Month: August 2018

Here is a strange little online community to puzzle at. Amazon has developed an unnerving, Stepford-like presence on Twitter in the form of several accounts of definitely real on-the-floor workers who regurgitate talking points and assure the world that all is right in the company’s infamously punishing warehouse jobs.

After Flamboyant Shoes Guy called out the phenomenon, I found 15 accounts (please don’t abuse them — they get enough of that already). All with “Amazon smiles” as their backgrounds and several with animals as profile pictures. All have the same bio structure: “(Job titles) @(warehouse shorthand location). (Duration) Amazonian. (2- or 3-item list of things they like.)” All have “FC Ambassador” in their name. All have links to an Amazon warehouse tour service.

And all ceaselessly communicate upbeat messages about how great it is to work at an Amazon warehouse and assuring everyone that they are not being forced to do this. The messages all seem cut from the same cloth, frequently along the same exact patterns:

The workers say that they don’t receive compensation for being ambassadors; it’s a “totally optional role” they have taken on voluntarily. They also claim to be warehouse employees in the ordinary sense. If so, they’re putting their numbers at risk by taking the time out to bang out long tweets hourly on how great they’re doing.

Their most frequent topics of conversation are how they get bathroom breaks, the pleasant temperature of the warehouses, the excellent benefits and suitable wages, friendly management, and how the job isn’t monotonous or tiring at all. FC Ambassador Carol, for example, is downright elated to be a picker, and is clearly a Bezos admirer.

You can practically hear the smile on her face.

I have a friend who worked as a picker for a while, admittedly some years back. He said it was some of the most mind-numbing yet physically demanding work he’s ever done. I understand that some folks may just be happy to have a job with full pay and benefits — I’d never begrudge anyone that, I’ve sure felt that — but the unanimous and highly specific positivity on display in these ambassador accounts really seems like something else.

It’s no secret, after all, that Amazon has an image problem when it comes to labor. Reports have for years described grueling labor at these “fulfillment centers,” where footsore workers must meet ever-increasing daily goals, their time rigidly structured and room for advancement cramped. Just recently Gizmodo’s Brian Menegus has had a couple great stories on current — not past — labor conditions at the company, and of course there have been dozens of such stories detailing exploitation or generally poor conditions over the last few years. And not just here in the U.S., either.

Certainly Amazon may have improved those conditions. And certainly they would want to get the message out. But these accounts are equally certainly not the grassroots advocacy they seem to be. (There’s already a parody account, naturally, or perhaps one of the ambassadors slipped the leash.)

I’ve asked Amazon for more details on what this program really consists of, and how it comes to pass that warehouse workers are being not paid to monitor Twitter, regularly rebutting critics with clearly canned stats and the kind of forced humor one would imagine they would indulge in if their overalls hid a shock collar. I’ll update this post if I hear back.

Amidst Facebook’s biggest branding crisis, it’s just hired a veteran CMO formerly of Pepsi and Visa to boost the social network’s external image and cross-promote features inside its apps. Antonio Lucio today announced he’ll be leaving his role as HP’s CMO after three years to take that post at Facebook starting September 4th. He’s replacing Gary Briggs, who in January said he’d be stepping down after five years to advise companies and work with the Democrats.

Lucio’s hispanic background and his efforts to champion inclusion will bring needed diversity to Facebook’s management, whose CEO, COO, CFO, CTO and CFO are all white.

Lucio will report to Chief Product Officer Chris Cox and be part of Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg’s leadership team.  Facebook confirms he’ll work across the company’s family of apps, including Instagram and WhatsApp, which both lack a named CMO. Prior to HP, Lucio was Visa’s chief marketing and communications officer for seven years, and had been at PepsiCo leading innovation and beverage marketing for eight years before that.

“Facebook’s story is at an inflection point. We have never faced bigger challenges, and we have never had more opportunities to have a positive impact on the world — in our families, our friendships, our communities, and our democracy — by improving our products at their core, and then by telling the story outside that we all know to be true inside,” Cox wrote on Facebook. “[Lucio] has been outspoken on the need to build authentic global brands with integrity and from places of principle, and also on the importance of building diverse teams at every level in the organization.”

Lucio is well-versed in the flowery philosophical rhetoric common at Facebook. He describes himself on LinkedIn as someone “who’s mission in life is to build brands that stand the test of time. These brands are anchored in purpose; have a meaningful impact on people’s lives; are built through strong emotional connections; behave with integrity and are constantly reinventing themselves to deliver their purpose.”

Lucio’s public persona sees him frequently retweeting accolades for his female peers. He’s been named the No. 2 most influential CMO by Forbes, and has received awards from PR Week and Women In Marketing for pushing diversity. At HP, he helped launched the #MoreLikeMe campaign to increase the number of women in leadership roles, growing their percentage amongst top HP marketing jobs from 20 percent to 50 percent. He credits this with contributing to a 6 percent year-over-year boost in HP’s brand preference scores. You can see him talk more about the initiative on Cheddar above.

Sandberg writes that “Antonio has a lot of experience leading marketing for major brands like HP and Visa — and he’s been recognized for both his talents and commitment to diversity.” She’ll benefit from the help repairing Facebook’s brand after a string of troubles ranging from Cambridge Analytica to election interference, slowing user growth to worries that too much Facebooking can hurt our well-being. A job listing for the CMO role mentioned candidates would need to be able to “guide a brand’s reputation and experience in crisis management.”

Facebook has recently undertaken a massive apology ad campaign on TV, bus stops and elsewhere, touting that it understands its responsibility to keep elections and users’ data safe. But Lucio will need to translate all of Facebook’s nitty-gritty behind-the-scenes work on these issues into comprehensible messaging that keeps users from straying from the social network.

Meanwhile, he’ll also be in charge of Facebook product marketing. With so many features packed into the app and fighting for attention, Lucio will have to decide what to highlight and how. The question is whether he’ll think more holistically, supporting the natural cannibalization of Facebook by its fresher-faced acquisitions, or put big blue first.

“Purpose and impact have been at the center of every career decision that I have ever made,” Lucio told TechCrunch in a statement. “Facebook is one of the world’s most impactful brands, at a pivotal moment in its history. I am honored to join the team and support its evolution.” Indeed, it’s time for Facebook to evolve, but Lucio will have to prove he can be the wartime leader it needs.

AWS Lightsail, which launched in 2016, is Amazon’s answer to the rise of Digital Ocean, OVH and other affordable virtual private server (VPS) players. Lightsail started as a pretty basic service, but over the course of the last two years, AWS added features like block storage, Windows support and additional regions.

Today, the company announced it is launching two new instance sizes and cutting in half the price of most Linux-based Lightsail instances. Windows instances are also getting cheaper, though the price cut there is closer to 30 percent for most instances.

The only Linux instance that isn’t getting a full 50 percent cut is the $5/month 512 MB instance, which will now cost $3.50. That’s not too bad, either. Depending on your needs, 512 MB can be enough to run a few projects, so if you don’t need a full 1 GB, you can save a few dollars by going with Lightsail over Digital Ocean’s smallest $5/month 1 GB instance. Indeed, it’s probably no surprise that Lightsail’s 1 GB instance now also costs $5/month.

All instance types come with attached SSD storage, SSH access, a static IP address and all of the other features you’d expect from a VPS hosting service.

As usual, Windows instances cost a bit more (those Windows licenses aren’t free, after all) and now start at $8 per month for a 512 MB instances. The more usable 1 GB instance will set you back $12 per month.

As for the new instance sizes, the new 16 GB instance will feature 4 vCPUs, 320 GB of storage and a generous 6 TB of data transfer. The 32 GB instance doubles the vCPU and storage numbers and offers 7 TB of data transfer.

AWS Lightsail, which launched in 2016, is Amazon’s answer to the rise of Digital Ocean, OVH and other affordable virtual private server (VPS) players. Lightsail started as a pretty basic service, but over the course of the last two years, AWS added features like block storage, Windows support and additional regions.

Today, the company announced it is launching two new instance sizes and cutting in half the price of most Linux-based Lightsail instances. Windows instances are also getting cheaper, though the price cut there is closer to 30 percent for most instances.

The only Linux instance that isn’t getting a full 50 percent cut is the $5/month 512 MB instance, which will now cost $3.50. That’s not too bad, either. Depending on your needs, 512 MB can be enough to run a few projects, so if you don’t need a full 1 GB, you can save a few dollars by going with Lightsail over Digital Ocean’s smallest $5/month 1 GB instance. Indeed, it’s probably no surprise that Lightsail’s 1 GB instance now also costs $5/month.

All instance types come with attached SSD storage, SSH access, a static IP address and all of the other features you’d expect from a VPS hosting service.

As usual, Windows instances cost a bit more (those Windows licenses aren’t free, after all) and now start at $8 per month for a 512 MB instances. The more usable 1 GB instance will set you back $12 per month.

As for the new instance sizes, the new 16 GB instance will feature 4 vCPUs, 320 GB of storage and a generous 6 TB of data transfer. The 32 GB instance doubles the vCPU and storage numbers and offers 7 TB of data transfer.

Lyft is going to offer half-priced and free rides to polling places around the country on Election Day (November 6).

The ride-hailing giant said that it’s going to give out 50 percent off promotional codes to partners that encourage voter turnout. The company has linked up with Vote.org, Nonprofit VOTE, TurboVote and others to help distribute the codes to anyone who needs them.

On the day of the election the company said it will also provide a product integration that will help voters find their polling places to make it even easier to cast their ballot.

This non-partisan effort to get people to the polls is only becoming more critical. Election officials in one county in Georgia have proposed closing 7 of 9 polling places because they’re not sufficiently accessible for handicapped voters. Having Lyft available to help those voters who would be impacted by the closures (some of whom would have to walk three hours to get to the nearest open polls) could certainly be a boon.

As the company noted in its announcement, there’s a participation problem impacting elections in the U.S. Estimates from the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement indicate that roughly 15 million people didn’t vote in the 2016 election because they didn’t have transportation to get to the polls.

The last presidential election was decided by 80,000 votes in three states, so getting out the vote and getting people to the polls clearly matters.

For those underserved communities where the 50 percent discount on rides isn’t enough, the company will provide transportation free of cost through non-partisan, nonprofit organizations like Voto Latino, local affiliates of the Urban League and the National Federation of the Blind.

Beyond just getting people to the polls, Lyft is providing ways for people to register to vote and learn about voting initiatives that are up for approval on election day. Through a partnerships with When We All Vote and National Voter Registration Day the company intends to remind passengers about voter registration deadlines; give drivers voter registration handouts and voter information at Hub locations; offer in-office voter registration for employees; and offer online voter information through the company’s partner organizations.

Voting access is a critical issue in making sure that every American’s voice is heard through the election process. According to studies from the Pew Research Center (cited by Lyft), 46 percent of nonvoters have incomes under $30,000 compared with 19 percent of likely voters. And 43 percent of people unlikely to cast ballots are Hispanic, African American or other minorities, which is double the percentage among likely voters.

Lyft is going to offer half-priced and free rides to polling places around the country on Election Day (November 6).

The ride-hailing giant said that it’s going to give out 50 percent off promotional codes to partners that encourage voter turnout. The company has linked up with Vote.org, Nonprofit VOTE, TurboVote and others to help distribute the codes to anyone who needs them.

On the day of the election the company said it will also provide a product integration that will help voters find their polling places to make it even easier to cast their ballot.

This non-partisan effort to get people to the polls is only becoming more critical. Election officials in one county in Georgia have proposed closing 7 of 9 polling places because they’re not sufficiently accessible for handicapped voters. Having Lyft available to help those voters who would be impacted by the closures (some of whom would have to walk three hours to get to the nearest open polls) could certainly be a boon.

As the company noted in its announcement, there’s a participation problem impacting elections in the U.S. Estimates from the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement indicate that roughly 15 million people didn’t vote in the 2016 election because they didn’t have transportation to get to the polls.

The last presidential election was decided by 80,000 votes in three states, so getting out the vote and getting people to the polls clearly matters.

For those underserved communities where the 50 percent discount on rides isn’t enough, the company will provide transportation free of cost through non-partisan, nonprofit organizations like Voto Latino, local affiliates of the Urban League and the National Federation of the Blind.

Beyond just getting people to the polls, Lyft is providing ways for people to register to vote and learn about voting initiatives that are up for approval on election day. Through a partnerships with When We All Vote and National Voter Registration Day the company intends to remind passengers about voter registration deadlines; give drivers voter registration handouts and voter information at Hub locations; offer in-office voter registration for employees; and offer online voter information through the company’s partner organizations.

Voting access is a critical issue in making sure that every American’s voice is heard through the election process. According to studies from the Pew Research Center (cited by Lyft), 46 percent of nonvoters have incomes under $30,000 compared with 19 percent of likely voters. And 43 percent of people unlikely to cast ballots are Hispanic, African American or other minorities, which is double the percentage among likely voters.

The screwdriver-happy dismantlers at iFixit have torn the Magic Leap One augmented reality headset all to pieces, and the takeaway seems to be that the device is very much a work in progress — but a highly advanced one. Its interesting optical assembly, described as “surprisingly ugly,” is laid bare for all to see.

The head-mounted display and accompanying computing unit are definitely meant for developers, as we know, but the basic methods and construction Magic Leap is pursuing are clear from this initial hardware. It’s unlikely that there will be major changes to how the gadget works except to make it cheaper, lighter and more reliable.

At the heart of Magic Leap’s tech is its AR display, which overlays 3D images over and around the real world. This is accomplished through a stack of waveguides that allow light to pass along them invisibly, then bounce it out toward your eye from the proper angle to form the image you see.

The “ugly” assembly in question; pic courtesy of iFixit

The waveguide assembly has six layers: one for each color channel (red, blue and green) twice over, arranged so that by adjusting the image you can change the perceived distance and size of the object being displayed.

There isn’t a lot out there like this, and certainly nothing intended for consumer use, so we can forgive Magic Leap for shipping something a little bit inelegant by iFixit’s standards: “The insides of the lenses are surprisingly ugly, with prominent IR LEDs, a visibly striated waveguide “display” area, and some odd glue application.”

After all, the insides of devices like the iPhone X or Galaxy Note 9 should and do reflect a more mature hardware ecosystem and many iterations of design along the same lines. This is a unique, first-of-its-kind device and as a devkit the focus is squarely on getting the functionality out there. It will almost certainly be refined in numerous ways to avoid future chiding by hardware snobs.

That’s also evident from the eye-tracking setup, which from its position at the bottom of the eye will likely perform better when you’re looking down and straight ahead rather than upwards. Future versions may include more robust tracking systems.

Another interesting piece is the motion-tracking setup. A little box hanging off the edge of the headset is speculated to be the receiver for the magnetic field-based motion controller. I remember using magnetic interference motion controllers back in 2010 — no doubt there have been improvements, but this doesn’t seem to be particularly cutting-edge tech. An improved control scheme can probably be expected in future iterations, as this little setup is pretty much independent of the rest of the device’s operation.

Let’s not judge Magic Leap on this interesting public prototype — let us instead judge them on the farcically ostentatious promises and eye-popping funding of the last few years. If they haven’t burned through all that cash, there are years of development left in the creation of a practical and affordable consumer device using these principles and equipment. Many more teardowns to come!

As a race, human beings have a lot of shortcomings. We’re not very fast, not all that strong and while we have been able to create technology that helps us overcome our environments, we’re not very good at adapting to them. Animals, on the other hand, have been successfully adapting and evolving to meet the world’s challenges long before we were stumbling around.

While it might be too late for us to learn these lessons ourselves from our animal counterparts, it’s not too late to pass them on to our inventions. And biomimetic and bio-inspired labs across the world are doing just that.

“If you think about mobility technology in the engineering world, we have airplanes in the air, ships in the water, but none of these technologies are available without our artificial modification of the environment,” Dr. Sangbae Kim, associate professor of mechanical engineering at MIT and director of the university’s Biomimetic Robotics Laboratory, told TechCrunch. “Animals have evolved to be the best at mobility, because, for most of them, it’s critical for survival.”

Crafting technology to mimic nature is nothing new, Kim says. From developing aerodynamic technology to small conveniences like Velcro, humans have been taking a cue from the natural world for as long as we’ve been inventing. The field of engineering, says Kim, has this kind of inspiration as an intrinsic feature and it will be crucial to solving problems such as disaster reconnaissance, labor and even elderly care.

“This is technology we must have,” says Kim. “Not just something cool to have.”

With new technological developments, this kind of inspired design has gone far beyond Velcro in recent years.

Cheetah 3

A prodigy of Kim’s lab, the Cheetah 3 is a 90 pound rescue robot designed to traverse terrain that is dangerous or inaccessible to humans (e.g. power plant inspection of natural disaster reconnaissance) with cat-like reflexes and motion. Its predecessors have been able to make autonomous running leaps over obstacles in their path (granted, at a considerably slower speed than its namesake) and Cheetah 3 has the added functionality to complete all these tasks while blind. By not relying on its sensors and cameras, Cheetah 3 is designed to have a better intuitive knowledge of its environment and perform in scenarios that are either too dark or “noisy” (too visually stimulating.)

Sharklet 

Natural inspiration is not only found in robotics, but in material engineering as well. In 2002, Dr. Anthony Brennan, a material science and engineering professor at the University of Florida, was participating in Naval research to design strategies to keep vessels from growing algae and barnacles on their sides. While exploring the question, Brennan discovered that sharks — who spend their lives slowly moving through water — had answered it long ago. Examining the patterns in a shark’s scales, Brennan discovered that the unique ribbed, diamond structure of the shark’s scales discouraged microorganisms from settling on the surface.

Taking this discovery beyond naval ships, Brennan founded the company Sharklet in 2007 to design medical instruments built with this topology and create a non-toxic antibiotic alternative to harsh chemical cleaners.

Biomimetic Worm Bot

Out of Case Western Reserve University’s Biologically Inspired Robotics lab, this creepy-crawly bot is helping both roboticists and neuroscientists better understand a type of motion called peristalsis — or movement through contracting and expanding of muscle. While this kind of movement is not unique to earth-worms (humans, in fact, do it when swallowing), the ability to propel and maneuver their bodies through tight spaces with it is. To study this motion, the lab created the CMMWorm (Compliant Modular Mesh Worm) — a soft robot with a Lego-like capability to have segments detached and rearranged. Researchers told Gizmodo that they hope this kind of soft robot could be useful in situations as small as medical endoscopies and as large as investigating blocked pipes.

SpotMini 

And who could forget, man’s best friend, Boston Dynamic’s SpotMini. This electric robot weighs about 66 pounds, stands at just under three feet tall and can last for 90 minutes on just one charge. At TC Sessions: Robotics held at UC Berkeley this summer Boston Dynamics announced its plans to move SpotMini into pre-production and begin selling the bot in 2019 — marking the first move toward commercialization for the company. Boston Dynamics says that SpotMini would fit well into a home or office space, but doing what exactly is still a little unclear.

If you’re just looking for some canine-like companionship, you might be better off cozying up to Sony’s pricey Aibo instead.

Eventbrite filed an IPO today for $200 million, confirming reports earlier this summer that the event-planning company plans to go public later this year.

According to the document, the company plans to raise $200 million from selling Class A shares, but has yet to list the price per share.

As for what Eventbrite intends to do with the new funds, many are pointing to the need to recover the company’s recent losses. While the company reported a net profit of $201.6 million in 2017, operating and loss expenses still left the company unprofitable that year. The company reported a net loss of $38.5 million in 2017 and a loss so far in 2018 of $15.6 million.

However, the company does report a net revenue growth of 51 percent and reported a net revenue of $142 million so far in 2018.

The filing lists Goldman Sachs as a lead underwriter and bolsters the company’s commitment to providing a platform to “creators of all types” as a competitive advantage. To continue this commitment, the company says it intends to add extended capabilities across categories and countries.

While the company has been in the event space for a while, even older companies like Ticketmaster, StubHub and Live Nation continue to give the company a run for its money — and its customers. For perspective, in 2017, Live Nation reported a record $10.4 billion in revenue.

Social platforms like Facebook have also recently complicated this space by integrating ticket purchasing portals onto its site to direct customers to both Ticketmaster or Eventbrite. While driving one-time purchases to the services, these on-site portals keep users sequestered on Facebook and in turn don’t allow them to browse other options offered by the ticketing sites.

As it stands now, prior to its stock market debut, Eventbrite has raised $332.3 million over nine funding rounds since 2006, including a debt funding round for $1.5 million in 2008, with the backing of investors like Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital and DAG Ventures.

A massive trove of voter records containing personal information on millions of Texas residents has been found online.

The data — a single file containing an estimated 14.8 million records — was left on an unsecured server without a password. Texas has 19.3 million registered voters.

It’s the latest exposure of voter data in a long string of security incidents that have cast doubt on political parties’ abilities to keep voter data safe at a time where nation states are actively trying to influence elections.

TechCrunch obtained a copy of the file, which was first found by a New Zealand-based data breach hunter who goes by the pseudonym Flash Gordon. It’s not clear who owned the server where the exposed file was found, but an analysis of the data reveals that it was likely originally compiled by Data Trust, a Republican-focused data analytics firm created by the GOP to provide campaigns with voter data.

Chris Vickery, director of cyber risk research at security firm UpGuard, analyzed a portion of the data. (It was Vickery who found a larger trove of 198 million voter records last year exposed by a similar data firm Deep Root Analytics, which sourced much of its data from Data Trust.)

A spokesperson for Data Trust declined to comment on the record.

The file — close to 16 gigabytes in size — contained dozens of fields, including personal information like a voter’s name, address, gender and several years’ worth of voting history, including primaries and presidential elections.

Granted, much of that data is public. According to The Texas Tribune, that kind of voter data in Texas is already obtainable for a fee, but information relating to individuals’ political affiliations and party memberships is not. Sam Taylor, communications director for the Texas secretary of state, told TechCrunch in an email that certain data points — like Social Security numbers — are also excluded, and the voter data cannot be used for commercial purposes, like advertising.

But data-driven political firms like Data Trust use the data for political purposes, specializing in supplementing those voter profiles with information that might help a campaign to flip a person who might not vote for a Republican candidate at the ballot box.

That’s where this file fills in the gaps with dozens of other fields, which can be used by campaigns to position their political messaging.

For example, the data includes fields that might score an individual’s believed views on immigration, hunting, abortion rights, government spending and views on the Second Amendment.

Other fields were more relevant to the recent 2016 presidential election, in which the data predictively scored individuals on if they “trust” or have “no trust” for then-Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

The data also includes additional personal information, such as a person’s phone numbers and their ethnicity and race.

It’s not known exactly when the data was compiled, but an analysis of the data suggests it was prepared in time for the 2016 presidential election. It’s also not known if the file is a subset of the 198 million records leak last year — or if it’s a standalone data set.

Without an owner to inform of the exposure, it’s unclear if the data is still online.