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This project is mapping every solar panel in the country using machine learning | Devin Coldewey | 2,018 | 12 | 19 | Renewable energy is the future, but at present no one is tracking just who’s got solar panels on their roof, in their back yard, or a shared neighborhood installation. Fortunately, solar panels generally work best when exposed to the light. That makes them easy to spot, and count, from orbit — which is just what the DeepSolar project is doing. There are a number of initiatives for collecting this information — some regulated, some voluntary, some automated. But none of them is comprehensive enough or accurate enough to base policy or business decisions on at a national or state level. Stanford engineers (mechanical and civil, respectively) Arun Majumdar and Ram Rajagopal decided to remedy this with what seems like, in retrospect, rather an obvious solution. Machine learning systems are great at looking at images and finding objects they’ve been “trained” to recognize, whether it’s cats, faces, or cars… so why not solar panels? Their team, including grad students Jiafan Yu and Zhecheng Wang, put together an image recognition machine learning agent trained on hundreds of thousands of satellite images. The model learns both to identify the presence of solar panels in an image, and to find the shape and area of those panels. Having evaluated the model on nearly a hundred thousand other randomly sampled satellite images of the U.S., they found they achieved an accuracy of about 90 percent (slightly more or less depending on how it’s measured), which is well ahead of other models, and it estimated cell size with only about a 3 percent error. (Its main weakness is very small installations, Rajagopal told me, but this is partially due to the limits of the imagery.) The team then put the model to work chewing through over a billion image tiles covering as much of the lower 48 states as they could find suitable imagery for. That excludes quite a bit of area, but consider that much of that is, for example, mountains. Not a lot of solar installations there, and few people are trying to put up cells in national parks. All in all it’s about 6 percent of the actual country — but Rajagopal pointed out that urban areas comprise only about 3.5 percent, so this covers all of them and more. He estimated that perhaps perhaps 5 percent of installations are in the areas the system has yet to process (but is working on). Scanning took a whole month, but at the end the model had found 1.47 million individual solar installations (which could be a few panels on a roof or a whole solar farm). That’s many more than have been counted by other efforts, and the most successful of those didn’t come with the exact location, as DeepSolar’s data does. Basic plotting of this data produces all kinds of interesting new info. You can compare solar installation density at the state, county, census tract, or even square mile level and compare that to all kinds of other metrics — average sunny days per year, household income, voting preference, and so on. A couple interesting findings: Only 4 percent of all census tracts (roughly 3,000 out of 75,000) had more than 100 residential-scale solar systems, meaning installations are highly concentrated. Residential solar made up 87 percent of the total installation count, but with a median size of around 25 square meters, only 34 percent of the total solar cell surface area. Peak deployment density can be found where there are about a thousand people per square mile — think a small town or suburb, not a major city. And there’s a sort of inflection point at which people start installing: when an area receives more than 4.5 kWh per square meter per day of solar radiation. How that corresponds to weather, location, exposure and so on is a more complicated question. This and other demographics are all good information to know if you want to invest in solar, since they basically tell you where it’s justified or needed. “We have where you can play with the data at the aggregated level (we are keeping it at census tract level) to respect the privacy of consumers,” Rajagopal said. “We are exploring how to make individual detections public while respecting privacy (perhaps by encouraging public participation and crowdsourcing).” “We decided to share all of the work in open source to encourage others in industry and academia to utilize both the method as well as the data to produce more insights. We feel that changes need to happen fast, and this is one of the ways to aid in that. Perhaps in the future, services can be built around this type of data,” he continued. Plans are underway to expand the service to the rest of the U.S. and other countries as well. The data is available to peruse , or ; the team’s paper describing the project was . |
Coinbase’s Earn.com becomes a crypto webinar with crypto rewards | Romain Dillet | 2,018 | 12 | 19 | Coinbase acquired Earn.com for at least $120 million . And the company now Earn.com into Coinbase Earn, a website with educational content to learn more about cryptocurrencies. Users who complete those classes will earn tokens. Coinbase bought Earn.com partly so that it could appoint Earn.com co-founder and CEO Balaji Srinivasan as Coinbase’s CTO. The previous iteration of Earn.com wasn’t a priority for Coinbase. Earn.com started as a service where you can contact busy people for a small fee. Busy people would get paid in cryptocurrencies to accept those requests. The platform quickly became a way to massively contact Earn.com’s user base for initial coin offerings and airdrops. Coinbase Earn is launching today in private beta. But at the time of this article, the new Coinbase Earn service is not live ( is now live and is a separate website from Earn.com). Some Coinbase users will receive an invitation to the service. The company says that educational content will go beyond Bitcoin and Ethereum. Developing education pages for obscure cryptocurrencies makes sense as Coinbase plans to add over the coming months. At first, there is just one track. Users can learn more about , a protocol that lets you create decentralized exchanges. Cryptocurrency trades can be executed without a centralized exchange thanks to 0x. 0x content includes video lessons and quizzes — and yes, writing this makes me feel like it’s 2005 and webinars are cool again. Even if you’re not invited to Coinbase Earn, you can view the content. But those who are part of Coinbase Earn will receive a small amount of ZRX at the end of the track. Coinbase had previously launched a to understand the basics of cryptocurrencies. |
Recapping a year of highs and lows for SoftBank | Danny Crichton | 2,018 | 12 | 19 | a word that dominated startup and tech news coverage this year, it was SoftBank. The Japanese telecom conglomerate’s Vision Fund pushed out a prodigious amount of capital this year — quite literally billions of dollars — into companies as diverse as a (Zymergen) and (Zume Pizza). It was a year of highs as , as well as a year of incredible lows, what with . Saudi Arabia is the largest investor in the Vision Fund. But the Vision Fund is only part of the SoftBank story this year. on the (ticker: 9434), the second largest IPO of all time after Alibaba, raising $23.6 billion. But , those same consumers dumped the stock upon its debut, dropping by 15% from its debut at ¥1,463 to its close at ¥1,282. That’s for a Japanese company. Highs and lows come with any ambitious project, and certainly for Masayoshi Son, the founder and chairman of SoftBank Group, nothing — — will stand in his way. Today, Arman and I wanted to look back at SoftBank’s year, and so we’ve compiled ten areas for analysis around the group’s telco business, its Vision Fund, and its other major investments (Sprint, Nvidia, Arm, and Alibaba). Ken Miyauchi, president and chief executive officer of SoftBank Corp., strikes the trading bell during the company’s listing ceremony at the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) in Tokyo, Japan, on Wednesday, Dec. 19, 2018. Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg via Getty Images At its core, SoftBank Group is fundamentally a telecom, and the third-largest player in the Japanese market. Masayoshi Son has for years wanted to transform SoftBank from a mature telco player into a leading investment house for funding the next-generation of technology companies. There’s just one problem: SoftBank is sitting on piles of debt. : The bigger number though is sitting on the liabilities side of the company’s balance sheet. As of the end of September, SoftBank had around 18 trillion yen, or about $158.8 billion of current and non-current interest-bearing debt. That’s more than six times the amount the company earns on an operating basis, and . And though SoftBank’s sky-high debt balance tends to be a secondary focus in the company’s media coverage, it’s a figure that SoftBank’s top brass is well aware of, and quite comfortable with. , Softbank CFO Yoshimitsu Goto stated that the company is in the early stages of a transition from a telco holding company to an investment company, and as a result is “likely to be perceived as a corporate group with significant debt and interest payment burden” with what is “generally considered a high level of debt.” Those debt loads have made corporate maneuvering quite complicated. And so the company decided to put its mobile telco unit up for public trading as a means of getting a fresh injection of capital and continue its transformation into an investment shop. By raising $23.6 billion today, the company did just that. The 15% drop in value on its debut though shows that the market has yet to fully buy into Son’s vision for where SoftBank is heading. That lowered price will make the corporate financial math around debt tougher, and will be a key theme for 2019. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Photo by Matt Roberts/Getty Images Japan’s telco market is quite dormant, with for mobile service. Japan’s government also , which has saved telcos billions of dollars in direct cash costs, helping them to become reliable profit-generating juggernauts. That cozy world is being shattered by , who has made increasing competition in the industry a major policy initiative. That includes , demanding lower prices from telcos, and opening the market to new entrants like Rakuten (see #3 below). As a result, incumbents like NTT DoCoMo have , while warning investors that it may take five years for the company to return to current profitability. Those announcements caused stock traders to dump Japanese telco shares this year, in the days following the announcements. At a time when SoftBank most needs its cash flow to pay off its debt, the world is rapidly moving against it. The company has , but the announcements from its larger competitors dump cold water on its claims. , but mostly from its Vision Fund investments rather than its core telco business. Hiroshi Mikitani, owner of Rakuten. BEHROUZ MEHRI/AFP/Getty Images One of the big news stories for SoftBank came from ecommerce giant Rakuten, which announced that it will launch a new mobile service in Japan starting as early as next year. : Though a to enter the telco market since eAccess in 2007, Rakuten has already gotten the thumbs up to start operations in 2019. The government also that would make the new kid in town more competitive, such as banning telcos from limiting device portability. Rakuten’s with key utilities and infrastructure players will also allow it to build out its network quickly, including one with Japan’s second largest mobile service provider, KDDI. Rakuten has obvious built-in advantages as the following Amazon, and that will put pressure on other incumbents — including SoftBank — to meet its prices or to compete with more marketing dollars to reach customers. Again, we see a tough road ahead for SoftBank’s telecom business at a very vulnerable time for its balance sheet. Photo by Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images The Vision Fund’s massive vision got just a bit bigger this year. When the fund announced its first close in May 2017, it set a target final fund size of $93 billion. In 2018 though, the Vision Fund . When we add the $6 billion already committed for SoftBank’s Delta Fund, which is a separate vehicle used to alleviate conflicts around the company’s Didi investment, Masayoshi Son now has more than a $100 billion at his disposal. But that’s not all! The Vision Fund has also been so that it can fund startups faster (picking up on that debt theme yet?). Its LPs, which include Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, and Apple, are given time to fund their commitments to the Vision Fund, and so the fund wants to have cash in the bank so that it can fund its investments faster. , to say the least. , possibly as soon as next year, eventually ramping to $880 billion in the coming years. Whether the company’s debt load and controversy over Saudi Arabia (see #6 below) will allow that vision to come to pass is going to be a major question for 2019. Photo by Alessandro Di Ciommo/NurPhoto via Getty Images SoftBank dominated headlines throughout 2018 with a steady cadence of monster investments across geographies and industries. Based on data from regulatory filings, Pitchbook, and Crunchbase, SoftBank and its Vision Fund led roughly 35 investment rounds, with total round sizes aggregating to roughly $30 billion, or over $40 billion when including investments in Uber and Grab, which were announced in 2017 but didn’t close until early 2018. Surprisingly, SoftBank’s latest filings indicate that as of the end of September, the Vision Fund had only deployed roughly $33 billion, or about one-third the total fund, though the actual number might be quite a bit larger. SoftBank has led twelve rounds since September, including and . In addition to investing directly through its Vision Fund, SoftBank also regularly makes and holds investments at the group level, with the intention of selling or transferring shares to the Vision Fund at a later date. As a result, SoftBank currently holds around $27.7 billion in investments that sit outside the Vision Fund, including the company’s stakes in Uber, Grab and Ola which it expects to eventually transfer to the Vision Fund pending LP and regulatory approvals. Assuming it plans to move the majority of these investments to the Vision Fund, SoftBank might have already deployed close to half the fund. For all of that money flowing out the door though, there are limits even to the Vision Fund’s ambitions. Just today, against a plan to buy out a majority of WeWork, which would push the Vision Fund’s investment in the co-working startup to $24 billion. From the article: Some of the people said that [Saudi Arabia’s] PIF and [Abu Dhabi’s] Mubadala have questioned the wisdom of doubling down on WeWork, and have cast doubt on its rich valuation. The company is on track to lose around $2 billion this year, and the funds have expressed concern that WeWork’s model could leave it exposed if the economy turns, some of the people said. If the investment went through, WeWork would represent roughly a quarter of the fund’s capital, an astonishing level of concentration for a venture fund. Its a bold, concentrated bet, exactly the kind of model that entices Son. Photo by AFP/Getty Images In just the first full year of operations, the Vision Fund has already begun to see the fruits of its investments with several portfolio company exits. It made a spectacular return on Indian ecommerce startup Flipkart, where . Walmart, which bought a 77% stake in Flipkart as part of its ambitious overseas strategy, . Flipkart may have been the year’s largest highlight for the Vision Fund, but it wasn’t the only liquidity the fund saw. Its pre-IPO investment in Ping An Health & Technology Co, which produces the popular Chinese medical app Good Doctor, , and Guardant Health, which makes blood tests for disease detection, went public in October to . While those early wins are positive signs, the proof of the Vision Fund’s thesis will come early next year, when companies like Uber, Slack and Didi are expected to go public. If the returns prove favorable, then the fundraise for Vision Fund II may well come together quickly. But if the markets turn south and complicate the roadshows for these unicorns, it could complicate the story of how the Vision Fund exits out of these high-flying investments. JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images The tech media world went into a frenzy over Saudi Arabia’s horrific and horrifically public killing of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi. That put enormous pressure on SoftBank and its Vision Fund, where Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) is the largest LP with a $45 billion commitment. There have been strong calls for Masayoshi Son to avoid Saudi Arabia in future fundraises, but that is complicated for one simple reason: there are just not that many money managers in the world who can a) invest tens of billions of dollars into firms backing risky technology investments, and b) are willing to ignore SoftBank’s massive debt stack and existential risks. So SoftBank faces a tough choice. It can have its fund, but will need to get money from unsavory people. That might be fine — after all, . Or it can walk away and try to find another LP that might replace the Kingdom’s huge fund commitment. If the Vision Fund’s numbers look good after the early IPOs in 2019, I can imagine it being able to paper around Saudi Arabia’s commitment with a broader set of LPs that might be intrigued with technology investing and trust the numbers a bit more. If the IPOs stall though, whether because of internal company challenges à la pre-Dara Uber or broader market challenges, then expect a next fundraise to feature Saudi Arabia prominently, or for no fundraise to take place at all. CEO of T-Mobile US Inc. John Legere and Executive Chairman of Sprint Corporation Marcelo Claure. Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images , Sprint’s heavy debt balance has led to lackluster performance and , where they’ve remained since. , SoftBank reinitiated merger discussions with T-Mobile’s German parent, Deutsche Telekom in 2018, for a Sprint/T-Mobile merger that would see SoftBank’s ownership stake fall from just over 80% of Sprint to just 27% of the combined entity. Despite the poor track record for telco deal approvals and the increased scrutiny of cross-border M&A from U.S. regulators, SoftBank’s proposed merger from the (CFIUS), the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Defense. Part of that agreement came when from its infrastructure. While the deal still needs approval from the Federal Communications Commission, the road forward seems to be relatively clear. If the deal ultimately goes through, SoftBank will no longer have to consolidate Sprint financials with its own and can instead report only its owned share of Sprint financials (and debt expense), improving (at least the optics of) SoftBank’s balance sheet. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images after building up a roughly $4 billion stake in the company’s shares. , Nvidia’s stock has gone into free fall over the past two months, as the company faces geopolitical turmoil, the loss of a huge revenue stream with the collapse in crypto, and an increasingly competitive battle in the next-generation application workflow space. Now, SoftBank is for possible profits of around $3 billion. As Bloomberg reported, that’s because the acquisition was built as a “collar trade” that protected SoftBank against a drop in Nvidia’s share price (a good reminder that even when a stock loses half of its value, it is entirely possible for people to ). The opportunity though is that SoftBank almost certainly still wants to continue to play in the next-generation AI chip space, and needs to find another vehicle for it to hitch a ride on. Masayoshi Son, CEO of Japanese mobile giant SoftBank, and Stuart Chambers, Chairman of British chip designer company ARM Holdings, are pictured outside 11 Downing street in central London. NIKLAS HALLE’N/AFP/Getty Images In 2016, when it acquired system-on-a-chip designer ARM Holdings for $32 billion. ARM’s designs were dominant among smartphones, which at the time was seeing rapid adoption and growth worldwide. The good news hasn’t stopped since, although ARM has had to pivot its strategy in 2018 to adapt to changing market dynamics. Apple, which has seen , to using ARM chips for a wider array of its products, including its Mac lineup. Beyond that expansion, , and engaging in next-generation markets around artificial intelligence and . ARM’s CEO has said that , which shows a healthy clip of growth if that pans out. There are headwinds though. Consolidation in the semiconductor space has been a theme the past two years, and that will allow the surviving companies to be more ferocious competitors against ARM. Up-and-coming startups could also crimp the company’s growth in next-generation workloads, a risk shared with other incumbents like Nvidia. That said, ARM seems to be in a much more strategic position than Nvidia these days, as ARM has managed to maintain its linchpin role, and that should ultimately roll up to a valuation that SoftBank will be excited about. Jack Ma, businessman and founder of Alibaba, at the 40th Anniversary of Reform and Opening Up at The Great Hall Of The People on December 18, 2018 in Beijing, China. (Photo by Andrea Verdelli/Getty Images) While SoftBank has slowly been cashing in after winning big on its early backing of Alibaba, the company’s ownership stake still sits at roughly 29%. SoftBank’s Alibaba ties have helped the company fuel its incessant appetite for leverage, with , which prevented additional downgrades of Softbank’s credit. But a tougher macro backdrop and slowing sales growth have caused Alibaba to follow the precipitous decline of other Chinese tech stocks in 2018, . That decline means tens of billions of dollars of losses for SoftBank’s already overstretched balance sheet, and as with many of these stories, will make financing its vision challenging in 2019. And so we get back to the core theme of 2018 for SoftBank: debt, leverage, and financial wizardry in pursuit of a bold transformation into a technology investment firm. That transformation has certainly not been smooth, but it has moved forward bit by bit. If SoftBank can navigate the changes in the Japanese telco market, exit some major investments in its Vision Fund, and manage its big commitments in Sprint and Alibaba, it will reach its destination, with a few ultimately superficial bruises along the way. |
MoviePass’s film studio signed a three-year deal with Bruce Willis | Brian Heater | 2,018 | 12 | 19 | null |
Microsoft launches a new app to make using Office easier | Frederic Lardinois | 2,018 | 12 | 19 | Microsoft today a new Office app that’s now available to Windows Insiders and that will soon roll out to all Windows 10 users. The new Office app will replace the existing My Office app (yeah, those names…). While the existing app was mostly about managing Office 365 subscriptions, the new app provides significantly more features and will essentially become the central hub for Office users to switch between apps, see their pinned documents and access other Office features. The company notes that this launch is part of its efforts to make using Office easier and help users “get the most out of Office and getting them back into their work quickly.” For many Office users, Outlook, Word, PowerPoint and Excel are basically their central tools for getting work done, so it makes sense to give them a single app that combines in a single place all the information about their work. Using the app, users can switch between apps, see everything they’ve been working on, as well as recommended documents based on what I assume is data from the . There’s also an integrated search feature and admins will be able to customize the app with other line of business applications and their company’s branding. The app is free and will be available in the oft-forgotten . It’ll work for all users with Office 365 subscriptions or access to Office 2019, Office 2016 or Office Online. |
Fortnite players report queue issues as Epic experiences a ‘minor service outage’ | Taylor Hatmaker | 2,018 | 12 | 26 | Epic Games is having its own Christmas hangover. On Wednesday, a number of Fortnite players reported long queues that time out and problems logging in to Fortnite’s servers. The company is aware of the issue and tweeted that it’s investigating the cause behind the outage that some users are running into when they try to log in. We are investigating an issue causing some players to encounter a problem with game services and when attempting to log in. — Fortnite (@FortniteGame) We were able to replicate the problem around 1 p.m. Pacific Time, with the game repeatedly throwing us into a queue for around five minutes before timing out. One time, we did successfully log in. When the login failed we were met with the message “Unable to join the Fortnite login queue. Please try again later.” : As of 2 p.m. Pacific Time, the queue is stretching closer to 10 minutes. At the end of the queue countdown we are still unable to log in. Epic has pointed eager holiday players to its status page, where the company reports a “minor service outage” affecting Game Services. The page also notes that Login and Matchmaking are currently experiencing “degraded performance.” TechCrunch has reached out to Epic about the cause of the downtime. While it’s not quite as catastrophic for an online game as a proper Christmas day outage, the time between Christmas and New Year’s is sure to be a massive week for Epic’s hit game. Given that Epic makes bank charging for cosmetic upgrades through an online store, we’d be curious how much revenue the company loses every minute Fortnite is down during a peak play time. On the other hand, we might rather not know. |
Let your new Roomba build a Doom level of your house with DOOMBA | Devin Coldewey | 2,018 | 12 | 26 | Some of you out there may be lucky enough to have received over the holidays a fancy new robot vacuum. Turns out it’s even more useful than you’d think: in addition to cleaning your home, it can scan its surroundings and produce a Doom level of your home! Just the right thing to ring in the new year: Hell on Earth. It’s not an official iRobot feature, unfortunately, but rather . He noticed that Roombas were actually putting together some pretty detailed environment data with their sensors, and naturally felt this capability should be applied to a . By combining Doom with Roomba, Whitehouse realized he would not only be able to make something fun, but to “unleash a truly terrible pun to plague humankind.” To wit: DOOMBA. It works like this, though if you don’t have a Roomba 980, there’s no guarantee it’ll work at all: Using a special utility, your PC will detect the Roomba on the wireless network and begin tracking its movements and collected data. When the little robot has done its work, the data is saved in a file, which you can then convert to a Doom wad via DOOMBA, a plug-in for Whitehouse’s . The shape of the level will be taken from your place, but of course things may look a little different. More monsters, probably. That depends on the randomization settings you choose, which control which weapons, critters and other features show up in this hellish new version of your home. It’s all free, except for Doom and the Roomba, so if you have both, get cracking. Thanks to Rich for this fun holiday distraction. |
SpaceX’s Starship goes sci-fi shiny with stainless steel skin | Devin Coldewey | 2,018 | 12 | 26 | SpaceX’s futuristic Starship interplanetary craft may embody the golden age of sci-fi in more ways than one: in addition to (theoretically) taking passengers from planet to planet, it may sport a shiny stainless steel skin that makes it look like the pulp covers of old. Founder and CEO Elon Musk teased the possibility in a picture posted to Twitter, captioned simply “Stainless Steel Starship.” To be clear, this isn’t a full-on spacecraft, just part of a test vehicle that the company plans to use during the short “hopper” flights in 2019 to evaluate various systems. As with most Musk tweets, this kicked off a storm of speculation and argument in the Twitterverse. The choice surprised many because for years, modern spaceflight has been dependent on advanced composite materials like carbon fiber, which combine desirable physical properties with low weight. When metal has been required, aluminum or titanium are much more common. While some launch components, like the upper stage of the Atlas 5 rocket, have liberally used steel, it’s definitely not an obvious choice for a craft like the Starship, which will have to deal with both deep space and repeated reentry. As Musk pointed out in subsequent comments, however, stainless steel has some advantages versus other materials when at extremely hot or cold temperatures. Usable strength/weight of full hard stainless at cryo is slightly better than carbon fiber, room temp is worse, high temp is vastly better — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) This is a special full-hardness steel alloy mentioned as being among the 300 series of high-strength, heat-resistant alloys — not the plentiful, pliable stuff we all have in our kitchens and buildings. Musk also mentioned another “superalloy” called SX500 that SpaceX’s metallurgists have developed for use in the Raptor engines that will power the vehicle. So why stainless? It’s likely all about reentry. Many craft and reusable stages that have to face the heat of entering the atmosphere at high speed use “ablative” heat shielding that disintegrates or breaks away in a controlled fashion, carrying heat away from the vehicle. It’s unlikely this is a possibility for Starship, however, as replacing and repairing this material would necessitate downtime and crews wherever and whenever it lands, and the craft is meant to be (eventually) a quick-turnaround ship with maximum reusability. Heat shielding that reflects and survives is a better bet for that — but an enormous engineering problem. Scott Manley put together a nice video illustrating some of these ideas and speculations in detail: Musk said before of the Starship (then still called BFR) that “almost the entire time it is reentering, it’s just trying to brake, while distributing that force over the most area possible.” Reentry will probably look more like a Space Shuttle-esque glide than a Falcon 9 first stage’s ballistic descent and engine braking. The switch to stainless steel has the pleasant side effect of making the craft look really cool — more in line with sci-fi books and comics than their readers perhaps ever thought to hope. Paint jobs would burn right off, Musk said: Skin will get too hot for paint. Stainless mirror finish. Maximum relfectivity. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) You can’t expect it to stay shiny for long, though; it may be stainless, but like a pan you left on the stove, stainless steel can still scorch, and the bottom of the Starship will likely look pretty rough after a while. It’s all right — spacecraft developing a patina is a charming evolution. Details are still few, and for all we know SpaceX could redesign the craft again based on how tests go. Next year will see the earliest hopper flights for Starship hardware and possibly the Super Heavy lower stage that will lift its great shiny bulk out of the lower atmosphere. The technical documentation promised by Musk should arrive in March or April, but whether it will pertain solely to the test vehicle or give a glimpse at the craft SpaceX intends to is anyone’s guess. At any rate you should expect more information to be spontaneously revealed before then at Musk’s discretion — or lack thereof. |
Nyca Partners’ Hans Morris hunts for great fintech investments amid volatility | Gregg Schoenberg | 2,018 | 12 | 26 | |
A new solar technology could be the next big boost for renewable energy | Jonathan Shieber | 2,018 | 12 | 26 | Across the globe, a clutch of companies from Oxford, England to Redwood City, Calif. are working to commercialize a new solar technology that could further boost the adoption of renewable energy generation. Earlier this year, , a startup working in tandem with Oxford University, to develop the technology, which uses a new kind of material to make solar cells. Two days ago, in the U.S., a company called raised $7 million to bring the same technology to market, with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Called a perovskite cell, the new photovoltaic tech uses hybrid organic-inorganic lead or tin halide-based material as the light-harvesting active layer. It’s the first new technology to come along in years to offer the promise of better efficiency in the conversion of light to electric power at a lower cost than existing technologies. “Perovskite has let us truly rethink what we can do with the silicon-based solar panels we see on roofs today,” said Sam Stranks, the lead scientific advisor and one of the co-founders of Swift Solar, . “Another aspect that really excites me: how cheaply these can be made. These thin crystalline films are made by mixing two inexpensive readily abundant salts to make an ink that can be deposited in many different ways… This means that perovskite solar panels could cost less than half of their silicon counterparts.” First incorporated into solar cells by Japanese researchers in 2009, the perovskite solar cells suffered from low efficiencies and lacked stability to be broadly used in manufacturing. But over the past nine years researchers have steadily improved both the stability of the compounds used and the efficiency that these solar cells generate. Oxford PV, in the U.K., is now working on developing solar cells that could achieve conversion efficiencies of 37 percent — much higher than existing polycrystalline photovoltaic or thin-film solar cells. New chemistries for solar cell manufacturing have been touted in the past, but cost has been an obstacle to commercial rollout, given how cheaply solar panels became thanks in part to a massive push from the Chinese government to increase manufacturing capacity. Many of those manufacturers eventually folded, but the survivors managed to maintain their dominant position in the industry by reducing the need for buyers to look to newer technologies for cost or efficiency savings. There’s a risk that this new technology also faces, but the promise of radical improvements in efficiencies at costs that are low enough to attract buyers have investors once again putting money behind alternative solar chemistries. Oxford PV has already for perovskite-based cells at 27.3 percent. That’s already 4 percent higher than the leading monocrystalline silicon panels available today. “Today, commercial-sized perovskite-on-silicon tandem solar cells are in production at our pilot line and we are optimizing equipment and processes in preparation for commercial deployment,” said Oxford PV’s CTO Chris Case in a statement. |
Cyber breaches abound in 2019 | Robert R. Ackerman Jr. | 2,018 | 12 | 26 | News of high-profile cyber breaches has been uncharacteristically subdued in recent quarters. However, we recently learned that was the victim of the multi-year theft of personal information on up to 500 million customers — rivaled only by hacks against Yahoo in 2013 and 2014. Is this a harbinger of a worse hacking landscape in 2019? The answer is unequivocally yes. No question, cyber breaches have been a gigantic thorn in the global economy for years. But expect them to be even more rampant in the new year as chronically improving malware will be deployed more aggressively on more fronts. In addition, as companies increasingly pursue digitization to drive efficiency, reduce costs and build data-driven businesses, they simultaneously move into the “target zone” of cyber attacks. As the digital economy expands, the threat landscape naturally follows suit. Compounding the situation is the use of machine learning and AI as hackers and other bad actors look to scale their bad behavior. Look for AI-driven chatbots to go rogue, a substantial increase in crimeware-as-a-service, acceleration of the weaponization of data, a resurgence in ransomware and a significant increase in nation-stage cyberattacks. Also on a growth track is so-called cryptojacking — a quiet, more insidious avenue of profit that relies on invasive methods of initial access and drive-by scripts on websites to steal resources from unsuspecting victims. Then, too, we will also see a substantial increase in software subversion, including the specific targeting of developers for attack and the likely proliferation of software update supply chain attacks. Here is a mini dive into the top pending threats: . In the new year, cybercriminals and black hat hackers will create malicious chatbots that try to socially engineer victims into clicking links, downloading files or sharing private information. A hijacked chatbot could easily misdirect victims to nefarious links rather than legitimate ones. Attackers are also likely to leverage web application flaws in legitimate websites to insert a malicious chatbot into a site that doesn’t have one. Consider, for example, Facebook, which has made no secret of using personal data and “private” correspondence to annually generate billions of dollars in profits. Users willingly “like” interests and brands, volunteering personal information. This enables Facebook to provide a more complete image of its user base — a gold mine for advertisers. Much worse, Facebook earlier this year tried to manipulate user moods through an “emotional contagion” experiment. This pitted users against their peers to influence their emotions, i.e. the weaponization of data. In June, Symantec reported that an unnamed group had successfully targeted the satellite communications of Southeast Asia telecom companies involved in geospatial mapping and imaging. Symantec also reported attacks originating in China last year on a defense contractor’s satellite. Separately, we learned in August at the annual Black Hat information security conference that the satellite communications used by ships, planes and the military to connect to the internet are vulnerable to hackers. In the worst-case scenario, the research said, hackers could carry out “cyber-physical attacks” that could turn satellite antennas into weapons that essentially operate like microwave ovens. Fortunately, the cyber outlook for 2019 is not altogether grim. On the cybersecurity side, a growing number of experts believe that multi-factor authentication will become the standard for all online businesses, abandoning password-only access. In addition, a number of states are expected to adopt some version of Europe’s strict General Data Protection Legislation. California, for one, has already passed legislation that will make it easier for consumers to sue companies after a data breach, starting in 2020. The upshot is that individuals, businesses and government entities need to do everything possible to improve the state of their cybersecurity. They cannot eliminate breaches, but they can avert some and improve the chances of mitigating them. |
The 10 largest US venture rounds of 2018 | Kate Clark | 2,018 | 12 | 26 | Three U.S. companies raised more than $1 billion in just one funding round in 2018, a year in which total deal value for U.S. startups is expected to for the first time. For the most part, it was the usual suspects, and yes, SoftBank was an accessory in many of these rounds. Here’s a look at the 10 largest venture rounds of 2018. The video game Fortnite Battle Royale was the star of the year 2018; more than 200 million players worldwide are registered online. (Photo Illustration by Chesnot/Getty Images) Given the absolute phenomenon Fortnite became in just one year from its original release, it was no surprise private investors wanted to put money into Epic Games, the company behind it. In October, Epic Games announced a whopping $1.25 billion round at $15 billion valuation from KKR, Iconiq Capital, Smash Ventures, Vulcan Capital, Kleiner Perkins and Lightspeed Venture Partners to continue growing its Fortnite empire. That game alone is expected to bring in $2 billion in revenue in 2018 and reports 200 million registered players — not too shabby. Cary, N.C.-based Epic Games’ monstrous fundraise was a standout in a year when funding for gaming and esports startups really took off. According to , global venture investment in the industry increased nearly 75 percent, to $701 million in the first half of 2018. Given Epic’s round, $150 million infusion of capital this week and several others since June, the second half of 2018 undoubtedly set major records in the space. Travis Kalanick, co-founder and former chief executive officer of Uber Technologies Inc., speaks during the TiE Global Entrepreneurs Summit in New Delhi, India, on Friday, December 16, 2016. Kalanick said the company will introduce Uber Moto across India. Photographer: Udit Kulshrestha/Bloomberg via Getty Images One of the largest rounds of 2018 was also one of the first big financings of the year. To be fair, the negotiations behind and much of the press coverage surrounding it came in 2017, but the deal officially closed in January. This deal was monumental for many reasons. First of all, it made Uber founder and former chief executive officer Travis Kalanick a billionaire — not just on paper — and it cemented SoftBank’s position as the ride-hailing giant’s largest shareholder. The financing brought San Francisco-based Uber’s total raised to date to just over $20 billion at a valuation said to be around $72 billion. Of course, Uber has since slated for the first quarter of 2019. Juul Labs, the maker of the popular e-cigarette brand that has recently come under fire from health officials over its popularity with young adults, plans to introduce a line of lower-nicotine pods. Photographer: Gabby Jones/Bloomberg via Getty Images Juul, one of the buzziest companies of 2018, raised $1.2 billion from private investors Tiger Global, Fidelity and more in mid-2018. Then, this month, the developer of e-cigarettes popular among teenagers accepted a from the makers of Marlboro that valued it at $38 billion. Not only has Juul surrounding the ethics, or lack thereof, of its core product and its marketing to the younger generation in a short time, but it has also accumulated value at a clip rarely seen before. Juul, for context, surpassed a $10 billion valuation just seven months after its first round of VC backing — that’s four times faster than Facebook. 2019 is poised to be an interesting year for San Francisco-based Juul as it navigates public scrutiny, regulations and the completion of its partnership with Altria Group, which, according to Juul’s CEO Kevin Burns, will “help accelerate [Juul’s] success switching adult smokers.” Magic Leap’s flagship product, the Magic Leap One AR headset, began shipping to consumers this year. It wouldn’t be an end of the year round-up of the largest VC deals without any mention of Magic Leap, the extremely virtual reality company. Tucked away in Plantation, Fla., 8-year-old Magic Leap has closed round after round, raising more than $2 billion to develop its hardware and software. The key investors in this year’s big round, which valued the company at $6.3 billion, were Temasek and AT&T, which announced it would become the exclusive “wireless distributor” of Magic Leap products in the U.S. starting this summer. Magic Leap is also backed by Google, Alibaba and Axel Springer. Not only did Magic Leap land one of the largest VC deals this year, but it also began shipping to consumers its flagship product, the Magic Leap One AR headset. That was a long time coming — years, in fact. So long, many doubted whether the buzzy headsets would ever see the light of day. Now, the headsets are available to buyers in , though it’s worth mentioning . Founder and CEO of Instacart Apoorva Mehta and moderator Megan Rose Dickey speak onstage during TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2016 at Pier 48 on September 14, 2016 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Steve Jennings/Getty Images for TechCrunch) Instacart has a lofty goal of delivering groceries to every household in the U.S., and it needs a lot of cash to get there. The company has raised VC every year since it completed the Y Combinator startup accelerator in 2012, and 2018 was no different. In October, the service in a round led by D1 Capital Partners and later , bringing the round’s total to $871 million. Headquartered in San Francisco, the company has raised nearly $2 billion to date from Coatue Management, Thrive Capital, Canaan Partners, Andreessen Horowitz and several others. Instacart CEO Apoorva Mehta told TechCrunch at the time that the startup didn’t really need the capital and that this was more of an “opportunistic” battle. The market is hot, after all, and Instacart has ambitious plans to scale and it has a fierce competitor in Amazon to take on. As for an IPO, Mehta said “it be on the horizon.” SoftBank-backed Katerra says it’s brought in more than $1.3 billion in bookings for new construction ranging from residential to hospitality and student housing. One of SoftBank’s first major bets of 2018 was on construction technology, with an in Katerra at a $3 billion valuation out of its Vision Fund. Katerra, a tech startup based out of Menlo Park, develops, designs and constructs buildings. At the time of its January fundraise, Katerra told TechCrunch it had brought in more than $1.3 billion in bookings for new construction ranging from residential to hospitality and student housing. Founded in 2015 by three former private equity barons, the company has raised a total of $1.1 billion to date from SoftBank, Foxconn, Greenoaks Capital and others. In June, , an offsite manufacturing technology specialist, and would begin operating in India and the Middle East markets. Yet another SoftBank investment, San Francisco-based Opendoor is also backed by Fifth Wall Ventures, GV, Andreessen Horowitz and more. Opendoor’s two big SoftBank-backed investments this year , valuing the company at $2.5 billion. The deal gave SoftBank a minority stake in Opendoor, an online real estate marketplace, and put one of its five managing directors, Jeff Housenbold, on the company’s board of directors. The round brought Opendoor’s total funding to slightly more than $1 billion — most of which it acquired in 2018, a major year for the company. Founded in 2014, the San Francisco-based startup is also backed by Fifth Wall Ventures, GV, Andreessen Horowitz and more. According to TechCrunch’s Connie Loizos, Housenbold had hoped to work with Opendoor co-founder and CEO Eric Wu for some time. “The minute he joined [SoftBank] he reached out to me and let me know … saying if there was an opportunity to work together, to reach out to him,” Wu said. Uber competitor Lyft expanded aggressively in 2018, raised hundreds of millions in additional venture capital funding, and filed confidentially to go public. Lyft managed to stay quite busy this year. Not only did the ridesharing company raise a , it also and . Founded in 2012 by Logan Green and John Zimmer, the company has long competed with Uber, and will continue to do so as the pair race to the public markets in early-2019. Lyft, much smaller than Uber and only active in the U.S. and Canada, has raised more than $5 billion in venture backing from KKR, Mayfield, Didi Chuxing, Floodgate and others. San Francisco-based Lyft has spent much of the last two years expanding rapidly across the U.S. market, as well as pursuing its ambitions. Automation Anywhere raised a monstrous $550 million Series A in 2018, with support from the SoftBank Vision Fund. The only surprise to make this list is Automation Anywhere, a 15-year-old provider of robotic process automation. The company raised a total of , a large chunk of which came from the SoftBank Vision Fund, as well as NEA, General Atlantic and Goldman Sachs. The round valued Automation Anywhere at $2.6 billion. According to PitchBook, this was the first round of institutional backing for the San Jose, Calif.-based company. In a conversation with TechCrunch, Automation Anywhere CEO Mihir Shukla said they were attracted to SoftBank because of Masayoshi So — the CEO and founder of SoftBank: “[He} has a vision and he is investing in foundational platforms that will change how we work and travel. We share that vision.” SAN FRANCISCO, CA – SEPTEMBER 06: Peloton Co-Founder/CEO John Foley speaks onstage during Day 2 of TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2018 at Moscone Center on September 6, 2018 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Kimberly White/Getty Images for TechCrunch) Peloton’s growth exploded in 2018 as it launched its $4,000 treadmill, doubled down on original fitness streaming content and raised an additional $550 million in equity funding at a $5 billion valuation. The New York-based startup, often referred to as the “Netflix of fitness,” has raised nearly $1 billion in venture capital funding in the six years since it was founded by John Foley. It’s backed by L Catterton, True Ventures, Tiger Global and others. It’s likely much like Uber and Lyft. Foley earlier this year told The Wall Street Journal that though he doesn’t have any concrete plans, 2019 for its stock market debut. |
Apple Music subscribers can now get their own ‘year in review,’ too, thanks to this app | Sarah Perez | 2,018 | 12 | 26 | A new app offers Apple Music subscribers a way to look back at their favorite music of the year and other streaming highlights, similar to Spotify’s annual “Wrapped” feature. The app, from developer NoiseHub, is simply called “ ,” and its sole purpose is to offer Apple Music customers their own set of music streaming insights for 2018. If you’re not familiar with “Wrapped,” it’s that allows you to find out things like your most-played artists and songs, top genres, minutes streamed, new music discoveries and more from the past year. The streaming service delivers these insights through a flashy, personalized website. It also puts your top 100 songs from the year into a playlist you can save to your own library. , by comparison, is far more basic. It only crunches the numbers across a few metrics: how many minutes you spent listening to your favorite artist this year on Apple Music, as well as your top five songs and artists, including which are your No. 1 favorites. It also will return your top genre of the year. However, for Apple Music subscribers, there hasn’t been an easy way to access this data before now. Unfortunately, Apple doesn’t offer a personalized, annual review feature like Spotify’s. One caveat to using the new app is that NoiseHub asks for your email address to get started, which it says it uses to “save your data.” There isn’t a further explanation as to whether or not that email will be used again in the future, nor is there a privacy policy link. If sharing your email makes you uncomfortable, you may want to just use a disposable address — it doesn’t impact the app’s ability to retrieve your data. (You can also skip email entry by tapping the arrow button.) Instead, NoiseHub pops up a permissions dialog box to request access to Apple Music in order to do its work. It then returns a set of three graphics, the first featuring the time you spent with your top artist, the second with your No. 1s for the year (genre, artist and song) and the third with your top five songs and top five artists. The graphics are designed to be posted to Instagram or Twitter with a tap on the included sharing buttons, or can be downloaded to your Camera Roll for sharing elsewhere. The app was developed by , a startup co-founded by and , which was previously a social network for music lovers. “For the past few years, we’ve been working on a social music app called NoiseHub. During that time, as we made mistakes, we iterated slowly,” explains Music Year in Review app’s creator, Samir Shekhawat. “This application is still internal – it’s been a side project for years – but when we heard about Spotify’s 2018 Wrapped, we decided to take a brief break on NoiseHub and dedicate a weekend during finals week to create an Apple Music Year in Review,” he says. The app may become a part of NoiseHub’s experience in the future, if the team decides to work on that project again. (They’ve stopped indefinitely for now.) In the meantime, they want to flesh out the annual review app with more data and add more graphics. The is a free download on the App Store. It still seems to be a bit of an undiscovered gem — there aren’t any public posts to speak of, and its page has just 155 views. While some early testers experienced a bug that led to crashes, the app worked for us without error. The reports stem from those who don’t have much data in Apple Music, in many cases. The team believes they have a bug fix, but the App Store is closed for the holidays. |
As Bitcoin sinks, industry startups are forced to cut back | Kate Clark | 2,018 | 12 | 26 | Around this time last year, the price of Bitcoin hit an of nearly $20,000. Cryptocurrency enthusiasts everywhere boasted about the wealth 2018 would bring, initial coin offerings exploded and startups continued to pull in . Fast-forward one year: Bitcoin sinking as quickly as its meteoric rise, and industry startups are paying the price. The latest victim is Bitmain, a provider of bitcoin mining hardware that very recently submitted to the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong. The company confirmed to this week that cutbacks would begin imminently: “There has been some adjustment to our staff this year as we continue to build a long-term, sustainable and scalable business,” a spokesperson for Bitmain told CoinDesk. “A part of that is having to really focus on things that are core to that mission and not things that are auxiliary.” Beijing-based Bitmain hasn’t clarified just how many of its employees will be impacted, , a Chinese LinkedIn-like platform, suggest as many as 50 percent of the company’s headcount could be laid off. This news comes after the crypto mining giant confirmed it had shuttered its Israeli development center, Bitmaintech Israel, laying off 23 employees in the process. Bitmain employs at least 2,000 people, up from 250 in 2016, according to PitchBook, as the company’s growth has skyrocketed. The decreasing value of Bitcoin. “The crypto market has undergone a shake-up in the past few months, which has forced Bitmain to examine its various activities around the globe and to refocus its business in accordance with the current situation,” Bitmaintech Israel head Gadi Glikberg told his employees at the time of the layoffs. Bitmain has raised more than $800 million in venture capital funding from Sequoia, Coatue Management, SoftBank and more. At a valuation of $12 billion, it quickly soared to become the most valuable crypto startup in the world, surpassing Coinbase, which itself this fall. In its IPO filing, last year, up nearly 10x on the $278 million it claimed for 2016. As for the first half of 2018, Bitmain said it surpassed $2.8 billion in revenue. These are astonishing numbers, yes, but has been called into question, especially as it gears up to go public in what would be the largest crypto-related IPO to date. The crypto market, by nature, is unpredictable — a characteristic that’s less than favorable to public market investors. Meanwhile, Huobi Group, a crypto trading platform also headquartered in Beijing, is laying off a portion of its 1,000 employees, too, according to a from the South China Morning Post. Huobi, which is backed by Sequoia and ZhenFund, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Moreover, Brooklyn-based ConsenSys earlier this month confirmed it was . The company, active in the crypto ecosystem, incubates and invests in decentralized applications built on the Ethereum blockchain. “Excited as we are about ConsenSys 2.0, our first step in this direction has been a difficult one: we are streamlining several parts of the business including ConsenSys Solutions, spokes, and hub services, leading to a 13% reduction of mesh members,” ConsenSys founder and crypto billionaire Joseph Lubin in a letter to employees regarding the layoffs. Finally, Steemit, a distributed app designed to reward content creators, just days earlier, citing poor market conditions. “We still believe that Steem can be by far the best, and lowest cost, blockchain protocol for applications and that the improvements that will result from this new direction will make it far better for application sustainability,” founder and chief executive officer Ned Scott wrote in a statement. “However, in order to ensure that we can continue to improve Steem, we need to first get costs under control to remain economically sustainable. There’s nothing that I want more now than to survive, to keep steemit.com operating, and keep the mission alive, to make great communities.” Downsizing following periods of rapid growth — which many crypto startups experienced during — is only natural, but can these businesses continue to endure periods of extreme volatility without crashing completely? One thing is certain: If the price of Bitcoin sinks further and further, “staff adjustments” at crypto startups large and small will be unavoidable. |
Alexa crashed on Christmas Day | Sarah Perez | 2,018 | 12 | 26 | Amazon this morning its Alexa devices were among the holiday season’s best-sellers, particularly the Echo and Echo Dot. But the influx of new users setting up their devices for the first time on Christmas Day appeared to be more than Alexa could handle. The service crashed briefly on Christmas, as thousands of new Alexa device owners tried to connect their Echo to Amazon’s servers around the same time. The Guardian first reported the Alexa outage, which began and led existing Echo owners to complain they were unable to use their devices for regular tasks like playing music or smart home controls, for example. Others said they were unable to set up their device, despite not having any other internet or home Wi-Fi issues, which seemed to point to a server-side outage. Amazon’s Twitter account the issues were isolated to Europe, saying at 8:43 AM EST (1:43 PM GMT): “Over the past two hours some Echo devices in Europe have had intermittent connections.” The outage was resolved by the time the account had responded, meaning it had only lasted a couple of hours. An Amazon spokesperson also confirmed the outage to TechCrunch. “For a short period yesterday morning we had an issue that intermittently impacted some Alexa customers’ ability to interact with the service,” the spokesperson said. “The Alexa service is now operating normally.” Hey there. Over the past two hours some Echo devices in Europe have had intermittent connections. These issues have now been resolved and the Alexa Service is working normally. ^RY — Amazon Help (@AmazonHelp) I'm sorry for the trouble! Some Echo devices in Europe had intermittent connections. These issues have now been resolved and the Alexa Service is working normally. Please let us know if it's still giving you trouble. ^BH — Amazon Help (@AmazonHelp) Amazon declined to offer details on what caused the outage, or explain how it was resolved. Likely, it was related to the increased number of requests. The on Christmas — another signal that points to a large number of first-time Echo owners setting up new devices on the holiday. This isn’t Alexa’s first outage by any means, nor even its first this year. The service can become unresponsive at times, either due to server issues or overloads. In March, for example, even while the Alexa mobile app still worked. And in September, , apparently related to an AWS outage in Ireland. That was followed by a U.S. outage the following month, which led the assistant to respond to requests with “sorry, something went wrong.” Europe is a growing market for Alexa, with Amazon having its smart speaker to Italy and Spain this June. Alexa’s other international markets include the U.K., Australia, India, New Zealand, Germany, Japan and Ireland. |
Tencent-backed homework app jumps to $3B valuation after raising $300M | Rita Liao | 2,018 | 12 | 26 | Academic exams are a big deal in China, as they determine the kind of universities, high schools and elementary schools that students get into and, to some degree, the future that awaits them. Parents are thus willing to invest generously to help their children get ahead in school. One startup capitalizing on this is Yuanfudao, a six-year-old startup that has attracted a line of big-name investors. The company announced this week that it has raised $300 million in a funding round led by existing investor Tencent, China’s largest social networking and gaming company. Other participants from the round include Warburg Pincus, Matrix Partners China and IDG Capital. The fresh injection raised Yuanfudao’s valuation from in 2017 to exceed $3 billion. China’s exam-oriented culture has given rise to a billion-dollar tutoring market. As affordable mobile internet becomes common, a lot of that teaching effort is happening online. iResearch shows that China’s online K-12 market will reach 44 billion yuan, or $6 billion, by the end of this year, and will more than triple to 150 billion yuan by 2022. Yuanfudao, which means “ape tutor” in Chinese, administers a suite of services, including live courses, a database of exam problems and a popular homework help app. The latter scans homework problems and solves them instantly with the snap of a camera. The startup also operates a research institute for artificial intelligence, which could train its homework app to be smarter. Yuanfudao claims to serve more than 200 million users, which include students and their parents who use the startup’s apps to check the learning progress of their kids. Yuanfudao told TechCrunch that it derives the majority of its revenues from selling live courses. It plans to use the proceeds from the latest round to fund investments in research and development of AI as well as improve its apps’ user experience. The startup is in a heated race to fight for Chinese students and parents. Other companies with similar homework help services include Zuoyebang, which is , Coatue Management, Sequoia Capital China and Goldman Sachs. Another one is Yiqizuoye, which counts as an investor. A wave of Chinese companies that started with a focus on adult education have also come into the K-12 fray, including New Oriental and 51Talk, which are both listed on the New York Stock Exchange. |
Researchers are putting fish into augmented reality tanks | John Biggs | 2,018 | 12 | 26 | Researchers at the , while testing the “station keeping” functions of the glass knifefish, have created an augmented reality system that tricks the animal’s electric sensing organs in real time. The fish keeps itself hidden by moving inside of its various holes/homes and the researchers wanted to understand what kind of autonomous sensing functions it used to keep itself safe. “What is most exciting is that this study has allowed us to explore feedback in ways that we have been dreaming about for over 10 years,” said Eric Fortune, associate professor at NJIT. “This is perhaps the first study where augmented reality has been used to probe, in real time, this fundamental process of movement-based active sensing, which nearly all animals use to perceive the environment around them.” The fish isn’t wearing a headset, but instead the researchers have simulated the motion of a refuge waving in the water. “We’ve known for a long time that these fish will follow the position of their refuge, but more recently we discovered that they generate small movements that reminded us of the tiny movements that are seen in human eyes,” said Fortune. “That led us to devise our augmented reality system and see if we could experimentally perturb the relationship between the sensory and motor systems of these fish without completely unlinking them. Until now, this was very hard to do.” To create their test they put a fish inside a tube and synced the motion of the tube to the fish’s eyes. As the fish swam forward and backward, the researchers would watch to see what happened when the fish could see that it was directly effecting the motion of the refuge. When they synced the refuge to the motion of the fish, they were able to confirm that the fish could tell that the experience wasn’t “real” in a natural sense. In short, the fish knew it was in a virtual environment. [youtube=https://youtu.be/IWw6FthnbQY] “It turns out the fish behave differently when the stimulus is controlled by the individual versus when the stimulus is played back to them,” said Fortune. “This experiment demonstrates that the phenomenon that we are observing is due to feedback the fish receives from its own movement. Essentially, the animal seems to know that it is controlling the sensory world around it.” Whether or not the fish can play Job Simulator is still unclear. “Our hope is that researchers will conduct similar experiments to learn more about vision in humans, which could give us valuable knowledge about our own neurobiology,” said Fortune. “At the same time, because animals continue to be so much better at vision and control of movement than any artificial system that has been devised, we think that engineers could take the data we’ve published and translate that into more powerful feedback control systems.” |
See you in Las Vegas during CES | John Biggs | 2,018 | 12 | 26 | We will be holding a small event during CES in Las Vegas and we want to see you! We’re looking to meet some cool hardware and crypto startups, so the good folks at have opened up their space to us and 200 of you all to hold a meetup and pitch-off. The event will be held at Work In Progress, 317 South 6th Street on Wednesday, January 9, 2019 between 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM PST. There are only 200 tickets, so if you want to come, please pick one up ASAP. The meetup is open to everyone, so head over if you’d like to talk tech. You can pick up a ticket . If you’d like to pitch at the event, I’ll be picking 10 companies that will have three minutes to pitch without slides. Because this is a hardware event I recommend bringing a few of your items to show off. If you’d like to pitch, and I will contact those who will be coming up onstage. See you in Vegas! |
null | Eric Eldon | 2,018 | 12 | 19 | null |
An Apple event, but with Bad Lip Reading | Greg Kumparak | 2,018 | 12 | 21 | has held a special place in my heart longer than just about any other YouTube channel. The formula is just too perfect: take a thing we know, blend it up in a stew of uncanny absurdity, and re-release it into the world. They’ve done it with , the , and now something readers of this site probably know all too well: a live Apple event. BRB, pre-ordering my Handsome Anthony. |
Convo now lets you see which employees got the memo | Greg Kumparak | 2,018 | 12 | 21 | , a tool perhaps best described as a real-time company message board, picked up a new trick this week: automated acknowledgements. It’s a pretty common thing in the corporate world: you need to send something out to all of the employees at your company, but you need to know exactly who has seen it (and, of course, who hasn’t.) Who got the memo? Can you say that everyone has seen some mandatory reading? Who still needs to see it? You can try to use email read receipts, but those are hit-or-miss — particularly as many email clients disable them by default nowadays. You can make everyone sign a form saying they’ve seen the document in question, but that’s a pain in the butt. When all you need is a list that says “Yep, these employees have all seen this blurb of text” so you can meet some new compliance requirement, it shouldn’t be complicated. Convo’s new tool makes it pretty easy: write your post like any other, but check the “Recipients must acknowledge to view” box before sending it out. When it pops up in your colleagues’ Convo timeline, it’ll be almost entirely blurred, save for a subject line and a prompt asking them to acknowledge the post. Once they deliberately acknowledge it, the post is de-blurred, the original poster gets an alert letting them know someone has read it, and the reader’s name moves from the “Has not seen” to the “Has seen” list. To be clear, this isn’t a security feature; there are ways to get around the blurring without officially acknowledging it. Hell, you can just say “Hey Jim, did you already open that Convo post? Let me see it on your phone.” The point here isn’t preventing anyone in the company from seeing something, but in everyone has seen something, and having an automatically generated list to fulfill any compliance requirements. If you’re using Convo’s group features correctly, it should only show up for people you intend to see it in the first place. The feature rolled out earlier this week. It’ll be available for all Convo networks for the next month to check out, at which point they expect to limit it to Enterprise-level customers. |
Amazon announces a record-breaking holiday, ‘tens of millions’ of new Prime subscribers | Sarah Perez | 2,018 | 12 | 26 | Amazon had another record-breaking holiday season, the retailer this morning. The company says it added “tens of millions” of people who signed up for Prime memberships, both paid and on a trial basis. Its worldwide customers also shopped and ordered more items than ever before, including “millions more Amazon devices” compared with this time last year. The device best-sellers, as on Black Friday, again included Amazon Echo speakers and Fire TV. Specifically, Amazon said its top devices sold over the holidays were the Echo Dot, Fire TV Stick 4K and the Echo. Millions of Fire TV devices, Fire tablets and Kindle devices were also sold. Smart home devices sold in record numbers as well, with best sellers including Amazon Smart Plug, Ring Video Doorbell 2, TP-Link Kasa Smart Plug Mini Outlet and the iRobot Roomba 690. The lower-cost Echo Dot has consistently been an Amazon top seller thanks to its lower price point and Amazon’s that help push undecided shoppers into impulse buys. Over Black Friday this year, for example, Amazon’s Echo Dot became the No. 1 selling product across Amazon from any manufacturer, not just Amazon’s own best-selling device. That speaks to Amazon’s ability to leverage its retail site to push its own hardware — a potential competitive advantage as the smart speaker markets heats up between companies like Google, Apple and Chinese manufacturers like Alibaba and Xiaomi. In the U.S., Amazon currently the smart speaker install base, but internationally it’s to Google and others. In addition to smart speakers and other Amazon devices, consumers this year also bought top sellers like L.O.L Surprise! Glam Glitter Series Dolls, fashion items from Carhartt, Bose QuietComfort Wireless headphones The retailer doesn’t share its sales numbers, but often announces new records have been set. To some extent, these continual “record-breaking” sales can be attributed to Amazon’s expansion of Prime, which most recently became available in , , and , in addition to the U.S., U.K., Spain, Mexico, Japan, India, Italy, Germany, France, China, Canada, Belgium and Austria. More Prime memberships, simply put, will translate into more Amazon sales. That’s why Amazon’s larger goal is not just serving online shoppers as any other e-commerce site does, but wooing these shoppers with other services — like Prime Video, Prime Music, free e-books and more — to become Prime subscribers. This holiday season, the retailer said that tens of millions of U.S. and international customers signed up for trial and paid Prime memberships. Though Amazon had traditionally kept the number of Prime members under wraps, this April it finally announced . Some analysts now expect that number will continue to grow at a rapid pace — as much as 35 to 40 percent per year. Over the next decade, Citigroup predicts Prime subscribers . A large part of Amazon’s Prime strategy today is its ability to ship products on ever-tighter time frames. Over the holidays, for example, Amazon was in select markets where its same-day delivery service Prime Now is available. Amazon shares this morning as a result of its holiday sales announcement. |
Gaming chat startup Discord raises $150M, surpassing $2B valuation | Lucas Matney | 2,018 | 12 | 21 | Chatty gamers are apparently worth billions. , the gaming chat startup with more than 200 million active users, announced Friday that it had secured $150 million in funding at a $2.05 billion valuation. The round was led by Greenoaks Capital with participation from Firstmark, Tencent, IVP, Index Ventures and Technology Opportunity Partners. The company announced this past April that they had raised $50 million in funding at a $1.65 billion valuation. With this latest bout of cash, Discord has now pulled in more than $280 million in funding. The influx of new money comes as the chat startup goes full speed ahead on one of its most ambitious offshoots to date, taking on games giant Valve with a gaming store meant to rival the ubiquitous Steam store. The company launched a global beta of the Discord Store in October; they recently announced that starting in 2019, they will be establishing a revenue split of 90/10 for developers that are self-publishing titles on the store, a margin much friendlier to indie devs than the 70/30 split on Steam. The company’s bread-and-butter remains its chat service, which brings voice and text communications to gamers looking to talk with teammates and fellow enthusiasts during and outside of gameplay. Discord isn’t the only service that offers this capability, but it is definitely one of the most popular with hundreds of millions of users coming to the app every month. We chatted with CEO Jason Citron at our most recent Disrupt SF event, where he talked about the opportunities available in the online games sales market and what challenges the company had up ahead. |
Crowdfunded developer of space sim Star Citizen takes on $46M in funding at nearly $500M valuation | Devin Coldewey | 2,018 | 12 | 21 | The story of the game Star Citizen and Cloud Imperium, the company developing it, is almost too ludicrous to believe: a crowdfunding effort to create a space sim of unparalleled size and realism, raising , with backers paying thousands for ships and gear in a game that’s years from release. Yet it’s real enough that it just pulled in $42 million in private funding to help bring it closer to release. Star Citizen began as the brainchild of Chris Roberts, architect of the Wing Commander series and other well-received space games. His idea was to crowdfund the team’s next game, and did so in 2012; the money started rolling in, and it never really stopped. Nor has the game ceased to grow in its ambitions, adding things like entire planets to the lineup that seem, on their face, somewhat insane. There’s no shortage of histories of the game and its developers out there, so for our purposes let it suffice to say that over the last six years the company has raised $211 million, the vast majority of which comes from gamers “pledging” anywhere from a few bucks to thousands of dollars for all manner of things related to the title. Early access to builds, exclusive ships, testing new content, etc. A huge amount of work has been done on the game, so this isn’t just a colossal con, though there are plenty who think the game, and its first-person shooter counterpart Squadron 42, can’t possibly ever fulfill its ambitions and justify the money people have put into it. That doesn’t seem to be the opinion of Clive Calder, founder of Zomba and producer in a variety of entertainment formats, whom Roberts met during a clandestine campaign to solicit funding. Roberts, who writes the story in one of his candid messages to the project’s fanbase, had decided a while back that he didn’t want to use pledged funds for marketing purposes — at least not the kind of marketing blitz AAA games tend to require for a successful global release. So he went looking for investment, and found Calder, with whom he “got on like a house on fire.” Calder’s family office agreed to invest $46 million for a 10 percent stake in Cloud Imperium, which all told puts it near a half-billion valuation. One may very well question the sanity of such a valuation for a company that has not yet shipped an actual product — working prototypes, sure, but not a completed game — but hell, at least they’re making something people are excited about. That’s got to be worth a couple bucks. Cloud Imperium gains two new board members from outside, though Roberts, who commands the kind of loyalty that only decades in an industry can create, was quick to point out that “control of the company and the board still firmly stays with myself as chairman, CEO and majority shareholder.” In another act of not exactly radical but not legally required transparency, the company also posted . Unsurprisingly, the company has been investing most of its cash into game development in the form of salaries, contracts and overhead; a non-trivial amount has gone toward “publishing operations, community, events and marketing,” which with a game as community-focused as Star Citizen is not surprising. The company has grown steadily, adding a hundred people a year or so to a present size of 464 — which is the kind of size you’d expect on a AAA game like Assassin’s Creed or Red Dead Redemption. Even more would be added on as temporary artists, actors and so on. I’m sure it has escaped no one that pledges appear to have peaked, though if they remain steady the company clearly will have enough to continue operations if it doesn’t expand. But one does also see perhaps a secondary motive in seeking investment from outside the community. At some point people are going to want a game. To that end, Squadron 42, at least, is scheduled for release in Q2 2020 — though backers and critics will both chuckle a little at the idea that Cloud Imperium will be able to hit those goals. The games, infamously, were originally slated for release long ago. But the scope of the project has grown since its conception and although some no doubt would rather be playing the completed game today, they may very well find that good things come to those who wait. And wait. And wait… |
NORAD Santa tracker will stay on even if the government shuts down | Kirsten Korosec | 2,018 | 12 | 21 | For more than 60 years, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, better known as NORAD, and its predecessor, the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) have tracked Santa’s flight around the world on December 24. And it will continue this year, even if there’s a government shutdown, the operations center said Friday in a tweet. In the event of a government shutdown, NORAD will continue with its 63-year tradition of NORAD Tracks Santa on Dec. 24. Military personnel who conduct NORAD Tracks Santa are supported by approximately 1,500 volunteers who make the program possible each and every year. — NORAD & USNORTHCOM (@Norad_Northcom) The NORAD Santa tracker is supported by some 1,500 volunteers who staff telephones and computers to answer calls and e-mails from children (and adults) from around the world, according to NORAD. People can get live updates through the , which is available in seven languages, over telephone lines and by e-mail. There are even . You can follow along here too. The tradition all began over a misprinted phone number in an advertisement in the local paper. The ad said, “Hey, Kiddies! Call me direct and be sure and dial the correct number.” When a young child called that December 24, in 1955, it went to the CONAD operations center in Colorado Springs, Colo. Colonel Harry Shoup, who was on duty that night, answered the phone. It wouldn’t be the first child who called that night. Shoup had his operators find the location of Santa Claus and reported it to every child who phoned in, kicking off what would become an annual tradition. |
JD.com’s billionaire founder Richard Liu won’t be charged in sexual misconduct case | Connie Loizos | 2,018 | 12 | 21 | Roughly four months after JD.com’s billionaire CEO Richard Liu was and later released by Minneapolis police on suspicion of alleged sexual misconduct, local authorities say they will not be charging him in a sexual misconduct case. In a statement, Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said it was not possible to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the charges brought against Liu. “As is the case in many sexual assault incidents, it was a complicated situation,” said Freeman in the release. “It is also similar to other sexual assault cases with the suspect maintaining the sex was consensual.” An attorney for the accuser — a Chinese undergraduate who was studying at the University of Minnesota this fall — warned in an that “her story will be told.” According to audio recordings reviewed by the WSJ, the woman told police that she attended a dinner with Liu and his associates on August 30th, and that Liu raped her in her home afterward. JD.com, one of China’s largest online retailers, has from the outset called the accusations unsubstantiated, with Liu denying all wrongdoing. |
The Rodecaster Pro is a perfect centerpiece to a home podcasting studio | Brian Heater | 2,018 | 12 | 21 | is simple: Two microphones, a Tascam recorder, two XLR cables. I’ve upgraded things a bit in the past year — improved the mics, bought some foam windscreens and bought a pair of tabletop, foldable mic stands. But the principle is the same: take nothing I can’t fit into a laptop sleeve. It’s served me pretty well in the five years . While friends were building soundproof posting studios in their homes, I went with a rig I could take with me. It’s a lot easier to ask someone to be on your show if you’re able to go to them. Here’s a picture I took of comedian Hannibal Buress after recording an upcoming episode in my hotel room in Lagos, Nigeria. That’s my setup right there. It’s sitting atop my rolling luggage, which is turned upside down on a small hotel coffee table. Improvisation is key. There are trade-offs, of course. Sound is a big one. The mics themselves are pretty crisp, but ambient noise is an issue. I’ve recorded a bunch of these in cafes, bars and restaurants. I tell myself it’s part of the charm. And, of course, with a Tascam, you don’t have the same sort of sophisticated control you get with a board. Perhaps I’ve always secretly fantasized about what a home studio might look like. Cost has always been a factor, of course. These things add up like crazy. Also, the barrier of entry is needlessly complex. A handful of companies have looked to capitalize on the increasingly profitable world of non-professional podcasts. Blue has produced some pretty compelling USB-based stuff. For those who want to record multiple guests in the same room, however, things start to get much trickier. I jumped at the chance to try out the Rodecaster Pro. From the looks of it, it just might be the ideal product to help home podcasters scratch that itch. The product is essentially a six-channel soundboard with self-contained production capabilities. The idea is to just record everything live to a single track that can be uploaded directly to your podcast server of choice. That includes everything from live mixing to an octet of sound pads you can use to trigger music beds and sound effects. Better yet, you can patch people in remotely by connecting a smartphone via hardwire or Bluetooth. It’s a really lovely piece of hardware. I showed it to a few folks during setup, and everyone was impressed by the look of the thing, from the pro knobs to the brightly illuminated sound pads with customizable colors. There’s a small touchscreen display at the top of the board that serves both as a way to gauge levels and navigate various settings. Essentially it serves as a way to bypass the computer entirely, once you’ve finished the setup process. The Rodecaster operates on a similar principle as much of anchor.fm’s offerings, giving users the path of least resistance to bringing a podcast to life. It’s an admirable goal, especially in the world of podcasting, where content democratization is supposed to be a guiding principle. And certainly setup is painless, so far as mixing boards go. I had to fine-tune and troubleshoot a few things to get it up and running, but within an hour or two, everything was perfectly set up and running. The downside to that level of simplicity, however, is that it removes the ability to fine-tune some key parts of the process. The most glaring omission is multi-track recording. Sure, you can record four people on mics and a fifth on a phone call, but it all records to the same track. That’s fine and dandy if you want something quick and dirty (as, granted, some podcasters do), but I’m a proponent of editing. If you’re trying to make it sound professional, you’re going to want to cut it down. Even as someone whose podcast often runs in excess of an hour, I still find I spend much more time chopping the show up in Audacity than I do actually recording. It sucks, but that’s what you need to do if you want it to sound half decent. Even if you’re not editing for content, at least cut the “uhms” and “ahs” and all of those bits where everyone talks over each other. That’s a hell of a lot easier to do when you’re operating with multiple tracks. I realize not everyone feels that way, but the option would be nice. Setup mostly consists of unboxing and plugging in cables. Rode sent up a deluxe edition in a giant backpack that also included a pair of its Podcaster microphones and large, heavy stands. You’ll need to go through a couple of screens to set up odds and ends like time and date and to pair it to your phone, if you plan to go that route. I tethered the board to my laptop during setup, in order to customize the sounds. It comes preloaded by default with applause, laughter, a rimshot and the like — it’s the Morning Zoo Crew package. I tossed in an intro and outro song and a couple of custom effects for good measure (Reggaeton air horn and Nelson from The Simpsons, naturally). There’s a total of 512MB of storage, so you can add longer tracks as well, associating them by dropping them onto the corresponding pads on the desktop app. Check the levels, pop in a microSD card for recording and you’re off to the races. I’ll admit that I ran into a couple of hiccups with things like phone audio through the board. Also, the rear headphone jacks require an adapter if you want everyone to hear themselves and the sound effects. Seems like an odd choice, given the novice target audience. Especially since the front cans use a standard jack size. records its weekly episode on Fridays, so the timing worked out perfectly to test the thing out. Anthony and I set up mics across the table from each other and we beamed Jordan in via phone. I hit record, tapped the intro music and we were off. Somewhat annoyingly, the buttons can only trigger the sounds, but not turn them off. That’s great for something like the air horn (for ironic comedic effect only, I swear), but less great with music. You’ll want to edit that down to the length you need it, otherwise you’ll end up potting down the fader, effectively losing that channel until it’s finished playing. The ability to see how much time is remaining on each track would have been a nice touch, but it’s not crucial here. Once everything was up and running, we didn’t run into any issues for the hour and change we spent recording (aside from me riding the sound effect board a little too hard, perhaps). We finished recording, popped out the card and transferred the files. Boom, podcast. The sound quality on the Rode mics is really terrific — borderline studio-quality stuff. The episode will be up in a few days, so you can judge for yourself. The sound on Jordan’s phone connection isn’t great, but you can’t really fault Rode for the poor state of cellphone call quality these days. The Rodecaster Pro does exactly what is says on the box — and does most of it quite well. As someone who operated a board back in my radio days, I got back into the swing of things almost immediately. I’d forgotten how much I’d enjoyed going through those motions in the intervening years. And the ability to actually do a show face to face brings a level of energy and understanding you lose when relegated to Skype. Bottom line: $600 for the board alone is going to be prohibitively expensive for many novice podcasters. But for a select few looking to start down the path to serious podcasting, this will really hit the sweet spot and up your game with the press of a button. |
The Kardashian apps are dead | Kirsten Korosec | 2,018 | 12 | 21 | In this app-laden world, there is now a void. One so large, it will be difficult to fill. Perhaps, the Kardashians will reconsider. The Kardashian sisters, specifically Kim Kardashian West, Khloé Kardashian and Kylie Jenner are shutting down their apps in 2019. Kendall Jenner last year. The apps and accompanying websites were provided through Whalerock Industries. “We’ve had an incredible experience connecting with all of you thorough our apps these past few years but have made the difficult decision to no longer continue updating in 2019. We truly hope you’ve enjoyed this journey as much as we have, and we look forward to what’s ahead,” from Kim Kardashian West said. issued a similar statement, adding a note to subscribers to follow her on Instagram. It was a wild run for the Kardashian apps, at least in the beginning. Kim Kardashian West made her debut in the iTunes App Store with , which may have grossed the star and development partner , according to In 2015, the . Kim Kardashian West, Khloé Kardashian, Kendall Jenner and Kylie Jenner launched their own subscription apps in September 2015 — all of which shot up into the App Store’s top charts. The apps, which charge customers $2.99 per month for a peek inside their lives, seemed poised to generate millions in annual gross revenue if growth rates and retention numbers could be sustained. It appears that by 2018, the apps started tanking, and badly. According to App Annie, the apps don’t even make the overall ranking, which means they’re somewhere lower than #1,500. If only there was another way to a follow their lives. |
A runaway GoFundMe campaign to build Trumps’ border wall raises questions about its funding — and the future | Connie Loizos | 2,018 | 12 | 21 | Florida men are seemingly involved in so many strange happenings involving , and that when a parody “Florida Man” Twitter account surfaced back in 2013, it became an . But a five-day-old GoFundMe fundraiser for Donald Trump’s border wall by a Florida man is starting to look anything like a joke. With ambitions to raise a brow-raising $1 billion, it has already secured nearly $13 million from more than 200,000 individuals since launching on Sunday. And GoFundMe campaigns do not have deadlines. Where that mounting pile of money will land is the looming question. The man behind the campaign, Brian Kolfage, formerly ran conspiracy-theory websites, along with a Facebook page called Right Wing News that was shut down by Facebook in October. Kolfage, who is also a U.S. veteran who served in Iraq and lost both legs and one arm, talks at some length about his public service on his GoFundMe page. He also states that he has been on Fox News “many times, [so] you can see I’m credible and a real person.” He meanwhile mentions nothing about his media ventures, telling NBC News yesterday that he doesn’t “ ” to potential donors. More concerning are some of the claims that Kolfage makes at the page, including that 100 percent of the donations will go to the Trump Wall, when there is no mechanism that would allow such a transfer of funds as of this moment. Congress would have to enact a statute to permit it. Writes Kolfage: “How will we get the funds to the right place? We have contacted the Trump Administration to secure a point of contact where all the funds will go upon completion. When we get this information secured, we will update. We have many very high level contacts already helping.” The page also tells visitors that the U.S. government has accepted large donations from private investors in the past, linking to a about billionaire David Rubenstein, co-founder of the Carlyle Group, who donated $7.5 million to repair cracks near the top of the Washington Monument. What the GoFundMe campaign does not make clear is that Congress was behind that particular initiative, allocating $7.5 million to the repairs on the condition that private donations would match that same amount. In fact, numerous government agencies accept matching gifts from private donors, including the National Endowment for the Humanities. But the idea is to double the impact of government-led initiatives through those contributions, not to invite donors to dictate the initiatives themselves. As U.S. Representative Bob Goodlatte, a Republican from Virginia and the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, , “Obviously, we can’t let citizens raise money and say, ‘The government will spend my money on this purpose.’ ” Given that roughly one-third of Americans of voting age identify as Republicans, of whom appear to support Trump’s push for a border wall, Kolfage’s $1 billion target doesn’t sound entirely outlandish. The campaign has already landed one $50,000 donation, and if it gains further momentum, others may come to view it as a straightforward way to flex their financial and political muscle. Indeed, at some point, the campaign, if it continues to gain momentum, could begin to raise questions, beyond whether or not it’s smart for people to be sending their money to Kolfage. Specifically, though it’s against the law for the government to accept donations with strings attached, might we see a day when the U.S. citizens are able to wield as much power as lobbying groups by coming together on financial platforms like GoFundMe? Though no amount of money committed to Kolfage’s GoFundMe campaign would obligate the government to build a border wall, already Republican lawmakers have introduced bills seeking to allow the Treasury Department to accept public donations for the purpose of funding one. The bills are unlikely to go anywhere once Democrats take control of the House next month, but they could pave the path for future legislation. In the meantime, what happens to Kolfage and the many millions of dollars he has raised will be interesting to watch. As a Post report yesterday noted, GoFundMe’s terms of service prohibit “not using funds for their stated purpose,” meaning that if the government can’t find a way to work with Kolfage, he may have to reimburse donors. Or, at least, GoFundMe — which hasn’t responded to our requests for comment — may be saddled with doing so. It wouldn’t be the first time the platform has had to return money to a campaign’s donors. Just last month, a New Jersey couple and a homeless man of making up a story that raised more than $400,000 through GoFundMe, money that they reportedly spent on a car, trips, high-end handbags and casinos. The couple and the man now face charges of second-degree theft by deception and conspiracy to commit theft by deception. GoFundMe has said it will fully reimburse the campaign’s 14,000 donors. Interestingly, GoFundMe has never revealed how much it has raised from its own investors, which include Iconiq, Stripes Group, Accel, TCV, Greylock and Meritech Capital. It raised its first outside round of capital . The company was founded in 2010. |
Self-driving car startup Zoox gets permit to transport passengers in California | Megan Rose Dickey | 2,018 | 12 | 21 | While to test their driverless vehicles in California, Zoox has become the first permitted to actually transport people in those vehicles. The Zoox a permit to participate in the state’s . During the testing period, Zoox must have a safety driver behind the wheel and will not be allowed to charge passengers for rides. And, as part of the program, Zoox must provide data and reports to the CPUC regarding any incidents, number of passenger miles traveled and passenger safety protocols. “This is an important milestone on our pathway to deploying a fully autonomous commercial service,” Zoox head of Corporate and Regulatory Affairs told TechCrunch via email. This comes three months after Zoox and four months after . His firing came about a month after Zoox closed a $500 million funding round led by Mike Cannon-Brookes of Grok Ventures, which brought its total amount of funding to $800 million. Zoox ultimately aims to commercially deploy autonomous vehicles by 2020 in the form of its own ride-hailing service. The cars themselves will be all-electric and fully autonomous. Meanwhile, ride-hail companies like Uber and Lyft are also working on autonomous vehicles, as well as a number of other large players in the space. with the CPUC is good until December 21, 2021. For some background, the CPUC has two pilot programs in place. One is for passenger testing with a safety driver and the other is for passenger testing without a safety driver in the vehicle. |
Bellabeat’s new hybrid smartwatch tracks your stress…and goes with your outfit | Sarah Perez | 2,018 | 12 | 21 | Bellabeat, the company behind a variety of aimed at women, is now selling its first smartwatch. The device, which is simply called “ ,” was earlier this month right in the midst of holiday shopping season. Like other fitness trackers, the watch is capable of basic tasks like counting your steps, tracking sleep patterns and reminding you to move. But unlike traditional smartwatches — which, aesthetically, are still very much just a screen on your wrist — the Time is designed to look like jewelry. The hybrid device looks like a watch — albeit not a very expensive one. It’s squarely in the range of fashion jewelry, with either silver or rose gold stainless steel finishes to choose from, and a minimalist watch face that forgoes complications like the date or the moon phase, for example. It even lacks a second hand. That said, I prefer its cleaner look-and-feel to the gaudier smartwatches put out by and (Plus, there’s no Android Wear/Wear OS to contend with here.) As an analog watch, it has both its pros and cons. It’s designed to be hypoallergenic so as not to irritate those with sensitive skin, and it has some water resistance. (ATM grade 3, meaning it can withstand a vigorous hand washing and the rain. You can’t swim, bathe or dive with it.) You also don’t have to charge it, which makes it feel more like a “real” watch than a gadget. However, there’s a potential downside here, too — the coin cell battery only lasts “up to” six months. You’ll then need to use the tiny tool it ships with to replace the old battery with a new one. Of course, some will see a user-replaceable battery as a perk. I don’t, but that’s a personal preference on my part. I much prefer just dropping my Apple Watch onto a charger rather than having to keep up with a small watch tool, which can be easy to lose or misplace in the time between repairs. I’m also not a fan of having to unscrew tiny screws and then finding some sort of small, sharp object to pop out the battery. Perhaps that’s because I have a child with a dozen or so battery-operated toys. I’m constantly unscrewing things to replace batteries, and frankly I don’t need another. In any event, among the watch’s better aspects is the fact that it packages up fitness and wellness tracking in a device that passes as a regular — and even fairly attractive — piece of fashion jewelry. The Time will go better with some of your outfits where you just don’t think the Apple Watch works — even with one of Apple’s fancier bands. Of course, it’s not as seamless to use Time as the Apple Watch, which has the Apple platform advantage. (Or an Android smartwatch paired with an Android phone, for that matter.) Instead, you have to sync your activity between the watch and the third-party Bellabeat app to view things like the steps taken or hours slept. You do so by tapping a sync button in the app and double-tapping on the watch face. The app can also serve as way to keep up with other aspects of your health and wellness, including your hydration goals, stress, meditation time and your period. The stress metrics are calculated for you, based on factors like activity levels, sleep quality, reproductive health and meditation over the past week. But hydration and menstruation have to be logged manually (*unless you’re using Bellabeat Spring — see below.) The mediation tracking only calculates your progress through the app’s own selection of more than 30 included exercises. While it’s nice to have access to those resources included in the app, many people are already using popular meditation apps like Calm or Headspace. An “import” option for externally logged “mindful minutes” would have been nice here. One of Time’s better features are its silent alarms and inactivity alerts. Instead of pings and loud noises, the watch more calmly reminds you of things with vibrations you configure. There are also included alarms for waking up, taking your vitamins, taking your contraception pill and another general alarm setting, each with their own toggle switches and settings. There is something to be said for a quieter smartwatch, especially if stress levels are a concern. (There’s also something to be said for a device that’s built by a woman with the needs of women in mind. ?) That said, it’s unfortunately becoming harder for smaller device makers to compete with the Apple Watch, which has now moved into advanced areas with its Series 4 line, with sports, and fall detection , along with smarter workout detection (and with it), plus its ability to work with the broader iOS app ecosystem in a more native way. But the Apple Watch is pricier at $399 and up for current models. Bellabeat’s The Bellabeat mobile app will work with other Bellabeat products, including its wellness tracker Leaf (which can be worn as a bracelet, necklace, clip, etc.), and $59 smart water bottle, Spring. Combined, the Spring and Time could be a good entry point into the world of fitness and wellness trackers for those who never felt that wearables and trackers were right for them. Bellabeat’s line is more of a lifestyle choice based just as much on looks as on tech, if not more so. The question now is whether or not Bellabeat can carve out a big enough slice of the smartwatch market, which , to sustain itself in the years ahead. Bellabeat was a Y Combinator 2014 grad founded by female entrepreneur Urska Srsen, and has raised ~$19 million to date, . It previously for expectant mothers, as well, but those have been phased out. Bellabeat declined to share any user metrics or revenue figures, when asked. |
Bounce raises $1.2M to tap local retailers for short-term storage | Anthony Ha | 2,018 | 12 | 21 | If you’ve ever found yourself lugging a big suitcase from meeting to meeting, a startup called could make your life easier. Using Bounce, you’ll be able to pay for short-term storage at hotels, dry cleaners and other local businesses. The San Francisco-based startup is announcing that it has raised $1.2 million in seed funding from investors including Structured Capital managing partner Jillian Manus, Seabed VC, Airbnb general counsel Rob Chesnut and Canadian entrepreneur Michael Hyatt. CEO Cody Candee (pictured above with his co-founder and CTO Aleksander Rendtslev) said he’s actually not someone who owns a lot of stuff himself, but he realized that “people are constantly planning their days and planning their lives around the things that they own,” whether that’s running home to drop something off or heading straight to your hotel from the airport because you need to get rid of your luggage. So Bounce has already signed up more than 100 locations across New York, San Francisco, Washington, DC and Chicago, and it says they’ve been used to store tens of thousands of bags. You currently browse these locations through the Bounce website, but Candee said an iOS app launch is imminent. There are other companies that appear to have a similar idea — for example, was — but Candee said that competitors are mostly “attacking just the luggage storage space,” which he suggested is “relatively easy to build.” In contrast, he said, “The way we see it is, we’re really building a tech platform and basically thinking about these broader use cases.” In fact, he said Bounce is already testing out a system where items are transported by local couriers between different storage locations. “We’re thinking about what could be built on top of that platform,” Candee said. “A drycleaner could come on our platform and they could basically say, ‘Hey, drop your clothes off’ and then Bounce it back to wherever that user is.” |
Gift Guide: 13 last-minute gifts that you can still get in time | Greg Kumparak | 2,018 | 12 | 21 | Whoops. You goofed up. It seemed like you had plenty of time before Christmas was here and now there are four days left and all the shops are slammed and you’ve (mostly) missed the shipping window. It’s okay! We’ve all been there. We’ve compiled a list of things we think are great but that you still be able to get in time, be it online or in a local big box store. The Kindle Oasis ( ) is a really, good e-book reader. It’s lightweight, the battery lasts forever and, as a very welcome bonus, it’s water-resistant — so a quick unexpected dunk in the bath tub won’t fry it. Plus, as one of Amazon’s flagship devices, they keep it heavily stocked at all of their shipping centers… meaning even on the Friday before Christmas, you should be able to swing same-day delivery. Oh, they’ve already got a Kindle? Utilize it! Send them your favorite book(s) of 2018. Amazon makes it straightforward to have an e-book delivered as a gift; you can either email a code to yourself which you pop in a card, or have it sent straight to their inbox. The Chromecast has found its way onto our Gift Guides for three years running now, and with good reason: it’s just excellent. Plug it into any TV, and you can now send content from most of your smartphone’s popular apps (Netflix/Hulu/HBO/Spotify/etc.) with the tap of a button. There’s no remote required, because your phone the remote. The standard HD model goes for $35, while the 4K-friendly model bumps the price up to $60 — but both models should be available at your local Targets, Best Buys, etc. (If your gift recipient is more about that Alexa-life, Amazon’s $35 Fire TV 4K stick is also a super-solid media streamer — and the remote has Alexa built in!) You forgot to get them something for Christmas, so why not get them something for A card explaining what’s on the way with an ETA on the first delivery, and bam, you’re set and no one knows you totally forgot about Christmas. And there are so many options now! Friend got a green thumb? delivers two hearty plants each month for around $16.50. Sweet tooth? (pictured above) airdrops all sorts of fun/whacky goodies with prices ranging from $12-$35 a month. brings the geeky goods. nurtures their inner-foodie. Does your friend binge watch The Office on Netflix on loop? Do they never have Spotify turned off? Why not subsidize those habits for them for a few months? Gift cards are normally the classic “Eh, I didn’t know what to get you, so buy your own thing” gift — but in this case, you’re saving them money you they’re gonna spend otherwise. No one has enough charging cables for their phone. I have probably 30 lightning cables, and I find myself digging around for one a few times a week. Meanwhile, most people use the cable that comes with their phone, which are usually hilariously short and start to fray in about 30 seconds. Anker’s PowerLine+ II cables are , especially for the price; $10-$20 gets you a 10-ft cable to let your friend actually use their phone comfortably while it charges. The insulation is braided, which in addition to making it look fancy also means that it’s tough. I’ve been using one for well over a year now and it still looks brand new. They’ve got options for whatever port their phone might use, be it , or . Is it the most touching gift? Nope! But it’s suuuuper practical, and they’ll probably use it all the time. Phone screens are getting bigger. Phone processors are getting faster, and more power hungry. Phone batteries, meanwhile, are hardly keeping up. I don’t know many people, at this point, who can get through a full day without worrying about their phone’s battery at least once. Why not take that stress away? If they tend to carry a big bag or backpack, consider something like the Anker PowerCore ($55). With a 20,000mAh battery inside, it’ll juice up pretty much any phone multiple times before the battery itself needs a recharge. If they tend to go with smaller bags (or just their pockets), the PowerCore+ Mini ( ) is about the size of a tube of lipstick. It’s only 3,350mAh, but that’s enough to get most phones back up to nearly 100 percent. In case of emergency, batteries like this can save your life. Know someone is getting a new phone for Christmas? Why not help them load it up? Think of all your favorite apps/games of 2018, and send them over as gifts. Apple makes it easy to send , assuming you know the recipients email address. If your friend’s on Android, it’s a bit trickier — you’ll probably want to just buy them a Google Play gift card and write your recommendations in a card. Got a friend who’s always losing their keys? Or can never find their wallet? Tiles are little Bluetooth-powered widgets that you strap to anything you tend to misplace. When that thing goes missing, you just pop into the app and ping it. If it’s close, it’ll start chirping away. If it’s not nearby — like, say, if you left it at a restaurant — it’ll go into “Community Find” mode; if anyone else using the Tile app happens to walk by and detect it, it’ll ping you with its exact location. This year Tile released a new model that fixes one of the product’s only pain points: battery replacement. Whereas previous models lasted a year before requiring you to ship it in for replacement, the new Tile Mates ( ) use CR1632 batteries that can be swapped by the user. If your friend is a coder/builder/tinkerer, giving them a Raspberry Pi is like giving an artist a big, beautiful blank canvas. It’s a surprisingly powerful itty-bitty computer, capable of powering an infinite number of DIY projects. It can be a Or the brains for a ! Or the conductor ! There are lots of options for the Raspberry Pi — from the tiny-but-powerful Pi Zero W (~$10) to any one of a ton of clones. If you’re not sure which one is right, the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B ( ) is probably a safe bet; it’s powerful and flexible, but still small and cheap. If you somehow haven’t seen one of these out in the wild, a quick breakdown: PopSockets ($10) are collapsible grips that stick to your devices (phones, tablets, e-readers, etc) and make them easier to hold for extended periods of time. Slide the PopSocket between two fingers and your device pretty much holds itself. The PopSocket pops out (hence the name) when in use, but folds into itself and becomes super slim when it’s time to go back in your pocket. I wasn’t super sold on these things at first; I was perfectly content just holding my phone the normal way, thank you very much. Then I added one to my Kindle… and, well, it’s changed the way I read. I read more often, and I read . The Kindle is very light, but can be awkward to hold for hours on end. The PopSocket makes it so that the Kindle basically just floats along with my hand. It took about a day before I’d ordered another one for my phone. They’re easy to find at Target or Best Buy, with a lot of locations dedicating entire aisles to them. They’ve got thousands of different looks (plus licensed stuff from Marvel, Star Wars, etc.) so you should be able to find one that fits your friend’s style. Smart plugs are a perfect first dip into the smart home waters. They let you use your phone to toggle the lamps and other myriad non-connected devices you’ve got around the house. They’re simple to set up — unplug your lamp, insert smart plug, reconnect the lamp through the smart plug, then get the plug on your Wi-Fi. I’ve used a bunch of different plugs, but my current favorite is the Belkin Wemo Mini Smart Plug (~ ). It’s easy to install, and stable enough that they’re more or less set-and-forget. If you hear “board games” and nothing but pained memories of hours-long Monopoly and Scrabble battles fill your brain, you’re in for a treat. Board games have been going through a wonderful revolution over the past decade or so, and some recent games are just . You can team up to escape a sinking island in , wear out your brain with or spend (seriously!) saving the world with . Need help finding the right game? Most big cities have a dedicated board game shop, and I’ve never been to one where the employees weren’t eager to help. We also have a list with some of our favorites for both and . |
SEC slaps startups Wealthfront and Hedgeable with fines for making false disclosures | Jonathan Shieber | 2,018 | 12 | 21 | The Securities and Exchange Commission appears to be keeping a close eye on financial services startups, with today’s news that the agency has settled cases with two robo-advisory companies over allegations that they misled investors. , one of the darlings of the fintech investment sector with $11 billion under management and roughly $200 million in venture capital backing, was fined $250,000 for making false statements to investors about one of its newer automated financial services products. The company consented to the SEC’s censure without confirming or denying the SEC’s claims. The SEC also fined New York-based startup Hedgeable, a company with $81 million in assets under management, for inflating performance figures for its service. Hedgeable also agreed to the SEC’s censure order without confirming or denying any wrongdoing. “Technology is rapidly changing the way investment advisers are able to advertise and deliver their services to clients,” said C. Dabney O’Riordan, chief of the SEC Enforcement Division’s Asset Management Unit, in a statement. “Regardless of their format, however, all advisers must take seriously their obligations to comply with the securities laws, which were put in place to protect investors.” The charges against Redwood City, Calif.-based Wealthfront Advisers stems from alleged false statements the company made about a tax-loss harvesting strategy that the company offered to its clients. Wealthfront told its customers that it would look for transactions in its automated service that might trigger a “wash sale” — which has tax implications and can limit the benefits of a tax-harvesting strategy. According to the SEC, the company actually failed to monitor the accounts accurately, and roughly 31 percent of Wealthfront account holders enrolled in the tax harvesting strategy were subject to penalties associated with wash sales. Additionally, the company promoted prohibited client testimonials and paid bloggers for client referrals without disclosing and documenting the payments. The company also failed to maintain appropriate compliance programs designed to prevent violations of securities laws, according to the SEC. Wealthfront issued the following statement about the SEC action: We take our regulatory duties seriously at Wealthfront and are happy to have reached a settlement with the SEC. The settlement order addressed Wealthfront’s retweets of clients’ positive tweets from our corporate account and compensation to some bloggers for client referrals without proper disclosures. Additionally, Wealthfront did not have proper disclosure in its tax-loss harvesting whitepaper concerning monitoring for any and all wash sales that could occur in client accounts. For example, a wash sale can be triggered by infrequent events outside of tax-loss harvesting trading including a client changing their risk score or a withdrawal. During the period January 1, 2014 to December 31, 2016, wash sales made up approximately 2.3% of tax losses harvested for the benefit of clients. Therefore the average Wealthfront client received . These penalties follow a crackdown that the SEC that were also illegally promoting themselves via social media channels and famous influencers like DJ Khaled and Floyd Mayweather. While Wealthfront and Hedgeable are real companies offering tangible services (unlike many of the obviously fraudulent cryptocurrency schemes that the SEC has been monitoring), the SEC investigations coupled with the botched rollout of brokerage accounts from the free trading service Robinhood show that even viable fintech companies are under the regulatory microscope. As these services become more popular and their assets under management continue to grow, they may find that more regulators will be knocking at startups’ doors. |
Spot is a cryptocurrency app to control all your wallets and exchange accounts | Romain Dillet | 2,018 | 12 | 21 | Meet , a beautifully designed mobile app to control your cryptocurrencies. Spot looks like a portfolio-tracking app. But the company has built a strong foundation to add more features in the coming months. Spot wants to be your unique gateway to the world of cryptocurrencies. “Spot’s vision isn’t to build a portfolio tracker — we went a bit overboard with this feature,” co-founder and CEO Edouard Steegmann told me. “Eventually, we want to become the app to manage all your cryptos, a sort of Revolut but with a crypto DNA.” When you first install the app, you can connect it to your existing wallets by adding public addresses. Even if you store your tokens on a hardware wallet, Spot can read the public details of your wallet to show them in the app. “We have our own nodes on Ethereum, Bitcoin, Litecoin, Stellar and others to recover the amount on your wallet,” Steegmann said. Data is also cross-checked with third-party services to make sure that everything is fine. Spot also lets you connect to an exchange account using API keys. Right now, the app supports Binance, Kraken, Bitfinex and Poloniex, but the company already plans to add more exchanges. The app then gives you a detailed overview of your holdings across all services and wallets. You can see detailed charts, and discover which token is performing better than the rest. It’s also one of the most well-designed mobile apps I’ve seen this year — the animations and interactions are gorgeous. But Spot doesn’t rely on an API to get pricing information for each token. “We’ve rebuilt CoinMarketCap from the ground up, and we’re one of the few companies that have done it,” Steegmann said. The company stores pricing information for dozens of tokens across 150 exchanges. That’s a lot of pairings. If you tap on the Spot logo at the top of the app, you can see the maximum value of your portfolio if you cash out on exchanges with the highest prices for your tokens. The company makes sure that there’s enough volume to show you coherent prices. Spot thinks that controlling your own data is too important to rely on API calls. When you have your own data, you don’t have any API rate limits, you don’t have a major dependency and you can scale more calmly. Up next, you’ll be able to trade directly in the app. The company isn’t going to build its own exchange, but you can expect to buy and sell tokens on a third-party exchange without having to visit the website. “We think that many things will be tokenized and that there’s no user-friendly interface to transfer, receive, buy and sell,” Steegmann said. The company raised a $1.2 million round (€1.056 million to be exact) from Kima Ventures and business angels, including Eric Larchevêque and Thomas France from Ledger, Jean-Daniel Guyot, Thibaud Elzière, Eduardo Ronzano, Nicolas Steegmann, Sébastien Lucas and Nicolas Debock. |
Layer1 wants to thrive in the age of the crypto crash | Danny Crichton | 2,018 | 12 | 21 | A year ago, crypto was reaching ever new highs, and I was talking about and warning about . And then the world turned upside down. Crypto prices are near rock-bottom prices, with Bitcoin hanging around $4,000 and Ethereum around $113, down from their highs earlier this year of around $16,600 and $1,400, respectively. While that has put a dampener on the enthusiasm of a lot of cryptocurrency retail investors, the bigger question is how do institutional players work through this market? What’s the strategy for finding value in this technology sector long-term? I chatted with Alexander Liegl, who may just have at least part of the answer. He’s the founder of , which a $2.1 million fundraise this week from Peter Thiel, Digital Currency Group and Jeffrey Tarrant. Liegl saw a huge challenge in the blockchain and cryptocurrency spaces: too many good ideas and not enough developers working on product development work. So he decided to create an “activist fund for cryptocurrencies” that would “take concentrated bets on protocols that we think have a need in this world.” Layer1 then supplies developers and other experts to provide “infrastructure and support,” he explained. “An operating entity like us can have a lot of influence in moving the needle.” He describes Layer1 as “a combination of Polychain and Blockstreet” and “the Rocket Internet of crypto.” That might sound vaguely similar to ConsenSys, the loosely coupled group of startups and infrastructure engineers trying to build out Ethereum, . Unlike ConsenSys, which was founded by Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin and is directly focused on that ecosystem, Layer1 isn’t wedded to one blockchain or ecosystem, and instead selects a single project at a time through a mix of financial analysis and thesis development. With capital in the bank, Layer1 has backed as its first cryptocurrency. Grin is designed to be a completely private and censorship-resistant transaction medium, and Liegl says that “conceptually it really reconciles with our view in the space.” He particularly liked that Grin has an anonymous founder like Bitcoin, as no founder controls the governance of the project. Grin is intending to publicly launch in mid-January. I asked Liegl how he was responding to the crypto crunch this year in the markets, and he considered it far more of an opportunity than a detriment to his work. “I’m really pumped about all of this,” he explained. “A lot of the bad actors have to be flushed out.” He noted that the low of the bear market may not be reached yet, but that Layer1 was in a good position to take advantage of the timing. “We raised the newest dollars, so we are not suffering from any of these ICO-induced problems,” he said. Liegl, who graduated from Stanford in 2015 and briefly worked at Stanford’s endowment, has certainly seen the vagaries of the cryptocurrency markets. He learned about Bitcoin during its first popular run-up in 2013, even convincing his parents to invest in the budding project. Now, he has his eyes set on Grin, and then additional projects. He thinks Layer1 will invest in a new project roughly every six to nine months, which will accelerate over time with additional capital. While these “platform” models have struggled a bit in the venture world, I think it’s reasonable that blockchain projects, which often suffer from a lack of attention from developers and end uses, could use a strong engineering and popularization boost. Layer1 isn’t the first in the blockchain world to take this approach nor I am sure will it be the last, but it might be just the ticket forward for a world that . |
The GPS wars have begun | Danny Crichton | 2,018 | 12 | 21 | Where are you? That’s not just a metaphysical question, but increasingly a geopolitical challenge that is putting tech giants like Apple and Alphabet in a tough position. Countries around the world, including China, Japan, India and the United Kingdom plus the European Union are exploring, testing and deploying satellites to build out their own positioning capabilities. That’s a massive change for the United States, which for decades has had a practical monopoly on determining the location of objects through its (GPS), a military service of the Air Force built during the Cold War that has allowed commercial uses since mid-2000 (for a short history of GPS, , or for the comprehensive history, ). Owning GPS has a number of advantages, but the first and most important is that global military and commercial users depend on this service of the U.S. government, putting location targeting ultimately at the mercy of the Pentagon. The development of the technology and the deployment of positioning satellites also provides a spillover advantage for the space industry. Today, the only global alternative to that system is Russia’s GLONASS, following an aggressive program by Russian president Vladimir Putin to rebuild it after it had degraded following the break-up of the Soviet Union. Now, a number of other countries want to reduce their dependency on the U.S. and get those economic benefits. Perhaps no where is that more obvious than with China, which has made building out a global alternative to GPS a top national priority. Its Beidou (北斗 – “Big Dipper”) , mostly focused on providing service in Asia. Now, though, China hopes to . , China has launched 11 satellites in the Beidou constellation — almost half of the entire network, and it hopes to expand by another dozen satellites by 2020. That would make it one of the largest systems in the world when fully deployed. A Long March-3B carrier rocket carrying the 24th and 25th Beidou navigation satellites takes off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center on November 5, 2017 in Xichang, China. Photo by Wang Yulei/CHINA NEWS SERVICE/VCG via Getty Images China is not just putting satellites into orbit though, but demanding that local smartphone manufacturers include Beidou positioning chips in their devices. Today, , including Huawei and Xiaomi, use the system, along with GPS and Russia’s GLONASS as well. That puts American smartphone leaders like Alphabet and particularly Apple in a bind. For Apple, which prides itself on providing one unified iPhone device worldwide, the disintegration of the monopoly around GPS presents a quandary: Does it offer a unique device for the Chinese market capable of handling Beidou, or does it add Beidou chips to its phones worldwide and run into trouble with U.S. national security authorities? The complexity doesn’t stop there. China may be the most aggressive in launching its alternative to GPS and also the most bullish in providing worldwide coverage, but it is not alone in pursuing its own system. to compete with China and rejuvenate its economy, and one critical component of that program is building out a positioning system. The Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (準天頂衛星システム), , is designed to augment GPS with more coverage of Japan and also trigger an estimated ¥2.4 trillion ($21.58 billion) in economic benefits. Using this new system comes at a huge cost due to lack of manufacturing scale. , “The high price of receivers is a hurdle, however. Mitsubishi Electric on Thursday began selling receivers accurate to within a few centimeters — at a price of several million yen, or tens of thousands of dollars, apiece.” The additional location accuracy in Japan may well be necessary for autonomous cars, but auto manufactures will need to lower costs quickly if they want to include the technology in their vehicles. Like Japan, , and it has now launched seven satellites to increase coverage of the subcontinent. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom, which is expected to leave the European Union in March following the referendum over Brexit, will most likely lose access to the EU’s Galileo positioning system, and is . As for Galileo itself, it is . In short, the world has moved from one system (GPS) to arguably seven. And while Chinese manufacturers increasingly have GPS, GLONASS and Beidou installed on one chip, that scale may only work in a country the size of China. In Japan, where the smartphone market is saturated and the population is less than a tenth of China, the scale required to lower prices may well be harder to find. It will be even tougher in the United Kingdom, for the same reasons. Theoretically, one positioning chip could be designed to incorporate all of these different systems, but that might run afoul of U.S. national security laws, particularly in regards to GLONASS and Beidou. , we might soon find that our smartphone positioning chips need to fragment as well in order to handle these local markets. That will ultimately mean higher prices for consumers, and tougher supply chains for manufacturers. |
CherryHome raises $5.2M to apply AI to home care cameras, detecting behavior changes | Mike Butcher | 2,018 | 12 | 21 | A new startup using AI to look after elderly people at home has raised a new round of funding to apply its platform to detect changes in gait or behavior, falls or stumbles. In other words, it could start to predict changes in long-term health. , the home AI security system created by startup Cherry Labs, has raised $5.2 million in funding from GSR Ventures to drive the technology’s use for in-home senior care. CherryHome uses its proprietary computer vision algorithms to interpret camera data into virtual “skeletons.” These are used by the AI to understand and analyze home events and people’s behaviors, such as how someone might develop a limp over time, for instance. The startup competes with , which sends alerts in response to very obvious falls; Nest and Lighthouse, which tend to only offer very basic AI over its imaging; and Amazon’s Ring, which only offers outdoor security. With CherryHome, all information is processed locally, so the video doesn’t leave the house, while the senior citizen is replaced in the video with a virtual “stick-person” to preserve their privacy. This last aspect, in particular, is a really good idea. With this new round of funding, CherryHome has signed pilot deals with TheraCare in-home care-giving service and TriCura, a tech ecosystem for care agencies. Both are based in the Bay Area. Max Goncharov, CEO and co-founder of CherryHome says: “Understanding human behavior has a long list of applications, from home security to in-home senior care to the overall goal of making smart homes totally autonomous. But improving senior care is arguably one of the most important areas for technological improvement.” He says seniors currently make up 15 percent of the U.S. population, and by 2030, one in five Americans will be of retirement age. Several studies show the majority of those people wish to remain at home, as opposed to moving into an assisted-living facility. |
Join us in Las Vegas during CES | John Biggs | 2,018 | 12 | 21 | We will be holding a small event during CES in Las Vegas and we want to see you! We’re looking to meet some cool hardware and crypto startups, so the good folks at have opened up their space to us and 200 of you all to hold a meetup and pitch-off. The event will be held at Work In Progress, 317 South 6th Street on Wednesday, January 9, 2019 between 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM PST. There are only 200 tickets, so if you want to come please pick one up ASAP. The meetup is open to everyone, so head over if you’d like to talk tech. You can pick up a ticket . If you’d like to pitch at the event I’ll be picking 10 companies that will have three minutes to pitch without slides. Because this is a hardware event I recommend bringing a few of your items to show off. If you’d like to pitch, and I will contact those who will be coming up on stage. See you in Vegas! |
Uber files confidentially for IPO | Kate Clark | 2,018 | 12 | 7 | Two days after to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for an early 2019 initial public offering, Uber has done the same, per The company on Friday filed confidentially for an IPO, marking the beginning of a race to the stock markets for the two ride-hailing giants. Uber’s most recent private market valuation was a whopping $72 billion, though the nearly 10-year-old business expects Wall Street to value it at as much as $120 billion in what will easily be one of the most highly anticipated IPOs of the decade. Uber didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Founded in 2009 by Travis Kalanick, Uber has raised a total of nearly $20 billion in a combination of debt and equity funding, according to . SoftBank alone has invested billions in the company to become its . Uber’s other key backers are Toyota, which just a few months ago, as well as late-stage investors T. Rowe Price, Fidelity and TPG Growth. First Round Capital, Lowercase Capital and others stand to earn big from Uber’s exit — all were participants in some of the company’s earliest venture capital rounds. The filing comes slightly earlier than expected. Uber’s current chief executive officer Dara Khosrowshahi he expected the company to complete an IPO in mid-2019, but today’s news puts Uber on pace to debut in the first quarter of next year. “[Uber] has all the disadvantage of being a public company, with the spotlight on us, with none of the advantages,” Khosrowshahi said on stage at The New York Times’ Dealbook conference in 2017. Uber shared its recently, with net losses up 32 percent quarter-over-quarter, to $939 million on a pro forma basis. On an earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) basis, Uber’s losses were $527 million, up about 21 percent QoQ. The company said revenue was up five percent QoQ at $2.95 billion and up 38 percent increase year-over-year. It appears Uber’s IPO timeline was pushed forward following reports of Lyft’s confidential IPO paperwork. Lyft, Uber’s largest competitor in the U.S., will likely take the plunge in the first quarter of 2019, too. The company was most recently valued at about $15 billion. Its IPO will be underwritten by JPMorgan Chase, Credit Suisse and Jefferies. 2019 will be a fascinating year for unicorn exits, with a separate out today that and has hired Goldman Sachs to underwrite its offering. Lyft, Uber and Slack alone are worth an aggregate valuation of $94 billion, which means 2019 will undoubtedly bring some much-needed liquidity to a slew of tech investors. |
Launch Center Pro now lets you tap stickers to launch tasks on your iPhone | Sarah Perez | 2,018 | 12 | 21 | Before there were Siri Shortcuts, there was — a clever iOS utility that for years has allowed iPhone users to by creating shortcuts. For example, you could search Yelp for the nearest coffee shop, jump straight to the camera in Instagram or message a loved one, among other things — and all right from a widget in the Notification Center. Now, the company has come up with a new twist on app automation. Instead of just widgets and buttons to tap, the app has rolled out support for NFC stickers. NFC, if you’re unfamiliar, is the same technology that powers wireless payments, like Apple Pay. And at long last, with the release of iOS 12 this fall, Apple opened up NFC capabilities to app developers. This means iPhone owners with newer model devices can tap NFC tags to trigger actions — like app launches. It currently works on iPhone XS, XS Max and XR. (iPhone 7 and newer can only use in-app NFC scanning, not NFC tags.) Launch Center Pro was quick to take advantage of this new functionality by creating NFC tags of its own, in the form of stickers. The stickers, which are sold and in the app, add a physical link to digital tasks, explains Launch Center Pro developer David Barnard. “I’ve heard it said that if your goal is to run every morning, put your running shoes next to your bed so you see them every morning,” he says. “You can still choose to not go running, but the shoes are a reminder of the commitment you made to yourself. Same with the stickers; they provide that extra visual cue to take action — even if you could accomplish the same thing without the sticker,” Barnard adds. Plus, the stickers are also a faster way to launch your tasks, compared with swiping to view then tapping on the Today View Widget on your device. During the beta, testers used the stickers for a variety of tasks, like launching directions to their next event from a sticker placed in the car, or one that sent their ETA to their loved one and launched directions home. Other testers put a sticker in the fridge to launch a shopping list to add new items to; or placed stickers around the home to trigger HomeKit shortcuts; or placed a sticker by their bedside to help them set alarms, and more. Basically, anything you do all the time on your iPhone could be linked to one of the stickers. The support for stickers is part of a broader 3.0 release, which also adds new features like themes, support for alternate app icons, advanced scheduling of tasks (tasks can now have multiple schedules), support for “Add to Siri” and more. Notably, the app is now shifting to a free-to-use business model, where a one-time purchase or subscription will unlock all the features. For those who bought the paid app in the past, you can continue to use the features you paid for without a subscription, and only have to purchase access to the new 3.0 features you want to use. These can be bought as a one-time purchase, if you choose. For new users, the app is $9.99/year or $30 as a one-time purchase to unlock all the features. For any sort of automation fans, it’s a worthy investment in saving yourself time. |
Coinbase abandons its cautious approach with plan to list up to 30 new cryptocurrencies | Jon Russell | 2,018 | 12 | 7 | Coinbase is the most conservative exchange in cryptoland, largely because it operates in the U.S. under the watchful eye of the SEC. The $8 billion-valued company trades fewer than 10 cryptocurrencies to consumers, but on Friday a major expansion that could see it list up to 30 new tokens. The company said it is considering support for Ripple’s XRP, EOS — the Ethereum challenger that held a year-long ICO that raised $4 billion — Stellar, a creation from a Ripple co-founder, chat app Kik’s Kin token and more. The full list is below: Cardano (ADA), Aeternity (AE), Aragon (ANT), Bread Wallet (BRD), Civic (CVC), Dai (DAI), district0x (DNT), EnjinCoin (ENJ), EOS (EOS), Golem Network (GNT), IOST (IOST), Kin (KIN), Kyber Network (KNC), ChainLink (LINK), Loom Network (LOOM), Loopring (LRC), Decentraland (MANA), Mainframe (MFT), Maker (MKR), NEO (NEO), OmiseGo (OMG), Po.et (POE), QuarkChain (QKC), Augur (REP), Request Network (REQ), Status (SNT), Storj (STORJ), Stellar (XLM), XRP (XRP), Tezos (XTZ), and Zilliqa (ZIL) , although today . . Instead of abruptly adding new assets, a process that sent their valuations spiking along with rumors of inside trading, it now goes public with its intention to “explore” the potential to list new assets in order to lower the impact of a listing. It also doesn’t guarantee which, if any, will make it through and be listed. “Adding new assets requires significant exploratory work from both a technical and compliance standpoint, and we cannot guarantee that all the assets we are evaluating will ultimately be listed for trading,” the company said. Support for tokens is pretty nuanced. Coinbase lists some assets on its professional service only, with just nine supported on its regular consumer-facing exchange — those are Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, Litecoin, Zcash, USD Coin, 0x and Basic Attention Token. The company may also introduce some tokens on a state by state basis in the U.S. in order to comply with laws. Brian Armstrong told the audience at Disrupt San Francisco that Coinbase could list “millions” of cryptocurrencies in the futureCoinbase is looking into this glut of new tokens — some of which, it must be said, are fairly questionable as projects let alone operating with uncertain legal status — at a time when the market is down significantly from its peak in January, both in terms of trading volume and market valuations. In recent weeks, sources at a number of top exchanges have told TechCrunch that trading-related revenues are down as much as 50 percent over recent months and, while the numbers for Coinbase aren’t clear, there’s no doubt that its revenue is taking a big hit during this “crypto winter.” That makes it easy to argue that Coinbase is widening its selection to increase potential volumes and, in turn, its revenue — particularly since . Coinbase defenders, however, will argue that a greater selection has long been the plan. Ignoring the reasons, that’s certainly true. It is well known that the company wants to massively increase the number of cryptocurrencies that it supports. CEO Brian Armstrong said as much at our TechCrunch Disrupt event in San Francisco in September, where . “It makes sense that any company out there who has a cap table… should have their own token. Every open source project, every charity, potentially every fund or these new types of decentralized organizations [and] apps, they’re all going to have their own tokens. We want to be the bridge all over the world where people come and they take fiat currency and they can get it into these different cryptocurrencies,” he said during an on-stage interview at the event. That tokenized future could see Coinbase host hundreds of tokens within “years” — and even potentially “millions” in the future, according to Armstrong. The company has done a lot of the groundwork to make that happen. and it to list tokenized securities in the U.S, . In addition, and that could potentially include a listing fee in exchange for necessary legal work. These 30 new (potential) assets might not be the digital security tokens that Coinbase is moving to add, but the fact that the exchange is exploring so many new assets in one go shows how much wider the company’s vision is now. The crypto community has already reacted strongly to this deluge of new assets. As you might expect, it is a mix of naive optimism from those invested in “under-performing” projects (shitcoins) who think a Coinbase listing could turn everything around, and criticism from crypto watchers who voiced concern that Coinbase is throwing its prestige and support behind less-than-deserving cryptocurrencies. I already helped with the rebranding strategy. The logo is for free, feel free to use it. Please also delist Bitcoin, thanks. — WhalePanda (@WhalePanda) Coinbase went from the most conservative company in crypto to YOLO in like 6 months — Crypto Bobby (@crypto_bobby) Coinbase adding XRP or any other DA isn’t big news anymore. Every major financial institutions is tripping over themselves to get involved with an exchange. Coinbase is welcome to add anything they want but they are now simply playing catch up. Not a 🔥 take. Just fact. — ecent (@EDadoun) I hope Coinbase realizes that several months after raising a $100M ICO, the Kik founder called blockchain ”unconvincing”. Yet their coin is still on the shortlist… Bonus points for anyone who can count how many of these have active class action lawsuits against them? — Larry Cermak (@lawmaster) Coinbase shitcoins OK for millions of retail investors. Bitcoin ETF for institutional investors too crazy. What f*ing parallel universe is this? 🤦♂️🤯 — Gabor Gurbacs (@gaborgurbacs) |
Report: Slack is prepping an IPO for next year, with Goldman Sachs as its lead underwriter | Connie Loizos | 2,018 | 12 | 7 | , the workplace messaging company, has hired investment bank Goldman Sachs to lead its IPO next year, according to a . Reuters’ sources say the company is hoping to nab a valuation of “well over $10 billion.” The back in September that Slack was “actively preparing” for an IPO in the first half of next year, with an eye toward going public as early as the first quarter. It said, too, that the company thought it could achieve a valuation well in excess of the $7.1 billion that it was last assigned by private market investors. Slack, which is based in San Francisco and Vancouver, revealed back in May that it had daily active users. At the time, it said that 3 million of its users were also, crucially, paid users. In August, when the company announced its most recent funding round of $427 million, it that it still had eight million daily users, though it noted that it had just half that number in the summer of 2017. Slack’s investors include SoftBank Group’s Vision Fund, Dragoneer Investment Group, General Atlantic, T. Rowe Price Associates, Wellington Management, Baillie Gifford and Sands Capital, with much earlier investment coming from Accel Partners and Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). In fact, when Accel and a16z funded Slack, it was technically a different company, one called Tiny Speck, and it worked on an online, multiplayer game called “Glitch” that failed to gain enough user traction to be continued. It was only in the process of unwinding the company that it occurred to founder Stewart Butterfield that the messaging infrastructure he had created to privately communicate with Tiny Speck’s engineers and other employees might be an even more promising idea to pursue. Butterfield had discussions with these early investors about returning their capital as he prepared to change course. As Accel’s Andrew Braccia , “We had a discussion about, ‘Should I return the money.'” But, said Braccia, “I told Stewart, ‘If you want to continue to be an entrepreneur and build something, then I’m with you.'” It was a smart move on the part of Braccia, who spent nine years at Yahoo as a VP before joining Accel and met Butterfield there after Butterfield, with co-founder Caterina Fake, had sold their photo-sharing business Flickr to the company. It was also a giant leap of faith, based on Butterfield’s potential alone. “I don’t think we understood how valuable, important, or fast it would grow,” Braccia admitted during that sit-down several years ago. “We just knew the use case was really strong at Tiny Speck and that if it was strong there, perhaps it could be strong other places, too.” Slack’s thousands of customers include Airbnb, Time, Samsung and Oracle, and it has reason to think it will be well-received in the market, judging by its popularity with those users and the performance of numerous other subscription-based enterprise software companies to go public in 2018, including Dropbox, Zuora and DocuSign. That said, the market may well be shifting, judging by the recent performance of the U.S. stock markets. Stocks dropped sharply today, capping what has been a stomach-churning week for Wall Street. In fact, a disappointing jobs report and strained U.S-China trade tensions appeared largely responsible for sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average to such a low point that it erased its gains for the year. |
Listen to the soothing sounds of Martian wind collected by NASA’s InSight lander | Devin Coldewey | 2,018 | 12 | 7 | accomplished a perfect landing last week on the Elysium Planitia region of the planet, where it is hard at work preparing to drill into the surface (and , of course). But one “unplanned treat” is a recording of the wind rolling across the Martian plains — which you can listen to right here. Technically the lander isn’t rigged to detect sound, at least in the way you’d do it if you were deliberately trying to record it. But the robotic platform’s air pressure sensor and seismometer are both capable of detecting the minute variations as the wind rolls over it. The air pressure sensor, inside that silver dome you see above, produced the most normal-sounding signal, though it still had to be adjusted considerably to be like what you’d hear if you were there (and somehow surviving the Martian atmosphere). “The InSight lander acts like a giant ear,” . “The solar panels on the lander’s sides respond to pressure fluctuations of the wind. It’s like InSight is cupping its ears and hearing the Mars wind beating on it.” Curious what it sounds like? The resulting recording or below: Sounds a lot like regular wind, right? Well, what were you expecting? Like so many aspects of space exploration, the prosaic nature of the thing itself — a rock, a landscape feature, a breath of wind — is offset by the fact that it’s occurring millions of miles away on an alien world and relayed here by a high-tech robot. Wind on Mars might not sound much different than wind on Earth — but surely that’s not the point! If you’re curious, the air movement in the recording is a northwesterly one, “consistent with the direction of dust devil streaks” in the area. Good to know we can rely on InSight’s “ears” for that purpose, though its science target is below the surface, not skimming above it. We’ll have more recordings soon, I’m sure, so you can use it as noise to fall asleep to. But even better sounds are forthcoming: will have actual high-quality microphones on board, and will record the sounds of its landing as well as the Martian ambience. |
Qualcomm lays off 269 employees in North Carolina and California | Brian Heater | 2,018 | 12 | 7 | “Qualcomm conducted a small reduction of our full-time and temporary workforce in certain areas of the company,” a spokesperson told TechCrunch. “While this activity impacts a very small percentage of our workforce, we know a workforce reduction of any size affects not only those employees who are part of the reduction, but their families, co-workers and the community. We recognize this and have offered affected employees supportive severance packages to reduce the impact of this transition on them.” |
Huawei CFO, accused of fraud, faces up to 30 years in prison | Kate Clark | 2,018 | 12 | 7 | At a bail hearing today, new details emerged surrounding Huawei chief financial officer in Vancouver, Canada over the weekend. The daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei is accused of fraud with a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison, according to . The U.S. Department of Justice alleges Meng allowed SkyCom, an unofficial Huawei subsidiary, to do business in Iran, violating U.S. sanctions against the country and misleading American financial institutions in the process. Tensions between U.S. authorities and have been high since 2016, aggravated by an ongoing U.S.-China trade war. The U.S. has long viewed Huawei and its close ties to the Chinese government as a threat to national security. today, Larry Kudlow, the director of the White House’s National Economic Council, said the U.S. had given Huawei several warnings. “We’ve warned them for quite some time of violating the Iranian sanctions … We have these sanctions on Iran, it runs against our policy, why shouldn’t we enforce that,” he said. The Canadian Justice Department argued today against granting Meng bail, claiming she has incentive to flee Canada. Her lawyer, on the other hand, said “Meng would not embarrass her father by breaching a court order,” according to . Meng may be extradited to the U.S., a process that can take several weeks to months to complete. The United States Justice Department has 60 days to make the extradition request, which then must be approved by the Canadian court. In a statement provided to TechCrunch days after Meng’s arrest, a spokesperson for Huawei said the company was “not aware of any wrongdoing by Ms. Meng.” The Chinese Ministry of Foreign affairs has firmly requested Meng’s release, meanwhile, a spokesperson for which has said that her detention needed further explanation to “effectively protect the legitimate rights and interests of the person concerned,” . Huawei, headquartered in Shenzhen, China, is the world’s and Huawei did not respond to our request for comment. |
AI desperately needs regulation and public accountability, experts say | Devin Coldewey | 2,018 | 12 | 7 | Artificial intelligence systems and creators are in dire need of direct intervention by governments and human rights watchdogs, according to a new report from researchers at Google, Microsoft and others at AI Now. Surprisingly, it looks like the tech industry just isn’t that good at regulating itself. published this week, the New York University-based organization (with Microsoft Research and Google-associated members) shows that AI-based tools have been deployed with little regard for potential ill effects or even documentation of good ones. While this would be one thing if it was happening in controlled trials here and there, instead these untested, undocumented AI systems are being put to work in places where they can deeply affect thousands or millions of people. I won’t go into the examples here, but think border patrol, entire school districts and police departments, and so on. These systems are causing real harm, and not only are there no systems in place to stop them, but few to even track and quantify that harm. “The frameworks presently governing AI are not capable of ensuring accountability,” the researchers write in the paper. “As the pervasiveness, complexity, and scale of these systems grow, the lack of meaningful accountability and oversight – including basic safeguards of responsibility, liability, and due process – is an increasingly urgent concern.” Right now companies are creating AI-based solutions to everything from grading students to assessing immigrants for criminality. And the companies creating these programs are bound by little more than a few ethical statements they decided on themselves. Google, for instance, recently after that uproar about its work for the Defense Department. It said its AI tools would be socially beneficial, accountable and won’t contravene widely accepted principles human rights. Naturally, it turned out the company has the whole time been . Great job! So now we know exactly how far company can be trusted to set its own boundaries. We may as well assume that’s the case for the likes of Facebook, which is using AI-based tools to moderate; Amazon, which is openly pursuing AI for surveillance purposes; and Microsoft, which yesterday — but as good as its intentions seem to be, a is nothing but promises a company is free to break at any time. has a number of recommendations, which I’ve summarized below but really are worth reading in their entirety. It’s quite readable and a good review, as well as smart analysis. They’re good recommendations, but not the kind that can be made on short notice, so expect 2019 to be another morass of missteps and misrepresentations. And as usual, never trust what a company says, only what it does — and even then, don’t trust it to say what it does. |
Gift Guide: So your [friend, partner, kid, parent] wants to be a Twitch streamer… | Jordan Crook | 2,018 | 12 | 7 | Though many people still scratch their head at the idea of watching people play video games, Twitch and its content creators have proven that the platform is attractive to (even beloved by) tens of millions of people. Got a friend or loved one who believes they have the skill, personality and wide open schedule to be successful on Twitch? The right gift might get the ball rolling. The best place to start when investing in a streaming setup is the mic. Yes, webcams are important (and we’ll get to that), but it’s taxing to listen to poor audio for any lengthy amount of time, and most gaming headphones just won’t cut it. Our top choice for a reasonably priced, high-quality mic is the ($250). It’s a relatively simple plug-and-play product that sounds great. It supports both USB and XLR, giving users plenty of flexibility if they want to use it for multiple purposes (like, say, ) or across various audio interfaces. It’s not cheap — the Blue Yeti Pro costs $250 on Amazon — so folks looking for a less flexible mic that will simply work with a PC or console, the stepped-down ($130) should get the job done. While the point of streaming is arguably to watch the game, and not the gamer, there is something special about seeing someone’s reactions to the game or to the Twitch chat on a stream. General consensus among the community points to the ($99). It captures 1080p/30fps or 720p/60fps video and offers a 78-degree field of view, with particularly good low-light capabilities and solid autofocus. Oddly, streaming under the blue light of the monitor in complete darkness is pretty common, and this webcam can handle just that. As a bonus, the C922 offers background replacement, letting users green screen out everything behind the streamer to show even more of the game. The lower-cost alternative is the C920 ($79), which doesn’t offer background replacement or some other bonus features, like 720p/60fps capture or autofocus. The C922 also comes with a three-month free trial of XSplit (broadcasting software that will likely be necessary for PC gamers/streamers, but is less necessary for console streamers). Most people think of a couch and a TV when they think of playing video games, but that is most certainly not ideal for a streamer. For one, where does the webcam go? Secondly, your vision just isn’t as good from 10 feet away on a 40-inch+ screen. Many pros tend to use a 24- to 27-inch monitor roughly two feet from their face — so sitting at a desk is often preferred. Super high-performance gaming monitors are expensive, and there are very real trade-offs each time the price comes down. But the ($190) is a solid contender at a reasonable price point, managing to pack a punch where it counts. The 24-inch monitor comes with a TN type panel (which can wash out colors more than ISP) but has a 144Hz refresh rate at a 1920×1080 resolution. At $190 on Amazon, this monitor is a bargain. Beyond strictly streaming equipment, there are plenty of gadgets that can take a skilled gamer to the next level. Here are a few suggestions: A gamer that dominates the competition with entry-level inputs (be it a mouse or controller) will absolutely crush it with a gaming-specific mouse or controller. There are when it comes to PC gaming mice — some think customization is king, while others are drawn to RGB lighting or wireless functionality. At the end of the day, personal preference plays a huge role. For folks switching over from a standard mouse, the best option might be the ($70). It acts and feels like a standard mouse, but happens to be just 67 grams, with the Pixart pmw3360 eSports sensor, integrated illumination, enhanced tracking and a higher framerate. And as a bonus, this is the same mouse that streaming star Ninja uses. If it’s good enough for him, it’s probably good enough for your dear recipient. For console gamers, there is a clear favorite if you’re looking to upgrade beyond the standard Xbox or PlayStation controller. (starting at $150) allow players to use paddles on the underside of the controller. This means that gamers can use their middle and ring fingers instead of multitasking with their thumbs, meaning their thumbs never leave the joysticks. Switching from standard headphones to high-quality gaming headphones feels like cheating. Suddenly, you can hear everything around you. I’ve personally played with a variety of headphones, and my favorite by a mile is the wireless headset with base station ($300). Tech specs aside, these are some of the most comfortable headphones out there, perfect for those hours-long streaming sessions. For folks looking for something more affordable, Turtle Beach also has a nice selection of wireless headphones, including the ($150). Once they’re streaming, then what? The best thing you can do for your new favorite streamer is interact with their new channel. Subscribe. Watch the broadcast and chat in the stream. And if you have a little extra cash to spare, gift subs to the channel so folks who show up and want to subscribe have no barrier to entry when they get there. |
Leica releases the CL Street Kit for all of your decisive moments | John Biggs | 2,018 | 12 | 7 | Leica’s pricey — but sexy — CL camera is the closest thing you can get to an original portable luxury shooter without spending more than a used Toyota Corolla. The CL, which launched last year, is essentially a pared-down M series camera that has over the past year. Now, in time for Noel, Leica is offering a Street Kit that includes the CL along with a Leica Summicron-TL 23 mm f/2 lens. This flat pancake lens gives you a “tried and true 35 mm equivalent focal length for the quintessential reportage style of shooting” and should suffice for street shots taken on the wing while wandering the darkened alleyways of certain Central European cities. Now for the bad news. Leica is traditionally some of the most expensive and best-made camera gear on the market, and this is no different. While you get a camera that should last you well into the next millennium, you’ll pay a mere $4,195 for the privilege, making it considerably less than the M series but considerably more than the camera on your phone. The package saves you a little over $800 if you purchased each item separately. That said, it’s nice to see a bundle like this still exists for a solid, beautifully wrought camera, a nice lens and even a leather carrying strap. Besides, isn’t the creation of photographic art worth the price of admission? As noted Leica lover said, “Au fond, ce n’est pas la photo en soi qui m’interesse. Ce que je veux c’est de capter une fraction de seconde du reel.” Preach, brother. |
Google Translate gets rid of some gender biases | Megan Rose Dickey | 2,018 | 12 | 7 | Google is by no means perfect when it comes to issues relating to gender, but it’s clear the company is trying. Google recently made some important changes to its Translate tool — reducing gender bias by providing both masculine and feminine translations for gender-neutral words. Previously, Google would default gender-neutral words to the masculine form. This comes after Google has been specifically called out for its biases in translate and autocomplete. Back in February, how examples of gender bias in Translate began popping up on social media. “So when the model produced one translation, it inadvertently replicated gender biases that already existed,” Google Translate Product Manager James Kuczmarski wrote on the company blog. “For example: it would skew masculine for words like ‘strong’ or ‘doctor,’ and feminine for other words, like ‘nurse’ or ‘beautiful.'” Now, Google will offer both feminine and masculine translations for single words when translating from English to French, Italian, Portuguese or Spanish, as well as when translating from Turkish to English. Down the road, Google says it does plan to address non-binary gender in translations. Google will also eventually bring this to its iOS and Android apps, and address gender biases in auto-complete. |
Netflix just had a record-breaking November on mobile | Sarah Perez | 2,018 | 12 | 7 | Netflix just broke new records on consumer spending in its mobile apps, according to new data app intelligence firm Sensor Tower has shared with TechCrunch. In November, Netflix pulled in an estimated $86.6 million in worldwide consumer spending across its iOS and Android apps combined — a figure that’s 77 percent higher than the $49 million it generated last November. That’s a new record. Before, the biggest month Netflix had to date was July 2018, when it grossed an estimated $84.7 million. At the time, that was the most it had made on mobile since it began monetizing on mobile in September 2015. To date, Netflix has grossed more than $1.58 billion on mobile. The firm didn’t speculate as to what, specifically, drove Netflix to break records again in November, but there are probably a few factors at play, including the trend toward cord cutting and shift toward streaming services for traditional “TV” viewing. But most notably is the increasing revenue coming to Netflix from its international markets. Sensor Tower Netflix’s U.S. app revenue grew 76 percent year-over-year in November, but other countries contributing more than $1 million in gross revenue were higher. For example, Germany grew 90 percent, Brazil was 94 percent, South Korea was 107 percent and Japan was 175 percent. However, the U.S. still accounts for the majority of Netflix’s in-app subscription revenue, at 57 percent in November, or $49.4 million. But with Netflix’s international expansion, its share is declining. When Netflix first began offering subscriptions in fall 2015, the U.S. then accounted for 71 percent of its revenue. Netflix in recent weeks has been doubling down on mobile. The company aimed at making its service more affordable in Asia and other emerging markets. In Q3, the company new subscribers, with of those coming from international markets. |
Google warns app developers of three malicious SDKs being used for ad fraud | Sarah Perez | 2,018 | 12 | 7 | A few days ago, Google removed popular Cheetah Mobile and Kika Tech apps from its Play Store following a , which discovered the apps were engaging in ad fraud. Today, as a result of Google’s ongoing investigation into the situation, it has discovered three malicious ad network SDKs that were being used to conduct ad fraud in these apps. The company is now emailing developers who have these SDKs installed in their apps and demanding their removal. Otherwise, the developers’ apps will be pulled from Google Play, as well. To be clear, the developers with the SDKs (software development kits) installed aren’t necessarily aware of the SDKs’ malicious nature. In fact, most are likely not, Google says. Google shared this news in , but it didn’t name the SDKs that were involved in the ad fraud scheme. TechCrunch has learned the ad network SDKs in question are AltaMob, BatMobi and YeahMobi. Google didn’t share the scale to which these SDKs are being used in Android apps, but based on Google’s blog post, it appears to be taking this situation seriously — which points to the potential scale of this abuse. “If an app violates our Google Play Developer policies, we take action,” wrote Dave Kleidermacher, VP, Head of Security & Privacy, Android & Play, in the post. “That’s why we began our own independent investigation after we received reports of apps on Google Play accused of conducting app install attribution abuse by falsely claiming credit for newly installed apps to collect the download bounty from that app’s developer,” he said. The developers will have a short grace period to remove the SDKs from their apps. The with a total of 2 billion downloads from Cheetah Mobile and Kika Tech had been exploiting user permissions as part of an ad fraud scheme, according to research from app analytics and research firm Kochava, which was shared with BuzzFeed. Following the report, Cheetah Mobile apps Battery Doctor and CM Locker were removed by Cheetah itself. The company additionally issued a aimed at reassuring investors that the removal of CM File Manager wouldn’t impact its revenue. It also said it was in discussions with Google to resolve the issues. As of today, Google’s investigation into these apps is not fully resolved. But : Cheetah Mobile’s File Manager and the Kika Keyboard. The apps, the report had said, contained code that was used for ad fraud — specifically, ad fraud techniques known as click injection and click flooding. The apps were engaging in app install attribution abuse, which refers to a means of falsely claiming credit for a newly installed app in order to collect the download bounty from the app developer. The three SDKs that Google is now banishing were found to be falsely crediting app installs by creating false clicks. Combined, the two companies had hundreds of millions of active users, and the two apps that were removed had a combined 250 million installs. In addition to removing the two apps from Google Play, Google also kicked them out of its AdMob mobile advertising network. With Cheetah’s voluntary removal of two apps and Google’s booting of two more, a total of four of the eight apps that were conducting ad fraud are now gone from the Google Play store. When Google’s investigation wraps, the other four may be removed as well. Even more apps could be removed in the future, too, given that Google is demanding that developers now remove the malicious SDKs. Those who fail to comply will get the boot, too. One resource Google Play publishers, ad attribution providers and advertisers may want to take advantage of, going forward, is the Google Play Install Referrer API. This will tell them how their apps were actually installed. Explains Google in its blog post: Google Play has been working to minimize app install attribution fraud for several years. In 2017 Google Play made available the , which allows ad attribution providers, publishers and advertisers to determine which referrer was responsible for sending the user to Google Play for a given app install. This API was specifically designed to be resistant to install attribution fraud and we strongly encourage attribution providers, advertisers and publishers to insist on this standard of proof when measuring app install ads. Users, developers, advertisers and ad networks all benefit from a transparent, fair system. “We will continue to investigate and improve our capabilities to better detect and protect against abusive behavior and the malicious actors behind them,” said Kleidermacher. Yeahmobi released a statement saying they “take this very seriously and are actively looking into this issue with our partners and Google.” Other companies have not offered a comment. |
Here’s what caused yesterday’s O2 and SoftBank outages | Ron Miller | 2,018 | 12 | 7 | It appears that most mobile carriers, including O2 and SoftBank, have recovered from yesterday’s cell phone network outage that was triggered running on their networks. That shutdown appears to have been triggered by expired software certificates on the equipment itself. While Ericsson yesterday that expired certificates were at the root of the problem, you may be wondering why this would cause a shutdown. It turns out that it’s likely due to a fail-safe system in place, says Tim Callan, senior fellow at (formerly Comodo CA), a U.S. certificate-issuing authority. Callan has 15 years of experience in the industry. He indicated that while he didn’t have specific information on this outage, it would be consistent with industry best practices to shut down the system when encountering expired certificates “We don’t have specific visibility into the Ericsson systems in question, but a typical application would require valid certificates to be in place in order to keep operating. That is to protect against breach by some kind of agent that is maliciously inserted into the network,” Callan told TechCrunch. In fact, Callan said that in 2009 was directly related to such a problem. “2009’s massive data breach of Heartland Payment Systems occurred because the network in question did NOT have such a requirement. Today it’s common practice to use certificates to avoid that same vulnerability,” he explained. Ericsson would not get into specifics about what caused the problem.”Ericsson takes full responsibility for this technical failure. The problem has been identified and resolved. After a complete analysis Ericsson will take measures to prevent such a failure from happening again.” Among those affected yesterday were millions of O2 customers in Great Britain and SoftBank customers in Japan. SoftBank issued an apology in the form of a press release on the company website. “We deeply apologize to our customers for all inconveniences it caused. We will strive to take all measures to prevent the same network outage.” As for O2, they also apologized this morning after restoring service, tweeting: Our 4G network was restored earlier this morning. Our technical teams will continue to monitor service performance closely and we’re starting the full review to understand what happened. We are really sorry for the issues yesterday. — O2 in the UK (@O2) |
null | Romain Dillet | 2,018 | 12 | 21 | null |
Essential acquires email startup CloudMagic | Brian Heater | 2,018 | 12 | 7 | The acquisition could point to a newfound path for the company, which has long denied rumors that it was looking to sell, instead “putting all of [its] efforts towards future, game-changing products, which include mobile and home products.” |
Pivotal announces new serverless framework | Ron Miller | 2,018 | 12 | 7 | has always been about making open-source tools for enterprise developers, but surprisingly, up until now, the arsenal has lacked a serverless component. That changed today with the alpha launch of . “Pivotal Function Service is a Kubernetes-based, multi-cloud function service. It’s part of the broader Pivotal vision of offering you a single platform for all your workloads on any cloud,” the company announcing the new service. What’s interesting about Pivotal’s flavor of serverless, besides the fact that it’s based on open source, is that it has been designed to work both on-prem and in the cloud in a cloud native fashion, hence the Kubernetes-based aspect of it. This is unusual to say the least. The idea up until now has been that the large-scale cloud providers like Amazon, Google and Microsoft could dial up whatever infrastructure your functions require, then dial them down when you’re finished without you ever having to think about the underlying infrastructure. The cloud provider deals with whatever compute, storage and memory you need to run the function, and no more. Pivotal wants to take that same idea and make it available in the cloud across any cloud service. It also wants to make it available on-prem, which may seem curious at first, but Pivotal’s Onsi Fakhouri says customers want that same abilities both on-prem and in the cloud. “One of the key values that you often hear about serverless is that it will run down to zero and there is less utilization, but at the same time there are customers who want to explore and embrace the serverless programming paradigm on-prem,” Fakhouri said. Of course, then it is up to IT to ensure that there are sufficient resources to meet the demands of the serverless programs. The new package includes several key components for developers, including an environment for building, deploying and managing your functions, a native eventing ability that provides a way to build rich event triggers to call whatever functionality you require and the ability to do this within a Kubernetes-based environment. This is particularly important as companies embrace a hybrid use case to manage the events across on-prem and cloud in a seamless way. One of the advantages of Pivotal’s approach is that Pivotal can work on any cloud as an open product. This is in contrast to the cloud providers like Amazon, Google and Microsoft, which provide similar services that run exclusively on their clouds. Pivotal is not the first , but they are attempting to package it in a way that makes it easier to use. Serverless doesn’t actually mean there are no underlying servers. Instead, it means that developers don’t have to point to any servers because the cloud provider takes care of whatever infrastructure is required. In an on-prem scenario, IT has to make those resources available. |
This DIY Enigma machine fits inside a pocket watch | John Biggs | 2,018 | 12 | 7 | [youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uA5mnQatQes] The year is 1940. Through the use of arcane atomic technologies, the Axis have brought back modern technology from the year 2018. Their main prize? This . This tiny watch, created by a maker calling himself asciimation, uses an Arduino Pro Micro and a small OLED screen to recreate the Enigma machine in pure code. Asciimation previously built an and he is working on a The Enigma was a seemingly unbreakable encoding machine used by the Germans during World War II and was about the size of a small briefcase. Stuffing all of the logic into a tiny watch case — of WWII vintage — is an amazing feat. Luckily the aforementioned time travel device was never built and this wild little pocket watch never made it into enemy hands, but we can only imagine the havoc it would wreak if some Panzer captain somewhere had one of these on his belt. You can read all about the build on . |
IBM selling Lotus Notes/Domino business to HCL for $1.8B | Ron Miller | 2,018 | 12 | 7 | IBM announced last night that it is selling the final components from to Indian firm HCL for $1.8 billion. IBM paid $3.5 billion for Lotus back in the day. The big pieces here are Lotus Notes, Domino and Portal. These were a big part of IBM’s enterprise business for a long time, but last year Big Blue began to pull away, to HCL, while maintaining control of sales and marketing. This announcement marks the end of the line for IBM involvement. With the development of the platform out of its control, and in need of cash , perhaps IBM simply decided it no longer made sense to keep any part of this in-house. As for HCL, it sees an opportunity to continue to build the Notes/Domino business, and it’s seizing it with this purchase. “The large-scale deployments of these products provide us with a great opportunity to reach and serve thousands of global enterprises across a wide range of industries and markets,” C Vijayakumar, president and CEO at HCL Technologies, said in a statement announcing the deal. Alan Lepofsky, an analyst at Constellation Research who keeps close watch on the enterprise collaboration space, says the sale could represent a fresh start for software that IBM hasn’t really been paying close attention to for some time. “HCL is far more interested in Notes/Domino than IBM has been for a decade. They are investing heavily, trying to rejuvenate the brand,” Lepofsky told TechCrunch. While this software may feel long in the tooth, Notes and Domino are still in use in many corners of the enterprise, and this is especially true in EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) and AP (Asia Pacific), Lepofsky said. He added that IBM appears to be completely exiting the collaboration space with this sale. “It appears that IBM is done with collaboration, out of the game,” he said. This move makes sense for IBM, which is moving in a different direction as it develops its cloud business. The Red Hat acquisition in October, in particular, shows that the company wants to embrace private and hybrid cloud deployments, and older software like Lotus Notes and Domino don’t really play a role in that world. The deal, which is subject to regulatory approval processes, is expected to close in the middle of next year. |
2 Milly files a lawsuit against Fortnite maker Epic Games over dance move | Jordan Crook | 2,018 | 12 | 7 | Rapper 2 Milly is suing Epic Games over Fortnite’s use of his dance move, the Milly Rock. The claims direct infringement of copyright, contributory infringement of copyright and violation of the Right of Publicity under California Common Law, among other things. From the filing: Defendants capitalized on the Milly Rock’s popularity, particularly with its younger fans, by selling the Milly Rock dance as an in-game purchase in Fortnite under the name “Swipe It,” which players can buy to customize their avatars for use in the game. This dance was immediately recognized by players and media worldwide as the Milly Rock. Although identical to the dance created, popularized, and demonstrated by Ferguson, Epic did not credit Ferguson nor seek his consent to use, display, reproduce, sell, or create a derivative work based upon Ferguson’s Milly Rock dance or likeness. Unless you live under a rock, you’ve seen the Milly Rock. Rock dwellers can check it out below: On Fortnite, the dance is called the Swipe It, and it looks like this: Back in July, around the time that Fortnite unveiled the Swipe It dance, Chance the Rapper pointed out that Epic Games tends to use in the game dance moves popularized by famous artists. These emotes cost money, and heavily contribute to the hundreds of millions in revenue that Epic Games pulls in on a monthly basis via its free-to-play game. Fortnite should put the actual rap songs behind the dances that make so much money as Emotes. Black creatives created and popularized these dances but never monetized them. Imagine the money people are spending on these Emotes being shared with the artists that made them — Chance The Rapper (@chancetherapper) Moreover, the default emote on Fortnite is the relatively famous little routine from actor Donald Faison on the show Scrubs. Dear fortnite… I’m flattered? Though part of me thinks I should talk to a lawyer… — Donald Faison (@donald_faison) This lawsuit is particularly complicated considering that it’s over a dance move, which is difficult to lock down with copyright. that this lawsuit is the first of its kind, in that it challenges the gaming industry’s use of pop culture as for-profit virtual items. that the U.S. Copyright Office “can’t register short dance routines consisting of only a few movements or steps with minor linear or spatial variations, even if a routine is novel or distinctive.” That doesn’t mean there is no way to protect choreographic works. Those works, however, must be defined as “a series of dance movements or patterns organized into an integrated, coherent, and expressive compositional whole,” according to NPR. Concluding the 22-page filing is a request for injunctive relief, which would bar Epic Games from using 2 Milly’s likeness in the game, as well as financial compensation for the use of the Milly Rock dance. We reached out to Epic Games and will update the story if/when we hear back. |
Audi e-tron first drive: Quick, comfortable and familiar | Matt Burns | 2,018 | 12 | 7 | minutes behind the wheel, it’s easy to forget the Audi e-tron is electric. The SUV is not outrageous or radical, but rather pedestrian and effortless. Audi didn’t invent something new with the e-tron. The German car company stuck a competent electric powertrain in an SUV, and, in the process, created a fantastic vehicle that should resonate with shoppers. The Audi e-tron is the new benchmark in electric cars. Some EVs are larger, faster and have a longer range, while some are smaller and more limited. The e-tron sits in the middle. Priced at $74,800, the e-tron is a great size, has a moderate range and features faster charging than a Tesla Model X, Jaguar I-Pace or Chevy Bolt. I spent a day in an Audi e-tron and drove it hundreds of miles over Abu Dhabi’s perfect tarmac, around winding mountain roads and through sand-covered desert passes. The e-tron performs precisely how a buyer expects a mid-size Audi SUV to perform. On the road, the e-tron is eager and quiet, while off the road, over rocks and through deep sand, it was sturdy and surefooted. Just like the 1980 Audi Quattro normalized all-wheel drive, it’s clear the German car company hopes the e-tron does the same to electric power. [gallery ids="1756098,1756099,1756100,1756028"] The car zipped down an Abu Dhabi highway. On this quiet morning, the traffic was light. Abu Dhabi’s police recently installed speed cameras at regular intervals, so with the cruise set at 140kmh, and Masdar City fading in the background, the mountains on the Oman border grew larger. The drive was uneventful; it was a regular commute. The e-tron’s electric motors served up power in an effortless fashion. This is likely how many Audi e-trons will spend their life. While the vehicle has capable off-road abilities, most will probably never hit anything more than a parking lot flowerbed. Like most SUVs, these electric vehicles will likely be used as people movers, ferrying people to and from work and school. In this task, it’s comfortable and familiar, but there’s so much more to Audi’s first EV. Drop the e-tron’s pedal to the floor and the mid-size SUV jumps to life. The new Audi electric AWD system provides the traction needed to launch the vehicle forward. There are 400 horses available, and the torque is instantaneous and plentiful, even at highway speeds. Audi says the 0-60 time is 5.7 seconds — and that’s quick enough for most buyers. The e-tron’s capability was put on display racing up a mountain road. The jaunt took about 20 minutes, but that was more than enough time for the e-tron to show off. As it whipped around narrow roads, the e-tron held tight to the pavement and handled the winding road with decisiveness. To be clear, the e-tron is not a Pike’s Peak racer. The body roll was on par with other SUVs; it wasn’t offensive, but noticeable. At speed, steering is tight but lacked informative feedback — a theme I discovered continued with the all-wheel drive system. The e-tron is heavy. At 5,489 lbs it’s 661 lbs heavier than the smaller Jaguar I-Pace and has 68 lbs on the larger Tesla Model X 75D. This isn’t noticeable while driving, but is worth noting. The battery and electric motors are situated at the bottom of the vehicle, which likely contributes to the sturdy feeling. Audi built a complex battery regeneration system into the e-tron, and it seems to work as advertised. At the start of my road trip in Abu Dhabi, the vehicle said it had an available range of more than 210 miles while driving with the AC blasting at full strength. During highway cruising, the range decreased precisely as advertised. During city driving, the regeneration mode recuperated more range than I expected, slightly extending the range. On the lively 20-minute decent around mountain roads, the system gained more than 10 percent of its range thanks to the system recovering power from the breaking and rolling resistance. The U.S.’s EPA has yet to release official numbers for the e-tron, and I didn’t spend enough time with the vehicle to declare an average range. What’s clear, however, is the e-tron can easily surpass 200 miles on a charge, and under certain driving conditions can go much farther. And thanks to the fastest recharging system in its class, the e-tron batteries can be recharged quicker than others — 80 percent in 30 minutes. The e-tron accepts a charge up to 150kw. This allows the batteries to be refilled to 80 percent in 30 minutes. But Audi doesn’t have a network of chargers like Tesla. Instead, the car company partnered with Electrify America and e-tron owners are granted 1,000 kWh of power. Compared to competitors, the e-tron can recharge at a quicker rate than others. But only at specific chargers. Interestingly, the e-tron has recharge ports on both sides of the vehicle. [gallery ids="1756035,1756034,1756046,1756027,1756026,1756025"] The battery regeneration serves another purpose central to Audi’s brand: all-wheel drive. The sophisticated system that extends the range of the vehicle also assists the vehicle in providing the appropriate power to each wheel. Like traditional AWD platforms, this lets the vehicle remain surefooted across rain, snow and sand. And in the desert, there was plenty of sand to test the system. I took the e-tron through sand drifts and over blind rocky dunes. The electric AWD system never disappointed. Compared to traditional AWD, this platform seemed to respond quicker in a much more subtle fashion. When climbing a dune where logic stated the tires were spinning, I couldn’t feel the tires spinning, yet the vehicle continued to climb. When racing over two-foot sand drifts covering gravel, the vehicle would drift in a squirrelly fashion, yet the tire spin wasn’t felt through the pedals. This disconnect is a side-effect of the move to electric and is something drivers will have to get used to. [gallery ids="1756037,1756041,1756036,1756042,1756039,1756024"] The e-tron’s cabin is nicely adorned with familiar materials and Audi’s latest technology package. A large digital cluster sits in front of the driver while, two screens reside in the center stack and are used for the infotainment system and climate controls. This is the same system in the new Audi A6 and A7, and I find the layout much easier to use than the giant screens in Tesla and a growing number of other vehicles. Radio on the top, climate on the bottom. It’s a logical layout. When needed, the bottom screen is used for character input, and there’s a wide wrist-rest placed below the screen to allow the user to steady their hand. This makes a difference. Instead of using a shaky hand hovering over a giant screen, users can rest their wrist on this pad and easily input an address. There are odd concessions in this luxury SUV. The sun visors do not slide on their mounting pole to extend their reach, and this feature was noticeably missing during my drive through the desert. The steering column doesn’t have power adjustment. A sunroof isn’t an option. For a vehicle with a starting price of $74,800, these features are oddly absent. I spent the day in a European variant of the e-tron, and it was equipped with digital side-mirrors. U.S. buyers will not get this option, and that’s fine with me. I never got used to them. Instead of employing a piece of glass for side mirrors, there are cameras mounted on small, futuristic-looking stalks. Inside the cabin, there are small LCD screens mounted under the window. This virtual mirror isn’t worth it. The screens are too small and have too low of a resolution. The driver cannot move their head to gain a new perspective like what’s possible with traditional mirrors. Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer my mirrors to be made out of mirrors. This e-tron SUV is essentially the self-titled album for Audi’s line of electric vehicles. Audi’s roadmap is clear, and it’s full of future models with the e-tron nameplate. Next year Audi plans to release two more EV vehicles: the e-tron Sportback, a sporty SUV, and e-tron GT, a sports sedan developed with the help of Porsche. Audi is teasing a smaller e-tron vehicle for 2020. Audi is building the e-tron brand around key innovations in recharging the battery both through regeneration and direct charging. As of right now, this is where the e-tron stands apart from its peers. It had the most sophisticated regeneration system and the fastest charging time. As batteries improve, these two platforms are primed to take advantage of larger batteries. There are only a few EVs on the market making the competition clear for the Audi e-tron. The new Jaguar I-Pace is priced slightly under the e-tron and has a similar range, but is smaller and recharges slower. If buyers are willing to ditch the e-tron off-road chops and luxury badge of Audi, the Chevy Bolt offers similar cargo capacity, technology and range for much less. The Nissan Leaf is another good low-cost option for those looking for nothing but an electric people mover. Tesla is Audi’s closest competitor in the space. The Tesla Model X offers a bigger SUV and a quicker 0-60 time, though a slower recharge time. The base Model X offers a similar range for $10,000 over the e-tron’s price, and for more money the Tesla can be configured for a longer range. On a dragstrip, the $84,000 base Model X is much quicker than the Audi e-tron, and the $140,000 Model X variant is as nearly quick to 60 as the fastest Audi super sports car. That doesn’t mean the Tesla is better than the e-tron. During my day with the e-tron, either while passing vehicles or taking off from a stop light, I found the e-tron to have an abundant amount of acceleration — quick enough to thrill though not in a ludicrous, tire-shredding fashion. The Tesla Model X offers something not found in the Audi e-tron: Recognition. A Model X looks like nothing else on the road, whereas the Audi e-tron looks like another crossover. Compare the two vehicles’ technology packages and Tesla’s self-driving Autopilot feature stands tall. The e-tron only has lane assist and adaptive cruise control, a far cry from Tesla’s system. Questions about Tesla’s future persist and could be on the minds of savvy shoppers. Will the automaker be around to service its vehicles through their life? Will Tesla be able to scale its mobile repair crews to be able to match the number of vehicles it’s shipping. The upstart automaker lacks the massive dealer network of Audi and its parent, VW, which for all their faults, at least provide numerous location for owners to service their vehicles. Audi isn’t trying to define the look of the vehicle by the powertrain. Onlookers would be hard-pressed to tell the e-tron is electric in the same fashion as is evident with a Tesla or Toyota Prius. It’s a different strategy than what’s employed by others, and Audi seems to be banking on it to increase adoption of its electric vehicles. The Audi e-tron is fantastic. For the foreseeable future, this is the electric vehicle that makes the most sense for most people. It’s not radical. The e-tron is familiar. The e-tron is plentiful and comfortable while the cabin is loaded with the standard electronic accoutrements buyers expect from the luxury brand. The Audi e-tron makes electric cars attractive to more buyers by removing variables. It looks and feels like its gasoline counterparts. Inside and out, it’s normal. That’s the point, and it works. |
Amazon’s cashier-free Go stores may be coming to airports | Brian Heater | 2,018 | 12 | 7 | null |
Tencent Music sued by investor ahead of $1.2 billion US IPO | Rita Liao | 2,018 | 12 | 9 | China’s largest music streaming service has had a whirlwind year. With 800 million monthly users across multiple apps and a profitable business, Tencent Music Entertainment is gearing up for one of this year’s most anticipated initial public offerings in the U.S. But the firm has landed in hot water in the months leading up to its . Last week, Chinese investor Hanwei Guo accused TME’s co-president of using misinformation, threats and intimidation to compel him to sell his equity stakes in Ocean Music, which eventually became part of TME after Tencent’s QQ Music and China Music Corporation . Han has filed a in the U.S. seeking information from Deutsche Bank AG, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp. and other underwriters for TME’s IPO that the investor plans to use in an arbitration underway in China. The investor is requesting TME co-president Guomin Xie Guo and other parties involved to return percentages of his equity stakes in the music vehicle and compensate him for economic losses. Han claims that he invested an equivalent of $26 million in Ocean Music in 2012 after Xie’s repeated invitation. Xie first touted Ocean Music on the promise that the music company would turn a profit the following year and go public in three years, but he later informed Guo that the business was failing and threatened him to sell his shares, according to a from Guo’s legal advisor. The investor eventually sold his shares “under duress.” The fraud allegation arrived two months after TME due to weakening stock markets around the world. The music giant has resumed the process and filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on December 3. According to its , TME plans to raise up to $1.23 billion with a listed price between $13 to $15 per share. TME is now in a quiet period where federal rules limit what the company can say in public ahead of its IPO, which Bloomberg reported is set to begin A spun-out subsidiary of Tencent, TME operates three music streaming apps — QQ Music and what the CMC merger brought over, Kuwo Music and Kugou Music. The entertainment group also runs China’s top karaoke app WeSing, on which users can record and upload their work. Unlike its money-losing western counterpart Spotify, TME is profitable thanks to a flourishing social business. For example, WeSing users can send virtual gifts to reward content creators, from which TME takes a commission. On the other hand, only 3.6 percent of TME’s users are paying subscribers as of the second quarter, part of a result of China’s rampant online piracy issue. The ratio is much lower compared to other music services around the world, but TME says in the prospectus that it expects revenue from paid subscriptions to increase over time. |
Africa Roundup: Terragon’s Asia acquisition, Twiga Foods’ $10M raise, SimbaPay’s China payment service | Jake Bright | 2,018 | 12 | 9 | 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. Nigerian consumer data analytics firm acquired Asian mobile marketing company in a cash and stock deal. The price of the acquisition was not disclosed. Based in Singapore, with operations in India and Indonesia, Bizense specializes in “mobile ad platform[s] for Telco’s, large publishers, and [e-commerce] ad networks.” Headquartered in Lagos, Terragon’s give its clients — primarily telecommunications and financial services companies — data on Africa’s growing consumer markets. “Most of the problems we seek to solve for our clients in Africa also exist in places like South East Asia and Latin America,” Umeh told TechCrunch of the logic for the acquisition. Umeh indicated the company is contemplating further expansion in Asia and Latin America, where Terragon already has consumer data research and development teams. Tarragon has a team of 100 employees across Nigeria, and South Africa. Clients include local firms, such as Honeywell, and global names, including and international agribusiness firm Olam. Terragon’s acquisition in Singapore, and moves by several other Nigerian ventures this year, signal greater global possibilities for Sub-Saharan African startups. African financial technology companies like and announced their intent to expand in and outside Africa. They would join , which went global in July in a partnership with DHL. Kenya’s has raised $10 million and announced it will add to its product line-up processed food and fast-moving consumer goods. The $10 million IFC and co-led investment comes in the form of convertible notes, available later as equity, according to Wale Ayeni, regional head of IFC’s Africa VC practice. Twiga Foods has built a B2B platform to improve the supply chain from farmers to markets. The startup now aims to scale additional merchandise on its digital network that coordinates pricing, payment, quality control and logistics across sellers and vendors. CEO and co-founder Grant Brooke sees “a growth horizon…to build a B2B with produce as the base. “If we can build a business around fresh fruit and vegetables, everything else after that is much simpler to add on,” he told TechCrunch in this feature. Forging another link between Africa and China’s digital economies, the African-focused money transfer startup and Kenya’s have launched an instant payment service from East Africa to China. The new product — which piggy-backs on messaging service — is aimed at merchants that purchase goods from China, import source. To be clear, SimbaPay isn’t partnering with WeChat on this service, neither to provide the payments nor to build the service. Using , SimbaPay developed a third-party payment aggregator that enables funds delivery when the buyer and seller both use WeChat’s network, which today has more than 1 billion registered accounts. Individuals and businesses can now send funds to China through Family Bank’s PesaPap app, or by texting USSD using the code *325#. The service opens a faster and less expensive money transfer option between Kenya and China through the owned WeChat social media platform. SimbaPay transfers funds to 11 countries — nine in Africa then to China and India. “Early next year we’ll increase this to 29 countries,” SimbaPay co-founder Sagini Onyancha told . In case you missed it, TLcom Capital senior partner Omobola Johnson and Terragon CEO Elo Umeh joined TechCrunch editor Jon Shieber for a breakdown of African tech at Disrupt Berlin. They covered everything from digital skills to the pros and cons of Andela in African IT markets and Africa’s IPO prospects. Umeh described how “copying and pasting” Silicon Valley models didn’t work for his Nigerian startup’s mission “to help…enterprise companies achieve value at scale.” Johnson envisioned Africa’s next unicorn as “as a B2B — business to very small business and SMEs — company” that can solve small businesses challenges, across advertising, access to markets, and finance. TechCrunch’s discussion of African tech with top founders, IT leaders, and VCs continues December 11 in Lagos for the second . In addition to the pitch competition of 15 top early-stage startups, discussions are teed up on blockchain in Africa, unique VC models for the continent and solving Africa’s connectivity equation. Hopefully tickets aren’t sold out by the time you read this. |
Some things Jack Dorsey didn’t mention in his Myanmar meditation travelogue | Catherine Shu | 2,018 | 12 | 9 | Twitter co-founder and chief executive officer Jack Dorsey recently went on a birthday trip to Myanmar. As Dorsey to his 4.1 million followers, he studied Vipassana meditation. The practice’s “singular objective is to hack the deepest layer of the mind and reprogram it,” Dorsey wrote, and it is “likely be good for those suffering chronic pain to help manage it.” Myanmar has denied citizenship to Rohingya people, a minority in the country, for decades. In 2016, the systemic persecution of the Rohingya, the majority of whom are Muslim, escalated into wide-scale rapes and massacres. As more than 720,000 Rohingya people fled to neighboring Bangladesh, the United Nation High Commissioner for Human Rights UN-appointed investigators have called for top military officials in Myanmar to be prosecuted for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Even though the crimes against Rohingya people have been well-documented in articles by major media outlets around the world (three of which are excerpted below), not once did Dorsey mention them in the more than a dozen tweets he wrote about his trip, all of which are also included in order. For my birthday this year, I did a 10-day silent vipassana meditation, this time in Pyin Oo Lwin, Myanmar 🇲🇲. We went into silence on the night of my birthday, the 19th. Here’s what I know 👇🏼 — jack (@jack) Vipassana is a technique and practice to “know thyself.” Understanding the inner nature as a way to understand…everything. It was rediscovered by Gautama the Buddha 2,500 years ago through rigorous scientific self-experimentation to answer the question: how do I stop suffering? — jack (@jack) Vipassana’s singular objective is to hack the deepest layer of the mind and reprogram it: instead of unconsciously reacting to feelings of pain or pleasure, consciously observe that all pain and pleasure aren’t permanent, and will ultimately pass and dissolve away. — jack (@jack) Most meditation methods end with a goal of strengthening concentration: focus on the breath. This was not Gautama’s goal. He wanted to end his attachment to craving (of pleasure) and aversion (of pain) by experiencing it directly. His theory was ending attachment ends his misery. — jack (@jack) Imagine sitting on a concrete floor cross-legged for an hour without moving. Pain arises in the legs in about 30-45 minutes. One’s natural reaction is to change posture to avoid the pain. What if, instead of moving, one observed the pain and decided to remain still through it? — jack (@jack) Vipassana would likely be good for those suffering chronic pain to help manage it. That’s not the goal of course, but definitely a simple practice to help. Being able to sit without moving at all for over an hour through pain definitely teaches you a lot about your potential. — jack (@jack) Meditation is often thought of as calming, relaxing, and a detox of all the noise in the world. That’s not vipassana. It’s extremely painful and demanding physical and mental work. I wasn’t expecting any of that my first time last year. Even tougher this year as I went deeper. — jack (@jack) I did my meditation at Dhamma Mahimã in Pyin Oo Lwin. This is my room. Basic. During the 10 days: no devices, reading, writing, physical excercise, music, intoxicants, meat, talking, or even eye contact with others. It’s free: everything is given to meditators by charity. — jack (@jack) I woke up at 4 am every day, and we meditated until 9 pm. There were breaks for breakfast, lunch, and walking. No dinner. Here’s the sidewalk I walked for 45 minutes every day. — jack (@jack) On day 11, all I wanted to do was listen to music, and I again turned to my favorite poet, and his album DAMN. The greatest effect coming out of silence is the clarity one has in listening. Every note stands alone. — jack (@jack) Myanmar is an absolutely beautiful country. The people are full of joy and the food is amazing. I visited the cities of Yangon, Mandalay, and Bagan. We visited and meditated at many monasteries around the country. — jack (@jack) The highlight of my trip was serving monks and nuns food, and donating sandals and umbrellas. This group of young nuns in Mandalay and their chanting was breathtaking and chilling. — jack (@jack) We also meditated in a cave in Mandalay one evening. In the first 10 minutes I got bit 117 times by mosquitoes 🦟 They left me alone when the light blew a fuse, which you can see in my heart rate lowering. — jack (@jack) I also wore my Apple Watch and Oura ring, both in airplane mode. My best meditations always had the least variation in heart rate. When I wasn’t focused, it would jump around a lot. Here’s a night of sleep on the 10th night (my resting heart rate was consistently below 40). — jack (@jack) Vipassana is not for everyone, but if any of this resonates with you even in the slightest, I’d encourage you to give it a try. If in the US, this center in Texas is a great start: — jack (@jack) Thanks for reading! Always happy to answer any questions about my experience. Will track responses to this thread. I’ll continue to do this every year, and hopefully do longer and longer each time. The time I take away to do this gives so much back to me and my work. 🇲🇲🙏🏼🧘🏻♂️ — jack (@jack) A repatriation agreement between Bangladesh and Myanmar as refugees protested that they would not return unless their demands for citizenship and human rights are met. |
Tencent-backed fleet manager G7 racks up $320M in funding | Rita Liao | 2,018 | 12 | 9 | A sizable funding round is poised to heat up a race to automate China’s logistics infrastructure. Beijing-based fleet management company announced on Monday that it has banked $320 million to drive technological development, bringing its total capital raised to around $500 million. G7, which runs a proprietary connected platform for trucks, shippers, fleet manager and drivers, received the proceeds from lead investor HOPU Investments, one of the most high-profile private equity firms in China. Other participants included new investors China Broadband Capital, Intelligent Fund of Funds, Mount Morning Capital, Total Energy Ventures and TH Capital, which are joined by existing investors GLP, Bank of China Investment and Tencent. G7 claims that its latest funding round marks the highest among Internet of Things startups worldwide. The eight-year-old company declined to disclose its post-money valuation, but says the fresh injection makes it one of the most valuable IoT companies in the world. “Artificial intelligence in IoT is reinventing transportation and logistics equipment. Intelligent equipment and asset-as-a-service are the next big waves,” says G7 president Julian Ma, who formerly served as a vice president at Tencent overlooking location-based services, search and autonomous driving for five years. G7 has worked closely with its partners to build out connected networks serving everything from logistics, commercial vehicles and energy to payments. For instance, it’s joined hands with strategic investor NIO, a Chinese electric carmaker, It’s also leveraging the global network of Total Energy Ventures, a French venture capital firm focused on the renewable energy sector. Together, G7 claims to reach 60,000 customers and 800,000 commercial vehicles worldwide, while 85 percent of China’s biggest logistics providers are its clients. In recent years, China’s internet behemoths have upped the ante in how goods move around as they look offline for growth. In May, e-commerce giant Alibaba and a fold of other investors poured into express delivery company ZTO. In February, the logistics arm of JD.com, Alibaba’s close rival backed by Tencent, got a huge boost after . |
Alibaba Group takes majority control of loss-making movie unit Alibaba Pictures with $160M share purchase | Catherine Shu | 2,018 | 12 | 9 | Alibaba Group that it will increase its stake in Alibaba Pictures from 49 percent to 50.92 percent, making it the loss-making movie production company’s controlling shareholder. Under the agreement, Alibaba Pictures will issue one billion new shares, priced at HKD 1.25 each share for a total of HKD 1.25 billion (about $160 million), to Alibaba Group. The announcement of Alibaba Group’s new share purchases comes the week after Alibaba Pictures chairman and chief executive officer Fan Luyuan took charge of Youku, Alibaba Group’s video streaming unit, . Yang is currently under investigation as part of a police anti-corruption probe. Now that it has majority control over the movie company, Alibaba Group said there will be more integration between Alibaba Pictures and its services, including Youku. In a press release, Fan said “Alibaba Pictures is excited to become a subsidiary of Alibaba Group. As an internet film and TV company, we can leverage the Group’s edge in big data technology and e-commerce and enhance cooperation with other Alibaba’s digital media and entertainment businesses such as Youku, Damai and Alibaba Literature.” In his statement about the deal, Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang said “the proposed share purchases is a vote of confidence in Alibaba Pictures, and we will continue to invest resources and take full advantage of our ecosystem to help Alibaba Pictures tap into the promising growth prospects of China’s film industry.” Founded in 2014 to capitalize on China’s burgeoning movie market, , Alibaba Pictures has turned out to be a costly, money-burning venture. Despite doubling its revenue and posting its first profit in 2017, Alibaba Pictures’ losses in the same period. Its misfortunes continued this year when its big-budget fantasy picture “Asura” became “the most expensive flop in Chinese history,” . |
Payment service Toss becomes Korea’s newest unicorn after raising $80M | Jon Russell | 2,018 | 12 | 9 | fourth unicorn startup after Viva Republica, the company beyond popular payment app Toss, announced it has raised an $80 million round at a valuation of $1.2 billion. This new round is led by U.S. firms Kleiner Perkins and Ribbit Capital, both of which cut their first checks for Korea with this deal. Others participating include existing investors Altos Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, Goodwater Capital, KTB Network, Novel, PayPal and Qualcomm Ventures. to accelerate growth, and it takes the company to nearly $200 million raised from investors to date. Toss was started in 2015 by former dentist SG Lee who grew frustrated by the cumbersome way online payments worked in Korea. Despite the fact that the country has one of the highest smartphone penetration rates in the world and is a top user of credit cards, the process required more than a dozen steps and came with limits. “Before Toss, users required five passwords and around 37 clicks to transfer $10. With Toss users need just one password and three steps to transfer up to KRW 500,000 ($430),” Lee said in a past statement. Today, Viva Republica claims to have 10 million registered users for Toss — that’s 20 percent of Korea’s 50 million population — while it says that it is “on track” to reach an $18 billion run-rate for transactions in 2018. The app began as Venmo-style payments, but in recent years it has added more advanced features focused around financial products. Toss users can now access and manage credit, loans, insurance, investment and more from 25 financial service providers, including banks. Fintech startups are “rip it out and start again” in the West — such as Europe’s challenger banks — but, in Asia, the approach is more collaborative and assistive. A number of startups have found a sweet spot in-between banks and consumers, helping to match the two selectively and intelligently. In Toss’s case, essentially it acts as a funnel to help traditional banks find and vet customers for services. Thus, Toss is graduating from a peer-to-peer payment service into a banking gateway. “Korea is a economy save and spend “We want to help financial institutions to build on top of Toss… we’re kind of building an Amazon for the financial services industry,” he added. “We try to aggregate all those activities, covering saving accounts, loan products, insurance, etc.” Former dentist SG Lee started Toss in 2015 after founding parent company Viva Republica in 2013 Lee said the plan for the new money is to go deeper in Korea by advancing the tech beyond Toss, adding more users and — on the supply side — partnering with more companies to offer financial products. There’s plenty of competition. focus squarely on financial products, while Kakao, Korea’s largest messaging platform, has a dedicated fintech division — KakaoPay — which rivals Toss on both payment and financial services. It also counts the mighty Alibaba in its corner courtesy of . Alibaba and Tencent tend to move in pairs as opposites, with one naturally gravitating to the rivals of the other’s investees, . It’s tricky in Korea, though. Tencent is caught in limbo because it is a long-standing Kakao backer. But might the Ant Financial deal spur Tencent into working with Toss? Lee said his company has a “good relationship” with Tencent, including the occasional home/away visits, but there’s nothing more to it right now. That’s intriguing. Also of interest are future plans for the business now that it is taking on significantly more capital from investors who, even with the most patient money out there, eventually need a return on their investment. Lee is adamant that he won’t sell, despite Viva Republica increasingly looking like an ideal entry point for a payment or finance company that has missed the Korean market and wants in now. He said that there are plans to do an IPO “at some point,” but a more immediate focus is the opportunity to expand overseas. , Lee told TechCrunch that he was beginning to cast his eyes on opportunities in Southeast Asia, the region of more than 650 million consumers, and that’s likely to see definitive action next year. The Viva Republica CEO said that Vietnam could be a first overseas launchpad for Toss. “We’re thinking seriously about going beyond Korea because sooner or later we will hit a saturation point,” Lee said. “We think Vietnam is quite promising. We’ve talked to potential partners and are currently articulating ideas and strategy material for next year. “We already have a very successful playbook, we know how to scale among users,” Lee added. While the plan is still being put together, Lee suggested that Viva Republica would take its time expanding across Southeast Asia, where six distinct countries account for the majority of the region’s population. So, rather than rapidly expanding Toss across those markets, he indicated that a more deliberate, country-by-country launch could be the strategy with Vietnam kicking things off in 2019. The Toss team at HQ in Seoul, Korea Toss’s entry into the unicorn club — a vaunted collection of private tech companies valued at $1 billion or more — comes weeks after Coupang, Korea’s top e-commerce company, raised . While that Coupang round came from the SoftBank Vision Fund — a source of capital that is threatening to become tainted given — it does represent the first time that a Korea-based company has joined the $100 billion mega-fund’s portfolio. Some milestones can be dismissed as frivolous, but these two coming so close together are a signal of increased awareness of the potential of Korea as a startup destination by investors outside of the country. While Lee admitted that the unicorn valuation “doesn’t change a lot” in daily terms for his business, he did admit that he has seen the landscape shift for Korea’s startup ecosystem — which has only three other privately-held unicorns: Coupang, Yello Mobile and PUBG developer Blue Hole. “More and more global VCs are aware that South Korea is a really good opportunity to do a startup. It is getting easier for our fellow entrepreneurs to pitch and get access to global funds,” he said, adding that Korea’s top 25 cities have a cumulative population (25 million) that matches America’s top 25. Despite that potential, Korea has tended to focus on its “chaebol” giants like Samsung — which accounts for a double-digital percentage of the national economy — LG, Hyundai and SK. That means a lot of potential startup talent, both founders and employees, is locked up in secure corporate jobs. Throw in the conservative tradition of family expectations, which can make it hard for children to justify leaving the safety of a big company, and it is perhaps no wonder that Korea has relatively fewer startups compared to other economies of comparable size. But that is changing. Coupang has been one of the highest-profile examples to follow, alongside the (now public) Kakao business. But with Viva Republica, Toss and a charismatic dentist-turned-founder, another startup story is being written and that could just inspire a future generation of entrepreneurs to rise up and be counted in South Korea. |
null | Ingrid Lunden | 2,018 | 12 | 7 | null |
Go-Jek extends ride-hailing service to the rest of Singapore | Catherine Shu | 2,018 | 12 | 31 | After a limited rollout, said today that it will extend its ride-hailing service to all of Singapore tomorrow while continuing its beta phase. The Indonesian-based company began , but only for passengers riding to and from certain areas. , which increases prices during peak times, a few days ago. “We continue to welcome feedback from driver-partners and riders during this enhanced beta phase, as we work to fine-tune the app and create the best experience for our users,” the company said in a statement. After by selling its local business to Grab, Go-Jek became Grab’s main rival. Uber still maintains a presence in the region, however, thanks to its 27.5 percent stake in Grab. There is currently a waiting list for Go-Jek in Singapore, with customers of DBS/POSB being given priority. When asked about how long new users need to wait, a Go-Jek spokesperson said in a statement that the time depends on supply and demand. “The response from the driver community since we opened pre-registration has been overwhelming with tens of thousands of drivers signing up via the pre-registration portal. While we can’t disclose a figure at this moment, we are confident we can meet consumer expectations during the beta service period.” |
JIRA is an antipattern | Jon Evans | 2,018 | 12 | 9 | Atlassian’s JIRA began life as a bug-tracking tool. Today, though, it has become an agile planning suite, “ .” In many organizations it has become the primary map of software projects, the hub of all development, the infamous “source of truth.” It is a truism that the map is not the territory. Alas, this seems especially true of JIRA. Its genesis as a bug tracker, and its resulting use of “tickets” as its fundamental, defining unit, have made its maps especially difficult to follow. JIRA is all too often used in a way which makes it, inadvertently, an industry-wide “antipattern,” i.e. “ .” One thing that writing elegant software has in common with art: its crafters should remain cognizant of the overall macro vision of the project at the same time they are working on its smallest micro details. JIRA, alas, implicitly teaches everyone to ignore the larger vision while focusing on details. There is no whole. At best there is an “Epic” — but the whole point of an Epic is to be decomposed into smaller pieces to be worked on independently. JIRA encourages the disintegration of the macro vision. What’s more, feature-driven JIRA does not easily support the concept of project-wide infrastructure which does not map to individual features. A data model used across the project. A complex component used across multiple pages. A caching layer for a third-party interface. A background service providing real-time data used across multiple screens. Sure, you wedge those into JIRA’s ticket paradigm … but the spiderweb of dependencies which result don’t help anyone. Worst of all, though, is the endless implicit pressure for tickets to be , to be passed on to the next phase. Tickets, in the JIRA mindset, are taken on, focused on until complete, and then passed on, never to be seen again. They have a one-way life cycle: specification; design; development; testing; release. Doesn’t that sound a little … um … waterfall-y? Isn’t agile development supposed to be fundamentally from waterfall development, rather than simply replacing one big waterfall with a thousand little ones? Here’s an analogy. Imagine a city-planning tool which makes it easy to design city maps which do include towers, residential districts, parks, malls and roads … but which doesn’t easily support things like waterworks, sewers, subway tunnels, the electrical grid, etc., which can only be wedged in through awkward hacks, if at all. Now imagine this tool is used as a blueprint for construction, with the implicit baked-in assumption that a) the neighborhood is the fundamental unit of city construction b) cities are built one neighborhood at a time, and neighborhoods one block at a time. What’s more, one is incentivized to proceed to the next only when the last is absolutely complete, right down to the flowers growing in the median strips. imagine that the city’s developers, engineers and construction workers are asked to estimate and report progress purely in terms of how many neighborhoods and blocks have been fully completed, and how far along each one is. Does that strike you as a particularly effective model of urban planning? Do you think you would like to live in its result? Or, in practice, do you think that the best way to grow a city might be just a little more organic? Let’s extend that metaphor. Suppose you began to build the city more organically, so that, at a certain significant point, you have a downtown full of a mix of temporary and permanent buildings; the skyscrapers’ foundations laid (i.e. technical uncertainty resolved); much of the core infrastructure built out; a few clusters of initial structures in the central neighborhoods, and shantytowns in the outskirts; a dirt airstrip where the airport will be; and traffic going back and forth among all these places. In other words, you have built a crude but functioning city-in-the-making, its skeleton constructed, ready to be fleshed out. Well done! But if measured by how many blocks and neighborhoods are absolutely , according to the urban planners’ artistic renditions, what is your progress? By that measure, your progress is . So that is not how JIRA incentivizes you to work. That would look like a huge column of in-progress tickets, and zero complete ones. That would look beyond terrible. Instead, JIRA incentivizes you to complete an entire block, and then the next; an entire neighborhood, and then the next; to kill off as many different tickets as possible, to mark them complete and pass them on, even if splicing them together after the fact is more difficult than building them to work together in the first place. (If you prefer a smaller-scale model, just transpose: city → condo building, neighborhood → floor, block → unit, etc.) And so people take tickets, implement them as written, pass them off to whoever is next in the workflow, consider their job well done, even if working on scattered groups of them in parallel might be much more effective … and without ever considering the larger goal. “Implement the Upload button” says the ticket; so that is all that is done. The ticket does not explain that the larger goal of the Upload button is to let users back up their work. Perhaps it would actually be technically easier to automatically upload every state change, such that the user gets automatic buttonless backups plus a complete undo/redo stack. But all the ticket says is: “Implement the Upload button.” So that is all that is done. All too often, the only time anyone worries about the vision of the project as a whole is at the very beginning, when the overworked project manager(s) initially deal(s) with the thankless task of decomposing the entire project into a forest of tickets. But the whole of agile development is to accept that the project will always be changing over time, and — albeit to a lesser extent — for multiple people, everyone on the team, to help contribute to that change. JIRA has become a tool which actually works against this. (And don’t even get me started on asking engineers to estimate a project that someone else has broken down, into subcomponents whose partitioning feels unnatural, by giving them about 30 seconds per feature during a planning meeting, and basing the entire project plan on those hand-waved un-researched off-the-top-of-the-head half-blind guesses, without ever revisiting them or providing time for more thoughtful analysis. That antipattern is not JIRA’s fault … exactly. But JIRA’s structure contributes to it.) I’m not saying JIRA has no place. It’s very good when you’re at the point where breaking things down into small pieces and finishing them sequentially does make sense. And, unsurprisingly given its history, it’s exceedingly good at issue tracking. Let me reiterate: To write elegant software, you must keep both the macro and the micro vision in your mind simultaneously while working. JIRA is good at managing micro pieces. But you need something else for the macro. (And no, a clickable prototype isn’t enough; those are important, but they too require descriptive context.) Allow me to propose something shocking and revolutionary: . Yes, that’s right; words in a row; thoughtfully written paragraphs. I’m not talking about huge requirements documents. I’m talking about maybe a 10-page overview describing the vision for the entire project in detail, and a six-page architectural document explaining the software infrastructure — where the city’s water, sewage, power, subways and airports are located, and how they work, to extend the metaphor. When Amazon can, famously, , this really doesn’t seem like too much to ask. Simply ceasing to treat JIRA as the primary map and model of project completion undercuts a great deal of its implicit antipatternness. Use it for tracking iterative development and bug fixes, by all means. It’s very good at that. But it is a tool deeply ill-suited to be the map of a project’s overall vision or infrastructure, and it is the source of truth — the source of truth is always the running code. In software, as in art, the micro work and the macro vision should always be informed by one another. Let JIRA map the micro work; but let good old-fashioned plain language describe the macro vision, and try to pay more attention to it. Atlassian seems to have decapitalized JIRA between versions and , but descriptively, all-caps still seems more common. |
FCC will suspend most operations on Thursday if the shutdown continues | Catherine Shu | 2,018 | 12 | 31 | The Federal Communications Commission that it will need to suspend most of its operations by the middle of Thursday if the partial government shutdown continues. The FCC will continue “work required for the protection of life and property,” as well as work related to spectrum auctions, since those are funded by the money raised by auctioning off spectrum licenses. The Office of the Inspector General, responsible for conducting internal reviews, audits and investigations of FCC programs and operations, will also remain open until further notice. In a the FCC said suspended activities will include: “Consumer complaint and inquiry phone lines cannot be answered; consumer protection and local competition enforcement must cease; licensing services, including broadcast, wireless, and wireline, must cease; management of radio spectrum and the creation of new opportunities for competitive technologies and services for the American public must be suspended; and equipment authorizations, including those bringing new electronic devices to American consumers, cannot be provided.” The FCC added that it will release more information on Wednesday about what will happen if it needs to suspend operations, including how it will affect electronic filing and database systems, filing deadlines, regulatory and application fee payments and “shot clocks,” also known as the length of time allocated for approving or denying pending transactions. The partial government shutdown continued into its 11th day as President Donald Trump refuses to back down on his demands for a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, forcing 800,000 federal employees to go without work or work without pay. House Democrats that will put an end to the shutdown but not include funding for the wall. |
In 2018 the ticketing industry finally killed the ‘sold-out’ show | Jesse Lawrence | 2,018 | 12 | 31 | Among the many myths that were laid low in 2018, perhaps none was as welcome to throngs of live-event fans as the fantasy of the sold-out show. Indeed, as the ticket market has moved to adopt new technology, the newfound transparency has had one prime victim: The Sellout. The highest-profile debunking of the sellout in sports for 2018 came from Washington, DC. Originally reported by , the Washington Redskins officially ended their decade-long season-ticket waitlist this June. Once claimed to be 200,000 fans deep, the reality of Redskins demand hadn’t been as rosy since the glory days of Riggins and Theismann. In 2018, the Redskins have been selling single-game tickets like never before — even using the secondary market as a favorable point of comparison. Other high-profile examples of this shift include the Golden State Warriors, who, despite selling out 100 percent of their regular-season games, had hundreds of tickets available for Game 1 of the NBA finals in the minutes before tip-off. If the Redskins and Warriors signaled a shift away from the sellout era in sports, Taylor Swift’s Reputation tour did the same for music. Having wrapped up earlier this month, , despite a flurry of articles . Ironically, it turns out that the most important factor in her record-breaking success was exactly that: not selling out. Rather than a lack of demand, these unsold tickets for high-profile events are the result of the latest trend in the ticketing industry — making sure you have tickets to sell when fans want to buy them. Anyone who has purchased tickets on the internet knows that the most active buying window is in the days and hours leading up to an event. Before the internet, while this last-minute market existed, it was contained to street corners and run by local brokers. For most of the 20th century, managing this aftermarket was a job ticket owners were comfortable outsourcing. With its limitless reach and real-time distribution, however, internet-based selling changed their comfort level dramatically by removing the ticket owner from the supply chain and costing them billions in margin. It also created a product category that became one of the worst, if not the worst, on the internet. If not for the universal appeal of live events, ticketing as a product would have died with Pets.com. Instead, teams, artists and promoters became the poster children for the internet’s power to disrupt. The response from many ticket owners was to simply hang up a “Sold Out” sign at the box office in the weeks, days and hours before the game — one that is just now starting to be taken down. Photo courtesy of Getty Images To understand why that happened, it’s important to recognize that when the internet took off, teams were principally in the season-ticket business, while artists and promoters were in the record-selling business. Selling last-minute, “on-demand” tickets simply wasn’t a focus. The internet, however, turned that secondary market niche into a product category worth $10 to $15 billion at its peak — two to three times the size of the primary market it was based on. In order to compete in this always-on marketplace, ticketing technology has received billions of dollars of investment in the last decade, with the goal of making it more compatible with the web itself. In the last two years, Ticketmaster, SeatGeek and Eventbrite have all announced “open platform” models that make it as easy to sell tickets in places like . In January, Ticketmaster and the NFL announced a new platform deal that, for the first time ever, allows teams and leagues to define their own distribution ecosystem. As one of the biggest destinations for ticket buying online, sites like StubHub and my company, TicketIQ, have become direct-to-fan distribution channels in the new ticketing marketplace. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu) Before we singlehandedly credit technology for killing the sellout, it’s worth asking whether the decline in sellouts is simply the result of exorbitant ticket prices and increased competition for consumer attention. While there’s no question that it’s become harder to get people off their couches for average events, the robust growth of the experience economy suggests the opposite trend. According to a December 2017 , millennials spend 60 percent more on live experiences than GenXers — all in search of not only genuine connection, but also fresh social-media content. For the Reputation tour specifically, last-minute tickets on the secondary market were actually , which made buying tickets day-of the event more affordable than ever. As for the Redskins, while their 2018 season hasn’t turned out as they’d hoped, at the box office, they’ve set themselves up for success in the years to come. When demand spikes, whether as the result of a new stadium or a championship run, they’ll benefit directly and handsomely. As a point of reference for what kind of profit they might expect, the Financial Times reported that Taylor Swift’s , including two dates in July at FedEx Field, home of the Redskins. In “Look What You Made Me Do,” the sixth song on the Reputation album, Taylor Swift sings about past “games,” “a tilted stage” and “unfair disadvantage,” for which she now seeks retribution. As a statement about her artistic and commercial stature, it’s clear she no longer wants to play nice. In addition to a jab at her artistic nemesis, Kanye West, it also reads like a farewell to the ticket market of old that has frustrated consumers for almost two decades. Despite claims that to achieve Reputation’s record-breaking success, the numbers mean that it’s a model we’ll be seeing much more of in the years to come. Regardless of how you feel about her forcing fans to Buy, Like and Watch to get their place in line for tickets, the good news for the ticket market overall is that it was her decision to make. |
This clever AI hid data from its creators to cheat at its appointed task | Devin Coldewey | 2,018 | 12 | 31 | Depending on how paranoid you are, this research from Stanford and Google will be either terrifying or fascinating. A machine learning agent intended to transform aerial images into street maps and back was found to be cheating by hiding information it would need later in “a nearly imperceptible, high-frequency signal.” Clever girl! But in fact this occurrence, far from illustrating some kind of malign intelligence inherent to AI, simply reveals a problem with computers that has existed since they were invented: they do exactly what you tell them to do. The intention of the researchers was, as you might guess, to accelerate and improve the process of turning satellite imagery into Google’s famously accurate maps. To that end the team was working with what’s called a CycleGAN — a neural network that learns to transform images of type X and Y into one another, as efficiently yet accurately as possible, through a great deal of experimentation. In some early results, the agent was doing well — well. What tipped the team off was that, when the agent reconstructed aerial photographs from its street maps, there were lots of details that didn’t seem to be on the latter at all. For instance, skylights on a roof that were eliminated in the process of creating the street map would magically reappear when they asked the agent to do the reverse process: The original map, left; the street map generated from the original, center; and the aerial map generated only from the street map. Note the presence of dots on both aerial maps not represented on the street map. Although it is very difficult to peer into the inner workings of a neural network’s processes, the team could easily audit the data it was generating. And with a little experimentation, they found that the CycleGAN had indeed pulled a fast one. The intention was for the agent to be able to interpret the features of either type of map and match them to the correct features of the other. But what the agent was being graded on (among other things) was how close an aerial map was to the original, and the clarity of the street map. So it learn how to make one from the other. It learned how to subtly encode the features of one into the noise patterns of the other. The details of the aerial map are secretly written into the actual visual data of the street map: thousands of tiny changes in color that the human eye wouldn’t notice, but that the computer can easily detect. In fact, the computer is so good at slipping these details into the street maps that it had learned to encode aerial map into street map! It doesn’t even have to pay attention to the “real” street map — all the data needed for reconstructing the aerial photo can be superimposed harmlessly on a completely different street map, as the researchers confirmed: The map at right was encoded into the maps at left with no significant visual changes. The colorful maps in (c) are a visualization of the slight differences the computer systematically introduced. You can see that they form the general shape of the aerial map, but you’d never notice it unless it was carefully highlighted and exaggerated like this. This practice of encoding data into images isn’t new; it’s an established science called steganography, and it’s used all the time to, say, watermark images or add metadata like camera settings. But a computer creating its own steganographic method to evade having to actually learn to perform the task at hand rather new. (Well, the research came out last year, so it isn’t new, but it’s pretty novel.) One could easily take this as a step in the “the machines are getting smarter” narrative, but the truth is it’s almost the opposite. The machine, not smart enough to do the actual difficult job of converting these sophisticated image types to each other, found a way to cheat that are bad at detecting. This could be avoided with more stringent evaluation of the agent’s results, and no doubt the researchers went on to do that. As always, computers do exactly what they are asked, so you have to be very specific in what you ask them. In this case the computer’s solution was an interesting one that shed light on a possible weakness of this type of neural network — that the computer, if not explicitly prevented from doing so, will essentially find a way to transmit details to itself in the interest of solving a given problem quickly and easily. This is really just a lesson in the oldest adage in computing: PEBKAC. “Problem exists between keyboard and chair.” (Not “and computer,” as I accidentally wrote before, obviously. That would imply a faulty cable or wireless interface. Thanks to everyone on the internet for pointing it out.) Or as HAL put it: “It can only be attributable to human error.” was presented at the Neural Information Processing Systems conference in 2017. Thanks to and Reddit for bringing this old but interesting paper to my attention. |
Epic Games surprises players on New Year’s Eve | Jordan Crook | 2,018 | 12 | 31 | Happy New Year! The folks over at Epic Games have a special treat in store for players hopping on Fortnite today. In celebration of New Year’s Eve all around the world, Fortnite is having an in-game live event where a massive, dropping disco ball descends on the map each hour, on the hour. The virtual ball drop has the same affect on players as a boogie bomb, meaning that everyone playing Fortnite is collectively dancing each time the minutes on your clock read :00. Obviously, the clock has already struck midnight and 2019 has officially begun in many parts of the world, but the in-game ball drop threw some players off guard. 2019 NEW YEAR LEAKED!?!?! — dakotaz (@dakotaz) A NEW YEARS EVENT ALREADY? HAPPY EARLY NEW YEARS I GUESS LMAOOO — FaZe Thiefs (@Thiefs) Nick Chester, Epic’s PR spokesperson, tweeted this in response: Woke up to learn that many Fortnite players are unaware of time zones. We’re an educational and international game. Happy New Year to you if you’re already in 2019! — Nick Chester (@nickchester) 2018 was a huge year for Fortnite. Even beyond the turning of a new year, Epic Games has good reason to celebrate. |
Echo Wall Clock review | Brian Heater | 2,018 | 12 | 31 | year Amazon went all-in on the Alexa. September saw the announcement of a new Echo Dot, Show and Plus, a subwoofer, an audio input device, an auto dongle and an amplifier. That would have been plenty, but the company also started dipping its toes into the other side of things. |
Tesla is keeping 44 US stores open until midnight in year-end Model 3 sales push | Kirsten Korosec | 2,018 | 12 | 31 | Some Tesla employees will ring in the New Year on a sales floor this year as the automaker tries to liquidate its inventory of Model 3 sedans — and even its more expensive Model S and Model X vehicles — before the federal tax credit for EVs is cut in half. In a list of updated hours, 44 of the stores, including locations in California, Minnesota, Nevada, New York and Ohio, are open until midnight Monday. Tesla has more than 100 stores and galleries in the United States. Calls made to several of these stores indicate these locations have a mix of Model 3 sedans available for pickup today. Sales associates didn’t provide specific numbers. After midnight Monday, the $7,500 federal electric vehicle tax credit will drop to $3,750 for anyone buying a Tesla vehicle. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been using Twitter to warn of the expiring tax credit . Recently, the pace of promotion has escalated as Tesla’s inventory of Model 3 vehicles in the U.S. has persisted. US $7500 tax credit drops in half at midnight! Following Tesla stores are open until then — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) The company reportedly had more than 3,300 Model 3 vehicles in inventory in the U.S. as of Sunday, according a . Now with just hours left before the federal tax credit drops, Tesla and Musk are making a special effort to reduce the Model 3 inventory in a final sales push. Earlier this year, Tesla hit a milestone when it delivered its 200,000th electric vehicle. The achievement was a noteworthy occasion for an automaker that didn’t exist 15 years ago. However, it also activated a countdown for the $7,500 federal tax credit offered to consumers who buy new electric vehicles. The once a manufacturer has sold 200,000 qualifying vehicles in the U.S. Under these rules, Tesla customers must take delivery of their new Model S, Model X or Model 3 by December 31. After December 31, the federal tax credit is cut in half to $3,750 for new Tesla customers. The tax credit is reduced again after June 30 to $1,875 before disappearing altogether at the end of next year. |
Noa’s new Alexa skill has human narrators read news from NYT, FT, Economist & others | Sarah Perez | 2,018 | 12 | 31 | News junkies who want something more in-depth than Alexa’s now have a new option for listening to the day’s news — as well as features and other reporting — right from their smart speaker. A company called Noa has just launched an that uses human narrators to read you the news from top publishers like The New York Times, Financial Times, The Economist and others. With the skill, you can catch up on the stories you missed while you’re doing other things — like cooking, cleaning, commuting or exercising, for example. The skill is aimed at those who already enjoy listening to longer-form audio, like podcasts or talk radio, on their Amazon Echo or other Alexa-powered device. The use case here is also similar to that of “read it later” apps like Pocket or Instapaper, both of which have added an audio playback option for listening to your saved articles. However, those apps currently rely on text-to-speech functionality, not on human narration. Noa, meanwhile, employs a team of half a dozen narrators based across the U.S., U.K. and Ireland who read the stories published by the company’s current partners. These include: The New York Times, Financial Times, Business Insider, The Economist, The Independent, Bloomberg, The Irish Times and the Evening Standard. That list will grow in 2019 to include more news organizations and magazine partners, the company says. To use the skill, you must first enable it on your Alexa device by saying, “Alexa, enable Noa.” (It’s pronounced like the “Noah” from the Bible — the one with the ark.) You can then ask Noa to read the news by publisher, journalist or category. For example, you can say or or Not all articles from the publisher partners will be available, explains Noa CEO Gareth Hickey. “Only a limited subset of articles lend themselves well to audio — namely, the opinion and feature style stories. Essentially longer-form journalism,” he says. The skill also employs a metered-access paywall that allows listeners to stream up to 10 articles per week for free. To listen to more, you have to subscribe at $7.99 per month (or €/£7.99 per month, depending on location) for unlimited access. The company doesn’t currently support Amazon Pay, so you’ll have to sign up at Noa’s website or through its mobile apps if you want to upgrade. The Alexa skill is the latest from the Dublin-based startup Noa, founded in 2015 by Hickey and Shane Ennis, with the goal of providing access to audio journalism. “While audio-journalism is a core part of our offering, personalized discovery and quality curation are equally as important,” Hickey says. “The goal isn’t to inundate users with audio articles, but instead to help them learn and understand the news,” he adds. It’s not the only company working to provide human narration of the news for the booming smart speaker market. SpokenLayer, for instance, currently for many news publishers, including . And Amazon’s launched with spoken-word recordings from publishers like the The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Foreign Affairs, Charlie Rose, McSweeney’s, The Onion and other periodicals. Noa’s is called and is free to install and use for up to 10 articles per week. Noa also has a limited presence on Google Home, allowing listeners to hear four Editors’ Picks each day. But its next version will allow for journalist, publisher and category navigation — the same as on Alexa. Noa will soon launch on Android Auto and CarPlay, as well. |
Netflix stops paying the ‘Apple tax’ on its $853M in annual iOS revenue | Sarah Perez | 2,018 | 12 | 31 | Earlier this year, Netflix was seen testing across dozens of markets worldwide. As 2018 draws to a close, Netflix — — for new users to sign up and subscribe to the streaming service within its iOS app across all global markets. The change means Apple will miss out on hundreds of millions in App Store revenue per year — money it would have otherwise received by way of its standard cut of in-app transactions. According to new data compiled by Sensor Tower, Netflix grossed $853 million in 2018 on the iOS App Store. Based on that figure, Apple’s take would have been around $256 million, the firm said. To date, the Netflix iOS app has generated more than $1.5 billion through its in-app subscriptions, with Apple’s cut coming in around $450 million-plus, Sensor Tower estimated. Before the change, Netflix on iOS was grossing an average of $2.4 million per day in 2018 — meaning Apple was making around $700,000 by doing nothing other than allowing Netflix to offer subscriptions in its app. (Note, however, that Sensor Tower’s figures are based on the App Store’s 30 percent cut of transactions. After the first year, Apple’s cut on subscription renewals is . That’s not being factored in. But it gives you a rough idea of Apple’s losses here.) Netflix’s iOS revenue has been climbing steadily over the years. In 2017, its gross subscriber revenue was $510 million — up from $215 million users spent in the app in 2016 — which earned it on the Top Grossing Chart for non-game apps. It again this year, trailed by Tinder and Tencent Video. In fact, Netflix has earned the bragging rights for being the , App Annie reported this summer. The streaming service’s decision to bypass the App Store isn’t a first. Many companies today direct their users to the web or other platforms in order to avoid marketplace fees. For example, Amazon has historically movie and TV rentals and purchases to its own website or other “compatible” apps, instead of allowing them to take place through its Prime Video app. The same goes for Kindle e-books, which also aren’t offered in the Kindle mobile app. the option to pay for its Premium service using Apple’s in-app payment system. And Epic Games this year — as well as its 30 percent cut — when it launched Fortnite for Android as a sideloaded app. That decision in Google’s loss of $50 million+ in marketplaces fees. Netflix in-app subscription sign-ups in its Android app on Google Play. That signaled its intentions to later take back the so-called “Apple tax” for itself, too. However, Netflix still earns money on Google Play through existing subscribers. That totaled around $105 million in 2018, with Google earning close to $32 million of that. But the number has been declining consistently, Sensor Tower said. Apple could soon be in the same boat. was the first to notice the change to the Netflix iOS app. It would be surprising if Apple took action against Netflix, given it has not done so with other major tech companies that made similar moves. : Netflix has shared its statement on the change: “ |
Gillmor Gang: Next | Steve Gillmor | 2,018 | 12 | 31 | The Gillmor Gang — Keith Teare, Esteban Kolsky, Frank Radice, Michael Markman and Steve Gillmor. Recorded live Saturday December 22, 2018. 2019 — the year to come in review. Tech, Trump, Connected TV: products, services and streams that could make a difference. Produced and directed by Tina Chase Gillmor @tinagillmor @kteare, @ekolsky, @fradice, @mickeleh, @stevegillmor |
Polite Fortnite Society | Jordan Crook | 2,018 | 12 | 31 | nts are approaching 60. When they were young, they hung out at diners, or drove around in their cars. My generation hung out in the parking lot after school, or at the mall. My colleague John Biggs often talks of hanging out with his nerd buddies in his basement, playing games and making crank calls. Today, young people are hanging out on a virtual island plagued by an ever-closing fatal storm. It’s called Fortnite. They hang out in Fortnite the way we used to hang out in basements or back yards. We played games or kicked a ball around, but it was all a pretense for the social aspect. — Anoop Ranganath (@anoopr) The thread above describes exactly what I’m talking about. Yes, people most certainly log on and play the game. Some play it very seriously. But many, especially young folks, hop on to Fortnite to socialize. The phenomenon of “hanging out” on a game is not new. I was in a 50 person clan in World of Warcraft in 2004 and we all hung out on a Ventrilo for hours every day for years and years. I saw real romantic relationships begin, grow and die on there. So “x is a place” is a fine observation, but it’s not a new phenomenon. — Matthew Panzarino (@panzer) Almost any popular game results in a community of players who connect not only through the common interest of the game itself, but as real friends who discuss their lives, thoughts, dreams, etc. But something else is afoot on Fortnite that may be far more effectual. Gaming culture has long had a reputation for being highly toxic. To be clear, there is a difference between talking about someone’s skills in the game and making a personal attack: “You are bad at this game.” = Fine by me
“You should kill yourself.” = Not fine at all But many streamers and pro gamers make offensive jokes, talk shit about each other and rage when they lose. It’s not shocking, then, that the broader gaming community that tries to emulate them, especially the young men growing up in a world where e-sports are real, tend to do many of the same things. But Fortnite doesn’t have the same type of community. Sure, as with any game, there are bad apples. But on the whole, there isn’t the same toxicity permeating every single part of the game. For what it’s worth, I’ve played hundreds of hours of both Fortnite and Call of Duty over the past few years. The difference between the way I’m treated on Fortnite and Call of Duty, particularly once my game-matched teammates discover I’m a woman, is truly staggering. I’ve actually been legitimately scared by my interactions with people on Call of Duty. I’ve met some of my closest friends on Fortnite. One such relationship is with a young man named Luke, who is set to graduate from college this spring. During the course of our now year-long friendship, Luke revealed to me that he is gay and was having trouble coming out to his parents and peers at school. As an older gay, I tried to provide him with as much guidance and advice as possible. Being there for him, answering his phone calls when he was struggling and reminding him that he’s a unique, strong individual, has perhaps been one of the most rewarding parts of my life this past year. I’ve also made friends with young men who, once they realize that I’m older and a woman and have a perspective that they might not, casually ask me for advice. They’ve asked me why the girl they like doesn’t seem to like them back — “don’t try to make her jealous, just treat her with kindness,” I advised, and then added “OK, make her a jealous” — or vented to me about how their parents “are idiots” — “they don’t understand you, and you don’t understand them, but they’re doing their best for you and no one loves you like they do” — or expressed insecurity about who they are — “you’re great at Fortnite, why wouldn’t you be great at a bunch of other things?” and “have more confidence in yourself.” (Though paraphrased, these are real conversations I’ve had with random players on Fortnite.) There is perhaps no other setting where I might meet these young people, nor one where they might meet me. And even if we did meet, out in the real world, would we open up and discuss our lives? No. But we have this place in common, and as we multitask playing the game and having a conversation, suddenly our little hearts open up to one another in the safety of the island. But that’s just me. I see this mentorship all the time in Fortnite, in both small and big ways. Gaming culture is often seen as a vile thing, and there are a of to support that conclusion. Though this perception is slowly changing, and not always fair, gamers are usually either perceived as lonely people bathed in the blue glow of the monitor light, or toxic brats who cuss, and throw out slurs, and degrade women. So why is Fortnite any different from other games? Why does it seem to foster a community that, at the very least, doesn’t actively hate on one another? First, it’s the game itself. Even though Fortnite includes weapons, it’s not a “violent” game. There is no blood or gore. When someone is eliminated, their character simply evaporates into a pile of brightly colored loot. The game feels whimsical and cartoonish and fun, full of dances and fun outfits. This musical, colorful world most certainly affects the mood of its players. Logging on to Fortnite feels good, like hearing the opening music to the Harry Potter movies. Logging on to a game like, say, Call of Duty: WWII feels sad and scary, like watching the opening sequence to Saving Private Ryan. Moreover, Fortnite Battle Royale takes place on a single large map. That map may change and evolve from time to time, but it’s even more “common ground” between players. Veterans of the game show noobs new spots to find loot or ways to get around. As my colleague Greg Kumparak said to me, “Every time you go in, you’re going to the same place. Maybe it’s skinned a little different or there’s suddenly a viking ship, but it’s home.” Of course, there are other colorful, bubbly games that still have a huge toxicity problem. Overwatch is a great example. So what’s the difference? Battle Royale has introduced a brand new dynamic to the world of gaming. Instead of facing off in a one-versus-one or a five-versus-five scenario as with Starcraft or Overwatch respectively, Battle Royale is either 1 versus 99, 2 versus 98 or 4 versus 96. “It isn’t as binary as winning or losing,” said Rod “Slasher” Breslau, longtime gaming and e-sports journalist formerly of ESPN and CBS Interactive’s GameSpot. “You could place fifth and still feel satisfied about how you played.” Breslau played Overwatch at the highest levels for a few seasons and said that it was the most frustrating game he’s ever played in 20 years of gaming. It may be colorful and bubbly, but it is built in a way that gives an individual player a very limited ability to sway the outcome of the game. “You have all the normal problems of playing in a team, relying on your teammates to play their best and communicate and to simply have the skill to compete, but multiply that because of the way the game works,” said Breslau. “It’s very reliant on heroes, the meta is pretty stale because it’s a relatively new game, and the meta has been figured out.” All that, combined with the fact that success in Overwatch is based on teamwork, make it easy to get frustrated and unleash on teammates. With Fortnite, a number of factors relieve that stress. In an ideal scenario, you match up with three other players in a Squads match and they are all cooperative. Everyone lands together, they share shield potions and weapons, communicate about nearby enemies and literally pick each other up when one gets knocked down. This type of teamwork, even among randos, fosters kindness. In a worst-case scenario, you are matched up with players who aren’t cooperative, who use toxic language, who steal your loot or simply run off and die, leaving you alone to fight off teams of four. Even in the latter scenario, there are ways to play more cautiously — play passive and hide, or third-party fights that are underway and pick players off, or lure teams intro trapped up houses. Sure, it’s helpful to have skilled, communicative teammates, but being matched with not-so-great teammates doesn’t send most people into a blind rage. And because the odds are against you — 1 versus 99 in Solos or 4 versus 96 in Squads — the high of winning is nearly euphoric. “The lows are the problem,” says Breslau. “Winning a close game of Overwatch, when the team is working together and communicating, feels great. But when you’re depending on your team to win, the lows are low. The lows aren’t like that in Fortnite.” The popularity of Fortnite as a cultural phenomenon, not just a game, means that plenty of non-gamers have found their way onto the island. Young people, a brand new generation of gamers, are obsessed with the game. But folks who might have fallen away from gaming as they got older are still downloading it on their phone, or installing it on the Nintendo Switch, and giving Battle Royale a try. Outsiders, who haven’t been steeped in the all-too-common hatred found in the usual gaming community, are bringing a sense of perspective to Fortnite. There is simply more diversity that comes with a larger pool of players, and diversity fosters understanding. Plus, Fortnite has solid age distribution among players. The majority (63 percent) of players on Fortnite are between the ages of 18 and 24, according to . Twenty-three percent of players are ages 24 to 35, and thirteen percent are 35 to 44 years old. However, this data doesn’t take into account players under the age of 18, which represent 28 percent of overall gamers, according to Verto. One way Fortnite like other games is that 70 percent of players are male. There aren’t many scenarios where four people, from different backgrounds and age groups, join up under a common goal in the type of mood-lifting setting that Fortnite provides. More often than not, the youngest little guy tries to make some sort of offensive joke to find his social place in the group. But surprisingly, for a shoot and loot game played by a lot of people, that’s rarely tolerated by the older members of a Fortnite squad. The popularity of the game also means that more eyes are on Fortnite than any other game. Super-popular streamer Ninja’s live stream with Drake had , setting a record. The more people watching, the more streamers are forced to watch their behavior. Fortnite streamers are setting a new example for gamers everywhere. One such streamer is Nick Kolcheff. Nick has been streaming Fortnite since it first came out and has a huge community of mostly male viewers. I consider myself a part of, albeit a minority in, that community — I’ve subscribed to his channel and cheered for him with bits and participated in the chat. In short, I’ve spent plenty of time watching Nick and have seen him offer a place of support and friendship for his viewers. I’ve seen Nick’s audience ask him, in so many words, how to lose weight (Nick’s a big fitness guy), or share that they’re dealing with an illness in the family, or share that they’re heartbroken because their girlfriend cheated on them. In large part, Nick says he learned how to be a mentor from his own dad. “I remember being in those kinds of positions, but I have a great father that always sat me down and let me vent and then shared his opinion, and reminded me that it isn’t supposed to be easy,” said Kolcheff. “It feels good to bounce things off other people and hard things always feel much easier when you know you’re not alone, and I can relate to my chat the way my dad relates to me.” Nick always has something positive to say. He reminds his audience that even if they feel alone IRL, they have a community right there in his Twitch channel to talk to. He sets an example in the way he talks about his girlfriend Emu, and the way he treats her on screen. When Nick loses a game and his chat explodes with anger, he reminds them to be cool and to not talk shit about other players. And it’s easy to see his example followed in the chat, where young people are treating each other with respect and answering each other’s questions. Nick wasn’t always like this. In fact, the first time that NickMercs and Ninja played together on stream, they brought up the time that Nick challenged Ninja to a fight at a LAN tournament years ago. But both Nick and Ninja have matured into something that you rarely find in online gaming: a role model — and it’s had an effect. Tyler Blevins, far and away the most successful Twitch streamer ever, decided to stop swearing and using degrading language as his influence in the community and his viewership grew. When his audience said they missed the old Ninja, he had this to say: I’m the same person, you guys. 2018 can’t handle old Ninja and… guess what, I can’t handle old Ninja because the words that I used to say and the gaming terms I used to say… they weren’t ok, alright? I’ve matured. Jack Dunlop is another Fortnite streamer who uses his influence in the community to mentor young people. He has befriended a young fellow named Connor. and has since continued playing with him and talking to him. Not only is he being kind to Connor, but he’s setting an example for his viewers. “In comparison to games like Call of Duty and Gears of War and Halo, the top content creators like Ninja, Sypher PK, Timthetatman, are a little older now,” said Kolcheff. “They’ve come from other games where they already had a following. If you look at me five or six years ago, or any of us, we’ve all chilled out. We were more combative and crazy and had a lot more words to say, but I think we just grew up, and it bleeds through to the community.” These guys are the exception in the wider world of gaming and streaming. But they represent the future of gaming in general. As e-sports explode with growth, pro players will undoubtedly be held to the same behavioral standards as pro players in traditional sports. That’s not to say that pro athletes are angels, and that’s not to say that bad actors won’t have a following. Just look at PewDiePie. The e-sports world is realizing that they can’t let their professionals run their mouth without consequences. As the industry grows, highly dependent on advertisers and brand endorsements, with a young audience hanging on every word, it will become increasingly important for leagues, e-sports organizations and game makers to start paying closer attention to the behavior of their top players. We’re already seeing this type of policing happening on Overwatch, both for and . There is more work to do. But the problem of removing toxicity from any platform is incredibly difficult. Just ask Facebook and Twitter. Still, it’s only a matter of time before e-sports decision-makers raise the stakes on what they’ll allow from their representatives, which are pro players and streamers. Toxic behavior is being rejected in most polite society anywhere (except Twitter, because Twitter), and it surely can’t be tolerated much longer in the gaming world. But Fortnite maker Epic Games hasn’t had to put too much effort forth to steer clear of toxic behavior. The community seems to be doing a pretty good job holding itself accountable. Believe you me, Fortnite is not some magical place filled with unicorns and rainbows. There are still players on the game who behave badly, cheat, use toxic language and are downright mean. But compared to other shooters, Fortnite is a breath of fresh air. No one thing makes Fortnite less toxic. A beautiful, mood-lifting game can’t make much of a difference on its own. A huge, relatively diverse player base certainly makes a dent. And yes, the game limits frustration by simply managing expectations. But with leaders that have prioritized their position as role models, and all the other factors above working in harmony, Fortnite is not only the most popular game in the world, but perhaps one of the most polite. |
What to expect from CES 2019 | Brian Heater | 2,018 | 12 | 31 | less than ideal. Just as the industry is recovering from a holiday-induced hangover, we’re thrust into the country’s largest consumer electronics show. The timing, of course, is not coincidental. The show is intended to offer a preview for the tech year to come. Many companies thrive on CES’s pace. It’s a five-day deluge of tech news, and, for many, it’s the largest platform they’ll get all year. The show is fairly unique in its ability to juggle announcements from all sizes of companies, from Samsung to startup, all vying for a little mindshare. In recent years, its focus has shifted. Many larger companies have opted to make announcements on their own stages — and their own terms. CES, meanwhile, has changed accordingly, offering smaller companies a platform through showcases like Eureka Park, while making automotive and transportation a more essential plank of the show. We’re about a week out from CES really kicking off in earnest, so it’s time to take a look at some of the trends that are beginning to emerge in the lead-up to the big show. 5G illustration, taken during the inauguration of the Media group Altice’ s Campus in Paris on October 9, 2018. (Photo by ERIC PIERMONT / AFP) The big tech story of the year will no doubt also be the centerpiece of CES. The major U.S. carriers have already committed to rolling out 5G in 2019, so the show marks a perfect opportunity for hardware companies to get in on the action, as well. Expect to see a lot of news out of component makers on this front, Intel especially. Qualcomm mostly showcased its 2019 offerings at its summit earlier this month, but the company will no doubt drill down on specifics, including the ways in which next-gen wireless will push IoT, automotive and other devices beyond the smartphone (more on that below). In fact, I anticipate that’s going to be the big story here: 5G’s role beyond mobile. The big carriers — AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint — are intent on demonstrating how the faster technology will keep us more connected than ever. That’s going to apply to everything from enterprise products to health-monitoring wearables and smart home devices. It’s a future where everything is always-on — and tapped directly into your bank account. Barring any unforeseen trends, VR’s going to mostly have to sit this one out. We’ll likely see a trend toward cheaper, standalone headsets à la the Oculus Go, but most companies are currently a lot more interested in what augmented reality holds in the short-term. AR’s immediate future is two-pronged. Most developers are focused on leveraging existing devices like smartphones and tablets, using ARKit/ARCore. But a number of headsets/glasses have already begun to pop up on the periphery. Expect plenty of these to be on display at the show as startups attempt to convince us that it’s an experience we need to bring directly to our collective faces. As noted, automotive/transportation has become an increasingly important presence at CES over the past several years. Car stuff now comprises a full hall and several of the keynotes, as automakers invested more in tech breakthroughs and the consumer electronics side of things. A number of key trends are already starting to emerge ahead of the event. As in past years, expect to see a focus on on-site demos of EV and self-driving technologies. Augmented reality — including head’s up displays — will be a big part of the showcase, as will smaller transport products, including delivery robots. The smart home ruled last year’s show. 5G is expected to take the title in 2019, but connected home products won’t give up without a fight. They’re going to be EVERYWHERE. From door locks to cameras to microwave to wall clocks — if you can name it, there will be a smart version at CES this year. It’s the one category that practically every company both large and small will have a hand in. That said, two big names with an increased presence are going to drive much of the conversation. Since bringing the Echo and Home to market, CES has become an increasingly important show for both Amazon and Google. Expect Alexa and Assistant on everything at CES. Much of this has, admittedly, already been detailed in my recent post. Of course, what actually gets announced at CES is a different conversation altogether. For one thing, more companies are opting to make big announcements at their own events. For another, Mobile World Congress is just over a month away, and it’s been known to take plenty of smartphone wind out of CES’s sails. That said, I’d expect to see a handful of 5G handsets on display at the show. And while CES 2019 probably won’t be a watershed moment for the future of foldable smartphones, we’re going to get a closer look at the final version of Royole’s handset. I would also anticipate seeing plenty of foldable concepts hinted at, even as the final product will still be a ways away. 2018 was the toughest year for smartphones in recent memory. As such, a lot of companies are feeling the pressure to do some soul-searching and go back to the drawing board. If nothing else, at least we’ll get some interesting concepts out of the deal. Another year, another K. This year, 8K will very much be the thing. It’s like 4K, but with more Ks. Is it a gimmick? Kind of. Is it cool? Sure. Mostly, however, it’s the latest reason to get you to upgrade that three-year-old TV that cost you three months’ rent. Companies have been showing off 8K sets for half a decade now. This is the year manufacturers will really get serious about the technology — though the same probably can’t be said for content. |
The New Horizons probe buzzes the most distant object ever encountered first thing tomorrow | Devin Coldewey | 2,018 | 12 | 31 | Four billion miles from Earth, the New Horizons probe that recently is drawing near to the most distant object mankind has ever come close to: Ultima Thule, a mysterious rock deep in the Kuiper belt. The historic rendezvous takes place early tomorrow morning. This is an encounter nearly 30 years in the making, if you count back to the mission’s beginnings in 1989, but it’s also been some 13 years since launch — the timing and nature of which was calculated to give the probe this opportunity after it had completed its primary mission. New Horizons arrived at Pluto in the summer of 2015, and in its fleeting passage took thousands of photos and readings that scientists are still poring over. It taught us many things about the distant dwarf planet, but by the time it took its extraordinary parting shots of Pluto’s atmosphere, the team was already thinking about its next destination. Given the craft’s extreme speed and the incredibly distant setting for its first mission, the options for what to investigate were limited — if you can call the billions of objects floating in the Kuiper Belt “limited.” In fact the next destination had been chosen during a search undertaken in concert with the Hubble Space Telescope team back in 2014. Ground-based reconnaissance wasn’t exact enough, and the New Horizons had to convince Hubble’s operators basically to dedicate to their cause two weeks of the satellite’s time on short notice. After an initial rejection and “some high-stakes backroom maneuvering,” as Principal Investigator Alan Stern describes it in his book about the mission, the team made it happen, and Hubble data identified several potential targets. Ultima Thule as first detected by New Horizons’ LORRI imager. 2014 MU69 is a rock of unknown (but probably weird) shape about 20 miles across, floating in the belt about a billion miles from Pluto. But soon it would be known by another name. “Ultima Thule,” Stern told me in an interview onstage at Disrupt SF in September. “This is an ancient building block of planets like Pluto, formed 4 billion years ago; it’s been out there in this deep freeze, almost in absolute zero the whole time. It’s a time capsule.” At the time, he and the team had just gotten visual confirmation of the target, though nothing more than a twinkle in the distance. He was leaving immediately after our talk to go run flyby simulations with the team. “I’m super excited,” he told me. “That will be the most distant exploration of any world in the history of not just spaceflight, but in the history of human exploration. I don’t think anybody will top that for a long time.” , sure, but they’ve been flying through empty space for decades. New Horizons is out here meeting strange objects in an asteroid belt. Good luck putting together another mission like that in less than a few decades. In the time I’ve taken to write this post, New Horizons has gone from almost exactly 600,000 kilometers away from Ultima Thule to less than 538,000 (and by this you shall know velocity) — so it’ll be there quite soon. Just about 10 hours out, making it very early morning Eastern time on New Year’s Day. Even then, however, that’s just when New Horizons will actually encounter the object — we won’t know until the signal it sends at the speed of light arrives here on Earth 12 hours later. Pluto is far! The first data back will confirm the telemetry and basic success of the flyby. It will also begin sending images back as soon as possible, and while it’s possible that we’ll have fabulous pictures of the object by the afternoon, it depends a great deal on how things go during the encounter. At the latest we’ll see some by the next day; media briefings are planned for January 2 and 3 for this purpose. Once those images start flowing in, though, they may be even better in a way than those we got of Pluto. If all goes well, they’ll be capturing photos at a resolution of 35 meters per pixel, more than twice as good as the 70-80 m/px we got of Pluto. Note that these will only come later, after some basic shots confirming the flyby went as planned and allowing the team to better sort through the raw data coming in. The New Horizons team reports the spacecraft is healthy and on track for the historic flyby of just after midnight tonight! Watch flyby events live on NASATV and starting at 2pm (ET): | — NASA New Horizons (@NASANewHorizons) “You should know that that these stretch-goal observations are risky,” , “requiring us to know exactly where both Ultima and New Horizons are as they pass one another at over 32,000 mph in the darkness of the Kuiper Belt… But with risk comes reward, and we would rather try than not try to get these, and that is what we will do.” NASA public relations and other staff are still affected by the federal shutdown, but the New Horizons team will be covering the signal acquisition and first data live anyway; or check in to the NASA Live stream tomorrow morning at 7 AM Pacific time for the whole program. . |
NYSE operator’s crypto project Bakkt brings in $182M | Kate Clark | 2,018 | 12 | 31 | The Intercontinental Exchange’s (ICE) cryptocurrency project celebrated New Year’s Eve with the of a $182.5 million equity round from a slew of notable institutional investors. ICE, the operator of several global exchanges, including the New York Stock Exchange, established Bakkt to build a trading platform that enables consumers and institutions to buy, sell, store and spend digital assets. This is Bakkt’s first institutional funding round; it was not a token sale. Participating in the round are Horizons Ventures, Microsoft’s venture capital arm (M12), Pantera Capital, Naspers’ fintech arm (PayU), Protocol Ventures, Boston Consulting Group, CMT Digital, Eagle Seven, Galaxy Digital, Goldfinch Partners and more. Bakkt is currently seeking regulatory approval to launch a one-day physically delivered contract along with physical warehousing. The startup for a November 2018 launch, but confirmed this morning an earlier CoinDesk that it was delaying the launch to “early 2019” as it awaits permission from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Along with the funding, crypto news blog The Block Crypto also Bakkt has hired Balaji Devarasetty, a former vice president at Vantiv, as its head technology. ICE’s crypto project was first announced in August and is led by chief executive officer Kelly Loeffler, ICE’s long-time chief communications and marketing officer. Bakkt with Microsoft, which provides cloud infrastructure to the service, and Starbucks, to develop “practical, trusted and regulated applications for consumers to convert their digital assets into U.S. dollars for use at Starbucks,” Starbucks vice president of payments Maria Smith said in a statement at the time. Many Bitcoin startups floundered in 2018, despite record amounts of venture capital invested in the industry. This was as a result of failed initial coin offerings, an inability to scale following periods of rapid growth and the . Still, VCs remained bullish on Bitcoin and blockchain technology in 2018, funneling a total of $2.2 billion in U.S.-based crypto projects — a nearly 4x increase year-over-year. Around the globe, investment hit a high of $4.6 billion — a more than 4x increase from last year, according to PitchBook. “Notably, 2018 was the most active year for crypto in its brief ten-year history,” Loeffler wrote. “This was evidenced by rising investment in distributed ledger technology and digital assets, as well as by blockchain network metrics such as daily bitcoin transaction value and active addresses. Yet, these milestones tend to be overshadowed by the more narrow focus on bitcoin’s price, which has been seen by some, as a proxy for the potential of the technology.” Today, the price of Bitcoin is one year after a historic run . The crash caused many to dismiss Bitcoin and its underlying technology, while others remained committed to the tech and its potential for complete financial disruption. A project like Bakkt, created in-house at a respected financial institution with support from noteworthy businesses, is a logical bet for crypto and traditional private investors alike. “The path to developing new markets is rarely linear: progress tends to modulate between innovation, dismissal, reinvention, and, finally, acceptance,” Loeffler added. “Each step, whether part of discovery or adversity, ultimately strengthens the product. Twenty years ago, it was controversial to suggest that commodities or bonds could trade electronically on a screen, and many steps were required for that evolution to play out.” |
10 predictions about the media industry in the New Year | Peter Csathy | 2,018 | 12 | 31 | 2018 was a year of massive mergers and acquisitions, with AT&T/Time Warner, Disney/Fox and Comcast/Sky. The #MeToo movement made headlines, and the dominant emotion in boardroom discussions around Hollywood and beyond was fear … lots of fear in the ranks of our tech-infused world of media and entertainment (as well as in the world itself). So what does the crystal ball predict for 2019? Here are some of the narratives that will shape the world of entertainment next year and set the stage for the roaring 20s of the media industry. Originals continue to be the primary weapon used in the premium subscription streaming video battlefront, extending media’s new “Golden Age” for creators and further skyrocketing content-related development and production costs (including the price tags for A-list marquee talent). Fierce premium OTT video competitors increasingly use content both offensively and defensively, like Disney withholding its crown jewels from Netflix ( , Pixar, Marvel, Princesses, ). Netflix feels the heat, as will its investors, as the collective crew of “Netflix-Killers” put increasing pressure on its pure-play business model. Meanwhile, the newly expanded list of virtual MVPDs (multi-channel video program distributors) fix their initial flaws, offer consumers real competitive choice, and hasten consumer cord-cutting even further. Whereas we started 2016 with 2-3 real, viable mainstream choices in the U.S. for live television, as of 2019, consumers now can access nearly 10 (cable, satellite, Hulu Live, YouTube TV, DirecTV Now, Sling TV, PlayStation Vue, fuboTV, etc.). And, even in these nationalistic times, let’s not forget about massive international players like Tencent, Alibaba or Baidu’s iQIYI, which went public in the U.S. markets this past year. Amidst this battle of video giants, several smaller so-called “niche” or segment-focused video players either expeditiously find their uniquely compelling voice and build a fandom-fueled multi-pronged monetizing brand around it, or simply get lost in the noise. FILE – This June 27, 2015, file photo, shows the Hulu logo on a window at the Milk Studios space in New York. Hulu said Monday, Aug. 8, 2016, that the company is dropping the free TV episodes that it was initially known for as it works on launching a skinny bundle of streaming TV. (AP Photo/Dan Goodman, File) M&A is a hallmark of the overall digital, multi-platform tech-infused transformation of the media and entertainment business. Just like of storied traditional (yet slow-moving) Time Warner ($85 billion), in 2018 ($71.3 billion), Comcast and acquired Sky ($39 billion), and it didn’t already own ($3.5 billion), expect more massive deals in 2019, together with a number of smaller, yet still significant ones. Viacom/CBS is one likely candidate. And don’t just look within U.S. borders. No virtual wall exists in our borderless new media world, which means that M&A’s pace will accelerate internationally as well. Remember, the Comcast/Sky deal represents a U.S. behemoth’s ambitions to significantly expand its footprint into multiple European territories. Lots of mega-companies around the globe desperately hope to expand their footprints to places where, up to now, they have never been. To be clear, not all M&A will flow from weakness. Sometimes the numbers offered simply will be too high to reject. But make no mistake. Weakness will abound amidst hyper-competition, and winners will swallow up losers in an environment of accelerating M&A. Many of the so-called niche-focused OTT video services still primarily rely upon ad dollars (especially the younger ones), but remember, Google and Facebook already own about 2/3 of that global digital advertising market. That means that most pure-play OTT video players simply cannot succeed on ad dollars alone. And, for most, other means of monetization will be beyond their reach, as they fail to deliver a sufficiently compelling, differentiated and emotionally connected media experience. So, much like Uproxx did this past year when Warner Music Group acquired it (likely for a song), expect several of the new media players to lose their Indie status. Yes, Spotify boasts massive scale. Yet, scale alone does not financial success make. In fact, pure-play growth success leads to higher and higher losses due to sobering industry economics these pure-plays can’t stomach, but the behemoths can due to their multi-pronged business models. These harsh realities mean that investors of many pure-play streaming music services will take a hard look at themselves in 2019 as they contemplate their next strategic next steps. Many will realize that they can’t go it alone. And that leads to more M&A, much like we saw this past year with SiriusXM buying Pandora and LiveXLive buying Slacker. Spotify is not immune here. Unless it successfully expands its business model and drives major new revenue streams, it too could be bought. Facebook anyone? NEW YORK, NY – APRIL 03: The Spotify banner hangs from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on the morning that the music streaming service begins trading shares at the NYSE on April 3, 2018 in New York City. Trading under the symbol SPOT, the Swedish company’s losses grew to 1.235 billion euros ($1.507 billion) last year, its largest ever. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) Netflix, Amazon and Facebook increasingly mine their deep data about all of our hopes and dreams to maximize “hits” and minimize “misses” as compared to traditional media companies. In many respects, the studios simply can’t compete. Faced with that reality, the quest for data — and the services that provide, analyze and inform – takes on new urgency. Further, the Hollywood establishment and creative community still have yet to understand – at least in large numbers — the power of new cost-effective tech-driven ways to test and measure new characters, stories and engagement in order to more smartly and efficiently place their big expensive bets. Meanwhile, the new tech-driven media giants hope to increase their overall Media 2.0 dominance through the soothing voices of Alexa and Siri and the overall AI/machine learning revolution. “Virtual assistants,” “smart speakers” (or whatever you want to call them) increasingly dominate our home conversations, improve significantly over time, and serve up our favorite content via “intelligent” recommendations (as well as increasingly targeted and smarter incentives, promotions, ads and goods). 71% of us already use voice assistants at least once per day (most frequently for selecting the music we like to hear), so voice most definitely is here to stay. More exotically, and perhaps somewhat alarmingly, AI also increasingly drives so-called “intelligent” creation. AI already develops movie trailers that some believe approach the impact of their human-generated counterparts. You be the judge — check out the first AI-produced movie trailer, care of IBM’s Watson, for the fittingly AI-themed 2016 motion picture thriller . And, just imagine how much AI has advanced in just these past two years since then. Can AI screenwriters be far behind? Gong Yu, founder and CEO of China’s leading streaming platform iQIYI certainly doesn’t think so. In his words, AI Just chew on that for a bit. So, AI may become a real threat even to creative pursuits that, up to this point, most in Hollywood believe are untouchable by computers, bots, and robots. Tesla maven and global futurist Elon Musk is downright dystopian and takes things even further, warning that AI may be an ultimate global threat to us all. Musk tweeted in 2017 that Those were his precise words, so that was either Musk’s particular form of Twitter-speak, or his mind had become a bit hazy during one of his notorious cannabis-fueled interviews! Amazon is releasing a software development kit that will let developers integrate Alexa into smart screen devices. AR’s gold rush means continued growth in the related wearables market and consumer adoption of AR-driven eyewear. Investors of all stripes also continue to throw boatloads of cash into the overall immersive space to fuel the development of experiences (including real world live entertainment and storytelling, not only games) to feed these new platforms. Expect significant investment in content. The immersive market opportunity is still so nascent, yet its ultimate promise is so great, that the money working to capture it in 2019 and beyond will seem endless. And, when so much money chases a market, that market becomes our consumer reality. The onset of 5G wireless networks will only hasten the growth of extended reality (XR) in all its forms. Speaking of 5G … GUANGZHOU, CHINA – DECEMBER 06: Attendees look at 5G mobile phones at the Qualcomm stand during China Mobile Global Partner Conference 2018 at Poly World Trade Center Exhibition Hall on December 6, 2018 in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province of China. The three-day conference opened on Thursday, with the theme of 5G network. (Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty Images) 5G networks are critical for media experiences that require low latency, including AR, VR, and eSports. For AR, 5G reduces the size of consumer headsets, because processing is now done on the network itself rather than on the device. That makes wearables increasingly user-friendly and fuels further innovation and adoption. 5G also accelerates more high quality video consumption on our mobile phones, thereby pushing purveyors of premium OTT video like Netflix to increasingly focus on mobile-first content experiences. Jeffrey Katzenberg’s and Meg Whitman’s new mobile-driven Netflix-like premium video service Quibi (formerly NewTV) , and jumped on first. Call this the “Amazon Effect,” as players across the Media 2.0 ecosystem stop scratching their heads about Amazon’s direct-to-theater film releases, brick and mortar retail expansion, and Whole Foods superstore operations – and, instead, increasingly study, respect and emulate them. Netflix certainly did in 2018. After trashing Amazon one year earlier for releasing its features first in theaters, Netflix announced it would begin to do the same. Amazon understands what most still haven’t even considered – that direct, non-virtual offline consumer engagement may be the most impactful plank of them all, driving online engagement into the real world (and then back again) to create a virtual cycle of daily brand engagement and consumer monetization every step of the way. Even traditional media company Viacom now shows signs of understanding these online/offline brand synergies. It bought both youth-focused video industry conference VidCon and music festival SnowGlobe in 2018. So, while MoviePass may go the way of the Dodo bird in 2019, movie theaters themselves will not die. They simply will be re-imagined. We humans, after all, are social creatures. We like to get out, and we won’t be satisfied binging on Netflix alone. Movie theater subscription services most definitely are here to stay, and Amazon will offer one soon for Prime members. After all, in a fun fact that may surprise you, more museums populate the planet – significantly more – than McDonald’s. See, there is hope! ANAHEIM, CA – JUNE 23: General view of panelists at the 7th Annual VidCon at Anaheim Convention Center on June 22, 2016 in Anaheim, California. (Photo by Tara Ziemba/WireImage) Revelations aren’t over. Abuse was simply far too pervasive. Old players are gone. New, frequently younger, tech-driven media savvy faces get a seat at the decision-making table. They change the game of “what” and “how” we experience content. Ultimately, #MeToo both cleanses the overall new media industry, and fills our plates with very different media and entertainment choices. (Staff photo by Brianna Soukup/Portland Press Herald via Getty Images) Make no mistake, we are in the midst of hacking wars, the likes of which we’ve never seen. This “good versus evil” reality is here to stay, and players across the tech-driven media and entertainment ecosystem either significantly increase their investments in counter-measures and related PR, or risk the wrath of consumers and the overall ad market (much like Facebook did this past year). Twitter cleaned 70 million fake and automated accounts in a two month span last year (and 1 million more daily), Instagram conceded that over 50% of engagements on its posts tagged as #sponsored are fake, Spotify similarly conceded prevalent ad fraud and decreased its total reported content hours streamed by hundreds of millions of hours, and competing music service Tidal faced accusations that it had falsified tens of millions of streams. Just a few examples of how pervasive fraud and audience manipulation has become in our Media 2.0 world. These fake accounts create, in the words of , Image: Bryce Durbin/TechCrunch Early blockchain leaders continue to be irrationally overvalued, which is always the case with any nascent market. But, on a happier note, the voice of blockchain technology – heard thus far mostly in investment circles with promises of “instant millions” (or even billions) – becomes increasingly heard for its more positive potential for the world of media and entertainment. Blockchain technology conceptually holds revolutionary industry-transforming new offensive and defensive power. On the offensive front, blockchain enables new ways to monetize content via micropayments and direct creator-to-consumer distribution today’s leading middlemen. These possibilities begin to reveal themselves in 2019. On the defensive front, blockchain promises to eradicate piracy, but that happens in years, not this coming year. 2019 certainly will push 2018’s Media 2.0 boundaries noticeably further, driven by these and other industry meta-forces. But, these changes will be barely noticeable compared to the seismic shifts to follow in the next ten years. I close with Paramount futurist Ted Schilowitz’s perspective on all of this. In our conversation, Ted points to two phenomena — the first of which he calls and the second he calls refers to what he calls the fact that we all know that massive tech-driven change is coming, but we don’t know the Meanwhile, refers to that follow ten-year cycles. In Ted’s view, we just recently finished the YouTube and iPhone 10-year cycles, and now essentially everyone around the globe participates in those dual phenomena. So, what’s “the next big thing?” Ted calls it the “ – so-called “visual computing” via new forms of eyewear (wearables) that replace our smartphones. Think -like data and content interaction, and you get the general idea. Ted points out. He reminds me that while user interfaces have become more sophisticated, actual screen interaction is not massively different — comparing interaction on Mac screens 30 years ago and on iPhones today. That is all changing right now — as you sit, read and soak in Ted’s thoughts either in print, or more likely on your own v.2019 screen. According to Ted, we are only about 3.5 years into this 10-year visual computing cycle. Think that overstates things a bit? Well, Ted cautions you this way. Yet, here we are. Today. In that “unimaginable” world. That’s how fast it goes. Ted is adamant about this inevitable “evolution of the screen” reality, and he is convincing. |
Are rightsholders ready for public domain day? | Dave Davis | 2,018 | 12 | 31 | On January 1, 2019, the New Year will ring in untold numbers of additions to the public domain in the U.S., including hundreds and maybe thousands of works with at least a small public reputation. This, of course, is due to the expiration of the terms of their copyrights, some of which have been extended multiple times since the 1960s. This is a good thing from many perspectives, including that of authors, publishers, museum curators, teachers, old-book readers and music and film buffs. It possibly may be a slightly bad thing for a few people — primarily certain estates representing long-dead authors and other creators. The duration, or term, of U.S. copyright is set by Congress, and has gradually crept up over time from the original 14 years (plus 14 more if the author was still alive and renewed the copyright) — in Thomas Jefferson’s time — to a whopping “life of the author plus 70 years,” as set by the 1998 “ ” (CTEA, which extended it from life plus 50). For works first published between 1909 and 1978, the maximum term was finally set by Congress at 95 years (assuming the author complied with a whole lot of rules, alluded to below). And for post-1978 works, in instances where the author/creator is not a human being (such as a business commissioning a “work made for hire” under rules developed in the case-law) or the work was published under a pseudonym for an unknown person, the term can be as long as 120 years! The copyright in a work, duly registered at the time that registration was required (pre-1978), may never have been renewed, and so its protection may have quietly lapsed some time ago; for many more obscure works, it’s hard to know. This Copyright Term Extension Act is also known as the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. Congress named it in memory of the composer of “I’ve Got You, Babe,” who, as a member of Congress from Southern California, was among the authors of the bill; he unfortunately happened to die while it was being worked on in committee. Prior to 1978, the term of U.S. copyrights was determined by fixed terms of years, subject to publication, registration and notice requirements. Currently, works pass into the public domain according to a complex schedule, combining (sometimes awkwardly) the rules of implemented over the past century. Bear in mind, however, that many works have passed (or “fallen” or “lapsed,” as the older phrases had it) into the public domain in the U.S. for reasons other than term expiry, even during the 20 years of the CTEA extension. According to the law in effect prior to 1978, if the work was published but never registered in the U.S. Copyright Office, it did not receive protection under copyright law; a work might also not be protected by U.S. copyright law if it lacked proper notice — the © symbol and the proper wording — or if the work’s registration was not renewed after its first 28-year term expired. Or if, as a work of the federal government, it never enjoyed copyright protection in the first place. As it turns out, it is not just re-publishers of “classic” texts, such as Dover Thrift Editions, which benefit when new works become available. Textbook and educational publishers frequently re-use old short stories and essays in larger collections, and a work of marginal utility might become more attractive as a potential addition to these collections once the cost of clearing the rights is reduced. For example, a few years ago a 1922 story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” (whose U.S. copyright had lapsed) was . To me, the lesson to be gleaned is that many works of the early 20th century still appear to bear some cultural cachet (or at least continuing value to society) — such that more no-cost access to these works (by their passing from copyright protection to the public domain) should have the overall effect of helping them find new audiences. Note: Bear in mind, all of these examples are simply illustrative — without a full and careful copyright search, it is difficult to be certain of the copyright status of almost any work. On that, more below. also will have the effect of giving researchers new texts to run Text and Data Mining (TDM) algorithms across. It also may add to the richness of film and cultural studies. Unfortunately, determining when a work has in fact “fallen” into the public domain due to the term of its copyright having expired is not always as simple as one might hope. For example, one might think that everything ever laid down by the pen of Mark Twain (S.L. Clemens, d. 1910) would be in the public domain by now. But, since he left a treasure trove of , their copyright protection has extended for many years after his death, because, under pre-1978 law, those works’ copyright protection would not start until the works were published. The distinction between published and unpublished works has been discarded under post-1978 law, but won’t be fully effective for another 30 years. So, some items in the of Twain’s letters and manuscripts (their first publication) are still considered to be under copyright. He’s also enjoyed considerable success recently with . Twain, a student of intellectual property, steadfastly argued for a perpetual copyright, but he came to realize that this was not permitted under , which refers to “securing [protection] for limited times.” But, in an age when copyright only protected works for which registrations had been obtained, he did point out that most books wouldn’t be affected by a longer term at all — for the vast bulk of them had no commercial life remaining to them a very few years after their initial publication: One author per year produces a book which can outlive the forty-two-year limit; that’s all. This nation can’t produce two authors a year that can do it; the thing is demonstrably impossible. All that the limited copyright can do is to take the bread out of the mouths of the children of that one author per year. I made an estimate some years ago, when I appeared before a committee of the House of Lords, that we had published in this country since the Declaration of Independence 220,000 books. They have all gone. They had all perished before they were ten years old. It is only one book in 1000 that can outlive the forty-two-year limit. Therefore, why put a limit at all? You might as well limit the family to twenty-two children. – “Forever minus a day,” another idea which has been occasionally bruited about (particularly by Congressman Bono and his widow, who was later elected seven times in her own right to Congress), would not constitute much of an effective limit, and so would, I believe, violate the Constitutional limitation; 95 years (an estimated average of the “Life plus 70” term) seems closer to a natural lifespan for a copyright — to me at least. If you and your heirs somehow can’t get the commercial value out of your work before nearly a century is out, I think there’s a takeaway lesson there. … some works have cultural lifespans exceeding the term of copyright. The of certain literary, film and musical creators may stand to lose when the copyright in some of the works in their respective repertories lose copyright protection due to the lapse of their terms. For some examples of works entering the public domain on January 1, 2019, that may still have financial value to the author/creator’s heirs: Hemingway’s “ ” was first published in 1923; it was also the year of release for “ a silent film from Hal Roach Studios, starring Harold Lloyd, which many people remember. The same year saw the first publication (of the sheet music) for “Who’s Sorry Now?” which was a hit recording for Connie Francis in 1958. But, on balance, “ ,” as Robert Frost observed in a poem slated — I’m pretty sure — to enter the public domain on January 1st.* The reading, listening, and viewing public should expect to be the main beneficiary of these works entering the public domain. Indeed, 95 years is a good run for the commercial exploitation of a work. Now it’s everybody else’s turn to benefit. *If it hasn’t already. Copyright searches, on the detail level, can be quite difficult and time-consuming. See: . For any proposed commercial republication, it is certainly the course of wisdom to consult with an attorney and have a full copyright search done. |
Soulja Boy’s game consoles pulled from store weeks after launch | Brian Heater | 2,018 | 12 | 31 | I had to boss up, I didn’t have a choice. 🤷🏾♂️ — Soulja Boy 🌹 (@souljaboy) 😊 — Soulja Boy 🌹 (@souljaboy) |
Here’s what to expect in cybersecurity in 2019 | Zack Whittaker | 2,018 | 12 | 31 | Around this time every year, my inbox fills with the same repetitive junk. “Would you consider putting [any random company] in your gift guide?”, “are you going to CES and if so can I pitch you [a gadget that literally won’t be around this time next year]?”, and, “do you want to cover [a company you’ve never hard of’s] predictions for next year?” To which I always respond: “No,” “absolutely not” and “predictions are not news.” The “predictions” emails piss me off. Most of the companies that offer predictions don’t seem to fully understand the security field outside their particular niche, or worse, have an agenda they’re trying to push. This year was no different. I trawled through my inbox, scanning literally dozens of emails pushing “predictions” for the coming year. “Artificial intelligence will stop a data breach,” said one email. “The supply chain will face more attacks,” said another. And, my personal favorite, “bad actors will combine multiple attack types to create synergistic super threats.” Hate to break it to you, but “super threats” are not a thing. If you thought 2018 was a tough year for tech, 2019 is going to be so much worse. The groundwork we laid this year will roll over into the next, and that’s when things will start to hit hard, from new laws and political (in)decisions to privacy issues and how employees — not companies — will start to call the shots. Here’s what you need to know for 2019 in security. 2018 saw a rising trend in data leaks and exposures — specifically data that’s not protected with even the most basic security, like a password. We’ve seen a ton of sites and services exposed in the past year — from , , , , , and , to name a few. Exposed databases and user data can be easily found, yet are entirely preventable — often simply by setting a password. Breaches, where a hacker exploits a vulnerability, are more difficult and require some level of skill, making them less common. But human error, a lack of security smarts or just sheer laziness makes exposed data more discoverable, and yet there’s no sign of data exposures dying down any time soon. After a long fight, California passed its consumer privacy law — set to go into effect at the end of 2019. Think of , which will mandate that companies disclose how they collect user data and what they do with it. The law will allow authorities to impose fines on companies that don’t comply or which violate the rules. It’s particularly important for consumers, given most of the world’s largest tech companies have their headquarters in the state. Tech companies opposed the law. After spending collectively billions of dollars to comply with GDPR, many didn’t want to face another hefty bill to comply with more privacy rules. Instead, many companies to overrule and upend California’s soon-to-be-enacted rules. With enough lobbying power in Washington, DC, tech companies and telcos want lawmakers to roll out weaker legislation. With almost exactly a year to go before California’s rules are set to go into effect, expect to see Silicon Valley work together — for once — to get their own way at a federal level. Brexit, the U.K.’s departure from the European Union, is set for March 29 — and all signs point to a “no deal” that will cause serious, if not as of yet untold problems with immigration, trade, and even intelligence sharing and security arrangements with the U.K.’s European partners. Leaving the EU without any trade or immigration deals in place and the wider tech scene. Attracting good overseas talent will be difficult will be. Even practical things like GPS will , as well as of the U.K. without a deal in place once the U.K. goes over the cliff-edge. It’ll be a nightmare for companies trying to comply with what’s left of the EU data protection and privacy laws. Certain technology industries will see more trouble than others, like the gaming industry, which contributes £2 billion ($2.5 billion) to the U.K. economy every year. And, startups . Following in the footsteps of the U.K., Australia passed an anti-encryption law that compels companies operating in the country to turn over encrypted data on request from several government departments. Many , including and Cisco, called on the Australian parliament to ditch the proposals for fear that the law could be abused or harm its customers’ privacy. That didn’t stop in time for the Christmas break. Some companies have already said they can’t — and therefore won’t comply. Signal, the encrypted messaging app, said it “can’t include a backdoor in Signal,” despite the mandate from the country’s capitol. Other companies will find themselves facing the same dilemma. It might force companies to think about their presence in the country altogether. Silicon Valley is split largely into two camps: your data for money, or your data doesn’t make money. You have Facebook, Google and to a lesser degree Twitter and Snap in the first bucket — then you have mostly hardware makers, like Apple, chip manufacturers like AMD and Intel and computer makers like HP and Dell in the other. Facebook had scandal after scandal this year, after years of playing fast and loose with users’ data. Facebook claims it doesn’t sell your data, but it made money from it at every opportunity. And when it wasn’t , it was . Many have wondered why other data-hungry, ad-focused companies haven’t had their reckoning yet — and many are asking the same questions. Facebook may be one of the biggest consumers of user data going, but it’s not the only one in the game. In making some of the world’s largest social networks and ad platforms, these companies have inadvertently become mass surveillance tools — either for governments with access already, or hackers and nation states that punch their way through the company’s defenses. Their time will come — and hot on the heels of Facebook’s slew of scandals, expect it to be sooner rather than later. This year saw a resurgence of tech employees rising up against their employers for — in their eyes — misusing the products, services and technologies they made for uses outside their moral parameters. Amazon employees complained that the company’s facial “Rekognition” after the technology was . Microsoft staff complained that the company had , during a time where the agency was separating children from their asylum-seeking parents at the border. And Google employees complained when they found that would go on to serve Chinese users that enables state surveillance. Now it’s employees who are trying to call the shots. So far, they’ve had mixed success. Amazon executives didn’t care; neither did Microsoft’s — but Google buckled. Given it’s the talented folk at the companies that make the products, they believe they have a right to say how their products are used and who gets them. This isn’t something likely to change in the new year, as the government continues to rely on tech companies for enforcement and surveillance. Whether they will be successful, however, will be something to watch. Two years ago, the Apple v. FBI dispute could have taken a completely different path. The FBI was that would forever undermine encryption protections — making it easier for the government to compel companies into complying with orders to undermine their own software security. This year, we saw the government approach Facebook to force the company to rewrite its Messenger app to . It was all in secret — and only became public thanks to leaks. We’re still dangerously close to another “crypto-war” (that’s “crypto” for cryptography) that could result in heavy-handed legislation or a legal precedent. Nobody wants a mass casualty event. But as with San Bernardino and the apparent threat from MS-13 — whether , lawmakers and prosecutors use bodies as a bargaining chip to push for more access to our data under the guise of preventing another national crisis. The 2015 pact between the U.S. and China that promised to curb each others’ cyberespionage efforts amid rising tensions and escalating attacks between the two nations was delicate and frail, but it was almost inevitable that it would fall apart someday. In December, when of conducting state-backed hacking on dozens of U.S. companies and government departments, including the Navy, the gloves were off, and the pact was over. The writing was on the wall for a while. Security firm FireEye said in that China’s reorganization of its offensive cyber operations units “will inform the growth and geographic expansion of Chinese cyber espionage activity through 2020 and beyond.” In other words, expect the U.S. and China to begin sparring in cyberspace again. |
Popsugar’s Twinning app was leaking everyone’s uploaded photos | Zack Whittaker | 2,018 | 12 | 31 | I thought the worst thing about Popsugar’s Twinning tool was that it matched me with James Corden. Turns out, the hundreds of thousands of selfies uploaded to the tool were easily downloadable by anyone who knew where to look. The is fairly simple. “It analyzes a selfie or uploaded photo, compares it to a massive database of celebrity photos to find matches, and finally gives you a ‘twinning percentage’ for your top five look-alikes,” , which developed the tool. Then, you share those matched photos on Facebook and Twitter so everyone knows that you don’t look at all like one of the many Kardashians. All of the uploaded photos are stored in a storage bucket hosted on Amazon Web Services. We know because the web address of the bucket is in the code on the Twinning tool’s website. Open that in your web browser, and we saw a real-time stream of uploaded photos. We verified the findings by uploading a dummy photo of a certain file size at a specific time. Then, we scraped a list of filenames uploaded during that time period from the bucket’s web address, downloaded them and found our uploaded image by searching for that photo of a certain file size. (We didn’t download any more than necessary to preserve people’s privacy.) TechCrunch did not hear back from Popsugar prior to publication, but the bucket was locked down shortly after. Later, vice-president of engineering Mike Patnode confirmed in an email that “the bucket permissions weren’t set up correctly.” As data leaks go, this is definitely on the low-end. You might not care that their selfies were exposed and easily downloadable. (Many photos were — even before people shared their selfie matches on Twitter!) It’s not as if the site was leaking your passwords or your Social Security number. Most probably didn’t go in expecting any reasonable level of security or privacy to begin with. But like any free app, quiz or some viral web tool, it’s worth reminding that you’re still putting your information out there — and you can’t always get it back. Worse, you almost never know how secure your data will be, or how it might end up being used — and abused — in the future. This is Captain Buzzkill, signing off. |
A look inside the Taipei 101 New Year’s Eve fireworks show as it goes green | Catherine Shu | 2,018 | 12 | 30 | One of the tallest buildings in the world, have become an iconic celebration since the first show at the end of 2004. But despite being a major tourism draw, the fireworks haven’t been immune to criticism. Over the past couple of years, as poor air quality throughout the country, the show has been targeted by Taiwanese environmental groups. The mayor of Taipei City, Ko Wen-je, said at the beginning of this year that the fireworks show should continue and other, more permanent measures against air pollution should be taken. “There are 365 days in a year,” he . “But the firework display was only 300 seconds, so we need a long-term plan to solve this problem.” As one of the tallest LEED-certified buildings, however, Taipei 101 often serves as a case study for how landmark skyscrapers can reduce their carbon footprint, and it has been taking steps to reduce pollution from the show while keeping it a spectacle. A couple of weeks ago, a group of bloggers and reporters was invited to take a look at this year’s preparations. (All photos in this story, with the exception of the one at the bottom featuring last year’s show, are by .) A technician with some of the fireworks that will be part of Taipei 101’s show 16,000 fireworks will be used in this year’s show, and preparations are usually finished by December 28 Over the past couple of years, the organizers of Taipei 101’s fireworks show have taken several measures to reduce pollution. Starting with last year’s show, the number of fireworks was reduced from 30,000 to 16,000. To add oomph to the reduced pyrotechnics, a 55-story-tall mesh screen made up of 140,000 LEDs, called a T-Pad, was installed by Taipei 101 fireworks contractor Giant Show on the north side of the skyscraper. The LED screen overlooks the plaza outside of Taipei City Hall, where a New Year’s Eve concert is held every year and showcases animations that coordinate with the music and fireworks. The LED screen is used during the rest of the year for promotions, advertisements and holiday messages Andy Yang, head of corporate branding and communications for the Taipei Financial Center Corp., Taipei 101’s owner, told TechCrunch that this year’s show cost a total of about NTD $60 million (about USD $1.96 million). It will also include 16,000 fireworks, installed from the 34th to 91st floors of Taipei 101, and animations on the T-Pad. The team that plans the show includes 10 to 15 designers and about 50 pyrotechnicians who install the fireworks on the exterior of the building. Preparations are typically completed by December 28. Andy Yang stands in front of the scaffolding that leads up to Taipei 101’s 55-story-tall LED mesh screen Yang says Taipei 101 has been decreasing the number of fireworks used year by year. The LED screen is currently only on one side of Taipei 101, but Taipei 101’s management is exploring the possibility of extending it to other sides of the building. Taipei 101’s fireworks show at the end of 2017, with the LED screen in view. (kecl/Getty Images) Taipei 101 also has an “all lights off” policy, turning off all exterior lights before and after the show in order to reduce carbon emissions. The LED screen not only enables Taipei 101 to reduce the number of fireworks used, but also enables the integration of pyrotechnics, animations, music and lights into one show, “which brings more design and content opportunities and possibilities for Taipei 101 and Taiwan,” Yang says. |
Report: Amazon is planning a Whole Foods expansion to benefit Prime Now | Sarah Perez | 2,018 | 12 | 31 | Amazon is planning a Whole Foods expansion in the U.S., according to a report by published this weekend. The goal is to put more customers within the range of Amazon’s two-hour Prime Now delivery service, including those in suburban areas outside cities, as well as those in regions where the grocer has yet to establish a presence. Currently, Amazon’s Prime Now delivery service offers two-hour delivery in more than 60 U.S. cities, and 30-minute-plus grocery pickup in nearly 30 cities. Amazon is planning to expand those services to almost all its 475 Whole Foods stores, the report said, citing sources. The retailer will also continue to use perks for Prime members to acquire and retain customers, much as it does today. Because of its lack of a brick-and-mortar footprint, many U.S. consumers living in the outskirts of cities or in more rural areas don’t have access to Amazon’s Prime Now two-hour delivery service. However, they do have access to Walmart stores, which today offer their own online grocery shopping service with pickup and delivery options in a number of markets. Walmart that 140 million customers shop its stores weekly, and 90 percent of Americans today live within 10 miles of one of its locations. That makes it a significant challenger to Amazon in terms of offering fast delivery and pickup options. It also doesn’t require an annual membership. Other companies are competing with Amazon on same-day delivery, too, including Instacart and Target’s Shipt. Target is also rolling out a , and is planning to expand in 2019. The WSJ report didn’t confirm store locations, but did note Amazon was scouting retail spaces in parts of Idaho, southern Utah and Wyoming. Some of these were slightly larger than average Whole Foods stores, at 45,000 sq. ft. — which hints at their ability to operate as a hub for delivery and pickup, in addition to being a traditional grocery store. |
Here’s how to play a game from Black Mirror’s Bandersnatch episode | Taylor Hatmaker | 2,018 | 12 | 30 | If you’ve gone down the rabbit hole with , there’s (at least) one more Easter egg out there. As some , you can actually visit two different versions of fictional software company Tuckersoft’s website and… spoilers ahead. On the , discovered through a QR code embedded in the show itself, Tuckersoft advertises its game lineup including Bandersnatch, a “revolutionary game from Stefan Butler.” In this timeline, Tuckersoft released both Nohzdyve and Bandersnatch, and Stefan eventually eclipsed his gaming idol Colin’s own fame, driving the company forward. As the site notes: While Colin Ritman was Tuckersoft’s leading man, it was Stefan Butler’s 1984 release, Bandersnatch, that catapulted the company to new heights. The innovative narrative and gameplay transformed interactive entertainment forever. If you , the company never released Colin’s game due to a tragic incident. If you’ve seen the episode, you can probably guess what that was. This version of the site includes the following text: A bleak turn of events would lead to the abrupt cancellation of Colin Ritman’s highly-anticipated game, Nohzdyve, and the end of Stefan Butler’s promising career. Metl Hedd remains a classic, but the world will have to wonder what Nohzdyve was like. Rumour has it, an early version of the game is somewhere out there, waiting to be played for the first time. Black Mirror fans will note that the fictionalized site for Colin’s other major title, Metl Hedd, depicts the BigDog-like robots that terrorized humans in season four’s particularly harrowing episode “Metalhead.” Tuckersoft’s other games contain plenty of references to Black Mirror episodes too. In the timeline in which Colin was able to finish Nohzdyve, the has a download link for a file called nohzdyve.tap and the instructions to “Play Nohzdyve on your ZX Spectrum emulator.” Apparently, the file works and if you run Windows and you’re willing to install an emulator ( ) for the obscure British 8-bit console, you can actually play Colin’s rather prescient release. We’re told it might work on a Commodore 64 emulator too, but haven’t tested that out (yet). So far it doesn’t look like Bandersnatch is playable anywhere, but given that the episode itself is a game and the game itself results in certain horror, that’s probably for the best. |
Investors and entrepreneurs need to address the mental health crisis in startups | Jake Chapman | 2,018 | 12 | 30 | Colin Kroll was the co-founder of Vine and HQ Trivia, both consumer sensations that brought joy to millions; Anthony Bourdain had been a chef, journalist and philosopher who brought understanding and connectedness to millions of lives; Robin Williams built a career as a brilliant comedian and actor. What these three share in common is that they were all people at the pinnacle of their industry and they all died too soon. Their premature loss is a tragedy. The most brilliant and creative amongst us are sometimes the most troubled, and nowhere is that clearer than in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. With each passing unnecessary death, the importance of mental health comes briefly into focus… but that focus lasts no longer than a news cycle and nothing changes. The time for lip service came and went long ago. We must take these issues seriously and we need to act. The mental health epidemic is real. There are 18.5 percent of Americans that will suffer from mental illness this year; 4 percent of them will suffer so acutely that . That means it is extremely likely you or someone you know is suffering right now and could use support. Moreover, unlike many of the challenges we face today, the most common expressions of mental health disorder (anxiety, depression, substance abuse and imposter syndrome) are largely addressable through individual action. Not only should we all take action, we all take action. While national mental health statistics are troubling, they are downright terrifying for entrepreneurs. According to a , Founders are: Photo courtesy of Flickr/ Addressing the ongoing mental health catastrophe in entrepreneurship is a moral imperative, and for wise investors, it should be a function of doing business. Venture capitalists make their living off the blood, sweat and tears of founders. It is through their passion and efforts that we succeed or fail. We can either choose to see founders purely as a means to an end (generating returns) or we can see them as the whole people they are. When I make an effort to get to know our founders beyond the most superficial level, then I cannot help but be moved by their personal struggles. Seeing founders in our portfolio succeed on a personal level is just as rewarding for me as sharing in their professional success. Luckily, I believe the two are intrinsically linked, which means we don’t have to choose. As Michael Freeman : Mental health is as essential for knowledge work in the 21st century as physical health was for physical labor in the past. Creativity, ingenuity, insight, brilliance, planning, analysis, and other executive functions are often the cognitive cornerstones of breakthrough value creation by entrepreneurs. Depression, anxiety and mood disorders all actively work to undermine founder performance. They often contribute to burnout, co-founder conflict, toxic company culture, increased employee turnover, an inability to hire top talent, an inability to “show up” for important meetings and pitches and poor decision making in general. According to Noam Wasserman at HBS, 65 percent of failed startups fail for avoidable reasons like co-founder conflict. All of these experiences are exacerbated when founders are in a time of high mental and emotional strain. Let’s assume that in a portfolio of 20 companies, 15 of them fail or underperform and that Noam Wasserman’s 65 percent statistic holds true. That would mean that 10 of the 15 companies (65 percent) failed for avoidable “human-centric” reasons. If a firm were able to help even half of those companies avoid failure caused by burnout and mental strain, that would mean an additional five companies would be successful, doubling the number of successful outcomes in the portfolio. Even if you’re a huge pessimist, to help change the trajectory for one out of 10 companies changes the portfolio from five winners to six. In other words, supporting founders before their “people problems” become business problems yields a 20 percent improvement in performance. Even if one were indifferent to the personal lives of the portfolio founders, they should care about founder health if they care about portfolio returns. It’s great that investors profess to care about founders’ mental health, but words are not enough. We must act to reduce founders’ mental and emotional suffering. It’s the right thing to do and it’s good for business. Photo courtesy of Flickr/ Mental health problems permeate every industry, not just the tech industry, but the statistics above would seem to indicate that we have a particular problem. What causes entrepreneurs to suffer at substantially higher than average rates? It’s a hard question to answer, and soon research from progressive labs like that of the will help us to identify these drivers. For now, based on our own observations of founders, we believe there are several explanations that may contribute. Most founders are smart, driven and skilled people whose résumé could almost certainly land them a job with a higher lifetime expected value (the at Facebook is now $240,000), but they still choose the grueling, uncertain and more creative founder journey. Founders are almost certainly pre-disposed toward certain conditions (like ADHD) for example. In his book , Garret LoPorto cites Fortune Magazine as claiming that people with ADHD are 300 percent more likely to start their own company than others. The narratives our industry tells are less real than pictures that grace the front of fashion magazines and are just as destructive. Photoshopped pictures of “perfect people” create an unattainable standard of beauty; the constant stream of stories about “overnight success” and “crushing it” create an unattainable standard for founders. The magic of a great team is in building a group with complementary skills. Just-starting-out founders don’t have a complete team and are required to do things they are not well-suited to do. Working on projects that do not fit within a leader’s innate skills tends to be emotionally draining. It’s not uncommon in an early startup for introverts in the company to have to pitch and make sales calls while extroverts are forced to sit at a desk and grind away in a CRM. The all-encompassing nature of a startup often causes founders to spend less time with family, friends and significant others, and many are required to re-locate away from these support networks for funding or strategic reasons. As stress at a company builds, founders are more inclined to double down at work (a natural response to an emergency). This tendency only further burdens the founder by muting their supportive relationships and reduces their ability to cope with company pressures. Founders blur the line between themselves and their companies in such a way that company failures often are felt as personal failures. Losing a customer contract or receiving a “no” from an investor can feel like a deeply personal rejection. : I have yet to meet a founder who has a budgeted line item for self-care or who takes guilt-free vacations. In almost every other skilled industry there is recognition that people have a right to take care of themselves and that a little bit of self-care actually leads to a more productive workforce. Investors, founders and poorly trained middle managers all perpetuate a myth in the startup ecosystem that the only way to be successful is to grind yourself inexorably to the bone. In addition to opportunity cost, founders often go without a paycheck and pour a significant portion of their personal capital into their businesses. This creates enormous financial stress and anxiety that sets up a scenario in which a business failure also creates personal financial ruin. A certain amount of “skin in the game” can be positive, but founders are often already all-in emotionally with their businesses. A founder with too much skin in the game may live under a Sword of Damocles and be unable to focus on the key tasks, ironically bringing about their own worst fears. Founders often suffer from the sense that they don’t belong where they are and that eventually they will be exposed as frauds. This leads founders to chalk up success to luck, but to take all the blame for any failures. Indeed, and I suspect the number is substantially higher among founders. Founders find it difficult to celebrate the small wins, as each victory brings on the next, greater challenge. The second most stressful time for founders is right before they are able to secure a major fundraise; the most stressful time is right afterward. Our industry is awash in alcohol and other substances that founders and tech workers are encouraged to consumer freely for bonding, as a social crutch and for performance optimization. These substances are both a cause and a symptom of broader problems in the ecosystem. I wager that simply reading the above list left you stressed out and self-identifying with a number of the factors that cause founders stress. Luckily there are some things we can all do to combat mental health strain. Photo courtesy of Flickr/ Each of us who participates in the startup ecosystem contributes to the problem of poor founder health. This puts each of us in a position to positively impact this experience by acting. Here are a few things we can do. Investors should make sure that the founders they work with know that they take mental health issues seriously. One way to do this is to take the developed by Erin Frey and Ti Zhao at Kip. Just taking the pledge sends a powerful signal to founders that it’s OK for them to seek help. Better yet, investors, in their onboarding process with founders, should explicitly touch on their support for the founders’ seeking mental health services when they feel compelled to do so. Drop the act. Being an investor is different from being a founder, but it isn’t easy, and investors suffer in many of the same ways. If investors want to support their founders, they need to be authentic and vulnerable in front of them. Investors need to show founders it’s OK to open up and that it’s OK to have doubts or to struggle with mental health. For founders, don’t spread or buy into the myths. When you’ve been grinding away on your business for years in anonymity and then have a major breakthrough, make sure your PR campaign accurately reflects the journey. You suffered to bring your company to the pinnacle of success and you had to invest heavily in yourself to survive the trip. Make sure when other founders read about your success they understand how you really got there. It’s easy for people to forget how financially constrained most founders are. Just because they’ve raised $5 million in a recent financing doesn’t mean they necessarily have the personal capital to seek help and support. A portion of financing rounds should be earmarked for the founders themselves and investors should hold founders accountable for investing in their well-being and development. Founders need to include a line item in their P&L for wellness or self-care. Budgets are moral documents and they set the priorities of a company. If there is no line item for supporting the mental/physical/emotional well-being of the founders and employees, then the company will be devoid of the resources to offer this type of support. We, the participants in this ecosystem, need to put our money where our mouths are when we say that we are “founder-friendly” and “invest in founders first.” Mental, emotional and physical well-being are all deeply linked to one another. Just as mental health issues often lead to substance abuse, a lack of physical exercise or nutrition can also lead to depressive mood states and a lack of focus. The founder 15 is as real as the freshman 15, but it’s much more destructive. Founders need to make sure to incorporate their physical activity of choice into their life, need to watch their nutritional intake and should consider activities such as yoga, meditation and intentional breathing that research shows help boost mood, sharpen focus and enhance emotional resilience. (Short plug, at we work on addressing the whole person because we believe effective leaders are those who are both physically and emotionally fit.) Founders need to remain anchored in a support network. They should join a peer group, engage with old friends, go out on date nights with their significant other and make new friends. Not only is it a fun way to unload some of the pressure they’re under, but it’s a great reminder to founders that they have a separate existence from their company. Founders should take an intentional vacation away from work, tech and business. If, like me, a founder can’t voluntarily disconnect even while on vacation, they should consider joining a community like or traveling off the grid so they are forced to disconnect and recharge. Burnout rarely appears as the primary track in startup post-mortem, but a trained ear can usually find its influence. Set a culture that is supportive of self-care. If everyone from the receptionist to the CEO is willing to seek help and take care of themselves, it creates a company-wide habit that enables everyone to thrive. A healthy culture will pay for itself a thousand times over in recruitment, lower turnover and happier, more productive people who are willing to sacrifice for the company when sacrifice is called for. Founders and A-type personalities tend to live and die by their calendar and their task lists. Unfortunately, task lists are just reminders that there are countless things to be done. For most of us our task lists are quite literally infinite. This is a recipe for unbearable mental strain and unmanageable cognitive load. The definition of anxiety is when we perceive that our ability to achieve is overwhelmed by the tasks at hand, which is inevitable when our tasks are ill-defined, too large or seemingly unending. Instead of a task list, switch to a daily priorities list where only the urgent AND important items are listed. Completing these items may be more difficult, but getting them off your plate is infinitely more satisfying. Learn the warning signs of depression and burnout. People who are drowning don’t wave their hands in the air and shout for help, they slip silently beneath the waves and only trained life guards tend to spot people in trouble. It’s the same way with depression. Depressed people don’t mope around and they aren’t necessarily sad so much as numb. Here are things to look for: Building companies is inherently hard mentally, physically and emotionally, but our ecosystem is a toxic one, with dozens of factors all contributing to make it even more so. We are quite literally killing ourselves and thereby sabotaging our long-term competitiveness. There are tangible actions each one of us can take to start fixing this toxicity, but at the end of the day I believe most of those actions boil down to treating each other and ourselves as human beings. If we recognize and embrace our weaknesses and support one another in our imperfections, we will start seeing a healthier more sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystem. National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1-800-273-8255 Depression resources: Free/Cheap Peer Groups: ; ; (If anyone knows of similar free resources, please share them in the comments.) |
null | Dana Stalder | 2,018 | 12 | 31 | null |
Test your tech knowledge in TechCrunch’s 2018 Year In Tech Quiz | Zack Whittaker | 2,018 | 12 | 30 | Think you know tech? Square off against TechCrunch editors with 2018’s quiz. |
It’s the Jons 2018! | Jon Evans | 2,018 | 12 | 30 | It was the , it was the , it was the wokest of years, it was the most problematic of years, it was the year of AI, it was the year of scooters, it was the year of Big Tech triumph, it was the year of Big Tech scandals, it was the year of Musk’s disgrace, it was the year of Tesla’s redemption, it was the year of shitcoin justice, it was definitely the year of AR or VR, it was the dumbest timeline, it was the spring of stanning, it was the winter of wtf. It was, in short, a year tailor-made for The Jons, an annual award celebrating tech’s more dubious achievers, named, in an awe-inspiring fit of humility, after myself. So let’s get to it! With very little further ado, I give you: the fourth annual Jon Awards for Dubious Technical Achievement! ( ) ( ) ( ) To Elon Musk, who in the past year went from (in many eyes) “messiah who could do no wrong” to “man who has paid a $20 million fine and stepped down as chairman in order to settle with the SEC regarding allegations of tweeted fraud; been sued for very publicly accusing a stranger of pedophilia with no evidence; feuded with Azealia Banks; been roundly criticized for the conditions in Tesla’s factories; and been (though also, and to my mind more accurately, ) for his new Boring Tunnel.” Don’t have heroes, kids. Surprisingly, despite the previous award, this one goes to the herds of bears who spent much of the year claiming that Tesla’s imminent doom and bankruptcy would become obvious and indisputable any day now. The roars of the bears seem to have grown much quieter of late, probably because the Model 3’s production rate has rocketed from 1,000 per week at the start of the year to of late. No mean feat on the part of Tesla employees. To Donald Trump, who apparently , which the Chinese and Russians listen in on. The good news? Officials have “confidence he was not spilling secrets because he rarely digs into the details of the intelligence he is shown and is not well versed in the operational specifics of military or covert activities.” Put less diplomatically, the president of the United States doesn’t pay enough attention to briefings to have any important secrets to share. Nothing to worry about there! Trump responded by tweeting a denial, saying he only had a “ ” … from the iOS Twitter app. It’s too easy and obvious to give this award to , who I suspect of actually for a Jon year after year. And as a believer that cryptocurrencies have , I’m not going to award anyone for their less-outlandish-than-McAfee medium-term beliefs. So this award goes to Bitcoin uberbull Tom Lee, who claimed Bitcoin would end the year at $15,000 … . There’s a point you almost have to admire; the point at which hype becomes delusion. Not to Mark Zuckerberg, actually, whose company has, in its zeal for connecting the world, and its belief that this is always and automatically a good thing, , provided a platform for manipulation and disinformation which may have helped tip the Brexit referendum, and 2016 presidential election (both of which were admittedly so close that there were probably of aspects which “helped tip” them) and is increasingly widely viewed as a significant net negative for the world thanks to its business model of incentivizing “engagement” above all else. He’d be a worthy recipient, but this goes to Sheryl Sandberg, for epitomizing Facebook leadership’s thin-skinned tunnel vision wherein they automatically suspect anyone who criticizes Facebook of having a bad-faith ulterior motive, when she “ .” To everyone — especially journalists and media executives — who thinks that the big social-media companies are too powerful that tech companies should exercise more control over the dissemination of public speech, and/or to everyone who says that the big social-media companies shouldn’t ever censor while being perfectly aware that they are exercising control over the dissemination of public speech via their timeline algorithms. There are many, many copies of this particular award to go around. (Note that there are at two intellectually consistent approaches here: one is to be explicitly supportive of social media companies moderating speech; another is to favor non-algorithmic, non-amplifying, non-optimized-for-engagement, strict-chronological feeds.) To the members of the United States Congress, both houses, for making Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai seem cuddly, friendly, wise, warm, human, plugged-in and in touch with the common man and woman, by comparison with their unbelievably clueless question. Who can forget “Senator, we sell ads,” and/or “Congressman, iPhone is made by a different company”? To Lime, Bird and the other scooter companies whose products have the being thrown by the dozen into Lake Merritt in the heart of Oakland, presumably with the collective intent of turning that empty water into reclaimed land, just as downtown San Francisco is from the 49er gold rush. To Tribune Publishing, until recently known as Tronc, for reminding us of their unbelievably terrible name when they finally — — decided to abandon it in favor of something not risible. A small silver second-place award goes to Oath, the owner of TechCrunch, for thereby rising to the top of the “Worst Media Company Name” rankings. To Twitter, who, when noted far-right wacko Laura Loomer handcuffed herself to Twitter’s NYC building after she was permanently banned by them for hate speech, responded by — brilliantly — doing nothing at all. They did not ask the police to remove her. They did not press charges. They ignored her completely. And Loomer went from “she will not remove the handcuffs until CEO Jack Dorsey reinstates her account” to “After several hours of complaining about the cold, Loomer eventually requested to be removed from the door.” To Google, obviously, for being forced to come to terms with what sure looks from the outside like a culture of by a in the same year its plans for leaked. Look not for the trigram in thy brother’s eye, etc. To He Jiankui, the doctor who apparently brought us the world’s first two human babies genetically edited via CRISPR, without letting anything like an ethics review board, a , the pre-existence of to achieve the allegedly desired result or anything else stand in his way. But then, if he had, that wouldn’t really have captured the 2018 zeitgeist, would it? To Juul, which has made a ridiculous boatload of money and more importantly made a lot of people seem very silly as they moral-panic about vaping as if it is the same as smoking, and others seem just as silly as they moral-panic about that moral panic as if vaping has been guaranteed on stone tablets to have no deleterious side effects at all. Where is the nuanced middle? Ah, let’s not kid ourselves, it’s 2018, no one cares about the nuanced middle any more. Bring on the outrage! To Rudy Giuliani, who the CEO of a cybersecurity firm (Cyber!) and the president’s cybersecurity advisor (Cyber! Cyber!) and yet, as shown by his bewildering yet hilarious that one of his tweets was sabotaged by Twitter, does not actually understand the internet at all. Or, we may presume, the cyber. Cyber! To Ericsson, who accidentally disabled phone service for hours for tens of millions of people around the globe because it failed to renew a (presumably TLS) software certificate used by its switching services ahead of its expiry. You can get those these days, btw. Never mind the cyber (Cyber!) attackers; it’s malingering incompetence that will get us all in the end. Speaking of which … To the authorities at Gatwick, who first shut down one of the busiest airports in Europe for almost a day and a half during the pre-Christmas rush because there were reports of drones seen over its runways; then said they couldn’t possibly shoot down those drones for fear the stray bullets might harm someone; then conceded the possibility that there were no drones at all (though it seems like there probably were); then arrested a couple who turned out to be completely innocent; then reopened the airport with no resolution but that of the installation of an expensive new anti-drone system and the discovery of a single, untraced, damaged drone. This dithering paralysis raises many terrifying questions. I have two in particular. One: had the people in charge of Gatwick — again, one of Europe’s biggest and busiest airports — never done any threat modelling / scenario analysis / contingency planning at And two: how many minutes-rather-than-hours would this shutdown have lasted if it had happened at a major airport in, say, Texas, before the bullet-ridden carcasses of the drones in question were dragged off the runway? I guess we’ll never know. But it gives me a certain dubious pleasure to bequeath to Gatwick, an airport I have known and disliked for many years, this year’s Jon of Jons. Congratulations, of a sort, to all the winners of the Jons! All recipients shall receive a bobblehead of myself made up as a Blue Man, as per the image on this post, which will doubtless become coveted and increasingly valuable collectibles. (And needless to say, sometime next year they will become redeemable for JonCoin.) And, of course, all winners shall be remembered by posterity forevermore. |
Dallas-based TXV Partners targets $50M for its debut fund | Kate Clark | 2,018 | 12 | 8 | Brandon Allen met six years ago as roommates at Princeton University. The pair bonded over a common interest and a shared dream: to be venture capitalists. In 2016, Stroud and Allen graduated. Stroud, a former linebacker on the Princeton football team, went off to Wall Street where he was a fixed income analyst, and then to Austin, where he joined the alternative asset manager Vida Capital to learn the ins and outs of investing. Twenty-four-old Allen, meanwhile, clocked in about two years as a consultant. It didn’t take long for the aspiring VCs to find their way back to each other to finally start on the project they had discussed in their dorm room. Over the last several months, Allen and Stroud have been quietly building a Dallas-based venture firm called TXV Partners. Their lofty target: $50 million, which would be the largest fund ever for an all-black line-up of general partners, an especially notable feat given Allen and Stroud are located in a market largely ignored by the storied VC firms of Silicon Valley. TXV co-founder and general partner Marcus Stroud Stroud and Allen plan to spend the $50 million on millennials. That is, millennial-friendly startups in the consumer, fintech and blockchain verticals, of which they’ll provide between $500,000 and $3 million in equity funding. So far, they’ve invested in one company, an Austin-based blockchain music platform called . Thanks to Stroud’s time on Princeton’s football team and his father, who is a former NFL player, TXV has tapped some athletic talent to support the fund and its portfolio companies. Former NFL player and managing director is a mentor, and the firm’s advisors include athletes-turned-investors Torii Hunter and Steve Wisniewski, a former professional baseball player and NFL player, respectively. A rapid transit train (DART) with the skyline of Dallas, Texas in the background Allen is leading the firm’s Dallas office and Stroud is scouting full-time for startups in Austin, which is already a well-known source of tech talent. With large universities feeding the talent pool, Texas has the potential but has yet to fully emerge as a force to be reckoned with for technology investors, even with the buzz surrounding Austin’s rising startup ecosystem. So far this year, companies headquartered in Texas have raised roughly $2.5 billion, on par with levels seen in the state in recent years, according to PitchBook. California startups, for context, have raised more than $50 billion this year. In Austin this year, startups have pulled in $1.4 billion, just north of the $1.3 billion in total capital commitments in 2017. Dallas startups, for their part, have raised just $600 million across 87 deals. Deal count in Dallas actually looks to be dropping, hitting 173 in 2013, 143 in 2016 and falling down to 106 last year, but localized funds like TXV’s may help push the city’s tech scene forward. Stroud and Allen are not only first-time general partners of what may become a multi-million-dollar VC fund, but they’re also two African Americans in a field dominated by white men. For them, it’s high stakes and failure is not an option. VC is known for its lack of diversity. Indeed, 81 percent of VC firms don’t have a single black investor, according to collected by Richard Kerby, a partner at Equal Ventures. Roughly 50 percent of black investors in the industry are at the associate level, or the lowest level at a firm, and only 2 percent of VC partners are black. Base10 Partners’ , announced in September, is the largest black-led VC fund to date, but only one of the two general partners are black. Based in San Francisco, Base10 is run by two veteran investors with a well-established network in the Bay Area. The challenges for TXV are much larger, and the barriers may be much tougher to overcome. Brandon Allen and Marcus Stroud want to bring more diversity to venture capital Allen was raised in New England and Stroud in Prosper, Texas, a small town outside of Dallas. Neither of them comes from wealth, as many Stanford-educated Silicon Valley elite do. They’ll have to put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into TXV, but if they succeed — and even if they don’t — they’ll have helped paint a new archetype for VCs. |
Awaken offers meditations focused on healing from systems of oppression | Megan Rose Dickey | 2,018 | 12 | 8 | A mindful, contemplative approach to internalized racism and sexism is a necessary piece of the puzzle of dismantling systems of oppression, founder and CEO Ravi Mishra says. That’s the entire point of Awaken, a mindfulness and meditation app specifically geared toward helping people cope with the harsh realities of today’s society. Awaken got its roots in the aftermath of the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Mishra told TechCrunch. The election surfaced these “larger questions that have to do with race, gender, sexuality and power, and how they live inside of us.” Through Awaken, Mishra hopes to offer mindfulness and meditation practices that help cultivate stability within marginalized communities. These contemplative practices center around sitting with certain questions and identity construction. Awaken’s founding teachers are Rev. Angel Kyodo Williams, Lama Rod Owens and Sensei Greg Snyder — three leaders focused on the intersection of mindfulness and social change. “We’re currently running at a loss and figuring out how to break even,” he told me. “The hope and idea is once we are fully profitable, we’ll move that into activist work.” Awaken has plans to close a round of funding from mission-aligned angel investors early next year. |
Apple Watch’s ECG feature is already proving its worth | Megan Rose Dickey | 2,018 | 12 | 8 | When Apple announced its latest with electrocardiogram features, my mom took a sigh of relief, and then proceeded to set a reminder to order one for my dad. That’s because we found out last year, by chance, that he has atrial fibrillation. Atrial fibrillation is an irregular heartbeat, often times a rapid heart rate that can increase your risk of stroke, heart failure and other heart-related issues. The ECG feature, which monitors your heart rhythm and can detect AFib,* Already, at least one person has benefited from it. Yesterday, shared how their Apple Watch notified them of an abnormal heart rate. From there, they ran the ECG app and found out it was AFib. They went to urgent care and saw a doctor who , “You should buy Apple stock. This probably saved you. I read about this last night and thought we would see an upswing this week. I didn’t expect it first thing this morning.” The patient says they proceeded to go to a cardiologist the next day, who did an exam and confirmed the AFib diagnosis. “I’m scheduled to go back in a week for some additional tests to start looking at the cause… blood, thyroid, etc…,” they wrote. “He also scheduled me with a partner who specializes more in the electrical side of things to have it looked from that angle as well.” As one of the first more widely owned ECG monitors, this could make a huge difference in the number of people who have at least some transparency into their heart health. But to be clear, once you enable the new feature, the watch is still not constantly be looking for AFib. When the heart rhythm monitor detects something is off — a skipped or rapid heartbeat, for example — it will send a notification to your wrist. That’s when you open up the ECG app, rest your arm on your lap or table and then hold your finger to the crown for 30 seconds. From there, the watch will tell you if there are signs of atrial fibrillation. *If you want to learn more about the features, check out my colleague Brian Heater’s piece below. |
Why you need a supercomputer to build a house | Arman Tabatabai | 2,018 | 12 | 8 | did building a house become so complicated? Photo by Bill Oxford via Getty Images Photo by Caiaimage/Rafal Rodzoch via Getty Images |
SoftBank’s Vision Fund inches closer to $100B | Jason Rowley | 2,018 | 12 | 8 | Much has been said about the (SBVF), mostly of the investment vehicle. It’s important to remember that the $100 billion number most often associated with the gargantuan fund is only a target. Today, however, the Vision Fund inched yet closer to that 12-figure goal as it continues to pour billions of dollars into technology companies around the world. the in more than 20 deals, accounting for over $21 billion in total investment. That sum didn’t all come from the Vision Fund of course — SoftBank’s Vision Fund typically invests alongside one or more syndicate partners who help fill out bigger rounds — but the amounts are nonetheless staggering. The chart below shows the Vision Fund’s investments since its inception in 2017. filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission this morning, SBVF disclosed that it has raised a total of approximately $98.58 billion from 14 investors since the date of first sale on May 20, 2017. The annual filing said there was roughly $93.15 billion raised from 8 investors, meaning that the Vision Fund has raised $5.43 billion in the past year and added six new investors to its limited partner base. In a financial report from November, SoftBank Group Corp disclosed ( ) it has invested an additional $5 billion in the fund, which is “intended for the installment of an incentive scheme for operations of SoftBank Vision Fund.” It brings SoftBank’s total contribution to $21.8 billion, in line with original targets. The most recent Form D also cites six more limited partners. Crunchbase News presumes that the $430 million in new capital we cannot source back to SoftBank came from those new partners. SoftBank declined to comment on who they are. One of the primary challenges an investor as big as the Vision Fund faces is sourcing capital. SoftBank doesn’t have a lot of choice about who it can take on as limited partners. To fill out a $100 billion fund (or something larger), government-backed investors are some of the only market participants with the financial wherewithal to anchor its limited partner base. And, sometimes, international politics and venture finance collide. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund committed $45 billion to the SBVF; it’s the single biggest backer of the fund. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is in the extrajudicial torture, murder, dismemberment and disposal of Saudi dissident and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in early October. In November, that SoftBank would wait for the outcome of Khashoggi’s murder investigation before it decides on Vision Fund 2. New revelations this weekend close the window of reasonable doubt around bin Salman’s involvement in the murder. This past weekend, The that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency intercepted 11 messages sent between bin Salman and one of his closest aides, who allegedly oversaw the execution squad, in the hours before Khashoggi’s death. Amid mounting international and intelligence community consensus, though, the White House continues to defend Saudi Arabia. Given these recent developments, it’s uncertain how SoftBank’s relationship with the Vision Fund’s principal backer will change going forward. Whether anything changes at all is itself an unknown at this point too. SoftBank COO Marcelo Claure said there of a follow-up fund back in mid-October. |
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