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Amazon has a shiny new startup accelerator to advance conversational AI
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John Mannes
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Big tech companies have been creating accelerators and to evangelize their brands and get developers engaged with APIs and other open-source efforts. Today, Amazon joined the crowd by announcing a new program for startups developing conversational AI. This is Amazon’s first foray into the world of accelerator programs, though its $100 million Alexa Fund has already invested in 22 companies within the space. These investments have occurred across various company stages and verticals. More recently, Amazon for conversational AI, tasking university students with building bots that can hold a conversation. Doug Booms, VP of corp dev for Amazon (wink, wink, also in charge of Amazon M&A), explained to TechCrunch that the new accelerator wasn’t designed to be a feeder for the Alexa Fund nor to be a next step for teams competing for the Alexa Prize. Amazon’s accelerator strategy seems rather open-ended at this point. No formal constraints have been set as to what types of startups will be welcome in the batch that could encompass teams working on connected cars, smart homes and everything in-between. Rather than go it alone, the entire 13-week program is being run in partnership with Techstars. Amazon first approached the accelerator about a potential partnership to support conversational AI. At the start of the program, participants will receive an initial $20,000 investment from Amazon and Techstars, and be eligible for an additional investment of up to $100,000 in the form of a convertible note. Selected companies will be housed in space rented from the University of Washington. Founders will be given exposure to mentors from both groups. Startups can begin applying for the program in January. Amazon and Techstars will be hosting joint information sessions in major cities around the world before the program begins in July. As is typical with most accelerators, a demo day will be held in October for investors to view company presentations and interact with founders.
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For Nike, the HyperAdapt self-tying shoes are the first step toward something larger
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Brian Heater
| 2,016
| 11
| 30
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At $720, of Nike’s HyperAdapt self-tying shoes are for sneakerheads. They’re flashy and pricey, and while Nike isn’t revealing exact numbers, it’s clear that they’re an extremely limited edition. But one thing they’re not, according to Tiffany Beers, is a gimmick. The Nike senior innovator has been working on the project for more than a decade now. The project began life as a sketch and concept from legendary Air Jordan designer Tinker Hatfield 11 or so years back. The underlying technology finally made its debut in the , which were limited to a mere 89 pairs exclusively available via auction and raffle. The HyperAdapt 1.0, which debut tomorrow at Nike’s New York stores, mark a small step toward bringing the tech to a larger audience. “This could absolutely be a mainstream product,” explains Beers. “It doesn’t feel gimmicky after using it. Athletes move and change. And their environment is constantly moving and changing. So optimal fit is important. Why isn’t our shoe changing more with our foot? That speaks to the potential future of where this is going.” Once you get past the giant box, the most surprising part of the HyperAdapts is how comfortable they are. They’re a bit snug at first. Getting your foot in takes a bit of maneuvering and some tugging at the loop on the heel. Once on, stand up and the heel sensor will trigger the system, going to work with an audible whir, snugly encasing the foot. That noise is, of course, the sound of mechanical elements doing their job, but it’s also a nice feature. Because, let’s face it, if you’re spending more than $700 on a pair of self-lacing shoes, you probably want anyone within earshot to know. The large blue battery light on the sole and the five tri-color LEDs on the rear also go a ways toward setting the scene. Each shoe also sports a pair of small blue buttons on the outside for tightening and loosening accordingly. The buttons are actually a bit tricky to get a handle on, as they’re located beneath the fabric and don’t line up with the dots. It’s a small quibble — the mechanism works great. And yeah, there’s a way to reboot the shoes if things go sideways. The shoes fit well, but they’re, perhaps unsurprisingly, on the heavy side. Beers says Nike tried to counteract the weight of the system located in the midfoot sole by constructing the top out of the company’s proprietary lightweight Flyweave material, but there’s only so much you can do when incorporating a whole mechanical system and a battery designed to last a month on a charge (because how often do really want to recharge a pair of shoes?). The weight certainly brings into question just how well the HyperAdapt work as running shoes — and whether not having to fiddle with laces justifies the extra bulk for people who move around a lot. “This is a concept car,” says Beers. We’ve tested it in training, running and basketball — mostly in running to get the durability right.” For the moment, the HyperAdapt are firmly in the realm of the early adopter and the sneaker-obsessed. However, there’s some intriguing potential as the pricing and weight come down in future iterations. Beers cites, among other cases, wearers who might have difficulty tying their shoes, be they children or elderly or disabled. Of course, that sort of mainstream usage will require that Nike drop a couple of zeros from the price tag. But for those who’ve got the money to spend, the HyperAdapts go live at retail this week. [gallery ids="1422281,1422282,1422283,1422284,1422285,1422287,1422288,1422289"]
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Dusk’s new app lets you live stream anonymously
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Sarah Perez
| 2,016
| 11
| 30
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Online anonymity can be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it can give people a voice when they’d otherwise be afraid to speak up — whether that’s because of fear of government surveillance, discussing a topic that’s known to provoke cyberbullying or because the topic itself is sensitive — like a personal confession or health issue. But anonymity also permits people to be their baser selves, with no fear of repercussions. See, for example, the anonymous trolls on Twitter. Stepping into this controversial space is a new app called , which lets you live stream anonymously to its online community, while protecting your identity through pixelated video and voice changed audio. The end result is something like an anonymous version of Periscope video, or a live video version of the secret-sharing app Whisper. To use , you don’t need to provide your email or phone number or any other personal information. Instead, you just assign yourself a username and create a PIN code, both of which you can change at any time. Even though there’s no personal data for hackers to steal, Dusk uses end-to-end encryption. [gallery ids="1422306,1422305,1422304,1422303"] When you go live in Dusk, the app pixelates the video in real time, and it masks your voice so you can’t be identified by your speech. Of course, the challenge with any social app that permits anonymity is how to deal with abuse. (To be fair, that’s a problem these days on social networks where people use their real names — just read the comments on any political post on Facebook, for example.) Dusk approaches the problem of trolling in a variety of ways. It utilizes community moderators as well as user-facing reporting tools that allow you to report spammers or those being abusive. Keyword blocking keeps offensive comments from video titles, and any videos that cross the line in terms of content will be manually removed. You can also mute the trolls, and they’ll never be alerted to the fact that they’ve been muted. And, of course, you can block users, too. Launching with anti-abuse tools built into the platform can help set the community’s tone, though. That’s something Twitter learned the hard way. While Twitter political dissidents under authoritarian regimes a voice at times, just as often, Twitter’s anonymous users abuse and threaten others. Another high-profile anonymous app, Secret, after failing to deal with the cyberbullying problem. How well Dusk will actually be able to clamp down on trolling won’t be known until the app’s audience reaches a certain size. For now, only a handful of early adopters are on board, sharing videos where they discuss things like addiction, depression, relationships, politics and more. So far, most of the commentary I’ve come across has been benign. In addition to its “live” capabilities, you can also follow other users and watch videos that have been pre-recorded. Viewing these videos is an interesting experience. There’s really nothing to see except for multi-colored boxes moving around across the screen. But combined with the voice-changed audio, it gives the content an air of secrecy that makes listening to the confessions more compelling. Interacting with the content feels a lot like Periscope or Facebook Live — you can comment while the video is live, or press to send hearts or sad faces. Users can continue to comment after the video is no longer live, and plans to implement @ mentions are in the works, too. There are things Dusk could do better, like offering player controls to scroll backwards and forwards, or helping you find and follow users or topics you care about. It could offer the ability to search and filter its database of videos for those focused on specific issues, and it could highlight the most popular videos or those that are trending. Dusk was built by Kori Handy and Mitchell Porter of , who previously built an app for startup pitches, Founderfox and video-filtering app . As Handy explains, he had the idea for Dusk around nine months ago, after watching how people got into trouble for speaking their mind on social media. But Dusk is not meant to give trolls a platform, he says. “The point of protecting your identity is not to say mean things and hide; it’s designed to give you the strength to speak up, and express your honest self,” Handy says. The goal, he adds, is to “create real, open dialogs” where people can talk about things without those comments being aligned with larger agendas. The startup is backed by $400,000 in angel funding, but the team hasn’t planned how it will generate revenue. “We didn’t really build this app thinking about monetizing, it was more of a social change experiment,” Handy notes. Dusk is a .
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Box shows strong sales growth in third quarter earnings
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Katie Roof
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The company also posted significant growth in deferred revenue, with $192.6 million, an increase of 36 percent from the same period last year. This is money that was received in advance of services. Billings were also up 26 percent, coming in at $112.4 million. Box’s operating loss also narrowed to $37.8 million, down from $55 million year-over-year. Free cash flow came in at negative $10.9 million, compared to a loss of $37.8 million in last year’s period.
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AWS Snowball Edge offers 100TB of storage and compute functionality
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John Mannes
| 2,016
| 11
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got a major update today at the company’s re:invent conference. Though largely overshadowed , the aforementioned Snowball will be getting a storage increase to 100 terabytes in addition to computing functionality. will be able to perform basic analysis on their data right from each device. This is ideal for field work and situations where real-time insights are a requirement. As with last year’s model, data can be sent straight to AWS data centers when the device fills up. Andy Jassy, leader of all things AWS, noted that General Electric, for example, could make use of the computational functionality at its wind farms. GE collects real-time data from each turbine to analyze aberrations. The compute functionality of the Snowball Edge is ideal for just those sorts of rapid analytics. The same is true for data collected on ships and aircrafts that cannot take full advantage of the cloud, but want a secure backup of data in addition to insights. [gallery columns="2" size="tc-article-featured-image-wide" ids="1422380,1422382"] The Snowball Edge is encrypted in three different ways to ensure data security. It also features clustering capabilities that allow multiple devices to be connected and accessible through a single endpoint. Support will be extended to include S3 and NFS endpoints for storing and accessing data. With improved connectivity, users can complete a full 100TB transfer in about 19 hours. The Edge supports AWS Lambda functions in Python for its local processing. Amazon doesn’t plan to charge users to run these functions. However, the device will cost $300 for each use. This gives you 10 days to complete your transfer. After that time period, users will be charged $30 per appliance, per day.
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Reddit cracks down on abuse as CEO apologizes for trolling the trolls
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Josh Constine
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Reddit will start issuing warnings, timeouts and permanent bans to its most abusive trolls, but will also limit the content manipulation capabilities of its own CEO for ethical violations that shook the trust of the online community. Last week, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman, who goes by the handle Spez, in the pro-Trump subreddit r/the_donald from “fuck u/spez” to say fuck the moderators of that subreddit. Using his editing privileges as an engineer at the company, he was able to change the comments without leaving a trace, framing the trolls who insulted him as having insulted the leaders of their own sub-community. The move could be viewed as censorship, or simply a childish, gross abuse of his power. Huffman soon callously that he was trying to unwind after trolls implicated him in a false pedophile conspiracy theory involving Hillary Clinton and a pizza parlor. But he stopped short of apologizing or providing details on how Reddit would prevent this in the future, opening questions about whether he should remain CEO. . needs to immediately issue an apology for CEO secretly tampering with users' comments, outline systems to prevent it in the future — Josh Constine (@JoshConstine) Today, Huffman finally issued a formal apology for his “attempt to troll the trolls,” writing “I fucked up. I ruined Thanksgiving. I’m sorry. I won’t do it again,” and adding “I am sorry for compromising the trust you all have in Reddit.” He went on to explain: “I honestly thought I might find some common ground with that community by meeting them on their level. It did not go as planned. I restored the original comments after less than an hour.” Huffman attributed his actions to his own history of instigation on the internet, writing, “I spent my formative years as a young troll on the Internet.” Thankfully, he announced “we are updating our internal controls to prevent this sort of thing from happening in the future.” When asked how he could essentially assume control of users’ accounts in the first place, he wrote “admins (employees) can’t do this in general. It’s because I had access to everything as an engineer, which we are limiting going forward.” This is critical to regaining the trust of the community, as the fear of staff members assuming control of users’ accounts and taking actions that could reflect on those users casts doubt on the validity of all content on the platform. Years ago Facebook strengthened its own systems to prohibit employees from prying into users’ private content or messages after incidents early in the company’s history. Employees who break the rules there are fired. It seems Huffman will get a slap on the wrist here, which might not convince Reddit’s users that the company itself takes his misconduct seriously. We’ve reached out to Reddit for comment regarding whether Huffman will face any punishment. Luckily, the incident has shed light on some of the more egregious harassment that occurs on Reddit. The company has in the past struggled with managing hate speech on its platform, as well as . Reddit CEO Steve Huffman Now Reddit will start more actively enforcing that ban from a top-down perspective. Huffman writes: “We have identified hundreds of the most toxic users and are taking action against them, ranging from warnings to timeouts to permanent bans.” That’s a shift from allowing moderators to manage their own subreddits. “Historically, we have relied on our relationship with moderators to curb bad behaviors. While some of the moderators have been helpful, this has not been wholly effective,” Huffman explains. “Sticky” posts from r/the_donald that are pinned to the top of the forum will no longer be allowed on the r/all page. Trolls had been misusing the feature that’s meant for general announcements to get more views and upvotes for their posts in order to catapult them onto r/all and troll the entire Reddit user base. Users will also be able to filter r/all to prevent posts from any subreddit they choose from appearing on the unofficial aggregation page of Reddit’s top posts. Reddit faces a challenging future in our increasingly polarized political landscape. What’s considered acceptable opinion has diverged. For a site that houses disparate communities that don’t get along, it must find ways to promote civility without unnecessary censorship, and give people space to share their opinions while fighting back when those opinions fester into harassment of other users or hate speech against specific demographics. Trolls from r/the_donald continue to disrupt the site, harass moderators and make the whole community feel unsafe. But because it’s one of the most popular subreddits, it also earns significant ad revenue for the Conde Nast-owned service. Outright banning it could hurt Reddit financially, and incur allegations of liberal censorship of a far-right outpost. Yet if Reddit can’t control this incendiary community, the whole site risks becoming unvisitable by the mainstream. [Update: You can read more about Reddit’s struggle to tame r/the_donald in this .] If Reddit swings too far toward totalitarian control, it may push away users who’ve relied on the forums as a home for free speech, contrarianism and niche beliefs. But if it can’t stop the trolls from blatantly abusing the rest of the community or projecting hate, it will have failed society and more mild-mannered users will move to cleaner pastures. Executing this balance will require leadership that Reddit’s community can trust. Without any real repercussions for Huffman, users might see Reddit as complicit with his erroneous behavior. By not mincing words and instead apologizing outright, Huffman has at least taken a step in the right direction. But to lead such an opinionated community, Reddit’s leader will need a strong moral compass and thick skin which Huffman has proven he lacks.
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AWS Greengrass brings Lambda to IoT devices
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Frederic Lardinois
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Amazon today announced the launch of AWS , a new service that will be built into IoT devices to bring them better and smarter compute capabilities. As AWS CEO Andy Jassy noted in today’s keynote at Amazon’s re:Invent developer conference, Amazon expects that the majority of on-premises hardware will soon be IoT devices as enterprises move their servers into the cloud. Typically, though, these IoT devices have always been relatively low-powered, both in terms of CPU and local storage. That’s why these devices are so reliant on the cloud, of course. Still, occasionally you may want to do the computing right on the device or when the connectivity is down. “It’s easy to take advantage of the cloud to supplement the power of these devices, but there are going to be times where you don’t want to make the round-trip to the cloud,” Jassy noted. “What we have heard repeated now from both companies that are using AWS’ IoT offering and device management — what they really want is to have on these devices is the same flexibility and program model to do compute as they have on AWS.” Greengrass builds on top of AWS IoT and AWS Lambda, Amazon’s “serverless” compute service. It will allow developers to write Lambda code (in Python) that can run right on the IoT device. The Greengrass Core runs these Lambda functions locally, but can also talk to the AWS cloud and allows IT admins to manage these devices and the code that runs on them. “If you are already developing embedded systems for small devices, you will now be able to make use of modern, cloud-aware development tools and workflows,” the company writes in today’s announcement. “You can write and test your code in the cloud and then deploy it locally.” To do all of this, Amazon needs partners, of course, especially given that it doesn’t build its own enterprise IoT devices. These include Intel and Qualcomm, as well as Canonical and Amazon’s own . Devices need to offer at least 128 MB of memory and an x86 or ARM CPU that runs at 1 GHz or more. The service is now in preview (though it’s unclear where you would get compatible devices right now). Once it is generally available, you’ll be able to use up to three devices for one year for free. After that, the cost per Greengrass core is $0.16 per month/device for up to 10,000 devices.
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Crunch Report | First Hyperloop Will Be Built in UAE
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Khaled "Tito" Hamze
| 2,016
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Tito Hamze, John Mannes
Tito Hamze
Joe Zolnoski
Joe Zolnoski TechCrunch C/O Tito Hamze
410 Townsend street
Suite 100
San Francisco Ca. 94107
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13 of the best tweets about the election
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Anna Escher
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The polls for the 2016 election are beginning to close and Twitter is aflame. As the trashfire of this election burns itself to cinders, we got out of fetal position and took a break from counting down to the potential end of days with Twitter. Here are some tweets keeping us sane on #ElectionNight. 1) Wandering eyes Trump won't be the only Republican man who isn't sure whether or not his wife is a Trump voter today. — T'Challah French Toast (@BostonJerry) 2) Lost but never forgotten. "How did we let these clowns come this close to presidency" asks a nation on its 6th month of mourning a gorilla — Cameron (@CameronComeau16) 3) A judge completely shut down Trump’s campaign after the Nevada polling lawsuit is brought up. The Trump campaign wants to make names of Nevada poll workers public. Judge's response: — Deadspin (@Deadspin) 4) A mile high Mannequin Challenge. omg the Clinton campaign did the on her plane — Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) 5) Bad timing, Verizon. OH MY GOD VERIZON ELECTION NIGHT IS THE WORST TIME FOR THIS ADVERTISEMENT. — Ryan Greenberg (@greenberg) 6) New York has never been afraid to be vocal. VIDEO: Donald Trump gets booed as he arrives at his polling place. — Anup Kaphle (@AnupKaphle) 7) The Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. runs in the family — southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) 8) It’s the little things. voting is the one time where they actually give you a sticker for being an adult — Alexandra Petri (@petridishes) 9) Great use of fast motion. The line this morning at my polling place on the upper west side. — Miles Doran (@MilesDoran) 10) PSA: If you take a photo of your ballot in New York State, it automatically becomes a vote for Gary Johnson. — Brian Heater (@bheater) 11) Rigged, I tell you. https://twitter.com/kashanacauley/status/795975881076408321 12) An important reminder. REMEMBER: you're not just voting for president. You're voting for the next robot in Disney World's Hall of Presidents — David Rattigan (@davidmrattigan) 13) And of course this gem. "The iPhone doesn't have a headphone jack but the Galaxy literally explodes" is a perfect metaphor for this election. — Josh Marvine but this time with more characters (@JoshMarvine)
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GoPro is recalling the Karma drone after just 16 days on the market
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Matt Burns
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GoPro just issued a press release announcing the recall of the Karma drone. It just happened to be while the United States is watching the election results roll in. The press release is below. Customers can view return instuctions . The Karma drone was on the market for 16 days and GoPro says it sold 2,500 drones thus far. All of them are recalled. GoPro says a power loss malfunction is the reason for the recall though it won’t say how many experienced this error. We found several incidences where consumers experienced irregular behavior by their Karma but it’s hard to say the exact cause was power malfunctions. “Safety is our top priority,” said GoPro Founder and CEO Nicholas Woodman in the released statment. “A very small number of Karma owners have reported incidents of power failure during operation. We have moved quickly to recall all units of Karma and provide a full refund while we investigate the issue. We are working in close coordination with both the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and Federal Aviation Administration. We are very sorry to have inconvenienced our customers and we are taking every step to make the return and refund process as easy as possible.” Coincidently, this morning after spending a couple weeks with the device. I found it a capable, predictable, but dated drone. The Karma is a great drone on its own, but lacks the latest features found in competitive drones. This couldn’t have came at a worse time for GoPro. Last week, by 23% in its latest quarterly earnings. This caused the stock to free fall in after-hour trading. Likewise, word about this recall caused the stock price to drop nearly 8% in after-hour trading. More as we get it.
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For a brief, glorious moment, you could do weird things to Donald Trump’s website
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Anthony Ha
| 2,016
| 11
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The internet found a new way to amuse itself in the final hours of the presidential election cycle. Basically, there was a glitch on of Donald Trump’s website. So whatever text you entered at the end of the URL, it would show up at the top of the page, like so: Fun with URL hacking. — Andy Baio (@waxpancake) Why the heck was this happening? Basically, the URL of each press release ended with a date, so the page would pull the date and display it at the top of the page. But the site wasn’t checking to make sure that that URL included an actual date. (To be clear, this wasn’t making any permanent or publicly visible changes to the site — it only appeared to people who followed the link you shared.) Okay this one actually fits tbh — Sean O’Kane (@sokane1) Naturally, this took off pretty quickly, leading the Trump campaign to disable it by removing the text at the top of the page, and eventually to just remove the press release archive entirely. Oh well — it was fun while it lasted. I guess we can all go back to worrying about the election results now. Seriously, whoever made Donald Trump’s website should be ashamed of themselves. This is SO EMBARRASSING — Shoshana Weissmann (@senatorshoshana)
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Wurk raises $1 million to help cannabis companies manage their people
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Lora Kolodny
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A “pottech” company called has raised $1 million in seed funding to help cannabis businesses such as dispensaries or growers comply with all the different regulations coming into play around the burgeoning legal cannabis industry. The seed deal closed before various ballots issues were voted on today in the U.S., which could make the sale and use of marijuana legal for adults in a broad number of new markets. Wurk CEO Keegan Peterson said his company’s software-as-a-service helps cannabis businesses do everything from background checks of potential new hires, to managing employees’ schedules, benefits and training, as well as making sure they get paid on time. When HR tech, including platforms to manage employees, abound, why did the cannabis industry need to, er, roll its own? “For one, banking in this industry is virtually impossible,” the CEO said. Cannabis is still deemed a Schedule I controlled substance at the federal level, so large banks aren’t permitted to finance (most) cannabis companies. Peterson also said, “Where it is legal for medical or recreational use, there’s a marijuana division in every state, a governing body that establishes the rules businesses have to comply with… So alongside all the regular Department of Labor rules, etc. etc., cannabis businesses have to do a whole different layer of reporting.” Wurk has developed relationships with local state banks or credit unions that are permitted to finance cannabis companies, and developed a network of these financial services firms to help cannabis companies handle all their payroll issues as they grow. Investors in Wurk’s seed round include members of an investing organization called the , which is comprised of hundreds of high-net-worth individuals evaluating deals in the emerging legal cannabis industry. Other backers include , and Arcview Group CEO Troy Dayton said, “If Wurk can get the growing number of dispensaries and cultivation centers to unplug whatever they were hobbling together before to run their businesses, all you have to do is look at the industry growth curve and extrapolate. They will be able to build a business that is long-term sustainable and delivers great returns.” Dayton also said not many companies are building tech to help cannabis companies handle operations. Most have focused on cultivation of cannabis, or sales, marketing and “front-end” concerns instead. Peterson said his Denver-based startup will use its seed funding primarily for sales and marketing of its software-as-a-service. He also wants to participate in the national discussion about cannabis, connecting with regulators who may want to consider legalizing or expanding legal use of marijuana in their states, or even at the federal level, he said. Prior to closing its seed round, Wurk graduated from the cannabis industry’s specialized accelerator in Boulder, Colorado.
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How our next president can usher in the next wave of job growth
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Richie Hecker
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Both candidates talked about creating jobs. One wants to cut taxes and the other wants to increase them. While they debated whose plans will make America great and whose will make America broke, here is an innovation plan that will guarantee to not cost America any money, and will usher in the greatest wave of innovation since the industrial revolution. Bold claims — yes — yet there is no government spending required to implement this plan and it should increase innovation spending by 25X! Where does job growth come from? Job growth comes from innovation. Since 1979, 82 percent of all R&D spending and 38 percent of all employees at public companies are from venture capital-backed companies. This represents more than 4,000,000 jobs, led by Professor Ilya Strebulaev. “The data shows that venture capital is the backbone of U.S. growth. Even though the venture capital industry is a relatively small part of global finance, its impact on the economy is multi-fold,” said Strebulaev. “Moreover, many of the companies funded by venture capitalists would likely have never been funded by other sources of funding creating new jobs.” At the heart of venture capital is technology. Technology drives waves of innovation, which in turn creates high-paying jobs. What matters to the tech industry is to make it as easy as possible to innovate. The easier it is to innovate, the more jobs that are created and the more long-term prosperity for the country. Our next president can implement these simple policies, which will unleash a torrent of innovation without a single dollar of any new taxes or government spending. “The federal government is one of the last places that hasn’t been fundamentally disrupted with innovative practices. Presidents and Congress haven’t come to the terms that the job creation going around the country is being driven locally and supported locally, so the job of Washington should be to make what is already happening, easier,” stated ABC chief political analyst and entrepreneur Matthew Dowd. To usher in innovation you need to do the R.I.T.E. thing: Regulation, Investment, Talent and Entrepreneurship. Simplify regulation, bring new capital into the market, invest the capital in talent and seed the cycle of entrepreneurship. Then watch the seeds grow into employment. , there are 7.8 million unemployed Americans as of the end of August 2016. , 1.5 million jobs are created each year from companies less than one year old. One could assume that if we can increase startups by 6X we would have 100 percent employment. Now imagine if we can increase innovation spending by 25X!? Make regulation easy for startups and we’ll see more innovation. As consumers, we all benefit from regulated services. Regulations keeps us safe. However, regulations also stifle new entrants. Ideally, we want to both be safe and to allow experimentation as technology evolves. Right now we have serious regulatory challenges. For example, sharing-economy workers are in a weird place. Let’s say you drive for Uber, Lyft and Via, all at the same time, and you optimize which service to use to get passengers ride by ride. Are you an employee of any of those services or do you work for yourself? Right now, it’s murky with the law veering toward employee status. The reality is if you are providing the same service to multiple clients, it feels more like you work for yourself. We need to at least create clarity on this issue, preferably creating a new status for single-member businesses. Right now it costs between hundreds and thousands of dollars to incorporate and there is still lack of clarity on HR status. Let’s create GO LLCs. They would be pass-through entities and cost $9.95 a month. They would be valid only for solo entrepreneurs. Once inside a GO LLC, you would be working for yourself. You would get the benefits of being able to take deductions on your taxes for your business expenses and it would be clear and simple labor law. Also, because it would be so inexpensive and on-demand, everyone would be able to take advantage of it. The government will also generate new revenue from entrepreneurs who will happily pay for this protection. Startups break shit. Let’s make it easy to break shit in a controlled fashion. We should have innovation fast lanes, which would be government-backed accelerator programs. These accelerators would come with mentorship by government officials and give startups short-term licenses to test models that would otherwise be against the rules. This would be a tough program to get into and we could require a bond be put up in case something goes wrong. The concept is to allow people to experiment and see how stuff works. Right now, companies just break the law and figure it’ll be fixed later. This creates liability issues that aren’t properly covered by insurance and companies often fail after losing lawsuits on these issues. This way, we create a safe haven for innovation within the law. It’s better for everyone than the free-for-all, cat-and-mouse game that happens now. “If states want to diversify their economies and create tech jobs, they have to do more than say so in press releases,” said Bradley Tusk, CEO of Tusk Ventures and a policy advisor to leading startups. “Make it feasible for startups to operate by removing some of the red tape and obstacles in their way. That’s what Innovation Lanes does — it doesn’t remove safety measures or consumer protections, it just finds a way to apply them smarter and faster than before.” We need to use taxes to create the greatest investment boom in history! Everyone hates paying taxes. Corporations hate paying taxes so much that, , U.S. companies hold $1.4 trillion dollars offshore. Instead of arguing over long-term tax policy, let’s start simple. Repatriate the funds sitting offshore in a way that guarantees innovation! We should be using the tax code to encourage creation of good new jobs. There are too many loopholes to park cash overseas forever. Let’s assume this cash is never coming back. Until now… First, some context. , $58.8 billion was invested in venture capital in 2015. Let’s see how we can increase this by an order of magnitude. Let’s invite corporations to PAY $0 TAXES on $1.4 trillion in cash parked offshore if 100 percent of the repatriated cash gets invested in innovative jobs and startups. That’s right, we offer a 100 percent tax credit if the money goes toward investments that create jobs. We can even require it to create jobs that pay at least 2X the national average and are in areas of innovation to explicitly make certain the capital is going to spur growth. Allow this as a one-time exception to bring cash into the U.S. and usher in a wave of innovation. Yes, some people will say this is unfair — the response is we have to think practically. This is the only way it’s coming back and it’s for the greater good. And, by the way, this will generate significant payroll, income and sales taxes, increasing government revenue. If the $1.4 trillion stashed overseas is invested in innovative jobs in the U.S., that would be an investment that is 25X larger than how much venture capital is invested each year in the U.S. Imagine how many millions of jobs would be created with that much capital going into innovation? This much innovation capital will unleash the greatest wave of innovation the world has ever seen. We can have 100 percent employment. For the long term, there is a larger question at play, which is what tax incentives are available to entrepreneurs. Right now it is a hodge-podge of state regulations and it is just plain confusing. “We need a comprehensive tax code that creates new businesses while incentivizing investors,” explained Brian Cohen, vice chairman of the New York Angels and the first investor in Pinterest. “Both must be aligned, especially for scalable companies that require ongoing venture investment.” Once the capital flows in, it will have to be invested in talent, so let’s get training. Skills lead to jobs. Great jobs go to great talent. Great talent builds great products. So how do we get the best talent? We nurture it, or we import it and keep it. Right now the best jobs are in STEM fields — science, technology, engineering and math. According to CBS News, STEM jobs pay $85,570, almost twice the national average. These are the high-tech jobs that fuel growth. We should be incentivizing students to study STEM, providing incentives for employers to hire more STEM workers and importing them from overseas when we have shortages. The government has a number of policies that have started this process and here is a simple way to scale creating great talent: College degrees are helpful, but they no longer determine access to the best jobs. What do you think is more likely to lead to a high-paying job, STEM-skill training or a degree in English Literature? Luckily, skill training is much cheaper than college, and often can be accessed for free. For example, you can study at MIT for free — they have , where you can study all the course materials free of charge. The government should be promoting these training programs. The government can promote free and low-cost STEM training classes by partnering with digital academies like , , and . We can ask digital academies to offer free courses for students, promoted by the government, in exchange for them being able to up-sell other courses to those who can afford it. This way we can train millions of people in new skills, and bring them into the tech workforce, where they can get great jobs. What if people don’t have a computer? If people don’t have a computer, the government can recommend students go to the local library to use the computer. The government can then allow limited corporate sponsors to fund new computers at these libraries. Companies like Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Apple would likely sponsor these libraries. Students as young as nursery-school age, and from all economic backgrounds, should have the ability to learn STEM skills. We can change labor laws to allow students to work at unpaid work-study internships so they can get actual experience. These work-study internships should be limited to startups and struggling companies that otherwise could not afford to hire people. Make it easy for students to practice their trade and for companies to get people who want to learn to work. When companies have shortages, make it easy to import workers with H-1B visas — but require them to pay the same wages as they would pay for local talent. This would encourage companies to hire local talent first because they will be less expensive than paying visa costs in addition to salaries. This will generate revenue for the government through visa fees, payroll and income taxes that otherwise wouldn’t be generated. Finally, allow more startup visas, so if someone commits to starting or investing in a company, they can come to the U.S. This would be an expansion of the EB-5 visa program by making technology companies eligible and increasing the visa quota. The more startups, the more jobs — the more jobs, the more growth… and the more we all benefit. Feed the cycle. When you give people skills, they earn more income, and then they can build more startups. Encourage entrepreneurship by making it easy to connect with the startup community and get access to mentors and investors. Most people just need to be pointed in the right direction. The government can create a digital property that serves as a hub to connect people to entrepreneurial communities. We can also turn the unemployment office into the startup office, pointing people in the direction of startup resources and communities. When you combine the elements to do it R.I.T.E., you create a framework for scaling entrepreneurship. Successful entrepreneurship requires innovation, skills and capital. Making regulations smart gives people breathing room to operate so they can focus on innovation instead of regulation. When you bring massive capital into the market, this directly creates good jobs. Then, make it easy for people to learn new skills to be able to access these jobs and see their incomes increase. Higher incomes then give people the opportunity to invest in entrepreneurship themselves. Thus, the cycle continues. So Mr. or Ms. President, please do the R.I.T.E. thing. Regardless of who wins the election, the people should win. Unleash entrepreneurship and watch our country flourish.
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How bitcoin protects against geopolitical risk
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Peter Smith
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Today’s election is anything but ordinary. People from every corner of the globe have been watching, not only for its theatrical elements but because the impact will be felt around the world in very real ways. And nowhere will the impact be more immediate and certain than on the economy. In August, the Wall Street Journal published a piece noting that economists were already seeing election-induced uncertainty harming the US economy. When the British people voted to leave the European Union, the value of currency literally plummeted overnight. If Trump wins today, the USD is likely to take a tumble just as the GBP did following the Brexit vote. This year, we’ve seen firsthand the consequences of geopolitical risk on FIAT currencies like the USD and GBP. Bitcoin, on the other hand, has not only survived, but thrived despite increased hacks, competition, and scaling turmoil. Digital currencies like Bitcoin were built from the ground up and designed for an era of information. Just as we engage in a world where information and commerce flows without the need of a central authority, Bitcoin allows value to be transacted directly, peer to peer, without an intermediary. This vastly increases system efficiency and enables the provision of financial services at a drastically lower cost basis. Importantly, Bitcoin is a global digital currency that is borderless, frictionless and secure. Unlike legacy currencies and payment systems, Bitcoin is immune to capital controls and currency manipulation. It does not limit people’s freedom to move money to where they want it to be and cannot be controlled by governments for their political agenda. Most of all, it is well insulated from national political uncertainty that might cause aggressive fluctuations in other traditional currencies. Is it just the uncertainty of today’s election that is causing volatility in FIAT currencies? Yes, the election, as with any national political event is bound to yield fluctuations within our economy. Should we expect that when that uncertainty subsides, so will the economic fluctuations? Yes, at least a bit. But, as history has shown, we should also expect that the next political event is right around the corner, with the resulting economic impact. Conversely, since it’s inception, bitcoin has remained immune from fluctuations from political events, and I believe that will be the case with today’s election. Why? Because as noted above, bitcoin is immune from capital controls and currency manipulation. We have entered an era of true independence in currency. That’s been shown in the past, and I believe we will see the same in the months to come. Taking the bitcoin discussion one step further, the blockchain, the underlying technology of Bitcoin, stands to change much more than just currency. Unlike traditional financial ledgers, kept by a central institution, the Bitcoin blockchain ledger is updated and maintained by everyone on the network. The bitcoin blockchain hasn’t had any downtime since its inception nearly 9 years ago – a remarkable feat for any financial platform. It also means there is no gatekeeper collecting fees with each transaction. And because the bookkeeping is publicly accessible, records can’t be manipulated after the fact. There’s general consensus that this technology will re-engineer the way we exchange value at both an enterprise and personal level. A greater percentage of the world’s population will be able to utilize digital financial products to transact, save, insure and hedge their way to a better economic future and nearly every major institution – from health to finance, entertainment to government – is exploring what block chain’s unprecedented efficiency, transparency and privacy means for them. As digital currency cements its place in the global economic dialogue, many people are asking whether the blockchain will change the world. I think the answer is a resounding yes. And if the results of today’s election and recent world events teach us anything, it’s that our global economy needs the protection that a decentralized and global currency offers.
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Walgreens is suing Theranos for $140 million in Delaware
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Sarah Buhr
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Walgreens has filed a lawsuit against blood analysis company . Walgreens was once Theranos’ biggest partner and the startup used several of the drugstore chain’s Arizona store locations as testing sites. However, Walgreens formally with the startup in June, citing the myriad bad test results and a federal investigation as the reason for ending the relationship “effective immediately.” “In light of the voiding of a number of test results, and as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has rejected Theranos’s plan of correction and considers sanctions, we have carefully considered our relationship with Theranos and believe it is in our customers’ best interests to terminate our partnership,” Walgreens’ senior VP and chief healthcare commercial market development officer Brad Fluegel told TechCrunch at the time of Walgreen’s announcement it was cutting ties. According to court filings, Walgreens claims Theranos violated some of the non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements it agreed to when it partnered with Walgreens. The drugstore chain requested the filings be sealed under a Delaware court to protect itself from Theranos claiming Walgreens had violated the confidentiality agreement between the two firms. Walgreens just filed a $140 million lawsuit against in Delaware. — John Carreyrou (@JohnCarreyrou) Walgreens declined to comment beyond confirming it had filed a lawsuit against Theranos. However, the Wall Street Journal’s John Carryrou, who first broke the news of Theranos’ faulty technology, tweeted Walgreens is suing for $140 million in Delaware. Theranos has responded by saying it is “disappointed” Walgreens has filed the lawsuit. “Over the years, Walgreens consistently failed to meet its commitments to Theranos. Through its mishandling of our partnership and now this lawsuit, Walgreens has caused Theranos and its “Over the years, Walgreens consistently failed to meet its commitments to Theranos,” a company statement reads. “Through its mishandling of our partnership and now this lawsuit, Walgreens has caused Theranos and its investors significant harm. We will respond vigorously to Walgreens’ unfounded allegations, and will seek to hold Walgreens responsible for the damage it has caused to Theranos and its investors.” The latest lawsuit is one of a growing number of filed against Theranos and its founder Elizabeth Holmes over broken promises and faulty blood testing technology.
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Hyperloop One will build the first Hyperloop system to go from Dubai to Abu Dhabi in twelve minutes
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Sarah Buhr
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and the United Arab Emirates are on the fast track to building out the first hyperloop system. Just today H1 announced it would build the first commercial hyperloop transportation system from Dubai to Abu Dhabi. The journey is 99 miles (159.4 km) long and normally takes about two hours by car but H1 promises it would take a mere 12 minutes in the hyperloop. H1 is partnering with the Dubai Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) to evaluate the feasibility of building this system in greater Dubai and the UAE and the announcement follows the next stage of development for the company, which is gearing up for its “Kitty Hawk” moment early next year when H1 will test a full-scale prototype of its system in the Nevada desert. It’s also part of the company’s next stage of progress in Dubai. Last August H1 co-founder Shervin Pishevar the first hyperloop would be built overseas and the company announced in October it received in funding from DP World Group of Dubai, the third-largest ports operator in the world, to build a hyperloop system to move cargo throughout the country and the world. On top of the news, H1 revealed an original design concept for the portals and pods that would take passengers from Dubai to Abu Dhabi in H1’s autonomous transportation system. Hyperloop One will work with McKinsey and architecture and engineering firm BIG to evaluate the concept of a build out for a passenger system in the UAE. You can see what H1 has dreamed up in the video below:
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You can now buy a refurbed iPhone directly through Apple’s site
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Brian Heater
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Some good news for folks looking to shave a hundred bucks or so off an iPhone, while still getting all the benefits that going through Apple’s official channels entail. The company is now stocking through its online store — which was previously limited to iPads, Macs, Apple TVs and the like. As one expects from Apple’s official offering, the prices aren’t as low as other second-hand retailers out there. Typical savings on a device is around the $80 to $110 mark. Also not surprising — the company has yet to stock the latest and greatest in the store — neither the SE or iPhone 7 are currently represented. At present, the selection is limited to the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, with prices ranging from $449 for the 16GB 6s to $589 for the 64GB Plus, both savings of 15 percent off the full retail price. The price includes a one-year warranty from Apple and, one would expect, a little peace of mind.
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Google to shut down Map Maker, its crowdsourced map editing tool
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Sarah Perez
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Since 2008, Google has run an online tool called that allows anyone worldwide to contribute data to Google Maps. Now, that tool is shutting down. The company today in its online forum for the project that the Google Map Maker service, as a standalone product, is retiring in March 2017. However, crowdsourced contributions to Google Maps are not ending, the company noted – instead, those will be transitioned to . Local Guides, to some extent, is a modernized version of the years-old Map Maker service. The older service offered an online tool and editor that let anyone submit updates to Google Maps, which moderators could then approve. The larger goal was to fill out Google Maps with road and business information in less developed regions where detailed local maps were not as readily available. However, as you may recall, Map Maker’s crowdsourced functionality also got Google into trouble in years past. For example, in 2015, with an image of Google’s Android character urinating on the Apple logo. The company , following this and other spam attacks and obscene edits. Even as Map Maker was struggling to police its community, Google its program. The initiative, which began something today offers a way for volunteers to contribute to Google Maps and Google business listings, in exchange for points, rewards, as well as invites to special events and early access new features. Guides can earn points for a variety of tasks, like writing reviews, adding or editing places, posting photos, and more. Map Maker, however, offers an expanded feature set, including the ability to edit roads, for example. Its unique feature set will be merged with Local Guides in preparation for the March 2017 shutdown, as well as after Map Maker is closed. As the features become available, they’ll be posted to both product websites: and on . In addition, starting today, edits submitted to Google Maps will no longer be available Map Maker for moderation. This is so Google can streamline its efforts and speed up the time it takes to publish these edits, says the company. The shutdown makes sense given the overlap between the two initiatives, Map Maker and Local Guides. The shift should also cut down on the spamming and vandalism problems, thanks to the newer systems for editing and approvals. However, whether or not Google will be able to shift its full set of Map Maker editing tools to the newer platform by the time Map Maker shuts its doors still remains to be seen. Google used to announce its product shutdowns in larger batches, dubbed ‘ .’ But this time around (and in the fall), the company has been more quietly closing up services without the fanfare. Yesterday, for instance, . “Over the past year, we’ve rolled out new, easy ways for people to help keep Google Maps up to date by allowing them to make edits directly from the Google Maps app and through Google Search. Based on these efforts, in addition to our new Local Guides program, we’ve decided to retire Map Maker in order to improve and expedite the Maps editing experience on both mobile and desktop,” a Google spokesperson told TechCrunch, about the company’s decision to end Map Maker. “We greatly appreciate the millions of edits the Map Maker community has contributed over the years and encourage them to continue adding their local knowledge to Google Maps through our recently launched contribution channels and by joining the growing community of Local Guides,” they added. The full announcement about Map Maker is below:
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Alexa, who is winning the presidential election?
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Brian Heater
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My own personal method for following election results mostly revolves around curling up in the fetal position under my bed with a bottle of whiskey and a security blanket. But for those who want to be a little more engaged without having to immerse themselves fully the 24-hour cable news cycle, Alexa’s got a few tricks up her sleeve that are good for the next few hours. Along with a handful of other , Amazon’s imbued its AI assistant with the ability to offer up real-time election results today. Users can go as broad as simply asking their Echo, Dot or other Alexa-enabled device who is currently winning, or drill down by candidate or geographical locale. Some examples from Amazon, “Alexa, which states has Trump won?” “Alexa, which states is Trump projected to win?” “Alexa, how many electoral votes does Hillary have?” “Alexa, what percent of the popular vote does Hillary have?” “Alexa, who won Iowa?” “Alexa, who is winning in Florida?” “Alexa, who is projected to win Idaho?” “Alexa, what are the election results in Idaho?” “Alexa, how many votes did Trump get in Idaho?” “Alexa, what are the election results?” So you can keep up to date all without ever having to leave the house/under the bed or turning on a TV set, which could do wonders for your blood pressure. And then tomorrow you can ask Alexa how to go about getting Canadian citizenship.
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Tickets to the 10th Annual Crunchies are on sale now!
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Jordan Crook
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It’s that time of year again. No, I’m not talking about the holiday season or even tech’s own winter wonderland, CES. I’m talking about Awards Show season, and the one awards show that no TechCrunch writer, reader, or subject can afford to miss: The Crunchies. This year, we’re celebrating our in style, at the San Francisco Opera House on February 5. Startups, products and people in the tech industry will be recognized for the way they’re changing the world, and the rest of us will have an excuse to dress up and spend an evening of good company and good times. So the real question is: Why am I telling you about this , before we’ve even had Thanksgiving dinner. Well, tickets are now available to purchase if you’d like to attend the event. Tickets , and that includes access to the after party. This year’s Crunchies is set to be the best Crunchies yet, and we can’t wait to see you there!
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Need some good news today? A mutant snail just found love via Twitter
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Devin Coldewey
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This day will be a stressful one for many Americans, so naturally we turn to the internet: to paraphrase , the cause of and solution to all of life’s problems. Luckily, today brings — from across the pond. A mutant snail who once thought hermself alone in the world has found love, thanks to online dating. Jeremy, a common garden snail, was like all the other snails except in one important way: it was left-handed. In a snail, that’s a bit more serious a condition than in humans, however: left-handed, or sinistral, snails not only have shells that twist the other way — counter-clockwise — but all their organs are on the opposite side of their bodies as well. It’s an exceedingly rare condition, one in a million perhaps, and because left-handed snails can’t mate with ordinary right-handed ones, it’s basically an involuntary vow of chastity as well. But sometimes, child, miracles do happen. On Twitter. The University of Nottingham’s Angus Davison related the plight of young Jeremy in October, spawning the hashtag and, for some reason or another, capturing the hearts and minds of the UK. As #snaillove broadened its reach, it eventually found Jade Sanchez Melton, member of the and owner of Lefty, a rare — you guessed it — sinistral garden snail. Essentially, they crowdsourced a match for a particularly difficult bachelor(ette). Jeremy, whose joy we can only imagine, has been transported to Lefty’s habitat, and the two will be closely observed by Melton and others: She will be looking for obvious signs of a pairing that would include the presence of so-called ‘love darts’, sharp spikes made of calcium which snails stab into each other’s bodies during the process of mating, and of course, any eggs resulting from a union. Even if the two aren’t compatible (though it’s unbecoming to be so picky in a situation like this) there’s a third sinistral snail that may be a potential match. Miguel Àngel Salom, a snail farmer in Majorca, discovered the left-handed Tomeu during routine shell cleaning duties. I’m not sure whether this match would entail more paperwork in this post-Brexit world, but love is priceless. As are the benefits to conchologists everywhere. “Scientifically speaking, this is something which I believe has never been done,” Melton said in a University of Nottingham news release. “The citizen science has enabled us to begin on the first step toward understanding why these snails are so rare,” added Davison. “The contribution of the snail finders has been invaluable – we would hope that they will be authors in the scientific publication that eventually comes out of this work.” You can listen to Dr Davison talk about the whole situation — and, of course, keep an eye on #snaillove for the latest updates. 🐌💘
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PlayStation Vue’s streaming TV service is losing all Viacom channels
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Sarah Perez
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Sony’s PlayStation Vue streaming TV service has just hit a bit of a roadblock in terms of its content lineup. The company says today that it is losing all Viacom-owned channels, including Comedy Central, Spike and MTV, which will be removed from the service beginning on November 11. Reading between the lines of the , it seems that the cost to continue to carry these channels was an issue here, given the move being positioned as the best way for Vue to continue to offer “value” to its customers. Channel lineups on services like Vue and its rivals are often in flux due to complicated rights agreements and disputes over pricing. For example, in April, Viacom and Dish settled a carriage dispute that additionally including Comedy Central, BET, Spike, MTV, Nick Jr. and others. Meanwhile, Viacom is reportedly in negotiations with Google over its own forthcoming TV service on YouTube, according to and . And Viacom has already publicly committed to participating in AT&T’s soon-to-launch DirecTV Now streaming service. Viacom’s channels, however, have been losing viewers and ad dollars in recent days, worrying investors. And several smaller cable operators, including Suddenlink and Cable One, have dropped Viacom to boost their bottom line, this October. But for streaming TV service providers like PlayStation Vue, the channel lineups they’re able to offer consumers will be a key selling point, along with other matters like cost and user experience. In this case, it appears that PlayStation is more concerned with keeping its pricing down, even if that means it has to leave out a few notable cable TV networks. Reached for comment, a spokesperson for PlayStation Vue declined to offer more information on the matter. “While we do not comment on the specific details of our network deals, this was the right decision to make for our customers and the PlayStation business,” they told us. “As part of our ongoing evaluation of the PlayStation Vue offering, we have determined that removing the bundle of channels from Viacom is the best way for us to continue to offer the most compelling value to our customers.” In addition to losing Viacom, PlayStation Vue’s announcement also said that it’s adding a few more stations, including BBC America and NBA TV, launching tomorrow, along with VICE and broadcast stations from CBS and Fox soon. The company already offers ESPN, ABC and other Disney networks and has added top requested channels like NFL Network and HBO. It has also expanded its service to new devices like Roku, Android TV, and the web on Mac and PC, to make Vue more accessible to those without Sony’s gaming platform. On paper a lot of these services – like Vue, Sling TV, DirecTV Now, and the soon to arrive live TV service from Hulu – look similar. But consumers will ultimately choose one or the other because of pricing, lineup and other technical and aesthetic concerns. Vue has historically competed on price by offering a tiered service to address different market segments, and it beats Sling TV on the technical front by offering support for more simultaneous streams and a cloud-based DVR. Whether or not losing Viacom will actually impact its customer base, however, remains to be seen.
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Haje Jan Kamps
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Prisma now supports real-time style transfer on Facebook Live
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Natasha Lomas
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Prisma’s app now supports real-time style transfer for livestreaming videos broadcast to the Facebook Live platform. ‘Style transfer’ is the phrase being used to describe popular art filter technology which creates a pastiche effect at the touch of a button — turning a representational photo or video into something more akin to a cartoon or an abstract work of art. So, basically, from selfies to cartoonies. The feature is currently only available to Prisma’s iOS users, and only for iPhone 7 and 6s owners — owing to processing constraints given that processing is done locally on the device. “Not every smartphone can handle that,” says Prisma’s Aram Airapetyan, adding: “We’re working to bring this to powerful Android smartphones also.” iPhone owning Prisma users need to be logged into their Facebook account via the app to make use of the livestreaming feature. After which they’re all set to livestream US election result night in an Edvard Munchian style — which surely best reflects the mood of the occasion… [youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zg653hQixoc&w=853&h=480] Prisma co-founder Alexey Moiseenkov , the day after for Facebook Live. While Prisma launched in June as an app offering style transfer for photos, it added early last month, when it also said it planned to launch animated GIFs next. In the event it’s pushed for adding Facebook Live support first — likely spurred on by Facebook’s own interest in style filtering and the risk of a tech giant taking the wind out of its sails. (Facebook has yet to officially launch its own style transfer livestreaming feature but is , as well as offering Prisma-style art filters for photos.) The plucky startup has managed to rack up an impressive number of app downloads (~72M globally) since , benefiting from a viral popularity bump when users started sharing its art filtered photos to Instagram. Although that initial download surge looks to have slowed. Prisma tells TechCrunch it has more than two million daily active users at this point, with its best markets being the US, India and Russia. It’s currently monetizing the app via branded style filters. In a statement on today’s real-time filter launch, Moiseenkov says: ’’We are working in a direction that we always considered important. We want to change the way people communicate with each other using the most advanced and new technology. We believe, that even a small company can achieve great results.” Top of Prisma’s to-do list now is working on the Android version of the app, including adding offline video processing, it said today. It’s also hinting about a move towards turning the app into more than just a processing tool — saying Prisma “will become more social soon”. (Although, back in June, Moiseenkov told TechCrunch the team had no plans to try to ‘platformize’ the product, saying: “There are a lot of platforms and we don’t need any other social networks for today.”) Another big priority for Prisma is improving quality for photo art styles by supporting higher resolution and free aspect ratios (i.e. rather than the square format it currently enforces). “This is a number one feature users are looking forward to,” it notes. It will also be working on speeding up offline processing. And GIFs are still on its to-do list. But the really big elephant in the room for Prisma is how to survive when the likes of Facebook and Google are consuming your USP.
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The insurance impact of self-driving cars and shared mobility
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Seth Birnbaum
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“We’re going to see more change in the next five to 10 years than we’ve seen in the last 50,” said Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors, . While that statement is now a year old, it continues to ring true. Vehicle ownership is changing and self-driving cars will be implemented in the next decade. What will affect the insurance industry more: self-driving cars or shared mobility? One of Google’s recently was involved in one of the most damaging driverless car collisions yet. It wasn’t the autonomous car’s fault when a driver ran a red light and collided with the side of the vehicle, causing the airbags to deploy, but it was a scenario the car did not know how to avoid. The driver took over and applied the brakes, but it was too late to prevent a collision. While self-driving cars will likely be much safer than human-driven vehicles once they’re widely adopted, will they really be safer when there are still people driving on the road? How do you account for the complex and elusive “human element”? Which leads us to the question: What happens when insurance is brought into the picture? The traffic light was green for six seconds before the self-driving car pulled through — and it was still hit. The self-driving car industry is expected to grow exponentially over the next 20 years, and insurers will have to learn to swim — or sink. Auto insurance will have to adapt to this impending technology in the immediate future, as well as in the long term. While self-driving cars are expected to feel they are safer driving themselves. If they feel that way, will drivers be willing to pay more for the technology? recently stated that their autonomous car technology will likely add $10,000 to the car’s cost. With consumer hesitation and other legal barriers, it may take decades before self-driving cars are fully adopted. As a result, there will likely be a more immediate, transitional period that insurers will need to plan for — a period where both self-driving vehicles and human-driven vehicles are on the road. As self-driving cars are released to the public, there may be accidents involving that “human element” as the public adapts to the technology. Insurers will have to cover these types of collisions — perhaps, ones similar to accident — in the short term. In the future, there also will be new risks to insure, such as sensor damage, satellite failure and other new technology. Perhaps, insurance will take on a no-fault form, in which neither party is at fault, and each car owner’s insurance covers their own vehicle. Or insurance could become similar to utility cost with a premium cost based on mileage or usage. There also may be risks involving driverless-car hacks and cybersecurity. Will insurers cover cybersecurity issues or will the manufacturer? The answers to these questions can’t all be determined now, but insurers will have to react to this paradigm shift sooner rather than later. Comprehensive coverage for fires, animals, floods, theft, earthquakes and vandalism will still be necessary, and that type of insurance will not need to change very much, except for replacement cost adjustments. Infrastructure is also expected to change as self-driving cars become readily available, and this could impact the way that insurance operates, as well. Currently, not all roads are smoothly paved with clean, visible road lines. What about snow and other weather conditions? How long will it take before self-driving cars can drive everywhere and not only on perfectly lined, mapped roads? Self-driving cars still have a long way to go before they’re fully autonomous at , but once there — if the safety claims are true — insurance costs will likely decrease for both drivers and providers. Cars are parked of the time. For that reason, and because of convenience, ridesharing services have exploded in recent years, resulting in a very profitable and innovative industry. Uber is currently valued at nearly $63 billion and Lyft has seen recent . Shared mobility of cars is expected to continue expanding in the coming years through ridesharing services, but also through carsharing. Carsharing, in which multiple drivers have access to the same vehicle, will likely grow in popularity in the coming years. Services, like or , that connect drivers to available vehicles will continue expanding because of increased competition and economic scale. As shared mobility is offered in more locations with focused customer segments, more transportation needs will be met. Over time, households may have less of a need for car ownership; as a result, multi-vehicle households may become single-vehicle households. Eventually, people may decide not to own a vehicle at all. While shared mobility will likely overlap with self-driving cars at some point, it may affect the insurance industry in different ways as car ownership changes. Shared mobility will have a more immediate impact on the insurance industry. Cars will wear down faster with more frequent use, and there may be more accidents with multiple drivers. Insurers will need to adapt to covering multiple drivers who may not be in the same household or family, and who may not always be driving the same vehicle. As a result, coverage will likely become more focused on driving habits with usage-based insurance (pay how you drive) or become more centered on a pay-per-mile basis. Companies like are already using this model, and it will likely grow in popularity as carsharing does. Instead of paying for insurance even while your car is parked, you pay based on the miles you drive. Insurance tech will also play a role with shared mobility as telematics devices can more accurately measure in real time who is driving the vehicle and how safe a driver they are. While shared mobility will have a more immediate impact on the insurance industry, self-driving cars will certainly impact the insurance industry more overall. A car driving itself changes a lot more for insurers than does multiple drivers using the same vehicle. That said, the two sectors will overlap at some point in time. Self-driving features will continue to be incorporated in , and will eventually be implemented in the carsharing industry. At that point, the two sectors will collide as insurance continues to adapt to new developing risks. Self-driving cars and shared mobility will both be disruptive for the industry — it’s only a matter of time.
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Facebook speeds up its data center network with the launch of its Backpack switch platform
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Frederic Lardinois
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Facebook is on a mission to make the fiber optic networking inside of its data centers go from 40G to 100G. Its top-of-rack network switch (basically, the device that connects all the servers in a rack to the wider data center network) was already accepted into the Open Compute Project and today, the company lifted the veil of Backpack, its next-gen 100G switch platform for connecting all the racks inside of the data center together. As Omar Baldonado, Facebook’s Director of Software Engineering for Networking, told me, the company is looking at this faster networking technology for a number of reasons, but it’s mostly driven by the need to be able to support more live and recorded video, as well as 360 photos and video. Facebook’s own internal data center traffic also continues to increase as developers look at new ways to gather analytics and use that data to improve the user experience. 100G, however, is still very much at the leading edge of high-speed networking. Facebook is obviously the only company working on this. LinkedIn, for example, has also recently how it plans to take its data center in Oregon to 100G in the future. Unlike others, though, Facebook is committed to opening up the designs of its servers and networking technology — and the software that power them — for the rest of the industry. [gallery columns="2" ids="1413414,1413412"] As Baldonado noted, one issue with going from 40G to 100G is that these new devices are significantly more power hungry and harder to cool (“Think of it like overclocking a gaming PC,” he said). “We want to play at those high speeds but we need to do it in a way that works across all of our data centers,” Baldonado told me. “We’ve been working with the whole industry ecosystem — server vendors, NIC manufacturers, fiber manufacturers — to get this to work at our scale.” While the Backpack may offer 2.5x the capacity of the older “6-pack” switches, they can’t consume 2.5x as much power, after all. Facebook plans to contribute the design of the new Backpack switches to the Open Compute Poject as well. It’s currently starting to slowly roll out the Backpack to its data centers as it goes through its internal testing procedures.
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Deliveroo riders in North London push to unionize
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Natasha Lomas
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A group of Deliveroo riders in North London is pushing for improved pay and conditions by taking legal steps to obtain union recognition. To achieve that they will need a tribunal to judge at least some of them to be workers, rather than self-employed contractors as Deliveroo describes them. It’s the latest development in what is lining up to be a huge tug-of-war in the UK between self-employed contractors in the so-called ‘gig economy’ and the tech platform giants that control how they work. The reports that the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB), which has been acting on behalf of the Deliveroo riders, has sent a letter to Deliveroo asking for recognition to bargain on behalf of the riders. The IWGB is holding a public meeting in North London this evening to solicit wider support for the Deliveroo campaign, and is also to support all its work on behalf of low paid migrant workers — and “those precariously employed” in the gig economy, as it puts it. Don't miss our public meeting tonight for all the info on how YOU can help the drivers campaign — IWGB Couriers Branch (@IWGB_CLB) The push for collective bargaining and union recognition follows a by the group of Deliveroo riders angry at proposed changes to the company’s payment model. Deliveroo is currently trailing a switch from pay-per-hour to pay-per-delivery, and the riders argued this risked them working for below minimum wage during quieter times of day. Facing increasingly noisy protests, which even caught the attention of the UK government, — offering them the chance to stay on the old payment model so long as they moved to a neighboring delivery area. The IWGB union represented the Deliveroo riders in negotiations and helped to organize a crowdfunding campaign for a strike fund to cover riders for loss of income during their protest. But the latest move aims to put the union’s representation on a formal footing — if it can gain legal recognition to act on behalf of the Deliveroo riders. Although that’s a big if, judging by one employment lawyer we spoke to (see his comments below). Regardless, the PR push to demand better pay and conditions for contractors on tech platforms is well timed, given in the UK. In that instance a group of Uber drivers successfully argued they should be classified as workers, given how their work is controlled by the tech platform — meaning Uber will need to pay holiday pay, provide paid rest breaks and comply with the National Minimum Wage. (Although Uber has said it will appeal the judgement, which also only applies to the group of drivers in question.) The wider point here is how much attention is being drawn to the ways tech platforms intersect with employment law. In October the UK government it was looking at whether to extend rights of gig economy workers — with its review set to consider job security, pay, training and workers’ representation, and the Prime Minister saying she wants to be “certain that employment regulation and practices are keeping pace with the changing world of work”. Last month a UK parliamentary committee also , noting “growing questions around the status of those working in the ‘on-demand’ economy, for businesses such as Uber and Deliveroo”. Among the issues the committee will consider is whether the term ‘worker’ is defined sufficiently clear in UK law at present; the status and rights of ‘gig economy’ workers specifically; and whether there is an appropriate balance of benefits between such workers and the companies in question. A Deliveroo spokesperson declined to answer direct questions about the North London riders’ push for union recognition, sending TechCrunch the following statement instead: As Deliveroo continues to grow, we are committed to providing great opportunities for UK riders, with the flexible work riders value, and a payment model which is fair, rewarding and better matches riders’ time with our customers’ orders. We have been in close and regular contact with our riders throughout the trial and as you would expect we will be writing directly to our riders to inform them of the next steps as the trial comes to an end. The feedback so far has been overwhelmingly positive and we welcome the opportunity to further engage with riders, policymakers and the unions as the sharing economy in Britain continues to grow. As the statement notes, Deliveroo’s trial of pay-per-delivery model is due to conclude shortly — after which it has previously said it will assess the results and make a decision on next steps. It remains to be seen whether it will feel confident enough to push forward. But if it does, it risks bolstering support for the protest group now organizing to try to unionize. Although Deliveroo claims the new payment model has proved popular with a majority of the riders who have been trialling it. Discussing the Deliveroo riders’ push to unionize in an interview with TechCrunch, Sean Nesbitt, head of Employment, Pensions & Mobility at law firm Taylor Wessing, said the bar is “very high” for obtaining union recognition — more so after a change in UK law this year. “There are four levels of threshold they have to go through,” he explained. “A) are there workers, B) are there at least 21 workers in the period prior to the request, C) are 10 per cent of them union members, D) in a ballot, do the majority of people voting want to be members and is that not less than 40 per cent overall. “It’s actually a five level test,” he continued. “That’s partly pursuant to changes to the law on [union] recognition that were enacted earlier this year. And I’m not aware that there has been a recognition case or challenge since the new laws came in. So this is not just a test of industrial processes and bargaining in the gig or online economy it’s also, I think probably, the first test in any part of the economy of the new laws on collective recognition. “It is very difficult to pass the test if the business does not want to recognize a union — and it has got harder still through legislation that’s been implemented this year. From where I sit right now I think that IWGB will have to work very hard to harness the power of social media and whatever wave of public interest there is — particularly in London — around the issues, the equation between opportunities and rights, cost and service.” “They’ll have to work hard to maintain momentum to win in this, because it’s a long term process if Deliveroo decide to dig in their heels,” he added. Despite the myriad obstacles to unionizing, Nesbitt said the case will inevitably draw more attention to the “fairness and due process” arguments being made by the IWGB and others for better rights for gig economy workers. So even if they do not gain recognition they will raise the profile of their wider narrative around gig economy pay and conditions. “They’re still putting it in the public eye for consideration by the government, by , by the , as to what’s the right balance between rights and consumer service, access to market and fairness; what’s the right balance?” he told TechCrunch. “This is an interesting and, I think, very effective way of maintaining that debate.” Nesbitt said the Uber tribunal ruling is clearly a boost to the Deliveroo riders’ cause. “I imagine a union may say, well, if Uber drivers who tend to be majority male, majority in their mid-twenties upwards, people who can afford to buy or rent a car, have social protections and social rights, they may say we want the government to consider — and the public to consider — the position of younger, less monetized workers, with less capital. Is it right that one set that already has certain economic standing, has got more privileges and more protection than younger less protected people that are riding bikes, sometimes without helmets, around London’s streets?” In the meanwhile, he noted there are a raft of other pending gig economy courier hearings set to take place before — and thus feed into — a Deliveroo rider tribunal. He expects the latter won’t take place before next spring or summer, as the group will need time to gather the necessary evidence to support their arguments. And while it’s not clear which way the UK government will jump on gig economy workers’ rights in future, Nesbitt noted the issue is one that has been specifically highlighted by Prime Minister Theresa May as a priority. He also suggested resolving investor uncertainty over the digital economy is also likely to be important for the government — not least for a Brexit Britain grappling with all sorts of unanswered questions for businesses — providing added impetus for it to be pro-active in setting clear rules for gig economy workers. “For all those who want to invest in collaborative economy, in new business models, digital business, and which the government has got as a core plank of its likely growth policies for the next five years, there’s a period of prolonged uncertainty. And because each case is decided on its facts we’re going to have a period of significant uncertainty while enough cases are built up to create a sense of perspective and generality from which people can then work — and there may be a strong argument in favor of the government deciding that they can take in feedback and information from various communities and setting the rules clearly and transparently and in a pro-active way, there may be strong arguments in favor of that instead of a period of uncertainty.” “The tech angle is a new angle, and the Uber lens and the Deliveroo lens are very important magnifying lenses for the debate between consumer access and worker rights. But the discussion about at whose cost and what does it do for the exchequer and the payment of tax is a discussion that’s happened over the last one hundred years or more,” he added.
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Microsoft’s new to do list app, Project Cheshire, spotted in the wild
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Sarah Perez
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Although Microsoft back in 2015, the company has been working on another to list app experience, code-named Project Wunderlist, which is now in private beta testing. Not much is known about Microsoft’s intentions with its new app, but according to a report out today, this simple to do list app will soon be available on iOS, Android and on Windows 10. The app’s existence was previously known, but has some of the first screenshots of what the app looks like in action. According to the post, Project Cheshire has progressed to beta testing and has been updated with a bit more polish than when it was first this year. But it’s still not very impressive, at first glance. The images show a fairly bare bones to do list application that lets you create lists, add items, set reminders, and sync your lists across platforms. You can also theme the lists with a basic color picker, and a selection of rather boring banner images. The only interesting feature, really, is that the app can also suggest tasks to add to your list. However, it’s unclear where this information is pulled from. [gallery ids="1413475,1413474,1413473,1413472,1413471,1413470,1413469,1413468,1413467,1413466,1413465,1413464,1413463,1413462"] The app itself is already as “Project Cheshire,” where it’s described as a “brand new and simple, yet incredibly focused to-do app that helps you get things done.” The description also notes that the app is in the early stages of development. Those who were recently able to download the app to their device said they couldn’t actually use it – it was displaying only a blank screen and the message “coming soon.” One user also pointed out that only corporate account holders can currently use the app. This could imply Microsoft is intending this new app more for business use, while Wunderlist might remain more consumer-facing. It would also make sense if Microsoft was working to develop its own counterpart to Google’s Keep app, or even an upgraded Outlook Tasks experience which broke out your to-do’s into their own standalone app. That being said, while the app doesn’t look like Wunderlist, that company’s technology could still be under the hood in Project Cheshire – and the user interface is merely a fresh coat of paint on top of the Wunderlist backend. We’ve asked Microsoft for more information about Project Cheshire and its status, and will update if the company offers a comment. (Update: Microsoft declined to comment)
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Alibaba’s Lazada confirms acquisition of Singapore web grocery startup RedMart
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Jon Russell
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Last week, we reported that Lazada, the e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia backed by Alibaba, , and today the companies confirmed the deal. Our sources said Lazada, which earlier this year, is spending $30-40 million to buy Singapore-based RedMart. Given that , which include Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, that price range is pretty underwhelming for a company that many had tipped for a major exit. Officially, though, the deal is undisclosed and scheduled to be completed before the end of this year. RedMart had run into financing problems, and had been working with banks to find a buyer since at least September, . (That’s similar to Lazada’s situation — .) In a press release, RedMart stressed that it will continue to be run independently of Lazada despite this transaction. The company said that this alignment will help it expand into new product categories faster. RedMart currently operates in Singapore but it has long harbored expansion ambitions. Lazada is in six countries in Southeast Asia, but there’s no word on whether it will help RedMart expand into new geographies following this deal. “This partnership will help us to increase the scale at which we are able to deliver our mission to save our customers time and money for the important things in life… We are partnering with Lazada to serve our customers better,” RedMart co-founder and CEO Roger Egan said in a statement. , its first market in Southeast Asia, in Q1 2017, so Lazada and RedMart will need to brace themselves for some serious rivalry very soon. As we reported last week, Amazon was actually a RedMart suitor earlier this year but the U.S. retail giant bid even less than $30 million, which scuppered a potential deal. Amazon is building up its own capabilities itself instead.
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Didi may not have invested in Asian ally Grab’s recent funding round after all
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Jon Russell
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Days after , — China’s top ride-sharing service — had agreed to take part in a new funding round for Southeast Asia-based ally Grab. The Chinese firm’s involvement in the round — which led by SoftBank — was never formally announced, along with a lot of other investors, but it was widely assumed by many following the earlier reports. Didi’s involvement was seen as an important development because its acquisition of its arch rival threw its alliance with Grab, Ola in India and U.S.-based Lyft — the so-called “anti-Uber alliance” — . , and it also has investments in Ola and Lyft to foster solidarity and develop business alliances, which include a feature to let users to roam between the different services. Didi’s involvement in the latest Grab round was perfectly timed from a PR perspective, but it turns out that it may not have happened after all. That’s according to today which includes a cursory mention of the round, and an apparent lack of capital from Didi: It’s unclear how the alliance between Grab, Didi, Lyft Inc. and India’s Ola will proceed. Jean Liu, Didi’s president, told a summit in San Francisco the company is a “big believer” in leveraging the knowledge and strengths of local players. No one’s suggesting the quartet is breaking up and Tan said the four founders remain close and still share information, but had no immediate plans to hook up their networks. Both Didi and Grab declined to comment when we asked for clarification. That leaves you having to make your own mind up. But since you’d imagine that both sides would have been keen to highlight Didi’s participation in the round when it closed, the silence seems to be fairly telling. Next exercise in thought: what does it mean Didi, a close ally of Grab, was apparently too late to invest in Grab’s round, which closed two weeks after we (and others) ?
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Amazon plans to enter Southeast Asia with Singapore launch in Q1 2017
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Jon Russell
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Amazon is ready to enlarge its presence in Asia. Months after and a week after it , plans for its entry into Southeast Asia next year have surfaced. The U.S. retail giant doesn’t currently offer local services in Southeast Asia, but it is working to enter the region via a launch in Singapore. Amazon is covertly acquiring assets, including refrigerated trucks, and making new hires as part of an initiative led by head of ASEAN , two sources close to the company told TechCrunch. The current plan is to launch selected services in Singapore within the first quarter of 2017, one source added. Amazon declined to respond to a request for comment. The U.S. company is likely to initially offer its Prime delivery service alongside its AmazonFresh grocery service, in Singapore, we understand. Earlier this year, Amazon made an offer to acquire Redmart, a grocery delivery startup in Singapore , but the bid was deemed too low and rejected. , the e-commerce firm that Amazon declined to reenter acquisition talks, despite contact from Redmart, instead deciding to build out its own operations. Southeast Asia is home to over 600 million consumers and, while online is estimated to account for less than five percent of all commerce today, over the next decade. Already, Alibaba has stepped into the region via investments in Lazada, , and . Amazon competes fiercely with Alibaba-backed Paytm, Flipkart and Snapdeal in India, and it has decided that now is the time to join its rival in Southeast Asia. There’s been that Amazon is harboring plans to Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populous country and Southeast Asia’s largest economy, but sources told us that Amazon is fully focused on expanding into Singapore at this point. That makes a lot of sense because Singapore is not only smaller and easier to service from an operational perspective, but the level of customer spend and consumer culture is more closely aligned with Western markets where Amazon thrives. Other emerging markets will take great levels of adapting, leaving Singapore as an obvious first landing point and general hub/HQ for the region.
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Tools that help startups scale effectively
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Gerard Grech
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If you wanted to start your own tech business 10 years ago, you needed deep pockets and extensive knowledge of building the various parts of a company yourself. From the ground up. Skype, Amazon and eBay were all well-backed companies given significant capital to grow while making significant early losses. Building a successful tech company should not be that exclusive — you should neither need a hefty amount of capital nor a degree in engineering, necessarily. If you have a great idea, you should be able to focus on that idea and not have to worry about building non-core parts of your business from scratch, such as hosting or payroll. The good news is that we are closer than ever to that reality, thanks to a more mature ecosystem of tools that help startups scale effectively on a pay-as-you-grow basis. When it comes to the strength of the tech industry, the sector can sometimes obsess about funding (who has raised what) or talent (who has gone where). This summer, Tech City UK and Stripe worked together to research other indicators to evaluate the underlying strength of tech and its ability to benefit other sectors of the . The joint survey identified the , a set of around 200 cloud-based tools helping to transform every sector. Indeed, 89 percent of respondents said these tools had made starting and scaling a business easier, and 85 percent said they had made it cheaper. Even more striking was that 70 percent believe some startups wouldn’t exist in their form today without the of tools underpinning their business. According to CB Insights, it to cost $5 million to launch a now it costs less than $5,000, thanks to open-source software and cloud-based tools (e.g. AWS). Also, it to take startups twice as long to reach 100 million users and to expand internationally. The evolution of the s s has driven much of this change by providing the flexibility for startups to focus on refining and scaling the core product, rather than being sucked into dealing with peripheral, historically resource-intensive business functions. Startups no longer want to reinvent the wheel when it comes to the basic building blocks of their business: less than 10 percent of startups surveyed built their own payment infrastructure; less than 12 percent invested in building their own CRM system; and less than 13 percent built their own servers. Respondents estimate that early-stage startups are typically using between 6-15 s s tools. Interestingly, these popular tools are new startups themselves: More than half of the tools named in the survey were founded after 2006, and a quarter of them were only launched in the last five years, including recruitment platform and business dashboard provider . Startups trust other startups with handling some of the most fundamental parts of their businesses, and today’s tools are nimble innovators themselves that share a similar mentality with other startups. This is consistent with what we see at Stripe, with the vast majority of startups using Stripe’s platform to power their payments and experiment with new business models. This is in stark contrast to how more established businesses could think about their payments , although they are attempting to catch up by adopting more of these tools. The s is not yet complete. According to the survey, startups could grow faster if there were more tools in legal & compliance and cybersecurity. Dealing with overwhelming paperwork and mundane admin tasks can be solved by tools doing things as simple as providing e-signatures. For example, was the only legal & compliance tool people mentioned in the survey. According to CB Insights, legal tech companies just $739 million in aggregate funding since 2011. Compare that to the recruitment and HR tech space, which is already much better funded, raising a total of $2.4 billion in funding and growing at a rate of 62 percent across 2015. We’ve seen more activity in this space recently with VC-backed companies like and bringing sophisticated background checking and security technology to the internet . The steam engine became the universal source of power in the industrial revolution, and in today’s digital revolution, the s st is emerging as the steam engine for our age. But, coming at a much lower cost and being available globally via the cloud, the democratization potential of this is much stronger. Industrial revolutions have tended to benefit the few at the expense of the many. With the s s , maybe this latest revolution will be a lot more distributive than previous ones.
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Microsoft strives to give computers common sense with Concept Graph
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John Mannes
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Today, to tackle just one of the problems plaguing natural language understanding — knowledge. The company believes that background knowledge is one of the key separators between the way humans and machines understand language. Probase, a knowledge database Microsoft has been working on for quite some time, is serving as the base for a new public tool called Microsoft Concept Graph. Probase brings 5.4 million concepts to the table, beating other knowledge databases like Cyc, which offers 120,000 concepts. Microsoft Research’s distribution of concepts in the Concept Graph. The goal of all the connected information is to support text analysis by mixing interpretations with probabilities — this is very similar to the way humans use rapid process of elimination to accomplish the same task. For example, if I were to say “the man ran from the stranger with the knife,” you would most likely interpret that to mean that the man is running from an armed stranger. But of course the sentence could also mean that you grabbed the knife from the stranger and are now running away. However, running implies fear and knives are associated with fear so the simplest, most direct, interpretation prevails — even though it may not be accurate. Microsoft’s Concept Tagging Model builds on this to map text categorically with the same probabilistic idea. Continuing the example, the knife could also be referring to a utensil or a weapon, but in context, it is most likely to be a weapon and not a 17th century butter knife stolen from a museum. Utensils and weapons are both relatively common categories, but museum artifacts is a bit long tail. By sheer size, Microsoft’s model considers both the highly probable and the exceedingly unlikely to account for attributes, sub-contexts and relationships. can rank categorical relevance for any text entry. Microsoft’s basic-level conceptualization will be provided to preferentially rank efficient and appropriate categories alongside other measures like MI, PMI, PMIk and Typicality. Future versions will be able to account for what they call “single instance conceptualization with context,” which would essentially mean that “stranger” and “knife” could be connected to denote meaning. Even farther out, the team hopes to solve “short text conceptualization,” even further broadening the scope of applications within search, advertising and AI.
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Crunch Report | Instagram Shoppable Photos
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Khaled "Tito" Hamze
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Tito Hamze, John Mannes
Tito Hamze
Joe Zolnoski
Joe Zolnoski TechCrunch C/O Tito Hamze
410 Townsend street
Suite 100
San Francisco Ca. 94107
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Cross River Bank gets unconventional validation with a $28M VC round
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John Mannes
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In a rare move, and , investors in a number of Silicon Valley’s fintech startups, have backed the bank enabling many of their investments to lurch forward. , the obscure financial institution that seemingly everyone in fintech has heard of but doesn’t really know, originated more than $2.4 billion in loans for companies like and in 2015 alone. Today’s $28 million round is set to strengthen CRB’s capital base and support new business lines for companies reliant on the bank for loan underwriting. This investment round closes amid ongoing concerns from regulators that the financial instruments of Silicon Valley could spread contagion to the fragile banking system. The bank’s value proposition to startups is access to payment rails and wire systems — the idea being that instead of jumping through financial hurdles, startups can instead focus on customer acquisition and growth. Cross River collects fees between 0.2 percent and 0.5 percent from loans across its entire portfolio. With the new capital, the bank wants to grow its asset base to between $260 and $300 million over the next 36 months. Gilles Gade, CEO of Cross River, told me that his bank is considered tier-one capital — regulator speak for “well-capitalized.” Gade added that Cross River keeps twice as much capital on hand as is required by regulators. “Regulators expect us to be a lot more than a pass through.” Cross River also sees itself as having a responsibility to maintain an active role in its companies. The bank takes an on-book financial stake in every loan it originates. Amounting to roughly 10 percent, the stake is enough to show commitment without tipping the scales of risk, Gade explained. Maintaining such high exposure in a single industry could be seen as brash, but Gade really does believe that fintech is here to stay. He explained that the economy is now dependent on fintech and, like it or not, people have come to expect it. Scott Tobin, a partner at Battery Ventures, pointed out that the deal creates a lot of synergies. “They already hold the keys to our clientele,” said Tobin, who will be joining the Cross River Bank board of directors. While this could be construed as a conflict of interest, Tobin believes it is in line with Battery’s history of investing in fintech. One of the benefits of Cross River Bank being a highly regulated financial entity is that its investors had easy and transparent access to layers of financial diligence materials. Tobin said that Battery’s due diligence process began almost a year ago and Ribbit Capital and Andreessen Horowitz joined shortly after.
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Facebook officially announces Gameroom, its PC Steam competitor
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Josh Constine
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After losing mobile gaming to iOS and Android, Facebook is making a big push into playing on PC with today’s developer launch of its Windows desktop gaming platform. After months of name changes, beta tests and dev solicitation, Facebook and officially named it Gameroom. The app is openly on Windows 7 and up. Gameroom let users play web, ported mobile and native Gameroom games in a dedicated PC app free from the distractions of the News Feed. Gameroom will have to fight a steep uphill battle again Valve’s Steam platform, which has well over 125 million active users, with millions actually playing at any given moment. Facebook will need to convince developers that Gameroom will share its social network’s massive reach and is therefore worth their while. Then it will have to persuade gamers that a more social experience is worth diving into a new platform. If Facebook succeeds, there are plenty of potential benefits to owning a gaming destination. It can earn a 30 percent revenue cut on payments in games. It can tie users deeper into the Facebook identity layer, making it harder for them to ditch the social network. It could drive ad sales as developers seek to promote their games in Facebook’s News Feed or potentially with sponsored placement in Gameroom if Facebook allows it. And it could generate Facebook Live content from players streaming their gameplay. Back in the 2009 heyday of Facebook on desktop, it built a massive business on game payments thanks to developers like Zynga. That empire crumbled as users ditched casual web games for mobile, but now Facebook wants to win them back with a PC app. Export games from Unity directly into Facebook Gameroom Facebook announced the launch and name change from “Facebook Games Arcade” at . Unity 5.6 shipping next year will allow devs to export their games , as well as to the WebGL standard. Facebook’s director of global games platform, Leo Olebe, touted how Facebook will feature new games in the Gameroom to give developers a leg up. Facebook first revealed it was working on alongside a global open beta roll out, then revealed more details about its Unity partnership and how the desktop app would work in August. But now Gameroom is out in the open, with a plethora of shooters, strategy titles, puzzlers and casual games for people to try. The official consumer launch will come next. Steam might be the favorite of hardcore existing gamers, but Facebook is betting there’s a huge untapped swath of the mainstream ready to play, too.
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Some Facebook employees struggle with inclusion
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Megan Rose Dickey
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There’s a clear disconnect between and inclusion and how it plays out in the office. The most recent example is the presence of a series of posters that describe the average characteristics of software engineers, product designers and other tech positions. Then there’s the language used in the poster for content strategist, which describes people in that role as “meek and unassuming.” The one for UX researchers describes them as “dry, dour, humorless beasts.” As a colleague of mine noted, those are the only ones that have Africa as part of their native range. It’s problematic that the posters emphasize certain geographical areas over others, and overlook the broad swaths of the globe where people — and presumably engineers, data scientists and content strategists — live. [gallery ids="1410201,1410200,1410197,1410198,1410199,1410202"] I have obscured the name of the person who posted the photos on Facebook, but I will say that they work as a product manager at Facebook, according to the person’s Facebook and LinkedIn pages. The person, who posted these photos on Aug. 26, 2016, said they love their “HILARIOUS colleagues.” When someone asked where in the building those photos were located, the person replied, “behind my desk.” The photos were located in one of Facebook’s Menlo Park buildings. It’s not clear if the intention was to show where Facebook employees hail from or where Facebook has its offices, but either way, the information is not correct. Facebook has offices and engineering positions in Latin America, for example, and also recruits talent from all over the world. white in the U.S., . That should’ve been good news, but it was bittersweet because there was no increase in the two most underrepresented groups at Facebook: black and Hispanic. Facebook’s employee population in the U.S. is still only 2 percent black, 4 percent Hispanic, 1 percent other and 3 percent two or more races. There was, however, an increase in Facebook’s Asian population, which went up from 36 percent to 38 percent this year. Globally, Facebook employs slightly fewer men; as of June 2016, Facebook is 67 percent male compared to 68 percent male last year. There’s clearly still a lot of work to be done on both the diversity and the inclusion front at Facebook.
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It’s curtains for Talkshow, launched by former Twitter VP Michael Sippey
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Connie Loizos
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Twitter’s former VP of product seemed to be building a service that might challenge his former employer: his app allowed anyone to exchange text messages in front of an audience; the idea was to get other people talking. Now it’s gone quiet. In a letter to users sent earlier today, the company writes: The nascent company generated a good deal of when it first launched. With Talkshow, each conversation could be followed via the app or through embeds on any site. Starting a show was as easy as sending a message ; users picked a co-host (or hosts) and a title for the show and their friends received a push notification letting them know it was go time. Users could also share pics and GIFs in shows, post stickers and so forth. officially launched in April. That it wound up stagnating seems to suggest that users aren’t terribly interested in seeing 1:1 messaging turned into a broadcast medium. Then again, Talkshow’s limited growth may have centered more on execution. App store optimization startup estimates that Talkshow’s app was downloaded roughly 62,000 times over its short run, with roughly 70 percent of the downloads coming from the Apple’s U.S. App Store and the remaining 30 percent coming from Australia, Great Britain, and Canada. Either way, here’s what happens now, says the company, which never publicly announced any kind of outside funding yet appears to have raised last year (so may have money leftover to try something new): R.I.P. Talkshow. At least it lasted longer than Peach, another social app that had everyone talking at its launch . . . then sank, within to the bottom of the iPhone downloads chart.
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Otonomo raises $12 million to make data from connected cars useful
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Lora Kolodny
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Even if self-driving cars aren’t part of our daily lives yet, vehicles are becoming internet-connected at a rapid pace. that one-fifth of all autos on the road, and a great majority of new vehicles being produced worldwide, will have wireless network connectivity by 2020. Yet, few organizations have access to use the data generated by these vehicles today. That’s where a startup based in Herzliya, Israel comes in. The company’s systems gather driver and vehicle data from disparate automakers and original equipment manufacturers. It then normalizes the data, so different organizations can use it to learn more about drivers collectively, or reach them with new products and services. Otonomo has raised $12 million in venture funding to scale its technology and business. led the round, joined by , and Along with the venture funding, Otonomo announced that Steve Girksy, a former vice chairman of GM, and Mary Chan, a former general manager of OnStar, have joined its board of advisors. Andy Geisse, who previously ran AT&T Business Solutions, joined Otonomo’s board of directors, as well. Bessemer Venture Partners’ said what Otonomo is doing today will help bring new products and services to automotive and adjacent industries like insurance, smart cities, transportation and travel, or finance. Otonomo CEO and co-founder Ben Volkow illustrated many examples where data from vehicles could be useful now that developers and corporations can get their hands on it more easily. A mayor’s office could study driver behavior at major city intersections to optimize signage or traffic lights for better safety. Companies like Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts or McDonald’s could deliver a coupon to drivers who have been on the road for a long while already, and whose vehicle is approaching one of their stores. And insurance adjusters could attain data directly from a vehicle, rather than waiting for a driver to self-report it, in the event of an accident in order to process claims faster. “If a company or developer wants to build a service for connected cars, today they will have to deal with all the original equipment manufacturers, attain the data, normalize it, and strike all kinds of commercial agreements with automakers. Otonomo, is a neutral third party they can go to instead,” Karp said. He compared Otonomo to Stripe for payments online or Twilio for communications. Otonomo intends to use its newly raised capital for hiring, product research and development, and to continue building relationships with critical auto makers and original equipment manufacturers, the CEO said. One of the keys to making data from connected cars accessible to other businesses is making sure that it is disclosed only as local, state and national laws, and different business policies will allow. “Inside our policy engine we have hundreds of rules configured. We work with lawyers and know all the different regulations and rules. If a car maker shares data with whoever, they know we check all the parameters, then blur, anonymize and otherwise make sure they can share the data without violating anyone’s privacy or rules,” Volkow said. The CEO said automakers are eager to work with Otonomo because the company is helping them monetize data that they were shoring up, but Otonomo is not a competitor to their core business the way that other tech firms like Google or Apple may appear, given their initiatives to build self-driving cars and related systems.
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Roku’s latest OS update brings live TV pausing and private listening
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Brian Heater
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Roku’s rolling out an update to its TV streaming operating system that brings a pair of important updates to its entire line of streaming players and TVs. Most notable for is the long-awaited addition of live TV pausing. So long as a Roku TV is connected to an antenna and a USB storage device with 16GB or more, users can pause live digital TV broadcasts to their heart’s content — or, rather, for up to 90 minutes. The update also brings mobile private listening to all Roku TV models. Previously only available on limited Roku players, the update lets users stream audio on mobile devices, so they can listen to shows at ear-piecing volumes through the iOS or Android without bugging the people around them. The point upgrade brings some other (slightly less exciting features) to the system, including the ability for friends to share photos on the set. The 7.5 roll out officially kicks off today, and Roku expects it to be fully completed by the time the holidays roll around. You can find the full .
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Check out the trailer for our new series “The Down Round”
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Rebecca Friedman
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The new series “The Down Round” is a six-episode look at what many are considering the burst of the Silicon Valley bubble. While Silicon Valley has boomed for most of the past decade, funding has become harder to come by and unicorns are having trouble proving their worth. Companies that have raised huge funds are folding. However, venture funds are richer than ever, but are just not investing. Why is this happening? Is it the Silicon Valley bubble really bursting? What will happen next? The first episode examines the balance between fear and greed that investors are experiencing in the uncertain market. The second episode explores the process that startups go through to raise funding and whether or not this funding has dried up in Silicon Valley. The third episode shows the perils of the startup world and their effect on founders and investors. Episode four looks at the effect that the uncertain funding market has on the job market. Episode five examines one of the hottest topics in Silicon Valley: real estate. What are the effects of the booming real estate market on the dried-up tech market, and vice versa? The sixth episode examines the future implications of the softening market and how the entrepreneurial spirit and determination to build success out of failure defines Silicon Valley. All six episodes will be released on Thursday, November 3 on TechCrunch.com. The series will also be available on our by November 6.
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Uber and GM partner to offer drivers car sharing through Maven
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Darrell Etherington
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Uber has announced that it will be teaming up with GM’s car-sharing company, , allowing drivers to rent GM vehicles on a weekly basis in a 90-day pilot program to see how the arrangement works. This is separate from, but similar to, , wherein the carmaker makes vehicles available to Lyft drivers on an all-in short-term rental basis when they lack their own vehicle to qualify for use with Lyft. The pilot project with Uber is debuting in San Francisco, and will operate only in that city for the time being. Maven expanded its own services (which primarily focus on providing Zipcar-like short-term rentals to members) to . Per-week fees for use of the GM vehicles provided for use by Uber drivers is set at $179 for the pilot project, plus taxes and fees. Drivers also can use the cars for their own personal trips, in addition to the time they spend using them to ferry Uber passengers. This is in line with what Lyft drivers pay for GM cars via Express Drive, per GM VP of Maven and Urban Mobility Julia Steyn, according to . GM’s move isn’t surprising, given how much time and effort it’s investing in exploring alternatives to individual ownership in its future-focused mobility programs. It is interesting, however, in light of the closeness of the company’s relationship with Lyft before now, and rumors that circulated previously that GM may have suggested to Lyft it was interested in purchasing the smaller company, though Lyft has since denied that any formal acquisition talks took place. Maven branching out into car sharing services that extend beyond the direct-to-consumer model is interesting, too — it suggests that the GM subsidiary could become far more than just a GM-vehicle exclusive Zipcar or car2go alternative. Business-to-business in addition to B2C offerings will make Maven a far more versatile tool in GM’s utility belt.
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Sudo lets you change your online identities as easily as flipping a switch
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Fitz Tepper
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If you’re like me your inbox is a mess of hundreds of promotional emails from different sites across the web – many of which I’ve only actually shopped at once or twice. But once they have your email address it’s over – you can expect to receive a weekly (or daily!) email ad infinitum. Companies that get your cell phone number are even worse because those are harder to figure out how to unsubscribe from. And what about merchants that get your credit card info and charge you each month even though they didn’t make it clear it was a reoccurring charge? The moral of the story is that unless you proactively work to use one-time email addresses and debit cards when you shop online, you’re going to eventually have a problem on your hands. But doing this is hard, and typically requires too much effort and technical knowledge for the average consumer to do. Enter . The duo of apps created by allow users to create and delete temporary (or permanent) identities. Each of these identities come with a customizable name, email address and phone number. All communication happens inside the app – each persona you create will have an inbox with emails and threaded SMS messages – just like you were checking them on your own phone. The app also has a web browser with built in ad-blocking and private browsing in case you want to go the extra mile to maintain privacy. And if you’re worried about credit card fraud the company’s second app, SudoPay, allows you to create one-time or multi-use prepaid debit card that you can use along with any of your identities. SudoPay lets you load these cards with Apple Pay, so your real credit card isn’t at all connected to the prepaid cards. Steve Shillingford, founder and CEO of the company, explained that SudoApp is targeting two main types of customers. The first is what you’d expect – someone very interested in technology that cares about their privacy. These may have been people that had previously used disposable email addresses and phone numbers but were attracted to SudoApp because of how much easier it is to use then managing identities on your own. The second type of user is a little more interesting. Shillingford described them as a “chief household officer” – essentially a mom or dad that has many different parts of their life they need to organize and keep separate. So these users create a different identity (all with their real name but new email and phone numbers) for the soccer team, work, school mailing list…etc. As mentioned earlier disposable emails, phone numbers and prepaid cards aren’t new. But Sudo does a good job at bringing them all together two easy to use apps. It’s also very affordable – users can create 9 identities for free, which includes unlimited calling and texting and 1 GB of email. The prepaid card services charges a dollar each time you reload a virtual card, depending on the amount of the reload. So far the company has been entirely self-funded, but the founders expect to raise their first round of outside funding sometime in 2017. Both and are available now for iOS.
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Apple, give me back my emoji
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Devin Coldewey
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What have you done, Apple? You took an entire visual lexicon used by millions of people every day, and changed it. You destroyed iconic images and needlessly tweaked perfectly good ones. Why? Why would you do this? I want my peach butt. I want my cartoon moon. I want my candy heart. I want my emoji back. But you’ll never give them to me. I actually have to admit I was never a fan of the Apple emoji in the first place. To me they screamed tacky clip art, all color gradients and faux depth. I liked Google’s gumdrop faces, Microsoft’s bold lines, Samsung’s strong characterization. But the fact is, most people used Apple’s because they were early to the game and the iPhone was the most popular single brand. Most of my friends have iPhones, but I use Android, so I switched emoji sets rather than guess at what others might be seeing. The threat of misinterpreting emoji is real! So although I never liked the style, I made use of it, as you do. Like writing in a restrictive meter or shooting in monochrome, the limitation makes the process of expression interesting in itself. They grew on me, as I know they grew on countless others, and we developed shared visual vocabularies. And because we have used them so often in recent years, we have come to know them much as we know ordinary words. They developed their own connotations, nuances, innuendos — some seemingly accidental, others slyly intentional. Emoji are interesting to me because they are a mobile-native language — deliberately visual, distinct and glanceable — that both embraces and subverts the intentions of its designers. The language of emoji, as insipid as it sometimes seems, is actually a mountain of context and very human metadata that makes it, like so much visual communication, richly expressive. The foundation for all that is the images themselves. Redesigning the basis for this incredible and popular form of communication is an act of destructive cultural revisionism. Okay, yeah, that’s putting it a little strongly, since it’s just a bunch of icons people use to chat with online, but it really does erase a huge amount of context and history, and the gains are slim to none. The changes Apple made to the emoji — I’m not talking about Unicode’s welcome and long overdue gender and skin color modifiers, by the way — are pointless at best and often damaging. Dang. The ancient Apple emoji — which were never really meant to be seen bigger than 32 × 32 — are redrawn quite well in iOS 10.2! Good job! — Cabel Sasser (@cabel) What was the rationale behind, for example, changing the shading on the fruit? What about adjusting the portions in the curry? Changing the perspective on the wine glass? Why have some items gained gloss, while others lost it? Why invert the burrito? Why censor the peach? Why darken the fish cake? There’s no for any of these things. It’s as if Apple told its designers, “go through every emoji and change it a bit, doesn’t matter how.” Design without purpose isn’t really design. If the replacement isn’t better than the original, why are they replacing it? And if they don’t understand what made the originals valuable — the familiarity and shared symbolism of those exact images — doesn’t that make them poor caretakers of this cultural capital? Apple won’t roll back these changes, of course. I know this is basically “blogger yells at cloud.” But it’s disappointing to me because I’ve genuinely enjoyed the emerging phenomenon of emoji use, and this move is, like so many by Apple lately, a tone-deaf and user-unfriendly one. It would be nice to have an open messaging framework where we could choose how our emoji look on other devices, but I’m not holding my breath. But perhaps these new emoji will provide a blank slate on which to build another visual lexicon. I guess they’ll have to — it’s not like we have a choice.
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Josh Constine
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How combined human and computer intelligence will redefine jobs
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Brad Bush
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The man versus machine dichotomy has been a staple of pop culture for decades. From 2001: A Space Odyssey to Blade Runner to Terminator to The Matrix and beyond, film makers have envisioned what the world would look like if artificial took over. However, a new mindset is taking shape — the . This combination of a brain and a is known as a . The model sparked the growth of freestyle chess, a context in which that “weak + machine + better process was superior to a strong alone and, more remarkable, superior to a strong + machine + inferior process.” Kasparov’s statement regarding the model is no longer relegated to the world of chess. As AI innovation continues to grow, we should carefully review the model in terms of the and consider how and . In 1800, farming accounted for . However, the Industrial Revolution introduced a number of inventions that led many to believe there would be massive unemployment rates throughout the country. The Industrial Revolution resulted in a 25 percent decrease in farming labor by 1890 — but we didn’t see the unemployment that the general public feared. Instead, moved to factories and eventually white-collar like stockbrokers and business consultants emerged to further stabilize the workforce. Now, as we enter the Revolution, it’s important to realize that technology won’t create historic unemployment rates. Like in the 1800s, technology result in the decline in certain types of , but new positions that we haven’t even envisioned give people an opportunity to fill in the gaps that machines can’t — seeing the big picture, thinking creatively and connecting seemingly disconnected ideas. Thinking of technology as a means of reshaping the rather than a means of replacing any and every job, you can see where the model can employment. Being a in tomorrow’s means combining your own with the analytical power of AI-enabled technology. is a good example of how this work. The Deep Dream Generator turns vision algorithms inward to display what neural networks see when analyzing an image. Now, Deep Dream is being used to — but it can’t create images from nothing. The Deep Dream Generator relies on input, a seed from which it can create art. Being a in the means taking advantage of the vast analytical capabilities of AI-enabled technology and adding thinking. The applications for the model in the are potentially endless, but here are a few example fields that are well-suited for the combination of deep analysis and creativity: Film and television: There are enough test cases for us to truly understand what a well-framed scene looks like. Teaching a machine how to essentially direct means filmmakers can set up scenes in VR and focus more on storytelling and creative connections than the minute details of production. It’s easy for a conversation about AI to devolve into a philosophical discussion about consciousness, because that’s what we bring to the table — a sense of consciousness and intuition that machines don’t possess. But there’s no way around it; AI is going to the . However, machines are terrible risk takers and have no capacity to make leaps of faith. Rather than thinking about whether or not machines rule the world, let’s think about how we can become centaurs that creatively the of tomorrow.
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Jack Dorsey gets another break with a strong third quarter from Square
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Matthew Lynley
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While Jack Dorsey’s other company Twitter might be struggling, Square continues on a roll that’s keeping Wall Street happy. There’s going to, as always, be a big question mark for Square because of Dorsey’s tenure at Twitter — which is hardly going well. While the company’s latest quarter showed a flash of optimism, the company’s efforts to close a sale with Salesforce and other potential bidders fell through for a number of reasons (trolls included). There are questions of Dorsey’s ability to navigate Twitter’s complex problems, and that could easily extend to Square. Still, things at Square seem to be going well. The company reported another solid performance in the third quarter, beating Wall Street’s expectations. It reported revenue of $439 million and a loss of 9 cents per share, compared to estimates of a loss of 11 cents per share on revenue of $431 million. Shares were up as much as 6% when the report came out, and are up around 4% right now. A lot of the other key metrics for Square continue to rise. Gross payment volume — a measure of how much money is flowing through the company — was up 39% year-over-year in the third quarter to $13.2 billion. The company also said it processed more than 35,000 business loans for a total of $208 million, which was up around 70% from the third quarter last year. Square also said it had margins of around 7%. The company’s hardware revenue also hit $8 million this quarter, and Square said “sales of our contactless and chip reader remain strong.” As a lot of standards shift to chip-based EMV cards — and potentially Apple Pay — Square is going to need to keep that hardware rolling out to keep up with other point-of-sales systems. (Though, the transition to chip-based card readers in the U.S. .) Last quarter, Square got a much-needed bump when it reported better-than-expected results. In particular, the amount of funding Square Capital extended more than doubled year-over-year in the second quarter. That’s going to be increasingly important for Square, as it would seem that with the oomph the company is throwing behind it Square Capital could evolve into a tentpole service for the company. That’s not without challenges, however, as in recent months — especially following the Lending Club CEO exiting fiasco — institutional investors have . If it becomes more difficult to gather capital to extend as loans, that means Square will have to dip into its own pool and take a big risk on its potential clients. That kind of capital is important to continue growing quickly, and Square needs to build additional services beyond the company’s point-of-sale system. [graphiq id=”jv84YO9wq5T” title=”Square Inc. (SQ) Revenue – Last 5 Quarters” width=”650″ height=”502″ url=”https://sw.graphiq.com/w/jv84YO9wq5T” link=”http://listings.findthecompany.com/l/20439268/Square-Inc-in-San-Francisco-CA” link_text=”FindTheCompany | Graphiq” frozen=”true”] Case in point, Square to a competitor like Uber or GrubHub, though it didn’t end up finding a buyer that would pay enough. Square is still looking for additional revenue streams, and it needs to do that if it’s going to prove to be a strong independent company and not just fill a slot for a larger financial organization. In the past year, Square is down around 15%. It has had a rocky path for the past twelve months, and while its last quarter showed some positive signs, it’s going to have to keep doing that to convince Wall Street to leave it — and potentially Dorsey — alone. [graphiq id=”6CGoI3YDXp3″ title=”Square Inc. (SQ) Stock Price – Year to Date” width=”600″ height=”463″ url=”https://sw.graphiq.com/w/6CGoI3YDXp3″ link=”http://listings.findthecompany.com/l/20439268/Square-Inc-in-San-Francisco-CA” link_text=”FindTheCompany | Graphiq” frozen=”true”] With the upswing, Square once again pushed up its guidance for the fourth quarter and the full year. The company expects $438 million to $443 million in revenue for the fourth quarter, which fell around where Wall Street was expecting.
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Genetics startup Genos wants to pay you for your DNA data
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Sarah Buhr
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The first cost a whopping $2.7 billion. That didn’t bode well for making any breakthroughs on genetic disorders. Luckily, the cost has dropped dramatically since then, leading to a new breed of consumer genetics startups taking a deeper dive into all the double helix’s that make up you. is one of those startups using a next-generation sequencing process to both give you a good idea of your heredity on a deeper level and give researchers a crowdsourced genetic map to help with disease discovery. The startup says it will sequence your whole genome in the near future, but is starting by sequencing your exome — or all the genes that translate their information into proteins in a genome. The exome is especially important in discovering diseases caused by rare genetic variants. So instead of giving you information in SNPs (or “snips”), you get a voluminous amount, adding richer detail to your genetic makeup. 23andMe recently this type of next-gen sequencing and founder Anne Wojcicki called it “the hot, shiny object” of the industry at the WSJD Live conference last week. “But what you’re going to do with all that information is extremely complicated,” she said, adding that her company doesn’t want there to be any ambiguity in the results. Next-gen sequencing could tell you there’s a very slim chance you’ll get a certain form of breast cancer, for instance. But, as Wojcicki pointed out, it’s not clear what you might need to do about that information — if anything. However, there are plenty of others working on ways to offer up deeper data, should you want it. Like Genos, , and Veritas are all betting on the newer and more liberal sequencing techniques to fish out information and give us a better understanding of our chances for disease. Each of these newer genetics startups has a different approach to gathering and implementing the data. Genos is creating a map by encouraging individuals to aid the research process. 23andMe and other genetics startups do this to some extent by asking participants to voluntarily take a quiz or opt-in to a certain study. But, instead of asking people to sign a blanket consent form, Genos plans to incentivize people by paying for their information each time. Will the economics work? That part is unclear. How much Genos will pay is up for debate at the moment, though the company says it will be revealing how much participants could expect to make closer to its official launch a few months from now — it’s also worth noting that plenty of genetics companies are currently getting voluntary information for free. In the meantime, Genos is gearing up for that aforementioned launch and just closed on a $6 million strategic investment from cancer discovery platform . Its advisory board also includes George Church, a leader in genomics research who helped initiate the ; Nobel prize winner in economics Alvin E. Roth; and former Uber exec Mina Radhakrishnan, who is now an EIR at Redpoint Ventures. Other genomics startups have raised more and are further along in deploying their products, but Genos’ approach to gathering data by paying for it seems an interesting one, and the company has a good team behind it. We’ll just have to see how it goes.
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Photo app Ever removed its spammy SMS feature after Apple banned it
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Ingrid Lunden
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Score one for the consumer against the indefatigable force of growth hacking. , the photo storage app that we called out in September for (it from Everalbum shortly after), has found its way back into Apple’s App Store after getting temporarily banned for its practices. Ever has had a lot of negative feedback — and even a of — over how it leads you into sharing your contacts with it, and then subsequently messaging them with its marketing. Despite that — or rather, largely due to that — the app has been on a popularity tear. In the last month, it has consistently ranked No. 1 or within the top 10 among all Productivity apps in both the Android and iOS U.S. app stores, according to App Annie figures. [gallery ids="1410222,1410221"] In Apple’s iTunes App store, however, there’s been a blip: it disappeared, along with its billing function, used by paying “Plus” users ($9.99/month) or those who want to purchase physical photo books (which start at $19.99). From what we understand, this was squarely down to how it misled users into providing access to their contacts list and then spamming them to use the app. According to , Ever (then Everalbum) had duped them into spamming their friends with invites to try the service. The app’s user interface used a variety of techniques to get users to agree to this invite spam. This included a tricky button that heavily emphasized the option to “get free storage,” which then prompted you to let the app access your contacts). The following screen would show all your contacts checked by default, while the option to “Deselect All” was grayed out to make it less obvious. But it’s unclear whether users were just confused about what they were agreeing to, or if Ever had actually used different, and less transparent, onboarding flows at other times. The end result, however, was that many of Ever’s users felt they had been tricked into sending out SMS spam. In addition, Ever also sent out a number of different and misleading SMS text messages that implied your friend had given you access to view photos in their album, or threatened a link would expire if you didn’t click it soon. But users hadn’t necessarily shared albums — they were just navigating their way through the set-up process. Apple removed the app from its iTunes App Store for its bad behavior — specifically SMS spam and for being misleading. It was only allowed back in when the “invite via text” feature was removed. Google, however, never took any action, despite In the new version of Ever, now back on the App Store, the app no longer prompts you to sign up your friends, and it has a much clearer interface for its in-app upgrades: [gallery ids="1410206,1410208,1410207,1410205"] Now, the options for starting a free trial are clearly labeled, and the trial only begins after you enter your TouchID and confirm your commitment to the subscription terms ($11.99/mo after the trial period.) When testing, however, we found a new problem: after choosing to upgrade, but then cancelling before you continued to the trial, the TouchID prompt kept popping up. We had to hit “Cancel” on its repeated prompts to get it to go away for good. This could be a bug with the new app, or a new means of confusing the user — it’s unclear. (The new app does appear buggy, though — the album sharing button wasn’t working during tests, for instance.) However, when sharing photos (or presumably, an album), you have to explicitly type in a contact’s name or select from your “recents.” The app doesn’t indicate it’s sending a text on your behalf, but at least only the recipient — and not your entire address book — is being bothered. The text will point your friend both to a mobile web version of the app and to the App Store to download Ever via two included links. While Ever may have cleaned up its act, it’s clear that its growth hacking techniques gave it an advantage, given its continued high ranking. That, sadly, could still encourage other nefarious app developers to use similar techniques in the future. Unfortunately, the courts have not been on consumers’ side, either. Previous lawsuits related to SMS marketing citing the TCPA (Telephone Consumer Protection Act), which specifies consent requirements for marketing, have been dismissed. These include cases brought against (Whisper), , , and others, over the years. The suits against Ever are still pending.
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China’s new cybersecurity law is bad news for business
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Kate Conger
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The Chinese government has passed new cybersecurity regulations Nov. 7 that will put stringent new requirements on technology companies operating in the country. The proposed Cybersecurity Law comes with data localization, surveillance, and real-name requirements. The regulation would require instant messaging services and other internet companies to require users to register with their real names and personal information, and to censor content that is “prohibited.” Real name policies restrict anonymity and can encourage self-censorship for online communication. The law also includes a requirement for data localization, which would force “critical information infrastructure operators” to store data within China’s borders. , an advocacy organization that is opposing the legislation, the law does not include a clear definition of infrastructure operators, and many businesses could be lumped into the definition. “The law will effectively put China’s Internet companies, and hundreds of millions of Internet users, under greater state control,” said Sophie Richardson, Human Rights Watch’s China director. HRW maintains that, while many of the regulations are not new, most were informal or only laid out in low-level law — and implementing the measures on a broader level will lead to stricter enforcement. In addition to the censorship measures, the law lives up to its name with some new requirements for cybersecurity. Companies are required to report “network security incidents” to the government and inform consumers of breaches, but the law also states that companies must provide “technical support” to government agencies during investigations. “Technical support” is also not clearly defined, but could mean providing encryption backdoors or other surveillance assistance to the government. The Cybersecurity Law also criminalizes several categories of content, including that which encourages “overthrowing the socialist system,” “fabricating or spreading false information to disturb economic order,” or “incit[ing] separatism or damage national unity.” “If online speech and privacy are a bellwether of Beijing’s attitude toward peaceful criticism, everyone — including netizens in China and major international corporations — is now at risk,” said Richardson. “This law’s passage means there are no protections for users against serious charges.”
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Not every service needs to be an on-demand service
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Ajay Prakash
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When my co-founder James and I started our mobile-based laundry service in 2013, the “on-demand” economy was starting to emerge. VCs were excited to find the next Uber and companies were launching on-demand services in all verticals imaginable (more broadly known as “Uber for X” companies). Fast forward to today where a few companies have found success with the on-demand model, but several more have struggled. In recent months, we’ve seen several well-funded startups with strong teams either going through layoffs or shutting down entirely. The natural question to ask is why? Uber solves an important pain point. When you need a taxi, you need it now. Offering an on-demand solution removes that friction and meets the immediate demands of the customer. Most consumer services attempt to address pain points, though. Tasks like cleaning your house; doing your laundry, or getting your car washed, generally follow predictable recurring patterns. For services like those, on-demand is an inappropriate and inefficient solution. When launching a consumer service (or any business for that matter), it’s important to be needs-focused and solution-agnostic. The challenge in recent years has been that just about every new venture has assumed the solution for the consumer problem they are trying to solve is to be on-demand. For chronic pain points, though, a focus on “smart scheduling” is almost always a better approach. In its most basic form, smart scheduling simply means creating a service that is aligned with the cadence of the customer need it’s addressing. For house cleaning or laundry, that cadence might be weekly or bi-weekly. For other services, like car washes and moving items into storage, it might be less frequent. Regardless of cadence, prioritizing quality over speed will almost always lead to a better customer experience. Below is a closer look at a few verticals where “smart scheduling” makes more sense than “on-demand.” If we look directly at the customer pain point, it’s and recurring in nature, meaning smart scheduling makes more sense than on-demand. In fact, if you look closer at Handy, the only one in the list above still operating today, you will see they are on-demand. Their sign up flow currently asks you to choose between a weekly or bi-weekly plan and they default to a cleaning date that’s a few days away. Storage is another vertical that has received investment interest in the past few years. Companies like Clutter, Makespace, and Omni have received funding to tackle the pain points of storage in different ways. Omni brands itself as “on-demand storage and delivery” and takes a different angle than Clutter, which appears to focus more on a scheduled approach. From an outsider’s perspective, self-storage comes with significant friction, but it’s rarely acute. On-demand car washes gained prominence a few years back when Cherry launched, raised capital, and then shortly thereafter. All that happened before we started Rinse, but almost there are still companies trying to tackle this consumer pain point with an on-demand solution (including Washos, Squeegy,and Wype). I’m not the target customer (my car has needed a car wash for a while and I haven’t done anything about it), but the need for on-demand service here feels like an extreme edge case. In addition, although the service is recurring in nature, purchase frequency is limited. There has been commentary around startups in the broader “on-demand” economy catering to the lazy or the wealthy. Although some companies may have that target customer in mind, the reality is
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WTF is CRISPR?
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Sarah Buhr
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a rare genetic mutation that guarantees you’ll get a certain form of cancer by the time you reach 50 years of age. And that this is most likely how you are going to die. But what if I told you this cancer gene, passed down from generation to generation, can be snipped out of your genome entirely and you never pass it on to any of your offspring? is the promise of , which not only has the potential to radically change the genetic code of all of humanity but could also fundamentally affect our health care, food system, farming and even the manufacturing and production industries. In short, it’s the technological discovery of the century. CRISPR (pronounced crisper) stands for . And it’s a sort of immunity system set up in the genetic code of our cells. These genes repeat in short sequences at certain intervals, and when this immune system detects a foreign gene — say a virus trying to insert its DNA into your DNA sequence — it creates a spacer between these repeats to provide immunity from that virus. This system, called CRISPR-Cas, can target and snip out undesirable code at the spacers using a certain enzyme. Cas9 was the first enzyme to be discovered within the CRISPR-Cas system and acts as a type of genetic scissors, allowing scientists to snip out, edit and replace DNA at certain intervals along the genome. There is a bit of a trick to it, and the Cas9 enzyme needs some help guiding it to the right spot to do its job. Cas9 is able to make a precision cut using a small piece of pre-designed RNA (ribonucleic acid) sequence called guideRNA (gRNA). The gRNA essentially “programs” the Cas9 enzyme by binding to the DNA and then allowing the RNA sequence to lead the enzyme to the exact place you want to cut or add DNA. CRISPR-CAS9 gene editing complex from Streptococcus pyogenes. The Cas9 nuclease protein uses a guide RNA sequence to cut DNA at a complementary site. If you think it’s tricky to snip out entire genes and hope for the best, just take a look at how we got here. Untangling who contributed what to the technology first is where things get really hairy. CRISPR itself came on the scene well over a decade ago, but there’s now an ongoing battle among two major parties involved in the discovery and use of CRISPR Cas9. On one side is Berkeley’s Jennifer Doudna and her colleague Emmanuelle Charpentier who is now at Berlin’s Max Planck Institute. On the other side is Feng Zheng and his colleagues at MIT, who hold the majority of the patents for the technology. All three have been up for a Nobel prize for their contributions to the work and all three have started and gone public with their own biotech companies using CRISPR Cas9 tech to create immunotherapies against cancer and other diseases. But who should own rights to the tech — potentially worth billions or even trillions of dollars — is up for debate. Doudna and Charpentier published their work first in the journal and both shared a recognizing their efforts in 2015. However, the main U.S. patent belongs to MIT. Though Doudna and her team filed first, MIT paid a fee to fast-track their patent submission — locking possibly the biggest discovery of our time in a war among two major contenders with backing from deep-rooted institutions and their own biotech firms. The legal battle wages on — and likely won’t be over anytime soon — but has so far cost each side tens of millions of dollars in lawyer fees. Like many scientific breakthroughs, this one comes with a lot of giant ethical questions. For one, there are a lot of risks involved. With all the promise CRISPR holds, it’s not a perfect system, and scientists still need to do a lot more research here before we go messing with the human germline. “With great power comes great responsibility,” says the ultimate genetically modified fictional human Peter Parker (aka SpiderMan). But you can only hold the world back so long now that the tech is out there and Chinese scientists have already started to inject human beings with modified cells in a trial study using the CRISPR-Cas9 technology. Of course, this is a trial using cancer patients who haven’t been cured using other methods such as chemotherapy and may have no other options. And a similar trial is slated to start in the United States by the end of the year, pending approval from the federal Food and Drug Administration. But how far do we take this technology? One could argue it’s okay to switch out genes causing debilitating diseases like cancer but what if we wanted to change our eye color or make our children stronger and taller? Is it okay to mess with the basic code of life just to keep up with some predetermined societal standard of genetic perfection? We could be setting ourselves up for some dystopian future world where the rich can purchase a switch to more desirable genes, impacting all subsequent generations and further separating the perfect gene haves and have-nots or people splice in genes from other animals, potentially creating dozens of entirely new species of humanoids. This could get weird, but given the rope, there are those . Plastic surgery is evidence of that. But we’re not talking about a one-off job on one human. Editing our genetic code has repercussions for our offspring and their offspring who mate with humans who have not elected to do anything with their own genes. This is a decision that affects the whole of humanity and that will need some regulation. CRISPR currently for at least the food system. The FDA says it won’t oversee scientists who clip out undesirable genes that, say, cause mushrooms to brown, because, unlike traditional genetically modified food, you aren’t adding in DNA from other organisms but simply taking something out. So it’s cool. But the technology faces intense scrutiny from regulators when it comes to manipulating human DNA. The fear is we’re playing God with our own genes. But we’ve for a while, actually. This is just a new, more promising technique that needs further study. The FDA, the Institutional Review Boards (IRB) and possibly the National Institute of Health (NIH) will be involved in determining approval for the first human study in the United States. Some this is duplicative and just more government over-regulation, while others don’t think we can tread carefully enough in what could potentially wipe out all inherited diseases in the future and radically change the human race. Either way, we can only hold back the tide so long, and CRISPR will be changing our code, for better or worse, in the not too distant future.
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Sinovation Ventures’ Dr. Kai-Fu Lee is betting big on artificial intelligence
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Romain Dillet
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Given that Sinovation Ventures founder Dr. Kai-Fu Lee has around 50 million followers on Chinese social networks, he has become an oracle when it comes to predicting the future of tech in China. Kai-Fu Lee talked about the most important trends in Chinese startups at . Sinovation Ventures recently raised the equivalent of $675 million in total across a Chinese and an American fund, and the firm has over 300 companies in its portfolio. “We can invest up to $15 million per company now,” Kai-Fu Lee said. And by far, the most important area for future Sinovation Ventures investments will be artificial intelligence. Many people think about autonomous vehicles, but Kai-Fu Lee also wants to invest in image recognition technology, financial applications and even healthcare startups relying on artificial intelligence. Nearly half of Sinovation Ventures recent investments have been in artificial intelligence. “AI is really changing every profession and every industry. There’s almost nothing that won’t be touched by AI,” Kai-Fu Lee said. “You could easily imagine education applications for instance — AI could replace a lot of the basic teaching functions. Medicine and health are also key areas.” And of course, there’s an underlying problem with artificial intelligence — will people still have jobs once artificial intelligence takes over? Kai-Fu Lee is aware of this issue but also optimistic. “AI works very hard and is very cheap. Humanity as a whole will have a lot more resources and we will probably be able to take care of everyone thanks to AI,” he said. “As for human mankind, we’re probably not here on Earth to perform repetitive and non-productive tasks,” he continued. According to him, transportation is going to be the biggest industry that is going to be disrupted by artificial intelligence, starting with truck drivers. “That’s why in the U.S.,” he said. When it comes to healthcare, Kai-Fu Lee was a bit more careful, saying that it’s going to take a while and be a progressive change. “That one is a bit tricker because it’s human lives at stake — it could start as human assistance,” he said. But it doesn’t mean that the firm only wants to focus on complex tech achievements. Sinovation Ventures is also investing a lot of money in entertainment and content companies. For instance, the company has invested in a variety TV show, which is quite unusual for a VC fund. [gallery ids="1412453,1412449,1412452"] “We tend to make smaller investments in the U.S. so that we can get in and learn from these investments,” Kai-Fu Lee said. It could mean investing in hardware companies, toy companies, etc. Finally, Kai-Fu Lee talked about the state of consumer products in China. “I think the consumer mobile internet is more advanced in China than in the U.S. because Chinese users were behind, so now they can move forward and jump a few steps,” Kai-Fu Lee said “People jumped directly from cash to mobile payment. In certain areas like mobile payment, mobile gaming, mobile communication, China is leading.” According to him, big companies like Facebook and Google shouldn’t even try to compete with Chinese consumer giants, such as WeChat, as it’s probably too late. “Companies like Facebook or Google could focus on their brand new products that may not have a Chinese equivalent or brand,” Kai-Fu Lee said. “For example, Facebook has Oculus and I think Google also has technology that isn’t matched by Chinese competitors. I would try to launch them in China.” But the same is true for Chinese companies trying to grab market shares in the U.S. “But WhatsApp is already a dominant product in the U.S. So it’s very difficult for a Chinese company to enter that space,” Kai-Fu Lee said. “I wouldn’t bet on Chinese companies being very successful outside of China over the next few years.” So it looks like Chinese startups will still dominate in China while American startups will dominate in the U.S. As showed everyone, it’s still hard to become a true global leader.
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Why iRobot’s Colin Angle thinks the smart home starts with a robot vacuum
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Matthew Lynley
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Robots — and the smart home in general — are a hot topic, and it’s one where an enormous amount of investment is happening right now. There are many companies like Nest and Ring that are trying to target segments of the home in the hopes of making everything smarter. But it’s easy to forget that the home is still a physical space, and in order for everything to work together, it has to understand what that looks like. And iRobot, the makers of a robot vacuum cleaner, have been trying to crack that problem for more than 20 years. Until robots can figure that out, and talk to each other, it’s going to be an uphill battle to build a truly smart home, iRobot CEO Colin Angle said at TechCrunch Disrupt Beijing 2016. “In the virtual world, it’s very easy to understand everything about the environment because it’s inside the computer,” Angle said. “If you have a simulated room you’re inside the computer. You know precisely where things are. In the robot industry, we almost dislike simulations because they are doomed to succeed. The challenge of robotics and AI for robotics isn’t so much the AI — that’s actually easy. It’s understanding what’s going on. There’s been AI systems for the last 20 years that could understand the sentence, ‘please go to the kitchen and get me a drink.’ But if you don’t know where the kitchen is, that doesn’t help you.” Since divesting its military division, iRobot has focused on figuring out what the physical home looks like, using a robot vacuum cleaner to figure that out how those rooms are structured. In order to build a home that’s going to have a series of devices that work in harmony — especially for the aging population, where that’s going to be increasingly important, Angle said — it’s going to have a series of devices that understand both the digital and physical aspects of the home. Because they’ve focused simply on a vacuum cleaner, and narrowed its focus, Angle argues that they have a better sense of what the home looks like internally. The promise of having robots and devices running your home runs back decades, whether that’s old sci-fi movies or cartoons like The Jetsons. iRobot itself is more than 20 years old, started by a moment of inspiration from those things. In a past life, iRobot wasn’t just the maker of a robot vacuum cleaner. “We were going to build micro-rovers to explore other planets, funded by selling the movie rights to hollywood,” Angle said. iRobot, which went public in 2005, has fashioned itself into a company worth more than $1 billion. By startup standards, that might seem like a unicorn on the softer side, with huge hardware companies like Xiaomi and others trying to build massive hardware businesses. Then again, iRobot sells a $700 vacuum cleaner, and its stock has continued to march up over time. [graphiq id=”bZj42sW3thb” title=”Irobot Corporation (IRBT) Historical Stock Price” width=”600″ height=”463″ url=”https://sw.graphiq.com/w/bZj42sW3thb” link=”http://listings.findthecompany.com/l/17292039/Irobot-Corporation-in-Bedford-MA” link_text=”FindTheCompany | Graphiq” frozen=”true”] Of course, there are a lot of devices that are trying to connect the home — and trying to get different devices to talk to each other. The Amazon Echo, and now Google Home, are trying to build an interface for a home in addition to some smaller companies. That’s all fine and good, but when your home is going to be loaded up with dozens or maybe hundreds of devices, they eventually have to figure out how to work on their own and have a fuller understanding of the actual profile of your home. And there are plenty of companies trying to build the raw basic robots that are also tackling the problem of how to deal with the physical world. The most obvious one would be Boston Dynamics’ Spot robot that’ll slip around on ice while still trying to stay standing. That technology — understanding the physical world around it — is going to be at the core of building a system of effective robots that’ll bring us the promise of the early sci-fi movies. For iRobot, that’s about starting off with a narrow product, like a robot vacuum, and going from there. “The home of the future is a robot,” Angle said. “And the vacuum cleaners and the other devices are hands and eyes and appendages of the home robot. Ultimately, this smart home of the future isn’t controlled by you cell phone. If you have 200 devices, you’re not going to turn them on by pulling out your cell phone. We need a home that programs itself, and you just live in your home, and the home does the right thing based on understanding what’s going on.”
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Why the Department of Transportation’s self-driving car guidelines aren’t enough
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Carl Herberger
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Ford, GM, Toyota and VW are just a handful of the car manufacturers planning to put self-driving cars on the road in the next five years. If you ask Uber or Tesla, they might say driverless cars have already arrived… which means we’re running out of time to secure one of the juiciest new targets for hackers. Hacking a car is easy. Just ask , or . As self-driving cars reach the masses, they’ll dramatically raise the stakes for cybersecurity. If your computer gets hacked, it can be costly. If your car gets hacked, it can be deadly. The Department of Transportation’s (DoT) is a good start in addressing cybersecurity, but leaves a lot to be desired. Granted, the DoT does admit its lack of technical expertise, and requests special hiring tools to attract security experts who can best vet this new technology. But we can’t afford to wait long for stricter rules. The current language — words like “best practices,” “guidance” and “should” — leaves room for wide interpretation that could leave cars vulnerable. Here’s how the DoT can take a page from other industries and keep drivers safe without slowing the advance of self-driving technology. Security policies often lag behind rapidly evolving technologies, many of which are built on well-known or open systems with standard programming and networking, leaving wide open doors for hackers. Self-driving cars fall into this category, and the software behind them makes it dramatically easier for everyone from common criminals to terrorists to infiltrate and take control of a vehicle. Now would be a fantastic time for the government to sound relevant on cybersecurity, after the NSA breach, DNC hacks and other embarrassments have shown its inability to defend against state-sponsored attacks. Stronger rules would restore some confidence in a car industry that doesn’t exactly have a spotless record of doing the right thing. From ignition switches to airbags, there have been egregious product quality issues where manufacturers have put economic interests before passenger safety. Imagine what would happen if a terrorist, a hacktivist or even a common criminal took control of an autonomous car. They suddenly have a two-ton projectile that puts hundreds of lives at risk. Imagine the next evolution of ransomware, when a hacker takes control of your vehicle and will only relinquish control if you pay up. Not to mention the potential privacy implications if someone could remotely monitor conversations, driving habits and other information gathered by vehicles. When it comes to public safety, “best practices” aren’t going to cut it. What we need are policies and testing that ensure the computer systems and software onboard self-driving cars are secure and robust enough to prevent today’s toughest hacks. Autonomous vehicles should have the same stringent testing standards as in air travel. If you’ve ever seen FAA testing of new airplanes, you know it’s a test of their limits, stretching the wings to their breaking point, hurling ever-larger projectiles at windows and so on. The government should apply the same strict testing to cybersecurity in driverless cars. Put all new vehicles through DDoS attacks and advanced persistent threats to see what they can handle. Challenge hackers to see who can crack the system and where the vulnerabilities lie. With stricter testing, we can assure a safer ride before driverless cars reach the masses. Once they’re on the road, we need a certification system that requires renewal. Just as cars must go through regular inspections for emissions and mechanical safety, driverless cars should be evaluated for cybersecurity. Once a driverless car is declared secure, it’s going to need continuous updates as the threat landscape changes. Regular check-ins and recertification will ensure that passengers, pedestrians and other cars on the road aren’t at risk because a vehicle didn’t receive its latest patch. Certification should also extend to the vendor community so that those providing technology and services must ensure the same levels of security as manufacturers. If those requirements aren’t met, the government must hold manufacturers responsible with strong penalties for violations. In the financial services industry, breaches of ethics and other safeguards are met with fines, civil and criminal prosecution and other strong retribution. “Best practices” have no teeth. If the government hopes to regulate driverless cars, it’ll need tough penalties for safety violations, especially for cybersecurity, which is among the most significant vulnerabilities for passengers. There also are a number of gray areas on which the DoT will have to rule. While the guidance acknowledges the ethical questions, that doesn’t improve the safety of passengers or bystanders. If a driverless car is hacked and hits a pedestrian, who is responsible? The owner? The manufacturer? The passengers? What happens in parking garages, tunnels and other spaces that lack connectivity? These tough questions around self-driving cars will have to be answered sooner rather than later. Some have argued that a lighter regulatory hand at this point in the driverless car evolution is needed — we don’t want to limit innovation or put a brake on progress. To that, I say brakes are a good thing. Would you drive 90 miles per hour if you didn’t have brakes on your car? Probably not. Brakes allow us to move quickly, with the systems in place to slow down when necessary. The stakes are more extreme than ever before. For most people, the Yahoo data breach isn’t a big deal, apart from the need to change their password and maybe keep an eye on their credit reports. For those who have had their identities stolen or been hit with ransomware, the consequences are steeper and more disruptive. For those riding in a car, a hack could be the difference between life and death. Autonomous vehicles will likely usher in safer, more convenient and more efficient transportation options… but only if we do everything we can to keep them secure.
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The new 64-bit Orange Pi is a quad-core computer for $20
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John Biggs
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Need a teeny tiny computer that can run Android or Linux? Only have $20? Well you’re in luck. When we first met the (get it?) the company was selling a nice Raspberry Pi clone for $15. Now they’re selling a souped up version with all the trimmings. The . It has 1GB of memory, H5 High Performance Quad-core 64-bit Cortex-A53, and a standalone graphics chip. It supports camera input as well as HDMI out and even has a physical power switch and IR blaster. In short it’s a mini computer that can probably play some games, display some HD video, and generally be used in all sorts of home-brew projects. You can and order online. If you only have $5 you can It’s no Raspberry but who doesn’t love oranges?
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Would you let an algorithm choose the next U.S. president?
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Vyacheslav Polonski
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Imagine a typical day in 2020: Your personal AI assistant wakes you up with a friendly greeting before preparing your favorite breakfast. During your morning workout, it plays new songs that perfectly match your musical tastes. For your driverless commute to work, it has pre-selected a few articles based on the duration of your commute and what you’ve read in the past. You read the news and realize the presidential election is coming up. Based on a predicted model that takes into account your previously expressed views and data on other voters in your state, your AI assistant recommends you vote for the Democratic candidate. A pop-up message on your phone asks if you want your AI assistant to handle the paperwork and cast the vote on your behalf. You tap “agree” and get on with your life. We are entering a world that is permeated with AI. While are already becoming a reality, to many it seems inconceivable that we would ever delegate such important civic duties — even if an AI assistant probably knows what’s best for us at any given moment. If fed enough data, an AI assistant could give recommendations that are far more accurate and personalized than anything we’d receive from even our closest friends. Yet the intelligent potential of machines frequently elicits fear in people. show that 34 percent of people are afraid of AI, while 24 percent think AI will be harmful for society. finds that 63 percent of people worry about how their personal data is used by companies. Our own recent research at the Oxford Internet Institute shows that people hesitate to put their personal lives in the hands of an AI assistant, especially when that assistant makes decisions without providing a transparent reasoning for choosing one solution over a set of alternatives. There is no need to confuse math with magic. AIs are not operated by small mystical creatures living inside your phones that have a sense of agency and their own agenda. But what we tend to forget is that the seemingly invisible mathematical models that make automated inferences about our interests, locations, behaviors, finances and health are designed by other humans using our pre-existing personal data. Much of the on algorithmic culture revolves around the role that humans play in the design of algorithms — that is, whether a creator’s subconscious beliefs and biases are encoded into the algorithms that make decisions about us. Journalism is replete with fears that developers willingly code their algorithms in a way that would permit subtle discrimination against certain groups of people over others — or worse, that technology platforms act as gatekeepers for the information that passes through them. As writes, “A biased world can result in biased data sets and, in turn, bias artificial intelligence frameworks.” The policy makers and pundits advancing this argument tend to misconstrue the evidence for the apparent prevalence of algorithmic biases. They blame the people behind the algorithms, rather than the algorithms themselves. is, of course, the natural response, especially if you don’t understand the inner workings of the technologies at hand. But algorithmic bias rarely originates from its human creators. In the majority of cases, it originates from the data that is used to train such algorithms. And this is, indeed, the real danger of the futuristic scenario described at the outset of this article. Let’s pause for a moment and recall how actually works. By applying statistical learning techniques, coders develop computational models that can automatically identify patterns in the data. To accomplish that, the models need to be on large data sets to unearth boundaries and relationships in the data. The more data is used to train the model, the higher the predictive accuracy. In the context of personalized digital applications, these statistical learning techniques are used to create an algorithmic identity for their users, which encompasses several dimensions, such as use patterns, tastes, preferences, personality traits and the structure of their social graph. This digital identity, however, is not directly based on users’ personhood or sense of self. Rather, such inferences are based on a collection of measurable data points and the machine’s interpretation thereof. In other words, the embodied user identity, no matter how complex, is replaced by an imperfect digital representation of itself in the eyes of the AI. But the AI can only use historically traced data in its computations, which is then used to anticipate the users’ needs and make predictions about the future. This is why trained on images of past U.S. presidents predicted Donald Trump would win the upcoming U.S. election, after being trained with images of past (male) presidents. Because there were no female presidents in the data set, the AI was unable to deduce that gender was not a relevant characteristic for the model. In practice, if this particular AI were to elect the next president, it would vote for Trump. These inferences result in increasingly deterministic recommendation systems, which tend to reinforce existing beliefs and practices similar to the . At this point, asserts that “personalization caricaturizes us and creates a striking gap between our real interests and their digital reflection.” Meanwhile, the authors of explain that personal recommendation systems tend to “steer the user towards this content, thus ghettoizing the user in a prescribed category of demographically classified content.” These aspects become more prevalent over time and it becomes evident why algorithmic determinism may be so harmful. Our identities are dynamic, complex and contain many contradictions. Based on our social context, we may behave differently and require different forms of assistance from our AI agents — at school or at work, in a bar or in church. Alongside our default self-presentation, there are many reasons why we may want to enact different identities to differentially engage with various sub-groups in our personal networks. Do we want to make ourselves socially accessible to our entire social network, or do we want to find new untapped social spaces away from the prying eyes of our friends and family? What happens if we want to experiment with different social roles and facets of our identity? As founder says, “It’s not who you share with; it’s who you share as (…). Identity is prismatic; there are many lenses through which people view you.” Distinguishing these different layers of self-presentation and mapping them onto various social environments is an extremely challenging task for an AI, which has been trained to serve a unique user identity. There are days when even we don’t know who we are. But our AI assistants will always have an answer for us: It’s who we were yesterday. Change becomes increasingly difficult, and our use patterns and belief systems run the risk of being locked up in a self-enforcing cycle, similar to an algorithmic Groundhog Day. The more we rely on personalized algorithms in everyday life, the more they will shape what we see, what we read, who we talk to and how we live. By relentlessly focusing on the status quo, new recommendations on books to read, movies to watch and people to meet will give us more of the same things that have previously delighted us. When your past unequivocally dictates your future, personal development through spontaneity, open-mindedness and experimentation becomes more difficult. In this way, the notion of algorithmic determinism echoes what once said about buildings: We shape our algorithms; thereafter, they shape us. Today, real-world applications of AI are already embedded in almost every aspect of everyday life. But there are two main challenges stopping the potential future outlined in the opening paragraphs. In terms of technological progress, there is a lack of interoperability standards for data exchange between applications, which prevents radical personalization. To be truly useful, machine learning systems require greater amounts of personal data — data that is currently siloed in proprietary databases of competing technology companies. Those who have the data hold the power. Some companies, most notably and , have started to democratize this power by experimenting with third-party service integration. Most recently, some of the largest technology companies announced a major that benefits the many, not the few. Going forward, this will be crucial to establishing public trust in this technology. In terms of social progress, there is an implicit aversion to the rapid growth of AI. People are afraid of losing control of their AI assistants. Putting their relationships and reputation on the line for a seemingly marginal improvement in productivity is not something most people are willing to do. Of course, in its early stages, an AI assistant can behave in ways that its human creators might not expect. There are plenty of precedents of that have diminished trust in narrow AI solutions and conversational bots. When Facebook, Microsoft and Google all launched their bot platforms in 2016, users were disappointed with the limited usefulness, application and customization of the prematurely presented AI technologies. The lingering fears about the ramifications of AI technology have also been fueled by the many dystopian sci-fi scenarios that have depicted sentient rogue AIs taking over the world. But the future we’re heading toward will be neither Skynet nor Orwellian Big Brother: It is much more likely to look like the hedonic society portrayed in a , where technologies maintain the status quote through a regime of universal happiness and pervasive self-indulgence. Technologies keep marching ahead, but there’s also hope. The revealed that young people see AI as the main technological trend. What is more, 21 percent of respondents say they support rights for humanoid robots, with this support disproportionately higher in Southeast Asia, where young people appear to have a more favorable attitude toward AI in everyday life. In Europe, the European Union’s new could restrict extreme forms of algorithmic determinism by giving users the opportunity to ask for an explanation of particular profiling-based algorithmic decisions. This law is expected to be implemented in all EU member states by May 2018. While this regulation and underlines the , it is uncertain whether it will result in any major changes to the prevailing algorithmic practices of large technology companies. Thousands of algorithmic decisions are made about each of us every day — ranging from Netflix movie recommendations and Facebook friend suggestions to insurance risk assessments and credit scores. All things considered, are citizens themselves now responsible for keeping track of and scrutinizing the algorithmic decisions made about them, or is this something that needs to be encoded into the designs of the digital platforms they’re using? is an important issue here, precisely because it is so difficult to measure and implement on a large scale. It is time to chart a sensible path to create transparent and accountable AI to improve humanity’s collective future. Thus, the question we ought to ask ourselves before leaping headlong into the unknown is what do we want the relationship between humans and AI to look like? Rethinking these issues will hopefully allow us to design non-deterministic, transparent and accountable algorithms that recognize the complex, evolving and multifaceted nature of our individuality.
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Listen to cartoonist Ruben Bolling talk about Trump, art, and cartooning
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John Biggs
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I’m a really lucky guy. In the course of this work I get to talk to a lot of my personal heroes and my favorite so far has been . Bolling is a fixture in the alt-comics scene and he has a lot to say about the rise and fall of the alt-weekly and the new laws of popularity. If you want to know how to build and keep an audience you can look no further than a guy like Bolling and he’s really nice to boot. One interesting point that came out of the podcast: that a technological shift, namely cheap printing and Quark XPress, made it trivial to produce a newspaper of real merit. Add in the lucrative classifieds business and you had an industry clamoring for cool content – sort of like blogging. Alt weeklies died because of the Internet but Bolling is still making art, the importance of which we discuss near the end of the show. Enjoy. You can download the or subscribe on or .
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What Tesla’s new Gigafactory means for electric vehicles
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Jussi Pikkarainen
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‘s new at the end of July in Nevada, with much excitement from both the media and the general public. Only 14 percent of the massive structure has been built, with the rest of the $5 billion project to be concluded by 2020. According to Tesla, battery cell production will start in 2017; by 2018, the Gigafactory should be cranking out cars to the tune of 500,000 Model 3s per year. A big part of Tesla’s need to build the Gigafactory lies in the reduced expenses for lithium-ion battery production it provides. The Gigafactory is a marvel of modern production technology, “ ,” as Tesla CEO Elon Musk puts it. In addition to being cool, it offers unprecedented economies of scale for lithium-ion battery production, lowering the price once complete. The huge scale of the production, coupled with reduction of waste and a vastly reduced supply chain, provide significant savings and ultimately a 30 percent reduction in battery production costs. The Gigafactory is a big statement from Musk, and a clear sign that Tesla believes the world is ready for full electrics. But does the world agree? Are lithium-ion batteries the way to go? The total number of cars sold in 2015 was around . Electric vehicles accounted for around 0.8 percent, or , of that number, a significant step up from about 376,000 EVs sold in 2014, but still less than 1 percent of cars sold worldwide. As far as Tesla goes, the company , 0.07 percent of all cars sold globally, less than 10 percent of all electric vehicle sales. So, Tesla is winning the publicity battle, but so far it’s the big, traditional car manufacturers such as Renault-Nissan that are winning the zero emissions war. Nissan-Renault, the manufacturer of Nissan LEAF, the most-sold EV in the world, and a slew of other electric vehicles, . So for now, Tesla has gone all-in for lithium-ion batteries. What other options are there? Brands such as Ford, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Toyota — essentially all the big players on the market — are working mostly on hybrids in addition to their traditional lines of cars. To understand the benefits and downsides of each type of car, let’s first take a closer look at the electric and hybrid vehicles on the market today. Electric and hybrid cars can be divided into four main groups: Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs), Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs), Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEVs) and Fuel-Cell Electric Vehicles. Each have their advantages and disadvantages, but what’s certain is that each type is a more environmentally friendly choice than a conventional, fossil fuel-powered combustion engine vehicle. Battery electric cars rely only on the battery pack to power the engine, which means the range is generally fairly limited. The one exception currently is Tesla; their Model S has reached a range of around 270 miles or 430 kilometers — although the numbers Tesla provides must be taken with a grain of salt, because the range depends largely on the size of battery pack you choose, how fast you drive, how cold or warm the weather is, whether you are using air conditioning or not, etc. As mentioned, no other car manufacturers build only BEVs, but many companies are offering them in addition to their plug-in hybrids and traditional gas- or diesel-powered cars. In addition to Tesla, the best-known examples are the i3 from BMW, the Chevrolet Spark EV, the Mitsubishi i-MiEV and the Nissan LEAF. The biggest problem BEVs have is the lack of charging stations, and the time it takes to fully charge the battery pack. Tesla is working on building their Supercharger network to solve the issue, but other car brands are currently not able to use the Supercharger network. Of course, the lack of range only becomes an issue when you need to travel longer distances than a typical daily commute to work and back. Another hurdle that BEVs need to cross is the high price of purchase. Once again, this is something Tesla is looking to remedy, and a large number of potential buyers are eagerly awaiting the launch of Model 3. However, the Model 3, Tesla’s lowest-priced EV starting at $35 000, is still not an inexpensive car by any means. Plug-in hybrids have a conventional gas- or diesel-powered engine in addition to a battery pack. Hybrids are popular because they combine long range and low fuel consumption. PHEVs can be recharged from an outlet and the battery pack can be used for short distances. Once the power runs out, they can be recharged, or the driver can rely on the engine to keep driving. PHEVs are, of course, not as environmentally friendly as full EVs or fuel-cell EVs, but pollute significantly less than traditional cars. BMW i8, Chevy Volt, Toyota Prius Plug-in and Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV are some well-known examples of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles on the market today. Conventional hybrids with gas-powered engines and electric motors are actually not considered “electric vehicles” and cannot be recharged from the power grid. They are powered entirely by a gasoline engine and regenerative braking. The best-known examples of HEVs are Toyota Prius, the first truly successful hybrid, Honda Civic Hybrid, Toyota Camry Hybrid and Ford Escape Hybrid. The last option for the green-thinking consumer is the fuel-cell powered FCEV class. Fuel-Cell Electric Vehicles usually operate by converting hydrogen gas into electricity to power an electric motor. The conversion process of hydrogen gas to electricity produces only water and heat, which means the FCEV class is the only class of EVs together with BEVs that can be classified as zero-emissions vehicles. There’s one major difference between FCEV and BEV vehicles, though, and that is the Achilles’ heel of BEVs: lack of range. FCEVs rival modern gas engines in range and fueling is just as easy, with about five minutes needed to fill the fuel cell. So why are there not more FCEVs on the road today? The technology is relative new, which means the biggest problem is lack of fueling infrastructure and, of course, as vehicle production numbers are currently low, the price per unit is high. Of the few FCEVs currently on the market, the Hyundai Tucson FCEV is only available for lease, and prices for the most-sold FCEV to date, Toyota Mirai, start at around $58,000. There are also many problems associated with the production and storage of hydrogen, which we’ll dig into a bit later. To give you an idea of the timescales in which the car industry works, consider this: Toyota started development on its FCEV technology in 1992 and started selling the Toyota Mirai in 2015. That’s 23 years. It’s very common for car models to reach an age of 7-8 years before getting a facelift, which might just mean minor changes to the design of the car and possibly some upgrades under the hood. Now let’s compare that to Tesla. Founded in 2003, Tesla brought its first car, the Roadster, on the market in 2008. Musk has later admitted that the Roadster Nonetheless, to bring a new car model to the market five years after the company was founded is impressive. Eight years removed from the launch of the Roadster, Tesla has the Model S and the Model X, with Model 3 a few years away. In the time most car manufacturers make mostly cosmetic changes to existing models that are based on old, proven technology, Tesla brought to market completely new car models with highly complicated, often unproven technology. Without Tesla lighting a fire under the backsides of the more traditional car companies, it’s very likely that electric cars would experience a slower introduction to the market. But the Tesla engineers can’t solve all the problems of the electric car industry by themselves. Let’s turn our attention to energy storage, an undervalued industry. There is a lot of talk about renewable energy production, but energy storage is sort of an afterthought to many. If you have ever wondered why renewable energy is not more prevalent despite us possessing the technology to power the world with it, the reason is energy storage. Wind and sunlight are inherently unstable sources of energy, because the sun doesn’t shine 24 hours a day, nor does the wind howl away at an endless, steady pace. Energy storage devices are needed to balance the times of highs and lows. The small, incremental improvements in battery technology over the last 267 years — since Benjamin Franklin first coined the term “battery” to describe a set of linked capacitors he was using — have not been enough to keep up with the ever-growing global need for energy storage. The same logic that applies to our homes, factories and shopping centers applies to our cars. Fossil fuels possess energy density capabilities far beyond what batteries can achieve, which means that despite their well-documented drawbacks concerning the environment, gasoline-powered cars will not disappear until energy storage catches up. For a typical consumer, the jump from a combustion engine to a full electric, or even a hybrid, is a big leap. Even with constant upgrades and advancements in battery technology, lithium-ion batteries are heavy and suffer from capacity deterioration, leading to EV owners having to change the battery packs in their Teslas, or other electric vehicles, within 5-10 years. By Tesla’s own admission, the battery pack capacity starts deteriorating latest at 4-5 years of use, and . With range being the top concern for most buyers, that’s cause for worry, especially with the price of a battery pack replacement hovering currently at a minimum of , although the talk on the . The prices for EVs will decrease as the technologies involved become mainstream and economies of scale come into play with higher production numbers, so the problem we are left with is range. Extending the range requires one of two things: adding more batteries, which makes the car much heavier, or a rapid acceleration in the energy storage capability of lithium-ion batteries. Adding more batteries is hardly an ideal solution, but can we expect big increases in lithium-ion battery capacity? Current lithium-ion batteries hold more than twice the amount of energy compared to the first Sony-manufactured lithium-ion batteries introduced to the market in 1991. If a doubled capacity in 25 years of constant research is the best the smartest people on the planet can achieve, it’s not realistic to expect huge increases. In fact, the consensus among the research community is that . What that means is that lithium-ion batteries will never be the solution electric vehicles need to dethrone the internal combustion engine. Knowing that, why in the world would Tesla put all its figurative eggs in the lithium-ion basket? Because lithium-ion batteries are currently the most cost-effective solution to furthering Elon Musk’s , the key word being “currently.” Therefore, Tesla’s gung-ho approach to lithium-ion batteries should not be taken as a statement on the future of electric vehicle energy storage. Tesla is an early adopter, and even more often the inventor of new technologies, and will surely adopt any advantage in energy storage they deem viable enough to improve on the current designs, regardless of the investment made into lithium-ion batteries. that ultracapacitors, not batteries, will be the breakthrough for electric vehicles. What’s preventing Tesla from using ultracapacitors? Ultracapacitors, or supercapacitors as they are also known, have several advantages over batteries, the incumbent energy storage technology. Ultracapacitors charge and discharge in seconds, have a lifetime up to 500 times that of lithium-ion batteries and are highly reliable. Sounds perfect, right? Well, not quite. Energy density, the one crack in the ultracapacitor armor, is keeping them off car manufacturers’ short list of potential replacements for lithium-ion batteries. They’re perfect for powering start-stop and Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems, but alone they’re not the answer. Sooner or later, the reign of lithium-ion batteries will come to an end, because the inherent limitations of lithium-ion batteries mean that better alternatives must emerge. If we circle back to the four types of electric vehicles discussed earlier, only one does not rely on battery technology: the Fuel-Cell Electric Vehicle. Hydrogen, the fuel used in FCEVs, is an extremely plentiful element, and when pure hydrogen is derived from renewable energy sources, the entire chain of energy production and consumption is free from carbon emissions. There is a group of devoted FCEV believers within the automotive industry; Toyota is perhaps the most enthusiastic among them. Toyota and Honda have been feverishly working on their FCEV models, with the Toyota Mirai and the Honda Clarity both already on the market, to get a head start on other manufacturers, but the competition is getting its act together. Lexus and Audi both debuted their hydrogen concept cars, the and the respectively, at the Detroit Auto Show in January. At the outset, hydrogen looks like a promising alternative to fuel the future of transportation, but what does Elon Musk think? When asked to comment on FCEVs while visiting the Automotive World News Congress in Detroit in 2015, Musk was, true to his nature, quite direct in his appraisal, Musk is not alone in his scathing criticism. Robert Zubrin, the author of Energy Victory, was quoted in the Economist as saying hydrogen is The disdain is easier to understand if we look at the two biggest problems FCEVs face: the production and delivery of large quantities of hydrogen. It’s currently very costly to produce hydrogen, especially carbon-free, and transferring it is equally expensive. Not to mention that the electricity needed to produce hydrogen could be directly used to power electric vehicles already on the market. It’s looking increasingly likely that FCEVs, despite not relying on batteries, are not the answer. Where are we headed, then? We can already produce the utopian dream of an electric car enthusiast: a zero-emissions electric vehicle that uses a combination of ultracapacitors and batteries. Batteries provide the range, ultracaps the power and regenerative energy — it’s a perfect marriage of slow and fast energy storage. Is it perfect as a car? Not even close. It’s pricey, and either extremely heavy with longish range, or just heavier than an average car, but with a very limited range. In some years, lithium-ion batteries will hit a wall, and we’ll need an alternative energy storage technology. Whether it’s ultracapacitors, hydrogen, methanol, a combination of existing technologies or something completely different, it remains to be seen. The sad thing is that Tesla is currently the only car manufacturer with the courage ( ) to push the boundaries and make things happen, while other manufacturers seem to be content at developing hybrids and conducting small-scale tests hoping for a miracle. And what makes that even more baffling is that even though Tesla is the one manufacturer making huge investments on the Gigafactory and lithium-ion battery production, if and when the times comes for another technology to overtake batteries, Elon Musk will be there, ready to pounce. Until then, we’re stuck with Tesla. I can live with that — for now.
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Blockchain has the potential to revolutionize the supply chain
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Ben Dickson
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At the time of its inception some two centuries ago, the was a revolutionary idea that would improve visibility and control on goods and products as they moved from point A to point B. But the old concept and technology no longer support today’s production and cycles, which have become extremely fragmented, complicated and geographically dispersed. In effect, the is now an opaque and faulty process that is extremely hard to manage. Hopefully, the problem be remedied with , the emerging technology that has proven its value in bringing transparency and efficiency to a number of different . The represents all the links involved in creating and distributing goods, from raw materials to the finished product that goes into the possession of the consumer. Currently, chains span over hundreds of stages and dozens of geographical locations, which makes it very hard to trace events or investigate incidents. Customers and buyers have no reliable way to verify and validate the true value of the products and services they purchase because of the endemic lack of transparency across chains, which effectively means the prices we pay are an inaccurate reflection of the true costs of production. Other elements that are affected or tied to chains are even harder to track. For instance, there’s currently no way to track the environmental damage that goes into the production of goods. Also, investigation and accountability of illicit activities associated with chains is extremely difficult. This accounts for issues such as counterfeiting, forced labor and poor conditions in factories, or revenues being used to fund war crimes and criminal groups, , the substance used to create capacitors for mobile phones and other consumer electronics. As a distributed ledger that ensures both transparency and security, the is showing promise to fix the current problems of the . A simple application of the paradigm to the would be to register the transfer of goods on the ledger as transactions that would identify the parties involved, as well as the price, date, location, quality and state of the product and any other information that would be relevant to managing the . The public availability of the ledger would make it possible to trace back every product to the very origin of the raw material used. The decentralized structure of the ledger would make it impossible for any one party to hold ownership of the ledger and manipulate the data to their own advantage. And the cryptography-based and immutable nature of the transactions would make it nearly impossible to compromise the ledger. Some experts already believe that the is unhackable. Several efforts are already being made to leverage the power of the in improving the management of the . IBM has already rolled out a service that allows customers to test blockchains in a secure cloud and . The service is being used by , a firm that is trying to use the to push transparency into the diamond and thus help fix a market fraught with forced labor and tied to the funding of violence across Africa. London-based is aiming to from the source to the consumer by deploying Bitcoin- and Ethereum-based blockchains that enable companies to be more transparent on how they build their products. This includes disclosing everything about environmental impact, where the products were made and who they were made by. Provenance’s efforts also promote socially acceptable practices, such as making sure that no slavery or exploitation has gone into the production of goods. Another relevant effort belongs to , which will be using ’s transparency to , especially the counterfeiting of drugs, which account for huge economic damage and the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives every year. BlockVerify aims to make the verification of a medicine’s authenticity as easy as scanning a QR code on the box. Each product will have its own identity on the to record changes of ownership, which be easily accessed by everyone. Beyond transparency, there are other definite advantages that result from the crossover of technology and the . Finnish startup is working on that enables smart tendering across the . Pallets equipped with RFID tags publish their need to get from point A to point B on the ledger. Carrier mining applications will then place bids to win the move. The RFID will then award the job to the bidder with the most suitable conditions and the transaction will be registered on the . The shipment will be progressively tracked as the tag moves down the . ’s Rebecca Migirov gives a production and consumption system based on the that promotes cooperation and collaboration in communities and encourages consumers to become “prosumers,” i.e. consumers that are also producers based on their vantage point. The and smart contract infrastructure provides local producers with a decentralized platform in which they share and exchange skills, resources and products without relying on third parties. The has the potential to transform the and disrupt the way we produce, market, purchase and consume our goods. The added transparency, traceability and security to the go a long way toward making our economies safer and much more reliable by promoting trust and honesty, and preventing the implementation of questionable practices.
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Tesla’s Autopilot and the double standard for automotive safety systems
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Jack Dashwood
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This summer saw the inevitable controversy arise when a Tesla automobile was involved in a fatal traffic accident while operating in its headline-grabbing Autopilot mode. While early reports seem to point toward human error by both parties involved (the truck driver turning across traffic without sufficient time and space, and the Tesla driver allegedly watching a movie while behind the wheel), many people are debating what responsibility falls onto Tesla and its autonomous-driving functions. Many have called out Musk’s “open beta” roll-out of the technology as irresponsible and dangerous, while others have wondered how a system with supposed redundancies could have misread the emergency situation so poorly. Regardless, it’s put the entire industry of autonomous cars under scrutiny as people ask themselves whether this is the kind of technology that should be on the road at all. The fact of the matter is that this all stems from the age-old human instinct to fear things they do not understand. Autonomous-driving technology has been intentionally marketed as a hyper-advanced, quantum leap in car technology, closer resembling a NASA planetary rover in terms of technology than a Ford Focus. In reality though, it’s a step or two along the spectrum upon which we’ve been on for a long, long time: increasingly advanced driver safety systems. Every car today features at least a few of these: airbags, ABS braking and traction control systems, to name a few. These safety features were all designed with the aim of reducing the huge number of vehicle injuries and fatalities every year, and it can be argued that all have done so. That being said, every single one of these technologies has had serious, fatal malfunctions, particularly in early roll-out, but even in mature phases of the technology. Take for example airbag systems. Between 1990 and 2007, the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) . While some of these were related to people of small stature, or extremely close driver positioning to the airbag ejection point, others were related to faulty deployment — or, in other words, a malfunction of the technology. Since initial introduction in the early 1970s, airbags have gone under numerous revisions and improvements to safety. Despite these improvements, in 2016, malfunctions in this technology still remain, most recently with airbag maker Takata having to issue the largest recall in history, involving over 28 million cars and with an associated death toll of Assistive Braking Systems (ABS) doesn’t enjoy a clean record, either. Numerous studies have indicated that ABS systems can actually cause a in certain situations. Despite these edge cases of malfunction, or risks in marginal conditions, both airbags and ABS technologies enjoy a ubiquitous presence in cars. In fact, most consumers would simply not buy a car without these features today. It’s recognized that, while not perfect, these systems provide greater safety than otherwise. Malfunctions have dogged both technologies for decades, but nobody has thrown out the baby with the bath water, so to speak. Yet here we are with what amounts to more advanced versions of cruise control — which some companies have branded “autopilot” or “autonomous” to appeal to our ever-increasing “technophilia” — and we hold it up to a far higher standard than these preceding technologies. Broken down into constituent parts, these systems could be called things like “blind-spot warning system” and “rear-end collision avoidance” and they would likely be embraced eagerly. But when brought together under such terms as “artificial intelligence” or “self-driving,” people seem to immediately gain a sense of unease about the whole affair. The fact of the matter is that our vehicles are creeping up a trajectory of better safety through technology that we’ve always been on. Rolling out new solutions will always have unfortunate growing pains that sadly result in the loss of human life, but the stark reality is that they always have. Our inherent anxiousness or even fear of cars taking away our control of the vehicle is unfounded, because, in many ways, we’ve already let them.
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Faraday Future’s factory construction paused; shipping timelines at risk
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Darrell Etherington
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Electric vehicle maker Faraday Future may not be able to make its first cars in time to hit its 2017 shipping deadlines, according to a new report by the . It’s hard to ship a car when your factory itself isn’t finished — FF’s Nevada-based manufacturing facility broke ground in April, but construction has since been paused because, according to state treasurer Dan Schwartz speaking to the FT, it hasn’t paid bills owed by the company to its construction partner. The delay is temporary, according to comments made by general contractor Aecom, which is working with Faraday on the project, and construction will resume some time in early 2017. That’s going to push out the completion date considerably, and will make it quite difficult for FF to make its previously stated production timeline. FT also spoke to an anonymous former employee who said deliveries to customers within the 2017 time frame were “not possible.” Part of the issue may be that primary financial backer LeEco has publicly acknowledged difficulties related to available cash, and the large investment its made in building cars, both itself and via partners like Faraday Future, was cited as one cause. LeEco recently raised an additional $600 million, but given Faraday’s financial reliance on LeEco, the Chinese company’s cash problems combined with this news of the factory delay don’t bode well. Faraday Future has promised to show off its first production vehicle (pictured in a spy shot above) at CES in January, after revealing a Batmobile-like FFZERO1 concept last year. We’ll likely learn more about its anticipated schedule for delivering said vehicle at that time, too, and there will clearly be a lot riding on what they present at the show.
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GoCardless spies a glimmer of hope for UK fintech amid the Brexit gloom
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Natasha Lomas
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While the U.K. government continues to decline to provide any substantial intelligence on its plan for Brexit, and , U.K. businesses are left to wonder what Brexit will mean. The Prime Minister’s insistence that “Brexit means Brexit” might be a crafty soundbite, but it’s a fat lot of good to anyone trying to build a business plan. Or indeed to the Office for Budget Responsibility trying to forecast the fiscal impact of the U.K. leaving the European Union… Great stuff from OBR. "We asked Govt what Brexit meant. They told us Brexit means Brexit, which was bloody useless." — Jonathan Portes (@jdportes) Still, London-based fintech startup reckons there’s a glimmer of hope for the domestic fintech industry at least — following the , which included a few specific measures aimed at supporting the sector (along with a boost in spending on broadband infrastructure, autonomous and electric cars and VC, among other areas). The fintech measures outlined in the Autumn Statement include £500,000 per year for startups; a plan to create a network of regional fintech envoys; an annual “State of UK fintech” report; and the modernization of guidance on electronic ID verification. In the sprawling scheme of Brexit — which the OBR, peering into the gloom, estimates has put a £59 billion hole in the U.K.’s public finances — £500,000 per year for fintech sounds like pretty small beer. Nonetheless, U.K. startups have to get their Brexit silver linings from somewhere. “What we think the government is doing here is indicating that they see fintech as a high growth area and one with lots of potential,” says Ahmed Badr, GoCardless’ head of legal. “And one which they want to continue to nurture — albeit if it’s not by injecting billions of pounds then it’s certainly focusing the nation’s attention on that, it’s focusing its own attentions on the sector.” Is this the first sign that the current government has taken note of the economic potential of U.K. fintech startups? “I think it’s probably the first very public indication,” he says. “What we’ve seen is the government continuing the dialogue — maybe not in documents as shiny and important as the Statement — there’s been engagement via bodies such as . That’s been continuing, which is really positive. But it’s even better obviously to see that embodied in something such as the Statement.” Badr also welcomes — and describes as “extremely encouraging” — the government’s intention to modernize electronic ID verification in line with advice from the financial services trade association group, the Joint Money Laundering Steering Group, with the aim of supporting technology for accessing financial services (versus relying on paper-based ID checks). “The use of that electronic identification can really streamline onboarding and due diligence processes,” he says. “This is something which customers can find a bit of a pain. And companies like ours, and other fintechs, which are trying to really streamline the customer experience it’s actually a really important thing. “Electronic identity can also be a great tool to help us fight against fraud or identity theft. And we really want to see that shift away from old legacy paper documents to easily accessible — and, to be honest, more trustworthy electronic ID.” Of course the really big fintech question triggered by Brexit is whether the U.K. will lose as the government negotiates the terms of the U.K.’s exit from the EU — a multi-year process that’s expected to kick off by the end of March next year. Passporting is the system that allows financial services firms authorized to offer services in one European Economic Area state the right to offer the same permitted services in other EEA states without needing to go through the lengthy and complex regulation process in each. Despite Badr’s positive read for U.K. fintech startups off the back of yesterday’s Autumn Statement, he is not going so far as to predict the government is now committed to retaining the passporting system that underpins the sector. “It’s extremely hard to say at this point,” he says, discussing the looming Brexit negotiation process. “I wouldn’t want to predict what may or may not happen.” “Obviously we’ve made it clear to the government how important passporting is to the fintech sector. I don’t think they need telling; they know that continued access to the market would be a great thing in terms of financial services,” he adds. “We’d be surprised if there were not very high level discussions ongoing now about how that might be maintained — whether it’s passporting or some other method.” Still, GoCardless has a contingency plan should Brexit end up meaning the end of passporting in the U.K. Badr says it would look at setting up a European subsidiary and becoming regulated in another Member State to retain passporting across the EU. “That is something we would do,” he confirms. But pulling out of the U.K. entirely isn’t something the five-year-old company feels would be necessary at this point. He talks up what he sees as immutable positives to London — as a city to live in and a place to access talent, pointing, for example, to quality local universities. “Those things are not going anywhere,” he argues. “It is really just the maintaining of that passport which would drive us to perhaps push forward activity that we might have left to a little bit later.” Does he think Brexit threatens London’s position as Europe’s fintech capital? His hopeful hedge on this is that fresh fintech competition across Europe should serve to stimulate more homegrown financial services innovation, not just inject incentives to take business elsewhere. “I think we can all agree how important passporting rights are to the financial services sector — not only for UK financial services actually, but also for the vast number of European financial entities that passport into the UK,” he says. “Will we see others do this as well? If passporting rights are removed and there’s no replacement or similar then I’m pretty sure we will see that. I think we’ll see movement both ways — so we’ll see UK companies who passport into Europe setting up European Subsidiaries and those European companies which currently passport into the UK will most likely set up UK subsidiaries as well. “For us the majority of our revenue does come from the UK at present so those other subsidiaries would be smaller in the meantime but would hopefully see some of the high growth that we’ve seen in the UK. So it might be that we see other fintech ‘centers of excellence’… popping up or increasing their standing in Europe but what I wouldn’t necessarily expect is for everyone in the U.K. to decamp to a particular city or a particular area. I think we’ll probably see a few key cities emerge where people consider moving to.” For now, despite Brexit’s ongoing unknowns, Badr describes GoCardless as “quietly confident” it can weather the storm. “This is one thing that a startup has to face in terms of challenges,” he says. “We’re used to being adaptable to the environment and what happens internally. So I’d hope that we can continue to show just how adaptable we are going forwards.”
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2016 Thanksgiving on track to break $2B in online sales
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Ingrid Lunden
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With Thanksgiving Day in full swing, many are turning to the internet to get their holiday shopping started. Adobe is e-commerce transactions in real time, and it said that by 5pm Eastern time online retailers had clocked $1.15 billion in sales, up 13.6 percent on a year ago. Of that, $449 million was spent on mobile devices ($322 million smartphones; $127 million tablets), a record amount and up 58.6 percent on 2015; $702 million was purchased via desktop sites. Earlier today, Adobe said Thanksgiving Day would break the $2 billion mark for money spent online. Now, it’s modified that somewhat: spending is now “on track to either hit or come close to $2 billion.” Why the change? It seems that even if some, like Visa, were projecting shopping online this year, collectively retailers have put their chips on deeper mark-downs to keep both interest and transaction volumes up. Adobe writes that “heavy discounting seen in the early hours of the day has slowed revenue growth.” Tablets, for example, were marked down by more than 25 percent on average compared to last year’s 12 percent; and that TVs, toys and pet care items “are seeing much larger discounts than last year.” Portals like RetailMeNot have played a key role in promoting those discounts. This year is continuing the trend of people turning to their mobile devices to start their browsing — perhaps using these smaller, handheld computers as a way of doing this more subtly and without being too antisocial around family and friends (that’s assuming you have agreed on a moratorium on any political conversations). Some 54 percent of visits came from mobile devices (44 percent smartphone; 10 percent tablet), but mobile accounted for only 39 percent of purchases — meaning some are still turning to their desktop computers to seal the deal. Conversions on smartphones have increased since the morning, averaging 1.7 percent; desktop 3.4 percent and tablets 3.2 percent, Adobe noted. As in , so far iOS devices are bringing in higher value purchases than Android devices, at $144 versus $119. In all, 55 percent of visits to retail sites and 38 percent of online purchases for Thanksgiving Day are coming from mobile devices, according to Adobe. Meanwhile, IBM is not releasing its bigger Benchmark updates this year, which in the past tracked some 17,000 different online retailers. But it still appears to be doing some of this tracking online. Its numbers are even more positive for mobile than Adobe’s. IBM notes that of all e-commerce traffic right now is coming from mobile devices, but that smartphones and tablets are only accounting for 44 percent of actual sales. Desktop sales continue to bring in higher-value sales compared to mobile, it notes: $134 versus $118. Still, drilling into specific product categories, it seems that some of the most popular categories have been seeing declines in average spend per order. That may be in part because of the discounts, but perhaps also because people are spending more conservatively. Video game consoles are down 13 percent compared to 2015; toys are down 14 percent; televisions are down 7 percent; jewelry is down 20 percent; and computers are down 15 percent. Adobe said its figures come from tracking 21 billion aggregated and anonymized visits to retail websites, covering some 80 percent of all online transactions for the top 100 U.S. retailers. We’ll continue to update these numbers as the day goes on and more people stumble away from tables in food comas that allow for very restricted activities (shopping online being one of them), and we’ll continue to cover how people are buying online through Black Friday and the weekend. “As people finish up their Thanksgiving Day meals, we’re expecting eager shoppers to jump online and snag the hottest products and best deals, especially as several physical locations will be closed today,” writes Becky Tasker, managing analyst, Adobe Digital Insights. So far this month, Adobe said that we’ve seen $27.2 billion in sales, but while Thanksgiving sales are likely to see a double-digit boost this year, the same can’t be said for the month overall, where the rise is just 4.28 percent. This makes some sense: Thanksgiving is not traditionally a shopping day — Black Friday (tomorrow) is usually seen as the start of the holiday sales rush. That means that there is a lot more growth to come, from a smaller starting point, for today. On top of this, physical stores tend to be closed on Thanksgiving, which means that, in theory, there should be even more of a push for online sales from those eager to jump on sales, and stores promoting offers to those consumers. Unsurprisingly, so far top products for online sales have been consumer electronics, including iPad tablets, Samsung 4K TVs, PlayStation 4 consoles and electric scooters.
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Big data company Palantir quietly raised another $20M in November
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Ingrid Lunden
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— that $20 billion secretive outfit that provides government, finance, healthcare and other organizations with analytics, security and other data management solutions — has raised another $20 million in funding, according to a . It’s a relatively modest amount for the company. In its last fundraising, in December 2015, Palantir closed off an , seeing the private company’s valuation soar in the process. The November 23 Form D filing notes that the date of first sale for this newest round was November 8 — coincidentally (?), the same date as the U.S. election that saw Donald Trump win the presidential race. Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel, who is also its chairman and major shareholder, was a vocal supporter of Trump. The round comes from a single backer, but it does not specify other details. We have contacted Palantir with questions and will update as and when we learn more. To date, Palantir has raised , and current investors in the company include 137 Ventures, Artis Ventures, Ben Ling, Founders Fund, Glynn Capital Management, GSV Ventures, the CIA-supported fund In-Q-Tel, Jeremy Stoppelman, Keith Rabois, Khazanah Nasional, Kortschak Investments, Mithril Capital, REV, Sozo Ventures and Ulu Ventures. The $20 million in funding caps off a year that has seen a lot of ups and downs for Palantir. The company has never been too forthcoming about its business and general activities (and that, unfortunately, probably also means that Palantir won’t respond to our questions, not least because it also happens to be Thanksgiving Day). But there have been leaks aplenty. They have and what Palantir does for them; but also some of its own with staff churn and holding on to key customers unwilling to pay Palantir’s fees. And Thiel is among those who have valued the company’s shares at least their current valuation this year. But it’s far from doom and gloom for Palantir. Thiel is playing a leading role in President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team, which has led some to wonder if that will see Palantir get a boost in its dealmaking. But even without that, Palantir was already tight with Washington. In October, it had a boost when a court and ordered the U.S. Army to re-open bidding for a valuable data system contract so that Palantir could vie for it. Most recently, we’ve heard from sources that the company may be planning an IPO for mid-2017 (a time frame that the FT has ). The company’s co-founder and CEO, Alex Karp, noted in October that the company is projecting profitability also for next year.
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Watch this $9K VR walking rig really put players into the game
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Darrell Etherington
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When TechCrunch went to Beijing recently, I got the chance to try out virtual reality walking simulation rig. The setup encircles the player’s waist, keeping them upright no matter what’s going on in virtual space, while the special shoes and a slick plastic pad, both laden with sensors, help translate your perambulation into virtual action. The VR setup isn’t designed for home use; there’s a $9,000 price tag, for one, and it takes up an awful lot of space. But KatVR is already selling these to arcades in China, which are investing in virtual reality in a big way. And down the road, the idea is to come up with a version that could work for consumers. Using it with a demo shooter was absolutely immersive. The Vive headset and controller delivered a very good, and highly accurate, sense of being in the environment, which was basically an interactive outdoor training compound for some kind of soldiers. Using the pad at first caused me some anxiety, but once you realize you’re not going to fall or slip, stepping comes quite naturally and it’s terrific how closely it can track your movement and orientation in-game. Kat Walk and other systems like it are the future of VR — at least until we’re comfortable with neural implants that mimic physical sensations without us actually having to experience them through our outdated meat bodies.
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Seven principles to ignite a culture of innovators
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Alex Goryachev
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Every big company was a lean and mean startup at one time. Now, confronted with digital disruption all around us, we’re all rushing to rekindle the entrepreneurial flame that first put our businesses on the map. Every company wants to be “innovative,” but “innovation” has become an overused buzzword that has lost its meaning. Executives at companies of all sizes toss the word around as if they’re doing it. They point to experiments that range from departmental contests and monetary awards to innovation fairs, idea boxes and time to dream big. Executives at one company even dressed up as innovation superheroes in an “intervention” to rally employees around innovation. The intentions are good, but many of these initiatives are what I call innovation tourism. They tell employees to spend a little time visiting innovation, but they lack the sustained commitment needed to disrupt and transform their entire culture. Instead, companies should focus more on the innovator — not the innovation. Mark Randall, inventor of and Adobe’s VP of Innovation, puts it this way: “Innovation is about investing in your people and arming potential innovators with the resources and tools they need to make their ideas a reality. With programs that align passion with purpose, we believe anyone can be an innovator. It creates a powerful shift in the culture.” More innovators — ones fully equipped with entrepreneurial skills, resources and support — will lead to more innovations. Focusing on the journey rather than the result is not just a leap of faith, but a proven methodology for success. Throughout my 20-plus years working for startups and brand-name companies, my passion has remained the same: creating inspired organizations where innovation can flourish and turn disruptive concepts into emerging business models. From this experience, I have developed seven principles that turn everyday employees into rock-star entrepreneurs — ones who hatch game-changing ideas that disrupt markets and deliver new value to customers. You can’t mandate innovation from the top. Vision statements aren’t enough. Ad hoc initiatives fizzle fast. To infuse an immediate and lasting entrepreneurial spirit into each employee, you first need to disrupt the culture. Innovators need an environment of support. It takes plenty of grit and groundwork to mobilize your “co-conspirators.” Whether you work in strategy, R&D or HR, you’ll find allies all over your company — mavericks, rebels, outliers. First, look for those who don’t fit the corporate mold, but who are impassioned, inspired and motivated to radically make things better. Co-conspire with functional leads and people who later can serve as mentors or coaches. Of course, such a massive disruption requires active commitment from the C-suite, including the CEO and head of HR. Pitch them on the value of the transformation and ensure its goals align with those of the company. Do your homework! This collective support helps to shape and champion change. It helps to free employees to think and act more like entrepreneurs in a startup. It can even help spark that creative tension where people stretch their talents outside their comfort zones. Engineering and R&D used to be the sole domains of innovation in tech companies. Now, however, we recognize that innovators can come from anywhere company-wide — across all roles, grades and geographies. Discover and develop them all, whether they’re millennials in marketing, mid-career in HR or long-timers in finance. Innovations rarely — if ever — trickle down from the top ranks. Innovators typically pop up like wild flowers from the grassroots. For example, the idea for those ubiquitous Post-it notes? They came from a pair of 3M scientists who noodled on how to use a light adhesive that executives had disregarded on another project. Ordinary people become great innovators when motivated by powerful emotions. They begin their journey by tapping into their own passions. Then, they leverage that inspiration to identify and align it with a problem to solve. Michael Docherty, a serial entrepreneur and author of the book , talks about moving from the “what” (the product) to a focus on the “why” (purpose and meaning). “Employees and entrepreneurs want to make a difference — they want to be part of something bigger than themselves. Companies must first focus innovation on their purpose and mission, or their values before features.” As a result, companies must create a clear process to help employees discover their motivations and turn them into solutions. At Cisco, in a recent Innovate Everywhere Challenge that engaged nearly half of our 72,000-person workforce, we adapted Adobe Kickbox with industry best practices and our own experiences. Employees downloaded step-by-step guidebooks on how to identify their motivations, ideate them, test their assumptions and co-develop them with customers. Maria Medrano, a senior manager with Cisco’s Office of Inclusion & Collaboration, gained insights about her “inner entrepreneur” from this process. “The innovation experience allowed me to find and focus on an issue I care deeply about, and team members constantly energized each other. I am not a techie, but now I know that I am an innovator who can transform things.” (Maria was on Team LifeChanger, one of three challenge winners, which is piloting collaboration solutions that help the disabled to work remotely.) Nothing profound will come from engineers working with other engineers unless they involve other functions to round out the solution. To create true breakthroughs, you need to wipe out business silos and form cross-functional teams with multi-dimensional insights from marketing, strategy, finance, HR and beyond. Innovation is a team sport requiring different talents at different stages, but all working toward a shared goal. Each contributes value because of different skills, perspectives and approaches. , a successful serial entrepreneur who co-founded , says it best: “Innovation, whether corporate or not, in my experience, is all about a multi-disciplinary team of individuals — designers, engineers, MBAs — collaborating tightly together, pushing boundaries, moving fast, focused on a shared goal, and iterating on constant feedback loops from many, many mentors. It is the opposite of just an idea, or just an individual, building in isolation.” Overwhelming research and my own experience validate that inclusive and diverse teams create the most transformative value. The biggest mistake companies make to jumpstart innovation is their failure to provide clear guidance. Nearly everyone I know has a brilliant idea for the next big app, but few know how to bring it to life. First, companies must set out a grand vision or purpose that every employee can recite on why it’s vital to become an innovator. I’m reminded of the NASA executive visiting a facility who walked up to a janitor and asked, “What is your job?” The janitor replied, “To put a man on the moon.” Second, innovators must be clear about the strategic focus — markets, technologies, services, business models. Third, and most often overlooked, is the need to give innovators time and get out of their way, let them experiment and learn from both their successes and mistakes. Connection is paramount. Remember to leverage communications, collaboration platforms and experiences to connect employees with each other the outside world — not all ideas are born within your company. Open collaboration platforms also enable employees to share ideas and interact, make things transparent, remove politics and equalize the playing field, which is essential. Show the innovation way with mentors and coaches — not traditional managers. Mentors and coaches, both inside and outside the company, must replace managers to guide cross-functional teams. Traditional managers are often roadblocks to innovation. They slow progress by focusing on hierarchy, top-down decision making, rigid deadlines and short-term outcomes. Mentors encourage team-based approaches where every voice counts, and they help to clear political or other roadblocks. They don’t direct; they advise how teams can move forward collectively to overcome technology, customer or market hurdles — and then back off! Outside mentors also bring fresh and realistic perspectives. Bond, who has been both a mentor and received mentorship, credits his current company’s success to outside advisors. “Whether in a startup or large company, you will need outside innovation advisors to create a strong, dynamic and supportive environment where innovation can thrive in all its chaos and changing nature.” To create game-changers, employee innovators must feel empowered to brainstorm, experiment and make decisions — without judgement. Companies must give up control and level the playing field so teams value everyone’s idea. To thrive, team members must hold each other accountable while driving to their goal. Netflix and TED are two companies that exemplify the democratization of decisions. And while anathema to corporate thinking, failure is an option. Failure almost always leads to success, and should be celebrated. Fast failure can eliminate wasteful time on projects, improve efficiency and pinpoint new options for success. As Docherty puts it, “The key (for innovation) is to not try to get it completely right the first time, but to try things quickly and adjust as we go. That also means we need to manage expectations along the way.” For example, it took Thomas Edison more than 10,000 tries to perfect the light bulb, after which he famously stated, “I have not failed. I have just found ways that do not work.” Gartner that while 75 percent of businesses are preparing to become digital companies, only 30 percent of these efforts will be successful. The John M. Olin School of Business at Washington University also that in 10 years more than 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies will no longer exist. Don’t be one of them. To paraphrase former Intel CEO Andy Grove: “Only the innovative will survive.” Companies must fully commit to disruptive change, ignite innovation across the enterprise and nourish a startup culture where employees can become entrepreneurs. Focus on the innovator — not the innovation.
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Virata is an automatic watch with a racing pedigree
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John Biggs
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is the brain-child of Patrick Wacks from Canton, Ohio. Wacks was inspired by his favorite Formula 1 cars to create a watch as streamlined and sexy as a race car. He’s finally shipping his watches and he’s running to get them out the door. The feature I find interesting is the clever, highly engineered case. The watches meteorite. It’s beveled on all four corners and then has a beveled bezel into which is set a sapphire crystal. It runs an automatic Miyota 9015 movement. “In Italian, VIRATA means to veer or to change direction,” said Wacks. “I’ve decided to change direction in my life and to pursue this dream of my own watch company. I also believe that the case itself and the overall design changes direction compared to the rest of the industry, which is why I patented it.” Wacks is a single dude in the middle of Ohio trying to build a watch company which, I hope you’ll agree, is pretty cool. You can grab an early-bird piece for $465 in black and carbon fiber or a rose gold model for the same price. All of them come on leather racing bands. Watching Wacks go from prototype to finish product is quite exciting and I’m impressed by what he’s done so far with his nascent brand.
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Brian Heater
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The tangle of the year
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John Biggs
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One of the primary reasons for Thanksgiving was always the celebration of the end of the harvest and the promise of new growth. Home gardens wilted in the first November rains and the apples and herbs died out around the ides. The land goes from oregano and blanched green bean to tan and dust and brown and the leaves cover everything in preparation for snow. I’m no outdoorsman. Our little Brooklyn garden is a mess and we’re lazy about weeding and pruning and pulling things back. Around this time I grab the last of everything — the last squash, the last peppers, the last herbs, and throw them into the Thanksgiving meal. I’m making pesto with the gone-to-seed basil, and the parsley, still green and hopeful, is going on as garnish. We’re makers and doers and creators and we enter times of feast and times of famine. The last time I felt safe in my convictions was probably during the height of the 3D-printing craze. Here was a technology that could change the way we make things at home, the way kids learned, the way manufacturing worked. It and solar and bitcoin and natural electricity were the great hope of the second decade of the 21st century. They’re quiet now, the big promises never panning out as quickly as we had hoped. But if you look closely, you can see how they grow. My kids have three 3D printers at school and TinkerCAD is commonplace. People are still building new solar technologies, new fintech products, new electric vehicles. The shoots are there, waiting under the loam. They’re coming. As we enter a few years of uncertainty we have to look back on the years of certainty for guidance. Were we too sure of ourselves? Did we think we knew too much? Sure. But was the world ready for what we brought? Heck, the world just got used to getting into some stranger’s Toyota Camry in Pittsburgh and riding to the airport. The world just got used to inviting strangers into their homes to stay for the weekend. The world just got used to the idea that the warming planet is a major problem to be solved and not a diversion. We’re learning. This is a tangled time, an interstitial time. We are expecting great things, but we are just getting used to good things. The seeds we planted a decade ago are sprouting and the seeds we plant today will sprout in another decade. But we keep growing and we keep planting and we keep moving. A garden is a promise to the future. It’s a promise that we will survive, that we will flourish. Imagine a barren waste where nothing can grow, a field locked in snow. And then imagine the promise of a garden, the promise of new life, seen through a frosted window. It’s enough to bring tears to a pioneer’s eyes, as I’m sure it did many times over the millennia. It’s just enough to give us hope. Soldier on, makers. Soldier on, programmers. What you do today defines the future. What grows now dies and comes back endlessly, a tangle that feeds, educates and betters the world.
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Zvooq, Russia’s Spotify, sues Yandex for $29M after key staff were allegedly poached
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Mike Butcher
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, a music streaming service in Russia and CIS countries backed by major Western labels, is suing Yandex for $29 million. It accuses the Russian search giant of poaching key Zvooq staff for its own music streaming service, in contravention of an NDA the two parties allegedly signed in February of this year. Zvooq, which is run out of Moscow but legally based in Cyprus, charges Yandex with unfair competition and of breaching the NDA, signed after it showed interest in becoming a potential strategic investor in the startup. In that NDA, Yandex was prevented from soliciting Zvooq employees, or encouraging their dismissal within six months of the NDA being signed. However, alleges Zvooq, this Spring, Varvara Semenikhina, marketing director of Zvooq, received an offer from Yandex and thereafter became marketing director of Yandex.Music, the music streaming service owned and run by Yandex. Semenikhina had been at Zvooq since July 2014 and was, alleges the company, “intimately involved” in the development of the platform and was also privy to its future business plans. Zvooq also says the move by Yandex coincided with its plans for a major transaction, scaring off potential investors or acquirers. Victor Frumkin, co-founder of Zvooq says: “We initiated the lawsuit because we believe that unfair competition and bad business practices affects the entire online industry in a negative way, and its a fragile one in Russia in these times. A free and open market works effectively only when basic rules of fair competition are complied with by key players. Only this way can companies with the best business models and most innovative ideas can improve consumer lives, as is the example with Zvooq. If basic rules of corporate conduct and market principles are not upheld, if commitments of signed agreements are not observed, only companies with close political ties and moral absenteeism will remain alive in markets like Russia where protectionism is high on the agenda in the current geopolitical climate.” Frumkin continued: “Yandex’s actions are unacceptable, and should not be left unpunished, because they illustrate to the world that Russia is a country with a yet immature business culture with high risks for investors. As far as I know, we are not the only ones who have experienced this behavior by Yandex — and we want to put a stop to it, in order to prevent devastating consequences of further bad business practices for the industry on the whole.” Zvooq’s legal statement was filed with the District Court of Limassol (Cyprus), where the NDA was also signed, which means the case comes under English law. A Yandex spokesperson told TechCrunch: “We were quite surprised to have been notified of this court case. An agreement with Zvooq was never violated as there was no solicitation on our part. Their rhetoric over the past few days does not reflect the reality of the situation. We are sure of our legal position and will defend it in court. Due to confidentiality, we cannot offer any more details on our relations with Zvooq.” Varvara Semenihina, allegedly poached from Zvooq by Yandex, : “There was no headhunting. Zvooq and I agreed that I would leave long before I sent my CV to Yandex”. Zvooq also maintains that Yandex is also providing a one-sided account of the case to . A source close to the Russian tech scene commented on the case: “Yandex had been the poster child of Russian tech, but as Google has gradually pushed them in to second place in Russia, and amid the geopolitical and economic insularity, they’re acting like a bull in a China shop. Small startups like Zvooq and others are being screwed over and caught in the cross-fire by actions like this more frequently.” Zvooq says it has a catalog of more than 25 million tracks and provides its users with legal content from major rights-holders, including Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music and several of the major outlets. In June this year Zvooq a $5 million investment and entered into a partnership with major mobile phone operator Tele2. Zvooq is believed to be Russia’s fourth largest music streaming service, behind Yandex.Music, Google Play and Apple Music. In August 2014, Zvooq closed a $20 million Series A funding round, led by local retailer Ulmart, with Finnish private equity firm Essedel Capital chipping in.
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Maserati plans an all-electric Alfieri for 2020
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Darrell Etherington
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Maserati was said to be looking at 2020 as the target time frame for its first production electric vehicle, and now the company has confirmed to that a battery-powered electric drivetrain option will be made available in 2020 for its Alfieri two-seater sports car. The EV version will follow the conventional fuel-based V6-powered Alfieri, which is slated to make its product debut some time in 2019. Part of the reason for the launch window being out further is that the chassis design used in the Alfieri requires weight savings and energy economy improvements, which Maserati is currently working on; its existing product design plans are due for refresh after 2018. The report of Maserati’s Alfieri plans follows an that their first vehicle would be a “grand-touring coupe” rather than a direct competitor for the Tesla Model S, but that it would also likely be a significant departure for Maserati in terms of its signature vehicle design.
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LeEco’s Le Pro3 is cheap, fast and frustrating
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Brian Heater
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LeEco would like nothing more than to be . The impulse is no better demonstrated than with the company’s grand U.S. debut a few months back, which included everything from phones and flat-screen TVs to a bicycle, an electric car, a VR headset and, yes, a cameo by Michael Bay directly from the set of the latest Transformers. Of all the products unveiled during that bizarre spectacle, the Le Pro3 is the most compelling for the simple reason that it’s here and it exists. I’m holding it in my hand. The U.S. retail future of many of the other products shown at the event, on the other hand, feels a lot less certain. So, aside pomp and circumstance, what does LeEco bring to the table with the Le Pro3? The same thing that most of its fellow Chinese smartphone makers are banking on — low price. And indeed, the $400 price point is mighty tempting in a world of $700 and $800 flagship devices. But the market is flush with inexpensive handsets from relatively unknown makers (in the U.S., at least), making it a tough time to distinguish oneself by price point alone, particularly with companies like offering some truly terrific bang for a consumer’s buck. The Le Pro3 has a design that belies its thinness. At 7.5 millimeters, it’s not much thicker than a lot of the competition, but a blocky design and a weighty metal build give the handset an added sense of bulk that’s hard to shake. What the metal case does lend the phone, however, is a solid (though not waterproof ) build and an eye-catching design. It’s not for everyone, certainly, but the extremely shiny brushed metal backing certainly helps it stand out from the crowd. It’s also, for the record, a bit of a fingerprint magnet. There are two physical buttons on the right side of the handset — power and the volume rocker, both of which could have benefited from a little extra rounding of the edges. Two large speaker grilles are located on the bottom, flanking the USB-C slot. The headphone jack, on the other hand, is nowhere to be found. Yes, LeEco has joined the courageous ranks of the iPhone and the Moto Z, becoming one of the first budget devices to drop that familiar connector, so you might want to add the price of Bluetooth headphones into the handset’s bottom line. Around back are an extra shiny (and fairly finicky) fingerprint reader and a 26-megapixel rear-facing camera that adds a notable bump. Also of note, while the front is devoid of any overt branding, the haptic disappearing home button takes the form of the company’s “LE” logo, an extra bit of branding that just couldn’t be avoided. At 1920 x 1080, the display’s not bad for its price point. Of course, plenty of handsets go much higher these days, but it’s plenty sharp and bright and will get the job done for most users. All told, the Le Pro3’s got some pretty impressive power under the hood, on par with some truly premium handsets. The Snapdragon 821 processor is top of the line, putting the handset in still fairly rare company, alongside the Google Pixel and, most recently, the OnePlus 3T. That’s coupled with a decent 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage — no microSD slot though, so you’re stuck with that. But that should do the trick for most. The biggest standout on the spec-front, however, is the 4,070 mAh battery, which blows out of the water OnePlus’s recent modest upgrade to 3,400 mAh. Honestly, this is the spec that LeEco really ought to have led with. Weirdly, in its own press materials, it boasts of “up to 318 hours of 4G stand-by time.” I probably would have gone with the two-plus days you’ll be able to go without needing a charge. LeEco was clearly hoping to stand out on the software front. The company is set to learn the lesson learned time and time again by various Android manufacturers over the years — less is more. But part of building your own world-conquering ecosystem is customizing your basic OS. But if this overall experience is indicative of the ecosystem that gives the company its name, it may be destined for the drawing board. EUI is really a skin layered on top of Marshallow. Among other sour notes is the lack of a default app drawer — forcing you to stick all of your apps on the home screen. A bit of that real estate is already taken up by the company’s own apps, including Le, which is a video app, and the Live button smack dab in the bottom of the middle, which — well, which is also a video app. LeEco really wants to bring you into its video ecosystem. In fact, in the way that the Kindle Fire and its ilk were really ultimately content-delivery devices, one gets the sense that the company views its low-end handset as bit of a backdoor to push its video services into new territories. Hey, the company finished the upcoming big-budget Matt Damon movie, The Wall, so it would really like you to buy into its services, thank you very much. The price is certainly right with the Le Pro3 — especially if you get in on one of the company’s flash sales and get $100 knocked off. The hardware is an odd mix of cutting edge and clunky, but it still feels like a solid deal at the $399 price point. As far as overall experience, the OnePlus 3T is slightly pricier, but it’s a safer a bet — even if it sports a massive battery life. LeEco has some bugs to work out, particularly on the software front, but the Le Pro3 feels like a pretty decent first effort that would be made a lot better by simply going easier with its software skins.
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Dyson’s V8 cordless is your best bet for ditching your heavy plug-in vacuum
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Darrell Etherington
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Dyson’s is the latest in a long line of the company’s portable category, and it has a more powerful motor that drives more suction than ever before, as the name implies. It’s also a premium-priced device, but that suction combined with its battery life and lightweight design make for a pretty unbeatable combo in the vacuum world. The V8 Animal (called the Absolute in the U.S.) has a longer battery life than previous Dyson cordless vacuums, with 40 minutes of run time with most of its attachments, and 25 minutes with the motor-powered floor tool. This should be enough time to clean an entire urban condo or apartment dwelling, with power to spare in many cases. Dyson includes a power boost mode that burns through battery quicker, as it always has with its cordless offerings. This one burns through a full charge in only seven minutes, but the additional power you get is impressive — this is the first cordless vacuum Dyson has built that can manage cleaning my fairly deep-pile area rug, including a considerable backup of dog hair, without requiring multiple passes — it’s a true replacement for many plug-in vacuums, let alone handhelds, in this regard. The power boost comes with a bit larger main body, and two filters instead of three to manage versus older-generation handles, but if you’re already finishing one and leaving it overnight to dry it’s not that much extra effort to rinse the other. On balance, the power benefits of the V8 definitely outweigh the minor added heft they bring. The V8 isn’t just good at its most basic job of sucking up dirt — Dyson has done a good job of making sure its convenience features really make the whole job of cleaning up easier. These include a host of attachments in the bag, which are great for use everywhere, from in the car, to hardwood floor, to furniture upholstery and more. The best new feature for cleaning convenience might be the redesigned bin ejector, which pushes dirt out without much chance of it blowing back up and spreading around outside your trash bin as you do so. The new bin design is similar to the one featured on Dyson’s new canister vacuum, but specifically designed for the portable form factor. This results in a much tidier bin emptying process overall, which is a welcome improvement compared to past generations. Dyson also includes a wall mount for use with the charger, which is a very handy thing if you have a laundry room or closet with power outlets to keep the vacuum tucked away but also charged and ready to go whenever you need it. What the Dyson V8 accomplishes better than any other portable vacuum out there is being a good all-around vacuum, which you can use like a full-size or like a handheld, without much in the way of compromises in either case. It’s a top-tier vacuum, to be sure, at $599 U.S. ($599.99 CAD for the V8 Animal, tested), but one that achieves better than any before the goal of replacing your plug-in with a completely cordless vacuum you can use anywhere.
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Strolling through the line at Snapchat’s NYC Spectacle store
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Jordan Crook
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Snap, the social media company formerly known as Snapchat, has launched a . Inside the store, there is a Snap Bot (a vending machine full of Spectacles). Outside the store, there is a line — a long, winding line of people who stand out in the freezing cold to buy a pair of Snapchat-capable sunglasses. Personally, I have trouble justifying standing outside in the cold to wait in line for anything. But obviously, these Snap fanatics felt differently. So we took a stroll through the line a few hours before the store opened on Tuesday to chat with the folks waiting for Spectacles. Enjoy!
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Anyone for quantifiable VR mindfulness?
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Natasha Lomas
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? At this nascent stage the question remains hanging in the pixelated air like the promise of a better life off-world. As does the associated unknown of whether the tech’s promise of “exceptional immersion” will stand the test of time and make the leap to mainstream appeal. For now, on the content side, VR mainly means a few with relatively niche appeal (given the pro kit needed to power them), and experimental or quasi-educational content such as , and attempts to by embodying another first-person perspective. But another idea is to use VR to foster mindfulness by tuning out the day-to-day and tuning into some calming VR vistas. U.S. digital health company is one of several companies hoping to harness the technology’s power as an escapist medium by using it as a backdrop for guided meditations — and has just launched a VR . The idea being you slip on a mobile VR headset and use the app to experience a guided meditation within a 360-degree calming visual environment, such as sitting on a beach or next to a waterfall. (Although Provata’s app can also be used for guided meditations without needing to put on an iPhone-compatible VR headset — just with the same peaceful landscape to swipe around onscreen.) Also incorporated into its app: the ability to link health-tracking wearables, such as the Apple Watch, to quantify the effects of a meditation session on, for example, your resting heart rate. Or look at how your sleep is being affected by taking time out to meditate. The company says the app can also be used to track pre- and post-meditation heart rate using just a smartphone camera — for those who don’t own a fitness wearable. There’s an increasing number of and digital services focusing on the mindfulness space — including the likes of , and . Even Apple has a relaxation app for its Watch wearable, called . Provata also has a wider digital health play — selling guided programs via employers wanting to offer staff encouragement to take up health-boosting activities — but the VR app is its first step into the consumer mindfulness space. CEO Alex Goldberg says it’s hoping to “pioneer a new category of digital health: Virtual Reality Preventive Care.” “We create all the guided meditations ourselves,” he tells TechCrunch. “At the beginning of each meditation, the user is asked to look around to help them find a spot to relax to calm their mind before settling in on an ideal view for performing your meditation. We want users to experiment with different orientations within each immersive environment. Certain meditations reference the physical surroundings more than other meditations.” Goldberg says Provata’s existing , which include content focused on encouraging fitness and helping people improve their nutrition, have been tested through NIH- and CDC-funded clinical trials. But the new VR meditation app is, at this point, untested in efficacy — much like the rest of the VR category. “We plan to conduct a peer-reviewed study on this, especially now that we have meditation biofeedback integrated into the app, letting users track their heart rate pre and post meditation,” says Goldberg. “The study will be looking at comparative heart rate trends as well as reported stress and depression scores among users. “The peer-reviewed study of our digital health program, (Healthy Team Healthy U), became the first digital health program proven to positively impact both the mental health and physical health of participants… One of the reasons why we were able to reduce depression and stress is because the program integrates — and for most of our participants, introduces them — to guided meditation exercises as a strategy to improve their mental health. The study found reductions in stress scores and depression scores (using a 7-point Likert scale), particularly among those participants reporting high levels of workplace stress prior to the program. “We see Provata VR as an opportunity to broaden awareness and utilization of guided meditation to enhance these outcomes among a wider audience.” Whether there’s any contradiction in the notion of focusing on your own mind as an anti-stress strategy and means to increase calmness/achieve greater self-awareness versus relying on a VR headset to artificially induce a feeling of tranquility is up for debate. It’s safe to say, VR meditation is not going to be for everybody — but perhaps it might offer a route into a stress-relieving activity for people who otherwise might struggle to tune out their daily life without the help of a prop. Meditations in the app are “purposefully short,” says Goldberg, with two-, five-, and 10-minute options — as one way to avoid people spending too much time sucked into VR (which can itself have negative physiological effects, such as nausea or, in my own experience, eye strain), and also because he claims even a few minutes of meditation per day has been found to produce beneficial effects in “numerous studies.” “We haven’t had any reports of negative psychological effects. We also think the high quality 4K videos help,” he adds. While the app is a free download and offers some content without needing to pay, there is also a subscription service — costing $3.99 per month or $35.99 per year — for access to more “exotic locations” as a backdrop for meditations.
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Here’s why you should attend the Disrupt London Hackathon, more tickets now available
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Matt Burns
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The Hackathon at is so close we can almost taste it. Soon, thousands of founders, investors and tech enthusiasts will storm London’s Copper Box Arena for the best startup show in Europe. Today, we’re thrilled to announce that the next wave of tickets to the hackathon is available now, and you can . The hackathon kicks off at 12:30 p.m. PT on Saturday, December 3, with networking and the forming of hackathon teams. On Sunday, after a grueling 20 or more hours of hacking and coding, teams will have just 60 seconds to present their projects to a panel of judges on the Disrupt stage. So, why should you join us at the Hackathon, you ask? Simply put, there’s no better way to take that great idea you have swirling around in the back of your head to the next level than by finding a couple of other hard-working folks and spending almost a full day working on it. Even if you don’t have that billion-dollar idea, you could team up with someone who might, and get in on the ground level. Plus, even if you don’t, you’ll be spending the weekend making connections with folks who are passionate about the startup community. There are also all sorts of prizes up for grabs. In addition to building something awesome, Hackathon teams have a chance to win tickets to the main Disrupt conference, a $5,000 (about £4,000) grand prize, and several toys, gadgets and monetary prizes from our wonderful Hackathon sponsors. Each team that achieves a score of 3 or higher from our panel of judges will win two free tickets to Disrupt, which takes place December 5-6 at the same location. While at Disrupt, you’ll get to watch companies compete in the illustrious Startup Battlefield competition, chat with founders of hundreds of startups in Startup and Hardware Alley, and hear from some of the more brilliant minds in the business with the many interviews and lectures that take place throughout the show. Plus, you’ll get to attend the parties and after-parties that will let you keep the good times and networking going long into the night after the show floor closes. The current wave of tickets to the Hackathon at Disrupt London will be doled out on a first-come, first-served basis, so don’t delay in getting over to our to get your tickets before they run out. The Hackathon is perfect for both hardware and software projects, so bring whatever great ideas you have and spend a fantastic weekend bringing it that much closer to reality. We can’t wait to see what you all come up with.
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Watching Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in Daydream VR is actually fun
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Darrell Etherington
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Live streaming 360-degree video is rarely the right way to go if you’re thinking about doing a live broadcast for an event — but Verizon’s (disclaimer: Verizon owns TechCrunch via AOL) use of it to show the actually makes sense. Especially if you happen to have a Daydream View headset, Google’s new first-party mobile VR hardware. The 360 broadcast is accessible to anyone in the U.S. who happens to have Cardboard, or even just Chrome, but it’s actually best viewed via Daydream VR and the new official YouTube VR app. Dropping in on the stream actually feels like getting a balcony-level view of the parade, with a few different vantage points that cycle throughout the stream. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEVUjvSc8Wk] I dropped in on the stream just in time to catch a huge inflatable Pikachu passing by, and it was a great little moment. Sure, it’s not exactly Shakespeare, or even a blockbuster Hollywood superhero smash-up, but it’s a nice distraction and a prime use of 360-video, with logical points of focus and not too much risk in terms of misdirecting a viewer’s attention while something important happens behind them, for instance (a common problem with a lot of VR content). The parade runs through noon ET, so you’ve still got a bit more time to jump in and see what it’s like — again, headset recommended.
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Autonomous robots and game-playing A.I. — incredible demos at Disrupt London, Dec 5-6
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Mike Butcher
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is on December 5-6. Grab tickets . As well as speakers and panels, we’ll be featuring some demos by some amazing tech companies. The first will be by Boston Dynamics. Yes, folks, delegates to Disrupt London will get to see one of those amazing BD robots up close and personal, almost literally in the flesh (if they had any flesh, that is). Marc Raibert, CTO and founder of will be demonstrating one of the amazing robots his team has created, but you’ll have to come to find out which one… Raibert was a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT and a member of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory from 1986 through 1995. Raibert’s research is devoted to the study of systems that move dynamically, including physical robots and animated creatures. Raibert’s laboratory at MIT, the Leg Lab, is well-known for its work on systems that move dynamically, including legged robots, simulated mechanisms and animated figures. The Leg Lab created a series of laboratory robots, including one-legged hoppers, biped runners, a quadruped and two kangaroo-like robots. Taken collectively, these robots travel along simple paths, balance themselves actively, climb a simple stairway, run fast (13.1 mph), run with several gaits and do rudimentary gymnastic maneuvers. A couple of years ago two robots (and 3 students) appeared in Rising Sun with Sean Connery and Wesley Snipes. The Leg Lab also created On The Run, a computer-generated cartoon in which all the characters were animated using simulation and control. Work at Boston Dynamics on automated characters and physics-based dynamic simulation are outgrowths of research done by Raibert’s group at MIT. Raibert received a B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Northeastern University in 1973, and a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1977. His PhD thesis, entitled “Motor control and learning by the state space model,” used robotics techniques to model biological behavior. He worked on robot sensing and control at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech from 1977 through 1980. He was on the faculty of Carnegie Mellon University Computer Science Department and the Robotics Institute from 1981-1986. He is the author of published by MIT Press, is on the editorial board of the International Journal of Robotics Research, was guest editor of two issues of IJRR devoted to legged systems and is a fellow of the AAAI. Meanwhile, also coming along will be Chris Boos, founder and CEO of , a leading artificial intelligence company that helps businesses automate their IT processes through intelligent automation. Chris has set his team to making their platform play a particular game, which is actually more complex than Go, the Chinese game which DeepMind conquered with AlphaGo. But you should grab a ticket to find out which games, and how they got on. Chris oversees strategy and product development at Arago — helping to establish the company at the forefront of artificial intelligence — and continues ongoing research in AI, while guiding Arago’s technology applications in business. An expert in graph theory and decision systems, Chris studied computer sciences at ETH Zurich, as well as Technical University Darmstadt, did research in U.S. and European institutions and was awarded the John F. Kennedy National Leadership Award in 2003. Besides his corporate involvement, Chris is still active in R&D and sits on several boards, supporting the European startup scene via angel investments. You can follow Chris’ thoughts on the future and AI . The two-day Disrupt conference runs December 5-6 in the Olympic Village’s Copper Box Arena and features Startup Alley and Startup Battlefield, where one startup will take home £30,000. You can buy early-bird . You want to display your company? Then go for a booth in the Startup Alley. For startups there is also the brand new program, where we match startups to investors. Check it all out . Early-bird tickets are now available to purchase for the discounted price of just £950 apiece. You can at this price until 4 December. For all you students out there, the deal is about to get even sweeter. We have a limited selection of student tickets to Disrupt London 2016 for just £100 plus VAT, provided you have both a valid university ID and current transcripts. To reserve your £100 student tickets to Disrupt, simply send a copy of your transcripts showing your current enrollment status, as well as a copy of your university identification card, to students@beta.techcrunch.com. Once you’re approved, we’ll send you instructions for how to complete your registration.
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China’s Ctrip is buying flight search company Skyscanner for $1.74 billion
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Jon Russell
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Skyscanner, the Scotland-based flight-search company, has been for £1.4 billion, or approximately $1.74 billion. The deal is predominantly cash and is expected to close before the end of this year. Once completed, Skyscanner will operate independently of Ctrip, both parties confirmed. Ctrip was founded in 1999, and it is China’s largest online travel firm. Its revenue for Q3 2016, which was announced today, came in at RMB 5.6 billion ($810 million), that’s up 75 percent year-on-year, with a slim $4 million net profit. Ctrip recently raised close to $1 billion from the sale of convertible notes, a raise that looks to be coordinated with the Skyscanner deal. This news comes less than a year after Skyscanner, which has over 700 staff across 10 offices, raised in January 2016 to expand its reach worldwide. That was the company’s first financing in more than two years, and investors included Khazanah Nasional Berhad, the Malaysian government’s strategic investment fund, Yahoo Japan, fund manager Artemis, investment firm Baillie Gifford and PE firm Vitruvian Partners. Sequoia is an existing backer. The round valued Skyscanner at a reported $1.6 billion. The company was widely-expected to pursue an IPO in 2017, which made its acquisition somewhat surprisingly while the price isn’t a huge leap on that previous valuation. Skyscanner had seen its revenue growth slow, , but the company put that down to increased investment in product rather than marketing. Regardless, this is the largest travel tech acquisition in Europe to date. Skyscanner placed much emphasis on Asia — partnering with Yahoo Japan and — but the deal promises to help Ctrip expand its business into international markets. “Skyscanner will complement our positioning at a global scale and Ctrip will leverage our experience, technology and booking capabilities to Skyscanner’s,” Ctrip co-founder and executive chairman James Jianzhang Liang said in a statement. , Skycanner CEO and co-founder Gareth Williams said that the deal would enable his company to gain access to greater resources to make travel “simpler:” It’s been a busy past year or so for Ctrip, which has pursued M&A activity to expand. More than a year has passed since it agreed to , which saw it gain a 45 percent voting interest in Qunar in exchange for 25 percent of the Ctrip business. In January of this year, , while it , a state-run airline that claims 94 million passengers.
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Reddit CEO admits he secretly edited comments from Donald Trump supporters
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Jon Russell
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Reddit CEO Steve Huffman has admitted that he modified comments about him left on the site from supporters of Donald Trump. Huffman said he changed mentions of him in some of the messages inside the site’s largest forum for the President-elect, but not the messages themselves. But, in doing so, he dredges up . “Yep. I messed with the “fuck u/spez” comments, replacing “spez” with r/the_donald mods for about an hour,” Huffman, who co-founded Reddit with Alexis Ohanian in 2005, wrote. The issue surrounds #pizzagate, a fake news story about a Washington-based pizza restaurant said to be the center point of a child trafficking operation run by Hillary Clinton and her campaign chairman John Podesta. The story was fabricated, but it gained attention on social media, so much so that . As you’d expect, the rumors made their way to Reddit, only for the company management to close because it around posting an individual’s private information. Huffman, who left Reddit to start travel site Hipmunk in 2010 before to replace Ellen Pao, said he made the changes to messages in response to critical and abusive comments that he received in the wake of closure. While he went public with an admission, he stopped short of an apology. “As much as we try to maintain a good relationship with you all, it does get old getting called a pedophile constantly. As the CEO, I shouldn’t play such games, and it’s all fixed now. Our community team is pretty pissed at me, so I most assuredly won’t do this again,” he wrote. “This was a case of me trolling the trolls for a bit,” in a reply to another user. Pao left Reddit under a cloud last year. Her actions, which included the closure of popular threads and the firing of community manager Victoria Taylor, drew unrest from many users, by making racist, sexist and other kinds of comments toward her. The Pao saga is in the past for Reddit, but Huffman’s frank admission will draw concern from many users who, already wary of the management, may feel that covertly tampering with message, in any way, destroys the site’s credibility.
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Crunch Report | Facebook Builds a Censorship Tool
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Khaled "Tito" Hamze
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Tito Hamze, John Mannes
Tito Hamze
Chris Gates
Chris Gates TechCrunch C/O Tito Hamze
410 Townsend street
Suite 100
San Francisco Ca. 94107
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Wynd grabs $31.7 million for its point-of-sale solution
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Romain Dillet
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French startup has raised a $31.7 million Series B round (€30 million) from and , with also participating. Orange Digital Ventures had already invested in the Series A round with . Wynd is working on a software-as-a-service solution to replace your existing point-of-sale service that you use in your restaurant or store. Wynd doesn’t target individual restaurants. Instead, the startup focuses on big restaurant chains, converting all their points of sale to Wynd. Big clients include Carrefour, Galeries Lafayette, Quick, Sodexo, Eiffage, Total, Monceau Fleurs and more. The solution is supposed to work with little tweaks. Wynd is a modular service that can manage part or all of the tasks that you usually do at your point of sale. It can be very basic or bring together all the information you need. For instance, you can set up Wynd for both your stores and your website. This way, Wynd can unify the inventory for both platforms and accept orders from all your channels. The service can also help you set up electronic wallets for your clients. You can imagine a chain store offering coupons, providing cash back or managing money pots. The service integrates with your CRM service, as well. For instance, you could see your client’s profile when they pay for something so that you know if they’ve been coming here regularly. Wynd can either feed your existing CRM service with more data or you can set it up as your main CRM service. According to the company, many clients dip their toes and start with a lightweight setup first. Later, they add more modules. The startup bills €30 to €300 per point of sale per month depending on your setup. Wynd doesn’t process payments directly. The startup chose to focus on the point of sale as there are already many payment service providers out there already. And finally, you can manage your point of sale from many devices; a phone, a tablet and more. All of these features may sound obvious, but many companies rely on solutions that were designed by Oracle or SAP a while back. Overall, Wynd manages 5,000 points of sale. With today’s funding round, the company plans to hire and expand internationally. First, Wynd will open offices in the U.K. and Dubai as the company already has a few clients in these countries. There could be more international expansions later down the road.
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Facebook is unlikely to succeed in China, even if it compromises on free speech
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Jon Russell
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Facebook may have laid some of the early groundwork to launch its social network in China, but the U.S. company’s chances of making a dent in the world’s most populous country remain remote. that Facebook is developing a system that could censor information to appease the Chinese government is the talk of the tech industry right. The timing couldn’t be worse: domestically, Facebook is under pressure for , yet here it is seemingly on user timelines to kowtow to the Chinese government and further its interests in a country of 1.3 billion people. Facebook’s China conundrum hasn’t changed much since , when it admitted it may not ever find a way into the country. Recently, however, CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly justified the development of censorship software, telling staff that “it’s better for Facebook to be a part of enabling conversation, even if it’s not yet the full conversation.” That triggered a number of departures, according to the New York Times, but the truth about China is that it would take a huge effort from Facebook to be relevant to the general conversation in the first place. Even if Zuckerberg — who has made little effort to hide his interest in doing business in China — sold out and agreed to censorship in exchange for being unblocked, Facebook has a major challenge in finding a place to sit within the nation’s already-developed social media ecosystem. Sticking to its roots won’t cut it because Facebook-style social networking has already failed in China. Renren, the company widely labeled as ‘China’s Facebook,’ has long since pivoted. Initial promise saw Renren attract investment from SoftBank in its early days, and before its U.S. IPO in April 2011, the company claimed 160 million users. , but the share price has fallen from a first-day close of $18.01 to just $1.81 today. These days Renren’s service is barely used and the company is more notable for its investment deals, which include stakes in and . That investment business and its social video platform are being to give them room to breathe, such is the decline of the core service and ‘traditional’ social networks in China. Renren and lesser rivals like withered because they missed mobile, hugely popular messaging app WeChat didn’t and now it is king. WeChat’s dominance has been clear for a long while — — and today , the majority of whom are in China. It is also a critical part of parent firm Tencent’s mobile monetization strategy. More to the point, for Facebook, is that it occupies the space that Facebook is aiming for in China — and then some. Messaging apps have taken a huge bite into social networks, no where more so than China where you frequently notice people out and about in public using WeChat groups, or holding their phone to their face to use the push-to-talk ‘walkie talkie’ feature to communicate. But WeChat goes beyond messaging. It is the internet, and more. It includes a Facebook-style timeline feed from friends — Moments — consumers can connect with branded accounts as they do with Facebook Pages, there’s a payment system, shopping, banking, appointments and now that enables developers to build their own apps for the messaging platform, thereby disintermediating official app stores. WeChat is essentially the mobile portal for Chinese consumers, , while Twitter-like Weibo covers social with , so it is hard to see what new tricks Facebook can bring to the party Then there’s the fact that, in China, your Western brand means very little. Just ask Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, who . Facebook’s global appeal is muted in China. as exceptions to the norm, but Facebook doesn’t have that same brand gravitas. The average person in China has no immediate need for Facebook. Sure, you can connect with people who are overseas but, at this point, people who would find Facebook useful to connect with friends or family overseas almost certainly already use it via a VPN. Facebook’s ad buying service estimates that the social network has an audience of around 2.1 million users in China, a tiny portion of . Zuckerberg’s burning desire for China seems to be the catalyst for the development of the censorship tool, which the Times report stressed may not ever be deployed, but Facebook should tread very carefully here. Compromising on free speech can only lose it friends in the West, and the chances of any kind of success in China are very slim, which by extension could negatively impact its stock price. Sticking to its existing strategy of serving advertising customers in China that want to reach a global audience is a better bet but, even then, working with state-run publications — — throws up plenty of issues around media manipulation and fake news.
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Care/of takes on the vitamin industry with customized nutrition packs
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Sarah Buhr
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There’s no end to the bottles, packs and pills of various nutritional supplements out there, but vitamin startup plans to stand out by tailoring the vitamins you pop to your specific needs. The startup joins a growing number of others in tech hoping to cash in on the vitamin industry. offers pills they say will boost longevity; makes vitamins for women; is a venture-backed vitamin company from the co-founder of Method soap. And then there’s Zenamins, a startup out of Y Combinator that personalized vitamins. It’s a crowded marketplace, but Care/of just launched its platform and pulled in $3 million in seed funding from Juxtapose, the co-founders of Casper and Bonobos co-founder Andy Dunn to take on GNC, the Whole Foods vitamin aisle and everyone else — with customization. Each designer box varies in price, depending on what’s included, but start at $5 per month and go up from there. The pill packs are delivered to your door with a chosen mix of what co-founder Craig Elbert says are top-quality ingredients, such as calcium from Icelandic algae or Rhodiola from the Altai Mountains in Siberia, for example. Elbert, who previously spent seven years as the VP of marketing at Bonobos, says he started Care/of after being dismayed at the whole vitamin shopping experience. “I was going to get pills for myself, some Vitamin D and also my wife was pregnant so getting some prenatal and fish oil pills…I didn’t know what to purchase and why,” he said. “And in the case of the prenatals it’s something that impacts the health of our unborn child and I’m getting advice from a clerk who’s reading off of the back of the box.” Elbert soon realized he could use technology to offer something better to the individual needs of consumers and to help sort through some of the confusing information out there about what supplements you really need. But his main focus is on the consumer experience and catering to the individual. “We’re not coming out and saying ‘Hey we’ve found a magic pill’ we’re actually coming out and saying there’s actually a lot of good products out there and we’ve sourced the best ingredients and we’re going to help you figure out what’s right for you,” Elbert told TechCrunch. Care/of is backed by a scientific advisory board, with doctors from Harvard, Northwestern and Tufts, and Elbert’s co-founder comes from Hometeam, a healthcare startup helping senior adults. The startup has also hired two senior execs from vitamin company New Chapter to handle the supply chain. Sheila Pinkney and Bob Khalil were both responsible for sourcing and researching ingredients at their previous company and Elbert indicated they were instrumental in helping to build out the ingredients used at Care/of. The platform works by users logging onto the site and then filling out a form with various questions about their health and what they’d like to get out of a supplement. Care/of robots then decide the best formulation. I tried it out myself and was worried it was a bit generic. Based on the information I gave, Care/of recommended I take something called Bacopa, fish oil, Astaxanthin, Vitamin D and some probiotics. But Care/of assures me there are more than a million combinations it can make with its currently 30 available ingredients, and that more than 85 percent of customers get a unique mix made just for them. Elbert tells me the plan is to add more ingredients (up to 125) as he and his co-founder continue growing the company. You can and see what it recommends you need.
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Sony gives Bose a run for its money with the MDR-1000X
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Brian Heater
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Sony makes no bones about going after Bose. In fact, when the company first showed off its product in the lead up to IFA this summer, it said as much, acknowledging that the QuietComfort line is largely considered the gold standard for noise-cancelling travel headphones. It’s a bit like getting the old board together and deciding you’re going to make a better soft drink than Coca-Cola. Of course, Sony’s got a lot to work with as one of the few mainstream electronics companies that’s actively pushing hi-res audio. It’s a solid foundation for a great-sounding pair of headphones, especially when paired with solid noise cancellation and a handful of innovative features that the king of the travel headphone mountain has yet to incorporate. At $399, the are priced $50 above , which is a bit of a stumbling point for a product looking to unseat a longtime favorite in the space. Sony brings a lot to the table here — enough to make even longtime QuietComfort devotees take a good, long look at the competition. Like Bose’s headphones, the MDR-1000X aren’t designed to stand out. They’re not flashy like a pair of Beats. They’re designed to go unnoticed on a plane or daily commute. Sony’s got two color options — beige and black. They sent the latter for review, and really it’s the better looking of the pair. The outer cups are covered in soft leather, versus Bose’s hard plastic, forming a slightly more angular design. The cups themselves don’t sport any buttons or branding, making for a slightly more minimalist aesthetic. They swivel freely and the band adjusts quiet a bit, so they’ll do a good job fitting a variety of different head sizes — an issue with the new QuietComforts, which don’t scale down enough to fit smaller heads. The swiveling also helps them fold up into a fairly small footprint for traveling, and the included hard case handily includes an outline for proper stowing, as that can be surprisingly tricky. You’re going to want to employ that case, as the outer leather can get pretty scuffed in transit. At 9.7 ounces, the headphones weigh more than a full ounce less than Bose — which is to say they’re remarkably light. They’ve also got an ample amount of padding, making them quite comfortable, sitting snuggly around the ears without applying any of the pressure that can get a bit annoying after an extended listening period. There’s a row of physical buttons concentrated below the left cup on the underside next to the padding — power, noise cancelling and ambient sound. I get why Sony wanted to move them away from the outer cup, but the thin design and slightly awkward placement makes hitting the right button a bit tough when you’re first getting used to the headphones. Just to the left of the buttons is the auxiliary input for hard wiring the headphones, should the battery conk out — though in doing so, you’ll lose access to some of the MDR’s better features. Much of the control is actually performed through touch, similar to what Parrot offers on its Zik headphones. I’ve personally never been a huge fan of the functionality — I find myself accidentally triggering it all the time — but I may be in the minority on that one. The functionality is pretty straightforward — tap to play and pause (same for taking calls), swipe left and right to change tracks and up and down to adjust the volume. Simple. The most interesting bit of functionality on that front happens when you fully cover the right cup with your hand, instantly turning down the noise cancelling and turning up ambient awareness, so you can, say, hear your boarding announcement. It worked well for most ambient environments, though in a few cases, such as my office, I found that it picked up some unwanted noise, such as over amplifying the sound of the ventilation system, creating a sort of rattling sound in the process. It’s worth noting that you’ll still want to take off your headphones when having a conversation — not due to the possibility of missing anything so much as looking like a jerk. The MDR-1000X sounds great for a pair of wireless headphones. Sony’s audio prowess has created a pair of cans on par with what you’ll get from Bose. Music sounds full and true to the recording, offering full and rich bass, without overdoing it. Those who prefer their music uncompressed will also be able to get take advantage of Sony’s Hi-Res Audio offering by plugging in the cable. For most cases though, the wireless option does the trick just fine. Sony’s also done an excellent job with the noise cancellation. It’s not tuned quite as well to plane sounds as Bose’s offering, but it does a really great job drowning out the sounds of daily life — so much so that it’s probably a bad idea to have it turned on while walking down a city street if you’re the sort who already tends to lose track of their surroundings. Sony rates the battery at 20 hours — more than enough time to get you from Dallas to Sydney. And indeed, I was able to get through several days of use without having to charge the headphones. The $50 premium over Bose could prove tough when it comes to convincing consumers to switch over. But Sony’s first real shot at the QuietComfort 35 makes a pretty compelling case. They’re a well-rounded pair of headphones with great sound and noise cancelling, excellent battery life and comfortable build. They also bring some interesting features like ambient awareness to the tap. It might not be enough to knock Bose from its perch, but it should put the company on notice.
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Sherpa Foundry casts a wider net, hoping to catch customers abroad
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Connie Loizos
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— a three-year-old, San Francisco-based group that’s among a growing number of outfits to help older and non-tech companies better understand how tech startups might help them — is looking to fold in some new customers. It anticipates a growing number of them will come from overseas, too. While Sherpa Foundry launched with four corporate partners — Condé Nast, Salesforce, DreamWorks, and eBay — CEO Neal Hansch tells us the firm recently added a “leading European telco,” to its customer roster and that it’s also talking with a Middle Eastern shopping mall company. (It also added an unnamed “top five U.S. retailer,” he notes. The firm says it plans to reveal these new customers shortly.) What are these customers getting from Sherpa Foundry, which was cofounded by founders Shervin Pishevar and Scott Stanford but is run as a separate business? According to Hansch, who was in March of this year, they’re essentially getting a team of 20 people who act as a meta search engine across the startup ecosystem, filtering out top entrepreneurs and companies and helping customers who might not know better (or have the time) to cut through the noise. Indeed, among the outcomes that have led to “hundreds of millions of dollars in strategic investment and partnerships” for which Sherpa Foundry takes credit are connecting eBay to the shipping service Shyp, an that allows sellers to market a better shipping experience to buyers; introducing Conde Nast to the customized skincare e-commerce company (Conde Nast subsequently invested); and introducing , a pre-market health diagnostics startup, to Johnson & Johnson, which has since formed a with the company. Says Hansch of Sherpa Foundry, whose customers pay it a flat, six-figure annual fee, “We’re not consultants. We aren’t doing project work. We aren’t bankers trying to land success fees. Our members’ agendas are entirely our agendas, which makes us unbiased.” The outfit also isn’t a next-generation Gartner Group, he insists. “We aren’t a research house. Our research is toward sector mapping, laying out the landscape, and doing filtering that you can’t read about. We’re using the same process that any venture fund goes through in making investment decisions, which is sometimes to discern, out of 120 players, which are the 12 that insiders are paying attention to.” Finally, adds Hansch, Sherpa Foundry “is not a corporate outreach arm of Sherpa Capital. Obviously, [Sherpa Capital’s] portfolio companies are in the family, so we have access to them. But we work for our members, and they want to be connected to the best companies in a particular category, no matter who backs them.” Perhaps — though it’s worth noting that Sherpa Capital led the Series A rounds of both Curology and Cue. Certainly, one can see the appeal of organizations like Sherpa Foundry. If you want to talk to McDonald’s but don’t know where to start, it’s nice to know that someone can make that connection for you. Indeed, in addition to making sure it has relationships with as many “blue chip” corporations as possible, Hansch says the firm regularly hosts events for its customers that feature founders and VCs so that all three can speak directly. “Ultimately, the startups benefit and the corporates benefit. We’re also helping VCs’ portfolio companies by making introductions,” he notes. Asked about the many accelerators, incubators, and other outfits trying to make these same connections in Silicon Valley, Hansch readily concedes that there’s plenty of competition. But he argues that there’s plenty of demand, too, particularly from corporates outside of Silicon Valley that either don’t have a local presence or have a minimal one that Sherpa can amplify. While two of its founding members are Silicon Valley bellwethers, what Sherpa Foundry is doing “really resonates with [companies] that are headquartered in London or Dubai or even Minneapolis,” says Hansch. “We’re calling out for them where they should really be spending their time.”
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Amazon makes good on its promise to delete “incentivized” reviews
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Sarah Perez
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Amazon is making good on from its website, according to a new analysis of over 32,000 products and around 65 million reviews. The ban was meant to address the growing problem of less trustworthy reviews that had been plaguing the retailer’s site, leading to products with higher ratings than they would otherwise deserve. Incentivized reviews are those where the vendor offers free or discounted products to reviewers, in exchange for recipients writing their “honest opinion” of the item in an Amazon review. However, that these reviewers tend to write more positive reviews overall, with products earning an average of 4.74 stars out of five, compared with an average rating of 4.36 for non-incentivized reviews. Over time, these reviews proliferated on Amazon, and damaged consumers’ trust in the review system as a whole. And that can impact consumers’ purchase decisions. According to recent findings from , a business that analyzes millions of reviews to help consumers find those they can trust, Amazon has been rapidly deleting incentivized reviews – even retroactively. This is especially interesting because that it would only remove incentivized reviews from older products if they were “excessive” or if they didn’t comply with the prior policy. But apparently, Amazon is going back to remove a large number of older reviews, as well. ReviewMeta checked up on Amazon’s progress by analyzing its own dataset of around 65 million reviews across 32,060 products in all categories. It found that Amazon had deleted over 500,000 reviews, 71 percent of which were incentivized. The average rating for these deleted reviews was 4.75 stars – clearly much higher than the typical average. Some products even saw thousands of reviews removed – like , which had 9,000 reviews removed, for example. The company then analyzed a subset of products from over the past two weeks to get a sense of how many incentivized reviews still remain on Amazon’s site. Across the over 10 million reviews analyzed (a dataset based on those consumers entered on the ReviewMeta website), only 1.5 percent of the reviews were incentivized. “This is considerably less than we were seeing previously,” says Tommy Noonan, ReviewMeta CTO. “For every incentivized review we found on Amazon, there were 2.6 in our database that weren’t there anymore,” he adds, referring to the deleted reviews. What the figures seem to indicate is that, though Amazon is deleting a large number incentivized reviews, it hasn’t managed to catch all of them. Part of the problem could be that incentivized reviews are still rolling in, despite Amazon’s ban. That said, the number of incentivized reviews has dropped significantly following the ban, and this, in turn, has lowered the average rating for all reviews. The day before the ban was enacted, for instance, the average rating for all reviews that day was 4.73; on November 1, the average rating for all reviews had dropped to 4.65. What’s also interesting, Noonan notes, is that Amazon’s product ratings were largely unaffected, despite the mass deletions. The product ratings – that is, when Amazon tells you that a product is “4.5 out of 5 stars” – appear to have already been adjusted to discount the incentivized reviews when calculating the overall rating. “We’re seeing that many incentivized reviews effectively carry zero weight in Amazon’s product ratings,” says Noonan. This is likely due to the fact that a majority (95%) of the incentivized reviews didn’t have the “Verified Purchaser” tag attached – meaning the customer had bought from Amazon directly. And unverified reviews were already carrying no weight in Amazon’s rating system. (The exception being if they were the only reviews a product had, in which case they were used to calculate the overall score). Noonan concludes that Amazon’s actions have sufficiently addressed the problem with its ban. “It’s obviously not 100% perfect,” he says. “It seems [Amazon has] removed a majority of the incentivized reviews and pretty much put an end to more being created. They effectively killed this industry,” he adds.
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Ashton Kutcher and Guy Oseary’s Sound Ventures back Apptopia’s next-gen app intelligence platform
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Sarah Perez
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, a startup that began its life as before morphing into the app intelligence provider that’s now used by Google, Facebook, Pinterest, NBCU, and others, has closed on a second seed round of $2.7 million. The round, which was led by Ashton Kutcher and Guy Oseary’s Sound Ventures, brings Apptopia’s total raise to date to $5 million. Other investors in the round included prior investor Mark Cuban, as well as 500 Startups, RTA Ventures, Full Tilt Capital, Telegraph Hill Capital, Expansion VC and others. Apptopia’s history is interesting, given how it adapted its business over the years after finding that there wasn’t enough money to be made as a marketplace for apps. The company used the underlying data it had collected as a marketplace to re-architect the company to focus on app intelligence data. This space is already filled with competitors – like App Annie, Sensor Tower, SimilarWeb, appFigures, Mixpanel, and others – which focus on various aspects of mobile app analytics and intelligence. However, explains Apptopia CEO Eliran Sapir, larger firms like App Annie have made a business of selling to financial firms and hedge funds, Apptopia comes at the business with a different perspective – it wants to focus on app developers and publishers. That has led it to attract a number of companies to sign up for its paid service, including Google, Pinterest, Facebook, NBC Universal, Philips, Deloitte, Telerik, Fyber, Airpush, Chartboost, Startapp, SendGrid, and others. Sapir admits to being something of an underdog in the space, but one that’s now rapidly growing after nearly having to shut down not too long ago when the marketplace failed. An acquirer initially offered Apptopia $27 million to sell its business, but on the day of the deal, the offer was reduced to only $12 million. The startup rejected the offer and decided to find a way to keep going by pivoting to app intelligence. With personal loans, some additional cash from investors, and one larger pre-sold contract before the service was even launched, it kept the lights on. Today, Apptopia offers app data and store stats, as well as detailed usage data, like daily and monthly active users for apps, number of sessions, session time, retention and more. It also offers insight into how apps are built, pulling in an earlier feature that can show what sort of SDKs app makers are using. And it can offer data on in-app advertising, including things like where an app is advertising, how much they spend, how much they make from ads, and what ad SDKs they use, among other things. When it pivoted to app intelligence in June 2015, Apptopia had no revenue. “Within 60 days, we were at $30K MRR [monthly recurring revenue]. Within 120 days, we were at $70,000 MRR. And today, we’ve quadrupled that…it’s been a wild ride,” says Sapir. He says that Ashton Kutcher’s and Guy Oseary’s Sound Ventures were interested in researching the space, and signed up for a number of competing products. They compared the data from the various firms to that extracted from their own portfolio companies, and found that Apptopia’s was most accurate. They later invested. Apptopia’s pricing plans start at $79 per month for smaller developers and scale up to over $5,000 per month for those who need insight into advertising and API access. The service is also now used by over two dozen VC firms, as well. With the additional funding, Boston-headquartered Apptopia plans to double its 43-person team over the next year, in particular sales and marketing. The next version of the product will focus on making its data actionable. “The industry is in its infancy, and neither us nor our competitors have made moves to go to the next generation,” says Sapir. “The focus for us is not just about showcasing the data and making it accessible, it’s also about helping people make decisions.” In January, Apptopia will roll out version two of its platform which will include optimization tools based on its learnings that can help speed up the time it takes to decide what action to take next, based on the data at hand. “We built tools to take these decisions and make them in seconds, instead of hours or days of work,” he says.
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A longtime VC on the virtues of not swinging for the fences
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Connie Loizos
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There’s a winner-take-all mentality in Silicon Valley. Unfortunately, it has distorted the thinking of countless entrepreneurs who’d likely be better off running smaller companies — and giving up less ownership to investors in the process. While funding announcements are widely celebrated as milestones, the reality is that founders often wind up with , and in plenty of cases, they can sell a company and make almost . It’s a point that longtime VC Jodi Sherman Jahic was eager to make recently when we met up for coffee in San Francisco. In fact, Jahic — who cofounded the venture firm with Susan Mason (who previously spent 15 years with Onset Ventures) — focuses exclusively on enterprise companies that are ruthlessly focused on capital efficiency and whose founders will turn away bigger checks, knowing they could be shooting themselves in the foot otherwise. More from our chat follows, edited for length. JJ: At the time, we were managing a $200 million fund, and [by 2007, 2008] I started to think that even that might be too much for some companies. With $200 million, you’re probably investing in 20 companies, committing up to $10 million in each, and at that level of risk, you’re likely to syndicate each deal. So, if every company can’t take at least $20 million and usually quite a bit more, then it’s probably not that interesting [to the $200 million fund]. And the problem gets larger as the fund gets larger. JJ: Absolutely. When a company is doing just fine, everyone wants to put their money into it, which is ironic because it only generates less cash-on-cash returns for everyone. Also, the venture world tells us this story that one-third of venture-backed companies will become an abject loss and one-third will go sideways and one-third will be hits. So founders reason that two-thirds of the time, they’ll be fine. But that’s not what happens. The majority of the time — something like 75 percent of the time, according to [the benchmarking company] — founders who take venture money get not a dime. And the venture industry has made it worse by taking some opportunities that could be more efficient and generate returns for everybody and turning them into lets-swing-for-the-fences types of things. And not every company is going to grow up to be that. People don’t realize this, but there is zero correlation between how much money goes into a company and its exit value. JJ: I started with a pledge fund, with investors who’d invested alongside me in a wireless company that I’d backed in 2000. The company raised just $1 million but wound up producing a 7x return for us, so these investors committed a certain amount of capital and pledged that money on deal-by-deal basis. To be honest, I’d just had my second kid. I wasn’t sure about fundraising. But this pledge fund idea turned out spectacularly. We invested in a total of seven companies, including and and almost all have exited or are cash-flow even and doing really well. We had just one loss. JJ: I don’t see those firms as direct competitors. JJ: Most seed-stage funds spread their capital pretty thinly, making $500,000 bets on a large number of companies. I think it’s probably standard to invest in 20 to 30 companies. We don’t do that. We invest in $2 million to $5 million over the life of a company, we always take a board seat, and we lead. We feel like you need to do these things if you want to direct the course of an investment. JJ: Actually, as you know, the late-stage market has been supported by an enormous amount of non-venture dollars, and as we’re seeing some of that money flee, we’re also seeing some the larger multi-stage firms focus on their high-burn portfolio companies and less on funding Series A and B companies. JJ: A company has to have initial customers who we can call and understand why they bought. That’s usually less than a million dollars in total revenue when we come in. JJ: Capital efficiency is our core thesis. These are companies in the enterprise space that, by virtue of their go-to-market strategies, are unlikely to need more than $10 million. Also, our typical founder has started a few companies before. In fact, maybe [he or she] has sold a company for a substantial exit but got a nice lucite trophy and a thank you note but didn’t get wealthy because of their company’s cap structure. Those are the people who come to us, saying, “I want to do it differently this time; I don’t want to overstuff my company with excess capital.” JJ. I do. I think we’re seeing many higher-quality companies than we did then. Many fewer venture-backed companies have gone public, too, and on the private market, it takes time for pricing to fall, whereas when you’re public and the market falls out, people leave in droves. So I don’t think we’ll see a bubble popping like we did in 2000 and 2001. Still, I think that because of the vividness of unicorns and exits like that of WhatsApp, a lot of founders and investors overestimate the likelihood of a big exit. I push back on a lot of that power law stuff; it can be an excuse for bad behavior and stupid valuations. If you have to hit outliers to make your nut, you have to do crazy things. If we set things up to see achievable exits, everybody will do better.
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Amazon acquired patents, employees from Biba, reportedly plans new video chat service
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Ingrid Lunden
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Amazon’s purchases of and appear to be only two parts of a bigger strategy at the company to move deeper into video services through acquisition. Last year, the marketplace and cloud computing giant also quietly acquired a startup out of San Francisco called , which develops and operates video messaging apps aimed at business users. Sources say that Amazon has been working on its own video messaging service, which it plans to unveil during its re:Invent AWS conference later this month. News of Amazon’s possible purchase of Biba Systems first surfaced last week, when found some Delaware filings that spoke of a merger with an entity called “Justin Acquisition” in September 2015. There was no direct mention of Amazon in the Justin Acquisition document, but the filing included the name of a paralegal employed at the time by Amazon. Amazon never responded to our request (or GeekWire’s, it seems) for comment on the story. So we decided to do some digging of our own. We discovered some direct links between Biba and Amazon that point to both Biba’s technology and employees now being part of Amazon. We found that Biba had filed and received two patents, one related to , and another related to . Both of these patents transferred their ownership to Amazon Technologies in the last two months. Furthermore, we’ve been able to trace active Amazon work email addresses to current Biba employees. (We are not publishing those here.) It’s not completely clear how and where Amazon might use Biba’s technology, but our sources say that Amazon has lately been showing select people demos of a video conferencing product. “They’re going to launch it at their re:Invent event after Thanksgiving,” said one. Whether that video product (if it indeed launches next week) is built using Biba is not clear. But, by coincidence, we noticed that Biba — which went silent on and with its own marketing efforts by September 2015 — suddenly and quietly updated its and apps in August and September of this year. There is some logic to Amazon expanding apps and software that it offers over AWS. Today, AWS already sells some products on top of its could-based infrastructure. They include , a cloud-based managed email and calendar service for businesses; and , a desktop virtualization service that competes with products from VMware, Parallels, Microsoft and more. Adding a workplace collaboration and conferencing product to that mix would be an obvious extension of Amazon’s existing own-brand, cloud-based services. Among the features that Biba currently offers are video and audio conference calls, including scheduling and management; contacts and presence management; messaging services; screen sharing; and administration features for IT managers. People have if Amazon would get deeper into enterprise software; now, it seems, it could be. Such a move might make it more competitive against the likes of Microsoft, which rivals AWS with Azure and its own extensive range of enterprise software. It has updated its own video conferencing product, Skype, to make it more business-friendly. In any case, however, for now it looks like whatever Amazon brings to the table in terms of its own software is there to complement, not cannibalise, services that work over AWS, which the company has been the enterprise equivalent of Amazon’s consumer e-commerce marketplace. There are other areas where Amazon might end up using some of Biba’s technology. As we noted above, Amazon ran its M&A through an entity called Justin Acquisition, which GeekWire speculates could be in reference to another Amazon purchase, video platform Twitch. (Its founders also founded video service Justin.tv, which was to focus on Twitch.) Today, the vast majority of Twitch’s 45 million-user audience is made up of gamers, who broadcast themselves or watch others playing games and comment on them. But there have been other efforts to like and . Amazon could integrate Biba’s functionality into Twitch, or vice versa, either to add more interactive elements, or expand Twitch’s functionality as a B2B platform. And last but not least, there is an opportunity also for Amazon to use Biba for internal purposes. Looking around Amazon’s job boards, we found only one reference to Biba on there: in an for AWS Support, helping AWS customers with questions about AWS products, where Biba is named along with Webex and Adobe Connect as one of the software platforms that applicants need to have used in the past. Amazon could build its own proprietary internal support network on Biba’s platform; potentially, it could subsequently offer this out as a service on AWS. Biba had raised , according to CrunchBase, with investors including Benchmark, Trinity and InterWest Partners.
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UK wants to censor ‘non-conventional’ sex videos
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John Biggs
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In an ongoing effort to prevent pornography from soiling the shores of Britannia, UK lawmakers are working to prevent the spread of ‘non-conventional’ sex videos online. The proposed law blocks sites that host content that “certified for commercial DVD sale by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC),” an organization similar to the MPAA in the US and formerly called the British Board of Film Censors. The law is supported by the UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The bill also requires stringent age checks for online pornography and gives the UK government the ability to block non-compliant sites. “Non-conventional” sex acts are, as you’d expect, fairly conventional when looked at from a human perspective. The BBFC, for example, will not rate films that contain anything from female ejaculation to spanking. Their guidelines, for example, note that “sexual fetish material, including bondage or sadomasochistic activity, urination and other bodily functions” is forbidden. The bill also contains language that allows the UK to block payments to non-compliant sites. The Guardian notes that this ban brings the UK “back to the pre-Internet era.” “The Government is committed to keeping children safe from harmful pornographic content online and that is exactly what we are doing,” said Karen Bradley, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. “Only adults should be allowed to view such content and we have appointed a regulator, BBFC, to make sure the right age checks are in place to make that happen. If sites refuse to comply, they should be blocked.” Britain’s recent pre-occupation with Internet censorship is . It’s abundantly clear that any effort to block porn in the UK is short-sighted and nearly every proposed punishment – from ISP controls to payment blocking – are easily circumventable by anyone interested enough to do so. Further, as , porn is literally impossible to block and only good parenting and a strong home supervision can prevent kids from seeing this sort of content. Only the simplest and least Internet-savvy politician still believes there is a chance to put the porn genie back into the porn bottle. The Guardian and I’ve reached out to both for further clarification.
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Gong says it’s cracked news personalization
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Anthony Ha
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If you’re a little skeptical about trying out another news aggregator, CEO Itzik Ben-Bassat knows what you’re probably thinking — after all, he heard the same thing when he was pitching investors. “They all kind of looked at me and said, ‘ ,'” he recalled. But it seems like (who was previously an executive at Blizzard Entertainment and a board member at Wix) managed to win some of those investors over — he’s raised $3 million in seed funding from Bloomberg Beta, Sequoia Capital, Mangrove Capital Partners, Boldstart Ventures and various angels. So what’s Gong doing that’s different? Ben-Bassat classified previous attempts to deliver personalized news into two buckets. First, there are the social networks themselves, which he said were “not built for news” — which is one of the reasons why they’re struggling to fight back against and . Second, there are apps that try to identify your interests, then use semantic analysis to determine which articles will be relevant to you — an approach that Ben-Bassat described as “very cold.” Ben-Bassat said his team at Gong is combining the two approaches, looking at how stories spread across social media and combining that with the behavior of individual readers, creating what it calls the HackRank algorithm. The goal is to predict which story will be interesting to you, even before it’s become a huge story on other sites. “As we’re getting ahead in terms of technology, in terms of … the ability to understand people, then you need to bring a little bit of soul into the algorithm,” Ben-Bassat said. “What we found is that the social data is really complementing the personalization in a great way and is allowing us to kind of create a better prediction of what people are interested in.” As far as the actual reading experience goes, navigating Gong should be pretty intuitive — you can search for and subscribe to news on topics that interest you, or browse sections for breaking news and staff picks. Each story is limited to the version that’s available via RSS (so you might end up doing a lot of clicking to other sites) and comes with a “Gong social share” count. Since launching the current version of Gong in September, Ben-Bassat said traffic has been growing 30 percent each week, with no marketing, with 25 percent each day’s readers returning after previous visits. Gong is ad-free for now. Ben-Bassat said he’s currently focused on refining the algorithm and growing the audience, though he plans to experiment with advertising eventually.
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Security researchers can turn headphones into microphones
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John Biggs
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Security researchers at Israel’s Ben Gurion University have created a proof-of-concept exploit that lets them turn headphones into microphones to secretly record conversations. The PoC, called first turned headphones connected to a PC into microphones and then tested the quality of sound recorded by a microphone vs. headphones on a target PC. In short, the headphones were nearly as good as an unpowered microphone at picking up audio in a room. The hack is fairly ingenious. It essentially “retasks” the RealTek audio codec chip output found in many desktop computers into an input channel. This means you can plug your headphones into a seemingly output-only jack and hackers can still listen in. “Our experiments demonstrate that intelligible audio can be acquired through earphones and can then be transmitted distances up to several meters away,” wrote researcher Mordecai Guri. “In addition, we showed that the same setup achieves channel capacity rates close to 1 Kbps in a wide range of frequencies.” “Most of today’s built-in sound cards are to some degree retaskable, which means that they can be used for more than one thing. …the kernel exposes an interface that makes it possible to retask your jacks, but almost no one seems to use it, or even know about it,” wrote Linux sound engineer David Henningsson. That’s exactly the exploit Speak(a)r uses. This isn’t a driver fix, either. The embedded chip does not allow users to properly prevent this hack which means your earbuds or nice cans could start picking up conversations instantly. In fact, even if you disable your microphone, a computer with a RealTek chip could still be hacked and exploited without your knowledge. The sound quality, as shown by this chart, is pretty much the same for a dedicated microphone and headphones. “Modern PC and laptops motherboards include integrated audio codecs hardware which allow for modification of the audio jacks’ functionality from output to input within software,” said Guri. “In this paper we examine this issue in the context of cyber-security. We present SPEAKE(a)R, a software that can render a PC, even once without microphones, into an eavesdropping device.” Luckily this is still a proof-of-concept so you don’t have to dunk your headphones in acid… yet.
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Handy’s Black Friday promo rewards contractors over customers
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Jordan Crook
| 2,016
| 11
| 23
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Handy, the on-demand service for cleaners, handymen, and more, has today announced the Give > Get promotion for Black Friday. This Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, customers pay the same amount as they’d usually pay, but the company will add a 50 percent bonus to the Handy Professional’s paycheck. The booking itself doesn’t need to be for Black Friday, but the booking has to be on Black Friday for the promotion to apply. Handy started out as an on-demand cleaning service and has since expanded to offer storage, handyman work, and painting. The company currently serves 28 markets and has “thousands” of Handy Professionals on the platform. This new crop of large-scale on-demand startups, which rely on both end-users and contracted 1099 workers to provide service, begs an interesting question during the holiday season. During a day like Black Friday, traditionally geared toward luring customers with steep discounts, Handy is instead shifting focus to its contracted workers by giving them bonus earnings. Considering Handy’s business isn’t suited to being used on a holiday weekend, this Black Friday promotion is an interesting way to get end-users on the platform on a day they normally wouldn’t be, while incentivizing the legs (contractors) of the platform.
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Lovely is finally shipping the Fitbit for sexy times
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John Biggs
| 2,016
| 11
| 23
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Do you and your partner often do sex? Do you want to know how much sex you’re doing? And do you want to know how good it is and how good it could be? What is sex? Does anyone know? Can help us find out? Hopefully, because I’m confused. Created by Jakub Konik and Tomasz Badyla Lovely is a thinger that goes on your other thinger and measures your position, speed, and attack angles. It isn’t a vibrator per se but more of a sensor that also doubles as a stimulating sex add-on. Once you’re done with the sex time you can look at your phone and get expert advice on how you did (Bad, Fair, Good, and Cool Ranch) and what sex positions to try later. “Over two years ago after particularly intense night with my partner we started wondering how many calories we just burned. I replied that there must be an app for that and actually started looking for it, but found nothing. I did some more research, talked to sexologists, industrial designers and engineers, and realized that we could create a device that not only tells you how many calories you burn during sex, but actually understands your desires and helps you to pursue them,” said Konik. The team hopes to create an ecosystem of sex tools for people who have and/or enjoy sex. We have yet to actually try this thing yet but rest assured a pedometer for your peder seems fairly interesting if you’re really into the quantified self. They’re selling pre-orders on and they even show pictures of how sex works on their website which could be helpful for folks who don’t know. As they say in G.I. Joe: “Knowing is half the battle.” [vimeo 191760997 w=640 h=360]
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NHTSA spells out what your phone shouldn’t be able to do while driving
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Darrell Etherington
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| 11
| 23
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The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration released new for software makers and device manufacturers, including smartphone makers like Apple and Google, which aim to cut down on driver distraction from mobile apps and hardware. These guidelines, which are again voluntary, are based on research about what factors have led to road-related deaths stemming from driver distraction. They include recommendations that device manufacturers build infotainment pairing in to gadgets like smartphones by default, and add a “Driver Mode” that will create a simplified user interface for the device when it’s being used in a vehicle. Sound familiar? It should – Google has essentially complied with these recommendations with its latest , which simplifies the interface with larger touch targets, allowing a user to more easily control navigation, music playback and more while they’re using their phone via a dash mount in their vehicle. It brings the Android Auto interface previously only available on specific in-car infotainment units to any compatible Android device. NHTSA’s guidelines ask for some further steps, however, including locking out certain functions. NHTSA notes in the opening to the guidelines that 10 percent to the 2015 recorded traffic fatalities involved at least one distracted driver, which was up 8.8 percent from the previous year, hence the need for urgent action on trying to curb that trend. NHTSA also defines three kinds of distraction it aims to correct with these voluntary measures: visual, manual (i.e., requiring you to take your hands off the steering wheel) and cognitive (taking your mind of the road). The proposed guidelines in this second phase of NHTSA’s recommendations include feature lock-outs that occur when a smartphone is paired with a car’s infotainment system – these would include blocking the ability to show video unrelated to driving on a device screen, blocking the display of some types of pictures or graphics, and preventing display from showing automatically scrolling text (apparently some people read while driving using this kind of app). Non-voice text entry in general and other lengthy text display designed for reading is also on the proposed block list. Driver Mode, in NHTSA’s proposal, would block those locked out features but offer a simplified, easier to use interface on the device itself for when pairing while driving isn’t an option or isn’t used by a driver. NHTSA doesn’t want passengers to be blocked from full use of their device, however, so it also asks for the development of tech that can automatically distinguish between drivers and passengers during use and lock out features only for drivers. This last bit might be the tallest order among these recommendations in terms of getting OEM buy-in; making things like CarPlay and Android Auto available even when a device isn’t connected to an in-car infotainment system is relatively simple, but building in tech that automatically limits access to features in certain scenarios like driving, and that can also distinguish the difference between use by a passenger and use by a driver is a much bigger ask. Even if its technically feasible, I can’t imagine smartphone makers being enthusiastic about building features into phones that specifically lock down aspects of their utility temporarily without user input. Still, NHTSA is calling for open comments so we’ll see how device makers respond.
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Alexa can now clean a floor with Neato’s robot vacuum
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Brian Heater
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Neato got on the smartphone connected robot vacuum train early on, so it’s really only fitting that the company become the first to embrace Amazon’s multi-talented home assistant. Starting this week, the company’s Botvac Connected vacuum , so users can control a clean by speaking. The functionality is pretty basic to start, with commands like “Alexa, ask Neato to start cleaning” and “Alexa, ask Neato to pause cleaning.” Though, as the company puts it in its press release, “the possibilities are endless,” whatever that means. To promote the newfound Skill, Neato will be bundling an Echo Dot with its connected vacuum for free, between Black Friday and December 23. Though apparently Amazon hasn’t signed off on that deal. But hey, free Amazon Echo. The Botvac Connected, which was introduced last year, can also be started and stopped via the app and also controlled manually to get at a specific spot, allowing for a more hands-on control scheme than the crisscrossed patterned room cleans offered up by the Roomba.
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Albert raises $2.5 million for its finance app that helps you save money
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Sarah Perez
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Everyone knows the basics of how to improve their financial health: put money into savings, track your spending, reduce your debt, look for ways to save on your monthly bills, and make smart investments. Where people struggle is translating that knowledge into specific actions you can take today. That’s where an application called steps into help. The startup, which has now closed on $2.5 million in seed funding, offers a simple way to track your finances as well as personalized recommendations aimed at boosting your overall financial standing. The funding comes from Bessemer Ventures Partners, CFSI (Center for Financial Services Innovation), 500 Startups, and 500 Fintech, and others. It arrives shortly after the app’s launch earlier this summer. Albert was co-founded by former college friends Yinon Ravid and Andrzej Baraniak, who both previously held careers in financial services. Aimed largely at younger, mobile users, Albert is not a mobile banking application, like Simple. If anything, it operates more like Mint, in the sense that it aggregates your financial data into a single destination, including bank accounts, credit cards, property, loans and investments. Where it differs from a service like Mint is that it’s more narrowly focused on offering financial advice and encouraging you to make changes, while also helping you track your everyday spending and budget. And when it offers tips, it pushes you to actually put them into action. For example, Albert may suggest that you need to start a savings account. “The vast majority of people between the ages of 20 and 40 don’t actually save money – they actually spend more than they’ve earned in the last three months,” explains Ravid. “So one of the first pieces of advice we give is to save a few dollars to grow your emergency fund.” Albert then helps you get this fund started by transferring money automatically from your bank Albert Savings, its FDIC-insured savings account that lives directly in the app. This idea of automating your finances is something several other mobile apps in the broader fintech space have also implemented, like savings apps Digit or Qapital and investing apps like Stash Invest and Acorns. Meanwhile, in terms of offering a bird’s-eye view of your finances, Albert is up against apps like Level Money or Prosper Daily. Others still, like LearnVest, aim to teach you how to take charge of your finances by offering personal advice. Albert, however, takes all those concepts and places them into a single destination. In addition to helping you save, Albert may also suggest things like applying for a lower-interest loan to pay off credit card debt, reducing your car insurance payments by changing insurers, or making investments. [gallery ids="1420076,1420074,1420072"] To make these recommendations, Albert works with partners – and this is also how it makes money. The company has relationships with lenders who will offer loan quotes, while it turns over investment advice to Betterment, and it works with CoverHound to provide insurance quotes. Albert generates revenue from these referrals, which is how it keeps its app free for consumers. While that also means Albert is outsourcing a lot of the heavy-lifting in terms of the advice it offers, that helps to keep its suggestions unbiased, notes Ravid. “One of the things we think is very important in giving people advice and improving their financial health is staying objective and staying at arm’s length from the services we recommend,” he says. Beyond its advice, Albert also notifies you when important things happen with your money – like you’ve gotten an overdraft fee, or a bill is coming due. And it has a variety of tools that let you view your spending, bills and income, to give users a reason to interact with the app on a regular basis, even after they’ve taken action on Albert’s tips. Ravid wouldn’t talk about how many users Albert has, but its app is now ranked #84 in the Finance category on the iTunes App Store, where Apple has been regularly featuring it in recent days. The co-founder would say that the volume of data Albert is tracking is growing, and it now tracks over 50 million transactions. The L.A.-based startup is a team of four, and recently rolled out version 2.0 of its app in advance of its plans to launch on Android. The app is .
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Samsung’s latest acquisition could pave the way for its own iMessage-type service
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Jon Russell
| 2,016
| 11
| 15
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This is a week for Samsung acquisitions, it seems. Fresh from announcing , the Korean giant revealed on Wednesday that it is also , a messaging company, in an undisclosed deal. The company might not be as sexy or as recognizable as Harman, which claims to have audio and connected systems in 30 million cars worldwide, but NewNet could provide an important piece of the services puzzle for Samsung. Harman promises to give Samsung a huge boost in owning the increasingly important in-car infotainment space, where Google’s Android Auto and Apple’s CarPlay systems are already in the market, because of its sheer consumer presence and brand. NewNet could help in another important domain: messaging. It could enable Samsung to introduce its own messaging services to rival to iMessage, Google’s many chat apps and third-parties like WhatsApp, which counts a billion active users. (Samsung’s previous stab at messaging, a chat app called ChatOn, was nearly two years ago.) Canada-based NewNet specializes in RCS infrastructure and services which enable things like high-quality voice calls, group calls, video calls, file sharing and more. Its technology allows these features across users with different kinds of devices and different mobile operators, in a similar way that iMessage users can send each other different media types and free messages across the Apple service. It isn’t entirely clear right now how Samsung will use NewNet, which will remain a standalone business under its ownership, but this could be another catch up move on its rivals — not unlike the Harman deal is but far, far cheaper.
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