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Netflix’s ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ is among the most nominated Oscar films

Lauren Forristal

Netflix received 15 Oscar nominations this year, putting the streaming service ahead of most other media companies. Warner Bros. was close behind with 13 nominations, and Disney+ earned 12. Combined with Disney-owned Searchlight, which had 10 nominations, Disney received . Netflix’s German war movie “All Quiet on the Western Front” was nominated nine times, making it one of the most nominated Oscar films, behind “Everything Everywhere All at Once” with 11 noms and next to Searchlight Pictures’ “The Banshees of Inisherin” with eight nominations. Warner Bros.’ “Elvis” also received eight nominations. Other nominated Netflix titles included “Blonde,” Guillermo del Toro’s “Pinocchio” and “The Sea Beast,” as well as two documentary short films “The Elephant Whisperers” and “The Martha Mitchell Effect.” Last year, the streamer secured 26 nominations. Aside from Warner Bros.’ “Elvis,” the company also pulled three nominations for “The Batman.” Documentary short films “All That Breathes” and “Navalny” were also nominated. The majority of Disney+’s nominations were thanks to “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” with five nods and “Avatar: The Way of Water” with four. Paramount Global and Universal Pictures earned nine and eight Oscar noms, respectively. Paramount, the owner of the streaming service Paramount+, received six nominations for its “Top Gun” sequel. Meanwhile, Universal, which owns Peacock, got seven noms for Steven Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans.” While became the first streaming service to win the Best Picture Oscar, the streaming service only earned two noms this year. Brian Tyree Henry in “Causeway” was nominated for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse” was nominated for Best Animated Short Film. Amazon Studios earned one nomination for its international film, “Argentina, 1985.” Also, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. (MGM), which was in 2022, earned a nomination for its drama film, “Women Talking.” The 2023 Academy Awards will be broadcast on ABC on Sunday, March 12.

The latecomer advantage in startups

Natasha Mascarenhas

Sometimes, due to the nature of the startup game, we over index on “the new.” Companies want to build for the pain point you never dreamed to disrupt; VCs want to invest in an emerging trend before it becomes a household name; and those breaking into tech are told to lean into their earnestness, because you never know who is going to answer your cold email. In order for entrepreneurship to feel exciting and welcoming — not even be, but feel — new needs to be one of its loudest characteristics. After all, you only get to be “it” once. But one question I’ve found myself asking over the past year, especially as some of the more tenured folks speak about past downturns and cyclical learning lessons, is the latecomer advantage. It’s partially obvious: When you’ve done this whole entrepreneurship thing before, you understand what mistakes to avoid and seamlessly know which investors to dodge. But it’s also partially not as easy of a story. There’s a difference between being new and being inexperienced, the same way there’s a difference between experienced and being late. How do you know where you are on that entire timeline — especially when the stories feel better to tell at the extremes? This week on Equity, , who is building a Twitter rival after working at Twitter as a human rights adviser. Quite quickly, I asked her how building a copycat of your former employer makes you feel. She seemed unbothered, to which I promptly said: But the better answer that Oh gave me was around the latecomer advantage that she has, building a company in a world that she knows extremely well. By joining the consumer social wave today versus before anyone even thought in characters and retweets, the co-founder thinks they get to factor in more of the nuance. “There’s a lot that we know about gaps in trust and safety in the industry, whether it’s datasets that we need, or models that need to be built, or certain standards that need to exist for models, right, there’s a whole laundry list of things that I wish I had in my previous roles that just didn’t exist, we’re now at a place where we can have those conversations,” Oh said. She added that when some of the first social media platforms were being created, there weren’t “historical case studies or precedent” for a lot of the controversies that now exist. With some of the ugly out of the way — my words, not hers — T2 has examples it can refer back to on how to handle tensions around virality, doxxing and more. It just made me think about that larger comprehension coupled with the nimbleness of a startup. Maybe, it’s being both old and new that might be the striking balance that helps a startup start up. In this case, we have no idea how the old or the new attempts at Twitter are going to do, but we do know that this time has never mattered more. In the rest of this newsletter, we’ll talk about chief inspiration officers, growing startup accelerators and a rare buzz we’re hearing about one tech company and its public market wishes. As always, you can follow me on or . the crew spoke about how venture capitalists are going to pay more attention to how portfolio founders are spending capital — especially around hiring trends. — use code EQUITY for 50% off an annual membership — gets into why the hiring slide in the pitch deck is no longer going to be a throwaway part of the presentation. Expect more scrutiny. We know that companies are dropping staff to cut costs, but those that are hiring may have to take a more conservative approach in both types of roles and level of pay. All to say, there’s definitely an opportunity to find talent if you are hiring. But, it won’t be easy for laid-off talent to find their next gigs, especially as employers look to hire cheaper talent with less ambitious staffing goals. / Getty Images NextView Ventures has launched its fourth accelerator program, aiming to back around half a dozen founders with $400,000 in funding and mentorship opportunities. It’s also offering at least one spot to a team built by ex-colleagues who have been laid off over the past downturn. The accelerator partners are open to backing founders even if they have a half-baked idea or only an area that they want to dig into. Even in a more disciplined market, there are some firms that are still comfortable seeding ideas versus fully fledged business ideas. “It’s almost half a step earlier than we’ve typically thought of” portfolio companies, Rob Go, founding partner, NextView Ventures, said, of the cohorts. / Getty Images The payments giant has set a 12-month deadline for itself to go public, either through a direct listing or pursuing a transaction on the private market, such as a fundraising event and a tender offer, according to sources familiar with the matter. I mean, must I state the obvious? The public markets for tech companies have been stale, unwelcoming, insert boring adjective here. If Stripe does kick off a trend, we’re in for an exciting next year. But some are dubious on the timeline. After all, it’s literally easier said than done. / Getty Images I’ll end with the evergreen reminder that I absolutely love going to startup happy hours and VC dinners in San Francisco, so ! And if you’re still working on your social engine like me, I’m also always game to do a 1:1 coffee chat or dumpling lunch. To the rest of you, thanks for reading as always. 2023 is already soaring on by, isn’t it? Talk soon,

Atomos tows a $16M load of funding to create tugboats in space

Haje Jan Kamps

You may not have known that space needs tugboats, but now you do — and Atomos Space just closed a $16.2 million Series A investment, which will enable the company to complete its demonstration mission where it will show off its docking and towing capabilities. The company is building a series of Orbital Transfer Vehicles (OTV) that makes it possible to reposition satellites in space. The theory is that, by making it possible to move flying objects into different orbits, they don’t have to have full navigation capabilities themselves, which in turn should make operating spacecraft much cheaper. The company claims its existence effectively halves the launch costs of satellite operators. The company is starting with high-powered electric propulsion systems, and is eager to share that it sees those propulsion methods as stepping stones for its nuclear OTV options, which would be able to travel faster and farther, and offering commercial mobility services. The company is also positioning itself to be able to use these technologies for asteroid deflection, effectively putting out of a job. “I worked on launch vehicle design, and then spacecraft propulsion system design and also some advanced technologies for moving around in space, and realized very quickly that how we do space logistics is sub-optimal. The best analogy that we use is with aircraft. Imagine you have a single-use plane, you are the sole passenger, and you have to take everything with you, unable to do shopping on the way. So if you want to drive around at your end destination, you need to take the car and you need to take gas with you,” explains Vanessa Clark, CEO and co-founder of Atomos Space. “Ultimately, it’s very expensive and limited. What we really need is a hub and spoke logistics model for space. This allows us to do really cool things, commercial missions like Earth observation, global communications, broadband internet, but it also allows us to take the next step as a species and do more things in deep space that makes sense economically and from a scientific perspective.” This is the company’s third round of VC funding, and so far it has built and tested on the ground, including its docking and propulsion systems. The next big step is to fly the first vehicle. “T The first use cases of the technology is to take launched satellites to their final destinations and to reposition satellites mid-mission. When vehicles have reached their end of service, they can be moved to graveyard orbits, or disposal orbits so that they can burn up in the atmosphere. “Our goal as a company is to make any orbit as accessible as low Earth orbit (LEO). On Earth, if you want to send something overseas, it is as easy as sending a package to the next town over. You just go to the post office. We want that to be possible for space,” explains Clark. “We want to be operating a fleet of orbital transit vehicles in Earth orbit that can provide the vast missions for a set of clients, spacecraft operators, Space Station operators and also companies and agencies that want to explore beyond the atmosphere.” The company is particularly excited about nuclear propulsion in space, and are investing heavily on that front, telling us it offers an order of magnitude improvement in speed and payload capabilities. With the current round of funding, the company says it will double the size of the team and launch its first two OTVs in early 2024. The investment was led by Cantos Ventures and the Yamauchi No. 10 Family Office (that’s the family that founded Nintendo), with participation from Upheaval Investments, Dolby Family Ventures, Arden Road Investments, Elefund and Techstars.

Nvidia’s robot simulator adds human co-workers

Brian Heater

Simulators have been a godsend when it comes to testing robots. Real-world testing is lengthy, expensive and potentially dangerous, so anything you can do to work out as many kinks as possible ahead of time is a big win. has thus far proven a success for Nvidia, as the chipmaker has looked to aggressively enter the world of robotics and automation, while roboticists search for a way to run simulations of real-life working conditions. Today at CES, the company announced some key improvements to the system. Accessible via the cloud for robotics developers everywhere, the system is adding a very important piece of the puzzle: humans. Well, virtual humans. After all, for all the talk about robots replacing human jobs, the two are going to be working side by side for the foreseeable future. “To minimize the difference between results observed in a simulated world versus those seen in the real world,” Nvidia notes, “it’s imperative to have physically accurate sensor models.” NVIDIA People shouldn’t be considered obstacles, exactly, but it’s important to hew to as close to that first Asimov law as possible. Humans in the sim are tasked with the same sort of roles you’d find human workers filling — stuff like pushing carts and stacking packages. Robots need to do their job without colliding with their much-softer co-workers. The system is also adding the ability to render real-time sensor data, built atop Nvidia’s RTX tech. That includes lidar simulation with ray tracing to better simulate different lighting conditions and the impact of reflective materials. Different existing robots and warehouse parts can also be added in, to properly re-create the setting for fulfillment systems. Isaac Sim supports ROS 2 Humble and Windows, as well as existing Isaac ROS software. The new platform features are available to use starting today.

The Aeo robot is designed to patrol and disinfect hospitals

Brian Heater

Who doesn’t like a good success story? For Aeolus Robotics, it was the 2018 show where things really clicked in. Exhibiting at the event garnered interest from folks looking for a solution to help out around hospitals, nursing homes and school. The company was more than happy to help. Japan in particular was taken with the product — eldercare robots, after all, have been a booming industry in the country for some time, due to its aging population. Aeo has autonomous navigation, using a slew of cameras and IR sensors on its base. It can move around a space and use its maneuverable right arm to open doors and ride elevators, while disinfecting surfaces using the UV light on its left ( a big hit during the pandemic). It can be used for patrolling, security and delivering food. The robot can also be operated remotely when necessary, though the firm says few instances call for that level of control. Aeolus says the robot is largely made of proprietary components, including the arm. While common wisdom says that building your own robot arm is a bit of a fool’s errand in this day and age, there were certain tasks that required starting from scratch. The robot is currently available through a RaaS (robotics as a service) subscription model. Presently, Japan is the only market where the robot is in real use, though the firm is actively seeking more customers in more markets. Perhaps CES 2022 will do the trick.

Ottonomy’s new delivery robot gets an automatic package dispenser

Brian Heater

The robots are slowly but surely conquering . During today’s press preview, debuted a new model being added to the New York firm’s army of delivery robots. Yeti stands out from other Ottobot models primarily thanks to the addition of a clever auto dispense mechanism designed to eliminate the need for a person to be present to receive the package. The startup calls the product “the first fully autonomous unattended delivery robot on the market.” Once it reaches its destination, the last-mile-delivery bot can drop its contents onto a doorstep or transfer them into a compatible locker for safe keeping until the human arrives to pick them up. Another interesting angle here is the potential for product returns — specifically, a customer could put the robot to use to get unwanted product back to the original seller. Yeti follows the late 2022 addition of another robot, Ottobot 2.0, which brings some interesting customization options to the table, including the ability to swap out different modular bins for different sorts of deliveries. Ottonomy The firm has a number of concurrent programs in cities across the world, including Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Oslo and Madrid. It’s also working to expand to additional markets in the U.S., Canada, Europe and Asia. Here in the States, it’s partnered with Verizon. “During the validation processes we ran pilots with airports, retailers and postal services which gave us the deep insights we needed on the most effective use cases and scalability,” says co-founder and CEO Ritukar Vijay. “With our strategic alignment with Verizon and other enterprises, we are in the prime position to fill the gap that companies like Amazon and Fedex were not able to. As demand and the use cases for autonomous unassisted delivery continue to grow, we are positioned to provide robots as a service for restaurants, retailers and beyond.” Ottonomy announced a $3.3 million seed raise last August.

Watch Rocket Lab launch Electron from US soil for the first time

Aria Alamalhodaei

After multiple delays due to inclement weather and high winds, Rocket Lab is poised to launch its first mission from Virginia today, with a two-hour launch window opening at 6 p.m. EST. The mission is called “Virginia is for Launch Lovers,” and the name is appropriate in more ways than one. Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket will carry a trio of spacecraft to low Earth orbit for HawkEye 360, a Virginia-based company that collects and analyzes radio frequency analytics using its own satellite constellation. The launch is part of a three-mission contract HawkEye signed with Rocket Lab last April. It’s launch day — Rocket Lab (@RocketLab) The rocket, which will take off from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, is also a first for the space agency: Electron is equipped with novel flight safety software that NASA directors say could be a game-changer for launch. The software is called the NASA Autonomous Flight Termination Unit (NAFTU), a key component of Rocket Lab’s Pegasus software, which was jointly developed by the rocket company and the space agency. “This flight just doesn’t symbolize another launch pad for Rocket Lab,” CEO Peter Beck told reporters in a media briefing in December. “It’s a standing up of a new capability for the nation.” Rocket Lab has invested a significant amount of capital into its Virginia facilities. Beyond LC-2, as the launch complex is called, the company has also made Wallops the home of its Neutron rocket development. That includes . Rocket Lab stands out amongst launch companies, including SpaceX, Relativity Space and Blue Origin, for choosing Virginia over NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and the U.S. Space Force’s Cape Canaveral in Florida. Beck cited “the quietness of the range” and the ability to increase launch cadence as the main draws over the Florida sites. “KSC is an amazing range but I think everybody has to agree, it’s pretty busy,” he said. “The [Wallops] range is not nearly as busy and there’s a lot of room to grow.” Once Rocket Lab has its livestream going, we’ll post it to the top of the page. (  You can also follow all the action over on the company’s .

Labrador taps the Echo Show to expand functionality for its eldercare robot

Brian Heater

I first met with the team at Labrador Systems in a hotel suite several CESes ago. What immediately stood out about the firm is its focus on the long-standing promise of eldercare robotics. Various systems have existed in Japan for decades now, aimed at that nation’s aging population. But for the most part, it’s a category that’s been lacking here in the States — especially in terms of actually bringing products to market. Toward the end of last year, the California-based startup announced that it was beginning to deliver its It also announced new backing from the Alexa Fund. Included in that news was the promise of compatibility with Amazon’s voice assistant. While it’s certainly true that voice computing doesn’t make sense for every scenario, it really does here. Labrador is showing off the feature at . The demo utilizes an Echo Show 10. The smart screen is mounted on top of the robot — serving as a tablet similar to the kind found on teleconferencing systems. The Echo’s built-in swivel means it can turn to face the user. To, for example, get a beverage, you would say, “Alexa, ask Lab 1 to get me a drink.” It’s all still an early proof of concept, but Labrador plans to start piloting the setup with its customer base soon. “The proof-of-concept demo with the Echo Show 10 is a preview of what we will be testing in our next rounds of pilots with care providers,” says CEO Mike Dooley. “Capabilities like this can make a dramatic difference in the quality of people’s lives and their ability to live independently while staying connected with others, and we’re grateful to Amazon’s team for their support on this project.” The setup makes sense for Labrador. It’s a relatively inexpensive way to add functionality to its systems using off-the-shelf consumer hardware. For Amazon, it aligns nicely with the company’s consumer robotics play, which puts Alexa at the heart of its various consumer robotics offerings, from Astro to (potentially) Roomba.

Netflix refreshes its iPhone app with a more fluid design

Lauren Forristal

It’s not just quality content that makes a streaming service stand out amongst its competitors. Improving the user experience is still an integral part of the fight to reduce churn. On Monday, Netflix rolled out updates to its iPhone app that introduced a revamped interface featuring a new billboard layout, new card transitions, new animation for both the launch and profile screens, updated haptics and more. “We recently updated the Netflix iOS app with better visuals, more responsive interactions and motion design. This latest global update includes features like a new style for promoting what to watch, thematic background on your favorite shows and movies, new profile animations and more,” a Netflix spokesperson told TechCrunch. Former Netflix product designer Janum Trivedi about the update alongside a video that shows the new version of the app. Trivedi wanted the app to “feel more fluid, delightful, and polished,” he wrote. This last year, I’ve been leading a UI refresh to make Netflix feel more fluid, delightful, and polished. Today, all that work shipped! Huge thanks to and for helping bring this to life ❤️ Details below, but try it out yourself! — Janum Trivedi (@jmtrivedi) When iPhone users open the Netflix app, they’ll see a large card of a movie or TV series taking up most of the screen. This billboard layout is done to promote a suggested title that’s available on the streaming service. What’s interesting about the update is that the card now uses the parallax effect, which is when the wallpaper moves or shifts slightly when a iPhone user tilts the device back and forth. Also, the title cards are now surrounded by a colored border, which is the main color in the movie/TV artwork. It also appears that the “Info” tab at the bottom of the card has been removed. Instead, users can simply click on the card, which will bring them to a separate page with information about the show or film. Previously, the card transition was less fluid on the app. When a title was selected, the info section would simply slide up. The new card transition shows the card grow bigger and then the information opens into a full-screen version. Another interesting update is the profile screen animation. Rather than the classic side-sliding action that occurred when a user switched profiles in the old app, users will see the profile icon grow large as it jumps to the center, then shrink to its normal size and bounce to the top-right corner of the page. Netflix subscribers will likely enjoy the iPhone app refresh as navigation feels more fun and interactive.

With Starship testing, SpaceX moves one step closer to making science fiction a reality

Aria Alamalhodaei

SpaceX is poised to conduct a wet dress rehearsal of the Starship launch system from its Starbase site in southeastern Texas, a major milestone in CEO Elon Musk’s quest to turn long-haul interplanetary transportation from science fiction to reality. It’s the strongest signal yet that Starship’s first orbital flight test could well and truly be imminent. The wet dress is a critical series of prelaunch tests that includes propellant loading of both the upper stage and booster, and a run-through of countdown to around T-10 seconds, or just before engine ignition. If no major issues crop up during the testing, the next step would be “de-stacking,” or the separation of the Starship second stage and Super Heavy booster. That would be followed by a full static fire test, where engineers would light up all 33 of the booster’s Raptor 2 engines. The launch system would then be re-stacked before the first orbital flight test. This could all take place in a matter of weeks — March is not off the table for the orbital flight test — but that’s assuming that everything goes well and no major mishaps take place ( ). It also assumes that the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, the body that regulates commercial launches, issues SpaceX the all-important launch license fairly soon. The FAA has been basically mum about the status of its evaluation of SpaceX’s plans, though it’s been conducting extensive assessments of the Starship launch program . One can think about Starship as SpaceX’s raison d’être, the means by which the company will, , preserve “the light of consciousness” in the cosmos. Given that Starship could have the potential to put as much as 100 tons into orbit — and given that there is not yet a robust market to support and exploit such a capability — it seems clear that Starship was designed with Mars in mind. The company will likely end up spending billions of dollars to work toward this goal. It’s not just SpaceX that is betting big on Starship’s success. NASA is also counting on Starship to work, to the extent that the agency made it a central piece of its Artemis moon program. In April 2021, NASA awarded SpaceX to develop a version of Starship to land on the moon for the Artemis III mission, which will take place no earlier than 2024. The agency later expanded that contract by $1.15 billion to include for later in the decade. But before any of that can happen, Starship needs to reach orbit. And it may happen sooner rather than later.

Pee is the magic number, as Withings puts a urine analysis lab in your toilet

Haje Jan Kamps

Withings, best known for its smart scales, watches and other health-focused consumer tech, released a new gadget at CES in Las Vegas today. Making a splash in an underserved market, U-Scan aims to help customers track what’s going on in their urine, without having to worry about catching their wastewater in a cup or messing about with test strips. The device syncs to the company’s ever-expanding Health Mate app and promises to give actionable insights. The U-Scan is designed to be installed in the toilet bowl, which gives users hands-free access to urine analysis. While routine in medical settings, urine is a rarely tapped opportunity for at-home health monitoring. That may change quite a bit over the next few years if Withings has its way. The company points out that urine has more than 3,000 metabolites, giving an immediate snapshot of the body’s balance and health. “The ability of U-Scan to perform daily urine analysis from home will allow Withings to take its mission to help consumers fully utilize urine data to an entirely new level,” said Mathieu Letombe, Withings CEO at a press conference. “It’s one of the most exciting and complex products we have ever announced. We begin this journey with U-Scan Cycle Sync and Nutri Balance and look forward to announcing more cartridges on an ongoing basis as well as medical applications of the technology.” The rechargeable U-Scan reader knows the difference between flush water and urine and ensures it collects only the samples it needs. When in use, urine flows efficiently to a collection inlet, activating a pump when a thermal sensor detects the presence of urine. The sample is guided through a microfluidic circuit and injected into a test pod. Here, the reaction is read by an optical sensor and reported back to the app. Every subsequent flush of the toilet cleans the system, resetting it for the next sample collection. In Europe, the U-Scan Nutri Balance app shows an analysis of specific gravity, pH, vitamin C and ketone levels. The combination of these measurements helps people monitor their metabolic intake to optimize their daily hydration and nutrients. The “actionable” part of that is that the system can recommend workouts, offer dietary suggestions and recipes — all to help health-conscious users achieve their goals. The company points out that U.S. functionality of Nutri Balance may vary, depending on what the FDA has to say about the matter. The product will make its debut in Europe with two different health cartridges aimed at consumers. Medically focused cartridges will follow in the not-too-distant future. The price tag is €499.95 and includes one U-Scan reader and a cartridge providing three months of testing. The first two cartridges that are becoming available are Cycle Sync, which will help people who have monthly cycles track them, and a Nutri Balance cartridge, which will give a detailed metabolic guide for nutrition and hydration. The company isn’t sure when the device will be made available in the U.S. as its launch will be depending on FDA clearance. Incredibly, U-Scan can tell the difference between various users (and therefore assigning the results to the correct person using the device), through it’s amazingly named Stream ID feature. Low-energy radar sensors embedded within the reader measure multiple variables to identify an individual’s “urine stream signature” by detecting the movement and distance of the stream. Stream ID information can be affirmed in the app. In addition to the consumer-focused product, Withings Health Solutions, the company’s business-to-business division serving the healthcare provider market, is making the technology available to partners for research purposes. The company told TechCrunch it is planning to make the cartridges available on a subscription basis or on an individual basis.

Asteroid mining startup AstroForge will test its metal refinery tech in space this year

Aria Alamalhodaei

Asteroid mining startup AstroForge will head to space twice this year, as it attempts to do what no other company has been able to before: unlock the potentially limitless value of precious minerals in deep space. When TechCrunch covered , we noted that the company was planning a demonstration mission sometime this year. Today, AstroForge released more details on that mission, plus announced an additional mission later in the year that will take the company to a target asteroid for observation. AstroForge’s refinery operating in the simulated vacuum of space. AstroForge/Ed Carreon The first mission will launch in April aboard SpaceX’s Transporter-7 rideshare launch. The 6U CubeSat, which is being provided by space tech company OrbAstro, will be pre-loaded with “asteroid-like material” to demonstrate AstroForge’s refining and extraction capabilities in the zero-gravity environment. The second mission will see the company head into deep space, to gather data on the surface of an asteroid the company hopes to mine later in the decade. “We have to find some way to go get the regolith off the asteroid and process it in our refinery, and we believe we’ve solved that for our target asteroid,” CEO Matt Gialich said in an interview with TechCrunch. He said the company is working with advisors from universities, NASA and the research nonprofit Planetary Science Institute to help identify the most promising asteroids to exploit. The company also recently with the Colorado School of Mines evaluating the metal content on asteroids that could be mined and sold as commodities on Earth or used in-space. That paper noted that “textures of metal-rich asteroid surfaces remain to be investigated,” and Gialich confirmed that the second mission will be to study the surface of the target asteroid using high-resolution images. He declined to provide much more information about the asteroid, other than that it is closer to home than, say, a rock in the asteroid belt that’s between Mars and Jupiter. “The asteroid belts, they’re far away, they would take us like 14-year round trips,” he said. “It’s something that is much better suited for research and exploration. […] That’s not a viable business case for us.” Instead, the company will be hitching a ride to lunar orbit with Houston-based Intuitive Machines before moving on to deep space. AstroForge’s spacecraft, again being supplied by OrbAstro, will head on a much shorter 11-month journey to the target asteroid. AstroForge is actively planning its third mission to land on the asteroid, and the fourth mission, which would be the company’s first refining mission to bring platinum back to Earth.

How US police use digital data to prosecute abortions

Runa Sandvik

In late April, police in Nebraska saying 17-year-old Celeste Burgess had given birth to a stillborn baby and buried the body. Officers soon learned that her mother, Jessica Burgess, and a friend had helped her with transportation and burial. The police issued citations for concealing the death of another person and false reporting. But in June, Jessica with providing an abortion for her teenage daughter. Police had made the discovery after obtaining a warrant that Meta to hand over their conversations on Facebook Messenger. The messages, which were not , showed the two had obtaining and using abortion pills. Warrants for digital data are routine in police investigations, which makes sense, given how much time we spend online. Technology giants have for years responded to valid court orders for specific information sought by law enforcement, though some to fight for our privacy than others. Millions of people now use apps that encrypt their calls and messages, like and , so that no one can access their messages — not even the providers themselves. The case in Nebraska is not the first in which police have used digital data to prosecute an abortion, and it won’t be the last. While digital data is rarely the main form of evidence, prosecutors use it to paint a picture in court; by showing messages sent to friends, internet searches or emails from an online pharmacy. As in the Burgess case, however, it’s often people around the women who first notify the authorities — a doctor or nurse, a family member or a friend of a friend. When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned last summer, it ended the constitutional right to abortion. In doing so, it gave states the power to regulate abortion or ban the procedure altogether, triggering a wave of abortion bans nationwide. now ban abortion with few or no exceptions. Georgia recently a ban after six weeks of pregnancy. And in many states, the fight over abortion access is still taking place in courtrooms. A week after the ruling, Google it would delete location data for visits to abortion clinics and other medical facilities. The Electronic Frontier Foundation we should review our privacy settings. The Digital Defense Fund us to use encrypted messaging apps. Some that we delete our period tracking apps. It may seem odd to dedicate so much attention to digital privacy in the context of our reproductive rights. But a look at prosecutions between 2011 and 2022 illustrates why these conversations are needed. — In May 2011, police in Idaho charged Jennie McCormack with inducing her own abortion. The 32-year-old couldn’t afford a legal procedure. Instead, she took pills purchased online. NPR that McCormack confided in a friend shortly after the abortion. It was this friend’s sister who told the police. When officers arrived at her home, they found the fetus wrapped up on her back porch. McCormack admitted to the police that she self-induced an abortion after ingesting a pack of five pills. At trial, she told the court that the medication was “FDA-approved,” “procured through the internet” and “prescribed by a physician.” Years later, an appeals court that “McCormack’s sister allegedly found unspecified abortion pills online, paid $200 for them and had them shipped to McCormack in Idaho.” At the time, McCormack faced up to five years in prison. The case was dismissed. — In March 2015, Indiana sentenced Purvi Patel to 20 years in prison for neglect of a dependent and feticide. , Patel had gone to the hospital with bleeding after delivering a child at home. She first told the medical staff that she had been 10 to 12 weeks pregnant. But when questioned by two doctors, she admitted to giving birth and said the baby was stillborn. Patel told the doctors she had put the body in a paper bag and placed it in a dumpster behind a Target store, not far from her family’s restaurant. The hospital notified the police, who searched the area and recovered the bag. A doctor who participated in the search said “the baby was cold and lifeless” but “was an otherwise normal, healthy appearing baby.” show that police obtained a search warrant for Patel’s phone. An officer with “training in examining electronic devices” downloaded her text messages. In reviewing the data, the police found that she had discussed her abortion with “at least one friend.” Patel had also shared that she’d obtained and taken abortion pills from Hong Kong. An Indiana appeals court overturned the feticide conviction in July 2016. The court that in searching Patel’s iPad, “police found a customer service email from InternationalDrugMart.com.” The email confirmed that Patel had ordered mifepristone and misoprostol for $72. A detective ordered the same pills, presumably to confirm that it was possible to do so. Police also found Patel had visited a website titled “Abortion after Twelve Weeks.” The court documents do not mention the type of phone Patel had or how police gained access to her messages. But the messages were at least three months old, suggesting that she likely did not delete the texts or the email from the online pharmacy. Indiana’s attorney general not to appeal the court’s ruling. In September 2016, Patel was resentenced to 18 months for child neglect, less time than she had already served. The judge then ordered Patel’s immediate release. — In April 2015, police in Arkansas arrested Anne Bynum after she gave birth to a stillborn child at home. She was charged with concealing birth and abuse of a corpse. The state charged her friend, Karen Collins, with performing an abortion. Bynum, who already had one child and worked a minimum-wage job, never told her parents about the pregnancy. When her pregnancy became difficult to hide, she took medications to induce labor. In a  , Bynum said she delivered the baby at home by herself, in the middle of the night. “She was just beautiful. Really beautiful. But eyes closed, mouth closed. Complete stillness.” Bynum wrapped up the remains and went to bed. The next day, she drove to the emergency room with the remains in the front passenger seat. Bynum said she “gave birth last night, but she didn’t make it.” Medical staff determined it had been a stillbirth. When the hospital discharged Bynum days later, she was arrested on her way home. The sheriff put her in handcuffs and placed her in the back of the police car. Bynum’s trial was brief, just two days of testimony and a few minutes of jury deliberation. The judge her to six years in prison. An appeals court the conviction in December 2018. Exactly who notified the police remains unknown. The appeals court noted that “Bynum told friends, her attorneys, and her priest about the pregnancy and of her intent to put the child up for adoption when it was born.” On the morning after she gave birth, Bynum texted her attorney “who advised her to go see a doctor.” The attorney also called a funeral home and “was advised to have Bynum take the fetal remains to the hospital.” It’s unclear whether Bynum shared the texts herself, or if police recovered them another way. — In January 2018, Mississippi Latice Fisher with murder for the death of her newborn the year before. The Washington Post that when paramedics arrived at her home, they found “a baby in the toilet, lifeless and blue, the umbilical cord still attached.” The baby was pronounced dead at the hospital. Fisher initially she didn’t know she was pregnant, but later admitted that she had been aware of the pregnancy for at least a month. She also admitted to conducting internet searches for how to have a miscarriage. Fisher reportedly “voluntarily surrendered” her iPhone to police. Court records her phone’s “memory and data were then downloaded, including but not limited to Fisher’s past internet activity.” While reviewing that data, investigators learned that Fisher had researched “buy abortion pills, mifeprisone [sic] online, misoprostol online,” and “buy Misoprostol Abortion Pill Online.” Fisher had also “apparently purchased misoprostol immediately subsequent to these searches.” court document suggests police also searched her husband’s phone. While there is no evidence that Fisher took the pills, prosecutors used her digital data to argue that she intended to abort her pregnancy. The murder charge was eventually . — Technology companies may not have many options for handling search warrants from the police, even when the investigations relate to abortion. But companies do get to decide how much digital data they collect about people and for how long they store the information. They also get to decide whether to offer end-to-end encryption, which would give people increased privacy for all of their messages. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, Meta it’s making encrypted one-to-one chats in Instagram available to adults in the two countries. And while Elon Musk said Twitter should prior to acquiring the company, it’s if this will actually happen. Last year, that Facebook and anti-abortion clinics collect sensitive information on would-be patients. The Markup also that Hey Jane, an online abortion pill provider, employed a series of online trackers that follow users across the internet — until the journalists reached out about the practice. More recently, ProPublica nine pharmacies selling abortion pills also sharing sensitive data with Google and other third-parties. All nine were recommended by , which provides information about how to get abortion pills by mail. None responded to ProPublica’s request for comment. In , publisher Jessica Valenti us that “if you are white, have money, and the ability to travel to a state where abortion is legal — you will have a much easier time than those from marginalized communities.” Everybody deserves access to reproductive health care. If the past decade is any indication, protecting essential abortion rights is going to require all of us, from doctors, nurses and attorneys to lawmakers, software engineers and voters.

The best Twitter alternatives worth checking out

Taylor Hatmaker

with you. There’s no 1:1 Twitter replacement — not yet, and possibly not ever. Still, there are plenty of social apps that might be worth substituting into your obsessive timeline-checking routines if you’re done with Twitter for whatever reason (we can ). Twitter’s current situation — , , little things breaking here and there every day — presents an opportunity to check in with ourselves about what we really want out of a social network. We don’t just have to use social apps because they’re there and they’re really sticky. Users should get something out of the exchange, particularly on ad-supported services. Whether that means building a following for your fledgling business or connecting with people in communities you care about, social media should serve a function — not just drain away the hours in the day. Happily, there are options. Decentralized projects offer a different experience that’s less beholden to corporate whims while less traditional social platforms might serve up a totally different set of interactions and experiences. But that’s okay. Twitter wasn’t perfect, and while it was and arguably still is pretty essential for real-time events and news-gathering, its most engaged users didn’t always enjoy spending time there. While we’re all figuring it out and seeing what pops up next, here are some options to consider. emerged as the most-discussed home for fleeing Twitter users — and with good reason. The service is designed in a way that decentralizes power and moderation decisions, obviating the concerns about one person setting platform-wide rules based on a whim. Mastodon works a lot like Twitter, allowing users to share real-time thoughts to an account and re-share posts by others. But that’s mostly where the similarities end. Unlike traditional social networks, Mastodon is an open source option, which means that rather than all users being in one big basket with one set of rules, you’ll need to select a server (smaller basket) to join. If you get sick of it or disagree with those moderation decisions, you can migrate elsewhere. You can still follow and interact with people on other servers so you don’t need to agonize too much over that choice, but that decentralized ethos colors the whole experience. Like a choice of server, you’ll also have a choice of which app to use to use the service on mobile (we like Metatext and plan to check out , from Tweetbot maker Tapbots). Mastodon’s open source nature means you’ve got more choice all around, but the downside of that is that the extra steps might be off-putting to people who want a more straightforward sign-up process. That said, if you’re tired of the cynicism and harassment on Twitter, the vibe on Mastodon is pretty chill right now. If any of this sounds interesting, it’s definitely worth checking out. doesn’t really work like Twitter at all, but hear us out — it’s one of the best social apps around. The app was originally created to give gamers a better way to chat, but since then it has expanded well beyond that initial vision. Like Mastodon, Discord doesn’t offer a giant “public square,” instead offering topic and interest-based servers that anyone can join and hang out in. Discord offers regular text chat within its server-based channels, as well as seamless voice chat and some other experiences, like streaming a game to friends or queueing up YouTube videos together. Some of the most popular servers have hundreds of thousands of members, but you could also just curate one for friends or family. Through servers, Discord offers some of the same federation benefits as Mastodon without the open source stuff that spooks some people during onboarding. Unlike some of the other options on this list, Discord isn’t going anywhere any time soon: It’s a mature company with a thriving user base and a sustainable business built around paid subscriptions. That kind of stability goes a long way for social apps, which historically are prone to fizzling out and vanishing overnight. The downside is that Discord is more about chatting than posting. The app’s Slack-like interface refreshes in real time and in a busy Discord, or even one with a few hundred active members, it’s easy to lose track of conversations fast. The company knows that and is actively building more tools that enable asynchronous interactions, so that’s something to watch out for. is a mainstream alternative to Twitter that shares little in common with more open platforms like Mastodon. The platform was sped into private beta to capitalize on the timing of Twitter’s recent chaos and is only just opening up to everybody. Far from being decentralized, Post offers a more curated experience that’s focused on attracting the journalists who usually while away the day on Twitter. Post allows users to write, post, share, comment and like content, much like we’re used to on Twitter. But the thrust of the service is altogether different. Post wants to help newsgatherers monetize their content, building in micropayments and tipping and promising the ability to buy “individual articles from different premium news providers” in order to get outside of their information bubble. Far from being an open platform, Post is backed by VC and traditional investment from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and tech commentator Scott Galloway. Post’s pitch is compelling, but the social network sounds a bit like it was designed in a vacuum. Those of us who work in the news might check it out or hang out there but it’s hard to imagine many average Twitter users being lured by the promise of paying for journalism, which unfortunately is a hard sell. Post could develop a more Substack-like commentator culture, but even then it’s hard to see why the Substack elite would jump ship for a new platform. Although you may not see it as an alternative to Twitter, hear us out, because there are some similarities between the two platforms that make it a notable contender. Even though Tumblr teeters more toward a microblogging site than a traditional social network, it features a feed that displays posts from people you follow in a similar way to Twitter. Tumblr lets you post content with images, GIFs, videos and more. You can leave notes on a post, which are similar to comments. You can also like, share and repost content on the platform. Tumblr also has a trending topics section like Twitter. In addition, the platform has a chat feature that’s similar to direct messages on Twitter. Tumblr offers more flexibility than Twitter, while being easy to set up and use. You can use Tumblr for free or opt for an ad-free experience with additional features for $4.99 per month or $39.99 a year. Given Tumblr’s ability to stay alive despite its fair share of changing ownership, we don’t think it’s going anywhere, which makes it an ideal alternative to Twitter. It’s also a place with its own and a chaotic culture that’s a massive part of Tumblr’s unique appeal. Although is still in its beta phase, anyone can sign up for the service. If you don’t have an invitation, you’ll have to wait a day or two before you can start posting. The website says this measure is designed to prevent spam. Cohost offers a vertical feed that displays posts chronologically, as opposed to an algorithmic listing. Similar to Twitter, Cohost has followers, reposts, likes and comments. Right now, the interface is quite simple, and since it doesn’t use algorithms, there isn’t a trending section. The platform won’t surface content unless you actively search for it using hashtags. You can use the platform for free or pay a monthly $5 fee for additional features, such as larger uploads and more customization options. The company says the fee mainly helps it keep the lights on as it continues to grow. Since Cohost is fairly new and a bit rocky, it may not be the most established Twitter alternative. But, it could be appealing to people who want a simple alternative that actually looks like Twitter in some ways. We’ll have to wait and see if it will be able to amass enough users and traction to be considered a worthy alternative. We don’t know a lot about , but what we do know is intriguing. Bluesky was developed in parallel with Twitter and spearheaded by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. Like Mastodon, Bluesky is all about the decentralized social network, i.e. giving people the tools they need to form their own communities. There’s been some pushback to Bluesky given its Dorsey connection, but we’re still interested to see what the project comes up with once it eventually expands its super limited closed beta. The Bluesky team is apparently launching an app along with the protocol itself and the result could combine a Twitter-like user interface with algorithmic choice, a federated design and community-specific moderation. We’re listening. Wow. 30k signups for our app’s waiting list in the last two days! Thanks for the overwhelming interest, we’ll do our best to get you in soon. 🔜 — bluesky (@bluesky)

Breathe along with the robot pillow

Brian Heater

From the team that brought you the weird and wonderful robot cat pillow comes an equally weird and wonderful breathing pillow. Japanese boutique robotics firm Yukai Engineering returns to CES with Fufuly, which follows in footsteps by quite literally breathing some life into a cushion. The hardware startup says the product utilizes “respiratory entrainment,” which refers to a phenomenon wherein the rhythm of a user’s breathing matches that of a respirator. That basically means the person’s breathing matches up with the robot cushion, rather than the other way around. Yukai says the product was developed based on research from the University of Tokyo. Certainly plenty has been written about the power of breathing in improving one’s mental state and reducing anxiety. It’s precisely the reason breathing is tied so closely to meditation, for example. There’s no app, and really, not much in the way of smarts here (and unlike Qoobo, it doesn’t directly respond to user stimulus). Instead, you cycle through three modes: regular, deep, and third designed to help the user relax. Yukai Engineering Per the Fulfuly website [translated from the Japanese], “It’s very easy to use. Switch it on and hug it. This is all you need.” If only the rest of life could be so simple. Like past Yukai products, the pillow will be launched via a crowdfunding campaign. No word on pricing as of yet, though CEO Shunsuke Aoki tells me that the product will likely cost more than Qoobo, which is currently priced a bit north of $100. Also new for the show is Lightony, a robotic lamp designed to “doze off” with the user.

The 403-page Dungeons & Dragons game system is now licensed under Creative Commons

Amanda Silberling

It’s now official: Dungeons & Dragons is licensed under the . This makes the popular tabletop roleplaying game “freely available for any use,” Dungeons & Dragons executive producer Kyle Brink wrote in a today. Just weeks ago, this outcome would have seemed impossible. About a month ago, Wizards of the Coast (WoTC) — the publisher of Dungeons & Dragons and a subsidiary of Hasbro — sent a document with a new open gaming license (OGL) to top Dungeons & Dragons content creators, asking them to sign what they called “OGL 1.1.” The existing OGL, which had been in effect since 2000, made it possible for third-party creators to use the expansive game system to sell their own spell books, modules, virtual tabletops (VTTs) and other content that has helped the game grow into the mega-success it is today. But certain terms in the updated document would have made it impossible for these independent businesses to continue operating. Some creators leaked the document in protest, exposing its that would suffocate the prolific fan community. More than 77,000 creators and fans signed an against these changes, and some went as far as canceling their subscriptions to , an online platform for the game. Finally, WoTC admitted that they “ ,” or in other words, messed up very badly. Last week, fans were pleasantly surprised when Brink announced that the company was planning to release game materials under a Creative Commons license, a complete reversal from the original, restrictive plan. Today, after getting feedback from more than 15,000 fans, Dungeons & Dragons officially released the game system under this lenient license, in all of its glory. The company even addressed concerns about how last week’s initial Creative Commons proposal would impact VTTs, or software that makes it possible for people to play TTRPGs remotely. Now, WoTC has even walked back those stipulations, while also keeping the original OGL in effect. “This Creative Commons license makes the content freely available for any use,” Brink wrote in today’s . “We don’t control that license and cannot alter or revoke it. It’s open and irrevocable in a way that doesn’t require you to take our word for it. And its openness means there’s no need for a VTT policy. Placing the [Systems Reference Document] under a Creative Commons license is a one-way door. There’s no going back.” As it turns out, fan communities can accomplish a lot when they rally together. Just ask .

Here’s a roundup of the top AI-powered products we saw at CES 2023

Kyle Wiggers

This year, the — the celebration of all things tech and then some — brought what it usually brings to the Vegas Strip: . Of course, AI comes in many forms, and not all that’s advertised as AI is in fact AI. But there’s always diamonds in the rough, like an AI-equipped oven from Samsung that automatically adjusts cooking settings for the perfect bake. As my colleagues on the ground traverse the show floor (I’m covering remotely this year), they’re highlighting the most interesting AI-powered tech they come across. I’ve compiled each into a handy list, which is far from definitive but aims to give an idea of the at CES. Samsung’s new AI-powered “smart” oven, complete with food-detecting sensors and a companion app. Samsung kicked off CES 2023 with a new oven and fridge in its Bespoke Home smart appliances lineup. Not just any oven, the Bespoke AI Oven features an internal camera and sensors that proactively recognize more than 80 dishes and ingredients to optimize cooking settings. It can send a warning notification if it detects food might be burning. And if you’re stumped on what to cook, the Bespoke AI Oven recommends meals based on ingredients at home. The Bespoke AI Oven’s camera, by the way, can stream a live feed of what’s cooking in the oven to streaming platforms like Twitch. It’s not an AI feature exactly, but eye-catching all the same. As for the 4-Door Flex, Samsung’s newest smart fridge, it packs an AI-powered camera that scans food labels to keep track of what’s in stock — and not in stock. Samsung’s previous-gen fridge had the same (as do rival models from LG), but the novelty of this year’s 4-Door Flex is a larger touchscreen on one of the doors. New TVs from Samsung convert non-HDR footage to HDR. Samsung Not to be outdone, Samsung also introduced a new lineup of TVs with an AI-powered “auto-HDR” mode. The company’s Neo QLEDs offer Auto HDR Remastering, which Samsung says “uses AI deep learning technology to analyze and apply real-time high dynamic range (HDR) effects on standard dynamic range content on a scene-by-scene basis.” (HDR increases the contrast between the brightest whites and darkest blacks a display can produce.) The system compares non-HDR content with HDR material and uses machine learning to analyze the differences and then make the conversion. Rival LG debuted TVs with AI, too. The 2023 Z3, G3, and C3 OLED TVs feature a mode that can automatically detect and refine certain objects to have more “lifelike,” colorful qualities. Another mode, AI Sound Pro, attempts to emulate a surround-sound setup using only the built-in stereo TV speakers. Nvidia is using AI to upscale videos on the web, even old ones. Nvidia Nvidia’s using AI to upscale old, blurry YouTube videos. During its CES presser, the company demoed RTX Video Super Resolution, a feature coming next month to all Nvidia 30- and 40-series GPUs. When enabled, it’ll upscale videos played in Chrome and Edge on a PC to the equivalent of 4K, similar to the AI upscaling feature that’s long been available on the . to PCGamer ( The Verge), RTX Video Super Resolution — which also sharpens and reduces artifacts in videos — will support any video with a resolution of between 360p and 1440p, up to a frame rate of 144Hz. Citizen’s AI-powered, sleep-tracking smartwatch. Citizen Wearable brand Citizen dipped its toes into the AI space this year with its second-gen CZ . The 2023 CZ Smart — which runs , the newest release of Google’s firmware for wearables — sports what Citizen’s calling a “self-care advisor” driven by AI. Leveraging tech from IBM Watson (IBM’s AI research division), the CZ Smart attempts to determine a wearer’s “chronotype” after collecting roughly a week’s worth of sleep data to provide tips that help to combat fatigue. To improve the relevancy of the recommendations, users can take gamified tests based on NASA’s Psychomotor Vigilance Test, which was originally developed to give astronauts on the International Space Station feedback on their fatigue levels. The CZ Smart tabulates the results to calculate an “alert score” capturing the wearer’s level of tiredness at a particular moment. It’s worth noting that the CZ Smart isn’t the first wearable to track sleep and give suggestions to improve it — far from it. Samsung, Apple and Fitbit among others offer features on their various wearables to analyze and track sleep. But Citizen’s making the case that the CZ Smart is more holistic than most. Govee’s AI powers connected smart lighting. Govee For in pursuit of a more immersive experience, Govee introduced the AI Gaming Sync Box Kit at CES 2023. It’s a bit of a mouthful, but the tech behind the AI Gaming Sync Box Kit — Govee’s answer to the Philips Hue Play HDMI Sync Box and Nanoleaf’s recently Sync+ — sounds promising. Using AI trained on footage of “dozens” of different video games, the set-top box syncs (via HDMI and Wi-Fi) Govee-branded smart lights to whatever games you’re playing. One of 30 or so lighting effects trigger for certain in-game achievements and on-screen events. As the company explains in a press release: “For example, when accomplishing a ‘triple kill’ in a competitive shooting game, customized corresponding in-game lighting effects will show at once with near-zero delay. With Govee AI, products don’t transfer data to the cloud but instead directly transmit it back locally in real time, ensuring the utmost protection of user privacy.” Govee says that its AI-based tech mitigates the issues typically experienced by lighting sync boxes, like “low color-capture accuracy” and slow performance. The jury’s out on that. But in any case, it’s certainly one of the more innovative approaches we’ve seen. Bird Buddy’s new AI-powered bird feeder is for the birds. Bird Buddy , the startup my colleague Devin Coldewey covered a number of years ago, is back with a new and improved model of its “smart” feeder that snaps photos of bird visitors and beams them to a companion app. Equipped with a high-speed camera, the next-gen Smart Hummingbird Feeder can take photos and videos of birds with wing speeds of up to 60 mph. The camera’s triggered by motion and sends photos through an AI system trained on millions of photos to identify around 1,000 species of birds. Future owners of the Smart Hummingbird Feeder — it’s a prototype currently and hasn’t yet been priced — will also benefit from what Bird Buddy’s calling , which lets people track bird sightings in real time. Meanwhile, the aforementioned Bird Buddy companion app allows owners to build out their collection of identified birds, track birds’ visits over time, learn about their habits and share photos with the community. Glüxkind’s Ella smart stroller can drive — and park — itself. Glüxkind You’ve heard of self-driving cars, but what about self-driving strollers? The Ella smart stroller by Canadian startup Glüxkind is a “hands-free” motorized buggy that uses AI to detect obstacles and danger on the pavement. Packed with sensors, including cameras, the Ella can drive itself when empty, keep up with parents while they hold their infants and stop automatically if it encounters an obstacle. The buggy’s cameras track moving and stationary objects such as people and bikes, alerting parents to potential collision dangers through sounds and flashing lights in the handle. As for the Ella’s motors, they aid when manually pushing the stroller, assisting with inclines and automatically braking when going downhill or stationary. The Ella isn’t lacking in creature comforts, either, featuring an automatic “rock-my-baby” feature that sways the carriage back and forth on the stroller’s wheels and a built-in, customizable white noise machine. There’s even a companion phone app that tracks the Ella’s routes and distance and can locate the stroller if lost. This robot picks peppers. Agrist Gather ’round, pepper growers. There’s a new robot in town that promises to make your life a bit easier. Developed by Japanese agritech startup Agrist, the robot can identify and pick “harvest-ready” bell peppers even when those peppers are covered by a thick layer of leaves. Using a combination of cameras and computer vision models trained for different parts of the pepper, the robot can identify each pepper’s position, size and maturity as well as its clipping point. The robot moves along suspension wires that can be retrofitted to existing farms. A mechanical arm does the picking and clipping, placing harvested peppers into a collection box. Agrist claims that, over time, the robot’s software can begin to predict crop volume and offer suggestions on how to optimize growth by collecting data and analyzing the number of days required for peppers to mature.

Fifth Wall, focused on real estate tech and managing $3.2B, looks to eat up even more of its market

Connie Loizos

Brendan Wallace’s ambition is beginning to seem almost limitless. The LA-based venture firm that Wallace and co-founder Brad Greiwe launched less than seven years ago already has $3.2 billion in assets under management. But that firm, , which argues there are massive financial returns at the intersection of real estate and tech, isn’t worried about digesting that capital. Its heavy-hitting investors — CBRE, Starwood and Arbor Realty Trust among them — don’t seem concerned, either. Never mind that just last month, Fifth Wall closed the largest-ever venture fund focused on real estate tech startups with in capital, or that it closed a earlier in 2022 that aims to decarbonize the property industry. Never mind that on top of these two efforts, Fifth Wall expanded into Europe last February with a London office and a fund. (It also has a large New York office, an office in Singapore and a presence in Madrid.) As for the fact that office buildings in particular have been shocked by a combination of layoffs, work-from-home policies and higher interest rates, Wallace says he considers it an opportunity. Never mind because Wallace already sees many more opportunities he wants to pursue, including in Asia, as well as around infrastructure, such as the buying and building of “utility-scale solar and micro grids and wind farms” that Fifth Wall wants to both invest in and help finance with debt. It’s a lot to take on, particularly for a now 80-person outfit whose biggest exits today include the home-flipping outfit OpenDoor, the property insurance company Hippo Insurance, and SmartRent, which sells smart home technology to apartment building owners and developers. None have been spared by public market shareholders. Still, talking to Wallace and the picture he paints of the world, it’s easy to see why investors keep throwing money at his team to invest on their behalf. We spoke with him earlier today in a chat that has been edited for length. It’s the same thesis we were founded on, which is you have the two largest industries in the U.S., which is real estate, which is 13% of U.S. GDP, and tech, and they’re colliding, and it represents a huge explosion of economic value [as] we’ve seen in this kind of super cycle of proptech companies that has grown up. Now this additional layer has been unearthed around climate tech. The biggest opportunity in climate tech is actually the built environment. Real estate accounts for 40% of CO emissions, and yet the venture climate tech venture capital ecosystem only has historically put about 6% of climate VC dollars toward tech for the real estate industry. How we define proptech is tech that is usable by the real estate construction or hospitality industry, so it needs to be tech that’s immediately usable by them — which can be a lot of different things. It can be leasing, asset management software, fintech, mortgages, operating systems, keyless entry — but it doesn’t necessarily have the effect of decarbonizing the real estate industry. It can be a derivative benefit, but it’s not the core focus. The core focus is simply that you have this industry that has been so slow and late to adopt technology that’s now starting to do so, and as it does, it’s creating all this value. We’ve already had six portfolio companies go public and we’re a six-year-old firm. [As just one example], do you know how many multifamily units today have a smart device inside them? One percent of all multifamily units in the United States have a single smart device — any smart device: a light switch, shade, access control. There is a massive transition going on right now, where every single thing inside a building is going to become smart. And we’re at the dawn of that right now. I do believe, though, that the opportunity in climate tech is a multiple of that simply because the cost required to decarbonize the real estate industry is so vast. The cost to decarbonize the U.S. commercial real estate industry is estimated to be $18 trillion. That is just the U.S. commercial real estate industry. To put that in perspective, the U.S. GDP is like $22 trillion to $23 trillion, and we have to decarbonize the real estate industry over the next 20 years, so one way to think about that is that we have to roughly spend one year of U.S. GDP over the next 20 just on decarbonizing our physical assets. I’ll give you one very concrete example, which is literally concrete. If concrete were a country, it would be the third largest CO emitter on planet Earth after the U.S. and China. Fully 7.5% of global CO emissions come from making concrete. It’s the most used material on planet Earth after water. So you have this raw material that’s an input for all of our infrastructure — all of our cities, all the homes we inhabit, all the buildings where we do business — and that is generating 7.5% of global CO emissions. And so the race is on right now to identify an opportunity to make carbon neutral or carbon negative cement. We actually invested in a company called alongside Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos because they also see this opportunity that this is one of the major spend categories where that $18 trillion that’s required to decarbonize real estate is going to go. Then you can go further down [list], from glass, steel, cross-laminated timber — just all of the materials that are used in making buildings. I wouldn’t draw too much of a conclusion from San Francisco alone. I think San Francisco has probably been the hardest hit city. I don’t think San Francisco is the canary in the coal mine for the rest of the U.S. office industry. But with that said, I think we’re now in a moment where the pendulum has swung obviously very far in the direction of hybrid work and companies downsizing their physical footprints, but you’re already starting to see that these things are circular and cyclical and that some employees actually want to go back to the office, while CEOs are saying, ‘It’s hard to mentor and build culture and drive the kind of operational efficiencies we once had in an office in an entirely remote environment.’ So my sense is that we’re probably two to three years out from another pendulum swing back toward companies retrenching themselves in a physical office. I think we’re in an artificially low ebb in sentiment and demand for office. The major change in the last two years has been the focus of the real estate industry on decarbonizing. It is a seismic shift in the industry. Owners are looking for anything and everything that can reduce the operational and embodied carbon footprint of a building. So this is, of course, smart building technology and industrial IoT, battery storage on premise and EV charging and micro grids, where every owner is effectively looking to turn their asset into a miniaturized power plant. It’s the electrification of the physical infrastructure of buildings themselves. But then right alongside that, it’s renewable energies, it’s battery technologies, it’s materials technology, it’s construction workflow and process efficiency technology, it’s modular construction. The demand for tech that can reduce the carbon footprint of buildings — is it’s like night and day versus when we .

I put Dyson’s Bane mask on my face

Brian Heater

of putting things on my face. I spent time with the Magic Leap 2, Meta Quest Pro, Vive XR Elite and PSVR2 over the course of a few days. All of those products fit in the same bucket, more or less. And then there’s the , a product that, quite frankly, doesn’t fit in any bucket, per se. There are a few potential reasons for this: There’s a greater than zero chance you, too, had a visceral reaction when the product was announced. And perhaps like me, you thought to yourself, good or bad, I absolutely have to try the thing. I won’t say I tried it so you don’t have to. There’s a decent chance you still want to put it on your face — but probably not to the tune of $1,000. The company walked us through some of the early iterations of the product design, fitted to a row of mannequin heads aligned on a desk in the hotel suite. One thing I feel comfortable saying: Dyson has vision. Another thing: They’ve made some really quality (but pricey) products over the years. I have a Dyson vacuum. It’s the best vacuum I’ve ever owned by some order of magnitude — a rare splurge for me and one I never regretted. Moving air is Dyson’s whole deal. If its products don’t suck, they blow (though one could argue that they all technically do both). The Zone, in a word, blows. It’s a product that addresses a very real problem: pollution in urban environments. There’s a big difference in addressing the symptoms as opposed to the underlying causes of human-made pollution, but both serve a purpose. A U.K.-based company, Dyson points to the London’s Central line — a notoriously polluted Underground line — as a prime example of when and where the Zone is meant to be used. We spent much of the meeting talking headphones. That was a bit of a surprise. Let’s be honest, no one is focused on the headphones here. The market is flooded with them. It takes something truly out of left field to turn heads in consumer electronics this days, and the mask happily fits the bill there. Part of me wondered whether the amount of time devoted to audio engineering was a way of justifying the thought process that went into such an admittedly strange project. Brian Heater Interestingly, the company pointed out that, much like the mask’s airflow, the six or so years of work that went into the headphones is rooted in existing Dyson technology. Here that specifically relates tothe  method for reducing the noise of airflow. After all, a high-powered hand dryer, say, has different expectations around dB levels than something designed to be strapped to your face. Over-ear headphones make sense here from a noise reduction, as well as form factor, standpoint. I likely don’t need to tell you this, but noise cancellation works best when the active form is combined with the passive. That means utilizing both the onboard microphones to actively cancel it and the headphone earbuds to passively/physically block out ambient noise. The Zone’s noise canceling is decent — somewhere between the best and worst I’ve tried. I feel comfortable being a bit less wildly broad if we end up spending more time with it. This trial was a rare time you can suggest that a company got “lucky” in booking an expensive Vegas hotel suite with an extremely loud HVAC system directly outside the window. Nice view of the Paris Las Vegas’ half-scale fake Eiffel Tower, too. The Zones blocked out some of that noise, though the higher frequencies still managed to get through fairly easily. If I had to venture a guess, I’d say the thing is tuned to specifically cancel out the face mask noise. I was, however, genuinely impressed with the sound quality. I’d suspected the headphones might be something of an afterthought, but, then, Dyson is not one to half-ass things. They’re a good-looking, good-sounding pair of headphones, and Dyson could do well to sell them on their own (though, the fact that the actual filtration happens in the earcups is admittedly a bit silly of a thing to have without the mask). The mask itself is a soft strip that snaps onto the headphones with magnets but doesn’t come into direct contact with your face. The air flow is a nice, pleasant breeze over your mouth. There are some thoughtful features included. For one, tipping the mask down or detaching it will switch from noise canceling to transparency mode (you can reenable it with a tap on the side of the ear cups). The Dyson Zone is certainly weird and unquestionably silly. It’s also quite unique. The fact that it can’t purport to effectively filter out viruses certainly felt like a missed opportunity when it was first announced early in the pandemic. There is an attachment that works with N95 masks, but the Zone itself isn’t going to protect you from COVID. I don’t see a scenario where I’d actually wear one of these things around, but I’m also not mad that something so wonderfully weird exists in the world.

In-car tech and EVs dominated CES 2023

Kirsten Korosec

I kicked off 2023 in the same fashion as I have for the better part of a decade: I went to Las Vegas for CES. Every year I get asked the same questions: What really excited you this year? What stood out? And what does that mean for the future? A few takeaways. Keeping on with the of this week’s newsletter, here’s a roundup of all the micromobility news and vehicles that were unveiled at the show this year: It won’t technically get you from Point A to B, but debuted a new that powers your devices as you pedal. came to play with some , and they only cost $500. Italian bike-maker used to create more efficient e-bike designs. A 70% reduction in frame prototyping sped up time to market and reduced development costs for Bianchi’s E-Omnia e-bike. , a micromobility tech company, launched its of electric scooters, the Navee e-bike and the Navee sharing scooter. launched the , which starts at $6,470 and is expected to ship in May. showcased its futuristic (and had a display where you could sit on them). It’s a chunky-looking thing, but the company says it can compete against the performance of 1,000 cc combustion-powered motorcycles, making it from 0 to 60 in three seconds and a top speed of 124 miles per hour. debuted at CES with the first prototype of its . The company plans to bring the little vehicle to market in 2024. unveiled its made from a single piece of magnesium alloy. unveiled the , a prototype for a folding bike that in classic Japanese style actually folds into a box that can be slipped under your desk at work. The exterior of the folded up moped can be customized in wood, fake grass or leather. It’s a cool concept, but probably will remain a concept. showed off an . While this wasn’t a debut, it’s still cool. Prices start at $8,900 for the snow bike — removable batteries included. MoonBikes also launched its app at CES so riders can get real-time data on their performance. , a consumer electronics brand most well-known for inventing the VCR, rode into the micromobility space at CES with new designed to handle everything from commuting to off-roading. launched a new electric superbike, , which features an electric motor integrated into the back wheel, which the company says transfers power straight to the road. It also creates more space in the middle for the battery pack. It’s available for preorder now at $26,900, with U.S. deliveries planned in late 2023. , one of China’s biggest makers of electric two-wheelers, is making a push . The manufacturer said it will begin launching a series of marketing campaigns and events geared at kickstarting the brand’s growth in the U.S., and will open stores in San Francisco and Los Angeles, and work with 100 other brand dealers, in the first half of 2023. Here is a handy overview of some of the announcements we covered and stuff we saw at CES 2023. and say tire tech will unlock autonomous driving in . returned to CES 2023 and the Las Vegas Speedway. I had the chance to check out some of the competing cars and watch one make its way around the track at night (and with the lights out). It was a neat demonstration to show what sensors, compute and software can accomplish. The autonomous racing team from mOve research group of were the winners of this year’s competition. CEO on the company’s near and long-term vision. Advanced driver assistance systems were a focus, but Shashua spent considerable time talking about the path to automated driving, including how future consumer AVs will come to market at scale by using its driver assist system, Mobileye SuperVision. I took a short ride with founder (who recently fired himself again as CEO and claims he is now a marketing intern) for a ride in a Kia EV6 equipped with its Comma 3 dev kit, which runs on openpilot, an open source advanced driver assistance system. The Comma 3 device, now priced at $1,499, works on more than 200 models. The hardware, which mounts by the rearview mirror, has three HDR cameras, two that watch the road and one night-vision camera to see inside the car. It’s also equipped with cellular LTE, Wi-Fi, an IMU, high-precision GPS and microphones. Openpilot has continued to evolve and improve, based on my personal experience. On this most recent drive at a location off the strip, the vehicle was able to recognize (and stop) for red lights, keep it centered in the lane, make assisted lane changes and keep a safe distance behind other cars and trucks. It was the smoothest ride I’ve had yet. revealed the , a four-door sedan that came out onstage in a crisp white, but later morphed into a variety of colors and patterns to show off Dee’s E Ink technology. and launch their Afeela. debuted a futuristic (with a nod to the past) as well as the . A production version of the truck is expected to be revealed later this year and come to market in 2024. Kirsten Korosec also made a big eVTOL announcement. The automaker said it will mass produce electric aircraft for in a . outfitted with electroluminescent paint that lights up on command. But that wasn’t the most interesting part of this upcoming vehicle (magic paint not included). Alexa-enabled cars are now able to ask Alexa to public EV charging spot. shares what might look like. announced an of its vehicle mapping solution that is an additional layer of data that’s served to a vehicle’s L2+ or L3 assisted-driving systems through Google Automotive Services. Volvo and Polestar will be among the first automakers to have Google HD mapping. also rolled out new that make it easier for drivers to navigate, play podcasts and music, and communicate while on the go. The new user experience design update features a split-screen layout that displays directions, music and texts at the same time. landed a new design win with SAIC’s electric vehicle brand, Rising Auto (also known as “Feifan” in China). The new model of Rising Auto will carry Hesai’s long-range automotive lidar. launches a new product to bring . And we . founder and CEO provided an update on the company and how its fits into its long-term vision. on-demand cloud gaming service, known as  , is headed to select Hyundai, BYD and Polestar electric vehicles. Nvidia made a number of other announcements ahead of CES, including a and that will use its Omniverse Enterprise software platform to design, plan and optimize its factories . launched a called Mobilisights dedicated to turning all that vehicle data into marketable products — and revenue. rolled out a security dashcam and accompanying support service designed for . , the mobility service brand under automaker Stellantis, its car sharing, rental and subscription services in the U.S.

How companies at CES are taking on climate change (or pretending to)

Harri Weber

I can’t get it out of my head: A honkingly big Caterpillar sign that read, “JOIN US AS WE BUILD A BETTER WORLD.” The digital recruitment billboard at CES 2023 followed promos for an autonomous compactor and excavator, and proceeded another callout: “CHECK OUT OUR BIG AUTONOMOUS TRUCK ⬇.” I did, and boy . A “better world” could mean anything in corporate-speak, but in this case, the company is talking about sustainability — and using aspirational language to distance itself from a fossil-fueled role in carving up the earth. Like Caterpillar, many of the exhibitors I saw as I walked the tech-show floor seemed to be via earthly , stock photos of crops and sunbeams, plastic trees and/or AstroTurf. I find this sort of thing especially distracting now that climate is , and that’s unfortunate, because there was still lots of intriguing climate (and adjacent) tech on display this year, tucked in among the vague evocations of nature. When I arrived in Vegas my colleague asked if the show would feature mostly adaptive tech (for coping with the consequences of climate change) or mitigative tech (for direct emission cuts). I saw a mix of both, but much of what caught my attention skewed toward adaption. And to that end, this year CES practically for campers and preppers alike. Really, there was no escape. Jackery’s portable solar tech at CES 2023. Harri Weber for TechCrunch Highlights included EcoFlow’s “ and , but I’m sure it’s not a leap to say we should expect more gear like this in the coming years — as more people cope with and events alike. There was a ton of conservation-geared tech, too. Moen debuted and Rachio announced , both aiming to help lawn-havers save water and lower their bills. (Climate change exacerbates water scarcity and around the world.) Moen’s “smart water network” gear. Moen For farmers, showed off its crop-watching robot, which rolls over fields on legs that look like giant hairbrush bristles. “The idea is to provide information to farmers to help them reduce the amount of chemicals they put on the plots,” co-founder and CEO William Guitton said in an interview with TechCrunch. Meropy’s bots weigh 15 kg (about 33 pounds) and pack cameras that “scan over and under the foliage,” Guitton said. Along similar lines, John Deere showcased that’s also supposed to . (Fertilizers are a of greenhouse gas emissions in agriculture.) Meropy’s crop monitoring robot. Meropy As for emissions mitigation, made some waves with a smart-home system that’s centered around solar and energy storage. Schneider executive Jaser Faruq told TechCrunch he hopes the firm’s app will offer a “much more interesting, fulfilling experience for customers to feel like they’re in control of their power.” The system will ideally help users conserve energy and reduce their reliance on fossil fuel-powered grids, Faruq added, such as by automatically disconnecting outlets while you travel. Some of the company’s energy-storage tech reminded me a lot of Tesla’s, which is no coincidence; Faruq previously worked in Tesla’s power storage and solar energy division. , a company that automates and surveils intersections, also caught my eye. When I asked if its name represented a goal or was just aspirational, co-founder and CEO Tal Kreisler told me it originally started as “kind of a joke,” because when people ask how long it takes to travel through perpetually busy areas — like from San Francisco to Palo Alto — you might sarcastically say, ‘with no traffic, it should take like 20 minutes.'” Kreisler said the company’s goal is to smarten up intersections so municipalities can prioritize whatever they want — be it , buses, or pedestrians (ideally the latter three). That includes timing lights to reduce traffic, so ideally fewer cars are left idling on city streets, but really No Traffic’s scope is broader than its name implies. Cake’s Makka Prism electric bike. Harri Weber for TechCrunch If you count electric cars and e-bikes as , as I typically do, then read my editor Kirsten’s story on how electric-vehicle tech . The eye-catching announcements included Mercedes-Benz’s plan for a as well as the debut of Icoma’s . I can’t speak to the need for transforming e-bikes with screens, but it’s nice to see automakers , which is hampered by and . Unfortunately, Mercedes plans to focus on cities, so it probably won’t help quench rural America’s . And though they aren’t brand-new, I enjoyed the colorful shields on Swedish brand Cake’s . Aren’t they kind of cute?

A big CES 2023 trend: All battery power, everywhere, all the time

Haje Jan Kamps

As we were roaming the halls of , one product category stood out across the board: There’s a lot of focus on portable (and less portable) power storage. These are more than your average charge-your-phone-once-or-twice battery packs, ranging from simple small power packs to sophisticated power stations that can connect to portable or rooftop solar. The biggest versions can power your whole home for weeks at the time. The smallest portable power stations usually come with a few 110V sockets and some USB sockets with maybe a 12V car cigarette lighter port for small peripherals. From there, it can get pretty advanced: solid-state batteries, 240V power, wireless charging ports, the ability to plug in additional batteries and the option to be powered from a number of power sources, including mains power, solar, car chargers and even the high-end rapid chargers designed for electric vehicles. It would be a complete fool’s errand to try to capture everything we saw at CES, but here are a few of the highlights: EcoFlow’s battery-powered autonomous lawnmower looks more like a cool RC car than a trusty yard trimmer. Haje Kamps/TechCrunch came out of nowhere a few years ago and has established itself as a very serious player in the portable power space. At CES, the company launched a battery-powered fridge with ice maker, a portable, an updated version of its battery-powered air conditioning unit and a number of other innovations. The biggest news this year, however, is that it is rolling out systems for full-house battery backup systems later this year. Yoshino claims that its solid-state batteries are safer and more stable than those of its competitors. Haje Kamps/TechCrunch ‘s portable power stations are built around a new solid electrolyte, replacing the bulky and flammable liquid electrolyte found in most lithium batteries. The company told me that improves performance, offering higher energy density. In other words: the same amount of power fits into a smaller, lighter package compared to traditional lithium batteries. A representative for the company claimed you could shoot the battery pack with a gun without it catching fire. We didn’t have a gun with us to verify the claim. The company also suggests that the new batteries offer faster charging than the old chemistries, going up to 80% capacity in under an hour, and it claims up to twice the power per pound of traditional lithium batteries. Definitely one to keep an eye on. The power stations have oodles of ports, and the wireless charging pads on top of the power stations are a very nice touch. Not exactly portable, but then again, it isn’t designed to be. Haje Kamps/TechCrunch The biggest news from was its full-house power in the form of . In normal use, the mains power (or a solar array) keeps the batteries topped up. When the power goes out, the battery packs jump in, like an uninterruptible power supply for your whole house. You can either keep power to everything, or design two separate circuits; one with essential power circuits (your fridge, cooking and heating/cooling, for example), and one with less essential circuits (say, your washing machine and EV). It powers everything and the kitchen sink, all at once. Zendure really stretches the definition of what can be considered “portable.” Clocking in at a hefty 100 lbs (46 kg), at least it has a pull-out handle and motorized wheels to help you move it around. Once it’s in position, however, it can do just about everything — it has 6.4 kWh built in. However, it also supports additional battery modules, for a maximum of 64 kWh worth of storage available. Fully loaded out, that’s more than an entry-level Tesla Model 3 battery pack, and the company claims that’s enough to power a typical household for a week. Packing both 120V and 240V voltage, it can power both small appliances like a fridge and larger home goods like induction cooktops and electric clothes dryers. Hell, with up to 12,000 W of power, you can charge two electric cars with it at the same time, should you need to. The price starts at $3,100. Fully maxed out with four external batteries, you’re looking at a price tag north of $15,000. Geneverse’s new HomePower 2 clocks in with an attractive price tag. Geneverse has broad distribution in the U.S., being available at Walmart, Home Depot, Lowe’s, Costco, Sam’s Club and online. It’s easy to see why: The company launched two new power stations. The HomePower One has 1,210 Wh of capacity, 1,200 W of rated power and 2,400 W of surge power, while its bigger brother, the HomePower Two packs 2,419 Wh of capacity, 2,200 W of rated power and 4,400 W of surge power. Both have three 120V outlets, two 100 W USB-C outputs and two USB-A quick-charge sockets. None of these stats really move the needle — but the price point does. The smaller power station costs $1,500 and the bigger one is $2,500. You can add two or four solar panels to the power stations, respectively, bringing the price tag to $2,600 or $4,800. With prices like that, at-home backup power is starting to come into range for most home owners. The company didn’t skimp on the batteries either, opting for the ultra-high efficiency LFP/ LiFePO4 (lithium iron phosphate) battery tech. These are very safe indeed and provide a lifespan of around 3,000 charge cycles. One of the largest manufacturers of home electrics has entered the game. Schneider announced EV chargers, battery packs, new smart panels and much more at CES this year. Schneider We’ve seen a number of startups in the smart home panel space for a while. What’s new is that the big boys are joining the fun. Energy giant entering the fray shows that battery power storage for the home is really starting to hit mainstream. Why is this a big deal? Around 40% of all homes already rely on the brand for its main breaker panels and other key components for the home electric. App-controllable, the company launched a brand new energy management solution for home batteries, including a high-power solar inverter, smart electrical panels, EV chargers, along with a slew of additional features. It even picked up a CES Innovation Award for its troubles along the way. Seeing more large power-supply companies entering the market with fully integrated solutions means that the whole industry is well and truly off to the races. Not exactly the sort of thing you can install yourself but a harbinger of things to come in the near and medium future.

All is fair in love and moderation

Natasha Mascarenhas

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single person, think about their work and unpack the rest. This week,  interviewed Sarah Oh, the co-founder of T2, a Twitter rival, and Twitter’s former Human Rights Advisor. She also spent time traveling around the world to help companies build safer, more responsible companies. We get into a lot, not limited to but including what her job titles really encompass, the danger of going viral, re-building a clone, and generative AI. We also talk about what moderation 3.0 looks like, and T2 daring to dream when building a Twitter-like company with safety at its core. Oh is clearly is a changemaker, considering that the 30 minutes I spent with her already expanded my understanding of how platforms think about – and invest in – trust at scale.  

Mojo Vision puts contact lens production ‘on hold’ as it lays off 75% of staff

Brian Heater

We’ve met with Mojo Vision for several CESes, watching the startup’s AR contact lenses develop, year by year. These sorts of things take a lot of time and money, of course — and these days it seems increasingly difficult to find either. Today, the California-based firm that it is “decelerating” work on the Mojo Lens, citing, “significant challenges in raising capital.” In an announcement posted to it site, CEO Drew Perkins blames insurmountable headwinds, including the bad economy and the “yet-to-be proven market potential for advanced AR products” in its ability to raise the necessary funding required to keep the project afloat. “Although we haven’t had the chance yet to see it ship and to reach its full potential in the marketplace, we have proven that what was once considered science fiction can be developed into a technical reality,” Perkins writes. “Even though the pursuit of our vision for Invisible Computing is on hold for now, we strongly believe that there will be a future market for Mojo Lens and expect to accelerate it when the time is right.” Instead of focusing on Lens, Mojo is focusing its resources on the micro-LED technology that powers it. The company had developed a 14,000 ppi micro-LED display as the product’s foundation. “We believe micro-LED will disrupt the entire $160 billion display industry and our unique technology puts us at the forefront of this disruption,” Perkins adds. Along with the pivot, the company has also made a dramatic cut to head count, reducing its staff by 75%. The lays will impact roles and divisions across the startup The company’s most recent funding round was a $45 million Series B-1 announced a year ago tomorrow. The company declined further comment.

Startups should expect more scrutiny from VCs on their hiring plans

Rebecca Szkutak

spree in 2021 as and the job market was hot. But many overindulged in the talent pool and then had to make large cuts and in 2022. The worst for startups is likely still to come. This isn’t a pattern that companies are going to want to fall into again when the market recovers and subsequently ramps up. And maybe they won’t this time around, because VCs are likely going to start paying a lot more attention to how companies are spending their money on hiring. While many of the huge layoff numbers of the past year come from public names like and , startups have also made notable cuts. Some, including , and , have conducted multiple rounds of layoffs in the past year. Many expect layoffs among startups won’t slow down this year. But there’s hope we won’t see this again. Angela Lee, a professor at Columbia Business School, angel investor and venture partner, said founders generally state their hiring plans on a slide at the back of their pitch deck that breaks down how they plan to spend the money they raise. Traditionally, she said, that was a throwaway slide that didn’t get much thought from VCs. But it won’t be anymore. “It is not to say, ‘do not hire’ — it is just that we need to see the double-click now on why,” Lee said. “You need X number of million of dollars for what? Why do you need a chief data scientist and architect?”

Laid off from your crypto job? Here’s what founders are looking for in new talent

Jacquelyn Melinek

across the crypto job market amid macroeconomic volatility and bearish market sentiments, but there are still plenty of startups looking to hire fresh talent. Crypto firms like and have cut employees in recent weeks, which has increased the talent pool and been “instrumental” for startups looking to build talent war chests, Jeff Feng, co-founder of layer-1 blockchain Sei, said to TechCrunch. The layoffs aren’t specific to crypto; Big Tech has also seen a number of cuts in recent months. But layoffs within crypto and adjacent industries present an opportunity for startups to bring in experienced talent across the sector, Nate Holiday, co-founder, president and CEO at Space and Time, shared with TechCrunch. The pace of hiring slowed after the summer of 2022 and continued for the remainder of the year, Aleksi Loytynoja, co-founder and CEO of “proof-of-talent” hiring platform Kleoverse, said to TechCrunch. “The final weeks of 2022, after the FTX collapse, were very quiet. Now, after the New Year, it seems that there’s more hiring happening again.” Yes, most companies are looking to conserve their burn rate and extend their runway as much as possible, but many are still hiring for “highly intentional and critical roles,” Nabin Banskota, co-founder of Niural.com, said to TechCrunch. “Layoffs are increasing the talent pool for startups to find really great talent with overall less competition.” While recruiters and talent heads alike on how to navigate the current hiring environment, we also spoke with a handful of founders about what they’re looking for in applicants. The first piece of advice? “Be obsessed with web3,” Holiday said. “If you don’t eat, sleep and breathe web3, this is probably not the industry for you.”

Crypto recruiters see opportunity to snatch up talent amid Big Tech layoffs

Jacquelyn Melinek

crypto companies in recent months have laid off employees in an effort to keep their businesses afloat. But as big players drop talent back into the pool, startups are getting the opportunity to snatch them up. Recruiters and talent heads alike shared their thoughts with TechCrunch on what this means and how talent should navigate the current hiring environment. “Hiring in a bear market is unique in that those who seek to join the space during downturns are more likely to be passionate about, understand and believe in the industry long term,” Zack Skelly, head of talent at crypto-focused investment firm Dragonfly, said to TechCrunch. “They’re in it for the right reasons versus simply needing to find another job or hoping to financially take advantage of a hype cycle.” On Monday, that Gemini, a crypto startup that intermingled with the now-bankrupt Genesis, is laying off 10% of its staff, according to internal messages viewed by The Information. This was not the first time Gemini laid off staff, either. In July, the firm executed , just seven weeks after cutting 10% of its workforce due to “turbulent market conditions,” TechCrunch reported. Gemini is one of many major crypto firms cutting back. Earlier this month, and of their jobs as the firms tried to weather the downturn in the crypto market. Even though layoffs are happening to major crypto firms, that’s just one segment in a broader resizing of tech workforces: Salesforce, Amazon, Meta, Alphabet and Microsoft have all in recent weeks. “More broadly, this means access to an even larger pool of proven, capable talent,” Gus Brewer, a recruiter at Alchemy, said to TechCrunch. “Many of the companies facing layoffs are known for their extremely high standards when it comes to recruiting, which should definitely be a consideration when evaluating newly available talent.” Some crypto projects and startups are revising their hiring plans to capitalize on this influx of talent, Skelly said. “Yet while a larger pool of candidates may make it easier to fill headcount overall, I’ve heard some founders say that it’s been harder to find those who are truly mission-aligned. There are more qualified resumes appearing — yes — but there’s also more to filter through when it comes to the intangibles.” But it’s important to note that not every crypto sector is hiring aggressively. “There’s very minimal opportunities in trading right now,” Dan Eskow, founder of web3 talent agency Up Top, said to TechCrunch. “There doesn’t seem to be any action whatsoever. Whether it’s developers, traders, researchers, there’s not much to be done.” Eskow focuses on helping talent find jobs in early-stage projects or companies. “You don’t see a ton of layoffs [for startups] because many wait until they absolutely have to. [ … ] Within the DeFi space, there’s a much higher job stability situation,” he noted. Now is a slow period, Tyler Feinerman, head of talent and people operations at Wachsman, said to TechCrunch. “January is typically a slower time of year for hiring, but macroeconomic factors have certainly exacerbated conditions,” Feinerman noted. “February to April is typically the hottest period for the job market, so while things might remain a little slower than usual, I think we can expect to see some green shoots on the horizon.”

Jumia’s investors rethink their stakes — for better and worse

Tage Kene-Okafor

, the Edinburgh-based asset management firm long known to have a penchant for pre-IPO tech companies, has reduced its shares in African e-commerce giant Jumia, per the latest  released by the asset manager. According to the filing, Baillie Gifford disclosed ownership of 18.75 million shares in Jumia, representing 9.39% of the company. In Jumia’s previous filing from a year ago, the asset management firm had 19.85 million shares, owning 10.06% of the company at the time. That’s a 5.50% decrease in shares and a 0.67% drop in ownership. The Scotland asset management firm, well into its centenarian years, has been an early backer of reputable private and public tech companies such as Amazon, Google, Salesforce, Tesla, Airbnb, Spotify, Lyft, Palantir and SpaceX. It has also invested in deals across other geographies, including China’s Alibaba and NIO, and African-based internet businesses Naspers and Jumia. Baillie Gifford bought Jumia shares in 2019, three years after the e-commerce giant went public. The Scottish mortgage trust firm, which is Jumia’s , has sold and bought back a portion of its shares every January since then, with this recent move being its most significant share drop yet. Baillie Gifford remains the e-commerce platform’s largest shareholder. Last November, following several years of reporting losses, Jumia made changes to its management after installing Francis Dufay as acting CEO to replace co-founders Sacha Poignonnec and Jeremy Hodara, who from their co-CEO roles. The move came with instant cuts across various product lines and redundancies, including letting go of a few executives from its Dubai office. All this is to chase profits that have eluded the company. In Q3 2022, the African e-tailer made considerable progress in trimming its losses by 13% from $52.5 million to $45.5 million, its lowest in six quarters. Despite this progress, public confidence in the e-commerce outfit seems to have waned. Jumia has seen its share price reduced by 51% within the past year and saw its stock drop to $3.88 per share after Wednesday’s news; it trades slightly above $4 with a market cap of $404 million. The e-tailer closed the third quarter with a liquidity position of $284.7 million, among which $104.3 million is in cash and cash equivalents. Baillie Gifford’s decision to sell some of its shares may have to do with Jumia’s performance on the bourse. On the other hand, it could be the investment firm’s way of cutting back on the mounting losses it began to incur last year, particularly around growth stocks, which have taken massive hits in the face of rising interest rates and recession fears (last week, the investment group admitted 2022 was a “humbling year” after it lost more than $14 billion on stakes in Tesla and Shopify, according to ). Yet that doesn’t explain why the fund group, with over $230 billion AUM, increased its position in other loss-making companies, such as Chinese EV maker NIO and Wix.com, this past week. Jumia’s next earnings call next month should shed more light on the matter. It’s not all gloom for Jumia, though, as other large shareholders, including D. E. Shaw, Goldman Sachs, and Bank of America, took a different route and increased their shares in the company, owning 2.21%, 1.27% and 1.40%, respectively, per .

Another All Raise CEO steps down

Natasha Mascarenhas

, All Raise CEO has stepped down from her position at the nonprofit. The entrepreneur, who previously ran Founder Gym, an online training center for underrepresented founders, said that the decision was made after she realized “being in the field working directly with entrepreneurs everyday” is her passion. Dixon said that she will be exploring new opportunities in alignment with that. Her resignation is effective starting February 1, 2023. She will remain an advisor to the Bay Area–based nonprofit. This is the second chief executive to leave All Raise since it was first founded in 2017. In 2021, resigned as the helm of the nonprofit to rejoin the startup world as well; Kostka is now an operator in residence and limited partner at Operator Collective, according to her LinkedIn. With Dixon gone, who joined the outfit as chief of staff nine months ago, will step in as interim CEO. In the , Buckner wrote that “Mandela leaves All Raise in a strong position, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to continue the hard work of diversifying the VC backed ecosystem.” Dixon did not immediately respond to comment on the record. It is unclear if All Raise is immediately kicking off a permanent CEO search. The nonprofit has historically defined its goals in two ways: First, it wants to increase the amount of seed funding that goes to female founders from 11% to 23% by 2030, and, second, it wants to double the percentage of female decision-makers at U.S. firms by 2028. , Dixon said that the company will work on creating explicit goals around what impact it wants to have for historically overlooked individuals. The data underscores the challenge ahead. Black and Latinx women receive disproportionately less venture capital money than white women; nonbinary founders can also face higher hurdles when seeking funding, .  The nonprofit has created specific programs for Black and Latinx founders but has not disclosed a specific goal for the cohort yet. These disconnects can be lost if not tracked. All Raise’s last , and they’re working on bringing that analysis back, tells TechCrunch in an interview. “All Raise is in great hands with Paige as interim leader and we’ve got a lot of exciting things that we’re shaping and scaling,” Lee said. “We have to all continue to link arms to try and continue to make improvements for our industry…We’ve made good progress that we can’t let up.” Since launch, the nonprofit has raised $11 million in funding and has opened regional chapters in New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, DC, and, soon, Miami.

Payments remain the darling of the fintech space

Mary Ann Azevedo

Last week, I dug into . We’ve already discussed ad nauseam that fintech funding is not just down, but also way down. And I’m not foolish enough to try and make any real predictions about the state of fintech in 2023. Instead, I’m going to highlight some specific findings of that report that stood out to me and that I didn’t already write about. Digital lending funding was down 53% to $11.5 billion in 2022. Dollars raised and deal volume in the fourth quarter dropped to their lowest levels since 2020 — with $1.6 billion raised across 121 deals. That’s a big drop even from just the first quarter of 2022, in which we saw $5.3 billion raised across 198 deals. It’s not too difficult to surmise why this was the case. In 2022, we saw inflation and interest rates climb and startups with loose underwriting standards are no doubt paying the price with increased delinquencies and defaults. So when investors are thinking about where next to put their money, it’s unlikely that digital lending startups are going to be high on their lists, to be honest. But guess where we saw an even bigger drop in funding? Banking. Globally, banking funding slid by 63%, or nearly two-thirds, according to CB Insights. Oof. In all of 2022, banking startups raised $9.4 billion across 299 deals. That compares to $25.3 billion raised across 447 deals in 2021. There were so many challenger banks born in recent years, it is not surprising that that segment became oversaturated. My guess is that we’ll see a real survival of the fittest in 2023 and beyond. Heck, even decacorn Chime has struggled, as evidenced by its in the fourth quarter. Meanwhile, payments remain the darling of the fintech space, with the segment leading in total funding and deals in the fourth quarter of 2022. About $3.4 billion was raised across 188 deals in the payments space in Q4 — nearly double the $1.8 billion raised across 62 deals by banking startups in the same three-month period. With more businesses and consumers opting to pay for things digitally, even in a post-pandemic world, this is hardly surprising. And lastly, wealth tech made an impressive showing in terms of investor interest. Wealth tech companies brought in $1.7 billion across 164 deals in the fourth quarter. I think this reflects increased effort on the part of all generations to think ahead when it comes to their money, and not just live for short-term gratification. , CB Insights’ lead fintech analyst, believes that last year’s funding numbers reflected more of a correction than a bubble. While of course I still believe fintech is in its early innings, I do also think that people went a little too crazy, too fast in 2021 and a lot of companies that probably have gotten funded did. So whether it’s a correction or a bubble is hard to say really. Either way, let’s hope 2023 brings with it greater due diligence, less ego and more viable business models. We certainly don’t need a repeat of last year. Beleaguered fintech startup last week that involved the launch of a multimedia campaign featuring that will stream on Hulu, Peacock, ESPN, ABC, NBC, and other networks, as well as “for any internet user to play around with to discover their own shoppergänger,” a company spokesperson told me via email. The company will soon be “rolling out an influencer campaign where creators will dive into #dolltok by building narratives around their #shoppergangers (dolls customized to their own unique shopper personas) in their miniature worlds,” according to the spokesperson. speculates that the fintech startup is using memes in an effort to “connect with Gen Z.” From Axios: “Retail trading platform is called Sherwood that will be led by veteran tech editor and media entrepreneur Joshua Topolsky. The entity will of Robinhood’s popular daily markets newsletter, Snacks, and will serve as a branding and customer acquisition tool. Sherwood Media has been set up as an independent LLC that will exist as a subsidiary of Robinhood, in part to ensure that the content produced within Sherwood remains editorially independent.” Snafus can happen even when incumbents and fintechs partner. Reports : “ experienced delays in online transactions conducted via for much of the day Wednesday (Jan. 18), but those problems were resolved by the afternoon, the bank said. On outage tracker DownDetector.com, irate customers reported missing funds and unexpected negative balances due to problems with the digital payment network.” How can fintech startups outlast the VC winter? Peter Hazlehurst, co-founder and CEO of BaaS startup , shares his thoughts in this TC+ article . Reports : “Wilmington N.C.-based announced CFO David Rudow will be leaving the cloud banking provider effective Jan. 31 as the company will lay off about 7% of its workforce, or 117 employees, according to and a company spokesperson. Chief corporate development and strategy officer Greg Orenstein will move into its CFO seat.” Nihar Bobba has “dipped” out of Wharton to join fintech-focused venture firm as a principal, according to this . He had been a venture partner there since last March, according to his LinkedIn . Anyone who has tried to buy a new car recently will appreciate this. Publicly traded , an artificial intelligence (AI) lending marketplace, has to its Auto Retail platform — digital finance and online sales — to offer dealerships “a seamless online to in-store car-buying experience, from search to signing.” To hear more rant on this topic and other fun stuff, listen to this week’s . A recent panel discussion among VCs Mercedes Bent of , Victoria Treyger of and Jillian Williams of hosted by TC editor and StrictlyVC founder Connie Loizos touched on a number of hot topics in the world of fintech. As Connie writes: “If you’re a fintech founder, investor or regulator, you might want to catch the full conversation — which also touches on regulation, talent in the industry and crypto” in the video linked . Very talented tech journalist Eric Newcomer is still “marveling at ’s decision to go public and sue the founder of the student loan company ” after purchasing the startup for $175 million and then accusing CEO Charlie Javice “of helping to fake millions of customers in order to induce the bank to buy her company.” (We’re still marveling too!) I 100% agree with him here: “While I applaud JPMorgan for holding an alleged fraudster accountable, the bank certainly looks pretty foolish for failing to notice buying the company that so many of Frank’s customers had apparently been brazenly faked.” All this leads Eric to ask: “ ” Wholesale marketplace announced last week that it has built what it describes as an “ ” to give independent brands a way to manage their businesses — “all from their phones.” So what’s the fintech tie? A spokesperson told me via email: “With this new brand app, customers can manage orders from anywhere at anytime — meaning they will never miss an order resulting in more money being earned.” Reports Fintech Finance News: Turkish fintech company “ . . . [announced] the launch of its insurance arm. Currently live are mobile and pet insurance products, with more to come in the first half of the year….This is the first expansion of Papara’s product suite outside of its core banking and money management products since launching six years ago. It marks the next step in Papara’s mission to become one of Europe’s leading financial SuperApps, providing users with all the accessible and affordable financial services they need in one place.” More . The relationship between incumbents and upstarts has long been a complicated one. Cartoonist Ian Foley illustrates the start of the consolidation and M&A process that the fintech market is starting in earnest . QED-backed Nigerian fintech has made a rebrand by adopting the name of its flagship product, , piloted in 2019 as an agency banking platform that uses POS devices to meet the financial needs of underbanked and unbanked customers in Nigeria. However, the platform has since metamorphosed into a full business banking solution. While maintaining its agency banking core, Moniepoint began providing small businesses with banking and operational tools like working capital, business expansion loans, expense management (business payments cards), accounting and bookkeeping solutions and insurance. Moniepoint’s interfacing nature between thousands of small businesses and millions of individual customers made it TeamApt’s most well-known brand, among others, that included a white-labeled digital banking product for banks and enterprise software for small business management. “When we started out in 2015, we were primarily providing back office payment infrastructure for banks and needed an apt team, hence the name TeamApt. Since then, we have evolved significantly and our flagship business banking solution, Moniepoint, has become our core focus and where we see the future,” CEO Tosin Eniolorunda, Moniepoint co-founder and CEO said of the rebrand. The Moniepoint brand also made the fintech the most money. It currently processes most of the POS transactions in Nigeria with an annualized total payments volume (TPV) of over $170 billion and a customer base of over 600,000 businesses, enabling it to more than double its annual revenues in 2022. The platform also launched a credit offering in 2022, which has already disbursed over $1.4 billion in working capital loans. Considering all this, it’s easy to see the rebrand as fitting. Moniepoint, now a London-based company, claims to be profitable (it says since 2020). It became QED’s first African investment last July when the U.S. fintech-focused firm that saw Moniepoint’s valuation jump into soonicorn range. Bryce Durbin : , a digital-only, full-stack life insurance startup, will announce this week that it has closed on $25 million in funding led by AXA Venture Partners with participation from existing investors HSCM Ventures, Juxtapose, and Munich Re Ventures. It also has acquired Commercial Travelers Life Insurance in an effort to expand its own life insurance offering nationwide. Founded in 2021, the company touts that its term life insurance offering “guarantees the policyholder’s family will continue to receive their income in the event that the policyholder passes away.” The company’s latest funding round brings its aggregate amount of capital raised to $45 million. The money will go toward scaling its business nationwide, developing new insurance products and “continuing to launch its proprietary solutions through strategic partners.” That’s it for this week. Thanks, once again, for reading and sharing this. See you next time! xoxo, Mary Ann

Tech forgot its umbrella

Natasha Mascarenhas

It kind of feels like tech forgot its umbrella. Like, it remembered to pack its water bottle, wear the right shoes and layer up, but when it came time to officially go outside — and say, face the year ahead — it realized that a waterproof hoodie wasn’t enough. It needs an industrial umbrella. You know what I mean? Here’s what I’m dancing, or, erm, writing, around. It feels like the macroeconomic environment has been reasonably volatile for the past year; and we’re seeing entrepreneurs react to the market as if it just happened to knock on their door, trip them over and proceed to steal all their belongings. I’m not saying that founders and investors should have perfectly predicted what Q1 of this year should look like; I’m just wondering how long we’re going to get “the economy” as a catalyst for hard decisions. What finally gets a CEO to step down? What finally gets a company to conduct its third round of layoffs? Is it the economy, or is it a uniquely human decision that comes just months after you were told to grow at all costs? When we’re talking about pivots and layoffs, I think it’s important to talk about the realities of shifting to deal with the new normal. Abstractions such as the economy just fall flat now that it’s been more than a few months since the markets have been grey. I guess what I’m trying to say is, you can probably leave your house during a drizzle and end up at the grocery store just a little damp. If you forget your umbrella during a downpour, well, now you’re soaking wet and no one feels that bad for you. Don’t forget them, and better yet, sport them proudly. Can you tell it’s been raining on the East Coast? Follow me on or for other subpar metaphors and thoughts. In the rest of this newsletter, we’ll talk about a fresh new venture fund that isn’t afraid to talk about privilege or honesty, I spoke to Sophia Amoruso, the founder of Nasty Gal and Girlboss, It is launching with a $5 million target, targeting a check size between $50,000 to $150,000. She’s already landed checks from the who’s who in tech. Prominent investors include a slew of a16z partners such as Marc Andreessen, Andrew Chen and Chris Dixon, as well as entrepreneur Ev Williams, icon Paris Hilton and support from investors Ryan Hoover and Cleo Capital’s Sarah Kunst. It’s her high-profile and rocky experience in Silicon Valley’s spotlight that has finally given Amoruso the operating experience needed to launch her own venture firm. While to accredited investors outside her network, she said from a portfolio construction standpoint: she’s not necessarily looking for “diamonds in the rough” or a specific diversity quota. “I plan to invest in men and women and everything in between. And if anything, like why not invest in the privilege and ride the coattails of a dude?” “As a woman, why wouldn’t I want to invest in the advantage that a man has, like, feel free to publish that — it’s true.” Emily Malan . Reports Amanda Silberling: On Gas, users sign up with their school, add friends and answer polls about their classmates. But the questions in the polls are intended to boost users’ confidence rather than damage it. Teens might be asked to choose which of four friends is the best DJ or has the best smile. Then the person who was chosen will get an anonymous message with their compliment, sent from a vague “boy in 10th grade” or “girl in 11th grade.” When Clubhouse first rose to fame, investors and founders alike were abuzz with energy around the opportunity for innovation in the consumer social space. Since, Clubhouse has been through its share of struggles — — but so has Twitter. I think Gas’ early exit and already on site, may bring some needed optimism to the conversation. Bryce Durbin/TechCrunch I’ve covered Clearco, formerly known as Clearbanc, for years. Like many, the Toronto-based fintech had a particularly volatile past 12 months. But this week truly marked the end of an era, with co-founder as chief executive of the tech unicorn. Clearco has undergone numerous rounds of layoffs over the pandemic, including a cut that impacted 25% of staff. Additionally, in 2022, the Toronto-based fintech saw its other co-founder, Andrew D’Souza, step down from his CEO role to be replaced by Romanow. Now, both the co-founders will assume executive chairman positions. “We don’t ever lie, we are under the same pressures as every other company to become a profitable business. And so we’ve just continued to make the hard decisions … and continue to be ahead of the curve,” , explaining the shift. / Getty Images With that, I’m off to enjoy a weekend in Philadelphia with some new and old friends. Is anyone else tired of my East Coast tour? No? Just me? I’ll be back in San Francisco, and your inboxes, soon. Take care,

The thing we thought was happening with robotic investments is definitely happening

Brian Heater

There was a brief, beautiful moment for a few months in 2021 when it felt like robotic investments might be immune from broader market forces. We all fundamentally and implicitly understood this to not be the case, but it was a nice moment nevertheless. Truth is, there was a bit of insulation in there. There was still enough forward momentum to keep cruising for a bit, even as headwinds grew. But everything comes down to Earth eventually. Now that we’re roughly a month into 2023, we can begin assessing the damage. Looking at these graphs , things seems fairly stark. Crunchbase A couple of top line points: Per the first point, 2020 was the lowest. It was also an anomaly, what with the global pandemic. Uncertainty doesn’t breed investing confidence. The full year figure is even more striking given how investor confidence extended into early last year. Things really started slowing down in Q2. A cursory look at the bar graph might suggest that 2021 is an anomaly. Yes and no. Yes, as far as acceleration. No, as far as the long view. The question is not if those bars will start growing year over year, but when. Crunchbase The same thing that stalled investments in 2020 accelerated them the following year. Even as things reopened, jobs were increasingly difficult to fill and companies across the board were in a desperate push to automate. As nice as it might be, we’re not ready to classify automation and robotics as “recession-proof” just yet. I do, however, suspect that those who control the purse strings fundamentally understand that these downward trends are more a product of the macroenvironment than anything specific to robotics. For some early-stage startups, however, that’s cold comfort. A lot of runways shortened dramatically this year. Consolation could come somewhere down the road, but in a lot of cases decisive action needs to be taken for those who suddenly find themselves unable to close a round that might have felt like a foregone conclusion 12 months ago. Given the choice between getting acquired and shutting down that some will inevitably face, it seems likely that M&A activity will spike. Sure there’s less money floating around, but few can turn down a good fire sale. In some cases, that will go a ways toward strengthening products and portfolios. Anecdotally, I’m seeing investments ramp up for the year, but that appears part of the natural cycle of companies waiting until after the holidays to announce. A proper bounce back, on the other hand, seems inevitable, but only those with high-powered crystal balls can say precisely when.

Then call them ‘robots’

Brian Heater

robots, they were “androids” or “automatons.” The word “robot” is commonly accepted as having arrived in English through — of all places — a Czech play. “R.U.R.” made its public debut in Prague , yesterday. It would arrive in the States a year and a half later, with Spencer Tracy making his nonspeaking Broadway debut as one of Rossum’s titular Universal Robots. The playwright Karel Čapek humbly noted the following decade that he couldn’t take full credit for the word’s origin. That honor belonged to his brother Josef, an accomplished painter and noted writer and poet in his own right: “Listen, Josef,” the author began, “I think I have an idea for a play.” “What kind,” the painter mumbled (he really did mumble, because at the moment he was holding a brush in his mouth). The author told him as briefly as he could. “Then write it,” the painter remarked, without taking the brush from his mouth or halting work on the canvas. The indifference was quite insulting. “But,” the author said, “I don’t know what to call these artificial workers. I could call them Labori, but that strikes me as a bit bookish.” “Then call them Robots,” the painter muttered, brush in mouth, and went on painting. And that’s how it was. Thus was the word Robot born; let this acknowledge its true creator. Maybe it’s better we wound up with a derivative of “robota,” rather than “labori,” as the latter too clearly betrays its underlying definition to English speakers. The former operates in the same ballpark, certainly, meaning “servitude or forced labor,” but that requires some knowledge of Czech not possessed by most native English speakers. Bryce Durbin Obviously, the definition is a problematic one. It humanizes these systems in way I suspect would make most uncomfortable. Though, for the record, Rossum’s robots didn’t need humanizing. They’re far removed from the commonly agreed-upon modern definition. They’re closer to organic beings, mixed with a little bit of poetic magic — more Pinocchio than Howdy Doody. Nevertheless, it’s worth noting that questions of robotic agency date back even before the arrival of the word in English. At the risk of spoiling a 102-year-old play, so, too, does the concept of robot uprising. You can get as annoyed as you want at people who immediately jump to the idea of “robopocalypse” every time an advanced new system enters their Twitter feed, but the concept has been around a hell of a lot longer than any of us. The flip side of this conversation is, of course, dehumanizing humans. It’s something I sometimes worry we risk with technology. It’s a conversation I’ve had with folks in many blue-collar positions. I still believe that technology can — and often does — make jobs better, whether it’s a robotic exoskeleton lightening the load or an autonomous cart moving goods around a warehouse. Technology can also open new avenues for pushing workers to their limit. Monitoring a worker’s whereabouts and output on a minute scale, for instance, does not allow time for humans to be human. More relevant to the current economic situation, however, is something I’m trying to get better at myself. In some respects, evolution has fine-tuned our brains to understand abstraction. Take metaphor and symbolism in the art we make, for example. We’re good at creating these sorts of shortcuts to help understand the big ideas we’re not necessarily capable of putting into words. We do, however, have our limits. Big numbers, for instance, can be extremely difficult to conceptualize on an individual scale. I understand that there’s a literal big difference between having $100 million and having $1 billion. But if I want to actually get anything done today, I’ll simply accept them both as a lot more money than I, a journalist, will ever have and simply go about on my way. David Paul Morris/Bloomberg / Getty Images To most of us, the notion of, say, 18,000 people losing their jobs in one single decision from upper management is impossibly large. We — and I certainly include myself in this — can do a better job being mindful of the kinds of impacts these decisions have on an individual level. I know how painful being laid off is. I’ve been through it twice — I do work in publishing, after all. I know you can read a million LinkedIn posts and still not internalize that losing your job was not your fault. Some of us are just programmed to blame ourselves. The first time I was laid off, it knocked me off track for a couple of years, frankly. Though I do firmly believe that you have to have gone through this experience to be able to exhibit compassion. I know this is obvious on the face of it, but losing a job in a bad economy means you’re looking for a job in a bad economy (in some cases, alongside hundreds of thousands of people with broadly the same skill set). It’s important to remember that when discussing layoffs at companies like Amazon, Microsoft and Google. It’s also important to be honest about the degree to which success is a product of luck. That’s something that easily gets lost in the culture of rise-and-grind LinkedIn hustle-porn post platitudes. I’m sure reading the social media equivalent of an inspirational poster about how smart and successful some CEO thinks they are must have inspired someone at some point. But I don’t generally find it super useful. I happen to believe there are some deep-seated issues that have let us get to a point where disrupting 10 or 20,000 lives is just the way it goes sometimes. But I’m also under no illusion that we’ll be able to address the root cause anytime soon. So, let’s start discussing the ways we can help one another, knowing that many of us have been through the process and, more than likely, will go through it again. For me, it’s meant doing what I can to promote people who suddenly find themselves out of work. I’ll happily amplify them to my meager follower count. Sharing job openings is never a bad idea either. There’s a lot of talk about how the robotics community is, well, a community. Being part of a community means lending a hand when people are down. I would love to start a dialogue about the best ways to help in this current moment. Crunchbase A logical question in all of this is: How bad is bad? It’s a difficult thing to quantify, of course. Thankfully, some new figures , collating some of the trends around robotics investments. Here’s your headline: Investments in robotics startups was down 44% in 2022. That’s a lot. A lot, a lot — particularly for an industry that had so much forward momentum coming out of the pandemic. See the top line graph above for an easy visualization. Crunchbase Another thing you’ll immediately notice in this next graph: The 2022 bar is also lower than 2018 and 2019. In fact, it’s the second lowest in half a decade. Only 2020 was lower, and we all know what happened then. That was obviously an anomaly. The question, ultimately, is whether 2021’s record spend was an anomaly as well. Common thought — and I tend to agree — is no, on a long enough timeline. The economy will improve (though it’s an open question of how long that will take) and we’ll see a return to the trending upward growth. I do believe the growth experienced in 2021 was a direct result of the fallout from the anomalous conditions that led to the 2020 dip, but I think it’s reasonable to expect a return to continued year-over-year growth. The recession we’re currently facing will also have knock-on effects for the industry. One effect I’ve discussed previously is a potential increase in M&As. This makes local sense. Say you had a raise on the roadmap and suddenly your runway crumples beneath you. What’s the better outcome: closing the company or selling it to a potentially like-minded firm? Roin/Built I can’t speak to the specifics of , but I can say it’s another data point for what I anticipate will be a growing trend. As I noted in the piece, this one makes sense on the face of it. The two companies weren’t competitors, so much as complementary, as this deal effectively extends Built’s offerings to include concrete automation and the extremely fun term “shotcrete” (shooting concrete, basically). “Since their founding, Roin’s team has pushed the boundaries of construction autonomy, which has created a unique expertise in our industry,” Built Robotics founder and CEO Noah Ready-Campbell said in a release. “With Roin joining Built, the combined teams will continue developing new autonomous construction applications and customers can expect to see robotic applications expanding beyond earthmoving.” Kewazo Construction is, of course, a prime target for automation. It’s massive, it’s extremely profitable and it checks off the three Ds (dull, dirty, dangerous) quite easily. This week, , which we had as a young early-stage startup at our TC Sessions: Robotics pitch-off pre-pandemic, just raised $10 million. The company’s Liftbot product is effectively an automated elevator for scaffolding. “Despite already existing labor shortages, it became impossible for foreign workers to commute back to their home countries and come back,” Kewazo co-founder and CEO Artem Kuchukov told TechCrunch. “Many sites in Europe, the Middle East, and Singapore massively suffered from that, as a large percentage of their workforce simply wasn’t there anymore. That was a huge catalyst for construction automation, as companies began to look for ways to sustain their businesses without relying on an uncertain labor supply.” Scythe Robotics In spite of all the aforementioned slowdowns, I have seen fundraising starting to slowly ramp up after the holidays. Landscaping firm Scythe , bringing its total funding north of $60 million. “The market has definitely taken a bearish turn,” co-founder and CEO Jack Morrison told TechCrunch of the round, “that committed climate VCs are well funded and actively looking for investment opportunities that urgently address the intensifying climate crisis we face.” Cornell University And finally, since this has been a heavy one, let’s close by looking at . It’s a fun exploration of how movement can be influenced through compliant actuators. “We detailed the full complement of methods by which you can design these actuators for future applications,” says researcher Kirstin Petersen. “For example, when the actuators are used as legs, we show that just by crossing over one set of tubes, you can go from an ostrich-like gait, that has a really wide stance, to an elephant-like trot.” Bryce Durbin/TechCrunch

Strava acquires Fatmap, a 3D mapping platform for the great outdoors

Paul Sawers

, the activity tracking and social community platform used by more than 100 million people globally, has acquired , a European company that’s building a high-resolution 3D global map platform for the great outdoors. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Founded in 2009, Strava has emerged as one of the preeminent activity tracking services, proving particularly popular in the cycling and running fraternities, which use the Strava app to plot routes, converse with fellow athletes and record all their action for posterity via GPS. The company has increasingly been targeting hikers too, and last year a new trail sports and routes option aimed at walkers, mountain bikers and trail runners. Fatmap, for its part, was founded a decade ago, with with high-resolution digital maps. In the intervening years, the company has worked with various satellite and aerospace companies to bolster its platform with detailed maps incorporating summits, rivers, passes, paths, huts and more, arming anyone venturing into mountainous terrain the information they need to know exactly what they’ll encounter before they arrive. Fatmap in action. Fatmap / Strava With 1.6 million registered users, Fatmap’s mission, ultimately, is to be , with a ($30/year) unlocking access to extra features such as downloadable maps and route planning in the mobile app. The ultimate long-term goal for Strava is to integrate Fatmap’s core platform into Strava itself, but that will be a resource-intensive endeavor that won’t happen overnight. And that is why Strava is working to create a single sign-on (SSO) integration in the near-term, meaning that subscribers will be able to access the full Fatmap feature-set by logging into the Fatmap app with their Strava credentials. While Strava and Fatmap will remain separate products for now, Strava said that it will decide in the future whether Fatmap will live on as a standalone product once the technical integration has taken place. CEO and co-founder Michael Horvath, who before returning as head honcho , said that the Fatmap acquisition is part of Strava’s “ongoing investment to provide a best-in-class digital experience” for those seeking an active lifestyle. “Where other map platforms have been designed for navigating streets and cities, Fatmap built a map designed specifically to help people explore the outdoors,” Horvath told TechCrunch in a Q&A. “We will enable Fatmap technology in all of Strava’s services, empowering anyone to discover and plan an outdoor experience with curated local guides, points of interest and safety information.” In terms of timescales, Strava said that it has set up a dedicated team tasked with integrating Fatmap, and it anticipates this to start showing up inside Strava from around mid-2023. The company was also quick to stress that Fatmap’s tech will be available to both free and paid-for Strava members, though certain features relating to maps, discovery and route-planning will be reserved for paying subscribers. Strava provided TechCrunch with the following mockup images to give an idea of what Fatmap might look like inside a future incarnation of Strava. Strava / Fatmap integration mockup. Strava Strava north of $150 million in funding since its inception, with big-name backers including esteemed Silicon Valley investor Sequoia Capital, but the company hasn’t engaged in much acquisition activity in its 14-year history. Strava injury prevention app last May for an undisclosed figure though, and today we’ve learned that Strava online athlete community in 2021, something that Strava didn’t officially announce at the time. It’s clear that the proprietary 3D mapping technology Fatmap had developed would have taken too much time and resources for Strava to replicate itself from scratch, which is why buying Fatmap outright likely made more sense in this instance. “Strava’s primary goal is to be the digital experience at the center of active people’s lives — that includes offering people a holistic view of their active lifestyle, no matter where they live, which sport they love or what device they use,” Horvath said. “This concept fuels much of our strategic thinking and product roadmap. For acquisitions specifically, we explore those that can accelerate our strategic vision to create the best subscription service for active people serving the largest active community in the world.” While Fatmap is incorporated in the U.K. and has part of its workforce based there, the bulk of its 50 employees are spread across offices in France, Germany and Lithuania. Strava said that it’s keeping the Fatmap team in tact, and each will continue to report to Fatmap founder and CEO Misha Gopaul, who will now serve as VP of Product at Strava and report to Strava’s chief product and technology officer Steve Lloyd. While Strava isn’t revealing how much it paid for Fatmap, the startup had raised around $30 million in funding, including a hitherto undisclosed $16.5 million round that it said it closed in early 2020 from 83North, P101 and the European Space Agency (ESA). So while the price of this deal could comfortably be in the nine-digit range, having Fatmap on board potentially makes Strava a far stickier proposition for a greater number of people — not just cycling and running for which it’s better known.

You could be Wasted and not even know it

Natasha Mascarenhas

Hello and welcome back to  , a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. This week,     and  took the mic to talk through breaking news, retrospective features and all the blogosphere content that fits in between. Shout-out to Theresa and Andrew for putting together a diverse script that includes… … nothing. about. layoffs! Don’t worry, there are still tensions to pay attention to in today’s market, but this episode was refreshingly about innovation, and a shifting to this new normal we keep hearing about. Here’s what we got into:

The current legal cases against generative AI are just the beginning

Kyle Wiggers

the mainstream, each new day brings a new lawsuit. Microsoft, GitHub and OpenAI are currently being in a that accuses them of violating copyright law by allowing , a code-generating AI system trained on billions of lines of public code, to regurgitate licensed code snippets without providing credit. Two companies behind popular AI art tools, and Stability AI, are in the crosshairs of a that alleges they infringed on the rights of millions of artists by training their tools on web-scraped images. And just last week, stock image supplier Getty Images took Stability AI to court for using millions of images from its site without permission to train , an art-generating AI. At issue, mainly, is generative AI’s tendency to replicate images, text and more — including copyrighted content — from the data that was used to train it. In a example, an AI tool used by CNET to write explanatory articles was found to have plagiarized articles written by humans — articles presumably swept up in its training dataset. Meanwhile, an academic study published in December found that image-generating AI models like  and  can and do . The generative AI space remains healthy — it raised $1.3 billion in venture funding through November 2022, to PitchBook, up 15% from the year prior. But the legal questions are beginning to affect business. Some image-hosting platforms have banned AI-generated content for fear of legal blowback. And several legal experts have cautioned generative AI tools could put companies at risk if they were to unwittingly incorporate copyrighted content generated by the tools into any of products they sell. “Unfortunately, I expect a flood of litigation for almost all generative AI products,” Heather Meeker, a legal expert on open source software licensing and a general partner at OSS Capital, told TechCrunch via email. “The copyright law needs to be clarified.” Content creators such as Polish artist Greg Rutkowski, known for creating fantasy landscapes, have become the face of campaigns protesting the treatment of artists by generative AI startups. Rutkowski has complained about the fact that typing text like “Wizard with sword and a glowing orb of magic fire fights a fierce dragon Greg Rutkowski” will create an image that looks very similar to his original work — threatening his income. Given generative AI isn’t going anywhere, what comes next? Which legal cases have merit and what court battles lie on the horizon? Eliana Torres, an intellectual property attorney with Nixon Peabody, says that the allegations of the class action suit against Stability AI, Midjourney, and DeviantArt will be challenging to prove in court. In particular, she thinks it’ll be difficult to ascertain which images were used to train the AI systems because the art the systems generate won’t necessarily look exactly like any of the training images. State-of-the-art image-generating systems like Stable Diffusion are what’s known as “diffusion” models. Diffusion models learn to create images from text prompts (e.g. “a sketch of a bird perched on a windowsill”) as they work their way through massive training datasets. The models are trained to “re-create” images as opposed to drawing them from scratch, starting with pure noise and refining the image over time to make it incrementally closer to the text prompt. Perfect recreations occur often, to Torres’ point. As for images in the style of a particular artist, style has proven nearly impossible to shield with copyright. “If LAION created the dataset, then the alleged infringement occurred at that point, not once the dataset was used to train the models,” Torres said. “It’s the same way a human can walk into a gallery and look at paintings but is not allowed to take photos.” Companies like Stability AI and OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, have long claimed that “fair use” protects them in the event that their systems were trained on licensed content. This doctrine enshrined in U.S. law permits limited use of copyrighted material without first having to obtain permission from the rightsholder. Supporters point to cases like Authors Guild v. Google in which the New York-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that Google manually scanning millions of copyrighted books without a license to create its book search project was fair use. What constitutes fair use is constantly being challenged and revised, but in the generative AI realm, it’s an especially untested theory. A recent in Bloomberg Law asserts that the success of a fair use defense will depend on whether the works generated by the AI are considered — in other words, whether they use the copyrighted works in a way that significantly varies from the originals. Previous case law, particularly the Supreme Court’s 2021 Google v. Oracle decision, suggests that using collected data to create new works can be transformative. In that case, Google’s use of portions of Java SE code to create its Android operating system was found to be fair use. Interestingly, other countries have signaled a move toward more permissive use of publicly available content — copyrighted or not. For example, the U.K. is planning to tweak an existing law to allow text and data mining “for any purpose,” moving the balance of power away from rightsholders and heavily toward businesses and other commercial entities. There’s been no appetite to embrace such a shift in the U.S., however, and Torres doesn’t expect that to change anytime soon — if ever. The Getty case is slightly more nuanced. Getty — which Andrew Burt, one of the founders of AI-focused law firm BNH.ai, disagrees with Burt noted that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is already pursuing this path with what it calls “ ,” where it forces tech firms to kill problematic algorithms along with any ill-gotten data that they used to train them. In a recent example, the FTC used the remedy of algorithmic disgorgement to force Everalbum, the maker of a now-defunct mobile app called Ever, to delete facial recognition algorithms the company developed using content uploaded by people who used its app. (Everalbum didn’t make it clear that the users’ data was being used for this purpose.) “I would expect generative AI systems to be no different from traditional AI systems in this way,” Burt said. What are companies to do, then, in the absence of precedent and guidance? Torres and Burt concur that there’s no obvious answer. For her part, Torres recommends looking closely at the terms of use for each commercial generative AI system. She notes that Midjourney has different rights for paid versus unpaid users, while OpenAI’s DALL-E assigns rights around generated art to users while also warning them of “similar content” and encouraging due diligence to avoid infringement. “Businesses should be aware of the terms of use and do their due diligence, such as using reverse image searches of the generated work intended to be used commercially,” she added. Burt recommends that companies adopt risk management frameworks such as the AI Risk Management Framework released by National Institute of Standards and Technology, which gives guidance on how to address and mitigate risks in the design and use of AI systems. He also suggests that companies continuously test and monitor their systems for potential legal liabilities. “While generative AI systems make AI risk management harder — it is, to be fair, much more straightforward to monitor an AI system that makes binary predictions for risks — there are concrete actions that can be taken,” Burt said. Some firms, under pressure from activists and content creators, have taken steps in the right direction. Stability AI plans to allow artists to opt out of the dataset used to train the next-generation Stable Diffusion model. Through the website HaveIBeenTrained.com, rightsholders will be able to request opt-outs before training begins in a few weeks’ time. Rival OpenAI offers no such opt-out mechanism, but the firm has partnered with organizations like Shutterstock to license portions of their image galleries. For Copilot, GitHub introduced a filter that checks code suggestions with their surrounding code of about 150 characters against public GitHub code and hides suggestions if there’s a match or “near match.” It’s an — enabling the filter can cause Copilot to omit key pieces of attribution and license text — but GitHub has said that it plans to introduce additional features in 2023 aimed at helping developers make informed decisions about whether to use Copilot’s suggestions. Taking the ten-thousand-foot view, Burt believes that generative AI is being deployed more and more without an understanding of how to address its dangers. He praises efforts to combat the obvious problems, like copyrighted works being used to train content generators. But he cautions that the opacity of the systems will put pressure on businesses to prevent the systems from wreaking havoc — and having a plan to address the systems’ risks before they’re put into the wild. “Generative AI models are among the most exciting and novel uses of AI — with the clear potential to transform the ‘knowledge economy’,” he said. “Just as with AI in many other areas, the technology is largely there and ready for use. What isn’t yet mature are the ways to manage all of its risks. Without thoughtful, mature evaluation and management of these systems’ harms, we risk deploying a technology before we understand how to stop it from causing damage.” Meeker is more pessimistic, arguing that not all businesses — regardless of the mitigations they undertake — will be able to shoulder the legal costs associated with generative AI. This points to the urgent need for clarification or changes in copyright law, she says. “If AI developers don’t know what data they can use to train models, the technology could be set back by years,” Meeker said. “In a sense, there is nothing they can do, because if businesses are unable to lawfully train models on freely available materials, they won’t have enough data to train the models. There are only various long-term solutions like opt-in or opt-out models, or systems that aggregate royalties for payment to all authors … The suits against AI businesses for ingesting copyrightable material to train models are potentially crippling to the industry, [and] could cause consolidation that would limit innovation.”

Dell has acquired cloud orchestration startup Cloudify, sources tell us for up to $100M

Ingrid Lunden

is making an acquisition to beef up its cloud services business, specifically its offerings in DevOps: The company is buying , an Israeli startup that has built a platform for cloud orchestration and infrastructure automation. Cloudify’s tools are used by cloud architects and DevOps engineers to manage containers, workloads, and more across hybrid environments. Dell did not officially announce the acquisition, but after sources contacted us, we noticed that Dell had pertaining to some of the share awards for Cloudify employees. A spokesperson has now also confirmed the purchase to TechCrunch. “Dell Technologies announced that it has completed the acquisition of Cloudify,” the spokesperson said. “This transaction allows Dell to continue to innovate our edge offerings.” Dell is not disclosing the value, or any other details, of the acquisition. Our sources tell us that the deal is valued at up to $100 million (could be as low as $70 million). That range make it a solid exit for Cloudify. Originally the startup was from GigaSpaces in 2017 — Nati Shalom, the founder and CTO of Cloudify, was also a co-founder of GigaSpaces. Since then, the startup has , according to PitchBook data. It has several strategic backers on its cap table: VMware, KPN, and Intel were all investors in Cloudify. Dell has been active in Israel since , which formed the basis of an R&D operation in the country. That acquisition was for a song, relatively speaking: Exanet was bankrupt at the time and the deal was done for $12 million. From what we understand, Dell had been looking for acquisitions in this space for a while. Cloudify’s pitch is at engineers who are grappling with managing network and data infrastructure at scaling organizations: It provides a platform that lets those DevOps engineers integrate and manage different products they may already be using — Ansible, Terraform, Kubernetes, ServiceNow, Jenkins, Azure, ARM and TOSCA among them — and automating the work of them working together. Avihai Michaeli, a senior M&A advisor in the country, tells me that Dell long had its eye on Cloudify — which counts (in addition to its strategic backers) big names like AT&T, Cox, Accenture, and many more as customers. “Cloudify was challenging Dell in more ways than one,” he said. “For example it competed with Dell’s Enstratius.” Dell is reporting results for Q4 at the beginning of March. Its market cap is currently at $29 billion.

After inking its OpenAI deal, Shutterstock rolls out a generative AI toolkit to create images based on text prompts

Ingrid Lunden

When Shutterstock and OpenAI a partnership to help develop OpenAI’s Dall-E 2 artificial intelligence image-generating platform with Shutterstock libraries to train and feed the algorithm, the Stability AI has been backed with , but as of yesterday, not as much as OpenAI, which and extended partnership with Microsoft. In addition to Shutterstock’s work with OpenAI, the company earlier this month also , which will be (similar to OpenAI) using Shutterstock’s photo and other media libraries (it also has video and music) to build its AI datasets and to train its algorithms. You can expect more generative AI tools to be rolling out as a result. What’s interesting is that while we don’t know the financial terms of those deals with OpenAI, Meta or another partner, LG, there is a clear commercial end point with these services. Shutterstock’s bet seems to be that it’s worth jumping in and getting involved with these new technologies, and try to build a business around them, rather than stand by and let itself get cannibalized by those tools. The big question will be whether what Shutterstock offers will have a clear enough differentiation, and unique selling point, from others offering generative AI tools for making images. Yes the licensing is currently one aspect that will be compelling, but longer term, if all are built on the same platform, what will set one apart from the other? In image libraries the idea is that one might simply have a better selection, better pricing, better discovery, and overall better experience, for the paying customer (and for the photographer uploading images). Will those parameters remain the same in the AI world or be obliterated? To be fair, Shutterstock is pitching itself as an “ethical” partner here, with promises of paying out to artists whose images have been used to feed these new services. Again, though, the issue will be whether these payouts be anywhere near the compensation those artists and photographers might have gotten for supplying the images themselves. “Shutterstock has developed strategic partnerships over the past two years with key industry players like OpenAI, Meta, and LG AI Research to fuel their generative AI research efforts, and we are now able to uniquely bring responsibly-produced generative AI capabilities to our own customers,” said Paul Hennessy, Chief Executive Officer at Shutterstock, in a statement today. “Our easy-to-use generative platform will transform the way people tell their stories — you no longer have to be a design expert or have access to a creative team to create exceptional work. Our tools are built on an ethical approach and on a library of assets that represents the diverse world we live in, and we ensure that the artists whose works contributed to the development of these models are recognized and rewarded.”

Microsoft invests billions more dollars in OpenAI, extends partnership

Kyle Wiggers

Microsoft today said that it’s extending its partnership with OpenAI, the startup behind art- and text-generating AI systems like , and , with a “multi-year, multi-billion-dollar” investment. OpenAI that the infusion of new capital — the exact amount of which wasn’t disclosed — will be used to continue its independent research and develop AI that’s “safe, useful and powerful.” The optics aren’t the best for Microsoft, which just last week plans to lay off 10,000 employees as a part of broader cost-cutting measures. But they’d been telegraphed by the company earlier this month — in an with The Wall Street Journal, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that Microsoft planned to make OpenAI’s foundational systems available as commercials platforms so that any entity in any industry can build on them. OpenAI will a capped-profit company as a part of the new investment deal with Microsoft. Under the model, backers’ returns are limited to 100 times their investment — or possibly less in the future. In a , Microsoft said that it will increase its investments in the deployment of specialized supercomputing systems to accelerate OpenAI’s AI research and integrate OpenAI’s AI systems with its products while “introducing new categories of digital experiences.” The tech giant’s Azure cloud platform will continue to be OpenAI’s exclusive cloud provider, powering the startup’s workloads across research, products and API services. Microsoft was previously to be preparing a ChatGPT integration with Bing search results as well as bringing OpenAI’s language AI technology into apps like Word, PowerPoint and Outlook. Several years ago, Microsoft-owned GitHub jointly developed and launched , a code-generating AI system. And Microsoft has incorporated OpenAI innovations including GPT-3 and DALL-E 2 into and like Power Apps, Microsoft Edge and the forthcoming . The efforts build on Microsoft and OpenAI’s years of close collaboration. In 2019, Microsoft that it would invest $1 billion in OpenAI (roughly half in the form of Azure credits) to jointly develop new technologies for the Azure platform and “further extend” OpenAI’s large-scale AI capabilities. In exchange, OpenAI agreed to license some of its intellectual property to Microsoft, which the company would subsequently commercialize and sell to partners, and train and run AI models on Azure as OpenAI worked to develop next-gen computing hardware. A year later, Microsoft it’d built an Azure-hosted, OpenAI-co-designed supercomputer that at the time was among the most powerful machines in the world. Then in 2021, Microsoft launched the , an offering designed to give enterprises access to OpenAI’s AI systems including GPT-3 along with security, compliance, governance and other business-focused features. The New York Times that Microsoft invested an additional $2 billion in OpenAI between 2019 and early 2023. The tech giant also became a key backer of OpenAI’s , OpenAI’s AI-focused venture and tech incubator program. “We formed our partnership with OpenAI around a shared ambition to responsibly advance cutting-edge AI research and democratize AI as a new technology platform,” Nadella said in a statement. “In this next phase of our partnership, developers and organizations across industries will have access to the best AI infrastructure, models and toolchain with Azure to build and run their applications.” “The past three years of our partnership have been great,”OpenAI CEO Sam Altman added in a press release. “Microsoft shares our values and we are excited to continue our independent research and work toward creating advanced AI that benefits everyone.” previously reported that Microsoft was looking to net a 49% stake in OpenAI, valuing the company at around $29 billion. Under the terms of one proposal by Semafor, Microsoft would receive three-quarters of OpenAI’s profits until it recovers an investment as high as $10 billion, with additional investors including Khosla Ventures taking 49% and OpenAI retaining the remaining 2% in equity. OpenAI is under pressure to turn a profit on products like ChatGPT. The startup to make $200 million in 2023 from licensing and premium products like , a pittance to the billions of dollars that have been invested in it so far. To blame are the high costs of training, developing and running large AI systems. According to Altman, ChatGPT’s operating expenses alone are “eye-watering,” to a few cents per chat in compute costs. (As of early December, ChatGPT had over a million users.) Meanwhile, GPT-3 is estimated to have cost of dollars to launch. OpenAI — and Microsoft, by extension — face steep legal challenges that threaten to impede the growth of their AI explorations. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) recently to revoke copyright protection for an AI-generated comic, saying copyrightable works require human authorship. And Microsoft, GitHub and OpenAI are currently being in a class action lawsuit that accuses them of violating copyright law by allowing Copilot, the aforementioned code-generating system, to regurgitate sections of licensed code without providing credit. Some legal experts have argued that Copilot could put companies at risk if they were to unwittingly incorporate copyrighted suggestions from the tool into their production software. As Elaine Atwell  in a piece on Kolide’s corporate blog, because Copilot strips code of its licenses, it’s difficult to tell which code is permissible to deploy and which might have incompatible terms of use. The lawsuit also has implications for generative art AI like DALL-E 2, which similarly has been found to from the datasets on which they were trained (i.e. images). Several OpenAI competitors were recently targeted in a legal case that alleges that they infringed the rights of “millions of artists” by training AI art-generating tools on billions of images scraped from the web “with­out the con­sent of the orig­i­nal artists.” Platforms like Getty Images have banned AI-generated content for fear of potential legal blowback. Legal issues aside, OpenAI’s text-generating tech has come under fire for its ability to sometimes give answers that sound convincing but aren’t factually true. Earlier this month, from sharing content generated by ChatGPT, saying the AI made it too easy for users to generate responses and flood the site with dubious answers. ChatGPT has also been banned by several and at least one academic conference. That’s all to say that OpenAI and Microsoft have their work cut out for them.

Google created an AI that can generate music from text descriptions, but won’t release it

Kyle Wiggers

An impressive new AI system from Google can generate music in any genre given a text description. But the company, fearing the risks, has no immediate plans to release it. Called , Google’s certainly isn’t the first generative artificial intelligence system for song. There have been other attempts, including , an AI that composes music by visualizing it, as well as , Google’s own AudioML and OpenAI’s . But owing to technical limitations and limited training data, none have been able to produce songs particularly complex in composition or high-fidelity. MusicLM is perhaps the first that can. whoa, this is bigger than ChatGPT to me. google almost solved music generation, i'd say. — Keunwoo Choi (@keunwoochoi) Detailed in an academic , MusicLM was trained on a dataset of 280,000 hours of music to learn to generate coherent songs for descriptions of — as the creators put it — “significant complexity” (e.g. “enchanting jazz song with a memorable saxophone solo and a solo singer” or “Berlin ’90s techno with a low bass and strong kick.” Its songs, remarkably, sound something like a human artist might compose, albeit not necessarily as inventive or musically cohesive. It’s hard to overstate just how the samples sound, given that there aren’t musicians or instrumentalists in the loop. Even when fed somewhat long and meandering descriptions, MusicLM manages to capture nuances like instrumental riffs, melodies and moods. The caption for the sample below, for example, included the bit “induces the experience of being lost in space,” and it definitely delivers on that front (at least to my ears): Here’s another sample, generated from a description starting with the sentence “The main soundtrack of an arcade game.” Plausible, right? MusicLM’s artificial intelligence capabilities extend beyond generating short clips of songs. The Google researchers show that the system can build on existing melodies, whether hummed, sung, whistled or played on an instrument. Moreover, MusicLM can take several descriptions written in sequence (e.g. “time to meditate,” “time to wake up,” “time to run,” “time to give 100%”) and create a sort of melodic “story” or narrative ranging up to several minutes in length — perfectly fit for a movie soundtrack. See below, which came from the sequence “electronic song played in a videogame,” “meditation song played next to a river,” “fire,” “fireworks.” That’s not all. MusicLM can also be instructed via a combination of picture and caption, or generate audio that’s “played” by a specific type of instrument in a certain genre. Even the experience level of the AI “musician” can be set, and the system can create music inspired by places, epochs or requirements (e.g. motivational music for workouts). But MusicLM isn’t flawless — far from it, truthfully. Some of the samples have a distorted quality to them, an unavoidable side effect of the training process. And while MusicLM can technically generate vocals, including choral harmonies, they leave a lot to be desired. Most of the “lyrics” range from barely English to pure gibberish, sung by synthesized voices that sound like amalgamations of several artists. Yesterday, Google published a paper on a new AI model called MusicLM. The model generates 24 kHz music from rich captions like "A fusion of reggaeton and electronic dance music, with a spacey, otherworldly sound. Induces the experience of being lost in space." — Product Hunt 😸 (@ProductHunt) Still, the Google researchers note the many ethical challenges posed by a system like MusicLM, including a tendency to incorporate copyrighted material from training data into the generated songs. During an experiment, they found that about 1% of the music the system generated was directly replicated from the songs on which it trained — a threshold apparently high enough to discourage them from releasing MusicLM in its current state. “We acknowledge the risk of potential misappropriation of creative content associated to the use case,” the co-authors of the paper wrote. “We strongly emphasize the need for more future work in tackling these risks associated to music generation.” Assuming MusicLM or a system like it is one day made available, it seems inevitable that major legal issues will come to the fore — even if the systems are positioned as tools to assist artists rather than replace them. They already have, albeit around simpler AI systems. In 2020, Jay-Z’s record label filed copyright strikes against a YouTube channel, Vocal Synthesis, for using AI to create Jay-Z covers of songs like Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” After initially removing the videos, YouTube reinstated them, finding the takedown requests were “incomplete.” But  music still stands on murky legal ground. "MusicLM: Generating Music from Text" Impressed to see the quality of autogenerated vocals has gone way up! Sounds real but in a foreign language. — Jay Hack (@mathemagic1an) A authored by Eric Sunray, now a legal intern at the Music Publishers Association, argues that AI music generators like MusicLM violate music copyright by creating “tapestries of coherent audio from the works they ingest in training, thereby infringing the United States Copyright Act’s reproduction right.” Following the release of Jukebox, critics have also questioned whether training AI models on copyrighted musical material constitutes fair use. Similar concerns have been raised around the training data used in image-, code- and text-generating AI systems, which is often scraped from the web without creators’ knowledge. From a user perspective, Waxy’s Andy Baio that music generated by an AI system would be considered a derivative work, in which case only the original elements would be protected by copyright. Of course, it’s unclear what might be considered “original” in such music; using this music commercially is to enter uncharted waters. It’s a simpler matter if generated music is used for purposes protected under fair use, like parody and commentary, but Baio expects that courts would have to make case-by-base judgments. It might not be long before there’s some clarity on the matter. making their way through the courts will likely have a bearing on music-generating AI, including one pertaining to the rights of artists whose work is used to train artificial intelligence systems without their knowledge or consent. But time will tell.

Hands on with Walmart’s new (but buggy) ‘Text to Shop’ feature

Sarah Perez

Walmart recently introduced a new way to shop: via text. Last month, the its “Text to Shop” experience which allows mobile consumers across both iOS and Android devices to text Walmart the items they want to purchase from either their local stores or Walmart.com, or easily reorder items for pickup, delivery, or shipping. However, the chat experience as it stands today does not come across as fully baked, our tests found. The chatbot said confusing things and the user interface at times was difficult to navigate, despite aiming to be a simpler, text-based shopping experience. Conversational commerce, or shopping via text, is an area that’s been seeing increased investment over the past couple of years with . Walmart, too, has connections with this space, as its former head of U.S. e-commerce , Wizard. And Walmart itself which had built technology that allowed companies to design, prototype, test and deploy conversational commerce applications. The new “Text to Shop” feature, meanwhile, was built in-house using internal IP in partnership with Walmart’s Global Tech team and was tested with customers ahead of its launch. The beta version was available for around a year’s time before December’s public debut, but had only been accessible on an invite-only basis. At launch, the “Text to Shop” feature ow customers to shop Walmart’s entire assortment via chat, whether that’s your weekly grocery order from a nearby store or an e-commerce order you want shipped to your home. Walmart Customers more recently began receiving emails to alert them to the fact that “Text to Shop” was newly available, which prompted our tests. The feature was also highlighted in , which allows businesses to manage and update their information on Apple Maps. Here, Walmart partnered with Apple so customers who visit the Walmart business listing card on Apple Maps could tap on a “message us” button to get started with a “Text to Shop” session. In theory, chat-based shopping is supposed to simplify online shopping by bringing it into a more familiar texting interface. But in practice, Walmart’s chatbot made some missteps when we tried it, making for a more cumbersome experience compared with a traditional order placed through the Walmart website or app. The initial steps in getting started with “Text to Shop” was easy, however, as you just sign into your Walmart account and agree to its terms. The bot then sends you a helpful introduction and some tips on how the system works. It tells you that you can just type in the names of items you want, like “Great Value Oatmeal” and explains how to set your local store, among other things. Screenshot of Walmart Text to Shop But already, it was clear the system would have a few quirks, as it informed you that items you typed in single quotes would serve as commands. For example, typing ‘Reorder’ with quotes would allow you to buy things again. This seemed like an odd requirement, given that the word “reorder” wouldn’t likely match a product a customer wanted to buy through text-based shopping — or at least, it should be assumed that a text with that word is a command. Plus, it puts an unnecessary burden on the end-user at a time when they’ve just started trying to learn a new system. In my tests, I ordered a few basic items, like milk, eggs, bread, and water. The system didn’t immediately warn me that I had lingering items in my cart from an online order I had abandoned weeks ago. The system also doesn’t prompt you upon your first text to choose whether you want to start an order for delivery, pickup or shipping. Instead, it returns a selection of options that match your request. But the way it did so was confusing. In my test, I typed “2% milk,” and it responded with possible options. “OK! 2 % milk, 3 choices coming down” the bot said, followed by a link that takes you to a list. But then it replied again, “These are the closest options I found for 2 % milk,” and offered another list. After picking an item, you’re instructed to “select one of these options next” which offered choices like “search for pickup,” “search for shipping,” or “search for delivery.” It would seem that asking the customer how they were shopping should have been the first step, especially if product availability varies by order type. In this test, I chose delivery. That’s when the bot texted me that I now had 6 things in my cart — a surprise, since I hadn’t remembered my earlier abandoned choices. That one was on me, though, I admitted. I tapped “View cart” to delete the weeks-old selections. The bot didn’t immediately display the cart. Instead, it responds with your item count and total. You then have to tap a link that follows to view the cart, which pops up in another screen. I expected this to operate like a web version of a Walmart checkout page, the screen was missing obvious tools to delete items or change the quantities, which you would normally find on an e-commerce shopping cart page. In fact, the interface instructs you to “tap to view, select or remove,” but presents radio buttons to tap and then a “Send” button at the bottom to…well, I don’t know. How would it know if I was instructing it to show me the item or remove it?, I wondered. And why would I even need to view the item elsewhere, when its full name, photo, quantity, and price are shown here? Still, I tapped “Send” to remove the old items (which were not the newly-added milk), only to be returned to the main chat screen where I was informed, inaccurately, “Ok, all milk taken out!” Now my cart had 5 things, it said. It had only removed one of my selections. I tried again, tapping the other 5 items to be removed, and again, the bot responded, “Ok, all milk taken out!” In reality, the milk was the only item that remained. The bot was wrong. Screenshot of Walmart Text to Shop Now, with only the milk remaining (despite the texts to the contrary) the bot asked me what I wanted to do next — maybe view cart or checkout? This is a very dumb bot, I thought. Does anyone get just milk delivered and nothing else? I wasn’t ready for that so I tried another query. “Eggs,” I typed. The bot only returned three choices: all Walmart brand large white eggs but in different sizes. Odd, since I know Walmart, like most retailers, has a much larger egg selection. Screenshot of Walmart Text to Shop “Organic eggs,” I texted, hoping for better egg options. This worked, and I added Pete and Gerry’s eggs to the cart without hassle. The bot now updated me on my total. My cart had two items, milk and eggs, and my subtotal was $10.40. Then I tried something to intentionally confuse the system. Knowing that end-users often don’t play by the script, I scrolled back up to tap “Pickup” instead of “Delivery.” This is the kind of thing a customer might do if they think choosing pickup would offer them a different selection of eggs. But the bot didn’t make that logical leap, asking “sure, what product would you like to search for pickup?” “Never mind,” I texted. “No problem. Talk to you later,” the bot replied. I then went to add the next item on my list. “La Croix,” I texted. “These are the closest options I found for la croix organic eggs for pickup,” the bot answered. Uh? What?   I had clearly confused this bot quite a lot, it seems. It texts me a list to view and asks me to select the delivery method, and then texted the list again. It only returned three La Croix options to choose from. A search in the Walmart app returned 10, however. This system isn’t useful at all, apparently, unless you enter a very specific choice. That realization made me dread my next item: bread. I didn’t have a brand in mind, as I usually browse and look for sales on favorite types and brands. I ask for “multigrain bread” and I only have three options shown to me alongside another message telling me I can “search for pickup” or “shipping.” I understand now these delivery choices are apparently texted every time you request an item, rather than the system building you a cart for a particular delivery method. (I didn’t tap these options because I was going to have the items delivered.) “Checkout,” I then texted — without the single quotes, just like an everyday user would likely do, having forgotten the earlier command syntax that involved using quotes. And, it worked. You could then select to view the cart or checkout, and through a separate screen, you could book a delivery time. So you didn’t need the quotes? There were other odd user interface choices here, as well though. For instance, this screen presented you with an option to change the “quantity” of the selected items, when earlier that wasn’t possible. I tapped the “Change quantity” button (as I’m now rethinking those expensive eggs!). This sent an automated command, to which the system replied “Can you please rephrase that?” Screenshot of Walmart Text to Shop I wonder if some of the issues with the bot are because it didn’t know my local store, somehow, even though this is already configured under my Walmart account — which I had authenticated with to start. “Set store,” I typed, even using the single quote format. The bot told me to choose my location and texted me two options. Both were my home street address, without the house number. Both were identical options. At this point, it felt like the process of ordering a few basic things has become an ordeal and has taken a lot longer than the traditional method of searching in Walmart’s app and adding things to the cart. If conversational commerce like this is the future, I’d say this is very much still a work in progress. I abandoned the cart and didn’t complete the order. When I asked Walmart about some of the issues I encountered, wondering if this was all still a beta test, a spokesperson said the company would “continue to refine and optimize Text to Shop to ensure we’re providing the best experience possible for our customers.” Let’s hope!

LastPass owner GoTo says hackers stole customers’ backups

Carly Page

LastPass’ parent company — formerly LogMeIn — has confirmed that cybercriminals stole customers’ encrypted backups during a recent breach of its systems. The breach was on November 30. At the time, LastPass chief executive Karim Toubba said an “unauthorized party” had gained access to some customers’ information stored in a third-party cloud service shared by LastPass and GoTo. The attackers used information stolen from an earlier breach of LastPass systems in August to further compromise the companies’ shared cloud data. GoTo, which bought LastPass in 2015, said at the time that it was investigating the incident. Now, almost two months later, GoTo said in an updated that the cyberattack impacted several of its products, including business communications tool Central; online meetings service Join.me; hosted VPN service Hamachi, and its Remotely Anywhere remote access tool. GoTo said the intruders exfiltrated customers’ encrypted backups from these services — as well as the company’s encryption key for securing the data. “The affected information, which varies by product, may include account usernames, salted and hashed passwords, a portion of multi-factor authentication (MFA) settings, as well as some product settings and licensing information,” said GoTo CEO Paddy Srinivasan. “In addition, while Rescue and GoToMyPC encrypted databases were not exfiltrated, MFA settings of a small subset of their customers were impacted.” Despite the delay, GoTo provided no remediation guidance or advice for affected customers. GoTo said the company does not store customers’ credit card or bank details, or collect personal information, such as date of birth, home address, or Social Security numbers. That’s in sharp contrast to the hack affecting , during which attackers stole the contents of customers’ encrypted password vaults, along with customers’ names, email addresses, phone numbers, and some billing information. GoTo did not say how many customers are affected. The company has 800,000 customers, including enterprises, according to GoTo public relations director Jen Mathews, who declined to answer our other questions. GoTo spokesperson Nikolett Bacso-Albaum also repeatedly declined to comment or respond to TechCrunch’s questions when reached prior to publication. Srinivasan says GoTo is contacting affected customers directly and is advising those impacted to reset passwords and reauthorize MFA settings “out of an abundance of caution.”

App downloads were stagnant in the fourth quarter, new analysis finds

Sarah Perez

The global app economy as consumer spending on apps dropped 2% to $167 billion, according to a recent annual report put out by data.ai. At the same time, downloads were up 11% year-over-year — a seemingly positive indication that app adoption was still taking place, driven in particular by emerging markets. But a deeper of the fourth quarter points to more recently slowing download growth during a time of year that’s typically a boon for the app ecosystem. The holiday season tends to bring new phones and more free time for consumers to try new apps and games, which makes these new figures all the more surprising. According to app intelligence firm , mobile app adoption across the App Store and Google Play Store , declining a slight 0.1% year-over-year to reach 35.5 billion new installs in the quarter. Sensor Tower Its analysis is on a per-user basis, meaning additional downloads of an app by the same person on different devices aren’t counted towards the total. It also doesn’t count app re-installs in order to show only new download growth. However, its figures are only estimates. While the fourth-quarter trends weren’t enough to pull down the overall year-over-year download growth metrics, it seems, it’s another signal of a stagnating app economy — one, no doubt, still normalizing after outsized growth during Covid and one that remains impacted by the overall macroeconomic forces, which also play a key a role in app marketing spend. But there’s another argument to be made here, as well, and that’s that the years of high-priced commissions on app sales and in-app purchases across the global app stores have finally begun to impact the innovation taking place in the wider app ecosystem. If companies have to share up to 30% of their revenues just to distribute their apps and games to a mobile audience, it’s more difficult for them to weather a storm like a down economy. And entrepreneurs may be less inclined to build for mobile, specifically, when other areas of the market are less restrictive. Look at the developments around crypto and Web3, for example — they couldn’t fully expand to mobile because of app store guidelines and the platforms’ need to profit from in-app purchases. With so much pressing down on app innovation, it’s not surprising to see downloads and spending suffer. This trend isn’t only apparent in the metrics surrounding the stagnating app install rates and declining spending. Another example of the ecosystem’s floundering is visible in Apple’s editorially selected top app of 2022. An accolade meant to reflect the opportunity to be had in building for mobile, the Cupertino company highlighted the Gen Z social networking app BeReal as its “App of the Year.” While arguably a breakout success with younger people, it’s also an app whose daily active users its download figures and one that has no business model at present — the app doesn’t yet generate revenue. Its continued existence is being fueled by , not app stores’ ability to provide a platform where new ideas can easily monetize. And its developers are struggling to come up with what sort of subscription or in-app purchases they could convince their young users to pay for — the result of an app marketplace that sold consumers for years on the idea that mobile software should be free. Then there are the apps that are at the top of Sensor Tower’s list of the most-downloads apps in Q4 2022 — they are the apps from tech giants like Meta and ByteDance, angling each other for the top spots. For years, it’s been rare to see any newcomers find a way onto this list, and that remains true in the fourth quarter. Sensor Tower Worldwide, Instagram edged out TikTok for the No. 1 spot, and Meta’s other apps found a place in the top 10 (Facebook at No. 3, WhatsApp at No. 5, Messenger at No. 8, and WhatsApp Business at No. 9.) ByteDance’s CapCut, an extension of TikTok’s workflow, is No. 4. Other top apps include the usual suspects, like Snapchat, Telegram, Spotify, Amazon, Flipkart, Twitter, and more big names. In games, Subway Surfers was No. 1, followed by Garena Free Fire, Stumble Guys, Roblox, FIFA Mobile, Ludo King and Candy Crush Saga. Subway Surfers had ended the year with nearly 292 million installs, up 48% from 2021. Newcomer Stumble Guys gained the No. 3 spot with over 184 million downloads, which is notable given it was only launched in 2021 while the other top five apps were released in 2017 or earlier — a bright spot in what was otherwise a quarter-over-quarter decline for mobile game installs. On the App Store, game downloads declined 6.9%, on Google Play, they gained a small 0.6%. Sensor Tower Still, the games category continues to drive app installs. On the App Store, it’s responsible for almost three times as many installs as the No. 2 Category, Utilities, the report noted. But worryingly, the App Store’s games category dipped below 2 billion for the first since Q1 2019. On Google Play, the games category was responsible for more installs (11.7 billion) than all categories on the App Store combined (8.1 billion), but the Play Store’s non-game categories were down 1.5% year-over-year, to 15.8 billion installs. It’s too soon to say whether or not current trends represent a final cooling off of the app store gold rush, given how wider economic forces are clearly playing a role here in app adoption and spending. Plus, new app markets are coming online which means there will be more people downloading apps for the first time. But for the time being, the trend is a signal that there’s some saturation in top app markets and suggests that further innovation and growth may need to be kickstarted by forcing the app stores to engage in increased competition.

As activist investors target Salesforce, what’s next for the CRM giant?

Ron Miller

, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has been a successful executive. He helped build Salesforce from the ground up, in San Francisco in 1999 and eventually erecting the tallest building in the city. He took the idea of running software in the cloud and grew it into the de facto way to deliver software at a time when most companies offered software in boxes or on-prem seat licenses. That he helped transform the way software is bought and sold is undeniable. But he’s now under intense scrutiny: Not one but two activist investors have recently taken large positions in Salesforce, meaning his decisions could be challenged on everything from acquisitions to how budgets are allocated. For starters, in October that it was taking a sizable (but undisclosed) stake in Salesforce. Then this week, it was taking a multibillion-dollar position in the CRM leader. Both firms usually about what they believe needs fixing at a company — and they typically get what they want. In this case, they likely want a more profitable, less costly Salesforce. That could involve cutting executive salaries, reducing overhead costs, laying off additional people and selling unprofitable pieces of the organization, among other things. The activist investors will probably also seek board seats. Salesforce has already started making cuts, announcing it was laying off earlier this month. It plans to slash real estate costs, too, while reducing overall operating costs and increasing efficiency, but it might not be enough in the eyes of the new investors. When you look at the moves Salesforce has made over the last five years, there is certainly room for criticism around the massive sums spent on acquisitions and how successfully acquired assets have been integrated and allocated. It’s possible that Elliott and Starboard were watching from afar, waiting for the company to weaken enough to question some of those decisions. With Salesforce’s stock price down 29% over the last year and growth slowing, perhaps these firms saw the moment and made their moves. What will it mean for Salesforce and Benioff going forward? Let’s explore further. When activist investors come calling, they typically make a list of desired changes and push for board seats to ensure those changes are put in place. But this does not necessarily have to take an immediate hostile tone. A CEO who has been through an activist fight told me the goal at the beginning is to find common ground rather than assume a combative position with the activists. “It’s not exactly about defense. That’s what the industry calls it, but it’s much more about understanding what your shareholders are pushing for and why are they pushing for these things. And are they right? And do you align on the time frame in which they want a certain set of things versus maybe the vision the company has over the long run?” said the executive, who requested anonymity to speak candidly to TechCrunch on background. It’s very much a political exercise, and Benioff will have to read the pulse of other large investors and see how this all aligns. “I think that the really important blocking and tackling of this type of process is you have to be extremely close to your top 20 to 30 to 50 shareholders, and you have to understand what’s top of mind for them,” the CEO said. All of this information will factor into Benioff’s strategy. If there are a lot of shareholders in agreement with the activists, then he’ll have to lean into their agenda more, but if the activists’ viewpoints differ from other shareholders, then he’ll have room to push back. “So this is a very interesting kind of dance because it’s really a kind of shareholder democracy to some extent,” the executive said. All that said, Salesforce is likely going to have to make some concessions.

No rest for Salesforce as activist investor Elliott Management takes multibillion-dollar stake in company

Ron Miller

It’s been at Salesforce recently, and it’s not getting any quieter soon. The Wall Street Journal that the company now needs to deal with activist investor . Elliott confirmed that it has taken a multibillion-dollar stake in Salesforce, and shared this comment from Jesse Cohn, managing partner at the firm: “Salesforce is one of the preeminent software companies in the world, and having followed the company for nearly two decades, we have developed a deep respect for Marc Benioff and what he has built. We look forward to working constructively with Salesforce to realize the value befitting a company of its stature.” You can take from that what you will, but Elliott typically takes a stake in a company to make changes in the way the company operates with the goal of cutting costs and increasing shareholder value. In some cases, it tries to push CEO changes or even sell the company, although that seems less likely in this case. Elliott is not the lone activist investor, however. Starboard Value also took what was described as in October, stating it wanted more operational discipline from the company. Elliott adds to the pressure. It’s not clear how having two activists in play at the same time will work out, or if the two firms’ strategies will align. Regardless, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff could be occupied fending off challenges to the way he runs his business. Firms like Elliott and Starboard are typically looking for belt tightening, something that Salesforce has undertaken on its own. CFO Amy Weaver outlined a goal of more efficient operating margins of 25% by FY2026, . One step the company has already taken is of its employees at the beginning of the month. It’s possible that these firms could demand deeper cuts, adding to the uncertainty that already exists at the company. It’s been a rough time for the CRM leader, with a slew of bad news. Prior to the layoffs, it announced that key executives, including co-CEO Bret Taylor, at the end of this month. Soon after, Stewart Butterfield, co-founder and CEO at Slack, the company Salesforce at the end of 2020, announced that he too . The company reported revenue of over $7.8 billion, up 14%, and 19% in constant currency, which takes into account the strong dollar for revenue reported from overseas. Still, that was down from 27% growth the prior year, but at a time where all software companies are struggling in an uncertain economic environment. A Salesforce spokesperson told TechCrunch that the company has no comment on the news at this time.

Energy transition investments hit $1.1 trillion — with a T — last year

Tim De Chant

hockey stick. After years of bumbling along, investment in the energy transition appears to be taking off. Businesses, financial institutions, governments and end users around the world sunk $1.11 trillion into low-carbon technologies, according to a from BloombergNEF. It was just over 30% more than 2021 and the second year in a row in which the growth rate exceeded that figure. Perhaps more notable is the fact that for the first time ever, money put into the energy transition matched funds spent on fossil fuel investments. If you count the $274 billion spent on improving the electrical grid, then energy transition investments shot well past the fossil fuel fossils, hitting $1.38 trillion. Over the last two decades, most low-carbon investments were targeted at renewables, including wind, solar and biofuels. They hit another record last year with $495 billion invested, up 17% from 2021. But in recent years, money has also been flowing into more diversified sectors, including energy storage, space heating, sustainable materials and electrified transport. Last year was no exception. Investments into electrified transport — think EVs and charging networks — grew a whopping 54% in 2022 to $466 billion. Hydrogen, which is often uttered in the same breath as battery-electric vehicles, contributed $1.1 billion toward the trillion-dollar total. While that figure may seem small, it’s triple the amount the sector received in 2021. Overall, investment was balanced between supply (energy production and storage) and demand (energy users like transportation, heat and sustainable materials). Most of the money has come from China. The country accounted for about half the total, $546 billion. The U.S. was second with $141 billion, and Germany was third with $55 billion. If the entire EU is lumped together, the bloc would have taken second place with $180 billion. In particular, China dominates in areas like manufacturing capacity and supply chain development. Last year it spent heavily on electrified transportation and renewables like solar and wind. Given that combination, it’s possible that we’ll see Chinese solar panels flood the market once more, though this time they’ll be accompanied by cheap batteries. Inexpensive solar paired with cheap batteries is what’ll be needed to kick significant amounts of fossil energy from the grid. If there was a dim spot, it was global equity and private investment in climate tech. Those numbers were down 29% to $119 billion. That should come as no surprise; 2021 was a crazy year for venture capital and private equity.

Investors say web3 and hype are in for 2023, high valuations are out — maybe?

Rebecca Szkutak

was tumultuous for venture investors, to say the least. The ecosystem watched as startup , held its breath as a $32 billion venture-backed company almost overnight and witnessed one of the of all time. Did you hear anyone yell “bingo?” Probably not. It’s unlikely that many investors came close to predicting what would play out in 2022. But, hey, there’s always next year. It seems we’re entering yet another interesting and tumultuous year: The crypto market is hanging on by a thread; everyone is watching with popcorn in hand to see which unicorn will be the next to tumble; and the hype around AI continues to swell. Some think 2023 will just be the start of a venture winter and overall economic recession, while others think we could see some stabilization as things head back to normal by midyear. But who is to say? To find out how investors are thinking about the year ahead and what they’re planning, we asked more than 35 investors to share their thoughts. Here is a selection of their answers lightly edited for clarity. My goal is to deploy the same amount every year, but the climate has led to far less interesting companies/founders raising rounds, so I will probably deploy 20%-30% of what I want to. We are contemplating decreasing our check size so we can double our number of investments from 75 to 140. We believe there will be incredible investment opportunities available over the coming years and are excited to continue the same pace of deployment we have had in the past. I would expect international funding into Europe to slow over the coming year as GPs are put under pressure. We view this as a great opportunity to lean in. New deployments have halted for us, and remaining funds are being directed to follow-on rounds for our existing portfolio. The current economic climate has had a massive positive impact on our deployment strategy. I’m excited for Q1 2023 and the entire year of 2023 for the opportunities coming to us. The end of 2022 has been a great awakening for founders. It’s time to be disciplined with burn and very creative with growth. Times of scarcity create the best founders. We won’t be changing our deployment strategy much despite macro conditions. This is for a few reasons, most of which are rooted in the continued importance and investment in our core market category of cybersecurity, safety, security and privacy. We see a massive market opportunity in this space, which has an estimated TAM of $400 billion. This opportunity has remained strong and expanded, even as the larger economy struggles, because cyber budgets have remained highly resilient despite company cutbacks in other budget areas. For instance, in a recent survey of CISOs in our Advisor community, 66% said they expect their cyber budgets to increase in 2023. Innovation is also still in demand above and beyond what is available today as the threat environment worsens globally. Each of these factors gives us confidence in continued investment and delivering outcomes for our LPs. The economic climate will get worse before it gets better. Although the financial economy has already been repriced, with multiples moving back to historical norms, the real economy will be the next to turn downward. That will cut back growth rates or even reduce revenue, magnifying valuation compression even more than what we’ve already seen so far. We’re responding to these circumstances with a new solution: offering uncapped SAFEs to the most promising mid- and late-stage companies. While SAFEs are traditionally used for early-stage companies, we think founders will be very receptive to extending their runways with the fastest, lowest friction investment solution available in the market. Ignoring the macro economic climate would be reckless. As such, given that we’re multistage investors, we see the current market as an opportunity to overweight early-stage investments at the seed and Series A stages. Economic headwinds won’t impede the need for more developer solutions; developers support the basis of competition in a digital world. As developer productivity and efficiency will be of even greater importance, solutions with a clear ROI will excel. Gotta be like 80% no longer worth $1 billion if you’re using public market comps. I think maybe 5%-10% will fail in 2023, but maybe 40% by 2025. We kicked off 2022 with five portfolio companies that had “unicorn status” and two of those have already lost that status. I believe this data is indicative of the overall theme — that two out of every five unicorns will lose, or have lost, their $1 billion valuation. I do see this trend continuing in 2023. Up to one-third, I would say, are decidedly worth less than that, especially for the companies whose paper valuations are between $1 billion and $2 billion. Companies with high burn rates and structurally unsound unit economics will suffer the most (e.g., quick commerce delivery). It’s not just about whether they’ll still command “unicorn status,” but rather whether they will be fundable, at any value, period.

Funding for Black founders remains dismal — where do we go from here?

Dominic-Madori Davis

reported that of the $215.9 billion in venture capital allocated last year. That is not to be confused with the 1.3% raised in 2021, the 0.8% they pulled in 2020, the 1% they got in 2019 or the 1.1% raised in both 2018 and 2017, according to Crunchbase data. In case it’s not obvious why these figures are so dreadful, it’s worth noting that Black Americans make up more than of the population. Each time these numbers are published, there are always a few people posing the same question: Where do we go from here? Is the next step looking at alternative funding, or is it staying on the battleground, always ready to fight? , a founding partner at , said this is the time to get creative with funding and pointed toward Small Business Development Centers and grant programs as a way to get by. , the co-founder of the app , cosigned that, saying it’s time for Black founders to be scrappier than ever to get funding. “Period,” he told TechCrunch. Oliver, who is based in Atlanta, is leveraging relationships to raise a pre-seed and angel round by tapping into local resources, such as the Atlanta Tech Village, and is also raising “founder rounds,” in which other founders invest in his company. “It generally sucks being a Black founder fundraising right now,” he continued, adding that he once had an investor who funded early-stage companies pass on his idea because he didn’t have a built product. (Typically, these investors back ideas, not products.) “When your back is against the wall, that is when you find out what you’re made of. Leverage your relationships, give first to others, which unlocks giving to you, and let’s get scrappy, y’all.”

Spatial Labs, a web3 infrastructure and hardware company, closes $10M seed round

Dominic-Madori Davis

, a web3 infrastructure and hardware company, announced today the closing of a $10 million seed round led by Blockchain Capital with participation from the firm co-founded by Jay-Z. founded Spatial Labs in 2021, seeking to create products and shopping experiences using augmented reality. “The metaverse to us is not a virtual space that people go to spend time in. It’s a world in which we can add more context to your real world and make your real world more enjoyable,” Sandu told TechCrunch. “We’re going to be responsible for catalyzing a completely new generation to be more conscious of their environment; more conscious of how they spend and how they buy.” Spatial Labs made a splash in the industry last year by selling clothes designed by Sandu called Gen One Hardwear, which were embedded with a microchip called LNQ (pronounced link) that provided consumers with the item’s provenance and ownership history, seen, naturally, on the blockchain. Almost like a QR code, tapping the LNQ chip with a phone unlocked online and in-person experiences, such as virtual concerts. Last year, Spatial Labs launched a marketplace for buying and selling items. It also sold microchips to those wishing to sell their own embedded products and upload their own exclusive offerings for potential buyers. The chip, for example, allows brands to add loyalty programs directly into their products rather than, say, signing someone up for an email list. To gain access to the loyalty benefits, all consumers must do is bring their phone within proximity to the chip sown into the item they “There was a time when nutritional facts weren’t available on products, so people were just consuming anything,” Sandu said. “We want to give and create a new nutritional fact ecosystem for the products that you put your body, as well as the objects you put into your home.” This seed round makes Sandu, now 25, one of the youngest Black men to raise a double-digit seed round — and a solo founder at that. He’s already part of a somewhat rarified club. Per Crunchbase data, were allocated to Black founders last year; out of the $21.5 billion raised by web3 startups globally last year, $60 million of that went to U.S.-based Black web3 founders, one of whom was Sandu. He said it took around six months to close his round. Asked what it was like raising during what was also a crypto winter, he said that for Black founders, there is little difference between a bear and a bull market due to persistent funding discrimination. “It’s always crypto winter being a Black founder,” he said. “It’s challenging, but it’s worth it.” Iddris Sandu With the fresh capital, Spatial Labs plans to continue scaling its blockchain-enabled technology and expand into other industries, such as media and entertainment. Later this year, it also plans on launching a device called Node to simplify how long it takes to develop and deploy augmented reality experiences. “We’re also thinking about reducing the barrier of entry into web3 and augmented reality using our chip technology,” Sandu continued. Sandu has come a long way from where he started. Born in Accra, Ghana, he moved with his family to Los Angeles at the age of three. Inspired by the launch of the iPhone, he spent time at his local libraries, first in Compton and then later in Harbor City after his family moved, to teach himself computer programming with hopes of one day becoming an entrepreneur. By high school, he was working for Google and building his own apps. He was recognized by then-President Barack Obama for his work in STEM, forwent attending MIT to focus on building technology, consulted with Twitter, Snapchat, and Rihanna, created software for Uber, and helped create the first smart retail store with the late Nipsey Hussle. At the same time, he realized there was an information gap affecting Black youth like himself, where even his textbooks in Compton were outdated. “If you want to keep people out of space, the easiest way to do that is creating separatism as it relates to information,” Sandu said. He considers himself a lucky one in that, at a young age, he was able to find his way around pushing boundaries, but notes that it shouldn’t have to be that way. Next year, he hopes to launch a personal fund to support people of color and will focus on tech and hardware innovation. Until then, though, he’s building Spatial Labs. He wants it to become one of the fastest-growing unicorns and, overall, wishes to inspire the next generation of technologists; naturally, of course, he wants also to create products that, well, change the world. “Legacy for me is centered around how many lives we can impact, more so than how many products we can sell,” he said. “It’s the purpose that I feel I’ve been called here to do,” Sandu continued. “To open doors and to hold them as long as possible and eventually make sure that those doors simply do not exist. No one can gatekeep if there is not a door there.”

Niantic tries its hand at sports with NBA All-World

Kyle Wiggers

Niantic, the company behind the mega-hit Pokémon GO, has reached an inflection point. Whether because of pandemic fatigue or frustration over the limitations of today’s AR tech, the Google-spawned startup has struggled mightily to replicate the success of GO, which became one of the fastest-growing games in history shortly after it launched in July 2016. Niantic shut down , its first high-profile title after GO, just two years post-debut, while another tentpole project — — has generated only a fraction of the downloads that GO attained over the same time frame. Last June, Niantic 8% of its staff — about 85 to 90 people — and canceled four of its projects, including a Transformers game that had already entered beta testing. Needless to say, there’s a lot riding on NBA All-World, Niantic’s latest attempt to again achieve iOS and Android virality. Revealed last summer in a joint announcement with the NBA and National Basketball Players Association, All-World — which is visually quite similar to GO — is I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not All-World’s core demographic. The only team I’ve ever followed is the Cleveland Cavaliers, and that’s simply because I grew up near Cleveland (and, well, LeBron’s stardom didn’t hurt). Being that I’m not much of a sports person — my preferred type of game involves controllers and screens — I hadn’t given All-World much thought until Darrell Etherington, TechCrunch’s managing editor, assigned me to write a first impressions piece. So I went in blind to my All-World demo, which took place on a gray and gloomy, rainy afternoon at The Compound near Red Hook in Brooklyn. The Compound, I was informed by the PR folks who arranged the affair, was founded by hip-hop DJ Set Free Richardson of AND1 fame. Neat. In any case, the loft-like space was nicely appointed, with checkerboard-patterned rugs, Picasso-esque prints and a pool table racked and ready for play. Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch But I wasn’t there for pool. After arriving and pouring myself a cup of coffee, I plopped down on a thick leather couch next to Glenn Chin, head of global marketing at Niantic, and Marcus Matthews, a senior producer for All-World, to walk through All-World a day ahead of its release on the Play Store and App Store. I started with the obvious question: why basketball, now, for Niantic? Why’d the studio choose sport for its next AR venture? Answering candidly, Chin pointed out that licensing deals are far easier to strike with an international organization like the NBA as opposed to, say, disparate soccer confederations. But he and Matthews — who grew up playing basketball in Downtown Jacksonville, Florida — repeatedly emphasized basketball’s communal aspect, too, particularly in cities with public courts where kids and teens gather (so I’m told) to casually shoot some hoops. In emphasizing social, the dev team behind All-World followed in the footsteps of GO, which — beyond Pokémon’s sheer brand strength — resonated because of the compelling mix of shared and competitive experiences it delivered. (Think gym battles with strangers and .) It’s the fine-tuning of a familiar formula, albeit with a few twists and adaptations to meet the expectations of today’s game-playing audience. Niantic As with GO, All-World players can explore their own neighborhoods for collectibles, power-ups and other items of varying intruige. Exploring requires physically walking to a place — this a Niantic game, after all — and navigating menus by tap- and swipe-based gestures. In-app, you’re represented by an avatar. All-World is built on Niantic’s Lightship platform, which leverages the Unity game engine to power graphics and gameplay. Orlando-based HypGames co-developed the experience with Niantic; HypGames CEO Mike Taramykin served as VP and GM over EA’s Tiger Woods franchise until 2013. On top of a real-world map of a player’s surroundings, All-World layers things like power-ups, challenges, gear, boosts and in-game currency. There wasn’t much near the Compound when Matthews demoed the game to me, but he managed to pick up some moolah that could be put toward apparel for his NBA player avatars. A central mechanic in All-World is recruiting those players, who can then be “leveled up” to become the “rulers” of local basketball courts. (The game has more than 100,000 courts at present.) Players can challenge each other to three-point shootouts and other timing-based minigames in recreations of real-world courts, which not only increase the level of a player’s recruits but also their overall team level. The team level serves as a merit-based stand-in for real-world salary caps — the higher the level, the stronger the NBA players an All-World player can recruit. Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch Adjacent to this, All-World has a robust merchandising component. Players can search for “drops” of jerseys and more (à la ) from brands such as Adidas and Nike that mirror real-world SKUs. Their in-game team members don this merch, some of which improves their game stats. Chin says that the plan is to work with additional brands to create and recreate accessories, balls, clothing and sneakers and even time drops with real-world product launches. The merch mechanic was built to reflect — and respect — the basketball around collectibles, Chin and Matthews say. I don’t doubt that fact. But there’s an obvious profit motive, too. All-World might be free-to-play, but it certainly isn’t a charity. As another case in point, Niantic also plans to make money by selling “boosts” for player stats like offense and defense, which improve performance in the minigames. Chin and Matthews don’t deny players who shell out can advance through certain aspects of All-World faster. But Matthews stressed that players don’t to fork over cash if they play relatively often. Niantic That remains to be seen. I was only treated to glimpses of the game — which, unfortunately, experienced some freezing issues during the demo. (Matthews blamed The Compound building’s poor reception, which isn’t unlikely — it wasn’t good.) The bigger-picture question is whether All-World has staying power — and indeed, whether it can make enough noise to stand out in the ultra-crowded mobile market. With All-World, Niantic is placing bets both on the strength of the NBA brand and the appeal of AR. As a sports ignoramus, I can’t speak on the former point. But on the latter, I wouldn’t write a eulogy for AR just yet. The tech’s just getting started, I’d argue — especially if of an Apple headset someday come to pass. If Niantic can keep All-World fresh and interesting with compelling AR-focused gameplay, it might just have a fighting chance. (My impression is that it’s a bit light on content at the moment, but to be fair, it’s early.) On the other hand, if All-World devolves into a pay-to-win collect-a-thon down the line, I can’t see it topping the download charts for very long — if ever. As for what All-World’s success or failure might spell for Niantic, it wouldn’t tank or make the company necessarily. Niantic sells its Lightship platform to developers as a paid service. And GO is still going (pun intended) strong, with revenue estimated to be north of $1 billion. Besides, Niantic raised $300 million at a valuation in November 2021 —  its valuation from 2018. But after years in development, it’d no doubt be a disappointment for the studio if it fails — and for the NBA head honchos who evidently have faith in Niantic’s ability to spin viral magic.

A VC’s perspective on deep tech fundraising in Q1 2023

Karthee Madasamy

other sector, deep tech faced significant headwinds in 2022. As interest rates skyrocketed, deep tech deals, which inherently take more capital than other kinds of software businesses, became less attractive to many VCs and their LPs than lower-risk investments. For instance, even though quantum computing suddenly became popular in the public markets as D-Wave, Rigetti and IonQ listed in the last year, private investment declined significantly — the sector received just over $600 million in venture capital in 2022, down from $800 million in 2021, according to Crunchbase. Seasoned investors and operators in different segments of deep tech have been adapting to these changes in real time as the cheap money days dwindle in the rearview. For instance, in this environment, space tech startups would never have been able to raise the kind of money they did in 2021 to be able to deploy the technologies they’re working on today. As Delian Asparouhov, a principal at Founders Fund and the founder of Varda Space Industries, last month, it would be impossible to raise the $42 million his startup did in 2021 for its space factory “idea” in today’s market climate. While some investors will continue to sit on the sidelines as we kick off 2023, it’s important to note that many funds are still sitting on amounts of dry powder like they’ve never had before. That doesn’t mean they or their LPs will be in a rush to deploy that capital, but money will be available to startups that can demonstrate current demand and are realistic about their valuations. As it becomes increasingly difficult to realize big exits in the years ahead, the technologies within deep tech that are transforming entire industries offer some of the only paths to “10x exits.” These are positive signs for deep tech founders preparing to raise money this year. Another positive note is that some of the logic driving VCs to stay away from deep tech startups in down markets may be unfounded. Our team recently analyzed recent deep tech unicorns to understand how much money it took for them to get to the $1 billion mark. The results reinforced what we knew from experience: Deep tech startups’ capital and time requirements are on par with companies in other sectors. In fact, the median deep tech startup took $115 million and 5.2 years to become a unicorn. With that as a backdrop, let’s look at a few areas where deep tech will find interest from investors in 2023. While Delian noted correctly that funding for long-term “moon shots” will be tough to find in the current market, I still believe investors will look for startups that are closer to commercialization in the sector. To date, 99% of the total investment in the space tech market has gone to the satellite and launch industries. Now is the time to focus on moving objects around in space rather than just getting them there. For instance, investors are increasingly interested in solutions that tackle astrodynamics or propulsion to guide the motion of satellites and other spacecraft — for example, AI startups working on ways to simulate scenarios and generate maneuver plans for operators so they can avoid space collisions. Investors are also interested in future machine learning and neural networks use cases for astrodynamics, such as orbit predictions and spacecraft flight modeling. Space missions also call for hardened software and hardware. As we look toward edge solutions for space-bound vehicles and objects, startups that can create radiation-safe applications will be in demand. So while the space economy will continue to provide numerous opportunities to invest in atoms, there will also be an opportunity to invest in the bits moving atoms across our skies. Software alone will never solve the multitude of issues contributing to our climate crisis. Hardware solutions and engineering-led innovations in deep tech are needed to solve our most significant climate challenges.

Fortnite on iOS and Google Play will be 18+ starting on January 30

Aisha Malik

Starting January 30, v13.40 of Fortnite on iOS and Google Play will become unavailable to players under 18, Epic Games has . Although Fortnite was removed from the iOS, macOS and Google Play stores in August 2020, the game is still playable by users who already had it installed, but it’s been stuck on the v13.40 update and been somewhat buggy. Players will also no longer be able to spend V-Bucks, the games in-app currency, beginning January 30. “We want all versions of our games to use the current suite of Epic Online Services including parental controls, purchasing defaults, and parental verification features,” the company said in a tweet. “We are not able to update the app on these platforms given Apple and Google’s restrictions on Fortnite.” We want all versions of our games to use the current suite of Epic Online Services including parental controls, purchasing defaults, and parental verification features. We are not able to update the app on these platforms given Apple and Google’s restrictions on Fortnite. (2/2) — Fortnite Status (@FortniteStatus) In December, Epic Games that prevent kids from spending money in Fortnite’s in-game store and using voice chat without a parent’s consent. That same month, in fines related to allegations from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that Fortnite violated the Children’s Online Privacy Act and also tricked people into making unintentional purchases. Although Epic Games has addressed these concerns with new updates, Fortnite on iOS and Google Play devices can’t receive updates. As a result, blocking access for anyone under 18 was the only option available to Epic Games. To address the FTC’s claim that Fortnite tricked players into making unintentional purchases, the company is removing the ability to spend V-Bucks. It’s worth noting that most players likely won’t be affected by the new restrictions rolling out in a few days, given that there are ways to access the popular game without having to go through the App Store or Google Play stores. For instance, if you want to access the game on iOS or macOS, you can do so through GeForce Now. You can also download the game natively to Android from Epic Games’ website.

Mark Cuban’s bidet brand buys shower startup that wooed Tim Cook

Harri Weber

The folks behind — the techy shower-head startup backed by Apple CEO Tim Cook and a host of other big names — have sold to Mark Cuban’s , which makes bidets, air purifiers and the like. The Nebia name and water-saving nozzles will following the deal, co-founders Philip Winter and Gabriel Parisi-Amon said in a call with TechCrunch. Despite my nudging, the pair declined to say what Brondell paid to scoop up the brand, which launched on Kickstarter eons ago (in 2015). If you know the terms of the deal, wouldn’t it be cool if you ? Along with Cook and a bevy of early Kickstarter supporters, Nebia raised money from former Google boss Eric Schmidt’s family office, Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia, Fitbit co-founder James Park, Y-Combinator, Stanford — need I go on? Nebia stood out when it launched with pricey nozzles that blasted users with a fine, hurricanic mist, while conserving up to 70% of the water a typical shower head sprays out in the process, the startup claimed. This proved polarizing; Nebia’s exuberant storm won over yours truly, but . Over the years, Nebia dialed things down to win over more customers, whittling its projected water savings to around 50% in the process. During its time as an independent company, Nebia estimated its customers conserved more “500 million gallons of water,” as well as the “equivalent of over 27 million kWh (27 GWh) of energy.” The firm said the energy savings were “roughly equivalent to the annual energy consumption of 2,700 American homes.” “I’m working right now on future products [at Brondell],” said Parisi-Amon — “ Winter and the rest of Nebia’s 15-person team also joined Brondell, the co-founders said. Both executives emphasized that they’re still committed to helping folks conserve water — a critical task as .  “That is why we started and that is why I, at the time, left Apple,” said Parisi-Amon. “I wanted to use my mechanical engineering degree to make a product that literally anyone could swap in for what they had, and was better for the environment,” added Parisi-Amon. “And that work is not done.” Winter said as much as our call wound down earlier this week. “As the population grows, and we use more water per capita, and we have more frequent episodes of drought and more acute droughts, the equation is not a very positive one,” said Winter. “We have to figure out ways to use water more effectively.”

Netflix teams up with Bumble so users can bond over popular TV shows

Lauren Forristal

Bumble is putting the phrase “Netflix and Chill?” to the test with the launch of a weekly in-app Netflix-themed question game called “Netflix Nights In” that asks users questions about a popular Netflix show. Users can play against their match to see who can answer all the questions correctly. According to a recent Bumble survey, 78% of users think it’s easier to talk to matches when they have similar TV and movie tastes. Seventy-two percent of the survey respondents said they’ve talked about TV shows and movies on a date. “Netflix Nights In” will start next Monday, January 30, and ends on March 13. The question game is available to Bumble users in the U.S., Canada and the U.K. Every Monday, the questions will revolve around one show, including “Emily in Paris,” “Stranger Things,” “Squid Game,” “Selling Sunset,” “Love Is Blind” and “Outer Banks.” The right answer to each question won’t be revealed until both the user and their match pick their responses. Also, each round will feature stars from the corresponding show, such as Ashley Park from “Emily in Paris,” Alexa Lemieux from “Love Is Blind,” and Amanza Smith from “Selling Sunset.” Bumble “When we’re getting to know someone, it’s human nature to try and find common interests. It gives you something to bond over and go beyond surface-level conversation,” said Magno Herran, vice president of Marketing Partnerships at Netflix, in a statement. “We love seeing people connect over Netflix shows and films and create their own communities around them. And with this partnership, we wanted to give people a way to find someone who gets them based on what they watch while leaning into ‘if you know you know’ Netflix references that have helped to spark many conversations.” Bumble previously with streaming service Apple TV+ in October 2022 to give users a based on the fictional dating app in the popular TV show, “Ted Lasso.” The “Bantr Live” experience, which ended last year, randomly paired users to potential matches without seeing what they looked like. The users were given three minutes to direct message each other. Tinder has also been trying to find ways to help users break the ice. In 2021, Tinder launched its second “ ” series, an interactive “choose your own adventure” story that users were able to play every week. The dating app partnered with in 2022 to give Tinder users the ability to add a shelter dog to their profile photo for National Dog Week.

Messenger ramps up testing of default end-to-end encryption

Aisha Malik

Meta today that it has started gradually expanding testing default end-to-end encryption for Messenger. The messaging service is also bringing some of its standard features to end-to-end encrypted chats, including chat themes, custom chat emojis and reactions, group profile photos, link previews and active status. Over the next few months, millions of users around the world will continue to see some of their chats gradually upgraded with end-to-end encryption. Messenger will notify people in these individual chat threads as they are upgraded. Meta says the process in which it selects and upgrades individual threads is random so that there isn’t a negative impact on the company’s infrastructure and users’ chat experience. Meta “We know people want a space to connect and they want to know that those conversations are private, safe and secure,” Meta said in a . “That is why we’ve spent time building a team of talented engineers, cryptologists, designers and policy experts who are all committed to rolling out default end-to-end encryption on Messenger. Building a secure and resilient end-to-end encrypted service for the billions of messages that are sent on Messenger every day requires careful testing.” Meta first features for Messenger back in 2016 for “secret conversations.” Last January, the company introduced  for Messenger. But unlike Meta’s other popular chat app WhatsApp, end-to-end encryption is not yet enabled by default for all conversations on Messenger, but this will soon change as the company begins rolling out default end-to-end encryption. As for Instagram, the popular Meta app began messages through an opt-in setting in 2021. Last February, the social media app introduced . Meta has previously said that it expects to roll out  . The company has not provided a recent update on this timeline, but says it will give updates as it continues to bring end-to-end encryption to Messenger.

Google’s Flutter showcases new graphics capabilities, WebAssembly and RISC-V support

Frederic Lardinois

, Google’s open-source framework for building multi-platform apps for mobile, web and desktop, is hosting its event in Nairobi, Kenya today. As the name implies, the team is using the event to showcase up-and-coming features of the framework — most of which are still very early in their development cycle. The main highlights here are massively improved graphics performance, the ability to more easily embed Flutter code into existing web and mobile apps, and support for new architectures like Web Assembly and RISC-V. Virtually all of these capabilities still sit in canary branches and behind experiment flags, but they do show where Google plans to take this project in the months ahead — and help the overall open-source ecosystem around it understand where some complimentary work could be useful (about 40% of contributors to Flutter are outside of Google). , Google’s director of product and UX for Flutter and the Dart programming language, told me that the team decided to completely rewrite , Flutter’s rendering runtime. This new version aims to fix some of the existing glitches of the previous engine but also greatly improves performance — all while still offering support for hot reloads and other core Flutter features.  “It’s such a different sort of experience. It’s just so silky smooth,” he said. “Essentially, we’re able to build a graphics rendering engine that’s tailored for Flutter rather than leveraging a general-purpose renderer.” To enable this performance, the engine now features pre-compiled shaders, avoiding the frame drops of the previous engine during shader compilation. There’s also now support for custom shaders and pixel shaders, which enables a number of new effects — which in turn will enable developers to build a host of new experiences on top of Flutter. Underneath all of this sit the low-level Vulkan and Metal 3D graphics APIs of Android and iOS. Currently, the team is focusing its work here on mobile, though many of these new graphics capabilities should also work on macOS and Windows already. “Our general model for Flutter is take it everywhere you can paint pixels,” Sneath said. Talking about taking Flutter everywhere, another new feature the team is previewing is element embedding. For web developers, that means they can use this to easily embed Flutter content using a standard <div> element. While one could obviously write an entire application with Flutter and Dart, a lot of developers may want to integrate this new code into existing apps that may have been written in a different language. The team is also working on a new package that enables better JavaScript and Dart interoperability, as well as new tooling that will allow Flutter to more easily call system APIs on Android and iOS. It already had that ability before, but getting this to work involved writing a lot of boilerplate code for developers. Looking ahead, the team is also launching its first efforts to compile Flutter to WebAssembly. With the hype around this binary format growing rapidly — and both browser support and server-side tooling maturing — it’s maybe no surprise that the Flutter team is also interested in this technology. For the most part, this is about getting additional performance from Flutter, Sneath explained. “Dart transpiles into very tightly compiled JavaScript code, but it’s still JavaScript code so it’ll be loaded and interpreted — and, for us, WebAssembly looks like it’s going to give us some improved time to load, reduce the size and number of megabytes transferred over the wire. That seems interesting,” he said. “The potential for WebAssembly is — both on the web and even beyond — to become this new sort of portable lingua franca. I like the idea that we can take and use other code in other languages in WebAssembly as well.” The RISC-V-based ClockworkPi DevTerm Kit. As for RISC-V, the open standard royalty-free chip architecture that is also starting to get traction across the industry, Sneath noted that it is still very early days (though he said he really enjoyed playing with the RISC-V-based ) but he believes supporting this architecture may open up new platforms for Flutter, especially in the embedded space. With Google’s Android team also investing in this architecture, it’s definitely worth keeping an eye on what Google is doing here, even as the number of developers who are specifically targeting this architecture is surely still quite low. Finally, the Flutter team is also launching an interesting new toolkit for news publishers, which builds on the success of a similar initiative the team launched for game developers at Google’s I/O developer conference last year. This toolkit should enable new publishers to quickly build a new-centric mobile app with support fo authentication, ad integrations, notifications and more — all without having to design these elements from scratch.

WhatsApp releases its native macOS client in public beta

Ivan Mehta

WhatsApp has released its native macOS app compatible with Apple Silicon in a public beta. Users running Mac with Apple’s own chip with macOS 11 Big Sur or newer version will be able to download the test version. Plus, people with Intel Macs that can run apps built with Mac Catalyst — the company’s program to port iPad POS — will be able to use this native app too. As reported, the app was first released for limited testing last July. At that time, users had to get it from Apple’s testing platform TestFlight. Because of this, only a select number of people could try out the app. Until now, Mac users had to rely on either . Both are not ideal in terms of performance or getting a full-featured experience. The new native client is still in beta, so there might be some issues. Users can report these glitches by clicking on the bug icon in the bottom left corner. WhatsApp We have reached out to Meta for more details on a stable release and will update the story if we hear back. WhatsApp first released its , but with the change in , the native client was the missing piece. In 2021, WhatsApp , so users can receive messages even if their phone is not connected to the internet.

Instagram’s new dynamic profile photo flips between your picture and avatar

Aisha Malik

Instagram announced today that it’s introducing a new dynamic profile photo feature that lets users showcase both their profile photo and their avatar. Prior to this update, you had to choose between displaying a profile picture or your avatar on your profile. Now, you can flip between the two. “Now you can add your avatar to the other side of your pic — and people who visit your profile can flip between the two,” the Meta-owned company said in a . New profile pic, who this? Now you can add your avatar to the other side of your pic — and people who visit your profile can flip between the two 🪙 — Instagram (@instagram) To add an avatar to the other side of your profile picture, you need to navigate to the “Edit Profile” button. After adding the avatar, your profile picture will automatically flip over to your avatar when people visit your profile. The social media network notes that this update is the first time that it’s introducing avatar animation, as your avatar will wave when it is displayed. Meta brought avatars to Instagram , and is now working to make them more prominent within the app with the addition of the dynamic profile photo feature. The company initially avatars in 2020 as a way to compete with Snap’s Bitmoji and has been continuously updating them since across Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp and Messenger. The launch of the new dynamic profile photo feature comes a few days after Instagram head Adam Mosseri said the social network will look to make photos in 2023. In a weekly Q&A with users, Mosseri admitted that Instagram showed too many videos and not enough photos last year. He also reassured users that photos will always be important for the platform.

Uber Eats now shows you how much of your information is shared with delivery people

Aisha Malik

Uber Eats is that shows users how much of their personal information is shared with their delivery person when they place an order on the app. The feature, which is called “View as Delivery Person,” is designed to add a level of transparency when ordering food via the app. The feature will show how much of your information is shared with your courier at every stage of the delivery. For instance, when you request a delivery, the courier will see your approximate delivery location. When the courier accepts the delivery, they will see your first name and last initial, along with your exact delivery location and any customer notes you may have added regarding your order. Once the delivery is complete, the courier will see your delivery location, but not your house number or unit number. Did you know we limit what your delivery person sees about you when they accept your Uber Eats order? We’ve launched a new product so you can see what is shared with a courier when you place an order on the app. US and Canada only. Link in bio for more. — Uber Eats (@UberEats) The feature also shows you what information the app deletes after specific orders. If you order alcohol, the delivery person is required to verify your age by scanning your ID, but Uber notes that your ID information is not viewable by the courier after delivery and that the scan of your ID is deleted after 72 hours. In addition, when you choose the “Leave at Door” option, the courier takes a picture of the order at your door to confirm the delivery. Uber notes that the delivery person can’t access the photo after delivery, and that this photo is never stored, and is deleted when the delivery person closes their app. The new feature also tells you what information of yours Uber never shows your delivery person. For example, your delivery person never gets access to your payment method, phone number, the rating you give them, your profile photo or your last name (unless it’s required for alcohol purchases). Uber launched a similar feature for its rideshare app in 2020 called “View as Driver.” The new View as Delivery Person feature is now available in Canada and the United States.

Twitterrific, Tweetbot and other clients begin offloading their apps after Twitter shuts them out

Ivan Mehta

Say Goodbye to Tweetbot. We've been proud to serve you over the last 12+ years, but due to circumstances beyond our control, we have to shut down Tweetbot. Thank you so much for your patience and outpouring of support over these tough times at Tapbots. — Tapbots (@tapbots)   , one of the most iconic third-party Twitter clients, said today that it has removed the iOS and Mac apps from the App Store. Iconfactory, the company that made Twitterrific, said in that under Elon Musk’s management, the social media network has become “a Twitter that we no longer recognize as trustworthy nor want to work with any longer.” The app has had a rich association with Twitter. It was one of the first mobile and desktop clients for the platform, and it helped form In fact, Twitterrific was built back in 2007 — even before Twitter made its own iOS app. Twitterrific’s demise comes after Twitter intentionally without any explanation. Earlier this week, the TwitterDev account posted that the company had been suspending these apps in breach of “its longstanding API rules.” But it didn’t specify which rules were broken. Twitter is enforcing its long-standing API rules. That may result in some apps not working. — Twitter Dev (@TwitterDev) Late Thursday, Twitter updated its to list “use or access the Licensed Materials to create or attempt to create a substitute or similar service or product to the Twitter Applications.” under restricted usage of its APIs. Not long-standing at all. That move essentially kills third-party apps. But Twitterrific is not alone. A ton of other apps have started to remove or are preparing to remove their apps from different app stores. Paul Haddad, who is a co-creator of Tweetbot, told TechCrunch in an email that the company has already pulled the Mac client from the App Store and the iOS app will follow soon. Despite Twitter’s announcement, some Twitter clients are still working, but it’s probably just a matter of time before the company suspends them. Twitter has clarified their position. From this point on, apps that attempt to recreate the Twitter experience will not be allowed to access Twitter services. Unfortunately, this ultimately means that Talon will cease to work. — Talon (@TalonAndroid) While Twitter hasn’t given an explanation for this move, it could be to exert control over users and . Third-party clients have added so much to Twitter as a platform. Tweetie, an app Twitter acquired in 2010, was behind that everyone is familiar with. Twitterrific has contributed to things like . It’s sad to see Musk & co. not valuing developers that give users an option to experience the platform in different ways. Twitter has had a long history of disregarding developers contributing to the ecosystem. The company started . Two years later, it curtailed access to its firehose data . One of the classic examples of Twitter ignoring non-native clients is Tweetdeck, . The company shut down  and has been testing a new web version with a select number of users. But given how Musk has handled the company, there is not much hope for a full release. In the last few years, the social media company started rebuilding trust with developers. In 2020, it launched with multiple access levels to cater to many developer use cases. In 2022, it launched Twitter Toolbox, . In an interview with TechCrunch, Amir Shevat, who was heading developer platforms at Twitter at the time, said that the company is exploring building some kind of app store. But all that came crashing down after Musk took over the company. and many other developer projects are no longer going ahead. Last month, in a column for TechCrunch, Shevat (who is no longer at the company) wrote that . He also criticized the way . Developers are heartbroken by this move as the pro and premium subscription to their apps contributed to their income, and now it’s suddenly gone. Some have already started on other projects. Tweetbot maker Tapbots is building a Mastadon client called and aims to release it soon. Fenix developer Matteo Villa has also released a test version of his Mastadon app called Wooly. Three days in, still no news from the glorious Twitter management. Very cool indeed. Fenix on iOS inexplicably still working 🤷‍♂️ Let's continue working on , there's still a ton to do. Get it on TestFlight if you want to try a new Mastodon app. — Matteo Villa (@mttvll) Twitter’s move might throw off other developers who make tools for the platform. In December, composer apps like that while they were cautious, they want to continue to develop for Twitter. Content moderation tool Bodyguard also noted that it wanted to scale back Twitter-related development. With the latest step of leaving third-party clients high and dry, other developers might pull back on their projects around Twitter.

SoundHound, the voice AI company, raises $25M after laying off 40% of staff earlier this month

Ingrid Lunden

AI may be getting hyped as the next billion dollar (or much bigger) opportunity these days after that from Microsoft, but that rising tide is not lifting all boats. — the voice AI company that provides conversational AI services for automotive, connected home and hospitality applications — earlier this month and as a follow up, today that it had raised $25 million in equity to shore up its position in the market. SoundHound did not say who is behind the funding except to note that it is coming from “a diverse set of financial and strategic investors, both from the current shareholder base and new capital providers.” SoundHound notes that it’s coming in the form of preferred equity and convertible into shares of Class A common stock, potentially “on or after the one year anniversary of the issuance date if certain price conditions are met.” We have reached out to the company to see if we can get more detail on that investor list. We have also asked if it could provide more specific detail on how the proceeds will be used. noted that the laid-off employees will only be getting severance if the company raises more money, and we have confirmed with the company that this will be one of the uses. SoundHound was + when still a privately held startup and seen as an independent alternative to services built by Big Tech, such as Amazon’s Alexa. (Earlier than that, it developed music AI, and many thought of it as a more powerful and effective alternative to Shazam, the company acquired by Apple that helps with identifying music.) SoundHound went public in November 2021 by way of a SPAC merger at a . But … surprise, surprise, the SPAC valuation went the way of so many other SPACs and . SoundHound today has a . That hasn’t been helped by the wider economic climate and the winter that has hit the tech sector in particular. Tech stocks have taken a nosedive in the last year, and that’s impacting companies particularly hard when they are still effectively proving out their product-market fit. SoundHound has inked a lot of big partnerships over the years, including deals with , Kia and Hyundai in its extensive automotive efforts and more recently in the hospitality sector, as well as a deal with to integrate SoundHound voice AI into Snapdragon, work with  and more. But how much all of that has played out in products — and specifically products that are generating revenue right now — is not so clear. The company, in its funding announcement, also provided a preliminary look at its full-year 2022 results, and they are okay but not massive. Revenues will be $31 million for the year, “ We’ll update this post as we learn more.

This Week in Apps: Twitter kills third-party apps, Instagram adds Quiet Mode, Google’s antitrust trial gets a date

Sarah Perez

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. The app economy in 2023 hit a few snags, as consumer spending last year by 2% to $167 billion, according to the latest “State of Mobile” report by data.ai (previously App Annie). However, downloads are continuing to grow, up 11% year-over-year in 2022 to reach 255 billion. Consumers are also spending more time using mobile apps than ever before. On Android devices alone, hours spent in 2022 grew 9%, reaching 4.1 trillion. This Week in Apps offers a way to keep up with this fast-moving industry in one place with the latest from the world of apps, including news, updates, startup fundings, mergers and acquisitions, and much more. It’s incredible how third-party Twitter clients had been able to survive Twitter’s ups and over the years, including its various API changes and constantly fluctuating business objectives and policies, only to be in 2023 by the whims of a billionaire. This week, in what has been one of the more depressing moments in tech history, longtime Twitter apps like IconFactory’s Twitterific, Tapbot’s Tweetbot and others like Birdie, Fenix, Echofon were unceremoniously cut off from being able to access Twitter’s API and serve their customer base. Instead of warning developers that Twitter’s policies were changing and giving them time to wind down their operations and communicate with their longtime users and subscribers, Twitter quietly, callously and revoked their API access. They “ ,” so to speak. Users and developers found out about the change as the apps stopped working, but not because of any official communication from Twitter itself. As backlash and outrage grew, Twitter then made matters worse by trying to gaslight its community about the situation. The company tweeted it was only enforcing its “long-standing” rules, then to reflect what those rules actually were. Of course, there was a time when Twitter tried to shut down the Twitter app ecosystem: you know, Following its acquisition of Tweetie, which became Twitter’s own native app, the with Twitter on clients and instead focus on other API use cases, like data and verticals. It was the sort of classic, misguided move Twitter always seemed to make. The company never quite got a grip on the power Twitter had as a platform, and how an ecosystem of tools and apps that worked with Twitter was a better investment of its resources than spending eons trying to do things like or adding other that users didn’t really care about. At the time of the proposed shutdown over a decade ago, those Twitter apps had been responsible for 42% of tweets on the platform. While slightly from the 55% of tweets made in 2009 (or as , another analysis found), the apps still served a large audience of power users that Twitter wanted to simply cut off and walk away from. As entrepreneur Nova Spivack , its failure to incorporate its API into its future plans could ultimately hamper its potential as a company: I think Twitter’s current strategy may take them in a direction where they end up missing out on their biggest potential win. If Twitter continues to go down the media company path, without incorporating their API into the plan, that could not only force a large part of their ecosystem to go elsewhere, but it could deprive them of a much larger potential infrastructure revenue opportunity, and could even end up costing them the company. After all, Silicon Valley is littered with the burned out wreckage of once-great media companies that failed create and keep third-party app ecosystems: AOL, Friendster, MySpace, Yahoo – to name a few. It’s very hard to maintain leadership as an online media company without an ecosystem of outside apps increasing reach, innovation, and stickiness. He was right. Twitter the to its daily active user base, even , and trying to convince Wall Street that its business should be evaluated by something besides user growth. It didn’t work. Twitter historically often ignored the innovation emerging from its ecosystem of apps, even as those apps contributed meaningfully to what Twitter would become. Twitterific coined the word “tweet,” was the first to use the bird icon and delivered the first native Mac and iOS apps, Tweetie the pull-to-refresh gesture. made it , long before Twitter did. And all, arguably, demonstrated the market for premium apps ( !) and app subscriptions, despite arriving at a time when Twitter’s focus was on cramming ads into its timeline — something that was once . The company could have found an altogether different trajectory if it had embraced the innovation taking place in the broader app ecosystem, instead of constantly Twitter users for years had no choice but to sit back and watch as their favorite third-party apps were slowly pruned. Long before TikTok, an app that began as a “ ,” Seesmic, in 2012. Favstar, a popular app for tracking top tweets, Twitter acquired TweetDeck, , despite surveys that indicated users would be willing to pay for premium features and subscriptions. Twitter almost seemed to revel in destroying various parts of its ecosystem. It bought (a TikTok precursor) and (an early livestreamer), and killed them. (And when Twitter managed to come up with creative ideas of its own — like a — it would give up on them, too. Now music discovery takes place on TikTok.) Despite its fumbling, third-party Twitter clients managed to survive and even thrive, thanks to dedicated user bases, all while the company kept tweaking its API to make them less useful. In 2018, for example, the app makers told their customers they would have certain features. And yet, the apps’ customers remained. Now, at a perilous time in Twitter’s history — when analysts are predicting it will — Twitter is to its ecosystem. And while these clients may not be the powerhouses of a decade ago, they deserved the opportunity to close up shop in a dignified manner that reflected the impact they had on Twitter’s own history and community. What’s ironic here is that Twitter in more recent years almost seemed as if it was trying to right the ship. It was revamping its API and bringing back its developer . Its head of product for the developer platform, Amir Shevat, understood the potential. The company was beginning users could interact with and was even toying with ideas around a Twitter app store. But his team was cut from 100 people to two amid the Twitter layoffs, signaling the end of Twitter’s platform ambitions. And, we should have realized then, the end of the Twitter ecosystem of apps, too. As Shevat warned in December: “Let this be my personal notice to Twitter developers: The team is gone; the investment has been undone. Love does not live here anymore.” A in a significant antitrust case against Google involving its alleged abuses of power in the Android app market. Fortnite maker Epic Games and dating app giant Match Group, joined by more than three dozen state attorneys general, have accused Google of unfairly leveraging its market dominance and harming competition through its Google Play Store terms and practices. In particular, the plaintiffs take issue with the commissions Google requires on app sales and in-app purchases as well as the control Google has over Android app distribution in general. The case will now proceed to a jury trial on November 6, 2023, a judge in the Northern District of California has ruled. Epic and Match  by adding new antitrust counts to their case. Google in October   to disallow these requests, saying, among other things, the claims were filed too late. (The court granted the motion to amend the complaint in November.) The Android ecosystem antitrust case is a bit different from the Epic-Apple battle because Google allows Android apps to be sideloaded. The app makers will instead aim to prove other ways the company leveraged its market power — like paying developers to not leave the Play Store, for instance. In a more recent hearing related to this case, a California federal judge criticized Google for not preserving evidence from employee chats, after learning internal communications were taking place in Google Chat, where messages were automatically deleted after 24 hours. Though employees can change the auto-delete setting, Google apparently did not enforce this setting to be turned on. The U.S. District Judge James Donato asked the parties how many of the 260 Google employees who received a litigation hold notice had chosen not to preserve their chats, according to a report from  The judge also threatened Google with a “substantial, trial-related penalty” if the court found evidence related to the trial was destroyed. This should be an interesting trial to watch, it seems. Instagram this week it’s expanding its selection of time management tools with the launch of a new feature called “Quiet Mode.” The feature aims to reduce users’ anxiety about taking time off from the app by silencing incoming notifications, auto-replying to DMs and setting your status to “In Quiet Mode” to inform friends that you’re not active on the app at present. The company said it will prompt teen users to enable the feature if they’re using the app late at night. With the new Quiet Mode feature, the app is aiming to address the real-world impacts that accompany trying to step away for a bit from an app that you regularly use — and one where others expect you to be available. The launches come as Instagram works to make its app less of a target for regulators and lawmakers who have been concerned with social media’s potential harms, particularly for teenage users. To date, Instagram has added several teen safety features, including those to   and , ,  and others to help parents  and manage their teens’ Instagram use through  The update is one of several changes that rolled out, which also included tweaking its parental control tools and adding other tools to manage recommendations. For example, you’ll now be able to remove things from your Explore page and block terms from influencing your recommended content, too. Smores The app lets you listen to a short clip of a song, recommended based on your own listening history. You can then swipe through the vertical feed to skip to the next song clip, or like the current song with the heart button, which saves the like to your Spotify account. The liked tracks will appear in a new playlist called “Smores Discovery,” or you can add the track to another pre-existing playlist if you choose. The team says they may later bring the app to Apple Music or Android users. Ice Cubes This new Mastodon client for iPad, iPhone and Mac was oddly rejected from the App Store numerous times on its path to launching, as highlighted, but the SwiftUI app from developer Thomas Ricouard looks like a solid addition to the Mastodon app ecosystem, which includes several new apps built by former Twitter app makers, including apps like from Tapbots and from Aviary’s app developer. (Both are still in TestFlight.) Ice Cubes, however, promises to bring a fast and reliable Mastodon experience to the desktop, allowing users to browse their timelines, interact with posts (“toots”) and even quote toot — a feature Twitter expats have been missing. You can also access more advanced functions like lists, filters, an explore tab and more.

Tapbots launches a new Mastodon client, Ivory, after Twitter kills its Tweetbot app

Sarah Perez

, the makers of popular third-party Twitter app Tweetbot that was by , is releasing its next new product. Hoping to fill the void that leaves behind, the company is now making its anticipated Mastodon client app available as an Early Access release. The “Early Access” label is a subtitle that Tapbots put on its release to indicate there will still be features missing as it debuts, the company told us. However, by launching publically on the App Store, Tapbots is able to put Ivory into more people’s hands after filling up the limited number of TestFlight slots it had for its test version. Tapbots founder Paul Haddad told TechCrunch that Ivory’s App Store release was approved just yesterday, but the company had a few technical issues to address around subscriptions before publicizing the launch. For longtime Tweetbot users, Ivory will offer a familiar experience. But instead of serving as a client for Twitter’s network, the company has now embraced the promising Though not quite as simple to use or understand as Twitter, Mastodon has gained traction in the months following Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter. As Twitter’s new owner implemented controversial changes and the site’s performance degraded at times, some people had begun looking for a new home to post short updates, as they did on Twitter. That led to and , like Mastodon. As of December, Mastodon had across some 8,600 different servers or, in Mastodon lingo, “instances.” However, some Mastodon newcomers didn’t like the official native mobile app — especially after using the faster, more polished Twitter native mobile app or those from third parties, like Tweetbot. That helped attract interest in the up-and-coming apps like Ivory and others being , including Mammoth. Tapbots says Ivory’s feature set takes advantage of the dozen+ years of experience Tapbots had in building its award-winning Tweetbot client for Twitter’s platform. At launch, it sports dozens of features, ranging from support for baseline functionality to clever bells and whistles, like being able to theme the app or change its icon. The app supports multiple accounts, and lets you view your local and federated timelines, trending posts, post statistics, notifications and more. It also enables Mastodon-specific options that weren’t available on Twitter — like the ability to add content warnings to posts — as well as more common features, like the ability to post GIFs and polls. Tapbots There are other thoughtful touches designed to appeal to power users, too, like hashtag tracking, mute filters with regex support and timeline filters that let you show or hide posts that meet certain criteria you set. This could appeal to Mastodon’s older users, as well, who may want to mute and avoid some of the posts shared by Mastodon newcomers who are bringing Twitter’s culture to the platform, leading to unwanted posts without content warnings in their timelines. Ivory also allows users to personalize the app in other ways. In addition to the filters, themes and icon choices, users can configure the navigation buttons at the bottom of the screen to show them what they want to see, by pressing down on buttons to switch between tabs for different areas of the app like bookmarks, favorites, statistics, your profile, notifications, lists, search and more. The app additionally promises fast performance, smooth scrolling and an attractive user interface and sound design. For a debut release, Ivory is already a fairly robust client. However, the company says it has much more to still add to the app, including things like tools for editing your profile or editing your posts (take that, Edit Tweet button!), as well as others for reading the alt/description text for media, improved hashtags, support for custom instance emoji, an improved notifications tab with better filtering, improved nav bar and a feature to suppress duplicate posts. The app will generate revenue, as Tweetbot did, by way of in-app subscriptions. The App Store lists these as costing either $1.99 per month or $14.99 per year. A “Premier” subscription is also available for $24.99 per year. The latter includes all the features in the Pro subscription, and will later include a few extras, the company says. Haddad says the Premier tier was added mainly because people were asking to pay more money to help the company out, but it plans to include a few perks for those people in the future, including possibly, things like extra icons or wallpapers. These subscriptions are available in the Ivory app at present, and enable some of the power user features like configuring which notifications you want to receive, among other things. Users can also “demo” the app for free without committing to a subscription. As Tweetbot’s revenue was cut to zero by Twitter’s API changes, apps like Ivory only have a future if consumers are willing to adopt Mastodon and subscribe to alternative clients. And because Mastodon has a much smaller global user base to draw from, compared with Twitter, Ivory’s revenue potential has a smaller ceiling than the company’s Tweetbot app once did. (If you’re feeling nostalgic, .) We have been testing Ivory for a few weeks through its TestFlight version and found that it offered a performant and rich user Mastodon experience that’s in many ways superior to the official app, making it easily one of the top choices for using Mastodon on iOS devices, even in its early days.

Nanoleaf debuts smart lighting for ceilings, TVs and more

Kyle Wiggers

CES isn’t as consumer-focused as it once was, despite the overt branding. (CES stands for “Consumer Electronics Show.”) Indeed, automotive and enterprise vendors have encroached on the Las Vegas show floor in recent years as some major consumer brands pull back. But there’s still consumer tech news to be had, fortunately. Case in point: Nanoleaf, the brand behind the iconic wall-mounted, geometric LED lighting, is introducing an array of products this week to showcase its latest technical innovations. First up is the Sense+ Controls, which Nanoleaf is calling its first “learning smart light switches.” The lineup of devices — which comprises the hardwired Smart Light Switch, Wireless Smart Light Switch and Nala Learning Bridge — work with Matter, the smart home interoperability protocol, and run on the low-power mesh networking standard Thread. All three Sense+ Controls products have motion and ambient lighting sensors to automate routines, while the Nala Learning Bridge — which connects Thread devices including Nanoleaf’s to Wi-Fi or ethernet — works as a color-changing night light with a soft glow. Perhaps the real star of the show where it concerns Sense+ Controls, though, is Nala, an intelligent assistant that attempts to learn preferences from how a person uses and programs Nanoleaf products around the house. Running on the Nala Learning Bridge or an existing Nanoleaf Thread Border Router (coming via a free firmware upgrade), Nala creates personalized automations and attempts to handle certain actions informed by its learnings, like turning off the lights, adjusting the brightness and color and choosing lighting scenes. “We wanted to push the boundaries of what a ‘Smarter’ home can look like. With app and voice controls, the smart home is still very much based on manual controls and has not reached its full potential of what smart can be,” Gimmy Chu, the CEO of Nanoleaf, told TechCrunch in an email interview. “Combined with the vision of a hands-free smart home, we wanted to pair this with a smart lighting assistant that was user-friendly and relatable, which is when Nala was born.” Nanoleaf Nanoleaf certainly isn’t the first to attempt to inject intelligence and proactivity into the smart home. Amazon has of Alexa’s “ambient intelligence” capabilities, while Google has its toes in the space over the years. Nanoleaf isn’t claiming that Nala is the best attempt at the intelligent home yet. But it asserting that, because Nala’s control is strictly limited to lighting, the assistant is more likely to behave in a desirable way. Simply put, there’s less that can go wrong. “Nala creates smart automations for your home, which can either be set to appear as suggestions or automatically applied to your lighting,” Chu said. “Nala’s learning capabilities grow more intelligent and accurate with the amount of sensors within the space. Each smart light switch will help Nala to learn better and offer more accurate predictive actions like turn on and off, seamless brightness adjustments, scene selection and more.” Beyond Nala and Sense+ Controls, Nanoleaf unveiled Nanoleaf 4D, an ambient (and Matter-compatible) backlighting kit for large-screen TVs. Similar to AmbiVision and other such systems, Nanoleaf 4D relies on an LED light strip and a camera to record what’s happening on the display and “extend” the picture by illuminating corresponding LEDs. Nanoleaf 4D features four screen modes, with 50 addressable zones on the five-meter light strip, and comes bundled with snap-on brackets as well as adhesives for easy (in theory) installation. Nanoleaf 4D. Note the camera positioned above the TV, which records content to mirror on the back-mounted LEDs. A console underneath processes the images coming in. Nanoleaf Nanoleaf 4D is also the first to ship with Nanoleaf’s Sync+ technology, which synchronizes it with other Nanoleaf products on the same network. Sync+ can mirror what’s on screen to both Nanoleaf 4D and other Nanoleaf lighting fixtures, and it can additionally sync colors and animations so a single scene plays continuously across a room. Not to be outdone (and clearly firing on all cylinders), Nanoleaf announced the Nanoleaf Skylight, a modular flush-mount ceiling fixture that works with Matter, alongside the Sense+ Controls and Nanoleaf 4D. Coming in a square modular RGBW LED form factor that delivers 16 million colors, the Skylight can be arranged with other Skylights to create overhead designs and comes with features for adjusting the brightness, colors and color temperatures and setting schedules. As a bonus, the Skylight can act as a Thread Border Router and packs Sense+ sensors to enable motion and light sensing. A part of the new Nanoleaf Essentials lineup. Nanoleaf Last but not least, Nanoleaf debuted the Matter-certified Essentials Bulbs and Lightstrip, which offer “mesmerizing” animations for different activities (in the company’s words). Existing Nanoleaf owners needn’t rush out to buy them strictly for the Matter connectivity, though — Nanoleaf says that its full line of modular light panels and light bars will be Matter-upgradeable later this year. The Sense+ Controls line and Skylight are expected to launch in Q3 2023, Nanoleaf says — a few months after the Essentials Bulbs and Lightstrip (which will arrive sometime in Q1). Nanoleaf 4D will come to market in Q2 in two length options, meanwhile — 55″-65″ and 70″-80″. No word on pricing yet.

Bird Buddy’s new smart hummingbird feeder can photograph and identify 350 different bird species

Sarah Perez

, the maker of a smart bird feeder that snaps photos of your bird visitors, which are collected in a companion mobile app, is out today with another product for its nature enthusiast and bird-watching community. At the in Las Vegas, the company is showing off a prototype of its new AI-powered Smart Hummingbird Feeder, which is able to take photos and videos of 350 different hummingbird species with wing speeds of up to 60 mph. Like its original smart bird feeder, the new feeder’s camera is triggered by motion, which prompts it to take photos of the bird. Those are then run through an AI program to help identify the species, alerting the user to their visitor through the Bird Buddy mobile app. Originally a crowdfunded startup through Kickstarter, Bird Buddy realized it couldn’t rely on open databases to help it properly identify bird photos. So in 2021, it built around 250 test cameras and sent them out to volunteer Kickstarter backers to help it develop its own AI tech. The company collected around 3 million photos, then hired an ornithologist and team of interns to manually process over 2 million photos to train its bird identification AI. That has allowed Bird Buddy’s system to identify around 1,000 birds — now including hummingbirds. Bird Buddy also comes with a nicely designed mobile app that gamifies the bird-watching experience. In the app, users build out their collection of birds, track birds’ visits over time, learn about their habits and share bird photos with the community, giving a bit of modern-day flair to what’s often thought of as an older person’s hobby. Bird Buddy The company says there are now 100,000 users in the Bird Buddy community who have a smart feeder. A new , also launching at , lets others outside of Bird Buddy’s own customer base track the bird sightings in real time. At CES, the company demonstrated its new Hummingbird Feeder, noting it plans to build the feeder with recyclable and sustainable materials while also offering new features to cater to hummingbirds, like ports with a lily-shaped red flower that provides access to the nectar the birds will eat. The two-part design snaps together with a seal to prevent mold and leaks but can easily be unsnapped to clean. Like the original Bird Buddy smart feeder, the new feeder features a swappable camera module, optional solar roof, motion sensors and AI tech. The company’s original feeder is $199 or $269 with a solar roof and has only been shipping since September. The Hummingbird Feeder isn’t yet priced but will be comparable or maybe a little less, we’re told. The company hopes to launch the new feeder later this year. Bird Buddy Longer term, Bird Buddy’s ultimate success may not be from its feeders themselves but from the data it collects. “We get timestamps, and we know the species and we know — generally — the location based on the town that you put in,” explains Bird Buddy co-founder in a chat at CES. “We’re building the largest database of bird visits.” He says the company wants to open source this data to allow organizations like the Audubon Society and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, as well as universities, to have access. The team has also discussed allowing users to photograph and ID birds using just their phones. In addition to Kickstarter funds the Slovenia- and Kalamazoo, Michigan-based startup raised $8.5 million from General Catalyst and in

The app economy slowed for the first time in 2022, with consumer spend down 2% to $167 billion

Sarah Perez

The app ecosystem’s nonstop growth finally slipped this past year. An of the app economy by mobile analytics firm data.ai (previously App Annie) found that consumer spending on mobile apps declined for the first time in 2022 after seeing 19% year-over-year growth Consumer spending dropped by 2% in 2022, the report said, reaching $167 billion. Meanwhile, downloads grew by 11% year-over-year to 255 billion, while hours spent in Android apps alone grew 9% to reach 4.1 trillion. The new analysis, found in the firm’s annual is based on consumer spending across all app stores, including third-party Android app stores in China. It shows the impact of a down economy on what, until now, has largely been a growth industry where every year saw apps raking in more money than the year before. “For the first time, macroeconomic factors are dampening growth in mobile spend,” noted data.ai CEO Theodore Krantz, in a statement about the firm’s new findings. “Consumer spend is tightening while demand for mobile is the gold standard,” he added. In years past, mobile games drove much of consumer spending on apps, but as subscriptions became a more popular way to generate revenue from non-game apps, that gap has narrowed. As it turned out, non-game apps have proven to be more resilient in a down economy, data.ai found, possibly because consumers view apps as more essential than games. In 2022, spending on games dropped 5% to $110 billion, while spending on non-game apps increased 6% to $58 billion — the latter, driven by streaming subscriptions, dating apps and short-form video apps. data.ai Another angle that demonstrates the disproportionate impact the economy had on games is by looking at how many games in 2022 surpassed either $10 million, $100 million or $1 billion in revenues. This year, the number of games in each of those categories fell by 1%, 4% and 33%, respectively. In total, 1,419 apps and games topped $10 million annually in 2022, 224 topped $100 million and just 10 topped $1 billion. Ahead of data.ai’s report, Apple on Tuesday released its which touted a record $320 billion in money paid to developers since the App Store’s founding. While some suggested consumer spending may have slowed on its platform, it’s not possible to come up with exact figures because app developers, as a group, no longer pay Apple a 30% commission on in-app purchases. Some indie developers may have qualified for Plus, Apple offers different commission structures for and those (as ). Though data.ai’s report shows that consumer spending clearly took a hit in 2022, other areas of the app economy saw growth, including daily time spent per user, which grew a modest 3% year-over-year to reach five hours per day in top mobile markets — or as much as one-third of daily waking hours, the firm notes. Among the top 10 markets analyzed, several topped five hours per day, including Indonesia, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and South Korea. Meanwhile, time spent grew the fastest over four years in Saudi Arabia, Australia and Singapore at 68%, 67% and 62%, respectively. data.ai Consumers tended to spend most of their time in three app categories, which accounted for half the time spent on mobile: Social Media/Communication (19.5% of total time); Entertainment/Short Video (17% of total time); and Entertainment/Video Sharing (12.7% of total time). The first category — Social Media/Communication — includes WeChat, WhatsApp, Facebook, Messenger, Telegram, LINE and Discord, while the Entertainment and Short Video category is where you’ll find TikTok as well as Kwai, Vido Video, Baidu Haokan and Snack Video. The last category of Entertainment and Video Sharing includes long-form video like YouTube, YouTube Kids and bilibili. Mobile ad spending also grew 14% year-over-year to reach $336 billion in 2022, though data.ai warns this growth will slow in the face of economic headwinds. Short-form video apps, like TikTok and YouTube, are expected to drive much of this ad spend as social networking platforms decline. Downloads climbed in 2022 as well, including an 8% year-over-year rise in game installs to reach 90 billion, and non-game downloads reaching 165 billion, up 13%. Popular genres driving this trend included Simulation Driving, Hypercasual Simulation and Simulation Sports in games. App downloads were driven by personal loan apps (up 81%), Buy Now, Pay Later apps (up 47%), Coupons & Rewards apps (up 27%) and Budget & Expense trackers (up 19%). However, both the crypto trading and investing app categories saw their app downloads drop by 55% year-over-year. data.ai The full report takes a deeper dive into other mobile trends in 2022, including those impacting sectors like finance, retail, social, video, food & drink, travel, health & fitness/sports and more. Gen Z trends are highlighted as well, such as their commitment to video, user-generated content, mindfulness apps and their interest in friend-finding apps like Yubo, Hoop and Bumble (which has a friend-finding feature). Data.ai also revealed the year’s top apps across downloads, consumer spend and monthly active users. Last year, TikTok was the top app by downloads and spending, but Facebook was top by monthly active users. 2022 delivers a bit of a twist as Instagram edged out TikTok for the No. 1 spot by downloads, though the other two categories’ No. 1’s remained the same. And while much has been said about Meta’s decline this year, its apps are still holding their own by active users — Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger hold the top four spots on the list by monthly actives. data.ai Video and dating apps continue to pull in the most revenue, with Tinder and Disney+ still highly ranked, behind TikTok — which was also the top social app by consumer spending. The report noted that TikTok also this year bacame the second non-game app to top $6 billion in all-time consumer spending — only Tinder has seen higher revenues. This year, TikTok reached the top spot with more than $3 billion in consumer spending. data.ai

Instagram’s new ‘Quiet Mode’ helps you take a break from the app

Sarah Perez

Instagram today it’s expanding its selection of time management tools with the launch of a new feature called “Quiet Mode.” The feature aims to reduce users’ anxiety about taking time off from the app by silencing incoming notifications, auto-replying to DMs, and setting your status to to inform friends that you’re not active on the app at present. The company said it will prompt teen users to enable the feature if they’re using the app late at night. The update is one of several changes rolling out today, which also include expanded parental control tools and other tools to manage recommendations. The launches come as Instagram works to make its app less of a target for regulators and lawmakers who have been concerned with social media’s potential harms, particularly for teenage users. To date, Instagram has added several teen safety features, including those to and , , , and others to help parents and manage their teens’ Instagram use through Quiet Mode joins a handful of other screen time management tools Instagram now offers, including daily time spent controls that allow people to track their app use and send themselves alerts, those to configure”take a break” reminders after individual app sessions extend beyond a certain amount of time, and various tools to pause, snooze and unfollow pages, groups, and people to help further reduce engagement with addictive or otherwise unwanted content. With the new Quiet Mode feature, however, the idea isn’t just to introduce a tool that pushes users to take a break. Instead, it focuses on the real-world impacts that accompany trying to step away for a bit from an app that you regularly use — and one where others expect you to be available. For young people in particular, Instagram has grown to become a popular messaging tool — so much so that the company in years past launched two different variations on standalone communication apps, Direct and Threads. (The latter .) While breaking out messaging as its own separate experience didn’t work out for Instagram, messaging remains a key draw for the main app. For Instagram’s heaviest users, that means not answering DMs is up there with ignoring text messages  — it’s something that’s considered rude, even though that the expectation to be constantly available can be stressful. With Quiet Mode, Instagram users can choose to take a break — to study, to sleep, or to otherwise disengage. It’s sort of like the Instagram equivalent of turning your instant messaging light off, for those who remember the AIM and ICQ era. When you exit Quiet Mode, the app will offer a summary of what you missed during your downtime to help you get caught up. Instagram says teens will be prompted to enable the feature when they spend a “specific” amount of time on Instagram at night, but Quiet Mode will be offered to all users. (Instagram says the prompt will be triggered after a “short” amount of time, but didn’t provide details on what it considers short.) Quiet Mode is launching first to users in the U.S., United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and Instagram says it hopes to roll it out to more countries soon. While Quiet Mode was the highlight of today’s news, Instagram is rolling out a handful of updates as well. One is the newly added ability for parents to see the accounts their teen has blocked, when using Instagram’s built-in parental control tools. This could make it easier for parents to have with their teens so they can talk about the change, if need be. Instagram is also letting users better control what shows up for them on the app’s Explore page. This is something that’s algorithmically driven by user behavior, though doesn’t always reflect what a user wishes they were seeing. In fact, there was a about this subject just the other day, related to a complaint about too much adult-oriented content appearing on some people’s Instagram’s Explore tab (referred to in the thread as the “Discover” tab.). As many people pointed out in the replies, this tab is driven by an algorithm that shows you what you might like, based on your app usage. That means you’ll only see “adult” content if that’s what you view and interact with — meaning those complaining were just “telling on themselves,” the original poster wrote. Other people’s Explore tabs may be filled with kittens or art or tattoos or cooking or fashion, and other innocuous content, users agreed. (The thread also offered a fascinating glimpse into what people’s Explore pages look like, if you’ve ever been curious about the variety.) Instagram Going forward, Instagram says users will be able to hide multiple pieces of unwanted content from Explore at once, which could help those whose pages resemble their behavior but not their actual interests. Plus, if you select “Not Interested” on a post in Explore, Instagram will try to avoid showing you this same type of content going forward elsewhere in the app’s recommendations — like Reels, Search and more. A final tweak to users’ recommendations will be driven by blocked words. If you’ve already configured Instagram to hide comments and DMs with certain words, emojis or hashtags, that block will also apply to recommended posts across the app. That means if you block a word like “fitness” or “recipes,” the company explains, it won’t show you content where those words appear in the caption or hashtag. Instagram This seems an attempt to address the problem where searches for things like “workout tips” or “healthy recipes” easily lead users to content associated with extreme dieting and eating disorders. This topic had been the focus of about the harms to teen mental health that comes from using apps like Facebook and Instagram. As U.S. lawmakers have yet to take serious action here, Meta is again attempting to regulate itself on the matter by putting the controls in the hands of the end user, rather than holding itself accountable for algorithmic failures. While Quiet Mode is only launching in select markets, the other updates are rolling out globally to iOS and Android, Instagram said.  

Instagram and Facebook introduce more limits on targeting teens with ads

Taylor Hatmaker

Meta is making some changes to how its apps handle advertising and young users. Under the new rules, advertisers on and won’t be able to leverage as much personalized data to target ads to teens. Users under age 18 will also be newly empowered with more choices about which ads they see and why. Starting next month, Meta will remove the option for targeting advertising to teen users based on gender. The company will also end advertisers’ ability to target personalized ads to under-18 users based on their in-app activity, including who they follow on Instagram and what Facebook pages they like. After the changes, personalized ads on those apps will only draw on a user’s age and location to determine relevance. According to Meta, location is necessary to assess which products and services are available in a user’s area. In two months, Facebook and Instagram will also roll out new controls for teen users (kids under age 13 aren’t allowed on those apps — technically). Teens will be given an option to “see less” of a given topic, shaping which ads the platform will serve them. These changes are the latest effort to build in some after-the-fact privacy protections for Meta’s youngest users. In 2021, Instagram blocked advertisers from or online activity outside of the app. Ireland’s Data Protection Commission conducted a into how Instagram handled user accounts for kids aged 13 to 17, particularly the company’s practice of making those accounts public by default and allowing minors who opted into business accounts to share their phone numbers and other contact info. Meta last fall was . At the time, the company said that it planned to appeal and criticized the Irish regulator for punishing the company for its past policies (ones that were likely only changed in the face of looming regulation, it should be noted). Kids on Instagram weren’t or prompted to switch from public to private until well into 2021. Meta’s incremental changes obviously stop short of turning off ads altogether for teens, a solution that wouldn’t be unreasonable given the risks involved. The company’s decision to stay the course suggests that its youngest users are valuable enough from an advertising perspective that Meta is willing to risk future regulatory wrangling rather than going cold turkey.

Google’s Clock app now lets you record your own alarm sound

Ivan Mehta

Google’s clock app for Android has plenty of sound options to set as an alarm. If you don’t like the default tone, you can use a song or a podcast from Spotify or YouTube Music (only if you have a premium subscription), too — and Google now also allows you to record a voice clip and set that as an alarm tone. This feature was first noticed by Esper.io’s Mishaal Rahman. As he noted, this is a server-side push, so as long as you are using Clock app version 7.3, you should see this feature without updating the app. The Google Clock app now lets you record your own audio to use as an alarm. This is rolling out to users on the existing 7.3 release via a server-side update. H/T on Telegram. Screenshots are my own. — Mishaal Rahman (@MishaalRahman) Rahman also notes that this feature works only on Pixel phones or devices where users have sideloaded the Google Recorder app. But it’s possible that Google could roll out the voice clip as an alarm feature to all devices in the future, as long as they have a recorder app. It could be a way to prank someone by changing their usual alarm tone with a recorded clip while they are looking away. Or a more productive use case would be to remind you of something right when you get up. But it would be freaky to hear your own voice first thing in the morning. This new feature definitely joins the league of weird alarm apps. We have seen apps like , which lets you wake up strangers; Microsoft’s , which forced you to ape expressions to silence the alarm; or , which lets you set up apocalyptic scenarios to wake up.

Twitter Blue is now available on Android at the same price as iOS

Ivan Mehta

A day after launching , the social media company has extended the paid plan to users on Android. Individuals will have to pay $11 per month if they buy the Twitter Blue plan through Android. The pricing, same as that on iOS, is higher than the $8 offering for those who subscribe through a web browser. It’s likely that Elon Musk & co. want to avoid paying fees for in-app purchases to Google (as they did with Apple). So users will have to pay more. To recap, the Twitter Blue plan is now available across platforms in six countries: the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand and . Country and platform-wise prices of the Twitter Blue subscription. Twitter Twitter Blue subscribers currently get features like  , and . Other features include a thread reader, the ability to edit tweets and custom icons and themes. Twitter launched its annual subscription plan at $84 a year on Monday. It is the cheapest way to get the Blue subscription plan, but given how the company has pushed and pulled features, there is no guarantee that the current set of benefits will be available for a year. Now that Twitter’s new paid plan is available on all platforms, we have to wait and see if it proves to be the big money maker that Musk has hoped for. Earlier this week, reported that Twitter will by the end of the month be due for interest payment on the loans worth nearly $13 billion that Musk took to purchase the company. So Twitter would want its subscription revenues to up stats.

Dating app Hinge tests a pricier $60 per month subscription, similar to Tinder Platinum

Sarah Perez

Match-owned dating app Hinge confirmed it’s testing a higher-priced premium subscription of $50 to $60 per month — a significant increase over the current $35 per month pricing. The company had earlier teased the new offering during Match’s Q3 2022 earnings in November, calling it Hinge’s equivalent of Tinder’s top-tier “Platinum” subscription, as a comparison, and touting its potential to drive the revenue per payer “meaningfully higher.” Bloomberg the news of the premium offering, which a spokesperson for Match Group confirmed. Hinge will aim its pricey subscription at “highly motivated daters,” it said, who are willing to pay for more features to boost their exposure in the app as well as those that would allow them to receive better recommendations. For example, subscribers’ “likes” will be seen faster than others, among other things, the report noted. While Match’s flagship app Tinder leads the company in terms of revenue, Match called out Hinge as a “bright spot” in the past quarter. The dating app aimed more heavily toward those interested in relationships has become the third most popular app by downloads in the U.S. In more recent months, the app has been localized outside the U.S., having launched in Germany and other European markets, where it’s finding traction. It’s also one of the key apps Match has been counting on to help offset the declines it’s been seeing at some of its established brands, as well as those at its , which did not pay off as expected. The company said it would invest further in marketing Hinge in the U.S. and abroad in the fourth quarter, to help further grow the brand. On the success of this expansion and the new premium tier, Match is forecasting Hinge to deliver at least $100 million in incremental revenues this year, the company told investors during November’s earnings call. Match shared few details about the subscription itself during the call, only noting that it would begin rolling out globally after the new year. “We like subscription monetization opportunities with Hinge — with the Hinge user base. As with any big changes to tiers, we’ll continue to optimize the offering throughout 2023,” Match CEO Bernard Kim said during the call. However, the company acknowledged hinge was about $15 million behind its 2022 goal, mainly due to foreign exchange headwinds, and particularly the impact those were having on the pound. It said it would update investors on Hinge’s revenue for this year during its February Q4 earnings call. Bloomberg’s report also noted Tinder was testing a $500 monthly plan, which Match also confirmed but declined to provide details.

Fandom lays off employees across Giant Bomb, GameSpot and Metacritic

Ivan Mehta

Entertainment company Fandom has laid off an unspecified number of employees across multiple properties, including , and . These properties are mainly focused on publishing content around gaming and TV shows. According to a report by , the company employs around 500 people, and the layoffs have affected roughly 10% of its staff across different sites. Employees were caught off-guard by this surprise announcement made by CEO Perkins Miller during an all-hands meeting, as per . The job cuts come months after Fandom — Comic Vine, Cord Cutters News, GameFAQs, GameSpot, Giant Bomb, Metacritic and TV Guide — from Red Ventures in October. Sources told TechCrunch at that time that the size of the deal was around $55 million. During the acquisition announcement, Fandom said this deal will help the company “super-serve” its advertising partners and provide fuel for its data platform and gaming e-commerce verticals. Fandom was founded in 2004 by Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales and entrepreneur Angela Beesley. Some folks, like GameSpot entertainment editor Mat Elfring, video producer Jess O’Brien aka “Voidburger,” and graphic designer Justin Vachon tweeted about frustrating layoffs. Whiskey Media (Comic Vine)->CBS Interactive (Comic Vine/GameSpot)->Red Ventures (GameSpot)->Fandom (GameSpot)->Jobless I love you all at . You all made me so happy. That job was something I was so luck to have for 7 years. I cannot believe I'm gone. — Mat Elfring (@ImMatElfring) When your company lays off 2 of the 3 editors on staff lmao — VoidBurger (AKA Jess) 🍔🎮 (@VoidBurger) Well, for the first time in my life ive been laid off and…just feel completely numb. Its been a wonderful year+ working with and but now i gotta start to figure out what the fuck is next, just at a loss for now to say the very least 🫠 — justin vachon 🫠 (@megaberrycrunch) We have reached out to Fandom for comment, and will update the story if we hear back. Several gaming and entertainment media outlets have faced layoffs in the last few months. Some IGN staffers were , while Polygon employees were axed as a part of .

Indian food delivery giant Swiggy to cut 380 jobs

Manish Singh

Swiggy plans to lay off 380 jobs and shut down its meat marketplace as the Prosus Venture and SoftBank-backed Indian food delivery giant looks to navigate the market downturn that has forced firms to become leaner and more disciplined. In an email to employees on Friday, Swiggy co-founder and chief executive Sriharsha Majety said the startup has advanced its plans for profitability and needs to make difficult decisions to conserve cash. The Bengaluru-headquartered startup, which was in a funding round in January last year, employs about 6,000 individuals. Majety said the startup, as with other firms in the category globally, over projected growth in food delivery. “This meant that we needed to revisit our overall indirect costs to hit our profitability goals.. While we’d already initiated actions on other indirect costs like infrastructure, office/facilities, etc, we needed to right-size our overall personnel costs also inline with the projections for the future. Our over hiring is a case of poor judgement, and I should’ve done better here,” he wrote to employees. “Over the last year, we’ve also identified many areas for improvement in our pace of execution. Due to the iterative build-up of the different orgs, there have been some extra layers created in pockets. This definitely increased our communication overhead, and compromised our agility. This meant that instead of doing more with less, we were doing less with more in these cases.” Majety said the startup plans to also shut down its meat marketplace “effective very soon.” “While we continue to be fully committed to exploring new business opportunities, we have also taken a harder look at some of our existing new verticals. Effective very soon, we will be shutting down our Meat marketplace. While the team has done exceptionally well with solid inputs, we haven’t hit product market fit here despite our iterations. From a customer perspective, we will still continue to offer meat delivery through Instamart. We will continue to stay invested in all other new verticals.” The impacted employees will be paid a severance of three to six months and additional days based on each year of service at the startup, Majety said in the email. Swiggy will also accelerate their vesting cliff and is providing medical insurance for them and their dependents until May this year. Job cuts, in full swing last year, have bled into 2023. Scores of startups — including Zomato, Ola, Byju’s, Unacademy, Cashfree, CoinDCX, Dunzo and ShareChat — have laid off staff in recent months. According to industry estimates, more than 20,000 people in the startup workforce in India have lost their jobs since the market downturn. Swiggy hired a group of bankers last year to for 2023, TechCrunch reported earlier. It’s currently waiting for the market conditions to change before going ahead with the plan. The may continue for another 12 to 18 months and the industry might have to e-commerce giant Flipkart chief executive Kalyan Krishnamurthy warned late last year. “My estimate is that a lot of startup founders will hit the market between April to June next year, and that’s the moment of truth for the ecosystem,” he said.

Mozilla revamps its read-it-later app Pocket with new tabs and curated recommendations

Sarah Perez

, a popular read-it-later app , is rolling out two major changes to its mobile reading experience, as it faces new competition from and open source alternatives like . The company today is revamping key features, including its Home tab and its “My List” tab, which is now being rebranded as “Saves.” The changes are aimed at making Pocket not only a better tool to catch up with your reading, but also a place where you can discover more to read through “high-quality recommendations,” Mozilla says. Typically, people use Pocket to save articles they want to read later, often by way of a web browser extension that syncs your saved items to Pocket’s web and mobile app, where you can either read or playback the article as audio. The app works well as a replacement for using browser bookmarks to save things to read or — as is common these days — texting articles to yourself for later reading. Instead, Pocket organizes your saved items into its own interface, allowing users to also mark their saves as favorites, add highlights or move read items to an archive, among other things. With the update, Pocket will now gain a new Home tab that combines access to recently saved items alongside editorial recommendations. At the top of the screen, readers will be able to view their most recent saved item and click a button to “see all,” if they want to browse through their to-read list. However, the Home tab will feature a collection of Editor’s Picks, as well, in addition to recommendations from specific categories, like technology, travel or science, for example. Pocket This curated reading experience could help to address the threat from Matter, a newer read-it-later app, backed by Matter is an evolved version of the read-it-later experience that also supports newsletters and subscriptions and includes an active reading community where recommended articles are shared and discussed. While Pocket’s update doesn’t include the same social components, it does offer a way for users to expand their interests by finding new things to read in the app — and with the Home tab update, these suggestions are now organized more centrally in the main tab, allowing for simpler three-tab instead of four-tab navigation. Another change to the app is to the My List tab, which is now being called, more simply, “Saves.” Here, Pocket is responding to user feedback with a redesign that allows users to filter stories by tags, favorites and highlights. It will also be possible to bulk-edit items or archive read articles with a new toggle. Mozilla says these improvements came about after spending time with users last year to learn more about how it could improve the Pocket experience, specifically on Android. As a result, it’s rolling out the update to Android users first — and because it’s already in the process of refreshing the iOS app. The company expects to ship the features to its iOS user base alongside the app revamp’s later this year. Pocket Despite serving a niche audience of frequent online news readers who need to save longer articles for later reading, Pocket still has a devoted sure base of around 2 million monthly active users, and an undisclosed, but smaller, number of premium subscribers. Last year, Google awarded the app as one of its “ ” specifically for its tablet experience. The company also counts 4 million subscribers to its newsletter, Pocket Hits. Pocket’s broadest reach, however, came about post-acquisition, as its 8.8 billion reading recommendations are presented in the Firefox New Tab every month, where they’re seen by 40 million+ users. The Android update should begin to roll out today, Mozilla says, with iOS arriving later this year.

So long, Stadia

Brian Heater

There are no guarantees in this world. Nothing lasts forever — especially those things made by Google. In September, the company on its ambitious, but oft-forgotten, cloud gaming service. Stadia’s servers are officially shutting down today, two months shy of its third birthday. The dream of cloud gaming is long-lived and often fraught. Given all of the strides that have been made by services like AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, it seemed like streaming technology might have finally caught up with the dream. But while services like Amazon Luna and Xbox Cloud gaming will live to stream another day, Stadia’s road ends here. Over the summer, Google took to social media to insist that the service would not be shutting down, only to dramatically reverse course within months. “[W]hile Stadia’s approach to streaming games for consumers was built on a strong technology foundation, it hasn’t gained the traction with users that we expected so we’ve made the difficult decision to begin winding down our Stadia streaming service,” Stadia VP and GM Phil Harrison said in a post at the time. We see clear opportunities to apply this technology across other parts of Google like YouTube, Google Play, and our Augmented Reality (AR) efforts — as well as make it available to our industry partners, which aligns with where we see the future of gaming headed.” Stadians, you can now update your Stadia Controller’s firmware to enable Bluetooth Low Energy connections. Find the update tool here: — Stadia ☁️🎮 (@GoogleStadia) He went on to add that Google remains committed to gaming, but Stadia’s death represents a sizable setback, both for those who invested considerable money into developing for the platform and for general consumer confidence about the category’s future. Devoting all that time and resources into a service, only to shut it down just shy of three years after launch, isn’t a great example of commitment. Google does deserve some props with regard to its handling of the whole thing, however. For starters, the company announced that it would be refunding all hardware and add-on content purchases made through its store. Earlier this week, the company began rolling out a software update via Chrome that adds a Bluetooth mode to make the controller usable with other platforms once Stadia shuts down. There’s no great way to shut down a much hyped service less than three years after launch, but it’s a start.

More universities are banning TikTok from their campus networks and devices

Taylor Hatmaker

Public universities across a widening swath of U.S. states have banned TikTok in recent months, and two of the country’s largest colleges just followed suit. The University of Texas and Texas A&M University are two of the latest colleges to take action against the social app, which is owned by Beijing-based parent company ByteDance. The was inspired by executive orders issued by a number of state governors. Public universities in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Oklahoma, South Dakota and now Texas have taken measures to restrict access to the app, blocking it from campus Wi-Fi networks and school-owned devices. Texas Governor Greg Abbott Texas state agencies from government devices in early December, citing privacy and security concerns stemming from TikTok’s Chinese ownership. Abbott characterized the concerns as “growing threats” and gave agencies until mid-February to plan around the changes. “The university is taking these important steps to eliminate risks to information contained in the university’s network and to our critical infrastructure,” University of Texas Advisor to the President for Technology Strategy Jeff Neyland . “As outlined in the governor’s directive, TikTok harvests vast amounts of data from its users’ devices — including when, where and how they conduct internet activity — and offers this trove of potentially sensitive information to the Chinese government.” A Texas A&M spokesperson confirmed to the Texas Tribune that “… Students, faculty, staff and visitors will not be able to use the app when connected to an A&M network.” Texas A&M At the start of 2023, TikTok remains in a strange and contradictory state of limbo in the United States. The app, which regularly tops U.S. charts, is also under intense scrutiny at the federal and state level. The Biden administration in a bill signed at the end of December. FBI Director Christopher Wray over TikTok’s ability to collect data on its users and its potential to spread Chinese state influence operations around the same time. “All of these things are in the hands of a government that doesn’t share our values and that has a mission that’s very much at odds with what’s in the best interests of the United States,” Wray said. “That should concern us.” The U.S. government has also long been suspected of on social media apps, though the evidence to date suggests that U.S. tech companies didn’t facilitate that behavior, which would run afoul of platform policies. While the irony of that particular accusation against ByteDance is worth noting, apps headquartered in the U.S. do have more recourse for pushing back against government requests and more channels for transparency around those relationships. The Biden administration’s concerns about TikTok’s Chinese ownership are themselves an extension of worries that during the Trump era. The Trump administration attempted to force ByteDance to sell TikTok’s U.S. business to a new owner, though those unprecedented efforts . ByteDance has certainly failed to be forthright about , raising eyebrows about what else the company conceals. Last month, that TikTok’s parent company tracked journalists’ IP addresses in an effort to identify which employees were sharing unauthorized information. Whether ongoing concerns around TikTok’s prevalence in the U.S. are valid or not, the university bans aren’t likely to have much impact on the app’s popularity. Students can easily switch to their own mobile data plans to get around network-level bans on campus, though many school employees will soon have a firewall between the app and their university accounts — and potentially one less social channel to monitor.

YouTube TV upgrades its live TV guide and library to give users more control

Lauren Forristal

YouTube TV announced today that it’s rolling out updates to its Live Guide and Library. The updated Live Guide, which offers a more traditional grid showing what’s on now and what’s upcoming, has already reached some users, offering both a new design and recommendations of what to watch. Meanwhile, updates to the Library will roll out starting today and will continue over the next few months. The updated Live Guide now includes a row of curated recommendations at the top, a condensed grid that displays more channels and programming on the screen and an overall simpler design. Users also get more information about each live show or movie from the new guide. The condensed grid was mainly done so viewers could scroll less and take in information more quickly, Esther Ahn, head of Design for YouTube TV and Primetime Channels, wrote in today’s . Ahn also claims that it’s easier to record content from the new guide since it requires fewer steps. The Live Guide makes it more obvious to users if a show or movie is already saved to the DVR or not, the post noted. Meanwhile, the updated Library now lets users manage their content better thanks to improved filters and organizational tools. YouTube TV removed the side navigation, and instead, there’s a row of filters for more specific content categories, such as daily shows. There’s also a new “Catch up on your favorites” shelf, so users can easily find the content that they enjoy the most. Ahn noted that users with large libraries were frustrated with how difficult it was to find a title they wanted to watch. “Members have built up their libraries over time, but programs they were interested in several years ago might no longer be relevant to them,” Ahn said. “The more their libraries grew, the less usable they became due to the lack of tools to organize their shows, movies and sports.” YouTube TV YouTube TV wanted to focus on upgrading its Live Guide and Library since they are the most used pages by YouTube TV watchers, the company said. For both features, YouTube designed new side panels with shortcuts, like “Add to Library.” A “Set Reminder” shortcut is in the works as well. These changes aim to give YouTube users more control over how they explore and find content. “Decision fatigue is real when you turn on your TV with even more apps and channels than ever before. Viewers are looking for easier ways to find the content most relevant to them, whether it’s jumping into a live game or seeing what’s trending right now,” Ahn wrote. While overall, these are minor design tweaks and changes, making the product simpler to use is a competitive advantage when it comes to attracting new cord-cutters to the YouTube TV service over rivals, like Hulu with Live TV or Sling TV. The company said more changes were on the way, including those that would bring more flexibility and interactivity during live playback and make it easier to switch between user profiles, but did not offer an ETA as to when those features would launch.

TikTok rolls out its ‘state-controlled media’ label to 40 more countries

Sarah Perez

TikTok today it’s expanding its “state-controlled media” label to more than 40 additional global markets, to alert users when videos they’re seeing on the app are being published by entities whose “editorial output or decision-making process” is subject to influence by a government, the company said on Wednesday. The pilot initially began last year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by labeling state-controlled media in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. When tapped, the label provides the user with more information about what the label means and why it’s being applied. Since its launch, accounts run by Russian media organizations like RT, Ruptly, Sputnik, RIA Novosti, TASS and of have had the label added to their videos. The Beijing-based video entertainment app is not being progressive with this implementation of the state-controlled media label. If anything, it’s delayed. TikTok’s peers have offered a similar system for labeling state-run media for years. For instance, YouTube in 2018 said it would begin to , and last year from monetizing through ad dollars alongside . Meta had also been across its platform. And, prior to Elon Musk’s takeover, had also been to label state-owned media. ( about the label, so it’s unclear if the policy will shift.) In TikTok’s case, the company says it evaluates the editorial independence of an operation by considering its mission statement, editorial practices and safeguards, leadership and editorial governance, and its actual editorial decisions. It also offers an appeals process if an entity feels they’ve been unfairly labeled by its trust and safety team. The company said it has worked with a variety of experts ahead of its pilot program, including consultations with more than 60 media experts, political scientists, academics and members from various international organizations and civil society groups worldwide. TikTok’s handling of misinformation around Russia’s invasion of Ukraine hasn’t been fully effective, however. The company in March said it would cut off new content originally in Russia in about the invasion, to post. And it wasn’t until now that the label is reaching high-profile markets, like the U.S., Canada, parts of Europe, China and others. TikTok confirmed to TechCrunch the label will be available in the following countries: The expansion comes amid a renewed crackdown on the short-form video app in the U.S., which former President Donald Trump had originally in 2020 due to national security threats, only to have the ban by the courts and later, . But in recent weeks, a and the have now TikTok from government-issued devices over mounting security concerns that TikTok shares data with the Chinese government. the company of spying on its journalists and, last year, BuzzFeed reported TikTok staff in China was accessing U.S. user data, leading TikTok to move the data to in the U.S.

German teens went crazy for this ‘compliments’ app, and now VCs are backing its next phase

Mike Butcher

The teenage market for apps is a tough nut to crack and stay relevant in. Just ask Snapchat. Equally, teens are going through a stage in life where almost every social interaction seems to carry portent of some kind of other. This would explain in part why apps like SendIt, NGL and Nocapp (some are Snapchat-connected tools) took off as ways for teens to anonymously comment on each other. And AskFM would probably like us all to forget the various that when it was released in its initial form, back in the day. (And you thought Instagram is bad for mental health…). Meanwhile, somehow (somehow!?) a new startup has appeared with the idea that yet another app is going to help this dumpster fire of social interactions — but let’s hear them out before jumping to conclusions. bills itself as a “positive social media network for teenagers.” The reason we are talking about it today is that it’s grown like a weed after launching last year in Germany, where it reached No. 1 on the German iOS App Store four days after launch. It’s now claiming to have more than 250,000 registered users and claims it’s gaining traction in other countries, including the U.K., where it recently launched. So what’s the attraction here? When users open the app it shows users 12 questions, which the user can only answer by choosing another user (from their school, class or peer group) to pay an anonymous compliment to (or “slay”). For example, the app may ask a user “Who inspires me to do my best?”. They can then choose from four other users from their school to pay this “slay” to. They can then view compliments from other kids, provided they answer the 12 questions when logging on. The identity of those who sent the compliment remains hidden. Slay This reminds me of BeReal’s mechanic, where you can only see other people’s BeReal photos by uploading your own. And Slay is also not dissimilar to Gas, the messaging platform popular among teens for its positive spin on social media, by Discord yesterday. On Gas, anonymous polling is intended to boost users’ confidence. The other reason Slay has popped onto the TechCrunch radar, is that its growth has attracted the interest of VCs. It’s now raised a $2.63 million (€2.5 million) pre-seed funding round led by Accel. Also participating was 20VC. Additional investors include Supercell co-founder and CEO Ilkka Paananen, Behance founder Scott Belsky, football star Mario Götze, Kevin Weil (Scribble Ventures) and musician Alex Pall (The Chainsmokers). Slay says it is aiming to reset the teen relationship with social apps by re-balancing things away from the negative sentiments on social platforms, by normalising the giving of compliments. It also says it’s been designed with safety, content moderation and teenage mental well-being built in. We shall see… Digging into the app, one can see that it’s been built very simply as a “compliment app.” Whether that is going to be enough to keep users coming back is hard to say. Teenager behavior is hard to second guess. Getting zero can also send a “signal,” for instance. Suffice it to say, Slay claims it will “never sell or share personal data with third parties.” Given the history of social apps, let’s see how long this lasts. There is also no direct messaging facility, although users will be able to add links to social media profiles, so clearly they will be able to message each other eventually, off-app. Adults are supposedly not allowed to “join” schools, and approximate location is requested to suggest nearby schools. Any questions and interactions are asked by the app, not by users themselves. Slay was founded in 2022 by a team of three 23-year-old, Berlin-based co-founders: Fabian Kamberi, Jannis Ringwald and Stefan Quernhorst. The idea was Kamberi’s, who had been building consumer apps since he was a teenager, and says he was inspired by the experiences of his siblings struggling with the negativity of social media apps during the COVID-19 pandemic. CEO and co-founder Kamberi told me via email: “We see Slay in the future not only as an anonymous polling app [referring to the aforementioned Gas], but as the go-to spot for teens to rediscover social interactions in various play modes.” “Our app is similar to Gas, and their acquisition shows a great proof of what we have built and what is in store for the future in our space. However, apps that rely solely on anonymous Q&A, for example, carry a high cyberbullying risk, which – by contrast – we prevent through our rigorous content moderation as well as specially designed gamemodes,” he added. But the question is, why does he think a social app can improve mental health when so many social apps have not? “We have received thousands of feedback messages from users thanking us for making them feel valued in times of fast moving, negative social media interactions,” he told me. Slay He said the startup could well ship new features which might create more engagement but at the same time it might bring a risk for negativity: “So we focus very much on the individual experience that each user has, aiming to make it as positive as possible.” He said the startup’s job is “content safety.” So what’s Slay’s business model? How will it make money? Kamberi says it will likely be premium features, services or tools that users pay for: “We are currently building several exclusive, paid play modes as well as add ons, which we will release through feedback cycles with users and supported by data.” Slay is available in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Julien Bek, principal at Accel, added via a statement: “We’re extremely impressed by the SLAY app, both in its immediate popularity among teenagers and the team’s positive goal of improving teenage mental health in the digital world. Already, the SLAY team has seen almost half its active users use it every school day.”

India’s PhonePe tops $12 billion valuation in new funding

Manish Singh

PhonePe’s valuation has more than doubled to over $12 billion in a new funding round as the Indian fintech giant . The Bengaluru-headquartered startup said it has raised $350 million and anticipates raising up to another $650 million as part of the round in a remarkable feat at a time when fundraising activity has slowed down globally as investors become cautious. General Atlantic led the first tranche of the investment. The company has not assigned a name to the funding round, but said it was valued at $12 billion pre-money. TechCrunch reported last month that PhonePe was finalizing a large funding round at $12 billion pre-money valuation. Indeed, $12 billion is a staggering valuation for PhonePe, which was . PhonePe currently does less than $450 million in annual revenue. Publicly traded rival Paytm, which expects to hit $1 billion in revenue in the financial year ending March 2023, currently has a market cap of $4.2 billion. Walmart, a majority investor in PhonePe, is expected to participate in the current funding round, according to a source familiar with the matter. PhonePe, to be sure, is a clear leader in the mobile payments market on UPI, a network built by a coalition of retail banks in India. UPI has become the most popular way Indians transact online, and processes over 7 billion transactions a month. Seven-year-old PhonePe commands about 40% of all these transactions. The startup says it has more than 400 million registered users and more than 35 million offline merchants rely on the platform. A concern for PhonePe’s growth was Indian regulators enforcing a market cap check on each player, but the deadline for the new guidelines was extended last month and now , giving PhonePe another two years of fast-growth. “I would like to thank General Atlantic and all our existing and new investors for the trust they have placed in us. PhonePe is proud to help lead India’s country-wide digitization efforts and believes that this powerful public-private collaboration has made the Indian digital ecosystem a global exemplar. We are an Indian company, built by Indians, and our latest fundraise will help us further accelerate the Government of India’s vision of digital financial inclusion for all,” said Sameer Nigam, founder and chief executive of PhonePe, in a statement. “We look forward to delivering the next phase of our growth by investing in new business verticals like Insurance, Wealth Management and Lending, while also facilitating the next wave of growth for UPI payments in India.” PhonePe was founded in 2015 and within a year was acquired by e-commerce giant Flipkart. The two parted ways last month and now Flipkart no longer owns a stake in the payments firm. The separation will have some impact on Flipkart’s valuation. In July last year, Flipkart Group raised $3.6 billion at a valuation of $37.6 billion. Flipkart doesn’t plan to re-enter the mobile payments market, TechCrunch earlier reported. At stake is India’s payments market that is estimated to be worth $1 trillion in the next two to three years, up from about $200 billion in 2020, according to Credit Suisse. Google and Meta are among players investing heavily to win the market. The payments firm has also shifted its base to India, a move that triggered a big tax event for its investors. Walmart confirmed earlier this month that it had paid the Indian government most of the nearly $1 billion in tax owed as part of PhonePe shifting its base from Singapore. PhonePe said it will deploy the new funds to make significant investments in infrastructure, including in the development of data centers and to build more financial services. The company also plans to invest in new businesses, including Insurance, wealth management and lending. “Sameer, Rahul and the PhonePe management team have pursued a clear mission to drive payments digitalization and significantly broaden access to financial tools for the people of India. They remain focused on driving adoption of inclusive products developed on the open API based ‘India stack,'” said Shantanu Rastogi, managing director and head of India at General Atlantic, in a statement. “This vision is aligned with General Atlantic’s longstanding commitment to backing high-growth businesses focused on inclusion and empowerment. We are excited to partner with the PhonePe team to help enable the next generation of digital innovation in India.”

India’s top court rejects Google plea to block Android antitrust ruling in major blow

Manish Singh

Google has been dealt a significant blow in one of its key overseas markets. India’s Supreme Court on Thursday declined to block that requires the Android-maker to make a series of changes that could topple its financial viability. India’s apex court rejected to block the ruling against Google by the nation’s antitrust watchdog Competition Commission of India. The court extended the deadline for enforcement of CCI’s order by one week, however. The matter will now go back to the country’s appellate tribunal, the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT), where Google previously failed to secure any relief. The Supreme Court has directed NCLAT to make its decision by March 31. The challenge for Google is that unless NCLAT reaches a decision in Google’s favor by this month, the tech giant will have to make a series of changes to Android. India is Google’s largest market by users. The firm has amassed over half a billion monthly active users in the country. The vast majority of the smartphones shipped in India run Android. The Competition Commission of India late last year slapped against Google, alleging the Android-maker abused the Play Store’s dominant position in the country and required Android device makers to pre-install its entire Google Mobile Suite. The CCI has ordered Google to not require licensing of its Play Store to be linked with mandating installation of several Google apps such as Chrome and YouTube. The watchdog has also ordered Google to allow removal of all its apps from phones and give smartphone users the ability to change their search engine provider. The CCI also fined Google $162 million in its first order. Google warned earlier this month that if the Indian antitrust watchdog’s ruling is allowed to progress it would result in devices getting expensive in the South Asian market and lead to proliferation of unchecked apps that will pose , escalating its concerns over the future of Android in the key overseas region. “Predatory apps that expose users to financial fraud, data theft and a number of other dangers abound on the internet, both from India and other countries. While Google holds itself accountable for the apps on Play Store and scans for malware as well as compliance with local laws, the same checks may not be in place for apps sideloaded from other sources,” the company said. Google is facing mounting scrutiny from governments across the globe as policymakers begin to worry about the reach of technology giants and assess whether that is in detriment to local companies. Google lost its appeal  in EU for using the dominance of Android to thwart competition. It’s also subject to Germany’s new regulation that targets large companies.

Zitti soaks up some funding sauce so restaurants can manage their food supply chain

Christine Hall

Getting a handle on food costs at an independent restaurant is a constant challenge for owners, and there is a long list of startups, like , , , , , , , that have stepped with their solutions. Zitti’s app shows food pricing insights. Zitti ’s co-founder Dante DiCicco is coming at this problem, but from a unique standpoint: as a restauranteur. He had watched his parents’ Italian restaurant locations dwindle during the economic downturn in 2007–2008 and now was seeing the global pandemic take a similar toll on restaurants. While opening a new location for his family’s restaurant and getting all of the food suppliers situated, that’s when it hit DiCicco that this process needed technology. Fortunately, he knew a little something about that. An executive at Snap, leading the company’s international revenue growth, he leveraged that knowledge and teamed up with Erek Benz, co-founder of real estate marketplace CREXi, to develop Zitti to put independent restaurants on an equal footing, technology-wise, with large chains. What resulted is a payment software platform that streamlines the transaction between restaurants and food suppliers through payment, price comparison and vendor discoverability tools. “Food pricing optimization is the future of the restaurant business,” he told TechCrunch. “Much of the emerging technology has focused on ordering and inventory management, but what is severely lacking is the actual business intelligence to help restaurants make smarter purchasing decisions. That’s a big part of our mission.” Zitti launched in March 2022 after taking in $4 million of pre-seed funds in late 2021. DiCicco’s restaurant and his family’s restaurants were the first beta customers. In the last two months, the company started charging for its product — $150 per month, per restaurant location — and is seeing “really good sales traction as we ramp up our sales efforts,” DiCicco said. “Our objective to save the money on their food costs is more than that amount, and ideally many times over, so it’s been received incredibly well,” he added. “We’ve already had a significant amount of conversions from our pilot group to become customers.” The company is now back with $3.5 million in a seed round co-led by Oceans Ventures and Serena Ventures with Crossbeam, its pre-seed investor, also participating. In total, the company has raised $7.5 million since DiCicco and Benz started working on the company in 2021. The funding will be deployed into technology development with artificial intelligence and additional automation being added to the platform soon. One of DiCicco’s goals is to be able to show pricing changes in real time and then use AI to predict how a certain product will be priced over the next year. Meanwhile, Zitti is currently focused on the Southern California and Chicago markets and also sees Austin as an emerging market, DiCicco said. “The next steps of the company are expanding into new markets, but we are taking a city-by-city approach,” he added. “That will be important as we build density on both the restaurant and supplier side so that we can have more market intelligence and therefore more pricing intelligence.”

Google to cooperate with Indian authorities after losing bid to block Android antitrust ruling

Manish Singh

Google will continue to challenge the Indian antitrust watchdog’s ruling but will cooperate with the authorities “on the way forward,” it said Friday, responding to that is cornering the Android-maker into making a series of changes that could topple how it conducts business in the key overseas market. India’s Supreme Court on Thursday rejected Google’s plea to block , instead giving the Android-maker just one additional week to comply with the Competition Commission of India’s directions. The matter will now go back to the country’s appellate tribunal, the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT), where Google previously failed to secure any relief. The Supreme Court has directed NCLAT to make its decision by March 31. As TechCrunch wrote on Thursday, the challenge for Google is that unless NCLAT reaches a decision in Google’s favor by this month, the tech giant will have to make a series of changes to its business practices in India. The CCI has ordered Google to not require licensing of its Play Store to be linked with mandating installation of several Google apps such as Chrome and YouTube. The watchdog has also ordered Google to allow removal of all its apps from phones and give smartphone users the ability to change their search engine provider. The CCI also fined Google $162 million in its first order. “We are reviewing the details of yesterday’s decision which is limited to interim relief and did not decide the merits of our appeal,” a Google spokesperson told TechCrunch. “Android has greatly benefited Indian users, developers and OEMs and played a key role in India’s digital transformation. We remain committed to our users and partners and will cooperate with the CCI on the way forward, in parallel with our appeal.” India is Google’s largest market by users. The firm, which has ploughed more than $10 billion into India over the past decade, has amassed over half a billion monthly active users in the country. The vast majority of the smartphones in India run Android. Google warned earlier this month that if the Indian antitrust watchdog’s ruling is allowed to progress it would result in devices getting expensive in the South Asian market and lead to a proliferation of unchecked apps that will pose . Many Indian startups that compete with Google’s services welcomed the Supreme Court’s decision. Rohan Verma, chief executive of MapmyIndia, said he was “elated” by the decision, noting that Google requiring smartphone vendors to pre-install Google Maps had hurt MapmyIndia’s business outlook. Rakesh Deshmukh, chief executive of Indus OS, an Android marketplace, called the court’s order a “watershed moment.”

Shadow acquires Android emulation startup Genymobile

Romain Dillet

is making its first acquisition as it announced that it would snatch up Genymobile, the company behind . Shadow is better known for its cloud computing service that . It also offers a based on Nextcloud. As for Genymobile, the French startup has been around for more than a decade. It has specialized in low-level Android development. And in particular, it has developed a popular Android emulator so that developers can test their apps on multiple configurations and following different scenarios. Terms of the deal are undisclosed. Genymobile’s co-founder and CTO Arnaud Dupuis will stay at the company and act as the chief executive of Genymobile starting March 1st. Genymobile’s existing CEO Tim Danford will step back from the company’s day-to-day activities and move to an advisor role. “We are very happy to announce this acquisition as the relationship built this past year with Genymobile has been pivotal to our progress in the development of the next-coming generation of our service,” Shadow CEO Eric Sèle said in a statement. “This acquisition will bring additional expertise to Shadow, and also showcases our ambition as a company, which will go through both internal and external growth.” Genymotion started as a desktop emulator for Android development. Companies could pay a subscription price to run virtual devices on their computer. More recently, the company started offering a hosted version of Genymotion emulation. Genymobile takes care of the server infrastructure while you can use your web browser to interact with your app. Enterprise clients can also use Genymotion to run Android virtual devices on their preferred cloud platform — Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure, Alibaba Cloud, Oracle Cloud or on premise. Moving to the cloud means that you can use Genymotion for automated testing and trigger those tests with your continuous integration system. For instance, every time you create a new build, CircleCI or GitHub Actions can kick off some tests on Genymotion to make sure that your new version doesn’t break anything. Developers receive an alert if there’s something wrong. In addition to Android development, quality assurance teams can use Genymotion to reproduce bugs on specific devices in a specific geographic location. Shadow recently launched its for cloud computing. Companies can access high-performance virtual machines that run Windows Server. The service could be helpful for gaming studios, 3D animation companies and other industries that require powerful GPUs. With the acquisition of Genymobile, Shadow will be able to offer access to another type of machine in the cloud — in that case, Android devices.

Smores is a music discovery app with a TikTok-like feed

Ivan Mehta

Music streaming platforms all claim to use both artificial intelligence and manual curation to find new songs from emerging artists. But users often have to listen to many songs just to find some likable tracks — that’s because they don’t have any control over the recommendation algorithm. Romanian developer duo Alex Ruber and Andrei Patru have developed an app called that improves this process and helps you easily add new music to your library. Smores is that lets users listen to a short clip from a song based on their listening history. Users can skip through the tracks using a vertical feed just like TikTok. Smores The app connects to your Spotify account and uses the Spotify API to find new songs for you. If you enjoy a song clip, you can tap on the like button and it will be added to a playlist called “Smores finds” in your Spotify account. Alternatively, you can also add the song to one or many of your pre-existing playlists. The developers told TechCrunch in an email that they set out to build the app to discover new music themselves. So they launched the first version of Smores last September. “We love discovering new music, but we were stuck in our recommendation bubbles and it took too long to sift through the sheer volume of new music coming out. At the same time, we had a hunch: that you only need to listen to the ‘right’ snippet of a song to know if you like it or not: Shazam’s popularity points to this being the case,” they said. The duo said that they wanted to have more control over the discovery algorithm and build transparency into the app. To that end, Smores has a ton of in-built controls to change users’ recommendation feed. Users can filter out suggestions based on their top six microgenres of the month. These change as they listen to more music and like more songs on the app. Smores The app’s advanced settings enable you to define snippet length (from five seconds to 60 seconds); limit discovery based on the number of followers an artist has on Spotify; and filter out songs by BPM (beats per minute), song key and release date. Smores One of the neat things about the app is that it makes sure that you’re not going to listen to the same song ever again. Plus, the developers said they have tweaked the algorithm in such a way that it figures out the “best” part of the song to play in a snippet. They said that a lot of users tend to like the song in just five seconds of hearing it if the app plays the right preview. Music discovery apps are fun to use but it’s hard to build an audience that regularly uses an app. Despite this challenge, the developers said they have managed to retain a good amount of users (7% for week eight) and they have heard positive things from regular users. “It’s true that cadence is low for music discovery apps in general. The casual listener will actively discover new music maybe once every 3 months. Casual listeners, DJs, and playlist curators rave about how much they love the ease of use, the speed, the convenience, and the quality of our recommendations,” they said. Currently, the team is focused on building features like Smores radio and integrating Apple Music or other streaming platforms. Down the line, they want to introduce an Android version and possibly a premium tier — though they haven’t nailed down the paid features. Music fans have often complained about AI’s growing role in music discovery and distribution. And yet, companies and app developers have relied on AI more — but they use it to give more control over algorithms with buttons and filters. ByteDance’s music app — currently available only in India, Brazil and Indonesia — banks on a vertical feed and the company’s proven AI prowess to have casual listeners find new artists. The Chinese tech giant is also aiming to launch globally — AI-powered music suggestions will likely play a critical role in the service. App developers are also taking the help of AI to introduce features to music apps. , an app that converted festival posters into playlists, switched its name to . The app also introduced that lets you write a prompt like “Dance artists who were popular in 1990s” to generate a playlist.

NASA’s ‘Mega Moon Rocket’ aced first flight and is ready for crewed Artemis II launch

Devin Coldewey

The enormous Space Launch System passed its first test with flying colors, NASA’s preliminary analysis concludes, and the rocket and Orion capsule are good to go for their next mission: Artemis II, which will carry a crew to lunar orbit. After numerous delays and enormous cost overruns, some worried that the SLS (nicknamed the “Mega Moon Rocket”) would never actually take off. But , as did the 25-day mission undertaken by an uncrewed Orion capsule. While its success was apparent, it wasn’t a case of all or nothing. Reams of data needed to be analyzed by NASA’s teams to make sure that Artemis I didn’t succeed in spite of serious problems. Fortunately that does not seem to be the case: Although the teams are still working through the terabytes of raw data, the agency has pronounced the mission good enough to endorse its sequel. “Building off the assessment conducted shortly after launch, the preliminary post-flight data indicates that all SLS systems performed exceptionally and that the designs are ready to support a crewed flight on Artemis II,” . Emphasizing the point, SLS Program manager John Honeycutt is quoted as follows: The correlation between actual flight performance and predicted performance for Artemis I was excellent. There is engineering and an art to successfully building and launching a rocket, and the analysis on the SLS rocket’s inaugural flight puts NASA and its partners in a good position to power missions for Artemis II and beyond. Key pressures, temperatures, and other values were all within 2 percent of predictions. No doubt the team is working on narrowing that delta even now. Artemis II’s crewed mission obviously depended entirely on the success of Artemis I, and this is the clearest indication since launch that the SLS and Orion are quantifiably good enough. It’s a big step to say, “Yes, we’re moving forward with putting astronauts on this thing,” but of course there’s a lot more work to come before it takes place. Artemis I’s timeline didn’t exactly go as planned but having verified that the rocket works as expected may help hurry along the next part of NASA’s big plan to return to the moon.

What does selling to platform engineering teams mean for developer relations?

Anna Heim

tools over the last few years have seen the pendulum swing. On one hand, developers rarely need anyone’s permission to start using their tools, which resulted in teams within the same organization using wildly different tech stacks. On the other, a growing number of companies are attempting to limit this chaos at the organizational level. The latter trend is known as platform engineering and is embodied by platform engineering teams. Talking to TechCrunch, partner described these as “groups within typically larger organizations that are given the role to improve the developer experience for other developers in the organization.” The role of platform engineering teams includes coming up with their own tools and documentation but also making buying decisions on core tooling that developers across their entire organization will be able to use. For dev-centric startups, this presents a question: How do you sell your product to platform engineering teams? We asked this and more to three people with deep knowledge of this space: startup founder , CEO at ; , CEO and co-founder of NASDAQ-listed company ; and CEO , a developer content marketing expert. Let’s dive in.

Discord acquires Gas, a compliments-based social media app for teens

Amanda Silberling

The messaging platform , an app that’s popular among teens for its positive spin on social media. On Gas, users sign up with their school, add friends and answer polls about their classmates. But the questions in the polls are intended to boost users’ confidence rather than damage it. Teens might be asked to choose which of four friends is the best DJ or has the best smile. Then the person who was chosen will get an anonymous message with their compliment, sent from a vague “boy in 10th grade” or “girl in 11th grade.” Gas was founded by , who previously sold to Facebook in 2017 — tbh has since been shut down. According to data from , Gas reached 7.4 million installs and almost $7 million in consumer spending since its launch in summer 2022. Users can subscribe to a paid feature called “God Mode,” which gives users hints about who their secret complimenters are. Gas got gassed up on the Today Show this morning — Nikita Bier (@nikitabier) “At this time, Gas will continue as its own standalone app and the Gas team will be joining Discord to help our efforts to continue to grow across new and core audiences,” Discord wrote in an . As of October, Bier Gas had four team members. Despite Gas’s fast popularity, the app has had a rocky road to its exit. The app was the subject of a widespread sex-trafficking rumor, which was , yet still impacted the app’s downloads. Bier told the Washington Post that he and his team received hundreds of graphic death threats as a result of this hoax. Other viral social apps and have also been hit with unfounded trafficking accusations. Gas is one of several anonymous apps — some based around compliments, some not — that have gone viral recently. But TechCrunch found that apps like were using bots to simulate engagement. Like Gas, these apps offer users the ability to pay to see who asked questions. Understandably, some customers felt scammed when it turned out that these questions didn’t actually come from their friends. Meanwhile, , the company that made and Summer, is working on a product similar to Gas called . Even though Discord is currently going to keep Gas operating as a stand-alone product, Discord recently announced that it would integrate a selection of apps into its servers. So, it’s possible that we could see these positive community polls on the messaging platform in the future. “We’re always working to create an inclusive world where no one feels like an outsider and we’re excited to welcome Gas to the Discord community as our next step to fulfilling that vision,” Discord wrote in its announcement. The terms of Discord’s acquisition of Gas have not been disclosed.

TechCrunch+ roundup: No-code MVP strategy, hiring under scrutiny, A/B growth testing

Walter Thompson

Americans spent nearly $20 billion on pizza deliveries in 2021. Most of us could probably bake one at home, but speed and convenience are powerful incentives at dinnertime. The potential of AI tools like ChatGPT creates a similar dilemma — should companies license large language models without modifications, or customize them and pay much higher usage rates? “While building looks extremely attractive in the long run, it requires leadership with a strong appetite for risk over an extended time period,” writes ML engineer Tanmay Chopra. In , Chopra encourages readers to consider factors like product defensibility and risk before deciding whether to build or buy. Since most startups are not AI businesses, his post also evaluates “middle ground approaches” like prompt engineering, closed source approximation and building on top of open source solutions. “If you want to be an AI business, work toward that over time: store data cleanly, start building an ML team and identify monetizable use cases,” he advises. Thanks very much for reading TC+ this week! Walter Thompson Editorial Manager, TechCrunch+ / Getty Images Forget about dogs: No-code development tools can be a non-technical founder’s best friend. Building a minimum viable product once required engineering and design ability. Now, bootstrapping founders can iterate without developers to keep costs down and extend their runway. “Instead of getting caught up trying to design the perfect and complete MVP release all at once, try to deliver value as quickly as possible and continuously improve your prototype,” advises Katherine Kostereva, CEO and managing partner of Creatio. She shares four tactics for transforming prototypes into usable products via no-code: / Getty Images Despite the myth, sharks don’t need to keep swimming to keep breathing. Early-stage startups, on the other hand, are not so fortunate. If driving growth is a priority, companies must run an ongoing series of A/B tests that can help refine marketing messages and make their product pipelines more relevant to customers’ needs. In part three of a five-article series on growth marketing fundamentals, Jonathan Martinez explains how to properly manage A/B tests, identify statistical significance when reviewing data and prioritize experiments that maximize reach and impact. erhui1979 / Getty Images Now that investors are exercising greater due diligence, early-stage hiring plans are under more scrutiny, reports Rebecca Szkutak. “It is not to say, ‘do not hire’ — it is just that we need to see the double-click now on why,” says Angela Lee, an angel investor and venture partner who’s also a professor at Columbia Business School. “You need X number of million of dollars for what? Why do you need a chief data scientist and architect?” Bryce Durbin/TechCrunch EV charging company Orange raised a $2.5 million seed round to scale up plans to build a charger network for multiunit properties, and its founders shared their winning pitch deck with TechCrunch+:

HBO’s ‘The Last of Us’ gets a second season following successful debut

Lauren Forristal

HBO today that the hit series “ ” is getting a second season, likely satisfying more than 22 million domestic viewers that watched the Season 1 premiere episode so far. On the night of the premiere, it was viewed by Americans. The announcement comes less than a week after “ ” debuted its second-ever episode, which had 5.7 million viewers across HBO Max and linear, according to Nielsen and first-party data. The third episode will premiere this Sunday, January 29, on HBO and HBO Max. Neil Druckmann, the creator of “The Last of Us” video game and executive producer of the HBO show, said in a statement, “I’m humbled, honored, and frankly overwhelmed that so many people have tuned in and connected with our retelling of Joel and Ellie’s journey…Now we have the absolute pleasure of being able to do it again with season two! On behalf of everyone at Naughty Dog & PlayStation, thank you!” Unlike other failed video game adaptations, like Netflix’s “Resident Evil,” which got canceled after one season, HBO’s newest series holds true to the original franchise and is a relief for many gamers. Overall, the series has a 9.3 rating on , a 97% score on and an average audience score of 96%. For comparison, Netflix’s popular video game adaptation of “Arcane” has a 9 rating on . “I’m so grateful to Neil Druckmann and HBO for our partnership, and I’m even more grateful to the millions of people who have joined us on this journey,” added executive producer Craig Mazin. “The audience has given us the chance to continue, and as a fan of the characters and world Neil and Naughty Dog created, I couldn’t be more ready to dive back in.” “ ” is a much-needed show for the streamer, especially since parent company Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) missed Wall Street expectations in the and reported a gross debt load of around $50.4 billion. HBO Max recently to increase revenue. “The Last of Us” will likely draw in new subscribers who want to see what the hype is all about. The show had the second-largest debut since HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire” premiered more than 10 years ago. “House of the Dragon” continues to be with nearly 10 million viewers. However, WBD needs to have more than just a few hit series to reduce churn. As WBD prepares to launch its , the company needs to have a strong content slate if it wants to grow its subscriber base.

Share Creators wants to solve asset management mess for game developers

Rita Liao

Finding a isn’t always easy, but when you are the end-user experiencing a real pain point, the solution might be more obvious. That’s the case for newly funded , a platform that helps game developers manage and store large media assets as remote work becomes increasingly common in the industry. Based in the Bay Area, the startup recently closed a new round of funding, a $3 million tranche from China’s 5Y Capital and $2 million from PDF reader Foxit. Before getting into art asset management, Ada Liu ran a game-design consulting firm that was raking in several million USD in revenue a year; that business is now running alongside her new venture. “Dropbox started in 2007, the year when the first iPhone was launched, ushering in the transition from PC to mobile. A decade later, the fundamental way of data storage hasn’t really evolved,” says Liu when asked why she decided to launch another startup despite having handsome income from the consulting firm. “Asset management technology will have to advance.” Having worked as a game artist for the San Francisco outpost of NetEase, China’s second-largest gaming firm, Liu is uniquely positioned to understand gaming businesses in China and the U.S. Indeed, she spotted an opportunity as China , which drove Tencent, NetEase and rising developers like MiHoYo . A number of them began outsourcing production to Liu’s firm, whether it’s designing in-game characters or making promotional material for overseas markets — any work that can’t be efficiently done in-house as video games become more sophisticated by the day. As her design business took off, Liu detected another demand from her Chinese clients. “When companies sent raw material to us, it took a long time for the files to download, but we often only had four weeks to work on a project,” she says. “We looked for productivity tools on the market, but they were either too expensive or outdated, so we made our own internal tool… and others soon started asking if we could sell the software to them.” Anyone who’s run a media business knows the pain of looking up an old asset, which is probably lost in the ever-ballooning server as employees come and go. If one ends up working on the wrong asset, money is wasted and deadlines are missed. “A game can have like 200 characters, each of which can take about 30 days of work, so messing up even one [character] is losing a big chunk of time,” Liu says. There are a handful of digital asset management tools out there, but few are designed to deal with large-size 3D assets. Share Creators is built for transferring files of several hundred gigabytes that can be viewed on the cloud without the need for native software, a feature that existing file-sharing services lack, Liu claims. The preview option, which can process more than 100 file types, is made possible by compressing assets and converting media formats to be compatible with the platform. Developers also won’t have to worry about imposing a consistent file-naming system. That’s taken care of by Share Creators, which uses AI to recognize and tag images so users can simply search assets with keywords like “grass.” Just like many other creative tools that benchmark against Figma, the platform makes remote collaboration one of its key features. It’s also tapping another buzzy tech trend — machine-generated content — as it weighs the option to let users produce simple assets like trees directly from AI engines. Share Creators, which went live a year ago, received 200 sales quotes just within the last month, according to Liu. The “top 20” gaming firms in China have now used the platform to manage media assets. Three key accounts are paying more than $200,000 a year for privately deployed and customized services — big companies might have qualms about uploading their prized art assets to a third party, which is why the platform supports private hosting. Ten other customers are paying for its regular subscription service, says the founder.

OpenAI begins piloting ChatGPT Professional, a premium version of its viral chatbot

Kyle Wiggers

OpenAI this week signaled it’ll soon begin charging for , its viral AI-powered chatbot that can write essays, emails, poems and even computer code. In an announcement on the company’s official Discord server, OpenAI said that it’s “starting to think about how to monetize ChatGPT” as one of the ways to “ensure [the tool’s] long-term viability.” The monetized version of ChatGPT will be called ChatGPT Professional, apparently. That’s according to a link OpenAI posted in the Discord server, which asks a range of questions about payment preferences including “At what price (per month) would you consider ChatGPT to be so expensive that you would not consider buying it?” The waitlist also outlines ChatGPT Professional’s benefits, which include no “blackout” (i.e. unavailability) windows, no throttling and an unlimited number of messages with ChatGPT — “at least 2x the regular daily limit.” OpenAI says that those who fill out the waitlist form may be selected to pilot ChatGPT Professional, but that the program is in the experimental stages and won’t be made widely available “at this time.” OpenAI , ChatGPT has proven to be a publicity win for OpenAI, attracting major media attention and spawning countless memes on social media. Some investors are ChatGPT in their workflows. Ryan Reynolds ChatGPT to write an ad for Mint Mobile, the mobile carrier he part-owns. And Microsoft will incorporate the AI behind ChatGPT into its Office suite and Bing. ChatGPT had over a million users as of early December — an enviable user base by any measure. But it’s a pricey service to run. According to OpenAI co-founder and CEO Sam Altman, ChatGPT’s operating expenses are “eye-watering,” to a few cents per chat in total compute costs. (ChatGPT is hosted in Microsoft’s Azure cloud.) Working on a professional version of ChatGPT; will offer higher limits & faster performance. If interested, please join our waitlist here: — Greg Brockman (@gdb) OpenAI is under pressure to turn a profit on products like ChatGPT ahead of a rumored $10 billion investment from Microsoft. OpenAI to make $200 million in 2023, a pittance to the more than $1 billion that’s been invested in the startup so far. Semafor this week that Microsoft is looking to net a 49% stake in OpenAI, valuing the company at around $29 billion. Under the terms of the deal, Microsoft would receive three-quarters of OpenAI’s profits until it recovers its investment, with additional investors taking 49% and OpenAI retaining the remaining 2% in equity. OpenAI has an unusual corporate structure, operating under a “capped-profit” model that limits backers’ returns to 100 times their investment — or possibly less in the future.

Daily Crunch: Stripe responds to report that it seeks to raise $2B with a terse ‘no comment’

Christine Hall

Well, it’s Friday again. And as the Equity pod team noted today, “ .” — and Kano, the venture-backed U.K. startup known for its build-your-own computer kits and software for teaching coding and associated STEM skills, has and infringing on its intellectual property, reports. By any measure, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has been a successful executive. He helped build Salesforce from the ground up, starting in an apartment in San Francisco in 1999 and eventually erecting Salesforce Tower, the tallest building in the city, reports. He took the idea of running software in the cloud and grew it into the de facto way to deliver software at a time when most companies offered software in boxes or on-prem seat licenses. (TC+) And we have five more for you: / Getty Images Forget about dogs: No-code development tools can be a nontechnical founder’s best friend. Building a minimum viable product once required engineering and design ability. Now, bootstrapping founders can iterate without developers to keep costs and extend their runway. “Instead of getting caught up trying to design the perfect and complete MVP release all at once, try to deliver value as quickly as possible and continuously improve your prototype,” advises Katherine Kostereva, CEO and managing partner of Creatio. She shares four tactics for transforming prototypes into usable products via no-code: Three more from the TC+ team: Apparently, “AI that can generate art, text and more ,” writes today. He’s been following a class-action lawsuit against Microsoft, GitHub and OpenAI that “accuses them of violating copyright law by allowing , a code-generating AI system trained on billions of lines of public code, to regurgitate licensed code snippets without providing credit.” Kyle lays it all out for you and even notes that cases like these against generative AI are just the beginning. If you’ve been enjoying HBO’s new zombie thriller “The Last of Us,” you’ll be able to enjoy it a little longer. The show after delighting over 22 million viewers, writes. Here’s your Friday five:

Warner Bros. swiped our Harry Potter wand IP, says Kano

Paul Sawers

, the  U.K. startup for its build-your-own computer kits and software for and associated STEM skills, has accused Warner Bros. of copying one of its products and infringing on its intellectual property (IP). The product in question is the that Warner Bros. back in October, and which began shipping to consumers in the U.S. and U.K. for $150 just before Christmas. London-based Kano issued a “cease and desist” to Warner Bros. this week, which TechCrunch has seen, requesting that the media and entertainment giant halt its go-to-market and promotional activities. While Kano is probably better  and , the company way back in 2018. Kano’s Harry Potter Coding kit came replete with a physical gesture-controlled Bluetooth wand designed to engage children through coding spells, making on-screen cauldrons change color, or feathers fly, via elaborate swishing motions with the wand. Powering the wand are various sensors, including an accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetometer, which help the wand convey its direction and motion to the tablet or PC to which it’s connected. In the intervening years, Kano says it has sold some 180,000 units of its Harry Potter coding wand, a figure that rises to 460,000 when you factor in gesture-controlled products Kano subsequently launched spanning the Star Wars and Frozen franchises. While Kano is no longer actively marketing its Harry Potter wand, some of its retail partners — which have previously included Apple and Target — do . Last April, Kano co-founder and CEO Alex Klein for the wand’s gesture recognition system, covering the basic mechanics of how it works: The user holds down a button to begin the gesture recognition, and the screen displays a cursor trail as the user moves the wand to show how a spell is being cast in real time. It’s worth noting that Kano as part of a brand-licensing partnership with Harry Potter rightsholder Warner Bros., which is why Klein says he was perturbed to learn of its new competing wand hitting the market a few months back. In a conversation with TechCrunch, Klein explained that off the back of the initial success it saw with the Harry Potter wand in 2018, Warner Bros.’ corporate arm reached out to Kano to get it to explain a bit more about how the product works, including its componentry and how it’s able to recognize spells, and other potential use cases for the underlying technology. And this is where things get interesting regarding its spat with Warner Bros. Unlike Kano’s original Harry Potter wand, which was focused squarely on teaching kids how to code, Warner Bros.’ Harry Potter: Magic Caster Wand is all about the smart home. It’s such as TVs, lights and speakers, so users can control their contraptions using “spells” and choreographed wand gestures. According to Klein, Kano had already envisaged such use cases with its own wand, and had made some early developments in the smart home realm. “In the process of making it easy for a person to hold down the button on the wand and cast a spell, we realized that this is a new language for human computer interaction,” Klein said. “You could be casting spells not only to make Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans explode on a screen, but you could [also] be doing gestures to control your lights, unlock your door and control the volume of music. We realized that this gestural form of interaction could be quite powerful and extended into other domains in the smart home. So we came in, they [Warner Bros.] got really excited about this idea of controlling the smart home.” Klein showed TechCrunch a video of an early prototype of Kano’s wand controlling various connected devices, which he says was recorded in November 2018 as part of a demonstration in Warner Bros.’ offices. Fast-forward to 2022, and with Warner Bros. bringing a similar Harry Potter wand to market, Klein says that he reached out to various people at the company to get an explanation, adding that he was told that an internal investigation would follow. But he said the line of communication went cold, leading to the cease and desist letter that Kano issued to Warner Bros. this week. “A side-by-side comparison of the operation of both the Coding Wand [Kano’s] and the Spellcaster Wand [Warner Bros.’] makes clear — and has now made clear to multiple third-party observers, including patent and intellectual property experts — that an issue has arisen,” the letter states. “The new product uses intellectual property — multiple patent-protected assets, trade secrets, inventions, etc. — of Kano’s, some of which were shared in strict confidence with WB during the many detailed engagements between the companies.” Founded in 2013, Kano has raised some $45 million in funding from notable backers, including European VC Index Ventures, Barclays, Salesforce co-founder Marc Benioff , which  to develop a Windows-based PC back in 2019. Mark Zuckerberg is also apparently a fan of Kano’s products, according to . Mark Zuckerberg apparently digs Kano. Mark Zuckerberg However, Kano had been relatively quiet these past few years, announcing in late 2019 and then not really releasing much in the way of new products. However, in 2021 the company did partner with Kanye West to , a device that lets users isolate and remix individual song elements. It ultimately due to made by West. Today, Kano continues to without West’s involvement, and a few weeks back the company , while hinting at all manner of new products that may include food and clothes. The company also signaled its transition away from its legacy DIY PC business when it revealed it was spinning out its creative software suite . However, the company does plan to stay at least a little bit true to its roots, as it’s developing a modular two-in-one device that can run Windows or ChromeOS, which Klein said it expects to push to market some time this year. Kano’s upcoming DIY modular PC. Kano Financially, things hadn’t been looking so great for Kano. At its most financial year ending of March 2021, Kano a pre-tax loss of £10.1 million ($12 million), though this was an improvement on the £16.8 million ($20.8 million) loss it reported the previous year. The company told TechCrunch a few weeks back that its provisional accounts for fiscal year 2022 show a pre-tax of around £1.2 million ($1.5 million). While Klein is naturally keen to paint an outwardly rosy picture of how things are going at Kano, the fact that it’s actively releasing and developing new products is an encouraging sign. However, a litigious IP scuffle with a billion-dollar mass-media conglomerate is probably the last thing it needs right now. In a modern-day David versus Goliath scenario, defending IP rights in court as a relatively small startup is not a cheap pursuit — something that Klein is acutely aware of as he considers his next moves. “It can cost up to $3 million to defend and protect a patent / technology IP,” Klein said. “This stacks the deck in favor of the big corporates. They can afford to throw aggressive lawyers at smaller companies and tie them up in process.” There is nothing to say, at the moment at least, that this is definitely how things will unfold. But if it does, Klein indicated that he’s willing to do whatever it takes to defend Kano’s work, noting that he has been told by lawyers who have worked on the case so far, on a basis, that it’s a “pretty open and shut” case. “If necessary, I’ll work late nights and weekends and represent us myself, ,” he said. “We will make sure our team’s hard work and creativity is not abused and ripped off. I may not have gone to law school, but all the proceedings are public, and can be understood with a little elbow grease.” A Warner Bros. spokesperson finally provided TechCrunch with a comment, saying: “The claims made by Kano are without merit.” .

Hear the right way to acquire customers with Cube and Mayfield on TechCrunch Live

Matt Burns

Finance people live and breathe spreadsheets, Mayfield’s Rajeev Batra was telling me. We were talking about our upcoming TechCrunch Live event featuring him and Cube’s Christina Ross, and Rajeev was explaining how he sees Cube’s position in the marketplace. Christina Ross co-founded the company in 2018 in a bid to provide a solution to CFOs who rely on spreadsheets but could benefit from modern data analysis, reporting, and collaboration. Now, some five years later, Cube is finding success and has raised over $45 million from venture capital. I hope you can . Christina Ross learned early on in Cube’s history that the solution must meet the customer where they’re at. Cube’s solution is unique in the FP&A world, in that it’s not trying to replace spreadsheets but rather work alongside spreadsheets. This gives her a unique take on finding product market fit — Cube isn’t trying to force customers to abandon their current solution. We’re going to talk about Cube’s approach to customer acquisitions and finding product market fit, and why Christina’s favorite childhood toy was a cash register. , and ask questions in the chat. I’ll do my best to ask them when possible. Can’t make the live event but can listen to the replay/podcast? , and I’ll be sure to ask your questions. Pitch Practice is back! Apply to present your company using this  . We’ll select three companies to pitch during the show, including one wildcard company that will be selected from our Hopin audience during the episode.

Built buys fellow construction robotics firm, Roin

Brian Heater

One of the most remarkable things about construction robotics is the sheer breadth of tasks that can potentially be automated. As I’ve noted before, the entire category is a prime target for robotics startups, given that it fills all of the big Ds of automation — dull, dirty and (quite often) dangerous. It’s also one of those areas that have become increasingly difficult to staff, post-pandemic, even as construction work came roaring back. So, if I’m running a fairly successful company that makes construction robots, I’m certainly thinking of diversification. The quickest way to jump start that is, of course, acquiring another, smaller startup. It’s something I suspect we’ll be seeing with increasing regularity as early-stage firms struggle to get funding to stay afloat amid a broadly stagnating VC market. , currently best known for its earth excavating autonomous heavy machine, Exosystem, announced today that it has acquired Roin Technologies (putting some of to good use). The smaller firm is YC-backed, and best known for its concrete robots, which trowel and shoot (shotcrete) the stuff. In fact, Roin’s already redirects to its parent company. “Since their founding, Roin’s team has pushed the boundaries of construction autonomy, which has created a unique expertise in our industry,” Built Robotics founder and CEO Noah Ready-Campbell said in a release. “With Roin joining Built, the combined teams will continue developing new autonomous construction applications and customers can expect to see robotic applications expanding beyond earthmoving.” Roin CEO Jim Delaney will be joining Built as part of the engineering team. He notes, “We see joining Built as the next step in Roin’s story. I have always admired what Built has launched and how they’ve moved the construction industry forward in adopting new technologies, and I am excited to have the opportunity to join their team.” This isn’t one of those cases of a one-to-one technology acquisition. Rather than being competitors, it seems the two construction systems can be potentially complementary, representing two distinct pieces of the broader construction puzzle.

Construction robotics firm Kewazo raises $10 million

Brian Heater

Automating construction makes plain sense on the face of it. It’s one of the world’s biggest industries. It’s also among the most expensive and, often, dangerous. Certainly it checks off the three Ds (dull, dirty, dangerous) of automation quite plainly. We encountered Kewazo several years back when the Munich-based startup . Sometimes startups take a lot of explaining off the bat. This isn’t one. At the center of the offering is the firm’s first product, Liftbot. The system is effectively an automated hoist system that ascends and descends scaffolding systems. It takes two workers around 20 minutes to install (per the company), is fully battery powered and wireless and is able to arrive at its destination without manual interference. Like a number of construction robotics firms, Kewazo got a nice boost during the pandemic, as construction reopened, but many companies suddenly had trouble filling roles. “Despite already existing labor shortages, it became impossible for foreign workers to commute back to their home countries and come back,” co-founder and CEO Artem Kuchukov tells TechCrunch. “Many sites in Europe, the Middle East, and Singapore massively suffered from that, as a large percentage of their workforce simply wasn’t there anymore. That was a huge catalyst for construction automation, as companies began to look for ways to sustain their businesses without relying on an uncertain labor supply.” Kewazo Today Kewazo is announcing a $10 million Series A. The round, which brings its full fundraising up to around $20 million, was led by Fifth Wall, with participation from Cybernetix Ventures, Unorthodox Ventures and Nemetschek. It follows a $5 million “Pre-Series A” back in September 2021. “I think it is very useful that companies like Kewazo are disrupting our business,” Bart Gyssels, CIO of Altrad Services Benelux, says in a release tied to the news. ”We will have problems in finding and keeping good personnel — this will be our main focus in the coming years and decades. These innovations are very helpful in attracting and motivating our coworkers and help us to provide our customers with cost-effective and safe services.” Kewazo Kuchukov tells TechCrunch that, in spite of general bullishness around construction automation, raising in 2022 was no walk in the park. “Series A in 2022 was tougher though. We started fundraising at the beginning of April, right when things started to slow down,” he says. “We had a founder’s camp organized by True Ventures in Napa Valley in March and nobody was even talking about the recession yet. But a few weeks later it started. Some of my fellow founders suggested waiting until fall with the raise, but we decided to not rely on the unstable economic situation in the world.” Among the plans for the money is an increase in headcount. Kewazo currently employs 26 full-time and 11 part-time employees and plans to hire another 15 this year, largely in business and product development.

Scythe raises $42 million for its electric robotic mower

Brian Heater

Scythe first hit our radar when it with a $13.8 million Series A. The world of robotic mowers is already a fairly crowded one, but while many are going after home applications (lawn Roombas, if you will), the Boulder, Colorado–based firm is specifically targeting commercial landscapers. “[The M.52 mower] is purpose-built to tackle the unique challenges of commercial landscaping,” co-founder and CEO Jack Morrison tells TechCrunch. “Our customers use M.52 to autonomously mow large-scale commercial properties like corporate campuses, parks, sports fields, and HOA complexes, all of which can have steep slopes and tough terrain. And the demand for durability goes beyond the mowing itself. M.52 has to withstand the rough treatment of daily commercial landscape operations — like loading and unloading from trailers, moving through tightly packed depots, and jumping curbs in parking lots.” This morning it’s announcing a $42 million Series B, which brings its to-date funding north of $60 million. The round was led by Energy Impact Partners and features new investors like ArcTern Ventures, Alumni Ventures and the Alexa Fund. The last one is certainly intriguing, as Amazon loves to use these as opportunities to integrate its voice assistant into third-party tech, but the company says it doesn’t “have anything to share regarding future plans for integrating voice controls into M.52.” Scythe began delivering the mower to customers in Texas late last year and is beginning to deliver them in Florida as well. This new round will — in part — go toward fulfilling its 7,500 existing reservations. Hiring is on the docket too. “Scythe is now just over 50 people and we’re excited to grow the team in the coming years. We already have a bunch of roles open and we plan to hire dozens more over the next 12 months,” Morrison says. “We’ll not only be hiring across many engineering disciplines (from computer vision and robotics to mechanical and electrical engineering), but we’ll more than double the size of our manufacturing and customer teams as we build and deploy many more M.52.” Morrison adds that, while the climate hasn’t been particularly great for fundraising, the firm was still able to find some like-minded investors. “The market has definitely taken a bearish turn,” he adds, “that committed climate VCs are well funded and actively looking for investment opportunities that urgently address the intensifying climate crisis we face.”

Apple Maps’ business listings are about to get more detailed with launch of ‘Apple Business Connect’

Sarah Perez

Apple Maps today is gaining a new tool that will allow the decade-plus-old service to better compete with Google: It will now allow business owners to update and manage their own information on the platform, including key details like business hours and location, photos, logos, special offers and promotions, and more. To do so, the company is a new web portal called , which lets businesses manage their presence across Apple’s 1.5 billion devices from a single dashboard. The service is a long time coming for Apple Maps. Although first , the mapping platform for years had relied on a simplified , , to update Maps listings with corrected information. And it leveraged third-party data from partners like Foursquare, Yelp and Tripadvisor, to provide users with other business information, ratings and reviews. For comparison, Google has allowed business owners to manage their listings since 2005 — though its product, now called Google Business Profiles, has gone through since then. Apple says it won’t remove its integrations with Yelp as Apple Business Connect launches. Customers will be able to see Yelp photos and reviews in the business place cards and will be able to choose Yelp as their provider for things like placing an order or viewing a restaurant’s menu, for example. However, the new system will allow business owners to now augment their listings with the important details they may lack, resulting in richer, more detailed and more up-to-date listings. Apple After going through a verification process, business owners will be able to update their business place card with basic information like the business hours, phone numbers, address and more, including an “about” page, as well as with their business logo and photos. For the first time, they can also update the business’s category and even add subcategories to help Maps users find their business when searching. And they can customize the information that appears in the “Good to Know” section of their listing, which includes helpful info like whether a place is “good for kids,” has “free Wi-Fi,” offers “free delivery,” is “wheelchair accessible,” and the like. If the location on the listing is wrong, the owner can move the pin on the map to a more precise location, as well. In addition, some business listings on Apple Maps feature an “Action” button that allows a customer to take some sort of action, like booking a hotel room with Booking.com, ordering groceries with Instacart or, as of . With Apple Business Connect, the business owner will now be able to add custom actions like these for themselves. Apple The listings can also for the first time be customized to display time-limited special offers and incentives, like food deals or tickets to a show. These updates, or “showcases,” can include some explanatory text, a photo and even a custom action for the customers to take. They are free to use. Apple will be working with partners, including Walmart, to enhance their business place cards in new ways, as well. For example, customers who visit the Walmart place card will be able to go to a “text to shop” feature by tapping on a “message us” button in the app. They’ll then be able to shop via text through Walmat’s chat-based shopping feature. Apple After verification, business owners will also be able to designate other members of the team who are allowed to update their information and can configure their account to update multiple locations, if needed. As owners use Apple Business Connect to make the updates, they’ll see a live preview on the screen so they know how their listing will look before it’s published. While keeping the business information current is the primary reason to interact with the product, Business Connect will also offer insights that allow them to learn how their place card is performing over time. These can be viewed in an insight dashboard where they can learn how customers find their business and how they interact with the place card. While many Apple device owners still prefer using Google Maps over Apple Maps for a number of reasons, Apple points out that the updated place cards won’t only live in the Maps app itself. These updates will flow across Apple’s ecosystem, to enhance business listings in other places like Siri Spotlight, Apple Wallet, Safari and more. Apple While Apple says today it has no immediate plans to monetize this system to allow owners to elevate their listings in some way, like ads, the Business Connect platform seems to be setting the stage for some sort of future endeavor in that area. Apple in recent years has shown an increased interest in the digital advertising market and disrupting the Facebook-Google duopoly. Elsewhere on mobile, , reports found. It wouldn’t be surprising to see Apple now considering an angle into the search ads market, too — particularly if it could leverage its iOS platform and various features, like Siri Spotlight, to help it along the way. Apple Business Connect is launching to countries around the world as of Wednesday, initially in the following languages: English, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish.

Toyota’s surprise executive shakeup may disappoint investors

Tim De Chant

Toyoda, surprised the automotive world this week by he would resign his position and hand the reins over to Koji Sato, who currently helms the company’s Lexus and Gazoo Racing divisions. But Toyoda isn’t going far. The 66-year-old isn’t retiring outright, but instead retiring to the boardroom, where he’ll take over the role of chair. Insiders aren’t expecting Toyoda to be hands-off, either. One executive said that Toyoda was about to embark on a period of “cloister rule,” a period in Japan’s history where the emperor retired to a monastery without actually ceding power. If that’s the case, then the shakeup in Toyota City might not be much of a shakeup at all.