three more SpaceBEEs into orbit just a few weeks ago aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9. Swarm has worked to put the concerns about tracking to bed; in fact, the company claims its devices are , with a larger radar cross section and extra reflectivity thanks to a Van Atta array (ask them). SpaceBEE-1 is about to pass over Italy as I write this — you can check its location live . |
Cybersecurity and human rights | Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler | 2,018 | 12 | 20 | A cyberattack has the power to paralyze cellular communications; alter or erase information in computerized systems; prevent access to computer servers; and directly harm a country’s economy and security by attacking its electricity networks or banking system. The necessity is clear for any country, but especially Israel with its unique security considerations, to maintain a cyber defense system. The creation of the unified Israel National Cyber Directorate (INCD), which includes the Israel Cyber Event Readiness Team (CERT-IL), side by side with other security agencies such as the Israeli NSA and Mossad within the Prime Minister’s Office, addresses this need. This is an important institution, and it therefore must have clearly defined legislative powers, goals and organizational structures. What is interesting, though, is that although Israel is Startup Nation when it comes to innovation and development, it is sorely behind in legislation that deals with the growing dilemmas regarding the intersection between technology, human rights and democratic values. Most technological innovations in security and tracking systems used in social networks are developed out of the public eye. The unified INCD was established before legislation to regulate its activities was put in place. To this end, the recent publishing of the first draft of a cyber law for Israel, designed to provide a legal framework for the activities of Israel’s cyber defense system, is welcomed. However, the content of the draft shows that the State is seeking to assume far wider powers than are needed to protect the public from cyberattacks. Part of the reason for this is that it is difficult at present to assess what cyberattacks could look like in the future, but another part is what seems to be a somewhat hidden policy of the government to use technology in order to increase their control over citizens’ activities. According to the draft, the INCD, a division within the Prime Minister’s Office, will be able to routinely collect data from internet and cellular providers, government ministries, local authorities and government corporations in order to identify and thwart cyberattacks in real time. Yet the definition of “security relevant data” remains ambiguous, and is certainly much broader than the definitions laid out in IOC (Cyber Threat Indicator) in the American Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) passed in 2015. The question is whether there is truly a need for all of this information — a record of all online activities and personal details we’ve shared with governmental agencies — to be collected in this way, and whether this is information that could potentially be used to create behavioral profiles that could be used against citizens. What, in effect, is the difference between gathering this data and wide-scale, unrestricted wiretapping? For the State to have access to such far-reaching information constitutes a real threat to citizens’ privacy and human rights on a larger scale. In addition, should the drafted bill pass, INCD will have access to computers and the authority to collect and process information, all in the name of identifying cybersecurity infiltrators. This could include almost any information held by any private citizen or business. While the law mentions the need to respect the right to privacy, it also permits activities that do not infringe upon this right “more than is necessary” — a frighteningly vague limitation. In addition, there do not seem to be sufficient limits on the use of the information collected. How long can it be stored? Can it be passed from INCD to the police, or to other agencies? This bill endows the INCD with supreme regulatory powers that supersede those of the police, the Privacy Protection Authorities and others. The INCD even has the capacity to withdraw licenses awarded to commercial institutions. One obvious outcome of this is that it will lead to a lack of cooperation between the different authorities. The million-dollar question is, of course, when do these powers come into play? And the answer, again, is worrying: “Whenever necessary in order to defend a ‘vital interest.'” This might mean protecting the country’s security or saving human life, but according to the draft, it also includes “the proper functioning of organizations that provide services on a significant scale.” Does this also mean a cyberattack on a large clothing chain? And if so, is this justified? Classic cybersecurity, as we know it, deals mainly with potential damage to tangible infrastructure. However, the proposed bill allows the prime minister to add more cyberthreats to this list at his will. Which begs the question: What will happen when a prime minister adds something along the lines of “harming the public consciousness by presenting arguments on social networks”? or “disseminating fake news”? Do we really want the INCD to be empowered to deal with such cases in addition to the Israeli NSA? Moreover, the draft makes scant mention of oversight bodies to regulate the use of such broad powers, and grants the head of INCD the power to maintain a veil of secrecy when attacks are being discovered. It certainly makes sense not to publicize the existence of a cyberattack until it is under control — in order to prevent additional damage — but assume that you are a patient in a hospital in which a cyberattack has created confusion in the administration of medicines. How long would you want this to be kept secret? And what of bank account holders, or people who have registered for a dating site, whose details have been compromised? The proposed bill endows the INCD with unchecked power, especially when compared with other democracies. The abuse of such power and Edward Snowden’s exposure of PRISM (the NSA’s intrusive surveillance program) should serve as a warning to us all, especially here in Israel. Today, the right to privacy can no longer be seen as the right to control one’s personal data as laid out in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Rather, the right to privacy is understood as a prerequisite condition for other human rights. While the bill is important, one cannot help but think that it may be the first stage in an unprecedented “big brother” scenario. Legislators have to take the time to study cyber issues and the threats and opportunities that they pose. It is crucial that those who decide whether or not to pass the bill gain a deep understanding of the meaning of the right to privacy in a digital world. This knowledge will allow them to create a more balanced piece of legislation and in turn protect the rights of Israeli citizens. The law states that one of its primary goals is to “advance Israel as a global leader in the field of cyber security.” Yet let us not forget that in a small country like Israel, driven by creativity, independence and thinking out-of-the-box, we would not be global leaders in cyber and technology without simultaneously protecting fundamental human rights. |
An inside look at Rivian’s EV ambitions from AI batteries to electric jet skis | Mark Harris | 2,018 | 12 | 20 | For a CEO who insists his electric vehicle startup Rivian founder RJ Scaringe can sound a lot like Elon Musk. Just weeks before unveiling Rivian’s first vehicles — an all-electric pickup and a seven-seater SUV — at the LA Auto Show last month, Scaringe promised an impressive new battery technology and speculated about an electric jet-ski. He’s made other bold claims Musk, including that his company had developed an that “allows the battery to last … about three times longer than a traditional battery.” There’s a method to, and a reason for, Scaringe’s promotional madness. It’s a tough time to launch an EV startup. With a recession lurking around the corner and mainstream automakers promising to accelerate into the space, Rivian needs to show more than just a stylish brand and a half-empty bank account. TechCrunch has learned that Scaringe has a technology roadmap that includes regular reveals of new features, vehicles and partners, to lure in new business and keep pre-order customers happy while they wait for delivery in 2020. For a start, Rivian’s AI will observe how new owners of its vehicles drive and charge their cars, and then adjust various parameters to maximize battery longevity. This might include not fully charging the battery for people who tend to drive only short distances in a day, although it would never reduce the total range available, Scaringe later told TechCrunch. “We don’t make drastic adjustments over time,” he said. “We do this slowly as we learn more about you.” Although Rivian could not provide evidence of a tripling of battery life, an EV battery expert contacted by TechCrunch confirmed that smart charging strategies could slow the deterioration of lithium-ion packs to some extent. Rivian’s “AI batteries” could be integrated into other applications, such as electric jet-skis, snowmobiles and tractors built by partners, Scaringe said recently at an “A significant part of our business is leveraging the technology we built around batteries and battery control systems to help electrify the things that move on our planet,” he said. Scaringe told TechCrunch that Rivian is in the process of negotiating strategic partnerships with companies that might take a stake in the startup, as well as use its batteries and powertrain in their products. |
WhatsApp has an encrypted child abuse problem | Josh Constine | 2,018 | 12 | 20 | are being used to spread illegal child abuse imagery, cloaked by the app’s end-to-end encryption. Without the necessary number of human moderators, the disturbing content is slipping by WhatsApp’s automated systems. A report from two Israeli NGOs reviewed by TechCrunch details how third-party apps for discovering WhatsApp groups include “Adult” sections that offer invite links to join rings of users trading images of child exploitation. TechCrunch has reviewed materials showing many of these groups are currently active. A screenshot from today of active child exploitation groups on WhatsApp. Phone numbers and photos redacted. Provided by . [Update 12/27/18: . This allowed them to monetize and sustain themselves while also earning ill-gotten money for these platforms. In the wake of the report, both platforms blocked these apps from their ad networks and Facebook agreed to refund advertisers.] [scribd id=396103249 key=key-LuDJlSxQB13c5eNiMpuY mode=scroll] Listings from a group discovery app of child exploitation groups on WhatsApp. URLs and photos have been redacted. A WhatsApp group discovery app’s listings of child exploitation groups on WhatsApp |
App downloads across iOS & Google Play up 10% to 113B in 2018, consumer spend tops $76B | Sarah Perez | 2,018 | 12 | 20 | The app economy is continuing to grow, both in terms of app downloads and consumer spending. According to preliminary year-end data shared by App Annie, it’s predicting the number of global app downloads in 2018 will surpass 113 billion, up 10 percent from last year. Consumer spending in apps has grown even quicker — it’s up 20 percent year-over-year, to surpass $76 billion worldwide. The app intelligence firm came to these figures by analyzing data across both Apple’s iOS App Store and Google Play, up until December 15, 2018. It doesn’t include the third-party Chinese app stores, which would make the figures even higher. The rest of this month may see the numbers increase a bit — especially as people unwrap new smartphones over the holidays, then download and buy apps. However, the numbers should still be in the general ballpark. App Annie will release a full “State of Mobile” report in January, after the holidays conclude and the final numbers are crunched. The firm attributed the continued increase in consumer spending to mobile games, which are the most popular and profitable gaming format, it says. In 2018, the mobile gaming market matured with hits like Fortnite, PUBG and Roblox taking advantage of more capable specs on smartphones, as well as the trend toward cross-platform gaming. App Annie analysts we’ll see more of the same in 2019, as smartphones continue to be capable of supporting more complex, console-quality multiplayer games than in years past. On the flip side, hyper-casual games did well this year, too — even hitting the year-end top charts both in terms of downloads and consumer spend. Subscriptions also helped to drive up consumer spend in 2018, with the app stores (including third-party stores in China) will pass $122 billion in 2019, thanks to a combination of gaming and subscriptions driving the growth. App Annie noted that mobile was sucking up more of people’s time in 2018, as well. In 2018, the average smartphone user in the U.S. spent nearly three hours each day in apps, up 10 percent from 2017 and up 20 percent from 2016. The firm released the Top Charts across both app stores for 2018, with Messenger receiving the most downloads out of all apps, excluding games, and Helix Jump being the most downloaded game. Fate/Grand Order generated the most revenue out of all games, while Netflix generated the most out of non-games. |
Gift Guide: 12 really useful gifts for the friends who just had a baby | Greg Kumparak | 2,018 | 12 | 20 | Buying the right stuff as a new parent is tough. Buying the right things a new parent? Even harder. There’s just way, too much junk out there marketed at new parents. A lot of it seems useful until you realize it’s just taking up space. As it turns out, Team TechCrunch had a of babies this year. Really — backstage at TechCrunch Disrupt SF was like a lil’ temporary nursery. I chatted with the new moms and dads of TechCrunch (past and present) to figure out the things that helped them the most in the early months. We won’t get into things like carriers and car seats and strollers; those are pretty personal, and there’s no one-size-fits-all recommendation. Instead we focused on the things that surprised us with their usefulness. Some of them aren’t necessarily marketed toward parents, but make their lives easier. Some are things they didn’t think they’d need, but ended up using on the daily. For the first stretch of a baby’s life, their car seat is supposed to face the rear of the car. That means, of course, that you can’t see your baby in the rearview. That’s no fun. These plastic (so no glass shards if it somehow breaks) headrest mirrors bring the baby back into view. I thought it was just comforting to , until we were traveling and using a rental car. Our baby, who always seems to love car rides, was suddenly upset any time we placed him in the rental. We eventually realized it’s because his friend — the baby in the mirror — was nowhere to be found. As soon as the mirror was back, he was happy again. We use the GO by Goldbug ( ). It’s easy to install, adjust and move from car to car, and it feels super secure once it’s in place. We’ve had Philips Hue bulbs in our house for a few years, but I honestly how useful they’ve been since our baby arrived. Being able to turn on the light from your phone when the baby cries without going across the room to the switch? Magic. Being able to dim the light a bit with your voice (with the help of something like Google Home or an Amazon Echo) when your arms are occupied by an upset newborn? Sorcery. A two-bulb starter kit (including the required hub) goes for . (There are lots of alternatives to Hue at this point, many of them cheaper. I like Hue because of the flexibility provided by the Hue line’s extensive options/accessories, because it works with Apple’s HomeKit and Google’s Home and because the app is nice and stable.) If you get the bulbs above, grab one of these Philips Hue Tap switches ( ) too. I’ve probably poked this goofy little hockey puck a thousand times in the past four months. That example I used earlier with the light switch being on the other side of the room? That’s my life. This thing, however, lets me bring a light switch anywhere; in our case, my wife and I each have one stuck on our nightstand. It has four buttons, each of which can set a Hue light to a different preset (like bright/dim/even dimmer/off). It lets me turn the light to the right level of brightness without waking anyone up, without looking for my phone and without wandering across the room in the dark. Oh, and the neatest part: It doesn’t need batteries. The action of pressing a button charges it up just enough to send the command to the Hue bulb. White noise (think the sound of radio static) helps some babies fall asleep, and sleep more soundly. There are about a thousand options for bringing white noise on the go, but the Cloud b Sleep Sheep ( ) has become my go-to. It turns off automatically after 45 minutes, has an adjustable volume level, has velcro tabs to hook it onto a stroller and multiple melodies/sound options like ocean sounds and lullabies in case the white noise gets tiring. And when it’s not in use? It just looks like a cute stuffed animal, rather than a whacky techno doodad. It requires two AA batteries, so consider also buying them some rechargeables. Like the Hue Bulbs, usage of my Google Home ( ) has since our baby came along. Got a baby on the edge of falling asleep? Hey Google, play rain noises. Want to watch your shows but the baby is already nursing in your arms? Hey Google, play on the upstairs TV. Hey Google, add “freezable teethers” to my shopping list. Hey Google, play lullabies from Spotify. Hey Google, dim the lights. (Amazon Echos are a totally solid alternative. I like Google Home because it plays friendly with Chromecast, but if the recipient is more a Fire TV fan, go with the Echo) Baby monitors are great! Sometimes it feels like baby’s naps are the only times you can get anything done, but you still want to keep an eye on them. Unfortunately, a lot of baby monitors are insecure junk ( ) requiring anyone who might want to eavesdrop into your house to use only the most basic of tools (like, say, another baby monitor). One option is to use a Nest camera ( ) as a baby monitor — especially if the house already has Nest cams setup elsewhere. Built by Google and battle-tested by countless security researchers, it’s pretty dang secure. It’s not built specifically to work as a baby monitor, but it’s nice that it can just be used as a security camera once it completes its baby monitor duties. Want something a bit more baby-focused? A few TechCrunchers use Nanit. The base model ( ) does HD Audio/Video, IR-based night vision, plus some neat bonus tricks like sleep tracking and temperature/humidity sensing. A slightly more expensive Plus model ($279) brings in two-way audio, if that’s a thing you want. And, as a huge plus, the company is pretty open about When baby comes, free time becomes a precious commodity. It becomes way easy to fall back to microwaveable meals or DoorDash every night. And hey, no judgement! If you’re finding time to eat most meals, you’re doing just fine. But when you feel like making something for yourself but want it to be tasty fast relatively easy to cleanup, pressure cooking is a great option. InstantPot ($80-$100, depending on the size) makes pressure cooking less daunting — prep ingredients, pop them in, close the lid, press a button. Get ’em a good pressure cooking recipe book too, while you’re at it. See above. If finding time to cook is hard, finding time to might feel impossible. Meal delivery kits like Blue Apron and Sunbasket (both of which I used, the latter of which I ended up preferring) bring the ingredients to you, taking the least fun step out of the cooking process. They’ve boiled the instructions down to just a page or so, with most of the meals taking about an hour to do right. One month of meal deliveries will cost around $200-$250, depending on which service you go with. As for which service to go with: This is the kind of gift that you want to consult the gift recipient about before. There are all kinds of different options now, with services that tailor to everything from veggie to keto to gluten-free. Don’t go sending them three months of meat if they’re herbivores, you know? I’ve asked a bunch of friends about this, and it seems wildly common: When the baby comes along, suddenly your phone gets dropped 10x as much. When the baby starts crying, it’s easy to forget that your phone was sitting on your lap before you stood up. And when the baby gets older, they grab your phone and throw it off the table. A good phone case — something that beefs up the phone without adding a ton of bulk, like an ($50) or a ($50) — will save your friends hundreds of dollars in screen replacements. Let’s just get this out of the way: $1,200 for a bassinet is a little bananas. That’s one helluva expensive gift. With that said, the Snoo is… just wonderful. Invented by pediatrician Harvey Karp (author of “The Happiest Baby on the Block”) and designed by Yves Béhar, it detects when a sleeping baby is starting to fuss and plays a bit of white noise to try to shush ’em back to sleep. If the baby continues to cry, it’ll gently rock them for a few minutes, gradually increasing the rocking through two additional stages. Baby still crying? It turns off and buzzes your phone in the off-chance you’re somehow still asleep. It’s by no means a substitute for loving arms providing snuggles and warmth in the middle of the night — but when a baby is still in the early days of figuring out how to transition between sleep stages and is accidentally waking themselves up in the middle of the night, the Snoo might help everyone get a bit more sleep. Plus, the built-in swaddling system keeps the baby on their back while sleeping (as recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics). We went 50/50 on ours with some close friends who were having a baby a few months before us, and it worked out just perfect — our son came along just as their son was growing out of it. Our son is just about to grow out of it and into a bigger crib… and, well, we’re gonna miss the Snoo. Before our baby arrived, I didn’t quite understand why I needed a $100+ dollar cushion for our changing table. Any flat surface will do, right? Turns out, babies are wiggle worms. They don’t understand why you’re pulling them out of their nice cozy crib just to set them on a cold table. Nor do they understand that falling from a few feet up would be bad news for everyone. They’ll roll right off, given the chance. The Keekaroo Peanut helps make the changing table a bit more comfy, but also gives you a buckling strap and raised edges to help keep your lil’ acrobat from tumbling off (you still need to stay close to the table, of course). It’s also SUPER easy to clean, thanks to the water-resistant surface. |
Firefox Focus adds support for enhanced tracking protection and Google’s Safe Browsing service | Frederic Lardinois | 2,018 | 12 | 20 | Firefox Focus for and is Mozilla’s privacy-centric mobile browser. Today, the organization stepped up this promise of keeping its users’ data private by adding to the browser a few new features that expand on this by adding a new privacy feature, as well as a few other new tools. The main new addition here is support for . This feature first launched in Firefox for the desktop. It allows you to block cookies and trackers with a bit more granularity than was previously possible. Until now, Focus blocked all cookies by default. Now, however, you can choose to either continue doing that — but with the risk of sites breaking every now and then — or opt to allow third-party cookies or only third-party tracking cookies. Mozilla uses to power this feature. “This enables you to allow cookies if they contribute to the user experience for a website while still preventing trackers from being able to track you across multiple sites, offering you the same products over and over again and recording your online behavior,” Mozilla explains. Mozilla also today announced that Firefox Focus now checks all URLs against Google’s to ensure that users don’t click on known phishing links or open other fraudulent sites. While using a Google tool may seem a bit odd, given that Firefox and Chrome are competitors, it’s worth noting virtually every browser makes use of Safe Browsing (and that Mozilla pulls in a lot of revenue from its search engine deal with Google). In addition, iOS users who opt for Firefox Focus will now be able to get search suggestions, too, just like their friends on Android. There’s a privacy trade-off here, though, as everything you’re typing is sent directly to the likes of Google for offering you those suggestions. Because the focus of this browser is privacy, the feature is turned off by default, though. |
FBI kicks some of the worst ‘DDoS for hire’ sites off the internet | Zack Whittaker | 2,018 | 12 | 20 | The FBI has seized the domains of 15 high-profile distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) websites after a coordinated effort by law enforcement and several tech companies. Several seizure warrants granted by a California federal judge went into effect Thursday, removing several of these “booter” or “stresser” sites off the internet “as part of coordinated law enforcement action taken against illegal DDoS-for-hire services.” The orders were granted , and the domains were replaced with a federal notice. Prosecutors have charged three men, Matthew Gatrel and Juan Martinez in California and David Bukoski in Alaska, with operating the sites, according to in three U.S. federal courts, which were unsealed Thursday. “DDoS for hire services such as these pose a significant national threat,” U.S. Attorney Bryan Schroder said in a statement. “Coordinated investigations and prosecutions such as these demonstrate the importance of cross-District collaboration and coordination with public sector partners.” The FBI had assistance from the U.K.’s National Crime Agency and the Dutch national police, and the Justice Department named several companies, including Cloudflare, Flashpoint and Google, for providing authorities with additional assistance. In all, several sites were knocked offline — including , , , and and more — which allowed would-be attackers to sign up to rent time and servers to launch large-scale bandwidth attacks against systems and servers. DDoS attacks have long plagued the internet as a by-product of faster connection speeds and easy-to-exploit vulnerabilities in the underlying protocols that power the internet. Through its Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), the FBI of the risks from booter and stresser sites amid a wider concern about the increasing size and scale of powerful DDoS attacks. While many use booter and stresser sites for legitimate services — such as to test the resilience of a corporate network from DDoS attacks — many have used them to launch large-scale attacks that can knock networks offline. When those networks support apps and services, those too can face downtime — in some cases affecting millions of users. Some of the sites named in the indictments reported attacks exceeding 40 gigabits per second, large enough to knock some websites offline for a period of time. Specifically in the complaint, the Justice Department accused Downthem had more than 2,000 customer subscriptions, and had been used to carry out over 200,000 attacks. But booter sites have largely been put to the wayside for larger attacks, such that knocked Dyn, a major internet powerhouse relied on by many tech companies, offline. Thursday’s seizures mark the latest in a string of law enforcement action aimed at booter services. Earlier this year, U.S. and European authorities took down which prosecutors claimed to help . When reached, the FBI did not comment beyond the Justice Department’s statement. |
Apple’s AI boss has been bumped up to the company’s executive team | Greg Kumparak | 2,018 | 12 | 20 | Apple has just confirmed that John Giannandrea, the ex-Googler machine learning veteran who joined , has joined the likes of Tim Cook, Jony Ive, Eddy Cue and Angela Ahrendts on the executive team. His role on the executive team will be “Senior Vice President of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence Strategy,” signaling just how key AI and machine learning will be to Apple moving forward.
Giannandrea has been leading Apple’s Siri and Core ML team for months, bringing the two previously distinct teams together under one leader. Prior to Apple, Giannandrea spent ; as of 2016, he was leading the search team, as well. We spoke to Giannandrea at TechCrunch Disrupt shortly before he parted ways with Google. You can see that video here: |
null | Connie Loizos | 2,018 | 12 | 5 | null |
Lyft is getting more serious about autonomous vehicle safety with new hire | Megan Rose Dickey | 2,018 | 12 | 20 | Lyft today announced the hiring of John Maddox, founder of the American Center for Mobility and previous associate administrator of vehicle safety research at the U.S. Department of Transportation, to lead its autonomous vehicle safety and compliance efforts. At Lyft, Maddox will be the company’s first senior director of autonomous safety and compliance. “I’ve dedicated my career to advancing safe mobility technologies. Joining Lyft is a continuation of that effort, and I’m excited to be part of such a talented and energized team that’s leading the way in redefining the automotive industry and future of transportation,” Maddox said in a statement. In Lyft’s recently launched office of autonomous safety and compliance, Maddox will oversee the company’s safety efforts in bringing self-driving cars to the masses. Lyft . Since then, Lyft has as well as with . Magna also invested $200 million in Lyft in exchange for an equity stake. |
SoftBank Corp shares drop 14% on their first day of trading, but it’s still one of the largest IPOs ever | Catherine Shu | 2,018 | 12 | 18 | SoftBank Corp’s initial public offering today started with a bang before trailing off into a whimper, with during its first day of trading on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The company is the mobile unit of conglomerate SoftBank Group, whose holdings also include Sprint and the $100 billion Vision Fund. Shares of SoftBank Corp opened at 1,463 yen, below the 1,500 yen the company had set for its IPO price (instead of a range), and closed at 1,282 yen. It offered 160 million shares, or about a third of the total held by parent company SoftBank Group. Despite a bumpy first day of trading, SoftBank Corp raised a total of 2.65 trillion yen (about $23.5 billion), making it Japan’s largest ever IPO and placing it just behind Alibaba’s record-setting $25 billion debut on the New York Stock Exchange in 2014 (SoftBank Group is one of Alibaba’s largest shareholders). According to Bloomberg, at the 1,500 yen opening price were individuals, who the company had targeted with an . Factors that may have dampened investor enthusiasm include triggered by a shutdown of Ericsson equipment due to expired software certificates (O2 customers in Great Britain were also affected). The outage underscored other concerns about SoftBank Corp’s telecommunications infrastructure. According to a Nikkei report published last week, the company has decided to stop using hardware from Huawei Technologies due to security concerns and by Ericsson and Nokia. While the company claims the hardware swap isn’t expected to cost a lot of money, it will also need to deal with more competition next year. SoftBank Corp’s rivals are currently NTT DoCoMo and KDDI, but Rakuten will launch cellular service in October 2019, . Furthermore, SoftBank Group also (about $160 billion) as of the end of September, more than six times the amount it earns on an operating basis. This means the Vision Fund is especially reliant on Saudi Arabia’s sovereign fund, which contributed $48 billion, making it the fund’s largest investor. Saudi Arabia’s sovereign fund, called the Public Investment Fund, is run by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has been implicated by Turkish officials and the United State’s Central Intelligence Agency in the planning of journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s murder. Crown Prince bin Salman has denied involvement in the killing, but the situation still calls into question the future of Saudi Arabia’s involvement with SoftBank, especially since Crown Prince bin Salman said in October that . |
Facebook purges more ‘bad actors’ in Myanmar but it still won’t commit to a local office | Jon Russell | 2,018 | 12 | 18 | As Facebook continues to grasp the severity of the situation in Myanmar, where , the U.S. tech giant has completed a third sweep in recent months to remove bad actors from its platform. that with this latest action it has removed a total of 135 Facebook accounts, 425 Pages, 17 Groups and an additional 15 Instagram accounts. Facebook has around 20 million users in Myanmar — that’s nearly all of the country’s internet users and nearly 40 percent of the population — and it gave some stats on the reach that it has now nullified: . Its previous removals impacted some high-profile individuals: Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and the military-owned Myawady television network were removed from the social network following “evidence [that they] committed or enabled serious human rights abuses in the country.” What’s notable about this newest action is that the company said it took action because of “the behavior of these actors rather than on the type of content they were posting.” We’re waiting for further confirmation on exactly what that means, but acting irrespective of posted content would represent an Nearly everyone who has internet access in Myanmar uses Facebook, giving it an estimated user base of around 20 million. AFP PHOTO / Nicolas ASFOURI / Getty Images That’s promising but, unfortunately, it appears that Facebook is still reluctant to commit to opening a local office in Myanmar. That’s something that local civic groups on the ground in Myanmar — who have worked with Facebook to improve the situation — . “How many companies have 20 million users in one country but don’t have a single employee, it’s absurd,” Jes Petersen — CEO of accelerator firm Phandeeyar, which is part of the advisory group — told TechCrunch last month. “An office would go a long way to building relationships with stakeholders.” Facebook declined to comment on the possibility of a Myanmar-based office when we asked. The company has pledged to increase to 100 the number of Burmese translators working on Myanmar-based content by the end of this year. It has said a number of times that it is working on AI-based solutions, too, but cracks still appear. We more than 100 people reported a racist profile as it names "Dog Allah". After few days, Facebook replied us that "it doesn't go against one of our specific community standard". Facebook is still allowing in Myanmar against & — Yar Tin (@YarTin7) Equally, while reaching 100 translators means Facebook has more than doubled its Burmese-compliant content checking contingent, the figure is dwarfed by others. Myanmar’s army reportedly has 700 people working on its own Facebook strategy. For instance one source told us Myanmar’s military has up to 700 troops working on Facebook. The company hopes to have 100 content reviewers for Myanmar by the end of the year. It has other teams doing safety and security, but there’s a definite mismatch. — Paul Mozur (@paulmozur) Sources familiar with the company’s thinking told TechCrunch that Facebook is concerned that “there would be real risks involved” if it were to open an office, “including the potential for increased government leverage on content and data requests as well as potential risks to Facebook’s employees.” If this is consistent with the company’s strategy, then it is troubling, because that doesn’t tell the whole truth of what is a very nuanced issue. While it is correct that the report did mention the potential risks associated with an office — around both the safety of staff and potential for government pressure — the conclusion wasn’t that Facebook shouldn’t open the office. It was that there are “advantages and disadvantages” to doing so. So you could equally argue that it should open an office if you choose to focus the positive argument from the report. More generally, it is certainly ironic that Facebook is (partially) citing insight from a report that it controversially released on the eve of the U.S. mid-term elections, a move that many took as an effort to bury the findings while the news cycle was focused on a key political moment. While it may not get the same press attention as Russian-backed U.S. election meddling, the Facebook-Myanmar situation is a key one to watch in 2019. Facebook is the de facto internet in Southeast Asia and other emerging markets, so its influence extends beyond anything people in Western markets can begin to imagine. |
Amnesty International used machine-learning to quantify the scale of abuse against women on Twitter | Catherine Shu | 2,018 | 12 | 18 | A new study by Amnesty International and Element AI attempts to put numbers to a problem many women already know about: that Twitter is a cesspool of harassment and abuse. Conducted with the help of 6,500 volunteers, the study, billed by Amnesty International as “the largest ever” into online abuse against women, used machine-learning software from Element AI to analyze tweets sent to a sample of 778 women politicians and journalists during 2017. It found that 7.1 percent, or 1.1 million, of those tweets were either “problematic” or “abusive,” which Amnesty International said amounts to one abusive tweet sent every 30 seconds. On an , the human rights advocacy group said many women either censor what they post, limit their interactions on Twitter or just quit the platform altogether: “At a watershed moment when women around the world are using their collective power to amplify their voices through social media platforms, Twitter’s failure to consistently and transparently enforce its own community standards to tackle violence and abuse means that women are being pushed backwards towards a culture of silence.” Amnesty International, which has been researching abuse against women on Twitter for the past two years, signed up 6,500 volunteers for what it refers to as the “Troll Patrol” after releasing a report earlier this year that . In total, the volunteers analyzed 288,000 tweets sent between January and December 2017 to the 778 women studied, who included politicians and journalists across the political spectrum from the United Kingdom and United States. Politicians included members of the U.K. Parliament and the U.S. Congress, while journalists represented a diverse group of publications, including The Daily Mail, The New York Times, Guardian, The Sun, gal-dem, Pink News and Breitbart. The Troll Patrol’s volunteers, who come from 150 countries and range in age from 18 to 70 years old, received training about what constitutes a problematic or abusive tweet. Then they were shown anonymized tweets mentioning one of the 778 women and asked if the tweets were problematic or abusive. Each tweet was shown to several volunteers. In addition, Amnesty International said “three experts on violence and abuse against women” also categorized a sample of 1,000 tweets to “ensure we were able to assess the quality of the tweets labelled by our digital volunteers.” The study defined “problematic” as tweets “that contain hurtful or hostile content, especially if repeated to an individual on multiple occasions, but do not necessarily meet the threshold of abuse,” while “abusive” meant tweets “that violate Twitter’s own rules and include content that promote violence against or threats of people based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease.” Then a subset of the labelled tweets was processed using Element AI’s machine-learning software to extrapolate the analysis to the total 14.5 million tweets that mentioned the 778 women during 2017. (Because tweets weren’t collected for the study until March 2018, Amnesty International notes that the scale of abuse was likely even higher because some abusive tweets may have been deleted or made by accounts that were suspended or disabled.) Element AI’s extrapolation produced the finding that 7.1 percent of tweets sent to the women were problematic or abusive, amounting to 1.1 million tweets in 2017. Black, Asian, Latinx, and mixed race women were 34 percent more likely to be mentioned in problematic or abusive tweets than white women. Black women in particular were especially vulnerable: they were 84 percent more likely than white women to be mentioned in problematic or abusive tweets. One in 10 tweets mentioning black women in the study sample was problematic or abusive, compared to one in 15 for white women. “We found that, although abuse is targeted at women across the political spectrum, women of color were much more likely to be impacted, and black women are disproportionately targeted. Twitter’s failure to crack down on this problem means it is contributing to the silencing of already marginalized voices,” said Milena Marin, Amnesty International’s senior advisor for tactical research, in the statement. Breaking down the results by profession, the study found that 7 percent of tweets that mentioned the 454 journalists in the study were either problematic or abusive. The 324 politicians surveyed were targeted at a similar rate, with 7.12 percent of tweets that mentioned them problematic or abusive. Of course, findings from a sample of 778 journalists and politicians in the U.K. and U.S. is difficult to extrapolate to other professions, countries or the general population. The study’s findings are important, however, because many politicians and journalists need to use social media in order to do their jobs effectively. Women, and especially women of color, are underrepresented in both professions, and many stay on Twitter simply to make a statement about visibility, even though it means dealing with constant harassment and abuse. Furthermore, Twitter’s API changes means many third-party anti-bullying tools no longer work, as technology journalist Sarah Jeong noted on her own Twitter profile, and the platform has yet to come up with tools that replicate their functionality. For a long time I used blocktogether to automatically block accounts younger than 7 days and accounts with fewer than 15 followers. After Twitter’s API changes, that option is no longer available to me. — sarah jeong (@sarahjeong) A friend coded up a way for me to automatically mute people who tweeted certain trigger words for me. (Like, say, “gook.”) This is also no longer available to me because of API changes. — sarah jeong (@sarahjeong) Amnesty International’s other research about abusive behavior toward women on Twitter includes a , and . The organization said the Troll Patrol isn’t about “policing Twitter or forcing it to remove content.” Instead, the organization wants the platform to be more transparent, especially about how the machine-learning algorithms it uses to detect abuse. Because the largest social media platforms now rely on machine learning to scale their anti-abuse monitoring, Element AI also used the study’s data to develop a machine-learning model that automatically detects abusive tweets. For the next three weeks, the model will in order to “demonstrate the potential and current limitations of AI technology.” These limitations mean social media platforms need to fine-tune their algorithms very carefully in order to detect abusive content without also flagging legitimate speech. “These trade-offs are value-based judgements with serious implications for freedom of expression and other human rights online,” the organization said, adding that “as it stands, automation may have a useful role to play in assessing trends or flagging content for human review, but it should, at best, be used to assist trained moderators, and certainly should not replace them.” Twitter replied with several quotes from a formal response issued to Amnesty International on December 12, Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s legal, policy and trust and safety global lead. “Twitter has publicly committed to improving the collective health, openness, and civility of public conversation on our service. Twitter’s health is measured by how we help encourage more healthy debate, conversations, and critical thinking. Conversely, abuse, malicious automation, and manipulation detract from the health of Twitter. We are committed to holding ourselves publicly accountable towards progress in this regard.” “Twitter uses a combination of machine learning and human review to adjudicate abuse reports and whether they violate our rules. Context matters when evaluating abusive behavior and determining appropriate enforcement actions. Factors we may take into consideration include, but are not limited to whether: the behavior is targeted at an individual or group of people; the report has been filed by the target of the abuse or a bystander; and the behavior is newsworthy and in the legitimate public interest. Twitter subsequently provides follow-up notifications to the individual that reports the abuse. We also provide recommendations for additional actions that the individual can take to improve his or her Twitter experience, for example using the block or mute feature.” “With regard to your forthcoming report, I would note that the concept of “problematic” content for the purposes of classifying content is one that warrants further discussion. It is unclear how you have defined or categorised such content, or if you are suggesting it should be removed from Twitter. We work hard to build globally enforceable rules and have begun consulting the public as part of the process – a new approach within the industry.” “As numerous civil society groups have highlighted, it is important for companies to carefully define the scope of their policies for purposes of users being clear what content is and is not permitted. We would welcome further discussion about how you have defined “problematic” as part of this research in accordance with the need to protect free expression and ensure policies are clearly and narrowly drafted.” |
Elon Musk’s vision for transport is a 3D network of tunnels for autonomous electric vehicles | Kirsten Korosec | 2,018 | 12 | 18 | Musk’s vision of an “entirely new system of transport,” which he unveiled Wednesday night at a splashy event in Hawthorne, California, wasn’t a reusable rocket like the ones he’s building at his nearby SpaceX headquarters. Nor is it an electric vehicle, like the Teslas he is producing at a factory in Fremont, California. Tonight, Musk showed off a 1.14-mile test tunnel — that snakes its way underneath 120th Street in the city of Hawthorne — that his other business, The Boring Company, dug for about $10 million using a modified boring machine called Godot. (That $10 million figures includes the cost of building the tunnel, all internal infrastructure, lighting, communication and video, safety systems, ventilation and track, according to the company.) For Musk, this is merely a demonstration of what could be: a network of low-cost tunnels used for transportation, utilities or water and built for millions of dollars, or even billions, less than those constructed for subways or trains. And it’s a vision that he’s funding, for now. Musk estimates he’s spent about $40 million of his own money funding The Boring Company. Boring is developing an entirely new system of transport — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) These tunnels, which at about 12-feet in diameter are smaller than a subway, are cheaper to build thanks to the company’s boring machines, Musk and Boring Company president Steve Davis contend. The tunnels could be stacked — Musk calls it a 3D network — and operate like a giant underground highway, with vehicles entering and exiting at strategic points along the way via ramp, spiral or elevator depending on available space. The main tunnel would allow vehicles, which are stabilized via retractable tracking wheels, to travel up to 150 miles per hour. Once a vehicle leaves the main artery, speeds would be reduced. (The retractable tracking wheels are an important, new development; Musk said they originally were going to place the vehicles on a skate, which would travel at high speeds, but ditched the idea because it was too “complex.” These entry points could take up less than two parking spaces for an elevator, Musk said, which TechCrunch was able to attest to, at least with the demonstration tunnel. “You can weave these stations throughout the fabric of the city without changing the character of the city, Musk said during a press briefing. There are some important caveats to this system. This is a concept; it currently doesn’t exist at the scale Musk envisions, although there are numerous cities and utilities interested. (Davis noted they get between five and 20 requests or inquires a day from municipalities and utilities.) Tesla in tunnel with retractable wheel gear that turns a car into a rail-guided train & back again — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) And only autonomous, electric vehicles would be allowed in the Loop, as The Boring Company is calling the concept. A Tesla Model X was used in the demo Wednesday night, although Musk insisted during a press briefing that “this is not some walled garden or something only for Teslas.” It wasn’t clear what Musk meant by “autonomous.” Teslas are equipped with a Level 2 system, via the SAE’s definitions. A Level 4 system, which currently doesn’t exist in commercial vehicles, is considered fully autonomous under certain conditions. He also said, several times, that this is meant to be a complement to other forms of transport, not to the exclusion of other things. The Loop would also have dedicated vehicles for pedestrians and bicyclists that Musk speculated could cost about $1 a ride, if shared. The vehicles designated for public transport would run in a loop and get priority. The public transport piece is notable because, if the Loop existed today, there would be few vehicles that could qualify as autonomous and electric, except Tesla. While the Tesla Model X was used in the demo rides Wednesday night, Musk said he believes smaller electric vehicles like the Model 3, or the yet to be seen Model Y, would be better use cases. And yes, there would be bike racks. TechCrunch’s ride through the Hawthorne test tunnel began near 120th street and Prairie Avenue, next to a nondescript building — “The Brick Store” stenciled discreetly on one side — that only stood out because of all the security surrounding it. The Model X had been outfitted with the retractable wheels, which Musk said would be an aftermarket product that might cost between $200 and $300. Once the vehicle descended, the test driver slowly accelerated to about 44 mph through the tunnel, back towards Crenshaw and 120th Street. The tunnel, hazy with dust from the construction, and lit by neon-like lighting, delivered a bumpy-ish ride on occasion. Musk later explained that this was because they had some trouble with the paving. A system for the public would be much smoother, he said. The entry point, near the Brick Store, provides an important link to The Boring Company story and vision. Earlier this year, TechCrunch reported that Musk has started a to produce and sell bricks, according to public documents. The new company, which was , will be managed by Davis, the ex-SpaceX engineer who is also running The Boring Company. The plan, is for The Boring Company to use the dirt extracted during the boring process to produce bricks, which will cost $0.10 a brick, Musk said. These bricks were on display, in the form of a giant watchtower, outfitted with a Medieval-era guard. The next step for The Boring Company is to develop its next-generation boring machine, the Line Storm (reference to a Robert Frost poem) and eventually Prufrock, which will deliver a 15-fold cost savings to current technologies, said Musk, who noted that 15 percent of overall tunnel cost is dirt removal. This cheaper tunnel is possible, Musk says, through several small yet notable innovations. Costs are reduced by tripling the boring speed and keeping the tunnels to a smaller diameter. But the real key is the ability of the machine to simultaneously mine and install the reinforcement segments, something the next-generation Line Storm will be able to do. And that’s just the beginning. “The Loop is just a stepping stone to the hyperloop, Musk said, in reference to the high-speed futuristic mode of transport he first floated in a white paper several years ago. “The Loop will be transport within cities and the hyperloop will be transport between them.” |
Facebook’s got 99 problems but Trump’s latest ‘bias’ tweet ain’t one | Natasha Lomas | 2,018 | 12 | 18 | By any measure, Facebook hasn’t had the best of years in 2018. But while toxic problems keep piling up and, well, raining acidly down on the social networking giant — from , to , , , , and — the silver lining of having a core business now widely perceived as hostile to democratic processes and civilized sentiment, and the tool of choice for shitposters agitating for hate and societal division, well, everywhere in the world, is that Facebook has frankly more important things to worry about than the latest anti-tech-industry salvo from President Trump. In an early morning tweet today, Trump ( ) attacked what he dubbed anti-conservative “bias” in the digital social sphere — hitting out at not just Facebook but tech’s holy trinity of social giants, with a claim that “Facebook, Twitter and Google are so biased towards the Dems it is ridiculous!” Facebook, Twitter and Google are so biased toward the Dems it is ridiculous! Twitter, in fact, has made it much more difficult for people to join . They have removed many names & greatly slowed the level and speed of increase. They have acknowledged-done NOTHING! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) Time was when Facebook was to accusations of internal anti-conservative bias that it fired a bunch of journalists it had contracted and replaced them with algorithms — which almost immediately . RIP irony. Not today, though. When asked if it had a response to Trump’s accusation of bias a Facebook spokesperson told us: “We don’t have anything to add here.” The brevity and alacrity of the response suggested the spokesperson had a really cheerful expression on their face when they typed it. The relief of Facebook not having to give a shit this time was kinda palpable, even in pixel form. It was also a far cry from the screeds the company routinely dispenses these days to try to muffle journalistic — — enquiry. Trump evidently doesn’t factor “bigly” on Facebook’s oversubscribed risk-list. Even though Facebook was the first name on the president’s (non-alphabetical) tech giant hit-list. Still, Twitter appeared to have irked Trump more, as his tweet singled out the short-form platform — with an accusation that Twitter has made it “much more difficult for people to join [sic] @realDonaldTrump”. (We think by “join” he means follow. But we’re speculating wildly.) This is perhaps why Twitter felt moved to provide a response to the claim of bias, albeit also without wasting a lot of words. Here’s its statement: Our focus is on the health of the service, and that includes work to remove fake accounts to prevent malicious behavior. Many prominent accounts have seen follower counts drop, but the result is higher confidence that the followers they have are real, engaged people. Presumably the president failed to read our report, from , when we trailed Twitter’s forthcoming spam purge, warning it would result in users with lots of followers taking a noticeable hit in the coming days. In a word: Sad. Of course, we also asked Google for a response to Trump’s bias claim. But just got radio silence. In similar “bias” tweets from the company got a bigger Trump-lashing. And in a response statement then it told us: “We never rank search results to manipulate political sentiment.” Google CEO Sundar Pichai has also just had to sit through some . So the company probably feels it’s exhausted . Even while, as the claims drone on and on, it might truly come to understand what it feels like to be . In any case, there are to accuse Google’s algorithms of than being “anti-Trump.” So it’s just as well it didn’t waste time on another presidential sideshow intended to distract from . |
Smart security camera maker Lighthouse AI shuts down | Brian Heater | 2,018 | 12 | 18 | null |
Uber to resume autonomous vehicle testing months after fatal accident | Kate Clark | 2,018 | 12 | 18 | Uber has been granted permission by the state of Pennsylvania to reinstate tests of its autonomous vehicles, as first reported by Reuters. A spokesperson for Uber confirmed to TechCrunch that the ride-hailing giant received a letter of authorization from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and clarified that the company has not yet resumed self-driving operations. Uber halted testing of its self-driving cars following a in Tempe, Arizona this March that left a pedestrian dead. An autonomous Uber SUV accompanied by a safety driver was driving northbound when it struck a woman, who was taken to the hospital where she later died as a result of her injuries. Investigators later the driver, Rafaela Vasquez, had looked down at a phone 204 times during a 43-minute test drive, according to a 318-page police report released by the Tempe Police Department. In the aftermath of the accident, Uber paused all of its AV testing operations in Pittsburgh, Toronto, San Francisco and Phoenix. Moving forward, Uber will test its self-driving cars more cautiously, per a recently released Uber safety The company will require that two employees are in the front seat of its cars at all times, that an automatic braking system is enabled and that its safety employees are more strictly monitored. Uber, which first began developing its autonomous vehicle fleet in 2015 and initiated tests the following year, confidentially for an initial public offering two weeks ago. The company, currently valued at $72 billion, is expected to debut at a valuation as high as $120 billion early next year. |
Tinder fires comms head and other employees who sued company | Anthony Ha | 2,018 | 12 | 18 | Tinder has fired its vice president of marketing and communications Rosette Pambakian, as well as other employees and its controlling shareholder IAC earlier this year. The Verge . A Match Group spokesperson confirmed that a number of Tinder employees have been terminated, though they did not identify them or say how many were involved. The lawsuit was . Some, like Rad, had already left Tinder, while others like Pambakian and Badeen, were still employed at the time. In the suit, the group alleged that IAC and Match Group had manipulated financial data in order to lower the company’s valuation.They also alleged that Greg Blatt, who served as CEO of Match and Tinder, groped and sexually harassed Pambakian at the company’s 2016 holiday party. (Match and IAC said the allegations were “meritless.”) In an email sent to Match Group’s current CEO Mandy Ginsberg, Pambakian said that after being placed on leave when the lawsuit was filed, she was subjected to “ongoing intimidation and retaliation clearly designed to pressure me into resigning.” Pambakian also said that after she declined to sign a non-disparagement agreement, “Match snuck an arbitration clause into its employees’ most recent compliance acknowledgements, causing me, Jonathan, James and Josh to have to withdraw from the lawsuit.” “I never imagined that I’d be pushed out of my company for standing up for what is right,” she wrote. “But if that is the cost of being on the right side of history, I’ll pay it. As a woman CEO, I truly hope that you reconsider the safety of your remaining female workforce and allow Tinder and other Match owned companies to follow in the footsteps of Uber, Facebook and Google in eliminating forced arbitration for sexual misconduct claims. We deserve better.” In response, Ginsberg denied that Pambakian was fired for complaining about sexual harassment: “You couldn’t have been, as you never reported Greg for sexual harassment.” “As explained in the letter we sent you, you were terminated because it was not possible for you to fulfill the duties and responsibilities of your role as Tinder’s spokesperson for a number of reasons, including your public position against the company over a valuation process,” Ginsberg continued. “We also recently asked you to come to the office for a meeting with the HR department to discuss work-related activities and policies and were told that we can only contact you through your attorneys. Unfortunately, it’s impossible for you to do your work at Tinder if all communications related to your job have to go through your lawyers.” I’ve included the full text of both emails (originally published by The Verge, but subsequently shared by sources with TechCrunch as well) below. Dear Mandy, Six years ago I wrote the very first press release for Tinder. Since then, I’ve poured my heart and soul into this company and helped grow it into a global phenomenon and top-grossing app. I was the youngest and longest-standing female executive at the company. I love Tinder. And I love my colleagues. But you have now fired me from a company I was so proud to build in blatant retaliation for joining a group of colleagues and Tinder’s original founding members in a lawsuit against Match and IAC, standing up for our rights, calling out the company’s CEO Greg for sexual misconduct, and confronting the company about covering up what happened to me. While I truly hoped that decency and professionalism would prevail and that you would let me return to work, I knew that was probably unlikely when I was placed on leave the very day the lawsuit was filed and you continued to defend the actions of the executive that I spoke out against. Rather than acknowledge the truth and condemn his actions, you chalked it up it to “bad judgment.” To make matters worse, you told the world that a sham investigation (in which I was never even interviewed) determined the assault was some sort of “consensual cuddling”—as if there could by anything consensual about a CEO groping his subordinate in front of other employees after making sexually explicit comments throughout the evening of a company holiday party. No company that has faced allegations like this has gone to such lengths to protect one of its own – it’s truly despicable. Since being placed on leave, I’ve been subjected to ongoing intimidation and retaliation clearly designed to pressure me into resigning—from immediately removing my name from my office and converting it into a conference room, to trying to coerce me into turning over my private and personal data on my phone. Though I can think of no other company that has actually fired the woman who made sexual assault allegations against an executive—the company’s actions here, including firing me just one day before my remaining options vest, are totally consistent with the way you have circled the wagons around him from day one. Was the board aware that the company would publicly blame the victim? When I refused to sign a non-disparagement agreement presented to me by HR, which would have prevented me from speaking publicly about my experience in exchange for compensation, Match snuck an arbitration clause into its employees’ most recent compliance acknowledgements, causing me, Jonathan, James and Josh to have to withdraw from the lawsuit. Know that my former Tinder colleagues and I still vigorously support that lawsuit — IAC and Match cheated us out of what we were promised and rightfully earned in exchange for building Tinder into Barry Diller’s most valuable business. As the lawsuit progresses the evidence will emerge and the world will see how IAC and Match plotted against their employees and rewarded misconduct. I never imagined that I’d be pushed out of my company for standing up for what is right. But if that is the cost of being on the right side of history, I’ll pay it. As a woman CEO, I truly hope that you reconsider the safety of your remaining female workforce and allow Tinder and other Match owned companies to follow in the footsteps of Uber, Facebook and Google in eliminating forced arbitration for sexual misconduct claims. We deserve better. Dear Rosette, I’m glad you reached out to me directly and I would like to take this opportunity to clarify a few points, because there seems to be a very real disconnect here that I truly want to fix. You were not terminated because you reported Greg for sexual harassment. You couldn’t have been, as you never reported Greg for sexual harassment. When Sean Rad brought the subject up nearly five months later, right after the valuation process commenced, it was immediately and thoroughly investigated by the Board, independently without any involvement from Greg, which concluded that no sexual harassment occurred. I was not the CEO at the time, but I know that you were interviewed on at least two separate occasions and you never alleged sexual harassment. On the topic of sexual harassment at Tinder, you know how seriously reports are taken. You yourself reported two other male colleagues, whom Sean Rad hired, and they were very quickly dismissed. Clearly, it was taken very seriously given the company terminated those individuals. More importantly though, Greg is no longer here. I am. And I promise you, we do not retaliate against anyone who reports sexual harassment. Your position was never at risk due to any sexual harassment complaints. I wanted to find a way to keep you employed at Tinder. As explained in the letter we sent you, you were terminated because it was not possible for you to fulfill the duties and responsibilities of your role as Tinder’s spokesperson for a number of reasons, including your public position against the company over a valuation process. We also recently asked you to come to the office for a meeting with the HR department to discuss work-related activities and policies and were told that we can only contact you through your attorneys. Unfortunately, it’s impossible for you to do your work at Tinder if all communications related to your job have to go through your lawyers. As it relates to your personal information, any suggestion that we have been trying to access it is just not true. Like any company, we’ve asked for you, and all other employees involved, to return company laptops, phones and other devices to us. And unfortunately, we couldn’t retrieve a number of company devices from you and the others since you claimed that they were coincidentally all lost or damaged just before you decided to sue the company. There are two last points I want to make: on the point about your equity, those options have already been accelerated, and should be exercisable in your account, along with the other equity awards that have vested since August. However, on the arbitration agreements, there is no NDA in them and we never tried to force you to sign a non-disparagement agreement. You’re free to talk about anything publicly that you’d like. You have already done so and that’s your prerogative. But the arbitration agreement is attached again. As you already know from when you signed it, it’s clearly labeled “Agreement to Arbitrate.” I am a strong female advocate and have said to the women in the organization that as a female CEO in charge, I have zero tolerance for bad behavior and I am very much invested in every single employee’s success. If you’d like to discuss any of the above, or have a productive dialogue, I am here and will make myself available for an in person meeting. Just let me know. Mandy |
After $130M+ in funding, AR startup Blippar collapses | Lucas Matney | 2,018 | 12 | 18 | While proponents swore 2018 would be the year AR moved mainstream, by year’s end it seems the biggest trend has been the movement of early startups to financial collapse. Blippar, an early augmented reality app that raised more than $130 million in venture funding from investors like Qualcomm and Candy Ventures, announced today that it is “entering into administration” and will be laying off all its employees as administrators appointed by a U.K. court decides what to do with its assets. The startup just closed a $37 million round in September. The company, founded in 2011, was on the cusp of a number of trends that took flight in the augmented reality space, but as competition heated up from the tech giants investing in AR, the fast-spending startup couldn’t boost its revenues and was losing money incredibly quickly in search of new customers. The U.K. startup claims that its collapse follows some internal shareholder drama, where an emergency influx of $5 million was blocked by Khazanah, a strategic investment fund from the Malaysian government, leading to the startup’s shutdown. “Blippar’s services are likely to come to halt once the administrators take control of the business and its servers. As part of the administration process, all employees will be let go,” a company blog post read. “This is an incredibly sad, disappointing, and unfortunate outcome.” |
How Fortnite’s dance moves sparked new lawsuits against Epic Games | Taylor Hatmaker | 2,018 | 12 | 18 | A growing cluster of actors, musicians and viral internet stars have Fortnite in their crosshairs. The smash hit third-person shooter is free to play but generates mountains of revenue through in-game microtransactions. Those purchases lure avid Fortnite players to spend real-life cash on virtual cosmetic items, like special character skins (today: a winter skiing set!) and, most importantly, dance moves. Now, Fortnite creator Epic Games faces two new lawsuits over dance moves: , who played Carlton on the TV hit “Fresh Prince of Bel Air” in the 1990s and another from the , better known as “Backpack Kid,” who created a viral dance called “the Floss.” Horning’s lawsuit also names 2K Sports, maker of NBA 2K, for that game’s depiction of his dance. Earlier in December, rapper against Fortnite maker Epic over the game’s depiction of his dance move, the Milly Rock, which the game calls “Swipe it.” Ribeiro’s lawyer provided TechCrunch with the following statement: It is widely recognized that Mr. Ribeiro’s likeness and intellectual property have been misappropriated by Epic Games in the most popular video game currently in the world, Fortnite. Epic has earned record profits off of downloadable content in the game, including emotes like “Fresh.” Yet Epic has failed to compensate or even ask permission from Mr. Ribeiro for the use of his likeness and iconic intellectual property. Therefore, Mr. Ribeiro is seeking his fair and reasonable share of profits Epic has earned by use of his iconic intellectual property in Fortnite and as a result is requesting through the courts that Epic cease all use of Mr. Ribeiro’s signature dance. Pierce Bainbridge Beck Price & Hecht LLP is also pursuing similar claims against Take-Two Interactive and Visual Concepts, developer of the NBA 2K series of video games, on behalf of Mr. Ribeiro. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nkx3HzGF9uE Fortnite’s in-game dance moves are ubiquitous, both in-game and out — and that’s part of the problem. The game lifted its most popular dance moves from various online viral moments across the internet, TV, movies and music. In most cases the in-game dances are so well-loved because they copy their source material so precisely. While the game lifts these dances move for move, making them widely recognizable, it doesn’t refer to the source material directly and renames the dances with generic nicknames. In Fortnite, the “Tidy” dance is Snoop Dogg’s “Drop It Like It’s Hot” dance, “Jubilation” is Elaine’s dance from Seinfeld, “Pure Salt” (not really a dance, some of these are just emotes) is from the Salt Bae meme, Psy’s Gangnam Style dance and so on. In the case of the Carlton dance, Fortnite gives a small nod to the dance’s origins by naming it “Fresh.” The game draws from a wide pool of source material, but black creators in particular have spoken out about Fortnite’s monetization moves. Black artists have of seeing their work achieve broad mainstream popularity without commercial gain or credit to accompany it. When Chance the Rapper tweeted about Fortnite’s relationship to black artists in July, BlocBoy JB — creator of the dance the game calls “Hype” — endorsed the idea that artists like himself should be paid if Fortnite is making money from their moves. Wat You Said We Need Dat Cash — BlocBoy JB (@BlocBoy_JB) Fortnite’s default in-game emote is a dance that actor Donald Faison performs on the show Scrubs, and Faison has also taken notice. Dear fortnite… I’m flattered? Though part of me thinks I should talk to a lawyer… — Donald Faison (@donald_faison) Fortnite’s decision to animate its characters doing popular dance moves in and of itself isn’t new. Overwatch creator and Epic competitor Blizzard includes popular dance emotes in its own multiplayer shooter, and before that in multiplayer RPG World of Warcraft. In Blizzard’s case, the depiction of dance moves, some for sale via lootboxes, isn’t quite as on the nose nor does it mine current internet culture as thoroughly. For example, the Overwatch character Junkrat does a version of the running man dance that looks a lot like a version of the dance by Will Smith’s character on “The Fresh Prince.” That dance was itself popularized by Janet Jackson in her “Rhythm Nation” music video. Other Overwatch dance emotes are drawn from . In Blizzard’s classic game World of Warcraft, the culled from the movie “Napoleon Dynamite” and Britney Spears music videos. In World of Warcraft’s case, these moves weren’t for sale in-game — the microtransaction model hadn’t yet really taken off during the game’s heyday. Epic Games was likely aware that lifting these dance moves and selling them to gamers might cause a stir among some creators, but by that time it was probably already making too much money to care. Notably, the company faced a from the creator of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG), a battle royale-style game widely understood to have inspired Fortnite’s gameplay. PUBG dropped the lawsuit in , likely after a substantial settlement. Epic also appears to have quietly paid at least one creator to settle a potential legal threat. Dancer Gabby David, who created the Fortnite dance called the “Electro Shuffle,” appears to have settled with Epic Games around a year ago for the game’s depiction of her choreography, according to forum posts and her Twitter account. Epic Games declined to comment to TechCrunch about the details of the settlement. All three individuals suing Epic Games over Fortnite dances are being represented by intellectual property lawyer David L. Hecht and we’re likely to see more artists and internet stars signing on with Hecht before this is all over. We don’t know Epic’s next move, but as some players have suggested, it would be easy enough for the gamemaker to add some kind of tie-in crediting the creators for their dances. Epic happily partners with and for sure to be lucrative in-game promotional crossovers, so it’s tough to say something like this would be out of place in the game. Given the complexity of copyright law and the fact that none of the individuals holds copyright of their respective dances, it’s not clear if any of the latest legal action against Fortnite’s creators will hold water. Still, given its deep pockets — Epic just two months ago — settling a handful of small lawsuits over the game’s well-loved dance emotes is a small price to pay for Fortnite’s colossal success. |
Oath officially becomes Verizon Media Group on January 8 | Brian Heater | 2,018 | 12 | 18 | null |
null | Ingrid Lunden | 2,018 | 12 | 20 | null |
Tesla’s China factory and the missed growth opportunity | Chandrasekar Iyer | 2,018 | 12 | 18 | Tesla made its ambition for world domination known when it to build a factory in China. The move makes sense — China the world’s largest automotive market. But it might be shortsighted. By continuing to go after the higher tiers of an established market, Tesla will engage in a zero-sum game for market share instead of forging a new market of unparalleled size. Competition will be fierce as incumbents, like BMW and Audi, which are determined to hold on to their more profitable customers, respond in kind. Instead, the larger opportunity for any automaker is to grow the overall market by way of disruptive innovation — and not in the Silicon-Valley-hype sense of the term. The architect of disruptive innovation, Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen, explains that disruption happens at the of the market — not the end adorned with high-tech features and flashy designs. Disruptive innovations succeed by transforming complicated and expensive products into simple and affordable ones, thereby enabling a much larger population to benefit from the offerings. And since they, by their very nature, expand the market, they constitute a wellspring of new growth. Rather than take a page out of the disruptive playbook, Tesla is engaging in . The company plans to use the to build Model 3 and Model Y cars. Assuming that Tesla continues with its current positioning, these cars, like Tesla’s other models, will enter an established market to compete along existing measures of performance, like acceleration, style and luxury. Sustaining innovations are important in that they advance an industry, but they offer little net growth, as not all consumers are able to access them. And because sustaining innovations target an industry’s more profitable consumers, we can expect leading automakers to fight tooth and nail to retain their core customers. Alternatively, a disruptive strategy offers a much easier way to tap into the Chinese market — and it’s already happening right under the noses of Tesla and other leading automakers. Chinese manufacturers of low-speed electric vehicles (LSEVs) — small vehicles that typically top out around 45 mph, have a limited driving range, and sell for as little as — are creating a market where none existed, by primarily selling cars to people in rural China who have never owned one. We call these customers of cars. The measures of performance that matter most to nonconsumers aren’t speed, style or comfort, but rather affordability, accessibility and simplicity. So, as long as LSEVs meet these criteria, nonconsumers will generally be willing to buy them. After all, having a car that can’t travel very far or very fast is much better than the alternatives: bicycles, motorcycles or farm vehicles. By targeting nonconsumers, LSEV manufacturers have steered clear of direct competition with incumbent automakers — who have at their disposal far more resources, such as capital, factories and relationships with suppliers — and effectively established a foothold that allows them to steadily move upmarket. Taking the disruptive route has enabled LSEV manufacturers to unleash a new wave of growth that Tesla and other automakers should covet. During the decade that LSEVs have been available in China, sales have soared. According to the International Energy Agency’s “Global EV Outlook 2017” report, between 1.2 million and 1.5 million units were sold in China in 2016 — overshadowing the number of battery and plug-in hybrid electric cars sold globally that same year. Undoubtedly, further growth potential for LSEVs in China is immense — more than Chinese lived in rural areas in 2016. Whether LSEV manufacturers manage to profitably march upmarket into higher-performance tiers of the market remains to be seen. What we can say for sure is that there is enormous untapped potential to be discovered — both in China and in other emerging markets. |
Gift Guide: Indie games for players worn out on AAA titles | Devin Coldewey | 2,018 | 12 | 18 | 2018 has been a big year for big games, and with new titles from the , , and franchises all competing… it’s enough to make a gamer want to just quit and play something a little more low-key. Here are some of the smaller, independent games we liked from this year and who they might appeal to. Bonus: Many of these can be gotten for less than $30, making them super solid/easy gifts. They aren’t for any particular platform or in any particular order, except that I’ve been playing the heck out of Ashen for the last couple of days, so it’s first. Xbox One, Windows (To be fair, this is less of an “indie” than the others on this list, some of which were made by one person, but it’s just off the beaten path enough to qualify.) If you’ve ever heard your loved one talk about “builds,” really hard bosses or which helmet completes their outfit best, they probably play games of the Dark Souls type. is a new action-adventure-RPG in the same vein but with a few notable twists. It has a lovely art style, a streamlined (but still byzantine) progression system and an interesting multiplayer style where other players drop into your game, and you drop into theirs, with no real warning or interaction. It works better than you’d think, and I’ve already had some great experiences with it. Switch, PS4, Xbox One, Windows Don’t be fooled by the cuteness of Yoku’s Island Express. This game is both unique and well-crafted, a fusion of (believe it or not) pinball mechanics and gradual exploration of an enormous map. It’s definitely weird, but it immediately clicks in a way you wouldn’t expect. It’s a great break from the grim environments of… well, lots of the games on this list. PS4, Xbox One, Switch, Windows, Linux, macOS The “roguelike” genre has you traversing procedurally generated variations on a series of levels and progressing farther by improving your own skills — and sometimes getting a couple shiny new weapons or abilities. Dead Cells takes this genre and combines it with incredibly tight side-scrolling action and platforming that never gets, old even when you’re going through the sewers for the 20th time. The developers were very responsive during Early Access; the game was great when I bought it early in the year, and now it’s even better. Xbox One, Windows In some ways, Below is the opposite of Dead Cells, though they share a bit of DNA. This game, the long-awaited follow-up to Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP by Capy, is a slow, dark, tense descent into a mysterious cave; it’s almost totally wordless and shown with a pulled-back perspective that makes things feel both twee and terrifying. The less said about the particulars of the game, the better (the gamer should discover on their own), but it may be fairly noted that this is a title that requires some patience and experimentation — and yes, you’re going to die on a spike trap. Windows, macOS, Linux It’s very hard to explain . It’s an interactive story, different every time, told through cards that you draw and play, and which interact with each other in strange and wonderful ways. One card might be a place, another an action, another a person, all of which can be used, investigated or sacrificed to other cards: ideas, drives, gods… it’s really quite amazing, even if you rarely have any idea what’s happening. But the curious and driven will derive great satisfaction from learning the way this strange, beautifully made machine works. macOS, Windows absorbed me completely for a few days earlier this year. Like the above, it’s a bit hard to explain: you’re given the task of determining the identities and fates of the entire crew of the titular ghost ship by using a magic watch to witness their last words and the moment of their death. That task, and the story it reveals as you accomplish it, grows increasingly disturbing and complex. The beautiful 1-bit art, great music and voice acting, and extremely clever construction make this game — essentially made by one person, Lucas Pope — one of my favorites of the year. But it’s only for people who don’t mind banging their head against things a bit. Windows, Switch If your loved one ever talks about the good-old days of Quake, Half-Life, Unreal and other classic shooters, will be right up their alley. The chunky graphics are straight out of the ’90s, but the game brings a level of self-awareness and fun, not to mention some gameplay improvements, that make it a joy to play. Windows, Linux, macOS was long in the making, and it shows. It’s huge! A fusion of SNES and PSX-era pixel art, smooth but furious top-down action Secret of Mana, and a lot of skills and equipment. I’ve played nearly 20 hours so far and I’m only now starting to fill out the second branch of four skill trees; the overarching story is still just getting rolling. I told you it was huge! But it’s also fabulous. PS4, Xbox One, Switch, macOS, Windows, Linux is one of those games they call “Nintendo Hard,” that elusive combination of difficulty and control that cause you to be more disappointed in yourself than the game when you die. And you die in Celeste — over and over. Hundreds of times. It gleefully tracks the number of deaths on each set of stages, and you should expect well into three figures. The platforming is hard — but the game is also good. Not only is its pixel art style cute and the environments lovingly and carefully crafted, but it tells a touching story and the dialog is actually pretty fun. PS4, Xbox One, Switch, Windows, macOS Much like the first Overcooked, has you and your friends attempting to navigate chaotic kitchens, hazards, and each other as you try to put together simple dishes like salads and hamburgers for never-sated patrons. The simple controls belie the emergent complexity of the gameplay, and while it can be frustrating at first, it’s immensely satisfying when you get into the zone and blast through a target number of dishes. But only do it with friends you think you can tolerate screaming and bossing each other around. Switch, Windows, macOS, Linux The follow-up to the addictive starship simulator roguelike Faster Than Light (FTL), is a game of tactics taking place on tiny boards loaded with monsters and mechs — but don’t let the small size fool you. The solutions to these little tableaux require serious thinking as you position, attack, and (hopefully) repel the alien invaders. Matt says it’s “perfect for Switch.” |
Rothy’s just landed $35 million from Goldman Sachs to sell more of its popular ballet flats | Connie Loizos | 2,018 | 12 | 18 | , a three-year-old, San Francisco-based company that makes a variety of colorful flats for women, has some more walking-around money today. According to Bloomberg, the company just closed on $35 million in funding from Goldman Sachs’ asset management unit. The round brings the young company’s total funding to $42 million, including an early $5 million investment from Lightspeed Venture Partners, and $2 million in convertible notes, including from Finn Capital Partners, M13 and Grace Beauty Capital. Goldman’s interest in the company isn’t surprising. Rothy’s doesn’t disclose how many pairs of shoes it has sold, but the company tells Bloomberg that it expects to see slightly more than $140 million in revenue this year, and, as the outlet surmises from some back-of-the-napkin math, that equates to roughly 1.4 million pairs of shoes sold. Judging by its — it has 161,000 Instagram followers, for example — many of those are likely women who own multiple pairs, too. What they love about the shoes, seemingly: their style, in large part. On this front, it helps that some fashion icons have gravitated toward the shoes, including actress-turned-Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, who has been The company is also selling eco-conscious comfort by making the shoes out of recycled materials that include water bottles. Because of their constitution, they are also machine washable, yet another selling point. Yet where Rothy’s has really shined is in marketing, including spending hugely on Facebook and to a lesser extent, Instagram and other social media platforms. Indeed, the company has been (including by us) for its shoes’ seeming ubiquity online. Though these platforms have grown more crowded in the short time since Rothy’s launched, it spent big on marketing from the outset — it flooded the zone, so to speak — and that campaign has seemingly paid off for the startup. Today, the company, which runs its own 100,000-square-foot factory in China and employs roughly 500 people — including 50 people in the Bay Area — is selling four types of shoes, including its two best-known silhouettes — a $125 rounded flat shoe and a $145 pointed flat — along with loafers and, more newly, Somewhat ironically, one of the biggest threats to Rothy’s ongoing rise — other than fickle shoppers — is companies that are beginning to copy Rothy’s designs, reports Bloomberg. The company says, for instance, that it is currently suing at least one outfit, a Virginia-based company, for that looks to Rothy’s alarmingly like one of its own productions. |
Target’s same-day delivery service Shipt will include ‘all major product categories’ in 2019 | Sarah Perez | 2,018 | 12 | 18 | Target has grand plans for Shipt, the same-day grocery delivery service it . While generally known today as something of an Instacart competitor — essentially Target’s answer to Walmart and Amazon’s grocery delivery businesses — Shipt has expanded to include more of Target’s assortment over the past year. By 2019, the company says Shipt will offer same-day delivery of “all major product categories.” Today, Shipt offers same-day delivery on more than 55,000 groceries and other essentials, as well as select electronics, toys and other products. Next year, the delivery service will expand to include all major product categories, Shipt tells TechCrunch. That means categories like apparel, towels and more will become available for same-day delivery. The retailer declined to share specific details, like how many additional SKUs would be involved, or when in 2019 this category expansion would begin. The move could be a potential game-changer for Target, however, which has been revamping its business to better accommodate all the ways people want to shop, both online and off. It has been to add parking spaces for Drive Up customers — meaning, those who place orders online for same-day pickup from the store. It has updated stores’ layouts so online Order Pickup, self-checkout and grab-and-go grocery essentials are near the front as you walk in. But one of the challenges Target still faces is that it can be difficult to figure out which merchandise is available via which delivery or pickup method. Even when you search and filter for “in-store” merchandise in Target’s mobile app, you’ll be shown out-of-stock items as well as those you can only order online for shipping to your home. Meanwhile, a lot of Target’s merchandise — like cold grocery items and clothing — are not available through both of the same-day services like Drive Up or Shipt. (Grocery is through Shipt only; clothing is through Drive Up or Order Pickup only.) The end result is that you can’t do a full “Target run” that includes all types of merchandise, unless you go into the store. It also likely causes customer confusion, since Drive Up and Shipt offer access to a different assortment of products. Why shouldn’t same-day items be available for both pickup or delivery? But if Shipt grows to include all major product categories in 2019, it could become Target customers’ preferred same-day service. In 2018, Shipt saw massive expansion, following Target’s promise that it — along with Drive Up — would be available nationwide by the 2018 holidays. The retailer noted in a corporate blog post about that the delivery service now reaches more than 200 U.S. markets across 46 states — up from the 70 markets where it was live at the time of acquisition. Shipt has also seen its membership numbers triple since joining Target, the retailer says, and it’s hired more than 375 new employees across its Birmingham, Alabama and San Francisco offices. Shipt will continue to expand geographically in 2019, and will expand its Birmingham headquarters’ headcount by the “hundreds,” Target said. |
Pretend to be productive by reading TechCrunch in your terminal window | Romain Dillet | 2,018 | 12 | 18 | Developers and hipsters, it’s time to join together and ditch your web browser to read this article. developed a fun little project and shared it today. TechCrunch-CLI is a command line interface that lets you read TechCrunch articles in text mode. As my colleague Devin Coldewey suggested, TextCrunch would also be a good alternative name for this project. I played around with it and I have to say that there’s something fascinating about reading in my terminal window . If you want to install it on your computer, it’s a simple NPM package on . If you have a Mac, you can install Node.js and NPM using Homebrew. Or you can spin up a Node.js image on any virtual private server platform out there if you just want to play with it for a few minutes. By default, the command “ ” loads up the most recent articles. It’s a scrollable list so you can go back quite far in the past with the up/down arrows. When you press enter, you get a text view of the article — links are included in brackets. Sadly, illustrations aren’t magically converted into ASCII art. You can also type a tag using “ ” to load the most recent articles on a specific topic. I have to say that reading articles in such a minimalist way is refreshing. Arguably, TechCrunch isn’t the worst website out there. But the web has become too cluttered and you end up loading one bloated web page after another. So if you want to go back to text browsers, here’s your chance. |
Coinbase lets you convert one cryptocurrency into another | Romain Dillet | 2,018 | 12 | 18 | It’s hard to believe that you still had to convert your BTC into USD in order to buy ETH on . The company is finally direct cryptocurrency-to-cryptocurrency conversions. The feature works with Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Ethereum Classic (ETC), Litecoin (LTC), 0x (ZRX) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH). It is only available to U.S. customers for now, but the company plans to roll out the feature to other countries too. Let’s look at the more closely. If you live in Europe or the U.S., every time you buy or sell cryptocurrencies using USD or EUR, you pay at least 1.49 percent in fees on top of the spread (the difference between the highest selling price and the lowest purchasing price). Fees are even higher if you’re using a credit or debit card. Coinbase says that the spread between a fiat currency and a cryptocurrency should be around 0.5 percent but may vary depending on the trading pair and the order queue. If you buy or sell less than 200 USD or equivalent, fees get much more expensive. For instance, a $10 order will generate $0.99 in fees, or 9.9 percent. Customers pay 3 percent in fees for a $100 order. But the good news is that it’s a completely different story with token-to-token transactions. Coinbase doesn’t charge you any markup fee — but there’s some inevitable spread. And with some obscure trading pairs (exchanging ZRX for BCH for instance), you might end up paying around 1 percent in spread. Still, it’s a much better user experience for those who just want to trade on Coinbase. Without even mentioning other exchanges, Coinbase Pro users have been able to trade between multiple cryptocurrencies for a long time. But Coinbase is still the entry gate for many new cryptocurrency users. |
Google still claimed to be blocking search rivals on Android, despite Europe’s antitrust action | Natasha Lomas | 2,018 | 12 | 18 | Mobile licensing changes made by Google , when it tweaked terms for OEMs wanting to license its Android smartphone platform on devices destined for the European market, don’t appear to be offering succour to search rivals — despite being triggered by an antitrust ruling intended to reset the competitive playing field. The European Commission found the search giant guilty of anti-competitive practices related to its Android platform this summer, slapping the company with . The decision required Google cease practices judged to be illegally skewing the market and do so within 90 days. It was the second such major EC antitrust finding against Google, after last year’s , when the company was warned that having been found dominant in search it had a “special responsibility” to avoid breaching antitrust rules in any market it plays in. Google disputes the Commission’s findings of competitive abuse in both cases, and has lodged legal appeals. But the nature of competition law demands action in the meanwhile, given the threat of punitive penalties for any continued breach. So in Google responded to the Commission’s Android ruling by updating its regional compatibility agreement to provide a route for OEMs to unbundle key services from the Android OS — rather than requiring its suite of Google apps be pre-loaded for devices to get the Play Store. However it also incorporated licensing fees for some unbundled configurations (e.g. Android + Play Store). At the same time it said it would not charge any fee to include search or Chrome. And it said it was offering incentives for OEMs to place its eponymous, market dominating search engine (and/or browser) prominently on their devices — despite one of the behaviors the Commission judged illegal being payments Google had made to certain large manufacturers and mobile carriers to exclusively pre-install Google Search. The Commission did not prescribe specific remedies for the anticompetitive behaviours it pegged to Android — saying it’s “Google’s sole responsibility to make sure that it changes its conduct in a way that brings the infringements to an effective end”. Though it warned it would closely monitor the company’s conduct, noting that any finding of continued non-compliance would risk fresh fines — of up to 5% of the average daily turnover of Alphabet for each day of non-compliance. The key word there is “effective” — in terms of what the Commission is watching for. Meanwhile Google’s dominant position in search naturally makes it the smartphone consumer’s go-to choice — which in turn means there’s a natural incentive for device makers not to ditch Google as the search default. At least for mainstream devices. But Google’s new European licensing terms for Android appear to be piling additional pressure on OEMs not to switch even for more experimental and/or regional device launches, according to privacy-focused search engine . The suggestion is Google’s licensing changes have essentially blocked the launch of an Android device with Qwant search rather than Google as the default. Its experience suggests Google’s initial ‘remedy’ — far from delivering an “effective end” to the competitive infringements the Commission found — is actively steering OEMs away from search alternatives and rival companies. been on a growth tear on its home turf in recent months — winning over high profile users in the public sector as concern has risen about Silicon Valley’s intrusive grip on user data. The French National Assembly and the French Ministry of the Armed Forces Minister this fall they’d switch to Qwant instead of Google as their default. Of course the startup is still a minnow compared to Google. But it’s growing: Qwant tracks queries rather than users (given it doesn’t track people), and it says it generated 2.6BN queries in 2016; which grew to 9BN last year; and is now on track to end this year with around 18BN queries. “So if we think about it that means that last year we were three days of Google; this year six days of Google — not so bad!” says co-founder Eric Leandri. “In France we have now more than 6% of the market,” he continues. “In Germany something like 2%. And we are still growing. We do growth of 20% by month for the last four months. The growth in our revenue is two digit too, by month.” Earlier this year it had been hoping to make additional regional marketshare gains by securing a deal to be pre-loaded on Android smartphones destined for European markets. A spokesman tells us it has a framework agreement with Huawei. (The Chinese Android OEM is second only to Samsung in , according to analysts.) The Commission’s antitrust ruling opened the door to this possibility, given it banned Google from prohibiting OEMs from launching non-Google approved Android forks. So after the ruling things were looking good for Qwant, with the startup e are very near to one or two deals to be by default or in the list of search engines in some Android cell phone made by a very large Asian manufacturer… Just for Europe, and just for some countries in Europe but we are talking about 10 million or 20 million of cell phones,” says “And when we have won the bid against Google in October then Google start to say that in Europe you have to pay $40 for Android. So now if you install Qwant you have to pay $40 and if you install Google they give you some cash.” “Before it was impossible to bid against Google because Google was blocking everything. Now you can — but now the solution of Google is you have to pay $40 if you don’t install Google by default with Chrome just on the bar. You know the bar that is fixed on Android. And this is again an abuse of their dominant position,” he adds. “Because if I want, for example, 10 million smartphones, the guy has to pay $400M to Google. Do you really think they will pay $400M to Google just to install Qwant?” Google’s rebuttal of the Commission’s antitrust finding for Android has focused on claims that its approach of free licensing combined with a bundle of Google services has generally enabled competition to thrive in the mobile app ecosystem, as well as claiming lower prices are a “classic hallmark… of robust competition”. Yet Qwant’s experience offers a clear counterpoint, underlining how challenging it remains to try to compete with Google’s core search business when the same company also dominates the smartphone market and can just throw the levers of Android’s licensing terms to configure how much ‘appetite’ OEMs have for investing in alternative search defaults (given tiny hardware profit margins in the Android space). After Qwant won over Huawei to building a device with its search engine in prime position, Leandri says it was Google’s changes to the licensing terms for Android that threw a spanner in the works. “After that pressure then the manufacturer doesn’t know how to react now,” he says, confirming he believes there’s currently no chance for the device to be launched. Not without further changes to how Android operates in the market — i.e. further regulatory intervention. “So we will work a lot with the European Commission to stop that,” he adds. “But again, again my question is why Google goes that way?” We reached out to Google to ask about the fees it would charge an OEM wanting to launch an Android device with Google Play but without Google search as the default in Europe. We also asked how charging a fee for Android if OEMs don’t also bundle Google services can help increase competition, per the Commission’s intention. At the time of writing Google had not responded to our questions. We also reached out to Huawei for comment and will update this story with any response. Even if Qwant and Huawei get their way, and European buyers in a handful of countries are able to choose to buy an Android device with a little search localization as its differentiating out-of-the-box twist, “Google has billions to make advertisement to ask people to switch, right. And they can even do advertisement on the Play Store for zero because they control the Play Store. Why they don’t come back to a normal market where we are all on the same line and they just compete with advertisement, with pushing their products, with a better proposition of value. It’s crazy, it’s crazy!” he says. “They have 95% of the market, and on that market they expect that if they don’t have the search by default there then they don’t do money with the Play Store. This is bullshit. They do billions of euros with the app on the Play Store each year. With the 30% that they take on the apps. So this is not true. This is not true, sorry. “So right now this is our goal and my main work actually is just to obtain the right to have a fair competition — a simple, fair competition.” “I don’t want to dismantle Google. I don’t want Google to be fined 10BN. I don’t care. The only thing I want is to have the right to have a fair competition,” he adds. We asked the European Commission to respond to Qwant’s experience, and for an update on its monitoring of Google’s compliance with the Android antitrust ruling. A spokeswoman declined to comment on an individual case but we understand the Commission has been sending questionnaires to market players as part of its compliance monitoring. It’s clear the regulator’s intention with the Android decision was to expand consumer choice by creating opportunities for competition that didn’t exist before — including for rival search and browser providers to be able to compete on the merits with Google when it comes to pre-loading their products on Android devices. So if the Commission’s monitoring efforts confirm instances where competition is being blocked, as appears the case here with Qwant, further interventions will surely follow. “The market favors open choice for search, and companies should compete for users based on the quality of their search services,” said Marissa Mayer then Google’s vice president for search products. “We don’t think it’s right for Microsoft to just set the default to MSN. We believe users should choose.” “I totally agree with what they say in 2006! Just exchange Microsoft for Google and that’s it!” he says “We have to fight because there is not a lot of other way. But I stop fighting tomorrow as soon as I have a fair competition. “I’m not waiting for the Commission to make the competition. Right now the percentage of growth that I have in France it’s not based on the Commission who has won or not. It’s based on our value proposition.” “We are the only European. So the problem is not only for a small startup in Europe. Who, y’know, complained because ‘Google is so cool’. And we are so dumb. And so ridiculous. But the problem is for Oracle, it’s for the Fair Search. It’s not for kids.” |
The 5G wars have entered the petty stage | Brian Heater | 2,018 | 12 | 18 | I cannot begin to explain how important 5G is going to be for this country, so I have to say congrats to Verizon on delivering its 5G* Home Service today. It doesn’t use global industry standards or cover whole blocks and will never scale… but hey, it is first, right?! 🤷♂️ — John Legere (@JohnLegere) |
Levandowski’s Pronto.ai plans to ship automated driving systems for trucks in 2019 | Kirsten Korosec | 2,018 | 12 | 18 | the former Google engineer and serial entrepreneur who was at the center of a trade secrets lawsuit between Uber and Waymo, has taken his newest autonomous vehicle technology company out of stealth mode with a product aimed at the commercial trucking industry. Technically, Levandowski’s involvement in a self-driving trucking company was first . Levandowski nor anyone else attached to the company would talk on record, leaving TechCrunch to rely on a paper trail instead. Now, Levandowski is talking publicly about his company, including details on its mission and product, as well as a bold new claim of a cross-country autonomous drive. The Guardian was the first to report on details of the company and its , which was conducted in a modified Toyota Prius using only cameras, computers and basic digital maps. Levandowski says the autonomous car drove by itself the entire 3,100-mile trip without any human intervention. Here’s of the journey. (Note the speed at which the vehicle is traveling at different spots like the Golden Gate Bridge.) Back in July, TechCrunch reported that his company was called Kache.ai, according to paperwork registering it as a corporation filed with the California Secretary of State. That name has apparently changed to Pronto.ai, according to Levandowski, who posted a . Pronto was co-founded by Ognen Stojanovski, a corporate attorney and research scholar at Stanford University who recently joined the company, TechCrunch has learned. Stojanovski headed up government relations and policy at Otto, the autonomous vehicle trucking company co-founded by Levandowski and several others that was subsequently bought by Uber. Levandowski contends that this “race” to deploy autonomous vehicles has yet to start in earnest largely due to shortcomings from “crutch technologies,” a descriptor he uses for hardware like LiDAR and HD maps. His position is that while these provide sensing and localization for the vehicle in the present moment, they have serious compromises and don’t produce the level of predictive ability required to commercially deploy autonomous vehicles. (btw, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has also described LiDAR as a “crutch.”) “We now find ourselves in a position where regulators, investors, and the public are waking up to the reality that nobody is ahead in the race to deliver autonomous vehicles because the real race is a marathon that has not yet begun,” Levandowski wrote. “The last 15 years we’ve mostly idled at the starting line.” His company is focused on advanced driver assistance features built for Class 8 vehicles — those heavy-duty trucks that crisscross the U.S. carrying freight. (Trucks carried more than 70 percent of all U.S. freight and generated $719 billion in revenue in 2017, according to the American Trucking Associations.) Pronto’s ADAS for trucks product is called CoPilot, a level 2 system designed to increase operational and occupational safety as well as increase efficiency and reduce the carbon footprint of commercial trucking companies. Pronto’s approach is in some ways similar to , a company founded by George Hotz that aims to bring to everyday drivers automated driving systems designed for highways. Pronto combines the hardware such as cameras (no LiDAR here) atop neural networks for improved prediction. And that’s the big selling point, at least from Levandowski’s view. The company plans to partner with carriers and deliver to them aftermarket solutions that are platform agnostic, according to the company. Pronto will announce its first customers in the first half of 2019. The company is offering this at a “special introductory pricing” of $4,999 per truck, a figure that includes bolt-on installation of its camera-based system, driver training and more. Pronto’s website says customers can pre-order with a deposit of $299. “It will be the first stand-alone real product for a real market that the self-driving industry has delivered, and we are excited to be blazing the trail to the reality of how autonomous vehicles will ultimately come to fruition,” he wrote. |
Porsche’s top-of-the-line EV to get the Turbo name and a $130,000-plus price tag | Kirsten Korosec | 2,018 | 12 | 27 | Porsche’s upcoming Taycan, which is expected to go on sale next year, will have at least three variants of the all-electric sports car, including an all-wheel drive version. But it’s the Taycan Turbo — the name Porsche is giving its top-of-the-line variant — that reveals the automaker’s strategy. The names — the Taycan for the base model, Taycan 4S for the all-wheel drive version and Taycan Turbo for the performance variant — as well as prices ranges for each were . As Roy notes, however, “turbo” is vocabulary used for internal combustion engine vehicles. It appears the performance version of the Porsche Taycan EV will be branded “Turbo”. Because ICE nomenclature is how one converts customers to EV. 🤔 — Alex Roy (@AlexRoy144) Porsche parent company Volkswagen Group has pledged to spend more than $1 billion developing the Taycan, which roughly translates to in a nod to its iconic emblem. The electric vehicle is seen (in some circles) as a threat to Tesla, which has dominated the luxury electric vehicle market. With so much investment headed toward Porsche’s first all-electric vehicle, the German automaker is smartly using nomenclature familiar to its existing customer base, many of whom have never owned an EV. |
Indonesia unblocks Tumblr following its ban on adult content | Jon Russell | 2,018 | 12 | 27 | Indonesia, the world’s fourth largest country by population, has unblocked Tumblr nine months after it blocked the social networking site over pornographic content. Tumblr — which, disclaimer, is owned by just like TechCrunch — announced earlier this month that . That decision, which who valued the platform as , was a response to after child pornography was found within the service. The impact of this new policy has made its way to Indonesia, where that the service was unblocked earlier this week. The service had been blocked in March after falling foul of the country’s anti-pornography laws. “Tumblr sent an official statement regarding the commitment to clean the platform from pornographic content,” Ferdinandus Setu, acting head of the Ministry of Communication and Informatics Bureau, is reported to have said in a press statement. Messaging apps and are among the other services that have been forced to comply with the government’s ban on “unsuitable” content in order to keep their services open in the country. Telegram, meanwhile, last year after its service was partially blocked. While perhaps not widely acknowledged in the West, Indonesia is a huge market, with a population of more than 260 million people. The world’s largest Muslim country, it is the largest economy in Southeast Asia and its growth . In other words, Indonesia is a huge market for internet companies. The country’s anti-porn laws have been used to block as many — — but they have also been used to take aim at gay dating apps, some of which have been removed from the Google Play Store. , “while homosexuality is not illegal in Indonesia, it’s no secret that the country has become a hostile place for the LGBTQ community.” |
Why your startup shouldn’t rush to $1 million in revenue | Martina Lauchengco | 2,018 | 12 | 27 | There is a that the formula for early-stage tech startups hinges on how quickly they achieve $1 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR). Investors in SaaS companies, in particular, are very guilty of pushing this or its equally loaded corollary, “When will you sign your first six-figure deal?” But in the rush toward these numbers, too many startups lose sight of their primary intent: These metrics are supposed to be an indicator of product/market fit. We’ve seen companies reach $1 million in ARR in less than a year, yet not have enough market momentum to get their next million easily. We’ve seen early-stage companies so concerned about getting those first sales, they don’t validate the market and if they’re building the right product. We’ve also watched a focus on new logos make companies forget about keeping existing customers happy, introducing unexpectedly high churn — something startups can’t afford. Those first customers and that first million are supposed to be the bedrock on which the rest of the business grows. Founders must constantly ask what they’re learning about their market, product and go-to-market approach — in that order! — so the business becomes a flywheel. Revenue is a lagging indicator of sales success, so must likewise be prioritized accordingly. That’s not to say revenue isn’t vitally important and that there isn’t a great deal of urgency to it, but focusing on it too much too early can mask big problems that will hurt startups later when the stakes are higher. Here are a few lessons we’ve learned by watching our early-stage companies go through this crucial phase. Every early-stage company needs to do them well. We talk about product and knowing customers a lot, but that is insufficient. Startups must understand the market, as well. How do customers do this today? Is there urgency around the problem? What is the community saying? An early investor in PagerDuty went onto Reddit and Quora and just looked at who people were talking about. It made his decision easy. To be really successful, it is as important to understand market dynamics as it is to deliver a great product. This also helps zero in on all the aspects of your ideal customer profile; it needs to be more specific than you think! This also then helps qualify customers for future sales. stood out in their super-crowded security space because they carved out a unique position around people-powered security. They used their early sales process to carefully qualify who would help them best develop their products. Their first product got shout-outs on social media from users who loved it — a rare occurrence in security — and were indicators they had found good initial customers and were creating something unique. You’ll always find smart people saying, “I love what you’re doing.” Some things are so broken even a mediocre improvement is worth a change. But this is why revenue can be a false indicator for scalable success: Founders find enough early adopters to get that first million, which leads them to believe the product is enough. The company starts chasing more revenue, not investing in a product-based growth engine. If sales keeps hitting their numbers, everyone believes things are fine. Until they’re not. And then it’s usually a really heavy lift, with 6-12 months of product, sales or team upgrades. What startup doesn’t want a growth curve like this? for the last four years in a crowded, mature video conferencing category. Janine Pelosi, Zoom’s head of marketing, said the reason they were so successful before and after she arrived was . It’s reliable, easy to use, and the founder, Eric Yuan, was selling it every day. Yuan knew the market really well coming out of Webex, and always touching customers meant he could adjust company strategy accordingly. Zoom embodied the real magic formula: know your market + build great product. Customer satisfaction is simple: It comes from the perception that people get value from their purchase; it’s much less about how much they paid. It’s also always cheaper to make an existing customer happy than it is to acquire a new one, so make sure even in the early days that you’re investing in making current customers happy advocates. uses computer vision to identify sea lice in the $160 billion aquafarming market. When they showed customers FreckleID (think facial recognition for fish) to uniquely identify fish in a pen of 200,000, fish farmers loved the idea. The price they were willing to pay was 3x what the CEO thought possible. They’re likewise investing heavily in making sure their initial customer is successful with the product and are delighting them in unexpected ways (handwritten holiday cards). They have more prospects in their pipeline than they have capacity, which means they don’t need to expand sales to grow revenue fast. |
Iota Biosciences raises $15M to produce in-body sensors smaller than a grain of rice | Devin Coldewey | 2,018 | 12 | 27 | Fitness trackers and heart-rate monitors are all well and good, but if you want to track activity inside the body, the solutions aren’t nearly as convenient. wants to change that with millimeter-wide sensors that can live more or less permanently in your body and transmit wirelessly what they detect, and a $15 million Series A should put them well on their way. The team emerged from research at UC Berkeley, where co-founders Jose Carmena and Michel Maharbiz were working on improving the state of microelectrodes. These devices are used all over medical and experimental science to monitor and stimulate nerves and muscle tissues. For instance, a microelectrode array in the brain might be able to help detect early signs of a seizure, and around the heart one could precisely test the rhythms of cardiac tissues. But despite their name, microelectrodes aren’t really small. The tips, sure, but they’re often connected to larger machines, or battery-powered packs, and they can rarely stay in the body for more than a few weeks or months due to various complications associated with them. Considering how far we’ve come in other sectors when it comes to miniaturization, manufacturing techniques and power efficiency, Carmena and Maharbiz thought, why don’t we have something better? “The idea at first was to have free-floating motes in the brain with RF [radio frequency] powering them,” Carmena said. But they ran into a fundamental problem: RF radiation, because of its long wavelength, requires rather a large antenna to receive them. Much larger than was practical for devices meant to swim in the bloodstream. “There was a meeting at which everything died, because we were like two orders of magnitude away from what we needed. The physics just weren’t there,” he recalled. “So were like, ‘I guess that’s it!’ ” But some time after, Maharbiz had a “eureka” moment — “as weird as it sounds, it occurred to me in a parking lot. You just think about it and all these things align.” His revelation: ultrasound. You’re probably familiar with ultrasound as a diagnostic tool, for imaging inside the body during pregnancy and the like — or possibly as a range-finding tool that “pings” nearby objects. There’s been a lot of focus on the venerable technology recently as technologists have found new applications for it. In fact, a portable ultrasound company just : Iota’s approach, however, has little to do with these traditional uses of the technology. Remember the principle that you have to have an antenna that’s a reasonable fraction of an emission’s wavelength in order to capture it? Well, ultrasound has a wavelength measured in microns — millionths of a meter. So it can be captured — and captured very efficiently. That means an ultrasound antenna can easily catch enough waves to power a connected device. Not only that, but as you might guess from its use in imaging, ultrasound goes right through us. Lots of radiation, including RF, gets absorbed by the charged, salty water that makes up much of the human body. “Ultrasound doesn’t do that,” Maharbiz said. “You’re just Jell-O — it goes right through you.” The device they put together to take advantage of this is remarkably simple, and incredibly tiny. On one side is what’s called a piezoelectric crystal, something that transforms force — in this case, ultrasound — into electricity. In the middle is a tiny chip, and around the edge runs a set of electrodes. It’s so small that it can be attached to a single nerve or muscle fiber. When the device is activated by a beam of ultrasound, voltage runs between the electrodes, and this minute current is affected by the electrical activity of the tissue. These slight changes are literally reflected in how the ultrasonic pulses bounce back, and the reader can derive electrophysiological voltage from those changes. Basically the waves they send power the device and bounce back slightly changed, depending on what the nerve or muscle is doing. By sending a steady stream of pulses, the system collects a constant stream of precise monitoring data simply and non-invasively. (And yes, this has been demonstrated .) Contained inside non-reactive, implant-safe containers, these microscopic “motes” could be installed singly or by the dozen, doing everything from monitoring heart tissue to controlling a prosthesis. And because they can also deliver a voltage, they could conceivably be used for therapeutic purposes, as well. And to be clear, those purposes won’t be the brain. Although there’s no particular reason this tech wouldn’t work in the central nervous system, it would have to be smaller and testing would be much more complicated. The initial applications will all be in the peripheral nervous system. At any rate, before any of that happens, they have to be approved by the FDA. As you might guess, this isn’t the kind of thing you can just invent and then start implanting all over the place. Implants, especially electronic ones, must undergo extreme scrutiny before being allowed to be used in even experimental treatment. Fortunately for Iota, their devices have a lot of advantages over, say, a pacemaker with a radio-based data connection and five-year battery. The only transmission involved is ultrasound, for one thing, and there are decades of studies showing the safety of using it. “The FDA has well-defined limits for average and peak powers for the human body with ultrasound, and we’re nowhere near those frequencies or powers. This is very different,” explained Maharbiz. “There’s no exotic materials or techniques. As far as constant low-level ultrasound goes, the notion really is that it does nothing.” And unlike a major device like a medication port, pump, stint, pacemaker or even a long-term electrode, “installation” is straightforward and easily reversible. It would be done laparoscopically, or through a tiny incision. said Carmena. “If it has to be taken out, it can be taken out, but it’s so minimally invasive and small and safe that we keep it,” he said. These are all marks in Iota’s favor, but testing can’t be rushed. Although the groundwork for their devices was laid in 2013, the team has taken a great deal of time to advance the science to the point where it can be taken out of the lab to begin with. In order to get it now to the point where they can propose human trials, Iota has raised $15 million in funding; the round was led by Horizons Ventures, Astellas, Bold Capital Partners, Ironfire and Shanda. (The round was in May but .) The A round should get the company from its current prototype phase to a point, perhaps some 18 months distant, when they have a production-ready version ready to present to the FDA — at which point more funding will probably be required to get through the subsequent years of testing. But that’s the game in medtech, and all the investors know it. This could be a hugely disruptive technology in a number of fields, although at first the devices need to be approved for a single medical purpose (one Iota has decided on but can’t disclose yet). It’s a long road, all right, but at the end of it is the fulfillment of a promise straight out of sci-fi. It may be years before you have microscopic, ultrasound-powered doodads swimming around inside you, but that future is well on its way. |
Watch the ANYmal quadrupedal robot go for an adventure in the sewers of Zurich | Devin Coldewey | 2,018 | 12 | 27 | There’s a lot of talk about the many potential uses of multi-legged robots like Cheetahbot and Spot — but in order for those to come to fruition, the robots actually have to go out and stuff. And to train for a glorious future of sewer inspection (and helping rescue people, probably), . ETH Zurich / Daniel Winkler The robot is called , and it’s a long-term collaboration between the , abbreviated there as ETH Zurich, and a spin-off from the university called . Its latest escapade was a trip to the sewers below that city, where it could eventually aid or replace the manual inspection process. ANYmal isn’t brand new — like most robot platforms, it’s been under constant revision for years. But it’s only recently that cameras and sensors like lidar have gotten good enough and small enough that real-world testing in a dark, slimy place like sewer pipes could be considered. Most cities have miles and miles of underground infrastructure that can only be checked by expert inspectors. This is dangerous and tedious work — perfect for automation. Imagine instead of yearly inspections by people, if robots were swinging by once a week. If anything looks off, it calls in the humans. It could also enter areas rendered inaccessible by disasters or simply too small for people to navigate safely. But of course, before an army of robots can inhabit our sewers (where have I encountered this concept before? ) the robot needs to experience and learn about that environment. First outings will be only minimally autonomous, with more independence added as the robot and team gain confidence. “Just because something works in the lab doesn’t always mean it will in the real world,” explained ANYbotics co-founder Péter Fankhauser in the ETHZ story. Testing the robot’s sensors and skills in a real-world scenario provides new insights and tons of data for the engineers to work with. For instance, when the environment is completely dark, laser-based imaging may work, but what if there’s a lot of water, steam or smoke? ANYmal should also be able to feel its surroundings, its creators decided. ETH Zurich / Daniel Winkler So they tested both sensor-equipped feet (with mixed success) and the possibility of ANYmal raising its “paw” to touch a wall, to find a button or determine temperature or texture. This latter action had to be manually improvised by the pilots, but clearly it’s something it should be able to do on its own. Add it to the list! You can watch “Inspector ANYmal’s” trip below Zurich in the video below. |
People lost their damn minds when Instagram accidentally went horizontal | Taylor Hatmaker | 2,018 | 12 | 27 | Earlier today, when Instagram suddenly transformed into a landscape-oriented Tinder-esque nightmare, the app’s dedicated users extremely lost their minds and immediately took to Twitter to be vocal about it. As we , the company admitted that the abrupt shift from Instagram’s well-established vertical scrolling was a mistake. The mea culpa came quickly enough, but Instagram’s accidental update was already solidified as one of the last meme-able moments of 2018. That was supposed to be a very small test that went broad by accident. Should be fixed now. If you're still seeing it simply restart the app. Happy holidays! 😬 — Adam Mosseri (@mosseri) Why learn about the thing itself and why it happened when you could watch the meta-story play out in frantic, quippy tweets, all vying for relevance as we slide toward 2019’s horrific gaping maw? If you missed it the first time around, here you go. us: pls chronological timelines insta: what? insta stories? us: nonono chronological timelines insta: did you mean IGTV us: NO CHRONOLOGICAL TIMELINES insta: ohhhh you want to scroll horizontally — 𝓪, 𝓶, 𝓪, 𝓻, 𝓲, 𝓼 (@triviastigma) Instagram literally went “felt cute but might delete later” — Basma (@basmahxmde) @ instagram during those 0.2 seconds of the horizontal feed — alex (@alexojovel) *New Instagram updates* everyone: — Complex (@Complex) These Instagram updates are weird. I think Instagram wants us to leave. Like when a guy goes “you’re just to good for me.” We should listen. — Quinta. (@quintabrunson) A handful of memes even managed to incorporate another late-2018 meme, Sandra Bullock in Bird Box — a Netflix original that is not a birds-on-demand service, we are told. Everyone: we hate the new Instagram update Instagram: — Jeyson Paez (@jeysonpaez) You know how in apocalypse movies where a part of the population starts freaking out because they’re infected by something unfamiliar and start rampaging? I felt like I was in one when I woke up to people losing their minds over the Instagram update. I’ve already locked my doors. — Eugene Lee Yang (@EugeneLeeYang) Unupdate might not be a word, but it is absolutely a state of mind. *Everyone when they saw the new update* — Skyleigh Tweedy (@SkyleighTweedy) instagram when they saw the update wasn’t a hit: when they quickly remove it: — 🌸 𝔏𝔲𝔫𝔞 🌸 (@localsatanicboy) For better or worse, the Met got involved with what we can only assume is a Very Important Artifact for the cause. When you hear might update its format so you hold on tighter to your vertical scroll… 🎨: Marble hand holding a scroll, Roman, 1st or 2nd century A.D. — The Met (@metmuseum) When Instagram releases an update and within 15 minutes everybody hates it — Meg Warpus (@MegWarpus) Due to a bug, some users saw a change to the way their feed appears today. We quickly fixed the issue and feed is back to normal. We apologize for any confusion. — Instagram (@instagram) But can we ever really go back? Can we unsee a fate so great, one still looming on some distant social influencer shore? Probably yeah, but that doesn’t mean we won’t all lose it if it happens again. |
Reid Hoffman denies direct knowledge of funding disinformation in the Alabama Senate race | Taylor Hatmaker | 2,018 | 12 | 27 | One of Silicon Valley’s prominent billionaires is in hot water after funding deceptive social media campaigns with echoes of Russia’s own political playbook. Reid Hoffman, who co-founded LinkedIn in 2003 and is now a partner at Greylock, footed the bill for a small political project with the aim of getting Democrat Doug Jones elected in 2017’s special election. Now, Hoffman is sorry — but he also maintains that where his money ended up. It’s not clear what impact the project had in successfully electing Jones, but internal documents reveal that the effort known as Project Birmingham “experimented with many of the tactics now understood to have influenced the 2016 elections.” Those tactics are now widely regarded as both politically and professionally toxic as tech companies — most notably Facebook — continue to face intense scrutiny over their role in facilitating the spread of disinformation meant to influence U.S. political behavior. As The New York Times : The project’s operators created a Facebook page on which they posed as conservative Alabamians, using it to try to divide Republicans and even to endorse a write-in candidate to draw votes from Mr. Moore. It involved a scheme to link the Moore campaign to thousands of Russian accounts that suddenly began following the Republican candidate on Twitter, a development that drew national media attention. In a statement following reporting from and Hoffman did not dispute the assertion that he funded the efforts, but denied any knowledge of the controversial tactics themselves. “I want to make it clear from the outset that I had never even heard of this project before reading about it in the Times’ coverage,” Hoffman said in the statement, . “The Times articles imply that I had knowledge of it and that I endorsed its tactics. Let me be absolutely clear: I do not.” Hoffman went on to disavow the use of political disinformation intended to influence the outcome of an election. “I would not have knowingly funded a project planning to use such tactics, and would have refused to invest in any organization that I knew might conduct such a project,” Hoffman said. “Nevertheless, I do have an apology to make and have learned a lesson here.” In his Medium post Hoffman describes how he became more politically active after the 2016 U.S. presidential election. He recounts how he funded dozens of political and civic engagement organizations in conjunction with a group called Investing in Us. “Our goal is to identify promising organizations and provide them with resources to accelerate positive change,” Hoffman said. Many of those investments appear to be uncontroversial, including contributions to the Center on Rural Innovation and an organization called Opportunity at Work which helps connect Americans with job opportunities. As Hoffman explains, his entanglement in the Alabama Senate race came about through his choice to fund a group called American Engagement Technologies (AET): One of the early organizations that we supported was American Engagement Technologies (AET), a group which sought to develop technical solutions to counteract fake news, bot armies, and other kinds of digital manipulation and disinformation, and to use social media and data analytics to increase civic engagement and improve access to accurate information about candidates and issues. AET, in turn, provided funding to a group called New Knowledge. Through AET or otherwise, I have never personally authorized or directed any funding to New Knowledge. I — regretfully — do not know why AET chose to support New Knowledge or for what specific purposes, if any, this funding was allocated. To reiterate yet again, I find the tactics that have been recently reported highly disturbing. For that reason, I am embarrassed by my failure to track AET — the organization I did support — more diligently as it made its own decisions to perhaps fund projects that I would reject. Though Hoffman’s post did not specify an amount, The Washington Post reported that Hoffman invested $750,000 in AET. The group is helmed by Mikey Dickerson, a former Google engineer who served as the founding director of the USDS during Obama’s presidency. Earlier this week, , the head of New Knowledge. Morgan previously acknowledged that he set up a misleading Facebook page to test his ability to engage with conservative voters and bought less than $10 worth of Twitter retweets for the same goal. Morgan characterized this undertaking as “small-scale” and told The Washington Post that these efforts were made only in “his own capacity as a researcher seeking to understand the mechanics of disinformation tactics, not as New Knowledge’s leader.” Last week, Doug Jones into the role the disinformation tactics could have played in his successful Senate bid. Hoffman also expressed his support for a federal investigation. “We cannot permit dishonest campaign tactics to go unchecked in our democracy — no matter which side they purportedly help,” Hoffman said. |
Elon Musk argues comments on Twitter are protected speech in request to dismiss ‘pedo guy’ lawsuit | Kirsten Korosec | 2,018 | 12 | 27 | Elon Musk has filed a motion to dismiss a defamation lawsuit filed against him by the British cave rescuer who sued the billionaire entrepreneur for calling him a pedophile. Musk’s motion presents numerous reasons to dismiss the defamation lawsuit, all of which come back to a two main points: Twitter is “ The list of arguments laid out in the motion to dismiss are: Whether these arguments will be enough to convince a judge to dismiss the lawsuit is unclear. However, it raises a different question. If the argument is to be believed, it would suggest that other claims and promises Musk puts on Twitter shouldn’t be trusted as fact either. The whole over the summer after Musk and employees at his companies, SpaceX, Tesla, and The Boring Company, became involved in an effort to extract 12 boys and their soccer coach from the Tham Luang Nang Non cave system located in Northern Thailand after flooding trapped the group for weeks. Musk’s team developed and then sent that he thought could help. The team of divers who eventually rescued every person trapped in the cave didn’t use the mini-submarine, dubbed by Musk’s people as “Wild Boar.” Unsworth, a British ex-pat who lives in Thailand, helped plan the rescue operation and recruited other cave diving experts. The fight began after Unsworth in which he called the mini submarine a “PR stunt,” that it “had absolutely no chance of working” and that Musk could “stick his submarine where it hurts.” Musk subsequently lashed out on Twitter and insinuated that Unsworth was a pedophile. He later deleted the offending tweet and tried to backpedal — even of sorts on Twitter. And it could have all ended there. But then Musk dug it all up again during a debate with ex-TechCrunch journalist Drew Olanoff — once again on Twitter. Olanoff had brought up the as an example of Musk telling untruths. Unsworth filed a lawsuit September in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California against Musk for defamation. The lawsuit alleges that between July 15 and August 30, Musk periodically used Twitter and emails to the media to publish false and defamatory accusations against Unsworth, including accusations of pedophilia and child rape. Read the entire motion here. [scribd id=396416868 key=key-vXI7TNQMdy7ZLl5RGjye mode=scroll] |
TrueFacet, which sells pre-owned, authenticated watches and jewelry, is raising a $10 million round of funding | Connie Loizos | 2,018 | 12 | 27 | The secondary luxury goods market has been growing wildly in recent years, with more shoppers opting to both sell their lightly used luxury goods like clothing and jewelry for cold, hard cash, as well as buying the pre-owned, authenticated luxury goods of others. One of the biggest beneficiaries of the trend is , a nearly eight-year-old shopping destination for the growing population of people who might not be willing or able to purchase a new Hermes Birkin bag but are willing to buy one in like-new condition for considerably less. The idea — which — is to create a virtuous cycle, wherein the bag’s original purchaser receives the bulk of that re-sale price, then uses the money to buy another new handbag (or a used one) that can be resold at a later point in time. Another beneficiary of the trend: , a five-year-old, New York-based marketplace that claims to have more than 40,000 watches and 55,000 pieces of pre-owned authenticated watches and jewelry for sale at its site, and that has more recently begun offering pre-owned timepieces directly through brands like Fendi Timepieces, Raymond Weil and Roberto Coin that now partner with TrueFacet to carry their pre-owned timepieces with a manufacture warranty. Apparently, shoppers are buying what they’re collectively selling. The company, which had previously raised $14.7 million in funding from investors, looks to be closing in on another $10 million round, judging by freshly filed that shows it has so far raised $7 million in funding and is targeting $9.8 million altogether. TrueFacet’s backers include Founders Co-op, Freestyle Capital and Maveron, led by partner Jason Stoffer, who also happens to sit on the board of , an edgy clothing marketplace that we . TrueFacet has some tough competition in the space, including , a six-year-old, Atlanta, Ga.-based company that has never announced outside funding, and 15-year-old, Germany-based , which has raised €21 million over the years. Both sell timepieces alone, however. It also competes directly with The RealReal, which has raised nearly $300 million from investors and sells clothing and high-end home decor, as well as jewelry and watches. (The company doesn’t break out publicly which of these categories outpace the others in terms of sales.) Interestingly, like The RealReal, which now operates permanent offline stores in both New York and L.A., TrueFacet is also crossing the chasm into the offline world, though it’s taking baby steps toward that end. Specifically, earlier this month, it with , which sells timepieces to many monied Bay Area VCs and other Silicon Valley bigs at stores in Redwood City and Menlo Park, Calif. For the time being at least, the jeweler will also sell pieces from TrueFacet’s collection. |
Elon Musk lays out ambitious plan for Tesla Supercharger network in Europe | Kirsten Korosec | 2,018 | 12 | 27 | Tesla CEO Elon Musk is making some audacious promises again for the company’s network of electric fast chargers, known as Superchargers. This time, he’s aiming for 100 percent Tesla Supercharger coverage in Europe by next year. In response to a question on Twitter, Musk said Tesla’s Supercharger coverage will extend to 100 percent of Europe in 2019. “From Ireland to Kiev, from Norway to Turkey,” Musk wrote. A look at Tesla’s Supercharger map shows a high concentration of the fast chargers in Western Europe. Countries like Albania, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Serbia and Moldova don’t have any Superchargers. Yes. Supercharger coverage will extend to 100% of Europe next year. From Ireland to Kiev, from Norway to Turkey. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) Musk also laid out plans to focus on cities, specifically to work with landlords to add home charging units at apartment buildings. We are dramatically increasing Tesla Superchargers within cities & working with landlords to add home charging to apartment buildings — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) Musk then went further, this time in response to a Twitter follower who noticed that Superchargers planned for San Antonio and Austin in 2018 had yet to be completed. The billionaire entrepreneur said “all major highways in Texas will have Superchargers, all the way to Brownsville and across Mexico.” Definitely. All major highways in Texas will have Superchargers, all the way to Brownsville & across Mexico. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) He even laid out plans, although less specific, to add Superchargers to Africa in 2020. There are no Superchargers on the African continent. Tesla’s Supercharger network was launched in 2012 in an effort to encourage owners of its electric vehicles to travel longer distances. A Supercharger adds up to 170 miles of range in about 30 minutes (although TechCrunch has experienced slightly longer charge times depending on location). In April 2017, Tesla said it would from more than 5,400 to more than 10,000 by the end of the year. It fell short of that goal, with about 8,250 Superchargers. Earlier this year, Musk laid out plans to have 18,000 superchargers globally by the end 2018. As of December 27, Tesla has 11,583 Superchargers (within 1,386 Supercharger stations) globally. |
Cap table management tool Carta valued at $800M with new funding | Kate Clark | 2,018 | 12 | 27 | Startups supporting startups are blazing a new trail with support from venture capitalists. Co-working spaces like and raked in funding rounds this year, , the provider of a corporate card built specifically for startups. Now , which helps companies manage their cap tables, valuations, portfolio investments and equity plans, has announced an $80 million Series D at a valuation of $800 million. The company, formerly known as eShares, raised the capital from lead investors Meritech and Tribe Capital, with support from existing investors. The round brings Carta’s total funding to $147.8 million. Its existing investors include Spark Capital, Menlo Ventures, Union Square Ventures and Social Capital, though the latter didn’t participate in the Series D funding. Tribe Capital, however, is a new venture capital firm launched by Arjun Sethi, who previously led Social Capital’s investment in Carta, Jonathan Hsu and Ted Maidenberg, a trio of former Social Capital partners who exited the VC firm . Tribe is said to be in the process of . Founded in 2012 by Henry Ward (pictured), the Palo Alto-based company plans to use the latest investment to develop their transfer agent and equity administration products and services to better support startups transitioning into public companies. It also will launch additional products for investors to collect data from their portfolio companies and to manage their back office. “We’ve come this far by changing how ownership management works for private companies—popularizing electronic securities and cap table software, combined with audit-ready 409As,” Ward wrote in an . “But our ambitions go far beyond supporting privately-held, venture-backed companies.” Carta, which counts Robinhood, Slack, Wealthfront, Squarespace, Coinbase and more as customers, currently manages $500 billion in equity. This year, Carta expanded its headcount from 310 employees to 450 employees, launched board management and portfolio insights products and completed a in partnership with #Angels that highlighted . The study, released in September, revealed that women own just 9 percent of founder and employee startup equity, despite making up 35 percent of startup equity-holding employees. On top of that, women account for 13 percent of startup founders, but just 6 percent of founder equity — or $0.39 on the dollar. |
Philips Hue has been having a holiday outage, too | Sarah Perez | 2,018 | 12 | 27 | Alexa wasn’t the only thing that due to an influx of new users. Apparently, Philips Hue has been having an outage, as well. A multi-day outage, in fact. The on Wednesday that customers were experiencing issues creating new accounts, logging in and linking their account to third parties. It blamed the issues on “a lot of new activations.” In other words, many people received Hue’s connected lighting products over the holidays and were now trying to set up their smart bulbs and other devices all around the same time. Hue’s servers couldn’t keep up with the demand and weren’t responding to the incoming requests. That meant users couldn’t create or log into their MyHue account, or connect their lights to their Amazon Echo or Google Home. Customers were, understandably, very frustrated — especially because their issues began on Christmas, and had continued for days with no word from the company. It's been almost two full days of being unable to log into MyHue or connect with my Echo. You really should consider a small coupon for all the people affected this Christmas. Lots of other smart bulb options out there… — John Daniel Hubbard (@JDanHubbard) It’s been two days. — Holly Quate (@hollyquate) Others complained they had wasted several hours troubleshooting the problem, having not realized it was a Hue outage that was at fault, as a result of this lack of communication. I find this out after wasting 5 hours of my St Stephens day trying to link my account to my google home assistant 😡😡😡😡😡Ridiculous 😡😡 — Lorraine Comiskey (@Jewelor) I am so stressed spent 5 hours last night trying to troubleshoot and nothing your lights are awesome but the problem with the software is really killing it for me just spent $500 on your lights would be nice if I could control them with my google home — Logan czarnecki (@LoganCzarnecki) Philips Hue’s Twitter account didn’t make a public announcement about the outage until — instead, the company was only replying to individual users. Because Twitter hides replies in a separate tab, visitors to Hue’s Twitter page wouldn’t have seen any statements from the company unless they clicked over to see the back-and-forth conversations with Hue’s customers — and some of those weren’t outage-related. People who followed Hue on Twitter wouldn’t have seen these replies in their own timelines, either. We’re currently seeing a lot of new activations which may result in some customers not being able to create a new account, log in, or link their account to third parties. We hope to have this solved soon and like to ask you to try again later. Apologies and happy holidays! — Philips Hue (@tweethue) Philips Hue had also the problem in its initial replies, as well, saying server issues were affecting only a “small percentage” of users. Customers were told to try again or try in a few hours. Hi. Unfortunately we have been facing some issues with our servers, affecting a small percentage of our users. We advise you to try again, or try again in a few hours. Our developers are looking into it. We are sorry for the inconvenience. — Philips Hue (@tweethue) While of too many new users hitting its servers all at once, its outage only lasted a couple of hours. In Philip Hue’s case, customers have been inconvenienced for much longer. Many are also new Hue customers — those who are trying to trying to create their account and set up their devices for the first time. For some, Hue’s smart light bulbs may even be their first experience with a smart home device — and this outage may leave them not wanting to try again. Early on Thursday, Hue’s Twitter account began to reply to individual users, telling them “should be up and running.” But it also warned them that, depending on demand, they to get everything going. The company additionally to some that they should try to set up the lights during off-peak hours, like the morning. We reached out to Philips Hue to ask if the outage was indeed resolved, , 12/27/18, 1:30 PM ET: According to a spokesperson, the company hopes to have the issue corrected soon. They said: “Following the holidays, we are seeing a high number of users setting up their Hue accounts. Unfortunately, this is causing a delay for some customers who have not been able to create their Hue account or link Hue to their voice assistant. We are working to support this increased traffic and help our customers complete their setup. We expect to have the issue corrected shortly.” Hey Natalia, we are sorry about that. We can assure you that it will work again later and your present isn't ruined forever. At the moment the service should be up and running depending on the demand at the moment, so please try again a few times today. Our sincere apologies. — Philips Hue (@tweethue) Hey Brad, the issue should now be resolved, during peak times you might still not be able to complete your account setup. We’d like to ask you to try again, preferably during a quieter moment, for example in the morning. We’re working hard on a solution to prevent this. — Philips Hue (@tweethue) , 12/28/18: Hue claimed on Thursday evening the issue has been resolved: UPDATE. The issue that was preventing successful account setup and device linking appears to be resolved. When you’ve got a moment, we’d love to have you try again. Meanwhile, much gratitude for your patience. — Philips Hue (@tweethue) |
Instagram accidentally rolled out tap-to-advance feed, removes it | Josh Constine | 2,018 | 12 | 27 | Instagram confirms that a bug this morning mistakenly rolled out a massive change to its feed that replaced the traditional scrolling with horizontal tap-to-advance, like with Stories. In October, TechCrunch reported Instagram was . But many users woke up to a shock this morning when their familiar vertical swipe stopped advancing the main feed. Many users immediately complained that the gesture felt awkward and annoying. “Due to a bug, some users saw a change to the way their feed appears today. We quickly fixed the issue and feed is back to normal. We apologize for any confusion,” an Instagram spokesperson tells TechCrunch. The company confirms it’s still testing the navigation style in Explore. Instagram was attempting to test the feature with a small percentage of users, but the bug caused a much broader rollout to a few orders of magnitude more people than planned, to head of Instagram Adam Mosseri. Users can restart their Instagram and the change should disappear. Sorry about that, this was supposed to be a very small test but we went broader than we anticipated. 😬 — Adam Mosseri (@mosseri) Tap-to-advance makes it easier to move between posts with them staying fully in view, compared to scrolling where it can take some adjustment to make sure the top or bottom of a post isn’t cut off. But scrolling revealed the author of a post first, then the content, then the caption, which is a sensible and intuitive way to browse. Tap-to-advance could send users’ eyes flitting around the screen in an exhausting manner. But most importantly, people have spent eight years growing accustomed to scrolling the Instagram feed. Suddenly breaking that behavior pattern was sure to piss people off. It’s possible that Instagram could still bring tap-to-advance to the main feed in the future. But given how angry the responses were, it might now think twice unless the data shows the change makes people spend a lot more time in the app. Here’s a look at how tap-to-advance in the feed worked, and the alert users got about how it works. |
Gfycat’s ‘GIFs’ can now keep the sound on | Sarah Perez | 2,018 | 12 | 27 | , a home for GIF-making tools and an online community, is rolling out a new way to create GIFs — it will now let you keep the sound on. With “Gfycat Sound,” as the feature is called, GIF makers will have the option to retain the audio from the video file they’re using to create their “GIF” — something Gfycat believes will be especially popular among gamers. The company had already experimented with other types of non-traditional GIFs, like , , HD GIFs and 360 GIFs, for example, in order to evolve the concept of the GIF beyond the classic, grainy loop. Of course, the resulting GIFs aren’t “.gifs” at this point — they’re short-form videos. The same holds true for “Gfycat Sound.” But end users don’t necessarily care about the GIFs’ technical underpinnings — they just want to create and share short clips pulled from longer pieces of content. (If you’re curious, though, Gfycat says it transcodes the video with the audio track – mono and stereo – into WebM and MP4. In a later iteration, it will save the audio as a separate file that can be mixed with any of the 14 different files we generate for every Gfycat.) The company says it decided to roll out support for sound after polling its community for their top feature requests earlier this year. “GIFs with sound” came back as the top demand from users. The lets you select the start and stop times for the GIF and add captions before sharing, as well. Once the GIF is uploaded to Gfycat’s site, users will be able to view the audio GIFs while browsing by clicking the icon on the top-right of the GIF to turn the sound on. (The site will default to sound off, thankfully – you won’t all of a sudden be bombarded with noise.) These new “audio GIFs” work on all mobile and desktop browsers at launch, and will come to Gfycat’s iOS and Android apps in 2019, as well as to its API documentation for developers. “We see our creators using gaming first and foremost for Gfycat Sound, as e-sports has become a global phenomenon,” explains Gfycat CEO Richard Rabbat. “Now, a gamer can share their achievement with the sound of the ‘shot’ that won her or him the game and achieve more virality for their content,” he says. “We also see our sports content benefiting from Gfycat Sound because you can now share the emotions of the audience,” Rabbat added. While an actual GIF file cannot have sound, Gfycat is not the first GIF toolmaker that has expanded to include short-form video alongside its traditional collection of .gifs — The reasoning in that case was similar — sometimes you need to hear the clip to really enjoy the content. Plus, advertisers love video, too. Despite their silly nature, GIFs are a big business these days. earlier this year. At the time, the company was seeing more than per month. it had 180 million monthly active users, and 500 million page views. |
Grove Collaborative, a subscription startup selling ‘household essentials,’ has been quietly raising a lot of moolah | Connie Loizos | 2,018 | 12 | 27 | , a four-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that sells household, personal care, baby, children’s and pet products, has been busy raising money in 2018, shows new that lists representatives from the company’s earlier investors, including Mayfield, Norwest Venture Partners and MHS Capital, as well as apparent new investor General Atlantic, represented by partner Catherine Beaudoin. One of the filings shows that Grove Collaborative, which had already raised roughly $62 million as of the start of 2018, subsequently raised $27.4 million more this year. A separate, second filing shows another $76.4 million has been secured in what looks to be a newer round that’s targeting $125 million. It’s a lot of money for such a young company, which suggests it has found traction with a growing customer base. We’ve reached out to Grove Collaborative and are waiting to learn more. As we , co-founder Stuart Landesberg started the company after working with retail brands during two years as an associate with TPG Capital, which focuses on growth equity and middle-market private equity transactions. With shelf space limited for brands in brick-and-mortar stores, he saw an opportunity for a startup that prompts consumers to buy the kinds of items they buy over and over again just as they are running out of them: think dish soap, pet food, deodorant, vitamins and sunscreen. Amazon, of course, similarly prompts its customers to buy such items, but Grove Collaborative is marketing to a slightly narrower demographic, that of people who want only all-natural products. In fact, along with the brands that it make it easier for its customers to find — think Method and Mrs. Meyers — the company began selling its own all-natural products this year. Among the many dozens of offerings it now retails under the Grove Collaborative label: a coconut body lotion, a foaming hand soap, coffee filters, soy candles and lip balm. The move puts the startup in more direct competition with other e-commerce companies, like the consumer goods company , which similarly sells natural products for the home and personal care, though many of its products are now sold on shelves in big retail stores like Target. Grove Collaborative also looks to be competing more directly now with well-funded , which raised from SoftBank’s Vision Fund in summer at a valuation of slightly more than $500 million. Brandless also sells its own all-natural household and personal care products, though, unlike Grove Collaborative, it also focuses on food and, unlike Grove, it offers a subscription service, yet does not revolve around one. Grove is exclusively selling an auto-shipment service. Grove had previously raised two separate rounds of funding in quick succession: a $15 million Series B round it closed in March of 2017, following by a $35 million Series C round it announced in January of this year. Given that Landesberg was formerly an investor himself, he may well have realized — — that raising money next year may be far harder in 2019 than it has been this year. As the CEO of Zymergen, whose giant funding round we , told Bloomberg last week: “We wanted to have some fat on our bones for sure . . . The time to raise money is when people are giving it to you.” |
null | Frederic Lardinois | 2,018 | 12 | 18 | null |
Netflix releases a trailer for ‘Bandersnatch,’ the mysterious new episode of ‘Black Mirror’ | Anthony Ha | 2,018 | 12 | 27 | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XM0xWpBYlNM What the heck is “Black Mirror: Bandersnatch”? It’s probably not just a regular episode of the critically acclaimed science fiction anthology series. Netflix has been pretty cryptic about it, only , ahead of a December 28 release. Given the reported 5 hour, 12-minute runtime, “Bandersnatch” may be that we know was in the works — in that case, it wouldn’t actually take hours and hours to watch, but instead would incorporate multiple paths totaling five hours of footage. Today, Netflix released a trailer for what it’s describing as “a Black Mirror event.” The story takes place in 1984 and focuses on a programmer (Fionn Whitehead) adapting a fantasy novel into a computer game. The trailer doesn’t quite come out and say that this will be an interactive episode, but the subject matter and the tagline (“change your mind — change your life — change your past — your present — your future”) seem to be awfully suggestive. And we won’t have to wait much longer to find out: Netflix says “Black Mirror: Bandersnatch” goes live tomorrow. |
Epic Games, the creator of Fortnite, banked a $3 billion profit in 2018 | Jon Russell | 2,018 | 12 | 27 | as good a year in 2018 as any company in tech. Fortnite became the world’s most popular game, growing the company’s valuation to $15 billion, but it has helped the company pile up cash, too. Epic grossed a $3 billion profit for this year fueled by the continued success of Fortnite, a source with knowledge of the business told TechCrunch. Epic did not respond to a request for comment. Fortnite, which is free to play but makes money selling digital items, has popularized the battle royale category — — almost single-handedly, and it has been the standout title for the U.S.-based game publisher. Founded way back in 1991, Epic hasn’t given revenue figures for its smash hit — — but this new profit milestone, combined with other pieces of data, gives an idea of the success the company is seeing as a result of a prescient change in strategy made six years ago. This past September, Epic commanded a valuation of nearly $15 billion, , as marquee investors like KKR, Kleiner Perkins and Lightspeed piled on in to grab a slice of the red-hot development firm. However, the investment cards haven’t always been stacked in Epic’s favor. China’s Tencent, the maker of blockbuster chat app WeChat and a prolific games firm in its own right, became the first outside investor in Epic’s business back in 2012 when in exchange for a 40 percent stake in the business. Back then, Epic was best known for Unreal Engine, the third-party development platform that it still operates today, and top-selling titles like Gears of War. Why would a proven company give up such a huge slice of its business? Executives believed that Epic, as it was, was living on borrowed time. They sensed a change in the way games were headed based on diminishing returns and growing budgets for console games, the increase of “live” games like League of Legends and the emerging role of smartphones. , Epic CEO Tim Sweeney explained that the investment money from Tencent allowed the company to go down the route of freemium games rather than big box titles. That’s a strategy Sweeney called “Epic 4.0.” “We realized that the business really needed to change its approach quite significantly. We were seeing some of the best games in the industry being built and operated as live games over time rather than big retail releases. We recognized that the ideal role for Epic in the industry is to drive that, and so we began the transition of being a fairly narrow console developer focused on Xbox to being a multi-platform game developer and self publisher, and indie on a larger scale,” he explained. Tencent, Sweeney added, has provided “an enormous amount of useful advice,” while the capital enabled Epic to “make this huge leap without the immediate fear of money.” LOS ANGELES, CA – JUNE 12: Gamers ‘Ninja’ (L) and ‘Marshmello’ compete in the Epic Games Fortnite E3 Tournament at the Banc of California Stadium on June 12, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images) Epic never had a problem making money — Sweeney told Polygon the first Gear of Wars release grossed $100 million on a $12 million development budget. But with Fortnite, the company has redefined modern gaming, both by making true cross-platform experiences possible and by pulling in vast amounts of money. As a private company, Epic keeps its financials closely guarded. But digging beyond the $3 billion figure — which, to be clear, is annual not — there are clues as to just how big a money-spinner Fortnite is. Certainly, there’s room to wonder whether analyst predictions this summer that Fortnite would gross $2 billion this year were too conservative. The most recent data comes from November when that iOS users alone were spending $1.23 million per day. That helped the game bank $37 million in the month and take its total earnings within Apple’s iOS platform to more than $385 million. But, as mentioned, Fortnite is a cross-platform title that supports PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, PC, Mac, Android and iOS. Aggregating revenue across those platforms isn’t easy, and the only real estimate comes from earlier this year when Super Data Research concluded that the game made $318 million in May across all platforms. That is, of course, when Fortnite was fresh on iOS, non-existent on Android and with fewer overall players. We can deduce from Sensor Tower’s November estimate that iOS pulled in $385 million over eight months — between April and November — which is around $48 million per month on average. Android is harder to calculate since . While within the first month, tracking that spending off-platform is a huge challenge. Some estimates predicted that this year because in-app purchases on Android would not cross its services. There are a few factors to add further uncertainty. Fortnite spending tends to spike around the release of new seasons — updated versions of the game — since users are encouraged to buy specific packages at the start. The latest, Season 7, . Given the increased velocity at which Fortnite is picking up players and the appeal of the festive period, this could have been its biggest revenue generator to date, but More broadly, Fortnite has undoubtedly lost out on revenue in China, which froze new game licenses nine months ago, thereby preventing any publishers from monetizing new titles over that period. Tencent, which publishes Fortnite in China, did release the game in the country but it hasn’t been able to draw revenue from it yet. that it is close to approving its first batch of new titles, but it isn’t clear which games are included and when the process will be done. Already, the effects have been felt. Games are forecast to generate nearly $40 billion in revenue in China this year, However, the industry saw its slowest growth over the last 10 years as it grew 5.4 percent year-over-year during the first half of 2018, according to . Fortnite and PUBG — another battle royale title backed by Tencent — have perhaps suffered the most since they are universally popular worldwide but unable to monetize in China. It seems almost certain that those two titles will receive a major marketing push if, as and when they receive the license and, if Epic can keep the game competitive as Sweeney believed it could back in 2012, then it could go on and make even more money in 2019. Epic Games is taking on Steam with its own digital game store, which includes higher take-home revenue rates for developers. But Epic isn’t relying solely on Fortnite. A more low-key but significant launch this month was which is aimed squarely at Steam, the leader in digital game sales. While Fortnite is its most prolific release, Epic also makes money from other games, Unreal Engine and . Epic’s big differentiator for the store is that it gives developers 88 percent of their revenue, as opposed to Valve — the firm behind Steam — which keeps 30 percent, . Customers are promised a free title every two weeks. Either way, Epic is betting that it can do a lot more than Fortnite, which could mean that its profit margin will be even higher come this time next year. |
Google & Facebook fed ad dollars to child porn discovery apps | Josh Constine | 2,018 | 12 | 27 | Google has scrambled to remove third-party apps that led users to child porn sharing groups on WhatsApp in the wake of last week. We contacted Google with the name of one of these apps and evidence that it and others offered links to WhatsApp groups for sharing child exploitation imagery. Following publication of our article, Google removed from the Google Play store that app and at least five like it. Several of these apps had more than 100,000 downloads, and they’re still functional on devices that already downloaded them. A screenshot from earlier this month of now-banned child exploitation groups on WhatsApp. Phone numbers and photos redacted WhatsApp failed to adequately police its platform, confirming to TechCrunch that it’s only moderated by its own 300 employees and not Facebook’s 20,000 dedicated security and moderation staffers. It’s clear that scalable and efficient artificial intelligence systems are not up to the task of protecting the 1.5 billion-user WhatsApp community, and companies like Facebook must invest more in unscalable human investigators. But now, new research provided exclusively to TechCrunch by anti-harassment algorithm startup shows that these removed apps that hosted links to child porn sharing rings on WhatsApp were supported with ads run by Google and Facebook’s ad networks. AntiToxin found six of these apps ran Google AdMob, one ran Google Firebase, two ran Facebook Audience Network and one ran StartApp. These ad networks earned a cut of brands’ marketing spend while allowing the apps to monetize and sustain their operations by hosting ads for Amazon, Microsoft, Motorola, Sprint, Sprite, Western Union, Dyson, DJI, Gett, Yandex Music, Q Link Wireless, Tik Tok and more. The situation reveals that tech giants aren’t just failing to spot offensive content in their own apps, but also in third-party apps that host their ads and that earn them money. While these apps like let people discover benign links to WhatsApp groups for sharing legal content and discussing topics like business or sports, TechCrunch found they also hosted links with titles such as In a video provided by AntiToxin seen below, the app “ Another video shows the app “Group Link For whatsapp by Video Status Zone” that ran Google AdMob and Facebook Audience Network displaying a link to a WhatsApp group described as “only cp video.” When tapped, the app first surfaces an interstitial ad for Amazon Photos before revealing a button for opening the group within WhatsApp. These videos show how alarmingly easy it was for people to find illegal content sharing groups on WhatsApp, even without WhatsApp’s help. In response, a Google spokesperson tells me that these group discovery apps violated its content policies and it’s continuing to look for more like them to ban. When they’re identified and removed from Google Play, it also suspends their access to its ad networks. However, it refused to disclose how much money these apps earned and whether it would refund the advertisers. The company provided this statement: An app with links for discovering illegal WhatsApp Groups runs an ad for Amazon Photos Israeli NGOs Netivei Reshet and Screen Savers worked with AntiToxin to provide about the wide extent of child exploitation imagery they found on WhatsApp. Facebook and WhatsApp are still waiting on the groups to work with Israeli police to provide their full research so WhatsApp can delete illegal groups they discovered and terminate user accounts that joined them. AntiToxin develops technologies for protecting online network harassment, bullying, shaming, predatory behavior and sexually explicit activity. It was co-founded by Zohar Encryption has proven an impediment to WhatsApp preventing the spread of child exploitation imagery. WhatsApp can’t see what is shared inside of group chats. Instead, it has to rely on the few pieces of public and unencrypted data, such as group names and profile photos plus their members’ profile photos, looking for suspicious names or illegal images. The company matches those images to a PhotoDNA database of known child exploitation photos to administer bans, and has human moderators investigate if seemingly illegal images aren’t already on file. It then reports its findings to law enforcement and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Strong encryption is important for protecting privacy and political dissent, but also thwarts some detection of illegal content and thereby necessitates more manual moderation. With just 300 total employees and only a subset working on security or content moderation, WhatsApp seems understaffed to manage such a large user base. It’s tried to depend on AI to safeguard its community. However, that technology can’t yet perform the nuanced investigations necessary to combat exploitation. WhatsApp runs semi-independently of Facebook, but could hire more moderators to investigate group discovery apps that lead to child pornography if Facebook allocated more resources to its acquisition. WhatsApp group discovery apps featured Adult sections that contained links to child exploitation imagery groupsGoogle and Facebook, with their vast headcounts and profit margins, are neglecting to properly police who hosts their ad networks. The companies have sought to earn extra revenue by powering ads on other apps, yet failed to assume the necessary responsibility to ensure those apps aren’t facilitating crimes. Stricter examinations of in-app content should be administered before an app is accepted to app stores or ad networks, and periodically once they’re running. And when automated systems can’t be deployed, as can be the case with policing third-party apps, human staffers should be assigned despite the cost. It’s becoming increasingly clear that social networks and ad networks that profit off other people’s content can’t be low-maintenance cash cows. Companies should invest ample money and labor into safeguarding any property they run or monetize, even if it makes the opportunities less lucrative. The strip-mining of the internet without regard for consequences must end. |
Security flaws let anyone snoop on Guardzilla smart camera video recordings | Zack Whittaker | 2,018 | 12 | 27 | A popular smart security system maker has ignored warnings from security researchers that its flagship device has several serious vulnerabilities, including allowing anyone access to the company’s central store of customer-uploaded video recordings. The researchers at 0DayAllDay found that Guardzilla’s top-selling indoor wireless security system contains a set of hardcoded keys that can be easily extracted, because the device’s firmware was protected by a root password encrypted a decade-old algorithm that’s nowadays easily crackable. Each device uses the same set of keys to upload video recordings to the company’s Amazon Web Services’ storage servers. Anyone can use these keys to log in and gain full access to the company’s cloud storage — and customer data uploaded from the device. But the storage servers remain vulnerable — even at the time of publication, TechCrunch can confirm — despite the researchers privately emailing the company detailing the vulnerabilities in September. “We’ve tried several avenues to get in touch with Guardzilla, but they have not acknowledged the report,” said Tod Beardsley, Rapid7’s research director, who the release of the researchers’ findings. The team of five researchers said that it took two off-the-shelf consumer graphics cards just three hours to decrypt the eight-letter password protecting that ships with each device. Because the keys were buried in the code, anyone with a Guardzilla device could obtain the keys and gain unfettered access to the company’s 13 storage buckets hosted on Amazon’s servers. The researchers tested the keys but did not use them to access the buckets, they said, to prevent unintentional access to Guardzilla customer data. TechCrunch confirmed that the keys were still active and linked to the listed buckets as of Wednesday. (We could not verify the contents of the buckets as that would be unlawful.) Hardcoding keys isn’t an uncommon practice in cheaply manufactured internet-connected devices, but is considered for a hardware maker to commit as it’s easy for a hacker to break into a central server storing user data. Hardcoding keys has become such an acute problem that consumer electronics using default and hardcoded credentials from 2020 on. Fixing the vulnerability not only requires the keys to be changed on the server, but also a software patch to be rolled out on each affected device. “They could update the keys and update the firmware, but that just means they’ll be rediscovered again by the same techniques,” said Beardsley. “The only way I can think of to fix this completely is to change the keys, stand up a proxying service and update the firmware to use this proxying service with unique-per-device accounts.” “That’s a pretty significant change, but it’s just about the only way to avoid this kind of problem,” he said. Guardzilla were given three months to fix the security lapse and roll out new firmware to affected devices after the researchers privately reached out, but the company neither acknowledged nor patched the issue, prompting the researchers to go public with their findings. The researchers to Carnegie Mellon University’s public vulnerability database, CERT, which is set to issue an advisory Thursday, but received no response from the company. TechCrunch sent several emails to Guardzilla prior to publication, to no avail. It was only after we contacted , a law firm in St. Louis, Missouri, when chief executive Greg Siwak responded to our request for comment — hours before publication. In his email, Siwak denied that the company received any correspondence. We asked several questions to clarify the company’s position, which we will include here if and when they come in. Siwak was adamant that the “accusations are false,” but did not say why. When reached, former Guardzilla president Ted Siebenman told TechCrunch that he left the company in February but claimed he was “not aware” of the security issues in the device, including the use of hardcoded keys. The security researchers found two more vulnerabilities — including several known bugs affecting the device’s continued use of a since-deprecated OpenSSL encryption library from more than two years ago. The researchers also disclosed their discovery “large amounts” of traffic sent from an open port on the device to Guardzilla’s Amazon server, but could not explain why. Guardzilla doesn’t say how many devices it’s sold or how many customers it has, but touts its hardware selling in several major U.S. retailers, including Amazon, Best Buy, Target, Walmart and Staples. For now, your safest bet is to unplug your Guardzilla from the wall and stop using it. |
New e-commerce restrictions in India just ruined Christmas for Amazon and Walmart | Jon Russell | 2,018 | 12 | 27 | The Indian government is playing the role of festive party pooper for Walmart and Amazon after it announced new regulations that look set to impede the U.S. duo’s efforts to grow their businesses in India. Online commerce in the country is tipped to surpass $100 billion per year by 2022, up from $35 billion today, as more Indians come online, . But 2019 could be a very different year after (FDI) appeared to end the practice of discounts, exclusive sales and more. The three main takeaways from the new policy, which will go live on February 1, are a ban on exclusive sales, the outlawing of retailers selling products on platforms they count as investors and restrictions on discounts and cash back. Those first two clauses are pretty clear and will have a significant impact on Amazon — which has pumped some $5 billion into India — and Walmart, which . Both online retailers have been able to make a splash by tying up with brands for exclusive online sales, particularly in the smartphone space where, for example, Amazon has worked with Xiaomi and Flipkart has collaborated with Oppo. The new guideline would appear to end that practice, while adding further restrictions to complicate relationships with vendors. From February on, brands will be forbidden from selling more than 25 percent of their sales via any single e-commerce marketplace. Walmart bought Flipkart for $16 billion, but already both founders of the Indian company have left [Photo by AFP/Getty Images] Cloudtail India (a 49:51 JV between Amazon and Catamaran Ventures) is Amazon’s biggest seller, while another major one is Appario Retail, a collaboration with Patni Group. Together, both sell more than 25 percent of product on Amazon, use exclusive deals and are part-owned by Amazon. That’s three strikes. Those rules will have Amazon and Walmart-Flipkart working to find alternatives, but there’s more with restrictions on discounts and cash-back offers, which could massively cramp the appeal of online commerce, which has undercut brick and mortar retailers with heavy subsidies. Here’s the relevant part of the note: E-commerce entities providing marketplace will not directly or indirectly influence the sale price of goods or services and shall maintain level playing field… Cash back provided by group companies of marketplace entity to buyers shall be fair and non-discriminatory. Exactly what constitutes a “level playing field” or “fair” may be open to interpretation, but clearly this update gives offline retailers a route to protest pricing on online retail sites. The first thought is that these new updates are focused on the core business model tenets that make e-commerce what it is today. “It will kill competition and there will be nothing for online retailers to differentiate on,” Amarjeet Singh, a partner at KPMG, in a comment. The new regulation is widely seen as a response to concerns from smaller sellers, who feel marginalized and powerless compared to larger organizations. Now, with capital-intensive policies such as discounts, exclusive sales relationships and strategic investment off the table, smaller players will gain a foothold and be able to do more from e-commerce, according to Kunal Bahl, CEO of Snapdeal — a niche e-commerce firm that once competed head-to-head with Flipkart and Amazon. . welcomes updates to FDI policy on e-commerce. Marketplaces are meant for genuine, independent sellers, many of whom are MSMEs. These changes will enable a level playing field for all sellers, helping them leverage the reach of e-commerce. — Kunal Bahl (@1kunalbahl) It’s shaping up to be a very different year for e-commerce in India in 2019. |
China’s Tencent Music raises $1.1 billion in downsized US IPO | Jon Russell | 2,018 | 12 | 11 | Tencent Music, China’s largest streaming company, has raised $1.1 billion in a U.S. IPO after ahead of a listing on the NYSE today. That makes it one of the largest tech listings of the year, but the pricing is at the bottom end of its $13-$15 range, indicating that the much-anticipated IPO has felt the effects of an uncertain market. Indeed, , , for a time so choppy are the waters right now — that was filed last week. Still, this listing gives TME — Tencent Music Entertainment, a spin-out of Tencent — an impressive $21.3 billion valuation, which is just below when it went public earlier this year via an unconventional direct listing. at the time of Spotify’s listing in Q1 of this year, so this is also a big jump. (Meanwhile, Spotify’s present market cap is around $24 billion.) The company operates a constellation of music streaming services in China that span orthodox Spotify-style streaming as well as karaoke and live-streaming services. Altogether, TME claims 800 million registered users — although there’s likely a little creative accounting or double counting across apps involved, as . Notably, though, TME is profitable. The same can’t be said for Spotify and likely Apple Music — although we don’t have financials for the latter. That’s down to the unique business model that the Chinese firm operates, with subscription and virtual goods a major driver for its businesses, while Tencent’s ubiquitous WeChat messaging app helps it reach users and gain virality. Tidy though the numbers are, its revenues are dwarfed by those of Spotify, which grossed €1.4 billion ($1.59 billion) in sales in its last quarter. For comparison, TME did RMB 8.6 billion ($1.3 billion) in revenue for the first six months of this year. TME executives are taking that as a sign that there’s ample scope to grow their business, although it seems unlikely that will ever be as global as Spotify. The two companies might yet collaborate in the future though, since they are both mutual shareholders via . You can read more about TME in our deep dive below. We also wrote about the lessons Western services like Spotify and Apple Music can learn from TME. |
Multilingual Indian video app Roposo raises $10M from Tiger Global and Bertelsmann | Catherine Shu | 2,018 | 12 | 11 | India has 22 official languages, which usually presents a challenge for businesses that want to scale across the entire country. Video-sharing app , however, uses that to its advantage by offering content in several regional languages. Based in Gurgaon, Roposo announced today that it has raised a $10 million Series C from returning investors Tiger Global and Bertelsmann, bringing its total funding so far to $31 million. Roposo will use the new funding for hiring, product development and user acquisition. Tiger Global first invested in Roposo’s Series A round and also returned for its Series B, . After an Indian startup funding spree, the firm hit pause on new investments there for a couple of years before to focus on India, the U.S. and China. Roposo’s funding news comes a week after facility management company Facilio, another Indian startup, . Roposo originally in 2013 before pivoting to videos in August 2017. It now claims 7.5 million monthly active users, 250,000 user-generated videos and 160 million video views a day. Co-founder and chief executive officer Mayank Bhangadia tells TechCrunch that Roposo’s pivot came from “a gradual evolution of the platform from a fashion social network into rebooting as a complete social video network to enter the next big level of game play.” Users still share videos about fashion, but now it is one of several topics, including music, comedy, spirituality, tech, travel and current events (Roposo organizes videos into about 25 interest-based channels). Roposo currently claims a total of 25 million users. One obvious question is how the app plans to keep their attention as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram each aggressively promote their live-streaming video features. One of Roposo’s key advantages is its focus on multiple Indian languages (it offers content in 10 so far), which gives it an edge in smaller Indian cities and towns. Bhangadia says it also differentiates by creating a TV-like viewing experience and offering editing tools that make it easy for people to start broadcasting (about 30 percent of Roposo’s users have created content). Video creators can also make money based on how much user engagement their content generates. |
L.A. gets more moolah, thanks to Calibrate Ventures and its new $80 million fund | Connie Loizos | 2,018 | 12 | 11 | Two years ago, a couple of VCs from Shea Ventures, a 50-year-old, L.A.-based investment firm, banded together to create a Pasadena, Calif.-based early-stage venture firm called . Investors clearly like what they’re building. Firm founders Kevin Dunlap and Jason Schoettler are today announcing that they have closed their debut effort with $80 million in capital commitments, including from Shea Ventures itself and from Foundry Group, the Boulder, Colo.-based venture outfit that began dedicating a portion of its own capital to in 2016. (Both Foundry and the Bay Area-based venture firm True Ventures have been frequent syndicate partners of Dunlap and Schoettler, including during the 15 years the two spent with Shea.) So what is Calibrate funding, exactly? Well, it has five portfolio companies so far. Three of these are bets on robotics companies, including the Bedford, Mass.-based flexible robot company . It has also written checks to two software startups, including , an Oakland, Calif.-based mobile-first chat platform for local businesses. Dunlap says both fit into the firm’s mission of funding companies that augment today’s labor markets, or that enhance human productivity, or that simply offer cheaper, better services, like Dollar Shave Club, which he backed while at Shea, or the home security company Ring, on whose board Dunlap sat until the company sold for $1 billion to Amazon earlier this year. As for the company’s obvious interest in robotics companies, Dunlap says it’s far from a new area of fascination. In fact, Dunlap spent a year as an engineer with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena. He and Schoettler have also been making related bets for years, including investing in (in their capacity as investors at Shea) and, more recently, under the Calibrate banner, funding , which retrofits construction equipment with the same sensor technology used in autonomous vehicles. As for what types of robotics companies interest them specifically, Dunlap says a company has to have a “subscription or service component to it. We don’t want to be investing in toy robots or a single-use robot and hoping that someone will want to buy version two or three later on.” Either way, don’t expect to see the firm write too many checks. As Dunlap explains it, the firm, which is investing across the U.S., only plans to make 15 investments altogether with this new fund, investing between $3 million and $6 million into companies that are already seeing early revenue and that might be raising Series A rounds of between $10 million and $20 million. “It’s important that the two of us do the work and spend time with all the teams, and it’s important for us to do the work afterward, too,” Dunlap says, including referring Calibrate’s portfolio companies to potential future investors. Thankfully, he says, unlike in years long past, that’s not the problem it once was for an L.A.-based firm. “Things have really matured here over the last five or six years,” he says. “Talent has been more of an issue in recent years than funding.” And nature seems to be solving for this, too. “You’re definitely starting to see more people moving here for the better weather and the cost of living. You’re also starting to see people leaving Dollar Shave Club and Snap and Honest Company and, over time, Ring.” The duo is also bringing plenty of lessons learned to the table, they say, including the importance of “alignment, and not just with founders but with other investment partners,” says Dunlap. It helps startups navigate around having “too much structure” involved in their financing rounds. It also keeps valuations “appropriate,” he says. By the way, asked if he is seeing valuations soften at all with the zigs and zags of the public market, Dunlap says he isn’t, not in his part of the world, anyway. “When you’re talking about seed rounds around a concept or an idea, valuations can creep up, and those valuations may be coming down a bit right now.” When you’re instead “having a discussion with a company that has early revenue and metrics that you can point to, I’m not seeing any difference at all.” |
Indonesia e-commerce leader Tokopedia raises $1.1B from Alibaba and SoftBank’s Vision Fund | Jon Russell | 2,018 | 12 | 11 | Tokopedia is the latest startup to enter the Vision Fund after it raised a $1.1 billion Series G round led by the SoftBank megafund and Alibaba. SoftBank and Alibaba are existing investors in the business — the Chinese e-commerce giant led last year, while SoftBank recently transitioned its shareholding in Tokopedia to the Vision Fund. That latter detail is what held up this deal, which had been agreed in principle back in October, TechCrunch understands. Tokopedia didn’t comment on its valuation, but TechCrunch understands from a source that the deal values the company at $7 billion. SoftBank Ventures Korea and other investors — including Sequoia India — also took part in the deal. It has now raised $2.4 billion from investors to date, with SoftBank first joining in 2014 when . The deal comes weeks after , Korea’s leading e-commerce firm, at a valuation of $9 billion. Like Tokopedia, Coupang countered SoftBank as an investor before its stake transitioned to the Vision Fund. Founded nine years ago, Tokopedia is often compared to Taobao, Alibaba’s hugely successful e-commerce marketplace in China, and the company . Tokopedia said it has increased its GMV four-fold, although it did not provide a figure. Logistics are a huge issue in Indonesia, which is spread across some 17,000 islands. Right now, it claims to serve an impressive 93 percent of the country, while it said that one-quarter of its customers are eligible for same-day delivery on products. That’s also notable given that it operates a marketplace, which makes coordinating logistics more challenging. The firm plans to use this new capital to develop its technology to enable more SMEs and independent retailers to come aboard its platform. On the consumer side, it is developing financial services and products that go beyond core e-commerce and increase its captive audience of consumers. Despite this new round, CEO and co-founder William Tanuwijaya told TechCrunch that there are no plans to expand beyond Indonesia, which is Southeast Asia’s largest economy and the world’s fourth most populous country with a population of more than 260 million. “We do not have plans to expand beyond Indonesia at this moment. We will double down on the Indonesia market to reach every corner of our beautiful 17,000-island archipelago,” Tanuwijaya said via an emailed response to questions. (Tokopedia declined a request for an interview over the phone.) William Tanuwijaya, co-founder and chief executive officer of PT Tokopedia, gestures as he speaks during a panel session on the closing day of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, on Friday, Jan. 26, 2018. World leaders, influential executives, bankers and policy makers attend the 48th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos from Jan. 23 – 26. Photographer: Jason Alden/Bloomberg That Indonesia-only approach is in contrast to Go-Jek, . Go-Jek has already moved into , Singapore and Thailand, with doubtless more plans in 2019. But Go-Jek and Tokopedia do share similarities in that they have both expanded beyond their central business. Go-Jek has pushed into on-demand services, payments and more. In recent times, Tokopedia has moved into payments, including mobile top-up and financial services, and Tanuwijaya hinted that it will continue its strategy to become a “super app.” “We will go deeper and serve Indonesians better – from the moment they wake up in the morning until they fall asleep at night; from the moment a person is born, until she or he grows old. We will invest and build technology infrastructure-as-a-services, in logistics and fulfillment, payments and financial services, to empower businesses both online and offline,” Tanuwijaya added. But, with the Vision Fund comes controversy. that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The prince manages Saudi Arabia’s PIF sovereign fund, the gargantuan investment vehicle that anchored the Vision Fund through a $45 billion investment. the killing as an “act against humanity” but, in an analyst presentation, he added that SoftBank has a “responsibility” to Saudi Arabia to deploy the capital and continue the Vision Fund. “We are deeply concerned by the reported events and alongside SoftBank are monitoring the situation closely until the full facts are known,” Tanuwijaya told us via email, although it remains unclear exactly what Tokopedia could (or would) do even in the worst-case scenario. Given that with Saudi Arabia as a key ally, the situation remains in flux, although around whether the Saudi link makes the Vision Fund tainted money for founders. Son himself said recently that he hadn’t heard of any cases of startups refusing an investment from the Vision Fund, but he did admit that there “may be some impact” in the future. Tanuwijaya didn’t directly address our question on whether he anticipates a backlash from this investment. doesn’t appear to have generated a negative reaction. Even the involvement of Alibaba throws up other questions, given that it owns Lazada — which is arguably Southeast Asia’s most prominent e-commerce service. Unlike Tokopedia, Lazada covers six markets in Southeast Asia, it is focused on retail brands and it maintains close links to Alibaba’s Taobao service, giving merchants a channel to reach into the region. , Tokopedia’s management was originally keen to take money from Alibaba’s rival Tencent, but an intervention from SoftBank forced it to bring Alibaba on instead. Tanuwijaya somewhat diplomatically played down the rivalry and any rift, insisting that there is no impact on its business. “Tokopedia is an independent company with a diversified cap table,” he said via email. “No single shareholder owns the majority of the company. We work closely with our shareholders’ portfolio companies and tap into available synergies.” “For example, Tokopedia works closely with both Grab — a SoftBank portfolio — and Gojek — a Sequoia portfolio. We see Lazada having a different business model than us: Lazada is a hybrid of retail and marketplace model, whereas Tokopedia is a pure marketplace. Lazada is [a] regional player, we are a national player in Indonesia,” he added. Tokopedia has many similarities to Alibaba’s hugely successful Taobao marketplace in China At nearly a decade old, Tokopedia was one of the earliest startups to emerge in Indonesia. Famously, Tanuwijaya and fellow co-founder Leontinus Alpha Edison famously saw nearly a dozen pitches for venture capital rejected by VCs before they struck out and raised money. Compared to now — and entry to the Vision Fund for “proven champions,” as Son calls it — that’s a huge transition, and that’s not even including the business itself, which has broadened into financial products and more. But that doesn’t always sit easily with every founder. Privately, many will often concede that the “best” days are early times during intense scaling and all-hands-to-the-pump moments. Indeed, Traveloka — a fellow Indonesia-based unicorn — . Is the same likely to happen to Tanuwijaya, Edison and their C-level peers in the business? Tanuwijaya compared the journey of his business to scaling a mountain. “Leon and I are very excited entering our tenth year. When we first started Tokopedia, it was like seeing the tip of a mountain that is very far from where we stand. We promised ourselves that we were going to climb to the top of the mountain one day,” he told TechCrunch. “The top of the mountain is our company mission: to democratize commerce through technology. Today, we have arrived at the base of the mountain. We can finally touch the mountain and we can start to climb it. With this additional capital, we have the tools and supplies to achieve our mission at a faster rate. Should we think whether we are burned-out and go home to rest, or should we climb our mountain? How can we be less excited about this moment?” he added. Tokopedia has certainly become a mountain in itself. The startup is the third highest-valued private tech company, behind only Grab and Go-Jek, at $11 billion and ( ) $9 billion, respectively, and the fairy tale story is likely to inspire future founders in Indonesia and beyond to take the startup route. What happens to the Vision Fund and its PIF connection by then is less certain. |
null | Rita Liao | 2,018 | 12 | 27 | null |
Building in Facebook’s Menlo Park campus evacuated after bomb threat | Catherine Shu | 2,018 | 12 | 11 | A building in Facebook’s Menlo Park campus was evacuated after a bomb threat early Tuesday evening. Around 5PM, the Menlo Park police department people to avoid the area around the 200 block of Jefferson Drive as they investigated a bomb threat. Then they said 200 Jefferson Drive, the address of Facebook Building 24 and Instagram’s headquarters, has been evacuated and . Police activity in the 200 block of Jefferson Drive/Constitution Drive in Menlo Park due to a bomb threat. Avoid the area. — Menlo Park PD (@MenloParkPD) Update to bomb threat at 200 Jefferson Drive: The building has been evacuated and the bomb unit is on scene. — Menlo Park PD (@MenloParkPD) According to NBC Bay Area, a tip about a threat to the Facebook campus came from the New York Police Department’s Crimestopper Unit, which notified the Menlo Park Police. : Tip about threat to Facebook campus came from NYPD’s Crimestopper Unit, which in turn notified Menlo Park Police.
LIVE VIDEO: — NBC Bay Area (@nbcbayarea) |
Huawei CFO accused of fraud is granted $7.5M bail | Kate Clark | 2,018 | 12 | 11 | The Canadian government has granted bail to Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s chief financial officer, 10 days after her in Vancouver. The decision concludes a three-day court hearing in which the judge and the public prosecutor debated whether Wanzhou would breach her bail conditions. Wanzhou, the daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, has been accused of fraud with a maximum penalty of . She was arrested by Canadian officials at the request of the U.S. government on December 1 while changing planes on her way to Mexico. As part of her bail conditions, the court has ordered her to pay C$10 million — about $7.5 million — and await U.S. extradition from her Vancouver home. According to , Wanzhou must relinquish her passport, wear an ankle bracelet and remain at home between the hours of 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. The U.S. Department of Justice alleges Wanzhou misled American financial institutions and allowed an unofficial Huawei subsidiary, called SkyCom, to do business in Iran despite U.S. sanctions. Huawei didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. President Donald Trump, in an interview with , said he would be willing to intervene in the Justice Department’s case, citing national security concerns. “If I think it’s good for what will be certainly the largest trade deal ever made – which is a very important thing – what’s good for national security – I would certainly intervene if I thought it was necessary,” Trump said. |
Wix launches a new suite of products for support, sales and marketing | Anthony Ha | 2,018 | 12 | 11 | is taking a big step beyond website building today with the launch of a suite of products called . PR Manager Matt Rosenberg explained that just as Wix was founded with the aim of “demystifying and democratizing how you get online,” Ascend has a similar mission: “You don’t have to be a developer and designer to bring the same thing to business management and marketing.” Other website builders like and ( ) have also introduced marketing tools, but Ascend seems like a particularly ambitious expansion, encompassing 20 products in areas like chat, memberships, email marketing and search engine optimization (in some cases, these are existing Wix products being brought under the Ascend umbrella). For example, Nitzan Achsaf, the company’s vice president and general manager of customer experience, demonstrated how a (fictional) tennis instructor could use the various Ascend products to answer questions from and offer discounts to one customer interested in purchasing a tennis racket, while also interacting with and providing official price quotes to someone else looking to book a birthday party for their child. “What we’re proud of is, there’s no juggling of vendors or of third-party platforms,” Rosenberg added. In fact, all of a business’ interactions with a customer, regardless of channel, are routed into a single inbox, which can be accessed on any device — in the case of the tennis instructor, Achsaf said, “The whole conversation is [conducted via mobile phone] on the court, probably in-between sessions.” Wix is also developing a workflow editor, so that a business’ website and other channels can respond automatically depending on how customers behave. Ascend by Wix is available as a separate subscription, with pricing ranging from $9 to $45 per month. Technically, you could use it even if you don’t have a Wix subscription, but Achsaf said, “The tight integration into a Wix website is a very big advantage for our users.” |
Proof of use: A new crowdfunding threshold for passionate users | Galen Moore | 2,018 | 12 | 11 | Right now, most participants in U.S. private placements must be “accredited” investors, meaning $200,000 annual income over multiple years or $1 million in net worth, not including your primary residence. These , though inflation in the intervening decades has the real wealth they represent. This means your mother, who owns a vacation home on Cape Cod, may be getting phone calls from boiler room broker-dealers. The wealth standard means your mother is considered qualified to evaluate such offers; a more sophisticated, but less wealthy individual is not. Pending legislation addresses that. The Fair Investment Opportunities for Professional Experts Act is a revision to the 2014 JOBS Act. If you have a financial services license or are determined by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to have qualifying education or experience, it would allow you to invest, regardless of your wealth. The proof of knowledge approach is problematic. The advantage of the wealth-based standard for accreditation is it’s clear and straightforward. A knowledge-based standard is more subjective, leading to potential disputes. Such a subjective standard may or may not open investment opportunities for people otherwise excluded by the wealth-based standard, but it’s sure to bring more revenue for lawyers. Instead of a standard based on education or experience, the SEC ought to adopt a standard based on use — i.e. their contributions of time and talent that precede the investment. Call it “proof of use.” The early growth of Facebook and internet protocols like HTML are analogies often used in crowdfunding and in crypto assets. If the volunteer developers who built the open-source internet protocols had been able to invest in them, they would be today’s internet moguls, alongside Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg. Meanwhile, early adopters, sellers and evangelists contributed tremendous value to Facebook and Amazon. If they had been able to invest, they’d have participated materially, too. So-called “gig economy” platforms Airbnb and Uber have made similar recommendations to the SEC. did so in a September letter to the SEC, advocating an update to rules governing equity-based employee compensation, which would allow them to distribute stock to hosts that use its platform without running up against the public-reporting limit of 1,999 shareholders. had conversations in 2017 with the regulator, advocating similar changes for granting stock to its drivers. (In other venues, has successfully argued its drivers are nothing like employees.) I’m suggesting something a little different. If we are going to re-imagine a next generation of Facebooks that grow without information silos and monopolistic ambitions, network users must be able to contribute capital. Regulators could make this possible if they open the door for users who have been active with a product for a significant period of time to actually buy its stock. Long-term, active use is a more objective standard than knowledge. Picking stocks based on individual experience as a professional or a consumer is also a time-honored principle, going back to one of Peter Lynch’s often-repeated mantras: “Invest in what you know.” I’m not the first to suggest this. A journalism project called Civil used “proof of use” to describe how it would quiz would-be investors about journalism and their project, before allowing a purchase of the CVL token offered in an initial coin offering that sought to raise $24 million in a two-week crowdsale. The quiz and the other steps involved did not make it easy, . Before selling any of their stock, Civil’s crowd-investors would have to take some action using the token. Voting on funding for a journalism project was one example offered (though this probably makes Civil’s token more like a security, not less). In this way, Civil hoped to be perhaps the first token crowdsale to legitimately demonstrate a so-called “utility token” exclusion from potentially applicable securities laws. Civil’s crowdsale didn’t fail because of its self-imposed sophistication standard, or because the idea of a “utility token” is naïve in any business other than Chuck E. Cheese’s. It failed because it was trying to raise $24 million in two weeks for a community journalism project. It did raise $350,000, which to this former journalist sounds like a smashing success. Real proof of use would be putting Civil’s $5 million seed round to work, demonstrating user traction — then opening its offering to its crowd of passionate users. Proof of use would have the added benefit of limiting the crowdfunding option only to companies that can actually attract users. Proof of that traction would be financed by wealthy investors who can bear the risk; for the growing company, proof of use would open a new financing option and a better path to reward its early adopters. Right now, chasing deals, the best have no need to resort to crowdfunding. Broadening the accreditation standard only creates opportunities for bottom-tier deals or much less knowledgeable investors, or allows venture capitalists to front-run the entire crowd. This they already often do in crypto issuance, allowing their name on the deal to pump interest among retail investors who don’t realize they’re buying the opportunity at a higher price. Proof of use would provide an additional fundraising avenue for products and services that are showing traction with users — one that would carry the added benefit of motivating the user base, besides the capital it brings. Right now, despite the billions raised by ICOs, users are scarce — , across more than 2,000 decentralized applications, or Dapps. I can think of three projects that have approached us at New Alchemy that would benefit from a reform like this. It would be a miracle if U.S. legislators and regulators were able to pull it through in time for their fundraises — which means they will likely exclude U.S. investors, again. I hope there will be better options for the next few that come along. |
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