Month: July 2018

Virgin Galactic is celebrating the third successful supersonic test flight of VSS Unity, the passenger spacecraft it intends to make available for space tourism in the near future. This flight took the craft higher and faster than ever, stressing the system and providing useful data for the rocket plane’s engineers.

Virgin’s two-part flight system uses a traditional jet-powered plane, the WhiteKnightTwo-class VMS Eve, to carry the spacecraft up to about 45,000 feet, after which the latter detaches and zooms ahead (and upward) on rocket power.

Each of Unity’s flights has pushed its specs a bit further: The first one, in April, achieved Mach 1.6 and just over 84,000 feet of altitude. The second, in May, hit Mach 1.9 and reached 114,500 feet.

Today’s went to Mach 2 and got up to 170,000 feet, touching the Earth’s mesosphere before gliding down to a soft landing. It’s still not nearly to space; the Karman Line, where space “officially” begins, is about twice as high. But at this rate it sure just seems like a matter of time before they get up there.

Importantly, the rocket powering Unity’s flight burned this time for 42 seconds, well over the 30 seconds or so it’s been fired for until now. These tests necessarily have to advance degree by degree, but going from 30 to 42 is a big jump that the engineers are probably thrilled about.

“Having been a U2 pilot and done a lot of high altitude work, or what I thought was high altitude work, the view from 170,000 feet was just totally amazing,” said one of the pilots, Mike “Sooch” Masucci, in a Virgin Galactic press release. “The flight was exciting and frankly beautiful. We were able to complete a large number of test points which will give us good insight as we progress to our goal of commercial service.”

The team is working on analyzing the data from this flight, and of course inspecting and tweaking the spacecraft, and we can probably expect another test flight in the next few months.

Editor’s note: This post was done in partnership with Wirecutter. When readers choose to buy Wirecutter’s independently chosen editorial picks, Wirecutter and TechCrunch may earn affiliate commissions.

One of the many ways to take full advantage of the summer is by attending long-awaited happenings and events. Summer festivals of all sorts come around every year, and they’re even better with a few friends — plus some extras to make the experience more memorable. No matter the type of event, having gear that allows you to kick back, keeps you hydrated and powered makes any festival day worthwhile.

Inflatable couch: Live Infinitely Inflatable Air Lounger

For music festivals and events that have areas for camping or lounging (while waiting for the band you actually came to see), an inflatable couch will come in handy. The Live Infinitely Inflatable Air Lounger is 7 feet long, so it’s big enough to sit three people, or for one person to stretch out.

It comes with a stake to keep it from blowing away when it’s not in use, stays inflated longer than other couches we tested and folds down into a portable pack. Use its side pockets to store your phone, a water bottle and other belongings while you kick back and soak up the sun.

Instant Printer: Fujifilm Instax Share SP-2

Taking pictures to capture time spent at an exciting festival is a given. Though when attending with family or friends — especially those who you may not see often — having something tangible to take home makes the outing even better.

The Fujifilm Instax Share SP-2 is the instant printer pick in our instant camera guide, and we like that it’s portable and produces old-school Polaroid prints straight from a smartphone or tablet. It works through the Instax Share app and allows for filters and borders to be added to your snapshots. You can print one picture in about 10 seconds, or print multiples of one image for passing out to your group.

Lenses for iPhone Photography: Moment New Tele Lens & Moment New Wide Lens

When you get tired of taking group selfies and want to capture videos and pictures of the main event, a good smartphone lens attachment can help with getting closer to the action. While some smartphone cameras produce good photos, a lens attachment can further expand your phone’s field of view or extend the optical zoom without distorting images.

For photography enthusiasts who are fine attending events without a professional camera, our lens attachment picks for iPhones, the Moment New Tele Lens (for closer, high-quality shots) and the Moment New Wide Lens (for crisp, wide-angle photos) are great alternatives and offer more portability. They’re an improvement on the iPhone camera and are mounted on a case for lens attachments.

USB Battery pack: Anker PowerCore 20100

Spending long days at a fair or similar event means your phone will likely run out of juice before you’re ready to go. Bringing along a USB battery pack ensures that you’ll be able to stay powered while you’re having fun — and long after when you need to round up friends or call a ride.

The is small enough to fit in a backpack or purse and it has enough power to charge one smartphone everyday for nearly a week. It also can simultaneously charge two USB devices at full speed and will keep them powered for days before the battery pack itself needs to be recharged.

Growler: Miir 64 oz. Growler

Since you can’t bring a fan or AC everywhere, it’s almost necessary to have a drink or two on hand when you’re outside in the heat for long periods of time. For events that allow outside beverages, carrying them in a growler is a great way to keep them fresh, cold or hot.

We put eight growlers to the test and the Miir 64 oz. Growler had the best-tasting beer and fizzy drinks. We like the Miir’s design and that it’s easy to drink from, seal and handle. Its lid can be fully detached, which makes cleaning it by hand a bit easier. With a 64 oz. capacity, you’ll have more than enough of your favorite drink to last throughout the day, or to share.

This guide may have been updated by Wirecutter. When readers choose to buy Wirecutter’s independently chosen editorial picks, Wirecutter and Engadget may earn affiliate commissions.

Car2go, the free-floating car-sharing service owned by Daimler, launched in Chicago this week — the company’s 25th market globally. The car-sharing company, which lets customers rent out vehicles on a short-term basis, has been steadily expanding in the past several years, adding to and changing up its fleet beyond the diminutive Smart cars that were once the lone option for customers.

This launch stands out because it’s the first time in four years that car2go has added a U.S. city to its ranks. The last time car2go added a U.S. city was New York in 2014.

The car-sharing service has more than 3.3 million members worldwide, of which about 1 million are in the U.S. and Canada — a 25 percent growth over the prior year, according to the company. Today, the car-share service offers Mercedes-Benz CLA and GLA, as well as the two-door Smartfortwo vehicles.

Daimler was one of the first automakers to get into the car-sharing business. And others have followed, some of which have announced plans just in the past few months. In 2016, BMW’s ReachNow re-launched in North America and GM started Maven, which recently expanded its offerings to a peer-to-peer car-sharing service in Chicago, Detroit and Ann Arbor, Michigan. VW Group announced in July it will launch a car-sharing service next year in Germany that uses only electric vehicles, with plans to expand to other major cities in Europe, North America and Asia beginning in 2020. Volvo and Renault have also announced plans for a car-sharing service.

This automaker-jumps-into-car-sharing-story is indicative of a bigger trend within an auto industry grappling with how to earn money beyond the traditional business of building and selling cars. And this period of transition and experimentation isn’t likely to slow down.

If anything, expect more tinkering. For instance, Daimler announced Thursday it would break itself into three separate units — focused on trucks, its Mercedes-Benz car division and mobility — in a massive restructuring aimed at helping it keep pace with the emergence of automated and electric vehicles.

ProtonMail is arguably the easiest way to send end-to-end encrypted emails. But encryption only works by default with other ProtonMail users. The company is adding full PGP support so that you can send and receive encrypted emails with people who use other apps and services.

ProtonMail is pretty much like iMessage or WhatsApp, but for email. All communications between two users are seamlessly encrypted. It’s transparent for the end user as you don’t need to manage encryption keys yourself.

But encrypted emails have been around for longer than ProtonMail. OpenPGP-compliant apps let you encrypt and digitally sign emails before sending them, even if your recipient isn’t using the same app. On the recipient’s side, you can check the sender’s signature and decrypt the message.

But PGP requires that both senders and recipients know how to use the standard. There are many extensions and plugins to use PGP in email apps. And now, ProtonMail lets you manage PGP communications directly in its service.

ProtonMail was already using PGP in the background. But now, the service is exposing those features to advanced users. You can import PGP public keys for your contacts and export your own key to share it with others. Encryption and decryption is then fully automated.

In order to make that possible, ProtonMail is launching an API to fetch public key encryption keys from ProtonMail users. Many users put their PGP key on their Twitter profile or website. But if you already know the ProtonMail email address of your recipient, you can get it from your browser directly (https://api.protonmail.ch/pks/lookup?op=get&search=username@protonmail.com).

Finally, exposing public keys also enables a new feature — address verification. If a server gets compromised or there’s a Man-in-the-Middle attack, a person could send an email pretending to be you but with a completely different set of public and private keys.

If you’re handling highly sensitive information, you can now manually verify the address of a specific contact. For instance, if you’re meeting with a contact in person, this person can show you their public key so that you can check it against your inbox. If those two keys are identical, you can choose to trust this key for future communications.

This is an overkill for your vacation photos, but Edward Snowden would love this kind of feature. ProtonMail is keeping basic encryption features accessible while giving more control to power users. This is a great way to get started and learn more about PGP, public and private keys as well as best practices.

Tickets to the TechCrunch Summer Party at August Capital are on the verge of selling out. If you want to attend our 13^th annual summer fete on July 27, there’s no time to waste. Reserve your ticket right now.

This event draws an incredible mix of Silicon Valley’s startup community — a who’s who of founders, investors, tech makers, movers and shakers. It’s an excellent way to connect over cocktails and celebrate our shared entrepreneurial spirit in a relaxed atmosphere. And it all goes down on the beautiful grounds of August Capital in Menlo Park.

Here’s the basic when-where-and-how-much info you need to know:

• July 27, 5:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
• August Capital in Menlo Park
• Ticket price: $95

A quick reminder that if you have an early-stage startup, it’s not too late to buy a Summer Party demo table. It’s the perfect opportunity to showcase your business in front of all the right people in a casual, convivial atmosphere. Each demo table includes four Summer Party tickets. Learn more about demo tables here.

And of course, it wouldn’t be a TechCrunch event without door prizes to keep things interesting, including TechCrunch swag, Amazon Echos and tickets to Disrupt San Francisco 2018.

The TechCrunch Summer Party at August Capital is about to sell out. If you want to share a friendly evening of cocktails and relaxed networking in a beautiful setting with your startup peers, you need to buy your ticket today. We can’t wait to see you there!

Finally a little justice for the scammers who prey on the unsuspecting. Twenty four more phone scammers have been received prison sentences of up to 20 years for fraud and money laundering. The extent of their efforts was truly staggering.

One defendant, Miteshkumar Patel of Illinois received 240 months in prison followed by three years of probation. Patel, wrote the Department of Justice, “served as the manager of a Chicago-based crew of ‘runners’ that liquidated and laundered fraud proceeds generated by callers at India-based call centers.”

Those callers used call scripts and lead lists to target victims throughout the United States with telefraud schemes in which the callers impersonated U.S. government employees from the IRS and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). The callers duped victims into believing that they owed money to the U.S. government and would be arrested or deported if they did not pay immediately. After the victims transferred money to the callers, a network of U.S.-based runners moved expeditiously to liquidate and launder fraud proceeds through the use of anonymous stored value cards. In addition to recruiting, training, and tasking runners in his crew, Patel also coordinated directly with the Indian side of the conspiracy about the operation of the scheme. Patel was held accountable for laundering between $9.5 and $25 million for the scheme.

The scam – familiar to anyone with a phone number – involves a robocall that appears to be from the IRS. When you call back, you get a call center staffed with threatening non-English speakers who yell at you if you try to weasel out of paying them with iTunes gift cards.

“This type of fraud is sickening,” said U.S. Attorney Ryan Patrick in a release. “However, after years of investigation and incredible hard work by multiple agents and attorneys, these con artists are finally headed to prison. Their cruel tactics preyed on some very vulnerable people, thereby stealing millions from them. These sentences should send a strong message that we will follow the trail no matter how difficult and seek justice for those victimized by these types of transnational schemes. We will simply not stand by and allow criminals to use the names of legitimate government agencies to enrich themselves by victimizing others.”

The fact that up to $25 million was collected in this scam is amazing. The resourcefulness and nastiness of this particular breed of scam is truly impressive and Patel and 23 others will be going away for a while for their many crimes.

Ride-hailing, social interactions from behind tiny screens and fitness tracking are just a few of the things we’ve all become accustomed to thanks to innovative app-makers. It’s not often that we think of tech serving society for good. But it’s time we do.

Promise, mRelief, Pigeon.ly and Concrn are four companies that, from the start, set out to have a positive impact on society. The heads of these startups  have identified issues that plague society and that few people take the time to consider. Bail reform, easier access to food stamps, communication with incarcerated individuals and helping people in need are not sexy issues. But you can utilize tech to try to fix them, and you can hear all about it at Disrupt SF.

The issue of bail reform has gained traction in recent years and has been espoused by the likes of California Senator Kamala Harris and Rand Paul, as well as civil liberties groups. That’s because 62 percent of the jail population is behind bars because they can’t afford bail. The premise of Promise is that it serves as a cheaper alternative to incarceration by partnering with counties to monitor the whereabouts of low-risk offenders via an app, rather than keeping them locked up until trial.

“People are going to jail because they look at a piece of paper and misread it, or are going to jail because they can’t afford a class because they’re instead paying child support,” Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, Promise co-founder, told TechCrunch in March when the company raised a $3 million round led by First Round Capital, with Jay-Z’s Roc Nation participating.

Like Promise, mRelief is a service that partners with government. The company’s platform is designed to help cut through bureaucratic tape that can prevent people from accessing important services. Either using a web app or text messaging, users can determine their eligibility to receive food stamp services. Recent updates to the platform now let users in certain locations to go through the entire application process using the web or SMS platform.

“Our mission has long been to restore dignity by transforming access to social services,” Rose Afriyie, mRelief co-founder and executive director, told TechCrunch earlier this year.

The company has helped more than 230,000 families since launching out of Y Combinator in 2016.

Incarcerated individuals are already cut off from society, and when calling friends and family is too cost-prohibitive, it intensifies the isolation. Frederick Hutson, CEO of Pigeon.ly, started the company to help minimize those costs. Hutson, who served four years in prison for drug trafficking, knows all too well the burden this creates. Since the company was founded in 2012, its services have expanded beyond voice. It also allows users to connect to their inmates with photos and letters.

In San Francisco, there is an app that allows users to help people in need. Currently available only in the Tenderloin in San Francisco, Concrn was designed to provide an alternative to calling emergency services. If a user sees someone in emotional or behavioral crisis, they can use the app to report it to a trained Concrn Responder. This helps to alleviate stress on the 911 system and prevents people from unwillingly going into the medical system.

“Our focus has been to create economic opportunities for people in the Tenderloin community who have previously been marginalized or unable to access employment and also people who have experienced their own mental health crisis in the past,” Neil Shah, Concrn co-executive director, told TechCrunch last year.

Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, Rose Afriyie, Frederick Hutson and Neil Shah will be on the Disrupt SF stage in just a few weeks to talk about using technology to effect change in a society that badly needs it.

The full agenda is here. Passes for the show are available at the early-bird rate until August 1 here.

TechCrunch will partner with Greylock for Include Office Hours on September 4th from 2-4pm. The day before TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco, Greylock investors Sarah Guo, Saam Motamedi, Matt Heiman, and Seth Rosenberg will meet with underrepresented and underserved entrepreneurs to provide key feedback and advice. Founders, apply here!

Founded in 2014, TechCrunch launched the Include Program in an effort to leverage the extensive TechCrunch network to facilitate opportunities for underserved groups and founders. The Include Office Hours Program is one such initiative.

TechCrunch collaborates with investors to host private 20-minute sessions with startups, where founders can ask for guidance on critical business issues. During September’s Include Office Hours, Greylock will be meeting with 24 companies. To be considered for a session with these investors, fill out this application.

Unlike previous Office Hours, TechCrunch is looking for startups in the following verticals: Enterprise, B2B, Healthcare, Security, Infrastructure, Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, SaaS, Fintech, Digital Commerce, Travel, Real Estate, Marketplaces, Messaging, E-commerce, Gaming and Crypto.

Underserved and underrepresented founders include but are not limited to female founders, black, Latino/a, Asian, LGBTQ, veteran, formerly incarcerated and people with disabilities.

Let’s meet our investors:

Sarah Guo – Enterprise, SaaS, B2B, Healthcare, Security and Infrastructure

Sarah’s mission is to partner with founders to productize disruptive ideas, get advantaged distribution and build dominant businesses. Sarah invests in enterprise-focused opportunities in SaaS, B2B, healthcare tech and infrastructure and security. Sarah has led Greylock’s investment in Cleo and is on the board of Cleo and Obsidian Security. She also works closely with Awake Security, Crew, Rhumbix and Skyhigh Networks. She is an advocate for STEM education for women and the underserved.

Saam Motamedi – Big Data, Artificial Intelligence and SaaS

Saam works with entrepreneurs building the next generation of enterprise companies with a focus on applications, big data, AI and vertical SaaS. He works closely with Blend, Spoke and Avi Networks. Prior to Greylock, Saam co-founded Guru Labs, a startup that uses machine learning to turn credit card transaction data into sales for offline merchants by predicting customer preferences.

Matt Heiman – Fintech, Digital Commerce, Travel, Real Estate and Marketplaces

Matt partners with entrepreneurs building companies around fintech, digital commerce, travel, real estate, and marketplaces. He sourced and works closely with Greylock’s investment in Coinbase and several more companies not yet announced. Prior to joining Greylock, Matt was a growth equity investor at Lee Equity Partners, and before that worked as a consultant at McKinsey & Company, where he managed teams advising Fortune 500 clients across a number of industries.

Seth Rosenberg – Messaging, E-commerce, Gaming, Crypto and Marketplaces

Seth partners with entrepreneurs who are building consumer products and platforms, including messaging, e-commerce, gaming, marketplaces and crypto. Seth works closely with Mammoth Media, DIRT Protocol and companies that are still in stealth. Prior to joining Greylock, Seth worked as a product manager at Facebook, where he led Product for the Messenger Developer Platform. Before Facebook, Seth worked at Goldman Sachs in New York doing tech and media investment banking.

If you are an investor, partner or managing director at a fund interested in hosting Include Office Hours, email neesha@techcrunch.com.

When Microsoft acquired GitHub for $7.5 billion smackeroos in June, it sent some shock waves through the developer community as it is a key code repository. Google certainly took notice, but the two companies continue to work closely together. Today at Google Next, they announced an expansion of their partnership around Google’s new CI/CD tool, Cloud Build, which was unveiled this week at the conference.

Politics aside, the purpose of the integration is to make life easier for developers by reducing the need to switch between tools. If GitHub recognizes a Docker file without a corresponding CI/CD tool, the developer will be prompted to grab one from the GitHub Marketplace with Google Cloud Build offered prominently as one of the suggested tools.

Should the developer choose to install Cloud Build, that’s where the tight integration comes into play. Developers can run Cloud Build against their code directly from GitHub, and the results will appear directly in the GitHub interface. They won’t have to switch applications to make this work together, and that should go a long way toward saving developer time and effort.

This is part of GitHub’s new “Smart Recommendations,” which will be rolling out to users in the coming months.

Melody Meckfessel, VP of Engineering for Google Cloud says that the two companies have a history and a context and they have always worked extremely well together on an engineer-to-engineer level. “We have been working together from an engineering standpoint for so many years. We both believe in doing the right thing for developers. We believe that success as it relates to cloud adoption comes from collaborating in the ecosystem,” she said.

Given that close relationship, it had to be disappointing on some level when Microsoft acquired GitHub. In fact, Google Cloud head, Diane Greene expressed sadness about the deal in an interview with CNBC earlier this week, but GitHub’s SVP of Technology Jason Warner believes that Microsoft will be a good steward and that the relationship with Google will remain strong.

Warner says the company’s founding principles were about not getting locked in to any particularly platform and he doesn’t see that changing after the acquisition is finalized. “One of the things that was critical in any discussion about an acquisition was that GitHub shall remain an open platform,” Warner explained.

He indicated that today’s announcement is just a starting point, and the two companies intend to build on this integration moving forward. “We worked pretty closely on this together. This announcement is a nod to some of the future oriented partnerships that we will be announcing later in the year,” he said. And that partnership should continue unabated, even after the Microsoft acquisition is finalized later this year.