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Dubai could be the first to hop on Hyperloop One’s global shipping train
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Sarah Buhr
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tells TechCrunch it might be building its crazy fast transportation system at the Jebel Ali port in Dubai if all goes according to plan. And it could be the first place to build an actual Hyperloop for commercial use, says CEO Rob Lloyd. “It’s got the infrastructure, regulatory movement and kind of capital in place needed to build it already,” he told TechCrunch. The startup will conduct an economic and feasibility study in partnership with the third largest supply chain and terminals operator on the planet DP World, which operates its flagship port out of Jebel Ali in Dubai, to determine if it makes sense to build there and what advancements the Hyperloop might bring to the region and shipping on a global scale. The Hyperloop, once just a twinkle in the mind of Elon Musk, is said to eventually go more than 700 miles per hour, or faster than a speeding plane, and have the ability to transport both humans and cargo all around the world in less than a day. Hyperloop One, one of working on making Musk’s blueprint a reality, has already started in the Nevada desert with what it believes to be positive results. Leadership in the United Arab Emirates and the CEO of DP World, Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, no doubt, would like to be a part of that fast-moving train should everything work out and are looking at where the tracks might go should the Hyperloop prove itself capable. DP World believes it could possibly use a submerged, floating Hyperloop to redirect its cargo and free up some space on the land, should the feasibility study pan out as well. The company just spent billions on Terminals 4 and 5 and will need to move cargo fast as it continues to grow – something Hyperloop One could potentially help them do. But this isn’t the first global partnership for the startup. HO is also conducting feasibility studies in , Finland, Sweden, Switzerland and in the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, California and has chatted with TechCrunch about a similar submerged floating Hyperloop off of the Pacific Coast that could load and unload cargo for shipping as well. It will be interesting to see how Hyperloop One plans to build out as well as get through regulators and other opposition it’s sure to face as it continues to work toward laying down tracks for commercial use throughout the globe.
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500 Startups’ Dave McClure on portfolio diversification and the return opportunities of “spray and pray”
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Harry Stebbings
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Hangouts On Air moving from Google+ to YouTube Live on September 12
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Lucia Maffei
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Google today that Hangouts On Air will move from Google+ to YouTube Live on September 12; users will be asked to migrate to YouTube Live. In an email to TechCrunch, Google confirmed that Hangouts on Air isn’t shutting down, but will move to YouTube Live. “We’re focusing our live streaming efforts on YouTube Live and consolidating our services there,” a Google spokesperson wrote. “Hangouts on Air has been available through YouTube since it was launched and YouTube Live is a natural home for the service.” As first by Emil Protalinski on VentureBeat, Google debuted the live-streaming feature for its Hangouts group video chat on Google+ in September 2011, then completed the roll out in June 2012. YouTube Live debuted less than one year later, in May 2013. After the deadline of September 12, events cannot be scheduled on Google+, and existing events scheduled after September 12 must be moved to YouTube Live. Users will continue to have access to their recorded event on YouTube. Google+ will have your event content available in read-only format in the Activity Log. The move is another of the ongoing changes with Google+ across many Google products, which . Just a few days ago, Google to TechCrunch that a Google+ profile is no longer needed to post a review on Play Store.
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Using artificial intelligence to create invisible UI
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Martin Legowiecki
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Interaction with the world around us should be as easy as walking into your favorite bar and getting your favorite drink in hand before your butt hits the bar stool. The bartender knows you, knows exactly what drink you like and knows you just walked through the door. That’s a lot of interaction, without any “interaction.” We’re redefining how we interact with machines and how they interact with us. Advances in AI help make new human-to-machine and machine-to-human interaction possible. Traditional interfaces get simplified, abstracted, hidden — they become ambient, part of everything. The ultimate UI is no UI. Everyone’s getting in the game, but few have cracked the code. We must fundamentally change the way we think. Our roles as technologists, UX designers, copywriters and designers have to change. What and how we build — scrolling pages, buttons, taps and clicks — is based on aging concepts. These concepts are familiar, proven and will still remain useful. But we need a new user interaction model for devices that listen, “feel” and talk to us. Technologists need to become more like UX designers and vice versa. They must work much closer together and mix their roles, at least until some standards, best practices and new tools are established. The bartender from the above example is where more of the UI is starting to reside. On one hand, that represents a lot more responsibility to create transparent experiences that tend to be based on hidden rules and algorithms. But on another, this gives us incredible latitude for creating open-ended experiences in which only important and viable information is presented to the user. For example, to command our AI assistant, “Tell my wife I am going to be late,” the system needs to be smart enough not only to understand the intent, but also to know who the wife is and the best way to contact her. No extraneous information is necessary, no option list, no follow-up questions. We call this Minimum Viable Interaction (MVI). We’ve started talking to our machines — not with commands, menus and quirky key combinations — but using our own human language. Natural language processing has seen incredible advances and we finally don’t need to be a machine to talk to one. We chat with the latest chatbots, search using Google Voice or talk to Siri. The accuracy of speech recognition has improved to an incredible 96 percent accuracy. The last few percentage points might not seem like a lot, but it’s what makes or breaks the perfect experience. Imagine a system that can recognize what anyone says 100 percent of the time, no matter how we say things (whether you have an accent, pause between words or say a bunch of inevitable “uhhs” and “umms”). Swap a tap or a click for the Amazon Echo’s far-field recognition, and the UI melts away. It becomes invisible, ubiquitous and natural. We aren’t there yet. For now, we can devise smart ways of disguising the capability gap. A lot of time goes into creating programming logic and clever responses to make the machine seem smarter than it really is. Make one mistake where the UI shows and the illusion will break. The system needs to know more about us for invisible UI to become reality. Contextual awareness today is somewhat limited. For example, when asking for directions via Google Maps, the system knows your location and will return a different result if you are in New York versus California. Our phones, watches and other mobile devices are loaded with a ton of sensors. They make us humans the cheap sensors machines need today. We gather the knowledge and data that the system needs to do its work. But even with all the sensors and data, the machine needs to know more about us and what is going on in our world in order to create the experiences we really need. One solution is combining the power of multiple devices/sensors to gather more information. But this usually narrows down and limits the user base — not an easy thing to sell to a client. You have to think on your feet. Change, tweak, iterate. This space is way too dynamic to be married to an original creative concept. What wasn’t possible just yesterday is becoming mainstream today as we develop new experiences, explore new tech, topple old paradigms and continue to adapt.
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Snapchat is acquiring mobile search app Vurb for $110M+
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Josh Constine
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Snapchat could help you organize a night out with friends or get a digest of the day’s news thanks to its acquisition of mobile search startup . TechCrunch caught wind of the impending deal over the weekend and now reports Snapchat is in the closing stages of talks to pay $110 million for Vurb (75 percent stock, 25 percent cash). Snapchat is also said to offer $75 million in retention bonuses to keep Vurb founder and CEO Bobby Lo around. Unfortunately, rewiring people’s behavior patterns around search proved too difficult, even if Google wasn’t built for mobile. Vurb struggled for mass traction, and now it’s selling. Snapchat tells me it’s not commenting on the news. Lo said he was bound by legal restrictions, so he couldn’t talk about it — which points to a deal. won TechCrunch’s Disrupt NY 2014 competition with its take on focused around browsing rather than endless results pages. Vurb could help you check out movies, find a theater to watch one and restaurants nearby where you might want to eat. Then you could bundle these options and share them with friends. . Traditional search engines didn’t understand how those things would connect. Vurb’s card-based interface pulls in information from partners like Yelp and Rotten Tomatoes, and can deep-link you out to Uber and Google Maps. It later aimed to become that built utilities from third-parties onto its new instant messaging feature to help you arrange plans. And just last week it added more . You can see how Vurb works in this demo video we made: It’s unclear exactly what Vurb will do at Snapchat, but helping users make plans with friends is one possibility. Vurb could build upon Snapchat’s existing feature that automatically turns addresses into map links. When users chat about a movie, restaurant or place, Snapchat could help them learn more and arrange to meet up there. Alternatively, Vurb’s more recent direction of trying to be a daily information digest for mobile users could fit somehow into Snapchat. Imagine if alongside the professional content Discover channels there was a personalized view of what’s going on in the world distilled for the modern (i.e. short) attention span. Vurb is another startup coming to an end as part of , a trend we wrote about yesterday where startups are running out of money as fundraising gets tougher following the recent market correction. Rather than simply vaporize or testing ideas in a ghost town, selling to Snapchat could allow Vurb to fertilize the mobile future as part of an app people actually use.
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A first look at the Alta Motors all-electric-motorcycle factory
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Lora Kolodny
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Motorcycle makers have opened the doors to their new factory in Brisbane, California, and TechCrunch was on the scene for a first look. A quick trip from downtown San Francisco, the factory is in a low and unassuming concrete structure. Inside, it’s surprisingly quiet, thanks in part to the fact that the motorcycles Alta makes are all-electrics, and final assembly of these bikes is ultimately done by hand. The startup’s flagship product, the , is a motocross bike newly shipping to dealers and retailing at $14,995. The company also makes a street-legal version of this bike, the , which sells for $15,495. Why build their own factory rather than outsource to markets known for motorcycle manufacturing, especially Japan, home of and others? [gallery ids="1369594,1369595,1369596,1369597,1369599, 1369634, 1369633"] Alta Motors’ CEO and co-founder Marc Fenigstein said, “Everything we’ve done in-house we’ve been able to do faster, cheaper and at higher output than outsourced. The hardest part is bringing up a supply chain that delivers all 460 parts that we need on time on quality and on cost.” For the unfamiliar, Alta Motors, formerly known as BRD Motorcycles, is one of the electric vehicle makers that has managed not to burn out or fade away, while others like Mission Motors, Coda and Aptera shuttered, and Brammo and Fisker pivoted and retrenched. Fenigstein said one thing that’s special about the company’s Redshift bike is that its battery carries 80 percent more range, per pound, than any other battery in motorcycles. The Redshift bikes accelerate from 0 to 60 in 3.3 seconds. And in an environment where the tires are constantly gaining and losing traction, Redshift’s electric drive train and software offer riders a higher degree of control over their bikes’ movement than traditional, gasoline powered bikes, even the high-performance variety, the company claims. With 50 full-time employees, Alta makes all the electronics that run their motorcycles, and the packaging that contains their batteries. They acquire battery cells, wheels, tires, brakes and suspension systems from other suppliers. Their bikes’ batteries specifically weigh about 70 lbs. (30 kg) and have a capacity of 5.8 kilowatt hours, according to Alta Motors CTO and co-founder Derek Dorresteyn. All-electric bikes don’t require the same maintenance as gasoline-powered bikes — including oil changes, air filter changes and frequent engine rebuilds — Dorresteyn noted. That, and acceleration that’s comparable to or better than gas bikes, makes the Redshift appealing to riders who don’t want to spend as much time fixing things as riding or competing. Within 3 years, Alta plans to be selling the Redshift, and other all-electric products, internationally. That could make the San Francisco startup competitive with companies like Gogoro in China, as well as other U.S.-based electric-vehicle motorcycle makers like and , which plans to release an electric bike, eventually. Dorresteyn and Fenigstein declined to specify what other vehicles Alta may develop and when, but they said their technology could work in scooters and smaller motorcycles that are prolific globally. Alta has raised $17.5 million in equity funding to date, with additional venture debt financing of $2 million. The company counts among its advisors and angel backers Tesla’s original founder and battery tech inventor , and EnduroCross inventor and the man credited with getting flat-track motorcycle racing into the X Games, .
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Fixed-wing drones not quite taking off in commercial market, a new DroneDeploy study finds
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Lora Kolodny
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of the commercial and industrial drones market this week, revealing bad news for the makers of fixed-wing drones — quadcopters are far outpacing this type of unmanned aerial vehicle in every industry. Fixed-wing drones, like the eBee Ag, Aero-M and Lancaster, promise performance benefits, including endurance and ruggedness. A fixed-wing drone can fly farther and cover a greater area on a single charge than multi-rotor counterparts, generally. But they are also used in just 6 percent of the flights for commercial and industrial purposes, DroneDeploy found. Meanwhile, quadcopters, which promise to be easier for drone operators to control in flight and allow for rapid takeoff, are used pervasively. DroneDeploy CEO and co-founder explained, “People would rather fly a quadcopter multiple times over a large area, or stop to change batteries, than go through the process of assembling a fixed-wing drone before a flight.” Thankfully, most manufacturers of fixed-wing drones for commercial and industrial use have also developed quadcopters or other multi-rotor models. The DroneDeploy study also found that commercial and industrial users of drones mapped 3 million acres of land in the past four months alone. That compares to mapping fewer than 2 million acres of land in the entire year before that. Agriculture is using drones more than any other industry, so far, followed by construction. But the fastest growth in adoption of drones is seen in mining, inspection and oil and gas. New industries are finding uses for drones, these days, including: education, emergency services and real estate, though institutions in these industries were barely even testing drones just one year ago. And in the past year, the drone hardware most used in this market came from DJI; SenseFly (a Parrot-owned company); 3DR; AgEagle and Parrot, respectively. The most popular drone-camera tech in the market came from DJI, Canon, Sony, GoPro and Mapir. DroneDeploy provides software and systems to help organizations use drones for commercial and industrial purposes of any kind, from mapping and measuring traffic, to surveillance and venue security, to spraying crops and monitoring crop health from on high. The company based its study on the drone-related activities of its customers in 130 countries over the past 16 months.
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LinkedIn sues anonymous data scrapers
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Kate Conger
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LinkedIn is trying to lock down its exclusive relationship with its users. The professional networking company filed suit against 100 unnamed individuals last week for using bots to harvest user profiles from its website. The lawsuit is a preliminary step to revealing the identities of the scrapers — LinkedIn intends to ask the court to reveal the true identities behind the scrapers’ IP addresses — and a way to maintain its exclusive hold on users’ resumes. But LinkedIn’s lawsuit also raises questions about how to police bot use. The company, which was recently , has invoked the controversial Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) in its suit against the unidentified scrapers, claiming that collecting user profiles from the site amounts to hacking. “During periods of time since December 2015, and to this day, unknown persons and/or entities employing various automated software programs (often referred to as ‘bots’) have extracted and copied data from many LinkedIn pages,” the lawsuit claims. “To access this information on LinkedIn’s site, the Doe Defendants circumvented several technical barriers employed by LinkedIn that prevent mass automated scraping, and have knowingly and intentionally violated various access and use restrictions in LinkedIn’s User Agreement, which they agreed to abide by in registering LinkedIn member accounts. In so doing, they have violated an array of federal and state laws, including the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.” The CFAA allows companies like LinkedIn to bring cases against anyone who gains “unauthorized access” to a “protected computer.” The law has been criticized for essentially criminalizing Terms of Service violations, and Representative Zoe Lofgren and other lawmakers have pushed unsuccessfully for CFAA reform. LinkedIn’s case accuses the anonymous scrapers of building a massive botnet and circumventing the restrictions LinkedIn uses to prevent profile collection by undesirable third parties. The lawsuit details several of LinkedIn’s automated tools that prevent data harvesting. Dubbed FUSE, Quicksand and Sentinel, these tools monitor the web traffic of LinkedIn users and limit how many other profiles a user can view, and how quickly a user can view those profiles. This tracking is intended to prevent scrapers from signing up for fake LinkedIn profiles and then vacuuming up vast amounts of data. The company also uses a tool called Org Block to block IP addresses it suspects of scraping and uses Member and Guest Request Scoring to track page requests. But paradoxically, LinkedIn doesn’t want to prohibit scraping altogether. Search engines like Google use bots to index websites and turn up relevant results — and LinkedIn wants to allow this type of scraping to occur. “LinkedIn ‘whitelists’ a number of popular and reputable service providers, search engines, and other platforms so as to permit them to query and index the LinkedIn website, without being subject to all of LinkedIn’s security measures,” the company explains in its suit. The scrapers targeted in the lawsuit circumvented LinkedIn’s bot-blocking tools by sending their requests through one of these ‘whitelisted’ entities, a third-party cloud service provider. A LinkedIn representative declined to comment on how the company differentiates between good and bad scraping, referring TechCrunch to the complaint, which does not discuss how the company makes that determination. It’s also not clear what kind of behavior LinkedIn is trying to prevent, since the lawsuit doesn’t specify what the scraped data is being used for. Does LinkedIn want to squash a competitor? Or is it targeting a research project like , which archives the resumes of individuals in the intelligence community? LinkedIn likely defines ‘bad’ scraping based on the scrapers’ effort to circumvent the company’s preventative measures. While it gives special access to search engines and other friendly bots, LinkedIn obviously didn’t give permission to the data harvesters it’s suing. Similar CFAA lawsuits, like and , have been favorable to the plaintiffs, so LinkedIn has a good shot at shutting down its scrapers. Twitch filed a comparable earlier this summer, in which the live stream site alleged that using bots to inflate a channel’s view count amounts to an unauthorized access of Twitch’s ‘protected computers.’ However, Twitch’s complaint also claims a number of other violations, including trademark infringement. Clearly, companies are interested in stamping out certain kinds of bots. But other scraping, like that done by search engines and web archiving services like the , is welcomed. That dichotomy could create an anti-competitive business atmosphere, the Electronic Frontier Foundation argues. “If you make it illegal for bots to access websites, you’ve given existing search engines a monopoly,” EFF staff attorney Nate Cardozo told TechCrunch. “Google and Bing got started by crawling the entire web. That’s essentially what LinkedIn is talking about here. To call scraping a CFAA violation is extremely anti-competitive. Using the CFAA to stifle innovation is certainly not what it was intended for.” But LinkedIn says that fighting some bots and allowing others is essential to protecting its members. The case is scheduled to be heard in U.S. District Court in San Jose.
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Twitter reportedly in talks with Apple to bring its app and NFL games to Apple TV
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Lucia Maffei
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In an email to TechCrunch, a Twitter spokesperson declined to comment. So far, users can access their Twitter timelines on Apple TV thanks to but they cannot post or retweet, Football fans in the US can gain online access to live and on-demand preseason games iPhone users can also download and watch live game streams on their phones, but only if they are Verizon Wireless customers. With the Twitter app, fans could potentially get access to at least some games for free. Announced at the beginning of April, allows Twitter to live stream 10 of the 16 Thursday Night Football games. The games will still air on CBS, NBC and the NFL Network, as well as their respective web sites. Twitter’s live streaming efforts have been countless during the summer, and not limited to sports coverage. After , Twitter announced another deal on tech, finance and politics, as well as the network’s markets coverage. At the end of July, the company significantly expanded its live sports plans by reaching an accord to live stream games . Last but not least, a couple of weeks ago to live stream its first e-sports competition. We’ve reached out to Apple for confirmation and further details about the talks, and we’ll update this post if they provide more information.
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Naborly lets landlords screen tenants automagically
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John Biggs
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Picture this: you own a nice building in San Francisco and you want to rent to some good old-fashioned salt-of-the-earth folks for not much money. I realize this is a fantasy but play along. How do you confirm the tenants you bring in are not a bunch of deadbeats? has some ideas. The startup, founded by Dylan Lenz, Zeke Kan, and Anastasia Fox from the University of British Columbia, allows landlords to create custom tenant applications that collect pertinent information from tenants. The service then creates a comprehensive dossier on the tenant, informing the landlord whether or not the tenant is a risk. They’ve raised $500,000 so far and are looking to raise $2 million in seed. The company is seeing revenue of $2,000 per day and they’re hitting about 20-50 new landlords daily. They’re also offering the services via API. They are working with credit companies right now to add more data to their system and find better ways to manage tenant ratings. “Good or bad Credit does not actually have an effect on tenant quality (most of the time), so we look at variables that matter,” said Lenz. “Machine Learning and artificial intelligence is the core of our product while most other offerings are really pushing the ‘human touch’ even though its flawed.” “Our system instantly analyzes over 500 data points on each tenant including social media, credit, rental histories, google, etc,” he said. “We are now accurately able predict stuff like late rent payments based on macroeconomic events, interpersonal conflicts between roommates based on financials, job type, etc.” They created naborly when Lenz had to deal with a professional tenant that cost him $22,000 in unpaid rent and property damage. “The tenants even threatened me at my home and work. Then when it was over I realized that there were no good tools for landlords to identify these high risk tenants and report them so other landlords know about them,” he said. The service is live now and costs $59 for a simple plan with one tenant and $149 a year for up to 5 units. The system automatically performs credit checks and tenancy checks can can give the landlord a “score” for each tenant, ensuring that your $500 a month Mission two-bedroom goes to a solid, trustworthy, working-class family.
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Researchers track the trackers through 20 years of the archived web
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Devin Coldewey
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Everywhere you go on the web, trackers are working to reconstruct your every move. But who tracks the trackers? That’s just what researchers at the University of Washington are doing, with purpose-built tools and liberal use of Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. is an effort to quantify a trend we all have more or less accepted as axiomatic: as the web has grown, third-party trackers, from advertisers to analytics, have grown with it. It’s one thing to accept something as true, however, and another to show it and analyze it. “Until now, we didn’t have the tools to understand how these approaches have changed since the earliest days of the web,” said Tadayoshi Kohno ; Kohno and his colleague Franziska Roesner run the UW’s Security and Privacy Laboratory. “Now we can see how the quantity and variety of trackers has grown, and how some approaches have fallen out of favor while others are on the rise.” Not that it was easy. The team, led by CS grad students Adam Lerner and Anna Kornfeld Simpson, was working with a highly incomplete data set, much like the fossil record. Their primary source was the Internet Archive and its Wayback Machine. But that tool, for all its usefulness, was designed for saving , like blog posts — not metadata or offsite code and scripts. “We had to develop techniques to extract tracking information from the archive,” said Kornfeld Simpson. “For example, we collected tracking cookies from archived HTTP headers and Javascript and then simulated the browser’s cookie storage behaviors to detect tracking behavior.” No shortcuts there — it took the team a year to sort through 20 years of records, starting in 1996. But the resulting tools and dataset are original and valuable. The study was presented at the , and represents a sort of first pass at the data; deeper analysis is forthcoming. Among the facts they did discover is that the amount of third-party tracking happening on the average website has increased by a factor of four. That is to say that, in 1996, there was one tracker on most websites, and now there are generally at least four. Depiction of how trackers and the sites they monitored multiplied just between 2000 and 2004. Individual trackers cover a larger part of the web, as well: no longer will an advertiser or analytics company be found only in a thin cross-section of sites. Instead, the biggest ones are now present on 20 to 30 percent of all sites tested. The trackers themselves have become more complex, watching and correlating many types of behaviors across many sites. These results do sound intuitively true, but the dataset collected by the team makes it possible not just to confirm them, but to graph them over time and link them to other developments with changes observed in it. Did ad-blockers make a dent or spur growth? Did improving web standards change the way trackers worked? What about changes in consumer spending and the economy? The “Tracking Excavator” the researchers built to automate some of the tracker-tracking process isn’t available for download yet, but they . In the meantime, you can browse through the data they collected and perform your own analysis, if you dare.
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Bumble is finally monetizing with paid features to better help you find a match
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Fitz Tepper
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Bumble’s that they are getting ready to turn on monetization features in their girl-dominated dating app, and now they’ve finally done it. Starting today users will be able to pay for a package subscription model that will get them three new features for $9.99 per month, with discounts available if you prepay for 3 or 6 months. The three features are called Beeline, Rematch and Busybee, and are designed to supercharge the mobile dating experience. The first feature, Beeline, will pre-populate a queue of users who have already “liked” you, so you can skip the swiping and match with them by just tapping yes. While this takes away the mystery of traditional swipe-based dating (will my suitor also swipe yes?), it makes the process much more efficient. Rematch is exactly what it sounds like – it keeps expired matches in your queue (Bumble matches expire in 24 hours if no conversation is started), so you can try again to get their attention. The last one, Busy Bee, lets you extend the 24-hour window so you can have another day to try to match with someone. This was previously available for men in the form of “extend”, a feature that was only available on a day. Now paying male users will get unlimited extends, and the feature and will now be available to (paying) female users for the first time. For comparison, Tinder’s paid version is for most users, and offers additional features instead of a paywall. However the features themselves are different, with Tinder instead opting to let you “undo” a swipe and change your location to match with users in other cities. Bumble’s new paid features sort of overlap – rematching with an expired match essentially gets you the same benefit of just extending the match for 24 hours. But regardless of overlap the features should still be useful enough for hard core Bumble users to shell out $9.99 per month. The company is stressing that all of these features are optional editions, and no users will lose any features that are currently free. This makes sense, as new paywalls can often disappoint and turn off users – something Bumble definitely doesn’t want to risk doing, especially because of the very strong engagement the platform is currently seeing. Another example of the startup closely curating the user experience is the fact that Bumble has still refused to add any advertising to the platform. To date they really have only worked with brands on specific features ( ) but did say they are looking to finally let brands advertise on the platform in some form or another by early 2017.
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Apple releases its 6th developer betas for iOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS
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Sarah Perez
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Barely a week after Apple released its fifth developer beta builds of its iOS, tvOS, watchOS and MacOS Sierra platforms, the sixth beta releases have now arrived in short order. Given the quick turnaround time, there isn’t much that’s changed between the previous and current builds, besides some minor bug fixing, it appears. In addition, Apple also out the iOS 10 public beta 5, which is the version of the operating system available to non-developers who want to try out the new features ahead of the public launch. As we get closer to the expected September public launch of iOS, the betas have gotten more stable and the new features they introduce in each build have been of lesser importance, generally speaking. Instead, they’re more focused squashing bugs. For instance, early testers are reporting in the comments of a about the betas that the new iOS beta is fixing the dock glitch which saw the background of the dock move around and become distorted when the iPad was moved. First introduced at this year’s WWDC, iOS 10 will bring a number of new features, including redesigned Music and News apps, an updated lock screen, redesigned Notification Center widgets, a revamped iMessage experience, a new “learn to code” app called Swift Playgrounds, a more powerful version of Siri MacOS Sierra, meanwhile, will introduce Siri to the desktop and include an updated Photos app and version of Safari, offering picture-in-picture mode, . Apple TV is getting a dark mode and single sign-on for authenticated TV apps. WatchOS is also getting a makeover with a redesigned user interface, removal of the “friends” screen when pushing the side button, and faster launching apps. According to from Bloomberg, Apple is planning to unveil new versions of the iPhone at its September 7th event, but it may not be announcing its overhaul MacBook Pros at the same time. However, final releases of iOS tend to arrive just ahead of new iPhones, which means we could see iOS 10 publicly launch as soon as September 14, to 9to5Mac.
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Darrell Etherington
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Crunch Report | Beam is acquired by Microsoft
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Khaled "Tito" Hamze
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Tito Hamze, John Mannes
Tito Hamze
Yashad Kulkarni
Joe Zolnoski
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Stop listening to your bankers and go public, says top late-stage team
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Connie Loizos
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has become a major investing powerhouse over its 22-year-old history by funding relatively undiscovered but mature companies; buying sizable stakes in later-stage, venture backed companies; and acquiring positions in publicly traded tech companies that TCV sees as undervalued. The firm, which is headquartered in Palo Alto, has done so well that it just wrapped up its ninth fund with a cool . It also now features offices in New York (opened in 2005) and in London (opened in 2011). Late last week, over coffee at a San Francisco bistro, I sat down with TCV’s founding general partner, Jay Hoag, and general partner Woody Marshall, to talk about some of the firm’s latest hits, which include Dollar Shave Club and LinkedIn, some of whose shares TCV acquired in February when they more than 40 percent. We also talked about why mutual fund companies (with which TCV sometimes competes on deals) don’t make great private company shareholders, and what can be the bad advice of investment bankers, who are largely telling companies to wait until 2017 to go public. Our chat, edited for length, follows. JH: In London and Berlin and the Scandinavian countries, there was lots of activity we were seeing, and we thought it better to see it from quasi-local office. WM: In Europe, [the investors on the ground are] very much early stage or buyouts or else guys who may call themselves growth equity investors but are really doing growth-buyout deals with a lot of debt. In terms of minority investments that startups can spend on product and sales and tech and marketing, we don’t have a lot of [competition]. WM: Insight does everything globally out of one office in New York. We’re pretty active, so we don’t necessarily like to be a tourist. We like to be part of the local community, so we felt like it was important to plant our flag in the ground and hire local people. WM: It’s a growing, profitable business that’s already achieved significant scale with hundreds of employees. Our co-investors are two little French funds, and we were the largest and only investor in the financing we did, which is pretty typical. Also, the company has been around long enough that some of the funds will be thinking about selling some of their stock going forward. Most of our deals are a mix of primary and secondary stakes. JH: We didn’t see that [Microsoft acquisition] coming; it was a nice surprise. But if you’re going to deploy a dollar, why wouldn’t you look at a public company as well as private companies and assess, “Well, this appears fully valued, but this other one is discounted by 70 percent,” as long as you have the right insight. And the public markets tend to overreact on a quarterly basis. JH: Generally, it’s because the [universities and endowments and other] sources of capital for all of us want to think of us as being in discrete [buckets]. Either it’s, “I’m in investing in a private manager” or “I’m investing in a public manager.” So it’s not an easy sell. WM: It’s also hard. A lot of times you don’t have access to perfect information. It’s a different process. But your private activity informs your public activity and vice versa. Even when we aren’t looking to deploy money in the public market, we probably spend more time listening to quarterly conference calls than most private investors, because when you’re thinking about diligence, that’s some of the best information out there. You can spend a gazillion dollars for [repackaged intelligence] or just go online and look at whatever calls you want. All that great trend and customer data is there. WM: Off of what? It depends on the last round and the structure of the last round. A lot of people have said, “Stay away from unicorns.” But there are a lot of great companies out there that are looking to raise money. Maybe [their last round was] lavish [so the price is now] maybe a little bit up or down, but in the meantime, the business has materially executed since that last round. So even though the [valuation is] similar, your multiple is half because the business has doubled. You have to look at these opportunities on a relative basis. WM: Sometimes we don’t see anybody. Sometimes, if there’s a more formal process, we do. One deal we looked at earlier this year, we thought the discount was appropriate, and one of the T Rowes or Fidelitys did a flat round. But you’re generally seeing less aggressive behavior from the Baillie Giffords and the BlackRocks. You’re definitely seeing people pulling back and reevaluating the bets they’ve already made. JH: If we hear a company is talking with T Rowe and Fidelity and BlackRock, I understand why. The company probably wants a high price and a quick process. But we [know we] should probably spend our time elsewhere. Full stop. [Mutual funds] are buying [private stakes] so they can have lower costs at the IPO price, etc. But the moment [their portfolio companies] underperform their competitors, that activity stops. These private investments have to have a return associated with them. If they’re buying high and selling low, that’s not good. JH: Mutual fund and hedge fund guys have been sued in the past over valuations. Even if it’s just 5 percent of your activity, with [people on Main Street] going in and out of your fund, your [net asset value] is a very important measure. These investors are buying in, assuming the valuations [they are paying at any single moment in time] are correct. WM: Some of these guys, they have deep pockets but they get those alligator arms sometimes. And management teams are starting to say, “I got it.” JH: Well, you can see he’s signed up for five years, so there’s some part of the value that is: Marc can help us compete mano a mano with Amazon. Part of the value is the underlying metrics. It seemed like a forward leaning price tag; if I were an investor in that deal, I’d be super happy. JH: Frankly, I’m baffled. There’ve been what – six tech IPOs this year? The worst year on record was 2009, with eight [IPOs], but that followed a global financial crisis. That we’re in extremely low numbers owes in part to bankers advising companies to wait, [telling them] that after the election, uncertainty will be reduced and 2017 will be a great year. I think that’s consensus. JH: Yes. Even last year, we had [just] three [portfolio companies go public] and there were just 22 total companies altogether. It’s a little baffling with the markets hitting highs, interests rates at zero, [and] companies growing well. I’m not sure why bankers are so hesitant. Either way, if you’re an investor on the board of a company, you need to be thinking independently. What investors will value six or 12 months from now might be totally different than today. Right now, bankers are telling companies to get profitable even if they’re not growing because “that’s what the market wants.” Well, that’s bad advice. Our job is to sort through all that and make sure the company is making the right trade-offs. JH: I guess I’d bounce the premise back. Going public is just part of the battle. In an IPO, you’re selling 5 to 10 percent of the company. If you’re going to own between 90 to 95 percent post IPO, you shouldn’t care what the IPO price is. You should care about what life as a public company will be one, two, three, four years down the line. In terms of missing the window, if you go public and six months later you fall apart, that’s a really unpleasant thing for all and in particular the CEO. I’m not a big believer in windows. You always have to be reinvesting in the next act to sustain your growth. If you think you missed your window, that’s another way of saying your best days are behind you.
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Early-bird Disrupt SF ticket sales extended by one week
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Contributor
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Don’t say we don’t ever give you anything, startup fans! While early-bird ticket sales were originally scheduled to end today, we’ve decided to give you one more week to save $1,000 on tickets to . You now have until next Friday, August 19, to get your Disrupt tickets for the deeply discounted price of just $1,995 apiece. But you definitely won’t want to procrastinate any further, as we won’t be extending this great opportunity again. Your ticket to Disrupt SF will allow you to connect with the hundreds of early-stage startups that are on display in Startup Alley and Hardware Alley pitching their products and services to the thousands of people in attendance. Then there’s the illustrious competition, in which a few dozen hand-selected startups will present in front of a panel of judges in the hopes of winning $50,000, the coveted Disrupt Cup and, perhaps most importantly, the attention of the tech community at large. You’ll also get to learn from some of the best and brightest innovators, investors and entrepreneurs in the series of interviews and fireside chats that . Plus, you’ll get to attend all the parties and after-parties to keep the networking and the good times going long after the show floor closes for the day. Of course, you’ll need a ticket to get in the door, and the best, cheapest way to do that is by getting an early-bird ticket while saving $1,000 in the process. Tickets will be increasing in price to $2,995 after August 19, so be sure to . Disrupt SF 2016 takes place September 12-14 at Pier 48 in San Francisco. We hope to see you there.
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A prescription for preventing 3D printing piracy
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Roy S. Kaufman
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In the year 2000, the music business was still strong. Record companies produced albums and shipped these physical objects to the stores that sold them. The internet was slowly becoming a system of mass consumption and distribution, but most consumers still purchased physical media. And while the record industry was aware of piracy online, the threat seemed minimal. Then came Napster. The music industry tried to stop this large-scale piracy by pursuing both the platforms and individual downloaders — including poor college students. But public opinion turned against the industry. After all, stealing digital music is intangible; it’s different than physically swiping actual CDs or tapes from brick-and-mortar stores. And while today many people access their music legally, it’s safe to say that music industry revenues have yet to recover. 3D printing, another revolutionary and disruptive technology, makes it cheap and easy to produce physical objects. And just as home copying has changed the copyright industries beyond recognition, 3D printing is poised to do the same to patent-based industries. That means practically any business that makes physical objects will potentially face a Napster scenario. It may not happen to everyone, but as printer technologies improve and more materials — such as proteins, specialized polymers, metals and other chemicals — become available for printing, it will happen to many. Take the pharmaceutical industry. Just like a musical recording, where most of the costs are incurred while producing the initial release (hiring the musicians, booking the studio, editing and the like), the bulk of the cost of developing a new pill goes into the front end: research and development, clinical trials and getting through the FDA approval. In fact, the raw ingredients may cost only a few pennies. And 3D printing — or digital manufacturing and distribution, as it’s also known — will make reproducing and delivering these pills, lawfully or unlawfully, much easier. If people felt sorry for those poor college students being picked on by the big music industry, imagine how the public will feel about patients with inadequate insurance availing themselves of necessary but pirated prescriptions. Digitally manufactured pills are not far off. In 2015, the FDA approved the first 3D-printed pill, an epilepsy drug manufactured by . The manufacturer claims that the 3D-printed pills are actually more effective, because their layered structure is more easily absorbed by the body, courtesy of the way 3D printers work. With 50 patents on its unique proprietary process, the company also claims that its IP is protected. Aprecia may be the exception today, but it has proved that medicines can be printed. Despite the potential for threats to IP, 3D printing promises a wealth of benefits, like customization, both to consumers and, if they handle things right, manufacturers. With 3-D printed pharmaceutical medications, doses can be readily tailored to the needs of each patient, much like when pharmacists compound ingredients to make a custom pill for each individual. Likewise, prosthetic limbs are being created to fit each patient exactly. That is not the only positive aspect of 3D printing. As printers get cheaper, they’ll no doubt begin to appear in pharmacies, which will print pills only as needed, cutting down on costly waste, spoilage and storage. That’s terrific news for the pharmaceutical industry, but there’s a darker side, too. In time, nearly anyone will be able to make the components for almost anything — patented or not, protected or not, dangerous or not. If a 3D printer in every home sounds a bit far-fetched, a by Gartner predicts that 3D printer shipments will more than double every year between 2016 and 2019, and notes that lower-end models, like those costing less than $2,500, are expected to grow to 40.7 percent of offerings by 2019. Gartner also predicts upwards of $100 billion loss a year in intellectual property worldwide because of 3D printing, because of not only pirating, but industry disruption. Much can be learned from how various industries have dealt with new technology. For the music industry, Napster met the effective end of legal exclusivity in copyrights. When distribution channels shifted and everyone with a computer could download and reproduce songs, copyright became hard to enforce. As soon as a record company sued one infringer, another popped up, like a nightmarish game of -A- As a result, the value of the copyrights quickly degraded. However, as we have also seen, not all IP or the products it protects will go down in value. Some things will become more valuable — and that’s where today’s executives should prepare. There are numerous ways companies can proactively plan for the impact that 3D printing technology will have on their business. By investing in quality control and supply chain protection now, pharmaceutical companies, for example, can protect their patents and their market share by ensuring that their supply chain is pure, that their quality is guaranteed and that their customers are getting a safe medication, even when that reassurance costs more. This will appeal to consumers who want to be sure they are getting the real deal when it comes to medication — FDA-approved and quality controlled — not an illegitimate knock-off. Preparing for the ways that 3D printing will affect the market doesn’t always have to be costly or go against the grain. For example, appliance or automobile manufacturers may encounter sales loss if third-parties 3D print replacement parts at a lower cost than those that are manufacturer-issued. Instead of fighting against this likelihood, manufacturers would do well to adopt the third-party business model of 3D printing spare parts to order. This reasoning can apply not only to heavy manufacturing, but also to medicine, bringing down the costs of so-called “orphan drugs,” those currently not manufactured because of their low potential for profit. Alternatively, manufactures could skirt similar issues by creating a design that requires a specific type of material, one not compatible with 3D technology. Materials and shapes that have to be mixed or joined in certain ways, for instance, do not easily lend themselves to digital manufacturing technology. Remember, though, that when financial incentives combine with evolving technologies, these types of plans may be short-lived. Even with the advent of 3D printing, we will still live in a world where legitimate businesses are engaged in the licensed manufacturing and distribution of copyrighted works and respect intellectual property. Patent owners could license manufacturing rights to legitimate 3D printing companies — the official 3D printer of Nike products, say — in which only authorized entities could make the official products. That way, patent owners would get income, 3D printing companies could develop new markets and buyers could get legitimate, quality-controlled products. This could be done with branded and lower-cost white labelled options. Along with all the good that digital technology can bring, a major challenge to patents and other forms of intellectual property may be in the offing. Major industry disruption will soon follow. Only this time, with changes perhaps as long as five to 10 years down the line, manufacturers have time to prepare for it and pivot.
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Gurbaksh Chahal sentenced to a year in jail
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Anthony Ha
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A San Francisco judge has sentenced former RadiumOne and Gravity4 CEO Gurbaksh Chahal to . However, the judge also granted a stay on the sentence pending an appeal from Chahal’s lawyer, . After being accused of attacking a woman in his apartment, Chahal pleaded guilty to misdemeanor battery charges — a deal that involved three years of probation but no jail time. However, Chahal has since been accused of attacking another woman in September 2014, and Judge Tracie Brown recently ruled that there was enough evidence in the case to . The initial guilty plea resulted in intense public criticism of adtech company RadiumOne, which then . He started a new company, Gravity4, where he was , Kamal Kaur.
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People are still crazy about Pokemon Go
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Jordan Crook
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If you’re still playing , then you’ve likely invested enough time and energy to care about this DIY Pokemon Go helmet. Before we go any further, this video is obviously for fun and isn’t available for sale — worth mentioning since I’m sure more than a few people got excited about this. YouTuber (and self-proclaimed Queen of Shitty Robots) created this video for some giggles, first spotted by the folks at Kotaku. Hopefully this brings a giggle to your Monday routine. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Izcw10e9vPU&w=640&h=360] And for what it’s worth, Giertz isn’t the only one still riding that Pokemon Go wave. Niantic, makers of the game, have seen more than $250 million in revenue since the game launched earlier this summer. [via ]
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Music video app Triller becomes a social network
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Anthony Ha
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Mobile app isn’t just a simple way to make music videos anymore — it recently added social features that allow users to follow other users and explore their videos. I should probably back up a second and explain what Triller is. It’s an iPhone and Android app that allows you to create a video by taking a snippet of your favorite song, adding a video filter and singing along. Co-founder and CEO David Leiberman said the app is easy to use, but at the same time, “we still preserve the illusion of glamour that’s often destroyed in video.” “We’re giving people the opportunity to make a video that doesn’t look like a bad bar mitzvah video,” he added. Initially, Triller was just focused on allowing users to create the videos — you’d make them in the app, then share and watch them elsewhere. But that started to change with the launch of Triller Famous, a section that highlights a curated selection of user-submitted videos. Leiberman said the response was pretty encouraging, with nearly a million users signing up to submit (he said the app has seen 10 million downloads overall). With the latest update, Triller is becoming more of a full-fledged social network, with the ability to follow and be followed. You might follow people you know, or people you discovered through Triller Famous — then you can toggle back and forth between the Famous feed and your own customized feed. Plus, everyone gets a profile showcasing all their publicly shared videos. And if you’re like me and not quite ready to show off your lip-syncing/dancing skills, this gives you a reason to browse the app.
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GM expressed interest in buying Lyft, but Lyft declined
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Darrell Etherington
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Close partners GM and Lyft were apparently nearly even closer: and TechCrunch has separately confirmed that the carmaker expressed its interest in purchasing Lyft, going so far as to specify a price it would’ve been wiling to pay. Lyft apparently explored what other strategic partners might be offering before deciding to say no to GM and opt instead to raise new funding. Lyft declined to comment to TechCrunch on the report, but a source close to the matter confirms that the on-demand service provider turned down GM. GM also declined to comment on any acquisition reports, but noted that they were extremely pleased with how the strategic partnership with Lyft was going. The Information’s info suggests that GM’s interest in the car sharing market extends beyond simply partnering up with an external party. Other carmakers like Daimler have opted to own their own car sharing subsidiaries, with the German automaker operating Car2Go, and commanding a European on-demand ride provider. In statements to The Information, both companies expressed continued excitement and enthusiasm about their ongoing partnership. Most recently, this partnership has resulted in the expansion of their Express Drive program, which offers potential Lyft drivers without their own qualifying cars the ability to rent vehicles to use for Lyft with fees based on usage. Lyft and GM also plan to test self-driving taxis, with autonomous systems installed in all-electric Chevy Bolt vehicles. Self-driving Bolt tests using . Depending on the size of the offer on the table, this could prove a risky move by Lyft. It already faces steep competition from Uber, which has far more cash on hand thanks to a series of monster equity and debt raises. Meanwhile GM could decide it wants to own its own operation, and either look around for another acquisition target like Daimler, or build an in-house on-demand ride service, which is what Ford appears to be doing with its Smart Mobility subsidiary. Of course, the fact that GM made overtures and Lyft decided to pass this time around doesn’t forego future merger potential. But it does make watching the partnership’s progress far more interesting from here on out.
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Werner Herzog’s meditations on a connected world
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Jonathan Shieber
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From that have stumped the worlds greatest super computers to the mind-reading potential of the most refined MRIs, these are a few of the innovations that most impressed director Werner Herzog as he explored the potential of the Internet in his new film “ .” Premiering August 19, the new Herzog documentary (and the prolific director will be releasing in 2016) presents a meditation on one of the 20th century’s most profound inventions through a series of interviews with some of the Internet’s most innovative minds — and some of its more mischievous malcontents (a segment with self-proclaimed “ ,” Kevin Mitnick, has the former felon gleefully recounting a run-in with the FBI). In our interview Herzog touches on the power and perils of this interconnectivity, but ultimately, it’s not the technology that’s the problem, it’s how the technology is used. “The internet is not good or evil, dark or light. It’s humans,” says Herzog, that determine what the technology does (at least for now). And no matter how reliant we are on these technologies, Herzog says the film’s ultimate message is that there has to be appropriate filters on how we use the tools we’ve created — or we’ll begin to abuse them. You can watch the trailer for the film here:
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Pokémon Go changes everything (and nothing) for AR/VR
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Tim Merel
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“Stop calling Pokémon Go AR,” say the purists. But who cares what you call something that is so successful? Just be glad it happened, and let’s figure out what it means for the AR/VR industry. Pokémon Go is the singularity for AR/VR that everyone was waiting for, but looks very different to what everyone expected. It isn’t space glasses from the future, it isn’t high tech, it doesn’t require new hardware and it’s free. Who saw that coming? It would be fair to say that not even Pokémon Go’s developer did, as, despite their enormous success, the overwhelming demand from users led to reports of significant server downtime at launch (not helped by ). But the great thing about Pokémon Go is that hundreds of of consumers aged 8 to 80 have played it worldwide, watched others play it with bemusement or read about with it in the miles of column inches and vast numbers of electrons devoted to it by mainstream media. AR/VR is no longer the creature of industry insiders, innovators and early adopters (or TechCrunch readers). AR/VR became a mainstream phenomenon in less than a week, and it did so years before the most bullish industry insiders thought it would (us included). So why has Pokémon Go been so successful? First, Pokémon has a treasured place in our hearts. Millennials grew up with it, watched by doting Gen X parents and baby boomer grandparents — it is a brand that is everywhere. Second, a pervasive platform. We’re approaching smartphone and tablet mobile broadband subscriptions this year — a platform that is everywhere. Third, a fast core user loop. It’s not the Pokémon you played as a kid. It’s even more accessible — a core user loop that works for everyone. Fourth, a purely mobile experience. You can play it wherever you go, and wherever you go is part of why you play it. And that’s key not just to the success of Pokémon Go, but the success of all AR. Augmented reality is inherently mobile, and mobility has driven much of the tech innovation of the last decade. But still the purists will tell you, “Pokémon Go is not AR.” So are they right or wrong? Let’s revisit some definitions. Virtual reality places users inside the virtual world, immersing them. Augmented reality overlays virtual objects on the user’s real world, augmenting it. Although closely related to AR, mixed reality anchors apparently solid virtual objects in the user’s real world. So they appear to the user as real. So far, so simple. But the technology is a bit more diverse than it first appears. Digi-Capital’s Reality Matrix segments the market using a few basic definitions: The Reality Matrix is made up of four sectors, with some players operating across them to meet different user needs: Console/PC VR makes users jump out of the way when a virtual whale swims toward them under the sea (e.g. HTC Vive, Oculus, PlayStation VR); Mobile VR provides a very good VR experience, but isn’t as immersive because of key drivers like positional tracking (e.g. Samsung Gear VR, Google Cardboard and Daydream); Augmented Reality ranges from the equivalent of Iron Man’s holographic display with transparent virtual objects in the real world in daylight (e.g. Atheer) to smartphone/tablet “magic window” AR (e.g. Google Project Tango); Mixed Reality gives users virtual objects that appear solid in the real world in daylight (e.g. Microsoft HoloLens, Magic Leap, Meta), or switches easily between AR and VR (e.g. ODG) But where does this leave Pokémon Go? Here’s the bit where the purists get upset (and not just by the Star Trek from ). So I’m just going to say it. Pokémon Go is AR. Just a really basic version of it. In many ways, Pokémon Go is only location-based entertainment, and not AR in the way that industry folks think about it. But that’s the point. This is no longer about industry folks. It’s about public perception. And the public thinks Pokémon Go is AR. So it is. What you call it doesn’t matter when you’re walking around the neighborhood with your friends hunting Pokémon. It doesn’t matter that the tech is old school (GPS, clock, camera). It doesn’t matter that there are no fancy optics, SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping), advanced computer vision or other tech wizardry involved. None of that matters. Because it’s fun. And it’s everywhere. And folks think it’s AR whether you like it or not. So deal with it. So what does Pokémon Go mean for the development of AR/VR? In terms of consumer acceptance, it’s monumental. People who wouldn’t have been aware of or tried VR/AR/MR for years are actively engaged with the market today. It’s stupendously good for the industry, because there’s now mass market consumer awareness. For app developers, everyone is scrambling to figure out whether or not they can get on the bandwagon. Folks who were on the fence about devoting resources to VR/AR/MR are now at least thinking about it. And budding engineers-in-the-making who are deciding what they’ll do with their careers are being influenced by it. For talent flowing into the market, that’s hugely helpful. For core VR/AR/MR technology companies (i.e. the hardware guys), Pokémon Go has had little impact on how the technology is being developed. All the challenges remain, and AR still needs that magic combination of hero device, long battery life, cellular capability, strong app ecosystem and telco cross-subsidization before it can really take off ( ). For investors, it’s been both very exciting and highly confusing. Pokémon Go is a very specific application with a lot going for it. Hard to replicate at scale. has looked more like a yoyo than a Pokéball. So while there is more buzz around the market than already existed ( ), the is broadly unchanged. Apple CEO Tim Cook : “AR can be really great. We have been and continue to invest a lot in this. We are high on AR for the long run. We think there are great things for customers and a great commercial opportunity…it will be huge.” One small step for Pokémon, one giant leap for Poké-kind.
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Facebook’s next big platform: Your camera
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Josh Constine
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everything. For a decade, its strategy has been to provide the canvas, then let developers paint it however they want. That’s because there’ll always be another game. Another app. Another… selfie filter? The hot trend in consumer social networking has progressed from text update sharing to gaming to one-off utilities to basic photo sharing to now, when content creativity apps have taken the spotlight. People are tired of sharing the same old picture of their face, food or sunset; they want tools that help them make and share something unique. Hence, the rise of Dubsmash and Musical.ly for lipsyncing, Periscope and Facebook Live for broadcasting, Prisma and Artisto for reimagining images and Boomerang and Phhhoto for generating GIFs. The king of these creation tools is Snapchat — a single app that tries to do it all. Photos, videos, filters, text, drawing, emoji, Bitmoji, 3D stickers, face swaps and, most memorably, animated selfie lenses. Snapchat quickly grew its community by offering outlets for creativity no one else had, always staying one step ahead. Its acquisition of Ukrainian object recognition startup Seene spawned the dog face, flower crown and rainbow puke lenses that made Snapchat iconic. Snapchat popularized easy-to-use creative tools like its selfie lenses Over the years, though, Facebook has become the most prolific and skilled copy-cat in software. It’s the Samsung/Xiaomi of apps. This year it acquired Seene competitor MSQRD, built a camera into the top of the News Feed and launched . The social giant isn’t even shy about it any more. Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom admitted to me that Snapchat inspired Instagram Stories, and Now, in order to leapfrog Snapchat and , it has to stay fresh. So its next big opportunity is to put out a rallying call just as it did for in 2007, in 2010, apps in 2011 and earlier this year. Facebook should launch a new developer platform centered around the camera. Instead of trying to dream up every conceivable selfie filter, image modification and video effect, Facebook should get an ecosystem of devs to build them. F8 2016 was dominated by the launches of the Messenger Bot platform and Live video API. But amongst the April conference’s announcements, Facebook released the . It allows you to make special animated or enhanced profile pictures using other apps like MSQRD, Boomerang, Vine, BeautyPlus, Flixel’s Cinemagraph and Lollicam. Mysteriously, we haven’t heard much about the Profile Expression Kit since… Yet with the , the integration of creativity tools into Facebook’s product seemed inevitable. So when Facebook launched two new camera experiences last week, I pressed their builders about the potential for a camera platform. Instagram’s CEO said “Neon (an Instagram Stories drawing tool), while a small example, is an example of where we want to take this product — where we think of really unique, creative ways of augmenting your photos that haven’t been done before and we use this platform just to go crazy with them. That’s what we’re looking to do.” When asked if the creative tools will be all first-party like the native Neon drawing option, or if third-parties could contribute, Systrom said “I think it will be first-party mostly.” But then he opened the door for an ecosystem play, saying, “I think there are examples of third-parties that you could imagine, but we’ll address those as they come. The MSQRD team — we work with them in the sense that they keep in touch with every single image-centric company at Facebook. We don’t have MSQRD in this . Part of that is we allow for camera uploads, so if you’re using MSQRD you can upload easily to Instagram. You can imagine in the future there will be touch points.” It would seem Instagram is open to the idea of a camera platform once the launch settles and users get the hang of its simple initial version. Instagram Stories wants you to share constantly Days later, Facebook launched its first MSQRD integration, allowing people in Canada and Brazil to play with Olympic-themed selfie filters. They exist inside the test of what I’ve called the , which automatically opens a selfie camera atop the News Feed each time you visit to spur you to shoot and share. Product Manager Sachin Monga told me “Having this camera inside of Facebook will introduce the opportunity for more sharing options in the future.” On their own, Instagram Stories and the Facebook camerafeed could help stem the decline of original, personal content sharing that was down 15 percent year-over-year as of February, . Facebook needs this must-see content that you can’t get elsewhere, like the generic news links you post to the feed. But Facebook could super-charge these camera experiences with a crowd of developers. Facebook has the resources to task tons of smart people with concocting new lenses and filters and effects. Still, there’ll always be a scrappy developer on the other side of the planet with an even more viral idea. Just look at how became an instant hit. Prisma’s options for sharing to Facebook and Instagram Rather than trying to compete with these developers, Facebook should co-opt them. Facebook and Instagram already let apps slide newly created media over to their status composers. As always, though, Facebook’s carrot to lure developers to its platforms is growth. With 1.71 billion Facebook users and 500 million on Instagram, the company has plenty to share. To drive growth, Facebook would need to provide what devs can’t get in the crowded app stores — discoverability. If it created a drawer of creation tools from third-parties, users would never run out of ways to share. This mimics how Facebook built into Messenger extra apps for GIFs, transportation and more. Eventually, these developers will want to earn money, not just grow their user count. They could charge a small initial download fee or sell premium filters in their apps. Alternatively, they could build what I call “Sponsored Creation Tools,” where brands pay to have devs build them filters or effects that promote them. Snapchat is already doing this with , but I wouldn’t expect Facebook to because it focuses on huge, scalable revenue streams like News Feed ads. For independent developers, the door is wide open. Businesses pay Snapchat to feature their sponsored lenses, which overlay branding on your face Devs might be worried about getting in bed with Facebook because the giant might steal their filter ideas. Facebook is already keenly aware of what’s popular in the market, though, and it’s comfortable copying, so there’s no real way to avoid that. If the camera platform panned out, Facebook and Instagram could become more exciting, surprising places to visit. Instead of the same feed, the same selfies and baby photos and party pictures, there’d be new toys to play with each day. Facebook is now 12 years old. Instagram is almost six. They must constantly reinvent themselves to . They don’t have Snapchat’s youthful buzz. But and go it alone. Once again, Facebook could get by with a little help from its friends.
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How to make your own ‘Han Solo frozen in carbonite’ fridge
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Darrell Etherington
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[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSc1bfTMn4I] Growing up, I can remember spending a lot of time thinking about what it would be like to be frozen in carbonite, the way Han Solo was after being betrayed by Lando on Bespin in T I never imagined it might feel like you were a fridge, but a new video on Adam Savage’s Tested YouTube channel has me thinking differently. The concept of the video is simple enough: Can you turn a standard, boring fridge into a faithful homage to Han locked within the bizarre transportation material from the Star Wars universe? Turns out you can – or you can if you’re Frank Ippolito, movie prop maker. Normals can probably manage as well, depending on their level of patience and comfort level with tools. The key ingredients in the build are full-scale replicas of Solo in carbonite, complete with his agonized grimace, so that you can use that to build a silicone model. Gray paint lends the metallic finish, and Ippolito even goes the extra mile to add lighting effects on side panels attached to the fridge, as well as a pulsing red glow across the figure to mimic the special effects used in the when Han is finally freed from his living tomb. My fridge could use an update, but I might just opt for a new stainless steel one instead.
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Weekly Roundup: MacBook Pro’s big update, Walmart buys Jet and Facebook’s adblocking saga continues
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Anna Escher
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This week, reports hinted at what could be the most impactful MacBook Pro update in years, Walmart leveled up in the ecommerce space with its $3 billion purchase of Jet.com, and the Facebook adblocking war raged on. These are the top stories of the week. Get ready for . According to , Apple is planning to unveil new 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Pro laptops with retina displays soon. Apple is building a completely new pro laptop with many new features, such as a Touch ID sensor and an OLED mini screen above the keyboard. Can we skip to September now, please? Walmart took its biggest step in its bid to compete against Amazon in the ecommerce world as it . Jet will continue to exist as a separate brand, as part of Walmart’s strategy to widen the types of consumers that it targets. “This is Walmart being even more committed to winning in e-commerce,” said Doug McMillon, president and CEO of Walmart. The Facebook adblocking saga continues. that disguised its web ads as organic content. With this update, Facebook will allow you to opt out of certain ad targeting categories or set preferences to block ads from particular businesses. But, two days later, the . Facebook them claimed it would . And so on… . The plane is a a Boeing 767-300 operated by Atlas Air. Meet the Amazon One. Private data analytics unicorn , a cloud data visualization company. Founded in 2010, Silk helps data journalists, activists, NGOs and businesses produce data visualizations in the cloud without the need for complex software and programming knowledge. Tech companies hold a ton of our most personal information, and they must earn our trust in keeping our data secure. Most major tech companies have created bug bounty programs, reimbursing hackers in cash. Now, finally, . And the rewards are high. Google bought Orbitera, a cloud marketplace platform, for . If it wasn’t clear before, it is now: Google is ramping up to improve how it competes against Amazon’s AWS, Salesforce and Microsoft in cloud enterprise services. . $850 million, to be exact. This bumps the sharing economy company from the fifth to the fourth most valuable tech unicorn at a potential valuation of $30 billion. In SolarCity’s investor call, Elon Musk revealed that the – as in the entire roof is made of solar power cells, as opposed to panels. More M&A ahead. Randstad Holdings, the Diemen-based human resources and recruitment company, announced it will . Monster will keep its brand and will operate separately, but the idea here is to consolidate the recruitment and employment industry. , just after the on-demand delivery startup announced it had raised another $275 million in funding. It was that after Deliveroo trialled what it described as a successful new payment model, the company would start paying drivers a fixed fee per deliver of £3.75 rather than the current hourly rate of £7 per hour plus £1 per delivery. Yahoo made a play for cord cutters with the . With Yahoo View, you’ll be able to watch Hulu’s free content, and the site will become one of the only ways to watch Hulu’s free TV shows and movies, as it will be winding down its free version soon. Many have started using Instagram’s new Stories, a Snapchat feature clone that Instagram launched last week. In the past, Facebook’s failed attempts to copy Snapchat didn’t work because they tried to create an “even-better” version of a popular product that already existed. This time around, Facebook-owned Instagram just may have the trajectory to wound Snapchat because
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You don’t need a Google+ profile to post reviews on Play Store anymore
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Lucia Maffei
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The Google Play Store will not require you to have a Google+ account to write reviews anymore. In an email to TechCrunch, Google confirmed the news that “a G+ profile is no longer needed to post a review.” Rumors that the change was happening were first reported , which quoted several tips from its readers. As of today, the roll out appears to be continuing. We’ve tried to leave a book review by visiting Play Store via laptop and the system required us to create a Google+ profile. However, other people successfully posted app reviews by using an Android phone without having a Google+ account. The removal of the Google+ profile requirement is part of ongoing changes with Google+ across many Google products, which The first major move was disconnecting Google+ from YouTube’s comments. “People have told us that accessing all of their Google stuff with one account makes life a whole lot easier,” Google VP of Streams, Photos and Sharing Bradley Horowitz in a blog post. “But we’ve also heard that it doesn’t make sense for your Google+ profile to be your identity in all the other Google products you use.” Google+, which just , has been called after Vic Gundotra announced he would be leaving the company (and his primary project, Google+) after eight years.
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Georgia Tech’s low-power gesture recognizing camera is designed to always be on
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Brian Heater
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Researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology designed to never shut off. The system was designed specifically as a method for waking up devices, never turning off, while running off of ambient power. In order to do so, the camera had to be capable of detecting specific patterns, rather than just waking up any time if noticed motion. The camera, which made its debut at the International Symposium on Low Power Electronics and Design (who knew such things existed?), looks for broad movement, which retaining specific details about movement, saving battery power in the process. Says Georgia Tech electrical and computer engineering professor, Justin Romberg, “What this camera is actually looking at is not pixel values, but pixels added together in all different ways and a dramatically smaller number of measurements than if you had it in a standard mode.” The camera, which was developed during an Intel-sponsored study, could be implemented on surveillance devices, robotics or future consumer electronics.
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Gillmor Gang LIVE 08.12.16
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Steve Gillmor
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– Robert Scoble, Frank Radice, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor. Gillmor Gang’s Facebook page G3’s Facebook page
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North Korea reportedly won’t let its Olympians have those free Samsung phones
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Brian Heater
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The Olympics are a testament to the human spirit, physical greatness, nation pride and, of course, swag. So, so much swag. Because let’s be real, if you train your entire life for a once-every-four-years event, you’d damn well better get a nice goodie bag. Samsung certainly did its part at this year’s games. As the Official Smartphone Partner for the Summer Olympics, the company handed out of its Galaxy S7 Edge handset. Though, apparently not every athlete is actually walking away with the shiny new Android handset. that, among the other reasons it’s tough to be a North Korean Olympian, the country’s officials are not allowing its participating athletes to walk away with the complimentary phone. The service cites a source that confirms that, while officials from the country accepted the 31 phones offered to the team’s athletes, they were reported not delivered to their intended recipients. The report about whether the failure to deliver the handsets is tied to an attempt to limit the athletes’ communications.
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Qubie is an open hardware solution for tracking wait times at voting places
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Devin Coldewey
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With an incredibly important national election coming up, it’s more critical than ever that everyone who can vote does — and is able to. Election tech firm is hoping to help avoid overflowing voting locations with a simple, open source device that automatically monitors waiting times and keeps voters and officials informed. Free and Fair creates open source software for polling places, from checking in voters to actually taking and tallying votes — but is the company’s first original hardware, created for the . Founder Daniel Zimmerman explained that it was just another aspect of the voting process that struck them as out of date. “In the last few elections there have been reports of long queue times, people giving up and going home,” he told TechCrunch. “Election technology is in a pretty sorry state — we thought it’d be nice to gather data on that rather than anecdotes.” Some tracking is already done, of course, but it’s often haphazard. During a major election, voting officials and volunteers are busy enough, and averaging the wait times of several people every hour (using counters or paper numbers) just isn’t a high priority. Qubie is a simple device: a Raspberry Pi with a small wireless adapter, and powered over USB or with a battery. It identifies phones from Wi-Fi signals, then monitors the time spent by the device with in range of the Qubie — boom, you’ve got a good idea of the average time it takes someone to vote at that location. Naturally not everyone will be keen on the idea that their phone is being tracked — which is why no private information is collected or stored. “The very first thing we do is we anonymize,” said Zimmerman. “We get the Wi-Fi signal, we run it through an encryption process. We’re not storing any personally identifiable info.” To be specific, the Qubie detects the MAC address of a device and instantly hashes it with an ephemeral key generated on startup. These hashed IDs are what get tracked by the software, along with Wi-Fi channel and signal strength. When you think about it, officials will be writing down every voter who comes by, and of course voting is in a way a public act — so what Qubie is collecting is pretty tame. All the same, Free and Fair has made sheets to display alongside the device that explain what it does and how to request more info. For now, as Qubie is still very much a work in progress, the data is all stored locally and then can be collected later — of course, that doesn’t get real-time results. How exactly to do that without overstepping is part of what the company is figuring out now. It could do the processing on board and have that info available to officials, or send it to a central cloud for live updates in apps or a website — there’s time to figure that out, and some locations will obviously prefer one approach over another. A test deployment of ten Qubies worked fine, producing data that agreed with ground truth, and Free and Fair is hoping to get the devices into more hands, perhaps in time for use during the national election in November. The company also aims to make a custom enclosure so the thing doesn’t look like an IED. “If you saw that thing sitting out in a random public place, you’d probably be concerned,” Zimmerman said, and not in jest. People are pretty highly strung on election days. The device and its software are open source, so you can build your own, though guerilla deployment doesn’t seem advisable. Still, if a gadget like Qubie can make the voting process even a little easier or more accountable, it’s worth pursuing. Ask your local officials whether something like this might be helpful.
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Microsoft Flow, the company’s IFTTT competitor, comes to Android
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Sarah Perez
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, the company’s workflow management tool, has now arrived on Android. The app, a competitor of sorts of IFTTT and Zapier, offers an interface where you can mash up two or more services in order to create workflows – like getting a text when you receive an important email, or copying images from Instagram to Dropbox, saving a Twitter search to an Excel file, among other things. The service itself debuted in April this year, then later with promises of an Android launch in the future. While similar in spirit to IFTTT and others, the difference is that Microsoft Flow focuses more specifically on integrations with Microsoft’s own business tools, like Office 365, Dynamics CRM, PowerApps, and Yammer, along with other enterprise-friendly services such as MailChip, Github, Salesforce and others. [gallery ids="1368425,1368426,1368427,1368428"] On mobile, the app is used to monitor and manage the workflows you’ve previously set up on the web. To use Flow on Android, you’ll sign in with your work or school account, says Microsoft, then you can view your workflows, enable or disable them from running configure alerts, check out the workflow history and more. The app also includes an Activity Feed where you can see all your recent Flow actions, including if there are issues with a given Flow that needs attention. You can search the Feed and filter it, or drill down into the individual results. The Android application was available only to beta testers on an invite-only basis, but now it’s available to anyone via the Google Play store. (However, the app is still flagged as “Unreleased” on Google Play.)
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How Bon Entendeur mixed French sound bites with electronic music and thrived on SoundCloud
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Romain Dillet
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you mix sound bites from French artists and politicians with eclectic music ranging from electro swing, nu-disco, remixes of classical French hits, lounge music and more? You get more than ten million plays on SoundCloud, play your music on a yacht near the Caribbean island of Saint Barthélemy and become a popular music brand in France. is Nicolas Boisseleau, Arnaud Bonet and Pierre Della Monica (left to right on the photo), three friends who started releasing a mixtape on SoundCloud every month. They quickly realized that the music project had some potential and dedicated a lot of energy into making it an internet success. They just released a new mixtape last week. It brings together the voice of famous French actor with cool tracks they’ve discovered recently. They ask artists for the permission to use their tracks and release these legal mixes. Here’s what it sounds like: https://soundcloud.com/bon-entendeur-music/louverture Even more interesting than the mixtapes, Bon Entendeur’s story shows what it’s like when you want to create a community of music fans on the internet today. You have to constantly adapt to new social and music platforms. It’s a tech challenge as well as an artistic challenge. I interviewed Nicolas Boisseleau a few weeks ago. I asked him to tell me the origin story of Bon Entendeur. This interview has been translated from French and edited for length and clarity. The starting point was music playlists. At the very beginning, Arnaud released playlists on YouTube [without securing rights] and quickly moved to SoundCloud for copyright reasons — you get strikes very quickly on YouTube. Soon after, his childhood friend Pierre joined him to work on mixtapes. They released the first Bon Entendeur mixtape in September 2013. was the first figure because Arnaud thought it was funny. I joined them at that moment. Since September 2013, we’ve released a new mixtape every month with a different French figure. There isn’t any criteria except that it has to be someone with a lot of charisma. We later find sound bites and insert them into the hour-long mixtape. Mixtapes usually follow the same pattern — 20 minutes of chill music followed by 20 minutes of electronic music or even techno music from time to time, and then the tempo goes down again. It always starts with the music. We select songs that we currently like. So we listen to a lot of music and we vote to select our favorite ones. Once we have 20 or 25 songs, Pierre takes care of the mixing. And the figure comes last. When we listen to the first rough mix, there’s a particular atmosphere. The figure usually becomes obvious. Then, I find sound bites from interviews and movies. And we match those sound bites with the music. At the beginning, we released one every month. But ever since we started playing live, it’s become more complicated. We’d rather release less often but good mixtapes. Now we’re more or less releasing a mixtape every two months. Initially, yes. But we started sharing on because many people love YouTube and don’t go to . Our community is smaller there, but we’re slowly catching up on SoundCloud thanks to the viral aspect of YouTube. We’re also on just so we can say we’re on Dailymotion. And then we have our own platform, our own player on . We also have thousands of users on our own platform. Our community is fragmented but that’s on purpose. We don’t want to have all our followers on one platform. We think about our users and if they want to listen on this or this platform. At the very beginning, we made them for fun. It’s only after four mixtapes in December 2013 that we saw that our audience was growing exponentially. We realized that we had to structure everything a bit. In January 2014 with the , we created a visual identity with black-and-white pictures, a new logo, messages, scheduled posts, etc. We thought we could do something. We had no idea where it would lead us, but that’s when it started. I don’t know all the numbers by heart. But we have around 10 million plays on SoundCloud. It’s pretty great as it’s harder to accumulate plays on a mixtape than on a 3-minute song. All our files are one-hour long. In total, it represents a lot of hours of streaming. We have more than 70,000 followers on SoundCloud. Once again, it’s pretty great because it’s hard to get followers on SoundCloud. On YouTube, we have between 20,000 and 30,000 followers. On the mobile apps, we have 20,000 users on iOS with 3,000 daily active users. We just launched the Android app. And then we have Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook… We have a bit more than 30,000 followers on Facebook. It’s growing slowly but surely. People liked the strict rules behind our mixtapes. We already listened to a lot of music on SoundCloud. And I found it tiring personally because all the blogs I followed would release two mixtapes in the same month then nothing for three months. Titles never made sense. In the never-ending SoundCloud feed, I was lost. We always thought that we needed to set up rules and release new mixtapes on a fixed schedule, with a graphical identity and a strong name. And I think that’s really what made Bon Entendeur grow because when we released a new mixtape in everyone’s feeds, they instantly thought “it’s here, it’s coming.” You want to click. Then, I think we spend a lot of time producing our mixtapes. Most people like them so they share them. The three of us really want to take advantage of technology because we all are twentysomethings, we grew up around tech. We really want everybody to be able to listen to us everywhere, all the time, whenever they want.
It was quite natural because that’s where we were finding songs already. We knew that our audience was there. So releasing our mixtapes to these same users was logical. Then, we realized that there was a bigger audience out there so we expanded. But we didn’t really think about it, it was natural. When we release a mixtape, we post it on SoundCloud first. We wait until it has a few thousand plays and reposts. An hour later, we share it on Facebook, which is our strongest distribution channel because we have a lot of engagement. Then Facebook usually does the job. We later post on Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter… This trend is changing a bit because Facebook changed its algorithm for pages once again [more details ]. Facebook doesn’t like it when you send their users to another network. The last trick we found is that we made a video to illustrate the mixtape. We settled on that a few days before releasing our mixtape because we saw that Facebook was tweaking the reach again. So we teased the mixtape in the Bon Entendeur & Friends private group with 2,000 members. And we released the mixtape the day after exclusively on Facebook as a Facebook Live video — not on SoundCloud. After the one-hour live stream, we uploaded the mixtape on all the other networks. We wanted to have our own player and become independent. We don’t want to rely on SoundCloud in case it shuts down. Similarly, we wanted mobile apps so we developed them. And now, our new goal is to tackle the professional market. Many professionals working in hotels, bars, restaurants and more are asking us to sell them our mixtapes or to make new mixes for them. Unfortunately, we can’t legally do that. So we’ve been working for months on a Bon Entendeur platform for professionals. We’re going to release it in Q4 2016. It started in January 2014, at the same time as the new graphical identity that I mentioned before. Our first booking was on a 200-foot yacht near Saint Barthélemy — this isn’t a joke. We found a big music fan who had been listening to us and regularly went on a world tour on his boat. When we came back, we worked really hard on improving our live sets. At first, we only played once every two months, then once per month. And now, we do two concerts every weekend — one on Friday and one on Saturday. We also became more professional on this front and started working with a four or five months ago. We play in quite big venues — it’s surprising. We can easily play in front of 1,500 or 2,000 people in Paris, Lyon, Bordeaux, Montpellier… It’s a technological challenge because tech is always changing. For instance, downloading a 130MB mixtape on your phone wouldn’t have been possible five years ago. Now, users want to stream mixtapes but don’t want to use all their data plans. So we reduce the bitrate when you’re streaming on cellular. And once you’re home, if you want to download the mixtape on your phone we tell you to activate Wi-Fi. I think it’s really important to understand tech limitations in order to understand how our users listen to music. Our users get a lot of popups, but we inform them about what’s going on. We need to think about all these use cases and adapt. All of this makes a big difference and improve the perception of our brand. In the end and because of that, people will talk about us and share us. And today, being shared is the most important thing.
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Raj Ganguly
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MIT’s DuoSkin turns temporary tattoos into on-skin interfaces
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Darrell Etherington
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[vimeo 178334883 w=800 h=450] Your next tattoo could be functional as well as aesthetic. A new MIT Media Lab product created in partnership with Microsoft Research turns temporary tattoos into connected interfaces, letting them act as input for smartphones or computers, display output based on changes in body temperature and transmit data to other devices via NFC. Cindy Hsin-Liu Kao, PhD Student at the MIT Media Lab, explains the origins of the project in the video above. Kao says that metallic jewelry-like temporary tattoos are a growing trend, providing a great opportunity for creating something that meshes with existing fashion while also adding genuinely useful functional capabilities. She notes that in Taiwan, there’s a “huge culture” of cosmetics and street fashion, which is affordable and accessible enough that “you can very easily change and edit your appearance whenever you want.” The DuoSkin team wanted to achieve the same thing with their technological twist on the tattoo trend. As a result, the system is actually designed to be fairly inexpensive and easy to set up for just about anyone. It uses gold leaf, the same thing you’ll occasionally find delicately flaked atop swanky desserts, for basic conductivity, but otherwise employs everyday crafting materials like a vinyl cutter and temporary tattoo printing paper. You can use any desktop graphics creation software you like to design the circuit, then feed that design through the vinyl cutter, layer the gold leaf on top and apply it as you would a standard temporary tattoo. Small, surface mount electronic components including NFC chips complete the connectivity picture. Researchers devised three different ways in which the DuoSkin tattoos could be used, including as input devices that can turn your skin into a trackpad, or a capacitive virtual control knob for adjusting volume on your connected device, for example. The tattoos can also display output, changing color based on your body temp like a Hypercolor T-shirt. Finally, they can contain data to be read by other devices, via NFC wireless communication. Kao also shows how they can contain embedded LEDs for on-skin light effects. Kao ends by suggesting they’d like to see this tech come to tattoo parlours, so it’s easy for anyone to get connected ink. It’s definitely something that could further the use cases and value appeal of wearable tech as a category, especially among price sensitive customers who place a high value on aesthetics and don’t want to have to wear a watch or other more cumbersome piece of tech. Startups like that extend the life of temporary tattoos, too, so there could be a collaboration opportunity down the road that gives people access to tattoo-based interfaces that don’t last forever, but don’t wash off overnight, either.
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Backed by White House, Zipline to test U.S. medical drone delivery
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Jake Bright
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On the heels of a recent White House initiative announced after its first San Francisco based robotics startup will test drone delivery of medical supplies to remote U.S. communities. Pending FAA approval, Zipline flights will demonstrate the “viability of unmanned aircraft technology in disseminating critical care supplies” to hard to reach areas, according to a last week. Deliveries will include lifesaving blood, medicine, and medical products to places such as and Pyramid Lake Tribal Health Clinic in Nevada. “We put forward a proposal [to the Office of Science and Technology Policy] before the event…and they selected us as a participant to highlight certain capabilities,” said Zipine advisor Lawrence Williams. Zipline will partner with companies and and non-profit on test deliveries of medical supplies in Washington, Nevada, and Maryland. A for-profit venture, Zipline designs its own proprietary drone, launch, and landing systems. The startup is backed by $19 million in venture capital from investors including , Google Ventures, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang, and . It may surprise some that Zipline’s primary market is not the U.S. It’s Africa. As , the company has worked to pioneer unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) use for health logistics services on the continent. This includes a partnership with UPS for UAV vaccine delivery in Rwanda. Zipline is also collaborating with the government of Rwanda on the launch of one of the world’s first drone ports. According to Zipline advisor Lawrence Williams, it’s not a stretch that tech based solutions relevant to Africa could find application in the U.S. “Zipline enables instant deliveries of essential medical products without depending on roads or pre-existing infrastructure. That can apply to many places throughout the world,” he said. Zipline’s timeline for testing the White House supported U.S. program depends on the Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approval, explained Williams. The FAA finalized for U.S. commercial drone use rules in June. The “Part 107” provisions loosened some restrictions but did not open the skies to the package delivery services for which e-commerce actors such as Amazon have lobbied. “Overall the new rules provide more commercial drone flexibility, especially around aerial data collection, but only allow for package delivery in a very limited fashion,” said Lisa Ellman, Co-Executive Director of the Commercial Drone Alliance. The biggest constraint, according to Ellman, is a visual line-of-sight restriction that limits UAV delivery to as far as the operator can see the drone. “Luckily the FAA rules do allow for a waiver process that will open the door to some more advanced operations, such as flights directly over people, night time flights, and allowing one pilot to operate multiple drones,” said Ellman. “But the waiver process still won’t allow for flights beyond visual line-of-sight for commercial delivery…” The Department of Transportation indicated a waiver for some package delivery could be possible with regard to FAA rules and Zipline’s pending U.S. medical delivery program. “There are a variety of pathways a company can follow to begin testing and actual operations under the 107 rules,” said a DOT spokesperson speaking on background. “It’s possible to get a waiver to allow out of line-of-site operations. The timing depends on what’s proposed, the FAA’s requirements, and how quickly the company can meet those requirements.” That doesn’t tell much about exactly when Zipline UAVs loaded with medical supplies could start long distance flights in the U.S., but there is a path to approval. Similar to actors such as , the fate of drone delivery beyond how far an operator can see rests on the FAA’s untested Rule 107 waiver process. Whenever Zipline does begin testing the White House supported program, it could influence the national framework for the U.S. commercial done sector—projected to generate $82 billion in revenue by 2025. “There are deeper implications here for a burgeoning industry at hand,” said Terah Lyons, a White House advisor in the Office of Science and Technology Policy. She noted that Zipline is one of several drone delivery actors engaged in the White House’s recent UAV commitments. The initiative also includes collaboration with and retail drone delivery startup . “Doing these tests is a means to facilitate smarter decision making from a regulatory perspective…They are all feeding data back into the FAA’s decision making process related to drone delivery,” said Lyons. Could that influence future FAA rules toward greater flexibility on package UAV couriers in the U.S.? Time and testing under the current waiver process will tell.
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Gillmor Gang: What Ailes You
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Steve Gillmor
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The Gillmor Gang — Robert Scoble, Frank Radice, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor. Recorded live Friday, August 12, 2016. Why Twitter should call itself the Peacock Network, why many are fleeing Facebook until after the election, why social video is moving into corporate life, and why I’m going to help Trumpty continue his great fall. @stevegillmor, @Scobleizer, @kevinmarks, @fradice Produced and directed by Tina Chase Gillmor @tinagillmor
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SpaceX succesfully launches another satellite, brings home another rocket
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Emily Calandrelli
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At 1:26am ET, SpaceX launched their Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral and, once again, recovered the first stage of that rocket on a drone ship floating in the ocean. More importantly, SpaceX successfully completed the primary mission of today’s launch by inserting their payload, the JCSAT-16 satellite, into Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO). First stage landing confirmed on the droneship. Second stage & JCSAT-16 continuing to orbit — SpaceX (@SpaceX) JCSAT-16 comms sat deployed into planned Geostationary Transfer Orbit with 36,000 km apogee (high point in orbit) — SpaceX (@SpaceX) Tonight’s booster was brought back to a drone ship because their payload needed to be deployed at an incredibly high altitude in GTO. To date, the only time SpaceX has made a rocket recovery attempt back on land has been on missions to the much closer altitude of Low Earth Orbit (LEO). The successfully deployed payload is known as and is a commercial communications satellite developed by for the SKY Perfect JSAT Corporation. It will become part of a 16-satellite constellation used to provide data-transfer communications and video distribution in the Asia-Pacific region. 5 mins to liftoff of SpaceX Falcon 9 w/ JCSat-16 Sky Perfect JSat of Japan's JCSat-16. Here's sat before shipment. — Peter B. de Selding (@pbdes) With tonight’s booster included SpaceX has made a total of eleven rocket recovery attempts, six of which have been successful. Two of these boosters were recovered on land, and now four have been recovered on a drone ship out at sea. Sea-based landings are considered more difficult, but depending on SpaceX’s mission parameters, the (sometimes their only) option for a recovery attempt. Over the course of the last year and a half, SpaceX has learned a lot from their failed recovery attempts. Sometimes the rocket came in too hot, didn’t have enough hydraulic fluid left to control its descent, or one of the landing legs properly causing the rocket to tip over. https://vine.co/v/OjqeYWWpVWK But if the last five months are any indicator, SpaceX has learned quickly and is starting to get the hang of it. Since April, Musk’s company has successfully executed five out of the last six rocket recovery attempts. So far, none of the recovered rockets have been reused on a second mission into space. However, last month one of their recovered boosters went through a test fire, SpaceX’s first test fire of a recovered rocket. While this particular rocket test will provide SpaceX with useful performance data, it won’t have the honor of flying again. That privilege will be to the recovered booster from a May mission to the International Space Station on a yet-to-be-determined date later this year. This year is an especially important one for SpaceX because they’ve set out to the number of missions they can get off the ground compared to last year. Back in March, SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell stated that they hope to launch a total of eighteen times this year. By itself, eighteen missions may sound like a small number, but considering there were only successful orbital launches in the entire world in 2015, an increase from six to eighteen launches from a single company is pretty remarkable. Tonight’s launch was SpaceX’s eighth mission this year, meaning they’ll have to pick up the pace if they want to meet their lofty goal. With their next launch just a short weeks away, it seems that Musk and company are already working to do just that.
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Edtech is the next fintech
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David Bainbridge
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Fintech is a factor of the fourth industrial revolution that has completely taken the world by storm and forever revolutionized how we bank. But many believe it is still in its infancy, with figures suggesting the same: — a whopping 67 percent over the same period last year. So why the screaming surge to success? Fintech startups identified a shift in society, one led by a hungry consumer demand for innovative and digital services. In fact, recent studies showed . It’s simple — we want things made easy, more accessible and provided instantly. The founding fathers of fintech recognized this expectation and took the traditional concepts of financial services, added a pinch of innovation and a touch of technology and watched the future of banking change forever. And boy did venture capitalists take notice. In the U.K. and Ireland alone, fintech startups raised more than . And now we can pay with a wave of a mobile phone, transfer funds by speaking into a watch and almost never need cash. So what’s next? While the fintech bubble shows no signs of popping just yet, it has begun to show signs of the speed wobbles as turbulent motions of the current global economic climate tests its stability. As the world tries to make sense of economic tremors from the Brexit fallout, upcoming U.S. elections and volatile European financial markets, it’s easy to see why investors are becoming less willing to roll the dice and throw money at oversaturated venture markets. This presents a window of opportunity for investors trying to spot, catch and ride the wave of the next “fintech.” Enter edtech — 2017’s big, untapped and safe investor opportunity. The education market is big. We’re talking big. Yet edtech has been completely overshadowed by other red-hot investment opportunities, not only from the fintech industry, but others. For example, in 2015, more was invested in Uber alone than the entire edtech industry. But now the cat is out of the bag. The rise of a new education and learning world has begun with investment in . Just as digitalization has transformed the financial services industry, it too will soon have its progressive grip wrapped around education. For the past 150 years or so, most learning models — especially regarding children — have barely changed: A teacher or lecturer stands at the front of the classroom explaining ideas or introducing facts while students sit and listen with the learning materials being mostly physical textbooks or printouts. Now, however, digital technologies are starting to transform today’s classrooms. More students are using computers or tablets, and teachers are increasingly using screens to illustrate aspects of their lessons. Physical textbooks are being replaced by online, interactive services that are more up-to-date and in-depth, which allows learners to explore and learn at their own pace. This is important because of two contributing factors. First, students are born with digital DNA. When considered like a business, education institutions need to cater to the digital demand of their consumers — people who are constantly exposed to digital technologies outside of the classroom have come to expect the same digital capabilities within the four walls of a learning environment. Secondly, the world is fast becoming aware of the burgeoning digital skills divide in our society. Digital will soon be the nucleus of every industry. We are already seeing it happen, from human resources to healthcare to fashion. In fact, four years from now, the U.K. is predicted to require . Are we adequately preparing our young people for such a workplace? Many would argue we are not. In fact, only . If we don’t start at school-level exposing learners to technology existing outside the classroom, the skills gap will soon be a valley that cannot be bridged. The education and learning technology sector contributes more than and in the process has established some of the most innovative startup companies in the world. From to to our very own Knowledgemotion, there are now more than 1,000 edtech startups in Britain, ready to lead the world in education innovation. Other than being the only technology industry to have direct access to schools, colleges and universities, edtech is also the safest bet for investors. Unlike the ups and downs of the financial markets, edtech remains constant, sheltered from many of the pressures of the broader geopolitical landscape. It is somewhat of a safe haven for smart money from smart investors. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. The opportunities edtech promises the world’s largest content providers, the biggest educational institutions and any investor looking for a “sure thing” are almost endless. While it might be slightly late to the “digital-first” party, edtech is poised to be the biggest and possibly most profitable digitalized sector yet.
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The Pokémon Go influence on new tech
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Dr. Roger Smith
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Pokémon Go has changed the trajectory of the world on a scale just slightly smaller than Google Search and Facebook, but still to a magnitude that will be felt through all industries in the coming years. To many, it looks like a very simple game that incorporates a few unique and compelling features. But this game has taken technologies from niche research and gaming communities and thrust them into the world’s consciousness. Suddenly everyone understands what “augmented reality” means and how an artificial digital world can be mapped onto the real physical world. Neither of these is new, but they garnered little attention until they appeared in a concrete, compelling and simple free game for every cell phone in the country. Augmented reality is a technique for layering data from one or more virtual worlds onto the real physical world. It has been demonstrated and used in military situation awareness and aircraft maintenance applications for years. But it has barely escaped these kinds of niche communities. Overlaying virtual and physical worlds seemed like a plaything for nerds until it was coupled with the ubiquitous cell phone. Then it became a way of enhancing how we interact with everything on the planet, from entertainment and emergency response to education and healthcare, to name but a few. The mapping of virtual and physical worlds is exactly what Google Maps and all similar apps already do. But those limit themselves to layering information about objects, businesses and buildings, which actually have an almost identical physical presence. We are accustomed to the digital map knowing the route to our destination, the location of traffic jams and the operating hours of a company, as well as and providing customer experience reviews. Each of these comes directly from our older experience with paper maps, telephone directories and newspaper reviews. But creating entirely new and artificial information like PokéStops and PokéGyms is a revelation to most people. This begs the question: “What else can be mapped to the real world?” and “What value can be created by doing so?” The game app displays Pokémon floating on your phone’s screen and overlaid on the real world immediately in front of you. This seems to be a very clever, though not difficult, trick to use in a game. It creates the simple perception that the digital and physical worlds are not really that separate. They may be just a thin veneer away from merging or interacting in some way. In this initial game foray, any interactions are illusory — but in the future, that might not be the case. Does any of this matter beyond entertaining mobile games? Can it be applied to fields that impact the way we are educated, protected, served and healed in the real world? A Disney version in which guests find virtual Disney characters while walking around a theme park is one obvious and compelling application. Guests will be enticed to explore new areas of the theme park, enter new restaurants and navigate the gift shops as they pursue a virtual Mickey, Minnie or Donald character appearing on their phone. The entertainment giant can decide when and where these virtual characters appear, contributing to crowd control, restaurant business, gift purchases and a richer experience in the theme park. The daily parades may be augmented with character capture and even virtual performances that occur on the floats and in sync with the live characters. Certain characters and assets may appear only at specific theme parks, motivating guests to purchase multi-park tickets so they can capture everything that is available. When coupled with the company’s wristband technology, certain characters, power-ups and valuable digital objects can be made to appear only for guests who are registered at one of the resorts. The ownership of a digital object might also convey a discount at a gift shop or enter the player into a drawing for a character dinner. Theme parks currently organize wildly popular food and wine festivals. They could similarly organize dedicated Peter Pan days in which all of the characters from those stories appear, to be followed the next week by Pirates of the Caribbean or The Jungle Book. Because these are virtual, the cost to change them out is significantly decreased from physical venues. Movies can extend their reach beyond the theater and television. Audiences can walk the streets of New York City or Chicago encountering an overlay of their favorite movie at the same location. They can play the mysteries of while visiting The Louvre. Augmented reality can display the buildings of Star Fleet Academy on the streets of San Francisco. Or view the rubble of the destroyed city of Chicago in the series while you walk the Miracle Mile. See virtual characters rappelling down the sides of real buildings, just as they did in the movie. Video games can also be navigated via the real world. Build your world directly on top of your real house, in your own backyard, or augment your school building with the characters of your own choosing. Imagine a quiet school hallway which, when viewed through your cellphone game, is actually teeming with dozens of crazy animals that were created and placed there by the students themselves. Museum displays can come alive, showing the painter creating the work from the beginning right in front of you and overlaid with the location of the actual finished painting. Or view Italian sculpture as it appeared when it was new and standing in the original courtyard in which it was displayed. The number of entertainment and education applications has almost no boundary. So little has been done that everything lies in the domain of the possible future. When a guest at a hotel, restaurant, mall or theme park collapses with a heart attack, can you find the nearest defibrillator device? They are everywhere in our society, but completely invisible in an emergency. Open your Emergency Services app and see a local map with the location of every AED, fire extinguisher, fire alarm and emergency phone clearly displayed. The app will guide you quickly to exactly what you need. You are 80 years old and can’t remember where you left your prescription bottle. With a smart bottle and the Pokémon Go map technology, simply open your phone and it will guide you straight to the bottle. But, did you take your pills today? The same smart bottle places a floating poké-pill in your phone and you “capture it” by taking a pill out of the bottle and making the motions to ingest it. If you do not take your pills for several days, there are multiple poké-pills floating on the bottle’s location. But the app is smart enough to know that the solution is not to take them all at once to catch up. Instead, it encourages you to take only 1.5 or 2 doses to catch up (or whatever is medically appropriate). Then the game servers keep track of your mistake and notify a care provider if there is a potential problem developing. Using a telemedicine app, a nurse practitioner can call you directly to discuss the situation. If you have home care monitoring equipment, you can take your temperature, blood pressure, heart rate, weight and even blood chemistry. That data can be overlaid on the face-to-face video call so the healthcare provider can maintain direct contact with you while also viewing all your vital statistics. A cell phone can become the most important piece of healthcare equipment in the world. All of these possibilities have been unleashed by the reboot of a 20-year-old Japanese card game targeted at children. There is really no question about whether some of these applications will be created. The real question is how fast will they appear and how many it will take before this technology touches 100 percent of the population of the country.
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Hearing is like seeing for our brains and for machines
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Nils Lenke
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There is an array of neural net machine learning approaches that are simply more than just “deep.” In a time when neural networks are increasingly popular for advancing voice technologies and AI, it’s interesting that many of the current approaches were originally developed for image or video processing. One of those methods, convolutional neural networks (CNNs), makes it easy to see why image-processing neural nets are strikingly similar to the way our brains process audio stimuli. CNNs, therefore, nicely illuminate that our audio and visual processes are connected in more ways than one. As human beings, we recognize a face or an object regardless of where in our visual field (or in a picture) it appears. When you try to model that capability in a machine, by teaching it how to search for visual features (like edges or curves at a lower level of a neural network or eyes and ears at a higher level, in the example of face recognition), you typically do so locally, as all relevant pixels are close to each other. In human visual perception, this is reflected by the fact that a cluster of neurons is focused on a small receptive field, which is part of the much larger entire visual field. Because you don’t know where the relevant features will appear, you have to scan the entire visual field, either sequentially, sliding your small receptive field as a window over it (top to bottom and left to right) or have multiple smaller receptive fields (clusters of neurons) that each focus on (overlapping) small parts of the input. The latter is what CNNs do. Together, these receptive fields cover the entire input and are called “convolutions.” Higher levels of the CNNs then condense the information coming from the individual lower-level convolutions and abstract away from the specific location, as . Source: So, if you search for faces or objects in your photos using Google Photos, or the equivalent new feature in Apple’s , you can assume that CNNs are at use for identifying the relevant candidate locations in pictures where the requested face or object might be shown. Source: by Ross Girshick, Jeff Donahue, Trevor Darrell and Jitendra Malik But we have also found several applications of CNNs to speech and language. CNNs can be applied to a raw speech signal in an end-to-end way (i.e. without manual definition of features). The CNNs look at the speech signal by unfolding an input field with time as one dimension and the energy distribution over the various frequencies as the second dimension into their “convolutions,” thereby learning automatically which frequency bands are most relevant for speech. The higher layers of the network are then used for the core task of speech recognition: finding phonemes and words in the speech signal. Once you have those words, the next example is “intent classification” in natural language understanding (NLU), or understanding from a user request what type of task the user wants to achieve (I covered in how the other aspect of NLU, named entity recognition, works). For example, in the command “Transfer money from my checking account to John Smith,” the intent would be “money_transfer.” The intent is typically signaled by a word or a group of words (usually local to each other), which can appear anywhere in the query. So, in analogy to image recognition we need to search for a local feature by sliding a window over a temporal phenomenon (the utterance; looking at one word and its context at a time) rather than a spatial field. And this works very well: When we introduced CNNs for this task, they performed more than 10 percent more accurately than the previous technology. Why are CNNs successful at these tasks? A rather straightforward explanation could be that they just share characteristics with image processing; they are all of the “find something small in something bigger, and we don’t know where it might be” type. But there may be another slightly more interesting explanation, namely the fact that CNNs designed for visual tasks also work for speech-related tasks, which is a reflection of the fact that the brain uses very similar methods to process both visual and audio/speech stimuli. Consider phenomena like , or the “stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway lead[ing] to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway.” For example, audio or speech stimuli can lead to a visual reaction. (I employ a mild version of this; for me, each day of the week, or rather the word describing the day, has a distinct color. Monday is dark red, Tuesday grey, Wednesday a darker grey and Thursday a lighter red and so on.) It is being interpreted as an indication that processing of audio and speech signals and optical processing have to be so-called “neighbors” in the brain somehow. Similarly, it has been shown that brain areas designed for the processing of audio signals and speech can be used for visual tasks, such as people born with hearing impairments who can re-purpose the audio/speech area of their brains to process sign language. This probably means that the organization of brain cells (neurons) processing visual or audio signals must be very similar. So, back to the practical applications of all of this. It is not too difficult to imagine yourself a couple of years from now sitting in a self-driving car and chatting with an automated assistant asking it to play your favorite music or to book a table at a restaurant. There will likely be several CNNs active “behind the scenes” to make this work: And there will probably be others. Of course, all these tasks are performed by different CNNs, probably even in different control units. And each of the CNNs can only perform exactly the task for which it was trained, and none of the others (it would have to be retrained for that). However — and here it gets fascinating again — it has been shown that when CNNs are trained, they seem to acquire (especially on the lower layers) somewhat generic features (or concepts you could say) that carry over to other tasks. It is easy to see why this works for related domains; for example, in speech recognition you can take a CNN trained on one language (say English) and only re-train the top layers on another language (say German) and it will work well on that new language. Obviously the lower layers capture something that is common between multiple languages. However — and I find it more surprising — it also has been tried to train CNNs across modalities, such as images of a scene and textual representations of that scene. The resulting networks can then and vice versa. The authors conclude that at some level the CNNs learn features common to the modalities — without being told how to do so. Again, an interesting result demonstrating that seeing and dealing with language (text) must have a lot in common. There also is another very practical ramification of the similarity of visual and audio/speech and language processing. We have found that graphical processing units (GPUs), which were developed for computer graphics (visual channel), can be employed to speed up machine learning tasks for speech and language, too. The reason is that the tasks that need to be handled again are similar in nature: applying relatively simple mathematical operations to lots of data points in parallel. So you could say the new developments in computer gaming helped to make the training of deep neural nets feasible. Neural net research and innovation has broad implications, and, as we have seen, progress in one application area (like image recognition) also helps advance things in other areas (like speech recognition and NLU). As we have also seen, this may be caused by the many parallels between audio and visual receptors in the human brain, or in general how the brain is organized. As a result, we will continue to see fast progress of machine learning and AI in many fields, all benefiting from research efforts in many areas whose results can be shared. More specifically, it is no longer a surprise that CNNs, originally designed for vision, will ultimately help machines to listen and better understand us — something that’s crucial as we are continually propelled forward into this new era of human-machine interaction.
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The story of Naked Wines
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Haje Jan Kamps
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I f you’re a big fan of wine but still want to run a startup, there may not be that much innovation you can get away with on the product side. Wine, when all is said and done, is still wine. That doesn’t mean you can’t turn the industry inside out by turning the traditional winery business model on its head — and that’s exactly what did. I decided to have a closer look at how a 10-year-old company can upend one of the oldest industries in the world. What do you get when you mash together half a stalk of grapes, a handful of angel investment principles, a sprinkling of crowdfunding and a well-oiled marketing machine? You end up with Naked Wines, a young winemaking company that’s shaking up the world of wine. For its angels, it’s offering up one of the tastiest “exits” imaginable: wine. When I started digging into Naked Wines, it struck me how similar the company’s role is to publishing, from a winemaker’s perspective. A winemaker pitches an idea for a wine at the company. If its in-house winemakers like the idea, they pay the winemakers a stipend, not dissimilar to an advance on a book deal. Naked Wines then fronts the winemaker money to buy (or grow) grapes, along with access to winemaking and bottling facilities. And once the wine is ready, Naked Wines takes care of the marketing and distribution of the wines. You can imagine a Shark Tank kind of situation, except with wine drinking. It’s great fun. “For the winemakers, we help de-risk their lives,” Naked Wines’ U.S. president Anne Saunders tells me. She points out that, much like carrots and potatoes, wine is an agricultural product. Unlike root vegetables, where you see a result after a few weeks, for a wine, it can take years to determine whether or not an experiment was a success. “By working with us, winemakers don’t have to worry about whether or not the wine is sold. We buy the full production of wine, so they can just focus on the art of making wine.” Makes sense, but making wine isn’t cheap. So where does the money come from? That’s the other big innovation on the business model. Naked Wines sells a recurring wine club membership to its members, whom it calls “angels.” By paying $40 per month, a customer unlocks the doors to the Naked Wines cellars. The money contributed on a monthly basis accrues as “wine credits” over time and can be exchanged for wine at a steeply discounted price. The sun sets over the vineyard, after another long day of turning air and mud into delicious grapes. If you’ve bought a bottle of wine from a supermarket, liquor store or wine merchant in the U.S., there’s an excellent chance that you’ve bought a bottle created by one of only a handful of wine super-producers. “A challenge in the wine industry is that it consists of a small number of large conglomerates,” Saunders says, referring to the likes of , and . For winemakers, the conglomerates are a great way to get access to the resources to make wine, but many of the large producers are hesitant to try something new and exciting. New and exciting is the rallying cry for a lot of what’s going on with Naked Wines. Instead of relying on benefactors, external investors or huge faceless wine conglomerates, the company is enabling winemakers to make the wines want. Even more rare is the opportunity for the winemakers to speak directly with the consumer — and vice versa. In fact, winemakers respond to the majority of reviews left by customers on the site. The thing that makes Naked Wines really work, then, is that the company is able to attract talented, independent winemakers who want to experiment with new ideas, connecting them directly to its end consumers. The vast majority of these bottles come from a very small number of companies. “All of our wines start with an idea,” Saunders explains as she gets excited about some of the concepts the company has backed in the past. “Our chief winemaker is a distinguished winemaker. He heads up a staff of six that runs the winery. Between them, they decide which winemakers and which wines to take a chance on. You can imagine a Shark Tank kind of situation, except with wine drinking. It’s great fun. “We had one winemaker who wanted to source Cabernet grapes from all around the world and create a global Cabernet blend. Another wanted to create a two-hemisphere Malbec with grapes from California and Argentina. We have a self-taught winemaker who fell in love with the grape variety. He thinks it would grow well here in California, so we’re working with him to plant them here, creating a completely new California Vermentino.” Most impressively, the company is able to keep the wines affordable. The highest-ranked wine on the site, for example, has more than 15,000 reviews; 94 percent of the people who bought it would buy it again. To Angels, . The vast majority of wines cost between $9 and $30. “One of our winemakers, Ana Diogo-Draper, is the chief winemaker at ,” Saunders explains, trying to solidify what’s in it for the winemakers. While Diogo-Draper might be the brains behind the wines from a prestigious winery, her name isn’t on the wines themselves. To take a leap into more playful, experimental wines, she turned to Naked Wines in order to have the artistic freedom . Winemaking is part agriculture, part experience and part magic. For Naked Wines, which was founded by Rowan Gormley in the U.K. in 2008, the idea was to bring the then-novel concept of crowdfunding to the world of winemaking. “The business model is completely enabled by the internet,” says Saunders. “We see ourselves as a crowdfunding site of sorts; in fact, that’s where the original idea came from. The founders had been in the wine industry and wanted the independent winemakers to be . The solution they chose was crowdfunding.” By billing its more than 90,000 U.S. angels a minimum of $40 each on a monthly basis, the company can enjoy a healthy cash flow. While it is hesitant to share its exact revenues, even assuming that everyone is paying in the minimum amount, we are talking about a business with an annual recurring revenue of well over $43 million — and that is just its relatively new U.S. business. Across Australia and Europe, the company has a large number of additional angels. The company has shown innovation in other aspects of finance, too. In 2013, Naked Wines took a loan from its customers in the form of a , offering 7 percent interest to people fronting the company money, or 10 percent to those who instead opted to be repaid in Wine Credits — account credit in their Naked Wines accounts. The campaign was tremendously clever, both in terms of its result (it raised £5 million/$6.5 million in less than a month) and in business terms, raising a large sum of money from the crowd without having to offer equity in the company in return. Winemaker Ana Diogo-Draper Naked Wines founder Rowan Gormley The other place where Naked Wines is innovating is on the distribution side of things. “An interesting thing happened when prohibition ended,” muses Saunders, suggesting that the seeds of the current state of alcohol distribution were sown in the early 1930s. Very soon after the 18th amendment was repealed, a complicated distribution network was established. Part of the result of this is that with very few exceptions, winemakers cannot sell their wines directly to the public. “It is a very deep-seated distribution network, which is often a problem for alcohol producers. For us, it’s actually a competitive advantage: Because we built our own network, our winemakers’ wines are available in a lot more places than what a small winemaker can typically expect.” Doing your own alcohol distribution is more disruptive than you would imagine; the distribution market is intensely fragmented, with a large number of small distributors covering relatively small geographic areas. The matter isn’t made any easier by the fact that state laws differ wildly from state to state. “We ship to 43 different states,” says Saunders, admitting that distributing across the U.S. is challenging on a number of levels. “Every state has slightly different rules. We can only ship a certain number of bottles to Minnesota addresses, for example. For other states, like Pennsylvania, we can only ship to a licensed liquor store. And for some states, such as Utah, we can’t ship anything at all.” If that sounds complicated, try to imagine the full depths of the logistics of the operation. Because state tax laws vary for alcohol — and in some states, the taxes are different based on the percentage of alcohol — never mind tracking cases of wine. The company had to develop a whole software backend to track the alcoholic grape juice flowing throughout the company’s logistics network. For tax and legal compliance purposes, each individual bottle is tracked from the winery, via the company’s three distribution centers in California, Florida and Ohio, to the consumer. If that sounds like a nightmare to set up, you’re definitely onto something, but on the flip side, it does give Naked Wines to ward off competitors. The company is doing a similar thing with the vast amount of data it is collecting. “The really interesting thing starts happening when people rate their wines,” says Saunders, revealing that the company’s more than six million wine reviews is enough data to do Netflix-esque “if you liked X you should try Y” recommendations for wine. “What it all comes down to is that we are all about enabling winemakers to work on their passion projects. For the winemaker, we are able to help finance their dream wines becoming a reality. And for the customer, we offer the opportunity to be part of a whole series of new wines,” says Saunders. To that end, she explains that naming the subscribers “angels” was anything but a coincidence. “We know that wine lovers are attracted to this business model. It’s people who want to know where their food and wine comes from. I suppose,” Saunders concludes, “they are also angels in the sense that they help dreams come true.” , Flickr, under a CC BY 2.0 license
Haje Jan Kamps
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How Frank Abagnale thinks like a con artist to improve security
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Ron Miller
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Frank Abagnale, Jr’s ignominious youth as a clever con artist was made famous in the 2002 movie, , starring Leonardo DeCaprio as a young Frank, but Abagnale, as you might imagine, would rather talk about the life he led after he got caught, went to jail and paid his debt to society. It was then that he turned his conning skill to good and began a 40-year career as a security consultant. As the movie pointed out (which I recently rewatched ), he went from jail to working with the FBI under the terms of a court order, but he stayed there decades after the court order expired because he found a vocation he loved. Over the years, by his reckoning, he has conducted 3000 security seminars, trying to help business and law enforcement keep up with the latest cons — it’s not an easy job. When Abagnale was pulling his cons as a teen back in the 1960s, there was no internet, of course — there was only paper and his own cunning. He cleverly worked the system using bad checks, forged letters of recommendation and fake badges and other forms of ID. He also used the telephone or brazenly manipulated people to get what he needed. He says that today with the internet, it’s actually much easier because social engineering lets you access someone else’s information with relative ease (if you know what you’re doing). “I taught at the FBI for four decades — how to think outside of the box and deal with social engineering. There is no technology today that cannot be defeated by social engineering,” he told me in an interview a few months back. His adolescent experience gave him a base of knowledge he would use for his entire career. Even when the practice switched to the internet, he found the general principles remained the same. “I’m not a cyber expert, but I know a lot about identity theft and how [people] use the internet to commit crimes. Nothing changes,” he said. Part of the problem, as he reminded me, is that the majority of people out there are honest and don’t think deceptively, and that’s precisely what criminals exploit, and why he is so in demand. He can think like the bad guys and show companies, law enforcement and individuals where it can go wrong. “If you tell me your name and date of birth, that’s all I need to steal your identity,” he said confidently, and with all of the data breaches in recent years across various sites, he says that there are data warehouses run by serious criminal syndicates chock full of credit card numbers, social security numbers, dates of birth and other personally identifiable information. When he conducts a seminar, he often does a test where he drops some USB drives marked “confidential” in the parking lot where he’s speaking, and inevitably several people pick them up and stick them into their company laptops. They get a message that says, “ .” He says he doesn’t do this to embarrass people, but to point out that one move like that could have cost the company billions of dollars. This jibes with what . No matter how much training you do, their research found that 5 percent of employees will always click a malicious link. Maybe the same employees will also pick up an infected memory stick and pop it in their USB drives. Regardless, it becomes clear that it’s tough to protect your network in the face of this kind of data. That’s why Abagnale sees it as his mission to travel the country and educate people and try to help them understand how to make themselves as safe as possible. “You certainly remind people that you have to be smarter, whether you’re a consumer or CEO. You have to think a little smarter, be proactive, not reactive,” he says. But he admits that well-funded crime syndicates are no match for individuals or even most companies. Even at 68, he continues to expand his horizons working with a startup called The company has , aimed at making it impossible to use fake identification to conduct transactions over the internet. The company is so sure of its technology that it guarantees transactions using its products. Abagnale admits that he doesn’t know much about software — he leaves that part to founder Ori Eisen — but he thinks about how to defeat it and Eisen has made adjustments based on his suggestions. Image: Brian Campbell, . That’s what he brings to the security after all these years, after all the technology shifts, he can still think like the bad guys and figure out the security vulnerabilities, but Abagnale says what amazes him now is not what he did between the ages of 16 and 21, but what came after. He’s certainly not proud of his early life of crime, and what he did as an adolescent. As he told the in New Orleans last June, “I always knew I would get caught. Only a fool would think otherwise.” He’s turned down three separate presidential pardons because he believes no piece of paper will erase what he did. All that said, Abagnale is grateful for the opportunities he’s had and that he was given a chance to turn his life around, allowing him to get married and raise three sons of his own. “We live in a great country, where you pay your debt to society and start over and do something positive,” he said. For over 40 years now, Abagnale has certainly done that. [youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95sy9XVDGG8&w=560&h=315]
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The Onion Omega2 lets you add Linux to your hardware projects
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John Biggs
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Need a tiny, $5 computer to build a robot that will bring you your slippers, initiate a massage chair session, and pour out your daily dose of bourbon?
can do all that and more. This tiny board is Arduino-compatible but also runs Linux natively. This means you can plug it in and get a command line or access the system via a desktop-like web interface. It has Wi-Fi built in and can be expanded to support cellular, Bluebooth, and GPS connections. “Omega2 is a Linux computer designed for hardware projects. It does a few things. First it allows software developers to develop hardware using high-level programming languages and familiar developer tools. It also allows non-technical people to program using drag and drop interface,” said co-founder Boken Lin. “We created modular expansions so people with limited electronics knowledge can still build complex hardware projects.” I saw this teeny board in the flesh in Columbus and was pretty impressed. To get a command line on something this tiny is pretty cool and the fact that it’s completely modular and self-contained is incredible. Obviously you need some programming skills and some extras to get at the heart of this bugger but it’s a fun way to start hardware hacking. The unit itself costs $5 on Kickstarter and will ship in November. Lin also created the first
back in 2015. This model is more standalone and a bit faster. The $5 unit comes with 32MB RAM and 16MB storage while the $9 “Plus” model has 128MB RAM and 32MB storage. Docks to connect the device to power and storage cost about $15. You can even add an OLED screen to see what’s going on inside the little brain. While it will take a little programming to get this thing to mimic your friendly neighborhood dog, because you can program in Python, PHP, and nodeJS you won’t have to learn new language to get started.
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After the correction comes The Conclusion
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Josh Constine
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now it’s time for a season of shut downs, sell outs, and saving face. The circle of life includes the stage of death. That doesn’t mean these founders did anything wrong, just not quite enough right. Their experiments are coming to an end. Two years ago a bunch of startups raised two years of runway. An abundance of early capital had emerged. Angels and VCs clamored for ponies to bet on, hoping to one day ride a unicorn into the “F*ck You-money” sunset. Then times got tough. Late-stage valuations swelled too large, beyond what public markets accepted. chopped off sizable chunks of their values. This rippled downward. Investors became about sinking mid- and late-stage rounds into companies that couldn’t show enough momentum. There was still plenty of cash if you could prove traction, or at least a critical technology or community you could sell to the giants. Some, strong but uncertain about the next step, will in circa-billion dollar acquisitions the way Quip, Jet, and Dollar Shave Club have. But those struggling for users and clients weren’t getting the same benefit of the doubt any more. With valuations down, funds would rather make a few investments in fresh legs than throw cash at at company that looked a little tired. Their founders had fought valiantly in the arena. They chased a vision, hoped to engineer a miracle, and fell short. That’s the nature of technology. Creating a startup may have gotten easier recently thanks to AWS, open source frameworks, and mobile app stores for distribution. But in the meantime, the giants have grown more powerful and nimble, insulating them from disruption. Along with Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft, there’s now Salesforce, Uber, and Snapchat in the mix. They’re not shy about cloning and pivoting, or buying some other startup and juicing it up into a juggernaut that’s tough to beat. Plus they can pour their massive revenues, treasure chests, and funding rounds into big compensation packages that keep talent away from startups. Now the ripple from the correction has hit home for the early stage. The result is The Conclusion, an impending wave of inglorious exits. In just the past two months, we’ve seen Google grab , Palantir pick up , Expedia take , Pinterest pull in and , and Postmates nab , while Storehouse, Skully, and Flightcar shut down. Some exits from The Conclusion will be heralded by shiny headlines declaring the acquisition of a startup by one the big tech firms. But suspiciously missing will be the 9- or 10-figure price tag. That will be because there was none. These will be trumped-up acquihires that sum up to decent signing bonuses for each employee assimilated. Some will be glumly announced in Medium posts. Founders will apologize to their teams and few remaining consumers or customers as they shut down. Unable to pull more funding or a soft-landing, they’ll vaporize. And some will simply disappear without a trace. Their teams will be quietly sucked into the staffs of Google, Apple, Facebook, Snapchat, or another giant. They’ll be seeking expertise in an area most don’t know they’re working on, or just some solid engineers and PMs amongst a competitive hiring market. Companies that do find a new home could have little to show for it. After paying back investors, there may not be much for the team to keep. These shouldn’t be mocked for making an attempt. Startups are supposed to be risky. If they’re not likely to fail, they’re probably building a lifestyle business without the potential for massive scale. Nothing wrong with that either, but those companies can’t play the venture-funded game. Those swept up in The Conclusion will live on as compost, fertilizing
the future of the technology ecosystem. The cycle continues.
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Digital media unioning, one year later
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Lowell Peterson
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I would like to report reasons for hope. Collective action is not only possible in the face of an economy in transformation; it is effective. In the last year, writers, editors, producers and other content creators at “digital native” companies , , , and have all won representation with the (WGAE). These innovative, mostly younger professionals want a voice in shaping their work lives, and they recognize that collective bargaining is a vital way to engage in the decisions that affect how they work and how that work is valued. Our union understood that it was essential for us to listen as well as lead, at every stage. We found that the digital media content creators did not necessarily share the same aspirations and experiences as people who work in more established parts of the media industry. From the outset, we implemented meaningful and successful organizing campaigns founded on what the employees actually want. The WGAE convened town halls and one-on-one meetings, conducted surveys, recruited engaged and energetic bargaining committees and maintained close communication with the people who came to us for representation. Our job was to translate the new members’ goals and their enthusiasm into workable bargaining proposals and ongoing methods of involvement. This thorough, bottom-up process has been absolutely necessary to mobilize people and to identify what they want to accomplish through collective bargaining. What have we learned? These men and women have concrete economic concerns — it is extremely difficult to make ends meet in places like New York and D.C. earning $40,000 a year, which was distressingly common at some digital companies before unionization. Prospective union members want greater transparency on the job. They want explicit, understandable rules about pay and benefits and other aspects of work, rather than obscure, improvised or arbitrary shifts in policy and practice. They want to enhance and expand editorial independence, to be able to follow stories where they lead without fear that immediate commercial concerns would diminish the legitimacy and quality of their work. And they want to build real careers doing the work they enjoy and find meaningful. The WGAE has already negotiated collective bargaining agreements with three of the companies organized in the last year — Gawker, VICE and ThinkProgress — winning important economic gains (for example, a 39 percent compensation increase at VICE), locking in health and other benefits that previously were changeable at management’s whim and crafting important provisions to protect the independence of editorial work from conflicting business imperatives. Perhaps most important, these agreements have given the people who create digital content a meaningful, ongoing role in the decisions that affect their work lives. We expect to bring similar gains to the union-represented employees at The Huffington Post and Salon.com, where negotiations continue. The new digital members join a community of creative professionals, including people who write for television (both scripted and nonfiction/”reality”), radio, the big screen and digital media. They create news, comedy, drama, documentaries and public affairs programs. Like the content-creators in digital-native companies, all of our members are dedicated to their work and share a passion for crafting compelling stories, whether for information or entertainment (or both), whether serious or satirical (or both). One year in, we can proudly say that unionization is bringing tangible results to people working in digital media. We have always prided ourselves as being a place of both cultural and economic solidarity; a place where creators come together to talk about their craft, to socialize and network and to organize and negotiate to improve their working conditions. We have made progress together because we are stronger together.
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China is disrupting global fintech
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Joshua Bateman
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It’s time to publicly shame United Airlines’ so-called online security
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Jon Evans
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Dear executives of United Airlines, I have some advice for you. 1: Fire whoever is in charge of your online security. 2: Burn down the building in which they worked; it may be tainted. 3: Salt the ground so nothing ever grows there again, to be safe. 4: Hire somebody competent who will not infuriate your users while simultaneously compromising their security. I know I probably sound like a disgruntled passenger who just had an unpleasant airline experience. Not so! I am actually fond of United, have flown hundreds of thousands of miles with them, and have upper-tier status with them. But I’m also an engineer who writes about security. It was bad enough when they replaced their free-form password security questions with — I am not making this up — for “Your favorite artist,” “Your favorite pizza topping,” etc., — I am still not making this up — the threat of keylogging malware. This has already been by Josephine Wolff in , and, in fairness, it’s a kind of idiocy that seems to be common to large organizations. Citibank UK did the same thing for years, before they realized how dumb it was. The thing that bumbling bureaucrats like United’s security team never seem to realize is: . They will react by trying to make it easy again — by, for instance, picking the first answer in every option, rather than trying to remember both questions and answers that they did not devise and have no resonance for them. (Similarly, you should force your users to change passwords frequently, or their passwords will grow weaker, they will write them down in multiple places, etc. I’m looking at you, AOL-which-owns-TechCrunch.) But even that was merely bad, eyeroll-provoking, frustration-inducing; whereas this week’s compounding sin provoked something more like righteous fury. This week they sent me an email saying: Your security questions will also be used as part of upcoming two-factor authentication to further protect your account — you’ll be asked to answer your security questions the first time you sign in from a device that we don’t recognize. For fuck’s sake, United. https://twitter.com/arirubinstein/status/763414363403329536 First, you are compounding your flawed-because-user-hostile security problems by forcing people to use it more often. Second, you are calling that “two-factor authorization,” because, I don’t know, you believe in some kind of cargo cult? You have adopted security Dadaism, or security Situationism, rather than security engineering? (That would explain the pizza-topping question too, come to think of it.) Whoever is ’s CISO/CSO needs to be dropped in a dunk tank. Repeatedly. — focalintent (@focalintent) Two-factor authorization has a : most often, it’s “something you know, something you have.” It actually does make you much more secure! (Even if you use SMS, which you probably shouldn’t, because , etc.) Two-factor authentication is “enter your password, then answer stupid arbitrarily / externally chosen security questions.” Look, folks: two instances of a single factor is not 2FA — Darren Meyer (@DarrenPMeyer) So, just to summarize, United has: So I stand by my original suggestions. Sack them, burn it, and salt the remains. There’s nothing worth salvaging here.
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Killing technology innovation in the public markets
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Chad Cardenas
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In 2004, Google finally went public in a long-awaited offering, via Dutch auction, that lit the public markets on fire. But Google’s S-1 filing was probably as unusual as anything the technology markets had ever seen: The company promised to not deliver quarterly guidance to investors, and instead promised to invest over the long term to preserve the culture of innovation that the company so fiercely protected. That culture of innovation, however, has failed to take hold in the public markets, and the IPO market has recently stagnated. Publicly listed companies have steadily declined in the United States, from 8,025 public companies in 1996 to 4,101 in 2012, according to the . The outlook for the IPO market has been even bleaker in the technology sector. To address this crisis, JPMorgan Chase Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon convened gatherings in New York for some of the nation’s leading investors and CEOs, including Warren Buffett. The meetings were held to brainstorm solutions to the deteriorating state of public companies, according to . In another event on July 28, the Committee on Capital Markets Regulation released relative to market trading problems. The committee was responding to charges that the market itself is “rigged.” The actions of Dimon’s group and the committee reflect a big push to restore confidence in a broken system that affects stock performance in a measurable way. Many lumbering companies of the 20th century have become less nimble these days, just as they’re facing emergent threats from disruptive rivals. As a result, many talented executives are opting to work at private firms rather than public companies, and many big private companies are putting off initial public offerings to delay taking their stocks public. Hence the recent “unicorns” buzzword, which was coined to denote private companies valued at more than $1 billion. Deal flow in the technology sector declined by almost half last year, from 69 IPOs in 2014 to 35 IPOs in 2015. That marks the lowest annual number since 2009, according to the by WilmerHale. The tech sector’s share of the U.S. IPO market has fallen every year for the past five years, from 46 percent in 2011 to 23 percent in 2015. The majority of these listings were lost off of the NASDAQ, the tech-heavy exchange that is home to more than 90 percent of technology listings. And, so far, the tech IPO class of 2016 has been even more dismal. Interestingly, the volume of technology-related private equity (PE) deals in Q1 2016 was up 61 percent YOY and 31 percent sequentially, ranking as the second-highest PE volume ever recorded, according to the recent from Ernst & Young. Still other private startups are turning to private stock offerings without jumping through regulatory hoops to issue public shares. This option has led to the rise of new companies such as and , which offer online platforms to reach individuals and small investor groups. All of these trends point to a need for real structural changes to streamline our public equity markets for investors and management teams alike. When it comes to technology innovation, a whole new set of rules apply — none of which are baked into the public market setup. Investors need to understand that short-term thinking will always kill the potential for long-term gain when it comes to technology disruption. This is why so many incumbent technology providers are losing out to newer startups, and the hottest tech companies in cloud, mobile, social and big data analytics, etc., are constantly being faced with the prospect of being disrupted themselves. Perhaps the best solution is to follow the innovation model set out by Google. That would mean doing away with quarterly guidance for institutional investors, which would go a long way toward restoring technology companies’ ability to innovate and invest over a long-term horizon. Paradoxically, this would begin to restore the trust that investors have lost in the public markets. We will also need to see a recalibration of private company valuations, particularly amongst unicorns. As long as we continue to see sky-high multiples and inflated valuations that exceed what these companies could earn under the glare of public markets, the tech IPO pipeline will likely stay dry.
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Why LinkedIn should kill the résumé and replace it with the experience graph
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Garry Golden
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Imagine a future where individuals can illustrate their progression of lifelong learning and training and its links to their real-world performance. In this version of the future, the once-ubiquitous résumé has been ousted by the experience graph. The graph itself will grow out of ExperienceAPI (xAPI), a data specification that allows us to capture and record all types of learning and performance experiences inside the workplace and beyond. Simply put, the software specification enables people to capture enriching “I did X” activity statements — from connecting with Twitter influencers to earning certifications — and present them as an experience graph. By connecting data points in an experience graph, a more complete narrative emerges about the ways we learn and build skills over time, and how this growth leads to real-world outcomes. And the shift from a résumé’s chronological work history toward real-world experience statements will most likely be steered by a platform like LinkedIn. Unlike table databases that store information in rows and columns, graph databases store information as entities (or nodes) and the relationships that link them. Graph thinking is an approach to organizing information and trying to understand the world in terms of relationships between things. When LinkedIn was created in 2002, graph thinking was still in its infancy. But early social networks like Friendster, MySpace and Facebook popularized the idea of a social graph (who we know; how we know them) and friend-of-a-friend (FOAF) connections. Today, these social graphs are the primary engagement platform for ads, news, entertainment, activism and politics. The social graph helps us create and sustain personal and community connections. The social graphs we manage via Facebook or Twitter help individuals find people and communities, regardless of their geographic home, that connect online and share our passions for life interests. The downside of a social graph world has been the emergence of online narrow casting, whereby algorithms (or our own selection biases) limit our exposure to opinions that differ from our preferred worldviews. Despite its drawbacks, the social graph is arguably the most valuable digital asset in the modern age. LinkedIn’s brand was built on constructing our professional graphs, which enable us to leverage our friends’ and colleagues’ relationships in order to connect with people who could advance our careers. The company’s data-driven culture is steeped in graph thinking, indicated by acquisitions that are helping it explore linked data. SlideShare, for example, was acquired in 2012 to integrate professional content and understand the sharing dynamics of the most insightful slide decks and white papers posted on the site. In 2015, LinkedIn acquired , a widely used e-training site for people and organizations in search of upskilling. Today, the company is evolving services based on the , which shows business and civic leaders the connections of people, skill sets and organizations driving their local economy. City leaders can tap the analytical power of LinkedIn’s economic graph to understand who relocated to their community, their skill sets, how they found work and with which employers. For businesses seeking to relocate to a specific city, the economic graph can also provide details on untapped skills among city residents. It’s a powerful tool based on macro-level, connected data, but it is not the likely end game for the LinkedIn, brand even under Microsoft’s umbrella. LinkedIn’s leadership has communicated its vision to understand every job position in the global economy, identify skills needed and the gaps that exist, then help deliver training to empower people for employment. Beyond the professional graph and economic graph, the tool with the most potential power is one that enables individuals to actively drive their own workplace learning and career growth through the experience graph. The vision of an experience graph is a platform that reveals connections between our lifelong learning and formal training with the actual work and skills we demonstrate in the real world. Just as our professional graph shows who we know and how we know them, the experience graph would reveal skills we possess and our learning path for acquiring them. If this conjures up those annoying skill endorsements that LinkedIn is ever-prompting us to click, fear not. The skills endorsement feature was introduced in 2012 as a first step to painting a rough picture of our real-world skills. But instead of pressuring our colleagues for endorsements, the data inputs of the future will be less subjective and based on our real-world experiences, performance and outcomes. To understand the potential for an experience graph to capture these real-world elements, let’s explore ExperienceAPI (xAPI). The formal specification xAPI was designed for initial use in Learning & Development (L&D) settings to capture “I did X” statements. In the most basic terms, it translates to Person + Action + Object (e.g. Howard [Person] attended a webinar [Action] on Design Thinking [Object]). Today’s early adopter L&D teams are layering xAPI into training applications, and in the near future, we can imagine “I did X” statements integrated into our most common social and enterprise tools. Most likely, activity statements will be captured passively or require one-click approval from the user before xAPI statements are added to the experience graph. A working group of xAPI developers is building out a detailed library of verbs that will define what activity statements can be captured. The vocabulary range will likely include micro-experiences such as “logged in” a course, “liked” a post or “paused” a video — as well as milestone experiences such as “joined” a group or “completed” a course. In this illustration, we focus on milestone activity statement captures of an individual’s hypothetical journey from discovering a new concept, to learning and acquiring skills, to demonstrating proficiency and ultimately landing a position in that field:
Only one of these statements — “hired at Consensys Inc.” — would likely appear on Lucy’s résumé. The experience graph would actually reveal the steps along Lucy’s journey: her curiosity (reading an article, following relevant influencers on Twitter); engagement with the developer community (attending a meetup and conference); application of knowledge (MOOC, GitHub). Over time, Lucy’s experience graph connects her behavior to outcomes like the code she wrote, the new job she landed and how that code might bring value to the company. Sharing our experience graph could provide a learning path for others (i.e. attend this meetup, follow those people), and we could compare our experience graph to others’ to find new connections. Inside organizations, an experience graph of xAPI statements can show leaders how people learn, collaborate and achieve desired outcomes. If enough data is collected at an aggregate level, the world of machine-learning experts would have massive data sets to create intelligent assistants that might drive our learning in unique ways. Ideally, xAPI provides data points on relevant lifelong learning and performance experience that can reveal insights into how we discover, explore, learn, try, fail and apply new knowledge. xAPI statements can reflect how we learned and with whom. Lucy might learn as much from Twitter conversations and YouTube videos as others in formal online courses, so identifying relevant experiences is part of the appeal of an xAPI-layered world of learning — and it’s also part of the creepy versus compelling dynamics of managing our own experience graph. This vision of an experience graph is full of techno-solutionist thinking that tests our willingness to explore the creepy lines of privacy and the culture of quantified-self advocates who try to measure everything. The vision also contains elements of a very compelling future where we are empowered with real-world data that could drive understanding in how we learn and grow. It might be a compelling enough future to kill off the static résumé and replace it with a more dynamic experience graph of what we know and the skills we’re developing. While a long list of questions and integration challenges is being addressed by both graph analytics and xAPI communities, we can currently explore the future through two perspectives: the skeptic’s and the enthusiast’s. To the skeptic, an experience graph of xAPI statements may seem like another tech-overshoot trying to measure everything. Is this another quantified-self concept that will fall short of mainstream adoption? Is it a data set ripe for corporate abuse and privacy invasion? The skeptic may also point out that it’s wishful thinking to imagine millions of people building their experience graph with such momentum that the résumé actually becomes antiquated. To the enthusiast (author included), the experience graph is an empowering opportunity to see how we learn and grow through connective experiences that drive actions which seem otherwise non-linear or irrelevant. Privacy issues will remain a challenge, but are likely to be resolved with emerging blockchain-based identity and data-integrity layers. The experience graph could become a competitive advantage for students applying to college and job-seekers eager to share real-world data with potential employers. The adoption cycle and tipping point will likely follow the same path as the social graph. Early adopters lead the way for mainstream. Others will try to abuse or game the graph. Various power players will try to assert themselves and capture revenue from this quantified age of learning, training and performance. And, of course, many people will dismiss it, ignore it or refuse to participate. For LinkedIn, the opportunity path seems clear. Start by developing an experience graph platform with the xAPI specification that allows portability to competing graphs. Replace the résumé’s chronological record of experiences with a dynamic, actively managed experience graph that uses a wide range of xAPI activity statements to paint a comprehensive picture of how we learn and grow. In addition to increasing the value of its professional graph and economic graph through xAPI data, LinkedIn could interface with users’ experience graphs and provide upskill recommendations via courses and beyond. LinkedIn is in the business of understanding relationships and getting the world to use graph analytics to reveal connections in the business world. Of all the major players in our digital brands, LinkedIn seems ideally suited to test-kill the résumé and explore its successor, the experience graph. The experience graph could start a ripple effect across college and corporate campuses by shifting focus from the broad use of résumés to data-driven connections of demonstrated skills. It could also empower L&D leaders to call out the ineffectiveness of training in favor of just-in-time performance support. Headlines from the not-too-distant future might resemble the following timeline: LinkedIn will partner with 10 colleges and universities to bring xAPI tools to campus-learning management systems like Blackboard and Moodle and via LinkedIn’s own proprietary internship platform. Professors and students will begin building out the world’s first set of experience graphs based on classroom work and internships. Skeptics and protesters emerge as they argue LinkedIn’s true intentions: selling college-student data to corporations at a profit. The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative announces plans to release an open source experience graph (OxG) platform available for free online. The blockchain-based system secures privacy and access to xAPI statements. The move ensures that open source xAPI graph tools exist as options to experience graphs from LinkedIn and Google, and which dominate the marketplace. IIT has signed a 10-year contract with IBM to bring IBM Watson with xAPI to all students on its campuses. IBM agrees to allow students to own their learning analytics and experience graph data. Nation’s highest court rules in favor of individual ownership rights of learning and workflow data. Employers must receive permission to access xAPI data records. Business leaders say ruling will lead to higher costs of managing experience graphs or lead to more ad-supported learning programs. Software giant Google and manufacturing titan GM announce that talent development will accept candidates’ experience graphs, not résumés. Despite the résumé’s limitations, it is today’s default presentation of our skill sets. If the experience graph becomes widely used, it will require a “push” phase (2018-2023) from influential tech brands like LinkedIn, human resource professionals and early adopters such as the programming community. The “pull phase” (2023-2030) from the mainstream world of workers would likely come after large private and public sector organizations set higher expectations to move beyond the résumé and toward the nuanced data illustrated in an experience graph platform. Just as the social graph emerged over the last 10 years as a valued platform for our digital lives, the next decade could signal the emergence of our personal experience graph — connected data of what we are learning and with whom — and how that knowledge translates to our real-world lives.
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Blab shuts down, founders promise new app on the way
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Lora Kolodny
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Livestreaming app Blab, which amassed 3.9 million users in just one year, shut down this weekend, its CEO Shaan Puri announced with a post on Medium late Friday. The app, which competed with Twitter’s Periscope, Facebook Live, IBM-owned UStream.tv and other media companies in the livestreaming game, was created at , a tech incubator self-funded by the founders of Bebo, Michael and Xochi Birch. In his post, his team would come back with a new product, but was retiring Blab because of churn, basically. Only 10% of users came back everyday to use Blab, the CEO admitted. And users weren’t coming back to the platform to watch archived streams on replay, he wrote. Puuri hinted that a new product would focus more on social features and less on content: “Blab was great in many ways, but it wasn’t going to be an everyday thing for millions. So we’re kicking down the sandcastle, and re-building it as an ‘always on’ place to hang with friends.” Whether or not the Blab team can manage a successful pivot into another very competitive corner of social media has yet to be seen. Other companies vying to provide the top spot where friends can hang out in groups online includes, obviously, Facebook, Google and Snapchat, but also upstarts like Rabbit, Oncam and scores of others.
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I want a companion ship
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Darrell Etherington
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a drone with automated follow features that not only includes a camera for cataloging your many feats, but also has an on-board voice assistant to and a cellular connection to get stuff done for you while you’re out and about. It’s time for friendly flyers; it’s time we each had a companion ship. I don’t know who gets this done – maybe , since it seems in the same spirit of fun that gave rise to products like the the French company makes. I don’t really care who does it, either – let’s just get these things made so we can have airborne robot pals. Listen, this isn’t a big ask. All the parts are in place, since we already have multiple companies building drones that follow you autonomously. Some are , and some are just pocket drones basically . But , nor is tying that to an aerial drone’s flight and navigation abilities. I first talked about the possibility of personal companion drones with a drone-oriented entrepreneur three years ago, and since then, we’ve come a long way. Autonomy systems are shrinking in terms of required physical components, and Amazon and others are now actually trialling drone delivery. Commercial use of drones in fields like and are also far more commonplace. Okay, the fly-and-follow component is probably the easy part. What about a voice assistant? Look, I got this for you: . Amazon’s voice-based assistant is flexible enough to do a lot for you, and extensible enough that building in any tasks not currently present would be relatively easy. I envision using a companion drone the way you would your home-bound Amazon Echo, anyway – grocery lists, timers, triggering actions in connected devices. But because it’s not tethered to you, and literally flies, it can do more, too, including snapping an aerial selfie and posting it directly to Instagram, or heading to the corner store to pick up some gum. It could play with your kids, fly up and give you hyper-localized weather conditions, or help you see around corners on a late night walk home. Always-on connectivity, a microphone system sophisticated enough to hear your commands, and persistent follow functions mean big battery draws, which is the bound to be the main limiting factor here. Already, max flight times on most consumer drones doesn’t extend much longer than 20 minutes. It’s probably the primary limiting factor to building better drone buddies, but a fix could come via frequent, universal charging mechanisms for short-term top ups. I’m thinking induction charging surfaces, placed throughout a person’s home and yard, and then eventually built into city infrastructure. This has a second advantage, since it would also provide more accessible charging options for smartphones that support wireless changing standards. Another possible fix: Make the drones only semi-aerial. Bots that roll seem to be able to manage longer trips between power-ups, and can hold larger charges since they don’t have to leave terra firma. Maybe create a droid-like docking cradle, so your flying friend can occasionally land and roll around R2-D2 style. SwagBot is an Australian ground-bound agriculture bot. This whole concept probably sounds dystopian to some – imagine a city in which everyone had a drone deployed very nearby. But right now, I’m mainly looking for someone to put the pieces together to see how this might work in limited use settings in private and semi-private quarters. Mostly, I’d be interested to see how it impacts smartphone usage, and what it does in terms of cutting back on our time spent interfacing directly with our connected gadgets. Amazon is probably the company doing the most right now to erase the interaction layer between people and their computers, through voice-based interfaces like the Alexa in the Amazon Echo, and their literal single-button solutions with the Dash product ordering gadget. It may seem like a weird way to get there, but a drone companion you can dismiss whenever you want could be how you replace even more traditionally smartphone-based activities with something less omnipresent. In the end, what I want really are fully functional Star Wars droids. But drones might be the way forward, given the progress and investment in that tech, and the efforts already being made to give them greater autonomy, and integrate them into our existing city infrastructure. It’s an engineering challenge, too, that manages to successfully bring together a number of areas of intense current investment interest. But really, it would just be very cool.
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The IoT threat to privacy
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Christine Bannan
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As the Internet of Things becomes more widespread, consumers must demand better security and privacy protections that don’t leave them vulnerable to corporate surveillance and data breaches. But before consumers can demand change, they must be informed — which requires companies to be more transparent. The most dangerous part of IoT is that consumers are surrendering their privacy, bit by bit, without realizing it, because they are unaware of what data is being collected and how it is being used. As mobile applications, wearables and other Wi-Fi-connected consumer products replace “dumb” devices on the market, consumers will not be able to buy products that don’t have the ability to track them. It is normal for consumers to upgrade their appliances, and it most likely does not occur to them that those new devices will also be monitoring them. After an Electronic Frontier Foundation activist tweeted about the unsettling similarity of the Samsung Smart TV privacy policy — which not to discuss sensitive topics near the device — to a passage from George Orwell’s , widespread criticism Samsung to edit its privacy policy and clarify the Smart TV’s data collection practices. But most people do not read privacy policies for every device they buy or every app they download, and, even if they attempted to do so, most would be written in legal language unintelligible to the average consumer. Those same devices also typically come with similarly unintelligible terms of use, which include mandatory arbitration clauses forcing them to give up their right to be heard in court if they are harmed by the product. As a result, the privacy of consumers can be compromised, and they are left without any real remedy. Increased corporate transparency is desperately needed, and will be the foundation of any successful solution to increased privacy in the IoT. This transparency could be accomplished either by industry self-regulation or governmental regulation requiring companies to receive informed and meaningful consent from consumers before collecting data. Generally, industries will respond if their customers demand more privacy. For example, after revealed that new-car buyers are concerned about the data privacy and security of connected cars, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers (a trade association of 12 automotive manufacturers) by developing privacy principles they agreed to follow. Businesses can self-regulate by developing and adopting industry-wide best practices on cybersecurity and data minimization. When companies collect user data, they must take responsibility for protecting their users; if they do not want to be responsible for the data, they should refrain from collecting it in the first place. Some companies, such as , embed privacy into their technology. The benefit of industry self-regulation is that each industry can create standards specific to the needs of their customers and the sensitivity of the data they collect. Layered privacy policies should be a best practice adopted by many industries, and Creative Commons licenses could serve as useful models. have a three-layer design: the “legal code” layer, the “human-readable” layer and the “machine-readable” layer. The “legal code” layer would be the actual policy, written by lawyers and interpreted by judges. The “human-readable” layer would be a concise and simplified summary of the privacy policy in plain language that an average consumer could read. The “machine-readable” layer would be the code that software, search engines and other kinds of technology can understand, and would only allow the technology to have access to information permitted by the consumer. These best practices would make tremendous progress in protecting the privacy of consumers, but they are not enough. Companies must be legally bound to the promises they make to their customers. The use of pre-dispute mandatory arbitration clauses in terms of use have become standard in many industries. These clauses deny consumers their right to pursue a remedy in a court of law, usually without their knowledge, because they are buried in indecipherable fine print. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has that arbitration clauses’ bar on class actions further hurts the public interest because lawsuits often generate publicity about a corporate practice, and, without them, consumers may not have access to that information. The agency has therefore prohibiting mandatory arbitration clauses for most consumer financial products and services. The Department of Education has also a rule that would prohibit the use of pre-dispute mandatory arbitration agreements by for-profit schools, giving students who have been exploited the right to sue their schools. The Federal Trade Commission should consider proposing a similar rule that would prohibit the use of pre-dispute mandatory arbitration agreements by companies that sell IoT products. Because this is such a complex problem, involving countless industries and implicating various privacy concerns, an adequate solution will require participation by consumers, businesses and the government. Consumers must demand to know what data is collected and how it is used. Industries should develop best privacy practices that match their customers’ expectations. The Federal Trade Commission should bring enforcement actions for deceptive practices against companies that do not comply with their own privacy policies, holding them accountable to their customers. It should also consider prohibiting pre-dispute mandatory arbitration clauses, so that consumers can have a cause of action when their privacy is violated. But before this can happen, consumers must demand to know what data is collected by their devices in the IoT.
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Big data’s humble beginnings
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Joe Apprendi
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Clicks. Once upon a time they were the most powerful tool in assessing online ad performance. A humble beginning, but much has changed. The data-driven measurement and predictive analytics technologies that launched adtech and are now being applied to nearly everything — and yet, it’s easy to forget the road that led here. October 27, 1994: The first ad to hit the web is published. It was difficult to recognize the significance at the time, but that single, floating rectangle at the top of my computer screen would bring into being an entirely unique market. Adtech was invented — designed for this emerging sector, and built to measure the return of the new media creators produced. Finally, ads could be understood. Adtech has a reputation for being overcomplicated and overpriced; however, it is largely misunderstood. It is not only underappreciated, but undervalued. Adtech is to big data what the Big Bang is to the universe. The collective origin story of all productivity measuring data begins with adtech. From measuring the performance of ads, we can now measure the performance of most anything — even people. It didn’t take long for those in the industry to realize how much potential their new data-measuring technology had. The applications are endless, as we continue to see today. Big data software and services are predicted to grow to a . And as the appetite for data grows, so too will the demand for sophisticated tools to interpret and refine it. Following the example set by adtech, other sectors are leveraging big data and predictive technologies to drive efficiency and accuracy. In 2014, Uber launched , which uses algorithms to match riders based on location and sets the price based on the likelihood of picking up another passenger. The latest generation of learns from consumers’ transaction history and spending patterns, and provides intelligent recommendations and personalized advice. Human resources departments are bringing analytics into the tasks of corporate hiring, retention and promotion, and the insurance sector is . Similarly to the way the evolved for adtech, new ecosystems are poised to coalesce around other industries. Businesses that rely on data to make key decisions will want better, more granular insights. So the shift to predictive analytics in multiple sectors will form a virtuous cycle, driving demand for tools to further enrich and interpret all that data. Enterprises are already embracing big data and predictive analytics to hire and retain talent, forecast staffing needs and improve employee satisfaction. In the next two years, plan to implement big data analytics, providing ample opportunities for a new crop of startups that collect, refine and interpret data to populate the HR analytics landscape. Startups are leveraging Watson’s technology to ; this pattern will soon extend to the health sector at large. People are generating more health-related data than ever before, and doctors, patients and researchers need tools to make sense of it. Physicians will be able to compare patients’ data with health trends in the general population and provide data-driven advice for treatment or prevention of illnesses. Just as we’ve seen with adtech, social and now messaging, the dominant players will evolve their products into platforms as the spaces mature, forming the connective tissue of these new ecosystems. , for example, started as a CRM database, but expanded to offer Platform as a Service, enabling customers to build their own applications on the Salesforce framework. We’re witnessing a similar scenario unfold in the health sector, where Apple has created three new platforms for enabling data collection and analysis ( , and now ). Medical studies built on the ResearchKit framework are enrolling greater numbers of participants, improving the quality of the data collected. CareKit, on the other hand, is intended for a broad spectrum of patients; any health app developer can make it easier for people to share health information with physicians and caregivers. One example is , a personal care app built on the CareKit framework that helps people with diabetes track their food intake, activity levels and glucose readings so they can better manage their blood sugar. Similarly, small, specialized data analytics companies will emerge and build off of larger platforms in verticals like finance, staffing and transportation. As more verticals embrace data-driven, predictive tech, we’ll see cross-pollination and interoperability between sectors, exponentially increasing the amount of data, and thus the need for more data mining and analysis. We’re entering the AI Age — predictive modeling has already proven critical for solving a diverse set of challenges for both businesses and consumers, and it has the potential to transform every industry. As we approach a period of exponential growth, formerly siloed verticals are abandoning legacy systems and embracing analytics. The combination of cloud computing and interoperable data providers and platforms will form the foundation that will allow data-driven ecosystems to thrive, unlocking an era of frictionless innovation. With the applications of big data emerging as a new frontier, it is especially important now for us to remember how it all started — with a click.
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Augmented reality makes prototyping easy on Shaper’s Origin CNC machine
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John Mannes
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Innovations in 3D printing have done their part to inspire maker-culture. We print, or at-least try to print, drones, human organs, and even medications. Additive techniques are practical and accessible for much of the prototyping process. However, just because we can print synthetic drugs with 3D printers, doesn’t mean we can print something . , a San Francisco based hardware startup, is putting time and money into making CNC, or Computer Numerical Control, prototyping as easy as printing on a MakerBot. Accomplishing this is no easy task, and the Shaper team has had to implement technologies far outside the experience of most mechanical engineers. leverages computer vision and augmented reality to take the learning curve out of CNC machining. But before we dive too deep into the innovations this small team has been able to come up with, let’s first make sure we understand prototyping 101. Shaper CEO Joe Hebenstreit explains that there are two fundamental ways to build something. You can start with a structure, let’s say an ice block, and carve away material to create beauty or you can start with nothing and assemble small parts to create something greater than the sum of each part, like a house. Constructing a house is a great metaphor for additive construction. 3D printers additively print layers of material until they create an object. CNC, on the other hand, is a subtractive process where an object is cut down to a useful shape. Typically techniques like aluminum fabrication and wood carving require subtractive rather than additive construction. To cut an object with CNC you typically have to operate within a fixed workspace with fixed materials, much like a traditional printer, so that the machine can interpret designs. Origin however can operate in any workspace with a wide-variety of materials including wood, carbon fiber, and vinyl. Almost any flat surface can become a workspace because Origin has a camera on its back that is consistently searching for a specialty ShaperTape. The tape, included with the purchase of the machine, enables the cutting head to contextualize itself — movement is with respect to the tape. With this baseline information, all it takes is a little bit of computer vision and some math and you can visualize cuts in augmented reality. Hebenstreit was previously product design lead and engineering manager, for Google’s Project Glass where he dealt with similar augmented reality challenges. In addition to Hebenstreit, early prototypes of the device were fabricated at MIT by co-founders Alec Rivers and Ilan Moyer. The Origin has a touchscreen attached behind the cutter that simulates the cutting space for the user. When someone finishes a design on the computer, they simply drag and drop it to a Shaper folder that is accessible from the device. Once open, producing a prototype is as easy as a children’s coloring book. All you have to do to make a precision cut is drag Origin along the virtual lines and you will be able to replicate CNC parts made by traditional machines that can cost tens of thousands of dollars. As if that wasn’t easy enough, the cutting head is mounted on motors that will autocorrect mistakes in positioning. Rather than line up every cut perfectly, all you need to do is get within a few inches and the machine can automate even the most intricate cuts. Shaper HQ Shaper raised a $3 million dollar seed round that included participation from Eniac Ventures, SOSV, Founders Guild, Comet Labs, and Root Ventures. The company has plans to bring in even more capital to expedite production and continued research and development. Origin will go on sale at on . The handheld hardware before ultimately retailing for $2,099.
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Crunch Report | Kobe Bryant gets into the VC game
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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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Ringling Bros. new space-themed show brings Cirque to the circus
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Felicia Shivakumar
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There are two things that pop into my head when I hear . The first is “are they are still around?” And the second is “I really hope those animals are OK.” And I am pretty sure I am not alone with either sentiment. For the first time in 150 years, the historic entertainment brand is completely overhauling the show and building a new way forward through the use of innovative live performance technologies. The team that owns and produces the show reached out about their new “Re-Imagined” show and invited us to go behind the curtain to see it for ourselves. Named “Out of this World,” this is the first Ringling Bros. show to have a story line or take place in space. The new setting is made possible mostly by the new performance technologies integrated into the production. 3D projection mapping transforms the look of the stage. Instead of the big bulky set pieces used in past shows, the team now uses seven projectors to make the audience feel like they have been transported to outer space. There’s also a new spotlight system that has been sewn into performers’ costumes to make the art of lighting each performer a science. It allows a performer to move throughout the stage, do flips and acrobatics and jump from the ice to the air and always be in the spotlight. “Our spotlight tracking system uses infrared lighting to track the performers. Each performer is equipped with a beacon, which is a small black box,” explains lighting technician Lorelei Owens. “Essentially the spotlight tracking system takes control of the pan and tilt of the light telling it where to go, while our lighting console controls the color, the gobo, the effects telling it what to do. And they work together to follow each performer based on the blinking pattern emitted from their beacon.” According to Owens, the performer tracking system can track up to 72 performers at once and accurately follow each one as they do complex, fast-paced moves, allowing them to change the color and patterns of each individual light to highlight each trick and add visual interest to the show. [gallery ids="1373181,1373183,1373184,1373182,1373188"] Ringling Bros.’ Out of this World is vibrant, colorful and fun in a family friendly way. It feels like meets , which makes sense, considering Feld produces the traveling Disney Live! Productions, as well. As for the animals, there were no elephants, and minimal performances from a few big cats. Most of the tricks were performed by more familiar animals like horses, dogs and goats, which, , are most often rescues. All said, it was a fun show. The flashy lighting and projected visuals add to excitement of the traditional high-flying circus acts. Will this new direction save the reputation of the self-proclaimed “Greatest Show on Earth”? Only time will tell.
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Pax Labs brings in Deezer’s Tyler Goldman as new CEO
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Jordan Crook
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, the folks responsible for the Ploom and the Juul and the Pax loose-leaf vaporizer, have today announced some leadership changes. Former Deezer CEO Tyler Goldman will be taking over as CEO, and Pax co-founder James Monsees will continue on at the company as Chief Product Officer. Pax Labs launched in 2007 with the original Pax vaporizer. The company quickly picked up steam and began selling a second-gen Pax and an e-cigarette called the . Juul uses a nicotine-salt solution in the vaporization process that . The company says it’s receiving 300 percent more demand for the product than expectations. (That isn’t exactly a real number, since we don’t know original expectations, but it does show some level of popularity). Before taking over as Deezer CEO of North America, Goldman was CEO of Buzzmedia and a founding member of Movielink, a movie streaming service that sold to Blockbuster before… well, . Goldman says that Juul will overtake Pax loose-leaf products either next year or the following year. Part of the reason for this is that Juul is a razor-model business, meaning that it continues to make money off of refills after selling the vaporizer itself. But there are other players in the business, namely big tobacco companies, who are looking to get ahead of the shift from traditional tobacco to e-cig alternatives. “There were a lot of phones out there before the iPhone came along,” said Goldman. “The big tobacco companies are spending significantly more on marketing and getting a product to market, with a bigger distribution network. But consumers are smart and sophisticated and know, even at a higher price point, that Juul is a superior product.” Pax’s most recent funding went down last summer, with the company pulling in funding led by Sand Hill Angels. You can check out the Pax website .
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Coding needs a new youth movement
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Josh Seides
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Let’s face it — coder or not, at one point or another you’ve thought of tackling web design. Or mobile app development. Or database querying. Or something else from the evolving list of savvy, modern languages out there. (Yes, there are .) For non-coders, the lack of control and reliance on developers plays into the pressure to pick up on at least form of programming — complex or not. There is no doubt that programming has become integral to any founder. Whether or not you will become the CTO for your business, the pragmatic mindset and residual benefits that arise are hard to dispute: The perfect balance between pragmatism and creativity, logic and artistry parallels the dynamism required of a startup. It’s a difficult challenge, no doubt, but the setbacks multiply exponentially for teens learning to hack. Coding in youth is, in many ways, broken in the very areas commonly thought to be its strengths. Why is it that only major in computer science when are in the very same field? With such expansive benefits to the modern, technically aware entrepreneur, any threat to the proliferation of computer science should be treated as a threat to the very health of future startups themselves. Trust me. I was in that very same befuddled mindset a few months ago. At 18 years old, I had taken a couple of years before, but my coding experiences — and more importantly my time — shrunk to virtually zero. With my mind racing over the fact that my entrepreneurial cohorts had been programming for many years, I knew something had to change. Over six months of fruitful experimentation with Code School, a stack of daunting tutorial books and a now loaded Dunkin’ Donuts reward card, I finally feel comfortable calling myself a hacker. Yet, in a class of more than 500 students (with many who took the same AP Computer Science class as me), I can count on one hand all of those who even occasionally code. Why, in a world brimming with tech jobs ( , to be exact), do many students shy away from programming? Why, to put it frankly, is teen hacking in peril? Source: Where do I start? I attended a highly competitive public high school — top 1 percent nationally in test scores and funded enough to lend Surface Pros to all students. However, gracing the computer science course catalog was AP Computer Science. Period. As I pointed out in a , of U.S. high schools offer AP Computer Science, and actually allow computer science to count toward high school graduation. Public education systems treat computer science as a second-rate elective only included to deceptively boast about “infusing STEM offerings” into their curriculum. Even more problematic, the few programming classes that offered remain constructed. Take AP Computer Science (designed by College Board) for example. Why were only taken in computer science? The course focuses exclusively on Java — a back-end, strongly typed, object-oriented language. While I am in no way disparaging the utility of Java (which, in its defense, demonstrates many core programming concepts), to a non-technical student, . Java is completely back-end; by the end of my AP course, we had learned how to create a Celsius to Fahrenheit converter, set up a rock/paper/scissors game (all in plain text, sadly) and create a tip calculator. No graphical design. No user interface. No CSS styling. The course description goes as far as to in its discussion. By the end of the year, most of my peers resigned programming to nothing more than redundant lines of logic capable of achieving at most elementary data operations. Even worse, the exam requires all code to be . Where was the web design? The front-end frameworks? Beginners — especially modern youth — desire something tangible, something visual that results from their work. Indeed, . Producing only plain text bores today’s teens and prematurely scares many away from the field. Instead, classes should focus on front-end web design — HTML, CSS, JavaScript — to show teens the practical power of code and how it can lead to production-ready applications. You, against all odds, evade the grasp of dry, numbing high school computer science courses and plan to learn on your own. Wait! There’s another problem. Literally else who codes is better than you are. Sure, the promotes the inclusion of “absolute beginners,” but let’s be honest — do you really want to join a team of five- or 10-year developers who could finish in 30 minutes what took you the entire 24-hour hackathon? Not surprisingly, consider themselves “developers.” If you don’t open up a code editor by middle school, you’re already behind. In a Google employee survey, reported prior exposure to the field before college. In high school, I was scrambling through tutorial videos, dense books and coding blogs, constantly worrying: ? Psychologically, learners are left doubting how any basic knowledge picked up early on could even come close to translating into an industry-standard website. (Can you honestly see a smooth shift from to ?) Even more dangerous, one thought always lingers: ? , online forums (i.e. ) and free tutorial websites do nothing to stave off this fear. Rather, they introduce foreign (seemingly impossible) concepts, developers who appear to have eons more experience than you and increasing hesitancy over whether to ask a super basic question that might annoy your peers. In the high-stakes, competitive landscape in which youths find themselves (with reporting high levels of daily stress), we’re conditioned to focus only on activities in which we’ll have considerable success. This breeds heightened anxiety and takes away from the collaborative spirit on which that coding is built. A major component of today’s hacking atmosphere is self-learning — scouring the web for language documentation, blogs and videos. Just as with entrepreneurship, “The programming world is always evolving, and in order to keep relevant and improving, the mindset of a beginner is really important,” as . This is easier said than done for beginners who have no idea where to start. Especially when learning independently, there’s no one reliable place to delve deep into web development. Sure, , Code School and countless others offer a nice, surface-level understanding of what the <a> tag does and the difference between a class and id in relation to CSS, but these are mere baby steps. As these resources are catered to complete beginners, they provide no easy transition into more complex concerns of programming. Indeed, the — those understanding the core basics but nothing more — are stopped at an impasse. To get from A (bare fundamentals) to C (professional development) requires a stop at B — yet online resources seem to completely ignore it. For youths in particular, an endless thirst for knowledge matched against the frustration of not knowing what to do next may lead them to explore other, more straightforward, fields instead — and give up on computer science. Coding isn’t dead among youths. In fact, (roughly 15 percent more than any subject other than art). But it most certainly is in peril. There are countless articles on how computer science needs to have a larger presence in schools, hackathons lauding their “all skill levels welcome” philosophy and even on exposing more students to code. Yet this has always assumed that students who have the opportunity to take programming classes will fall in love and end up with a comfy STEM job. This argument mistakenly values ahead of . A new environment of practical hands-on (front-end) school courses, a more welcoming attitude to newcomers and clearer direction for learning beyond the shallow basics would go a long way in this youth-led digital revolution.
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After nearly two years, NASA regains contact with lost spacecraft
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Emily Calandrelli
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After attempting to regain contact for nearly two years, NASA has finally communications with the sun-studying satellite, STEREO-B. At 6:27 p.m. ET, NASA received a downlink signal from the spacecraft using the ground-based communication antennas in the . STEREO-B is one of two spacecraft that orbit the sun and make up the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (or STEREO) mission. STEREO-Ahead (STEREO-A) orbits slightly closer to the Sun than the Earth, and STEREO-Behind (STEREO-B) orbits at a farther distance from the Sun than the Earth. Together, they provide NASA with unprecedented views of the far side of the Sun. STEREO-A (red) and STEREO-B (blue) orbital locations in relation to Earth, Venus, Mercury, and the Sun / Image courtesy of NASA Both spacecraft were launched in 2006 on a two-year mission to study solar activity on the far side of the sun. But, in a pleasant turn of events, STEREO far outlived its expected lifetime. Like other NASA spacecraft that came before it (e.g. Solar and Heliospheric Observatory , Deep Impact Mission , the Mars Spirit Rover ), STEREO’s mission extension propelled the spacecraft into new territory that led to a loss of contact. In October, 2014, six years after the primary mission of STEREO had completed, the two spacecraft entered into a unique location in their orbits known as solar conjunction. During this time, the Sun was positioned right between the spacecraft and Earth, making communication impossible due to solar interference for over three months. “The sun emits strongly in nearly every wavelength, making it the biggest source of noise in the sky. Most deep space missions only have to deal with sun interference for a day or so, but for each of the STEREO spacecraft, this period lasted nearly four months.” Dan Ossing, mission operations manager for the STEREO mission With the upcoming conjunction, the STEREO team put steps in place to prepare STEREO-A and STEREO-B (machines designed to talk to the Earth every single day) for a nearly four-month period of radio silence. The tricky part about STEREO-A and STEREO-B was that they weren’t optimized to work properly during a solar conjunction. Both spacecraft were designed with something called a command loss timer, which is essentially an automatic reset button. If the spacecraft experienced 72 hours of radio-silence (something that shouldn’t happen normally), the command loss timer would activate, correcting any communication issues the spacecraft was experiencing. Unfortunately, the command loss timer couldn’t be changed, meaning the spacecraft would be rebooting every three days for nearly four months during the solar conjunction. Not ideal, but the STEREO team expected both spacecraft to pull through. But before the conjunction happened, the team wanted to test the reset process. They stopped communicating with the spacecraft for three days and both STEREO-A and STEREO-B activated the command loss timer reset process. STEREO-A worked great. STEREO-B, not so much. The STEREO team believed that the spacecraft was feeding incorrect information to itself about its own rotational speed, causing the spacecraft to spin. In a spin, the spacecraft could only receive intermittent solar power making it difficult to turn on its transmitter – the way it communicates with the Earth. “If it’s not transmitting, we have no way of knowing if our efforts are working.” Dan Ossing, mission operations manager for the STEREO mission In December of 2015, NASA released a noting that any signal that STEREO-B could transmit would likely be too weak for the antennas in the Deep Space Network to pick up. The STEREO team thought they may even have to wait until 2019, when STEREO-B would be in a location that the Hubble Space Telescope could image, to receive any further details about the spacecraft’s position. Luckily, that didn’t turn out to be the case and we didn’t have to wait that long. Sunday’s signal from STEREO-B provided NASA with valuable information about the spacecraft’s position. With this data, the STEREO team will now work to put a recovery plan in place, re-establish the spacecraft’s desired position and evaluate the health of its subsystems.
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All 44 startups that launched at Y Combinator S16 Demo Day 1
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Josh Constine
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Farm drones, autonomous security guards and next-generation tampons were among the products presented at today’s Y Combinator startup accelerator Summer 2016 Demo Day 1. You can check out write-ups of all 44 below. And here are TechCrunch’s picks for , plus writeups of the YC’s increased international outreach efforts are paying off. 30 percent of this batch’s startups came from outside the US. While some were mere copycats of US startups, many brought different approaches to classic problems. YC president Sam Altman Today’s startups were focused on consumer, developer tools, security, hardware, marketplaces, and non-profit. We’ll see a different set tomorrow concentrated around enterprise, B2B, biotech, edtech, and fintech. Investors had mixed reactions, with few saying they saw startups they were truly wowed by. Yet most admitted that past YC success stories were tough to spot on Demo Day, so we might not know the quality of this batch for a few more years. One major innovation at Demo Day: they’re now offering Doblet portable chargers so investors don’t have to worry about their phones dying or camping out by the power outlet like the TechCrunch crew. Here are all 44 of the startups that presented on-the-record today: Weddings can often seem to lead to temporary insanity. Joy is building a tool to help couples plan everything that takes place in-between the engagement and the honeymoon. The company’s marital software suite has seen some major growth over the past several months with about 150 happy couples joining the service daily to manage their RSVPs, track guests and keep everything organized. Joy is now looking to break into the $14 billion wedding registry market where they see even more potential to earn healthy commissions. Joy could disrupt the crooked deals where wedding planners book vendors who give them a bigger cut rather than giving the bride and groom the best price. The tampons women use have seen very little innovation over the last eight decades. a tampon replacement set to a subscription model. The company has already sold $70,000 worth of product through pre-orders and has successfully navigated the FDA approval and patenting process. Flex wants women to be able to forget about their periods so they can take advantage of every minute of every day. Traditional tampons can make sexual activity tricky, be messy, and even cause infections. Their disposable menstrual product can be worn for 12 hours and is non-invasive, comfortable and healthy. In a few weeks women will be able to receive shipments of the tampons for $20 per month and the Flex touts 70 percent margins on the product. Just six percent of adults in India own a car, but as more of the population reaches the middle class, more people want to drive. JustRide is a peer-to-peer car rental marketplace that takes a 25 percent cut of rental fees. The $500 a month that users can earn on JustRide is the same as the average monthly earnings in the country, so it lets users effectively double their wages. The startup’s proprietary IoT device lets it monitor driving behavior and blacklist adrenaline junkies. JustRide already has over 7,000 rentals a month in just three cities, but it’s chasing the full $18.5 billion yearly car rental market in India. While it’s a clone of America’s Getaround, India’s a big enough market to warrant its own competitor.
Too often, apps that strike it big on mobile stifle their growth by focusing their scant resources on launching with only an IOS or Android app. Exponent want to make it super simple for mobile developers to build out iOS and Android versions of their app while only coding in JavaScript. The free open-sourced software uses React Native, a framework for building native apps that’s used by companies like Facebook, Airbnb and Walmart. The service just came out of beta this week. Led by early Facebooker and Quora co-founder Charlie Cheever, Exponent has an enviable team. Everyone universally enjoys relaxing on the beach with a mint julep, but not everyone has access to the same disposable income necessary for travel. Airfordable was born as a payment plan service to support travel for people that have limited credit or limited savings. The service lets wannabe travelers upload a flight itinerary and create bi-weekly payment plans that push payments off up to three months. Tickets are distributed only when the payment plan is successfully completed. After reaching profitability and booking $500,000 in sales, the company wants to increase spending to push into financing plans for hotels as well. The company has partnered with an insurance company that is accountable for default risk and is growing at 53 percent month over month. Senior citizens want independence, but many aren’t versed in using smartphone apps like Uber. GoGoGrandparent lets seniors call via phone to book a ride, which the startup books through existing car services. With a 50 percent margin, Go Go Grandparent is growing 12 percent week over week, and 21 percent of first time users stick with it. Now seniors are asking for help getting groceries and medicine, giving GoGoGrandparent adjacent markets to expand into. Though seniors might get better at smartphones, Go Go Grandparent thinks it can be the layer between them and the on-demand economy. The cloud can be a scary place when it comes to keeping enterprise information secure. ZeroDB ensures that companies with sensitive data can move their operations to the cloud without having to worry about compromising overall security. ZeroDB encrypts data and moves it to the cloud while keeping the decryption keys on location. The company announced at demo day that they are already in the process of partnering with a UK bank for an operation that will bring in $1 million annually for the company. In today’s day and age, companies with millions in resources like Google’s Calico are working on combating diseases related to aging like memory loss. A team of ex-Facebook timeline engineers wants to use what they know to create a solution far simpler than drug synthesis. automatic journal that captures experiences and interactions, including GPS location, to generate a complete searchable profile of memories. The app has been one of the top trending apps in the app store and has seen over 1.5 million new real-time checkins. Those tiny seat-back screens cost airlines a fortune because of installation and the weight they add, and they make you feel trapped on the plane. Skylights has developed its own VR headsets and software so passenger can strap in and watch 2D and 3D movies on a giant virtual screen. Skylights has already outfitted 100 flights for 4 airlines, and its current deals for 15 flights a day will bring in $1 million a year in recurring revenue. With a founder who was a former commercial pilot and airline exec, Skylights wants to make VR in-flight entertainment good enough to become a differentiation point. Fantastic restaurants need fantastic ingredients, but the hardest part for chefs should be cooking the food not sourcing it. Haywheel is an online marketplace for artisanal foods that makes it extra simple for top-notch restaurants to score the choicest of lobster or tortellini. The company already has more than 300 restaurants using the service, including a few Michelin-starred establishments. Haywheel takes a 10 percent commission on the food purchased through the marketplace. The service launched last week and is already planning its move to open the program to the $5 billion specialty food store market. Most people in Silicon Valley recognize that the technology industry lacks diversity, but many don’t push themselves and their co-workers to change the status quo. A plethora of Bay Area tech companies are employing strategic recruiting to solve the problem but many have actually seen diversity stagnate and in some cases even decrease in recent years. DevColor wants to employ a non-profit structure to offer interview preparation and career strategy advice to help companies attract and retain black engineers. The startup is working with 114 software engineers and has closed sponsorships with mainstays like Pinterest, Collective Health, and Uber to ultimately reach long-term sustainability by the end of the next two years. Commercial drones will grow to a $23 billion business by 2020 for agriculture, infrastructure inspections, and delivery. But many drones still fly blind, dependent on pilots. Iris makes a tiny box that can be added to a drone to give it sense and avoid capabilities. It uses computer vision and deep learning tech to create real-time 3D maps around drones and track objects up to 2000 feet away. It’s already in the air with a live paid alpha program. Drone hardware manufacturers won’t all be able to make the smartest brains, but Iris could help. Setting up IoT devices sucks. It’d be fine if they kept working but as soon as your wifi goes down or power goes out, something is sure to get screwed up. Techmate wants to bring a more sustained level of tech support to consumers with smart homes. The company says that connected devices will increase 5x in the next 5 years so consumers are going to have a lot more smart light bulbs to take care of. The company currently has $30k in monthly revenue and has been growing 25 percent week-over-week since it launched. Men’s fashion is a $400 billion a year market growing faster than Women’s. Men want to own clothes, they just don’t love shopping. Looklive’s tech can scan a photo of a model or celebrity, tag what clothes they’re wearing, and let you buy those looks or something similar but more affordable. Looklive is partnering with content creators like Hearst’s Complex and Esquire magazines, which will upload photos to its site. Looklive will make them shoppable and take 10-30 percent of the revenue without owning any stock. Looklive’s co-founder started fashion e-commerce phenomenon KarmaLoop, and now his new startup is growing 25 percent month over month.
Taking a far more complex page from early iPhone apps that leverage the iPhone’s flash to detect heart rate, Luminostics wants to use the same flash to diagnose STDs like Chlamydia. To get a diagnosis, all you have to do is add a sample of blood, urine, or saliva to a cartridge and insert it into the smartphone adapter. In 15 minutes, smartphone users can get critical health information. The team decided to start with STDs because of the privacy concerns that put 35 million people at risk every year. The at-home device is fast, convenient, and private unlike traditional doctor visits. The tech was developed as part of PhD research and will be entering clinical trials next year. While the company still has a long way to go before hitting their target of a US and Europe launch in 2018, the founders have an ambitious vision that includes vetinary testing and food safety feedback, in addition to additional applications in consumer health. There are so many smart health apps out there than can analyze the hell out of your personal data but often the real problem is getting those reliable health metrics in the first place. Airo Health wants to track your calorie intake automatically. They’ve built a $200 wearable that measures the wave-form of your pulse to track blood flow to the digestive system. The research that the company is using suggests a strong correlation between this metric and a person’s total daily calorie consumption. The company has already partnered with the US military and is now targeting the 94 million Americans that are counting calories. 5900 newborns die each day in Africa, many because they’re not born at a health facility. New Incentives is a non-profit that offers conditional cash transfers to mothers who have their kids at a health clinic, which can reduce the risk of infection or spread of HIV. Its 5000-women pilot was shown to save 47 lives. New Incentives is growing 36 percent each week, and has the support of GiveWell, Good Ventures, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Now the non-profit startup is seeking more money for what studies show is one of the top three most cost-effective ways to save a life. On a mission from Amsterdam, MessageBird is not coy about wanting to disrupt Twilio. The company produces APIs for sending SMS, voice, and chat messages. MessageBird has already acquired 13,000 customers including Uber, Skype, and even Dominos pizza. Compared to Twilio, the APIs are being sold as 20 percent faster and 30 percent cheaper than Twilio. Right now, the company only does business outside the United States but wants to use YC as a jumping off point into the U.S. market. Silicon Valley seems to have descended upon the mattress in recent years as a focus of disruption, but the lowly sofa – another item that’s incredibly annoying to acquire and move- has largely been neglected despite the fact that it’s a $23 billion industry. Burrow wants to give consumers a dead-simple service for buying a couch that is shipped quickly (within a week) and can be assembled without any tools. The company already has $150,000 in pre-sales and is operating at 40 percent gross margins for the $850 sofa. Miso is taking the home cleaning industry in South Korea and bringing it online. Thanks to Seoul’s density, Miso is already profitable there and will be in two more cities by next month. While it’s very difficult to retain cleaners in the US, it’s seen as a good job in South Korea where people can earn 60 percent more than in other jobs. Miso is growing 13 percent each week, has 600 weekly active cleaners, and customers are demanding additional types of service. On-demand cleaning is a capital intensive business which has seen failures in the US, but Korea could prove different. Taking pills sucks, not only do you have to remember to take your medicine at specific times, but you also often have to remember to take more pills than meals you eat a day. robotics and 3D printing to build made to order “designer” personal supplements. This means that you can go online and specify the substances that will appear in the pills shipped to you. You can even specify the duration of delivery for drugs like caffeine to hit at just the right time. Traditional pharmaceutical companies print pills in large batches, but Multiply Labs is using 3D printers to form the custom pills, and robots to fill them. Consumers have more interest in buying VR headsets than they do in plopping $1k on the high-powered gaming PCs that it takes to run them. Only one percent of the PCs out there are powerful enough for VR, Sixa want to change that by putting a specced-out virtual machine onto everyone’s system. Latency is a huge concern for cloud-based PC virtualization and it’s even more key in VR where the slightest increase in tracking latency can lead to some major user queasiness. Sixa claims that they’ve gotten the latency down to 10 milliseconds, an impressive metric that’s helping drive their $101,000 in monthly recurring revenue. The ConstructVR team is bullish on enterprise VR, so much so that they have created a platform for the distribution of VR apps to enterprises. While the market may seem small now, analysts project that 46 percent of VR apps will be used in an enterprise context. Samsung’s own GearVR team is using ConstructVR to distribute sales training to help employees sell more products. Without a cloud interface, companies have to use physical USB cables to distribute applications. The company is doing $7,500 in monthly recurring revenue and has requests in the pipeline for an additional $50,000 per month. Most people have too much time and not enough money. Simbi lets them barter their skills for those of other people. Through its credits system, you could train someone in yoga in exchange for dog walking, or give dance lessons for home cleaning. Simbi is growing 95 percent per month, and $100,000 in services are being traded each month. The bartering market could be magnitudes bigger than the $14 billion estimate if there was a clearing house like Simbi to make exchanges simple and safe. For sites that need to move their security needs way beyond the “smile, you’re on camera” signs, there aren’t a ton of great options. Security guards can be inefficient and undependable, and security cameras can’t really do anything in terms of actually stopping an intruder. Aptonomy is hoping that drones are the answer. The company has built self-flying drones that can move around a set area and detect/record intruders or move about to physically stop them. Nobody likes applying to jobs, especially millennials. The job application has become far more “spray and pray” than ever before, and young job seekers easily feel overwhelmed managing large networks across dozens of companies. To combat this problem, Mentat wants to completely change the application process by automating resume reviews, app submissions, and interview coordination. The company is growing revenue at 40 percent week over week and has done $70,000 in revenue over the last month. Mentat is launching a paid pilot with the City University of New York (CUNY) that will be scaleable to $5 million in recurring revenue by the end of the year. Women Who Code has a vision that a mixture of data and community can help not only increase the presence of women in tech but improve their wellbeing. To date, Women Who Code has built up a network of over 80,000 members and has hosted 4,200 events to date. The non-profit supports women by offering a job board that displays job criteria important to women. The idea is that the transparency can help to nudge the ecosystem to adopt better practices. Malware can wreak havoc on a system without ever letting on the fact that anything is awry. Metapacket is a security solution that stops malware by detecting whether outbound traffic is actually being generated by humans. The company claims that its firewall is the first in the world to boast this capability. It also claims that with its help, both the Sony and DNC hacks would have never happened. Farmers don’t know which acres of their farms produce the most crops. Raptor Maps uses drones and tractor-mounted sensors to analyze and A/B test farmland. Raptor Maps can tell farmers which seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides work the best. It can boost farmer profits and even make food a little healthier. Raptor Maps charges $100/acre and already has paid alpha installations with farms that sell to McDonald’s and Costco. Eventually, it could even sell data on which crops are growing to grocery chains and food wholesalers. Scale lets developers use an API to enter requests for flocks of humans to complete repetitive tasks. Mechanical Turk has quality control issues while business process outsourcing can’t be called via API and the firms are too big to work with some startups. Scale lets developers for Houzz get their housing listings screened for duplicates and price mismatches. Teespring uses Scale for moderation and categorization of user generated content. Scale is growing 40 percent week over week with over 50 percent gross margins. Computers can’t do every menial task, but now they can request humans that will do the rest. Over 13 million Americans have to sort through green card and citizenship applications each year and it can take weeks or months for everything to get ironed out. SimpleCitizen is aiming to make the process of navigating immigration documents a bit more tolerable. The company charges users $249 to cut down this whole process into just a few hours of work. The company has earned $40k in revenue in the last 30 days helping individuals and families in 90 countries with their immigration documents. Up next for the company is simplifying the process of applying for visas. When most people think of getting a fill-up, they instinctively think about their personal automobiles. However, busses, municipal vehicles, and dealership inventory all sit idle for significant portions of the day and still need to be ready at a moment’s notice with very minimal room for error. Yoshi has been successful at entering this market and offering previously unavailable fill-ups for a $15 dollar a month membership fee on a 24 cent per gallon margin. However, the company is also looking to address the everyday car owner. By incorporating additional services like selling engine cleaner, replacing tires, exchanging wiper blades, and offering to wash and detail vehicles, the company hopes to access a larger market and boost margins to 40 or even 50 percent. The company already has partnerships with companies like Firestone and is planning to launch a pilot in a month with a Detroit automaker. Most barbershops still handle appointment booking over the phone with pen and paper or outdated salon software. Squire lets customers book appointments over mobile in exchange for a $1 fee. Squire’s founders even owned and operated a barbershop just to find out what customers need. When Squire onboards a shop, they in turn recruit all their customers, which become paid users of Squire. It can earn $1000 a month per barbershop, and there are 300,000 barbershops in the US. While the X for Y startup cliche might seem a bit tired, Squire may have found a permutation that works. The housing crisis in San Francisco is no joke, yet there often seems to be little in the way of tech solutions from Silicon Valley that truly help the “average” cash-strapped SF apartment hunters. Starcity wants to build comfortable communal housing in San Francisco that makes use of the millions of square feet in unused residential space in San Francisco. The one-bed, one-bath units are 50 percent the price of the average insanely expensive SF studio apartment. Vote.org wants to beat big money in politics with even bigger get out the vote data. Groups like Rock The Vote have built massive partnerships with celebrities and corporations to increase turnout at the polls, but the strongest data tools often rest in the hands of the parties themselves. Vote.org wants to unlock hyper-targeted applications of data for get out the vote efforts. The non-profit plans to reach 1.2 million voters in specific urban areas. This year, $10.2 billion will be spent on competitive races with anywhere between $12 and $315 spent per voter. If Vote.org can come up with enough funding, it will utilize SMS to to impact political engagement. 60 percent of video viewers don’t make it past the first 10 seconds of a clip. Coub wants to target these viewers with short video loops. After focusing heavily on making creation intuitive, the company has seen a 4X increase in loops created every month on the platform. Users can feed in footage from Youtube, Facebook, and UploadHero, trim the footage to find the best parts, and overdub the soundtrack. Coub is seeing an insane amount of traffic for its size, with 800 million video views per month with its video version of popular GIFs. Xberts want to take on Alibaba by building a network of Chinese hardware manufacturers that can hock their items directly to a worldwide consumer base. There are 120,000 hardware manufacturers in China and 84 percent of them are exporting products through wholesale channels. Xberts is building a platform that relies on reviews from influencers to help foster the relationship between users and manufacturers. They’ve built up a network of over 10,000 influencers and are currently representing 450 manufacturers. Lollicam launched in Korea a year ago and in that time it saw five million organic installs. Similar to Snapchat, Lollicam lets users create videos with a library of ~500 stickers. The company believes it can crack the Asian market given that only one percent of teens in Asia are on Snapchat. To bolster growth, the team is pursuing partnerships with companies like Disney, Pixar, and Samsung. One campaign to promote Zootopia resulted in one million videos generated with characters from the film. Media companies in Africa aren’t moving fast enough to adapt to mobile and the taste of millenials. OMG Digital makes mobile-first content, and has grown to six million monthly users spending 14 minutes per day, and it only launched six months ago. 90 percent of its users are on mobile, and the startup is signing ad deals with Guinness and the African telecoms. By copying BuzzFeed’s model for a unique market, OMG Digital could give African millenials something to read that’s written specifically for them. Wallarm provides security by building profiles of average everyday usage for applications and APIs. Wallarm then uses this profile as a baseline to measure against, rapidly differentiating malicious hacker threats from normal requests and effectively reducing the number of false positives to zero. Wallarm already has 60 companies signed-on that are representing 100 million web users. Just during its time at YC, the now-profitable company has doubled its monthly recurring revenue to $100,000. Diehard local sports fans are willing to pay for in-depth coverage of their favorite teams that national and ad-supported media outlets can’t provide. The Athletic is a new sports media destination that hires top writers from publishers like ESPN, puts their content in a beautiful ad-free platform, and charges fans $7 a month to read it. In Chicago it’s already grown to 2000 subscribers with 18 percent weekly growth. It’s acquiring customers for $14 each and earning that back in just two months. The Athletic’s team already built endurance sports media giant Strava, and now want to scale their best-in-city sports news to 200 more markets. SMARTSITE is a detection device that can identify airborne particles and UV radiation among other things on construction job sites. The information is collected 24/7 and data is fed back in real time to a supervisor dashboard. The company’s value proposition is simple, reduce injuries and reduce lawsuits. 40 construction sites will be using the technology by the end of September, and the team is working to convert six pilot programs with the potential to hit $2.4 million in annual recurring revenue if successful. Buying the right Internet Of Things devices is tough, and it’s even harder to install them. Mosaic guides you through the buying process, then sends a technician to your home to install them, plus offers subscription software for managing your smarthome. Mosaic can make big margins off installation, recurring software revenue, and do bulk sales by outfitting entire new apartment buildings. As the IoT trend picks up now that useful devices are finally here, Mosaic could be the Geek Squad for your geeky home. —
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Report assesses UK’s ISP-level blocks of piracy sites as effective, but glosses over risks
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Devin Coldewey
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A study from Carnegie Mellon University and subsequent analysis by the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation indicate that the U.K.’s blockage of more than 50 websites was indeed effective at reducing piracy, but neither addresses the fundamental problems with the approach. April saw the publication of “Website Blocking Revisited: The effect of the UK November 2014 Blocks on Consumer Behavior,” a follow-up study to an earlier paper; both attempt to quantify how, if at all, these blocks affected traffic at both piratical and legal media services. Now, it’s worth keeping in mind that two of the authors run the , which specializes in this type of research — and , was “made possible through an unrestricted gift from the Motion Picture Association of America.” I really don’t mean to suggest any conspiracy — corporate sponsors enable all kinds of important basic research — but it’s important to know that the house this paper issues from is at least nominally associated with one side of the ongoing debate. At any rate, concludes that the blocks are successful, though seemed to deter mainly casual pirates, creating a small but meaningful increase in the use of legal alternatives. Being an academic paper with a fixed purpose, however, it doesn’t ascend to the higher-level issues brought up by the practice — nor does it need to, those things being outside the scope of the research. But the ITIF decided to take the baton and run with it, using the CMU paper as the primary source in entitled “How Website Blocking Is Curbing Digital Piracy Without ‘Breaking the Internet’.” It accurately describes the effectiveness of the blocks, but praises the idea while neglecting to seriously address the issues that attend this type of manipulation of the web. The concerns of “copyright minimalists” and “internet exceptionalists” are mentioned, but dismissed. For these groups, the Internet is first and foremost about individual freedom, not about collective responsibility. Their view is that the Internet’s chief function is to liberate individuals from control by, or dependence on, government and corporations. They see the Internet as a special place not anchored to physical geography that stands above and beyond the reach of rules that govern the offline world. Yet, in reality and for most of the rest of us, the Internet is no different than the offline world, where people have rights and responsibilities and where laws against certain behaviors exist. There is no logical reason why a crime in the physical world is not a crime in the digital world. While it is indeed unrealistic to think of the internet and web as some kind of elevated place unconnected with the vagaries of the physical realm, that is a disingenuous way to frame the perspective of those who espouse the view that the online world should be regulated differently. There are fundamental differences to activity online: global accessibility, infinite reproduction of goods, anonymity and pseudonymity and so on. These make for a unique environment that requires unique approaches in order to establish the rule of law — or even define it. Certainly it is simpler to attempt to apply existing laws to internet institutions; it was simpler to do that with business models, too, and companies have learned since the early days of the web that the old methods need to be rethought and at the very least hybridized with more forward-thinking ones that acknowledge the realities of the online world. Shortly afterwards comes this reassuring passage: Some opponents of website blocking have seized upon reports of governments misusing intellectual property enforcement measures for unrelated means, such as the Russian police raid on advocacy groups and opposition newspapers in the name of searching for pirated software. However, such cases are rare and would not stand up to the type of scrutiny that is involved in the hundreds of cases where website blocking has been used to fight online piracy in recent years. Online intellectual property enforcement is far from alone in being a public policy that could be misused in order to pursue unrelated and illegitimate objectives. In each case, what matters is the actual intent and the integrity of the process involved in administrating these policies. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Sure, these tools/policies/laws be abused, but don’t worry about that. There’s loads of oversight, and the people in charge of the work are trustworthy public servants. I don’t think anyone out there takes this kind of promise seriously after the many, varied and repeated abuses perpetrated by everyone from ISPs to copyright holders to government agencies — to say nothing of those done by overreaching police, which is another story with a similar beginning. What trust we did give has been squandered, and we have no reason to believe we should offer it again. Fighting piracy is a worthwhile pursuit, and it is being approached by multiple angles and parties. Substantive regulation that strengthens the ability of copyright holders to take down infringing material quickly and easily is something few people will oppose. But the legitimizing of tools to block arbitrary web addresses or snoop on and redirect ordinary traffic, however effective or ostensibly well-administrated they are, simply is not something anyone who supports a free and open web can allow.
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The case of alpha business models and beta technology
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Shefi Ben-Hutta
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is on a mission to vertically develop its telematics expertise and find new sources of revenue across different sectors by (dedicated to data collection and analytics). It’s no surprise that Allstate’s own brands, such as and (which only announced the release of a telematics app called Streetwise Drivers Club), are clients. It’s a start on the path to the unknown. Allstate has been using telematics over the last six years to encourage safe driving — but apparently safe driving is too much of a lofty goal for a for-profit insurer that has already invested tens of millions of dollars in telematics. Allstate launched its voluntary Drivewise program in Illinois at the end of 2010. Participants received a dongle to install in their car with the promise of an immediate 10 percent enrollment discount and up to 30 percent performance discount on their auto insurance premium if they practiced safe driving. This wasn’t at all different from Progressive’s Snapshot device, which in its earlier days was called MyRate. While was the first U.S. insurer to launch a wireless telematics device, Allstate was the first insurer to launch a telematics smartphone app that works instead of or alongside its plug-in wireless device and is tied to a points system. These devices typically track mileage, braking, speed and time of day when a customer drives, while newer developments of telematics apps also have a GPS component that can track whereabouts. So far, customers haven’t freaked out about their loss of privacy. Fast followers ensued; currently, 80 percent of the top 10 private passenger auto insurers offer one of two sorts of program (or both): pay-how-you-drive (PHYD) or pay-as-you-drive (PAYD). One thing that is telling about the struggles insurers face in their path to usage-based insurance (UBI) penetration is the change in tactics deployed by insurers. Originally, newly rolled out telematics programs were monetary-reward-only programs. More recently though, Progressive introduced the fine print of “Snapshot doesn’t always save people money; and on occasion, it could increase your rate,” typically during renewal. Allstate, on the other hand, launched Allstate Rewards to allow any Drivewise drivers, and not just Allstate customers, to earn points that can later be converted to benefits in the form of merchandise, gift cards and local deals. The latter is perhaps the first signal that Allstate has a bigger vision on how it could leverage customers’ data beyond a “customer loyalty-slash-retention play.” As it stands, according to , its Drivewise Android app was downloaded between 50,000 to 100,000 times, placing any bragging rights on hold. Moving on to , the leading insurer is playing both sides by offering a Drive Safe & Save telematics program tied to monetary rewards, as well as its Driver Feedback app that strictly provides tools for drivers to self-assess their driving behaviors, because safe driving is its own prize. When all things are considered, the use of technology coupled with discounts to attract and retain lowest-risk drivers is a novel concept — one that very quickly eradicated any sort of competitive advantage due to the share of competitors with similar offerings and the cost to deploy such solutions (whether device-based or app-based). First, the majority of top insurers offer similar programs, and there’s no evidence to suggest that insurers without a telematics offering fare worse than their counterparts. In fact, in 2013, , aka the odd one out, surpassed Allstate to become the second-largest U.S. auto insurer, . So while Allstate and Progressive saw their dollars flow, or should I say into telematics, Geico gave its marketing budget a boost and achieved a noteworthy milestone, sustained to this day. In the grand scheme of things, most insurers with telematics propositions have continued to boost their advertising budget over the years despite their offering of a more cost-conscious, better yet, “fair” insurance policy, which should have sold itself. Takeaway No. 1: Telematics is both an IT and a marketing expense. Second, retaining customers via rewards isn’t a long-term strategy, it’s a tactic — and a very expensive one indeed, especially for insurers that need to execute this kind of operation. In reality, three-fourth of telematics customers receive an average savings of 14 percent. That comes out to ~$118 in annual discount when factoring , according to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. Again, nothing to brag about, albeit this piece is somewhat subjective. Takeaway No. 2: Operating costs and actual savings discount any telematics discount. The case for a more personalized pricing structure made possible because of this technology fits nicely with niche players like and , that either target low-mileage or inexperienced drivers. Five-year-old pay-per-mile San Francisco-based MGU Metromile (which is active in California, Illinois, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Washington) has a single UBI solution targeting low-mileage drivers who drive less than 10,000 miles a year. The case for product-market fit. U.K.-based specialist insurer Marmalade operates in the land of the young and the restless, targeting young drivers (age 17-24) via a telematics offering, in which discounts are granted during renewal; a bigger likelihood of drivers staying with the insurer for at least two years. The case for the beauty is in the details. Over the long term, “safe driving” will become a goal pursued by several players that in turn will put into question how big of a role a single insurer can play in this field and actually achieve both scale and engagement. There will always be others, whether auto manufacturers or tech behemoths, that will introduce technological improvements to hands-free technologies and Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), deeming driving scores irrelevant. The insurance industry is associated with high-touch, low-frequency customer touch points, and it is that sore spot that has led to the quest by insurers to create more touch points — but in reality, forced business models on what should have been a short-lived engagement gadget (after all, how long should drivers be asked to validate they are safe drivers?) for many mass insurers (with the emphasis on The challenge lies between seeking the masses to capture more big data versus seeking a fit within segments of the insurance population. Now, Allstate is spreading its wings beyond insurance, looking to justify its telematics costs in the name of big data, now the turf of Arity. This is the era where insurers try to sell insurance in a hundred different ways, seeking meaningful and positive touch points with their customers. Mass insurers haven’t figured out yet their sustainable sweet spot around telematics, but, for now, they are busy satisfying their underwriting curiosity with fancier data sets. That, by itself, is an experience worth paying for; the question is, for how long?
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Apple rolls out macOS Sierra developer beta 7 & public beta 6
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Sarah Perez
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Apple has just dropped the 7th developer beta for macOS Sierra, along with the macOS Sierra Public Beta 6, for other early adopters of the new version of the Mac operating system first shown off at this year’s WWDC 2016. The release follows on the heels of which arrived on Friday. At the time, it wasn’t clear if macOS, watchOS, or tvOS would also arrive on Friday – and as it turned out, they did not. WatchOS and tvOS still remain on beta 6, as of this afternoon. Unless you have a reason to test applications on the upcoming Mac OS, it’s better to wait for the public release, or at least the public beta, due to bugs and performance issues that can occur when running a developer beta build. However, macOS Sierra promises some interesting updates that many can’t wait to get their hands on. For example, one of the most promising changes is that Siri is coming to the Mac for the first time. The assistant can replace many of Spotlight’s features – like helping you find a file, perhaps, or search through photos. It can also help you interact with your Mac, like turning on or off your Wi-Fi, start FaceTime calls, set reminders, or adjust your volume. The Photos app has also been overhauled with new features that take advantage of computer vision to recognize the people, places and things in an album, then organize them into intelligent collections. It also curates your past photos into collections via a new tab called “Memories.” Messages on macOS Sierra is getting tweaked, too, with rich links for previewing web content, as on iOS, the ability to watch video clips in the app, and other features like iOS 10’s bigger emoji, ‘tapback’ options that let you respond to messages with emojis (e.g. Heart, Thumbs Up, Ha ha, and more). Safari’s big improvement in macOS Sierra is picture-in-picture for watching videos – something that’s already available on select iPads. Meanwhile, other applications like TextEdit, Pages, Mail, and Maps are getting Safari-like Tabs. You can read more about macOS Sierra in It’s unclear at this time what’s different between the prior beta and the one out now, but as we get closer to the public release, many of the tweaks are now bug fixes rather than major changes. The latest beta builds are available in the Mac App Store, but you’ll need to be a member of the or an in order to download them.
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Proxy raises $1.6 million to kill the card key, and make the internet of things more accessible
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Lora Kolodny
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A startup called has raised $1.6 million in seed funding to help people use internet-enabled devices of every kind without all the annoying login processes and standalone apps for each separate device. Proxy’s cofounders Denis Mars and Simon Ratner said they were inspired to create their technology, in part, by the overwhelming number of IoT devices seen in recent years at industry trade shows from smart home appliances to building management systems. “We wanted to be in a world where you could walk up to anything and start using it without having to sign in. We saw this explosion of devices and just thought, do I need an app for every bloody thing? There’s got to be a better way,” Mars said. A better user experience was seen in the , the data-transmitting wrist band that allows guests at Disney World to get right to the rides, food and other “experiences” they pre-order, without paper tickets, long lines, or waiting to get a server’s or a cashier’s attention. However, Proxy didn’t want to ask people to purchase yet another wearable, or change their behavior to take advantage of the internet of things. So they developed an app that turns smartphones, something most people already carry day and night in the U.S., into a kind of beacon. With Proxy, a user’s smartphone emits a Bluetooth signal that gets picked up by a sensor connected to an IoT device, like an electronically locking door, for example, or a home entertainment system. As the user approaches the IoT device, sensors in it will detect their presence and see if they have been granted access to the device by requesting an ID from Proxy.
Proxy’s backend system verifies their ID, and once the sensor confirms that the user is allowed, it’ll open the door, or fire up the user’s preferred sound and screen settings. Proxy aims to make all of the verification happen in a few seconds so users can instantly open a door, or start listening to music they with the equalizer set exactly to their preferences. For now, Proxy’s technology only works with the door locking systems used at offices, which normally require card keys. But the early-stage company has yet to expand it to work with other consumer electronics or building systems. Twenty companies in the San Francisco Bay Area have already signed up to use Proxy with their employees said Mars and Ratner. Businesses like the fact that they can give new employees or guests access to their offices without calling landlords to arrange for new or temporary card keys, the founders said. The startup will use some of its funding to make Proxy better-known, and to develop an API that will make the company’s app work well with others. Proxy is part of the current batch of startups at the Y Combinator accelerator and was originally incorporated as Martians Inc. Its backers so far include and
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Happy 25th birthday, Linux
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John Biggs
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Linux will turn 25 years old on August 25, the day Linus Torvalds sent out his with a new operating system. “I’m doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won’t be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing since april, and is starting to get ready. I’d like any feedback on things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat (same physical layout of the file-system (due to practical reasons) among other things),” he wrote in the comp.os.minix message board. And the rest, as they say, is history. What’s particularly interesting about Torvalds’ note is that it was followed not by snark or derision but with general interest. While we can chalk that up to Torvalds actually having a product ready to show potential users, we are also reminded that the internet in 1991 was a far different place than it is today. The has just released a detailed report on the OS with highlights from the past 25 years. They write that 13,500 developers from 1,300 companies have contributed to the Kernel since the entire project went up on Git in 2005. The most interesting bit of data? “During the period between the 3.19 and 4.7 releases, the kernel community was merging changes at an average rate of 7.8 patches per hour; that is a slight increase from the 7.71 patches per hour seen in the previous version of this report, and a continuation of the longterm trend toward higher patch volumes.” That means the Linux kernel is almost constantly being patched and updated all by a volunteer army of programmers dedicated to seeing the glue of the Internet succeed. You can read the entire report . Linux now runs most of the websites you visit and runs on everything from gas pumps to smartwatches. The OS teaches kids to program thanks to the Raspberry Pi and it helped save millions of euros. Heck, even . If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. For a bit more insight into the history of the OS, I’d recommend and
. These books, released around the time Linux was coming into prominence, tell the fascinating story of Torvalds and his not “big and professional” side project.
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Amazon’s Prime Now service starts delivering test drives from Hyundai
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Sarah Perez
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Amazon’s same-day delivery service Prime Now, which is today available in more than a couple of dozen U.S. metros, is experimenting with another type of service that goes beyond traditional purchases: it’s offering consumers the ability to test drive cars. Specifically, Amazon has partnered with Hyundai to offer test drives of the 2017 Elantra through a new program called “ .” To be clear, the program doesn’t let you order a car on-demand – it’s only providing a more convenient test drive. Instead of having to visit a dealership, Prime Now customers in select markets can go online and choose a test drive window from between 9 AM to 7 PM, in order to schedule a 45 to 60-minute test drive. A “trained expert” will then bring the car to your location, and you go for a drive. If you want to buy the car, they’ll help you find the nearest Hyundai dealership. The only car being tested through this pilot program is the 2017 Elantra, however. And, for the time being, test drives are only happening in the L.A. market and Orange County. The program first ran this past weekend (August 20-21) and will run again August 27-28. In other words, it’s more of a limited time promotion rather than a planned new feature for Prime Now – at least, for the present. That being said, it’s not the first time that Amazon has dabbled with non-traditional deliveries via Prime Now. Originally focused on offering a more limited selection of its product SKUs – today that’s “tens of thousands” of daily essentials – Prime Now has also expended in select markets to include things like groceries, restaurant orders, and even alcohol deliveries. But this is the first time it’s offering something you can’t actually buy and keep. The idea for making test drives and car buying easier via technology is not novel, however. Startups like offer a mobile car dealership including test drives from your home; lets you buy, sell and lease from an app, and then allows you 10 days for test drive it. Meanwhile, brings the car you buy to you directly. In Amazon’s case, DriveShop is managing the test drives between Prime Now consumers and Hyundai, according to information on the “Drive Now” program’s site.
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Android Nougat comes out of beta
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Frederic Lardinois
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Google surprised everyone when it launched a public beta of the . Annual updates are nothing new for Android, but not only did this announcement come very early, it also offered users the option to easily install the beta with an over-the-air update. Now, half a year later, Nougat is and available for Google’s own Nexus devices (the Nexus 6, Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, Nexus 9, Nexus Player), the Pixel C tablet and the General Mobile 4G. If you own one of those devices (no matter whether you were enrolled in the beta or not), you should see an update prompt fairly soon. The first new phone that will come with Android Nougat pre-installed is the , which should arrive in early September. Keep in mind that this will be a slow rollout. A Google spokesperson tells me that it may take several weeks for Nougat to arrive on all supported phones. I’ve used the betas both on a Nexus 6P and Pixel C for the last few months. While Google says Nougat introduces about 250 major new features, you’ll likely only notice a handful when you first boot up your phone after the update. The most obvious change is in the notifications system. Their look is now closer to Google’s Material Design guidelines and, more importantly, most applications now allow you to take an action (archive an email, for example) or respond to a message right from the notification. Nougat also bundles together notifications from the same app, so you can, for example, see all the messages with the same topic bundled into one expandable notification. Google also redesigned the Quick Settings widget you see when you pull down from the top. Among other things, you can now easily move items around (without having to enable developer mode). If you only swipe down a little bit, you will only see a compact view for the first five items in the menu. To see all options, you have to swipe down a bit further. Another very useful new feature (that you aren’t likely to discover by yourself, though), is the ability to switch between your two most recently used apps by double-tapping the Overview button (the square button that usually shows you your most recently used apps). That’s probably the one new Nougat feature I’ve used more often than any other so far. Nougat also now lets you see two apps side-by-side (or on top of each other). Samsung and others already enabled a similar feature for their Android skins, but it’s a first for Google. On the phone, I’ve not found this particularly useful, to be honest. On the Pixel C tablet, however, it makes a world of a difference. The tablet’s high-res screen and the fact that it features a very usable keyboard makes it a great machine for using basic productivity apps like Google Docs, Microsoft Word and others. Without multi-window support, the Pixel C always felt like Android was holding it back. That’s not a problem anymore, and working on the Pixel C now actually approaches what some might call “fun,” especially because this feature works with pretty much any app and developers don’t have to do anything to enable it. Android Nougat also has plenty of new features that you don’t interact with directly, but that’ll make the overall user experience better. The new version also promises improved battery life thanks to an improved version of Marshmallow’s Doze mode, for example, which put the device into a battery-saving deep sleep when you put your device down and didn’t move it for a while. In this new version, Doze will activate even when you’re on the go but haven’t used the device for a while. I can’t say that I’ve seen any major battery improvements in my day-to-day usage of the Nexus 6P (probably because I’m too addicted to my phone to not use it when it’s with me), but your mileage may vary. If you’re worried about data usage, Android Nougat’s Data Saver mode can now help you reduce the amount of background data apps use. This will still allow push notifications to come through, but apps will be restricted from downloading large amounts of data while they are not in the foreground (and you can always whitelist apps, too). Google also promises that your device will now boot faster and that Nougat does a better job at isolating the files for individual users from each other thanks to file-based encryption. OS updates, too, will now be faster, because instead of downloading the update, applying it and then optimizing all your apps, which often can take 15 minutes or more, Android Nougat now installs the updates in the background; when you restart, it simply switches over to the new version and you’re done. If you’re a gamer, you may notice some changes in new games thanks to Google’s support for the new standard. Nougat also features a special virtual reality mode called that will ensure that VR apps run smoother, but we won’t see Daydream-ready phones and headsets until later this year. As usual, if you don’t own a Nexus phone or tablet (or the General Mobile 4G), you probably won’t see an update to Nougat anytime soon. Even today, only run Android 6.0 Marshmallow. Android 4.4 KitKat, the most popular version of Android with just under 30 percent of users, is now three generations behind. Nougat won’t change that, but if you’re able to get it, it’s definitely a worthy upgrade, even if it’s mostly evolutionary (but the same can be said for every mobile operating system these days).
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Roll your own business cards with this 3D-printed embosser
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John Biggs
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While we all know the best business cards are printed on bone paper with lettering in Silian Rail, the second best business cards are the ones you roll yourself right in front of your intended recipient. This lets you do just that. Built by maker Paul Myers, the embosser rolls paper between two 3D-printed tubes to press a design onto the card. You can take a look at the and Myers is building and selling custom . To make your own version of this you’d obviously have to have a bit of 3D modeling know how but I suspect a little time in TinkerCAD or SketchUp will let you make almost any sort of card. You’ll also need some bearings to help the tubes roll but Myers is using skateboard bearings. While it’s clear that nothing can beat reservations at Dorsia, this whole project comes in as a close second. [youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFC-Vst7cfk]
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LendUp fights big banks with $47M for compassionate credit cards
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Josh Constine
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Banks win when the poor lose. Credit cards can trap people in debt and bleed them dry with late fees. But it’s this exploitative experience that makes banks vulnerable to fintech startups like that are willing to undercut them and make up margin with software efficiency. It’s that strategy of building an enduring consumer banking brand on the principle of compassion that let LendUp raise a new $47.5 million round led by Y Combinator’s growth fund. This Series C values LendUp “substantially higher than the last time” it raised in January 2016, says CEO Sasha Orloff. That’s an impressive feat during a rough season for late-stage fundraising. LendUp will apply the cash toward scaling out its , a credit card with no hidden fees and a flexible payback schedule. It also sports modern features through its companion smartphone app, which lets users instantly halt charges in case of loss or theft, and a financial health meter that clearly shows how much credit the customer has left to spend. LendUp is already signing up thousands of accounts per month, even though it hasn’t been ready to aggressively market itself just yet. “We have no interest in keeping people in debt,” says Orloff. Harshly punishing customers for late repayment might score banks quick revenue, but it makes people hate them. Historically, there weren’t many alternatives. But data-driven risk assessment and the elimination of overhead by building an app instead of bank branches allows LendUp to break into the market. LendUp was founded in 2011, and first attacked the scammy payday-loan business. It stole customers from the cash-advance storefronts that blanket low-income neighborhoods, and retained them by providing financial education. Credit cards are 100X larger market, though, so earlier this year it raised $100 million in debt to fund the lending, and $50 million in a Series B. Even though it still had plenty of money left from that, LendUp chose to accelerate its plan with today’s $47.5 million led by Y Combinator Continuity and joined by Google Ventures, Thomvest Ventures, QED Investors, Data Collective, Susa Ventures, Radicle Impact, Bronze Investments, SV Angel and some angels. YC Continuity’s Ali Rowghani will be joining LendUp’s board as an observer. He tells TechCrunch: “LendUp is well on its way to building not only a very successful company but also a very important one. By combining true software innovation with a strong values-based culture, LendUp brings essential financial services to nearly half of the US population that currently cannot access credit in a sufficient way. In the process, LendUp endeavors to help its customers improve their credit scores, gain access to more financial services, and ultimately improve their lives.” Battling the big banks will be no simple feat, though. LendUp will have to change financial behavior patterns instilled in customers for generations while competing with the banks’ giant marketing arms. It will have to balance its mission with financial solvency as revenue continues “growing consistently month on month,” says Orloff. And LendUp will have meticulously screened employees to ensure no one does anything shady. There’s added scrutiny after online loan marketplace after he and his family were discovered to have taken out loans to boost the startup’s numbers. Luckily, LendUp is doing one thing to make it more nimble than its competitors: It’s building its whole tech stack in-house. “Everyone else outsources their tech,” Orloff notes. Fintech is poised for massive growth. Few industries seem as fundamentally misaligned with their customers as banks boasting low rates while hiding the wallet-crippling fees. If the financial giants don’t adopt a more sympathetic approach, their customers will adopt startups like .
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With Meizu’s MX6, Android imitation is the sincerest form of flattery
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Stefan Etienne
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Chinese smartphone manufacturers are very much on the ascent, but it’s been a pretty mixed bag. Some have offered some truly exciting hardware to market (read: Nexus 6P) and others, well, not so much. Founded in 2003, Meizu is relatively new entrant on the scene, but the company knows how to make a nice piece of hardware. With its latest device, , the manufacturer has created what looks to be the love child of a certain popular phone designed in California and another designed in Taiwan (from a company that also happens to make high-end VR headsets). Naturally, I took some hands-on time with it. The Meizu MX6 grabs some key design language from a number of top smartphone manufacturers (I probably don’t need to name names) — I do have to say, however, that the handset feels surprisingly premium for a device with fairly unremarkable design language. It weighs 155 grams but has room for a decent 3060mAh battery and 32GB of storage. Next up: the screen. It’s a pretty one, at 5.5-inches and 1920 x 1080. It looks better than the resolution numbers suggest, and that’s probably thanks to the 403 pixels-per-inch, paired with a top brightness of 500cd/m². So, it looks sharp and colors are well-produced. The phone’s performance was also unexpected. The MX6 flagship is equipped with an ten-core setup (insert surprise and expletives!) with max clock speed at 2.3GHz. The result is a pretty snappy phone for most daily tasks. It’s no Galaxy or iPhone, but it performs pretty well for a mid-range Android phone. Speaking of Android, Meizu offer’s a different take on 5.1 Lollipop, featuring a skin the company calls “Flyme,” which brings lots of gloss and flat design elements. It once again takes inspiration from a certain unnamed handset, but again, it’s actually pretty nice. I h Yet another surprise about the MX6 is that it has a functioning fingerprint sensor, capable of storing up to five prints. I’ve been able to use it, but have found that it misreads occasionally. Image quality from the Sony camera is what you’d expect: it’s fast, sharp and produces decent colors. Sure, it can’t touch the quality seen of high-end flagships, but it’s not bad for a middling Android handset. Battery life, on the other hand, is probably the least remarkable aspect of the MX6. If you conserve, you can get through a day’s worth of usage, but the handset took a significant hit with Bluetooth (Android Wear!) and GPS enabled. USB-C charging is a welcome sight and gets the MX6 to a full charge within an hour, which is great. Just don’t get it wet: Meizu doesn’t claim its phone is water-resistant, and currently I’m disinterested in finding that out first hand. The handset rocks a dual-SIM port, effectively turning the MX6 into a global travel phone, a pretty good role for a device like this, so as to avoid losing one’s primary phone while globetrotting. Sure, it looks familiar, but the MX6 is a surprisingly solid mid-tier Android offering with a svelte 7.6mm profile. It’s not the strongest handset in that category by any stretch, but it certainly proves the company is capable of making a good (if extremely familiar) device.
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Twitter for iOS gets ‘night mode’ support
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Darrell Etherington
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Twitter is rolling out night mode to users of its official iOS app, the company announced today. Night mode turns Twitter’s dark-text-on-light-background interface upside down, giving a darker look that should be easier to read at night or in dimmer indoor environments. Rolling out today – we're bringing night mode to iOS! 🌙 — Twitter (@Twitter) The night mode feature first came to Twitter’s official Android app starting in July. On iOS, it’s accessible via the gear icon that provides access to the app’s setting menu on your user profile, giving you the ability to switch it on and off with a tap.
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Microsoft tests Project Sonoma, a team chat app for managing shift workers’ schedules
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Sarah Perez
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Microsoft has quietly released a new productivity application to both and the called Project Sonoma. The app is aimed at those who work outside of a traditional office environment, like shift workers, waiters, and others who need to keep track of ever-changing schedules and who need to chat with co-workers at times. The company hasn’t made any official announcement about the launch of Project Sonoma, nor is the app publicly available at this time. Instead, Microsoft says the app is in “Private Preview,” and there’s a businesses can join if they want to test. Project Sonoma – if that is what the app will eventually be called (after all, it sounds more like a codename) – is a bit like a lightweight version of Slack, given its team chat emphasis. But it’s clearly aimed more at managing employees’ schedules, than collaboration. In the app’s main screen, there are three sections: My Shifts, Requests, and Messages. The first allows the employee to track their schedules and see when they’re working next. Requests lets them ask for schedule changes or swap shifts with others. Meanwhile, the Messages section is a simple team chat where you could receive important updates from the management, ask questions of co-workers, and chat with your work colleagues. [gallery ids="1372763,1372764,1372765"] There was some that Project Sonoma is the result of a small acquisition or acqui-hire on Microsoft’s part. On Google Play, the app’s package name as seen in its URL includes the word “shiftr.” This happens to also be the name of a Sydney-based app called , founded by Ludek Dolejsky and Adrian Dean, which focused on employee scheduling, too. Its is no longer live, only leading to a blank page. Shiftr had some small seed investment, including from SenseDoc founder who previously sold his mobile marketing company 5th Finger AU to Microsoft. That made it seem likely that Microsoft could have bought Shiftr, but the company denies it. According to a spokesperson: Meanwhile, there’s a very basic that offers little information about the app in question, beyond offering a way for testers to sign up or join the waitlist. Earlier today, Microsoft announced a related move to beef up its software’s ability to manage scheduling, this time to improve the scheduling capabilities in Office, Managing schedules is something that’s important for productivity, but there are a number of ways this can be handled outside of the calendaring interface.
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Crunch Report | WhatsApp Shares user data with Facebook
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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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Apple zero-days mark a new era of mobile hacking
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Kate Conger
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engineering and architecture, Ivan Krstic, told a rapt audience at the Black Hat security conference earlier this month that his notoriously secretive company was ready to open up its vulnerability reporting process to researchers. The thinking behind the bug bounty, according to Apple, is that discovering zero-day vulnerabilities — security problems that are unknown by a company but exploited by an attacker — has become more difficult as iOS security has advanced. Outside researchers could provide valuable assistance in discovering zero-days, and Apple wanted to start compensating them for their time. On August 12, a week after Krstic’s announcement, Apple’s fears about an unknown vulnerability came true. Ahmed Mansoor, an activist based in the United Arab Emirates, showed strange text messages he’d received to the human rights and technology organization Citizen Lab. The text messages contained a suspicious link, and analysis by Citizen Lab and the security firm Lookout determined that the link delivered a that could take total control of Mansoor’s phone and spy on his calls, emails, text messages and contact lists. The vulnerabilities show that hackers are increasingly turning their focus to mobile devices, and Apple’s increased focus on detecting zero-days shows that companies are striving to keep up. Mobile phones — particularly the iPhone — are often thought to be more secure than desktop computers and network infrastructure, so vulnerability research and hacking have been focused on those weaker devices. But the revelation of zero-days for Apple’s robust iOS security system marks a new era, in which the focus is heavily on mobile. “To see three vulnerabilities, not just three vulnerabilities but three zero-days chained together to gain a one-click jailbreak is unprecedented,” Lookout’s vice president of security research and response Mike Murray told TechCrunch. “A lot of people think mobile is a solved problem,” Murray added. “If I had said five years ago that committed attackers are attacking phones, you would have looked at me like I was crazy. The era of the highly-resourced attacker going after phones instead of network or desktop infrastructure has arrived.” Our mobile phones now hold a wealth of information — and that information is drawing the attention of resourceful and sophisticated attackers. Because of the three-pronged nature of the iOS exploit used to target Mansoor, Lookout researchers nicknamed it Trident. The exploit begins as a simple phishing attack, in which the hacker sends the target a link and entices him to click it. (In Mansoor’s case, the link came in a text message that offered him information about the torture of detainees.) The first zero-day was found in the iPhone’s default browser, Safari, where a memory corruption vulnerability allowed an attacker to run arbitrary code. The texts sent to Mansoor. Two kernel exploits are then downloaded to the device — the second and third zero-days of the set. The only indication of compromise that Mansoor would have received, had he clicked the link, is that Safari would have quit unexpectedly. The first kernel exploit takes advantage of an information leak, allowing the attacker to locate the kernel in the device’s memory. In an iPhone, the kernel is a core component of the secure boot process — a security feature on which Apple prides itself. “Apple has done a good job of obfuscating where the kernel lives in memory,” Lookout’s Murray said. “For a jailbreak, you have to find the kernel.” With the kernel located, the third zero-day is executed, giving the attacker read/write privileges. At this stage in the attack, the phone is jailbroken, and an attacker can add surveillance software to the device to collect information from Apple’s own apps and third-party apps. Murray said the attack demonstrates “an incredible level of sophistication and commitment.” “I don’t remember seeing many attackers at that level of professionalism and sophistication,” he added. Murray’s team notified Apple of its findings on August 15. In the 10 days since Apple was notified of the security problems, it issued patches for all three. It’s a remarkably swift turnaround time for the security industry — many researchers will allow companies 90 days to patch a vulnerability before going public with their findings. “We were made aware of this vulnerability and immediately fixed it with iOS 9.3.5,” an Apple spokesperson said. “We advise all of our customers to always download the latest version of iOS to protect themselves against potential security exploits.” iOS users can download the patches by going to Settings > General > Software Update on their iPhones or iPads. Now that the sophisticated malware has been exposed, it’s natural to wonder who created it. According to Citizen Lab’s analysis, the newly revealed vulnerabilities are the work of the Israel-based surveillance software developer NSO Group. The NSO Group appears to have marketed the vulnerabilities as a product called Pegasus. The company likely offers similar exploits for Android and Blackberry, and Lookout estimates that the iOS exploit has been available for purchase for roughly two years. The company deliberately keeps a low profile and maintains little web presence. Founded in 2010, the NSO Group focuses its work exclusively on mobile exploits, according to Lookout’s research. Its founders, Niv Carmi, Shalev Hulio and Omri Lavie, sold the company to Francisco Partners in 2014 for $110 million, but still appear in running the business. The NSO Group sells its wares to government clients, including Panama and Mexico — and now, apparently, the UAE. The NSO Group denied selling its exploits for unlawful purposes and tried to distance itself from the attempted hacking of Mansoor, the human rights activist, in a to Motherboard. “The agreements signed with the company’s customers require that the company’s products be used in a lawful manner. Specifically, the products may only be used for the prevention and investigation of crimes,” the NSO Group said. “The company has no knowledge of and cannot confirm the specific cases mentioned in your inquiry.” Based on NSO Group earnings reports, Murray estimated that the zero-days Lookout uncovered could have been used on anywhere from 10,000 to 100,000 devices worldwide, but he stressed that it was just a back-of-the-napkin calculation. “As far as I can tell, no one else has ever caught these guys before,” Murray said. “The product is committed to stealth.” Now, the NSO Group is being forced out of the shadows, and three of its precious zero-days are burned (although similar exploits for major operating systems Blackberry and Android likely still exist in NSO’s toolkit). Lookout and Citizen Lab are already turning their attention to digging up more dirt on the NSO Group. Citizen Lab published preliminary information on domain structures and command and control structures used by the NSO Group, and more information is sure to find its way into the public eye. Lookout is continuing its research into the malware used by the NSO Group and suggested it may publish more details soon. For now, Lookout is making it possible for iOS users to check if their devices were compromised. Users can download , which is already installed on over 100 million phones, and scan their device for the NSO Group’s code. Murray encouraged journalists and others who believe they may be government targets to check their devices and call Lookout if they detect Trident. “We want to catch these guys,” Murray said. “My goal is that you know what’s on your phone. If you click on a link and your life is owned forever, my goal is to make that stop happening.” But while these zero-days are patched, they’re likely only one item on the NSO Group’s menu — and that’s why Apple is pushing harder than ever to find its vulnerabilities before the NSO Group or other mobile specialists do.
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Thrive Market thinks it can be an affordable online Whole Foods
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Katie Roof
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We spoke to co-CEOs Nick Green and Gunnar Lovelace in the above video about their plans for expansion and why they think they can stand out in what’s already a competitive landscape. The mission of Thrive Market is “making healthy living affordable and accessible for every American family,” according to Green. The $60 annual membership fee helps Thrive offer items at what they claim is 25-50% below retail pricing.
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The Analogue Nt mini console is a loving tribute to NES history
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Darrell Etherington
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The isn’t an NES – it’s better. The third-party system created by designer Christopher Taber is a work of art in its own right, crafted from a solid piece of aluminum and offering internals that boast no-compromise gameplay experience, vs. what you’d get from a home hack using emulation software. Analogue’s Nt mini is the smaller sibling to the original NT, which has been sold out since early this year, and which featured a larger design and a higher price tag at $579. The Nt mini is still $449, which isn’t exactly cheap, but it also boasts improved video output with combined 1080p and RGB (the original required an add-on for RGB output), and ships with a wireless 8bitdo NES30 controller in the box. The receiver for said controller will also let you use PS4, PS3, Wii and Wii U Pro controllers with the Nt mini. [gallery ids="1372747,1372746,1372745,1372748,1372744,1372743,1372742"] The Analogue NT mini will ship in January 2017, and is 20 percent smaller than the original. It also supports all original Nintendo controller hardware out of the box, including the NES Zapper. Plus it works with all NES, Famicom and Famicom Disk System games with no additional work required. Nintendo’s own is a fraction of the price, at $59.99 with a bundled controller and 30 games built-in, but this labor of love from Analogue is like a Bugatti compared to that pedestrian Honda Civic.
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How data science fights modern insider threats
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Ben Dickson
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are the biggest cybersecurity threats to firms, organizations and government agencies. This is something you hear a lot at and read about in , white papers and surveys — and these insider threats are becoming increasingly , as well as . This seemingly unstoppable growth accentuates the problem and shortcomings of current solutions, and warrants the need for new defensive technologies to detect and stop the digital daggers aimed at our backs. Data science — the application of mathematics, big data analytics and machine learning to extract knowledge and detect patterns — is an emergent, advanced technology area that is , including fighting insider threats. Here’s how it succeeds where legacy solutions fail. The wide adoption of cloud services and mobile technology in companies has transformed IT infrastructures considerably. With physical boundaries of corporate networks and digital assets not as clearly defined as they once used to be, the focus in fighting insider threats needs to shift toward protecting user accounts. “Now that the traditional security perimeter has been erased by mobile and cloud computing, identities have become both an attack vector and security perimeter,” says Tom Clare, VP of marketing at cybersecurity startup . “What has changed recently is the fact that control of user accounts has become far more valuable than control of devices,” says Jarno Niemelä, lead researcher at . “Years back, we were fighting against keeping computers clean from infection just to keep the computers clean. Nowadays, we are protecting computers just to be able to protect the user accounts that are on the computer.” Organizations try hard to protect user identities by adopting different security solutions and training employees on the , but it’s not enough. “Good data hygiene is critical, but it is not enough,” says Stephan Jou, CTO at . “A negligent employee is unlikely to change regardless of training, and a third-party attacker often can operate outside employee-focused processes. More importantly, the insider stealing for espionage is motivated to break rules.” The truth is that credential theft does happen, and it happens a lot. In fact, a found that the majority of confirmed security incidents occur as a result of compromised user accounts. Massive lists of user credentials and passwords are being , and, for a small fee, anyone can obtain access to all sorts of enterprise networks and cloud services, and impersonate legitimate users. Therefore, fighting insider attacks hinges on detecting anomalous user behavior. But this again presents its own set of challenges, because defining normal and malicious behavior is not an exact science and involves a lot of intricacies. Traditional security defenses rely on setting static rules and alerts on user activities in order to define and identify indicators of compromise (IoCs). But when applied to tens, hundreds and thousands of users, this model ends up generating a noisy flood, and security teams have to struggle with wasted time and must sort through tons of unimportant events that are mostly false positives. Meanwhile, actions don’t necessarily explain intents, and savvy attackers will be able to cloak their malicious activities by keeping them within the defined set of rules. The use of data science can help move away from static models toward dynamic ones that are able to define normal user behavior based on identities, roles and working circumstances. This approach is very effective in reducing false positives and highlighting behavior that truly accounts for malicious activities. Cybersecurity firms are increasingly leveraging this technology to deal with insider threats. Gurucul’s security platform combines machine learning models with big data to understand normal baselines of behavior and uncover anomalies, and to provide visibility that spans identities, accounts, access and activity. “This behavioral analytics approach, sometimes called user behavior analytics or UBA, can detect excess access permissions and activity, define roles and detect unknown threats,” says Gurucul’s Clare. Gurucul’s Risk Analytics also gathers and monitors identity-based data and activity from both on-premises and cloud environments. Its machine learning algorithms, including self-learning and training behavioral profile algorithms, look at every new transaction and risk scores it. Using clustering and outlier machine learning makes suspicious behavior stand out from other benign activities. One of the features of Gurucul is its concept of . The system automatically groups users based on the types of activities they typically perform and the types of identities and privileges they hold. This allows for a tighter clustering of behavior and better chances in highlighting outlier activities in behavior patterns. So if a sales employee is downloading large amounts of company data for the purpose of later surrendering it to a competitor, they will stand out and be marked for investigation even if they have legitimate access to the information, because their behavior deviates from that of their peers. Interset is another cybersecurity platform that relies on semi-supervised machine learning and advanced behavioral analytics to examine and correlate scattered bits of data in order to find insider threats. Its platform analyzes data from multiple sources related to the movement of data across or within a network, while also gathering information about the entities involved, which include users, endpoints and applications. The math behind Interset’s is based on three key ideas. First, it replaces traditional boolean alerts with probabilistic models or risk factors. Models that emit probabilities are more effective than true/false alerts and allow the use of math to combine multiple pieces of evidence across different data sets to define the likelihood of a user account having been compromised or engaged in illicit activities. Second, it uses machine learning to define dynamic thresholds for each actor based on gathered data, a much more flexible model than globally applied rules such as “how many megabytes of attachments are allowed.” The “mathematical fingerprint” that results from the analysis of user-generated data makes it much easier to identify anomalous behavior. Third, the platform moves away from the event level and uses math to correlate, corroborate and aggregate events to attribute risk to the higher-level actors involved. What results from this model is the ability to name names, i.e. determine who is stealing data instead of figuring out which of the hundreds of transactional events indicate data is being stolen. This is the platform that, according to Interset’s Jou, “would have detected and surfaced Edward Snowden’s activities in a matter of hours.” “From a technical point of view, we are looking at actions conducted by user accounts,” F-Secure’s Niemelä explains, “and it doesn’t really matter that much whether the malicious operations being carried out are by the original owner of the account, or has someone been able to compromise said account.” The Finnish firm’s latest security offering, (RDS), is a platform that protects against both inside and outside threats. Niemelä calls it “a system that is capable of detecting both insiders and attackers who have been able to compromise some user account and are, in effect, an ‘insider’.” The managed service uses a combination of threat intelligence, big data analytics, machine learning and security experts to deliver accurate, actionable data about security alerts and detect anomalies and signs of insider threats. “Most users have rather clean and repeating patterns in their work from a statistics point of view,” Niemelä says. “Thus, alarming changes in the users’ behavior can be detected with suitable near real-time statistics analysis tools, supported by heuristics and machine learning systems.” RDS collects data from different sources, including behavioral information from corporate endpoints, and detects when a user account starts behaving in an unusual manner. The use of near-real-time analytics, stored data analytics and big data analytics enables the RDS platform to compare user behavior against baseline standards, historical data and known threats in order to detect signs of malicious activities while filtering out false positives. What’s unique about F-Secure’s approach is the team of human experts who verify and provide incident response on anomalies detected by its machine learning engine. When a breach is confirmed, the client is contacted and informed. tackles insider threats from a slightly different perspective, and takes the mindset that the adversary has already likely breached the perimeter, explains Greg Foss, Security Operations Lead at the security vendor, “so our detections primarily focus on tracking attacker activity once they are inside.” The company’s module provides insider threat detection capabilities through honeypot analytics and open-source honeypot solutions. are decoys or cyber traps that lure malicious hackers and enable security software to detect, deflect or counteract their nefarious activities. LogRhythm has researched to determine ways to trick attackers and track them as they move through an organization. “The trick is not to make compromise impossible but to ensure that it is loud and noticeable so that the SOC can detect and respond to the threat,” Foss explains. Foss also stresses network flow analysis as another key piece of the puzzle when it comes to detecting insider threats. “A lot of people ask what threat feeds they should use to help find bad guys on their network,” Foss says. “I often inform them that they already have everything they need right in front of them, they just need to start looking closely at the data they are already collecting.” LogRhythm uses Deep Packet Analytics to investigate huge amounts of network traffic and catch malicious insiders when they want to exfiltrate sensitive information, and also to detect compromised network nodes such as . With organizations using more online services and generating more data than ever, insider threats will become increasingly complicated and harder to find. Shifting from traditional methods to new approaches and technologies such as data science can help find the needle in the haystack and speed the process of detecting and blocking insider threats before they cause irreversible damage.
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NASA completes another splashdown test on Mars-bound Orion spacecraft
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Emily Calandrelli
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NASA today tossed into a pool a mock-up of their Orion spacecraft with two crash-test dummies sitting inside to simulate a return-to-Earth splashdown scenario. The test lasted all of about 10 seconds and is the ninth test of a 10-part water impact series NASA began conducting in April. For today’s test, Orion was swung like a pendulum to simulate a scenario where one of its parachutes had failed to deploy. After a few seconds of swinging, Orion was dropped into the 20-foot-deep Hydro Impact Basin, an outdoor pool facility at NASA’s Langley Research Center. Fast forward to minute 19:20 to watch the test below. Inside the mock-up were a number of sensors, as well as two test dummies — one representing a 105-pound woman and the other, a 220-pound man. Equipped with spacesuits, both dummies were covered in sensors so engineers could analyze the impact a landing would have on an astronaut’s body. Crash-test dummies installed in the Orion mock-up prior to a splashdown test / Image courtesy of NASA/David C. Bowman Orion is the spacecraft that NASA plans to use to send humans to deep-space destinations like asteroids and Mars. Upon returning to Earth, Orion will deploy parachutes to slow its descent into the ocean, similar to the way the Apollo astronauts came home. Apollo 11 crew landing in the Pacific Ocean / Image courtesy of NASA But, because Orion is an entirely new spacecraft — kind of like a beefed-up version of the Apollo crew module — NASA needs to conduct these tests to understand how it will behave upon landing under a large range of scenarios. And while the destination is the most headline-catching aspect of the journey, NASA wouldn’t consider a deep-space mission successful without returning the astronauts home safely. Making this task more difficult is the fact that astronauts’ bodies are already weakened by long-duration exposure to the weightless environment of space prior to landing. With this in mind, NASA is currently preparing for a wide range of landing scenarios, from extreme weather conditions to failed parachute deployment, before sending humans into space with Orion. We’ll have to wait until 2023 for the first crewed Orion flight, known as Exploration Mission 2, but, in the meantime, Orion will fly without its precious cargo. In December, 2014 NASA completed (EFT-1), launching an uncrewed Orion atop a Delta IV-Heavy rocket to an altitude of 3,600 miles for two orbits around the planet. Flying farther than a spacecraft designed to carry humans had flown in more than 40 years, EFT-1 marked a milestone for NASA and (modern) human space exploration. Launch of Orion atop the Delta IV-Heavy rocket for Exploration Flight Test 1 / Image courtesy of NASA These tests and that NASA has been conducting are working up to Orion’s next big flight: Exploration Mission 1 (EM-1). EM-1 will be particularly exciting because it will mark the first time Orion launches with its rocket companion, the . EM-1 is currently scheduled for September, 2018, pending no delays.
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Dropbox is resetting passwords for accounts that haven’t changed them since mid-2012
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Matthew Lynley
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Dropbox is requiring users who have not changed their passwords since mid-2012 to reset their passwords this afternoon. The action appears to be related to continued fallout over where credentials for 117 million accounts were posted online. In recent months, treasure troves of user credentials and passwords — — have been discovered. Even though the data for these accounts is old, often passwords remain unchanged for long periods of time and are re-used across multiple accounts, leaving entire online identities vulnerable to hacks. Dropbox’s intelligence team identified the existence of a file that contained hashed and salted passwords, according to a person familiar with the matter. That file pertains to passwords that were likely obtained in connection to the LinkedIn hack. While the information appears to have been taken from then and quietly held for some time, it is now surfacing, this person said. Dropbox were used to access some accounts. So far, Dropbox doesn’t believe that any accounts have been improperly accessed, . During the 2012 incident, one Dropbox employee’s account was accessed with a project document that contained email addresses. In connection with the existence of the file, Dropbox is requiring its users to reset their passwords if they have remained unchanged. It’s not surprising that Dropbox would react this way to account credentials surfacing. While a broad password reset can carry some negative optics, requiring a password reset is generally the best practice to ensure that it can lock down its data and keep the service from getting further compromised. If user hacks start creeping out and spread across more and more of its user base, it can undermine the security — and perception thereof — of a company. For a company holding onto your files, especially if they are sensitive or important, that perception can almost be as important as the security itself. It’s generally good practice to not leave these old passwords sitting around. Dropbox’s efforts — while proactive — underscore the necessity of strong password usage. Just because passwords are on old services that fade into history (see: MySpace) doesn’t mean that they can’t come back and have repercussions today if they are always the same. This is also just a good general moment in time to remind people to . Two-factor authentication may be a bit of a pain in the log-in process, but it’s one of the best ways to better secure an account. Two of the best-possible strategies to avoid security breaches across multiple accounts is to have two-factor authentication set up as well as using different passwords for different accounts to make sure there is no cross-pollination that leaves multiple account susceptible.
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SpaceNet satellite imagery repository launched by DigitalGlobe, CosmiQ Works and NVIDIA on AWS
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John Mannes
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A consortium of companies, including , and , today launched , an open-data initiative aimed at improving image analysis tools. The data are being hosted by Amazon Web Services as part of a partnership. With an increase in the number of CubeSats, high-resolution satellites and drones of every shape and size, we have accumulated petabytes of imaging data that can be processed with analytics to solve myriad problems. DigitalGlobe, which operates imaging satellites, has built out partnerships with companies like Facebook to target rural villages with internet access using photography as a guide. Satellite imaging has also been analyzed to help the Navy find Somali pirates, crowdsource the hunt for Malaysia Airlines flight 370 and identify deforestation zones. Just this week, of Y Combinator Demo Days with a platform that promises to leverage computer vision and machine learning to automatically annotate and quantify data hidden within satellite photography. The satellite imagery in the SpaceNet database will be able to serve as training data for new generations of intelligent analytics tools for deconstructing large quantities of imagery and quickly generating insights. As our processing capabilities grow in availability, and our algorithms and statistical tools become more efficient, so-called “training” time for machine learning is decreasing. As a result, for the first time, it’s becoming possible to work through massive, complex data sets in hours and minutes instead of years and months. The consortium of companies that contributed to SpaceNet want to make sure that the imaging data exists to take advantage of advancements in computer vision and machine learning. As of now, DigitalGlobe is offering 200,000 building footprints across the city of Rio de Janeiro, at no cost. The curated set will eventually include more than 60 million labeled high-resolution images. In addition to DigitalGlobe, NVIDIA and CosmiQ Works are also supporting the rollout of SpaceNet. NVIDIA is going to provide researchers and developers with tools to take advantage of the new images. CosmiQ Works is affiliated with , the venture capital arm of the CIA, and helps the intelligence community onboard tools from startups focused on space. Both the public and private sector have a lot to gain from better post-capture analysis tools to help automate processes previously relegated to crowdsourcing or painstaking individual search. “Innovation of AI algorithms is fueled by large, high-quality, labeled datasets like SpaceNet and flexible, open-source machine learning tools,” said Dr. Jon Barker, Solutions Architect at NVIDIA. “Researchers will be able to create high-impact geospatial applications by applying our DIGITS deep learning tool to the SpaceNet data corpus.” The project and its name are a play off of ImageNet, a similar database of images created to help catalyze early advancements in computer vision.
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Songkick raises new $15M round from Access Industries, expands US operations
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Mike Butcher
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, which allows you to track the gigs of your favorite music artists and buy tickets to concerts, has raised a further $15 million in funding from . Songkick says it now plans to use the money to “enhance the connection between artists and fans,” increase ticket sales and prevent scalping. Songkick’s app and web platform scans a user’s music collection from their music or via a streaming service like Spotify and finds the upcoming gigs from those acts local to the user. The U.K. startup, which now has a sizeable presence in the U.S., previously secured $10 million, also from Access Industries. The company has now raised more than $60 million in total. In June 2016, Songkick merged with artist-ticketing service Crowdsurge in an attempt to break Ticketmaster’s hold on the market. Songkick has now won over acts including Paul McCartney, Adele, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Metallica, who prefer the control the platform gives them and its ability to detect when tickets are mostly likely being bought by scalpers. Matt Jones, chief executive of Songkick, and formerly CEO at Crowdsurge before joining co-founder Ian Hogarth as co-CEO says: “The biggest myth in live music is that ticket scalping is somehow impossible to prevent, but with the right focus and the right tools, these issues can be solved, and Songkick is at the leading edge of solving them.” Songkick has also been trying to muzzle into the ticketing game. it suffered a setback in its legal battle with rival ticketing giant Ticketmaster over presales to artist fan clubs after a judge handed a victory to Ticketmaster and Live Nation, the largest concert promoter. Hogarth, the last original co-founder, has, some months ago, now stepped down from the co-CEO position to become chairman, leaving Jones as CEO. In addition, Songkick is announcing the expansion of its West Coast office and more senior hires.
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Finally, a Bluetooth speaker that matches my axe and flannel
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Devin Coldewey
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There’s no shortage of portable Bluetooth speakers out there, but lord are a lot of them ugly. What I need is something that will not look amiss sitting on a stump next to me while I hew a yew in my red plaid flannel. Wait, what’s this one?! The Rock Out 2 is the latest from GoalZero, which is better known for its solar chargers and emergency batteries. It’s a collab with , the familiar — well, to lumberjacks — outdoor clothing company that has made a specific black and red plaid its trademark pattern. Don’t pretend you don’t know the name and possibly fear it. Wireless audio was the natural step for these venerable outdoorspeople. You can expect the speaker to do all the usual tricks: It has two 3-watt drivers, a mic for taking calls “from your crew” while it’s synced to your phone and a headphone input, as well. It’s also weather-proof, suggesting it’ll handle a cloudbreak or roll in the duff just fine (but don’t take it swimming with you). You can pick up the checked Rock Out 2 . [gallery link="file" ids="1375107,1375104,1375106,1375109,1375108,1375103"]
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Jabra’s Sport Pulse and Coach running headphones take big steps
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Stefan Etienne
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headphone field is as wide as it is colorful. It’s one that Danish wireless headset maker Jabra has been involved with for some time now, with its simply named Sport line. The company’s latest two entrants up the ante, bringing new fitness tracking metrics and coaching to the table, in an attempt to set themselves apart from the pack. The Pulse and Coach’s audio qualities are identical. Aesthetically, the only differences are colors and markings, so it’s easier to describe them as a pair. Firstly they’re loud, featuring excellent mids and highs, with some noticeable boosting of the lower spectrum. It’s not a deal-breaker, however, and ultimately doesn’t take away too much from the experience. The onboard noise cancellation is of the passive variety and with foam tips in place, they remove many ambient sounds. Jabra bundles six tips in a variety of sizes — three silicon and three foam. I preferred the foam, as they offer the best seal. They’re also much better handling sweat and making sure the headphones stay in place during a run. Naturally, the new Sports also do calls. Jabra’s placed the micro on the right-hand side, along with the control panel. Together with the earbud-mounted button on the left-hand side, you can answer calls, control playback and volume. The headphones are IP55 water and dust resistant, meaning you’ll be able to sweat on them, no problem. Just don’t try to take them swimming. As for battery life — it’s not great, owning no doubt to the desire to keep the headphones light, while packing in features. Jabra’s own rating is 5.5 hours of talk time with two hours of charging. And, indeed, I found myself having to plug them in at the end of each day. It’s only downhill from there if you work out a lot. As for the preference between the headphones — that all depends on whether you’re looking for voices in your head. Both the Coach and the Pulse special editions can interface with Jabra’s own Sport Life App on iOS or Android. In the Coach’s case, that means counting reps, coaching you audibly during workouts. You can plan a workout from the app, or start working and the headphones handle the rest, partly in thanks to a motion sensor. Neat. It’s a cool feature that makes sense once you actually take it for a spin. The headphones feed useful information, so you don’t have to a phone screen or a wearable on your wrist. Instead, you can just focus on the exercise. The Sport Pulse special edition are the more costly pair, by $40. Instead of just counting reps, the headphones track your heartbeat in BPM by measuring through your inner ear with a biometric sensor. The data is then served to you in audibly, or through the Sport Life app. And metrics go beyond just beats per minute. Jabra utilizes a metric called VO2 Max. It’s a way to measure the maximum rate of oxygen that your body consumes during exercise, which aids in determining your true endurance level. A 25-year old male with a VO2 max score over 50 is considered to be fit. A VO2 score of 45 and above is excellent for a woman of the same age. Meanwhile, a professional athlete like thirty-one year-old cyclist and . Thankfully, now with the Sport Pulse, you’ll know just how fit you are. As a former tournament-level tennis player and current martial artist, I would say there are many good scenarios for me to make use of VO2 stats. But then again, if the Sport Pulse is measuring my V02 stats and the Sport Coach is handling my reps, wouldn’t I benefit more from getting stronger with the Coach’s assistance? For example, if I halt technology writing and pursue a professional sports career again, knowing my V02 stat might prove vital, as it could be something I’d use to gauge myself against other athletes. Afterwards, I could use that information to become more competitive, but for anyone else that isn’t dead-set on athleticism the VO2 stat might just be a pretty stat. Regardless, it’s impressive and it being an option has value. Both headphones do a great job staying in place when you’re running and deliver solid sound at the same time. The Sport Pulse is meant for runners, cyclists and any other athletes whose exercise relies on the cardiovascular system doing tons of work. Being served better information in that category would be vital. The Sport Coach, on the other hand, are better suited for crossfit exercise — e.g. counting reps and ultimately, building muscle mass and strength. In both cases, the battery life is the biggest negative. Either way, you’ll need to recharge in a couple of hours. Both you and the headphones.
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Facebook’s video editor is embarrassingly old, and Apple is creeping
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Josh Constine
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screwed up if Apple is about to one-up you on social. Facebook hasn’t upgraded its video editor in well over three years. Lagging far behind Snapchat, YouTube and even Instagram, it’s a stretch to even call the featureless artifact a video editor. All you can do with an uploaded video is trim the ends and toggle the sound on or off. That’s a glaring failure considering Mark Zuckerberg wants “video at the heart of all our apps and services.” And now, Apple is plotting to seize the opportunity Facebook has left vacant. reports a lightweight mobile video editor designed for one-minute, one-handed use. That’s exactly what Facebook should have built years ago. Facebook’s outdated video uploader has almost no features Since late 2013, Facebook has poured resources into improving video consumption while neglecting how users record and share. It launched in the feed, prompting an explosion in viewership. Better analytics taught creators what works. Those advances took it from hardly any video views to in September 2014, to in November 2015, to likely many more today. It’s not like Facebook couldn’t build an editor. It developed the video sharing app Poke in 12 days, launched Slingshot, which offered solid video editing and has watched its acquisition Instagram build a modern video editor. Meanwhile, has become the company darling. After launching last August, it’s already and is working on a drawing tool. Perhaps the closest thing Facebook has to a video editor is its Moments photo-sharing app’s automatic slideshow movie maker. It stitches your photos and videos together with themed transitions and music to create a more interesting mini-film. It’s supposed to be rolling out to the main app, but I don’t see it and it still lacks most basic editing tools. So here we are, that “right now Facebook’s video creation tool is painfully outdated,” and nothing has changed. That’s shameful for a company that claims to “move fast.” What should Facebook’s video uploader be able to do? At the very least, it should let you: That would at least bring it up to 2014 standards. To be considered passable in the modern age, it should also let you: For comparison, Snapchat’s video editor includes all sorts of expression tools And if Facebook wanted to actually get its shit together, it’d create a best-in-class video recorder and uploader with some of these features that let you: Plus, I’m sure Facebook’s team could come up with some cool other features. These wouldn’t have to overcomplicate the video uploader. They could be tucked in an editing options drawer so people who just want to add a clip, filter the color, slap some text on and post it could do that without getting confused. Facebook needs a way to reverse the trend of declining original content sharing, which reports was down 15 percent year over year as of February. Yet it’s not giving people the tools they need to create unique, compelling content. Instead, big publishers with their professional editing teams are filling the feed with social-optimized video that looks pretty but feels generic and impersonal. At least Facebook’s app has started to integrate its acquisition of animated selfie maker MSQRD into a new . But that focuses on enhancing clips shot in the app, not editing existing clips. If Facebook doesn’t make a move, Apple and others will, and those videos won’t necessarily end up on Facebook. Building a great editor gives Facebook leverage to choose whether those videos should just live on its social network, be downloadable or even be easily shared to other apps. I’ve been blogging about Facebook for six years. For the last half of that, I’ve secretly hoped that every time the company wanted to brief me, it’d show off some slick new video editing interface. But I’ve been disappointed time and time again, and saddened by the missed chance to empower 1.71 billion people to become creators. So seriously, Facebook…
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WeVideo revamps its online video editor for HTML5
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Anthony Ha
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has rebuilt its browser-based video editor using HTML5 instead of Flash. For many of you, the whole debate about HTML5 versus Flash may seem like . But Flash is taking a while to die completely — Google Chrome, for example, continues to . CEO Krishna Menon said that in the case of WeVideo’s new editor ( ), the big challenge was building a sophisticated, responsive editor in HTML5. Menon and UX designer Diana Madrigal demonstrated it for me, hopping around a video timeline, making edits and playing the results without any noticeable lag. “When you hit play, what’s happening here is three or four elements are all getting blended in real time and getting displayed at 30 frames per second,” Menon said — something that was “really pushing the technology.” WeVideo says it has 14 million users, and while it already offers iOS and Android apps, Menon said the browser version is important for making the editor accessible on any and every device. The new editor also features a new interface, including a redesigned timeline with standardized video tracks.
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The new collaboration economy
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Rod Drury
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Technology is creating a new generation of companies that increasingly choose to collaborate as a coordinated ecosystem, even if they have overlapping or competitive offerings. This transparent way of doing business is transforming the way services are delivered and products are developed. There are a number of factors propelling this new wave of collaboration, many of which are derived from the increasingly transient workforce where founders and staff no longer stay at the same company for life, rather choosing to move between companies and build networks along the way. Seamless customer experiences are no longer just a strategy, they’re now seen as mandatory. The next generation of companies have emerged from a world that values design and customer experiences. Developing seamless customer experiences, even between overlapping products, is a goal these companies share. Customers are at the center of every decision, to the point where it’s their journey, both in and out of a product, that matters most. Founder-led companies exhibit a unique DNA, especially the younger ones that are growing up in a business world where transparency, customer-centric design and collaboration are the cornerstones. They are born with the confidence to partner, and compete — if required — through their user experience. Active founders like meeting other founders, and have a shared empathy for building businesses and genuinely enjoy helping others. , founder and CEO of , says the strength of marketplaces comes down to an open API framework that infiltrates a company’s entire culture. “The idea that individual software must be all-encompassing is a thing of the past; we live in an era where add-ons should be embraced instead of being seen as a threat,” Barrett says. Anyone building software in the last generation has seen the open-source movement and benefited from many open-source projects. They have seen that open almost always beats closed, and therefore default to open APIs and open approaches to partnering. This open philosophy is a mindset shift for incumbent companies that often take several attempts to become truly open. For new companies, reducing Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC) is paramount, so connecting solutions to existing platforms or applications with large user bases and channels is very attractive. With this approach, many new companies entering the market can minimize marketing and sales costs by cleverly attaching to the marketing machines of more established vendors, as well as inexpensively gain access to an existing customer base. For peer companies, it’s very inexpensive to cross-market, where both companies win. Many of the current SaaS founders are experienced entrepreneurs who seek a balanced lifestyle and a career with purpose — and seek experiences and contact with like-minded people. Social media and the internet mean that these people are in contact everyday; there is a sense of fellowship that underpins the industry. Frequent industry events allow face-to-face contact to build relations kept alive with Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. While political uncertainty rears its head around the world with Brexit and the upcoming U.S. election (just two of the many examples), software is quickly becoming the one thing that connects the world. It largely operates without borders, connecting cultures, countries and people on one platform.
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Naval Ravikant on China money into Silicon Valley: This trickle could become a tsunami
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Connie Loizos
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, the online platform that matches startups with early-stage investors, has grown by leaps and bounds since its 2010 founding — and so have its ambitions. In fact, the company, which already bills itself as both the biggest seed-stage firm in the world, and the world’s largest hiring platform for startups, also aims to become the biggest venture fund in the world. Earlier this week, we sat down with cofounder Naval Ravikant at the firm’s swanky new, three-story digs in San Francisco’s Jackson Square, and as workmen shifted planks around the nearly completed ground-floor level, Ravikant caught us up to speed on a many aspects of what’s happening at AngelList. We’ll have more on his overarching vision tomorrow. Today, we’re publishing a part of our conversation that centered one of the biggest drivers of AngelList’s current growth: the that CSC Group — one of the biggest private equity funds in China — committed to invest through AngelList roughly 10 months ago. (The WSJ as the “largest single pool of funds devoted to early-stage startups—ever.”) Ravikant shared how that relationship is evolving, and why he thinks CSC’s money is just the tip of the iceberg for both AngelList and Silicon Valley more broadly. Our chat has been edited for length and clarity. NR: It’s a fund called CSC Upshot that’s managed by CSC’s Veronica Wu, who used to be a VP at Tesla Motors in Beijing; Ming Yeh, who’d spent the previous six years or so as a managing director at [Silicon Valley Bank] in Shanghai; and Tom Cole, a former partner at Trinity Ventures. NR: They’re on track to invest between $25 million and $40 million this year, with an average check size of $100,000. NR: We’ve built a dashboard for fund management, and all these managers [have signed nondisclosure agreements] so they get to see literally hundreds and hundreds of deals on AngelList. And they chat with each other and [with the lead investor’s approval], if enough people vote yes, the deal gets done. NR: In some cases, these are three-day deals, deals that are expiring. In other cases, these are deals that are coming up and have a longer timetable. NR: I don’t think it’s a cultural thing. I think it’s a late-stage investor thing. The Wall Street hedge funds that have been investing in [unicorn companies] get the same knock. They try to put in non-standard terms at the last minute. That’s just how they’re used to doing business. When you invest at a later stage, it’s all about the deal. “Let’s squeeze every dollar out of the deal.” That’s how they get paid. When you’re doing early-stage investing, it’s about who the right entrepreneur is who can get product-market-fit, because if they do, it’s a 10,000x return; if they don’t, that investment can go to zero. NR: They’re far easier to deal with than the U.S. investors I’ve dealt with. If you go to a U.S. investor and say, “I’m going to get you access to the top seed-stage deals in Silicon Valley,” to them it’s like, “Yeah, but I could set up my own team,” or, “I know such-and-such investor in the Valley already.” In China, if you say, “Hey, you can put matching dollars behind people betting their own money,” they lean forward. In China, they’re more willing to try new things and take risks because they haven’t been sitting here [in the U.S.] the entire time. Also, much more of the money there is managed by principals, rather than agents. In the U.S. there are now trusts and foundations and pension plans. You have too much of people managing other peoples’ money. And when people manage other peoples’ money, they don’t like to take risks. In China, it’s, “I’m an entrepreneur. I took my company public. This looks innovative. Let’s try it.” NR: In China, you can find multibillion funds that essentially behave like family offices. They also just have a lot more capital to deploy, including because it’s not already committed to existing funds, and because capital controls are just starting to be relaxed in the last few years, enabling people to get some of [their money out of the country]. In the U.S., after World War II, the U.S. created the largest middle class in the world, with 150 million people. And 150 million people generate lots of savings; it drove the global economy for 30 to 40 years. The Japanese did the same in the ’80s, when their middle class came online. That was 100 million people, and their savings got deployed across the world. Now we’re seeing the Asian tiger countries come up and do the same. With China, you’re getting a middle class of 600 million people. It’s the largest middle class the world has ever seen. Their savings are absurd; they don’t where to put it. NR: China could clamp down and close everything up, but I think it’s extremely unlikely at this point, because China has crossed the chasm. There are more winners than losers in China in this economic age. The other thing they could do is open the floodgates. It could easily go 10x from here — this trickle could become a tsunami of capital — and I think it will. And where is it going to go? Today, government bonds are paying negative interest rates. Stock markets and real estate are pretty heavily valued on an historical basis. And all the innovation is coming out of tech. So I think people are realizing they have to go to where tech is. China is creating its own tech; Shanghai and Beijing are powerhouses. What happened with is just the beginning. But Silicon Valley is going to be heavily Chinese money, too.
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Chrystine L. Villarreal
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2017 Audi A4 driver assistance review
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Kristen Hall-Geisler
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The has an all-new suite of advanced driver assistance systems, joining Volvo, Honda, Ford and others in making semi-autonomous safety features available in cars we can buy today. Activating the adaptive cruise control and lane-keeping systems isn’t intuitive; there’s a second stalk under the turn signal stalk where the driver can control these features. But once they’re on, all the most important information is displayed in the full-color heads-up display. Most HUDs show the speed, but the A4 also shows the speed limit (and if it’s a school zone), the lane-keeping assist guidelines and the adaptive cruise control (ACC) and traffic jam assist activity — and even a little shoe to warn you when your foot is too heavy on the gas pedal. The ACC works best if you can set it to the speed limit and then let the sensors take care of acceleration and deceleration, all the way to 0 mph. In traffic, the display shows several little green car figures, and the ACC can be restarted by pressing on the accelerator for a second. A little lever on the ACC stalk lets you adjust your following distance. The A4’s lane-keeping assist works as well as any other I’ve tried, which means it’s mostly okay. It can wander a bit in the lane, which always makes me wonder if people think I’m tipsy or just a terrible driver. It seems that the A4 can quickly recognize when it’s not doing a very good job, and will chime and give a text warning that the driver needs to take control of the steering. Watch the video above to learn more. [gallery ids="1375031,1375007,1375003,1375004,1375005,1375002,1375001,1375032"]
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Exploits patched by Apple today hint at years of surreptitious government hacks
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Devin Coldewey
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You’ll want to be updating your iOS devices to 9.3.5, the version released today by Apple — especially if you’re a prominent human rights activist. A recently thwarted attack on just such a person employed not one but zero-day exploits addressed by the patch. The subsequent investigation suggests these were the work of a shadowy cybersecurity company whose software may have been used for years by governments looking to compromise political targets. Ahmed Mansoor (pictured above), based in the UAE, received some suspicious text messages two weeks ago promising information on detainees being tortured — but Mansoor, who has been targeted multiple times in the past by high-profile “lawful intercept” tools, decided instead to send the text to Canadian security research organization Citizen Lab. The texts sent to Mansoor. Assisted by , Citizen Lab went down the rabbit hole, . The text messages were a trap, of course, but one of unprecedented complexity. That single link would have leveraged three separate and highly serious exploits in iOS — executing arbitrary code through WebKit, gaining access to the kernel, and then executing code within the kernel. It’s rare enough to find a zero-day in the wild, let alone three at once. The result would have been a one-step jailbreak with malicious code injected under the hood — granting complete access to all the phone’s data and communications. This triple threat of exploits building on one another gained the appropriate moniker “Trident.” Taken from Hacking Team’s leaked emails, an illustration showing the reach Pegasus would have once installed. These exploits were immediately sent to Apple, which ten days later — today — issued a patch fixing them. Apple declined to comment beyond the following statement: “We were made aware of this vulnerability and immediately fixed it with iOS 9.3.5. We advise all of our customers to always download the latest version of iOS to protect themselves against potential security exploits.” Worth noting is the fact that there were references in the code to iOS versions going as far back as 7 — so either the exploits have been around that long or they’re simply effective that broadly. After breaching with Trident, the malware that would have lingered on the device was immediately recognized by the researchers as Pegasus, a piece of commercial spyware software sold by Israel-based cybersecurity company NSO Group. This was the first time it had been caught in the wild. (Perhaps the team working on it should have been called Bellerophon.) Pegasus was one of the tools that Hacking Team apparently used — and later, inadvertently publicized when its emails were leaked. NSO also showed up when, retrospectively, Citizen Lab’s investigation found traces of the company’s work in a separate threat being tracked in the UAE known as Stealth Falcon. Lastly, the NSO signature was also on malware that had targeted Mexican journalist Rafael Cabrera; he had been working on a story that potentially discredited the country’s president. NSO is reportedly owned or at least invested in by San Francisco equity firm Francisco Partners, which did not respond to requests for more information. Pegasus and NSO, then, have been lurking in the wings for quite a long time, and while the evidence is certainly circumstantial, it suggests that the company has long been providing governments with highly sophisticated intrusion software. And, predictably, this software has not been deployed only (or perhaps at all) against the likes of terrorists and spies, but against citizens acting against the government’s interests. Citizen Labs sums it up well in their conclusion: Citizen Lab and others have repeatedly demonstrated that advanced “lawful intercept” spyware enables some governments and agencies, especially those operating without strong oversight, to target and harass journalists, activists and human rights workers. If spyware companies are unwilling to recognize the role that their products play in undermining human rights, or address these urgent concerns, they will continue to strengthen the case for further intervention by governments and other stakeholders. Be careful out there, and keep your phone updated. The global internet is a dangerous place.
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AAA study sheds light on AEB systems
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Kristen Hall-Geisler
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Automatic emergency braking systems, or AEB, will be installed in 99% of all new passenger vehicles . Toyota has promised to have it on all of its vehicles , and many vehicles already have the sensors and technology in place. But that doesn’t mean every system on every vehicle works exactly the same way. That’s why AAA put five 2016 vehicles to the AEB test in 70 trials. (No vehicles were harmed in the tests; they crashed—or didn’t—into a blow-up Prius-looking “soft car.”) The study found that AEB systems are designed to work differently, though that may not be apparent to consumers. Some systems are designed to bring the car to a complete stop when a possible collision is detected. Other systems are designed to slow the car down, leaving the final actions to avoid the collision up to the human driver. Not surprisingly, systems that can stop the car completely reduced vehicle speeds by 79%, while those meant to slow the car down reduced speed by 40%. But testers were surprised to find that in collision tests under 30 mph, even those systems meant to just lessen the crash rather than avoiding it did indeed avoid the crash altogether a third of the time. When going a bit faster, up to 45 mph, the systems that are meant to prevent crashes reduced speed by 74% but only avoided the collision in 40% of tests. And systems that merely scrub speed could only scrub about 9% at these higher speeds. AAA admitted in its press release that the test cars were “pushed beyond stated system limitations and proposed federal requirements,” but 45 mph seems to be a common speed for arterial neighborhood streets. Whether the system slows the car all the way to a stop or just helps out by reducing speed, AEB is intended to prevent rear-end crashes, which account for 2,000 deaths and more than half a million injuries annually, according to the NHTSA. At 30 mph, the benchmark speed the systems were designed to meet, “a speed reduction of just 10 mph can reduce the energy of the impact by more than 50%,” said Megan McKernan, of the Automobile Club of Southern California’s Automotive Research Center, which partnered with AAA for the tests. AEB technology is available on more than half of new cars being sold already, and 9% of US drivers already have AEB in their vehicles, according to a AAA survey, even though the median package price that includes the technology is $2,775. And as with nearly all driver assist technology, people who’ve experienced AEB in action are more likely to trust it than those who haven’t (71% versus 41%).
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Grabr, the international shopping and delivery platform, picks up $3.5 million
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Jordan Crook
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, the peer-to-peer marketplace that lets anyone become an international shopper, has today announced the close of a $3.5 million seed round led by Alexey Repik from RBV Capital. Konstantin Nikolaev of N-Trans Group also participated in the round, along with various angel investors. Grabr works like this: Shoppers who are having trouble finding a certain item (or affording to ship a certain item) can place their orders on Grabr’s marketplace. People traveling to a region where that item is sold can place bids on the order, and the person who placed the order chooses their preferred price/Traveler. From there, the shopper heads off on their trip and picks up the item, whether it be sand from a particular beach as an anniversary gift or a rare Parisian handbag that isn’t sold in the States. They bring the item back, hand it off to the person who placed the order in a pre-selected location, and get paid out by the service. Grabr says it has connected over 50,000 users, though hasn’t shared how many transactions have occurred on the marketplace. The company plans on investing its new funding cash in expansion. You can check out Grabr for yourself .
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Navisens raises $2.6 million to power its crazy accurate inertial smartphone/AR tracking
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Lucas Matney
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Whether you’re clumsily attempting to find where your Uber is parked or trying to find your friend at a crowded venue, it’s clear that GPS has some major limitations that need to be fixed. wants to gather reliable mapping data from users’ smartphones without even touching GPS, instead relying on sensors like the gyroscope and accelerometer to track the phone’s positioning in space. Today, the company is launching its main patent-pending product called motionDNA, which uses internal sensors in AR headsets and smartphones to track a user’s location in tight urban areas. “GPS wasn’t created for use in urban environments, no matter how much it’s assisted by cell towers and WiFi access points or Bluetooth beacons,” said Dr. Ashod Donikian, Navisens’ founder and CEO. “But every smartphone comes with motion sensors, which our software reads in a unique way so that it can tell where your phone is located indoors, outdoors, and underground, along with the direction it’s facing and whether the device is stationary or in-use.” Navisens vs Google Maps at the Venetian in Las Vegas (multiple locations in one image) In conjunction with the launch of motionDNA, the San Francisco-based company has just closed a $2.6 million round of seed funding Getting readings from the IMU (inertial-measurement unit) can allow you to get more accurate data in tighter urban areas or locations where GPS access is a bit spotty. Once your point on a map is initially established, either manually or by some sort of beacon, the IMUs can not only determine, say, what side of an apartment building you’re in, but it can also find the specific floor and unit. Navisens, which was founded in 2013, is largely focusing its technology towards enterprise customers that are interested in tracking employees or customers. For instance, you may install an app for a department store running the motionDNA platform, and depending on the permissions you give the app it can accurately determine which display you’re walking by in a specific department on a specific floor. That allows the app to see where you’re spending most your time and directing your attention. The IMU can also determine the frequency of your movement so it can tell when you’ve stopped or are cruising around. This data can be insanely useful to enterprise customers looking for available insights on the physical presences of the unique parties that are critical to their operation. Navisens vs Google Maps This is a huge development for these types of customers who have previously had to rely on installing infrastructure hardware like bluetooth beacons or wifi access points to get some of this data. Now, it can be as simple as having an app on a smartphone. This type of technology is quickly becoming critical to augmented reality applications where orientation and position are insanely important since the headset is fixed on your face and mapped visual interfaces depend heavily on real-world surroundings. MotionDNA certainly isn’t the first product to attempt to interpret IMU data for mapping purposes, but Donikian believes that his company’s calculations and algorithms give it an advantage in promoting greater reliability in the data gathered from some of the low-quality sensors it has to work with. Drift can be a huge problem for this type of technology, if the device goes too long without a reading from the IMUs, other solutions using what Donikian calls “traditional” inertial algorithms can lose track of its positioning and turn the data useless rather quickly. “The sensors using the traditional techniques will drift like crazy,” Donikian told me. “We have this machine learning hybrid type of approach that gives us this huge advantage in what we do.” There are undoubtedly still some limitations to relying on IMUs for tracking, but as the tech world shifts more attention to augmented reality and aligning real world and digital experiences, the need to fine-tune location awareness past GPS is going to be increasingly critical.
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Garmin releases its first luxury smartwatch, the Fenix Chronos
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John Biggs
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announced the , an amazingly elegant smartwatch with all the features of their standard GPS exercise watches – the – with a case and aesthetic that would be at home in a fine watch shop. That’s right: this is the first fancy smartwatch that you could wear in the boardroom, bedroom, and gym. Oh, and it costs $1,499.99 for the beautiful titanium model – considerably more than your average smartwatch – but, I would argue, Garmin has put a lot of thought into this piece. I haven’t yet tried this beast out fully yet but on first blush it’s very impressive. For the outdoor buff you’ve got an altimeter, barometer, and compass as well as a system that can get you back to your starting point if you’re lost. You can connect it to your phone, as well, and get weather data and notifications. Finally it also supports multiple sports but for runners you have:
This, along with heart rate and VO2 readings, make it a worthy replacement for your boring health watch. I’ve long been against the “expensive” smartwatch. However what Garmin has done is pretty special. They know how to build an amazing sports watch, that much is clear, and they stuck that sport watch into a case that is light, attractive, and usable. While the luxury makers futz around with Android Wear, Garmin has basically thrown down the gauntlet and said “We can’t beat the low end smart watch but we can do exactly what we do best – health – and win.” I’m actually excited for the company for the first time in a long time and I can’t wait to wear this on my next James Bondian SCUBA dinner party triathlon. [youtube=https://youtu.be/coChRWDarGI] [gallery ids="1374763,1374772,1374770,1374769,1374768,1374767,1374765,1374764"]
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Mark Zuckerberg Is Building A Real-Life Version Of Iron Man’s Digital Assistant ‘Jarvis’
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Jon Russell
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Mark Zuckerberg is known for setting himself tough challenges — whether that’s , , or ( ) trying to solve global Internet access — but this year the Facebook founder just took things to another level. His personal project for 2016 is to bring Jarvis, Iron Man’s trusty digital assistant, to life. That isn’t exactly true. Zuck wants to build his own AI (artificial intelligence) bot to help him run his life more efficiently — but he references Jarvis, probably the best example, to explain his lofty ambition. : My personal challenge for 2016 is to build a simple AI to run my home and help me with my work. You can think of it kind of like Jarvis in Iron Man. I’m going to start by exploring what technology is already out there. Then I’ll start teaching it to understand my voice to control everything in our home — music, lights, temperature and so on. I’ll teach it to let friends in by looking at their faces when they ring the doorbell. I’ll teach it to let me know if anything is going on in Max’s room that I need to check on when I’m not with her. On the work side, it’ll help me visualize data in VR to help me build better services and lead my organizations more effectively. This is hardly a small side project, by any means. It’ll be interesting to see how much time and what resources that Zuckerberg dedicates to this project, and how it turns out. Maybe he can develop Iron Man’s suit in 2017? So, what is your personal project for 2016? Lol.
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Samsung Goes After Sonos With A New Wireless Soundbar System
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John Biggs
| 2,016
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| 3
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Wireless whole-home audio is a tough nut to crack. Only a few folks – primarily – have cracked it but Samsung is hot on the whole-home kick with the HW-K950, a Dolby Atmos-enabled soundbar that includes three forward-facing and two upward speakers. The HW-K950 can connect to subwoofers and rear speaker units wirelessly which means you don’t have to drag speaker cable all over your living room. The new speakers connect to Samsung’s Wireless Audio 360 system which allows you to control the entire system from your tablet or PC and even tweak settings from your Samsung Gear S2 and Gear S smartwatches. is a proprietary sound technology that is supposed to improve audio. Sadly not many services stream Atmos-compatible audio and there are only a few movies with Atmos support. The technology is more prevalent in movie theaters right now but rest assured that Dolby will probably try to shoehorn it into our homes this year. No pricing yet but it’s fun to see Samsung trying to keep up with big bad Sonos.
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Ford Is Adding Support For Apple CarPlay And Android Auto To Its Vehicles
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Jon Russell
| 2,016
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At last, at last, at last. Ford is finally adopting Apple’s CarPlay and Android Auto for its in-car infotainment system, so the carmaker announced ahead of CES 2016 in Las Vegas this week. , the third iteration of the company’s connected car technology, last year, and that system will soon include support for both Google and Apple’s in-car platforms. Ford revealed that all model year 2017 vehicles equipped will Sync 3 will gain the support, while its 2016 Sync 3 vehicles will get an upgrade option later this year. That means iPhone owners can access Siri, Apple Maps and more, while those with Android Auto compatible devices get the Google services suite. The move has long been anticipated. Ford expressed an interest in working with Apple back when , and this announcement is sure to boost its appeal given that iOS and Android pretty much account for the entire North American consumer mobile market. That’s not quite all from Ford today, however. The auto giant has also added a slew of new apps to its AppLink platform — including AAA member services, Concur expense tracking and location-based service Eventseeker — and new 4G-powered Sync Connect feature that enable customers to remote start their vehicle, unlock doors, check fuel level and locate their car via their phone. Ford said it has 15 million vehicles with its Sync technology (that includes earlier versions, too) on the road. We expect to see and hear a lot more auto-related news from CES — you can follow all of our coverage from the event . And, one final plug, check out for more details of what the company is up to in the connected car space.
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