Month: August 2018

Qualcomm may have lost its long-winded deal to buy NXP on account of China and it continues to battle lawsuits worldwide, but the company does have a dose of good news out of Asia today after it settled an antitrust investigation in Taiwan.

The U.S. chip firm was hit with a record $773 million fine last October when it was accused of monopolistic practices, but Qualcomm and the Taiwan Fair Trade Commission (TFTC) said today they have reached an agreement that sees the charges dropped in exchange for the firm investing $700 million in the country.

The TFTC will keep hold of the NTD 2.73 billion ($93 million) portion of fines that Qualcomm paid this summer in exchange for a promise that Qualcomm will make the $700 million investment over the next five years, according to Bloomberg.

Qualcomm didn’t explicitly mention that figure in its statement on the agreement, but it did outline its proposed “commercial initiatives:”

Qualcomm will drive certain commercial initiatives in Taiwan over the next five years for the benefit of the mobile and semiconductor ecosystem, SMEs and consumers, including 5G collaborations, new market expansion, start-up and university collaborations and the development of a Taiwanese center for operations and manufacturing engineering. Qualcomm will work with the TFTC and sister agencies within the Taiwanese government to implement these initiatives and investments.

Crucially, the deal will also allow Qualcomm to continue with its current pricing strategy in Taiwan. That pricing policy has triggered a wave of lawsuits worldwide which has left Qualcomm reeling — indeed, its falling share price made it a target for an ultimately unsuccessful takeover attempt from Broadcom.

The most notable pending legal spat is with Apple.

In January 2017, Apple sued Qualcomm for $1 billion claiming that it is charged a hefty price for royalties on technologies that Apple said the chipmaker should not be associated with. It also alleged that Qualcomm had been withholding payments it was owed.

The Apple suit came quickly after an antitrust lawsuit filed against Qualcomm by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission for using its position as the leading supplier in the handset market to charge fees on technologies that amount to industry standards.

Earlier this year, Qualcomm was hit with a $1.23 billion fine from the EU for abusing its market position between 2011 and 2016, relating to its relationship with Apple. That figure works out to 4.9 percent of Qualcomm’s revenues in 2017.

Qualcomm has also sued Apple, alleging that the iPhone X infringes on Palm patents which are now owned by the chipmaker. But the hostility seems likely to hurt Qualcomm’s bottom line since Apple has reportedly been building iPhone prototypes that eradicate usage of Qualcomm technologies altogether.

Disrupt Berlin 2018, which takes place November 29-30, practically oozes with opportunity. And there’s no better way to take advantage of all that opportunity than to exhibit your early-stage startup in Startup Alley. It’s where hundreds of Europe’s most innovative pre-Series A companies showcase to the world their tech products, platforms and services.

Oh, wait, there is a better way. You can apply to be a TechCrunch Top Pick. If you earn that rarified designation, you score a FREE Startup Alley Exhibitor Package. That lets you place your company in front of thousands of influential technologists, investors and potential collaborators and customers. Yup, free is always better. The application window closes on September 28. Don’t miss out — apply here today.

Our TechCrunch editors are mighty particular about choosing Top Picks. We’re looking for founders of exceptional startups, and we’ll vet each application carefully. This year, we’ll choose up to five startups to represent each of the following tech categories:

• AI/Machine Learning
• Blockchain
• CRM/Enterprise
• E-commerce
• Education
• Fintech
• Healthtech/Biotech
• Hardware, Robotics, IoT
• Mobility
• Gaming

Each TechCrunch Top Pick designee wins one Startup Alley Exhibitor Package, which includes a one-day exhibit space, three Disrupt Berlin Founder Passes, access to CrunchMatch (our free investor-to-startup matching platform), full use of the Startup Alley Exhibitor lounge, access to the Disrupt press list and a chance to be selected as one of the Startup Battlefield Wildcard Companies (and compete in our $50,000 startup-pitch competition).

You’ll also receive serious media attention, including a three-minute interview on the Showcase Stage with a TechCrunch editor, which we promote across our social media platforms. That kind of media exposure is the gift that keeps on giving — long after the conference ends.

Luke Heron, the CEO of TestCard.com, came to this conclusion about his experience in Startup Alley at Disrupt Berlin 2017. “If you’re a startup founder or an entrepreneur, exhibiting at Disrupt is a no-brainer.”

Now, imagine being able to exhibit there for free. Disrupt Berlin 2018 takes place November 29-30, and your deadline to apply to be a TC Top Pick is September 28. Come on — we can’t wait to see you in Berlin!

SenSat, a U.K. startup aiming to use visual and spatial data to “simulate reality” and help computers better understand the physical world, has raised $4.5 million in seed funding — cash it will use to further develop the technology, and invest in its San Francisco office. The round was backed by Force Over Mass, Round Hill Venture Partners, and Zag (the venture arm of global creative agency BBH).

Launched in 2017 by founders James Dean (CEO) and Harry Atkinson (Head of Product), SenSat turns complex visual and spatial data into what is described as “real-time simulated reality” designed to enable computers to solve real world problems.

The idea is to let companies operating in physical domains — starting with the infrastructure construction industry — use AI to help make better informed decisions based on multiple variables, which are large in number and complexity.

But to do this, first the real world needs to be simulated and those simulations injected with data that computers can understand and interact with. And that starts with using new technology to photograph the real world at a level of detail that goes beyond satellite imagery.

“My background is in satellite remote sensing, the science of understanding an object without coming into contact with it,” SenSat CEO Dean tells me. “This actually gave me the initial idea, ‘if everything we do from satellites can be done 200 miles closer using autonomous drones, then the resolution of the corresponding information must be commercially valuable'”.

Dean says the tech that SenSat has since developed is making it possible for computers to understand the real world through the lens of highly detailed simulated realities in order to “learn how things work and to change the way we make decisions”. The company does this by creating digital replicas of real world locations, then infusing real-time spatial data-sets with a high degree of statistical accuracy from both open and proprietary data sources.

“The resulting simulations are realistic and fully digital, allowing large-scale machine learning and data analysis at an unprecedented scale,” he says.

But why has SenSat chosen to initially target infrastructure construction? “On a technical level it allows us to build simulated realities for medium to small physical areas which we have known variables for,” explains Dean. “This means we can check and quantify our results against the real world, helping us build a foundation that can scale in size and complexity… Construction, whilst remaining a fundamental pillar of world economies, is the second least innovative sector on the planet (beaten only by hunting and fishing). As a sector it has seen a zero percent productivity increase since 1970, meaning there are lots of low hanging fruit opportunities for automation”.

In addition, the time and cost for the design phases of large civil infrastructure construction projects can be up to 40 percent of the entire asset value. Because SenSat digitally re-creates the world and teaches its AI to understand it, the startup can automate many manual design tasks.

For example, Dean says that when building a new railway, it might be stipulated that the track can only have a 5 degree gradient, gantries must be placed every 100 metres and tracks must be laid 1.4 metres apart. Traditionally this would take engineers months to painstakingly measure over large distances, hypothesise and test, but SenSat’s AI can run thousands of options, following the exact same design rules, in a matter of minutes. The startup can then produce a fully validated best option design, often representing millions of dollars in savings.

Meanwhile, beyond infrastructure construction, the startup has a number of research streams looking at how else its technology could evolve and be applied. One area being explored is how autonomous vehicles might use the platform to run millions of hours of driverless simulation.

“Our simulated reality replicates exactly what is happening in the real world, and as such it becomes a sensible place to trial developing technologies within ‘real world’ environments, helping the reinforcement learning feedback loop by providing access to real world scenarios,” adds Dean.

“Based on the world’s highest resolution digital representations, including furniture such as street lamps, lane markings and signage, we can simulate millions of hours of driving in real world conditions to train autonomous agents and prove safety use cases. This will be an important step in convincing regulators to transition to free flow AVs on our streets, especially as the technology begins to reach level 4 autonomy and the integration problem becomes the halting factor”.

If you’re looking for hints that Apple might deliver on its long-rumored plan to develop its own car, a significant one landed this week after it emerged that Doug Field — Apple’s former VP of Mac hardware engineering — has rejoined from the company after a spell with Tesla.

John Gruber at Daring Fireball broke the news of Field returning to Apple following five years at Tesla where he oversaw the production of the Model 3.

Apple confirmed in a statement to TechCrunch that it has rehired Field, but it declined to give information about this role. Gruber reports, however, that Field will link up with Bob Mansfield, the former colleague he worked with on the Mac hardware business. Mansfield just so happens to be the person who is heading up Apple’s ‘Project Titan’ car project, having been tempted back and out of retirement, so there’s a lot to dig into.

There’s been plenty of speculation about the secretive Project Titan, most notably it was reported in 2016 that Apple had abandoned plans to develop a car. Instead, it was said to be focused on autonomous driving technology. While the project remains pretty opaque and tough to gauge, the hiring of the man who oversaw Tesla production — right after Apple poached a Waymo self-driving engineer — is a pretty interesting clue that suggests Apple might be reviving plans to develop a car once again.

If you’re looking for hints that Apple might deliver on its long-rumored plan to develop its own car, a significant one landed this week after it emerged that Doug Field — Apple’s former VP of Mac hardware engineering — has rejoined from the company after a spell with Tesla.

John Gruber at Daring Fireball broke the news of Field returning to Apple following five years at Tesla where he oversaw the production of the Model 3.

Apple confirmed in a statement to TechCrunch that it has rehired Field, but it declined to give information about this role. Gruber reports, however, that Field will link up with Bob Mansfield, the former colleague he worked with on the Mac hardware business. Mansfield just so happens to be the person who is heading up Apple’s ‘Project Titan’ car project, having been tempted back and out of retirement, so there’s a lot to dig into.

There’s been plenty of speculation about the secretive Project Titan, most notably it was reported in 2016 that Apple had abandoned plans to develop a car. Instead, it was said to be focused on autonomous driving technology. While the project remains pretty opaque and tough to gauge, the hiring of the man who oversaw Tesla production — right after Apple poached a Waymo self-driving engineer — is a pretty interesting clue that suggests Apple might be reviving plans to develop a car once again.

With the growth in cross-border payment services and ‘challenger’ bank cards for consumers, you’d be forgiven for wondering where the options are for small business — where cash is particularly precious.

They do exist. One of the newer options is Neat, which is nested in Hong Kong but open for business worldwide.

The startup started off following the same track as the likes of Monzo, Starling and Revolut in Europe, developing a ‘new’ kind of account free of branch-based banking and tedious paperwork. But quickly the team realized that its service was being adopted in large by startups and SMEs as a way to get more flexible financing and perks like install balance/billing.

Neat still offers a consumer service in Hong Kong, but it places a heavy focus on developing its business service. Right now, that helps companies who can’t apply for credit cards get a Neat Mastercard which can be used for trivial (but important!) items such as monthly bills for services, flights, hotels and more. There’s no credit involved since the cards and account are debit-based.

Beyond the basics, Neat Business customers can use their account to handle employee payroll, business invoices, receive money and really pay all other bills that would require a credit card without using their personal one, as is so often the case for early-stage startups. More advanced features include expense cards for employees, while detailed company reporting and automated accounts are planned for introduction soon.

The company is based in Hong Kong, but Neat’s service can be used overseas, and indeed it already is.

Co-founder and CEO David Rosa, a former managing director of Citi Bank Asia Pacific, told TechCrunch that the company has customers in over 100 countries since account holders don’t need to be resident in, or incorporated in Hong Kong, to qualify for the service.

That said, a large portion is based in or associated with Hong Kong as it stands today, but Rosa — who started the business in 2015 alongside CTO Igor Wos — said he wants to change that and grow the userbase globally. The fact that Neat is working on introducing multi-currency solutions, as well as accountancy software integrations, is sure to help widen its appeal to those based outside of Hong Kong.

In a further validation, Neat recently snagged $2 million in funding to develop its tech and increase marketing. Those investors included Singapore’s Dymon Asia and Portag3 Ventures, which is the VC arm of Canada-based Power Corp, a public listed international management firm with a market cap of $9 billion. The Neat deal represents the Portag3 Ventures’ first investment in Asia and its CEO is bullish on how the duo can work together.

“From Hong Kong, we can reach the world. There’s a lot to be done here especially because of the China angle,” Rosa, who has lived in Hong Kong for 17 years, said.

A handful of tweets and videos that appear to have been cited in the choice to remove Alex Jones from Facebook and YouTube vanished from Twitter on Thursday after being called out in a CNN piece focused on the company’s hypocrisy.

Twitter confirmed to TechCrunch that it did not remove the tweets in question and that someone affiliated with Alex Jones and Infowars or with access to those accounts is behind the removal. The tweets in question spanned the Infowars brand, including accusations that Sandy Hook was staged by crisis actors, slurs against transgender people and a video asserting that Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg is a Nazi.

All of the tweets CNN linked are no longer available, suggesting that Jones might be trying to walk a narrow line on the platform, keeping most of the Infowars content up even as users and reporters surface some of its most objectionable moments. We reached out to Infowars for the reasoning behind taking down the posts and will update this story when we hear more.

On Wednesday in an internal memo that was later tweeted, Twitter’s VP of trust & safety made the claim that if Jones had posted the same content on Twitter that had resulted in action on other platforms, Twitter would have acted, too.

“… At least some of the content Alex Jones published on other platforms (e.g. Facebook and YouTube) that led them to taking enforcement actions against him would also have violated our policies had he posted it on Twitter,” Twitter’s Del Harvey said. “Had he done so, we would have taken action against him as well.”

On Thursday, CNN called Twitter’s bluff. The news site found that the same content that got Jones and Infowars booted from other platforms “were still live on Twitter as of the time this article was published,” according to CNN.

In spite of the missing tweets, at the time of writing, the accounts of both Infowars and Alex Jones remained online and tweeting. In fact, just 30 minutes ago, Infowars accused former president Obama of a “deep state” scheme to purge Infowars from tech platforms.

Cryptocurrencies: a weird agglomerate of fascinating technology built by brilliant engineers; a whole new and potentially important form of economics; … and hype-machine puffed-up crazy-talk nonsense. So, as you might expect, they also combine state-of-the art resilient engineering and comical clown-car so-called security. Yes, that’s right — I want to talk about IOTA, and (to an extent) Bitcoin Cash.

Modern security practices include: an understanding of and commitment to responsible disclosure; making yourself available and accessible to third-party security researchers; offering bug bounties; fuzzing your code; etcetera. They also include valuable truisms such as “don’t roll your own crypto.” Here that’s crypto as in cryptography, and it means, always always always use tried and time-tested cryptographic algorithms and implementations. Do not try to build your own from scratch. You will regret it.

IOTA, currently the world’s tenth most valuable cryptocurrency, took an … assertively contrarian stance regarding this dictum. They didn’t just roll their own crypto, they rolled their own fundamental units, deciding that binary wasn’t good enough by half, and that trinary was where it’s at, that their trits and trytes were so much better than bits and bytes.

I confess part of me has a grudging respect for the surreality of this kind of whackadoodle performance art. Alas, this half-admiration doesn’t extend to the recent saga in which a) they rolled their own crypto; b) MIT and BU researchers found a flaw in it; c) IOTA first said that the flaw was intentional, and then, apparently, that it was created by an imperfect AI (!); d) a spectacular war of words (between those parties and several others) erupted. Then, yesterday, Neha Narula, the director of MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative, presented last year’s work in a talk at Black Hat — and even though that work stemmed from last year …

I interviewed Narula this morning and she said, still amazed, that it actually seemed to her as if IOTA thought her talk yesterday would reveal a new, previously undisclosed vulnerability. Their fundamental misunderstanding of how software security works, and what responsible disclosure means, is staggering.

You may well think IOTA is such an extremely ridiculous project that it’s unfair to use it as an example. But if so, bear in mind that cryptocurrencies remain a very weird field, and many people who have put a lot of money into them are unable to distinguish ridiculous projects from serious ones. A couple of days ago I visited Las Vegas’s “cryptocurrency nightclub,” all too appropriately called MORE; the general idea is that people can both invest in MoreCoin (yes, really) and spend it on better access / parties at Vegas and similar destinations. Whether you think this is a valid concept or a crazy get-rich-quick scheme, it’s an example of how cryptocurrencies are increasingly aimed at the unsophisticated public. To its intended audience, there’s not much difference between MoreCoin and Bitcoin; any technical ludicrousness is no bar to success.

But if you want to talk about something more serious and higher-profile, fine; let’s talk about Narula’s most recent post, this one describing and regarding a bug in Bitcoin Cash, one of the very few currencies traded on Coinbase. Some months ago, a developer, Cory Fields, discovered that the hard fork which birthed Bitcoin Cash included some refactoring of Bitcoin’s consensus code … such that a malicious block could be crafted which would split Bitcoin Cash into two separate blockchains.

This would be very bad, would almost certainly have drastically diminished Bitcoin Cash’s value, and could conceivably be used for a double-spend attack; meaning, given Bitcoin Cash’s value and liquidity, it was a bug which could conceivably have been used to generate many millions of dollars in cold hard cash. Fortunately Fields is an admirable fellow and decided to do the right thing.

But … how? Who to contact? The people with commit rights to the Bitcoin Cash repo, he supposed; but none of them had provided secure methods of public contact. This was information that could be used to bilk many millions of dollars, it couldn’t be emailed in plaintext — and what’s more, if somebody else discovered the bug but this Core developer was the only one known to have discovered it, he would be painting a big target on his back. How can you perform responsible disclosure when there’s no outlet to disclose to?

In the end, Fields found a way. (A very complicated way.) And the bug has been fixed. But the difficulties he had highlights the fact that, as cryptocurrencies mature, their security policies and procedures need to mature along with them. Kudos to those who are already well along this path, such as Ethereum, EOS and Tezos; and brickbats to those who make it hard to disclose vulnerabilities, and/or those who respond with weaponized ignorance.

Last year I had a good time comparing Sony’s DPT-RP1 with the home-grown reMarkable. They both had their strengths and weaknesses, and one of the Sony’s was that the thing was just plain big. They’ve remedied that with a much smaller sibling, the DPT-CP1, and it’s just as useful as I expected. Which is to say: in a very specific way.

Sony’s e-paper tablets are single-minded little gadgets: all they do is let you read and lightly mark up PDFs. If that sounds a mite too limited to you, you’re not the target demographic. But lots of people — including me — have to wade through tons of PDFs and it’s a pain to do so on a desktop or laptop. Who wants to read  Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox by hitting the down arrow 500 times?

For legal documents and scientific journal articles, which I read a lot of, a big e-paper tablet is fantastic. But the truth is that the RP1, with its 13.3″ screen, was simply too big to carry around most of the time. The device is quite light, but took up too much space. So I was excited to check out the CP1, which really is just a smaller version of the same thing.

To be honest, there’s not much I can add to my original review of the RP1: it handles PDFs easily, and now with improved page jumping and tagging, it’s easier to navigate them. And using the stylus, you can make some limited markup — but don’t try to do much more than mark a passage with an “OK” or a little star (one of several symbols the device recognizes and tracks the location of).

It’s incredibly light and thin, and feels flexible and durable as well — not a fragile device at all. Its design is understated and functional.

[gallery ids="1687652,1687655,1687656,1687657,1687653,1687654"]

Writing isn’t the Sony tablets’ strong suit — that would be the reMarkable’s territory. While looping out a circle or striking through a passage is just fine, handwritten notes are a pain. The resolution, accuracy, and latency of the writing implement are as far as I can tell exactly as they were on the larger Sony tablet, which makes sense — the CP1 basically is a cutout of the same display and guts.

PDFs display nicely, and the grid pattern on the screen isn’t noticeable for the most part. Contrast isn’t as good as the latest Kindles or Kobos (shots in the gallery above aren’t really flattering, since they’re so close up, but you get the idea), but it’s more than adequate and it beats reading a big PDF on a small screen like those or your laptop’s LCD. Battery life is excellent — it’ll go through hundreds of pages on a charge.

A new mobile app supposedly makes transferring documents to the CP1 easy, but in reality I never found a reason to use it. I so rarely download PDFs — the only format the tablet reads — on my phone or tablet that it just didn’t make sense for me. Perhaps I could swap a few over that are already on my iPad, but it just didn’t strike me as particularly practical except perhaps in a few situations where my computer isn’t available. But that’s just me — people who work more from their phones might find this much more useful.

Mainly I just enjoyed how light and simple the thing is. There’s almost no menu system to speak of and the few functions you can do (zooming in and such) are totally straightforward. Whenever I got a big document, like today’s FCC OIG report, or a set of upcoming scientific papers, my first thought was, “I’ll stick these on the Sony and read them on the couch.”

Although I value its simplicity, it really could use a bit more functionality. A note-taking app that works with a Bluetooth keyboard, for instance, or synchronizing with your Simplenote or Pocket account. The reMarkable is still limited as well, but its excellent stylus (suitable for sketching) and cloud service help justify the price.

I have to send this thing back now, which is a shame because it’s definitely a handy device. Of course, the $600 price tag makes it rather a niche one as well — but perhaps it’s the kind of thing that fills out the budget of an IT upgrade or grant proposal.

Adam Pittenger knows that moving is tough — after all, he said he’s moved eight times in the past seven years.

Pittenger said that there are several reasons why the process can be stressful, like the fact that most people aren’t experts on moving, since they don’t do it as often as him (seriously, eight times is crazy). Plus, there’s just an enormous amount of planning and coordination required, whether it’s hiring movers, buying packing materials or putting your things into storage.

So Pittenger decided to make the whole process a lot easier by founding Moved. Moving, he said, “doesn’t have to be that stressful,” because with Moved, you get “a personal assistant coordinating all the aspects of your move.”

Moved is announcing that it’s raised $3.2 million in seed funding from Lowe’s Ventures (the early-stage investment arm of the home improvement giant), FJ Labs, AngelPad, Real Estate Technology Ventures and others.

To sign up for Moved, you fill out a questionnaire about where you’re moving to and from, and what kinds of services you need. Moved (available via desktop web or mobile app) will then reach out to movers and provide you with multiple quotes from which you can choose.

And while, as Pittenger put it, “the immediate thing you need to do is book the movers,” Moved offers a broader range of services, like ordering packing supplies, helping you donate stuff you don’t need anymore, finding a storage unit, updating your address, finding painters and more.

Moving can also be expensive, so the company has announced a partnership with Affirm, where Affirm’s financing will allow you to break up the moving costs into monthly payments.

To be clear, Moved isn’t doing the moving itself — instead, it’s basically connecting you to a marketplace of movers and other service providers. Pittenger said the company is “very strict about the suppliers and the vendors” and will remove them if customers aren’t happy with their experience.

Moved is managing all of this through a real, human assistant who can help you figure out what you need, handle the scheduling and serve as a “consumer advocate” who ensures that you’re not getting ripped off.

Pittenger said the service is free for consumers, with a fee charged to vendors at the time of booking. And it’s available throughout the United States.