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Alexa can now fact check the 2016 election
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Sarah Perez
| 2,016
| 10
| 21
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Having a heated argument while discussing the presidential elections with friends? Good news: Alexa can now fact check the 2016 campaign, answering questions about the candidate’s claims right on the spot. This includes statements made by Clinton and Trump, as well as other candidates and politicians whose comments have been checked. This fact-checking is being made possible by way of a new skill – one of the many add-on, voice-activated apps that enhance the powers of Amazon’s virtual assistant, who lives on devices like the Amazon Echo speaker, Fire TV, and others. The new “ ” skill comes from the Duke Reporters’ Lab, which leverages respected fact checkers, including those from the Washington Post’s Fact Checker, FactCheck.org, and PolitiFact, in order to answer your questions. To kick off the skill, once installed, you say: “Alexa, ask the fact-checkers…” followed by your query. The skill is capable of checking claims made during the debates, campaign ads, and other interviews. For example, here are some of the questions you can now ask Alexa: The skill, which is a spin-off from , works by using natural speech recognition to analyze and answer questions from a database of around 2,000 professionally curated fact checks. Results are scaled so they’re both timely, and have the most consensus among the launch partners’ fact checking services. This isn’t the only way Amazon’s Alexa has been helping users during the presidential campaigns. Amazon itself without the need for an additional skill. For example, Alexa was able to tell voters when the debates were airing on TV, can answer questions about who’s leading the polls, and will be able to answer questions about what states a given candidate has won. The latter question is one of several voice commands Alexa will answer starting on Election Day, as the service will provide real-time updates on the election. You’ll also be able to ask things like who’s winning, what percent of the popular vote a candidate has, who’s winning overall, who’s projected to win a particular state, how many votes were collected in that state, the election results by district, or even just: “what are the election results?” Already, users have been turning to Alexa for answers about the ongoing campaigns and debates. Amazon says that Alexa saw a 4,000 percent increase in inquires related to the word “hombre,” during the final debate on Wednesday, as one example. And the two most popular debate questions that users asked were, in order of popularity: “Alexa, what time is the debate?” and “Alexa, who won the debate?” Amazon also says that Alexa users have asked millions of questions to date related to the 2016 election. Hundreds of thousands of those questions were related to the debates. And people asked twice as many questions about Donald Trump compared with Hillary Clinton, Amazon notes. For what it’s worth, Alexa isn’t picking sides herself. She doesn’t claim either candidate won the last debate, for example, responding that it’s not likely that either candidate lost or gained new votes. Meanwhile, when asked who she’s voting for – something users have now asked over 13,000 times – Alexa will only chirp: “There are no voting booths in the clouds – believe me, I’ve looked. It’s all ones and zeroes up here.”
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Facebook plans to reduce censorship, show more offensive but newsworthy content
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Josh Constine
| 2,016
| 10
| 21
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Facebook will soon display more graphic content including violence and nudity that would normally violate its policies as long as the imagery is newsworthy or important enough. Joel Kaplan, Facebook’s VP of global policy “Our intent is to allow more images and stories without posing safety risks or showing graphic images to minors and others who do not want to see them.” The move comes after criticism of Facebook’s temporary censorship of the famous “Napalm Girl” photo of a nude child from the Vietnam War, which was shared by a Norwegian journalist and later by the newspaper he works for. Eventually and restored shares of the photo after heavy media and public backlash. Facebook also temporarily took down the video showing the final moments of Philando Castile before he died after being shot by police. Facebook at the time claimed a “technical glitch” caused the disappearance of the newsworthy video. But Facebook’s VP of News Feed Adam Mosseri last month admitted that Facebook tries to “automatically detect content that violates our standards. And we actually had a sort of miscategorization.” That implies it was a wrongly applied censorship algorithm rather than some sort of mundane server outage. And just last night, , and has since apologized and restored it. While in July to TechCrunch, clearly it needs a better-defined process for how to apply it, which apparently is what’s coming. Recently Facebook took feedback from its community about what they did and didn’t want to see. Its decision is that “In the weeks ahead, we’re going to begin allowing more items that people find newsworthy, significant, or important to the public interest — even if they might otherwise violate our standards,” Kaplan said. One possible way to do this would be to age-gate content that might be offensive to minors. As for adults, TechCrunch has suggested Facebook employ about graphic content that users would have to click through to watch. To aid this, we’ve suggested that Facebook ad a content flagging option that something is “graphic but newsworthy”, which would allow users to notify the company about content that needs a warning but shouldn’t be removed. Facebook has repeatedly stated that it’s not a media company, meaning it doesn’t have the same editorial responsibilities to avoid censorship even if it offends viewers. Facebook insists it operates as a technology platform that gives users what they want. On stage at TechCrunch Disrupt, Mosseri said that “We think of ourselves as a technology company. We know we play a meaningful role in media,” yet “our responsibility is to make sure we’re a platform for all ideas. We’re not in the business of deciding which ideas people should read about.” But by relaxing its community standards today, Facebook is directly contradicting that statement. It’s making a judgement call about what’s newsworthy and what people should read about, even if it might offend them or other users. This makes it clear that unless Facebook wants to run an unrestrained free-for-all of a content site or apply an inflexible censorship policy, it must accept its responsibilities as a media company.
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Scientists made babies from mouse skin cells
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Sarah Buhr
| 2,016
| 10
| 21
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A group of Japanese scientists from Kyushu University has turned mouse skin cells into baby mice without the use of egg cells. The technology skips over the usual method of fertilizing egg cells with sperm and instead uses a method to grow the cells with the necessary chromosomal pairs needed for life to begin. This is the first time something like this has ever been achieved and not a lot of the mouse cells from the lab led to live births, according to the study first reported in . But it has some interesting potential ramifications. Though it’s early days here and we’re just talking mice for now, theoretically, the technique could help older women who no longer produce eggs to have their own, biological offspring. It could even allow two men to make a baby without a donor egg. The study builds on the work of , who won a Nobel prize in 2007 for his work in stem cell research. Yamanaka showed he could program adult skin cells to make pluripotent stem cells, which could be used to make any other types of cells for use in the body — a crucial discovery in that it meant it was not necessary to destroy human embryos to grow stem cells to help with diseases like Parkinsons. The next part of the process was to produce mature sex cells from these pluripotent stem cells — something the lead scientist in the study Katsuhiko Hayashi had tried to do back in 2012 while at the University of Kyoto. But that proved to be a lot harder. Until now, the scientists have only been able to produce something resembling egg and sperm cells and that didn’t work for making babies. The scientists in this study found they could make mature egg cells from mouse skin if they encased it in cells taken from a part of a mouse fetus where it develops ovaries or testis. While that part of the operation helped to shape the stem cells into something more like an ovary, it could prove problematic down the line for those who might oppose using the cells of human embryos in the process of making humans from skin cells. However, Hayashi says he’s now working on some sort of artificial reagent to replace the fetal cells. But we likely won’t be getting any humans this way anytime soon if regulators have anything to do with it – Hayashi and his team are not allowed to even make an attempt as Japanese law forbids fertilizing engineered human cells, even for research. And gene-editing on humans is even a thorny subject in the U.S. Where gene modification was once the wild west and some techniques supposedly produced — though it’s what happened to them — Federal regulators genetic modification of embryos. While that’s different from actually growing embryos from your own skin cells, it dips into unfamiliar territory and will surely be up for fierce debate — particularly if it requires the use of embryonic cells to get us there. But the process still has a long way to go. Just 3.5 percent of the cells in the Japanese study produced live births. Compare that to other fertility methods like in vitro fertilization (IVF), which has a roughly 30 percent success rate or in vitro maturation (IVM), which is successful about 40 percent of the time. Still, the idea that we are on the brink of creating humans from skin is mind-boggling and though the scientists working on this technology in Japan can’t continue with human cells, someone is bound to pick it up and figure out how to do it, eventually.
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Researchers sabotage 3D printer files to destroy a drone
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John Biggs
| 2,016
| 10
| 21
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Researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU), the University of South Alabama, and Singapore University of Technology and Design have successfully injected malicious code into a computer which, in turn, added invisible commands to a file containing a 3D model of a drone propeller. When they printed the model and attached it to the drone, the propeller broke upon take-off. This killed the drone. In short, the exploit, codenamed Dr0wned, was able to modify a digital file that, in turn, destroyed a physical device. “Imagine that an adversary can sabotage functional parts employed in an airplane’s jet engines. Such an attack could cost lives, cause economic loss, disrupt industry, and threaten a country’s national security,” said researcher Yuval Elovici, a professor at BGU. “With the growth of additive manufacturing worldwide, we believe the ability to conduct malicious sabotage of these systems will attract the attention of many adversaries, ranging from criminal gangs to state actors, who will aim either for profit or for geopolitical power.” The attack works by hiding instructions inside a model file like an STL. These instructions make the printer appear to print a normal, solid part, but with a fatal flaw. When you use the piece in a working machine it quickly fails, destroying the part and the machine. The researchers injected malicious code into a plastic propeller and quickly destroyed a $1,000 drone in their tests. The exploit requires control over the victim’s computer. It begins with a phishing email that encourages the user to read a PDF which is actually a piece of remote access malware. The attacker then looks for all STL files and injects code in them that weakens the parts. The resulting defects are impossible to detect. For example, the propellers above are based on the same file but the one labelled A has been modified to fail. It is almost impossible to tell them apart. While not many people are printing mission critical objects on their home 3D printers we could imagine a future in which airplane parts are transmitted to a third party for heavy-duty printing. An exploit in that chain could prove more than fatal. Luckily this is still a proof of concept and the only thing hurt is an innocent but expensive drone. [youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUnSpT6jSys]
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SoundShare’s new iMessage app lets you text your friends entire songs
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Sarah Perez
| 2,016
| 10
| 21
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A new iMessage app from the music-focused social network will now let you share entire tracks with your friends over text messaging. Of course, there are already a number of ways to text friends your favorite music, thanks to the launch of the iMessage App Store. Apple Music has a built-in iMessage app, for example, and . However, these apps are limited because they work best for those who are already using the given service, or have the appropriate app installed. Pandora’s iMessage app will kick non-users over the App Store to download it, if the recipient doesn’t have its app installed on their device. Plus, because it’s a music radio service, when your friend taps the track you’ve sent, it only plays a 30-second sample. And if you want to interact with the track further, you tap it to start a Pandora artist station. This isn’t exactly the ideal way to share a song you want your friend to listen to it in its entirety. SoundShare’s app works around the problem of people using different music services by giving your friend the option as to where they want to hear the song. By default, the recipient can choose to launch the song’s video on YouTube; stream it through Apple Music, if they’re a subscriber; or launch iTunes to hear the preview, and optionally purchase it or the album. Unfortunately, though SoundShare itself works with Spotify (Premium) and Deezer, these are not options in the iMessage app – you can only launch the track to stream in full on SoundShare, if you’ve previously connected Spotify or Deezer to your SoundShare account. The new iMessage app arrived in a recent update to SoundShare’s flagship iOS app, which debuted earlier this year. The main application offers a music social network of sorts, where you can find and follow others, create collaborative playlists, or view your friends’ playlists – no matter which music service they’ve chosen to use. But the iMessage app is what makes SoundShare worth the install, really. It’s a better experience than just texting a YouTube link, which is what many people do today when sharing music over text messaging. Once installed, you can access SoundShare from the apps screen in iMessage. The interface offers a list of the Top 100 songs on its social network, which is useful if you want to see what’s trending and popular. However, it doesn’t have separate sections for songs by genre or new releases. Instead, you just type in what you’re looking for using the search bar, then tap the song to send it to your friend. [gallery ids="1405109,1405108,1405107,1405106"] The result is a much improved experience for the recipient versus getting a YouTube link, as SoundShare displays an image thumbnail alongside a link that will offer all the streaming options. SoundShare’s new iMessage app is , and works on iOS 10 and higher.
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VR and inclusivity
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Raphael Clegg-Vinell
| 2,016
| 10
| 21
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For Brits of our generation, the first understanding of virtual reality might have been the VR glasses used by Lister in the TV series Red Dwarf to have “sex.” Those a little older might remember the 1960s invention the machine, which played stereoscopic 3D films accompanied by sound, wind, aromas and chair-tilting. Approaching 2017, Apple is rumored to be exploring VR, Google is expected to launch a new standalone VR headset to succeed Google Cardboard and PlayStation recently launched its According to a from Digi-Capital, investment in augmented reality and VR reached $1.1 billion in the first two months of this year. A billion-dollar industry is taking off, and we are excited that it has the potential to transform the lives of disabled people. But whatever the promise of this amazing tech, the industry has to move quickly to understand the needs and abilities of a full range of people and make sure it can offer a great experience for every possible user. For the 285 million people in the world who are blind or have sight loss, there’s a lot to consider in a virtual reality that relies heavily on eyesight. We would, of course, hope to see screen readers and voice tools like Siri incorporated into VR products as the standard. It’s also increasingly common to see screen interfaces that allow users to adjust the text size and contrast for different vision abilities, and we’d like to see this translated to VR. It might prove a little more tricky, but attention to detail is vital if VR is going to be something that everyone can use. We’re excited at the prospect of this technology helping people with certain eye conditions see things again — by defining objects with greater contrast and clarity. Or if someone is blind and visual information can be represented in other ways, then this is a powerful method to allow the person to be aware of their surroundings and make informed decisions on navigation and interaction. There have been some big breakthroughs. For example, Bonny, the woman in the video below, was diagnosed with 10 years ago and hadn’t been able to see any faces for eight years. The disease causes a reduction in your central, or detailed, vision. The video shows her using an Android app called , which works with a phone camera and displays the front image to the phone screen in stereoscopic. Although sight loss might be the biggest inclusivity issue for developers to think about, it isn’t the only one. For the 360 million people in the world with hearing loss, VR developers should be looking to sync up/provide real-time captions without delays, as well as offer alternatives to sound effects, such as vibration/haptic feedback — both of which would be beneficial for all users. The integration of recently invented gloves would also be useful in VR to enable people who use sign language to communicate within the experience. While a lot of the focus of VR is sensory, there are a number of considerations for those with physical disability rather than a sensory loss. Users in a wheelchair, for example, might enjoy VR as a way to “move” more easily around places their wheelchair can’t go, enabling them to climb mountains, or skateboard perhaps. However, for those parts of a VR experience that do require a physical movement and which aren’t possible for some people, developers need to find ways through. We would suggest this include such measures as enabling a user to send signals or “move” using an eye tracker. We love the fact that VR is already being used in some cases to help aid muscle memory recovery for things like stroke, too. Synthesized environments help people simulate walking and other movements. The video below shows a prototype of the Teslasuit — a wireless outfit that uses electro muscular stimulation and combines it with VR to make a more engaging experience. But inclusivity can be a lot more than basic accessibility. We think VR is a ripe opportunity to think outside conventions and make a world that is more user-friendly for all. At the moment, for example with the HTC Vive virtual reality headset, the head height (and controller location) of the user is automatically tracked, placing the camera level of the user at something closely approximating their natural head height, whether in a wheelchair or otherwise. What if there was a way to adjust the head height so that people in wheelchairs could choose to have a higher point of vision than they do in everyday life, enabling them to see and reach more clearly within the VR world, and have more access to their VR surroundings? It’s an exciting new world that is still in its infancy — very few of the big players are even mentioning inclusivity. But like any area of digital accessibility, there is a huge opportunity in getting this right, and we’re confident that the next few years will see serious investment from companies looking to capitalize on the inclusive potential and really use this technology for social good.
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DJI says it’s starting to ship its folding drone
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Brian Heater
| 2,016
| 10
| 21
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Looks like DJI may beat GoPro’s ship date yet. After due to unspecified manufacturing reasons, the company’s eagerly anticipated folding photography drone looks to finally be heading out to early purchasers. Three days after chalking the delay up to “amazingly strong global demand,” the company’s Global Director of Communication has assuring customers that the quadcopter will finally start shipping out to purchasers starting today. As we told you earlier this week, demand is heavy, and we are working round the clock to get the Mavic Pro in your hands. Please check online for updates on your order status. The device first captured the attention of the drone enthusiast community when it was unveiled at a press conference in New York last last month, promising a smaller build and better tracking capabilities than GoPro’s long awaited Karma. The company also announced an October 15 ship date at the time, beating GoPro’s by more than a week, in spite of being announced after the Karma. Thus far, the company has issued a small number of devices to reviewers, but most of those who paid the $749+ have yet to receive the Mavic.
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Matthew Panzarino
| 2,016
| 10
| 26
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Facebook Live broadcasting up 4X since May, gets TV and outdoor promo
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Josh Constine
| 2,016
| 10
| 21
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Facebook wants you to know Live broadcasting isn’t just for celebrities. Facebook US and UK TV, web, billboard, bus, and baggage claim ads that suggest you go Live when you see something cool, want to show off a talent, or just have something important to say. The campaign could further accelerate the growth of Live, which has seen the number of people broadcasting at any given minute go up 4X since May. Streams have come from all seven continents plus outer space, they cause people to comment 10X more than normal videos, get watched 3X longer than non-Live content, and most broadcasts come from regular people even if public figures get the biggest audiences. Facebook is competing with YouTube Live and Twitter’s Periscope for broadcasters and viewers, and the ads could help give it a populist edge. Here we’ve compiled all of the video ads into one clip: Facebook’s come a long way from its clumsy, confusing, and pretentious first TV spot celebrating its billionth user back in 2012 that declared “Facebook is like a chair”. Ya know, because it’s present in everyone’s life. The new campaigns are much more direct, comprehensible, and authentic. Each offers an example of what you could broadcast. In fact, Facebook’s CMO writes “All of the content for the campaign—every video, every image—was shot using Facebook Live on a phone.” Facebook typically lets failing products die rather than pour resources into them, suggesting it sees strong potential for Live. Here are all of the tag lines from the new ads, and where they’re running: [gallery size="medium" ids="1405094,1405092,1405095,1405097,1405096"] Facebook was already spending to promote Facebook Live, but by planning to pay more than 140 news publishers and influencers a total of over . That seems to have successfully seeded the concept of Live streaming on Facebook, but now it has to get people to actually do it. While YouTube has positioned itself as a feature for web celebrities, and Periscope has focused on citizen journalism and expert Q&As, the Facebook Live ads position it as the broadcasting tool of the common man.
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Crunch Report | Verizon wants $1 billion discount on Yahoo deal
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Khaled "Tito" Hamze
| 2,016
| 10
| 7
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Tito Hamze, John Mannes
Tito Hamze
Joe Zolnoski
Joe Zolnoski
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Online food delivery still presents a $210B market opportunity
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Eric Kim
| 2,016
| 10
| 7
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I wrote last year about the broad, to online food ordering, and the significant capital inflows into the space that we were seeing. Fast-forward a year, and we’re now looking at a very different funding environment. , international inflows of capital to the food delivery category dropped 69 percent in Q1 ’16, and then dropped another 49 percent in Q2 ’16. Source: CB Insights While the tide has definitely turned from a financing perspective, the market opportunity presented by online food delivery still remains as large as ever. In fact, in an updated industry report from June of this year, Morgan Stanley Research points to a core addressable restaurant spend of $210 billion, of which online food delivery comprises only $10 billion — less than 5 percent ( ). This amounts to only “1/2 the penetration of e-commerce and 1/8 of online travel.” By those metrics, online food delivery is unequivocally “still in its nascency.” Source: Public Company Filings, AlphaWise, PhocusWright, U.S. Census Bureau, ComScore, Forrester, Euromonitor, Morgan Stanley and Wall Street Research Reports A statistic that is less often discussed is that an estimated 60 percent of this $210 billion addressable market is attributed to . While this may be an interesting data point on its own, an AlphaWise survey conducted in April of this year points to the fact that consumers want more than just pizza as a delivery option. In their survey of more than 5,000 American consumers, nearly two-thirds of the respondents placed take-out orders from restaurants during the prior six months; take-out orders which could have easily been delivery orders had delivery been available for options other than pizza. The survey went on to further show that these increasing levels of demand were consistent “across urban, suburban and rural markets” ( ). And as online food delivery services continue to rapidly expand, more and more previously undeliverable restaurants are now becoming easily accessible for delivery. What all this means is that the $126 billion piece of the pie that was historically the domain of is now quickly becoming up for grabs. Source: Morgan Stanley, AlphaWise Let’s not forget that this considerable $210 billion market opportunity is not a static figure. If consumers as a whole begin spending less time dining out at restaurants, and more time ordering in, the entire pie expands. In fact, The NPD Group, a market research firm, is that off-premise food service will outpace overall restaurant industry traffic growth over the next decade. If we look at the restaurant industry broadly, which makes up a $490 billion market, the opportunity equates to just 43 percent. Looking at it from this angle, more than half of this market technically remains open to be pursued, where even a single percentage expands opportunity by nearly $5 billion ( . Source: Public Company Filings, Morgan Stanley, Technomic All that being said, with so much noise out there in the media, it’s quite easy to overlook this added perspective. One must not forget that secular trends occur over a long-term time frame — often over quite a number of up-and-down investment cycles. And through these cycles, companies will rise and fall like they always have throughout history. The important thing to remember is that broad, secular shifts, while infrequent in occurrence, present extraordinary opportunities for those fortunate enough to capitalize on them.
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Determining the worth of your SaaS company
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Todd Gardner
| 2,016
| 10
| 7
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An entrepreneur recently asked me “What are SaaS companies ‘going for’ these days?” I said, “Well, it depends on a number of factors, but 5 times annual run-rate revenue is average.” His response was pure disbelief. “What? You have to be kidding me! Last time I checked they were going for 10 times revenue!” And so it goes; the opaque, confusing and highly volatile practice of valuing a private SaaS business is frustrating for entrepreneurs and investors alike. Furthermore, the lack of transparency adds a tremendous amount of friction to a capital raise or the sale of a company. The reality is, it’s not all that hard to get a quick read on your SaaS company’s valuation. The two most important things to know are: What are public SaaS companies “going for” at the time, and how fast is your business growing relative to its peers. These two things will get you 75 percent of the way to an answer, and three or four other metrics will get you the rest of the way there. The average public multiple is easy to get and it should always be updated when getting a read on valuation. Go here to pull and get the revenue multiple based on the current year expected revenue. Once you have that, subtract 1.3 to get the current private multiple based on ARR* (annualized run-rate revenue). Private multiples are lower because they are generally riskier and the stock is not easy to sell. If the public multiple were 7.0 times revenue, for example, then the average private multiple would be 5.7 times. Building from there, the key company-specific metric is revenue growth rate. But it gets a little tricky here because to get a higher multiple, your company must be growing faster than other similar-sized SaaS companies. It’s easier to grow quickly when a company is small, and so the growth premium varies by company size. The chart below shows the average growth rate for different-sized private SaaS companies based on a 2016 survey of 400 companies, and this should be used as your benchmark. If your company is growing faster than average for its size, the business will be worth more than the 5.7 times calculated above; if it’s growing slower, it will be worth less. How much of an impact the growth rate has on valuation can be estimated based on public SaaS company values. A rule of thumb would be if your business is growing at twice the average rate, the valuation multiple would grow by 50 percent. For example, a $3.0 million SaaS company growing at 100 percent (twice the rate of its peers) would get a growth premium of 2.8 (50 percent of the baseline multiple of 5.7), making it worth about 8.5 times revenue, or $26 million. Similarly, a $60 million SaaS business growing at 50 percent is also growing twice as fast as its peers, and would also garner a similar growth premium. There are four other metrics that will impact a company’s value beyond the current state of the public market and its growth rate. They are: Do better than “average” on these factors and the valuation multiple will go up; do worse, and it will go down. The chart below can be used to estimate the overall impact of each factor. The fact of the matter is, SaaS companies, on average, were never “going for 10 times revenue,” only a few outliers were. The reality is a little less sexy, but still very healthy, and knowing where your business stands based on real-world data will give you an advantage in negotiating the best possible outcome for your company.
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Google shuts down Panoramio
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Frederic Lardinois
| 2,016
| 10
| 7
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, the location-centric photo sharing service Google , will show its last . For the longest time, Google used Panoramio to augment its Google Maps and Google Earth services with crowdsourced imagery. Now that the company has integrated photo uploads into the Google Maps mobile apps and launched its Local Guides program, Panoramio clearly isn’t a priority for the company anymore. Google previously tried to shut the service down in 2014. At the time, its users successfully the company to , but this time around, the decision seems to be final. “Today, with and our , we are providing easy options for you to share your photos with an active and growing community,” Google wrote in an email to Panoramio users today. “As such, we’ve decided to now close down Panoramio.” Last year, when Google decided to keep the service going beyond its original closing date, the company said that it would go “back to the drawing board to work on a more integrated solution that supports you and your content directly within Google Maps.” Today, Google is encouraging active Panoramio users to join its Local Guides program and to upload photos directly to Google Maps. For users who have linked their Panoramio and Google+ accounts, Google will automatically copy their images to a (that’s Google service for downloading copies of images from all of its services). Users will also still be able to access their photos in Panoramio for a year after November 4. Unsurprisingly, Panoramio’s users , but today’s incarnation of Google/Alphabet isn’t shy about shutting down services that have outlived their usefulness. Sadly, that’s also true for Panoramio, even if there’s still a small but lively community on the service.
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Netflix’s theater deal is a small step for subscriber growth and a big leap toward an Oscar
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Fitz Tepper
| 2,016
| 10
| 7
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a new theater distribution deal with iPic Entertainment, a theater chain with 15 locations throughout the country. The deal will put 10 Netflix original films (a portion of Netflix’s original films this year) in iPic’s New York and Los Angeles theaters. Getting their content into theaters around the country is a smart move by Netflix, for more reasons than one. Everyone knows Netflix is having a hard time with subscriber growth. Last quarter, the company missed both domestic and international subscriber estimates, . The company had a bevy of — the shift to chip-based credit cards, price hikes on previously grandfathered plans and even the Rio Olympics. But these excuses didn’t change the fact that . So the company is trying other things, like getting its original content into theaters. Getting into theaters won’t give Netflix an immediate boost in profits, especially on such a small scale. But just like they don’t mind if you share your password with friends because you are evangelizing content, Netflix doesn’t mind if their theater deals aren’t making them much money. Because instead of seeing it as a new revenue stream, Netflix likely sees theater distribution deals as a potential source of new subscribers. Old-school media consumers who cling to their cable subscriptions and regular trips to the movie theater may be wary of committing to a monthly Netflix subscription, especially if they don’t know the quality of Netflix’s original content. By giving them a chance to see it in theaters, Netflix is essentially offering a trial version of their subscription service to a group of people who may have previously had no reason to sign up. Plus, the original content will be in theaters the same day as on Netflix, so the streaming service won’t risk pissing off paying subscribers who are upset that movie theater customers (who may not even be Netflix subscribers) get to see new, original content before they do. And it could even be a benefit to customers, say if Netflix decides to do some type of promotion where subscribers could see original content in theaters for a discounted rate. This would benefit all three parties — subscribers get to see content on a big screen for a discount, the theater gets extra concession profits and Netflix gets to have their film on the big screen in theaters around the country. Everyone knows winning an Oscar means you’ve finally made it in Hollywood. But for all of their Emmys for shows like and , Netflix has never actually won an Oscar. One potential reason: The Academy has some strict qualification rules that make it hard for content studios that don’t have traditional movie distribution avenues to win an Oscar. To , original films have to be shown in a Los Angeles theater for seven days starting the same day it is available online. And for the documentary category, films have to be shown in both New York and Los Angeles four times daily with one screening occurring between 6pm – 10pm. These requirements definitely weren’t designed for content studios like HBO or Netflix, which prefer to limit content consumption to their own platform. But Netflix wants an Oscar — it would add credibility to not only their content studio but also to their vision of subscription-based streaming as a major distribution method. The new deal with iPic will make it easier for Netflix to meet these qualifications with its original content. And yes, Netflix has shown some content in theaters (like the much-loved ) and received , but there was never a deal like this one, which secures at least 10 original films for Oscar award eligibility. Essentially, Netflix is killing two birds with one stone — they get a new way to show their content to moviegoers who may have never considered subscribing to Netflix, while setting themselves up to eventually get an Oscar, along with all the credibility (and free advertising) that comes with winning.
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Google researchers aim to prevent AIs from discriminating
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Devin Coldewey
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Garbage in, garbage out — that’s always been a rule of computing, and machine learning systems are no exception. These elementary AIs only know what we tell them, and if that data carries a bias of any kind, so too will the system trained on it. Google is looking to avoid such awkward and potentially serious situations systematically with a method it calls “Equality of Opportunity.” Machine learning systems are basically prediction engines that learn the characteristics of various sets of data and then, given a new bit of data, assign it to one of several buckets: an image recognition system might learn the difference between different types of cars, assigning each picture a label like “sedan,” “pickup truck,” “bus,” etc. Mistakes are inevitable: consider a BRAT or El Camino. Whatever the computer decides, it’s wrong, because it didn’t have enough data on this underrepresented type of vehicle. The consequences of that particular mistake are likely to be trivial, but what if the computer is sorting through people instead of cars, and categorizing them for risk of default on a home loan? People who fall outside the common parameters are disproportionately likely to fall afoul of what the system learns are good bets from the rest of the data set — that’s just how machine learning operates. “When group membership coincides with a sensitive attribute, such as race, gender, disability, or religion, this situation can lead to unjust or prejudicial outcomes,” wrote Google Brain’s Moritz Hardt in a blog post. “Despite the need, a vetted methodology in machine learning for preventing this kind of discrimination based on sensitive attributes has been lacking.” Hardt, alongside his colleagues Eric Price and Nathan Srebro, describing a way to avoid this kind of outcome. There’s a lot of stuff like this: Kolmo-what now? But the gist is this: When there’s a desired outcome and a possibility of one of those attributes incorrectly affecting someone’s likelihood of getting it, the algorithm adjusts itself so there is a similar proportion of those outcomes regardless of that attribute. It’s really no trouble for the computer — you train it so it values parity between non-relevant attributes. You can get an intuitive sense of it with the team made. It’s not about goosing the numbers to be politically correct; the resulting model will actually be more accurate in its predictions. And if one of these attributes is relevant — say you’re calculating the likelihood of someone having this or that religion based on their location, or making medical predictions that differ between sexes — you just include it. It’s a thoughtful line of inquiry for Google to be pursuing, and highly relevant as well, considering how machine learning is pervading so many industries so quickly. It’s important to be well aware of the limitations and risks of new technologies, and this is a subtle but important one. The authors will be presenting their paper at the — as good a reason as any to go to Barcelona.
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Snapchat launches post-roll ads, Story Playlist that loads favorites in bulk
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Josh Constine
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Snapchat is fighting back against Instagram Stories, which rocketed to by spotlighting the cloned feature atop the feed. To make Snapchat more “friends first,” it’s moving friends’ Stories above Discover where they used to be to make sure you don’t miss people you care about. And to make it easier to watch all your favorites friends’ Stories without the boring people in between, Snapchat is eliminating auto-advance, which automatically moved you on to the next reverse chronological Story when you finished watching the last one. , a new feature that lets you tap the thumbnails next to multiple Stories you want to load, then watch them all back-to-back by hitting the big “play” button at the bottom. This essentially formalizes an emergent behavior where users would scroll down tapping Stories to start them loading, then scroll through again to watch each, one at a time, once they’d loaded. The updates are rolling out to some Android users today and all iOS and Android users soon. So what will happen to the Snap Ads that Snapchat inserted between the auto-advance Stories? Those mid-roll ads will now appear mixed into Story Playlists you watch. But there’s also a new ad placement. If you decide to just watch one story at a time, Snapchat may append a post-roll Snap Ad at the end. This way, Snapchat can earn money no matter how you watch Stories, either singularly or in bulk. That’s important, considering the company is reportedly planning to IPO as soon as March at a $25 billion or higher valuation. Snapchat needs to prove it has plenty of diverse revenue streams to convince Wall Street of its financial security. Snapchat’s old Stories Page design pushed friends below Discover channels, while Instagram Stories highlights friends’ Stories at the top Though , the product’s rapid ascent . Instagram made the feature unmissable by planting it smack-dab at the top center of its main feed, rather than hiding it in a separate tab. By comparison, that made Snapchat’s Stories list that shows professionally made Discover channels at the top above people you follow seem less about friends and more cumbersome. After two years, Discover doesn’t need that prominent cross-promotion above Stories any more. It already has its own page in Snapchat. The move might rattle publishers who’ve invested heavily in producing unique Snapchat Discover content, since the move shows Snapchat isn’t afraid to demote them. The move is reminiscent of Facebook’s recent News Feed changes that ranks “friends first” above publishers. Discover is nice, but most people open Snapchat to see people they know, and the product wasn’t properly reflecting that. Now Snapchat’s priorities are clear: fending off Instagram and proving its money-making potential before it goes public.
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U.S. officially attributes DNC hack to Russia
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Kate Conger
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The Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence confirmed today what cybersecurity companies have asserted since emails from Democratic National Committee employees leaked online over the summer: State-sponsored Russian hackers are responsible for the breach. “The U.S. Intelligence Community is confident that the Russian government directed the recent compromises of emails from U.S. persons and institutions, including from U.S. political organizations. The recent disclosures of alleged hacked emails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts,” DNS and ODNI said in a joint statement, adding, “These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the U.S. election process. Such activity is not new to Moscow — the Russians have used similar tactics and techniques across Europe and Eurasia, for example, to influence public opinion there. We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized these activities.” The intelligence community’s attribution of the hacks isn’t much of a surprise — cybersecurity firms like CrowdStrike, Mandiant and ThreatConnect all reached in their own independent analyses of the hacks. However, the statement does lend credence to theories that the Guccifer 2.0 persona was hastily crafted after the hacks to take credit for the breach and deflect attention from state-sponsored hackers. Despite that state election systems and voter registration databases have been targeted by hackers, DHS and ODNI said that the November election is not at risk of a serious cyberattack because of the decentralized nature of the state-by-state election system. The two organizations also pointed out that state election systems are not connected to the internet and said a system of checks and balances is in place to prevent voter fraud. DHS and ODNI also stressed that the state-level intrusions have not been attributed to Russia. “Some states have also recently seen scanning and probing of their election-related systems, which in most cases originated from servers operated by a Russian company. However, we are not now in a position to attribute this activity to the Russian government,” DHS and ODNI said. Now that the U.S. has formally blamed Russia for the DNC hack, the Obama Administration might move forward with a response. As we’ve , experts believe that the U.S. response to a cyber attack would follow the same norms for a physical conflict, and could include a diplomatic response, economic sanctions or retaliatory hacking. President Obama has seemed cautious about the possibility of hacking Russian government systems, saying at the G20 Summit in China last month, “Our goal is not to suddenly, in the cyber arena, duplicate a cycle of escalation that we saw when it comes to other arms races in the past, but rather to start instituting some norms so everybody’s acting responsibly.” Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has seemed more hawkish than Obama on the subject, saying recently that the U.S. should be prepared to “take the fight to those who go after us,” when it comes to cyber attacks. Trump, meanwhile, expressed skepticism about Russia’s involvement in the DNC hack during September’s presidential debate. “I don’t know if we know it was Russia who broke into the DNC,” Trump said. “Maybe it was. It could also be China, it could be someone sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds.”
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Mophie’s charging case is a no-brainer for wireless earbud owners
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Brian Heater
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Being synonymous with a particular product category is a mixed blessing. is undoubtedly the best-known name in the battery case business, but the company has been keen to distance itself from the space a bit — or, at the very least, let it be known that it has more to offer the world. Mophie released a whole bunch of a few weeks back. Necessary, sure, but it’s not exactly the kind of offering that’s going to make people sit up and take notice. Thankfully, the company is also starting to leverage its battery know-how for some pretty interesting products, including the wireless charging system, the modular phone case and this guy. The is a compelling little product — and one I can definitely see finding a permanent home in my backpack. The product addresses quite possibly the biggest ongoing issue with Bluetooth earbuds: battery life. You see, while many of the fully wireless earbuds come with their own docks (including the ones that come with the AirPods, which more than slightly resemble a dental floss dispenser), the tethered variety are mostly on their own. Mophie found a compelling niche and filled it with the power capsule, a Bluetooth charging accessory that doubles as a case. It’s a well-crafted peripheral with a flexible matte black top that zips together with a hardened plastic bottom, which houses a 1,400mAh battery. On the bottom is a microUSB slot for charging the case, along with a four-light battery level indicator. Inside is a full-size USB port. Plug a small cord in (bundled with the system for an added fee — or you can just use your own) and boom, you can start charging your Bluetooth headphones on the go. Mophie rates the charge at around 60 hours — though that number is obviously entirely dependent on the brand. You also can use the case for any other small product you might have on your person like, say, a fitness band — or a phone if you’re really in a pinch. The $40 price point seems about right, and the build quality is solid, as well. All in all, it’s a pretty smart buy for those looking to squeeze more time out of a pair of Bluetooth earbuds.
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New Lab is a new home for hardware startups in Brooklyn’s Navy Yard
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Anthony Ha
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, which co-founder David Belt described as “a collaborative workspace” for companies in fields like robotics and artificial intelligence, . The facility is located in Brooklyn’s Navy Yard, in a building that was once used to assemble ships. Belt said he wanted to bring the building back as a manufacturing center, except updated for today’s industries and technologies. “There’s many resources in New York for software companies,” he told us. “But for companies that are trying to make hardware, there aren’t as many resources, and the resources don’t have the type of tools and community that we think are needed. So New Lab is trying to be kind of an independent area where people can come and they can prototype and innovate together and really be very effective in bringing their products to market.” In other words, hardware companies need more than just desks and a good internet connection, so New Lab includes facilities with tools like welders, laser cutters and 3D printers — tools you might need to build actual prototypes. We recently got a chance to tour the building and also interview some of the first residents, including representatives from (which builds robots for a range of uses, including medicine and exploring Mars), (automated industrial microscopes) and (equipment for “industrial athletes,” such as warehouse workers). You can learn more and apply for membership .
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Wheego and Valeo get California road driverless testing permits
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Darrell Etherington
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Self-driving car testing in California is becoming a badge of progress for companies working in the space. Only 17 companies in total have the honor, including two just added to the list: Wheego Electric Cars and Valeo North America. The reports that both of these new companies now have approval to run tests with a single vehicle each and four drivers per team. That might not sound like much, but it’s a foot in the door, and membership in the club is itself somewhat testament to how much the companies have already accomplished, since the other members include major carmakers like Tesla, Cruise (which got its license before being acquired by GM), promising startup , and Baidu, to name a few. The new members are interesting additions: Wheego is an electric carmaker which got its start taking Chinese-built cars, outfitting them with battery’s and electric motors in the U.S. and putting them on the road. The company now says it builds electric vehicles designed “for a global market,” and focuses on the benefits of connected tech in making vehicles aware of their surroundings. Valeo North America is a subsidiary of Valeo SA, a multinational car part supplier base in France which creates everything from powertrains, to lighting and wipers, to driving assistance and connected car components. Valeo’s autonomous test car, dubbed the Cruise4U, managed a in one driving session in late September, with 99 percent of that time spent under fully autonomous drive mode, excepting the breaks it took to swap out human test drivers.
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GitHub is raising a secondary round
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Matthew Lynley
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We’re hearing from several sources that a secondary financing round is in the works for GitHub, following its last . However, there’s a little bit of interesting chatter beyond that they’re raising a secondary for potential liquidation of investors or employees, we hear. There are two parts to the story: first, this secondary round may value the company below the $2 billion valuation from its previous round. One source estimated the range could even be around $1.5 billion, though we couldn’t pin down the exact number. However, another source tells us that this secondary is likely for common stock, which could complicate the matter a bit. It’s hard to tell exactly where preferences lie and what rights investors got, so the valuation calculation can get a little fuzzy here — and it may not, in the end, be a down round in the traditional sense. But perhaps the more interesting one is that a rumor is flying around that Microsoft is sniffing around the company. We aren’t sure if it’s related to an acquisition or potentially a strategic investment (talks around one may inevitably lead to the other), or it could be that the companies may be exploring a deeper partnership. A representative from GitHub said there’s no truth to the Microsoft acquisition rumors, though declined to comment on the rest of the story. A representative from Microsoft declined to comment. We weren’t able to learn who would be able to participate in this secondary round — whether it would be investors or employees. But either way, given that GitHub is an eight-year-old company, the liquidation event shouldn’t be super surprising. Secondary rounds like this can be important as companies grow into later stages but look to put off IPOs. Given GitHub’s highly distributed workforce and culture, it’s not surprising that earlier employees might be looking for some kind of compensation for their extended tenure as new candidates enter into the the organization, which traditionally is known for having a flat structure. It could also help with retention. Investors, too, looking for liquidity may find themselves sated for a while with a secondary round. GitHub is probably one of the most widely-adopted developer tools in the world — serving as a go-to resource for not only managing code repositories, but also a vital part of the whole open source ecosystem. Keeping those open-source projects healthy and active is a pivotal tool for larger companies, which can use contributors as a farm system for their developer teams and also pick off interesting ideas that pop up from those communities. But like any light-touch resource for traditional developers, the company needs to expand into enterprises if it’s going to grow into a fully sustainable business. That’s going to be incredibly challenging. Speaking of Microsoft — they also have GitHub-like tools within Visual Studio Team Services, so perhaps that’s where the chatter about the company checking in with GitHub is coming from. GitHub also faces increasing competition, including from the likes of recently-IPO’d Atlassian. Last year, following its IPO, the company immediately . That was largely on the strength of the company when it went public. There’s also the recently-emerging GitLab, which is based on open-source Git tools, .
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Weekly Roundup: Snapchat’s IPO agenda, Google’s new hardware and RIP Meerkat
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Anna Escher
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This week, Google revealed new hardware, Facebook outlined its plans for the company’s future in VR and we paid our respects to Meerkat. Sick and tired of searching for this post? I don’t blame you. You can if that’s more your style. Google held its annual press event where it announced a ton of new hardware, some of which people cared about, some of which people did not care about. Most buzzed about may have been Google’s new Pixel phone with flagship-level specs and the launch of the Google Home device. Google also announced its Google Assistant AI platform, the Chromecast Ultra, Google Wifi and a new very cozy-looking VR headset. Here’s , but you can find here too. Everything you need to know from Google's hardware event Posted by on Tuesday, October 4, 2016 Google wasn’t the only big tech company to hold an event this week. Mark Zuckerberg took the stage at the Oculus Developers conference to show off a taste of Facebook’s mobile VR future. He introduced a new , and did a cool demo of augmented . Oculus demos augmented social virtual reality with facial expressions http://tcrn.ch/2dW3qUJ Posted by on Thursday, October 6, 2016 Reports said that Snap Inc., the now-parent company of for as early as March 2017 that would value the company at $25 billion or higher. Samsung , an AI assistant system co-founded by the creator of Siri. Viv will continue to operate as an independent company and will provide services to Samsung platforms. Amazon made a big change to some of its guidelines. The company banned incentivized reviews, in an effort to make its review and rating system fairer and more in favor of the shopper. Now, Amazon – not the seller or vendor – will be the party to identify trusted reviewers, and will have a number of controls in place in order to . Facebook launched two new services. , which lets you search for, buy and sell items. Facebook also launched its standalone which lets you browse and search for fun things to do in your area. Trouble may be afoot at Pinterest. Last year, the search and inspiration site was projecting around $169 million in revenue for 2015. However, reports are saying that Pinterest generated only about $100 million in revenue last year. . Apple lost a patent retrial to notorious litigator VirtnetX regarding patents in iMessage and FaceTime services. Meerkat, the pioneering live stream social app whose popularity was quickly eclipsed by Twitter’s Periscope, is . But the company itself carries on: they’re now focusing on Houseparty, a group video chat app they’ve been building in secrecy for months. Facebook launched a feature that lets people share illustrated, filter-enhanced photos and videos that have a 24-hour lifecycle, in Poland. Sound familiar? Facebook could be using Messenger to copy Snapchat in areas where Snapchat is not yet popular. , a traffic tracking company, for $340 million in cash plus stock. Sony’s is set to launch on October 13, but we got our hands on it early for a review. It may not push every technical benchmark, it’s the most accessible piece of VR hardware and is going to change the industry for good. The mobile market is no longer vibrant and varied. The mobile industry has become standardized and boring. This is
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Connie Loizos
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Bumble bans mirror selfies and other dumb photos from users’ profiles
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Sarah Perez
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There are certain kinds of photos users of dating apps tend to loathe, and the suggestive mirror selfie tends to be at the top of that list, somewhere near photos of guys holding a fish and gym selfies. That’s why today, the dating app to ban selfies of users posing in their underwear, or while wearing swimsuits indoors. In addition, you can no longer upload photos of just your child, though Bumble hasn’t gone so far as to ban images of children altogether. Banning pictures of kids on their own makes a lot of sense. After all, the kids didn’t agree to join a dating app – this app is for adults who are 18 or older. It also limits children’s exposure to potential predators, and respects the children’s right to privacy. However, Bumble will still allow photos of parents and children together, and will continue to leave it up to its users as to whether or not they’ll take the step of blurring out their children’s faces. Banning mirror selfies, on the other hand? Well, prepare for some backlash. While many people agree that people who take these kinds of photos are generally (or are on the app because they’re mainly trolling for hookups), there’s something to be said for allowing people to post whatever stupid photo of themselves they’d like. After all, it’s a great way to weed out the narcissists, isn’t it? And, hey, maybe sometimes you just looking for a hookup. Spotting a half-nude mirror selfie certainly seems to indicate that you’d have a better shot at succeeding with that goal by swiping right on these suggestive profiles. I mean, really, who is Bumble to judge? Everyone’s gotta eat. Fine, fine. We get it. Bumble is the app by women, for women, so it’s trying to eliminate some of the skeeviness you’ll find on rival dating apps like its top competitor Tinder. Force the men on Bumble to put their clothes back on, and you’ll at least give the appearance of being a more respectable, more legitimate, dating app. However, if users absolutely feel the need to pose in some state of undress on their dating profiles, Bumble says that photos in swimsuits are okay if you’re actually – you know – at the beach or pool. Meanwhile, men can still go all beefcake on us by posing shirtless at the gym. . Along with these now-banned images, Bumble also addressed a few other concerns with photos on profiles. It says that faces in your profile pictures must be clearly visible and show your eyes. Plus, while photos with friends are fine, you need to mix in solo photos so people know which person you are in the group, the company notes. Bumble claims it’s not trying to be the “prude police” with all these bans, but is rather responding to what the data tells it. Mirror selfies don’t actually work, it found. The most swiped left profiles (rejected profiles) are mirror selfie pics, and 86% of the profiles that get reported contain these sorts of photos, too. The photo moderation features are in effect now, the company says.
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Maserati is targeting 2020 for a production EV
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Darrell Etherington
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The electric vehicle bandwagon has long left the station thanks to Tesla, but Maserati still wants to get on board. The high-end carmaker might be behind the curve when it comes to announcing its electric vehicle plans, but it’s looking like the Fiat-Chrysler-owned company will manage to ship a fully electric car by 2020, with something to show off in the 2019 timeframe. The Maserati EV won’t be a Tesla Model S competitor, but will instead be more in the “grand-touring coupe” vein according to , which spoke to Maserati engineering lead Roberto Fedeli about the company’s EV plans at the Paris Motor show this past week. Fedeli told the publication it’s well aware they’re late to the game, and will probably be “last” to market with a production electric car in the premium segment. But he also said this means they’ll have to deliver something “very different” from the offerings of competitors. He acknowledged that the carmaker has to think about what its brand means in the EV space, since signature Maserati trademarks like the sound of the engine and the lightness of the cars run at cross-purposes to EVs with whisper quiet motors and battery-laden heavy chassis. It’s an interesting look at how established carmakers have to re-think their brands in light of the increased popularity and demand for electric cars, and how that might result in very different-looking offerings in terms of both tech and design, relative both to existing lineups and to the competition.
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Rinspeed’s Oasis self-driving car concept is living space on wheels
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Darrell Etherington
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Self-driving cars of the future won’t need to be configured on the inside the way they are now, since things like steering columns won’t be required. Electric drive trains will also help maximize available interior space, so it makes sense that cars will look dramatically different inside and out when the two things combine, as they seem inevitably on track to do. The new concept car is an urban self-driving vehicle, equipped with two seats that can swivel independently to accommodate different seating accommodations. The interior is also designed as “living space,” the comp pay notes, with “the ambience of a modern-day family room.” That includes amenities like an armchair, a TV, and a windshield that can offer immersion in fully virtualized surroundings (you don’t necessarily need to see outside if you’re not driving, after all), or augmented reality displays with overlays on the passing view. The car is designed as a shared resource, meaning it can be reconfigured easily for different purposes, including relaxing as mentioned above, but also as a delivery vehicle thanks to an included, climate-controlled and passcode protected delivery drawer. How realistic is the concept? Well, it’s real enough to be shown off at the upcoming CES in January 2017, so that’s something. Rinspeed has also anticipated other key innovations in car technology, including steering-wheel integrated controls, which it introduced in 1985, and it’s been workmen with cars and carmakers since 1977. Given the pace of development of autonomous driving tech, it might not be long before interior design of vehicles for specific uses and car types is big business. In a world where driving isn’t the primary activity that happens inside a car’s cockpit, the options for what they look like on the inside are going to broaden considerably.
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Carriers are offering replacements for Note 7 replacements in wake of latest incident
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Brian Heater
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Exploding phones are really bad PR. But when one of the post-recall replacement inside a customer’s pocket on a plane, you’ve got a veritable code red disaster on your hands. In light of that most recent story, customers are becoming understandably wary about their Galaxy Note 7 devices, even as Samsung cheerily noted high retention rates during that initial recall. Some of the country’s biggest carriers have taken notice of concern around the fiery phablets, issuing plans designed to let consumers trade their Notes in for less problematic devices while Samsung and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission attempt to figure out what the heck is going on with the devices intended to replace that earlier bunch. Sprint was one of the , explaining that it was working with Samsung on the issue and adding helpfully that it will let users exchange their handset for another product. Here’s the statement, At this time, CPSC has not specifically said if customers should or should not use the replacement model. If a Sprint customer with a replacement Note 7 has any concerns regarding their device, we will exchange it for any other device at any Sprint retail store during the investigation window. T-Mobile has responded as well, though the Uncarrier’s timeline is more finite that Sprint’s nebulous “investigation window,” instead citing its “remorse” policy, which gives users a standard two-week window with which to exchange a product, whether due to explosion concerns or any other reason they might feel like they’ve made a terrible mistake. AT&T has that it will allow customers to exchange their device, though the specific parameters around such a plan have yet to be revealed. As far as Verizon, the company has yet to detail any such exchange plan. Verizon, for its part, will also be offering up an exchange program, though exact details are still forthcoming. Here’s a note we just received from the carrier,
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It takes more than a village
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Melissa Jun Rowley
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Where there is wireless connectivity, there is a way to improve lives. That’s why countless mobile-for-development programs designed to address health, education and economic issues have been flooding Africa. Presently hailed as the “ ,” Africa has generated through the mobile ecosystem, and its mobile subscribers have surpassed . But not every tech-for-good initiative can be , the juggernaut mobile money system of Kenya. Most tech-driven social impact solutions in Africa are suffering from a bad case of , the state of existing in perpetual pilot stage. At the same time, plenty of these programs operate from the top down — meaning they’re bursting at the seams with white-savior-complex undertones — or merely making shallow attempts at boosting a company’s corporate social responsibility (CSR). As a result, the deliverables end up being viewed as patronizing handouts to the people they’re aiming to serve, rather than taking shape as strategic partnerships for everyone involved. Berhane Gebru, director of programming at the human development organization , says forging local, frontline partnerships is the best way to scale. “Think national and implement local to overcome pilot fatigue,” says Gebru. This takes more than a few thousand CSR dollars and some extra mobile devices that happen to be lying around. This takes putting people and local insights at the forefront of all agendas. Through partnerships between FHI 360, local communities in the West African country of Senegal, on-the-ground nonprofits and major tech corporations, it’s all happening. Funded and project managed by , a mobile broadband solution called WISE is improving the livelihoods of entrepreneurs working in the city of M’bour in an industry thousands of years old: fishing. I traveled with Qualcomm to M’bour, and observed firsthand how the partnerships operate among all the participants of the program, from the fisheries to the nonprofits to the corporates. Fishing is one of Senegal’s largest industries, and artisanal fishermen catch 90 percent of the nation’s fish. From there, they sell to small-scale fish processors who are predominantly women. But lack of access to market fish prices, limited access to financial services and health risks resulting from poor hygiene and little educational resources hinder the growth of these business owners. The WISE initiative is addressing all of these issues by collaborating with 25 artisanal fishermen and 25 fish processors. And there’s no second-guessing that the Senegalese know exactly what they want and how to communicate. The fishermen and processors I met carry themselves proudly and speak sternly. They are not in the business of receiving handouts. Transmitted through the 3G network of Tigo, the second-largest mobile service provider in Senegal, the WISE app delivers a fish market information system that helps fishermen and processors run more competitive businesses. For Tigo, WISE is a business strategy aiming to expand the telecom’s reach. The company provides discounted services and connectivity plans for the 50 participants. In addition to market prices, WISE provides the local entrepreneurs with access to mobile money services through the microfinance organization . This allows fishers and processors, who have little to zero credit, the opportunity to apply for loans that are transferable to a mobile money account. Other app features include weather updates and a GPS that helps the fishermen know the best times and places to fish. The tool also features best-practice videos and educational videos about HIV/AIDS. This information is vital for fishers and processors, as the literacy rate among the Senegalese is still low. According to , only 39 percent of women aged 15 years and over are literate, compared to 62 percent of men. https://youtu.be/rktjmlQNE3o Before participating in WISE, M’bour fisherman Adama Sall didn’t use mobile tools. Now he takes his phone with him every time he goes out to sea. He hopes the initiative continues to grow across Senegal. “We have to expand this program so that our parent fisherman, the fish processing women, can acquire these telephones,” said Sall. “It’s something that will enable them to manage their work and their lives better.” Fish processor Anta Diouf says the WISE app helps her know the best time to apply for bank loans and keep track of her revenue. Through the support of WISE, she’s been able to pay for her child’s health insurance. “I have been doing this trade for 18 years,” said Diouf. “But this is the first time I’ve had something like this. Such a tool, a tool that helps me with my work. All I can say is that WISE is an omen for our trade.” Fish processor Bineta Faye agrees. “The program modernizes the way we do things,” said Faye. “It takes us from here to lead us elsewhere.” Even though I’m a dedicated humanitarian tech entrepreneur, I had my fair share of fears that I would end up feeling like on this trip, or like I shouldn’t be there. But I didn’t. Instead I heard and saw the ambition and pride of a small group of Senegalese people and their hope in what the future holds for them, thanks to mobile technology. And I was happy to witness how all the groups worked together cohesively. In a country where families live in huts, women carry water jugs on their heads and merchants dwell in the streets and hustle for pennies, seeing mobile phones in the hands of the fishers and processors was an eye-opening juxtaposition and a true sign of the times. So far, the WISE program has been implemented in M’bour, Mballing and Joal.
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Microsoft will introduce a new Surface device on October 26
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Brian Heater
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On the 26 day of the 10 month of the year, Microsoft will at an event in New York City. The company just sent out invites, and while they don’t reveal a heck of a lot about what’s going down (just a lot of backwards text), we hear that the company will be launching a new Surface device at the event — exactly what remains to be seen. The timing is certainly right on, both in terms of getting into the holiday swing of things just under wire and the fact that, just about this time last year, the company held a major event here in the city, in which it showed off a bunch of new pieces of hardware, including the Surface Pro 4, Microsoft Band 2 and debuted the Surface Book laptop. Word has leaked out that the company won’t be giving the Band line another shot this time around, but a new entry in the company’s proprietary hardware line does seem imminent in the days leading up to Halloween. We’ll be there covering the event live, naturally.
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Facebook launches standalone “Events” discovery and calendar app
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Josh Constine
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650 million people use Facebook Events — 100 million every day — but it’s a smaller sect of hardcore extroverts who discover these parties and meetups, then invite everyone else. Now Facebook is giving its most outgoing users for browsing and searching for stuff going on nearby. And thanks to the Facebook Events app’s ability to pull in calendars from your phone, you can see all your plans in one place, so you know when you’re free. in the U.S., and is coming soon to Android. Facebook’s core app will still offer its Events feature, so you won’t be forced to switch like with Messenger. Facebook is still considering how to promote or shortcut to the standalone product from its core app. Facebook Events product manager Aditya Koolwal tells me, “The core thesis behind this app is that if we build something for the people really eager to discover events, people will have a good time.” The bigger goal is to find out which features work so the company can “take the best parts and put them back in Facebook.” Events is perhaps Facebook’s most unique, differentiated feature. While you can create profiles, share content and chat on tons of services, there’s no real substitute for Facebook Events. By doubling down with a standalone app, Facebook could make itself even more indispensable. Attending social, cultural and professional events creates memories people attribute to Facebook’s help. Events are also where people make new friends and take photos that end up bolstering Facebook’s network. And if event promoters can get more organic reach thanks to the Events app, they’re more likely to post their events to Facebook and even pay to promote them with News Feed ads. It broadens the funnel of promoters who might potentially pay, Koolwal believes. Events is one of Facebook’s oldest features, having launched in 2005. But while steadily growing, it was neglected until 2011 when Facebook began trying to . Facebook the redesigns and recommendations in 2014, around when it could eventually get its own app. Events hit by 2015, and this summer it started offering picked by human curators in major cities. Last year, Facebook and several of its products, including Slingshot, Rooms and Riff. But Koolwal tells me, “Individual project teams do have some degree of autonomy to develop things.” Over the last few months, his crew has been running Events app alpha tests to find out what users would want in a standalone product. “We went directly to the community. We did several trial runs in six cities across the U.S. with a few hundred people using it,” Koolwal explains. Users asked for easy browse-ability, powerful search and a simple way to know what was coming up. When you launch Facebook Events, you’ll immediately see Events you’ve been invited to or RSVP’d to that day. Scroll down and you’ll get a feed of Events that Facebook thinks would interest you, based on what friends are going to, your location, your Interests, Pages you’ve Liked and other signals. In the Search tab, you can instantly tap tiles to browse what’s up today, tomorrow or this weekend. A map lets you see events by location, which you can move around in case you’re planning a vacation or a venture to the far side of town. The search feature lets you choose certain characteristics like day, time and genre, so you can just see concerts or theater shows. Koolwal recounts how his team was leaving a bar in San Francisco and they didn’t want to go home. One member suggested trying to find a comedy show, so Koolwal set the Events app’s search feature to find them a comedy event nearby that night. Minutes later they were in Cobbs’ Comedy Club, at an event none of them had been invited to but that was finally more discoverable. Lastly, the Calendar feature lets you pull in your iPhone’s calendar to show you all your appointments in one place. You can sync other calendars, like Google’s, to your phone, then sync that to Facebook to pull in appointments from wherever. Koolwal says there was some hesitation amongst the team about whether to build the calendar in because it might seem too utilitarian compared to the glossy event pages people can browse, but testers wanted it. He says don’t expect a Facebook app solely for calendaring though, as the space seems pretty well handled already. If extroverts enjoy the standalone app, it could help them dispense invitations to the rest of Facebook’s network, getting more users involved in the feature. When I talk to people who are grumpy about the world’s incessant social media usage, many say Events is one of the features that keeps them on Facebook. While you can make profiles, share content and chat on tons of services, Facebook is still the only place to see what things friends are attending, and join in. Facebook has long been criticized for isolating us from the real world, encouraging us to watch it through a screen instead of live it. But if the social network can find you a gallery opening, résumé workshop or tailgate in your neighborhood, that might offset those nights alone scrolling the feed.
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Just Eat backs Flypay to help restaurant and pub chains consolidate their tech
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Steve O'Hear
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Just Eat, the online takeout ordering behemoth, has invested in U.K. startup , which has built a platform to help restaurant and pub chains consolidate their various and disparate technology solutions. The size of the round is £3.5 million and serves as an extension to the company’s previous Series A that saw it . The investment is also described as a “strategic partnership” and sees Just Eat become the latest tech partner on Flypay’s Flyt platform, which lets restaurants and pubs/bars integrate numerous tech and services, from bookings and loyalty, to things like delivery and reviews. The startup originally focussed on providing a pay-at-table app to let you settle your restaurant bill “waiter-free,” before adding additional services such as order and collect, order at table, pay at bar and customer loyalty features. However, it has since realised that there is more value in building a technology stack that doesn’t just compete with but integrates many of the tech solutions the hospitality industry already uses. “For hospitality operators, our new Flyt platform aims to make it significantly easier to innovate around digital commerce, both in terms of integrating technologies across the customer journey… into their own apps, as well as connecting into the biggest aggregator apps and other platforms, such as messaging, voice commerce and who-knows-what’s-next,” Flypay founder and CEO Tom Weaver tells me. “Our customers are mainstream casual dining and pubs brands. We currently work with clients like Wahaca, GBK, Jamie’s Italian, Fuller’s, Chilango, and many others. We’ve just signed one of the most popular restaurant brands in the U.K., to be announced shortly, to create some uniquely different experiences,” he adds. To that end, Just Eat and Flypay say they plan to collaborate on “digital experiences” for operators across the casual dining sector. This will see Flypay integrating delivery into restaurant and bars’ own apps, powered by Flyt. But that’s just the start. There’s also plans to offer Just Eat’s customer base access to in-restaurant experiences, and to work together to make it easier for restaurant, pub and bar operators to “adopt and utilise delivery technology”. Says David Buttress, CEO of Just Eat, in a statement: “Investing in Flypay will enable us to continue to build a seamless experience for consumers who will be able to order, pay, receive customer care and book delivery through the same product. The technology will help us to enhance our offer to casual dining restaurant chains, enabling them to fulfil delivery using Just Eat. The Flyt platform has the potential to transform the digital journey in the casual dining space and we see huge potential in this technology.”
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Counting your reps, so you don’t have to
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Brian Heater
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The is hardly the first smart piece of gym equipment. If anything, it’s part of a growing trend, an attempt to capitalize on a growing fascination with connected fitness and the ongoing compulsion to add smartify every dumb product we have. Heck, back in July, I tried a set of and indeed, you don’t have to be a smart dumbbell to grasp the irony there. Forza (not the popular racing series, mind), a hardware startup in Miami that’s “dedicated to revolutionizing the fitness industry”—a revolution that starts by adding smart features to a fitness bar and then naming said fitness bar the Smart Fitness Bar. The company claims its smart fitness bar the Smart Fitness Bar is the world’s first smart fitness bar—and it probably won’t get a lot of pushback on that. The bar itself is essentially one of those Iron Gym-style devices that you see on late night TV commercials, which can be hung over a door for pullups and placed on the ground for sit ups and pushups. The company added in some sensors for reps and calories burned, coupled with a Bluetooth transmitter so all of those metrics can be beamed to the company’s app, so you don’t have to do any of the heavy lifting of counting on your own. It’s available now for a pre-order price of $99. It’ll run another $50 at full retail, so start counting up those pennies.
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What ‘mobile’ should mean for healthcare
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Sunny Ahn
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Ask a set of healthcare professionals about the future and they’ll answer: “Mobile.” Mobile technology is nearing ubiquity in America; a shows 64 percent of all adult Americans own a smartphone, and ownership rates among millennials reach above 80 percent. It’s clear that to stay relevant and access the next generation of patients, the healthcare industry must innovate its mobile efforts. But after a number of recent discussions with healthcare executives, I’ve noticed the industry is lacking a clear definition of what “mobile” really means. Continue the conversation with the same set of professionals being asked about the future and you might notice some use “apps” and “mobile” interchangeably. Others use it as a term to refer to anything digital. A few might not be able to define it at all. So what, specifically, is a mobile healthcare (mHealth) solution? Mobile healthcare ( ): Short definition — Any healthcare service provided via a mobile technology platform. Full definition — In , authors Federico Casalegno and William J. Mitchell introduce readers to Lucia, a fictional 65-year-old diabetic living in the then-future San Francisco, and her futuristic device called a “Passport.” The Passport, described as “the size of a wallet, with a touch screen, GPS, Wi-Fi, and a ubiquitous video connection” was intended to integrate and coordinate a variety of services across the city… but, for Lucia, it is primarily an mHealth device. While walking to the bus stop, Lucia’s Passport recommends longer routes in order to comply with her doctor’s instructions to walk more. It allows her to check in for a clinic appointment and answer questions posed by her doctor while in route. After an appointment, the Passport reminds Lucia when it’s time to take her medication. The futuristic device is what most mHealth solutions strive to be — a context-aware system that streamlines several aspects of healthcare and helps improve patient compliance. The Passport may only be a concept, but the mobile devices we have today can be just as effective and efficient when it comes to mHealth. Current mobile platforms include smartphones, smartwatches and mobile tablets. Some potential technologies offer additional forms, like the hands-free Google Glass, but, as yet, have not reached the critical mass required to be deemed mainstream. Any healthcare service that sits on top of those mobiles devices is an mHealth solution. The designs for those healthcare services are diverse. Some mHealth solutions target future fitness or diet goals with gamified apps, while others deal with administrative aspects of the industry, such as scheduling appointments or refilling prescriptions through text. More yet specialize in helping change patient behavior or treat chronic diseases by providing tools to track symptoms and communicate with medical professionals. While varied, they all fall under mHealth. Today, many mHealth solutions are produced as apps. Nearly every health insurer in the U.S. has at least one app, including UnitedHealth, Anthem, Aetna and Kaiser Permanente, as well as most large U.S. hospitals (66 percent produce their own apps for patients, according to . There also are a range of popular consumer mHealth apps available, like and . I have found the large number of mHealth apps offered can cause some confusion when trying to define mobile healthcare solutions, as companies producing their own mobile solutions can come to believe mHealth is equivalent to healthcare apps. Specifically, many companies find themselves pressured into an mHealth strategy because the competition is doing it, and the easier way to move forward is by developing an app. Yet, often they either copy what others have done or completely replicate what they are currently doing online or in person. One must take a step back and ask the question: Why am I doing this in the first place? Apps are part of the mHealth portfolio — but limiting the definition of mHealth to apps limits its flexibility. There are many other mHealth options beyond apps. Mobile, by its pure essence, is a communication tool. It provides individuals with a way to communicate and share information at any time, at any location, via multiple modalities (e.g. voice, text, messaging). Imagine being able to opt-in to a text-based reminder system set up by your doctor’s office to send you a custom text a few minutes before you need to take your medication, or an interactive system that allows you to send information about how many steps you’ve taken, your blood sugar levels or your diet for the day, and receive feedback from medical staff offering encouragement or correction. Systems like these are being implemented using technology readily available to patients, and are proving to have a wide reach for providers. , for example, created a pilot program to reduce its 30-day readmissions among chronic heart failure patients in 2015. The program utilized a text and email system to get patients into follow-up appointments by sending reminders ahead of the visit. After 10 months, the hospital had reduced its 30-day readmissions by 16 percent among patients who received the messages. The study showed that a simple text-based reminder system can be considerably effective in reducing readmission — which improves patients’ lives and reduces costs for the hospital. Of course, whether in the form of an app or an alternative system, mobile does have limitations. Its limited display “real estate” and not always consistent and reliable connectivity speeds (depending on one’s wireless service provider) provide key constraints on its usability. The medium is not typically well-suited for processes where users need to consume detailed or lengthy information, or require an extensive amount of data entry. Likewise, some conversations and topics are best addressed through other forms of communication, like verbally or face-to-face. At the core, mHealth is not intended to be, nor should it be, a complete replacement for the traditional patient care system. What mHealth is designed for is becoming an integral part of the patient care system. The medium is at its peak when developers and producers stick to the basics. Mobile has always been a means of communication, in real time and accessible around the world. Leveraging these strengths can take the friction out of administrative systems, provide better access for and to patients and, overall, help facilitate human connections. There are few options as powerful. Simply put, a mobile healthcare solution is a new and exciting source of innovation for the healthcare industry. It is a flexible healthcare solution not tied to any specific form and based on an evolving platform of mobile technology. And it has the potential to improve the patient experience while lowering costs for healthcare providers — as long as the industry can agree on an apt definition.
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Major carriers halt sales of the Galaxy Note 7 as reports of problematic replacements pile up
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Brian Heater
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You know what? It might be time to just go ahead and trade in that new Galaxy Note 7 for something else entirely. Thankfully, here in the US have made it fairly easily to trade the problematic handset in for a completely different phone. , T-Mobile and Verizon were among the first to take things a step farther by halting sales of the device completely as the US Consumer Product Safety Commission looks into precisely what is going on with the handset. “While Samsung investigates multiple reports of issues, T-Mobile is temporarily suspending all sales of the new Note7 and exchanges for replacement Note7 devices,” T-mobile . Samsung, meanwhile, says that it’s also investigating additional reports surrounding incidents involving units sent out by the company to replace the initial batch of faulty phablets (that number was around three-dozen when the company ). As of the writing of this post, reported issues with the new phone number around five – a sizable jump since the first story came about a smoking unit . In addition to the incident on a plane at the gate in Louisville, from Minnesota, Kentucky, Virginia and Texas about problematic units, all tied to replacement devices. Samsung late Friday, prior to the reporting of these most recent incidents, stating that the company is working with the CPSC, “to take immediate steps to address the situation.” A spokesperson for the company more recently gave us a similarly-worded (but shorter) statement, downplaying the number of reported issues while re-reassuring consumers that it’s looking into what’s going on with the devices. Here it is, in full. We are working diligently with authorities and third party experts and will share findings when we have completed the investigation. Even though there are a limited number of reports, we want to reassure customers that we are taking every report seriously. If we determine a product safety issue exists, Samsung will take immediate steps approved by the CPSC to resolve the situation. Update: As of the end of the business day on Monday, U.S. Cellular had halted sales of all Samsung Galaxy Note 7’s, a spokesperson confirmed, and offered customers who had already purchased one of the phones a chance to exchange it for any other smartphone sold at a U.S. Cellular store. Sprint had also halted sales of replacement units, at least. Samsung also and retailers to stop sales and began issuing refunds on all replacements.
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The Fitbit Flex 2 can go in the pool with you
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Sarah Buhr
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Apple’s latest Watch was met with great applause when the company in September the thing could take a dive in the pool and keep on ticking. But the price and other bells and whistles of the Watch might be too much for those just looking for a simple way to track steps, laps and calories. Enter Fitbit’s , which tomorrow morning. It’s a slimmer version of other Fitbit models like the Blaze or Surge, but for about $100 this fitness tracker will count your steps, calories, let you log your food through the app and you can even go swimming with it. The Flex 2 comes in several colors and you can get it in the metallic bracelet or pendant of your choice if you want to wear it as jewelry. I took the lavender colored wristband out for a test drive in the park near TechCrunch’s San Francisco office this past week. You can see how it held up by clicking on the video above. The Flex 2 is an upgrade from the original Flex band with a more customizable look and ability to go underwater. But, like the Flex, it’s geared toward those who just want the fitness basics like keeping track of steps or developing healthier habits. In other words, those needing the motivation to get up and go or who need to break away from a sedentary lifestyle are the target consumer for this gadget. It works using a little sensor you can pop into the top pocket of any of the provided wristbands, which come in size small or large. The sensor’s battery lasts up to five days before needing a recharge but it’s pretty easy to power up again by just popping the sensor out of the wristband and putting it in the provided recharging station. You’ll know your Flex 2 is fully charged when all five lights on the top of the sensor glow green. If you want, Fitbit will also send you an email notification when you are almost out of battery so you know it’s time to power up again. NEW YORK – AUGUST 23: Fitbit Ambassador and former volleyball pro Gabby Reece helps introduce the next generation of two of the most iconic and ground-breaking fitness trackers – Fitbit Charge 2 and Fitbit Flex 2 on August 23, 2016 in New York City. Fitbit also announced Adventures, a new Fitbit Challenge to keep you engaged, extended notifications for Blaze to keep you connected to what matters most, and exciting new designs and accessory partners that allow you to wear Fitbit Blaze and Alta effortlessly from day to night. (Photo by Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images for Fitbit) Like the original Flex, the Flex 2 also tracks sleep and can record your workouts. A nice bonus is that it’s also water-resistant up to 164 feet. That means you can take it in the shower or go swimming with the device. Flex 2 automatically tracks your laps in the pool, their duration and your caloric burn in the Fitbit app while you swim. One really cool thing about the Flex 2 is you can take it on a workout without your phone and it will record your steps, floors climbed and how far you went afterward if you sync it up with the app on your smartphone. You may notice a discrepancy in the number of steps your phone says you took and how many the Fitbit says you went in a day. Be sure to wear your Flex 2 on your non-dominant hand for accuracy. If you are still seeing a big difference it may be time to calibrate your sensor for stride. This is because, unlike your phone, Fitbit does not have a built-in GPS and everyone has a different stride. This happened to me the first few days as I compared my phone and the app for accurate readings. My sensor normalized on its own but for those who need to calibrate, here’s how Fitbit recommends doing it in iOS: Fitbit Flex 2 is perfect for those who just want to move more. The little notification buzz I get to get up and move around every hour helped keep me going and is important in keeping metabolism up throughout the day. The ability to log the foods I’ve eaten and see how many calories I’ve burned throughout the day are a plus as well. Will I use it for longer than three months? Who knows. Keeping consumers interested in the product is a known problem in the fitness-tracking industry — and . But I will say it’s a solid gadget for those who don’t want a lot of fuss and at $100 it’s a great price compared to other fitness trackers.
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Samsung is reportedly temporarily halting production of the Galaxy Note 7
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Brian Heater
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A little over a month after issuing a recall of its high-end handset and at the end of weekend littered with multiple reports of malfunctioning replacement units, Samsung has reportedly suspended production on the Galaxy Note 7. In the wake of announcements by AT&T and T-Mobile that the carriers , Korean news agency Yonhap that the electronics giant will follow suit, temporarily stopping production of the phone, according to an anonymous statement by an official supplier for the electronics giant. “This measure includes a Samsung plant in Vietnam that is responsible for global shipments (of the handset),” an official for the company told the agency. We’ve reached out to Samsung for a response and will update accordingly when we hear back. It’s already been a busy weekend for the company’s media department, issuing multiple statements in the wake of reports that users’ replacement handsets have also begun to malfunction. The first such story surfaced on Thursday, when a unit began emitting smoke while inside a Southwest airplane parked at the gate before take off. At the time, the company told TechCrunch, “We continue to move quickly to investigate the reported case to determine the cause and will share findings as soon as possible.” Earlier today, as stories involving a number of other malfunctioning began to appear, the company added that “We are working diligently with authorities and third party experts and will share findings when we have completed the investigation.” The US Consumer Product Safety Commission has also been looking into the matter in light of recent incidents. Samsung says that it is working closely with the government agency.
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INNOVATE2016: The dark confessions of a lifelong Republican entrepreneur
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Andrew Keen
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has many identities: serially successful start-up entrepreneur, Carnegie Mellon University professor, venture capitalist at Birchmere Ventures, best-selling writer and lifelong Republican. He certainly proud of the first four of these identities. But the fifth thing – his status as a lifelong Republican – is now causing him severe embarrassment. The Grand Old Party of Lincoln and Reagan, he says, who were both subject to assassination attempts, has degenerated into the party of Donald Trump, the candidate who seems to encourage the assassination of others. Ammirati is deeply ashamed of what is happening in his party and fearful of a Trump Presidency. And while he’s not particularly enamored with Hillary Clinton, he nonetheless encourages to vote so that American doesn’t do a Brexit and elect the unthinkable. The stakes are really high, Ammirati says. For America to prosper in the increasingly competitive 21st century, it desperately needs an enlightened immigration policy and it needs a government that will regulate a level playing field and stimulate innovation and growth. Got vote! Ammirati thus tells American voters. We all need to show up in this election. As always, many thanks to the folks at for their support in the production of this interview.
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Industrial robots will replace manufacturing jobs — and that’s a good thing
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Matthew Rendall
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If you listen to the wrong people, the North American manufacturing industry is doomed. There is no denying that the U.S. and Canada have been losing jobs to offshore competition for almost half a century. From 2000 to 2010 alone, . Interestingly, though, only 13 percent of those jobs were lost due to international trade. The vast remainder, 85 percent of job losses, stemmed from “productivity growth” — another way of saying machines replacing human workers. For many, this scenario is even worse. China and Mexico may be “taking our jobs,” but at least they’re going to other humans. Robots, on the other hand, allegedly threaten to wipe entire sectors, like manufacturing, right off the map. The level of fear-mongering here is high: “ .” “ ” “ .” It’s enough to make anyone a little nervous. The facts, however, tell a different story. Over the last 20 years . While there are fewer jobs, more is getting done. Manufacturing employees are better educated, better paid and producing more valuable products — including the technology that enables them to be so much more productive. In fact, there are currently , largely due to an aging workforce — , two and a half years above the national non-farm median — and negligible interest in those jobs from younger generations. These numbers lead to a different conclusion: Robots aren’t stealing our jobs — they’re improving them. Robots are safer. They are more reliable. They are more ethical than using exploited labor overseas. Plus, they’re incredibly cost-effective, often delivering return on investment (ROI) in 12 months or less. That is a game-changer in an industry relentlessly driven by cost reduction and plagued by slow-drip evolution. The subsequent cost savings produce a ripple effect. More jobs that are more desirable can remain in North America. Manufacturers can focus on and invest in innovation. As a result, new jobs are created that require and build a better educated, highly skilled workforce. There will be short-term job displacements, but long-term benefits to workers and society as a whole. This isn’t just some unproven utopian vision. Periods of technological displacement show a consistent pattern in history. In the last century, we moved from people manually building cars to robots assembling cars. As a result, manufacturers both produce more cars and employ more people per car than before. Instead of performing dangerous tasks, those workers now program the robots to do the dirty work for them — and get paid more for doing so. As long as we’ve had technology, we’ve had who sometimes literally destroy technological advancements — and yet, here we are, more productive, with a higher quality of living than ever. Economics prove this out, as well. Periods of heavy investment in automation, like the industrial revolution, are strongly correlated with improvement in a nation’s GDP, which itself is strongly correlated with improvement in quality of life. This includes everything from safer workplaces with fewer injuries to greater personal satisfaction from performing more skilled work, creating a positive cycle. More skilled work means higher pay, which allows people to afford higher education, which leads to an even more skilled workforce that has the time and disposable income to further boost the economy. A explained this well: “[This] is the natural dynamic by which market economies become richer as productivity improves. Improvements in agriculture productivity led to a wave of migration of farm workers to cities, where they provided the manpower for an industrial economy that eventually became so productive that we could afford to buy more health care, education, and yes, government.” We’re in the midst of the same cycle right now. Which brings us back to the state of manufacturing in North America. In spite of the fear-mongering and media hype, legitimate individual concerns and hollow political rants, robots are revolutionizing the industry for the better. They are simply the latest form of technology criticized for taking jobs that no one should have to do. In reality, they will enable us to keep more (and better) jobs at home, to grow local industry, to improve our lives at the micro and macro levels. With greater automation, efficiency, safety and productivity, the North American manufacturing sector will not only survive, it will showcase the power of our innovation and ingenuity. So, will a robot take your job? Maybe. But in return, you — and your children and grandchildren — will likely find more meaningful work, for better pay. Sounds like a good trade-off to me.
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Tesla to unveil “unexpected” new product October 17
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Darrell Etherington
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Tesla will unveil something on Monday October 17, according CEO and founder Elon Musk. It’ll be a new product, he said in a Tweet on Sunday, which will be “unexpected by most,” and which will be separate from a Tesla/SolarCity product unveiling on the 28th. Tesla product unveiling on the 17th (unexpected by most), followed by Tesla/SolarCity on the 28th — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) Musk previously , saying it would include the unveiling of joint products from both the electric car and the solar energy companies, including a solar roof, along with an integrated second generation of the Tesla Powerwall energy storage solution, and a Tesla EV charger. The new information from Musk suggests Tesla will be revealing something new on top of all of the above. Some possibilities include a new vehicle (many have been looking for a Roadster 2.0 launch), or improvements to its autonomous driving features. The company recently launched its Autopilot 8.0 update, but Musk had suggested earlier in the year that the company is making progress on self-driving tech at a pace that might surprise most. Following his tweet about the upcoming events, Musk also said that neither Tesla nor SolarCity will need to raise either additional equity or corporate debut in the fourth quarter, as some observers had suggested it might. It’s another sign that these events are likely designed at least in part to reassure investors that Musk’s proposed merger of the two companies is actually in the best interests of both.
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Disruptor Beam is developing a multiplayer strategy game based on The Walking Dead
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Anthony Ha
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Game developer has already adapted and to the world of smartphones and tablets. Now it’s adding to that list. CEO Jon Radoff said will be a multiplayer strategy game for iOS and Android, where players (potentially tens of thousands of them on a single map) compete with each other for resources and battle for survival. It’s a game, so naturally, there will be zombies, but Radoff said that for the most part, “they’re kind of an annoyance.” “It’s like in the show, where yeah, zombies are occasionally a threat, but the real threat is the other players,” he said. Radoff added that he sees his company as following in the footsteps of storytelling-focused games companies like LucasArts and Bioware: “With mobile and social network games, there was an opportunity to take that audience for Bioware games and start thinking in terms of billions of people.” The first thing that Disruptor Beam does to reach that potential audience is focus on adapting popular franchises with big fanbases — people who don’t necessarily think of themselves as gamers but would be willing to try out a related game on their smartphone. The franchise owners are increasingly willing to work with mobile gaming companies, Radoff said — not just to bring in additional revenue, also because these games help them stay connected with fans throughout the year and build a community. (Walter Driver, whose company Scopely also made , recently .) In this case, Disruptor Beam is working with creator Robert Kirkman’s company Skybound Entertainment. Radoff suggested that could “tell the story of rebuilding civilization against a backdrop of feudalism — it’s reliving tribal warfare.” More broadly, he said Disruptor Beam doesn’t just try to “reskin” an existing game mechanic for a random license. “We actually go the reverse way,” he said. “We start with the story, which means you have to have these kind of experiences, these type of game systems to manifest it.” is scheduled to launch next year.
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Pioneer Square Labs’ Greg Gottesman on the studio model for high growth startups
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Jasper Kuria
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The traditional way of starting a company will remain the most common, which is you have an idea and bootstrap it or raise capital from angels or venture capital firms. This studio model is a different. We generate ideas internally and from our partners and then prototype them rapidly. Our partners are the 14 venture capital firms and over 50 angels who have invested in us, as well as the many entrepreneurs in our networks. Over the last 10 months, we’ve started 21 projects–and this means we’ve actually built software, and done customer validation for all them. We killed 18 of those projects and spawned off three companies from the ones that showed promise. Most of the time the ideas don’t pan out even though we thought they were great when we started them. The economics may not work, we can’t seem to scale or customers are simply not willing to pay for the solution we built. The other mode we use is a great entrepreneur with a track record will come to us and say, “Hey, I don’t exactly have an idea, but I have an area I want to explore with you.” We then provide our team of developers, designers and business folks that can help find, turbo-charge and get an idea to market. Yes, it is similar in many ways. We really emphasize the quality of the entrepreneur. One of the things we like to say is, if we are great at coming up with ideas but mediocre at finding talent for our spinouts, we likely will lose all our money. But if we are only so-so at coming up with ideas but exceptional at attracting talent, we will be very successful. Of course, our goal is to be great at both. Sure. We haven’t yet publicly launched the three companies I mentioned so I can’t talk about those but I’ll give you one example from Madrona Labs where I initially pioneered this model before spinning it off into Pioneer Square Labs. We started a company called . It is a mobile-first, micro-work platform focused on training for machine learning. The idea is, we go after well-defined audiences and get them to generate information in their spare time that is then used to train machine-learning algorithms. People have these really powerful computers in their pockets and knowledge on particular topics. Why not use the two to make some money in their spare time? For example, you can perform tasks when sitting in a bus or just whiling away time. We structure the information gathering as fun games and surveys that they are paid to take. This generated a lot of initial interest among individuals so we then looked for companies willing to pay for the data. Within months, we’d signed up a few customers and also attracted an incredibly talented Getty Images executive, Matt Bencke, to lead the company as CEO. He has subsequently raised venture capital, and Spare5 is one of the hot companies in Seattle! A project that failed at Pioneer Square Labs was a coaching marketplace we built for eSports. When you want to get better at tennis, it isn’t enough to watch Rafael Nadal hit a backhand on YouTube. You would likely hire a coach at your local tennis court. We tried to do this for eSports and focused our early efforts on Heartstone, a popular game. The problem was it cost us $35 to acquire a customer whereas the typical coaching session cost $15 and our cut was only $3 or 20%, a common marketplace percentage. While there was repeat business, it took over 10 coaching sessions just to break even. The unit economics simply did not make sense. Haha, maybe we should have changed our bank like in the Saturday Night Live sketch. On a serious note, we might have optimized more—maybe we should have hired you ‘cause —but we just weren’t as excited by what we were seeing from a unit economics standpoint so we killed the project. I like entrepreneurs who are not negative and don’t talk poorly about past experiences or other venture firms. At the end of the day, it is not PSL or Madrona making a decision. It is Greg Gottesman choosing the person across the table. I have to like you and you have to like me too! That is the way deals get done. You absolutely need to be able to say, “I want to work with this person for the next 10 years. I have been on one board for 17 years. So you really have to think of it like a long-term relationship.” The other thing I don’t like is over-the-top exaggeration. Sometimes we’ll have an entrepreneur come in and say, “We’ve landed this customer, made this key hire or over-inflate something on a slide deck and think we won’t check.” Nowadays integrity is even more important because you have all these big acquirers like Google, Apple or Microsoft constantly dangling tempting exit packages in front of entrepreneurs. They might say upon an exit event, “Hey, would an extra $10 to $20 million be of interest to you? We know you have these venture capital firms but what if we give them 3x to 4x their money to keep them happy and then funnel the rest to you? In other words, let’s effectively change the cap table ex-post.” This is a lot of money we are talking about and so it is really appealing. You want to believe that the person pitching to you will say, without any hesitation, “No, I signed a deal with this investor, and I intend to honor it.” I am sure that may be true for some investors, but I prefer to work with people I genuinely respect and like. For example, I was a founder of this company called . Aaron Easterly took it over as CEO, and he’s been the driving force behind its success. He has executed exceptionally well, and he has done it with integrity and by building a positive culture that allows him to recruit the most talented executives. I think if Aaron was the type of entrepreneur that was less authentic and less likeable, Rover would be in a completely different place. People want to follow authentic, self-aware leaders. It’s harder to recruit the best talent if you’re a jerk, especially in this market. I like Brad because I share his philosophy about being entrepreneur-driven and friendly. It’s just a much more fun way to live life. The other person that comes to mind is Tom Alberg, a founder of Madrona. Both he and Brad are subservient to the entrepreneur and truly happy for their success. I remember early in my career being in Tom’s office one day and talking about a sale of one of our portfolio companies. I heard Tom say, “Gosh, this young kid Matt Williams [the founder of LiveBid] is going to make many millions of dollars on this exit. Isn’t that the greatest thing ever?” Tom totally gets it. It’s first and foremost about the entrepreneurs and trying to make them successful. Of course, I love the entire team at Madrona, but since you held me to two, there you have it. Have something else besides your company. Being an entrepreneur is a roller-coaster ride. It can be stressful and I think it’s important that you have something else that is meaningful to you and keeps your grounded. It could be family, a sport, hobby or faith. If your company is all you have, it will affect your decision making during the inevitable down times, and you may do things that are unhealthy or lack integrity.
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Digital comics startup Madefire launches its first virtual reality app
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Anthony Ha
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When digital comics startup announced a few days ago, co-founder and CEO Ben Wolstenholme said the company was getting ready to move into virtual and augmented reality. He lived up to that promise in very short order, launching for Samsung’s Oculus-powered Gear VR platform and demonstrating it at New York Comic Con. Wolstenholme has told me before that he’s trying to create a “native digital experience” that’s still recognizable as a comics-reading experience. Judging from the demo, that’s still true with the new VR experience — there’s music, sound effects and animation, but you’re still basically reading a comic. Wolstenholme explained Madefire’s approach to VR as adding a third dimension to the experience. It’s not 3D comics, per se, but as a reader, you feel like you’re hovering in front of the comics panel. He compared it alternately to theater and to cave paintings, and whichever metaphor you prefer, it makes for a much more immersive experience. When I tried it out, I felt as if I was occupying the same space as the art, which felt so much bigger and more overwhelming than when I’m reading it on my tablet or smartphone screen. (It helps that the comics can also include full 360-degree scenes.) The Madefire authoring tool should make it relatively simple for creators to customize and control the three-dimensional aspect of their art, Wolstenholme said, but the company is also automatically upgrading its full library of comics: “We should have everything in there by Christmas.” [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rIOOR5RReM&w=560&h=315] In the meantime, the demo app currently includes samples from a handful of titles, including DC’s and the Madefire original (created by Wolstenholme and Liam Sharp). I also had a chance to discuss the news to comics artist Dave Gibbons, who’s been for a few years now. He praised the Madefire format, including the new VR support, because it gives artists more control over the reading experience. “Madefire sat in the sweet spot — it wasn’t about the gimmick, it was about the story,” Gibbons said, adding, “The [authoring] tool is available to everyone, so there’s no barrier to producing your own stuff. That feels like a glorious thing to me.” As the co-creator of and (adapted into the movie ), Gibbons has seen comics’ stories and characters moving into other media. He said that comics have “quite recently become used as a prototype or pitching tool for movies.” With Madefire’s new formats, comics can still serve as a springboard of sorts, while also allowing writers and artists to explore new technologies and new ways to keep readers engaged. “I suppose I’m at the time of life where I feel like I’ve seen it all, so it’s exciting to see something that is fresh and new and still engaging,” Gibbons said.
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A decentralized web would give power back to the people online
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Matthew Hodgson
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Recently, Google launched a video calling tool (yes, another one). Google Hangouts has been sidelined to Enterprise, and Google Duo is supposed to be the next big thing in video calling. So now we have Skype from Microsoft, Facetime from Apple, and Google with Duo. Each big company has its own equivalent service, each stuck in its own bubble. These services may be great, but they aren’t exactly what we imagined during the dream years when the internet was being built. The original purpose of the web and internet, if you recall, was to build a common neutral network which everyone can participate in equally for the betterment of humanity. Fortunately, there is an emerging movement to bring the web back to this vision and it even involves some of the key figures from the birth of the web. It’s called the Decentralised Web or Web 3.0, and it describes an emerging trend to build services on the internet which do not depend on any single “central” organisation to function. So what happened to the initial dream of the web? Much of the altruism faded during the first dot-com bubble, as people realised that an easy way to create value on top of this neutral fabric was to build centralised services which gather, trap and monetise information. Search Engines (e.g. Google), Social Networks (e.g. Facebook), Chat Apps (e.g. WhatsApp) have grown huge by providing centralised services on the internet. For example, Facebook’s future vision of the internet is to provide access only to the subset of centralised services it endorses (Internet.org and Free Basics). Meanwhile, it disables fundamental internet freedoms such as the ability to link to content via a URL (forcing you to share content only within Facebook) or the ability for search engines to index its contents (other than the Facebook search function). The Decentralised Web envisions a future world where services such as communication, currency, publishing, social networking, search, archiving etc are provided not by centralised services owned by single organisations, but by technologies which are powered by the people: their own community. Their users. The core idea of decentralisation is that the operation of a service is not blindly trusted to any single omnipotent company. Instead, responsibility for the service is shared: perhaps by running across multiple federated servers, or perhaps running across client side apps in an entirely “distributed” peer-to-peer model. Even though the community may be “byzantine” and not have any reason to trust or depend on each other, the rules that describe the decentralised service’s behaviour are designed to force participants to act fairly in order to participate at all, relying heavily on cryptographic techniques such as Merkle trees and digital signatures to allow participants to hold each other accountable. There are three fundamental areas that the Decentralised Web necessarily champions:privacy, data portability and security. Just as the internet itself triggered a grand re-levelling, taking many disparate unconnected local area networks and providing a new neutral common ground that linked them all, now we see the same pattern happening again as technology emerges to provide a new neutral common ground for higher level services. And much like Web 2.0, the first wave of this Web 3.0 invasion has walked among us for several years already. Git is wildly successful as an entirely decentralised version control system – almost entirely replacing centralised systems such as Subversion. Bitcoin famously demonstrates how a currency can exist without any central authority, contrasting with a centralised incumbent such as Paypal. Diaspora aims to provide a decentralised alternative to Facebook. Freenet paved the way for decentralised websites, email and file sharing. Less famously, StatusNet (now called GNU Social) provides a decentralised alternative to Twitter. XMPP was built to provide a decentralised alternative to the messaging silos of AOL Instant Messenger, ICQ, MSN, and others. Telephone switchboard operators circa 1914. Photo courtesy and . However, these technologies have always sat on the fringe — favourites for the geeks who dreamt them up and are willing to forgive their mass market shortcomings, but frustratingly far from being mainstream. The tide is turning . The public zeitgeist is finally catching up with the realisation that being entirely dependent on massive siloed community platforms is not entirely in the users’ best interests. Critically, there is a new generation of Decentralised Startups that have got the attention of the mainstream industry, heralding in the new age for real. Blockstack and Ethereum show how Blockchain can be so much more than just a cryptocurrency, acting as a general purpose set of building blocks for building decentralised systems that need strong consensus. IPFS and the Dat Project provide entirely decentralised data fabrics, where ownership and responsibility for data is shared by all those accessing it rather than ever being hosted in a single location. The real step change in the current momentum came in June at the Decentralised Web Summit organised by the Internet Archive. The event brought together many of the original to discuss ways to “Lock the web open” and reinvent a web “that is more reliable, private, and fun.” Brewster Kahle, the founder of the Internet Archive, saw first hand the acceleration in decentralisation technologies whilst considering how to migrate the centralised Internet Archive to instead be decentralised: operated and hosted by the community who uses it rather being a fragile and vulnerable single service. Additionally, the enthusiastic presence of Tim Berners-Lee, Vint Cerf, Brewster himself and many others of the old school of the internet at the summit showed that for the first time the shift to decentralisation had caught the attention and indeed endorsement of the establishment. Tim Berners-Lee : The web was designed to be decentralised so that everybody could participate by having their own domain and having their own webserver and this hasn’t worked out. Instead, we’ve got the situation where individual personal data has been locked up in these silos. […] The proposal is, then, to bring back the idea of a decentralised web. To bring back power to people. We are thinking we are going to make a social revolution by just tweaking: we’re going to use web technology, but we’re going to use it in such a way that we separate the apps that you use from the data that you use. We now see the challenge is to mature these new technologies and bring them fully to the mass market. Commercially there is huge value to be had in decentralisation: whilst the current silos may be washed away, new ones will always appear on top of the new common ground, just as happened with the original Web. Github is the posterchild for this: a $2 billion company built entirely as a value-added service on top of the decentralised technology of Git — despite users being able to trivially take their data and leave at any point. Similarly, we expect to see the new wave of companies providing decentralised infrastructure and commercially viable services on top, as new opportunities emerge in this brave new world. Ultimately, it’s hard to predict what final direction Web 3.0 will take us, and that’s precisely the point. By unlocking the web from the hands of a few players this will inevitably enable a surge in innovation and let services flourish which prioritise the user’s interests. Apple, Google, Microsoft, and others have their own interests at heart (as they should), but that means that the user can often be viewed purely as a source of revenue, quite literally at the users’ expense. As the Decentralised Web attracts the interest and passion of the mainstream developer community, there is no telling what new economies will emerge and what kinds of new technologies and services they will invent. The one certainty is they will intrinsically support their communities and user bases just as much as the interests of their creators.
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With a €20 million Series A Snapp opens up ride-sharing in Iran
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Elmira Bayrasli
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| 10
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Investors have turned Iran into the latest country to embrace the ride sharing and car-hailing app phenomenon. The has secured a €20 million Series A round of financing for its ride-sharing application, . The South African mobile phone company led the round and is the sole investor. MTN is also a major shareholder of Irancell and Iran Internet Holdings. The firm launched Snapp, formerly known as Taxi Yaab in 2014. €20 million is among the second largest investments in Iran’s nascent startup ecosystem this year. In March Swedish-based investment firm invested in Sarava, an Iranian investment firm focused on e-commerce. Sarava has backed , one of Iran’s most successful e-commerce startups. Snapp currently operates only in Tehran, Iran’s capital city. Shahkar told me to that the company employs 10,000 drivers in a city of 8.1 million residents. The company has recorded half a million users, largely through word-of-mouth. The company did not disclose its revenue or its valuation. There are 27 million registered cars in Iran. The number registered as official taxis numbers around 80,000. However, the is complicated. There are private taxis and “shared taxis” that are price controlled called . Snapp chief executive Shahram Shahkar told me that there are an additional 80,000 private drivers and 200,000 freelance, unofficial taxis in Tehran. Snapp works the same way Uber does. You download an application on your phone, request a driver, and go. Where Snapp differs from Uber is payment. Because Iran is still largely a cash-based society, drivers accept hard cash. “Another thing that makes Snapp unique is that the price of the trip is set beforehand,” Shahkar said. “This pre-pricing is our value proposition; it eliminates haggling.” Snapp commissions drivers with valid driver’s licenses and insurance. Each driver undergoes a background check and the Snapp team inspects each vehicle before giving them the go ahead. Most of Iran’s population of 80 million , with a high rate of literacy (98 percent). Nearly 65 percent of Iranian homes have broadband access and , with an estimated , the largest in the Middle East. When asked about future plans, particularly how far Snapp plans to scale Shahkar told me that they plan to focus on the Iranian market and “deliver value.” “We plan to invest in our current operations, expand to other cities, introduce different services such as premium vehicles and offer new features,” Shahkar said. Just like the U.S., there are other ride-sharing app in the country like the Tehran Taxi Organization. Tehran Taxi announced that it is exploring an online mobile application similar to Uber in 2017. “We have the best employees, selected from the best universities in Iran,” Shahkar said. Snapp employs 130 people. These employees, Shahkar says, are Snapp’s competitive advantage. “They have local knowledge, which is necessary for a complicated city like Tehran.” Tehran has numerous traffic restrictions and rules. That gives him confidence that Snapp will continue to dominate the “They have local knowledge, which is necessary for a complicated city like Tehran.” Tehran has numerous traffic restrictions and rules. That gives him confidence that Snapp will continue to dominate the ride-sharing market. “You can’t just learn this market in a day,” he said.
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Primo Toys rolls out Cubetto, a wooden robot that teaches kids to code
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Lora Kolodny
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A startup called today began online and retail sales of its latest educational product, the Cubetto, a programmable wooden robot for kids as young as 3. The London startup, which is a graduate of the accelerator and backed by Randi Zuckerberg, promises families and educators a screen-free way to teach coding basics to kids who can’t yet read or write. Retailing for $225, the new Cubetto kit includes a wooden, cube-shaped robot on wheels, a wooden game board and blocks that fit onto it, a mat where the robot can roll around, and an activity book. Each block in the Cubetto kit represents a command you’d find in a simple programming language like LOGO, such as forward, right or left, and function. Kids place the blocks on the game board to create, if not really write, a program that moves the robot around different obstacles they can arrange on the mat. Primo Toys’ CEO Filippo Yacob said the new edition Cubetto has been in development since 2015. In its earliest days, Primo Toys saw success with a 2013 Kickstarter campaign for its original Cubetto, more of a DIY kit to teach older kids some coding and hardware basics. The company followed up with a in March this year, which Yacob claims shattered edtech category records on Kickstarter. Primo Toys raised $1.6 million from 6,553 backers on Kickstarter in its 2016 campaign, and following that, received 20,000 preorders online, which are slated to ship to customers in 92 countries now. Because it does not require the use of an app, Cubetto is meant to be accessible to kids who don’t have a smartphone or tablet whenever or wherever they play. And Yacob says Primo Toys’ focus on a “screenless” experience for young kids makes its toys more socially engaging. The idea is that once a screen is on, kids will watch and interact with it rather than one another. The CEO said, “We merge educational principles borrowed from Montessori learning, and combine them with skills that are very 21st Century, like coding.” Today Primo Toys is selling its Cubetto to families, but it will also be demonstrating it and selling to early learning centers, pre-schools and school districts around the world, Yacob noted.
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Asia-focused dating app Paktor lands $32.5M to push into ‘social entertainment’
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Jon Russell
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, a Tinder-like dating app from Singapore, has raised $32.5 million in new funding to expand its focus into new kinds of mobile entertainment. Four-year-old Paktor claims over 20 million users worldwide, it has 110 staff and has raised $22 million in financing to date. CEO and co-founder Joseph Phua told TechCrunch that it recently hit net profitability and has yet to touch . That formed the basis for this new raise, which was led by U.S.-Asia-based and Indonesia’s , with participation from other, undisclosed investors existing and new, the company said. Paktor’s previous investors include Yahoo Japan-affiliate YJ Capital and Singapore’s Vertex Ventures. “Previously, we raised funding to survive [but] this round will enable us to stretch our legs,” Phua explained. The Paktor CEO said this new-found financial security has allowed him to “think through things with clear head” and take a look at upcoming trends that Paktor, which operates a Tinder-like dating app and an offline matchmaking service, can attack. He believes that the key area is “social entertainment,” a fairly nebulous term that he believes is beginning to show potential with some startup worldwide. He cites fledging projects like House Party, , and Chinese dating app Momo’s live-streaming feature, as evidence of how tradition, linear media is being disrupted by one-to-many and multi-person media experiences. Phua isn’t saying much about what new products Paktor will actually release. Initial plans, he said, are for a new service that is “tied very closely” to the core Paktor dating app. However, that would restrict its audience to people who are single and looking to date — — so Phua said that Paktor is still looking over the exact details. The Paktor dating app is most established in Southeast Asia, and neighboring countries like Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan and Korea, but there are business interests elsewhere in the world. The company works with media brands to power bespoke dating services — none of which are under the Paktor name — in Latin America, the U.S. and Europe, Phua said. He maintains that the business will continue to focus on those interests, and the dating side, but its profitability and cash on hand encouraged this new round to push the startup’s boundaries. “We are not pivoting but we are exploring and learning more things as we go along,” he added.
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Convergence crosses the pond
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Reuben Chaudhury
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Imagine a world where you buy mobile phone, data, voice and television services from a single provider. A world where you don’t worry about running out of wireless minutes, exceeding text message limits or running up roaming charges. A world where you talk, text and stream video on an iPad, TV, laptop or mobile phone, seamlessly using the same user interface and applications across wireless networks, fiber optics and Wi-Fi. A pipe dream? Not in Europe, where the long-awaited convergence of wireless and wireline telecommunications services is already underway. Major combinations in the past two years include wireless giant Vodafone’s $10 billion of Spanish cable operator Ono, and the $1.4 billion of Belgian mobile carrier BASE by Liberty Global, Europe’s largest cable company. And now convergence is crossing the Atlantic — with big implications for U.S. customers and carriers. Comcast, the largest U.S. cable company, has signaled it will add wireless to its menu of fixed-line video, data and voice services, making it the first to offer the complete convergence experience. This move is all but certain to send other carriers scrambling across the wireless-wireline divide. U.S. consumers who have shown lukewarm interest in bundled telecommunications services don’t know it yet, but they’re going to love convergence. Comcast’s pilot testing next year will give many U.S. customers their first glimpse at truly comprehensive, seamless services at a reasonable price. As Steve Jobs might have said — when they get it, they’ll realize they always wanted it. Customer benefits start with savings. The average price of bundled voice, data, video and mobile service runs about 10 to 12 percent below the total cost of purchasing all four separately, based on A.T. Kearney analysis of prevailing plan prices in France and Spain. Greater benefits will materialize in the long run as convergence triggers innovation. A provider offering all four services has a powerful incentive to drive usage by creating seamless experiences that encourage customers to stay connected. And a simplified pricing and billing system could replace today’s bewildering array of charges with a single price for services across all devices. Convergence also makes business sense for the maturing telecommunications sector. Both wireless and wireline carriers have seen subscriber growth plateau. At wireless companies, average revenue per customer is falling and profit margins are under pressure. Adding new services to the mix would open a new revenue channel. At the same time, convergence can expand profit margins through cost synergies and enhanced customer loyalty. In recent wireless-fixed mergers in Europe such as Vodafone/Ono and Everything Everywhere/BT, companies projected consolidation synergies in the range of 8 to 10 percent of wireless costs in their investor presentations. European experience also demonstrates that customers who buy more than one service from a carrier tend to stick around longer. According to Ovum, churn reduction is the most common objective of convergence; Ovum found a 50 percent reduction in churn among customers with multiple services at Belgacom and KPN, the leading telecom carriers in Belgium and Netherlands, respectively. Convergence won’t reach the entire U.S. all at once. Unlike European countries, where wireline carriers offer nationwide service, fixed-line companies in the U.S. have fragmented regional footprints. The largest, AT&T, covers less than 40 percent of the country, according to the FCC. As a result, convergence is likely to progress on a city-by-city basis until the whole country is covered. Comcast will provide both a catalyst and an initial model for convergence in the U.S. The cable giant is moving into wireless as a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) under an agreement that allows it to resell service on Verizon’s network. Others likely will start out as MVNOs, too. But as we’ve seen in Europe, the end game appears to be outright mergers of wireline and wireless companies seeking the full synergies and other benefits of convergence. Cable companies are well-positioned to take the lead in consolidation, thanks to their dominance of wireline markets around the country. Few localities have more than one cable television company, but most have several wireless carriers. This means cable companies can pick and choose among potential merger partners, while wireless carriers will have only one option in each market. Convergence will drive structural change in the telecommunications industry, as consolidation reshapes the competitive landscape and carriers confront the technological and operational challenges of combining wireless and wireline services. An initial hurdle is consumer indifference. A 2015 consumer by GSMA found just 5 percent of U.S. customers with access to bundled services buy more than one from a single provider, even though 36 percent purchase the full suite of mobile, video, voice and data services. That’s where the discount off à la carte pricing comes in. Customers attracted by cost savings will quickly grasp the other benefits of bundling. As word spreads, adoption rates could rise to the 30 percent to 40 percent range, as seen in countries such as Portugal with mature converged offerings. Customers who love the seamless experience of converged wireless and wireline services will expect that experience to extend beyond the screen. For example, they’ll want a single customer service representative to handle all their service needs. This poses a challenge to carriers with different service organizations for different services, MVNO carriers reselling wireless service on another company’s network and companies working to integrate newly acquired operations. Convergence also will spark an evolutionary change in telecommunications networks. Combined wireless-wireline service requires a multi-layered network architecture spanning 4G wireless and Wi-Fi capabilities. Expanded Wi-Fi capacity is essential for the MVNO model, so carriers will need to invest in more hotspots, as well as new technology that automatically switches traffic from mobile networks to Wi-Fi routers. Winners in the converged future will have evolved networks, fully developed digital platforms and the ultimate driver of convergence — a unified customer experience.
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Darrell Etherington
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Doorman cancels unlimited deliveries, cites “losing money”
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Haje Jan Kamps
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If you live in a building with a doorman, you don’t need . If you don’t, you do. The company is making it easy to accept deliveries when you’re out and about, but realized it was getting so successful in changing the patterns of how its customers do online shopping that it was effectively losing money on each customer. “We didn’t expect that Doorman would completely change peoples’ shopping behavior,” the company’s founder and CEO, Zander Adell, tells me. “We now know that Doorman customers shop online twice as much within 6 months of signing up. Unfortunately, that means our original $19 and $29 per month plans stopped making sense, and we’re in effect losing a lot of money on some of our customers.” The company’s new payment tiers are greatly simplified — and a lot more expensive than the old plans. The new payment plans go into effect in December. People who were on the original Silver and Gold unlimited parcels plan are getting nudged down to the Basic $19 per month plan, which includes 5 packages per month. The other new plans are Plus ($35 per month, which includes 10 packages at $3.50 each, with additional parcels charged at $4.50), Pro ($55 per month) and Premium ($89 per month). At the top-end plan, the company also introduces cardboard box recycling, so customers don’t have to deal with the recycling themselves. Incidentally, I always wondered whether Doorman should introduce a crate delivery service: I would pay a lot of money to not have to deal with the frankly obscene number of Amazon boxes that turn up on my doorstep every month, and it seems like just bringing me their contents in a crate would make a lot more sense (and a lot less hassle for me). Along with the announcement of the end of the unlimited plans, Doorman is teasing a number of new features the company has in the pipeline, including support for returns shipping, oversized packages, alcohol, on-demand, daytime, later cutoffs, etc. The company currently still operates only in San Francisco, New York and Chicago, but has ambitions for further expansion in the imminent future.
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Why Tesla’s new solar roof tiles and home battery are such a big deal
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Darrell Etherington
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unveiled its new solar roof tiles. Few of us in attendance, if any, realized the solar roofing tiles were actual functional solar panels until Elon Musk said so. Sure, it’s a neat trick, but what’s the big deal? Why does it matter that Tesla is making a fashion statement when the point is green power and a future where we aren’t so dependent on fossil fuels? I’ve heard from some people suggesting that this is nothing new, because of other similar previous projects, including , for example. Others are wary of Tesla’s ability to sway consumers with a solar solution that sounds like it’ll still be quite expensive in terms of up-front (or, with payment plans, deferred but net) installation costs. Still others aren’t clear on Tesla’s goals with this product, or how it fits into the company’s overall strategy relative to its electric vehicles. It’s easy to dismiss the aesthetic import of how Tesla’s tiles look, but it’s actually important, and a real consideration for homeowners looking to build new homes or revamp their existing ones. The appearance of the tiles, which come in four distinct flavors (Textured Glass, Slate Glass, Tuscan Glass and Smooth Glass) is going to be a core consideration for prospective buyers, especially those at the top end of the addressable market with the disposable income available to do everything they can to ensure their home looks as good as it possibly can. As with other kinds of technologies that are looking to make the leap from outlier oddity to mainstream mainstay, solar has a hurdle to leap in terms of customer perception. Existing solar designs, and even so-called attempts to make them more consistent with traditional offerings like the above-mentioned Dow Chemical project, leave a lot to be desired in terms of creating something that can be broadly described as good-looking. It’s like the VR headset — Oculus and Google can make claims about their use of fabric making their headsets more approachable, but both are still just options somewhere along the curve of things with niche appeal. Neither is very likely to strike a truly broad audience of users as acceptable, and neither are solar panels that don’t succeed in completely disguising themselves as such. Tesla has been referred to as the Apple of the automotive world by more than a few analysts and members of the media, and if there’s one thing Apple does well, it’s capitalize on the so-called “halo effect.” This is the phenomenon whereby customers of one of its lines of business are likely to become customers of some of the others; iPhone buyers tend to often go on to own a Mac, for instance. For Tesla, this represents an opportunity to jump-start its home solar business (which it’ll take on in earnest provided its planned acquisition of SolarCity goes through) through the knock-on effects of its brisk Tesla EV sales, including the tremendous pre-order interest for the Model 3. It’s strange to think of halo effects with big-ticket items, including vehicles and home energy systems, but Tesla’s fan base shares a lot of characteristics with Apple’s, and because they’re already purchasing at the level of an entire automobile, the frame of reference for what constitutes a valid halo purchase is actually appropriate. Tesla, like Apple, scores well with customer satisfaction and brand commitment, and that’s something that no one trying to sell a solar home energy system at scale can match. As strange as it sounds, “buying a roof because you like your car” might be the new “buying a computer because you like your phone.” Tesla’s solar tiles claim to be able to power a standard home, and provide spare power via the new Powerwall 2 battery in case of inclement weather or other outages. Musk says that the overall cost will still be less than installing a regular old roof and paying the electric company for power from conventional sources. But Musk’s claims about the new benefits of the new solutions don’t end there. Tesla’s tiles will actually be more resilient than traditional roofing materials, including terra-cotta, clay and slate tiles. That’s because of the toughness of the glass used in their construction, according to Musk, who demonstrated the results of heavy impact from above, using a kettlebell as you can see in the video below. A post shared by (@techcrunch) on This should make them theoretically more resistant to potential damage from elements like hail, or even debris like fallen tree branches. In fact, Musk also said at the event that the roofs should far outlast the standard 20-year life cycle common for roofing materials used today — by as much as two or even three times. Fewer roof tile replacements means more value, provided that’s not already factored into his estimates of the up-front cost. There’s also the possibility that the new tiles could become more efficient than existing solar panel options. Though in their current form, Musk says they achieve 98 percent of the efficiency of regular panels. He said that the company is working with 3M on coatings that could help light enter the panel and then refract within, letting it capture even more of the potential energy it carries to translate that into consumable power. The announcement of Tesla’s solar tiles does not guarantee a sweeping solar power revolution; far from it, since Tesla says it won’t start installing the product in any consumer homes until next year, and a lot can happen between now and then. But Musk also said with full confidence that he ultimately expects the Powerwall to outsell Tesla cars, and easily so. Solar roofing, Powerwall and Tesla cars taken together represent a new kind of ecosystem in consumer tech, one that carries a promise of self-sufficiency in addition to ecological benefits. Tesla has already tipped its hand with respect to how it intends to make vehicle ownership a revenue generator for its drivers, rather than a cost center. You can see how it might eventually do the same for solar power using solar tile roofs combined with Powerwalls installed in series, giving homeowners surplus power generation and storage with a few different potential options for monetizing the excess (including, say, acting as a supercharger station for other Teslas, or selling back to the grid). It’s tempting to look at Tesla’s unveiling last week and think that it’s more of an incremental development in the home solar industry. But it’s more likely a step toward a future where individuals have more direct control over power generation, leading to a big difference in how we think about renewable energy.
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Cloud development platform Nitrous.io shuts down
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Frederic Lardinois
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Nitrous.io, an online development environment and IDE, today that it is shutting down its service on November 14. The service is now closed for new signups and the team says it will refund any payments made after October 16. Nitrous’ existing users will be able to download their existing data soon. The team says that it will also soon release an open-source version of its cloud IDE that its users will be able to run on their own servers. It’s unclear when exactly this will happen, though. Today’s announcement does come as a surprise and clearly caught the company’s customers unaware. Things had been quiet around Nitrous for a while, though. The company its new pricing model back in April, but as far as I can see, the team didn’t release any major new features since then. Nitrous last year as it started to push more aggressively to get professional developers — and not just hobbyists and students — onto its platform. Maybe that push didn’t work out as planned and the company simply ran out of money. Nitrous.io launched back in 2012 and raised a total of $7.65 million, including a $6.65 million Series A round in 2014. Its investors include Bessemer Venture Partners (which led its Series A round), as well as Draper Associates, CrunchFund, 500 Startups, TIBCO Software, Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, Golden Gate Ventures and Peanut Labs co-founder/CTO Prosper Nwankpa. We have reached out to the company and some of its investors and will update this post once we learn more (there is always a chance that it was quietly acquired by somebody, too, after all).
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When President Obama leaves office, his @Potus tweets leave with him
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Brian Heater
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When President Obama turns over the keys to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, he’ll also be handing over a number of high-profile social media accounts. Eight days ahead of the election, the White House is when the commander-in-chief steps aside early next year. The president’s Twitter account, for one, will be getting a fresh start of sorts, come January 20 . While @Potus’s more than 11 million followers will remain connected to the account (or those who choose to stick around, at least), the feed will make a fresh start. I'll say it: Holy Cow, fans. Even this White Sox fan was happy to see Wrigley rocking last night. — President Obama (@POTUS44) As already announced, Obama’s tweets will be saved at National Archives and Records Administration and removed from the account, so the next president (presumably Clinton or Trump) will have a clean slate for their own, um, unique brand of social media engagement. They’ll also be transferred to the @Potus44 handle. Existing @WhiteHouse, @FLOTUS, @PressSec and @VP tweets will be archived by NARA, as well. The same goes for Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr and YouTube, as well. The username, URL and followers all stay, but the timeline content gets wiped clean, with older content being moved to URLs like Instagram.com/ObamaWhiteHouse and Facebook.com/ObamaWhiteHouse for posterity.
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Intellectual property strategies for startups
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Benjamin Lehberger
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protection is an important consideration for most . Obtaining protection, such as patents, can minimize competition and act as a defensive mechanism against infringement claims from others. also can attract or solidify funding and partnerships. In formulating an strategy for your startup, consider the following. Your time to file for patent protection is limited and patents should be contemplated early on in development. In the United States, an inventor has a one-year “grace period” from first publicizing an invention to filing for patent protection, after which it is too late. However, you should not wait even that long. In 2013, the U.S. patent system switched from a first-to-invent to a first-inventor-to-file system. This subtle difference in terminology could mean dire consequences for those who delay seeking patent protection. Under the old first-to-invent system, you could be the first to conceive of an invention and still obtain patent rights over an earlier filer by showing that you conceived first and continued to diligently work on your invention. Today, it is a race to the patent office. Regardless of who conceived of the invention first, the first one to file their patent application “wins.” Also, it is important to note that the one-year “grace period” to file a patent application is not available in most countries outside of the United States. If you plan to seek patent protection abroad, publicizing your invention at any time before filing a patent application could put your foreign rights in jeopardy. Therefore, file early and keep quiet until you do. As your startup continues to develop its product or products, consider each new feature as a possibility for patent protection. that file one early patent application and stop may find that, once the patent issues, the product has moved far beyond what was in the original patent application. The product may end up being under-protected or not even covered by the patent at all. It is important to reevaluate patent protection on a regular basis and consider filing on new features of the invention when applicable. If the product is evolving quickly, consider filing a provisional patent application or a series of provisional patent applications within a year before filing a utility patent application. Patents take time. While there are avenues available to expedite examination, on average it takes more than two years for a patent to be granted by the U.S. Patent Office. About 30 percent of patent applications do not make it through at all. Having an issued patent may help to get funding for your startup and secure your place in your market. But, do not wait until your patent issues to commercialize your invention. Keep your startup moving forward and keep developing. Chances are, you will solve additional problems along the way, which may lead to even more important inventions. In the meantime, you will be building your brand, reputation and revenue. When discussing patents, the focus is often on utility patents, but design patents should also be considered as part of a well-rounded strategy. In general, a utility patent protects the way a product is used and works, while a design patent protects the way the product looks. By the end of 2015, the U.S. Patent Office had issued more than 9.2 million utility patents, but only about 746,000 design patents. Design patents can provide significant value as a supplement to utility patents or as a replacement when utility patent protection is unavailable. Software utility patents are still available in the United States. But, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in , obtaining utility patent protection for software-related inventions has become more difficult and less predictable. Design patents provide a viable option to protect certain features of software-related inventions, particularly the graphical user interfaces. The term of a design patent is slightly less, 15 years from grant for a design patent versus 20 years from filing for a utility patent, but so is the cost. Also, design patents often can be obtained much quicker than utility patents. While patents are a valuable asset to any startup, they are only one piece of the puzzle. First and foremost, a startup needs a good product or service to be successful. The Patent Office awards patents for new and non-obvious inventions. Receiving a patent does not mean, however, that it is necessarily a good invention or one that anyone will want to buy. Make sure what you are protecting is worth protecting. Second, build a unique brand and protect it with registered trademarks. A trademark is a word, phrase, symbol or design that identifies and distinguishes the source of the goods of one party from those of others. Having a strong and recognizable trademark can be extremely valuable for distinguishing you from the competition. And, unlike patents, a registered trademark never expires as long as you keep using it. Trademarks do not have strict filing deadlines like patents, but it is best to start early and have a trademark clearance search done to ensure that there are no conflicts that could prevent your use of the trademark. Finally, depending on the type of business your startup is in, copyright and trade secret protection also should be considered in your strategy. Talk to an professional as you begin building your startup to discuss what types of protection will work best for you.
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Narrative lifelogging gets a stay of execution as the company considers restarting production
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Brian Heater
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This was certainly unexpected. For any number of reasons. A day before the planned shutdown of cloud-based storage service, lifelogging startup — or, rather, a group of former employees — has snatched itself from the jaws of death. In an email sent to Narrative users, the company announced the launch of “New Narrative,” rising like the proverbial phoenix or one of those four Supermen that sprung up after Kal-El was killed by Doomsday. The new version of the company is quick to explain to its loyal fan base that the continuation of the service is only the beginning. New Narrative will also be looking for funding to restart the production of the Narrative Clip 2, its second piece of lifelogging hardware that was introduced last year, offering up some key improvements over the first generation. In September, the company of both its hardware and software offerings. I’ll admit that, at the time, I wasn’t terribly surprised by the outcome. What started as an intriguing little piece of hardware designed to capture small slices of life at regular intervals ultimately didn’t make a ton of sense in a world in which we’re already carrying multiple cameras on our person at any given time. But the device did develop a . And a group of its former employees possess a strong enough belief in the product’s potential to press ahead. That doesn’t mean, however, that the company will operate as before. There will be a transfer of data to this new company that will result in some server downtime (though only one to two days, apparently) and there’s certain to be a shift in existing employment positions. Also, the company notes that since it will essentially be financing out of pocket, It’s not possible for us to assume all the obligations of the former company. There is a small number of customers to the former company that have seen problems with their Clips. We can’t resolve any of those cases today, but we’ll try to find ways to offer repairs or other kinds of help, and hope to be able to provide information about this down the line. We’ve reached out to reps from the new company for comment and will update as soon as we hear back.
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Standing Rock pipeline protest was absent from Facebook Trends
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Josh Constine
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A massive social media protest is exploding on Facebook, not Twitter for a change, yet Facebook’s dehumanized Trending system wasn’t picking it up. People around the country are checking in on Facebook at the Standing Rock Native American Reservation in an effort to hinder local Morton County police from targeting protesters attending in person to fight an oil pipeline through historic tribal lands. [Update 3:15pm PT: About two hours after we published this post, Facebook is finally showing a Trend for #NoDAPL, which stands for “No Dakota Access Pipeline.” The fact that it says 790,000 people are talking about the Trend, between 2X and 100X the chatter of other Facebook Trends, shows just how late Facebook was to surfacing the latest in the Standing Rock protest saga. Facebook tells us it did previously have a ‘Dakota Access Pipeline’ trend on Saturday. But the renewed swell of interest and people trying to learn about the check-in protest may have warranted a swifter renewal of the trend. This article has been edited to discuss the trend’s absence in the past tense.] The Morton County’s sheriff has . Still, the social media protest has proceeded to bring concerns about the environmental and cultural impact of the pipeline to national attention. While some users have taken to masking their posts, explaining their absentee check-ins by using incorrect spellings like “Randing Rock,” there’s still more chatter about the exact term than many other Facebook Trends. Even if Facebook showed related Trends in past weeks, or was trying to suppress the spread of the check-in story since police may not be doing surveillance on protesters with geotargeting, it’s still a huge topic of conversation. Including a Trend highlighting a story that discusses the surveillance denial by the sheriff or why people are checking in could have provided important context for users. went as far as to publish a story headlined “Why Your Facebook Friends Are Checking In To Standing Rock.” Yet “Standing Rock,” “Native Americans,” “pipeline,” “Missouri River,” and related terms didn’t show up as Facebook Trends to any users until long after the check-in protest began over the weekend. Until around when we first published this story, related terms weren’t even in the “Emerging Trends” pool from which Facebook internally surfaces trends, which can be seen through Facebook’s data tool for journalists called Signal. Standing Rock wasn’t a Trend despite Facebook’s own search tool showing “Standing Rock Indian Reservation” was a popular search, with more than 86,000 people talking about it. But you’d only know that if you searched for it. Standing Rock and related terms have much more chatter than other topics Facebook was showing as Trending, such as actor Bryan Cranston saying he’ll move to Canada if Trump is elected. Since Facebook removed its human curators, it switched the Trends design to remove the immediately visible descriptions of the trends and now only shows the trending term itself, in this case #NoDAPL. Since there’s no way to guess what that terms mean, only users who click on the Trend or hover over it to see the related news link would learn about the pipeline protest. Facebook’s Chris Cox and Sheryl Sandberg speak about Facebook being a tech company with responsibilities to news readers at the WSJDLive conference The failure to identify a huge, viral protest that’s built off of Facebook’s own location check-in feature shows how badly Facebook needs to overhaul Trends. Facebook also failed to surface any trends related to the police shooting of Terence Crutcher until more than a day after the news became a topic of national discussion. Facebook continues to , repeatedly labeling itself a technology platform. While that argument may have been bolstered by its decision to , that move has given way to multiple instances of glaring errors in Facebook’s Trends. It has that a human curator could have easily debunked, while omitting or being slow to pick up on critically important news stories surrounding human rights issues like the Standing Rock protest. Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandberg and CPO Chris Cox again reiterated this month that Facebook is a tech company, not a media company, but to its readers since it has become such a prolific distribution channel for news. Ensuring the day’s most important protests aren’t hidden behind frivolous celebrity dreck should be one of those responsibilities.
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Shadow Brokers post list of compromised IP addresses
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Kate Conger
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Last night, after several months of relative quiet, a hacking group calling itself the Shadow Brokers posted new data purportedly stolen from the NSA. The group’s in August included malware believed to be used by the NSA as recently as 2013. At the time, the Shadow Brokers claimed they would auction a second set of data including the “best files” it had stolen, but since then, the group hasn’t done much except post sexually explicit fanfic about Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch on Medium. That changed last night, when the group posted what appears to be a list of servers compromised by the Equation Group, a hacking team with ties to the NSA. If the list is accurate — and that’s a serious if, even though the exploits released by the Shadow Brokers three months ago — it shows which staging servers the NSA used to launch cyberattacks. Like the Shadow Brokers’ previous disclosure, security researchers say this data is old. The servers were compromised between 2000 and 2010, . The new leak contains a list of more than 300 IP addresses and more than 300 domain names the Equation Group may have compromised. According to a Hacker House analysis, the affected hosts appear to be spread around the world. “However, the top 10 impacted countries are China, Japan, Korea, Spain, Germany, India, Taiwan, Mexico, Italy & Russia,” reports. “The top three, China, Japan and Korea, make up a substantial number of the attacked hosts.” In a Medium post announcing the leak, the Shadow Brokers referenced the DNC hack, the U.S. election, and the still-pending auction of its “best files.” The group also seems to reference media reports that have attributed recent political hacks to Russia, and suggests that the hacks are instead perpetrated by Iran as revenge for U.S. interference in that nation’s election. “USSA elections is coming! 60% of Amerikansky never voting,” the group . “TheShadowBrokers is having suggestion. On November 8th, instead of not voting, maybe be stopping the vote all together? Maybe being grinch who stopped election from coming? Maybe hacking election is being the best idea? #hackelection2016. If peoples is not being hackers, then #disruptelection2016, #disruptcorruption2016. Maybe peoples not be going to work, be finding local polling places and protesting, blocking , disrupting , smashing equipment, tearing up ballots?” The latest leak calls into question what role former NSA contractor Harold Martin may have had in the Shadow Brokers’ disclosures. Martin was after investigators discovered that he had taken classified information home from work. Martin’s activities were uncovered during the investigation into the Shadow Brokers leaks, the reports, but investigators have not been able to conclusively link Martin to the Shadow Brokers.
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Study says Uber and Lyft have racial discrimination problems
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Megan Rose Dickey
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Just , ride-hailing startups Uber and Lyft are not immune to racial discrimination on its respective sharing economy platforms. It turns out that black people have to wait longer for rides in Seattle, . The study, which researchers conducted in Seattle and Boston, looked at the results of nearly 1,500 rides hailed via Lyft, Uber and Flywheel on controlled routes. Across all platforms, there is “some evidence” that it takes longer for drivers to accept trip requests from black people. But the most problematic platform seems to be Uber because the study found statistically significant longer wait times for black people riding UberX, and found zero significantly different wait times on Lyft and Flywheel. Taken as a whole, according to the study, “it would appear” that there’s evidence of racial discrimination among UberX drivers, some evidence of discrimination among Lyft drivers and no evidence of discrimination among Flywheel drivers. provide this service while maintaining an inclusive and welcoming community, and do not tolerate any form of discrimination.” In Boston, Uber drivers were more than twice as likely to cancel on people with “black-sounding” names, according to the study. Meanwhile, male passengers requesting rides in low-density areas were more than three times as likely to experience a cancelled UberX ride when they used a “black-sounding” name instead of a “white-sounding” one. “Ridesharing apps are changing a transportation status quo that has been unequal for generations, making it easier and more affordable for people to get around — no matter who they are or where they live. Discrimination has no place in society, and no place on Uber,” Uber Head of North American Operations Rachel Holt said in a statement provided to TechCrunch. “We believe Uber is helping reduce transportation inequities across the board, but studies like this one are helpful in thinking about how we can do even more.” Discrimination on Uber and Lyft can happen in four main ways, according to the study. Drivers can either decide to avoid certain areas, decline requests from certain people or cancel a pick-up once they see the identity of the passenger, give passengers low ratings based on race and/or socioeconomic status and/or take longer, slower routes to increase the cost of the ride. To be clear, when an Uber driver receives a ride request, they don’t see the photo of the passenger — just the name of the rider once they accept it. With Lyft, drivers see the name and photo of the person before they accept the ride. So, Uber drivers can discriminate by cancelling rides while Lyft drivers can discriminate by choosing to not accept the trip. Women also faced some discrimination in the form of longer-than-necessary rides. In order to prevent potential discrimination, the researchers suggest a number of changes, like removing names to identify passengers and drivers, increasing disincentives for driver cancellations and implementing fixed fares. It’s not clear what measures Uber or Lyft plan to take, but based on Uber’s statement, it does seem like the company is open to making some product changes. It’s also worth noting that Uber in the last few months, though, the pricing obscures surge pricing.
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Postmates confirms $140 million funding round at $600 million valuation
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Katie Roof
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Sheriff’s department denies surveilling Standing Rock protesters via Facebook check-ins
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John Mannes
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Like wildfire, the latest viral protest spreading across the internet involves Facebook users checking in at Standing Rock, ND en masse to “confuse” and “overwhelm” law enforcement authorities seeking to disrupt ongoing protests against the proposed path of an oil pipeline. The viral Facebook post claims that the local sheriff’s department in Morton County is using Facebook check-ins to surveil and track Standing Rock protesters. The post urges users who support the protests to check in publicly at Standing Rock in order to make it more difficult to track protesters on the ground. In a statement, the Morton County Sheriff’s Department said it is not using Facebook check-ins to surveil protesters, calling claims to the contrary “absolutely false.”
As of now, there have been hundreds of thousands of check-ins made by Facebook users and the phrase “Standing Rock” has seen a massive uptick in popularity according to Google Trends. At this point it remains unclear where the campaign began, and where the initial idea that Facebook was being used to target protestors originated, but the now viral check-ins have drawn a spike of attention to an issue that has been ongoing for months. My own personal Facebook feed, mostly full of college students, has been completely overtaken by the posts, showing engagement of social media users on a global scale. One place slow to embrace the engagement is Facebook itself. until after 3pm PST, despite the level of interest shown by the platform’s users. Facebook for , among other slip-ups, after moving from human to algorithmic curation. Internally, multiple tags including “#StandingWithStandingRock” started bubbling up in the emerging category of Facebook Signal earlier in the day, but nothing crossed the threshold as an actual trend until hours later. Whether this was a deliberate move, an overcompensation by the company’s algorithms, or simply normal is hard to say. With regards to the use of Facebook check-ins to track activity, notes that law enforcement commonly use social media to identify suspects. However, it is important to remember that protesters in Standing Rock themselves are using Facebook and other social media to organize efforts. Even if we assume the sheriff’s department is falsely presenting the facts, it is possible that efforts to increase check-ins could . Additionally, police and law enforcement use many tactics in large-scale emergency situations — Facebook check-ins would likely not be the primary tactic. One tangible thing that did come out of the increased interest — money. A crossed its $1 million goal early this afternoon. The campaign has been running online for 83 days. This post will be updated as we receive more information. We have reached out to Facebook and protest leaders for comment. Update: this post was updated at 3:55pm PST to reflect Facebook’s late addition of “#NoDAPL” as a trend on the platform.
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Influential software designer Keith Ohlfs passes away at 52
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Brian Heater
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It’s a strange sort of legacy, but it’s the kind that’s ever present – the dreaded spinning pinwheel or beach ball or wheel of death. That bright, rainbow colored circle that pops up when an application in busy in macOS. It’s one of the most instantly recognizable of Keith Ohlfs’ many contributions to the modern operating system interface. The UX designer, who passed away last week at age 52, played a key role in designing NeXTSTEP, the UNIX-based operating system used for NeXT Computers – the computer company Steve Jobs launched after his untimely exit from Apple in the mid-80s. While NeXT was never destined to become the computing powerhouse of its predecessor, the company would lay the groundwork for the feature of Apple after its acquisition in 1997. And Ohlfs’ work would be an important piece of that future, as NeXTSTEP became the foundation of OS X/macOS. An issue highlights his work at the time, As resident artist, he’s drawn practically all of the icons that NeXT uses. He’s also responsible for a large part of the computer’s distinctive look, from NeXTstep’s three-dimensional controls to the anti-aliased icons that seem to have more resolution than the screen should permit. Since then, Ohlfs has worked on a number of high profile projects, including UI design for WebTV and Vudu. Most recently, he was employed at HTML5 application designer Montage Studio. A for his family has been set up in his name on GiveForward.
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Piccolissimo joins the ranks of ultra-tiny flying robots
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Devin Coldewey
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Big robots like Spot may be great for carrying things or trotting out onto stages, but just as much sophisticated engineering goes into creating tiny ones as well — and this little flyer from the University of Pennsylvania is one the tiniest yet. It’s called Piccolissimo, both Italian for smallest and also a play on the creator’s name, Matt Piccoli — and while it isn’t actually the world’s smallest flying robot, Penn does get to claim it as the world’s smallest flying robot. Others are smaller, but either can’t be steered or (like the ) are wired for power. About the width of a quarter, Piccolissimo has just two moving parts, which is one more than the we saw earlier this month. One is the propeller, the other is the 3D printed body: both spin, but at different speeds. The propeller is slightly off-center, and the body turns 40 times per second, evening out the thrust to vertical — but tiny modifications to that spin speed can send it in one direction or another. It’s all controlled with a simple signal sent over an infrared beam. For now it just hovers, but functionality is easy to add. “Spinning vehicles are pretty terrible for carrying people, but pretty fantastic for carrying sensors,” . “It’s common practice to make a simple sensor, then spin it around, like radar dishes at airports. We get this feature for free, so we could take a line-scan camera, like in a barcode reader, put it on the vehicle body, and get a 360-degree panorama.” Easy to add, at least, assuming you can keep the addition under a gram — that’s the current payload limit on this diminutive platform. The reasons for creating ultra-small, ultra-simple devices are many. Simple often means efficient and cheap, even disposable — which is good not just for consumer applications but everywhere. It’s a big decision to send a million-dollar humanoid robot to investigate, say, a radiation leak or damaged building. Not only is it expensive if it fails, but the complexity of the robot means it could be just as susceptible as a human to things like radiation, dust, and other obstacles. On the other hand, a swarm of a hundred Piccolissimos coordinating as a group, equipped with cameras, radiation sensors, and accelerometers (one each) could reconnoiter an area quickly and cheaply, and if they don’t survive, well, you can print another hundred.
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Replicated raises $5 million for its product taking SAAS products out of the cloud
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Jonathan Shieber
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Los Angeles-based has raised $5 million to build out its service that takes software-as-a-service companies down from the “cloud”, TechCrunch has learned. The company, which operates under the somewhat contrarian belief that not all services are going to be delivered in the cloud, provides a toolkit that lets software companies offer their products on premise behind a corporate firewall rather than delivered remotely. Replicated recently launched from beta and will use the fresh $5 million commitment from Amplify Partners and Webb Investment Network to continue its sales and marketing and product development efforts. Customers are already using the service, including Sysdig, CircleCI, Jama Software, Readme.io, Waffle.io, and Plot.ly. These startups — along with roughly 30 other beta users are providing software to over 300 enterprise software customers. Using Replicated’s container-based service, software developers can manage and distribute installable versions of their products on premise. What’s more, the company says it can use a software vendor’s existing codebase and cloud deployment processes. The company previously raised $1.5 million in a seed round from BoldStart Ventures, Founder Collective, TenOneTen, Mucker Capital and other undisclosed investors. As my colleague, , it’s the second startup for co-founders Grant Miller and Marc Campbell. The two had previously launched Look.io, a customer service chat app bought by LivePerson in 2012. The new service has a potentially bigger market, according to Rob Witoff, a director at Coinbase and an end-user of the Replicated service. “Smart companies protect their data while giving staff a first-class experience with the latest tools,” said Witoff. “We’ve been able to efficiently and securely manage a suite of modern, well maintained internal applications that our team loves by deploying these applications through Replicated. This kind of efficiency just wasn’t possible before.”
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Google gets better at flagging apps trying to fake their way into the Play Store’s top charts
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Sarah Perez
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Google today it’s rolling out a new detection and filtering system on the Play Store to crack down on those developers who use illegitimate means to boost their apps’ rankings in the store’s top charts. This will affect apps that use methods like fraudulent installs, fake reviews, and incentivized ratings, the company noted. While Google already had technology it used to detect these sorts of manipulation attempts, the new system is a step forward in terms of its accuracy. When it detects an app that has moved up the charts through ill-gotten means, the system will filter it. In addition, developers who continue to engage in these practices will have their apps taken down from Google Play. As the company explains, not only do such manipulations violate the , they also harm the wider community. Other developers whose apps should otherwise be highly ranked would end up lower in the charts, as a result, and users would be pointed to apps in the top charts that didn’t deserve to be there. Of course, monitoring its app store for fraud and spam isn’t something that’s unique to Google Play. Apple, too, has often faced this problem on its own iTunes App Store, as well. Often, app developers will buy downloads in order to juice their rankings, given how the top charts favor metrics like installs and download velocity combined. Over the years, we’ve seen everything from to to to and more – all attempts by shady developers to earn a better chart rank than their app naturally deserved. This same problem affects Google Play, even though app discovery on the Play Store isn’t as driven by the Top Charts, as on iTunes. (Instead, Play Store users are directed first to personalized recommendations based on installs, while Top Charts are tucked away in another tab.) Google says the new system is rolling out today. The company suggests developers who use third-party marketing services to check to make sure they engage in legitimate practices.
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Google makes Chrome 15% faster on Windows
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Frederic Lardinois
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Google is currently making a concerted effort to make its Chrome browser faster and leaner. The company announced a project to bring down memory usage earlier this month, for example. But it also quietly started work on some other optimizations recently, too, that add up to making Chrome on Windows than before. Starting with the Chrome 53 release of 64-bit Chrome and version 54 of the 32-bit version, Google started using Microsoft’s so-called technology to speed up startup times (by 17 percent), new tab page load times (by almost 15 percent), and overall page load times (by 6 percent) in Chrome. Profile Guided Optimization (PGO) is a of Microsoft’s Visual Studio developer tools that measures how users actually interact with an application. It then uses this training data and re-compiles the application with a focus on optimizing the most often used functions of the application. “Chrome is a huge software project with more than a million functions in its source code,” Google’s Sébastien Marchand explains in today’s announcement. “Not all functions are equal – some are called frequently, while others are rarely used. PGO uses data from runtime execution that track which functions are most common to guide optimization.” One of the most effective techniques PGO uses to speed up applications is to optimize where in the memory the often-used functions are kept so — at least in the ideal situation — those functions can be kept in the CPU’s fast . You can read all about how PGO works in practice , but the main takeaway is that Google is still able to squeeze more performance optimizations out of its existing code base for Chrome. Given that PGO isn’t exactly new, though, it does come as a bit of a surprise that the team didn’t use this technique already.
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Play My Way app aims to turn kids’ love of mobile devices on its head
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Natasha Lomas
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Parents despairing of ever being able to separate their offspring from the mobile devices glued to their fingertips might be interested in an app called that’s being built by a startup from Lebanon and designed to interrupt other apps with a little worthy educational content. The team, currently based in London as part of a three-month for Lebanese startups, reckons the answer to mobile addiction is not to ban or limit access to devices but rather to harness the stickiness of mobile technology as an opportunity for bite-size homework. “The idea behind Play.My.Way is to make the best of the kid’s addiction,” says co-founder Salma Jawhar. The learning takes the form of multiple choice questions in subjects such as math, science and English, with the app interrupting whatever else the device was being used for to push a question at the child. It’s basically push notification for homework. Kids have to answer a question (and answer it correctly) if they want to get back to playing Candy Crush or watching YouTube or whatever else they were doing. The targeted age range is six- to fourteen-year-olds, with parents able to tailor questions to the appropriate grade level. The Play My Way app needs to be installed on kids’ devices to function. The app does have a ‘help me’ button (which supplies the answer) and a ‘skip question’ option, so it’s not the hardest of taskmasters — although the number of helps is limited. “Technically, our app does not interrupt. It just moves from background to foreground,” says Jawhar. “That way, if a child is playing (Minecraft for example) and Play.My.Way became the active app, all previous apps are immediately sent to run in the background. “When interrupted, the child can ignore Play.My.Way, press the home button, and go back to their previous game. After 10 seconds, they will be interrupted again. This applies to any app, including the native phone functions. So suppose Play.My.Way is on the top, then, a phone call interrupts… after the phone call is done, Play.My.Way will remind the user that a question is waiting.” The app does have a bit of a tell-tale character. “Parents are notified by email when their kid tries to close the app and a funny siren sound will play on the kid’s phone, along with a message asking them to go back to their question!” she adds. The team has been working on the concept since April 2015, initially starting out crowdsourcing question content. They have amassed around 25,000 questions at this point and say they are negotiating with several suppliers to keep growing their educational content. “We have an online portal for authors and reviewers where we crowd source teachers to create questions. Each question is reviewed twice by two different reviewers. We produce 4,000 new questions each month to be added to our database,” says Jawhar. The beta version of the app launched in March 2016, and has around 23,000 users so far. It’s currently free but the intention for the team is to monetize the app via a $4.99 monthly subscription in future. The team started out bootstrapping but after launch were able to pull in $1 million from two angel investors for 10% of the company, according to Jawhar. It’s possible the app might end up encouraging children to use their mobile devices less — given they’ll be forced to do regular homework every time they play. But even if they remain as addicted to their phones and tablets as ever, the overarching aim is to have parents worry less by having at least some of their gadget playtime focused on targeted learning.
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WTF is the dark web?
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Kate Conger
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Maybe you heard your LinkedIn, Tumblr or Dropbox password was floating around there. Or maybe you read a news story about that guy who got busted for running Silk Road, that site that sold drugs and other illicit goods. Chances are, you’ve seen the words “dark web” splashed in a headline or heard them mentioned by a friend. But WTF is the dark web? How do you get there? And what makes it “dark”? The dark web consists of sites that generally allow users to remain anonymous and require particular software to access. You’re not going to stumble upon these sites by googling — they’re not indexed by search engines. Anonymity is the unifying factor of the dark web, and it’s used for all the purposes you might imagine, from the relatively benign (whistleblowing, cryptocurrency) to the more nefarious (child porn, narcotics sales). Nope. What’s known as the deep web is everything online that’s not indexed by search engines. Your email inbox, for instance, is part of the deep web because nothing I google will ever land me in your inbox. Same thing goes for sites that live behind a paywall and so on. “Deep web” and “dark web” have been conflated a lot since Silk Road, but they’re not the same thing. Depending on what part of the dark web you’re trying to access, you’ll need to use different services. The one you’ve most likely heard of is Tor. The Tor browser is a modified version of the Mozilla browser, and you can download it . Unlike your normal browser, though, the Tor browser allows you to connect to the Tor network and access dark web sites. There are other services you can use, too, like I2P. Tor has an , but we’ll hit the highlights here. The Tor network is pretty cool — rather than connecting your device directly to a website you’re visiting, Tor routes your traffic through a series of relay servers and encrypts it at each step of the way. Tor stands for “The Onion Router” and you can think of its routing process like the layers of an onion. The organization compares its routing process to driving a random, zigzagging route to make it more difficult to follow you, rather than driving straight from your home to your destination. Well, TechCrunch is definitely not your lawyer. And while yes, in theory, you’re anonymous on Tor, people get arrested for doing dumb stuff on the dark web every once in a while. You’re a big kid and hopefully you know the difference between legal and illegal behavior without asking a tech blog to guide you. That said, there are lots of things on the dark web that will definitely not get you in trouble. Tor is a powerful anti-surveillance and anti-censorship tool, and companies like have Tor addresses to allow activists and human rights defenders to connect to their sites in a more secure fashion.
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AI-powered scheduler startup Konolabs wins the TechCrunch Pitch-Off in Seoul
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Jon Russell
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Artificial intelligence was the big winner at the TechCrunch Pitch-Off in Seoul, Korea, last week. , a company that uses AI and big data to power a virtual assistant to keep you organized and your calendar in check, took the top prize after winning a 10-company pitch competition at the event. The four-person judging panel were impressed by its Kono’s service — which “manages your schedule for you, so you can focus on making your meetings matter” — and the pitch from CEO and co-founder YJ Min, who previously spent time with Korean internet giant Daum. Kono is in limited beta right now, but already Konolabs has raised seed funding from 500 Startups and taken part in its U.S.-based accelerator program. You’ll be able to catch the team in person at in December after they won the grand prize of an exhibition table at Startup Alley. All 10 companies impressed the audience and judges with their efforts — a 60-second pitch in front of a packed audience is no easy feat — but notable mentions must go to the runners-up: Pitches aside, attendees of the event also got to hear great insight from panels with top startup figures in Korea. 500 Startups partner Tim Chae and Joon Oh, CEO of Yelp-like Mangoplate, kicked the evening off with a discussion of the challenges and experiences of going global from Korea. Right after that, Fiscalnote’s Rebekah Kang and Hye Min Lee from Finda looked at how Korea can create an inclusive environment to encourage more female startup founders. Thanks to everyone who came out to make the evening so memorable. We’re already looking forward to our next trip back to Seoul!
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In a knowledge economy corporate learning is necessary to survive
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Karl Mehta
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Gillmor Gang: October Surprise
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Steve Gillmor
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The Gillmor Gang — Doc Searls, Robert Scoble, Keith Teare, Frank Radice, and Steve Gillmor. Recorded live Saturday, October 29, 2016. 10 days to go to the election, as Makes one wonder whether this is how Twitter itself melts down. @stevegillmor, @dsearls, @scobleizer, @fradice, @kteare Produced and directed by Tina Chase Gillmor @tinagillmor
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The rise of new automotive companies
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Armin G. Schmidt
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The in Mulhouse, France, is an amazing place. It has the largest collection of automobiles on display, thanks to the Swiss brothers Hans and Fritz Schlumpf and their obsession with cars. The money they needed for their collecting came from their business; the brothers owned a spinning mill for woolen products. Funnily enough, the German translation of “Schlumpf” is smurf. If anyone remembers the Smurfs, they would call it smurftastic. Because of their excessive collection — and also because of the shift in textile production toward Asia in the 1970s — the brothers’ business eventually became insolvent, so they left France and returned to Switzerland. By that time, their collection of automobiles was so valuable that the French government placed a historical protection order on the collection to save it from destruction, break-up or export, and, in 1978 it was deemed a French Historic Monument by the Council of State. Some years ago I had the privilege of visiting this place, which is now the largest car museum in the world. Indeed, it is a time capsule for the glory days of the automobile. When you walk through the museum’s enormous halls, filled with hundreds of classic cars, you see that most of them are from a time when “startups” (yes, I think you could attribute today’s term to those past entrepreneurs) built cars from scratch, creating brands and fighting for their own piece of the new mobility market. Horses were no longer a state-of-the-art form of transportation, thus horse riding ultimately became a luxury hobby, as we now know it. The first auto boom was fueled by the invention of new technologies and the industrial revolution, which gave startups at that time the chance to engineer and build the first automobiles with a limited amount of funding. For example, in the 1920s, the main construction method was body-on-frame, which allowed a much more modular construction and the combination of parts from different suppliers. Then the unibody designs came and introduced highly integrated cars with more expensive set-up and development costs — but with positive cost effects on a large scale. With EV we now see the return of concepts with body-on-frame, like the BMW i3 with a rigid frame housing the drivetrain and battery. The following names are just a fraction of the brands represented in the museum in Mulhouse. You can call yourself a true automobile expert if you recognize more than three of the brand names, and, if you do, the next drink is on me: ABC, Amilcar, Arzens, Aster, Ballot, Bardon, Barraco, Barré, Baudier, B.N.C, Bollée, Brasier, Charron, Cisitalia, Clément de Dion, Clément-Bayard, Clément-Panhard, Corre La Licorne, Darracq, Decauville, De Dietrich, De Dion-Bouton, Delage, Delahaye, Delaunay-Belleville, Dufaux, Ensais, Esculape, Farman, Fouillaron, Georges Richard, Gladiator, Gordini, Horlacher, Hotchkiss et Cie, Hotchkiss-Gregoire, Jaquot, Le Zèbre, Lorraine-Dietrich, M.A.F., Mathis, Maurer-Union, Menier, Minerva, Monet-Goyon, Mors, Neracar, O.M., Panhard & Levassor, Pegaso, Philos, Piccard-Pictet, Pilain, Ravel, Rheda, Richard-Brasier, Ripert, Rochet-Schneider, Sage, Salmson, Scott, Sénéchal, Serpollet, Sizaire-Naudin, Soncin, Turicum, Vermotel, Violet-Bogey, Zedel. These fine startups produced motor vehicles in a time when the entry barrier was not yet defined by the combustion engine — a market that was ultimately dominated for more than 40 years by the likes of GM, Ford, Mercedes, Toyota, BMW, VW and others. This left a huge gap between the big guys and the smaller players, such as McLaren, Bugatti, Lotus and others. Certainly there were startups like DeLorean, Fisker and Artega, but developing a combustion engine car, manufacturing, marketing and selling it, not to mention maintaining a dealer value chain, was (some say still is) a game dominated by size and pure financial power. Successfully creating a new startup in the car category was no easy task. Every venture receiving less than an estimated $100 million investment would fail, sooner or later. Especially for investors, this category was largely viewed as untouchable, due to the extensive risk involved and a low success rate. That all changed with one guy and a roadshow in Taiwan in 2004. He was trying to secure funding there, and in various other places, for his first model: the Roadster. Most components of the prototype car at that time were sourced and developed on this island of 23 million people, which is famous for supplying more than 80 percent of the world’s PC and Notebook manufacturers, delivering nearly all chips for the iPhones and other consumer electronic devices, as well as being known for its own manufacturing powerhouses, including Foxconn, Pegatron and Wistron. At the time of Tesla’s launch in 2006, the company’s engines were manufactured at the Tesla facility in Taiwan. Elon Musk understood from the very beginning that the IT and automotive worlds would intersect. He secured the initial funding and started to think big — not listening to the advice from many so-called experts. Tesla raised more than $180 million by 2009, to deliver 147 cars. Several years, and billions in investments later, the world sees that Tesla was able to do what other companies never dared — attack the traditional heavyweight car industry. Because of computer power, a new level of momentum and the state of evolution, we are now entering another chapter in the “ ” This theory, purported by Harvard professor Clayton Christensen, describes when new technologies cause great firms to fail. And more importantly, competitive products have been created that premium companies like Audi, BMW, Toyota and Mercedes now take very seriously. The huge financial and technology barriers have been broken down. The venture capital world is delighted by the opportunities and has begun to attack this category. Over the last five years the M&A transactions in this space have grown in excess of $220 billion. Entry barriers based on highly sophisticated production, such as the combustion engine, will be phased out. Electric components are becoming more mainstream. For instance, e-drivetrains are outsourced nowadays to ODMs, such as Magna, and will eventually go to the Foxconns of this world. But more importantly, Tesla’s unique advantages in machine learning, and its lack of exposure to legacy systems (internal combustion tech, unconnected cars) give it the chance to tap into larger and faster-growing markets ahead of its competitors. The move from the traditional model without connectivity and computers will change to one of owned autonomy, shared mobility and, eventually, to Autopia-on-demand autonomous mobility. We are seeing a large number of new startups aiming to create new cars, commercial vehicles and other methods of transportation. Some names include: , Atieva, ThunderPower, , , Borgward, , , , Starship, , , , Gaius Automotive, , , , Dyson, , Boosted, , , Inboard Technology, Future Motion, GLM, , Dagmy Motors, , , Lumen Motors, Barham Motors, , , Tratus, Virtus Motors, , Scalar Automotive, Fenix Vehicles, Marfil, Esco Motors, Lithos Motors. I expect to see hundreds more on the scene in the coming years. Even the most innovative mobility concepts eventually require a vehicle. In comparison to today’s vehicles, they might have a different form factor, or be made from different material, be powered differently and controlled in another way. But someone has to develop, manufacture, sell, maintain and guarantee the vehicle. Existing automakers still have those competencies and the ability to adapt over time, if some parameters can change, as described. They have the knowledge and the processes to turn a profit while still producing such a complex, long-lasting, safety focused product, and they know how to scale it. In addition to this, they have an existing brand, reputation and customer loyalty that will last for a certain time. The premier brands will, for a certain period, have an advantage. And so do the fast and cash-laden newcomers. We also will most likely see brands and companies focusing on certain mobility niches. Many future developments will be based on still-open questions, such as how new vehicles will be used, how urban and rural area mobility will be separated, how fast e-vehicles and autonomous technology will take the lead and be accepted or how regulations will accelerate or slow down certain development. Consumers still look for some branding values in the automotive environment. Companies such as Porsche, as well as other premium brands, benefit from this, and therefore won’t likely be as affected as other mass-market brands. New and existing brands will be used for cars, as in the past Fender for the VW Beetle, Paul Smith for Mini, Gucci with the Fiat 500 and numerous others. Don’t be surprised if there are Red Bull-branded cars driving around in the near future. Also, even if automotive mobility becomes smarter and cheaper, brands will play their part. Even easyJet, Virgin and Ryanair, a few low-cost carriers in the aviation industry, are brands with positioning. In aviation, the service providers (airlines) are the popular brands chosen by travelers, not the makers of the vehicles (airplanes). This might be an imaginable parallel between the automotive and aviation industries. Remember the list of car companies exhibited at the Cité de l’Automobile? Startups that have come and gone, leaving museum pieces as their legacy. In the same vein, clearly not all of the current automobile companies mentioned herein will still be around in the next few years — but some of them will certainly become dominant fixtures in our everyday mobility. There are so many new brands and innovations entering today’s huge $6.4 trillion (McKinsey) market of mobility that are not only creating cars, but also developing completely new ways of approaching mobility, which will result in fewer fatalities, safer roads and many more improvements. Some time down the road a museum like the Schlumpf brothers’ will most likely consist of brands that we all know of today. I am looking forward to seeing a collector gathering together all these new vehicles (the ultimate mobile devices) and creating this museum. It will be interesting for our kids and grandchildren — and not simply because it’s associated with Smurfs. History always repeats itself.
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The ethics of colonizing Mars
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Shivika Sinha
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Elon Musk, inventor and CEO of SpaceX, recently shared his vision to build the first human city on within a decade. For the , would take you and 100 tons of cargo to the Red Planet. In 2013, the nearly 40 billion Earth-like planets in the Milky Way galaxy. As NASA explores the heavens for more habitable planets, Musk has mused about his “duty to maintain the light of consciousness” via space colonization. Last year, astronauts were able to taste , and NASA continues to invest in , a critical component of space transportation. A multi-planetary species is one that lives on more than one planet, and the work to make humans multi-planetary has begun. Should we take ourselves to other planets? Human rationality and values have woven dark, damaged, all-powerful systems into the tapestry of civilization. Most notably among these systems is capitalism and its partner, consumerism. Do we see ourselves moving planet to planet, sucking life out of each one for our own survival? If we are to impress ourselves onto this universe, we must solemnly inquire about our impact on it. Capitalism and consumerism have become the epitome of perpetuating systems that adversely turn our species parasitic. Consumption has increased the size of our landfills while decreasing the ethical standards we expect from businesses. Industry and mindless consumerism intertwined to create our current state. Now, they must disentangle and consumerism must lead industry out of planetary and ethical degradation. Mindful consumerism is how we can turn business into a force for good. A mass-scale shift in spending will inevitably create a value-shift in capitalism, which will upend modern civilization’s parasitic effect on this planet. The dawn of modern consumerism began in the 1940s, not even a century ago. Fossil-led supply has grown in tandem with advertising-fueled consumerism. Industry won’t become a part of the solution unless society creates strong market demand for sustainability and social impact. Robert M. Pirsig, who wrote Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, an investigation into the metaphysics of modern rationality, notes that the litmus test for a functioning machine is the satisfaction and tranquility it provides the user. Humans bring neither satisfaction nor tranquility to Earth and its life forms. Instead, we’ve developed systems that extract great value from the Earth and give little back. Pirsig’s solution to when a machine is broken gives us two paths forward: We can change ourselves or change our machine. In our current collective state, we would be a burden on other planets and forms of life. We must change ourselves urgently and then pass on higher sensibilities of consciousness, rationality, and values to future generations to build upon. The exponential pace of technology demands that the time for root-shifts in our structures is now, as this will be nearly impossible as a multi-planetary species. Mindful or conscious consumerism is the application of personal economics toward goods or services that entrench environmental and social solutions into their business models. Conscious consumerism occurs when consumers align their wallets with their values. When mindless consumption is traded for mindful consumerism, we create where there previously were none. The shift toward conscious consumption is led by millennials; in a global , 73 percent of young respondents said they are willing to pay more for sustainable goods. Capitalism needs conscious consumerism to support companies whose supply chains, profit structures, product, packaging and more express value in their eco and ethical impact. When these businesses make a profit, they set in motion a perpetuating system of positive change that, unlike charity or CSR, is entangled within its rationality rather than a byproduct of it. I grew up in Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Vietnam, Bangladesh and India because of my father’s work in impact investing with the World Bank. As I bid farewell to the majestic spirit of southern Africa six years after calling it “home” and celebrated Tet in Vietnam, I was humbled by my front-row seat to the power of capitalism to make meaningful environmental and social impact. Consumers can and should support businesses that lift communities out of poverty and add value to the environment. While the trend toward conscious consumerism has already begun, it hasn’t generated nearly enough momentum to keep up with our pace of environmental destruction. that in 2015, sales of goods from brands with a commitment to sustainability grew more than 4 percent, while those without such a commitment grew less than 1 percent. Across industries, businesses that are good for the planet and its life are experiencing growth. Innovation and entrepreneurialism have engendered new business models and birthed creative solutions to our greatest crisis. There hasn’t been a more exciting and dynamic time to exercise one’s values upon budgets. In food, local and organically grown produce continue to become more accessible. The cost of solar energy is reducing. Faster change is required for us to see large enough shifts in spending that will meaningfully combat our urgent environmental and social crisis. The power lies within the daily choices of average consumers who choose what and how to buy. History will look back at us and wonder why we didn’t make more conscious choices about what we consume in order to save our ecosystem. As those fortunate to have means and choices in consumption, will we arm ourselves with knowledge and values to wield our economics for our planet, rationality and ? When we make our next purchase, will we support those parts of the solution? Will we avoid the simple Google search to locate ethical, sustainable alternatives to our traditional toiletries or clothing, or will we continue our current habits due to convenience, cost and lack of knowledge or will? Do we deserve to become multi-planetary? Let us become productive participants in the glorious dance of life. If we can dream of the insurmountable task of becoming multi-planetary, then surely we can fathom expending the energy, resources and willpower that come with making mindful purchase and waste decisions. If we can succeed in preserving our current planet and its ecosystems, we save human consciousness and the integrity of our values. As Elon Musk describes his desire to keep the “light of consciousness” alive, I press that we also ensure it’s brightly illuminated and worthy of traversing this magnificent universe.
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Samsung is focused on the Galaxy S8 and is already promising discounts to loyal users
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Brian Heater
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This wasn’t how Samsung was hoping to end the year. As the competition is rushing to get product out the door in the lead up to the holidays, the company is and trying to move on from one of the largest consumer electronics PR disasters in recent memory. For the South Korean tech giant, moving on means the Galaxy S8. For those concerned the company was ready to pack it in after one (admittedly extremely large, prolonged and costly) mistake, the company is already looking toward the next generation, even as an investigation into precisely what happened with the Note 7 remains open. Samsung VP Lee Kyeong-tae acknowledged that any kind of turn around in the company’s fortunes is likely still a number of months away, as it flounders without a flagship. The S8 is coming, though, and with that the handset will have a new design, a better camera and “an enhanced artificial-intelligence service.” Lee wouldn’t confirm it, but the latter certainly points to the result of the company’s . The interview follows news earlier in the week that Samsung will offer South Korea Note 7 buyers who traded their device for an S7 for an S8 or Note 8 when the devices launch. All of this marks a rare bit of transparency well ahead of the launch of new flagship devices, but in Samsung’s case, it’s probably not a bad idea to reassure concerned customers and shareholders that something is, indeed, on the way. Hopefully it will have closed the case of the exploding Note 7s by then.
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Starbreeze buys a visual effects studio to improve its VR experience
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Brian Heater
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While the future of VR is undoubtedly wide open at the moment, the majority of contenders clearly see the battle playing out on gaming computers and home consoles. Starbreeze, for its part, is making its play on a high-end headset, destined for amusement parks and IMAX theaters. While it feels like a bit of a step back (or at the very least retro) after a few decades dominated by home gameplay, the company’s certainly been putting in the time and money with its StarVR headset, partnering with hardware companies like Acer and acquiring some of its own. This past week, Belgium visual effects house and VR content creator Nozon for around $7.75 million. Key to the acquisition is PresenZ, a parallax tool designed by Nozon to offer a better, pre-rendered animated experience to headset-wearers, offering a more immersive experience as they look around in a computer generated VR world. According to the companies, the technology offers movie-level definition at room scale. https://youtu.be/jdTJFua23jo Here’s Starbreeze CEO Bo Andersson Klint being excited about the acquisition, The future of VR is undefined but it is easy to imagine with this technology, where a space can be scanned and rendered in high quality CGI, the applications where you could render a space like the Louvre in Paris or Saint Mark’s Basilica in Venice, and provide interactive guided tours.
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Accordion Guy Joey DeVilla talks the future of culture and IoT
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John Biggs
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Joey DeVilla is my blogging hero. He’s run his and he’s worked at Microsoft, Shopify, and Tucows. Most recently he’s taken on the mantle of , an NFC/RFID company. In this episode of Technotopia we talk about the cyclical nature of culture – how, for example, Nine Inch Nails sounds pretty tame to us now – and the future of smart things. It’s great to be able to chat with a guy as versed in technology and music as DeVilla and I think you’ll enjoy the special treat he gave us all at the end of the podcast. I won’t spoil it but let’s just say it’s something he played when he used to work with the Windows team. You can download the or listen on or .
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An emerging technology that could end the mass grinding of newly hatched chicks
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Brian Heater
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Billions of male chicks are killed every year by the poultry industry. It’s a common industry practice known as culling, destroy the day-old chickens through asphyxiation, or, more gruesomely, maceration, a process involving a conveyor belt and a giant blender. I’ll spare you the videos, but they’re readily available online, if you’re so inclined. The reason behind the highly controversial practice is the fact that chickens bred for egg laying don’t have enough body mass to financially justify raising for meat. That means only the females make money for the farm. The other are, quite literally, tossed aside en masse. , a technology by Vital Farms and Tel Aviv technology company Novatrans is designed bring the practice to an end by identifying the gender and fertility of eggs through a non-invasive process using terahertz spectroscopy. The technology is able to whether it is male, female, or infertile through the detection of gasses that leak from the pores of the egg within seconds, rather than allowing the chicken to hatch – a process that takes around three weeks. The technology, which is anticipated for commercial deployment by the end of 2017, could save billions of chicks per year – and, more importantly perhaps to the companies responsible for the culling, it could save money.
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Jonathan Shieber
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Samsung addresses concerns over Galaxy Note 7 replacement issues
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Brian Heater
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Samsung’s media arm continues code red damage control in the wake of surrounding a faulty Galaxy Note 7. The incident, which occurred on a Southwest flight earlier this week, further complicates the matters for several reasons beyond the already troubling fact that it played out on a plane – which, thankfully, was still at the gate. The device involved in the incident was reportedly in its owner’s pocket at the time of the event, having been powered down at the request of a flight attendant. Worst still, its owner adds that the Note 7 was one of the replacements sent out by Samsung after recalling the original troubled shipment that resulted in dozens of reports of faulty units. When we reached out in the wake of the Southwest evacuation, Samsung responded, Until we are able to retrieve the device, we cannot confirm that this incident involves the new Note7. We are working with the authorities and Southwest now to recover the device and confirm the cause. Once we have examined the device we will have more information to share. A spokesperson followed up late last night with a more verbose response to the company’s on-going PR nightmare. Here’s that statement in full, Samsung understands the concern our carriers and consumers must be feeling after recent reports have raised questions about our newly released replacement Note7 devices. We continue to move quickly to investigate the reported case to determine the cause and will share findings as soon as possible. We remain in close contact with the CPSC throughout this process. If we conclude a safety issue exists, we will work with the CPSC to take immediate steps to address the situation. We want to reassure our customers that we take every report seriously and we appreciate their patience as we work diligently through this process. The statement arrives a day after committed to replace the handsets of concerned customers who own one of the new Galaxy Note 7 units.
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The method in Salesforce’s M&A madness
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Ron Miller
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has been on a shopping spree this year, . That’s why it was interesting to hear company president, vice chairman and COO, Keith Block talk about what they look for in an acquisition target at a press conference at Dreamforce this week. This is particularly true in the context of rumors that . First of all, it’s worth noting t this year and over the years have typically been under $1 billion. The notable exception was in June and in 2013. A more comfortable level appears to be in the $100 – $300 million range (although the company spent $ last summer and a similar total amount this week). But there is more to a buying decision than purely just money — and this is worth keeping in mind in the context of a possible Twitter deal. Block reiterated something that he said last year at the Dreamforce press conference — that Salesforce always looks at M&A activity in the context of the customer, and how the purchase will drive their relationship with their customers. That said, he noted they do not do M&A willy-nilly. They have a methodology and a list of companies they could be interested in at any given time, one which they are constantly updating. To get on the list, they look at a number of different criteria and balance what the target company could bring to Salesforce (and its customers), and the possible risk of buying the company. “We look at culture. Will it be a good cultural fit? Is it good product fit? Is there talent? Is there financial value? What are the risks of assimilating the company into our company,” Block explained. He said once you acquire the company, you then have to balance integration versus innovation. You’re buying the company for the technology, and you don’t want to quash all of the reasons you are spending the money to bring it into the fold. At the same time, there has to be some level of integration within the organization at large. “If you drive growth and experimentation, you might not get leverage into the installed base. If you push too hard on integration you get cost savings, but you might hurt innovation,” Block explained. , Salesforce obviously sees Quip as a strategic asset or it wouldn’t have bought it, but the company continues to operate independently with customers outside of Salesforce. At the same time, it has begun to build integration points from Quip into the Salesforce platform. So you can see the balance between integration and innovation right there. , looking at the buying process Block outlined, it makes it appear even less likely that Salesforce would leave its purchase-price comfort zone. Sure, all that real-time data is a tantalizing target, especially , but the price has to be right, the fit has to be right, and it’s not clear it would be, or if it would be worth the significant financial risk. This has to be part of standard on-going internal discussion at Salesforce as it looks at any acquisition target, and it would seem business discipline would require they stay true to that approach, regardless of the company they are looking at.
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The importance of science fiction to entrepreneurship
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Ben Narasin
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There are three types of s f (in my view): crap, serialized crap and hard- . The last type contains a wealth of visions of the future, many of which we enjoy today, and is referenced in the names of, or has influenced, many tech startups and world-class entrepreneurs. When I started in 1993, there were few people trying to commercialize the newly born web, and widely conflicting views on how, or even if, it could be done. A single paperback preemptively helped me understand how the web would evolve — without it, I may not have been able to take my company public . At the time, most assumed the web would be a great egalitarian community where everything was equal, just a click away. If you built it, they would come. When I read Neal Stephenson’s (a book I later learned Reid Hoffman and Peter Thiel spent a weekend discussing before PayPal was created), I saw a more geographic metaphor; one where the point of entry was the most valuable land and the further away you were from that point, in a series of single clicks, the more remote and barren your neighborhood would be. Based on that insight, I spent two years negotiating deals with what would later be called portals; eventually landing AOL, Excite, Yahoo, Netscape, Microsoft and others. We ultimately became larger than most of them combined for the categories we focused on, became a portal in our own right and took the company public — aided in part by the vision from one book. SciFi, fantasy, D&D and comics are a common root interest in founders and funders alike, and I’d argue they are interests we cannot afford to lose. They show us visions of the future we sometimes go on to build, or that we seek to fund. ’s writing on gaming economics, AR and VR has ideas embedded within it that are better than most startup pitches I see. from Stephenson remains the most compelling edtech startup concept never built. from John Barnes predicted global warming impacts, patent trolls, citizen journalism and private satellite launches far before they became even remotely early ideas for most. Even China has figured out the of SciFi to success. Neil Gaiman a conversation he had with a Chinese party official during their “first-ever state-sponsored convention in 2007,” when he asked why the event was being held: For years we’ve been making wonderful things. We make your iPods. We make phones. We make them better than anybody else, but we don’t come up with any of these ideas. So we went on a tour of America talking to people at Microsoft, at Google, at Apple, and we asked them a lot of questions about themselves, just the people working there. And we discovered they all read … so we think maybe it’s a good thing. China’s movement into creating instead of just making is noticeably successful. While I am not claiming SciFi alone is to credit, one can assume it was additive. Tech entrepreneurs, aspirants and funders need to read, yet few continue to, even if they did in their youth. It’s not just the SciFi of the past that has so exceptionally helped envision the present, but the continuous flow that helps us imagine the future. Every few weekends I walk to the library and check out all the new s f titles I find. Some suck. Some I put down after a few chapters. Some are just simple pleasures. But some make me see and think differently. Some give me a window into the future that I store in my mind and sometimes seek out in startups. I once heard that when NASA gets new images back from space probes they gather a group to review them — including several hard- writers — ahead of even many of their own team. These authors spend their lives studying and writing about what they envision the future can become. I think that justifies a few weekend hours of time from those of us committed to building that same future to learn from their life’s work.
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E2E or GTFO
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Jon Evans
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Oh, Yahoo. We’re not just mad at you. We’re also really, really disappointed. First it took you two years to figure out that you were hacked by a nation-state. Then you allowed another nation-state — the US government — to scan all of your user’s emails … using a … without ever telling your security team. Seriously, Yahoo? Regardless of one’s moral / political stance on blanket user surveillance in the name of so-called national security, that combination of actions is just painfully, even , inept. As were the subsequent non-denials: Media to Yahoo: Did you eat all the cookies? Yahoo *with crumbs and smeared chocolate around mouth*: We do not have any cookies. — Christopher Soghoian (@csoghoian) They arguably weren’t even asked to do anything particularly awful, in and of itself. Scanning incoming emails for a signature which ( ) identified communications from a state-sponsored terrorist organization — that’s not so different from scanning for child porn or malware, right? At least from a certain point of view. I imagine the mindset was: why even bother fighting back? Sure, this demand apparently came from the creepy star-chamber rubber-stamping , and was accessorized by an — nothing says “checks and balances” like clandestine courts issuing classified orders enforced in absolute secrecy, right? — but it still seemed so . I completely understand that stance. I , but I understand. That’s what makes it so disconcerting. Ultimately every centralized system will be required, and will agree, to surveil their users. Not clandestinely, by the deep state, but openly, because we-the-people will, wrongly, demand it. We live in a time of near-unparalleled peace and prosperity; Americans are to be killed by lightning than by terrorists; and yet, even so,
By two-to-one, Americans now say that they are more concerned that the government’s anti-terror policies have not gone far enough to protect the country (56%), rather than that these policies have gone too far in restricting the average person’s civil liberties (28%)”
according to . Imagine what will happen the next time the West suffer from an attack on the scale of what happened fifteen years ago. Remember the zeitgeist of late 2001? Imagine that, again, except further conditioned by a decade-and-a-half of an endless War On Terror. I don’t doubt for a second the sincerity of the people whose job it is to protect users from surveillance. Even at Yahoo, as former Yahoo security engineer Yan Zhu writes in a :
At the time this was happening, I was on the Yahoo Security team leading development on the End-to-End project … Ironically, if only we had been able to actually ship E2E, we would have given users a way to protect themselves from the exact backdoor scenario that they ended up in! … Personally I am grateful both for those who left and blew the whistle, and for those who stayed to protect Yahoo’s 800 million users.
But most people ultimately don’t want protection from universal surveillance; they want the government to protect them from terror, even if that means universal surveillance. Again, I completely understand that stance — it’s hard not to — even though I think the surveillance cure is ultimately far worse than the terrorism / child-porn / moral-panic-of-the-week disease, as awful as those latter things may be. But we can’t rely on centralized systems to protect us out of the goodness of their hearts, if and when an overwhelming majority demands that they cease and desist. There is a solution, and it is end-to-end encryption, the same thing that Yahoo never did roll out, the same thing that (to their shame) Google but , the same thing that (to their credit) and and provide by default. …To date. But even they are centralized services; even they can and may change. I still hold out hope for a usable email/messaging service, once that literally cannot be issued orders or held to account, because there is no central entity to address. I remain disappointed (though I like the look of as a building block). But my hope is that this, too, is only a matter of time.
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How blockchain can change the music industry
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Ben Dickson
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Since the 1999 music-sharing platform, the music industry has been in near-constant turmoil, its timeline marked with , , piracy problems and feuds over the fair distribution of dividends. . Streaming services hate file-sharing services. And, most of all, for making huge sums off their toil and feeding them the crumbs. With so many conflicts of interest, there seems to be no one service or business model that can work in a fashion that satisfies the needs of all the parties involved. But now, after years of suffering from a thorny and complicated relationship with the tech sector, the music industry might finally find a chance to head in a positive direction by leveraging the cryptocurrency. The blockchain has drawn the attention of investors and professionals in different industries, and is now showing promising signs to change the music industry in ways that might fulfill the needs of everyone. Well, almost everyone. At its core, the blockchain is a distributed ledger that can validate and register transactions without the need for a central authority. No one owns the ledger — it’s spread across the nodes that constitute its network and is publicly available to everyone. Information stored on the ledger is interrelated through cryptographic hashes, which make it virtually irreversible and tamper proof. In a nutshell, it means that parties can make peer-to-peer exchanges of data, money or anything else of value in any amount and in a secure manner. In the music industry, the blockchain could transform publishing, monetization and the relationship of artists with their communities of fans. First, music can be published on the ledger with a unique ID and time stamp in a way that is effectively unalterable. This can solve the historic problem of digital content being downloaded, copied and modified at the leisure of users. Each record can store metadata containing ownership and rights information in a transparent and immutable way for everyone to see and verify. This will ensure that the correct people will get paid for the use of the content. Blockchain technology can also revolutionize the monetization of music. The infrastructure is , programs that can be run on the blockchain along with the payment transactions. Blockchain-based cryptocurrencies such as and support micropayments, which is effectively impossible with classic payment mediums due to transfer costs. This can support a new way of offering on-demand music services. Users can select the record of their choice and immediately reward the stakeholders with cryptocurrency upon playing it. And, finally, one of the advantages of a blockchain ledger is that it can establish a more direct relationship between creators and consumers. Composers and artists will no longer be required to go through purchasing platforms and financial brokers — who usually take a hefty cut of the revenue — and can get directly compensated every time their songs are played. This can be a boon to all those amateur producers who don’t have the backing of huge record labels. Companies like Benji Rogers’ online music platform have published for the Fair Trade Music Database, a globally decentralized blockchain-based ledger that can solve the problems of ownership, payments and transparency. Creators can upload their music and the associated metadata on the ledger. Companies and consumers can search and play the music of their choice off the ledger, and smart contracts will ensure that the owner(s) of the content will be paid automatically for its usage. The database would store .bc or “ ” records, which Rogers describes as “a codec that cannot be separated from its rights.” is another music startup that is getting ready to launch its platform and is betting big on blockchain. PeerTracks is a sort of artist equity trading system that makes it dramatically easier to manage royalties and revenue, making it especially convenient for artists who can’t afford to pay someone else to do it. The system leverages the MUSE blockchain, a ledger engineered for the music industry. The company claims PeerTracks will enable artists to instantly claim 90 percent of their sales income, rather than . PeerTracks also introduces the concept of “artist tokens,” a limited and tradable cryptocurrency that artists hand out to their fans and which finds its value from the popularity of its creator. Higher demands for coins created by a specific artist will increase its worth. , the token system “translates to crowdfunding, fan engagement, talent discovery and community building on scales we’ve never seen before.” , yet another blockchain startup, wishes to deal with another problem, digital music piracy, with a carrot-rather-than-stick approach, as Simon Edhouse, the company’s managing director . The company offers a bitcoin-based peer-to-peer file-sharing platform that enables ordinary people to become a distribution channel for their own digital music — and earn money. Last year, award-winning musician and songwriter Imogen Heap started work on a new music ecosystem, which she calls . Based on blockchain technology, the platform will enable direct payments for artists and give them more control over how their songs and associated data circulate among fans and other musicians. She as “trying to take away the power from top down and give power, or at least a steering, to the artist to help shape their own future.” As with any solution, blockchain will not be a perfect answer to all the problems that the music industry is facing. But at the very least, it will level the playing field to some degree. And artists, songwriters, performers and musicians — the real owners of the industry — will be the main benefactors, for they will finally be able to own their creations and get their due for their efforts. However, it will likely not be welcomed by in the music industry, or big tech companies that prefer to monopolize rather than share. And clashes are likely to ensue if the idea actually gains traction and real momentum. But as Rogers explains in a to his original article, “the money being left on the table is dwarfing the money being made under the table,” which means that overall, a transparent system would generate much more revenue and create more opportunities than it would actually destroy.
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Why an unhackable mobile phone is a complete marketing myth
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David Jevans
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The mobile security market is taking flight due to high-profile hackings, but is there such a thing as an unhackable phone? Especially one that costs as much as ? Consider this: The smartphone in your pocket is 10 times more powerful than the fastest multi-million dollar supercomputers of just 20 years ago. There are tens of millions of lines of software in that phone of yours. There are hundreds of apps written by more than one million developers, some of whom are hackers, and some of whom are just incompetent at security. And then there are chips in your phone that run sophisticated software, from companies located in countries all around the world, all of which have security bugs. The complexity is mind-boggling — and so are all the security vulnerabilities that exist and will be found in the future. In short, anyone who claims to sell an “unhackable phone” is either ignorant or lying. With cybercriminals increasingly targeting mobile devices (such as with malicious apps and phishing schemes), threatening both the consumer and enterprises, the market is rushing to provide solutions to mobile security threats. calls this Mobile Threat Defense. Everyone — no matter which phone they own — needs to be vigilant before downloading apps. For example, hackers recently created versions of Pokémon Go that contained malicious spyware that was released to eager fans before its official release. Even the first version of the legitimate Pokémon Go app was spying on many of your activities, and the developer and app stores didn’t catch it. Despite the marketing hype, it is impossible to detect all malicious app behavior through a one-time scan of an app before it’s published on an app store. Bad apps often exploit operating system vulnerabilities that have not been discovered or fixed by the mobile device vendor. Apps can have “sleeper cell” behavior, where they don’t exhibit malicious behavior when being analyzed for app store approval — they wait until being deployed in the real world. Cybercriminals can also easily sideload apps onto both Android and iOS platforms from illegitimate app stores. In addition to bad apps, we are seeing an increase in the number of criminals, hackers and hostile governments willing to pay for zero-day mobile exploits. These silent and secretive threats can take over your mobile phone simply by sending you a text message or email with a link to a malicious website. Unfortunately, new security threats and hacks are typically found after successful attacks have been reported by victims, researched and a fix is created by programmers. A hack may affect thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people before it is detected and fixed. It’s also important to consider that most phones claiming to be “secure” or “unhackable” come from companies that base their phone on the Android operating system. Android is a state-of-the-art mobile device operating system, but more than 100 new security bugs are regularly discovered and need to be fixed every year. This trend shows no signs of slowing, and as mobile devices get ever smarter with more software and capabilities, there will be more bugs that hackers can exploit. Taking a deeper look into the security of mobile devices shows that in August 2016 alone, there were detected in the Android operating system or the Nexus device hardware. In July 2016, 54 such vulnerabilities were found. This monthly trend has been consistent for years. There is no sign that it will stop. You can be assured that every mobile device has 10-50 security vulnerabilities that will be discovered in the next month. And the month after that. And so on. Of interest is that about half of the discovered vulnerabilities were not in the phone’s operating system itself, but instead were found in the operating systems and software that run the chips inside the device. These tiny bits of software, called firmware, contain dozens of security bugs, which are discovered every month. These firmware security vulnerabilities impact the software that operates cell phone modems, cameras, Wi-Fi, sound, displays, USB, Bluetooth, power drivers and more on each device. These components are from a variety of manufacturers around the world. It is simply impossible to ensure that these myriad components are secure. Furthermore, it is critical to point out that 65 percent of Android devices in use around the world still run old versions of the operating system, with hundreds of known bugs. The iOS operating system is also not immune to security bugs. Security fixes have been, and will be, continuously applied to the iOS operating system for Apple iPhones and iPads once they are reported. For example, in July 2016 alone, fixes for 29 types of security vulnerabilities were released by Apple. These fixes addressed . In August 2016, only one month later, that hackers and governments were infiltrating iPhones with advanced spyware to steal data and spy on all app communications, even encrypted apps. Attackers simply sent users a text message with a malicious link. The attacks appear to be created by a commercial company in Israel, called NOS, that makes spyware for mobile devices. And what about those Wi-Fi networks we rely on when in airports and at hotels? Make no mistake, they often spy on our communications. The so-called “captive portal,” where you have to enter your hotel room number, or just click on a terms of service agreement, are often traps to capture your email, passwords and web browsing activities. Be vigilant about which networks you connect to while traveling. If you receive a warning when connecting to a new Wi-Fi network, do not click “Continue.” Try another network. All of these issues make it impossible for a single device to be completely secure. Organizations need mobile threat defense security tools that will protect the enterprise as employees connect their devices to malicious networks and download questionable data-stealing apps around the world. Consumers need to be vigilant before downloading apps (read and confirm permissions are in place), be wary of text messages from unknown sources and only join known and trusted Wi-Fi networks. And hang up on the hype of an “unhackable phone.”
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Government’s refusal to recognize the rise of independent contractors is hurting the economy
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David Schweikert
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The workforce of the 21 century has been changing for years. Government, only recently perceiving the movement from a traditional workforce to an independent contractor model, is stifling innovation and hurting workers in the process. From Boston to Seattle, we are seeing a myriad of impulsive efforts to regulate everything from how an individual may use their vehicle to whom they allow the use of their spare bedroom for the night. With an economy crawling back from the recession of 2008, government should not be in the business of hindering an individual’s opportunity to capitalize on underutilized assets. The data is everywhere. Vehicles sit unused for over . Spare bedrooms are used on occasion when family or friends come into town. Yet, despite the desire to control their own schedules, individuals are being forced to suspend their activities and talents when the clock strikes 5pm, and are being told that contracting their skills in the evening or on weekends through online matching platforms is not their choice to make. The arguments for new and increased regulation in this space come from groups that claim the added red tape is in the name of protecting the worker. We are seeing archaic methods of vetting drivers and burdensome systems in place to ensure that an individual wishing to use their own assets, on their own time, is held up at every point conceivable. Holding the industry hostage in the name of overtime pay, collective bargaining, or vacation accrued, shows just how outdated the conversations taking place by regulators truly are. A troubling theme is becoming ever-apparent, “vested interests, or else”. Turning to the numbers, we that over have a second job. We that insisting on fingerprinting creates a barrier to entry when better, more efficient background check alternatives are available. We the overtime pay and vacation hours accrued discussions for someone working on average is irrelevant. And worst of all, extraneous lawsuits targeting companies attempting to share helpful information with workers regarding taxes, insurance, and retirement accounts, are punishing the very individuals these groups falsely espouse. With an industry of , we cannot afford to get the policy wrong. Time and time again, our regulatory structure proves hostile to innovation challenging the status quo; attempting to regulate this technology by drawing legitimacy from laws old enough to remember the Model-T. It is my hope that legislators and regulators will take a fresh look at what the definition of “work” is for the 21 century worker. Let us not restrict an individual’s opportunity for fear they are incapable of making these choices themselves.
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Will the coming robot nanny era turn us into technophiles?
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Zoltan Istvan
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Robots intrigue us. We all like them. But most of us don’t them. That may dramatically change over the next 10 years as the “robot nanny” makes its way into our households. In as little time as a decade, that can bottle-feed babies, change diapers and put a child to sleep might be here. The human-machine bond that a new generation of kids grows up with may be unbreakable. We may end up literally loving our machines almost like we do our mothers and fathers. I’ve already seen some of this bonding in action. I have a four-foot interactive robot aboard my , which I’ve occasionally used for my presidential campaign. The robot can do about 1,000 functions, including basic interaction with people, like talking, answering questions and making wisecracks. When my five-year-old rides with me on the bus, she adores it. After being introduced to it, she obsessively wanted to watch Inspector Gadget videos and read books on robots. My two daughters (the other one is two years old) have always been near technology, and both were able to successfully navigate YouTube watching videos on iPhones by the time they were 12 months old. Yet, while my kids love the iPhone, and they want to use it regularly, it doesn’t bond them to technology in a maternal sense like the Meccanoid robot does. More importantly, the smartphone doesn’t bond them to technology in an anthropomorphic sense — where one gives technology human attributes, like personalities. My kids instinctively know the iPhone is a tool. But Meccanoid is a friend. If you kick the robot, leave it in the rain or lock it away in the closet, my kids will freak out. To them, the robot is personal — and the love is real. If some of this reminds you of Rosie the Robot — the cleaning, cooking nanny robot from the — you’re not alone. Humans will soon regularly engage with machines as fellow companions in life, giving psychologists, anthropologists and Congress new ideas to consider. There is already chatter all across the internet in the transhumanist community about humans wanting the right to marry machines — and all that goes with that. In fact, in the I delivered to Washington, DC, we explicitly aim to give future conscious beings personhood — as well as other rights covered by the 1948-adopted . Despite the thorniness of some of the issues between humans and robots, the reason we are entering this robot age is because of one simple fact: functionality. Robots will make our lives far easier. In fact, the robot nanny is a prime example: It will be adored by parents — and likely much more so than the human nannies who are known to call in sick, show up to work late and, on occasion, sue their employers when they hurt themselves on the job. Robot nannies will replace real nannies like the automobile replaced the horse and cart — allowing parents much new and opportunity to pursue careers. One major factor going for the development of robot nannies is their cost effectiveness. I’ve been either watching my kids or hiring nannies for the last five years. About $200,000 later (which is what 8-hour weekday childcare costs in San Francisco for five years), it’s safe to say a robot nanny is not going to cost as much as I’ve spent. And once my kids are old enough and no longer need immediate supervision, I’ll be left with the robot to sell or give to a family in need. But essential questions remain: Will some robots be allowed to watch kids when parents go out for the night or off to work — and other robots not? Who will make that determination? The parent? The manufacturer? The government? Will robots that can perform CPR, put out fires, squish poisonous spiders and perform the Heimlich maneuver on a choking child be authorized while others are not? Will robots that can detect smoke and carbon monoxide, where others can’t, make the “nanny-worthy” grade? And then come the questions ethicists and programmers are already facing with . If an autonomous vehicle is forced into a choice to hit a young family of five or an old man, what does it choose? Nanny robots may one day be programmed with similar instructions and values. But what if a robot nanny is watching twins, and both start choking at the same time? Which child will it choose to help first? Will programmers allow parents to program which child should be helped first? The questions are endless. I suspect, like the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards and Regulations, a robot equivalent will have to be established. It’s been years since the American household has gotten a new fixture that all households must have. One of the last major ones was the computer — and now nearly of American households have one. I suspect nanny robots will be one of the next commonplace items we have in our homes. And our love for them will grow as they influence and play an integral part of the next generation’s upbringing.
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Inventor Ken Mages sees the Internet as democracy in action
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John Biggs
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This week on the podcast I talked to , a Chicago-based inventor and co-founder of . Mages has been working in computers since his college days at the University of Illinois where he started a business doing what would later be called desktop publishing. His experience in the tech industry is boundless and he’s a really easy guy to talk to. He and I chat about the democratization that the Internet brings to human life and how we can move forward past the disconnections wrought by politics, religion, and geography. It’s a fun chat. You can download the and . If you’d like to talk about your vision of the future drop me a line at john@beta.techcrunch.com. I’d love to have you on.
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Check out this epic, expertly executed $77k Indiegogo backer troll
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Haje Jan Kamps
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It doesn’t get much more meta than this. , the filmmakers behind It’s All Good absconded with the money, spending it all on cocaine, prosti… oh, wait. No, it was limousines and champagne. The backers were rightfully outraged, but there’s a twist. It turns out that the movie the scallywags were making was about a team of filmmakers “wasting” the crowdfunded cash. “It is a movie about not making a movie,” the filmmakers say, tongue firmly in cheek, It’s hard to say where the filmmakers stand ethically here — they did without a doubt mislead the Indiegogo backers, but in this case, the work of art falls in the intersection between fraud, filmmaking, crowdfunding and a commentary on all of the above. was pretty zany, so I’m a little bit surprised the campaign reached its goal in the first place, but I’ve got to say… I’m regretting I didn’t back the original campaign — in a way, the whole process is an extended performance arts piece… For the full experience, watching the team “squander” the money before the final reveal that this was part of the plan all along would have been fantastic. The campaign just posted the trailer for the movie and it looks eminently watchable. It’s out later in October, . Let’s all cross our fingers that we don’t get a raft of copycats. This is the sort of thing that is funny exactly once.
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SurveyMonkey CEO Zander Lurie: IPO, yes; 2017, not likely
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Connie Loizos
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On Thursday night, at a event at in Palo Alto, this editor sat down with CEO Zander Lurie to learn more about the direction of the 17-year-old company, known for the roughly 90 million surveys that the outfit and its customers create for their various constituents each month (and whose average order volume is $300, says Lurie). I was particularly interested in Lurie, a former GoPro, CBS, and CNET executive, given his relatively quiet tenure as chief executive — a role he accepted in January after the passing of longtime CEO Dave Goldberg last year (and following a by a more immediate precedessor, tech veteran Ben Veghte). We wound up chatting about the company’s valuation, polling accuracy, and whether and when the company will go public, among other things. Part of that chat, edited for length, follows. ZL: I always had a boss or somebody who was there for constant feedback, and it’s different when you’re CEO. We have an amazing board of directors . . . but as CEO, you’re in charge of the script: What’s the strategy, who are the teams you’re entrusting to build the company, then all the comms and the motivation and accountability associated with delivering on the company’s promise. It’s on you to be that great storyteller. And I love it, but that’s what has struck out for me. There’s no one to ask: Am I doing a good job? ZL: We’re fortunate to have one of the most profitable businesses on the internet. You couldn’t really do a survey until SurveyMonkey and its founder really invented this new online survey platform. The company in 2009 had about 12 employees and $25 million in profits, then beloved Dave Goldberg became CEO in a buyout and in six years hired about 600 people, and today we’ll do about $200 million in revenue, with EBITDA margins in the mid 30s. So sure, the circumstances under which I became CEO were awful. Dave was one of my best friends in the whole world. But the culture he built, and his ability to recruit a team of world-class people across product and engineering and marketing, amazes me still. So while it’s a lot of pressure, it’s also super fun and a great honor. ZL: There are 15 million who are sending [surveys] on an annual basis and interacting with our products in different ways. The vast majority are responding to surveys from people they trust, increasingly on a mobile device. We have a very detailed cohort analysis whereby people who try [the service] on a monthly basis tend to come on a somewhat transactional basis, and those who sign up for an annual plan — the longer they stay, the less likely they are to churn, and those are obviously our most profitable companies. ZL: Uber is using a variety of [our] products, though I can’t say exactly which. I think the largest survey company in the world today is Uber. Today, every time you take an Uber, you take a .2-second survey where you’re rating your driver, and obviously those data points are helping inform them about which drivers are doing a great job, as well as [informing Uber about] the customers who drivers like. It’s using what we call people-powered data in a really refreshing way to drive their product forward. ZL: For us, it’s really about the brand and scale. Because of the footprint we now have across geographies, ethnicities, age groups, genders, and companies, we have an ability to weight the data in a way that we can give customers really great answers. ZL: We did a layoff in March; we were overexposed in one business area — an outbound, sales-driven audience area. But we’re hiring pretty aggressively in other areas. [And] yes, we have a first-class space in Palo Alto, but for all those founders who are looking to invest their VC dollars, Palo Alto real estate is a tough place to do it. So we’ve built a 200,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art facility in San Mateo that will help us scale and grow and do it more cost effectively. ZL: 2017 is coming up right? [Laughs.] No, it’s highly unlikely we’d go out in 2017. We have the scale and profitability to go public, but we want to do that on our own timeframe. We’ve raised more than a billion dollars in equity and debt capital over the years, largely through a couple of recaps, with private equity owners taking out earlier owners. We also did that in part so we could [orchestrate] some employee liquidity events. But we have some exciting product development in place and we want to get more traction and more visibility, and that will put us in a great position to go public on our own timeframe, likely after 2017. ZL: No. We’ve been blessed, and I give all the credit to Dave Goldberg and how he built the culture here. You need to build a culture that values employees’ time because that is resource. No one is talking anymore about having an exclusive on a plant or a patent that no one else can surmise. It’s about: do you have a mission and a culture and a way of inspiring and empowering your employees to work in an era that’s very different than it was 30 years ago? So we very much believe in prioritizing our employees’ health, and that includes their financial health, that’s work-life harmony, and that’s ensuring they have something inspiring to work on.
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Apple loses patent retrial to the litigious VirnetX, ordered to pay $302.4M
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Mike Butcher
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Here’s yet more evidence that the US patent system needs over-hauling. Back in February we that Apple had been ordered to pay $625 million to notorious litigator VirnetX after a U.S. court judged that the iPhone-maker had infringed on patents held by VirnetX in its iMessage and FaceTime services. (VirnetX often described as a patent troll because it makes almost all of its revenue from patent licensing and lawsuits). Apple went ahead and appealed the decision, arguing that the patents in question were not valid. But on Friday night that appeal came to nothing. A federal jury in Texas ordered Apple pay more than $302 million in damages for using VirnetX’s internet security patent without permission. The $302.4 million award was close to what VirnetX had demanded. Apple has declined to comment. Apple will also face another a further proceeding over whether it willfully infringed the patents, according to court documents, which could lead to yet more damages. It will also have to deal with a second lawsuit filed by VirnetX covering newer versions of Apple security features. Last August a judge rejected VirnetX’s $625.6 million win over Apple from a previous trial saying the jurors had been confused (who can blame them!). The latest twist comes after years of fighting between the oft-called ‘patent troll’ and Apple, starting in 2010 when VirnetX, a Nevada-based patent licensor, filed suit in an East Texas federal court, claiming infringement of four security patents, including VPNs. In this most recent trial, jurors had to work out damages on two VirnetX patents that Apple had been previously been adjudged to have infringed, and to rule on infringement and damages on another two patents. The Eastern Texas Court where the latest trials have taken place has a known history for favoring plaintiffs in cases of alleging infringement. Nevada-based VirnetX won $368 million from Apple in 2013 when a U.S. court ruled that it infringed on patents used in FaceTime and its VPN service inside iOS. Apple changed its services, but VirnetX came back for more, saying the changes weren’t enough. VirnetX has taken on Cisco, Avaya, Siemens and others for alleged patent violations.
It settled a 2014 dispute with Microsoft over patents used in Skype, winning $24 million and made $200 million from the firm via a 2010 case.
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How deep learning allowed computers to see
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Claire Bretton
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You get the first limit of basic machine learning for image recognition: We’re often incapable of defining discriminating characteristics that would near a 100 percent recognition potential.
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Gillmor Gang LIVE 10.01.16
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Steve Gillmor
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This was a LIVE recording session of – today with: Robert Scoble, Kevin Marks, Keith Teare, and Steve Gillmor. Gillmor Gang’s Facebook page G3’s Facebook page
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You might be surprised to learn who’s collecting your data
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Dr. Jose Nazario
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Every company is a digital company, from the biggest tech companies to the neighborhood corner store. A large ecosystem of partners and suppliers enables those companies to provide the services they do. And then there’s the customer, who is seeing more and more of their life become digital. Most people understand that in order for digital services to work properly or stay free they may need to allow the services to track some of their data. For example, maps have limited appeal when location tracking is disabled. There’s a trade-off between convenience and privacy with which most people are comfortable. That negotiation occurs between the consumer and the online site or service. But what about the businesses that provide services for consumer-facing companies? The partners and third-parties that operate behind the scenes? Typically they’re ISPs, cloud services or even content-delivery networks (CDNs), through which 45 percent of the internet’s traffic passes. They kept the Olympic games streaming fast and uninterrupted. They’re handling billions of transactions for e-commerce sites. What many people don’t realize is that these third-parties could also be tracking and selling their online behaviors as data. The FCC is cracking down on ISPs for selling user data without consent, but now some CDNs are also getting in on the game. Waiting for regulation to stop the abuse isn’t the answer. All third-party services have an ethical responsibility to publicly and plainly disclose which data they collect. This should be available to consumers and to their business customers before signing contracts. And companies should insist that the third-party services with which they work follow these consumer-centric privacy practices. Data collection can start out with good intentions. For example, online services can improve the user experience by knowing whether customers are using mobile or desktop devices to access their site. But data collection and retention can get more invasive when services begin to collect demographic data, like gender, to deliver content that feels a little too personal to the consumer. For the provider, these benefits of less data actually accrue over time. If a provider doesn’t keep the customer data, then the company doesn’t have data to provide the government when faced with a subpoena. In addition, there is less data to protect from cyber attacks and data breaches. Internet service providers, and CDNs in particular, can do their jobs just as effectively without that data. More than 90 percent of adults agree that consumers have lost control of how their data is collected and shared online by companies, . It will soon be imperative that companies disclose information to their users about who has access to their data, how long that data is retained and how it might be combined with other data or reconstructed to target them with advertising. Technology giant Google leads the way in transparency around data collection, making it easy for people to choose which information they’re okay with sharing and which they are not. There aren’t many laws in place governing which data can be collected or sold by companies or how long data can be retained. The regulations that do exist vary by state and aren’t very rigorous. However, it’s not wise for companies to rely on data collection as a form of revenue. The market is already showing signs of self-correcting as the popularity of online ad blockers grows. Additionally, the FCC might not stop at ISPs in its efforts to regulate data collection. While some third-parties are content with hiding behind the data permissions a customer-facing service has with its customers, others aren’t — and rightly so. This permission by opacity may be the status quo now, but it won’t be for long. It’s time to demand that all third-parties hold themselves to a higher standard and disclose what they do with consumers’ data. Companies that resist the urge to collect, share and sell data that isn’t vital to their service will ultimately be better off.
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Learned helplessness and the languages of DAO
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Jon Evans
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Everything is terrible. Most software, even critical system software, is insecure Swiss cheese held together with duct tape, bubble wrap, and bobby pins. See eg this week’s darkly funny post “How to Crash Systemd in One Tweet.” But it’s not just systemd, not just Linux, not just software; the whole industry is at fault. We have taught ourselves, wrongly, that there is no alternative. Let’s take a closer look at that , because it serves as a superb example of the larger problem. “Yay non-determinism!” indeed. If you’re a hardcore geek, you want to read that whole post; if not, let me explain. Systemd is an integral component of most Linux distributions, used to boot the system, among other things. Ayer found a very simple way to crash it, and went on to philosophize:
The immediate question raised by this bug is what kind of quality assurance process would allow such a simple bug to exist for over two years … Systemd’s problems run far deeper than this one bug. Systemd is defective by design. Writing bug-free software is extremely difficult … good programmers recognize the difficulty of writing bug-free software and understand the importance of designing software in a way that minimizes the likelihood of bugs or at least reduces their impact. The systemd developers understand none of this, opting to cram an enormous amount of unnecessary complexity … written in a memory-unsafe language.
That last is, I think, the key larger point. Everything is terrible because the fundamental tools we use are, still, so flawed that when used they inevitably craft terrible things. This applies to software ranging from low-level components like systemd, to the cameras and other IoT devices recently — A bunch of sentient lightbulbs and refrigerators uniting to destroy a major infrastructure is cyberpunk as hell. — Søren Ragsdale (@sorenrags) — to high-level science-fictional abstractions like the . Almost all software has been bug-ridden and insecure for so long that we have grown to think that this is the natural state of code. This learned helplessness is not correct. Everything does not have to be terrible. In principle, code can be proved correct with . This is a very difficult, time-consuming, and not-always-realistic thing to do; but when you’re talking about critical software, built for the long term, that conducts the operation of many millions of machines, or the investment of many millions of dollars, you should probably at least consider it. Less painful and rigorous, and hence more promising, is the :
The Language-theoretic approach (LANGSEC) regards the Internet insecurity epidemic as a consequence of ad hoc programming of input handling at all layers of network stacks, and in other kinds of software stacks. LANGSEC posits that the only path to trustworthy software that takes untrusted inputs is treating all valid or expected inputs as a formal language, and the respective input-handling routines as a recognizer for that language.
…which is moving steadily into the real world, and none too soon, via vectors such as the French security company . As mentioned, programming languages themselves are a huge problem. Vast experience has shown us that it is unrealistic to expect programmers to write secure code in memory-unsafe languages. (Hence my “ ” post last year.) But there is hope! After doomsaying, Andrew Ayer goes on to note: “However, I see improvement on the horizon. Go and Rust are compelling, safe languages for writing the type of systems software that has traditionally been written in C.” The best is the enemy of the good. We cannot move from our current state of disgrace to one of grace immediately. But, as an industry, let’s at least set a . Let’s move towards writing system code in better languages, first of all — this should improve security speed. Let’s move towards formal specifications and verification of mission-critical code. And when we’re stuck with legacy code and legacy systems, which of course is still most of the time, let’s do our best to learn how make it incrementally better, by focusing on the basic precepts and foundations of programming. (EG Java and C# programmers should consider going through the excellent and books by my old classmate Ayo Agboola.) Don’t accept “terrible” as the inevitable state of things, even if it’s the state. Strive for something better. I write this as large swathes of the industry are moving away from traditional programming and towards the various flavors of AI. How do we formally specify a convoluted neural network? How does langsec apply to the real-world data we feed to its inputs? How do these things apply to quantum computing? (If you think it’s too early to ask that question, check out my friend Christine’s spectacularly cool , .) I, uh, don’t actually have answers to any of those last few questions. But let’s at least start asking them! And in the interim, let’s do everything we can to finally start to fix traditional programming. It is not a quixotic dream; it actually is possible. Once we just accept that, everything can, and I believe will, be better.
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Crunch Report | Snap Possibly to IPO in March
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Khaled "Tito" Hamze
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Tito Hamze, John Mannes
Tito Hamze
Joe Zolnoski
Joe Zolnoski
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Hands-on, camera-off with the Oculus ‘Santa Cruz’ standalone VR prototype
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Lucas Matney
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Upon being guided into the inner-sanctum at the Oculus Connect developer conference, I was told to leave my phone and backpack behind. The powers that be told me I would not be allowed to take any photos or video of my demo with Oculus’s new inside-out-positional-tracking-standalone-virtual-reality-headset-prototype (more simply code-named “Santa Cruz”) once I was inside. Now, I had two phones on me at the time so I could’ve easily put one away as a decoy and snapped some sneaky product shots with the other, but sadly I complied with the nice PR person’s wishes. Perhaps it was partially out of fear that the device would be discovered in a subsequent strip search. No such strip search followed. What did follow was a very interesting look into the prototype of a product what will likely become very important to the company down the road. The demo itself was just 3-4 minutes and involved chilling in a little neighborhood where I got to walk around on the top of a few buildings. The cell-shaded animation wasn’t too robust with detail, though the actual resolution seemed identical to that of the Rift. It was a very passive experience — more of a room-scale movie than a game — but the feature prototype unsurprisingly completed the prototyped feature with ease. While the tracking tech was certainly impressive, it wasn’t abundantly clear whether anything I was witnessing was actually a major breakthrough. Inside-out tracking has been a tough nut to crack, but others already have. It seems that the toughest computer vision problems to plague others’ solutions in the space are still things Oculus is struggling with, as well. The team admitted that the tracking only worked optimally when certain environmental conditions were met. The room in which I demoed “Santa Cruz” was very well-lit, which was hinted to be somewhat essential to this particular prototype. It was also a fairly tight space, with plenty of knick knacks on the walls that likely operated as clear points of reference for the computer vision that was actively mapping the space — I was also told open spaces were not ideal for this prototype. A lot of people were surprised by the announcement today, largely because they’d been expecting to see the positional tracking tech be demoed on a Gear VR mobile headset. “Santa Cruz” was certainly a , but it was also a bit of a disappointment. Today’s reveal suggests that Oculus hasn’t solved the compute-efficiency problems related to bringing the tech to smartphone VR, and now it’s also unclear whether this is still a problem that’s actively being approached. In an interview with Oculus VP of Product Nate Mitchell, the exec not only deflected my questions about whether positional tracking on Gear VR was in the product pipeline, he questioned my assertion that the company had ever been working on the tech for smartphone VR , something that the company’s own CTO has talked about . The standalone headset phase is clearly in its earliest stages and, though this demo was quite cool, there are no signs that this Frankenstein’d prototype is anywhere close to being a real consumer product, especially until more details emerge regarding some of these technical issues.
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Report: Verizon wants $1 billion discount after Yahoo privacy concerns
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Katie Roof
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The breach occurred in 2014, but Yahoo discovered the intrusion more recently. The exact timing of Yahoo’s discovery could impact the Verizon deal. Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer reportedly learned of the breach as early as July, when the sale of the company was still being negotiated. In August, Yahoo told TechCrunch in a statement that it was aware of rumors that the company had been hit by hackers and that its security team was investigating. But in a September proxy statement made as part of the sale, Yahoo claimed that there had been no third-party claims of such a breach. Senator Mark Warner has called for the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate Yahoo’s representations about cybersecurity. “Yahoo’s September filing asserting lack of knowledge of security incidents involving its IT systems creates serious concerns about truthfulness in representations to the public,” Warner said in a statement. When asked about the hack in a last week, AOL’s Tim Armstrong said “t
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Argentina’s startup scene is primed, but not yet firing on all cylinders
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Dan Piehler
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Over the last decade, Argentina’s public profile has been far from flattering. With a steady feed of headlines that have included, “Inflation”, “Corruption”, and “Political Instability”, the country has been shut off from most international tech investment since the “dot com” bubble. Since then, Argentina has had to overcome severe currency devaluation, a closed economy, and fourteen years of default that ultimately resulted in a to US hedge funds. The country currently 157th out of 189 countries in terms of the ease of doing business and has the highest youth unemployment in Latin America. I recently spent a week in Buenos Aires to meet with entrepreneurs, investors, and government agencies to better understand the tech ecosystem and the new policies aiming to catalyze it. At its core, I found a robust and enthusiastic community of highly technical operators who are devoted to developing the local ecosystem and betting heavily on the new pro-business regulations they have been promised. For context, roughly ages 18-24 say that they find entrepreneurship a favorable career path, and more than one in four say they intend on starting a business. The election of pro-business President Mauricio Macri in December brought new plans for an open market and a slate of startup-centric reforms that have reenergized the entrepreneurial spirit of Latin America’s third largest economy. Buenos Aires alone, houses three of the country’s most respected technical universities and a new crop of coding schools including , which saw class sizes grow five-fold last year. Photo courtesy of Flickr/ There has also been significant investment in co-working spaces around Buenos Aires’ trendy Palermo neighborhood that mirror the style and amenities you might find in downtown San Francisco. With arguably better coffee. Moving in tandem, the government is mentorship programs, online libraries and support hotlines for budding entrepreneurs. Much of this is being championed by the founders and investors who were responsible for building the country’s most successful companies, including and . Founded in 1999, MercadoLibre is an online marketplace providing e-commerce and online auctions similar to eBay. Boasting over 158 million registered users and an $8.5B market cap, it is the only Internet company from Latin America listed on the Nasdaq (MELI). Founded in 2003, Globant is an IT and software development company listed on the NYSE (GLOB) with a $1.4B market cap and operations across Latin America, Europe, and the United States. The lack of meaningful exits has plagued emerging markets and often hindered the development of robust tech ecosystems. While still problematic, Argentina has bucked this trend on several notable occasions with the success of MercadoLibre and Globant. For context, only 76 emerging market companies have held public offerings on the Nasdaq and NYSE since 2007. Excluding Alibaba, the combined market cap of MercadoLibre and Globant represents approximately 6.5% of the current value of all emerging market companies who have gone public in the US during that time. Photo courtesy of Flickr/ . On the earlier side, there is an exciting wave of startups including , , and that have leveraged existing business models and adapted them to fit the intricacies of their local market. While many Argentinian success stories to date have focused on e-commerce and marketplaces, some of the most impressive entrepreneurs I came across were tackling larger regional pain points including clean water supply, agriculture, and renewable energy. Taking aim at the funding environment, Argentinian officials were inspired by Israel’s success and are rolling out 1:1 matched for accelerators and venture funds. There are also plans to create ten new venture funds over the next four years and establish the country’s first equity crowdfunding platform. Fostering a stronger network of funding sources will be key. With the growing number of accelerators joining existing shops such as and , a lack of follow-on capital for Series A and B rounds could be a harmful bottleneck to the country’s new agenda. The Series A funding community includes such sophisticated firms as , which was founded by former MercadoLibre executives. But if the new policies correctly fall into place, there could be a sizeable increase in growth-stage investment opportunities for new regional and international investors alike. Kaszek Ventures meeting However, while international investors are taking notice of Argentina, expect to see many remain on the sideline until there is proven traction from these incentives programs and the new political regime. The new government promises greater economic alignment with the rest of the world and appears to be taking the necessary steps to avoid the pitfalls that have impeded similar regional initiatives. Yet, as we’ve seen multiple times both domestically and abroad, creating such an environment requires more than just capital and optimism. It requires experienced mentorship, the capacity for innovation, and the availability of follow-on funding. None of which develop overnight. After more than a decade of being in the news for the all the wrong reasons, Argentina is beginning to rewrite its story. To say that country is the next source of global unicorns is likely overzealous. However, with a remarkable talent pool, devoted political support, and the growing availability of growth-stage funding, expect to see a greater number of strong regional businesses and hopefully a more active exit environment in the years to come.
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Spotify and Apple Music get unofficial mixes, the best part of SoundCloud
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Josh Constine
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SoundCloud’s big differentiator is its offering of unofficial, user-uploaded content that the major labels don’t release and that isn’t on Spotify or Apple Music. Or at least they weren’t. The first unofficial single-track remixes just went live on Spotify and Apple Music thanks to their partnerships with . struck a deal with Dubset in March, and did in May, BPMSupreme reported. But the remixes are finally beginning to , starting with this of . We’ve reached out to Spotify and Apple for comment. [Update: Spotify confirms that short-form mixes are now available. This is apparently just a small part of its integration with Dubset. It says the bigger part is when long-form mixed content becomes available, but there’s no definite timing on that.]
Still missing are the multi-song mixsets DJs often share from their gigs. But Dubset is also equipped to distribute royalties from those and its deals permit them. tells me “Mixes are coming next!” Dubset works by scanning an entire mix and matching every part of the track to its Mixbank of snippets of official songs based on Gracenote’s audio fingerprinting database. Dubset matches the samples in a mix to these snippets, then distributes royalties for the play evenly to the original rights holders. In this case, Anderson .Paak’s rights holders would get paid because his music is the basis of Jazzy Jeff’s remix. White says 700 million people a month listen to mixed content, making it a big opportunity. But record labels have historically fought against unofficial mixes because they considered them piracy since they weren’t getting paid. Dubset gives them a fair share, so they’ll permit remixes and mix sets to stream on the major platforms. Royalty revenue from the platform is shared with rights holders while Dubset gets a cut. “Content owners have been very supportive. The publishing and label deals we have under license provides a large catalog to work with,” White tells me. This “allows some of the content that until now has only been on YouTube and SoundCloud to come to these great paid services where content owners will get paid!” The fact that unofficial content is now going live on Spotify and Apple Music could , which the says is in late-stage negotiations to be bought by Spotify. TechCrunch’s sources confirm the two have recently been talking about M&A. But if Spotify can get the best of SoundCloud’s content without coughing up a ton of money for a broken company that’s been struggling for years… Without the legal grey area of music as a differentiator, Spotify and Apple Music will end up competing on product features like Spotify’s Discover Weekly playlist and Apple’s Beats 1 live radio station, as well as on exclusives and early access to big releases from top artists. The real winners here, though, are the artists and listeners. Original rights owners will get paid, remix producers and mixset DJs can share their creativity without being pirates and listeners can hear the music they want no matter how it got made.
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Watch an Uber self-driving car give two Pittsburgh Steelers a ride
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Darrell Etherington
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Uber’s self-driving cars are operating on Pittsburgh streets, so it’s only natural they’d pick up some professional athletes along the way. Defensive ends Cam Heyward and Stephon Tuitt likely max out the passenger capacity of the back of that Uber-tech equipped Ford Fusion that picks them up, but they do manage to get in and take the trip. My favorite moment here might be when Tuitt basically says what every person contemplating a first ride in one of these is thinking before they actually get picked up by the car. Tuitt: "What are we going to do?" Cam: "Don't worry, bro. I got the ." — Pittsburgh Steelers (@steelers) The video has some solid explanatory sections that cover its LiDAR capabilities, laying the basics of that tech pretty clearly. It also might be the closest non-Pittsburgh residents get to being able to take a ride inside one for a while. Uber’s because that’s where its robotics facility is located. The ride-hailing company took most of its self-driving vehicle engineering department from nearby Carnegie Mellon University, so it makes sense that it would choose the city to host its Advanced Technologies Center, and to kick off its initial driverless trials. Testing defensive end load-bearing capabilities might not be absolutely crucial to achieving a wider rollout, but it will help Uber humanize the tech, which is bound to make others like Tuitt “nervous” at first.
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Buying Washio’s assets, Rinse cleans up part of the on-demand laundry market
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Jonathan Shieber
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Nearly a month after the on-demand laundry service shut its doors, its assets have been starched, pressed and folded into the operations of one of its main competitors — . For a while, competition for on-demand laundering seemed to be a regional game, with both Rinse and Washio vying for territory along the West Coast and, eventually, nationally. On the East Coast, startups like and launched to take the competition to the cleaners. Rinse would not disclose the terms of the deal for Washio’s assets. “It wasn’t a sign of Rinse winning and Washio losing,” chief executive Ajay Prakash said of the acquisition. For Prakash, it was only a matter of time before the dirty truth around Washio’s business model would come out. Simply put, Prakash told TechCrunch, the on-demand model isn’t the most efficient or economical way to handle the dirty business of cleaning clothes. Any arguments to the contrary would just be a turn through the spin cycle. In Prakash’s opinion, it was actually Washio’s pivot to an on-demand model that soiled the company’s business prospects. As our own Jordan Crook wrote when Washio shut down: When Washio originally launched, it offered a service that would pick up users’ laundry or dry cleaning at a scheduled time, sometimes as early as 24 hours from the time of the order placement. In 2015, the company launched Washio Now, guaranteeing a pick-up within an hour of ordering, with a 24-hour turnaround time on clothes. Rinse’s model never wavered from the scheduled approach, which allowed the company to spend more reasonably on pickup and delivery. With the acquisition of Washio assets, Rinse picks up additional customers in Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Oakland, New York and Washington, D.C. “We had a chance to acquire customer lists and we took advantage of it,” Prakash said. Both Washio and Rinse have an impressive cohort of investors. Washio, which raised far more cash ($16.2 million, according to ) had a stable of investors including celebrity VCs like Ashton Kutcher and Nas, along with institutional investors like Canaan Partners and AME Ventures. Rinse, for its part, is backed by a host of Los Angeles’ finest firms, including and , along with , , , and . led the company’s Series A round, which closed in April. On-demand businesses have continued to have a rocky time of it in the past two years. There are a lot of upfront costs to set up a customer base and the businesses themselves are pretty low-margin. Wringing efficiencies out of the business model are critical to success and are tricky without significant financial support up-front. It’s something that other on-demand services like the cleaning services Handy and Homejoy have experienced. Handy had some , and . Rinse’s model is different from most of its competitors. It doesn’t keep drivers in circulation all day, every day, and takes a few days to process orders. Valets, the part-time employees who pick up and drop off clothes, only operate between 8 and 10 at night. There’s a drop-off service available, as well, if there’s no one who’s going to be home at the times when Rinse’s drivers are delivering. Among Rinse’s current services are: launder and press, wash and fold, dry cleaning, hang dry, leather cleaning and some other garment repair services. The company pays select cleaners a wholesale rate, then bills customers a retail price to generate revenue.
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Co-founder Antti Pasila becomes CEO at programmatic ad company Kiosked
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Anthony Ha
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, a company that dynamically inserts ads into a publisher’s content, has a new CEO — co-founder Antti Pasila. Pasila, who previously served as the company’s chief strategy officer, said his appointment is part of a broader shift: “The key thing is, we’re focusing our resources on the supply side.” In other words, while there are no plans to get rid of Kiosked’s ad-buying tools, Pasila’s strategy moving forward is all about working with publishers. Most readers don’t get too excited when they hear about new technologies for introducing ads, but Pasila argued that the Kiosked approach actually balances the needs of the publisher and the consumer — something that’s particularly important given Sure, Kiosked ads insert themselves into the story that you’re reading, but they’re meant to be high quality, relevant ads, and they don’t take control away from the reader. “When you talk about user experience, you have to balance it out with monetization,” Pasila said. “You can’t fix one or the other part, you need to think about them both. There needs to be a consumer feeling of the value exchange … Taking out all the ads won’t solve anything for the publisher.” Pasila co-founded the company in 2010 with Micke Paqvalen, the previous CEO, who’s becoming Kiosked’s chairman of the board. So why is Pasila taking the reins now? He said it’s because he helped develop the publisher-centric strategy — “It was pretty clear that I would probably be the best one to execute this plan” — and is based in the United States, which is where Kiosked has most of its customers. (Paqvalen is based in Finland.) The company says its revenue grew 400 percent last year, and that its publishers include DailyMail, News Corp and CNN.
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