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Instagrammers really want you to turn on notifications to avoid death by algorithm | Romain Dillet | 2,016 | 3 | 28 | Instagram today is an endless sea of meaningless posts asking you to turn on post notifications for each account you follow. Brands and professional Instagrammers are worried that they are going to disappear from your Instagram feed once the company turns on its . We’ve been here before. When Vine or YouTube switched to an algorithmic feed, brands, YouTubers and Viners all wanted you to switch on notifications. The same happened when Facebook became more selective with Pages posts. And yet, let’s be honest, this is getting ridiculous. People are posting things like this: https://www.instagram.com/p/BDgQgSrntI2/ And this: A post shared by (@draghetto86) on And this: A post shared by (@fannythefoodie) on Are you exhausted? I sure am. But let’s try to sympathize with these users and understand what’s actually happening. Like most feed-based networks, Instagram is starting to feel like a crowded place. People now follow hundreds of accounts and receive dozens of new photos . Good posts are getting lost in the middle of not-so-good posts. As user experience suffers, people are less inclined to use Instagram. And that’s why Instagram has a solution. Soon (but ), Instagram’s magical robots will put the best photos at the top of your feed. If posts don’t perform well, Instagram won’t show those posts to all followers. Instagram might even show posts out of order. In other words, Instagram is going to become more like Facebook, and less like Twitter. But brands and professionals should definitely freak out. Some community managers spent months of hard work increasing the number of followers they have on their Instagram accounts. And soon, only a fraction of this fan base is going to receive Instagram posts. It’s true, . Even worse, Instagram doesn’t provide analytics tools (except video views). They won’t know how many people view their posts. Professionals won’t know if they’re doing a good job and what type of posts are performing well. If a brand’s reach decreases dramatically, some brands will also have to pay for ads like on Facebook. This isn’t a bad thing for Instagram, but brands don’t want to pay for something they could do for free. Instagram is working on business tools with insights on your content. It’s going to be available . In short, if you didn’t know why everyone is freaking out on Instagram today, now you know. Maybe Instagram will become more interesting after this change. And of course, there’s only one possible answer for all those whiny Instagrammers: A post shared by (@lttrg) on Instagram confirmed on Twitter that nothing is changing “right now”: We're listening and we assure you nothing is changing with your feed right now. We promise to let you know when changes roll out broadly. — Instagram (@instagram) An Instagram spokesperson also sent us a few details about the future algorithm. “Performance or popularity is not what we’re optimizing for. While we are using likes and comments as signals, timeliness and the relationship between the poster and the viewer are also important,” they said. “We’re not removing any posts from people’s feeds, just reordering them. Moreover, as it stands, many people aren’t seeing posts from accounts they care about (on average, an Instagrammer is missing 70 percent of his or her feed). Our goal is to help people see the posts they care about, including from brands.” |
Pay celebs to text or video message you with TipTalk | Josh Constine | 2,016 | 3 | 28 | It has never been worth it for celebrities to respond to their endless digital fan mail — until now. lets them set a price for a private text, photo or video response. The idea is that in their downtime, they could forge deeper relationships with their audience while earning enough to warrant at least a few seconds of their attention. Considering how the public comment reels light up whenever a real celebrity or web star posts on social networks, there could be a subset willing to pay for a one-on-one moment. And for influencers who are great at gaining fans but have trouble monetizing, like mid-tier musicians and Instagram royalty, TipTalk could unlock a way to turn their passion into a profession. Simply download the , buy some $1 credits, pick a star, request a text or photo or video response with escalating prices, post your question or request and wait for a response. You could ask for life tips, their opinion, a surprise birthday message for a loved one, suggest a collaboration or just gush about how much you love them. Influencers set their own prices. The less-well-known personalities currently on the app often charge $20 a text, $50 a photo and $100 a video. They can pick from a queue of up to 100 inbound requests, send their reply and collect their money. They get 50 percent, while Apple keeps its 30 percent tax and TipTalk earns 20 percent. Fans get refunded if they don’t get a response in 48 hours, and all the stars are verified to be themselves. The idea spawned with co-founder Owen DeVries’ conversation with an Instagram star receiving hundreds of thousands of messages from fans. They were responding to two or three a week. DeVries asked how many they’d respond to if they were getting paid, and the star said they’d do it with all their free time. Web stars typically turn to brand endorsement, while musicians and other artists promote their merchandise on social networks. But TipTalk could fit in-between and let them earn cash without spamming everyone. TipTalk’s current influencers aren’t exactly what you’d call famous. The 46 it has aboard top out at Olympic gold medalist skier Bode Miller, Playboy playmate of the year Jayde Nicole, Real Housewives of Orange County star Gretchen Christine Rossi and Ray J, the guy from Kim Kardashian’s sex tape. To draw in crowds and revenue, it will need to seduce household names, not these C-listers. Right now, the closest things to TipTalk would be expensive pre-concert meet-and-greets, or how e-sports stars or porno cam girls will give a shoutout in their public streams to people who donate money. , and others have also made attempts in the space. But TipTalk brings the experience online, in private, with a pre-priced menu, and makes it asynchronous so it’s convenient for both sides, even if the interaction is less vivid. Co-founder and CTO Zachary Melamed calls TipTalk, “a marketplace for the time and knowledge of influencers.” There was already supply, but the enormous demand and lack of proper incentives created a disconnect that TipTalk could bridge. In a world where media is free or easily copied, and it’s tough to prove what you love, fans want unique, intimate experiences with their heroes. On tour buses and airport runways, you could imagine celebs banging out responses on , turning followers into diehard supporters, and lining their pockets all the while. |
5 hard questions facing Oculus Rift | Josh Constine | 2,016 | 3 | 28 | Today, the future became the present with the launch of Oculus Rift. The are in, but uncertainty hangs overhead with HTC and PlayStation’s VR headsets still on the way. Here are the tough questions that will determine what you should buy, the distribution of power between the platforms and VR’s effect on our lives. |
Live streaming app Periscope touts 200 million broadcasts in its first year | Sarah Perez | 2,016 | 3 | 28 | . A key player in the shift to mobile live streaming, the Twitter-owned service its first year online. The company also revealed a few metrics indicating how quickly it had grown in the time since its March 2015 debut, noting that its users had created more than 200 million broadcasts on its network. In addition, it said that more than 110 years of live video are watched daily on its mobile applications for iOS and Android. Those numbers sound impressive, but it’s still worth comparing them to the rest of the video market. Periscope users yet crossed the 1 million mark in terms of hours of videos viewed per day in its apps. Meanwhile, industry leader YouTube says that today, its users watch “hundreds of millions of hours” of YouTube daily, and generate “billions of views.” (Of course, Periscope’s metrics don’t include users who re-watch streams, or those who watch via the web, so this is not a direct comparison.) That said, with , Periscope’s dominance in this space is far from guaranteed. Or more simply put: Periscope is not without its challenges. Though it against rival and early leader Meerkat ( ), Facebook has since entered the market in full force. The social network this year then last month Given Facebook’s scale (1.5 billion monthly active users), and the fact that it had been pushing live streams through its notifications, it could easily give Periscope a run for its money. But there are some indications that not everyone likes Facebook’s feature — the company said it that lets users disable notifications for live video. That’s not to say that Periscope isn’t growing — the company that its users were watching 40 years of video per day, and its user base had grown to 10 million. But the fact that it’s still today obfuscating its numbers as “years of video” watched per day instead of giving a solid figure in terms of hours watched daily indicates that Periscope is also trying to fluff its numbers a bit. Nor did the company announce an update in terms of its user base figures in the recent post, we should also note. |
null | Sarah Perez | 2,016 | 3 | 16 | null |
Windows users finally have a good BitTorrent client | Romain Dillet | 2,016 | 3 | 28 | Popular OS X and Linux BitTorrent client is coming to Windows. It’s not quite ready for prime time — spotted the first Windows build on the — but it’s already better than any other Windows BitTorrent client out there. This isn’t the first build for Windows, as there was an unofficial Windows build under the name . But this time, it looks like the Transmission team wants to avoid confusion by releasing Windows builds on its website. According to , the next version should mark the official release on Transmission’s download page. But nothing is stopping you from downloading the initial release already. Why is Transmission better than your average BitTorrent client? Transmission is free and doesn’t try to shove any ad down your throat. It’s not cluttered like µTorrent or Vuze as it doesn’t have a built-in video player or search engine. Transmission is lightweight and open source. It focuses on downloading and does it very well. That’s why OS X and Linux users have used it massively for the past decade. If you’re like me and have purchased a ton of games from , Transmission and Humble Bundle let me download my large games much more reliably than with a traditional HTTP download. From my quick testing, it looks like the Windows app has the same features as its OS X counterpart. You can monitor RSS feeds, watch a folder for new .torrent files, control your client from a command-line interface or web interface and more. Transmission also became famous as a build was recently infected with the . Apple revoked the ransomware’s Mac app development certificate and Transmission quickly released a new build to remove the ransomware. So let’s hope that the Transmission team has enhanced the security of its repository, as well. [gallery ids="1297959,1297958,1297960"] |
Kuvée raises $6 million for smart wine bottles | Katie Roof | 2,016 | 3 | 28 | [polldaddy poll=9364906] |
Kanye West releases a track from new album to Apple Music & others, after promising a Tidal exclusive | Sarah Perez | 2,016 | 3 | 28 | Remember the chaos surrounding Kanye West’s release of his new album, “The Life of Pablo” last month? The artist had his album would be a Tidal exclusive, which drove fans to download the streaming music app in such great numbers that . Now, it appears West has changed his mind. He’s made one of the new songs from “The Life of Pablo” available on Spotify, Apple Music and Google Music. Of course, this doesn’t represent a full turnaround in terms of his earlier position on the matter – that the album would “never be on Apple.” That’s still effectively true. You can’t stream the entire on the other services, including Apple’s. But you can get a taste. https://twitter.com/kanyewest/status/699376240709402624 One of the album’s more notable songs, “Famous,” is now available on the three streaming music services. This is the more controversial track where West disses Taylor Swift, saying he “made that b**** famous,” for reference. But as about this new release, the Apple Music and Spotify versions of “Famous” aren’t the same as those on Tidal. (Pitchfork didn’t catch the Google Play release.) Instead, the new track is an updated version of the song which includes a change to a lyric. West had swapped the original line “she be Puerto Rican day parade wavin'” for “she in school to be a real estate agent,” says Pitchfork. This lyric was also previously changed on Tidal, we should note. The move is not entirely surprising, given West’s other antics surrounding the album’s release. (software-as-a-service, that is), West publicly promoted the work, then continued to tweak it and make changes even after its release. After pushing the album out to his website for purchase alongside the option to stream on Tidal, the artist caused mass confusion when he decided to then pull the album down in order to continue to make changes shortly after its debut. https://twitter.com/kanyewest/status/698972107166892032 That led to fan backlash, . Tidal later offered fans the ability to request a refund, and explained to them via email that the album was delayed and they could also choose to wait. The difficulties in purchasing also prompted mass pirating of the album – , an estimated 500,000 people illegally downloaded the day after its release. Although West has been very active on Twitter when promoting other aspects of the album’s promotion in the past, he hasn’t yet publicly commented on his decision to release “Famous” to the other major music services. |
Tumblr brings back Replies, revamps Notes to encourage more conversations on its service | Sarah Perez | 2,016 | 3 | 28 | Yahoo-owned blogging platform Tumblr this morning announced two changes to its service designed to encourage more conversations and increase engagement around posts and other content. The company is bringing back its Replies feature, removed several months ago, and it’s rolling out an updated Notes design that makes it easier for the community to follow the commentary around a post. The Replies feature’s removal was something that Tumblr’s user base for some time, not understanding why the functionality had to pulled entirely. The issues began when Tumblr decided to focus on which offered users a way to more directly interact with others through real-time communication. However, at the time of the launch, several users were already complaining about how the instant messaging feature replaced Replies. then, “What if I don’t want to commit to a private conversation, I just want to leave an open response that others can also acknowledge?” The user also pointed out that other social networks, like Facebook, offer both replies and commenting, for example. , saying that the Replies feature was undergoing a revamp and would return. The company explained that it had pulled Replies amid all the changes as Tumblr had grown to have a number of overlapping message-like systems, including Asks (where users can Ask a question), Fan Mail, reblogging with commentary, question posts, and Replies. When , it said it had to take down Replies for longer than expected in order to “do some back-end retooling.” As promised at the time of this announcement, the return of Replies introduces a number of new options. Previously, Replies used to be a one-way dialog, allowing the audience to reply to the author of a post. The new version is more conversational, says Tumblr. Now, authors can reply to their own posts, users can reply to posts multiple times, and Replies are enabled on reblogs, not just original posts. In addition, Tumblr users can choose from one of three settings for how they want to use Replies on their own blogs: they can choose to let everyone reply, only those Tumblr users they follow and those who have been following them for at least a week, or they can use “Safe Mode,” which means that only Tumblr users you follow can reply to your posts. The other major change to Tumblr’s interface today is a redesign of the “Notes” section. This is the area on the blog where users can see conversations around a post. However, the way Notes was originally designed, it highlighted every time someone had Liked or Reblogged a post and presented this in a long list of “interactions.” To actually find when someone had reblogged with a comment on a popular post, you would have to scroll for quite some time. With the new Notes design, Tumblr has rolled up non-conversational commentary at the top – meaning those Likes and Reblogs that were before just taking up space are now presented in a horizontal list on one line. Only those Replies and Reblogs with comments will be displayed vertically. Combined with the reintroduction of Replies, it will be easier to read and participate in the conversations around posts with this update. The changes to Tumblr’s user interface come at a time when the network itself hasn’t been performing as well as Yahoo hoped when it bought the blogging platform for $1.1 billion in 2013. by $230 million to $760 million, from its previous $990 million. The company also admitted it has had a hard time monetizing the site as expected, and buying ads on Tumblr – they no longer have to have their own blog on the site to do so. However, from the perspective of Tumblr’s end users – an arguably fickle, and often teenaged crowd – Yahoo hasn’t always lived up to that it wouldn’t “screw up” Tumblr. Many of the changes to the site have not seemed to take into consideration how Tumblr users were interacting with the platform – such as in the case of removing Replies while pushing IM. While it’s promising that Tumblr is bringing back a feature that many have missed dearly, the user base still feels burned by not having their needs addressed for such a long period of time – it’s been nearly half a year since IM debuted, after all. Tumblr says the redesigned Replies and Notes section are rolling out today. |
Vimeo’s new Roku app lets you buy movies and shows right from your TV | Sarah Perez | 2,016 | 3 | 28 | Video network Vimeo has taken another step forward today with its efforts to better promote its original content – meaning those movies and programs available for rent or purchase on its network. Today, the company is making it possible for viewers to rent or buy films and series directly from their TV sets for the first time. This is feature is arriving through an updated Roku application, which now introduces over 30,000 titles that can be paid for, then streamed instantly. Before, there wasn’t an option to buy directly from the television, However, when you do choose to buy from the new Roku app, you will be able to stream to any supported device – that way you can start watching on the big screen, then later return to view the programming on your smartphone or tablet, for example. For Vimeo’s creator community, the addition of a purchasing option on the Roku platform means they’ll be able to put their content in front of a wider audience than before – the “millions” of users who stream video to their Roku, the company noted this morning. The change follows the which were updated to promote easier discovery of the different types of video on its network. While, like YouTube, anyone can upload videos to Vimeo, the company has been trying to carve out a niche in the creator community. Instead of v-loggers, often popular with the younger demographic on YouTube, Vimeo is targeting indie filmmakers, documentary producers and others to use its service to distribute their content. Plus, as compared with YouTube. Along with the support for buying via the Roku app, the update also includes a handful of other improvements, like the ability to use activation codes instead of signing in with an email and password, for example, as well as support for adaptive streaming and the new Roku 4. |
Tru Optik aims to improve ad measurement for Internet-connected TVs | Anthony Ha | 2,016 | 3 | 28 | Andre Swanston, CEO of , argued that there’s been one big obstacle to advertising on Internet-connected TVs — measurement. Naturally, Swanston is pitching Tru Optik’s technology as the solution. The company started out by measuring how video content gets shared through peer-to-peer file sharing, but has since expanded into a broader measurement solution, with products like . Now it’s launching a new service to help media companies and advertisers measure the viewership on Internet-connected TV apps, with help from data provider Experian Marketing Services. Swanston said we’re going to be seeing more media companies launching their own connected TV apps, since “there’s no technological barrier to entry.” “The economics are changing such that you’re going to be seeing a lot more people focusing their energy on that,” he added. However, Swanston said that the leaders in TV and online measurement haven’t created “a real, viable over-the-top measurement solution,” and other online measurement products still largely rely on cookies and SDK — methods that don’t really work across devices or transfer to connected TVs. Tru Optik, on the other hand, has created what Swanston described as “a household-level device graph.” In other words, it has created a unique (but anonymized) identifier for each household, allowing it to see when multiple devices are used by one family, and then track content consumption across those devices. On top of that, it’s using Experian data to understand audience demographics and purchase behavior. Swanston added that Tru Optik isn’t just for helping track ad impressions, but can also more broadly help media companies show the value of their videos for things like product placement and licensing. And for consumers, he suggested that this approach is better for privacy, as it lets you opt out of certain types of targeting at a household level. |
The downfall of the walled garden: Here’s why iAd failed | Ragnar Kruse | 2,016 | 3 | 28 |
Apple is the world’s most valuable company — no other company even comes close. That shouldn’t be surprising, as the Silicon Valley-based company has created an unparalleled hardware culture that more resembles a lifestyle than a brand. Apple is potentially more than a trillion dollars, and has a staggering $155 billion “war chest” stashed for a rainy day — should the rain ever come. The forecast for most areas of the company calls for sunshine, but for Apple’s mobile advertising platform, , a storm is brewing. Apple it is shutting down the six-year-old program on June 30th, officially waving the white flag on attempting to compete with Google, Facebook and other major players in the digital advertising space. Steve Jobs originally asserted in 2010 that would reach of the mobile advertising market, but it never even got close (clocking in at around 5 percent of the mobile-display-advertising market). After a strong start, insiders quickly began that iAds was hurting, with fill rates (the percentage of advertising inventory filled with an ad) dropping from 18 percent to 6 percent for some. Clearly, the Midas touch we’ve grown so accustomed to from the hardware giant didn’t quite work in this space. Apple certainly could have funneled more money and resources toward , but it didn’t. Why didn’t the company with the largest stack of chips bet more on this initiative? Because the “ ” model is endemic when it comes to mobile advertising. While Apple essentially proved the value of ruling with an iron fist on the product end of its business — maintaining stringent control over the operating system, content, apps and media that touch every one of its products — this approach didn’t yield the same benefits for mobile advertising. An isolated platform inherently closes customers off to important revenue opportunities on other networks. By operating within Apple’s , advertisers and publishers were only able to reach iOS users — only of the worldwide smartphone market. What’s more, by only serving iOS devices, Apple precluded customers from reaching lucrative emerging markets where Android is particularly dominant. In Asia alone, Android owns more than of the mobile OS market share, while iOS only owns . As a result, Apple sacrificed its ability to scale, and denied its customers the opportunity to monetize in developing markets. Google, even with a far larger global market share, has heard the “integrate or die” message loud and clear. Recently, the advertising giant that it’s integrating several additional ad networks into its AdMob and DoubleClick platforms — giving its customers access to outside networks (and thus higher revenues) even at the risk of funneling business to competitors. The move toward an open ecosystem has become a necessary one to stay competitive in adtech, but wasn’t a concession Apple was willing to make. So, how could have succeeded? In three ways: would have benefited from giving more control to those creating the ads, both in the creation process as well as the buyer-side and seller-side tools. As a result of Apple’s tight control over the ad-creation process, advertisers and marketers massive delays in getting their ads to market on the platform. Ads are only going to continue getting more creative as consumers demand a high-quality, near-artistic ad experience. Ad platforms must adapt to accommodate this increase in non-traditional ad formats and tactics, and make the process as efficient and seamless as possible — or risk advertisers taking their business elsewhere. Efforts to invest in the platform’s international presence went largely unprioritized. It took Apple to enter neighboring Latin America — at which point it had already its minimum spend from $1 million to $50, signaling the company was already having trouble executing its advertising strategy. By not entering the ad market with a clearly defined global strategy, Apple ended up being late to the party, and missing out on pivotal markets like China, Japan, Indonesia and South Korea — which are projected to spend a combined on advertising in 2016. Advertisers increasingly frustrated with Apple’s unwillingness to grant them access to the wealth of data the company possessed from its customers and Apple’s hundreds of millions of iTunes accounts. Every decision in advertising is born in data — of agencies and 73 percent of brands use data to target the desired audience. Strong analytics tools are becoming ever more important as advertisers strive to keep ads relevant. |
Foodpanda acquires Delivery.com’s Hong Kong business | Catherine Shu | 2,016 | 3 | 17 | News of yet more movement among on-demand food startups: Rocket Internet-backed announced today that it has and will take over its operations there. Food delivery startups have popped up all over the world, but means that many will have to merge with rivals if they want to survive. Foodpanda’s announcement comes a day after and a few weeks after after struggling to compete with domestic players. Foodpanda has been , snapping up food delivery startups around the world in order to expand in Europe, Asia, and Latin America. Since the end of last year, however, Foodpanda has scaled back or closed in some countries. For example, it and , laying off hundreds of employees. , Foodpanda operated in 40 markets a year ago, but has since reduced that number to 24. Both Delivery.com, which is based in New York, and Foodpanda launched in Hong Kong in 2014. Foodpanda’s other acquisitions there so far include Koziness and Dial a Dinner. In a statement, Foodpanda Group co-founder and chief executive officer Ralf Wenzel said, “We are very excited to welcome delivery.com Hong Kong’s corporate clients, customers, and team to the Foodpanda family. The team has built an excellent operation in one of our key markets and will help Foodpanda continue to drive high growth there.” |
Launching at YC’s Demo Day, mRelief has a new tool to make public assistance more accessible | Jonathan Shieber | 2,016 | 3 | 17 | the private sector in the U.S. complain about the inefficiencies of government, investors are beginning to marshall their resources to help solve the problem. No organization exemplifies that notion of harnessing private industry tools for public good more than , a non-profit launching in the latest Y-Combinator batch of companies. Founded by two friends who met at a coding bootcamp in Chicago, mRelief epitomizes the notion that technology can help to address the problems that are born from the bureaucratic worst tendencies of government assistance. Last year in the U.S. there were 46 million Americans living in poverty, and $11 billion in unclaimed assistance that was left on the table, because eligible recipients did not know how to apply or have access to applications. It’s that kind of problem that mRelief is looking to solve. And for the founders — 31-year-old Rose Afriyie and 23-year-old Genevieve Nielsen — these problems were as much personal as societal. Rose Afriyie and Genevieve Nielsen, co-founders of mRelief. For Afriyie, who grew up for a time in the Gun Hill Houses in the Bronx, government assistance like the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program were a boon to families in the community — if they could access them. “I definitely think that that empathy was there,” in the creation of mRelief, said Afriyie. “But I don’t think that’s the only thing. Knowing that the truth is a lot of families have come from humble circumstances and needed to ask for help is one thing, but it was also born out in the data.” From New York, Afriyie’s family moved to Pennsylvania, where she went to high school and university before pursuing a career in public policy — even interning in domestic policy assistance at the White House. She witnessed the health care reform fight firsthand from the White House trenches and said that the experience of learning about existing safety net policies and how they worked in tandem with health care reform informed the development of mRelief. Meanwhile, Nielsen, a native of New Orleans, saw the breakdown of government support systems in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and that informed her perspective on the need for better mechanisms to enable accessibility to assistance programs for those who were previously unable to get them. If their experiences growing up influenced their decision to launch mRelief, so did the two founders’ experience working with (started by Derek Eder), according to Nielsen. Afriyie explained that the event was regular hackathon, which brought together data scientists and developers to solve problems for the Chicago community through coding. The two would-be entrepreneurs took the time to explore different aspects of the delivery of public services in Chicago. For instance, 10,000 people were applying for rental assistance annually, but only 400 were meeting the requirements of the program. “Someone had to manually review those applications, and so many people had to fill out those applications only to find they’d wasted their time because they were ineligible,” said Nielsen. The two women wove the disparate threads of their exposure to coding, knowledge of public assistance and awareness of the red tape that people were dealing with in Chicago and wove it into the tapestry that would become the mRelief set of services. “We’d heard about the civic tech meetup and from there it continued,” said Nielsen. “We were taken by a presentation on social service delivery that was with the with the city of Chicago. From there it was a very organic process. We built a screener on the web where you can find out if you were eligible for food stamps.” From that simple web app the two continued to develop a product that would meet the specific needs of the community they were trying to serve. Roughly 36% of Americans don’t have access to smart phones so the two women worked to create an SMS version of their on-boarding surveys. “One role that technology can play is making the delivery of services less fragmented,” said Nielsen. “The conversation isn’t: ‘Do I qualify for assistance?’ It’s I need help this month what am I eligible for? And we’re trying to make as many programs as available as possible.” At Y Combinator the refinements have continued and the two women have a new product that they’re offering to beleaguered government assistance programs around the country — . Screenshot of mRelief’s web-based survey for SNAP eligibility. Their website launched on September 1, 2014 for users to check their eligibility for food stamps. Then in November the two women launched the SMS version of the product. The mRelief Builder tool takes the service to another level. Now instead of having to work with government agencies or non-profits to create screening tools, the two women have come up with a service that automatically generates eligibility screens based on criteria pre-set by an organization. Pricing for the screening generation subscription service ranges from a basic free service for a basic web screen and a text message-based screen, to a full suite of tools with multiple eligibility generating options and downloadable data about the people using the service. For would-be applicants, beneficiaries can go to the mRelief web site and enter their zipcode and see a list of available programs in their area. They can click on the program they want to screen for, and then fill out a questionnaire to see if they qualify. There are three categories for applicants, accepted, rejected, and “maybe”, Nielsen explains. Complex situations around citizenship and other issues will result in a maybe response from the tracking tool. On a mobile device, a user would text “hello” to a number reserved for mRelief. The user would then be messaged a number of programs to choose from, and they select the one they’re interested in. The non-profit has an all-women development team, according to Afriyie. “For us, it was about leveraging technology for maximum social impact. We wanted people who were committed to building things for scale and who stand for something in each state in the U.S.” mRelief customers. Since they’ve joined Y Combinator the mRelief service has been posting impressive numbers. The service has seen 90% growth week-on-week, with 2,000 eligibility screening checklists completed in the last week alone, according to data provided by mRelief’s founders. One of the main problems the two women were looking to solve was that people who are eligible — or potentially eligible — weren’t applying for the program. And according to the company’s data, two-thirds of those who pre-screened and were deemed eligible did apply for assistance (one-third actually received it). Beyond the work that they’ve done with different non-profits, the two co-founders have also managed to push the USDA to publish eligibility requirements for food stamps in 42 states in a on . “People don’t live single-issue lives. It’s a combination that’s needed to help them move their lives forward,” said Afriyie. The mRelief service actually currently supports43 programs in Chicago and another 2 in Anchorage. The non-profit (and for now it is still a non-profit) is backed by grants from the Knight Foundation and the recent grant from Y Combinator. “The capability of a text messaging platform to crawl into rural communities and low income communities and make accessible at someone’s fingertips the ability to pay rent, to eat food, to keep the electricity on and to make a reliable form of transportation accessible to everyone is amazing. We’re doing that,” said Afiryie. Though its mission is unique, the path that Afriyie and Nielsen are following is one that an increasing number of entrepreneurs are also beginning to travel. From being an object of derision among the private sector, there’s a growing awareness, thanks in part to the work of President Obama’s (and other public-private partnerships fostered by the administration) that government and tech aren’t such strange bedfellows. And that the tech community can build viable businesses (or great services) to make government work better. “We look at this as the operating system for the system,” said Ron Bouganim, the founder of the , a venture capital fund focused on technologies like mRelief. Bouganim and others like him, are helping the entrepreneurs like Nielsen and Afriyie turn their passion into viable projects that make a difference. In the case of mRelief they’ve already made a difference in thousands of lives, from Chicago to Alaska. And California is on the way. |
Legaltech set to bail out legal services | Alexandra Isenegger | 2,016 | 3 | 17 |
We all remember the horrors that followed the failure of the subprime. All of a sudden, we faced a collapse of the entire financial system. Surrounded by bankruptcy and devastation, even the optimists struggled to see the light at the end of the tunnel. There was a bright side buried in the midst of all the chaos. Such intense crisis often leads to formidable change. We were compelled to wake up and examine the situation, and this happened in 2008/9. A reality check struck the public, and there was a general sense that the conventions we had so comfortably adopted were flawed. We felt betrayed. The world became extremely wary of the financial system. Banks and their generously remunerated bankers were blamed and disliked. The banking sector was out-dated and needed disruption. In stepped the innovators. Since 2008, global investment in the fintech sector has tripled, from $928 million to $2.97 billion, and is forecasted to reach up to $8 billion by 2018. We’ve seen raise $392 million and — a peer-to-peer lending marketplace — raise $354 million…not to mention the incredible success of , and the up-and-coming money transferring startup backed by Richard Branson, . It appears that the loss of trust in the banking system has opened the world’s eyes to these alternative forms of dealing with our finances. Which then brings us to look at another sector that often goes hand in hand with financial services. Why have such leaps in innovation not been observed in the legal services industry? There are a few inspiring players leading the way (such as ), but it appears the industry has not yet wholeheartedly embraced the benefits involved in legaltech. Nevertheless, legaltech is trending amongst entrepreneurs and innovation is rising from every angle. Increasingly popular and already fairly established are the legal marketplaces. , which has raised $132 million to date, works by providing a directory of lawyers who are then rated by both the platform and the consumers. Companies like Linkilaw have taken a different direction by placing itself as the matchmaker between consumers and lawyers. Other businesses have focused their energy on facilitating tasks on the lawyer side. is a powerful tool, enabling lawyers to track their time more efficiently and make better decisions through smartly presented generated data. There are case research tools such as and that are particularly powerful and used by judges and law students. More recently, we have seen an uprise in B2C businesses within legaltech. is an e-commerce dispute-resolution platform enabling consumers to avoid the tedious bureaucracy involved in settling a dispute. Remedying a similar need is , an app that appeals parking fines on your behalf. Fixed is becoming increasingly popular after appearing on Shark Tank and receiving a $700,000 investment from Mark Cuban. Another very interesting consumer business is , a platform that enables separated parents to divide childcare costs in a simple, yet effective manner. A significant obstacle in the rise of legaltech has been the common conception of the legal industry as a traditional sector with a smaller demand for technological innovation. Prominent and powerful figures in the sector are established, many of whom do not desire changes in the industry they have come to command. It also has a lot of crossover within the public sector, which is generally slower to respond to innovation. Legaltech threatens the stability of these individuals because it has the potential to disturb the status quo. Legaltech brings about transparency and increased competition, and grants more capabilities to non-lawyers. Thus, the burgeoning of legaltech may lessen the demand for lawyers and decrease their earnings. In spite of these hurdles, “Research and Markets” forecasts that the legal sector is on track to generate an annual $815 billion by 2017. Bearing this in mind, it wouldn’t come as a surprise to see an influx of investors and entrepreneurs enter the legaltech industry. The best year thus far for investment in legaltech companies was 2013, when the industry received more than $150 million. Although the following year faced a substantial decline in funding, the legaltech sector exhibits resilience and is continuing to evolve. So, are we seeing the same hockey-stick growth of investment that fintech has enjoyed? In short, no, we’re not. Legaltech is far behind when it comes to attracting the same levels of investment. Investors seem to find fintech up to 10 times more attractive. In 2014, the fintech industry received more than $12 billion in funding, the equivalent of 0.1 percent of the total financial industry. On the other hand, the legaltech industry raised about 0.01 percent of the global legal industry. Legaltech is overshadowed by fintech. Another factor to keep in mind is that the legaltech industry is still in its early years. The industry is only about five years old, and many legaltech startups are not older than this. The delay in the development of the legaltech industry is partly because lawyers present a formidable challenge to change due to their knowledge of the law and proximity to policy makers. Now is the opportune moment for legaltech to take-off. The legal market is shrinking, and competition is rising. Because lawyers often aren’t good marketers, increased competition is pushing them to pursue innovative means in order to better position themselves in the market. Furthermore, both private individuals and companies are becoming more conscious of their costs. Solutions brought about by legaltech can help control costs and slash spending. Legaltech is an emerging sector, with an untapped potential that investors should not overlook. The legal industry currently finds itself in need of the innovative solutions for marketing, competition and cost-effectiveness that the legaltech sector can provide. |
Microsoft launches first preview of its Edge browser with extension support | Frederic Lardinois | 2,016 | 3 | 17 | https://youtu.be/hKAywBrQeAw Extension support has long been one of the weaker features in Microsoft’s browsers. With , the company now offers a new, more modern browser, and starting today, users who signed up for can try . This doesn’t come as a complete surprise, of course. Extensions were always on Microsoft’s , though it was never quite clear when exactly the company would launch this feature. Microsoft argues that one of the reasons it moved slowly here was to ensure extensions could run in the browser without compromising security. “As we have also , one of our highest priorities is to ensure that Microsoft Edge is the safest, most reliable and fastest browser we could build, and our experience over the past 20 years has taught us that poorly written or even malicious add-ons were a huge source of security, reliability and performance issues for browsers,” Microsoft’s general manager for Edge Drew DeBruyne writes today. “With this in mind, we have built Microsoft Edge so customers can add extensions to the browser with the confidence that they will operate as expected.” Currently there are only for Edge: Microsoft Translator, the , and Mouse Gestures. Coming soon are AdBlock, Adblock Plus, Amazon, LastPass, Evernote and others. For now, users will have to , but in the future, they will be able to install them right from the Windows Store. Microsoft stresses that it is participating in the W3C Browser Extension Community Group, which aims to create a standard API for browser extensions, which should at least theoretically make it easier for developers to write add-ons that’ll work across browsers. With this , Microsoft is also going to bring pinned tabs (a feature long available in all other major browsers), as well as some copy-and-paste improvements, to Edge as well. |
Here’s why NASA is setting fire to a cargo ship in space | Emily Calandrelli | 2,016 | 3 | 17 | Next Tuesday, Orbital ATK will launch their cargo vehicle to the International Space Station (ISS). Cygnus will bring the astronauts on station food, water, and a 3-D printer, among other supplies. Normally, after supplies are unloaded from Cygnus, the crew would fill the cargo ship with trash and send it back to Earth to burn up in the atmosphere. This time, before Cygnus breaks apart above the Earth, NASA is going to intentionally set it on fire – well, part of it anyway. In order to study how fire reacts in a weightless environment, NASA is performing the Spacecraft Fire Experiment, or “ .” Up until now, only very small combustion tests have been conducted aboard the space shuttle and the ISS due to risks associated with such experiments. Saffire will allow NASA scientists to study how microgravity fires react on a much larger scale. After Cygnus leaves the ISS and begins its return to Earth, engineers from NASA’s Glenn Research Center will remotely ignite a large swath of cloth contained in a 3-by-3-by-5 foot module inside Cygnus. The 16 by 37-inch cloth is made out of fiberglass and cotton, a material blend that’s been included in previous, smaller microgravity combustion experiments. Sensors and high definition video cameras inside Cygnus will record the characteristics of the flame propagation along the cloth. The experiment is expected to take a few hours to complete. Once the experiment is over, Cygnus will remain in orbit for 7 days in order to downlink the data to ground stations around the world. After the Saffire team has retrieved the data, Cygnus will begin its reentry and burn up in the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean. “A spacecraft fire is one of the greatest crew safety concerns for NASA and the international space exploration community.” Gary Ruff, Saffire project manager Fire in space has always been a critical safety issue for NASA and their astronauts who live in the confined, oxygen-rich environments of spacecraft and the ISS. For NASA, the issue was brought to the forefront with the Apollo 1 tragedy, where 3 astronauts were killed due to a cabin fire during a launch rehearsal. Apollo 1 highlighted NASA’s poor emergency preparedness and various fire hazards inside the Apollo module at the time. Experiencing such a devastating fire-related disaster made NASA especially sensitive to fire hazards on future missions. For example, NASA initially chose to bring pencils on early spaceflights. But pencil tips can break off, creating little fire hazards throughout a spacecraft filled with oxygen and electrical equipment. In order to avoid possibly causing a short in an electrical device, NASA switched from pencils to specialized pens that would work in a microgravity environment. Luckily, after Apollo 1, NASA hasn’t been presented with other similar fire-related disasters from which to learn. But small scale experiments performed under microgravity conditions have shown that fire does burn differently under weightless conditions. Among other differences, microgravity flames are spherical, rather than tear-drop shaped. In a NASA press release, David Urban Saffire’s principal investigator stated, “Saffire seeks to answer two questions. Will an upward spreading flame continue to grow or will microgravity limit the size? Secondly, what fabrics and materials will catch fire and how will they burn?” Next week’s module is the first of 3 initial Saffire experiments. Saffire II will launch in June and will ignite a mix of 9 different materials commonly used on the ISS, including materials used for astronaut clothing. Saffire III will be very similar to Saffire I. Concepts for 3 follow-up Saffire missions are in development to further understand flame spread, smoke propagation, as well as detection and suppression of fire. “Saffire is all about gaining a better understanding of how fire behaves in space so NASA can develop better materials, technologies and procedures to reduce crew risk and increase space flight safety.” Gary Ruff, Saffire project manager As NASA works to send humans on further into the solar system, having a strong understanding of microgravity fire will be critical. In order to develop the appropriate flame resistant and flame detection technologies, NASA will first need to improve their understanding of the science in which it operates. The first big step to accomplish this goal is scheduled to lift off in the Cygnus cargo vehicle Tuesday, March 22nd at 11:05 pm EST. |
How the ‘wonks’ of public policy and the ‘geeks’ of tech can get together | Lillian Ablon | 2,016 | 3 | 17 |
Technology innovates and disrupts, while public policy regulates and controls — at least according to conventional wisdom. The skirmish between Apple and the FBI is a prime example: Apple is refusing to allow policy to dictate how encryption should be included in products. It’s nearly impossible to ponder emerging resource-sharing technologies like Uber or Airbnb without thinking of the restrictive public policies — such as limiting ridesharing access at the airport — that often accompany them. Viewing technology as disruptor and public policy as regulator is such a trope that the concept has seeped into pop culture. On HBO, the series “Silicon Valley” pokes fun with comedic overuse of the phrase “disrupt,” while another satirical sitcom, “Veep,” parodies Washington’s dependence on regulation, red tape and lobbying. Yet the relationship between the worlds of commercial technology (ruled by the “geeks”) and public policy (land of the “wonks”) is more nuanced than conventional wisdom would have you believe. In many ways, the two complement each other. For example, public policy can foster the growth of emerging technologies and the companies that work on them. for the incubation and growth of the Internet, artificial intelligence, GPS and many other foundational technologies. Technology is increasingly an important part of the workplace and today’s society. Jobs in computer and information technology are over the next decade, and most major job sectors (such as education, entertainment, medical and transportation) have massive technological components. The rapid pace of technology has enormous implications for those in both the public policy and commercial tech worlds: Policymakers need to shape intelligent integration of promising technology solutions, and commercial technology companies will want to reap the most benefit from these vast and burgeoning markets. For this to occur, tech geeks and policy wonks need to shed the hackneyed “disruptors versus regulators” paradigm and focus on the ways they can work together. Those who work at tech startups often feel that public policies are often simply a bad fit, according to people we’ve spoken with in the field. CEOs and founders of startups in commercial tech — as well as the venture capitalists that fund them — repeatedly told us that policies can be unclear, poorly informed and poorly written, woefully outdated or established with seemingly little forethought about secondary and tertiary effects. To improve upon or prevent these perceived shortcomings, proposed policy should take into account potential unintended consequences and build in periodic checks to assess whether the policies are working as intended. To do this, policymakers must seek and include the perspectives of technology experts throughout the policymaking process. Policymakers need to work closely with commercial technology companies and representatives who are creating and innovating new solutions that have public policy implications. This means including startups in the conversation from the beginning — not just the large corporations. But for tech startups, policy interactions tend to be the exception rather than the rule. Such interactions are generally limited to companies that recognize early on that policy and regulation play a big role in their sector or product or to technologists who have a passion for public policy. Examples of successful interaction between startups and policymakers include drone manufacturer , telecommunication services company and car-sharing company . In each of these cases, key personnel made it a priority to interact with policymakers. So what might a better integration of the commercial tech sector with the policy community look like? Technologists need better and more frequent cross-pollination with those in public policy, starting in the classroom. In business school, aspiring entrepreneurs should be encouraged to take introductory public policy classes. Tech startups should look favorably on job candidates with an interest or experience in public policy. Tech companies of all sizes should become involved in policy-oriented circles within their sector to share information about the policies and agencies that impact them. Science, technology, engineering and math students — and early-career scientists — should take advantage of public policy learning opportunities available through programs like the of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Seasoned entrepreneurs should consider becoming instructors at public policy institutions. And technology leaders should think about following in the footsteps of individuals like entrepreneur and big data maven Todd Park, who served in the White House as the U.S. Chief Technology Officer from 2012 to 2014 focusing on how technology policy, data and innovation could advance the nation’s future, or his successor Megan Smith, formerly vice president of the Google[x] innovation lab. Entrepreneurs also should look for opportunities to break barriers by serving on a policy council or board as a technology expert. One high-profile example of this is Steve Bellovin, a Columbia University science professor who was recently on the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, an independent agency within the executive branch that advises the president and other senior executive branch officials. By making such moves, tech players can help policymakers create informed policy that is more in tune with technology. Of course, there are some inherent challenges. By nature, technology innovations are speedy and agile, often evolving overnight in a garage, while slow-and-steady public policy is often doomed to play catch-up. Collaboration between the tech and policy worlds could result in some creative workarounds to this speed mismatch between technology and policy. For example, pilot projects could allow small-scale implementation of new technologies. And many in the startup universe complain that public policy is a game for the rich and connected — startups and smaller tech companies simply don’t have the resources to compete with larger, more established corporations that can afford the time and money required to make a splash in Washington. While not everyone can afford to make large donations to political candidates, hire expensive lobbyists or house their own policy shop, anyone can become educated regarding how the world of public policy works and be open to engaging with policymakers when opportunities arise. When geeks and wonks reach across the divide, both policies and products will benefit. |
Google could be selling Boston Dynamics because even Google thinks these robots are terrifying | Romain Dillet | 2,016 | 3 | 17 | Google’s parent company Alphabet Inc. isn’t happy with , its robotics subsidiary. According to a , Alphabet executives think that Boston Dynamics is unlikely to generate substantial revenue in the next few years and is hard to work with. Toyota or Amazon could be interested in acquiring Boston Dynamics for their manufacturing or warehouse operations. But even more interesting, internal messages at Google shows that the company itself is a bit scared by Boston Dynamics. We’ve all watched last month with mixed feelings — there was a bit of excitement, sure, but also a lot of terror. These humanoid robots can fall and stand up again like in Terminator: In December 2013, Google Boston Dynamics and a few other robotics startups. The idea was to build a robotics engineering team inside Google and make them work with Boston Dynamics on robotics projects. Since then, not much happened. With a project called Replicant, Google was supposed to ship affordable robots as quickly as possible. But leadership changes as well as clashes between robotics engineers working for Google and Boston Dynamics engineers eventually led to an inability to deliver. Google is a big company with tens of thousands of workers and these issues became apparent when meeting notes and private emails were published on an internal forum. All Google employees could see this exchange, and that’s how Bloomberg’s Brad Stone and Jack Clark got tipped this story. Someone working for Google (but probably not working on Replicant or for Boston Dynamics) sent these messages to Bloomberg. “There’s excitement from the tech press, but we’re also starting to see some negative threads about it being terrifying, ready to take humans’ jobs,” Google director of communications for Google X Courtney Hohne wrote in a private email that was later copied on this not-so-private Google forum and obtained by Bloomberg. “We don’t want to trigger a whole separate media cycle about where BD really is at Google,” she later wrote. “We’re not going to comment on this video because there’s really not a lot we can add, and we don’t want to answer most of the Qs it triggers.” Google director of robotics Aaron Edsinger said that working with Boston Dynamics was “a bit of a brick wall.” The Replicant project was reportedly shut down in December, with Google robotics engineers now working on other Google X projects. As for Boston Dynamics engineers, they’re now waiting for a new overlord. |
Automatic braking to be standard by 2022 | Kristen Hall-Geisler | 2,016 | 3 | 17 | The US (USDOT), (NHTSA) and (IIHS) announced today that by 2022, all new vehicles made by 20 manufacturers will have automatic emergency braking as standard equipment. The 20 automakers that are part of the agreement cover 99% of the US market for new vehicles. The list includes all the big names, like , , , , , and even . Automatic emergency braking, or AEB, systems use sensors, such as lidar and radar, as well as cameras to detect a crash that’s about to happen and warn the driver so they can apply the brakes. If the driver doesn’t react quickly enough, the vehicle will take over and apply the brakes all on its own in an attempt to prevent or at least mitigate the crash. Lots of automakers already include AEB as part of their advanced safety systems, such as , , and . What’s new is that the technology will be standard, not an option that can cost $1000 or more to add onto your new car. According to NHTSA, this agreement removes about three years of red tape from the regulatory process. In those three years, the IIHS predicts that 28,000 crashes and 12,000 injuries will be prevented by AEB technology. As NHTSA announced in December, the AEB system testing will be part of the agency’s 5-Star Safety Rating in 2018, so there’s incentive for automakers to jump on this bandwagon as soon as possible, beyond just, you know, saving thousands of lives. While forging an agreement between automakers and regulatory agencies without being bogged down by a formal process is unusual, it’s not unusual at all to require new safety technology in vehicles. Almost exactly two years ago, NHTSA required that all new vehicles under 10,000 pounds (which includes buses and trucks) be equipped with rear-view cameras by May 2018. And as of the 2012 model year, all passenger vehicles were required to have electronic stability control as standard equipment. |
Nextbit cancels CDMA version of Robin smartphone, issues refunds | Lucas Matney | 2,016 | 3 | 17 | After already delaying the CDMA by a few months, Nextbit has decided to cancel the production of the CDMA Robin for Verizon and Sprint networks outright, reports. The company is now refunding Kickstarter backers and offering them a 25% discount on the GSM version should they choose to get one. “We were not sufficiently doubtful of what we were told given everything we already knew from our experience at previous companies,” CEO Tom Moss reportedly said in an email to backers. “We were too optimistic, too bullish, and as a result we have to deal with our biggest fear, disappointing you, our supporters. This is bad for you, and this is bad for us.” This isn’t your typical Kickstarter-backed campaign plagued with cash issues. In 2014 Nextbit received $18 million in outside funding from some major names including Accel Partners and GV. Nextbit also raised over $1.3 million in its . The offers a unique cloud storage solution for users which “archives” less-used apps to the cloud when internal storage space is running low. |
null | Lucas Matney | 2,016 | 3 | 28 | null |
Twitter kills TweetDeck for Windows, automates log-ins for TweetDeck users | Sarah Perez | 2,016 | 3 | 17 | Twitter today that will make it easier for users who switch between its desktop application TweetDeck and its website, by no longer requiring users to log in to TweetDeck separately. That is, if users have the Twitter website open and are already logged in, they’ll be able to skip the log-in process on TweetDeck. Related to this news, Twitter says it’s also killing off its TweetDeck for Windows application. TweetDeck is still supported on Mac for the time being, as the app continues to be hosted on the . However, Windows users are now being pointed to the web version of TweetDeck instead. Twitter also reminded Windows users how to make the TweetDeck web app more accessible from their Windows PC by pinning the app to their taskbar. (To do so, you open the app in Chrome, then click says Twitter.) The company said it made the decision to abandon development on Windows so it could “better focus on enhancing your TweetDeck experience,” but it’s just as likely the Windows app simply didn’t have the traction that made it worth the time and effort. TweetDeck for Windows will be shut down on April 15th, giving its current users a little bit of time to make a transition to the web or another Twitter client. Meanwhile, the company also pointed out a number of developments it has made to TweetDeck in recent months – perhaps meaning to highlight that the Windows app shutdown doesn’t mean the company is ignoring the TweetDeck platform as a whole. Some of these new features have included things like , , new search filters for finding Vines, GIFs and Periscopes, and . The ability to bypass the log-in process on TweetDeck will work as long as you’re logged into any Twitter website, like Twitter.com or even analytics.twitter.com. And it works both going to the website from TweetDeck and vice versa, Twitter notes. The company says the change will reach all users in the “coming weeks.” The news of the TweetDeck app shutdown and log-in experience comes a of that Twitter’s new algorithmically sorted timeline has now gone live for all users by default. This is inaccurate, however. The updated timeline , and Twitter said at the time that it would roll out this “improved experience” in the weeks ahead. (Twitter users will be able to opt out, if they don’t like the improvements, you may recall.) Nothing has changed since then – this algorithmic timeline is still in the process of being rolled out in stages, meaning not all Twitter users have it yet. |
US DOT and Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs aim to create new public transit and Wi-Fi networks | Jonathan Shieber | 2,016 | 3 | 17 | The and have just announced a program called Flow that aims to create a monitoring and management system for public transportation. Sidewalk Labs, which is a subsidiary of Alphabet, has developed an analytics platform that cities can use to identify traffic-prone areas and parts of a city that are underserved by public transportation — all by using traffic patterns culled from aggregated, anonymized data. From that information the software can suggest solutions like ride-sharing, new transportation access or a rerouting of traffic to better serve the community, according to a statement. The Flow technology, which Sidewalk Labs says will help cities understand where citizens want to travel and how to transport them to those destinations more efficiently, fairly, and safely, will be rolled out at no cost in the cities that are the finalists in the . The program is also a way for Sidewalk Labs potentially to bring the current of free wi-fi and transit kiosks to cities around the country. Like the LinkNYC plan, Sidewalk Labs sees a network of kiosks that provide valuable data on a city’s real-time environment. In the company’s vision, the kiosks would enable wireless internet access to those who don’t have it, and will be able to sense traffic patterns’ route drivers to available parking; and give cities a way to change traffic patterns on the fly to adjust to the realities on roads at a given time. In time, that technology could enable the routing and movement of autonomous vehicles through cities. Beyond traffic, these sensing hubs could collect data on air quality, weather, and even foot traffic patterns in an area. “Empowering disadvantaged communities to take advantage of technology and innovation is a key component of the Smart City Challenge,” said Secretary Anthony Foxx, in a statement. “By embracing smart technologies and concepts that eliminate the digital divide, strengthen connections to jobs and remove physical barriers to access, we can strengthen communities throughout the country. Our partnership with Sidewalk Labs will help cities engage citizens, improve access to mobility and help cities manage evolving transportation challenges.” In a press release, Sidewalk Labs chief executive, Dan Doctoroff, called unequal transportation a barrier to social mobility. “The answer can’t be to build more roads when we are struggling to maintain the ones we have,” said Doctoroff. “That’s why we’re partnering with the 7 Smart Cities Challenge Finalists to build Flow, a transportation coordination platform.” |
Kanye West’s ‘The Life of Pablo’ is the first SaaS album | Tien Tzuo | 2,016 | 3 | 17 |
dropped a new album, . It’s not really finished yet – . In the technology industry, we would call a . That may sound like a pejorative term, but a minimum viable product is actually incredibly important. Only after it gets something out in the market can a business gather customer feedback and use this data to iterate and improve in a continuous deployment cycle. The MVP is a defining principle of cloud software development, and Kanye is applying it to his music writing process. He’s given us the first SaaS album. By updating his latest record in real-time, lots of people are complaining that Kanye is killing the whole idea of an album. Not only that, they think he’s unhinged. A half-finished product must be the result of a half-finished mind. Now, I can’t speak to Kanye’s current mental state (and I certainly can’t ), but I think he’s raising some really compelling questions about what constitutes an album in today’s world of always-on background music. In short, I think he’s turning a product into a service, and opening up a lot of interesting new content possibilities in the process. Columbia records introduced the (before that we had wax cylinders and 78s). It was intended as a finite set of tracks, arranged to deliver a cohesive narrative. While the CD took away the concept of an album “B” side, the idea of an album as object was still largely protected. The album finally started to break down in the 2000s, when CD players were replaced by the Internet, and music lovers were free to pick and choose what to download. iTunes famously charged a dollar a song, and suddenly it was all about the hits. Music may have gone digital, but it was still a collection of discrete files. Then came the streaming services, which late, great : ”Music itself is going to become like running water, or electricity.” He was right, of course (I’ve been listening to a lot of his music on Spotify lately). So what happens when a static product like an album turns into a fluid service like a music stream? All sorts of interesting things. For starters, Tidal subscribers ( ) get to watch and listen to West’s creative process in real-time. Maybe tomorrow they’ll get some new artwork, or a video, or a cover, or some instrumental tracks to remix. Kanye understands that as consumers we’re increasingly favoring access over ownership, services over products. We want these services to improve themselves over time, and we want to be able to arrange and customize them to our taste. As a result, smart entrepreneurs like Kanye are putting customers, not products, in the center of their business model. Taking a cue from Eric Ries’ , they’re shortening their product development cycle through experimentation, validated learning, and iteration. And they’re creating a virtuous feedback loop whereby customer feedback helps inform product development. By putting it out there – and making subscribers pay for it – West is successfully feeding his sales funnel without having to wait for a finished product. Instead he can tinker with his product, optimizing as part of an ongoing deployment cycle. So thanks, Kanye, for giving us the first SaaS album. |
Nintendo’s first smartphone app, a social game called Miitomo, launches in Japan | Sarah Perez | 2,016 | 3 | 17 | As Nintendo has launched its first mobile smartphone application – but it’s not a new Mario game, and the app is for now only available in Japan for the time being. Today, the company unveiled “ ,” a social app that lets users create cartoon-like avatars of themselves – like the “Miis” that Nintendo introduced with the launch of the Wii gaming console years before. Users can customize their Miis with different hairstyles, facial features, outfits, accessories and more. You then give your Mii a nickname, customize how it speaks, and choose its personality. Users can also create their Mii using a photo taken from their device’s camera. An in-game shop lets you buy more items for your Mii, like new outfits to wear. And you’ll pay for the items with Miitomo coins, which you can either earn through game play or direct purchase. However, unlike on the Wii where the Miis represent a user’s gaming profile, the Miis in the new app are more social. The app asks users “get to know you”-type questions, like “Where did you go last weekend?” or “What tv show are you watching?” or “What was your most recent purchase,” for example. After you’ve answered some questions, your Mii ventures out into the game’s world, meets up with other Miis, and exchanges answers. Yes, it’s a little weird. Like a virtual world where the questions and answers are pre-recorded, then played back. But even if the app leaves older Nintendo fans scratching their heads, it could have an appeal for younger kids as a precursor to participation on larger social networks, like Facebook. Beyond chatting, your Miis can be placed into photos, which can be customized with stamps, fonts and backgrounds then shared on social media, like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The photos can also come from your own photo library, instead of those provided in the app, if you choose. In addition to the social aspect, Miitomo includes a mini game called Miitomo Drop, where you drop your Mii into a play field then watch it bounce around as it falls towards the bottom of the screen. Here, it will land on a prize of some sort – some of which will be exclusive to this part of the application, and not sold in the game’s store. Again, to play this game, you’ll need coins or game tickets, the latter which can be won as a daily bonus. as of today on both iOS and Android, but will be released in the U.S. in the future. (Nintendo hasn’t offered a time frame.) Despite having one of the most iconic video game franchises ever, with its Mario line of games, Nintendo has held off on entering the smartphone gaming market, despite user interest. It has instead focused on developing its own consoles, like the Wii U, and the forthcoming, The new app is the first of several planned for the next 12 months, the company and . Execs have even that they’re considering Mario apps, and understand the demand, but won’t confirm any of the future apps’ details. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTFv6AT8t-8] |
The REVL Arc is a 4K smart action camera with a built-in gimbal | Fitz Tepper | 2,016 | 3 | 17 | Part of the Y Combinator Winter 2016 class, just launched a smart action camera that solves the two worst things about action cams: shaky footage and a cumbersome editing process. Developed by ex-NASA, Sikorsky and HP engineers, the REVL Arc has a built-in motorized gimbal to keep the camera’s view level with the horizon. The 4K camera is also waterproof up to 10 feet, packs Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, and has a battery that gives it 90 minutes of 4K recording time. Arc also packs built-in sensors to track altitude, speed and rotation, which are used to detect activity and help make smart recommendations about what recorded footage is best. For example, the editing algorithm can use captured telemetry data from an hour-long ski run and pull out and feature the clips where the skier was doing a jump or rail, leaving boring footage in the background. This smart editing will be done via REVL’s app, which is focused on providing quick shoot-edit-share functionality. The editing platform will also pay homage to Snapchat’s filters by letting users overlay telemetry data like altitude and speed on top of recorded video. In addition to YC, backers include Bill Tai, James Lindenbaum and Google Maps co-founder Lars Rasmussen, who have contributed a total of $2 million in seed funding. The camera is launching on Indiegogo today, and will ship in December 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=helKtdl9N6U |
Google: Defeating Go champion shows AI can ‘find solutions humans don’t see’ | Jon Russell | 2,016 | 3 | 17 | Much was written of last week when a Google-developed AI beat one of the planet’s most sophisticated players of Go, an East Asia strategy game renowned for its deep thinking and strategy. Go is viewed as one of the ultimate tests for an AI given the sheer possibilities on hand. “There are 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 possible positions [in the game] — that’s more than the number of atoms in the universe, and more than a googol times larger than chess,” . If you missed the series — — or were unsure of exactly why it was so significant, . Far from just being a game, Demis Hassabis, CEO and Co-Founder of DeepMind — the Google-owned company behind AlphaGo — said the AI’s development is proof that it can be used to solve problems in ways that humans may be not be accustomed or able to do: We’ve learned two important things from this experience. First, this test bodes well for AI’s potential in solving other problems. AlphaGo has the ability to look “globally” across a board—and find solutions that humans either have been trained not to play or would not consider. This has huge potential for using AlphaGo-like technology to find solutions that humans don’t necessarily see in other areas. Hassabis also pointed that the match-up, which was billed as man versus machine, is actually a test of man versus man because AlphaGo itself is a creation: AlphaGo is really a human achievement. [Go World Champion and AlphaGo opponent] Lee Sedol and the AlphaGo team both pushed each other toward new ideas, opportunities and solutions — and in the long run that’s something we all stand to benefit from. The DeepMind CEO paid tribute to the brilliance of Lee, who himself said that his single match victory was an important landmark, and kept his feet on the ground about the future of artificial intelligence despite the progress made. “We’re still a long way from a machine that can learn to flexibly perform the full range of intellectual tasks a human can — the hallmark of true artificial general intelligence,” Hassabis said. That sounds like it’s straight back to the grind for DeepMind now that the celebrations are over. This past week’s activities have helped shine a light and raise awareness of what’s possible, and no doubt they’ll be heightened interest in DeepMind’s future projects, regardless of whether they include games of Go. |
Bumble launches contextual filters for profile pictures, starting with the 2016 presidential election | Fitz Tepper | 2,016 | 3 | 17 | Swipe-based dating is hard work. With hundreds of potential suitors to swipe through, most of us just take a few seconds to glance at a picture and bio before we decide if we’re going to swipe left or right. So, to help users quickly make an informed decision about which way to swipe, Bumble is taking a page from Snapchat’s book and launching filters for users’ profile pictures. But instead of providing entertainment, these filters are meant to help a Bumble user convey a little extra information about themselves to other users who may only spend a few seconds before making a decision to swipe left or right. Launching this week, the first filter pack will be 2016 election themed. Users can choose overlays from all the major candidates and political parties, as well as a few funny ones like and . Since the filters are totally optional, it will be interesting to see how many users choose to align themselves with a political party or candidate, especially since politics is typically a no-go for any type of first date. With the 2016 primary cycle being particularly partisan, the new feature is bound to lead to a lot of users basing their yes or no swipes on whatever filter their match has chosen to display. Bumble also plans to use the filters to release data on which political candidates are trending with the app’s single men and women. Election filters will launch this week, and the startup has said it will launch future filters based on “furthering expression of the user and timely events”. |
Broadcaster Sky jumps into virtual reality, launches new content studio and readies VR app | Ingrid Lunden | 2,016 | 3 | 17 | — a long-time investor in — has positioned itself as a more direct content player in the VR world. Today the company — which has 21 million subscribers and is majority owned by 21st Century Fox — launched , a production unit dedicated to creating immersive video content specifically for VR devices and platforms, starting first with sports content and then tackling entertainment and news, too. Initially, Sky will upload material to third-party platforms like Facebook 360, Oculus and (soon, the company tells me) YouTube 360, which will make it viewable using headsets like Samsung’s Gear VR and the Oculus Rift. Eventually, Sky wants to develop its own app and is thinking about how to have its own wider platform to host and stream immersive VR video itself. The VR launch makes sense because it finally gives some transparency to why Sky has been investing in Jaunt. The broadcaster has been involved in every round raised by the VR hardware and software company since its seed round in 2013, and it turns out that the pair have been working together closely for the past three years. Sky uses Jaunt cameras, and the startup has been a regular consultant to Sky on how it has developed VR video. Sky’s not the only strategic VR/AR investor whose financial interest is now coming good on the product front. Earlier today, Alibaba — a in the still-stealth augmented reality and VR startup — today , which sounds more than a little like a play on Magic Leap and the cute animations it’s been releasing to tease its own products. Sky jumping into virtual reality is also logical when you consider how the company has developed its content historically. In the UK and other markets where it operates (Ireland, Germany, Austria and Italy), Sky pioneered the idea of paying large fees for rights for specific content like sports, nabbing exclusives to broadcast Premier League matches and using that to build its subscriber base. Slicing and dicing that pricey content into different kinds of video packages is one way of getting more mileage out of those assets, extending the time that a viewer spends with Sky, and giving those views more of a reason to pay for its service. “Given the access and rights that Sky has we can give a unique perspective,” a Sky spokesperson told TechCrunch. Sky is not the only broadcaster to dip its toes into VR waters. Others include Fox Sports, which recently that it will work with NextVR to produce VR content for the NCAA Big East basketball tournament. But it may be the first that thinks it can port the VR experience to a wider array of interests — thereby potentially taking VR out of the niche that it seems to be digging fast for itself around action sports and gaming. Still, the first productions from Sky VR Studio will be low-hanging fruit. They will focus on sports — specifically two car-racing videos made with Formula One and Williams Martini Racing, as well as Tour de France and boxing videos. From there, the company says it will expand to entertainment, news and more. News is an area where the company has already produced some 360-style content, specifically in a documentary profiling the migrants that are coming through Europe at the moment. It’s also still trying to find its feet in the space. “We’re exploring what works for VR and what doesn’t,” the spokesperson said. “It’s all about trying to give viewers access to something we haven’t seen before.” For now, all the content that Sky will be making in VR will be free, although if you look at the rest of Sky’s business model around video, offering free now could be laying the groundwork for charging in the future: The company’s TV services are based around a paid subscription, and , its online and mobile service, comes as a freebie for existing TV subscribers, or you pay if you are not. |
Google’s GV leads $21M Series B in bioscience firm Cambridge Epigenetix | Natasha Lomas | 2,016 | 3 | 17 | VC firm GV (née Google Ventures) has made another investment in Europe — its seventh — leading a for epigenetic sequencing tech company and Cambridge University spin-out, . The U.K.-based bioscience company makes DNA modification analysis tools for epigenetics researchers — an emerging field of study which looks at how environmental factors and other dynamic/behavioral elements can have a heritable impact, based on how they regulate gene expression rather than changing the underlying DNA. As well as GV, Cambridge Epigenetix said the Series B round entailed “significant participation” from Sequoia Capital. Current investors New Science Ventures, Syncona Partners and Cambridge University also participated. And as part of the round GV general partner Tom Hulme has joined the board. While on the surface the Cambridge Epigenetix investment might appear a little different to the handful of other investments GV has made in Europe to date — which include investing in a music licensing platform, a members-only travel startup, an email marketing business and a personalized book publisher — the firm confirmed to TechCrunch there is no repositioning of its investment strategy going on here, either in Europe or globally. “Life Science has been a large area of investment for us for the past few years globally, comprising ~30% of our investment dollars. We will continue to invest across Tech and Life Science both in Europe and the US,” said GV general partner Avid Larizadeh Duggan. In Europe, GV has previously invested in the , which is looking to back high tech business spinning out of Oxford University in the UK — based on research from the Mathematical, Physical, Life Sciences and Medical Sciences divisions. So there is also some past bioscience-related investment to point to coming out of GV’s European office specifically. For its part, GV’s financier Alphabet (né Google) has long had multiple health-focused research interests — from moonshots like its project to hack death ( ) to operating a dedicated Life Sciences division (né Google Life Sciences; now called ) which, since 2012, has worked on various bioscience/tech projects such as synthetic skin or a contact lens to track glucose levels for diabetes sufferers. Verily’s questioning mission statement is: “How can we use technology to create a true picture of human health?” The promise of epigenetics might well be an answer to that query — if it leads scientists to gain a better understanding of the impact of environmental factors such as stress, diet and toxins on long term human health. And from there you could envisage an era of meaningful quantified health tracking being ushered in — rather than the era of imperfect, and imperfectly understood, data that current wearables and sensors generate. Although, while such developments might obviously intersect with Alphabet’s bioscience data interests, GV maintains it operates independently of Google/Alphabet, making its own financially driven investment decisions despite the latter being its source of funding. Commenting on the Series B investment in , Cambridge Epigenetix’s CEO Dr Geoff Smith flagged up what he described as its new investors “unparalleled expertise in building data-driven businesses of substantial value”. And what’s better than a data-driven business? A business driven by really accurate data, of course… “We’ve seen how the commercialization of genome sequencing has created incredible opportunities to improve human health, and now the epigenome holds similar potential,” added GV’s Hulme in a supporting statement. “Cambridge Epigenetix is one of the few teams on the planet with the skills and experience to break new ground here, and we look forward to supporting them on that journey.” The investment is the first since GV restructured its European arm , switching from having a separate European fund to operating all its investments from a single global pot, while still retaining its London office and locally based partners. Even before this change investments being made by GV’s Europe office had still required sign off from the US. And suggested the prior structure led to stalled deals — as of the end of last year GV had made only six investment in Europe, despite opening its London office back in (while the global fund has made more than 300 investments in total since being founded in 2009). So switching to a pooled global fund arguably simplifies both the investment and incentivization structure for GV and its partners. But it remains to be seen whether the pace of GV’s investments in Europe will pick up from here on in. |
Alibaba is working to bring virtual reality into its e-commerce services | Jon Russell | 2,016 | 3 | 17 | Alibaba has formally thrown its hat into the virtual reality ring after the Chinese e-commerce giant announced its own VR research lab, dubbed GnomeMagic Lab. , in a deal that put Alibaba vice chairman Joe Tsai on the board, and it has tinkered with 360 degree panoramic video for Youku Tudou — the Chinese video site it invested in and — but this is its official entry into the space. Alibaba, which claims 400 million users across its services, said that GnomeMagic Lab will work with its shopping businesses with a view to integrating VR into the shopping experience while exploring other applications, such as video with Youku Tudou and entertainment via Alibaba Pictures. In a press announcement, , who is on the Alibaba’s GnomeMagic Lab team, said VR could enable customers to shop virtually on New York’s Fifth Avenue from the comfort of their own home. On a more practical level, Alibaba wants to help merchants use VR to sell on its sites, it said it has already created VR visuals for hundreds of products. That’s the plan for where Alibaba believes that VR is going, or could go, in the longer term. For now, the company is setting up a store dedicated to VR hardware to help companies tap into its vast audience. VR is the hot topic of the moment, and it’s more a case of which tech companies aren’t getting into it. Samsung has already shipped a headset. Facebook bought Occulus, which is and . and . On the content side, Facebook, YouTube and — today — themselves up to the virtual future. |
Sources: India’s Flipkart in talks to raise up to $1B, likely in a down round | Pankaj Mishra | 2,016 | 3 | 10 | After years of raising hundreds of millions of dollars to tap into the burgeoning e-commerce market in India, one of the country’s biggest tech companies is facing a markdown in its valuation as it aims to pick up yet more investment. TechCrunch has learned from sources that is looking to raise up to $1 billion in funding to grow its business and shore up against competition from local rival Snapdeal and global giant Amazon. But those efforts are coming at a price. at over $15 billion when it raised $700 million last year, Flipkart is now facing a down round, with some investors willing to put more money into the company, but at a valuation below $15 billion. “The funding is now delayed and should take another 3-4 months. A down round is certain,” said a source. According to our sources, one potential investor is Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba. The company — already a backer of rival Snapdeal — reportedly met with Flipkart management in Hong Kong to discuss investing at less than $10 billion. Other sources say a round would not be this low, and more likely in the range of $11 billion to $14 billion. Alibaba’s alleged interest in Flipkart has been reported . Another investor that has been eyeing up a stake in Flipkart is the , sometimes referred to as the Berkshire Hathaway of China. It’s not clear what valuation Fosun has discussed with Flipkart. Neither company responded to requests for comment in connection with this story, and Flipkart declined to comment. Coincidentally, Alibaba this week a $3 billion loan, which could point to the company making more investments or acquisitions in the near future. Flipkart it has 46 million users and lists some 30 million products on its platform, making it one of the biggest e-commerce companies in India. Its other claim to fame is that it was the first e-commerce startup in India to reach a $1 billion valuation, as recently as 2014 — a marker of how rapidly investors’ estimation of the company has ratcheted up. But there are also challenges. One issue for Flipkart — which has raised over $3 billion to date — has been that some existing investors have revised their valuations of the e-commerce giant. In February, it that Morgan Stanley in the company, valuing it at $58.9 million. This was 27 percent below the price of its last valuation, giving the whole of Flipkart an implied valuation of . The company has also been through a management shakeup. One of the most significant changes is that , Flipkart changed CEOs, with co-founder Sachin Bansal stepping down and Binny Bansal, the other co-founder (the two are not related), taking over. Sachin is the company’s executive chairman. Another issue may be that the company is finding it a challenge to meet internal targets. A report in Indian financial publication noted that the company had set a goal back in 2014 for annualized gross merchandise value (the total value of goods sold on its platform) of $8 billion, but current annualized GMV figures are at around $5 billion. On top of this are the margins that e-commerce companies in India are playing with. The competition in the market has led to a costly price war between Flipkart and its rivals, for example around . Armed for more marketing and growth, Snapdeal has raised less money than its local rival — around $1.5 billion to date. But Flipkart is also staring at another huge competitor from the global arena. Much has been written about how Amazon is intent on conquering India, which it believes longer term could be its second most-important market after the U.S. according to of Amazon’s India operation. Amazon has been building up not just its brand in the country but its infrastructure. As part of this it and is working on a digital wallet initiative. This is, incidentally, another area where Amazon is facing local players. is also in the process of fundraising right now, and some have even suggested that Paytm and Flipkart merge to stand taller. There is an undeniable amount of potential in India, a market approaching 1.3 billion people where eMarketer projects e-commerce will be worth $55 billion by 2018, up from $14 billion in 2015. But with investor appetite cooling a little on overheated valuations, the pressure is on for highly capitalised businesses to tighten up their operations for the next phase of growth. That’s a trend impacting others beyond e-commerce marketplaces, too. Ola ; and Zomato also last autumn. |
Ending patent wars will be a huge boon to the tech industry | Vivek Wadhwa | 2,016 | 3 | 10 |
Earlier this month, Apple suffered an important in its battle over patents with Samsung. It’s good because Apple’s claims were frivolous; its patents were questionable; and its use of litigation to hold back a competitor set another wrong precedent for the industry. Because of these patent wars and patent trolls, technology companies are divesting huge resources to defend themselves rather than advancing their innovations. This is the equivalent of nuclear arms race and is a lose-lose situation. Apple and Samsung have over patents for . In the in 2014, a jury ordered Samsung to pay Apple $119.6 million in damages for infringing on three Apple patents. These weren’t game changing innovations; they were simple and common smartphone features. One patent described how to turn a phone number into a link that could be clicked on, another protected the “slide to unlock” feature, and another was a slightly different way of autocorrecting spellings. A three-judge appeals panel agreed with Samsung that there was substantial prior art for the first two patents and these should never have been granted. They also concluded that Samsung didn’t infringe on Apple’s autocorrect patent. If reason prevails, this ruling will stop the smartphone patent wars. What’s best for innovation is a thriving ecosystem in which companies build on each other’s ideas and constantly reinvent themselves—instead of trying to slow each other down in the courts. It’s bad enough when big companies with deep pockets battle each other, but for young companies, lawsuits can be fatal. Fledgling innovators have to live in constant fear of a big player orpatent troll pulling out a big gun and bankrupting them. For startups, this is a greater concern than someone stealing their ideas. This begs a bigger question: do we even need patents in an era in which technology is advancing so rapidly that it makes entire computing platforms obsolete in less time than it takes to be awarded a patent? My colleague, Stanford Law School professor Mark Lemley says that when used correctly, patents can be valuable because they generate real technology transfer. But patent litigation, such as what Apple resorted to, rarely does the world any good. “In this case, they’ve spent years, countless court resources, and literally over one billion dollars in attorney and expert fees to produce a net fee award of $158,400—and ironically, this went to Samsung,” Lemley says. He notes that in an earlier case, Apple won a significant amount of money that it may or may not get to keep depending on what the Supreme Court rules. “Other than that, not much has changed as a result of the lawsuit”, he concludes. In a new paper, “ ”, that Lemley co-authored with Robin Feldman of University of California Hastings, the key finding was that patents are only useful when they deliver innovation to consumers that they would not otherwise get. This happens in the pharmaceutical industry when a company is allowed to exclude competitors for a fixed period of time to recoup its sizable investment in research. Value is also created when a university transfers know-how along with a patent and when an infringer copies from the patent owner. However, if a patent isn’t helping innovation get to consumers, it is not helping society. Lemley and Feldman found that that patent litigation and licensing demands for existing patents only happen after the defendant has developed and implemented the technology, particularly when patent trolls are involved. And they cite several studies which show that patent trolls now account for the majority of patent lawsuits that are filed. This means that other than through university technology transfer, hardly any innovation is being created by technology patents. Therefore, it may be best to abolish them, particularly —which have long been up the patent office. Universities are very defensive about patents; they argue that they need these to protect their ideas and inventions. This may be true, but it leads to yet another question: should universities be profiting from license revenue obtained from research that was publicly funded? Regardless of the answer, for the larger cause of innovation, it is clear that patents are not fulfilling the purpose for which they were intended. The often-cited defense ofpatents, that patent rights encourage inventions that would not otherwise occur, is no longer grounded in reality. Patents were created by the founders of the United States for a purpose: “to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.” These notions, and the concepts behind them were very important when technology moved very slowly and required the types of investment and protection that medical discoveries and pharmaceuticals do. There may be rare instances where unique software algorithms need protection. But all of this can be achieved through copyright laws and trade secrets. In this era of exponentially advancing technologies, the only protections that really matter are speed to market and technological obsolescence. The underlying technologies are changing so fast, that by a time a patent is filed, it loses its innovation value. |
Apple and the Justice Department enter the ‘open hostilities’ phase of iPhone unlocking case | Lucas Matney | 2,016 | 3 | 10 | A 43-page rebuttal from the Justice Department today characterized Apple’s earlier response to an iPhone unlocking request as “corrosive.” Shortly thereafter, an Apple press conference attended by TechCrunch provided a rejoinder from two Apple executives, including General Counsel Bruce Sewell, who said that “the tone of the brief reads like an indictment.” For background, don’t forget to dive into our and our . The Department of Justice released a 43-page document that alleges, among other things, that Apple has engaged in “false,” “corrosive” rhetoric regarding the case. Apple’s rhetoric is not only false, but also corrosive of the very institutions that are best able to safeguard our liberty and our rights: the courts, the Fourth Amendment, longstanding precedent and venerable laws, and the democratically elected branches of government. The documents, made available by , frame a portrait of Apple misrepresenting the situation through “diversion” to make the conversation about encryption on a grand scale rather than the one device the government is saying it needs access to. Apple and its amici try to alarm this Court with issues of network security, encryption, back doors, and privacy, invoking larger debates before Congress and in the news media. That is a diversion. Apple desperately wants—desperately needs—this case not to be “about one isolated iPhone.” The government’s document ultimately recommended that the Court deny Apple’s motion and Apple, of course, disagrees. Sewell delivered an on-the-record statement in the wake of the DoJ filing to reporters today which came out swinging. “The tone of the brief reads like an indictment. We’ve all heard director Comey and Attorney General Lynch thank Apple for its consistent help in working with law enforcement. Director Comey’s own statement, that there are no demons here? We certainly wouldn’t conclude it from this brief,” said Sewell. “In 30 years of practice, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a legal brief that was more intended to smear the other side with false accusations and innuendo, and less intended to focus on the real merits of the case. “For the first time ever, we see an allegation that Apple has deliberately made changes to block law enforcement requests for access. This should be deeply offensive to everyone that reads it. An unsupported, unsubstantiated effort to vilify Apple rather than confront the issues in the case.” “To do this in a brief before a magistrate judge just shows the desperation that the Department of Justice now feels,” Sewell continued. “We would never respond in kind, but imagine Apple asking a court whether the FBI could be trusted because, there is a real question about whether J. Edgar Hoover ordered the assassination of Kennedy, see ConspiracyTheory.com as our supporting evidence,” Sewell added, in a statement that he later clarified as meant to be humorous, in an incredulous way. “We add security features to protect our customers from hackers and criminals, and the FBI should be helping to support us in this because it keeps everyone safe. To suggest otherwise is demeaning. It cheapens the debate and it tries to mask the real and serious issues. I can only conclude the DoJ is so desperate at this point that it has thrown all decorum to the wind,” continued Sewell. “Look, we know there are great people in the DoJ and the FBI. We work shoulder-to-shoulder with them all the time. That’s why this cheap shot brief surprises us so much — we help when we’re asked to. We’re honest about what we can and can’t do. Let’s at least treat one another with respect and get this case before the American people in a responsible way. We are going to court to exercise our legal rights. Everyone should beware, because it seems like disagreeing with the Department of Justice means you must be evil and anti-American. Nothing could be further from the truth.” There are some other interesting particulars to pull out of these sorties. First, Apple notes that the DoJ filing is attempting to reframe the resetting of the iCloud password as intentional. Note that this is something that has already been as a mistake. Doing so removed avenues of investigation that the FBI could have taken without having to force Apple to unlock the device. This reframing is a sort of “ ” that the DoJ could be attempting in order to downplay its culpability in the matter, thereby weakening its case in the courts. Second, the DoJ filing is clearly attempting to attack the wording and positioning Apple has taken in its opposition, rather than its technical or policy-based underpinnings. This is one tactic, to be sure, but it seems like a fairly brittle one when put to any torsion in the courts. While the battle has been one of public opinion, focusing primarily on the way Apple chooses to say what it wants to say, rather than what it is saying, could come back to bite the DoJ here. And even after statements that Apple’s arguments are about the wider issues of encryption, the DoJ goes on to that it could move to force Apple to hand over signing keys to its core software — the atomic war option when it comes to user privacy, essentially ending whatever security any private citizen with an iPhone has when it comes to expectations of privacy. Any iPhone would then be at the whims of the DoJ’s desire to access it and its ability to utilize the same broad All Writs Act applications it used with Apple to peek wherever it wanted. Lastly, an Apple lawyer made it clear on the call that Apple only stores data from Chinese customers on its servers in China — and that this data is completely encrypted. “Apple appears to have made special accommodations in China as well: for example, moving Chinese user data to Chinese government servers, and installing a different WiFi protocol for Chinese iPhones,” reads the DoJ document. But that encrypted data is subject to a similar information request structure as that to which Apple has already complied in many occasions in the US. The DoJ is drawing a false equivalence here between lawful data requests and its current request of Apple in this case: that it intentionally that cripples the security of its devices. The war only gets louder and more accusatory on both sides, but we’re at the stage where it is getting beneficial for both sides to attack the manner in which the rebuttals are being delivered — their character — rather than the substance of those rebuttals — their content. Apple is scheduled to appear later this month before the judge and says it will file a response to today’s DoJ brief by the deadline, March 14th. |
Watch how easy it is for someone to hack your iPhone | Katie Roof | 2,016 | 3 | 10 | With all the hoopla surrounding the , it may surprise you how easy it is to hack into an iPhone. In this video, CEO Adi Sharabani demonstrated how simple it was to access my device. He also offered some tips for keeping your smartphone secure. |
New law changes the liquidity game for tech company founders, workers and investors | Josh Maher | 2,016 | 3 | 10 |
Late last year, Congress passed legislation that substantially improved the legal landscape for startups, early-stage companies and the stakeholders in the ecosystem. You might have read about, for example, Congress making permanent the 100 percent tax exclusion for sales of qualified small business stock held for more than five years (up to $10 million). This is great news for company founders, workers and investors. But there was another significant legislative improvement that hasn’t been as widely written about: Already effective, the new law, Section 4(a)(7) of the Securities Act of 1933, makes it substantially easier for stockholders, such as early employees, investors and consultants, to sell their stock. If you are not already aware, every private sale of stock needs to either be “registered” with securities regulatory agencies (which is super expensive) or be “exempt” (in other words, excused) from registration. Prior to this new law, the exemptions available to stockholders were subject to a range of limitations, restrictions and requirements, making resales of private company stock difficult and infrequent. The new Section 4(a)(7) provides a much easier exemption to access, and empowers early stockholders to get liquidity for compensation that’s been paid to them in stock or stock options. Access to this previously illiquid asset has prevented early stockholders from financing the purchase of a new home or the education of their children. With new rules that enable more liquidity, the options for early stockholders are improved dramatically; however, there are still requirements that must be met before you can run out and sell some of your shares. Early employees, consultants and investors need to keep these requirements in mind when making decisions to work with or invest in a company to make sure they’ll be able to exercise their sale rights. The new exemption is designed to simplify private sales of stock in privately held companies to accredited investors. Provided the transaction meets basic requirements, such as the company is a going concern and the buyer isn’t a broker buying for the purpose of distributing the shares, you can sell shares under this new exemption as long as: That last one requires a little more explanation. The buyer isn’t required to obtain all the relevant information, but they must be able to obtain it if they want it. Relevant information includes things that are easy to collect, such as the nature of the business, products and services and the names of its officers and directors, or, if the seller has control over the company, a statement about that affiliation is needed. It also includes information that may be more difficult to come by, such as the most recent GAAP- or IFRS-compliant balance sheet and profit and loss statements for up to two prior years. As a seller, you’ll need the cooperation of the company to acquire the balance sheet or profit and loss statements. All the other resale exemptions are still in place and still available to use. If you aren’t familiar with the law regarding the resale of securities, in general, a security cannot be offered for sale or sold unless it is registered with the SEC or state securities authorities, or an exemption from registration is available. The new exemption provided by Section 4(a)(7) is non-exclusive. It also doesn’t supersede or undo the Section 4(a)(1½) exemption or any other pre-existing exemptions on resales. There are a number of exemptions for resales of securities. The problem is they all contain limitations that make them impractical for private company stock resales. For example, Section 4(a)(1) allows resales of non-restricted securities by a person other than an issuer (the company), underwriter or dealer. This is the exemption that allows you to resell a security you bought in a registered public offering. The trouble with 4(a)(1) is that the definition of “underwriter” is broadly defined to include any person who purchases a security from an issuer or affiliate of an issuer with a view to or in connection with a distribution. And then the term “distribution” is broadly defined, as well. These broad and uncertain definitions limit the ability to resell restricted securities. The 4(a)(1) exemption also does not preempt state law, whereas the new Section 4(a)(7) does (see below). There are also resale exemptions under Rule 144 and Rule 144A, and there is the 4(a)(1½) exemption. But again, the trouble with all of these resale exemptions is they aren’t easily and readily available. The new Section 4(a)(7) exemption is a substantial improvement in the law. The largest problem with the other resale laws is the lack of an easy way for stockholders who also control the company to sell shares. Affiliates, or persons who control an issuer, are subject to stricter scrutiny than investors under the Securities Act of 1933. In theory, a company could issue stock to its founders, who could then sell the stock without registering it and use some or all of the proceeds to fund the company, bypassing all of the regulation in place for companies to sell stock to investors. To avoid this potential loophole, Section 4(a)(1) is not available to affiliates. Section 4(a)(2) is also closed to affiliates who may want to conduct a private placement. That section is reserved for the company itself. Since the law’s inception in 1933, there has been no statutory exemption for resales of restricted stock for an affiliate of the issuer. In a series of court cases over the years, judges crafted an extra-statutory exemption that has been aptly named Section 4(a)(1½) to allow affiliates in certain circumstances to conduct what amounts to a private placement so they could resell some of their stock. Without a clear method of determining who is and who isn’t a control person, the previous exemptions limit many stockholders from being able to resell shares at all. In trying to address the problem left by the original drafters, Congress was aware it couldn’t create a safe-harbor defining who is and who isn’t an affiliate. A clear definition like that would open the loophole the statute so desperately seeks to avoid. That leaves a bunch of folks in a difficult situation. Large stockholders such as founders, venture capital firms or directors and officers of the company all might be persons who can control what the company does. In the situation where a person might be an affiliate, but really isn’t, things get tricky. Persons who may or may not be affiliates desperately need a safe way to get some liquidity if there are potential purchasers out there. If these potential purchasers are accredited investors, the law has long reasoned they can take care of themselves and bear the risks of buying unregistered shares in startup companies. The potential purchasers need to know a few things about the company, as discussed above. The one thing they need to know specifically about the seller is whether or not the seller is an affiliate. Section 4(a)(7) states: “To the extent that the seller is a control person with respect to the issuer, [they shall include] a brief statement regarding the nature of the affiliation, and a statement certified by such seller that they have no reasonable grounds to believe that the issuer is in violation of the securities laws or regulations.” This is an elegant and powerful provision. Instead of keeping the loophole closed and placing a burden on large stockholders, directors and officers, Congress has given them the option to resell shares under this new exemption. They’ve paved a clear path for sellers to certify they’re not helping the issuer exploit a loophole to sell stock in a private placement that should have been registered. For all the honest folks who seek some liquidity, this is an easy statement to certify. For the crooks out there, should they falsely certify to a clean slate, the SEC will have grounds to enforce the law against both the seller and the company. In theory, the purchaser will also have the ability to sue the seller and the company, but that will be costly. But then again, they are an accredited investor and presumed to be able to take care of themselves. A great thing about the new Section 4(a)(7) exemption is that securities sold pursuant to the exemption are “covered securities,” thereby preempting state law registration requirements. You might be aware that securities sold by companies in Rule 506 offerings (almost all angel and venture capital financings are Rule 506 offerings) are also “covered securities.” This is why in an angel or venture financing, you don’t have to obtain pre-approval from state securities regulators before you can raise money from angels and VCs. For tech workers at startups with a portion of their compensation locked up in private, illiquid stock, the new rules are effective today. If you have an interest in selling a portion of your holdings, you could sell stock today under this new exemption. Here are some recommendations on how to get started: If you’re just starting with a new company, look for restrictions on transfers or sales of stock that are included as a part of your compensation package. Speak with the company about the potential for resales and how the company may or may not be willing to support you in a resale transaction. For investors with investments in privately held companies, you will want a covenant that the company will provide the information you need, such as the financial statements, so that you can use the exemption. In addition, the general restrictions on transfers found in most securities purchase agreements can now be amended to allow resales pursuant to the new Section 4(a)(7) exemption. For founders or executives at privately held companies, now is a good time to consider your policy around resales. Many tech workers and investors are looking at these transactions as a means to access a portion of the value they’ve helped create in your company. In the widely covered resale transaction architected by Twitter in 2011, employees sold only a portion of their shares, holding the majority for the eventual exit. At the same time, $400 million worth of value was unlocked for early stockholders, enabling those employees, consultants and investors to use a portion of the value created in the company while still contributing significantly to the eventual IPO. |
HPE’s Haven OnDemand developer platform hits commercial availability | Frederic Lardinois | 2,016 | 3 | 10 | Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s machine learning-centric developer platform has been around since late 2014, but it’s only coming out of beta and becoming commercially available today. Haven OnDemand, which is , provides developers with APIs and services for building data-rich applications. The currently included in the service include features like sentiment analysis, speech recognition services, trend analysis and text classification services. Haven also includes a prediction and recommendation API that developers can train for their specific use cases. The service also includes an image recognition feature, but it’s still rather rudimentary for now and only recognizes a set of corporate logos in images. The company tells me it plans to invest more in this area going forward, though. As Colin Mahony, the company’s senior VP and general manager for HPE Big Data, told me, the company is targeting both enterprise developers and startups with this service. HPE wants to give them a flexible platform that can grow with them as their needs scale up. “Developers are good at what they do, but they are not statisticians and mathematicians,” he told me. “They want us to take a lot of the statistics, heuristics, and machine learning, and build it into things that do advanced text analytics, or basic format conversion, facial detection, etc.” Now that it is commercially available, Haven OnDemand will offer a free tier that limits the number of API calls and storage developers can use. start at $10 per month. For the first three months, HPE is also offering an additional 50,000 API units (which roughly equate to API calls) for all paying users. The company says 12,750 developers registered for the service since 2014 and they currently generate “millions of API calls per week.” This has allowed HPE to fine tune its service to the point where it is now confident that it can offer SLA agreements to enterprises. To show off the power of the platform, HPE also offers enterprises a search platform ( ) that uses Haven’s APIs. |
Fred Wilson to rep New York at Disrupt NY in May | Jordan Crook | 2,016 | 3 | 10 | Fred Wilson is a name that needs no introduction, but we’re going to do it anyway. TechCrunch is excited to announce that Fred Wilson will be speaking at TechCrunch Disrupt New York, which goes down May 9 through May 11, in a fireside chat. Fred is a veteran at TechCrunch Disrupt New York, which makes sense given his contribution to the growth of the New York tech scene over the past 20 years. Starting out as an associate at Euclid Partners, Fred has gone on to start Flatiron Ventures and Union Square Ventures, where he is currently founder and managing partner. His investments include Twitter, Foursquare, Zynga, Etsy, Disqus, and many more. He sits on the boards of a number of companies, including DonorsChoose, Kik and Etsy. Though Fred’s resume speaks for itself, that doesn’t stop him from approaching on-stage discussions with brute honesty. He isn’t afraid to tell startups what will and won’t work. In fact, as a Battlefield Finals Judge at Disrupt 2014, Fred told Battlefield winner Vurb: “Your problem is a bitch. You won’t solve it and it will kill you.” How’s that for blunt? There’s always a lesson to be learned from Fred, and those of us who read his know there is plenty of wisdom to be garnered from listening to what he has to say. We’re more than thrilled to see what Fred has in store for us this year — he promised to make sure it’s “not the traditional VC stuff” — and we hope you can join us to see him speak. |
My Uber driver apparently moonlights as an underground electronics dealer | Fitz Tepper | 2,016 | 3 | 10 | Have you ever been riding in an Uber and become suddenly overtaken by the immediate need for a new Android tablet or a ? Yeah, me neither. But that did’t stop an enterprising Uber driver from peddling his wares to me during a recent ride. I was presented with a laminated sales sheet for multiple electronics ranging from a refurbished iPhone to an electronic guitar. And the best part? I could even get these electronics delivered at a later date. For free! I am of two minds about this. On one hand, there is definitely potential in monetizing the backseat experience in Uber and Lyft rides, just as for the last decade. On the other hand, Uber and Lyft, please just start paying your drivers a living wage. |
Wikipedia’s new iOS app focuses on discovery, personalization | Sarah Perez | 2,016 | 3 | 10 | Wikipedia today launched an upgraded version of aimed at helping users better discover content matching their own interests, including both articles and images. In addition, the app has been optimized for Apple’s newer OS and latest iPhones (6s and 6s Plus) with support for 3D Touch and Spotlight Search integrations. This is the latest in a series of efforts from the organization to make its mobile application something users turn to for more than everyday fact-checking purposes. In the past, those efforts have included the rollout of more utilitarian features like as well as an experiment with ,” which were added last year. (That feature is still supported, but has been made less prominent. You now have to select text to “share a fact.”) In the latest , Wikipedia focuses more heavily on finding interesting things to read and personalization. That is, it presents users with a new “Explore” feed that showcases a combination of the top read articles, the featured article and featured picture of the day, random articles, and nearby articles, in addition to those recommended based on how you’ve been using the app previously. These latter suggestions will be related to what you read on the app, the organization says. In addition, the update includes support for navigating using multi-touch gestures (including swipe, tap and 3D Touch), as well as 3D Touch from the app’s icon on the homescreen. This will let you open search, read a random article, see nearby articles, or continue reading your latest. Another iOS-specific feature, Handoff, is now supported in this release, too. [gallery ids="1289507,1289508,1289509,1289510,1289511"] Finally, a feature that you save articles to read later, which are also available offline, arrived along with improvements to image galleries and tools to more easily share articles via social media or email. The extent any of these changes – or those in the past – are having on Wikipedia’s traction on iOS is less certain. The app remains top-ranked in the “Reference” category on the App Store, where it’s usually in the top 15 or 20 (Though, lately it dropped a bit to the 30’s.) However, it’s certainly not one of the most popular “Overall” apps on the iPhone, despite its brand-name awareness. The problem is that many people don’t think of Wikipedia as a place they want to explore, but rather a place to look something up. And the fact that its web content has been surfaced through Apple’s Spotlight Search since iOS 8 likely satisfies most in need of a quick fact check. Wikipedia is still trying to find the sweet spot in terms of making its iOS app something that would be more regularly launched, but it’s not a certainty that simply rolling out a better “explore” feed will do the trick. That said, the app is well-designed and highly polished, and worth the download for those who would rather learn something in their free time rather than goof off on Snapchat or Vine. The updated Wikipedia app is . [vimeo 157765895 w=500 h=889] from on . |
Yext sees $88.8 million revenue, 48% growth for location data | Katie Roof | 2,016 | 3 | 10 | Yext recently added Google to its PowerListings network, which means that clients can update their Google Search and Maps listings in real time. Yext can now update location data across 100 maps, apps, search engines and directories, including Apple, Facebook, Bing and Yahoo. Yext says it powers the data for more than 600,000 locations worldwide. Clients include Citibank, FedEx and Sunglass Hut. “What Salesforce is for customer data, Yext is for location data,” CEO Howard Lerman tells TechCrunch. “Yext is the system of record for location.” While the company is not yet profitable, Yext says they have been re-investing in growth, ahead of what is likely to be an eventual IPO. “We will go when the time is right,” says Lerman. “The business is performing extremely well,” says Deven Parekh, managing director at Insight Venture Partners. “We’re still early in the evolution of the market we’re in.” Yext also saw its workforce grow by 38 percent, to 455 employees last year. The company is headquartered at 1 Madison Avenue, by New York’s Madison Square Park. |
Apple sends out invites for March 21 event, likely for new iPad and smaller iPhone | Romain Dillet | 2,016 | 3 | 10 | Apple has just issued invites for its next press event on the Apple Campus in Cupertino. The event is going to happen on March 21. As usual, Apple wrote a cryptic message on its invites — “Let us loop you in.” The event has been rumored for weeks, and we already expect a few things. Rumor has it that Apple has been working on . This iPhone should feature a 4-inch display like the one in the iPhone 5s, but with an updated chip and camera. It’s unclear if it’s going to be called the iPhone 5se (for “special edition”), the iPhone SE or something else. Updates for the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus are unlikely. Next up, we have the iPad Air. Last Fall, Apple updated and unveiled . There was no word on the iPad Air. It looks like the company needed more time to work on a new 9.7-inch tablet. But there’s a twist. The new iPad should work with the Apple Pencil and feature a smart connector to work with a keyboard cover. Think about it as a smaller iPad Pro more than an iPad Air 3. And then, there’s the Apple Watch. “Let us loop you in” could mean something about the Apple Watch. But according to our own Matthew Panzarino, just yet. Instead, Apple could announce new bands and partnerships with fashion companies. What else? We’ll have to wait and see. The good news is that TechCrunch is going to have a team on the ground to cover the event. Apple usually holds events on Tuesdays, but March 21 is on a Monday. The reason why it’s on a Monday this time is that Apple will be at its regarding the case on March 22. |
On-demand massage startup Soothe raises $35 million | Megan Rose Dickey | 2,016 | 3 | 10 | , the on-demand massage service, just closed a $35 million Series B round from its pre-existing investors. This brings its total funding to $47.7 million. This puts Soothe even further ahead of its main competitor, Zeel, which has raised roughly $13.2 million to date. In September, . Soothe says the funding is for expanding into 20 additional markets by the end of this year. In the last three months, Soothe has seen 23-30 percent growth in month-over-month revenue, the company’s founder and CEO Merlin Kauffman told me about a month ago. He went on to say that Soothe has a lot of runway and that its current investors simply wanted to grow more aggressively. Soothe currently operates in 22 cities and recently launched in London. The company started in Los Angeles, but New York is its fastest growing market and is expected to surpass Los Angeles, Kauffman said. Soothe has a network of more than 3,000 massage therapists who are independent contractors. That means they have to bring their own tables, sheets and oils, and carry their own insurance. Through Soothe, therapists make about $70 an hour, which the company says is more than the industry standard. A standard massage ranges anywhere from $99 for one hour to $169 for two hours. |
UK surveillance powers bill could force startups to bake in backdoors | Natasha Lomas | 2,016 | 3 | 10 | While the court battle has drawn all eyes to the question of what should be considered ‘reasonable assistance’ for companies to provide law enforcement agencies, over in the UK the government is attempting to enshrine in law surveillance capabilities that would enable state agencies to compel even very small startups to bake insecurities into their systems in order to be able to hack users on demand. And the kicker is there would be no chance for companies compelled to do this to go public with the request — as Apple has done in the FBI instance — or even for them to be upfront with their users that they are being forced to compromise their privacy. The proposed legislation would require non-disclosure of any such state-enforced actions that companies are compelled to take. “Any person to whom a technical capability notice is given, or any person employed or engaged for the purposes of that person’s business, is under a duty not to disclose the existence and contents of that notice to any person,” a on the proposed investigatory power notes. The draft legislation is currently before parliament so is not yet law. However it is the government’s intention to drive the through parliament and onto the statute books by the end of this year, when other data retention powers are due to be sunsetted — leaving only a very short time frame for parliamentarians to scrutinize what is a highly complex and technical piece of legislation that extends to more than 250 pages, with a substantial clutch of attendant documents — including multiple highly detailed Codes of Practice for the various powers set out in the bill. In a (EQ), published earlier this month at the same time as the full bill, a section dryly entitled notes that communication service providers (CSPs) may be required to “provide a technical capability to give effect to interception, equipment interference, bulk acquisition warrants or communications data acquisition authorisations”. To be clear, CSPs means any Internet or phone company. So technology startups fall squarely into this bucket. “The purpose of maintaining a technical capability is to ensure that, when a warrant is served, companies can give effect to it securely and quickly,” the EQ Code of Practice adds. “Small companies (with under 10,000 users) will not be obligated to provide a permanent technical capability, although they may be obligated to give effect to a warrant.” So, in plain English, the provision provides for sweeping state powers to co-opt all but the tiniest of startups and technology platforms as surveillance entities — and does so with a power to compel them to pre-bake weaknesses into their systems on-demand. Surely, then, the very definition of a ‘backdoor’, despite earlier the legislation is not asking for backdoors (or demanding encryption keys). Of course state agencies would not need to ask for encryption keys if the law requires companies to have already perforated their security systems in order to afford the same agencies access to customer data on demand and in secret. https://twitter.com/e3i5/status/707853822652190721 “Hacking powers have been broadened,” says Eric King, deputy director of humans rights group , discussing the version of the bill now before parliament. “ICRs [Internet Connection Records — aka web browsing records on all users that ISPs would be forced to retain for a year] have been broadened. “Issues around how they can force companies to hack have been explicitly confirmed now. But only now — robbing previous committees from being able to consider them and robbing companies and NGOs from being able to respond in a timely manner to those sorts of concerns.” An earlier version of the bill was looked at by three government committees, all of which expressed substantial concerns — including the for lacking clarity and for failing to enshrine privacy protections or provide adequately targeted surveillance measures. King says the overwhelmingly majority of the changes the government has made to the draft legislation in response to the committee reports are “cosmetic”. “In some circumstances, when undertaking a clarification, they’ve actually expanded the authority in the bill — so this seems to have been an exercise in ‘keep vague’, at an early stage, have a whole host of academics, NGOs, companies raise concerns about that lack of clarity, but keep it vague so that only at the very last minute — i.e. now — will they actually clarify those 200-odd issues. But they clarify each and every one of them in a way that confirms the worst fears of the lack of clarity expressed earlier,” he tells TechCrunch. On EQ (aka state-compelled hacking of devices/systems), King says the sheer scale of the proposals are staggering — noting that the bill now affords domestic law enforcement, as well as security agencies, access to hugely intrusive capabilities to hack into systems. “They built in systems that would force companies who have more than 10,000 users — which for a startup ten years ago used to be a hard thing, now you can quite quickly collect 10,000 users no problem — so it’s a very low threshold. They can serve a permanent notice to require you to bake into your product a technical capability that would allow you to then hack any one of your customers,” he says. “And when law enforcement then later come along and say we want you to hack this customer, they’ve already forced the company to build the system to do that. So this essentially gets around the problem that’s being faced in the US with Apple and the FBI, where Apple built the security in and now the FBI are saying we want you to undo that. “Here Britain’s taking a different approach — they’re saying, right from this point onwards we’re going to start ordering companies to build in this capability to hack your systems so that we never have to have this problem. But unlike in the US where Apple are able to openly discuss this, in all of the circumstances in the UK these companies would be gagged from talking about it. They’d be prohibited from going to the press, from informing their users, from having an open court hearing where the press could report.” “It is the worst form of a backdoor,” adds King. “It is a secret power to force companies to build all manner of backdoors to all sorts of systems to intrude directly onto a product or service that you are using or have bought. And it would tie the companies into being complicit into actively attacking their users. “So rather than a backdoor that’s provided that then governments exclusively use, this is roping in the companies and deputizing them and even paying for their staff — there’s powers in the Code to remunerate businesses who have to hire new staff or build new technologies to ensure that they can hack their customers.” King also asserts that older and encryption/decryption powers in extant UK legislation (the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000) have not been adjusted, changed or integrated into the new bill — despite government claims the IP bill would seek to gather all investigatory powers into one place to provide for a clear and transparent framework for the operation of state investigatory capabilities. “The powers will continue to stand alone outside of this bill and all of the issues dealing with encryption that we’re talking about are new powers, new capabilities, new ways to force companies to undermine, weaken, backdoor their architecture, their systems — including the removal of encryption systems,” he adds. “It’s a semantic game that’s being played here, about what constitutes weakening, what constitutes backdooring, that the government is still playing hard and fast on in the hope that, essentially, a big lie sticks.” https://twitter.com/e3i5/status/707853398788476928 TechCrunch has contacted the UK Home Office asking for clarification on the Investigatory Powers bill’s position vis-a-vis state-mandated backdoors. The department had not responded at the time of publication. We will update this story with any response. |
SPLT brings ridesharing to you and your colleagues | Haje Jan Kamps | 2,016 | 3 | 10 | Uber and Lyft are all well and good, but for your everyday commute, it might be easier to catch a ride with a colleague instead. is trying to do just that, by bringing ridesharing to the corporate world. Originally launched in Detroit as part of , SPLT kicked off its expansion plans by launching in San Francisco this week. SPLT is like Uber, except you share with your co-workers Instead of pairing you with random strangers who happen to be heading the same way, SPLT is targeted at large organizations to help ease the logistical and environmental impact of ping-ponging back and forth between the home and the workplace. In the process, the company aims to maximize the side-effects of its service, such as encouraging mentor sessions to foster internal employee growth, or connecting employees from separate departments in the hope to create an opportunity for sharing and developing new ideas. One of the biggest challenges with launching a marketplace business is to grow the supply and demand at the same pace, but the ingenious thing about SPLT’s model is that the starting position is a win-win for users: When a company signs up to SPLT’s service, it starts with an over-supply of drivers — who would be commuting to work anyway — but as more and more people within the company start using SPLT’s platform, supply and demand should stabilize and find an equilibrium with the “right” number of drivers and passengers. The platform also includes more advanced features, such as enabling users to share rides with companies located in similar areas or along common corridors. SPLT is trying to change behaviors by making ridesharing a perk and by suggesting that the companies signing up to the service offer rewards for committing to ridesharing. |
Now you can get on the standby list with concert subscription service Jukely | Anthony Ha | 2,016 | 3 | 10 | Here’s a simple-but-handy-sounding update to — a standby list. For those of you who haven’t tried it, for $25 per month. (Some caveats: You can only be on one guest list at a time, and you have to pay extra if you want to bring a friend.) The goal is to make it easy for members to discover up-and-coming bands and see as much live music as they want. Sometimes, of course, you may sign up for a concert and then realize that you can’t make it (or just don’t want to go). You’re allowed to cancel until 5pm on the day of the event, freeing up a spot for someone else. Jukely says it now makes that whole process easier. If a show that you’re interested in is sold out, you can just add yourself to the (Jukely-specific) standby list. Then, if another member says they can’t go, you’ll get a text message telling you that a spot has opened up. The company says this has been the most-requested feature from its members. It doesn’t guarantee that you’ll get in, but it beats constantly checking the listing in the hopes that something will open up — or going to the venue and waiting in an actual standby line. |
Prosper Marketplace relaunches its BillGuard app under the Prosper brand | Jonathan Shieber | 2,016 | 3 | 10 | Prosper Marketplace, the marketplace lender focused on refinancing and credit rehabilitation, has re-launched its app (acquired last September) under its own brand as . With the rebranding, the former BillGuard becomes Prosper’s first mobile app and is the company’s first beachhead into what chief executive Aaron Vermut hopes will be a broader suite of mobile products. The move brings the marketplace lender in line with a range of financial services companies that are offering one-stop windows into a user’s total financial history. The Prosper Daily app will offer BillGuard’s budgeting and spending tracking services, alerts for potential fraudulent charges, and credit monitoring. “Getting people into an installment loan off of a high rate credit card can change and improve their life,” says Vermut, responding to criticism that the company only operates as a quasi-payday lending service. “We bought BillGuard to help us to continue to achieve our goal of helping customers achieve their own goals of getting on top of their finances.” Vermut argues that the financial tools that give borrowers a window into their finances are equally as helpful as the company’s 12% to 13% loans — which, he said, are still lower than credit card fees. Under the Prosper brand, BillGuard’s services won’t change much. Already users have the option to “optimize” their credit through a button in the app that links to Prosper’s lending service. Vermut views the mobile app as a way to engage with potential customers even if those people can’t receive Prosper loans. “We turn away a lot of people from Prosper,” he said. “We should be giving them this app so we can become a trusted partner in their financial life.” Ultimately, Prosper’s strategy is to expand its services through new mobile apps. “We look at ourselves as a fintech company that is designing… unsecured credit products for the middle class consumer,” Vermut said. That means the company could be coming up with new ways to deliver loans based on the financial information it gleans from the Prosper Daily app, Vermut said. |
Crowdsourced weather app, Sunshine, now lets users train it to their temperature tastes | Natasha Lomas | 2,016 | 3 | 10 | In a bid to stand out in the bustling weather app crowd, crowdsourced app is adding a new personalization feature — giving users the ability to specify how hot or cold the weather feels to them. The app then uses these subjective taps — on a super simple scale of “freezing” through to “hot” — to learn each user’s temperature preferences and serve up more relevant weather reports to them. “60-degrees isn’t a one-size-fits-all temperature,” says co-founder and CEO Katerina Stroponiati. “For some, it might as well be the Arctic tundra. For others it’s shorts weather. So when it’s 60-degrees outside, how do you know if it’s sweater 60-degrees or flip-flops 60-degrees?” “Sunshine learns about you — like what’s cold or hot for you. It also learns every time you actively report to the community on sky conditions and hazards, translating this information into weather predictions,” she adds. Sunshine only launched , with a stated mission of humanizing a data-heavy app category with something a little more consumer friendly. Not that they’re the first with the idea of making weather apps more usefully practical, though. , for example, has been offering weather-based clothes suggestions for years, while in the “easier on the eye” category there’s the likes of (heavy on the cutesy animations) or , to name but two. Why is weather such a well-ploughed app furrow? Because a worthy weather app has the potential to earn one of the more well-thumbed places on a smartphone users’ home screen (versus being siloed away in a forgotten folder). “Weather is context to many things, from clothing to eating and traveling,” says Stroponiati, discussing how Sunshine might look to monetize its free app future. “There are tons of brands that are related with this field and are interested in getting promoted in Sunshine. Having said that, we won’t put any banners or intrusive ads in the app. Our first goal is to be the most exciting app out there without pushing to our users stuff out of context.” Phone hardware evolution — and specifically the addition of weather-sensitive barometer sensors to devices — has also encouraged more app makers to push crowdsourced weather apps at users, powered by locally garnered phone data. Sunshine is likewise pulling data from phone sensors to power its reports, but is also encouraging users to make direct weather reports themselves — hence, it self-bills as the “Waze of Weather.” The v0.7 update, which is rolling out today, adds more conditions users can report, such as hazards, as well as the ability for people to report multiple conditions at once. It also adds the ability for users to file anonymous weather reports. “It was something that users highly requested,” confirms Stroponiati. “Users love to contribute, help each other by making reports, be social and feel part of the community but at the same time they want to keep their privacy.” Another new feature in v0.7 is the ability for users to be alerted an hour before rain/snow is expected in their area. Sunshine is not disclosing how many users it has at this early stage, so it’s impossible to say how large is its community — but it will say users have created a total of 1.1 million weather reports since launch last fall. The app is currently live in the U.S. and Canada, and only on iOS for now. Stroponiati also says Sunshine users make between 10,000 and 15,000 reports per day, with the number almost doubling when it’s raining or snowing in major cities. (Let’s call that the #snow effect.) Interestingly, Sunshine’s early users are skewing younger, with 70 percent being aged 14 to 24-years-old. A sizable majority (65 percent) are also women. Stroponiati says Sunshine plans to double-down on its early popularity with teens/college kids — with the update set to be badged with the description “not your parents’ weather app.” “The reason Sunshine appeals to a young audience is because there a huge gap that we discovered by analyzing our user interviews. We were excited when we discovered during the interviews that we made at colleges (UC Berkeley, UCLA, etc.) that school and college students are checking weather DAILY to figure out quickly what to wear in the morning or when it’s good time to go out and play,” she says. “At the same time, most of the young people cannot engage with the utility nature of weather apps out there. They want something fun more engaging and personal.” Sunshine has raised $2 million so far from investors in Silicon Valley and New York. These include Great Oaks Ventures, Archimedes Labs (Keith Teare*), Morado Ventures, Winklevoss Capital, Maven Ventures, BBG Ventures, former CTO of AT&T Dr. Hossein Eslambolchi and former CEO of Huawei Bo Zhu. * |
With SQL Server 2016, Microsoft focuses on speed, security and luring customers away from Oracle | Frederic Lardinois | 2,016 | 3 | 10 | A few days ago, Microsoft shocked us when it that it would soon bring its SQL Server database to Linux. It’ll take until 2017 before SQL Server will be available on Linux, though. Until then, the company’s database focus remains squarely on the , which is currently available as a release candidate and which will become generally available later this year. Microsoft is kicking off the (prolonged) launch period for SQL Server 2016 with — and it’s feeling so good about SQL Server that it today announced a , too. Ahead of today’s event, I had a chance to talk to Joseph Sirosh, who leads Microsoft’s data group, about the upcoming release. One thing Sirosh especially stressed is that SQL Server 2016 will be significantly faster than the previous version. Without using any of the new features in the software, which include better support for in-memory computing, for example, queries should execute 25 percent faster on the same hardware. Once you start making use of new features like SQL Server 2016’s in-memory updatable columnstores, those speed-ups could hit 100x for some types of queries. Those kind of speed gains, Sirosh noted, aren’t something you’ll likely get from other relational databases like MySQL any time soon. You could use those, of course, “but with MySQL, you will need much more hardware,” he said and added that “you will pay in hardware what you save in software,” without gaining any of the enterprise-centric security features that Microsoft offers. Maybe more importantly, though, these speed gains also mean SQL Server 2016 will allow for real-time analytics instead of having to use a dedicated data warehousing solution. On the analytics side, Microsoft is also building support for the statistical computing environment . This project is the result of Microsoft’s acquisition of . With this, data scientists can now use R directly on their databases instead of having to extract and move data first. Security was another feature Sirosh stressed in our discussion. Unlike previous versions, SQL Server 2016 can’t just encrypt data at rest but also query it without having to decrypt it, using a relatively new cryptographic technique called “homeomorphic .” As Sirosh told me, Microsoft looked at some of the current trends in enterprise computing to guide the development of its flagship database product. One of these is obviously a move toward cloud computing. While the on-premises version of SQL Server 2016 is still making its way to general availability, Microsoft has actually been using the same codebase to power Azure’s SQL database service. Indeed, SQL Server 2016 currently runs on about 1.4 million machines and the company has been using it there for nine months now. “We built most of the features of SQL Server 2016 in the cloud,” Sirosh said and added that this means the software is already “battlefield tested.” Sirosh also noted that Microsoft took its experience with SQL Server on Azure to gain insight into how certain types of queries currently perform with the new software. With SQL Server 2016, Microsoft is also adding the ability to “ ” both warm and cold data from their on-premises database into Azure. Sirosh argued that this could lead to major cost savings for enterprises, given that storing data in the cloud will likely be cheaper than behind the firewall. The data will still be queryable from the on-premises version, though. Microsoft is so sure that companies will want to switch to SQL Server 2016 (and stay there), that it is launching for Oracle users. “Customers currently running applications or workloads on non-Microsoft paid commercial RDBMS platforms will be able to offset the costs of licensing, migration planning and training when moving SQL Server 2016,” Sirosh writes in today’s announcement. Specifically, this means Oracle database users who move to SQL Server will get free licenses (well, almost free, because they do still have to subscribe to Microsoft’s ). In addition, they will also get free training and subsidized deployment services. Enterprises will have to go through their account representatives to get this offer. |
null | Sarah Perez | 2,016 | 3 | 17 | null |
Cola launches its app for smarter, more interactive text messages | Anthony Ha | 2,016 | 3 | 10 | Do you sometimes get the feeling that you’re having a looooooong text conversation to accomplish some fairly simple planning? I’ve certainly had tedious back-and-forths where I’m trying to figure out when to meet with someone, and then where, and so on. That’s the problem that a startup called is looking to solve. I first , when it announced its private beta. Today, it’s . Cola is a messaging app, but with “Cola Bubbles” that add more interactivity and functionality. So instead of texting someone “Hey, when do you want to meet?” you can just send them a Bubble with three times when you’re available, they can choose the option or options that work for them, then you can both add it to your calendar. Or if you’re running late, instead of typing out a message describing where you are and when you’ll arrive, you can just opt to share your location with someone for 15, 30 or 60 minutes. Other Bubbles include polling and shared to-do lists. None of these things might sound all that unique on their own, but the point is make this all accessible from a text message conversation, rather than requiring you to open a bunch of different apps. (And yes, you can send Bubbles to people who don’t have the Cola app.) [vimeo 158259153 w=500 h=281] from on . Cola CEO David Temkin said that in some ways, he sees text messaging as the next web browser. (Temkin previously worked at AOL, which owns TechCrunch — in fact, he worked on TechCrunch’s mobile app.) That may sound a little far-fetched, but he argued that many of the features that you now find in mobile apps could move into messaging, in the same way that a lot of the functionality of desktop applications moved onto the web. To that end, he said these initial features are just the start. The aim is to turn Cola into a platform for outside developers — first by working directly with those developers, and eventually by releasing a public SDK. On the consumer side, the bigger question may be whether people are really willing to download another messaging app. Temkin admitted that it’s a question he gets a lot, but he argued that most people use multiple messaging apps already (something that was borne out anecdotally at least when we both checked how many messaging apps we had on our phones) — you use different apps for different purposes, contexts and contacts. “Messaging apps are never done,” he added. “They are the core function of these devices. They will never stop evolving.” Cola is available for free, with plans to charge for premium features. |
Zuckerberg Education Ventures backs learning assistant camera app Volley | Josh Constine | 2,016 | 3 | 10 | “This is so fast it feels like cheating” students tell lets students point their phone’s camera at a textbook page or piece of homework, and instantly see resources about key facts and tricky parts, prerequisites, and links to snippets of online classes or study guides that could help. But rather than manually cobble this info together, Volley uses cutting edge machine learning and natural language processing to do it all automatically. That technology’s potential to create scalable personal learning assistant in every student’s pocket attracted Volley’s $2.3 million seed round led by Reach Capital and joined be , an investment vehicle of the Facebook CEO and his wife Priscilla Chan. The round also includes Chinese education giant TAL plus angels from Apple, Dropbox, Blackboard, and Udemy. Volley spent the last year in stealth developing its first learning product which is now in private alpha that you can . But it’s planning more tools to aid students, teachers, and school systems. The core team includes CEO Zaid Rahman who ran Dubai instructional tech consultancy Pilot Labs, former CEO of Keystone Learning Systems Carson Kahn, Apple Design Award-winning founder of Finish productivity app Ryan Orbuch, and machine learning plugin Liaison Vision developer Adam Ashwal. Several of them took untraditional paths through education. Orbuch, for instance, sidestepped college to found his startup Finish. The team’s fresh perspective thanks to what Orbuch calls “frustration with school” led it to avoid building another remote tutoring service or set of online classes. Instead, Volley wants to make getting help with homework or studying for tests as easy as snapping a selfie. Volley’s team (from left): Zaid Rahman, Carson Kahn, Adam Ashwal, and Ryan Orbuch Orbuch says thanks to Volley’s “Concept Graph” it can also determine what prerequisites students would have to know first to figure something out. Kahn explains that “To understand photosynthesis, you need to understand glycolysis.” If a student missed a day of class or had trouble with a lecture because English isn’t their first language, Volley can fill in the knowledge gaps. There are plenty of one-size-fits-all online courses, but the much more personalized approach is what enticed . The fund wrote on Facebook “What excites us is how it will empower students to pace their self-study and direct their own learning.” Volley can actually sit atop programs like Udemy, Khan Academy, or Coursera by drawing on their products instead of competing. Facebook has been pouring resources into building its own personalized learning platform, and it’s hard not to imagine this crack team of education developers being an acquisition target. Volley hopes to stay free for students by charging textbook makers, education service providers, and school networks. For example, it could help textbook companies figure out which pages are confusing students and what materials could improve them. Volley could save teachers time by automating some of the process of building lesson plans. School networks could use Volley to determine what types of students might be most at risk for dropping out. Over time, Volley could blossom into an analytics layer for all of education, identifying what teaching strategies and materials work and which don’t. To get there, though, it will have to fight for NLP and machine learning talent in a market where big companies are throwing million-dollar signing bonuses at engineers with these skills. It will also have to combat apathy amongst students who can be fickle and may have had lackluster experiences with other learning apps. The population is growing and more people are trying to join the knowledge economy, yet that’s tough with class sizes ballooning and teachers underpaid. might be able to replace one-on-one time help from a human instructor with an education app each student can call their own.
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Algorithmic feeds force us to compete | Josh Constine | 2,016 | 3 | 19 | pretty enough? Is that tweet funny enough? If not, they might not be seen now that Instagram and Twitter are moving to algorithmically sorted feeds. That could spell big problems for marketers and cause our social media lives to be more stressful. To make their apps more consistently interesting, especially for people who don’t check them non-stop, Instagram and Twitter are switching to a Facebook News Feed-esque ranking system. Previously, if you deemed something important enough to ‘gram or tweet, your followers would see it as long as they opened their apps. You didn’t have to self-consciously worry that your posts weren’t good enough to show up. They were guaranteed an audience. Instead, you merely had to avoid overspamming your friends by filling their unfiltered feeds with too many stories. Now, you might have to choose just your best photo or your wittiest quip to post. Otherwise, it could sink into obscurity, buried below posts that algorithms think people would rather view. in the Facebook News Feed. Despite people subscribing to their updates, Pages couldn’t reach many of their fans. That’s because there was too much content competing for space in the News Feed that people only spent limited time reading. Businesses were threatened by a decline in referral traffic. The only way to get their reach back was to pay Facebook to amplify the visibility of their posts. A similar set of consequences could be heading for Instagram and Twitter. A follow isn’t enough any more. You’ll need to post high-quality content and receive a consistent stream of Likes from people for them to keep seeing all your content. The free ride is over. Businesses can’t use these platforms as unlimited marketing channels any more. The hard sell will fade from view in favor of actual entertainment. Rather than a mix of content posts and more straight-forward marketing, each ‘gram and tweet will need to be laced with delight or risk obscurity. Meanwhile, the average user won’t be able to blast out as many photos or 140-character thoughts. They can no longer be sure the real-time chronicles of their adventures will be seen in full as soon as they’re posted. If you thought Instagram was already a success theater highlight reel of people’s lives, now they’ll be even more incentivized to trim the fat. And Twitter’s “While You Were Away” could alter the platform’s emergent behavior norms around posting as often as you want, as having tweeted recently is no longer the key to being seen. The changes will undoubtedly make both services more approachable, and will likely boost engagement. You’ll see the best content since you last opened it, rather than missing out if you didn’t compulsively check throughout the day. That makes them easier to get hooked on, which is especially critical for Twitter given its onboarding, churn, and growth problems. Algorithmic feeds aren’t bad, they’re just more of what we already have with Facebook — a place where every piece of content competes for eyeballs, where social media is won with skill and strategy rather than authenticity. And in the end, the changes make Snapchat feel more unique than ever. Post as much as you want there, and no computer will decide what’s worthy of your friends’ attention. And you don’t have to worry about drowning out other people if you go on a snap-spree. All your posts get rolled into one line in the stories list that friends can voluntarily pull, rather than being forcibly pushed into their feeds. With every other social network asking us to be our best, Snapchat simply asks us to be ourselves. |
Sesame Workshop is looking for startups that help kids | Larry Alton | 2,016 | 3 | 19 |
, the organization that brought to life the beloved Sesame Street and countless other programs, has announced a new venture arm to invest in apps that help children develop. Working jointly with venture capital firm Collaborative Fund (which has funded companies like Lyft and AltSchool), Sesame Workshop has formed a Currently, Collab+Sesame has access to a $10 million fund, which is intended to be used for Sesame Workshop’s core mission to “[help] kids grow smarter, stronger and kinder.” This change comes only a few months after the announcement of Sesame Workshop’s plan to , giving the organization better funding to continue producing top-tier children’s programming. After 45 years of consistent quality, it’s clear that Sesame Workshop wants to evolve with the times and find new outlets to help children develop. The funding will be available in increments of up to $1 million, for a minimum of 10 startups backed by the Collab+Sesame venture. In addition to receiving funding, selected entrepreneurs will be paired with . These partnerships will help the apps develop in meaningful directions, and will grant entrepreneurs access to Sesame Street characters and branding — a possibly powerful marketing and user-acceptance tool. However, it isn’t mandatory for entrepreneurs to use Sesame Street characters; they are merely available as an additional resource. Like with any venture capital partnership, there are some advantages and disadvantages to this model. For starters, the mentors from Sesame Workshop have nearly five decades of experience working with children and families, lending massive expertise to app development. The possible addition of Sesame Street characters and branding is another potentially lucrative advantage for prospective entrepreneurs. However, there may be some disadvantages that arise from the natural conflict of interest between a non-profit organization and a for-profit app. Currently, there aren’t many specific requirements for entrepreneurs or apps interested in a chance at the funding. Apps must be in some kind of developmental phase, and must serve a core function of improving childhood development in : If your app fits one of these categories, you can consider yourself a potential applicant for this program. Working with Sesame Workshop could give your app (and brand) an enormous advantage and, together, you could do a lot of good for the children of the world. If you or your company is interested in applying for the program, . |
NASA is sending a 3D printer to space that you can use | Emily Calandrelli | 2,016 | 3 | 19 | NASA is preparing to send its first commercial manufacturing facility to the International Space Station (ISS). The 3D printing company has partnered with NASA to send their Additive Manufacturing Facility (AMF) to the space station on a launch scheduled to take place next Tuesday. Users on Earth can pay to use AMF, a 3D printer specially designed to operate in a microgravity environment, to print products on the space station. Once it arrives, Made in Space will be able to command AMF remotely from their headquarters in the NASA Ames Research Park. Spencer Pitman, head of product strategy at Made in Space, told TechCrunch that the company has already secured 20 paying customers for AMF. Their customers include high schools that are hosting space-related design challenges, universities that will print medical research components, and companies that will print commercial parts for satellites and other spacecraft. “We will even be printing a 3D printable exercise device for Autodesk and wrenches for Lowe’s,” Pitman said. AMF has been a few years in the making. Made in Space first demonstrated the capability to 3D print objects in a weightless environment in 2011 using parabolic flights. The company also sent an earlier version of their 3D printer to the ISS back in 2014. Known as the 3D Printing in Microgravity Experiment, their first printer conducted a series of tests with over a dozen different 3D printing materials. Pitman stated that AMF improves on the 3D Printing in Microgravity Experiment in terms of robustness and longevity. AMF also includes a number of technology expansions and is able to manufacture products with over 30 different materials. So why does NASA need a 3D printer on the space station in the first place? It has mostly to do with the amount of time and money it takes to send something into space. According to NASA, it costs roughly $10,000 to send just 1 pound of payload into orbit. But Pitman says that the true cost is likely far higher than this because “all materials, parts, and hardware going to the station have to go through a lengthy and costly certification process.” In addition to the hefty price tag, it takes over half a year to ultimately get your hardware on station. Even if you’re NASA, the wait times aren’t much better, which can be problematic if, for example, an ISS crew member misplaces or breaks a tool and quickly needs a replacement. In fact, the first tool that was uplinked to be 3D printed on the space station was a that would replace one that was lost. With AMF, Made in Space aims to reduce both cost and wait times. According to Pitman, “Printing designs on AMF is comparatively immediate, and does not require the certification process since the materials we can print with have all gone through the certification process.” Printing on AMF can help companies avoid the costly certification process and reduce the wait time to get to orbit. However, a 3D printer requires printing material which is just as costly as anything else to send to orbit. Because of this, Pitman said that the cost to 3D print on AMF will depend on the amount of print bed space taken up and generally ranges from $6,000 to $30,000, although there are discounts for STEM education initiatives. So while 3D printing in space doesn’t come cheap, it could potentially be an attractive alternative for certain customers in unique situations. If anything, it’s an interesting new option that hasn’t been available up until now. AMF is scheduled to on board the Cygnus cargo ship on Tuesday, March 22 at 11:05 pm EST. |
Why unicorns falter | Lance L. Smith | 2,016 | 3 | 19 |
In early February 2016, of financing deals reported by The Wall Street Journal found that investors are increasingly protecting themselves from IPOs that don’t perform as expected. This fallout is a continuation of the demise of the so-called “unicorn,” a tech startup with a pre-IPO valuation of over one billion dollars. As these companies secure late-stage funding before their public market exit, smart private investors are setting terms that ensure they don’t lose a dime if the IPO falls short of expectations. This comes at a great cost to the startup if the exit doesn’t deliver, as was the case for many of the IPOs of 2015. As a former VC, the former president and COO of enterprise flash memory pioneer Fusion-io (which made a public exit in 2011 before being acquired by SanDisk in 2014) and now CEO of data virtualization startup Primary Data (which has raised about $60 million in our first round of venture funding so far), I watch investment trends closely. I have noticed a few things about the challenges faced by the companies that have reached the mythical “unicorn” status before they deliver a return for their investors through an acquisition or initial public offering. (If your memory needs jogging, Fortune provides a good recap of as a refresher on the past year.) Put simply, many of these companies are just out of runway before their business really needs to take off. The goal for any startup — at least, what they better be selling to prospective investors in order to raise capital and fund business growth — is to build a scalable and profitable company. Typically, companies with venture funding aim to return a profit to their investors through a liquidity event (or “exit”), such as an acquisition or IPO. To get there, the company needs to increase its market value by building an innovative product, gaining customer traction and generating revenue, eventually becoming profitable. Doing this quickly while keeping an eye on spending ensures the company can minimize the dilution of its shares and maximize the return on investment for those who fueled its growth. As the company begins to make money rather than burn through it, fewer funding rounds will be needed to get on its feet as a grown-up enterprise. However, taking less funding because the company can operate independently can mean that the startup forgoes the marketing achievement of a unicorn crown. Given the last year of exits below valuations created by late-stage investment, it’s no secret that the . Looking ahead to what will create more stability in the technology investment market and a critical pillar of our American economy in the long term, I hope to see more companies focus on building a sustainable business rather than generating revenue at any cost and dealing with the burden of becoming a unicorn. Acquisitions can happen for any number of reasons before a company delivers a public market exit for its investors, so let’s leave that discussion off the table for now. Looking at the IPO exit, part of the problem is actually tied back to the bursting of the last big tech bubble. Historically, IPOs were riskier businesses as they came to market, but that risk was offset by huge potential reward. Consider , which created a $438 million market cap with an $18/share debut on the public market. Today, the company is worth $257 billion and shares are about $530 each (at the time of writing). Although this valuation is the lowest for the company during the past 18 months, . Amazon was undoubtedly the exception rather than the rule. When the bubble burst, more regulations were introduced. As a result, startups are reducing growth potential for public market investors and now are advised to show more sales growth before listing, resulting in reduced growth curves. For example, most startups considering an IPO today report revenues of more than $100 million/year run rates and are already at or on track to profitability, which was the case for us at Fusion-io. The unicorn investment cycle has been consuming the growth ramp of an IPO-bound company. Unlike previous eras when a public exit occurred earlier in the company’s growth, leaving the best days ahead of the company, the fastest growth for an IPO-bound startup now happens in the last funding rounds before an IPO. This leaves a 20-30 percent growth rate post-IPO, which is pretty good for a company at $100-$200 million/year revenue, but bad for anyone looking for greater than 2X ROI from an IPO investment. Addressing these issues requires a little course correction as companies work toward an IPO. To ensure ample room for future growth, a startup should be careful not to push its market cap too high by taking more funding rounds than needed during the growth-stage period before IPO. This can be a challenge because funding often generates media interest and credibility, which are certainly not things a young company wants to leave on the table. However, leaving a portion of its growth for the IPO will ensure that the company has enough runway to continue to grow and deliver for its public market investors, just as the company has done for its VCs. Otherwise, you create yet another unicorn where the late-stage investors garner all the potential gains, and even force guarantees on returns. This is bad for new investors in the open market, and worse for the employees of the company who only receive poor post-lockup stock performance as compensation for years of hard work and sacrifices. The other critical element for the C-suite and board of pre-IPO companies is the basic building block of ensuring the growth strategy itself will deliver revenue returns and continued growth. This is where the acquisitions come back into play. Even newly public companies are suddenly subject to mitigating risk and spend, which is why we are now in such a hot market for acquisition deals. R&D on long-term projects can hurt a company’s balance sheet in the eyes of public investors; instead, companies purchase innovation to deliver growth opportunities. Technology markets move fast, so this strategy can help a company keep pace with changing times. Even better, having an experienced executive team and board with the foresight to plan for long-term revenue can deliver the capital needed to make strategic decisions and invest wisely in how the company can continue to move with market opportunity. Hopefully we will see wiser times ahead as we learn about building long-term growth and value for not just investors, but also customers, employees and the economy itself. |
Gillmor Gang: Botily Fluids | Steve Gillmor | 2,016 | 3 | 19 | The Gillmor Gang — John Taschek, Dan Farber, Keith Teare, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor. Recorded live Friday, March 18, 2016. The Gang predicts an Echological intersection between bots and voice command, while binge viewers plan a surreal TV show in Cleveland. Plus, the latest G3 (below) with Halley Suitt Tucker, Elisa Camahort Page, Rebecca Woodcock, Francine Hardaway, and Tina Chase Gillmor. @stevegillmor, @dbfarber, @jtaschek, @kevinmarks, @kteare Produced and directed by Tina Chase Gillmor @tinagillmor [ustream id=84620935 hwaccel=1 version=3 width=480 height=302] |
How real businesses are using machine learning | Lukas Biewald | 2,016 | 3 | 19 |
There is no question that machine learning is at the top of the And, of course, the backlash is already in full force: I’ve heard that old joke “Machine learning is like teenage sex; everyone is talking about it, no one is actually doing it” about 20 times in the past week alone. But from where I sit, running a company that enables a huge number of real-world machine-learning projects, it’s clear that machine learning is already forcing massive changes in the way companies operate. It’s not just futuristic-looking products like and . And it’s not just being done by companies that we normally think of as having huge R&D budgets like Google and Microsoft. In reality, I would bet that nearly every Fortune 500 company is already running more efficiently — and making more money — because of machine learning. So where is it happening? Here are a few behind-the-scenes applications that make life better every day. The average piece of user-generated content (UGC) is awful. It’s actually way worse than you think. It can be rife with misspellings, vulgarity or flat-out wrong information. But by identifying the best and worst UGC, machine-learning models can filter out the bad and bubble up the good without needing a real person to tag each piece of content. A similar thing happened a while back with spam emails. Remember how bad spam used to be? Machine learning helped identify spam and, basically, eradicate it. These days, it’s far more uncommon to see spam in your inbox each morning. Expect that to happen with UGC in the near future. Pinterest uses machine learning to . Yelp uses machine learning to . NextDoor uses machine learning to sort through content on their message boards. Disqus uses machine learning to weed out spammy comments. It’s no surprise that as a search company, Google was always at the forefront of hiring machine-learning researchers. In fact, . But the ability to index a huge database and pull up results that match a keyword has existed since the 1970s. What makes Google special is that it knows which matching result is the most relevant; the way that it knows is through machine learning. But it’s not just Google that needs smart search results. Home Depot needs to show which bathtubs in its huge inventory will fit in someone’s weird-shaped bathroom. Apple needs to show relevant apps in its app store. Intuit needs to surface a good help page when a user types in a certain tax form. Successful e-commerce startups from to employ machine learning to show high-quality content to their users. Other startups, like and , employ machine-learning strategies to give their commerce customers the benefits of machine learning when their users are browsing for products. You may have noticed “contact us” forms getting leaner in recent years. That’s another place where machine learning has helped streamline business processes. Instead of having users self-select an issue and fill out endless form fields, machine learning can look at the substance of a request and route it to the right place. That seems like a small thing, but ticket tagging and routing can be a massive expense for big businesses. Having a sales inquiry end up with the sales team or a complaint end up instantly in the customer service department’s queue saves companies significant time and money, all while making sure issues get prioritized and solved as fast as possible. Machine learning also excels at sentiment analysis. And while public opinion can sometimes seem squishy to non-marketing folks, it actually drives a lot of big decisions. For example, say a movie studio puts out a trailer for a summer blockbuster. They can monitor social chatter to see what’s resonating with their target audience, then tweak their ads immediately to surface what people are actually responding to. That puts people in theaters. Another example: A game studio recently put out a new title in a popular video game line without a game mode that fans were expecting. When gamers took to social media to complain, the studio was able to monitor and understand the conversation. The company ended up changing their release schedule in order to add the feature, turning detractors into promoters. How did they pull faint signals out of millions of tweets? They used machine learning. And in the past few years, this kind of social media listening through machine learning has become standard operating procedure. Dealing with machine-learning algorithms is tricky. Normal algorithms are predictable, and we can look under the hood and see how they work. In some ways, machine-learning algorithms are more like people. As users, we want answers to questions like “why did The New York Times show me that weird ad” or “why did Amazon recommend that funny book?” In fact, The New York Times and Amazon don’t really understand the specific results themselves any more than our brains know why we chose Thai food for dinner or got lost down a particular Wikipedia rabbit hole. If you were getting into the machine-learning field a decade ago, it was hard to find work outside of places like Google and Yahoo. Now, machine learning is everywhere. Data is more prevalent than ever, and it’s easier to access. New products like Microsoft Azure ML and IBM Watson drive down both the setup cost and ongoing cost of state-of-the-art machine-learning algorithms. At the same time, VCs have started funds — from to to the — that are completely focused on funding companies across nearly every industry that use machine learning to build a sizeable advantage. Most of the conversation about machine learning in popular culture revolves around AI personal assistants and self-driving cars (both applications are very cool!), but nearly every website you interact with is using machine learning behind the scenes. Big companies are investing in machine learning not because it’s a fad or because it makes them seem cutting edge. They invest because they’ve seen positive ROI. And that’s why innovation will continue. |
Msg.ai’s Puneet Mehta on The Rise of AI, The Potential For Bots and Life As A Current YC Startup | Harry Stebbings | 2,016 | 3 | 19 |
Next week at YC Demo Day, venture capitalists and angel investors eager to speak with the founders of tomorrow’s technology companies today, will present an array of startups from the fields of artificial intelligence, virtual reality, consumer healthcare (just to name a few). As the 126 entrepreneurs in the latest batch prepare for their big day, we thought we’d catch up with one of these founders before their nervous 3 minute pitch to the world. Latching on to the current excitement surrounding the rise of AI, in the wake of , we chose Msg.ai and their founder Puneet Mehta as the startup to speak to from this year’s batch. The company works in the field of AI for conversational commerce and in the discussion with Mehta we reveal how YC prepares founders for the 3 minute pitch that could change the trajectory of their company. Mehta talks about the mentoring process in the ever expanding YC batch, and how YC maintains the same level of quality mentoring despite the growth. Mehta also offers advice on how YC companies can use the network to the best effect and make the most out of their time in the world’s most prestigious accelerator. In the chat, we also touch on what founders should look for when assembling their ‘team’ of investors, how bots offer consumers a value proposition never seen before, why messaging will be the future interface for transactional commerce, what barriers to adoption both messaging and AI face in their rise to the top and why all startup founders have to remember to, ‘stay hungry, stay foolish’.
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Software security needs a new perspective | Ben Dickson | 2,016 | 3 | 26 |
Source code bugs have been a constant in the software industry since the dawn of computers — and have ever been . Presently, with virtually every aspect of our lives and daily business becoming connected and dependent on software in one way or another, the potential destructiveness of software bugs has become orders of magnitude more dramatic than it used to be, say, 20 years ago. Juniper, Fortinet, AMX, Socat, Linux Mint and VTech are just some of the companies providing network- and Internet-related services that have been in the source code of their products, directly putting the security and privacy of millions of users at risk. This reality reflects the fact that source code security technologies and practices have unfortunately not kept pace with the progress of technology, and it warrants the need to change the perspective and perception of source code security, which should be to discover and root out serious vulnerabilities and flaws before software is released. Web applications and networking software are especially sensitive to source code vulnerabilities, because they both can be exploited remotely and potentially provide attackers with a beachhead to move laterally across a network and conduct other, more dangerous attacks. Web applications are especially critical as they are easier to breach and . The of websites belonging to giant toy maker VTech, which resulted in the theft of personal information belonging to more than 5 million users, was carried out by exploiting a (SQLi) vulnerability in the site’s source code. SQLi is one of the most trivial and yet dangerous types of attacks that can be carried out against web servers. A more recent web application hack was that of the official Linux Mint distribution website, which in order to upload and distribute a backdoored version of the OS. By the time the breach was , thousands of infected copies of Linux had been downloaded by unfortunate users. Last December, networking giant Juniper revealed it had discovered in the software running on its firewalls, which could effectively be exploited to decrypt protected data passing through its firewalls. The amount of damage dealt could not be assessed because the vulnerability had been running for months. But given the fact that the tech firm is a main provider to the likes of AT&T, Verizon, NATO and the U.S. government, one can expect the numbers to be soaring in the millions. Another relevant case that surfaced on the heels of Juniper’s backdoor was that of its competitor Fortinet, which was found to have embedded software that gave SSH access to servers running it. SSH is the interface used to remotely administer servers. Audio-visual conferencing gear provider AMX also made the headlines earlier this year, after Austrian research firm the discovery of “ ” embedded in its NX-1200 controller product, which the firm claimed was a maintenance feature but could be used to gain remote administrative access to the product. AMX products are widely used by the U.S. government and military. In all cases, the discovered vulnerabilities were simple and straightforward bugs that could’ve easily been identified and rooted out before it became damaging. Yet inadequate practices and insufficient tools have contributed to the exploits slipping by the developers. Traditional methods are usually dependent on security audit professionals who are hired to peruse application code and test it in action in order to discover vulnerabilities and make recommendations for mitigating threats. Likewise, the tools used in these processes are disparate and tailored for security auditors and not developers. These types of procedures and tools are only applicable to large software development firms and would eliminate smaller companies that do engage in coding, but on a smaller scale. This model has many flaws and limitations, including the requirement that application development be either complete or well underway before it can be tested, which makes the safeguarding process a reactive one, at best. Also, depending on periodical or one-time security audits will only put the application to test at specific points in time and will fail to provide source code security throughout the entire life cycle of the application. This approach also has drawbacks from an economic standpoint, because correcting application bugs in the production phase instead of development can prove to be both time-consuming and expensive. And when in a rush to meet release deadlines, developers and publishers are wont to cut back on the more thorough testing that comes at the end of the development process. A successful approach to source code security would be one that is holistic and easy to use, which could be integrated into the processes of all firms and labs that are involved in software development, regardless of the limits of their resources and budget. New code security tools should enable developers to identify and root out security holes as they’re coding, not after they’re finished. and , two application testing tools recently released by Spanish cybersecurity startup , are hoping to achieve such a goal. “bugScout is an SAST [static application security testing] tool developed by our team of security audit experts,” explains Pablo de la Riva Ferrezuelo, CTO and founder of Buguroo, “but it has been created to be adjusted to users across the spectrum. So it can be used by coders with little security knowledge or security auditors with little coding knowledge, or anyone who falls in-between.” Basically, bugScout is a service that blends in with your development environment and constantly analyzes your application’s source code as you develop it, using different methods and information gathered from different standards. Ferrezuelo believes that bugScout will address challenges caused by previous SASTs, “which generate a lot of false positives and require the assistance of many experienced security auditors,” he explains. “It will also lower development costs,” he adds, “by starting the flaw identification process early in the development life cycle instead of waiting for the application to be feature complete before putting it to test.” bugScout’s sibling, bugBlast, is a next-generation appsec management platform that unifies many types of vulnerability testing tools with real-time intelligence to test the application, its hosting infrastructure and its third-party service providers against known threats and malicious behavior patterns at runtime during development and after it goes into production. Both tools are available as cloud-based services and standalone installations. The U.S.-based is another technology firm that intends to tackle source code security issues with its newly announced solution. As Kevin Kelly, CEO of LGS Innovations explains, “CodeGuardian fills the void left by current security solutions, which, taken individually, aren’t complete and comprehensive and require expertise to be used effectively.” CodeGuardian is a technical solution embedded into existing products to enhance security defensiveness; it hardens network devices by removing known vulnerabilities and inoculating the software source code and binary executable to enhance overall network security. The solution uses proprietary technology and processes to identify and eliminate vulnerabilities and backdoors in a network component’s source code. It also uses diversification techniques to generate and distribute various binary images of the same software to further reduce the possibility of uniformly applied cyberattacks against a product line. CodeGuardian is already being used by Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise to secure software solutions within their OmniSwitch family of networking equipment. The increasing number of connected devices and the huge amount of software that is being developed on a daily basis will continue to generate and introduce new attack vectors and exploit opportunities for malicious hackers. The rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) and propagation of minimal embedded systems across home and business networks will cause further challenges. If we are to face and overcome these challenges, we need a new vision for source code security and solutions that will help us identify and mitigate threats proactively before they inflict damage. |
How Goguen’s Case Hurts Sequoia | Connie Loizos | 2,016 | 3 | 19 | A week ago yesterday, we told you that longtime Sequoia partner Michael Goguen had been slapped with a . At its crux, it accused him of breaching an agreement he’d made to pay $40 million to a woman he’d known for years. Apparently, after paying her $10 million, Goguen concluded that he was within his rights to stop writing her checks. The woman then hired a lawyer. Whether the case ever goes to trial is now beside the point for Goguen, who has enjoyed a lucrative career as a venture capitalist and who, fairly or unfairly, will now be publicly associated with that complaint and the person who filed it, despite his . Fairly or unfairly, it also does real damage to Sequoia Capital. Entrepreneurs aren’t the immediate issue. It would take a lot more than this bizarre situation for most founders to be deterred from accepting a check from Sequoia, whose imprimatur can make everything easier, from assembling a team, to attracting press, to, later, luring the right investment bankers. That Goguen is no longer a partner of Sequoia certainly minimizes the damage. (A spokesman didn’t elaborate when explaining to us last week why Sequoia decided Goguen’s departure was the “appropriate course of action.” But we suspect his original deal with his accuser was made without the firm’s knowledge, which would be a major no-no. That kind of financial agreement would be material information to a partnership.) A much bigger problem for Sequoia will be recruiting female investing partners — something that longtime Sequoia investor Michael Moritz has said interests the firm ( ). You may recall his back in December with Bloomberg’s Emily Chang, when he told her that Sequoia “looks very hard [for female recruits] . . . We just hired a young woman from Stanford who is every bit as good as her peers and if there are more like her, we’ll hire them.” Moritz continued, “What we’re not prepared to do is to lower our standards.” That “standards” comment immediately came back to and in light of what’s happening with Goguen, Moritz surely regrets it more than ever. But no matter his intent, the firm will likely have even fewer choices now. It was already hard to imagine many top female operators who’d leap at the chance to work at an almost exclusively male venture firm. A situation like Goguen’s can only hurt its odds of drawing in smart women. I don’t know anything about Sequoia’s internal dynamics. But partnerships are very small, intimate entities, in which people spend a lot of time socializing amongst themselves. That one of Sequoia’s partners had what now seems like a highly peculiar relationship with women would certainly raise a red flag for me, particularly following Moritz’s comments. Maybe Sequoia feels like it did enough by distancing itself from Goguen. But for its own sake, the firm would be smart to do more. A detailed explanation of what it knew about Goguen’s behavior would help, as would Sequoia’s history of working with female entrepreneurs and female associates. It would also be nice to know whether and how Sequoia plans to help improve the gender issue more broadly in Silicon Valley. As an eminent venture capital firm, it has a responsibility to do something. Better sooner than later, too. |
What will a driverless future actually look like? | Rob Toews | 2,016 | 3 | 19 |
There is a growing consensus that autonomous vehicles (AVs) will soon be a reality. The debate today centers not on whether, but how soon, AVs will be commonplace on our roads. But for all the buzz surrounding AVs, many details about what a driverless future will look like remain unclear. Which business models will work best for the commercialization of AVs? Which AV usage models will be most appealing for consumers? Which companies are best positioned to win in this new market? These are big questions, and no certain answers can be given at this stage. Nonetheless, it is valuable to reflect, in a concrete way, on how this transformative technology might develop. This article will present some conjectures. At a high level, two possible paradigms seem most likely for how society will use AVs. The first is private AV ownership. Under this model, individuals or families would continue to own their own vehicles and use them to get around. As the cars would be self-driving, exciting new possibilities exist for their use. Individuals could be more productive while in transit. Children, the handicapped, the elderly and others not previously able to drive themselves could commute alone. People could earn supplemental income by sending their cars, when otherwise not in use, to transport other people or goods (a future version of on-demand services like Uber or Instacart). This option would, in a way, be the closest thing to a continuation of the current status quo. Little would have to change about carmakers’ core business models: individual consumers would still make purchasing decisions and would own and operate their own vehicles. The second paradigm for AV use represents a more radical reconceptualization of how people get around in society. Under this model, a shared fleet of autonomous vehicles would exist that individuals could summon on demand to get from Point A to Point B. After dropping off one passenger, the vehicle could then pick up and transport the next passenger. Individuals would have no need to own their own cars; rather, they would receive mobility “as a service.” There are many details about a “mobility as a service” model that are intriguing to consider. The most straightforward version of this model is one in which individuals summon AVs on a one-off basis when they need to get somewhere, paying per ride or per mile — effectively, a driverless version of how Uber or Lyft work today. It is also possible, however, to imagine the development of more sophisticated subscription models. Under a subscription model, individuals would pay a flat fee on a monthly or annual basis for unlimited access to a given fleet of vehicles, to be used whenever they need a ride — loosely analogous to a SaaS model. One interesting question is the amount of segmentation that would develop among subscription offerings. It seems likely that, as with most other consumer products, a wide range of AV subscription types would become available that offer different benefits and features depending on price. These differently priced subscription offerings could vary in terms of the types of vehicles in the fleet, the average required wait time for a ride, the electronics and other features available inside the vehicles and so forth. The issue of segmentation closely ties to the equally important question of which player or players would own and operate these AV fleets. One possibility is that auto manufacturers — at least those that choose to enter the AV market — could offer subscriptions to fleets consisting entirely of their vehicles. Thus, as an example, one could choose to subscribe to Ford’s AV fleet in a given city for a certain rate, or alternatively to pay more to subscribe to Mercedes’ fleet. Alternatively, these shared AV fleets might be operated not by the carmakers themselves but rather by fleet providers that aggregate various makes of vehicles. To create a profitable role for themselves in the market, these providers would have to add value to the experience in some way beyond vehicle manufacture (e.g. sophisticated mapping or passenger-matching algorithms). One could speculate that Uber, which recently has invested heavily in autonomous technology, envisions itself playing a role along these lines. One last issue worth contemplating regarding future AV use is the optimal size and capacity of vehicles. The majority of drives in the U.S. today are solo trips, meaning that vehicle space is significantly underutilized and fuel usage is needlessly high. It is statistically rare that all five seats in a standard sedan (much less all eight seats in an SUV) are in use. Given this, it is plausible to imagine single-occupancy pods making up a significant portion of future AV fleets — thus increasing fuel efficiency, economizing on materials costs and taking up less space on roads. Perhaps vehicles with a wide range of different capacities (from single-occupancy pods all the way to small buses that can fit 20 or 30 people) will all exist on the road, in proportion to their demand, and customers can indicate their desired vehicle size when summoning a car. In speculating about these possible AV business and usage models, it is important to keep in mind that this market will not necessarily be “winner take all.” It is altogether possible that more than one of these models — and others that have not yet even been imagined — will all coexist profitably in the market. One need look no further than the current transportation market for an instructive analogy. Today, people get around in their daily lives in many different ways. Some people own their own cars. Some people rent cars when they need them (either through traditional car rental companies or newer models like Zipcar). Some people get everywhere through ride-sharing services like Uber or Lyft. Some people use public transportation or simply walk. People commonly switch from one of these solutions to another over the course of their lives depending on life’s changing circumstances. The same will likely be true in the driverless future of tomorrow. For instance, shared fleet models may become prevalent, rendering the concept of private car ownership obsolete for many. At the same time, those who prefer may continue to own and operate their own AVs. Personal transportation is and will continue to be a massive market. There is room for many different models and companies to thrive, and it is unlikely that any one approach will win outright. On a similar but broader note, many different types of companies will succeed in and add value to the autonomous vehicle space in different ways. It is highly unlikely that any one company will own the entire end-to-end AV experience (though if any company were to try, a plausible candidate would be Apple and its mysterious Project Titan). Instead, the AV experience is likely to be modularized across many different players. For instance, profitable businesses will be built around producing: LIDAR sensors and other physical components for the vehicles; cybersecurity software to keep connected cars safe; high-performance computing chips to power the cars’ decision-making processes; consumer electronics for the cars’ interiors; mapping and geolocation software to enable the car to navigate; and much more. In this sense, AVs should be thought of not as a single new product but rather as an entirely new ecosystem in the economy. The possibilities laid out above are, of course, speculative. As AVs continue to develop in the coming years, there will be many technology, product and business model advances that surprise us all. One way or another, autonomous vehicles’ impact on the way we live will be nothing short of transformative. It will be an exciting ride. |
Tech and policy can make Bill Gates’ ‘energy miracle’ a reality | Brandon Tinianov | 2,016 | 3 | 26 |
With icons like and using their powerful brands and personal convictions to turn the world’s focus toward the crisis of climate change and the long-lever arm of energy efficiency, it’s time for policy makers and practitioners to get serious about finding ways to take better care of our planet. In his most recent co-authored with his wife, Gates went so far as to say we need “an energy miracle” to solve this global crisis. Turning our attention to buildings as a significant emissions source could be one way to effectively address Gates’ concerns about energy consumption. Residential and commercial buildings account for of total U.S. energy consumption. Innovation in this arena could have sizable impact on a national energy strategy. However, a vast majority of the national building stock is privately held and subject to regional market forces and near-term profitability. This is a place where thoughtful state and national policies can play an important role in curbing our national emissions. While government intervention is often opposed in principle, national building policies actually create long-term confidence to develop innovative building components and design strategies. Take California’s Building Energy Code, a great example of how we can reform our building standards to help curb energy use. Thanks to the energy efficiency standards in this progressive policy, which have continually been updated since 1978, Californians use of other Americans nationwide on a per capita basis. Furthermore, that same policy has made California an ideal early market for now ubiquitous technologies such as compact fluorescent light bulbs, LEDs, low-albedo roofs and small-scale solar. California is now ambitiously targeting Net Zero Energy (NZE) for all new residential construction by 2020 and all new commercial construction by 2030. Although some states are beginning to adopt forward-thinking regulations , acceleration of building efficiency requirements could make a big dent in energy use, as buildings than the industrial or transportation sectors. In this election year, both sides of the aisle are debating which energy policies should last into the next presidency. While the topic of climate change has become over-politicized, disagreements take away from the real issue at hand and the positive impact the guiding hand of the government can have on the built environment. On the surface, it can appear putting these policies into action could be harmful to a private real estate market, but the opposite is actually true. As evidenced by collaborations like the in Sunnyvale, California, progressive developers can voluntarily undertake market attractive NZE buildings that cost less to build and rent for a premium. Completed in 2015, Mathilda is a blueprint structure for NZE and Zero Net Carbon building that leverages eight innovative building technologies, including advanced comfort controls and dynamic windows. These technologies, and their application at Mathilda, demonstrate the power that the Internet of Things, nanotechnology, smart systems and next-generation architectural thinking can have when deployed in concert for the purposes of net-zero construction. Getting specific, Mathilda offers unique insight into how barriers to green building are being removed: A common objection to high-performance building is the perception of additional upfront costs. While it’s true that initial construction costs were higher, this cost was significantly outweighed by the near-term benefits of reduced operating expenses, accelerated lease-up and premium rent over the life of the occupant’s lease. This is a critical aspect of making sustainable building a practical economic reality. While new construction is the primary focus of building efficiency policy, it is equally important that existing buildings can be retrofitted to achieve NZE status. Mathilda’s renovation transformed a 40-year-old two-story racquetball club into a Class B+ commercial office NZE structure. This, too, is an important consideration as we think about remaking the built environment on a sustainable model. To achieve true scale, NZE strategies must be broadly replicable. Using an integrated package of “state of the shelf” building technologies, the Mathilda approach has already spawned clones and is applicable for a wide variety of commercial and residential buildings. This requires both technologies and policies to scale. Projects like Mathilda highlight the ability of the construction industry and building occupants to thrive in a progressive policy environment. Legislators need to recognize that industry is ready for their mandate to make buildings as efficient as possible. Building technology is ready and designers have the experience and ingenuity to use them to their greatest benefit. And, when given the choice, owners and renters choose the most efficient buildings available. With these in place, suddenly Mr. Gates’ miracle seems quite possible. |
Why every household is about to get a brand-new fridge | Sephi Shapira | 2,016 | 3 | 26 |
Today’s retail economy is focused on acquisition and retention costs. Getting into people’s homes and turning them into long-term brand buyers is the goal, and appliance makers control an untapped resource — the Internet of Things (IoT) — that can effectively extend a brand or retailer’s supply chain visibility into the home. How will the IoT manifest itself in the home? For many consumer brands and retailers, there’s always been one door that holds the key to the : the refrigerator door. For example, at this year’s CES, Samsung introduced a refrigerator touted as truly “smart,” with connected cameras inside the fridge, an ability to run Pandora with built-in speakers and even grocery shopping through Amazon’s Alexa or a new, dedicated app called . By building smart fridges that can track consumption, deliver offers and manage purchasing and replenishment, manufacturers can extract subsidies from companies in order to tap into data and the revenue stream of each consumer, then provide them with a free refrigerator. Subsidies have long been a tool for both customer lock-in (think of InkJet printers sold at a loss to open the revenue stream for ink) as well as recurring revenue models (such as Verizon trading a $650 iPhone for the chance at triple the revenue in yearly billings). The smart fridge brings both of these models into play. With a connected fridge, advertisers will pay to promote products to the consumer on the refrigerator’s screen, who will then use a related subscription-based service to buy the products. What makes promotion like this appealing to advertisers is that it’s data-driven, personalized and proactive. It’s the same reason Google acquired Nest and Apple built HomeKit: It puts them inside the consumer’s house and gives them the ability to be “first to market” when a need arises. Like Valleywag’s Sam Biddle after the Nest acquisition, “If your house is burning down you’ll now get Gmail ads for fire extinguishers.” In the same way, imagine receiving a $0.50 coupon for Heinz ketchup just as you toss your empty bottle. Or better yet, what if you got a coupon for a free bottle of Del Monte ketchup? Would you not try it? And what if this happened in hundreds of thousands of homes? Del Monte, by way of example, stands little chance in , but may find a way to challenge dominance by going directly to a consumer’s fridge. Food is a recurring purchase, with buying the same brands over and over again. While a bottle of ketchup does not have the lock-in protection of InkJet cartridges, the smart fridge provides a way to keep the purchase cycle going through replenishment reminders and promotions. It will play a central role in ensuring the consumption of the same food brands — or help drive consumers to a competitor. Nothing in this life is free, so how will advertisers and retailers make back the cost of subsidizing these “free” fridges? By tapping in to years of food purchases via the fridge. There will have to be some manner of contract (just like with cell phone carriers) to ensure users behave as intended and buy what the fridge recommends or buy goods from a certain store. Users will see workflows and behaviors that have been made most famous through Amazon, such as: While the smart fridge brings convenience and new features to consumers, it is also interesting to consider what consumers could provide to brands, retailers and each other through machine learning and artificial intelligence. Look at the success of an app like Waze. Its power comes from the volume of people using the software and making recommendations. You could see the same collective intelligence arise within the smart fridge. What if Del Monte actually does make better ketchup than Heinz, but we just don’t know about it? A connected fridge could provide new insights into tastes and preferences, helping bring better product awareness to the public. It can also provide superior consumer intelligence that food and beverage companies could only dream about when trying to understand buying and consumption habits. The idea of a free refrigerator may seem radical today, but it’s a concept that has proven successful in other industries — and the technology exists to make it work. Ultimately, the consumers are the ones holding the key to the smart fridge’s future. Are we ready to share the details of every late-night snack, or will the fridge be the line that we draw when it comes to sharing our private information with commercial organizations? |
E-books are more than just digital facsimiles, and publishers need to realize that, pronto | Haje Jan Kamps | 2,016 | 3 | 26 | , and its less popular e-reader brethren, are great for fiction, but trying to consume content that isn’t meant to be enjoyed from cover to cover is an exercise in annoyance, frustration and misery. That’s a shame, because it doesn’t have to be that way. Take travel books for example. When trekking across the globe, lugging around four-and-a-half pounds worth of guide books is an utter pain in the arse. Loading a shelf’s worth of travel books onto an e-reader makes a lot more sense. “E-books for the win,” I hear you whisper. But alas, the challenge isn’t the weight, but rather the way travelers use guide books. When on the road, you’ll forever find yourself flipping between overview maps, local maps, the “what to do” section for where you are, the “where to stay” section for where you’re going, the “I’m hungry but we’re running behind schedule so we are not where we planned to be” pages and the “oh no, somebody nicked my passport, now what the hell do I do?” chapter. It isn’t really e-books’ fault that they’re occasionally frustrating. It turns out that physical paper books actually have a tremendously efficient user interface. You can use fingers or Post-it notes as bookmarks and flip back and forth between sections faster than you can with any other technology. You can write notes in the margin. You can circle, highlight and rip out pages if you want. You could even do what a friend of mine did in an effort to save weight: cut apart half a dozen Lonely Planet guides and gaffer-tape them back together into a customized travel itinerary. When reading fiction, an e-reader can completely replace the paperback. There are other book types that have similar issues of non-linearity. I recently found myself looking into going back to school and doing a GRE. The official guide is the No. 8 best-seller in its category, but is worse than useless as a study guide. The book is full of useful information, but the Kindle version is absolutely, utterly unusable. The formatting is broken, sure, but that’s the least of its problems. The book refers to things like “see page 29 for the scoring,” ignoring that most e-readers have no concept of page numbers. The only thing that including these sort of cross-references accomplishes is to tell the reader that they bought the wrong edition of this book: “If you had bought the paper book, this is where we would give you some useful information. Instead, well, here — have a reference that’s utterly useless to you.” Another face-palm moment pertains to the sample questions and answers. They are separated in the book, but there’s no shortcut/hyperlink between them. That’s just dumb. As a result, you’ll find yourself clicking back 25 times to re-read the question, then forward 25 times to read the answer. Or realistically, you find yourself doing that, and instead sighing, reaching for your phone and googling “how to get a refund for a Kindle book.” Even if the publisher wasn’t aware of the possibility of using the smart tech available to e-book publishers (which might just be an explanation, but a very embarrassing one at that), there are other ways of avoiding the issue. In the case of the question/answer, for example, simply repeating the question would be a solution: It’s not like they’re going to incur extra printing costs or run out of space in an e-book. For the “see page 26 for more information about X” challenge, the publisher could have said “We will cover X more later in this book.” Not as , but at least not actively antagonizing. Some book types — and especially ones covering graphics-heavy topics such as photography — don’t work well on e-ink readers. In leveling critique at publishers, I don’t even walk away scot-free myself. Quite a few of my own books are available as e-books, and my best-selling book (The Rules of Photography and When to Break Them) is probably the dumbest example of all. As you might imagine from its title, it is full of photographs. A Kindle edition exists, but it simply doesn’t make sense: The book is heavily based on examples, and trying to get a handle on the core concepts of the book on a black-and-white device is going to be an exercise in futility. The truth is that e-ink books are great for certain things. E-readers are perfect for taking fiction on holiday with you: You can carry a library’s worth of books on a device that has weeks of battery life. And, as a bonus, nobody can see that you’re reading Fifty Shades of Grey. Perfect. The technology built into the e-readers is maturing rapidly. Highlighting, bookmarking and dealing with footnotes, end notes and cross-referencing is all standard. The biggest change from five years ago is that I can now see myself reading academic works on e-readers without major problems. Overall, the technology is there. Using platforms such as the or , there is a lot of technology and features available to publishers — much of which is very rarely used. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a tiny tragedy. Kindle is perfect for travelers on the go — but publishers need to embrace the technology. For other uses, such as travel guides and books that rely on graphics and photography, custom apps or (gasp) websites could be a far better solution. For some travelers, something like or might work well, but both those apps rely on always-on Internet connections, and for many travelers, not being connected is either part of the allure of travel or a technological/financial necessity. Having said all that, bringing travel guides to phones and tablets would make a lot of sense. In addition to beautiful retina color displays, most portable devices have GPS, cameras and a ton of features that make them better suited to the task at hand. Ultimately, technology will march on, and both e-ink, e-book and other publishing technologies will continue getting better. In the meantime, if publishing wants to survive as an industry, they would be well advised not to keep publishing un-adapted electronic versions of wood-pulp books. If this continues to happen, the best-case scenario is the readership tolerates being patronized — but more realistically, readers will make a mental note never to buy travel guides, academic books or photography titles on e-readers again. Publishers, if you want to stay in business, stop conning your readers out of money, and instead embrace the advantages of e-book technologies. Singeing your customers with disappointment for a few dollars of short-term profit simply isn’t worth it. |
Oculus founder Palmer Luckey hand-delivers first Rift VR headset to customer | Lucas Matney | 2,016 | 3 | 26 | After months and years of anticipation, the first virtual reality headset has been delivered into a customer’s hands. was the very first person to get a pre-order in for the Rift when they opened in early January. — Ross Martin (@RossDM) As a celebratory gesture, Palmer Luckey flew to Alaska to hand-deliver a Rift headset signed by all of the founders. To capture the moment Palmer utilized Facebook Live to stream the delivery and unboxing. The whole thing is testament how off-the-cuff and, well, Facebook Live is. Facebook owns Oculus which may explain why they chose it as the recording method of choice for this moment. The live stream begins with a classic “It’s working?” then later “Wait, what?” Personally delivering the first Rift to Alaska! Posted by on Saturday, March 26, 2016 Then, a Hawaiian shirt and flip flop clad Luckey rolls into an offive in Alaska where Martin works. Luckey wanders the halls a bit and then gets to the hand-off where he presents Martin with the first consumer Rift. “I’ve been working on this thing for so long, and you’re the first person to actually get one,” Luckey said in the video. “So it’s kind of like me taking all of this work and handing it off to you so you’ve got to make sure you have fun with it or something.” This is the first Rift to be delivered, but many more will be arriving Monday when the Rift officially launches. Most people will still have to wait a bit for the highly anticipated device. The $599 Rift is currently back-ordered for several months on the Oculus site. Martin was at his office so he didn’t end up having his PC build. Therefore instead of sitting down for a virtual reality gaming session, Palmer had to settle for some chitchat with Martin about how much it sucks to be working on the weekends, before he ends up cutting the video. But wait! Moments later, another live video went up where Martin gives a bit of his background and the pair chat about Alaska and sled dogs and stuff. Meeting Ross part 2 Posted by on Saturday, March 26, 2016 In addition to being a major moment for consumer virtual reality, this video also shows the dedication some Silicon Valley founders show for their personal brands. I mean, what the heck is Luckey doing wearing cargo shirts and flip flops in Alaska?? Hiking through Alaska in the winter wearing flipflops was a mistake — Palmer Luckey (@PalmerLuckey) |
Gillmor Gang: No Flipping | Steve Gillmor | 2,016 | 3 | 26 | The Gillmor Gang — Robert Scoble, Frank Radice, John Taschek, Keith Teare, and Steve Gillmor. Recorded live Friday, March 25, 2016. The Gang floats on the border between virtual fiction and greater reality. Plus, the latest G3 (below) with Mary Hodder, Rebecca Woodcock, Francine Hardaway, and Tina Chase Gillmor. @stevegillmor, @scobleizer, @jtaschek, @fradice, @kteare Produced and directed by Tina Chase Gillmor @tinagillmor [ustream id=84905284 hwaccel=1 version=3 width=480 height=302] |
What life science investors got right in this most recent boom | Connie Loizos | 2,016 | 3 | 26 | It’s long been the case that life sciences investors don’t get the attention that their more traditional tech counterparts do. They’re underrepresented on in venture capital. They’re also remarkably underfunded, according to institutional investors (or limited partners) who back venture firms. It’s the “life sciences guys who are smart as hell,” says one LP who’s grown frustrated with some of the tech-focused firms he has backed because they’ve haven’t produced the cash-on-cash returns he expected, yet who’s exceedingly happy with bets on firms like , a 10-year-old, Boston-based outfit that incubates biotech startups and which took many of those companies public before the IPO window largely slammed shut last fall. Taking companies public is “exactly what the tech guys should have been doing,” says this person, who represents a sizable endowment. Whether the LP is being completely fair is an open question. Certainly, in recent years, many more biotech startups have gone public than consumer or enterprise startups, with public investors seemingly drawn in part to unprecedented levels of innovation, including new machine therapies and other treatments for a variety of diseases that couldn’t be addressed earlier in time. However, even healthcare investors are quick to point out that they took so many companies public in part because they didn’t have much choice. “An incredible biotech bull market over last four years begot more successes, and it became a self-enforcing prophecy,” says Jamie Topper, a Stanford biophysics PhD who has long been a managing general partner at Frazier Healthcare Partners. But he notes that the “big difference between biotech and consumer is that biotech companies need hundreds of millions of dollars if they’re going to keep their products moving toward commercialization, versus [a] consumer [startup], which may need $20 million. So when there’s an open capital market and you need access to money, that’s most easily done in the public markets.” And there are other reasons we saw more healthcare IPOs in recent years. Among them: many of today’s buzzed-about private companies are still young compared with those of their life sciences peers to get out the door. “Firms that remained committed to life sciences saw results because more mature companies were delivering what they said they would deliver,” says Terry McGuire, a cofounder and general partner at Polaris Ventures of the three years ending last year. “There were a lot of companies that made it through a tough period of six, seven, nine years, and when the market opened to them again,” they seized on the welcoming public market, he says. Indeed, healthcare investors weren’t necessarily following a better playbook than IT investors, says Bryan Roberts, a Harvard PhD and longtime partner at Venrock, who focuses on healthcare IT, biotechnology, diagnostics, and medical devices. While life sciences VCs pushed their companies to go public faster, Roberts says that, “I don’t know much credit to give. Taking companies public is just half the battle. Then you have to get out of the stock,” which isn’t always easy or quick, as many biotech companies don’t see a lot of trading volume. The VCs’ candor notwithstanding, it’s easy to understand the LP’s point. With so much capital sloshing around, many tech VCs seemingly fell into the trap of letting many of their portfolio companies linger too long as private companies, and many of those companies are paying for that decision right now. On average, private tech companies are reportedly less valuable than they were last year at this time. Maybe they would have been exactly as valuable right now as public companies, but at least they’d have a currency, including with which to buy other startups. According to Renaissance Capital, just 23 tech companies raised a total of $4.2 billion in 2015, down from the 55 firms that raised $32.3 billion in 2014. Meanwhile, Venrock alone has seen 18 healthcare-related portfolio companies go public since early 2013. Polaris has seen a dozen. Frazier has seen eight. It’s no wonder Venrock’s seventh fund, closed with in 2014, was $100 million larger than its predecessor fund, which closed in 2010. (If its eighth fund is even larger, don’t be surprised.) Frazier meanwhile raised a early-stage fund last fall, and it separately announced a growth-stage fund this past week. Even outfits that didn’t pay much attention to biotech startups are focused on them now, including the venture firm Andreessen Horowitz, which established a separate, last November, and the popular accelerator Y Combinator, which began focusing more on in the summer of 2014. Now, everyone just needs the IPO window to reopen. It could take some time, says John Fitzgibbon, founder of the research firm IPOScoop. “Healthcare startups are like any merchandise. It if sells, people will continue to sell it.” For now, he says, investors have decided that too many related companies are “based on faith, hope, and charity.” In fact, of the six biotech companies to go public this year, only two are trading above their offering price. Still, it’s not a terrible comparison when looking at tech IPOs. The number of offerings so far in 2016? Zero. |
Oakland-based art and tech studio 💾🌵 takes critical look at A.I. | Megan Rose Dickey | 2,016 | 3 | 26 | as advanced as you may think. In the last couple of months, Microsoft has had a couple of failed attempts with artificial intelligence. The first involved an image recognition app called Fetch!, which looks at photos of dogs to identify its breed. People, of course, started to use the app to determine what breed of dog people resemble. In doing so, . Earlier this week, Microsoft launched an A.I.-powered bot named Tay to interact with people on the Internet. Within a day, people had pretty much hijacked the bot to tweet racist commentary and other inappropriate content. After just 16 hours worth of chats, Microsoft silenced Tay. “We are deeply sorry for the unintended offensive and hurtful tweets from Tay…,” . “Tay is now offline and we’ll look to bring Tay back only when we are confident we can better anticipate malicious intent that conflicts with our principles and values. Although we had prepared for many types of abuses of the system, we had made a critical oversight for this specific attack. As a result, Tay tweeted wildly inappropriate and reprehensible words and images. We take full responsibility for not seeing this possibility ahead of time.” Oh, and let’s not forget about the . Yeah, that was really bad. 💾🌵(“disk cactus”) recently launched an iOS app called that is designed to identify objects in the world. It relies on a Microsoft data set called MS COCO, which uses neural networks to recognize images. The AI Scry app is intentionally fun and light-hearted, 💾🌵co-creator Sam Kronick (pictured above through the lens of AI Scry) told me. Kronick and 💾🌵’s other co-creator Tara Shi (also pictured above) were looking for a creative, non-intimidating way to talk about the issues of A.I. Ultimately, the goal with AI Scry is to pick apart A.I. and “point out that it’s not magic,” Shi said. While working with the Microsoft data set, Kronick and Shi said they really started to understand the biases built into the system — the objects that it’s really good at seeing and the objects it refuses to see. “Conceptually, this is interesting because you have this whole class of algorithms that are designed to do things that feel really, like, almost from another century,” Kronick said. But, at the same time, he said, it’s as if all of the advances we’ve made in social sciences and the way we talk about variants in the world amongst people or objects or things don’t exist. “You’re going back to creating systems that want to discriminate explicitly, that have hard binaries between different types of objects because you want to know what a rock is and what a doughnut is,” Kronick said. “You’re concerned about separating those two as far as you can rather than understanding anything about what’s in between.” AI Scry working its “magic” AI Scry identifies everyday, generic things like food, a car at a stoplight, a man holding a cake, and so on. What it doesn’t do well is tell you anything about the scenario. In a war zone, Kronick said, AI Scry would be wrong in a way that would be really uncomfortable. “You might just say, it’s the wrong data set,” Kronick said. “What’s interesting here is realizing that it’s easy to feel like you’re pushing these systems to be more objective than humans would. You’re removing a person from the loop. It’s easier to say it’s an objective observer. But in reality, there’s this whole chain of human designers, human laborers, human workers that create this system, and they bring along with them all these choices of what’s going to be included versus excluded in this data, what kind of information they’re looking for and what kind of functions they’re trying to draw out of this.” Upon first hearing about AI Scry, TechCrunch’s Matthew Panzarino wondered about potential accessibility uses. Kronick told me that he’d feel “a little concerned” using this technology to try to help blind people navigate a city or try to cross the street, in part because the tech software wasn’t written from the perspective of what someone who is blind might need. He went on to say that the technology, as it stands right now, prioritizes what a sighted person may find interesting about a particular scene. He went on to say that AI Scry is more of a critical project that’s trying to break apart what’s going on at the core of artificial intelligence, and there’s a lot more critical thinking to be done on the topic. In the near future, Shi is going to embark on a 3D generating rocks project that relies on neural networks to further explore the implications of artificial intelligence. “The idea is to train it on a lot of images of rocks and then have it slowly learn over time to create something that it believes to be a rock,” Shi said. “And then reinserting them back into the landscape, as a comment on even the most subtle parts of this change could be the most stirring and interesting.” With the 3D generating rocks project and AI Scry, the goal isn’t to make money. Although 💾🌵charges $0.99 for the app, that goes towards keeping the project running and paying for the costs of servers and whatnot. Some of their other projects include an emoji keyboard, which they recently started selling via Urban Outfitters, and a Wi-Fi walkman that [gallery ids="1297303,1297305,1297304,1297302,1297606"] When 💾🌵 isn’t tinkering around with projects like AI Scry and the Wi-Fi walkman, the studio is working with big corporate clients like Google. At the last Maker Faire, 💾🌵 created an experiment for Google as part of its Breaker lab at the fair, in which kids performed science experiments by breaking stuff. The kids stuffed “The studio is a platform for us to build on all these ideas, whether they’re going to be profitable or not, rather than trying to have a startup model of building some wacky ideas and gambling on whether they’re going to end up being something big,” Kronick said. Wacky ideas, indeed. 💾🌵’s process for coming up with ideas is also a wacky one. TL;DR They go into a dessert with Consenual Vibes — an algorithm-based device they hacked together — and then sit in around it in a big, carved-out dirt hole. They bust out the app that goes along with it, and swipe left or right on ideas like “Meat + trial,” “drones + bodies” or “Emoji + keyboard” until they come up with a match. Consenual Vibes is like Tinder, but for ideas, Kronick said. You can check out their process here: |
Virtual currencies create pathways for people in emerging economies | Paul Nelson | 2,016 | 3 | 26 |
Immense hype surrounds virtual currencies and distributed ledgers these days. Maybe this is inevitable if you combine an inscrutable, cutting-edge technology, its enigmatic origins, and a flow of $1 billion in venture funding thus far. But will these technologies create pathways for people in emerging economies to access and use financial services that meet their needs? Definitions vary, but for our purposes, a “virtual currency” is a non-government-backed digital representation of value. Many virtual currencies rely on cryptography and distributed computing to facilitate transactions. These transactions are documented on a “distributed ledger,” a database shared among network participants who collectively validate transactions accordingly to an established protocol. and are two examples of virtual currency systems, and the blockchain that underpins Bitcoin is one type of distributed ledger. We often hear how these technologies boast capabilities we care about in financial inclusion: efficiency, transparency, security and cost-effectiveness. Yet few applications of these technologies have demonstrated as much in scaled, real-world contexts, especially in communities without high-speed Internet, widely available smartphones, reliable energy access or stable incomes. This is the reality in many countries, after all, and for applications of these technologies to scale there, the lessons learned by the digital revolution thus far are highly relevant. In Tanzania, millions of Tanzanians did not start using mobile money to save, transfer or borrow funds just because the technology was available. Providers first had to refine prices, improve user interfaces and match product attributes with consumer needs. The collective impact of those adjustments was made clear when access to formal financial products nearly doubled over just four years. Applications that harness virtual currencies and distributed ledgers, on the other hand, are still at an early stage of development. , for example, allows people in the U.K. to send money to East Africa using Bitcoin. To use the service, a sender must open a Bitcoin wallet, exchange British pounds for bitcoins and initiate a transfer, which BitPesa’s platform sends through a gateway to deposit Kenyan shillings into a recipient’s bank or ( ) M-Pesa account. From a functional standpoint, BitPesa demonstrated the workability of this model. But it is still a niche service, and it is not clear yet whether similar products will ultimately offer the mass market a better option than the status quo (including newer digital-only remittance providers) on security, speed, cost and ease-of-use. Even if product aspects are figured out over time, broader barriers to scale must also be overcome, including a lack of connectivity because of rugged geography, regulatory concerns and cultural norms that can inhibit a woman’s access to mobile technology. The sector today seems to have a sharper sense of what these technologies can do. In addition to the many entrants who are still focused on consumer-facing applications (such as wallets or merchant payments), many more are examining how these technologies could instead transform the plumbing of the financial market infrastructure (such as , which has won attention lately for working with financial institutions to develop common standards for using distributed ledgers). In both cases, the debate now focuses less on if these technologies will have a role in modern life but how (and how much) it will transform it. In developing countries, transformation will be neither inevitable nor straightforward, but much may ride on the outcome of debate regarding a few key areas: A number of companies are deploying these innovations as back-end solutions for payments. For example, companies such as Abra and Align use the blockchain to facilitate cross-border payments. With $436 billion in remittances flowing to families in developing countries in 2014, the market opportunity is significant. But other purely domestic applications may face fewer regulatory hurdles to scale in developing countries, and non-payment-related use cases may merit attention first. For the financial sector to make real progress toward financial inclusion, policy makers and regulators are critical allies. Yet these technologies have sometimes failed to show how they improve, rather than undermine, the financial system’s integrity and inclusivity. Moreover, these technologies must be able to address those concerns in contexts with poor connectivity, weak governmental institutions and ill-defined or unstable policy environments. Distributed ledgers can be as open or closed as their purpose requires. Anyone can link directly to the bitcoin network, for example, without identifying themselves or relying on a gateway. This is partly a function of the objectives that originally animated the bitcoin community. But for many applications, a permissioned distributed ledger, where participants know the identity of each other, may open up other possibilities while not raising the same concerns about misuse. In a world where millions still lack a recognized form of identification, some innovators see distributed ledgers as a foundation for new forms of secure, portable digital IDs. Distributed ledgers could also help track any kind of asset. Or they could power “smart contracts” that execute automatically upon exogenous trigger events. Which assets, supply chains, or financing needs could benefit most from these uses in developing countries? The answers to these questions remain far from clear. Where the sector lands on them may ultimately have implications for whether these technologies prove to be fleeting novelties or truly meaningful enablers of financial inclusion. |
This war on math is still bullshit | Jon Evans | 2,016 | 3 | 26 | In the wake of Paris, San Bernardino, and now Brussels, the encryption debate has become such a potent cocktail of horror, idiocy, and farce that it has become hard to tease out any rational threads of discussion. There is so much stupidity that I hardly know where to begin; but let’s start with the farce. Everybody loves a farce, right? To recap: immediately after the San Bernardino attack, the FBI acquired the attacker’s work phone, which (unlike his personal phone) he had not bothered to destroy, and promptly . Months later, they / the San Bernardino DA decided to try to use the 200-year-old All Writs Act to force Apple to hack into it, claiming — — The seized iPhone may contain evidence that can only be found on the seized phone that it was used as a weapon to introduce a lying dormant cyber pathogen that endangers San Bernardino’s infrastructure Can we all just pause for a moment to bask, once again, in the breathtaking idiocy of that statement? And then all agree that we so do not even? It’s like many of the people who make up our society’s hierarchy of power and influence have so little understanding of the technologies that underpin our world that they are unable to distinguish between cartoonish Hollywood depictions and reality. They are more likely to find Amelia Earhart on that phone than this. — Jon Evans (@rezendi) …So, eventually, after a massive backlash, the powers that be–perhaps tired of gruesomely embarrassing themselves on a near-daily basis, and being unceremoniously schooled by Apple’s far superior lawyers– *Damn* this interview with former national security advisor Richard Clarke is *brutally* anti-FBI on iPhone issue — sarah jeong 🐱 (@sarahjeong) The FBI has decided the War on Drugs is too winnable and has decided to start a War on Math as a second front. — daveaitel (@daveaitel) –abruptly decided they didn’t need Apple to access that phone after all. As experts (including a friend of mine) had been saying all along. So did sanity return to the discussion? Did it hell. First, word broke out that the US government is attempting to legally force WhatsApp to cripple its end-to-end encryption in the name of wiretaps, possibly using the same legal strategies that have clearly been working so well for the FBI. Then, days after the awful attacks on Brussels, the — which had quotes from anonymous sources who ( ) blamed the Paris attacks on encryption — published these : According to the police report and interviews with officials, none of the attackers’ emails or other electronic communications have been found, prompting the authorities to conclude that the group used encryption […] When the laptop powered on, she saw a line of gibberish across the screen: “It was bizarre — he was looking at a bunch of lines, like lines of code. There was no image, no Internet,” she said. Her description matches the look of certain encryption software, which ISIS claims to have used during the Paris attacks. There is so much dumb in those two quotes that I scarcely even know where to begin. Fortunately, Rob Graham wrote an of them, along with this great tweet: No, morons, if encryption were being used, you'd find the messages, but you wouldn't be able to read them — Robᵉʳᵗ Graham 🤔 (@ErrataRob) …So of course Rukmini Callimachi, the NYT reporter in question, doubled down on Twitter. Say what? The last six words of this tweet sound just risibly ignorant to anyone with any technical background. — Jon Evans (@rezendi) …Why, it’s like many of the people who make up our society’s hierarchy of power and influence have so little understanding of the technologies that underpin our world that they are unable to distinguish between cartoonish Hollywood depictions and reality. . Unfortunately, we have now come to the part of this post where it is time for me to train my guns on my allies. As is probably clear, I support strong end-to-end encryption, and I think the creation of any kind of back door is a terrible idea. That said, a lot of people on my side are arguing from flawed principles based on political and emotional rather than rational precepts, and they should stop doing that posthaste. Let me explain. First, many of my pro-encryption, anti-back-door allies are arguing from a nakedly American-libertarian, government-oversight-is-bad stance. I neither agree with them nor think that this is a particularly smart approach. Talk of deliberately putting technology beyond the reach of the law and/or government is what Fred Wilson calls “privacy absolutism,” and it is dumb and counterproductive. Wilson : If society thinks someone is doing something wrong, and if law enforcement can get a warrant, there should be a mechanism to get access to our devices […] I am saddened by the tech sector’s absolutist approach to this issue. The more interesting and fruitful approach would be to think about the most elegant solutions and build them. And, indeed, if we to have back doors / escrowed keys, I prefer his partner Albert Wenger’s approach — — to a master “golden key” that would open everything. (This doesn’t mean I think that this is remotely a good idea, though; see below. Just a marginally less bad one.) Second, my pro-encryption allies keep yammering on, , about how what’s happening today is just another version of the “crypto wars” that were fought in the 90s. That may well be the case. So what? The world has moved on; technology has moved on; geopolitics have moved on; the people who make decisions have moved on. You don’t win arguments by claiming “we won the last argument, 20 years ago, in the depths of Internet prehistory, so therefore you’re not allowed to start this new one, nyah nyah!” Please, my allies, stop talking about the 90s. The 90s are ancient history. Nobody cares about the 90s. Let them rest in peace. What we be talking about, loudly and ceaselessly, is the fact that even if the tech industry give the government everything they wanted, this would be . We need to explain this as often as we can, because while it may seem obvious to us, we have been blessed–see above–with indication after indication that large swathes of the government and the media are too ignorant to understand this simple and unfortunate truth. Consider two analogies. One: gun control. I don’t want to extend this too far — encryption is not a munition, the Second Amendment is not relevant to this debate, etc — but, as a proud Canadian, I think gun control is generally an excellent idea. However, if I knew that anyone who wanted to possess a gun illegally could have one delivered to them overnight by a stealth drone with zero chance of being caught, for free, then I expect I would reconsider my analysis in a hurry. That is where we are with encryption. Some people seem to have a misconception that Apple’s encryption is especially strong. It isn’t. The state-of-the-art of end-to-end encryption software is Signal, which is . ( .) The day Apple allows any government to insist on back doors is the day every remotely competent bad actor in the world switches to third-party encrypted apps which require their own separate access codes. (The non-remotely-competent ones, by definition, can be caught without resorting to back doors.) This will immediately put them out of the reach of that “lawful access.” Any attempt to fight encryption with back doors is Whack-a-Mole with an infinite number of moles, unless the powers that be are willing to expand it into an all-out . But guess who will be affected by back doors on default / widely used messaging systems? who uses them — ie all the innocent ordinary people — because adding back doors, again by definition, hurts everyone’s security. (There is a long, sad, compelling history of “secure” back doors ultimately being used for unauthorized access. Even mighty Google has been in that way — by the Chinese, no less.) Analogy two: TSA locks on luggage. I can certainly see, and even support, the logic behind that initiative. But what if anyone who really wanted to could install their own locks that the TSA open, but airplanes were required to convey that luggage anyhow? Does that sound like an utter waste of time and energy whose only outcome would be to reduce the security of luggage and air travel in general? Does that sound, in fact, completely insane? It certainly does! But that is an excellent analogy for the claim that the tech industry needs to provide lawful-access back doors into their systems. Let us focus on that unfortunate but inarguable truth. Let us not talk about government overreach, or technology trumping law, or libertarianism, or the crypto wars of the 90s. Let’s focus on how encryption is merely math, which anyone can do, and let’s explain how world-class “military-grade” implementations of that math are already available, for free, to anyone and everyone. Whether you like it or not, that djinn is well and truly out of its shattered bottle, and no “elegant solution” might squeeze it back in. No one can win a war on math, so please let’s not start one. Everyone will lose. |
Whill receives FDA approval for the Model M, its new mobility device | Catherine Shu | 2,016 | 3 | 21 | Japanese startup ’s Model M, a motorized wheelchair alternative, has received clearance from the Food and Drug Administration in the United States. This means that the Model M can now be prescribed by physicians as a medical device and covered by insurance. Whill has raised about $12.85 million in funding so far from investors including the venture capital arm of Japanese telecom giant NTT DoCoMo. The company previously , in the United States, which it didn’t seek FDA approval for. Whill’s products use a patented wheel that allows users to make tighter turns in all directions, increasing their mobility and allowing them to maneuver easily on rough or sloping surfaces. The Model M includes several new features, including arm supports, pressure relief handles, and adjustable back support, that are necessary in medical devices. In a statement, co-founder and CEO Satoshi Sugie, who was inspired to launch Whill after seeing how difficult it was for a disabled friend to navigate with a traditional wheelchair, said passing the stringent FDA clearance process means the company will be able to market the Model M to the in the U.S., as well as medical professionals: “FDA clearance of the Model M represents a major milestone for our team and our customers in the U.S. healthcare system. We look forward to working with physicians in the United States by providing them with new modern wheelchair options for their patients.” The company’s team includes engineers and designers who previously worked Nissan, Sony, and Olympus and draw inspiration from auto design to create more attractive alternatives to electric wheelchairs, with the goal of removing the stigma attached to mobility devices. The Model M will have a market price of $13,995. |
Tech legend and former Intel CEO Andy Grove passes away aged 79 | Jon Russell | 2,016 | 3 | 21 | The world has lost a true technology legend after Andy Grove, the former CEO and chairman of Intel, passed away aged 79. Grove had suffered Parkinson’s disease, but the cause of death has not been made public at this point. Grove was the first hire at Intel, having worked with Intel founder Gordon Moore (of fame) at Fairchild Semiconductor. Grove joined Intel at its creation in 1968, and he subsequently became the firm’s president in 1979 and then CEO in 1987. Intel paid tribute to the impact that Grove, who was born in Hungary and moved to the U.S. in the mid-1950s having survived Nazi occupation and Soviet control, had on its business in : Grove played a critical role in the decision to move Intel’s focus from memory chips to microprocessors and led the firm’s transformation into a widely recognized consumer brand. Under his leadership, Intel produced the chips, including the 386 and Pentium, that helped usher in the PC era. The company also increased annual revenues from $1.9 billion to more than $26 billion. “Andy approached corporate strategy and leadership in ways that continue to influence prominent thinkers and companies around the world,” said current Intel chairman Andy Bryant in a statement. “He combined the analytic approach of a scientist with an ability to engage others in honest and deep conversation, which sustained Intel’s success over a period that saw the rise of the personal computer, the Internet and Silicon Valley,” Bryant added. Gove wasn’t just a business pioneer, he also moved the needle as an author and a business strategy pioneer. Aside from his time with Intel, Grove wrote a number of critically acclaimed books on management, including ‘High Output Management’ and ‘Only the Paranoid Survive’, which remain current today more than a decade later. Apple CEO Tim Cook, Salesforce CEO Marc Benoiff and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella were among the many to pay tribute to Grove on Twitter: Andy Grove was one of the giants of the technology world. He loved our country and epitomized America at its best. Rest in peace. — Tim Cook (@tim_cook) Very sad to hear of the passing of the great Andy Grove, former CEO of . A tremendous positive force on our industry & community. — Marc Benioff (@Benioff) Saddened by the passing of Andy Grove…a pioneer, a leader and a great teacher — Satya Nadella (@satyanadella) Shedding a few tears tonight for my hero and the best CEO and teacher I have ever known. Goodbye Andy. I love you. — Ben Horowitz (@bhorowitz) I’m sad to hear that Andy Grove has died. I loved working with him. He was one of the great business leaders of the 20th century. — Bill Gates (@BillGates) An excerpt from Andy Grove's autobiography. He is in post-war Hungry and applying to immigrate to the US. — Adam Smith (@asmith) https://twitter.com/pmarca/status/712075953803907072 Andy Grove was an inspiration growing up, his impact will be felt for a long time. RIP Andy Grove — Sundar Pichai (@sundarpichai) Sad to read this. Loved reading his thoughts on management. Inspired me greatly Andrew S. Grove 1936 – 2016 — Daniel Ek (@eldsjal) Grove is survived by his wife, Eva, two daughters and eight grandchildren. |
Malaysia-based RecomN, which helps customers find providers for important projects, raises $1M | Catherine Shu | 2,016 | 3 | 21 | Malaysian startup RecomN’s team , a platform that helps Malaysian and Indonesian users find service providers for important projects, will enter new Southeast Asian markets after raising $1 million in seed funding from Gobi Partners. The company was launched in July 2014 and inspired by expensive mishaps experienced by two of its co-founders, Alex Tan and Jes Min Lua. In Tan’s case, he picked a plumbing service based on the “biggest and most professional ad” he saw in the classifieds section. The plumber scammed Tan by disabling his water heater and didn’t reconnect it properly even after Tan coughed up a “house call fee.” Lua, meanwhile, hired a videographer who had good online reviews, but he lost all the footage shot at her wedding. Those experiences made them realize that there is often a large gap between what service professionals (and online testimonials) say they can do and how they actually perform. Since many important projects, like wedding photos and major home renovations, are things people only need to do once or twice, they have to rely on providers they have probably never met before. In Malaysia, Tan says, the best way to find a provider is through word-of-mouth recommendations from family and friends, but that only works if you know someone who knows someone. Before this round, RecomN was bootstrapped (Lua and Tan say they wanted to prove the business was sustainable in Malaysia before seeking funds). It will use its new capital to launch in two new Southeast Asian countries this year, but its founders are keeping silent on which ones until they finalize plans. The startup already claims to be one of the top service provider recommendation platforms in Malaysia and the biggest one in Indonesia. RecomN has two main competitors, which are also based in Malaysia and also have venture capital backing. , while . Lua and Tan say RecomN wants to carve out its own niche by focusing on big, costly projects instead of things like routine home repairs or cleaning. The company currently has two revenue models. The first is a credit subscription service for providers, which they spend when they respond to customer requests. The second is creating profiles for verified businesses that don’t have their own websites and selling sponsored content in RecomN’s digital magazine. Like other service recommendation platforms, RecomN uses algorithms to match users with providers based on cost, availability, and project details. The startup, however, also uses a time-intensive vetting process. After checking each provider’s credentials, like registration numbers, they call at least three previous customers and interview them about their experiences. To make sure the references are credible, RecomN’s staff asks detailed questions about the length of projects, planning and execution, and actual costs compared to initial quotes. “I’m sure people sometimes give us addresses for their cousins. We’ll manage to find that out and will ask for another one,” Lua says. “We go until we get three reviews we are comfortable with.” The process is working so far. The company claims that the providers it recommends get an average 4.8 star rating on their platform after they finish a project. RecomN’s goal is to scale up in new countries, however, and it might be difficult to continue the current interview process. The founders hope that as the platform gets more repeat users, they will provide reliable online reviews for different providers. As their review database grows, RecomN’s platform will use data analysis to provide speedier provider matches. “In the beginning we all have to do things that are slightly less sustainable, but as we go and get more data points, we’ll see if customers have been with us for a while and are more reputable and have written good reviews,” Lua says. “Then maybe we won’t have to personally call them up, because their reviews are credible already.” |
Ed-tech startup BYJU raises $75M from Sequoia India and Sofina | Catherine Shu | 2,016 | 3 | 21 | , an educational app for Indian schoolkids, plans to create new learning formats and products after raising $75 million from Sequoia India and Sofina. The company, which has now raised a total of $90 million, was founded as an online education platform in 2011 and launched its app six months ago. BYJU claims it has already been downloaded 2.5 million times so far and now has more than 120,000 paid annual subscribers. Courses are aimed at students in grades six to 12, supplementing their regular classwork and preparing them for major exams. Founder and CEO Byju Raveendran tells TechCrunch that India has the largest K-12 education system in the world, but it . He says this is because students lack access to good teachers, are forced into a “one-size-fits-all approach” because of a high teacher-student ratio, and spend too much time “driven by fear of exams rather than the love for learnings.” Raveendran says his goal is to create educational tools for all students, not just the extremely motivated ones. BYJU’s methodology focuses on visual learning with diagrams and engaging videos that put facts into context so kids see how they are relevant to their lives. Its learning platform analyzes how students are performing to give them personalized feedback and recommendations as soon as they submit work. “The platform adapts to the pace of learning, size of learning, and style of learning, in the sense that a student will know what to learn, when to learn, how much to learn, and how fast to learn,” he says. |
Find runway fashions with these apps | Katie Roof | 2,016 | 3 | 21 | Spring is here, which means it’s time to put away those coats and get out those dresses. But is your wardrobe still in style? Fashionistas, take note. These apps will help you find the latest styles. Moda Operandi Straight from fashion week, Moda Operandi makes it easy to shop the runway on its iPhone app. The team compiles the outfits seen at the shows and makes it easy to preorder directly through the app. From Valentino to Hermes you can put down a deposit to be the first to order the latest trends but you won’t get the items until they hit the shelves this fall. The app is free, but the styles will cost you a pretty penny! Want List We also like WantList for shopping. The free app is available on both the iPhone and Apple Watch and works like a Tinder for shopping. Swipe right if you like the style and left if you don’t! The app makes it easy to purchase from brands like Tory Burch and Marc Jacobs. You can also follow stylists and brands for fashion inspiration. In addition to clothes and accessories, you can buy makeup and fragrances through WantList. There’s a Tinder for everything, these days! If you’d rather not spend a ton of money on fashions that you’d wear one time, Rent the Runway is ideal for you. From Kate Spade to Jason Wu, Rent the Runway has a wide selection of fashions available for short-term rentals. Dresses, handbags and jewelry are all available on the app. You can rent one item at a time or if you sign up for Unlimited for $139 per month, you can try them all out. Unlimited sends shipments of 3 items and you can pick out new items, as soon as you send them back. The app is free and available on the iPhone. |
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Face-plant into this airplane tray table pillow | Josh Constine | 2,016 | 3 | 21 | You don’t have to be a circus freak contortionist to sleep on a plane thanks to . Now you can dive face-first into an inflatable travel pillow that’s made to sit atop your tray table. and plans to ship in July. Most travel pillows sit behind your head or around your neck. But when you’re sitting upright, that makes you more likely to topple forward. Woollip takes advantage of the only extra space you’re given on a plane or bus — right in front of you. The design was inspired by the face support from professional massage chairs. With holes to stuff your arms in, Woollip can also be turned on its side to fill the crevice of a window seat. Plus, you can tuck your phone inside so you can read or watch a movie as you prepare to sleep. Both of these features make it more practical than the giant block-like . Woollip supposedly takes only 5 breaths and about 15 seconds to inflate, and just 2 seconds to deflate. It folds up to the size of a brick and is said to weigh about as much as a smartphone. As long as can hold its air so it doesn’t sag while you slumber, it could save travelers from sleepless nights and neck pain. Flying coach just got comfier.
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First look at the new smaller iPad Pro | Felicia Shivakumar | 2,016 | 3 | 21 | Today was a pretty small news day for Apple. In part, because the announcements were largely iterations on existing products. But, also because the rumors about Apple’s hardware getting smaller were indeed true. The most notable downsized-device was the iPhone SE ( ) but for designers, artist, or just fans of the Apple Pencil, the was a happy addition to the Apple family. While at the event today, TechCrunch Editor-In-Chief, , got some hands on time with new iPad Pro. Here’s what you need to know about it: Watch the video above for a rundown of the new small-in-size, but power-packed features of the 9.7” iPad Pro. |
The major pitfall for digital health startups | Min-Sung Sean Kim | 2,016 | 3 | 21 |
While 2015 was a solid year for digital health, , healthcare startups also made headlines for other reasons when reports emerged that much-hyped companies like blood-testing startup and brain-training app were unable to prove the accuracy and effectiveness of their products. Like Beth Seidenberg from KPCB , digital health startups are increasingly seen as a vehicle to help reduce costs, increase revenues and cut red tape for consumers, healthcare practitioners or service providers. With the laser focus on KPIs and growth, digital health startups often overlook an important factor: Trust. However, in light of recent events in this space — now more than ever — digital health entrepreneurs need to remind themselves of the importance of building and maintaining trust with key stakeholders in order to sustain their businesses. Although developing a reputation of trust and credibility is critical for startups across industries, it’s particularly important in the realm of digital health. Not only are people more sensitive when it comes to issues of health and well-being, healthcare practitioners are very careful about who they work with because of the complex and highly regulated nature of this sector. Having talked to many entrepreneurs working in this area, it seems that the most common problems they face often come down to obtaining funding and deciding on a business model. Both are in one way or another intertwined with the issue of trust. The digital health market is still fairly nascent, which means many investors are just getting to know this fast-growing space and may not yet be so inclined to open their pockets. Part of the entrepreneur’s task is to prove they have deep knowledge of the market, present evidence that their product/technology is effective or demonstrate how they’re capturing value through metrics. Besides raising capital, the question of whether is a hot topic. I don’t believe it has to be an either/or decision; rather, these models can be combined in an overarching strategy. Having seen more than 2,300 digital health startups and sat through meetings with portfolio companies, I’ve noticed that B2B models usually take a bigger chunk of the revenue stream. And the foundation of B2B deals usually comes down to two things: retention and trust. High B2C retention rates are a sign that a startup is capturing value in some way, while trust is needed to show potential partners that your company is reliable and worth working with. If trust is not the backbone of a business relationship, these types of deals are much more difficult to close. Another important thing to remember is that each transaction or interaction can either strengthen or undermine the trust that stakeholders have in a startup, and once it’s lost — like in a scandal related to inaccurate claims or questionable motives — it’s difficult to recover. So how can digital health entrepreneurs prove their product/service is credible and trustworthy? A good starting point of building trust with stakeholders is by acquiring FDA approval or product certifications. For (a Vienna-based startup aiming to change how people perceive diabetes therapy), meeting FDA/EU standards was a top priority from the very beginning. The company wanted to make it very clear to stakeholders that it was offering a medical product solving a real therapy problem, as opposed to a wellness gadget. Since its launch in 2013, mySugr’s diabetes Logbook app has been registered as a medical device with the FDA. Michael Forisch, Quality Management Director at mySugr, told me that gaining approval essentially comes down to describing how the startup plans to work — which includes everything from processes involved in hiring new employees to managing patient risks — in a specific language used by organizations such as the FDA. Overall, he said the time required for FDA approval depends on the complexity of a product, but startups should expect at least 6-8 months in the EU and 9-12 months in the U.S. Because mySugr partners with pharmaceuticals and diagnostic companies, among others, Forisch says it’s been critical having this stamp of approval because fulfilling regulatory requirements is typically a prerequisite for integrating their product with these companies. Joerg Land, CEO of digital health startup Sonormed, said receiving CE certification for their app that aims to treat tinnitus, called (now reimbursed by Techniker Krankenkasse, a large insurance company based in Germany), proved to be an important step in building trust with patients, physicians and partners alike. Despite a process that took more than 18 months and involved working with authorities and lawyers, Mikko Kiiskilä — CEO of Finnish telemedicine startup — shared a similar sentiment, and said it’s crucial to show concrete evidence of quality when working in such a conservative industry like healthcare. Today their service is reimbursed by the Finnish government and insurance companies in multiple countries. Another way to support your claims is through clinical validation. Unfortunately, like getting approvals/certifications, the process can be time-consuming. German e-health tech startup worked alongside a health insurer on a study to provide evidence of the medical benefits of its digital diabetes patient-care solution. Although the clinical study took around two years to complete, Emperra CEO Dr. Christian Krey said validating its medical product proved to be an important factor in gaining reimbursement from insurance companies and when negotiating partnerships — all parties wanted to see the results of the study before entering into a contract. Similarly, German brain-training startup conducted a study with two German universities that proved the application could increase the working memory capacity of its users. Although the study lasted around 18 months, NeuroNation co-founder Jakob Futorjanski said that having the validation was a huge milestone in gaining the trust of their users, and eventually led to higher-quality cooperation (insurance companies, clinics, etc.) and higher retention rates. Ultimately, digital health entrepreneurs should remember that it takes time to build a startup brand with a reputation of trust — and constant care to maintain it. And yet, it’s a crucial part to the success and sustainability of a startup aiming to challenge the status quo in health care. |
Spectral Edge wants to drive its infrared photo-enhancing tech into every smartphone | Natasha Lomas | 2,016 | 3 | 21 | Smartphone cameras are so good these days it can seem almost churlish to yearn for improvements. And yet enhancements continue to shave away at imperfections as engineers turn the screw to optimize multiple aspects of image capture hardware and software. To wit: U.K. based startup has developed a mathematical technique for improving photographic imagery, blending data captured by a standard camera lens with an infrared shot of the same scene in order to enhance the depth and color of the photo. Its computation photography technique, called Phusion, works especially well for sharpening detail in shots taken on hazy days or when elements in the scene have been over-exposed, according to MD Christopher Cytera. “It’s bringing extra detail into the picture that you can’t necessarily see with a normal camera. Because infrared penetrates through mist and fog much better than visible light. And so when you have a picture with a little bit of mist, little bit of fog you get a much more stunning effect,” he tells TechCrunch. “The secret sauce is being able to combine… the infrared with the visible light picture in a way that’s pleasing,” he adds. “There’s been other techniques to combine the two in the past but they don’t end up with pictures that are nice to look at.” For example, weapons systems used by the military to identify targets have already been using infrared to enhance visibility. But in that case the resulting imagery is enhanced only in a utilitarian sense — i.e. to help identify targets. Phusion is designed to serve up better natural looking pictures. You can see some before and after examples on . The hard maths underlying the technique involves mapping the rate of change across the entire scene using differentiation calculations, says Cytera. “In simple terms we do it by transforming the pictures into what’s called the gradient space. What we’re doing is we’re differentiating every pixel with respect to every other pixel and color in multiple dimensions. And what that does is it preserves every single gradient — all the gradients and edges in the picture are perfectly preserved. “Whereas other techniques try to blend pictures and you end up with blurred effects as a result — you lose edge definition. We don’t do that because we differentiate all these pixels.” The technique can also have the side-effect of airbrushing/beautifying photos of people, because the infrared filter is able to reduce the appearance of blemishes on human skin. So not only sharper landscapes but slicker selfies too — or at least that’s the promise. The technique can also apparently enhance low light imagery — a perennial holy grail of smartphone makers, given the inevitable light capture constraints on small sensors. Spectral Edge, which holds patents on the tech, was founded at the University of East Anglia in early 2011, before being spun out in March 2014. It’s announcing a new tranche of funding today — £1.5 million, following its $300,000 seed back in 2014 — with the aim of commercializing the tech. Investors in the latest round are IQ Capital and Parkwalk Advisors, along with angels from Cambridge Angels and the Cambridge Capital Group. Spectral Edge’s business model is to license its IP to device makers. So the funding will be used develop the IP product so it’s ready for licensing, along with further development and testing work of the core tech. Cytera reckons the first commercial deployments could arrive within 18 to 24 months, likely in on high end professional cameras initially but trickling down thereafter to smartphone hardware as the required sensors become cheaper to produce in volumes. He confirms the startup is talking to some smartphone makers now but won’t name any names at this stage. An infrared sensor would be needed on a mobile device for the technique to function but Cytera notes that some smartphones already have the necessary hardware — such as , which uses an infrared sensor for gestures. Future mobile phone camera sensors could also incorporate infrared into their sensor mix so that a device with a single lens could grab the necessary image data, without a handset needing to have two camera lens, he adds. “In the long run we think this could be in every single phone with no real cost penalty except a bit of software,” he says. “Maybe [in] five years. Which is what happened with HDR.” Although, at this stage, there’s plenty more work to do to pave the way for infrared enhanced shots as standard, with Cytera noting the tech does not yet function in real-time on a mobile device but is rather being post-processed on a laptop. So they’re not there yet. An earlier route to market than even pro cameras could be security cameras, in Cytera’s view. He notes the technique works in enhancing video too so could be used to . |
Castle is a drag-and-drop account takeover protection solution | Nitish Kulkarni | 2,016 | 3 | 21 | You probably have your credit card and other payment information keyed into at least 10 different services right now, all of which are likely based over a mobile app or website. For a long time, the effective user detection has been the preserve of large payment providers and web services — take or Google’s service as examples. , part of Spring 2016 class, is the latest in a handful of companies to bring this capability to everything else. What makes Castle, whose four-person team is split between Mountain View, California and Northern Sweden, interesting is how seamlessly the product can be integrated by clients. All they need to do to set up the Castle service is drag and drop a snippet of JavaScript code into the header of their site’s raw HTML code. Castle does the rest, from flagging suspicious logins and other nonstandard login activity, to integrating with a customer service system, to automatically suspending accounts and notifying users about a potential compromise. The inspiration for Castle came out of the co-founders’ previous startup, payments company , says Johann Brissmyr, Castle’s CEO. “We worked with integrating a lot of these enterprise [security] solutions, which are now our competitors,” he says, adding that the lack of good tools to protect users gave Castle the opening it needed. User-friendliness and setup time are a big part of Castle’s product, and the team took inspiration from analytics platform Mixpanel and Google Analytics in the realm of user interaction. Behind the scenes, Castle works by tracking user behavior to identify suspicious activity, from behavior ranging from new locations or devices to activity considered “abnormal” by a particular user or on a particular service. “We track every page view. We track events like login and password changes,” says Brissmyr. “Really, we’re trying to find anomalies.” Castle, in a nutshell, looks at similar data to what popular web services like Facebook and Google seek out to identify suspicious behavior that would suggest hijacks or brute-force logins. Similar to peer products used by other companies, Castle also assigns a “risk score” to each individual anonymized user, with different degrees of events raising or lowering that score.
For example, Brissmyr explains, customers using the same device in a different place wouldn’t raise their risk score, but their score would rise if a new device in a different location was used in a login attempt. “We also keep track of what normal behavior is on a website,” he added. “If most users only use one mobile phone, and someone logs in from another mobile phone that raises the risk.” (The company says that among the other data it uses are Tor exit nodes, blacklisted IPs, and data center IPs that could indicate that someone has set up a proxy on AWS. “We scrape external sources and compromised databases, and if we have users matching those emails, we can check if those users were compromised on other platforms,” Brissmyr says.) While Castle has few direct competitors, including Boise, Idaho-based security provider , larger web service providers like Google or Amazon that are moving into the space could spell trouble. Brissmyr, for his part, is confident in the face of the potential threat. “I don’t think they [Google and other web services providers] will [compete with Castle], and if they would, they would not focus as hard as we do on this,” he says. “We have made the service integrated into so many apps.” |
FBI says it might not need Apple’s help unlocking that iPhone after all, asks to postpone hearing (UPDATE: Postponed!) | Greg Kumparak | 2,016 | 3 | 21 | Just one day before the government was set to meet Apple in court to determine whether Apple could be forced to unlock an encrypted iPhone used by terrorist Syed Rizwan Farook, the government is saying “Never mind (for now)!” Why? Because they might’ve found their own way in. “On Sunday, March 20, 2016, an outside party demonstrated to the FBI a possible method for unlocking Farooks iPhone. Testing is required to determine whether it is a viable method that will not compromise data on Farook’s iPhone. If the method is viable, it should eliminate the need for assistance from Apple Inc. (“Apple”) set forth in the All Writs Act Order in this case. Accordingly, to provide time for testing the method, the government hereby requests that the hearing set for March 22, 2016 be vacated. The government proposes filing a status report with the Court by April 5th, 2016″ In other words: “Someone found a way in, so we might not need to force Apple to do anything after all. Check back in a few weeks!” Apple executives spoke with reporters today, explaining that Apple knows nothing about whatever method the government might have found to break into the device. The statement reads that an “outside party” was responsible for the FBI’s renewed hope to unlock the device on its own. Even so, the NSA has been a common reference among security experts postulating about who might be able to crack the device without Apple’s help. This has led some folks to wonder whether the agency might have stepped in here — and whether it did so because the FBI got cold feet, perhaps sensing that it might lose this case and set a clear precedent that they want. Namely, that the government cannot force companies to weaken their device security. It’s also worth noting that the FBI stated over a dozen times over the course of this case being presented that of unlocking the device was Apple. That has now been thrown into doubt with the FBI’s call for postponement to try this new unlock method. The agency will likely have to answer for those statements — even more so if it attempts to resubmit the case. A response is due from the government by April 5. Sure enough, a judge has granted the government’s request to postpone the hearing. [ , as linked by Cyrus Farivar of Ars Technica. First spotted by the ] |
Almost everyone is doing the API economy wrong | Ed Anuff | 2,016 | 3 | 21 |
It’s time to hold companies to a higher standard when it comes to APIs. As software “eats the world,” it seems like it’s not enough for a business to just serve its customers and hopefully make a profit, they also have to be “platforms” — and, as any developer would respond, these days you just can’t be a platform without an API. Building APIs has never been easier. If you don’t have in-house developers who are API-savvy, there are a lot of great open-source frameworks to help with getting the code right — and there’s no shortage of vendors happy to sell you the tools you need (including my employer, Apigee, and others such as , and ). The strategy is simple enough: build API, launch API, run hackathons, get free apps and profit. Launching an API program and adding a “platform strategy’’ slide to your investor deck seems like a no-brainer, but the history of API programs reads like a travelogue on the good intentions highway. There are many reasons to build an API, and even more reasons to use one. This is not an article about enterprise topics like service-oriented architecture or the role of microservices — we’ll leave that for another day. This is about the API economy. It’s about how two companies can work together to create more value than either of them could independently. It’s about the great technology industry tradition of platforms and applications — the fundamental dynamics that allowed Microsoft to build its dominant position in the 1980s and early 1990s, and what made Apple’s App Store such a powerful model. There are plenty of variants of this; for instance, Google turning the web into its platform when it taught publishers to SEO then paid them back with AdSense. The web API is the successor to this, and it’s been a long, bumpy road. Long before AWS, Amazon’s original platform was its retail business and their first API was the Amazon Product API that let you build storefronts and apps using Amazon’s deep product catalog. Maybe it was the materialistic mindset of the retail business, but Amazon didn’t delude themselves that developers would be writing apps to use these APIs to win a prize at a hackathon. let you profit from the sales you drove to Amazon. Likewise, eBay took the same approach with revenue sharing. Developers were incented to build and maintain quality apps, the platforms were incented to provide quality APIs. There are lots of business models for APIs — you don’t always have to be cutting checks like these companies chose to — but this all-too-uncommon notion of “win/win’’ was baked into these programs from the beginning. In many ways, the current situation in APIs can be blamed on Twitter. Twitter’s early strategy let developers take 100 percent of the immediate revenues (in the form of app sales) in return for Twitter taking 100 percent of the valuation opportunities (during the Twitter API heyday, they really needed traffic and users more than anything else). Once a future as a public company was in the cards, they needed all the monetization opportunities back from the developers in order to eke out every last dime of ad potential. We’re just now waking up to the idea that you probably should never trust an API from a company that intends to make most of their money from advertising, even if they’re charging you for those APIs (see ). The end result, though, is that anyone looking to either provide an API or build on top of one is trying to avoid either ending up the bad guy who pulls the rug out from under developers or the victim of an orphaned API program. Sadly, we see two things today when it comes to APIs: either the closed “partner-only’’ API model, where a company announces with some fanfare that it now has APIs, but you can’t use them unless you’re very important, or the mildly less-depressing situation where a company launches a technically great API, but does so with no developer business model. We see both of these in the ridesharing world at the moment — Lyft’s API was partner-only until very recently, while their competitor Uber had launched a technically great API, but with an unrealistic monetization strategy for developers that it . The closed-API model ends up missing the big opportunities because, unlike the “Biz Dev 2.0’’ approach of APIs, it relies on hand-crafted partnerships that inevitably try to pick winners and losers before a line of code has been written by quickly becoming about things like exclusivity and co-marketing. In many ways, not thinking through API monetization is even worse, because it doesn’t provide sustainable incentives and rewards to either the API provider, the developer or the user. Uber and Lyft, for example, will both , but neither service will share any revenue from the rides booked. A rational developer who pursues this program is going to focus on drive-by signups, and may not find incentive for supporting users beyond that point. While both companies have clearly identified user acquisition as their biggest priority, this mechanism may well have unintended consequences. The best example of how this type of model plays out in the long term is the Yahoo Toolbar, which uses a similar reward system, with the end result being that your mom’s PC inevitably ends up with five or six toolbars installed by unscrupulous ad networks looking to cash in on the referral fees. Developers will inevitably game any monetization system; you need to make sure their incentives are aligned with delivering a great experience to your users first and foremost. Uber’s new is a much better option because it lets developers pursue in-ride and post-ride monetization opportunities. One thing I’d recommend to Uber is to make sure they’re figuring out the best way to manage the ecosystem of developers who build upon this, much as Facebook did with their developer program. Facebook knew from the outset that developers building Facebook apps needed monetization mechanisms and made clear to developers the rules for advertising inside apps. The last thing you want as a platform provider is to get in a land grab with your own developers. So, who’s doing a great job with API programs that respect developer economics? In addition to some of the examples already mentioned, I’d point to as a great example of a traditional business that has embraced the API economy. The photo app category is a crowded space, with lots of developers finding new ways to make it easier to take and edit great photos. Walgreens’ API gives developers a way to monetize their apps by earning commissions on each photo printed to a local Walgreens store location. Another great example is Slack, which is spawning an entire ecosystem of and integrated chat applications building on the powerful Slack API. Slack understands that developers need a viable business model, and lays out from the get-go what’s allowed and what’s not when it comes to charging for apps and displaying advertising, allowing developers to enhance the Slack experience in a way that’s great for the users while making sure there’s an opportunity for developers to build sustainable businesses around this. Doing an API right isn’t very hard. Doing an API program right shouldn’t be that hard. If you’re going to open up an API for developers, ask what’s in it for them. It’s easy to host a hackathon and get a bunch of cool demos, but if the goal is to do something more, you need to figure out how to make it worth everyone’s while. Developers are getting smarter about these things and, while they may come for the free lunch at the hackathon, they know there’s no such thing as a free API. |
Apple’s keynote diversity scorecard | Megan Rose Dickey | 2,016 | 3 | 21 | Apple held a special event today, , update to Apple TV, new Watch bands, ResearchKit and Carekit. Unlike its last event, , this event prominently featured Apple Vice President of Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives Lisa Jackson as the second speaker, right after Apple CEO Tim Cook. AND a POC — Allen Tan (@tealtan) Jackson, who spoke about Apple’s robots called Liam that take apart iPhones for reuse and recycling, was the first-ever person of African-American descent to serve as administrator of the Environment Protection Agency. She joined Apple in 2013. By the end of the event, Apple had a total five people on stage. Four were white men and one was a woman of color. At Apple’s last event, there were 13 white men, one Cuban American man, one Asian man and three white women. So, Apple actually had a slightly higher female to male ratio (20%), as well as a higher non-white to white ratio (20%) of speakers at today’s event than its event last September. Representation matters at big tech events like this because if young people can’t see themselves in prominent roles, it’s harder for them to aspire to attain them. Earlier this year, . The report, which represented employee data as of August 2015, showed slight diversity progress, with the hiring of 1,475 African-Americans, 1,633 Hispanics and 1,662 Asians over a 13-month period. In that same time period, Apple hired 4,096 white people. Last October, . Although Bell is not the first black person ever to serve on Apple’s board, he’s the only black person currently serving on Apple’s board of directors. |
Apple launches CareKit to create health apps | Katie Roof | 2,016 | 3 | 21 | With help from top medical institutions including UCSF, Johns Hopkins and Stanford School of Medicine, CareKit can help individuals track treatment progress and communicate it to a physician or family members. Apple says the platform can be used to monitor symptoms and keep tabs on a medication schedule. Other use cases include sharing photos of a wound or quantifying range of motion by using the iPhone’s accelerometer and gyroscope. CareKit is “empowering people to take a more active role in their care,” said Apple COO Jeff Williams. The first app created with CareKit will be tailored for people with Parkinson’s, but Apple says that this tool has a variety of potential applications. They expect that it will be used for post-surgery progress, physical therapy, diabetes management, mental health, pregnancy and more. Apple also touted the success of ResearchKit, which was introduced last year. It has led to significant developments in epilepsy and asthma research. “We’re thrilled with the profound impact ResearchKit has already had on the pace and scale of conducting medical research, and have realized that many of the same principles could help with individual care,” said Williams. |
A VC in Greece on operating in tumultuous times | Connie Loizos | 2,016 | 3 | 21 | Georgios Kasselakis has the same concerns as most VCs: How to raise money, how to grow the money investors provide him, how to identify the most promising startups. Unlike most VCs, Kasselakis and his seed-stage firm, , are based in Athens, Greece, a country that’s nearly bankrupt and where, even worse, more than are now trapped (a number that’s growing daily, owing to the closed-door policies of its neighbors). We talked with Kasselakis last week via email to learn more about how seven-year-old OpenFund operates, and how it’s coping with what’s happening all around it. GK: GK: We’ve made more than 20 investments in our second fund. While small by Silicon Valley standards, you have to keep in mind the cost of labor for highly trained knowledge workers (developers, IT, network), which is roughly six to seven times less than the Valley. GK: GK: In a small country with limited deal flow, we can’t afford not to be a generalist tech fund. We do anything from marketplaces to wearables, SaaS , consumer web, IoT and others. We bring in people with sector specific expertise to help us monitor the companies but also [help the startups] define healthy [key performance indicators] and work toward achieving their goals. GK: We usually start with businesses headquartered in Greece, but if everything goes well, they [typically] raise from abroad and flip the company to European or U.S. jurisdictions and start growing there, too. If that doesn’t happen we’ve probably done something wrong. In some cases, as with , a coinvestment with DFJ [that aims to make it simple to deploy, update, and maintain code running on remote devices], we invested in a team with a few Greeks who were mostly operating out of London. We invested our first fund across Europe, but it’s difficult to help startups across many different time zones. Also business development has a network effect on a physical level, so in our second fund, we decided to double down on Greece. GK: Our largest single investor is the European Investment Fund. Their investment is under the framework, which is a way for the public sector to leverage private investment while maintaining healthy motives. Put another way, they trust us as the managers to define the goals and let us do our work. They also bring a lot of due diligence on the fund itself, which is a great signal for other private investors to hop in. GK: So far — and with moral support from our investors — we’ve decided to hold on to [most of] our portfolio companies as long as they keep [raising money at higher valuations]. We have had some great exits from our first fund [though], including [the social media monitoring startup] YouScan in Ukraine [ for an undisclosed amount by the Russian online directory company Yell.ru]. Our second fund has been operating since January 2013, so in relative terms, it’s a little soon to force exits. We’ve seen great leaps in valuation for [the taxi-hailing smartphone app] , which was a role model for founders here. It really helped Greeks look at startups as a viable life choice. We’ve also had three companies fail — two of which returned a lot of capital, which made us want to invest in their next venture even more. GK: , a cloud-based recruitment platform for companies. But the reason we invest in any startup is because we believe it has the potential to grow as big. GK: There are four: ; ; , which just launched; and . GK: A lot fewer. At some point, a fund of funds firm called had helped create more than 10, which were then discontinued. Most fund managers stumbled on the crisis, panicked, and didn’t do any investments at all. GK: We aren’t affected almost at all. We live in a bubble in tech, which is doing tremendously well. There’s an ongoing joke in Athens that startups are the most consistent rent payers and that landlords are fighting to get them as customers. At times it sounds blasphemous because it’s in stark contrast with everything else going around, but we’re doing excellent. My only beef is that investors — LPs — don’t consider our fund even though our financial performance is well above the European average. We’re just not an eligible target for many of them. A similar attitude comes from fellow EU VCs who are very hesitant to consider deal flow coming from us. Perseverance goes a long way toward changing that perception, but we still have ground to cover. |
Apple, the social enterprise | Romain Dillet | 2,016 | 3 | 21 | Today’s Apple press conference had an unusual start. The company usually starts by releasing a few vanity numbers — iOS devices sold, apps in the App Store, iOS adoption rate, etc. But today was different. Apple spent around a third of the keynote talking about , , and . The message is clear — Apple is the good guy. In corporate social responsibility, are for-profit companies that reinvest their profit to fulfill a mission that is tangentially related to the business world. Apple is far from a social enterprise, as it is making billions in profits every year. And yet, Apple reinvest a fraction of its profits in things like . These three missions come at the right time for Apple. Many people don’t know if they should side with Apple or with the FBI in the . It might be the reason why the company spent so much time on these issues instead of announcing and from the very beginning. So, is it a marketing play or does Apple really believe in these missions? This question isn’t really important because Apple’s efforts could have a real effect on medical research, privacy and good recycling programs. In the end, is better off. I wish more companies would take these issues more seriously and openly talk about them. Sure, Apple is one of the biggest companies in the world. It’s easier to care about these problems if your business is doing well. But these issues could affect the bottom line of many companies, not just the most profitable ones. I remember a time when Greenpeace Apple for using hazardous materials and not communicating on its environmental strategy. In less than 10 years, Apple has become an open book when it comes to the environment and is now topping the charts of . As for privacy, Apple has made tiny steps over the years. First, Apple designed FaceTime as an encrypted communication protocol. iMessage followed suite, and, before you knew it, all iPhones running iOS 8 or later . In less than six years, Apple has become a leading example when it comes to privacy, and tech companies are . By comparison, ResearchKit is quite new. Introduced , the framework lets medical researchers create studies in very little time and take advantage of all the special sensors in the iPhone and Apple Watch. Imagine the impact ResearchKit could have in five or 10 years. You can like Apple’s products or hate them, but it’s hard to attack Apple for these missions. Apple is setting a new standard when it comes to giving back, and I hope other companies are taking notes. |
The entry-level price for the Apple Watch is dropping to $299 | Anthony Ha | 2,016 | 3 | 21 | While the Apple Watch isn’t the focus of the company’s press event, executives did offer some updates — they , and they also announced a new entry-level price of $299. Now, if you wanted to get an Apple Watch for less than , you could already do so thanks to . This, however, marks a $50 reduction in the company’s official price. And of course, that’s just the starting price — you’ll need to pay more for higher-end models and bands. |
Apple unveils a smaller iPad Pro, Apple’s vision of the future of computers | Romain Dillet | 2,016 | 3 | 21 | Apple just the successor to the iPad Air 2 during its . This isn’t a new iPad Air, it’s a smaller iPad Pro. And the company is calling it iPad Pro. “We believe that iPad is the perfect expression of the future of computing,” Tim Cook said on stage before Phil Schiller introduced the new iPad. The iPad Air 2 was released in October 2014 so today’s new iPad is a big upgrade. It still features a 9.7-inch display, but everything else is new. It features a new display with 40 percent less reflectivity. It’s 25 percent brighter than an iPad Air 2 with a wider color gamut. At 500 nits of light, it’s the brightest iPad ever. The smaller iPad Pro will work great with Night Shift, a new feature in iOS 9.3 that turns the display yellow-ish when the sun goes down. The new iPad Pro also has two new four-channel ambient light sensors to measure the ambient light more accurately and adjust white balance. [gallery ids="1294712,1294713"] Like on the bigger iPad Pro, the new device features 4 speakers with big cavities for louder, better sound. Behind the scenes, the iPad Pro features an A9X, which supports faster LTE and 802.11ac Wi-Fi. The new iPad features the 12-megapixel iPhone 6s camera that can shoot 4k video, out-performing the camera on the big iPad Pro. Unfortunately, it means that the camera isn’t flush. Apple is also releasing a Smart Keyboard cover for this new iPad, like the one on the big iPad Pro but smaller. Keys are going to be a bit smaller, but the keyboard uses the smart connector so you don’t have to pair or charge it. Today’s iPad Pro also supports the Apple Pencil. Finally, you can plug in Lightning accessories to transfer photos, such as the USB camera adaptor and the SD card reader. The 9.7-inch iPad Pro comes in four colors — silver, black, gold and rose gold. The new iPad Pro is 6.1 mm thick and weighs just under 1 pound. The new iPad is also a bit more expensive. Starting at $599, it’s $100 more than the entry-level iPad Air 2. But it also comes with 32GB instead of 16GB. For $749, you get 128GB of storage, and for $899 you get 256GB for the first time on an iOS device. It’s unclear how much the LTE options are going to cost. The iPad Air 2 is now $399, and the 12.9-inch iPad Pro now has a 256GB configuration. The 9.7-inch iPad Pro will be available in early April. “From the beginning, it has remained our most popular iPad size,” Phil Schiller said. The company has sold 200 million 9.7-inch iPads over the past few years. By renaming the iPad Air to the iPad Pro, Apple wants people to trade their iPads for newer iPads. It’s a bit intriguing that Apple is choosing to raise the price on the mainstream iPad. In the most recent quarter, iPad sales year-over-year. Arguably, Apple didn’t update the iPad Air, which could have hurt the sales numbers. But it’s been an ongoing trend for a couple of years now. Apple is trying to turn the iPad into its own category with its own ecosystem. Apple wants to capitalize on differences between the iPhone and the iPad. With the iPad Pro, Apple has made a clear statement — the iPad could be the future of computers. And today’s new device follows this trend. [gallery ids="1294584,1294585,1294591,1294597,1294615,1294633"] |
iOS 9.3 is available for download today | Lucas Matney | 2,016 | 3 | 21 | Apple’s Greg Joswiak revealed at the company’s “Let us loop you in” event in Cupertino that iOS 9.3 would be available for download beginning today. Joswiak called the free update “one of the biggest ‘dot’ releases yet.” With iOS 9.3, users can now enable Night Shift mode to make their iOS device’s display easier on their eyes. Other features include passcode or TouchID protection for notes, new education features, top stories for Apple news, updates to the Apple Music and Maps apps in CarPlay and enhanced Health apps. We already had seen most of iOS 9.3’s feature upgrades, the release date was the real missing link we were waiting for. Check out our full dive into the iOS 9.3 preview . |
Apple TV gets support for folders, dictation and Live Photos | Frederic Lardinois | 2,016 | 3 | 21 | Apple today announced a couple of updates for its Apple TV platform, including support for folders, dictation, Live Photos in the iCloud Photo library and Siri support in the App Store. In addition, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced there are now 5,000 apps available for the Apple TV. He singled out a few apps, including BrainPOP, GrubHub, the HBO Now app and a workout app. Maybe the most interesting update here is support for dictation. While the Apple TV remote is pretty nice, it’s not exactly meant for typing. Now, you can use your voice to enter text on your Apple TV, but maybe most importantly, you can also use this for usernames and passwords. “You’re really going to love it,” Cook enthused. Apple’s other voice-driven technology, Siri, also received an update on the Apple TV. It’s not a huge step forward, but you can now use Siri to search the App Store, too. Folders do exactly what you think they would. Just like on your phone, you can now organize your apps in folders. In its early versions, Apple TV really didn’t need folders — there were only a few apps available after all — but with 5,000 apps in the store, it’s becoming a necessity. In addition to these updates, the iCloud Photo library on Apple TV now supports Live Photos. Apple says the update with this new feature will start rolling out today. |
Justice Department appeals pro-Apple decision in New York iPhone case | Jon Russell | 2,016 | 3 | 7 | Authorities in New York have taken the first step to appealing that denied a request for information held on an iPhone. Apple successfully appealed the order on the grounds that it relied on an expanded interpretation of the All Writs Act (AWA) — the same act, passed in its current form more than 100 years ago, that the FBI is leaning on to order Apple to unlock . Unlike the latter case, Apple could unlock the New York iPhone since it is an older model — an iPhone 5s — running its dated iOS 7 software, that doesn’t feature the same security setup as iOS 8, which Apple itself isn’t able to circumvent. In a new filing made Monday, , the Justice Department Monday urged a federal judge to look at the case again: In light of the debate that has recently come to surround this issue, it is worth briefly noting what this case is not about. Apple is not being asked to do anything it does not currently have the capability to do. Apple may perform the passcode-bypass in its own lab, using its own technicians, just as it always has, without revealing to the government how it did so. Therefore, granting the application will not affect the technological security of any Apple iPhone nor hand the government a ‘master key.’ The DoJ also claimed that Apple’s software “continues to obstruct” its work. "Obstruction of justice" is a truly frightening argument for DOJ to make about software that was legal to create. — Riana Pfefferkorn (@Riana_Crypto) Apple, which has , reiterated its concern with the “misuses” of the AWA in response to the new filing. “Judge Orenstein ruled the FBI’s request would ‘thoroughly undermine fundamental principles of the Constitution’ and we agree. We share the Judge’s concern that misuse of the All Writs Act would start us down a slippery slope that threatens everyone’s safety and privacy,” it said in a statement. Beyond warning of the precedent that software to access the San Bernardino iPhone would set if created, the route the FBI has taken with its request. In using the AWA, Cook argued, authorities have bypassed regular systems and trampled on individual rights. For a seminal case such as the San Bernardino iPhone request, which could shape other investigations and cases in the future, the Apple chief believes any ruling on the matter should come from Congress where “the people of America get a voice.” While the New York case has different specifics to San Bernardino, Apple’s concern in both situations is that authorities are abusing the AWA, which sets a dangerous precedent for the future and may violate the fourth amendment safeguarding the right of the people to be secure. |
Hero unveils a new home gadget to help you track and dispense pills | Anthony Ha | 2,016 | 3 | 7 | A New York City startup called plans to replace those with a high-tech home appliance. As demonstrated for me by the Hero team, it’s easy to load your medicines, vitamins and other health supplements into the machine, then indicate the dosage you’ll need and when you’re supposed to take it. Once you’re all set up, the Hero device will automatically alert you when it’s time to take your medication and dispense the pills accordingly. Co-founders Kut Akdogan and Kal Vepuri said they both have — Akdogan worked with large medical device companies while at Bain & Co. and also founded nutrition startup . “The whole pharmaceutical experience is still in the Stone Age,” he said. How hard is it to remember the pills you need to take? Well, medicine “non-adherence” supposedly 125,000 annual deaths and between $100 billion and $289 billion in healthcare costs in the United States alone. And yes, there are other devices for dispensing pills, but Akdogan argued that they’re usually not built with the consumer in mind. The Hero appliance, on the other hand, is supposed to be friendly and easy-to-use. In fact, Akdogan said it should remind users of a coffee maker, and I’d say that’s a fair description. Why a coffee maker? Well, when Akdogan wakes up in the morning , “I want to go get that cup of coffee, I look forward to that. I wake up and get to press that button and it whirrs — I feel success. That sort of magic was entirely missing from the medical experience.” So Hero boasts a colorful display, and even some nice, encouraging whirring noises as it dispenses your pills. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjZZKnWfpCk&w=560&h=315] On the more practical side, Akdogan noted that the device always asks you to approve the pills before dispensing, so you shouldn’t end up with a giant mess when you get home from travel. He said it’s designed to manipulate a number of different pill types, and can hold 10 pills at once. There’s also a smartphone app that can alert family members or other caregivers when the dose is taken or if it’s skipped. (Akdogan emphasized that the app is HIPAA compliant and protects your privacy.) Hero is solely financed by Vepuri’s firm Brainchild. The device is currently available for preorder at a price of $399 (compared to an expected retail price of $999). The plan is to ship Hero in early summer. As for the app, its basic functionality will be available for free, but you’ll need to pay if you want the premium features. |
Social media analytics service Crimson Hexagon raises $20M | Anthony Ha | 2,016 | 3 | 7 | is announcing that it has raised $20 million in additional equity funding. Founded in 2007, the Boston-headquartered company helps brands and ad agencies track conversations across social media. It says its customer base has grown by more than 75 percent in the last 12 months and now has 10,000 active users. Customers Starbucks, Walmart and NBC. Crimson Hexagon previously raised $17.5 million in funding, with new round led by Sageview Capital. In the funding release, Sageview partner Dean Nelson described the company as “a true market leader with a tremendous customer list.” |
Run away from reality with the Virtuix Omni | Lucas Matney | 2,016 | 3 | 7 | The only thing constraining me in virtual reality was my couch potato bod and a crippling realization that footage of me using the device would live forever on the web. This is life with the , a $699 device that allows you to walk through virtual reality while wearing a VR headset. This isn’t as radical an idea as it may appear. Old people of VR (which in my book refers to anyone older than 25) will likely remember the 90s VR arcade setups allowing users to move slowly through Tron-like space in a similar weird treadmill cradle. Virtuix’s Omni is the next evolution of that idea. Virtuix sold over 3,000 of the devices in its original Kickstarter campaign for the Omni in June of 2013, but it didn’t start shipping the device until earlier this year. It all starts by getting strapped into the harness safeguard thing while wearing special low friction shoes. It’s not actually a treadmill, it’s more of a slippery concave bowl that you’re constantly running up the sides of. It isn’t the most comfortable experience but it’s definitely easier to get situated with the device than one might immediately assume. It’s a niche experience, and one that I honestly can’t imagine existing in too many human beings’ homes within the foreseeable future, though the company did tell me they are still months away from fulfilling all of the orders they’ve already gathered. The user’s actions in the device are translated into analog directional movement so the entire system should be compatible with any VR game where you’re off exploring digital worlds. To avoid any threats of motion sickness, movement is generally 1:1 so if you’re planning on traversing Skyrim in VR you may want to keep drinks and snacks within reach as the device can definitely get tiring to use. With VR-geeks already finding large open spaces in their homes to account for the HTC Vive’s room-scale tracking, the Omni definitely allows an exponential expansion for exploring digital environments with really physical motions. The argument could be made that the Omni is actually a space saver since its footprint is much smaller than the larger room-scale setups, but in reality the statement this thing makes is much larger than the space it takes up. The device itself feels like a giant toy that Richie Rich would have in his basement. The Omni was a lot of fun to play around with but it’s definitely something better suited to try than to own I’d imagine. Virtual reality has its issues when it comes to traversing space and a device like the Omni could theoretically serve as a solution, but there’s still a long way to go before the tech is ready for the average VR consumer, a niche that’s already pretty focused compared to the average regular consumer. |
Combating the cybersecurity job crunch | Mark Painter | 2,016 | 3 | 7 |
There is a looming crisis in information security that will necessitate that businesses change how they manage their security efforts. While there will always be new attacks and methodologies with which to contend, it’s the growing shortage of skilled cybersecurity resources that is poised to cause enterprises heartache for the foreseeable future. Already in 2016, the is access to skilled resources. Think of how dire the shortage actually is for that to rank above a potential data breach as a concern. And it’s poised to get much worse. Forbes there will be 1 million global cybersecurity positions available in 2016. Those . To be precise, that’s 1.5 million out of 6 million total positions that are expected to remain vacant in three short years. The real trouble is in how greatly these shortages will compound the daunting problems security already faces. As is, the costs associated with cybercrime, the number of successful attacks organizations suffer and the costs to contain security incidents . A job crunch will not improve those numbers. Nor will continuing to rapidly adopt new functionality without building the proper security infrastructure beneath it. The Internet of Things is the perfect example of that phenomenon, let alone the security implications of millions of newly connected devices. For already stretched thin security practitioners, that means more data to account for, more tools to manage and more reports to coalesce and generate. The problems from being understaffed can escalate quickly. Organizations should actively prepare for the issues stemming from a lack of qualified cybersecurity professionals. Automating security tasks when possible, exploring new staffing models and investing smartly in security resources are critical to combatting the job crunch. Corporations are by necessity going to have to rely on tools that can automate significant portions of their security testing. There are simply too many parameters to test, and not enough time to think otherwise. Continuous monitoring and scanning are key areas where corporations can employ highly automated solutions that offer good ROI. Granted, even with automation, skill matters. The more fine tuning and configuration you give security tools, the better they will perform, and the less results will need to be inspected. We’re simply never going to get to that place where you and get the results you need. However, automation will be a key way organizations can streamline incident investigation and remediation so that the more highly skilled (i.e. expensive) resources can be utilized for breach investigations and hunt teams. Enterprises are increasingly going to have to look to hybrid staffing and security infrastructure models to supplement existing staff. These new models will still have to rely on in-house expertise for incident response, but can shift to outsourced personnel or services organizations certain tasks such as first-line analysis and various security operations functions. In-house expertise is going to have to be positioned where it matters most. Other functions — such as web application security testing — can be outsourced and easily assigned to a services organization. Does your organization have defined roles and dedicated career paths for information security professionals? Are you paying your top employees competitively? Are employees with an interest in cybersecurity given an avenue for growth in that area? If you’re not doing these things, you should. Too many organizations focus on technology solutions and tools without matching that effort with their people. Organizations should instead realize the benefits that come from retaining their current security experts and supporting the development of new internal ones. Companies that can develop in-house security talent are going to be in significantly better shape than those that have to compete with other organizations for top talent on the open market. Development programs that encourage internal staff to learn security skills should be strongly considered. Organizations with these development programs also benefit by ensuring that the skills taught are the exact skills required for their operations. Analysts can often be developed from individuals who show passion and aptitude for security and come from IT administration or system support. It’s not only emerging talent that should be supported. Sometimes it’s simply more beneficial to invest in retaining your current experts than paying more for someone not yet familiar with your systems and operations to come on board. . The shortage of qualified cybersecurity applicants is only going to cause salaries to rise. Replacing resources with the proper skills can take months, and is often simply not possible. |
Virginia’s governor just signed the nation’s first daily fantasy sports law | Fitz Tepper | 2,016 | 3 | 7 | Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe just signed into law the “Fantasy Contests Act,” which is a legal framework for fantasy sports providers that operate in the state. The bill, which by the Virginia legislature a few weeks ago, makes Virginia the first state in the nation to impose state-led oversight of the industry. The state’s Department of Agriculture and Consumer Service will be the state entity that oversees the industry. will require fantasy sports sites to pay the state a $50,000 registration fee, and implement policies to verify that all participants are 18 years of age or older. It also requires player funds to be segregated from a company’s operating funds, and bans employees of fantasy sports sites from competing in public fantasy sports contests. The bill is a win for companies like DraftKings and FanDuel, which have been trying to convince states to legalize daily fantasy sports. Interestingly, not all players in the fantasy sports industry are happy about the bill passing. Some smaller season-long fantasy sports operators that the $50,000 registration fee will force them out of the state, and that the legislature is incorrectly grouping season-long and daily fantasy sports into the same category. Griffin Finan, Director of Public Affairs for DraftKings, issued the below statement acknowledging the signing of the bill: |
Gillmor Gang: Trumpty Dumpty | Steve Gillmor | 2,016 | 3 | 7 | The Gillmor Gang — Dan Farber, Frank Radice, Keith Teare, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor. Recorded live Saturday, March 5, 2016. The Gang goes full tilt boogie on the Republican race to the bottom with Trump in the driver seat. In the real time race, Twitter has the nomination locked up, with the mainstream media sinking fast. @stevegillmor, @dbfarber, @fradice, @kteare, @kevinmarks Produced and directed by Tina Chase Gillmor @tinagillmor |
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