Month: July 2018

Shuttl, a service that lets Indian city dwellers find seats on multiple bus routes through one app, announced today that it has raised a $11 million Series B led by Amazon India, Amazon Alexa Fund and Dentsu Ventures. Returning investors Sequoia Capital, Times Internet and Lightspeed Ventures also participated.

The Gurgaon-based startup’s last round of funding was a $20 million Series A announced in December 2015, just eight months after it launched.

The Amazon Alexa Fund was created in 2016 to fund new voice technology. One of Shuttl’s most interesting features is “Chirp,” which verifies passengers by sending a sound from their mobile phones to the driver’s version of its app. The idea is that “chirping” is quicker than using tickets or passes and can therefore decrease delays on bus routes.

Shuttl, which is owned by Super Highway Labs, was created with the goal of reducing pollution and traffic in major cities like Delhi by encouraging people to take public transportation. In order to compete with Uber and Ola, its tech platform optimizes routes and capacity, while its app enables users to track the location of their bus, giving them similar convenience and reliability to on-demand ride services (as long as they remember to book their seat a day in advance).

Shuttl’s platform now includes 800 buses and it claims to have 60,000 monthly active users and provide 45,000 rides per day in five cities. Its new funding will be used to expand into two new cities.

A UK parliamentary committee which has been running a multi-month investigation into the impact of online disinformation on political campaigning — and on democracy itself — has published a preliminary report highlighting what it describes as “significant concerns” over the risks to “shared values and the integrity of our democratic institutions”.

It’s calling for “urgent action” from government and regulatory bodies to “build resilience against misinformation and disinformation into our democratic system”.

“We are faced with a crisis concerning the use of data, the manipulation of our data, and the targeting of pernicious views,” the DCMS committee warns. “In particular, we heard evidence of Russian state-sponsored attempts to influence elections in the US and the UK through social media, of the efforts of private companies to do the same, and of law-breaking by certain Leave campaign groups in the UK’s EU Referendum in their use of social media.”

The inquiry, which was conceived of and begun in the previous UK parliament — before relaunching in fall 2017, after the June General Election — has found itself slap-bang in the middle of one of the major scandals of the modern era, as revelations about the extent of disinformation and social media data misuse and allegations of election fiddling and law bending have piled up thick and fast, especially in recent months (albeit, concerns have been rising steadily, ever since the 2016 US presidential election and revelations about the cottage industry of fake news purveyors spun up to feed US voters, in addition to Kremlin troll farm activity.)

Yet the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data misuse saga (which snowballed into a major global scandal this March) is just one of the strands of the committee’s inquiry. Hence they’ve opted to publish multiple reports — the initial one recommending urgent actions for the government and regulators, which will be followed by another report covering the inquiry’s “wider terms of reference” and including a closer look at the role of advertising. (The latter report is slated to land in the fall.)

For now, the committee is suggesting “principle-based recommendations” designed to be “sufficiently adaptive to deal with fast-moving technological developments”. 

Among a very long list of recommendations are:

• a levy on social media and tech giants to fund expanding a “major investment” in the UK’s data watchdog so the body is able to “attract and employ more technically-skilled engineers who not only can analyse current technologies, but have the capacity to predict future technologies” — with the tech company levy operating in “a similar vein to the way in which the banking sector pays for the upkeep of the Financial Conduct Authority”. Additionally, the committee also wants the government put forward proposals for an educational levy to be raised by social media companies, “to finance a comprehensive educational framework (developed by charities and non-governmental organisations) and based online”. “Digital literacy should be the fourth pillar of education, alongside reading, writing and maths,” the committee writes. “The DCMS Department should co-ordinate with the Department for Education, in highlighting proposals to include digital literacy, as part of the Physical, Social, Health and Economic curriculum (PSHE). The social media educational levy should be used, in part, by the government, to finance this additional part of the curriculum.” It also wants to see a rolling unified public awareness initiative, part-funded by a tech company levy, to “set the context of social media content, explain to people what their rights over their data are… and set out ways in which people can interact with political campaigning on social media. “The public should be made more aware of their ability to report digital campaigning that they think is misleading, or unlawful,” it adds
• amendments to UK Electoral Law to reflect use of new technologies — with the committee backing the Electoral Commission’s suggestion that “all electronic campaigning should have easily accessible digital imprint requirements, including information on the publishing organisation and who is legally responsible for the spending, so that it is obvious at a glance who has sponsored that campaigning material, thereby bringing all online advertisements and messages into line with physically published leaflets, circulars and advertisements”. It also suggests government should “consider the feasibility of clear, persistent banners on all paid-for political adverts and videos, indicating the source and making it easy for users to identify what is in the adverts, and who the advertiser is”. And urges the government to carry out “a comprehensive review of the current rules and regulations surrounding political work during elections and referenda, including: increasing the length of the regulated period; definitions of what constitutes political campaigning; absolute transparency of online political campaigning; a category introduced for digital spending on campaigns; reducing the time for spending returns to be sent to the Electoral Commission (the current time for large political organisations is six months)”.
• the Electoral Commission to establish a code for advertising through social media during election periods “giving consideration to whether such activity should be restricted during the regulated period, to political organisations or campaigns that have registered with the Commission”. It also urges the Commission to propose “more stringent requirements for major donors to demonstrate the source of their donations”, and backs its suggestion of a change in the rules covering political spending so that limits are put on the amount of money an individual can donate
• a major increase in the maximum fine that can be levied by the Electoral Commission (currently just £20,000) — saying this should rather be based on a fixed percentage of turnover. It also suggests the body should have the ability to refer matters to the Crown Prosecution Service, before their investigations have been completed; and urges the government to consider giving it the power to compel organisations that it does not specifically regulate, including tech companies and individuals, to provide information relevant to their inquiries, subject to due process.
• a public register for political advertising — “requiring all political advertising work to be listed for public display so that, even if work is not requiring regulation, it is accountable, clear, and transparent for all to see”. So it also wants the government to conduct a review of UK law to ensure that digital campaigning is defined in a way that includes online adverts that use political terminology but are not sponsored by a specific political party.
• a ban on micro-targeted political advertising to lookalikes online, and a minimum limit for the number of voters sent individual political messages to be agreed at a national level. The committee also suggests the Electoral Commission and the ICO should consider the ethics of Facebook or other relevant social media companies selling lookalike political audiences to advertisers during the regulated period, saying they should consider whether users should have the right to opt out from being included in such lookalike audiences
• a recommendation to formulate a new regulatory category for tech companies that is not necessarily either a platform or a publisher, and which “tightens tech companies’ liabilities”
• a suggestion that the government consider (as part of an existing review of digital advertising) whether the Advertising Standards Agency could regulate digital advertising. “It is our recommendation that this process should establish clear legal liability for the tech companies to act against harmful and illegal content on their platforms,” the committee writes. “This should include both content that has been referred to them for takedown by their users, and other content that should have been easy for the tech companies to identify for themselves. In these cases, failure to act on behalf of the tech companies could leave them open to legal proceedings launched either by a public regulator, and/or by individuals or organisations who have suffered as a result of this content being freely disseminated on a social media platform.”
• another suggestion that the government consider establishing a “digital Atlantic Charter as a new mechanism to reassure users that their digital rights are guaranteed” — with the committee also raising concerns that the UK risks a privacy loophole opening up after it leave the EU when US-based companies will be able to take UK citizens’ data to the US for processing without the protections afforded by the EU’s GDPR framework (as the UK will then be a third country)
• a suggestion that a professional “global Code of Ethics” should be developed by tech companies, in collaboration with international governments, academics and other “interested parties” (including the World Summit on Information Society), in order to “set down in writing what is and what is not acceptable by users on social media, with possible liabilities for companies and for individuals working for those companies, including those technical engineers involved in creating the software for the companies”. “New products should be tested to ensure that products are fit-for-purpose and do not constitute dangers to the users, or to society,” it suggests. “The Code of Ethics should be the backbone of tech companies’ work, and should be continually referred to when developing new technologies and algorithms. If companies fail to adhere to their own Code of Ethics, the UK Government should introduce regulation to make such ethical rules compulsory.”
• the committee also suggests the government avoids using the (charged and confusing) term ‘fake news’ — and instead puts forward an agreed definition of the words ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’. It should also support research into the methods by which misinformation and disinformation are created and spread across the internet, including support for fact-checking. “We recommend that the government initiate a working group of experts to create a credible annotation of standards, so that people can see, at a glance, the level of verification of a site. This would help people to decide on the level of importance that they put on those sites,” it writes
• a suggestion that tech companies should be subject to security and algorithmic auditing — with the committee writing: “Just as the finances of companies are audited and scrutinised, the same type of auditing and scrutinising should be carried out on the non-financial aspects of technology companies, including their security mechanisms and algorithms, to ensure they are operating responsibly. The Government should provide the appropriate body with the power to audit these companies, including algorithmic auditing, and we reiterate the point that the ICO’s powers should be substantially strengthened in these respects”. The committee also floats the idea that the Competition and Markets Authority considers conducting an audit of the operation of the advertising market on social media (given the risk of fake accounts leading to ad fraud)
• a requirement for tech companies to make full disclosure of targeting used as part of advert transparency. The committee says tech companies must also address the issue of shell corporations and “other professional attempts to hide identity in advert purchasing.

How the government will respond to the committee’s laundry list of recommendations for cleaning up online political advertising remains to be seen, although the issue of Kremlin-backed disinformation campaigns was at least raised publicly by the prime minister last year. Although Theresa May has been rather quieter on revelations about EU referendum-related data misuse and election law breaches.

While the committee uses the term “tech companies” throughout its report to refer to multiple companies, Facebook specifically comes in for some excoriating criticism, with the committee accusing the company of misleading by omission and actively seeking to impede the progress of the inquiry.

It also reiterates its call — for something like the fifth time at this point — for founder Mark Zuckerberg to give evidence. Facebook has provided several witnesses to the committee, including its CTO, but Zuckerberg has declined its requests he appear, even via video link. (And even though he did find time for a couple of hours in front of the EU parliament back in May.)

The committee writes:

We undertook fifteen exchanges of correspondence with Facebook, and two oral evidence sessions, in an attempt to elicit some of the information that they held, including information regarding users’ data, foreign interference and details of the so-called ‘dark ads’ that had reached Facebook users. Facebook consistently responded to questions by giving the minimal amount of information possible, and routinely failed to offer information relevant to the inquiry, unless it had been expressly asked for. It provided witnesses who have been unwilling or unable to give full answers to the Committee’s questions. This is the reason why the Committee has continued to press for Mark Zuckerberg to appear as a witness as, by his own admission, he is the person who decides what happens at Facebook.

…

Tech companies are not passive platforms on which users input content; they reward what is most engaging, because engagement is part of their business model and their growth strategy. They have profited greatly by using this model. This manipulation of the sites by tech companies must be made more transparent. Facebook has all of the information. Those outside of the company have none of it, unless Facebook chooses to release it. Facebook was reluctant to share information with the Committee, which does not bode well for future transparency. We ask, once more, for Mr Zuckerberg to come to the Committee to answer the many outstanding questions to which Facebook has not responded adequately, to date.

The committee suggests that the UK’s Defamation Act 2013 means Facebook and other social media companies have a duty to publish and to follow transparent rules — arguing that the Act has provisions which state that “if a user is defamed on social media, and the offending individual cannot be identified, the liability rests with the platform”.

“We urge the government to examine the effectiveness of these provisions, and to monitor tech companies to ensure they are complying with court orders in the UK and to provide details of the source of disputed content– including advertisements — to ensure that they are operating in accordance with the law, or any future industry Codes of Ethics or Conduct. Tech companies also have a responsibility to ensure full disclosure of the source of any political advertising they carry,” it adds.

The committee is especially damning of Facebook’s actions in Burma (as indeed many others have also been), condemning the company’s failure to prevent its platform from being used to spread hate and fuel violence against the Rohingya ethnic minority — and citing the UN’s similarly damning assessment.

“Facebook has hampered our efforts to get information about their company throughout this inquiry. It is as if it thinks that the problem will go away if it does not share information about the problem, and reacts only when it is pressed. Time and again we heard from Facebook about mistakes being made and then (sometimes) rectified, rather than designing the product ethically from the beginning of the process. Facebook has a ‘Code of Conduct’, which highlights the principles by which Facebook staff carry out their work, and states that employees are expected to “act lawfully, honestly, ethically, and in the best interests of the company while performing duties on behalf of Facebook”. Facebook has fallen well below this standard in Burma,” it argues.

The committee also directly blames Facebook’s actions for undermining the UK’s international aid efforts in the country — writing:

The United Nations has named Facebook as being responsible for inciting hatred against the Rohingya Muslim minority in Burma, through its ‘Free Basics’ service. It provides people free mobile phone access without data charges, but is also responsible for the spread disinformation and propaganda. The CTO of Facebook, Mike Schroepfer described the situation in Burma as “awful”, yet Facebook cannot show us that it has done anything to stop the spread of disinformation against the Rohingya minority.

The hate speech against the Rohingya—built up on Facebook, much of which is disseminated through fake accounts—and subsequent ethnic cleansing, has potentially resulted in the success of DFID’s [the UK Department for International Development] aid programmes being greatly reduced, based on the qualifications they set for success. The activity of Facebook undermines international aid to Burma, including the UK Government’s work. Facebook is releasing a product that is dangerous to consumers and deeply unethical. We urge the Government to demonstrate how seriously it takes Facebook’s apparent collusion in spreading disinformation in Burma, at the earliest opportunity. This is a further example of Facebook failing to take responsibility for the misuse of its platform.

We reached out to Facebook for a response to the committee’s report, and in an email statement — attributed to Richard Allan, VP policy — the company told us:

The Committee has raised some important issues and we were pleased to be able to contribute to their work.

We share their goal of ensuring that political advertising is fair and transparent and agree that electoral rule changes are needed. We have already made all advertising on Facebook more transparent. We provide more information on the Pages behind any ad and you can now see all the ads any Facebook Page is running, even if they are not targeted at you. We are working on ways to authenticate and label political ads in the UK and create an archive of those ads that anyone can search. We will work closely with the UK Government and Electoral Commission as we develop these new transparency tools.

We’re also investing heavily in both people and technology to keep bad content off our services. We took down 2.5 million pieces of hate speech and disabled 583 million fake accounts globally in the first quarter of 2018 — much of it before anyone needed to report this to Facebook. By using technology like machine learning, artificial intelligence and computer vision, we can detect more bad content and take action more quickly.

The statement makes no mention of Burma. Nor indeed of the committee’s suggestion that social media firms should be taxed to pay for defending democracy and civil society against the damaging excesses of their tools.

On Thursday, rolling out its latest ads transparency features, Facebook announced that users could now see the ads a Page is running across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and its partner network “even if those ads aren’t shown to you”.

To do so, users have to log into Facebook, visit any Page and select “Info and Ads”. “You’ll see ad creative and copy, and you can flag anything suspicious by clicking on ‘Report Ad’,” it added.

It also flagged a ‘more Page information’ feature that users can use to get more details about a Page such as recent name changes and the date it was created.

“The vast majority of ads on Facebook are run by legitimate organizations — whether it’s a small business looking for new customers, an advocacy group raising money for their cause, or a politician running for office. But we’ve seen that bad actors can misuse our products, too,” Facebook wrote, adding that the features being announced “are just the start” of its efforts “to improve” and “root out abuse”.

Brexit drama

The committee’s interim report was pushed out at the weekend ahead of the original embargo as a result of yet more Brexiteer-induced drama — after the campaign director of the UK’s official Brexit supporting ‘Vote Leave’ campaign, Dominic Cummings, deliberately broke the embargo by publishing the report on his blog in order to spin his own response before the report had been widely covered by the media.

Last week the Electoral Commission published its own report following a multi-month investigation into Brexit campaign spending. The oversight body concluded that Vote Leave broke UK electoral law by massively overspending via a joint working arrangement with another Brexit supporting campaign (BeLeave) — an arrangement via which an additional almost half a million pound’s worth of targeted Facebook ads were co-ordinated by Vote Leave in the final days of the campaign when it had already reached its spending limit (Facebook finally released some of the 2016 Brexit campaign ads that had been microtargeted at UK voters via its platform to the committee, which published these ads last week. Many of Vote Leave’s (up to that point ‘dark’) adverts show the official Brexit campaign generating fake news of its own with ads that, for example, claim Turkey is on the cusp of joining the EU and flooding the UK with millions of migrants; or spreading the widely debunked claim that the UK would be able to spend £350M more per week on the NHS if it left the EU.

In general, dog whistle racism appears to have been Vote Leave’s preferred ‘persuasion’ tactic of microtargeted ad choice — and thanks to Facebook’s ad platform, no one other than each ad’s chosen recipients would have been likely to see the messages.

Cummings also comes in for a major roasting in the committee’s report after his failure to appear before it to answer questions, despite multiple summons (including an unprecedented House of Commons motion ordering him to appear — which he nonetheless also ignored).

“Mr Cummings’ contemptuous behaviour is unprecedented in the history of this Committee’s inquiries and underlines concerns about the difficulties of enforcing co-operation with Parliamentary scrutiny in the modern age,” it writes, adding: “We will return to this issue in our Report in the autumn, and believe it to be an urgent matter for consideration by the Privileges Committee and by Parliament as a whole.”

On his blog, Cummings claims the committee offered him dates they knew he couldn’t do; slams its investigation as ‘fake news’; moans copiously that the committee is made up of Remain supporting MPs; and argues that the investigation should be under oath — as his major defense seems to be that key campaign whistleblowers are lying (despite ex-Cambridge Analytica employee Chris Wylie and ex-BeLeave treasurer Shahmir Sanni having provided copious amounts of documentary evidence to back up their claims; evidence which both the Electoral Commission and the UK’s data watchdog, the ICO, have found convincing enough to announce some of the largest fines they can issue — in the latter case, the ICO announced its intention to fine Facebook the maximum penalty possible (under the prior UK data protection regime) for failing to protect users’ information. The data watchdog is continuing to investigate multiple aspects of what is a hugely complex (technically and politically) online ad ops story, and earlier this month commissioner Elizabeth Denham called for an ‘ethical pause’ on the use of online ad platforms for microtargeting voters with political messages, arguing — as the DCMS committee is — that there are very real and very stark risks for democratic processes.

There’s much, much more self-piteous whining on Cummings blog for anyone who wants to make themselves queasy reading. But do also bear in mind the Electoral Commission’s withering criticism of the Vote Leave campaign, specifically — for not so much a failure to co-operate with its investigation but for intentional obstruction. (See: Pages 12-13 of the Commission’s report.)

Several dummy units of future iPhone models have leaked over the weekend. It gives a good idea of what you should expect to see in September when Apple introduces the next iPhone.

Most likely, the iPhones on these photos aren’t actual iPhones. They are just dummy units. Every year, a few manufacturers create objects that look exactly like future iPhones.

They are based on leaked design schematics and usually look just like the real thing. Case manufacturers and other accessory makers buy those dummy units to get ready before Apple’s announcement.

Ben Geskin shared photos of two different phones — a bigger iPhone X and a new iPhone that looks a bit like the iPhone X but with a single camera lens. These devices line up with previous rumors.

As you can see, the bigger device looks just like the existing iPhone X, but bigger. It’s a 6.5-inch second-gen iPhone X Plus. It has two cameras at the back and the familiar notch at the top of the display.

According to rumors, the second-gen iPhone X Plus could cost $999, or the same price or the iPhone X today. Apple could also update the regular 5.8-inch iPhone X with better components and a lower price — $899.

But what about that mysterious 6.1-inch iPhone?

Apple wants to offer a more affordable iPhone with a notch for $700. Unlike the second-gen iPhone X and iPhone X Plus, this new iPhone could feature a slightly bigger bezel and an LCD display. OLED is still much more expensive than LCD, so it’s hard to roll it out across the entire lineup.

Apple could also put a single camera at the back of the device and use aluminum instead of stainless steel on the borders. Dimitri12 also shared photos of dummy units on Slashleaks that look like Geskin’s dummies:

When it comes to colors, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo reported that the cheaper model should come in many different colors — grey, white, blue, red and orange. The second-gen iPhone X and iPhone X Plus should come in black, white and gold.

Apple is expected to announce new iPhones in early September. So you should take those dummy units with a grain of salt.

Grover, the Berlin-based startup that offers “pay-as-you-go” subscriptions to the latest consumer tech as an alternative to owning products outright, has raised €37 million in funding.

The Series A round is led by Circularity Capital LLP — a VC that specialises in the so-called “circular economy” — with participation from fintech investor Coparion, Samsung NEXT, and Varengold Bank. Existing investors, including Commerzbank’s Main Incubator, also followed on.

Noteworthy, the funding consists of €12 million in equity and a new €25 million debt facility. Building an inventory of new tech products to rent is quite capital insensitive, after all.

Targeting Germany only, for now (after withdrawing from the U.K. and pausing a soft launch in the U.S.), Grover wants to be something akin to Netflix for gadgets. It offers individual tech products by monthly, three-monthly or yearly subscription, or via its newly launched “Grover Mix” subscription, which has a fixed monthly price and lets you switch item at any time.

In addition, you are afforded some upside protection, should you wish to purchase the item after renting it first. You’re given the option to buy products with 30 percent of your subscription payments to date being deducted from the recommended retail price. For longer rental periods, Grover will also warn you if you are close to reaching 130 percent of the full purchase price and prompt you to consider buying it for €1.

The startup has also been trialling a B2B product aimed at burgeoning companies, dubbed “Startups get Grover”. This I’m told came about after demand from startups who, for example, want to subscribe to a bunch of Macbooks to give to new employees, and as an alternative to deploying upfront capital.

In a call with Grover founder and CEO Michael Cassau, he told me the new capital will be used to expand the company’s market leadership in Germany and re-boot international expansion in a bid to continue a current revenue growth rate of 20 percent per month. He said the startup had taken the decision in early 2017 to focus on Germany, temporarily abandoning internationalization, after it had signed a major partnership with German e-retailer MediaMarkt. It has since also partnered with Saturn, Gravis, Conrad, and Tchibo.

This sees Grover become a checkout option, alongside other payment buttons or financing offers. That way a customer can choose to rent a tech product via their favourite online store powered by Grover. Behind the scenes, Grover actually buys the product from the retailer, having put agreements in place with regards to what products fit the Grover model and aren’t already overstocked by Grover.

Alternatively, in some instances, Grover has a “re-circulation” deal in place so that a retailer can continue offering Grover as an option even if Grover has enough inventory already, and instead take a share of future subscription income. This works particularly well for slightly older products or items that are diminishing in popularity.

In addition to growing in Germany and future international ambitions, Cassau says that the startup plans to invest in the user experience of Grover, suggesting that it has room for improvement. This will include developing “new and innovative usage models,” while he also conceded that with further scale the company can get more customer aligned in terms of the products on offer and its subscription pricing.

At some point, if Grover’s subscription model becomes compelling enough, it’s hoped that purchasing many tech products will become so unattractive as to create Netflix-level changes in consumption behaviour. Or, at least, that’s the aim. In my case, that would mean spending far less time recycling things like smartphones and music technology gear on eBay as I tread a well-trodden and perpetual upgrade path.

Experian is making its first major bet on Southeast Asia and its population of over 650 million consumers after the financial credit giant backed Singapore-based C88 Financial Technologies, which operates financial marketplaces that help lenders reach new audiences.

C88 today announced a $28 million Series C investment round that’s led by Experian with participation from a host of other backers that include Europe-based duo ResponsAbility Investments (Switzerland), DEG in Germany plus Korea’s InterVest, FengHe Fund Management, Pelago Capital and Fuchsia Venture Capital, the VC arm of Thai lender Muang Thai Life Assurance.

Early investors Monk’s Hill Ventures, Telstra Ventures, Kickstart Ventures and Kejora Ventures also took part in the round, which takes C88 to just over $45 million in capital raised.

The startup was founded in 2013 and it operates services in Indonesia and the Philippines — CekAja.com and eCompareMo.com, respectively — which have collectively served over 50 million customers through a mixture of smaller loans paid back over 6-18 months and longer installment-based plans that run from 18-32 months.

Following this investment, it plans to also open a business in Thailand — the support of Muang Thai is sure to help there — as part of its mission of opening consumer financing products up to consumers in Southeast Asia. More generally, the capital will go towards expansion, particularly around consumer marketing.

Working with, not disrupting, banks

Unlike some parts of the world, fintech challengers in Southeast Asia are working with the existing financial institutions to help them reach segments of the population that are not addressed today. Data is a huge part of that. In most parts of the region — excluding Singapore and perhaps Malaysia — few consumers are credit profiled. That makes a bank or lender’s job of assessing their suitability for a loan extremely challenging. Throw in that they are often seeking small- to mid-sized loans, and the potential value of the customer is likely lower than the resources that would be spent evaluating them.

The system is broken but the good news is that the advent of smartphones is bringing usable data to the fore. Southeast Asia counts over 300 million internet users and that’s growing at a rapid rate.

In just the past month, Indonesia-based Kredivo — which operates digital credit — and SME-focused Aspire Capital have raised significant capital using a data-driven similar thesis.

Instead of disruption, those companies, and C88, are guiding the banking industry into the previously unaddressable long-tail of customers by actively pre-verifying them and ascertaining not just whether they are eligible for financial products, but what kind and at what rate. Indeed, very often it isn’t that a person is a so-called ‘bad actor,’ it’s more the case that there isn’t sufficient data to prove that they are eligible for credit.

“Many times [banks and lenders] just can’t lend the cash out efficiently,” CEO JP Ellis told TechCrunch in an interview. “But that can change with the advent of digital-enabled societies, data and mechanisms to price on an individual basis. It’s all about partnering with [financial institutions] because they have so much capital on their balance sheet.”

C88 claims to work with over 90 banks, financial institutions and lenders. It effectively acts as the data pipeline, sorting through would-be credit applicants to assess their level of eligibility and the types of products best suited to them. That involves a mix of data, some structured some unstructured, and work with established firms like Experian, but it remains a challenge given the aforementioned lack of credit scoring. Indeed, Ellis estimates reach is as low as 20-30 percent of the population in Indonesia, for example — which is a big deal since it is the world’s four-largest country with a population of over 260 million.

With around 10 percent of applicants successful for credit products using traditional methods, Ellis said he wants to broaden access to capital which he believes can help build up Southeast Asia’s already-growing economies.

“We think of ourselves not as a comparison of products, but as a comparison of eligibility,” he added.

New methods of scoring

That hits on a chord that’s noticeable across Southeast Asia: unlike other regions where credit and financial products seem rigid and almost unfriendly to consumers, the industry in Southeast Asia is working to be more relatable to consumers. At least in terms of the rhetoric, which includes smaller loans, flexible payment schedules and newer kinds of credit scoring.

Ellis said some of the methodologies come from China — where internet titans Alibaba and Tencent offer financial services that are based on factors like mobile payments and utility bill history — but he said that the region’s fintech movement in Southeast Asia is very much marching to its own beat.

In Indonesia, for example, one product C88 offers is with DBS, the region’s largest bank, and some of the eligibility data is related to operator Telkomsel, which has over 190 million customers.

C88 is also offering its own-branded policies in some cases, such as dengue fever insurance in the Philippines. That’s in partnership with an insurer on the backend. Ellis said the company only offers new products when it sees an unmet need in the market, it doesn’t intend to compete with what’s already on offer from the industry, which remains its key partner.

Beyond unsecured loans and insurance, the company is also dipping its toes into asset management, although the C88 CEO concedes that this market is smaller — in terms of sheer numbers, at least.

Experian eyes Asia deals

The deal marks the first major investment in Southeast Asia for Experian, the Dublin-headquartered firm valued at around £17.5 billion, or $23 billion, and listed in London. It signals a new role helping to develop startups in Asia coming as it does just under a year after Experian backed Bankbazaar with its maiden investment in India.

“Five or six years ago, we started to think about how we solve some bigger problems rather than just being a stoic software company,” Ben Elliott, who is managing director of Experian’s Asia Pacific business, told TechCrunch in an interview. “We’re looking at organizations that we think are either disruptive in the market where we have a role to play, or those that are building into something we think we can grow with.”

Singapore-based Elliott pointed that nearly one-quarter of Southeast Asians have access to a bank account, so new methods of reach are essential. He said that the C88 deal isn’t necessarily a path to acquisition for Experian. While he didn’t rule out the possibility in the future, he said that “the initial focus is to be a valuable investor and a good partner in the business.”

Ellis, the C88 CEO, believes there’s an opportunity to work very closely with the new investor beyond new credit scoring systems they are jointly cooking up.

“Many of our financial institutions already use Experian products, so we have the opportunity to really combine forces,” he said.

Update: Nothing gold can stay, Ponyboy. It was fun while it lasted, but both Spots are back to their original $129 asking price — and the white version still appears to be totally sold out. It looks as if the whole thing was a pricing mistake, rather than extra generosity on the part of Jeff B. So, nice work if you nabbed one in time. Keep those fingers crossed that it actually gets delivered. 

I like the Spot. It’s my favorite Echo. And due to what may well just be an error on Amazon’s part, the screen-sporting smart speaker is currently showing up for $0.00 — for those who can access it, at least. Some users are already registering it as Out of Stock.

The black version of the device is still listed as $99 — a much less killer deal, but still $29 down from the original asking price. It could be a pricing error, or maybe Amazon is trying to get rid of that old stock for some reason. Heck, maybe the company just really wants to get the Alexa delivery system in as many homes as humanly possible. This is certainly one way to do it. 

Chances seem decent it may never even ship — those who did order one (or three or four) are seeing a still pending delivery date. In either case, we’ve reached out to Amazon and will update when we hear back. 

I love Hollywood box-office numbers because they provide a hard statistical view of cultural currents. Did you know, for instance, that there had never been a weekend when 8 of the top 10 movies in America were sequels — until this month? Or that, while almost 400 movies were released in the first half of 2018, nearly 40% of their total accumulated revenue came from just four releases, all of which were superhero sequels?

This is not what was supposed to happen. Ten years ago people thought that visual storytelling would be democratized; that new cameras, new editing suites, cheap streaming, and BitTorrent would combine to render high-cost obsolete-infrastructure Hollywood irrelevant. A worldwide cohort of genius independent filmmakers would use this new generation of accessible tools to slowly supplant Hollywood studios and producers as the drivers of visual and narrative culture.

Hoo boy, did that ever not happen. Instead we just added a few new gatekeepers to the entertainment oligarchy: YouTube, Amazon, Netflix. Instead of a new era of auteurs, of unique voices and stories, the entertainment industry has had enormous success doing the complete opposite: doubling down on sequels, and expanding brands and franchises into massive worlds of corporate-licensed, committee-written, producer-driven branded entertainment, often spanning movies, television, books, video games, and amusement parks. The Marvel Cinematic (and televised) Universe. Worlds of DC. Star Wars. Star Trek. The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Jurassic World.

This is not in and of itself a bad thing. I’m a fan of most of those myself. But it’s worth asking; why didn’t we get that decentralized diaspora of auteurs that was once widely predicted? And what are the longer-term effects of the triumph of Branded Worlds on the grassroots, and the next generations, of pop culture?

There are two answers to the first question: cost and time. Maybe it’s a lot easier to shoot and edit movies/TV than it used to be, but sets, locations, actors, scripts — those are all expensive and difficult. Better amateur work is still far from professional. And while it’s true we’re seeing interesting new visual modes of storytelling, e.g. on Twitch and YouTube,  it’s very rarely narrative fiction, and it’s still  distributed and monetized via Twitch and YouTube, gatekeepers who implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) shape what’s popular.

More importantly, though, democratizing the means of production does not increase demand. A 10x increase in the number of TV shows, however accessible they may be, does not 10x the time any person spends watching television. For a time the “long tail” theory, that you could make a lot of money from niche audiences as long as your total accessible market grew large enough, was in vogue. This was essentially a mathematical claim, that audience demand was “fat-tailed” rather than “thin-tailed.”

But it seems that the demand for entertainment is quite thin-tailed indeed. The more options we have, the more we seem to want characters we already know, in worlds with which we’re already familiar. This makes sense — it takes a lot of work to engage with a new world and a new cast, with no guarantee at all that they will be worth the effort. But the result is that Branded Worlds increasingly feel like vast open-world video games, even including side quests (Rogue One or Ant-Man And The Wasp) along with the “main story,” and a seemingly endless amount of new downloadable content.

I also suspect that many-chaptered, many-charactered worlds are more viable than they used to be because we’re more connected to them. Did you miss a Marvel movie leading up to Infinity War? Well, you can recap its handful of key and killer scenes on YouTube, in fifteen minutes, without having to rent/watch the whole thing. Did you miss the last episode of a TV show, or do you just want to skip to its conclusion? If it has enough cultural resonance, Vulture or The AVClub probably posted a recap you can use as quick Cliff’s Notes. We can dip our toes into Branded Worlds whenever we like, in between diving into them at a movie theater or serious bingewatching session.

The other interesting question is: what does the growing supremacy of Branded Worlds mean for the next generation of writers, directors, and producers? Obviously producers will try to turn tentpoles into sequels, and sequels into franchises, as before; but now they have a new goal, that of transforming a franchise into the apotheosis of a Branded World. (Game of Thrones, The Hunger Games, and Westworld are obvious candidates, though each faces its own set of hurdles.)

Obviously writers and directors are incentivized to create what is most likely to be successful. This doesn’t mean the complete absence of standalone one-offs — we’ve also seen that horror, long a springboard for auteurs breaking into the biz, seems to give us one surprise crossover hit every year, such as Get Out and A Quiet Place. But it does mean that creators will focus on worlds as much as stories, and that fanfiction will become a completely viable path into the industry — after all, writing within a Branded World is simply paid fanfiction. (Creators will also be incentivized to write stories which might do well in China’s burgeoning market, but that’s a different post.)

Again, none of this is intrinsically bad. What I worry about a little, though, is whether the demand for entertainment is so thin-tailed that, as the number of Branded Worlds increases, that demand begins to end with them. It’s pretty clear that once a Branded World gets big enough it doesn’t necessarily have to be good to be successful. (See Age of Ultron, Batman v Superman, the bad Star Trek movies, arguably Solo, etc.) Left-field hits like Get Out are funded because their collective batting average is acceptably high. If Branded Worlds take enough of the mindshare of the masses that the batting average of original works drops faster than their production cost, then we’ll start seeing even fewer of those.

Will that happen? I can’t say — but I can tell you that a good way to measure whether it’s happening is to look at the weekend box office a few years from now and see if, for the first time, fully 9 out of the top 10 are sequels. Watch the numbers; they rarely lie.

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Hey KIDS!

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Exciting News!

First up: Exciting news! We’re going to be migrating the Club Newsletter to a new format from next month that will be delivered in person! In virtual reality! This means you’ll be able to feel like I’m sitting right next to you saying this stuff right in your face instead of just passively reading it off a screen and maybe getting distracted by other less important stuff. Myself and your Totally Lost Boys (TLB) Club Committee are so excited that we can bring you this amazing experience before any other Youth Club in the world! #awesome

Here’s a taster from a VR trip I took recently to check out the totally awful devastation in Puerto Rico:

Now you’re probably asking how can we bring this exciting new technology to your friendly neighborhood Youth Club, right?! I’m pleased to say that the 2,500% increase in Newsletter Sponsor Messages over the past ~two months has really helped bulk up the Club Money Pool. Rest assured, we’re ploughing all these revenues into product development to continue to make BH&FA YC the most innovative Youth Club on Planet Earth!

Of course we don’t want the Club to fall behind Lindenwood or Farm Hills YC either, which — as we’ve told you in recent Newsletters — have been busy developing ‘innovative’ newsletter solutions of their own. (I say ‘innovative’ but we all know the YC of MZ Yours Truly is the real innovator around these hills!!) But — and it’s a BIG ONE kids! — if the Club Committee were to allow another club to get ahead of BH&FA (brisket forbid!!!), say by offering better Member facilities, then we’d risk Membership declining — instead of benefiting from the continued year-on-year growth that _we_all_enjoy_. It would also mean less money for the Club Treasurer to spend on buying up neighborhood housing to knock down in order to expand the size of the Clubhouse and keep you all entertained right here on campus! And you really don’t want to be bored do you?! (NB: The date for opening the infinity pool waterpark is still tbc. We found a leak on several floors and given there’s a risk of electrical fire death if we get this wrong it’s taking a little longer than hoped.)

Of course the impending mandatory migration to VR Newsletters also means we’ll be able to bring you more immersive Newsletter Sponsor Messages in future! YAY! Which will be great for the Club Money Pool too. So double YAY!

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Of course we know that not everyone in Our Community has had a chance to purchase our great Oculus Rift VR headset yet :( Only 0.3% of you have done so! :((( Even though we’ve made sure to tell you all about how great it is for, like, the past several years. (You’ll remember we also ran VR Summer Club Camp last year in Black Chasm Cave. However attendance averaged <1% — and there was that unfortunate incident with the toxic frog — so your Club Committee knows it has a lot more work to do!). So, after a long talk at our last #awesome TLB Brisket Cook-Out^MZ I’m really excited to announce an amazing Discount for Club Members that have shown the most dedication to Our Community over the years! This means all of you will very soon enjoy the benefits of Oculus VR! Zero excuses!

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(NB: If you’re wondering how exactly we’ll be calculating personalized Oculus discounts we can tell you it involves a proprietary formula that Your Club Committee developed based on your lifelong Participation & Attendance Metrics (PAM). We can’t say too much, in case the formula were to be maliciously leaked to Lindenwood — or even, brisket forbid! Staumbaugh Heller!!! — (NBNB: For a reminder about penalties for leaking proprietary Club Information see the base of this newsletter; but, tl;dr, don’t do it!!! Remember the Club Motto: ‘Speak Don’t leak!’).

What we CAN tell you is we’ve been busy number-crunching PAM for the past several years, and those Club Members who have shown not just a consistent commitment to Our Community (which is mandatory) but who have shared their increasing enthusiasm for the Club Program (which Your TLB obviously works 24/7 to bring you!) will be given the biggest discounts — of up to 6.8%! Everyone else will get a smaller discount (based on your unique PAM-based relationship with the Club Program). So basically you only have yourselves to blame if you get offered a discount of sub-0.5%. (And don’t forget we’ll be sharing PAM scores with parents/guardians at the upcoming mandatory BH&FA Club Regulations Awareness Program.)

As you know, Membership of the Club is dependent upon reading Our Newsletter — which includes all Our Sponsor Messages. (Our Sponsors wouldn’t pay us if you didn’t read their messages now would they!?!) So unfortunately Your Club Committee is prepared to say goodbye to any Members who aren’t able to access the Newsletter in future. (NB: Saying you don’t have a VR headset will absolutely not be an acceptable excuse!!! We are, however, open to suggestions for expanding cross-platform support if Members have already bought other VR headsets. (Although we might question your loyalty to BH&FA YC if you do that!!! ;)))

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Your Awesome TLB Club Committee Update!

So what’s on the boys’ discussion agenda this week Mark!?!

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Okay, time for the customary run down of Important Issues Your TLB is really busy managing around the BBQ while you guys kick back and do wtf you like on campus… Mmm brisket! #Brisket #CookOut #Meat #Mmmm

• Participation & Engagement Metrics — as you should really know by now Your Committee’s ‘prime directive’ is 100% attendance & program engagement at all times! PAM! PAM! So frankly you guys are always a total disappointment :( BUT! — this week Boztank said he’s going to bring some of his special Ideas Envelopes for us to push around while we’re BBQing brisket — so consider yourselves totally warned!!!! PAM! PAM!
• Takeover of Woodside Heights YC — yes we are still finalizing our takeover of Woodside Heights. But we now expect members to be migrated to BH&FA by 06:00 on Saturday 4 at the very latest. Issues we have encountered with the migration include some outgoing Woodside members objecting to the razing of their Clubhouse and the mandatory requirement to travel to BH&FA’s campus because it’s so much further away from where they live and their moms and pops are at work so can’t always taxi them over. However we have pointed out that the facilities we offer here are by far superior. Sheryl has been working super hard (including on Saturdays) to get the message to Woodside parents that their kids will absolutely have the best development opportunities at BH&FA. To ease the transition we have also decided to offer Uber coupons (valid: Tuesday afternoons, for two weeks of August) and some pretty substantial Oculus discounts — although both are provisional on the new recruits completing a Club Reorientation Attendance Probation period of no less than 180 months (achieving weekly PAM average of 95.8%). (So if you hear them say ‘Oh CRAP’ you’ll know why.) We’ll be discussing ideas for hazing the newbs in a forthcoming Newsletter. So stay tuned! And get ready to burn all that Woodside Heights smoke out of em!!!
• Parental Concern — unfortunately we have been informed that a few responsible adults have been expressing concern over what Members might have been exposed to via the Club Program. We are investigating to determine whether there are any identifiable issues of concern, and so far have compiled a list of about ~2,500,000 items for possible follow-up — including reports of screenings of human beheadings in the cinema; animal torture in the yard; misogynistic graffiti all over the place; human trafficking; and even bomb-making classes and/or fascist memorabilia being distributed by a small number of members (!!!). While some of this stuff does sound kind of alarming, in truth we’re generally pretty stoked about the rich diversity of expression that’s evidently thriving within Our Community. Although we are still investigating to determine whether there are any specific issues we need to follow up on — like, in case we need to add an additional rule to our strict ‘Zero Nudity (no, not even fine art or war reportage nudes you sick f—)’ Club Policy. We’ll keep you posted if we decide to amend the Charter. But for now we just ask that you carry on being your richly expressive selves. (As we like to say on the Committee: ‘If you feel it, f—ing say it!!!!’)
• Member Behavior — it has also come to our attention that a small number of Members have been getting increasingly loud and disruptive on campus. However, in the BH&FA YC Founding Charter, we do make it very clear that any attempts to curtail or moderate freedom of expression will _not_be _at_all_ tolerated_. We therefore want to reassure all Club Members that when you are here, under our watchful care, you can say anything at all you want to anyone you fancy — no matter how horribly wrong or hurtful it might be. (As the TLB like to say at the start of a Cook-Out when we’re fighting over whose turn it is to poke the fire: ‘Sticks & stones will break your bones but names can never hurt you!’). That said, we have noticed an uptick in some very nasty name calling; blatantly false and/or ridiculous rumors (no, my parents were not lizards!!!); and people trying to start *actual* fights and/or fires during Club Events. One particularly unruly member — who shall remain nameless (but rest assured We Know Who You Are!!! NB: We discuss this person’s behavior in more detail below, in our Newsletter ‘Hard Issue of The Day’ — and who, let it be known, we also know has a record of threatening behavior outside the Club (because Sheryl read about it in the Menlo Park Tribune)), has been passing off some very ‘creative fictions’ on campus — we suspect as a sort of post-modern art project. But still, we’re keeping an eye out. For example, Adam says he’s seen instances of this person telling others in Our Community that Members’ dead relations didn’t really exist at all, and, furthermore, that corpses laid out in the morgue were just so-called ‘crisis actors’ paid by kids’ parents to pretend to like them. While we’re admittedly impressed with the avant-garde creativity of this particular Member, we recognize that they have also been saying a lot of other absolute tosh — like that flu shots give you cancer or make you gay or turn you into a toxic frog. And that President Trump is the literal lovechild of a Republican Senator (who we’re not naming for libel reasons) and the Angel Gabriel. Like, frankly speaking, we’ve lost track of the amount of garbage this particular Member has been spouting but that’s 100% okay because keeping track of how Members freely expressing themselves is totally not our job at all. We’re just here to make sure the BH&FA campus is massive enough to house all the billions of Members that now make up our richly diverse Community — which also means making sure Our Club Charter enshrines an absolute right to be an utter f— to anyone you please. Kids, we really can’t start cherry picking or where would it end?! The bottom line is that here at BH&FA YC, Your Committee is proud to preside over a marketplace of brainfarts of every possible flavor, toxic or otherwise. So we would like to take this opportunity to remind Members about our very firm *non-discrimination policy* — of welcoming absolutely anyone as a Member, no matter how disgusting your personal views. (And, sheesh, you kids really do have some pretty icky stuff on your mind sometimes!!!) Your Committee would also like to suggest all Members reread Boztank’s 2009 addendum to the Club Charter (entitled: ‘Why you kids need to learn to suck it up’). The TLBs never let anything as non-formulaic as emotional distress get in the way of the campus expansion roadmap. After all, we’ve got a mission to bring the benefits of BH&FA to every person (*13 years or older*) ON THE PLANET! (Shoot for 100% or kill everyone trying!!! — as we like to joke around the BBQ! Or as Boztank’s knuckle tattoo actually reads: ‘We grow PAM, period.’ So, as ever, eyes on the bigger prize, kids.)
• Brisket cook out! — yes! It’s back by popular demand! This time I will personally be bringing a small herd of live Dexter cows on campus and everyone will watch while I tear them apart with my bare hands. Chunks of brisket will be distributed according to the standard Club Formula and each Member will be responsible for cooking their own chunk (or not!). But please no squabbling over the meat!!! And definitely no pushing! You can shout insults at each other in the hopes of being able to distract another Member and grab yourself a tastier chunk but do please keep acts of physical aggression *off campus*. It’s a waste of energy anyways as everyone will definitely get some brisket, even if not everyone can get the delicious deep pectoral I will personally be chowing down on. (It is, however, inevitable that some members will have to wait longer than others to get some meat. But given Our Community is now 2.5BN Members strong & counting! — suck that up Staumbaugh Heller!!! >:-) — we absolutely must have a formula to manage the distribution of the Club Program, fair or otherwise. NB: Having a formula is the important bit, kids. As your parents should tell you, that’s called ‘Leadership’.)
• Proposal to livestream the urinals — as part of our ‘Next-Gen YC 2.0 Moving Fwd Brainfart Sessions 2018 Summer Season Sponsored by Y Combinator’ Boztank suggested the (IMO) pretty wild idea of putting a livestreaming unit in the urinals (!) — pointing down at the pee stream. He thinks it could be a good idea to collect yet another data-point on top of the ~hundreds of thousands we already record per Member for some interesting new engagement metric that we haven’t bothered to think of yet. We’ll let you know at least a day in advance if we decide to move forward with this plan. (NB: We’re still discussing whether it’s a good idea to livestream the girls’ toilets. Or we might just unilaterally replace all Club loos with unisex urinals. tbc). tbh the urinal idea was a lot better than Boz’s other suggestion which was a livestreamed ‘loudest fart’ competition. We might revisit that next fall, for our next Camp Cook-Out
• Committee ‘Diversity’ — we are aware that some Members are continuing to complain about the lack of so-called ‘diversity’ on the TLB Committee. However we would point out we are a truly open-minded bunch of — yes, okay, sure, whatevs — entirely white guys but who are nonetheless willing to entertain the wild and crazy notion that there’s no box at all to think inside of. So, frankly, we don’t understand what your problem is. Also we’re not *all* guys — that’s what Sheryl’s here for
• ‘Leadership elections’ — it has also come to our attention that a very small number of Club Members have been spreading some very malicious, gossipy and totally fake rumors claiming the Club Charter is going to be rewritten to create fixed leadership terms and allow for future Leader Elections. I personally want to make it very, VERY clear that this is 100% FAKE NEWS. Your Committee will not be discussing any changes to the Committee’s structure at all. At any point. Ever. Period.
• Under-13s YC — a brief update on the amazing traction we’re seeing for our ‘Horizon Newborn’ under-13s YC which continues to deliver major wins for BH&FA by onboarding all your siblings from the moment of birth to get them prepped & primed for life in the excitingly breakneck ‘fast-lane’ here on the 13+ campus (NB: Under-13 Memberships are automatically migrated to a full BH&FA YC Membership on your siblings’ thirteenth birthday; but remember, it’s your responsibility to let them know that if they want to collect any cuddly toys or other mementos they’ve accidentally left at the under-13s campus they will have to come here and sign the Membership form to release them from our Cryogenic Cold Storage Unit — where you should warn them they will otherwise languish for all eternity.) The committee is currently discussing whether to turn some of the old Woodside Heights YC campus into an Under-13s soft play foam-axe room. Alternatively we might turn it into a child-friendly sand & gravel mine. tbc
• ‘Odd’ sponsor message content — just a quick note on this last line item but we are aware of a few Members — and in fact the heads of some other Youth Clubs — raising concerns about things they’ve seen in our Sponsor Messages. We’re really not at sure what the issue/s of concern might be but we’re 100% sure that the notion of there being any problem at all with any of the stuff Our Sponsors are paying us to tell you is, like, a _totally_crazy_idea_. So, respectfully, we suggest you drop it. (NB: Also if you want to be able to keep swimming in the Club Money Pool you need to stop asking awkward stuff or we might have to close the pool to non-Committee Members.)

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Hard Issue of the day :/

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Trouble With A Member

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I know we’re almost out of time for this week’s newsletter but — following on from the note about ‘Member Behavior’ — I wanted to take a short moment to remind all Members of the Club’s foundational commitment to freedom of expression at all costs.

Kids, if your reading level is strong enough you will understand that “at all costs” means there is actually a cost (but don’t worry, we’re not going to start charging you Membership fees!!! it’s not that kind of really bad cost) to the freedoms we enjoy here on campus. And, well, sometimes that cost means being forced to be bullied in public by an angry mob or having to know that some Members are going around campus telling others that your cherished siblings were in fact just a figment of your imagination and the tragic death they suffered at the hands of a gun-touting maniac is just your totally delusional fancy. Yep, life really can be that shitty sometimes! We’re not gonna lie to you!

Regretfully, this ‘cost’ also means that members of Our Community who are Jewish may well also hear some pretty random and totally untrue stuff being spread about their community on campus. Like that time one of our Member Societies put on an ‘alternative’ WWII fictional reconstruction in the theatre. Now Your Committee doesn’t for a moment believe that anyone on campus could have viewed this work as anything other than the piece of avant garde theatre it very obviously was (IMHO). (I mean, maybe a few Members thought it was an historically accurate reconstruction but really it’s the job of the rest of you kids to make fun of anyone crazy enough to believe such stupid stuff!!!) We sure don’t believe that kind of absolute crap. But, nonetheless, we’re 100% comfortable with our decision to operate an entirely open-door Membership Policy because Your TLB is entirely incapable of discriminating. I mean, if we did, where on Earth would it end?!? So even if a Member of Our Community happens to be a renowned fantasist with a record of shouting FIRE in theaters, or even a paid up member of a neo-nazi group which routinely denies historically verified episodes of ethnic cleansing, that’s totally not our problem — it’s theirs! We just provide the world’s over-13s with a soapbox to express their unvarnished selves, globally. What Members choose to do with the tools we provide to help them get their message out there is obviously none of our business!! (Although it is literally BH&FA YC’s business but how else would we fund the platform in the first place?!)

In any case, fact-checking is for qualified professionals who probably work for newspapers. And we are totally not that at all!!! [Edit note from Adam: Are there any newspapers left? Didn’t the Tribune close when you made the Newsletter a daily?] (Supplementary note from Boztank: Remember kids, Mark himself is Jewish. So if he can suck up Holocaust denial, so can you! As my grandpops used to say: ‘If a piece of baloney hasn’t blown your face off you’re winning because you’re not dead yet so stop whining ya cream-faced loon!’)

Last word from Mark: As Boztank has been saying for, like, almost before some of you were born, speech that is “distasteful and ignorant” is nothing to be worried about so long as you kids are totally prepared to just laugh it off (NB: We might use laughing gas for this too — see the Newsletter endnote for more on what we’re cooking up in the Innovation Labs). And, well, frankly speaking, a lot more people really need to grow up and learn that maniacs spouting total rubbish are just an unfortunate distraction from great Sponsor Message content. In any case, fact-checking is expensive — far too expensive for the Club Treasurer’s tastes!!

So, to wrap up, Your Committee wants to make it totally plain we’re 110% here to entertain your behavior — unruly, unreasonable or just plain stupid! Whatever the f— you like! (Just plank safely, eh! There have been a number of deaths related to selfie challenges lately and we’d really prefer you enjoy rather than kill yourselves!!!) And while we may not always be 100% comfortable about the views you’re espousing on campus, or via Club equipment (NB: We have another shipment of 200M Wi-Fi enabled megaphones arriving Wednesday so get gargling!!), we want all Members to know we’re fully behind you being a totally offensive f—. Period.

(Actually, if you or your parents bothered to read the small print that’s literally what our Founding Charter says. In any case, like Sheryl says, there’s no way Our Community would keep growing like the weed it has if we hadn’t let in any shitty idea that wants to crawl in off the street and set up a stink, crawl in off the street and set up a stink. She also says that BH&FA YC is like a compost heap: All shits are 100% welcome here. And: If it stinks, the Club Treasurer winks!!)

All we ask is that you kids play nice together. Because, regretfully, the bill for Clubhouse security staff has been rising alarmingly over the past several months — as more bouncers have been needed around campus to break up several pretty serious brawls. And, well, we have already stuffed the Newsletter to bursting with Sponsor Messages. So we do have some concerns about the depth of the Club Money Pool, going forward. We’ll be bringing you a more fulsome update on Club Finances in a future Newsletter (tbc — Wehner).

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One more thing!

Exciting Announcement… of a beta test to a Clubhouse Rule change!

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FIRE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes! Shouting fire in the cinema is now provisionally acceptable!!!

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We wanted to end the Newsletter with a bit of good news, so the TLB has decided to beta test letting Members yell “fire” or even “bomb” during screenings in the cinema. Or actually anything you fancy (why not get creative — like, by yelling ‘argh! alien facehugger squirting acid on my eyeballs!!!’).

Why? Because the TLB has decided that having a space where Members’ speech is constrained — even as a narrow health & safety precaution — was just FAR too risky for Community cohesion. So we’re removing it and saying ya-boo-sucks to the consequences!

But don’t worry! We’re putting Community Safety first by taking precautions to keep all Members safe. (For example, we’ve covered all sharp edges in the cinema with foam padding to prevent anyone from being impaled during any panic-induced stampedes for the exit. But please remember there’s only one exit — so play safe kids! Definitely try not to crush each other to death!!! (NB: The Committee would like to take this opportunity to remind all Members that an ‘in the event of my death and/or horrific personal injury’ legal waiver was signed by all of you when you joined the Club so anyone with litigious parents should warn them not to get any ideas. (Yes, we know Colin is leaving but that’s not until after Thanksgiving.))

The Committee is also considering installing facial recognition technology in the cinema Wi-Fi-connected to laughing gas canisters which would be triggered in the event of anyone getting overly emotional in there. Our idea is that the gas could be automatically dispensed if any Members became hysterical, or, well, overly sad — thereby distracting people and preventing risky stampedes. (NB: This exciting Club innovation is still a work in progress but we’ll be sure to keep you updated on progress in future Newsletters. See our quasi-regular: ‘What’s Mark Cooking In The Lab’ section)

And that’s about all for today kids! Feel free to unstrap from your Oculus for now (for those of you special early adopters out there!) — and it’s adios amigos until tomorrow, when we’ll be right back in your face with more exciting BH&FA YC news!!!!

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Warning: Anyone caught leaking Club policies or information WILL HAVE THEIR MEMBERSHIP REVOKED AND BE BANNED FOR LIFE. Members contravening this rule will also be physically removed from campus (should they be here at the time) with zero opportunity to collect any personal belongings or say goodbye to any friends. Personal items will be piled in the yard and used as fuel for the next Club Cook-Out which will kick off with a competition to see which member can shout ‘Speak don’t leak!’ the loudest. One winner will be selected by Mark and given a bite of his prime brisket. Appeals are impossible.  

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Still here?!?!?!?!!!!!!!!

Additional really important information from the committee: Uhhhh, Alex just told me that the Committee room where we keep the PAM records, going back to ~2005, was left unlocked for, like, the past decade(ish). A quick review of our CCTV records appears to show a small army of unknown persons coming and going pretty steadily over the years. It looks like these complete strangers were systematically helping themselves to PAM stored in the Club register. Some of these non-members appeared to have used the same Clubhouse parking lot as our ~3,000 regular campus data partners — arriving in vans painted with names like ‘N.Y. Data uLike UnLtd’ and ‘Other Peoples’ info 4 you Inc.’ — perhaps seeking to blend in beside the totally reputable businesses we’ve been sharing all your information with for, like, ever, in order to undertake their totally nefarious theft of your PAM. So we’re really sorry about that! Sheesh! If it helps Sheryl was super mad with us and didn’t speak to us for, like, a week after she found out :o( Anyway it’s totally fine now because we have put an actual lock on the door. Phew! (NB: Anyone wondering if they can claim competition for the Committee’s total failure to protect your privacy should refer to the Compensation Claims Waiver Clause in the Club Charter which everyone signed by default when they joined (by clicking a button saying ‘yes I want to collect my free Brisket hamburger! & register for Club Membership! & I’m super happy to let Mark be totally responsible for all my data’). Feel free to ring Colin for a cry if you like. Thanks! – Your MZ) 

© BH&FA YC
MZ: Winners don’t leak — they speak!

We extended our deadline for early-bird passes to Disrupt San Francisco 2018, which takes place on September 5-7, but your chance to save up to $1,200 is rapidly slipping away. In four days — that’s August 1 at midnight PST — the early bird heads north, and so do the ticket prices. Don’t miss out on the best pricing — buy your tickets today.

Disrupt San Francisco always packs tremendous value into three short days. What can you expect? You’ll always find world-class speakers at Disrupt, and this year that includes Clark Valberg, CEO of InVision, a company on its way to becoming the Salesforce of the design world. We’re also thrilled to have Brian Brackeen, CEO and founder of Kairos, an innovator in facial recognition. The Wall Street Journal named his company one of the top 25 startups in the country. And that’s just a taste. Check out the full agenda here.

Incomparable networking opportunities await the more than 10,000 attendees, and CrunchMatch — our free business match-making service that connects early-stage startup founders and investors who share similar business interests and profiles — cuts through the clutter, reduces unproductive conversations and saves a lot of shoe leather in the process.

Don’t miss more networking opportunities in Startup Alley. Our exhibition floor is the very heart of Disrupt SF, and it will feature more than 1,200 amazing early-stage startups and exhibitors showcasing a startling range of technological innovation, with a particular emphasis on these buzzing categories: AI, AR/VR, Blockchain, Biotech/Healthtech, Fintech, Gaming, Privacy/Security, Space, Mobility, Retail or Robotics/IoT.

We decided to do something special with our traditional Hackathon this year, and by that we mean we took it global. The Virtual Hackathon includes literally thousands of the world’s best tech-heads, coders, designers and programmers working feverishly to create incredible products. The best hack wins $10,000 and, thanks to our generous sponsors, we also have a bunch of very cool hack contests that offer thousands of dollars in cash and prizes.

Of course, no Disrupt is complete without the wild ride that we call Startup Battlefield. Our premier startup-pitch competition is the star of the show, and this year we doubled the stakes. An audience of thousands will watch as the best early-stage startups compete for $100,000 in non-equity cash and a potentially life-altering experience. This Startup Battlefield will be epic.

Opportunity, excitement, camaraderie and fun. It all goes down at Disrupt San Francisco 2018 on September 5-7. Don’t miss your chance to experience it at the lowest possible price. Depending on which type of pass you choose, you can save up to $1,200. Early-bird prices disappear in just four days on August 1 at midnight PST. Buy your tickets today.

BMW will in a few days start rolling out to many of its drivers support for Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant. The fact that BWM is doing this doesn’t come as a surprise, given that it has long talked about its plans to bring Alexa — and potentially other personal assistants like Cortana and the Google Assistant — to its cars. Ahead of its official launch in Germany, Austria, the U.S. and U.K. (with other countries following at a later date), I went to Munich to take a look at what using Alexa in a BMW is all about.

As Dieter May, BMW’s senior VP for digital products told me earlier this year, the company has long held that in-car digital assistants have to be more than just an “Echo Dot in a cup holder,” meaning that they have to be deeply integrated into the experience and the rest of the technology in the car. And that’s exactly what BMW has done here — and it has done it really well.

What maybe surprised me the most was that we’re not just talking about the voice interface here. BMW is working directly with the Alexa team at Amazon to also integrate visual responses from Alexa. Using the tablet-like display you find above the center console of most new BMWs, the service doesn’t just read out the answer but also shows additional facts or graphs when warranted. That means Alexa in a BMW is a lot more like using an Echo Show than a Dot (though you’re obviously not going to be able to watch any videos on it).

In the demo I saw, in a 2015 BMW X5 that was specifically rigged to run Alexa ahead of the launch, the display would activate when you ask for weather information, for example, or for queries that returned information from a Wikipedia post.

What’s cool here is that the BMW team styled these responses using the same design language that also governs the company’s other in-car products. So if you see the weather forecast from Alexa, that’ll look exactly like the weather forecast from BMW’s own Connected Drive system. The only difference is the “Alexa” name at the top-left of the screen.

All of this sounds easy, but I’m sure it took a good bit of negotiation with Amazon to build a system like this, especially because there’s an important second part to this integration that’s quite unique. The queries, which you start by pushing the usual “talk” button in the car (in newer models, the Alexa wake word feature will also work), are first sent to BMW’s servers before they go to Amazon. BMW wants to keep control over the data and ensure its users’ privacy, so it added this proxy in the middle. That means there’s a bit of an extra lag in getting responses from Amazon, but the team is working hard on reducing this, and for many of the queries we tried during my demo, it was already negligible.

As the team told me, the first thing it had to build was a way to switch that can route your queries to the right service. The car, after all, already has a built-in speech recognition service that lets you set directions in the navigation system, for example. Now, it has to recognize that the speaker said “Alexa” at the beginning of the query, then route it to the Alexa service. The team also stressed that we’re talking about a very deep integration here. “We’re not just streaming everything through your smartphone or using some plug-and-play solution,” a BMW spokesperson noted.

“You get what you’d expect from BMW, a deep integration, and to do that, we use the technology we already have in the car, especially the built-in SIM card.”

One of the advantages of Alexa’s open ecosystem is its skills. Not every skill makes sense in the context of the car, and some could be outright distracting, so the team is curating a list of skills that you’ll be able to use in the car.

It’s no secret that BMW is also working with Microsoft (and many of its cloud services run on Azure). BMW argues that Alexa and Cortana have different strengths, though, with Cortana being about productivity and a connection to Office 365, for example. It’s easy to imagine a future where you could call up both Alexa and Cortana from your car — and that’s surely why BMW built its own system for routing voice commands and why it wants to have control over this process.

BMW tells me that it’ll look at how users will use the new service and tune it accordingly. Because a lot of the functionality runs in the cloud, updates are obviously easy and the team can rapidly release new features — just like any other software company.