Month: August 2018

Say what you will about the success or general usefulness of the Moto Mod line — Motorola keeps plugging away. The company currently offers 17 Mods with an 18th on the way, bringing one of the most interesting use cases yet.

Along with the new Moto Z3 handset, Motorola unveiled a Mod that will bring 5G connectivity to the entire line via Verizon’s nascent network. Due out early next year for an undisclosed sum, the new Mod presents an interesting workaround to the pains of introducing a next-generation network to a handset.

With this backdoor approach, the company is able put the Z3 up for sale on August 16th, and work another half-year or so to get its ducks in a row on the 5G front. Perhaps Verizon’s 5G coverage map will be a bit more dense by then, though at present, the company has only announced three cities — Houston, Los Angeles and, oddly, Sacramento. A fourth unnamed city is also on tap to get coverage by the end of the year.

At the very least, this lets Motorola tout the claim of being one of — if not the — first phones to offer the technology to U.S. customers. The company also claims that putting this tech directly into the phone would have been much more resource intensive than just sticking it and an extended battery inside the mod.

I’m not sure how much I buy that line of reasoning, but it certainly helps keep the cost of the handset down — the new Z3 will be available for $480 unlocked. The company has long focused on providing budget options for users, and that’s certainly the case here, helped along by some good — but last-generation — silicon like the Snapdragon 835. 

Motorola also likely didn’t feel confident that most users would be willing to take the plunge on a 5G phone at this early stage. As for the phone itself, it looks pretty similar to the recently introduced Moto Z3 Play in most respects. There’s a six-inch display, a 3,000mAh battery and dual-cameras with depth sensing and Google lens built in. No word yet on whether Verizon will eventually bundle the phone with that new mod.

Disclosure: Verizon owns Oath, Oath owns TechCrunch.

Uproxx Media Group — owner of sites like HitFix, Dime and Uproxx itself — has been acquired.

The Uproxx site focuses on entertainment and pop culture news, and was founded back in 2008. It was bought by Woven Digital in 2014, which eventually rebranded as Uproxx. Like many digital media companies, it includes both a publishing arm and a studio that works with marketers to create videos and other branded content.

Today, Warner Music Group announced that it’s buying the company and its portfolio of websites (minus BroBible, which will continue to operate independently). The company says Uproxx will still to be run by CEO and Chief Creative Benjamin Blank, along with co-founder and Publisher Jarret Myer, and that the individual sites will still have editorial independence.

Back in the 1990s, Myer (pictured above) was one of the founders of hip hop label Rawkus Records, where he worked with Max Lousada — who would eventually become Warner’s CEO of Global Recorded Music.

“UPROXX brings together pioneering personalities and credible brands in ways that move huge audiences to talk, listen and share,” Lousada said in the acquisition announcement. “It’ll be exciting to collaborate with Jarret again, along with Ben and their team, who will thrive in the creative and entrepreneurial environment we’re building. They’ll be great partners as we redefine what it means to be a dynamic, future-focused music company.”

Warner says Uproxx reaches an audience of 40 million people through its websites and other platforms.

The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. According to Crunchbase, Uproxx raised a total of $43.3 million from investors including IVP, Advancit Capital and WPP Ventures.

Early in 2017, Google added a feature to Google Maps that lets you opt to share your location in (near) real time with your close friends and family. Now they’re fleshing out that info with another important little detail: your phone’s remaining battery charge.

It looks like this:

Wondering why anyone might care about the status of your battery?

If you try to ping someone’s location and their phone is dead, there’s not much an app can do. Most location sharing apps will just sit there and spin while it waits for some sort of response, leaving you to worry about all the reasons their phone might not be responding with a current location. Did they lose signal? Did someone steal their phone?

By clueing you in on whether someone’s phone is just about to die, you’ve at least got a better idea as to what’s going on.

The folks over at AndroidPolice spotted this in a Google Maps APK tear down back in February, so we knew it was on the way. A few people have mentioned seeing it pop up on their devices since (including variations that only showed when the battery was low), but today it seems to have gone live for a much larger audience.

While the feature is clever, Google isn’t the first to think of it. For example: Zenly, the social map app acquired by Snapchat last year, had a similar feature at launch back in 2016.

Amazon has applied for a patent for an audio system that detects the accent of a speaker and changes it to the accent of the listener, perhaps helping eliminate communication barriers in many situations and industries. The patent doesn’t mean the company has made it (or necessarily that it will be granted), but there’s also no technical reason why it can’t do so.

The application, spotted by Patent Yogi, describes “techniques for accent translation.” Although couched in the requisite patent-ese, the method is quite clear. After a little translation of my own, here’s what it says:

In a two-party conversation, received audio is analyzed to see if it matches with one of a variety of stored accents. If so, the input audio from each party is outputted based on the accent of the other party.

It’s kind of a no-brainer, especially considering all the work that’s being done right now in natural language processing. Accents can be difficult to understand, especially if you haven’t spoken with an individual before, and especially without the critical cues from facial and body movements that make in-person communication so much more effective.

The most obvious place for an accent translator to be deployed is in support, where millions of phone calls take place regularly between people in distant countries. It’s the support person’s goal to communicate clearly and avoid adding to the caller’s worries with language barriers. Accent management is a major part of these industries; support personnel are often required to pass language and accent tests in order to advance in the organization they work for.

A computational accent remover would not just improve their lot, but make them far more effective. Now a person with an Arabic accent can communicate just as well with just about anyone who speaks the same language — no worries if the person on the other end has heavily Austrian, Russian, or Korean-accented English; if it’s English, it should work.

There are of course lots of other situations where this could be helpful — while traveling, for instance, or conducting international business. I’m sure you can think of a few situations of your own from the last few months or years where an accent reducer or translator would have been handy.

As for the actual execution of this system, that’s a big unknown. But Amazon has a huge amount of money and engineering talent dedicated to natural language processing, and there’s nothing about this system that strikes me as unrealistic or unattainable with existing technology.

It would be a machine learning model, of course, or rather a set of them, each trained on several hours of speech by people with a specific accent. Good thing Alexa has a worldwide presence! Amazon has an avalanche of audio samples coming in from Echoes and other devices all over the place, so many accents are likely already accounted for in their library. From there it’s just a matter of soliciting voice recordings from any group that’s underrepresented in that dataset.

Research along these lines has certainly been done already, but Amazon seems to have the jump on others on the creation of a specific system for using that knowledge in product form.

Notably the patent allows for a bit of cheating on the system’s part: it doesn’t have to scramble during the first few seconds to identify your accent, but can stack the deck a bit by checking the device’s location, phone number, previous accents encountered on that line, or of course simply allowing the speaker to pick their accent manually. Of course there will still be a variety within, say, a selected accent of “Pakistani,” but with enough data the system should be able to detect and accommodate those as well.

As always with patents there’s no guarantee this will actually take product form; it could just be research or a “defensive” patent intended to prevent rivals from creating a system like this in the meantime. But in this case I feel confident that there’s a real possibility a product will ship in the next year or so.

Amazon Rapids, the chat fiction that encourages kids to read by presenting stories in the form of text message conversations, is now going free. Previously, Amazon had been charging $2.99 per month for a subscription that allows unlimited access to its story collection, which now numbers in the hundreds.

First launched in November 2016, Amazon Rapids was meant to capitalize on kids’ interest in chat fiction apps like Hooked, Yarn, Tap and others, which tend to cater to a slightly older teenage crowd. Amazon Rapids, meanwhile, was the schoolager-appropriate version, without the swearing, alcohol, sex and yeah, even incest references you’ll find in the Hooked app, for example. (Yuck. Delete.)

Instead, Amazon Rapids’ stories are aimed at kids ages 5 to 12 and generally just silly and fun. They’re not meant to addict kids through the use of cliffhangers and timeouts, nor are they scary.

Some of the app’s stories also serve as crossovers that helped promote Amazon’s kids’ TV shows, like “Danger & Eggs,” and “Niko and the Sword of Light.” These were authored by the shows’ writers, allowing them to extend the show’s universe in a natural way.

In addition, the app included educational features like a built-in glossary and a read-along mode to help younger readers.

However, the app wasn’t heavily marketed by Amazon, and many parents don’t even know it exists, it seems.

According to data from Sensor Tower, Amazon Rapids has been installed only around 120,000+ times to date, three-quarters of which are on iOS. (Subscription revenue goes through Amazon, not the app stores, so the firm doesn’t have a figure for that.)

Amazon Rapids is ranked pretty low on the App Store, at No. 1105 for iPhone downloads in the Education category, and No. 1001 on iPad. The highest it ever reached was No. 65 on iPad.

Oddly, it chose not to compete in the “Books” category, where the other chat fiction apps reside, as do the other non-traditional “book” apps, like Wattpad’s crowd-sourced fiction app, Audible’s audiobooks app, various comics apps, and others.

Amazon now says that the hundreds of stories in Rapids will be free going forward. Families can also listen to some of these stories through the Storytime Alexa skill, launched last summer, which includes stories from Amazon Rapids, along with others.

Given Amazon Rapids’ small user base, it’s clear that Amazon no longer believes it makes sense to try to sell subscriptions, and likely now sees its database of stories as more of a value-add for Alexa owners.

That said, it’s unclear what this means for Rapids’ future development and story catalog, which may not continue to grow. (We’ve asked Amazon if it plans to keep adding content to Rapids, and will update if the company responds.)

Arm, the semiconductor firm you probably still remember as ARM, today announced that it has acquired Treasure Data, a data management platform for large enterprise customers. The companies didn’t announce the financial details of the transaction, but earlier reporting by Bloomberg pegged the price at $600 million.

This move strengthens Arm’s IoT nascent play, given that Treasure Data’s specialty is dealing with the large streams of data that these systems produce (as well as data from CRM, e-commerce systems and other third-party services).

This move follows Arm’s recent acquisition of Stream and indeed, the company calls the acquisition of Treasure Data “the final piece” of its “IoT enablement puzzle.” The result of this completed puzzle is the Arm Pelion IoT Platform, which combines Stream, Treasure Data and the existing Arm Mbed Cloud into a single solution for connecting and managing IoT devices and the data they produce.

Arm says Treasure Data will continue to operate as before and continue to serve new clients as well as its existing users. “It will remain an important part of industry IoT enablement, providing the ability to harness new, complex edge and device data within a comprehensive customer profile to personalize their products and improve their experiences,” the company says.

Meet Radar Relay, a cryptocurrency startup that just raised $10 million from Blockchain Capital and other investors. The company is taking advantage of the 0x protocol to change your tokens into other tokens without going through a traditional exchange.

Centralized exchanges have been one of the main weaknesses of the cryptocurrency industry for years. A centralized exchange can get hacked or shut down. Malicious users can also hijack your account and transfer all your tokens.

“I definitely hope centralized exchanges go burn in hell as much as possible,” Vitalik Buterin said in a recent TechCrunch interview.

So what is the solution? Decentralized exchanges that never hold your tokens on their wallets. As TechCrunch’s Josh Constine wrote, 0x is a protocol that makes this possible. 0x connects traders so that you can swap tokens without going through a centralized marketplace. It leverages smart contracts so that you don’t end up sending the tokens first and waiting for the other person to send you back their tokens — the transaction happens simultaneously.

Many companies are building projects on top of the 0x protocol, and Radar Relay is one of them. As the name suggests, Radar Relay helps you find other traders who are interested in your order.

For instance, if you want to exchange 10 MLN for 162 ZRX, you need to publicize your order somewhere so that other users can find it. If another Radar Relay user wants to make a similar transaction, but in the other direction, then the trade occurs.

Users connect wallet addresses on Radar Relay so that you stay in control of your tokens at all times. For instance, if you use a Ledger wallet, you can exchange tokens from one address on your Ledger to another. In the future, you can imagine integrations with wallet makers so that you can submit an order from your wallet directly.

In addition to leaving you in control of your tokens, you don’t need to create an account to use a decentralized exchange. Radar Relay is only compatible with ERC20 tokens as 0x has been designed for ERC20 tokens specifically. Since October, users have traded the equivalent of $150 million in 170 tokens.

While Blockchain Capital is leading the round, a ton of investors have put money in Radar Relay — Tusk Ventures, Distributed Global, Reciprocal Ventures, Collaborative Fund, Distributed Global, Reciprocal Ventures, Collaborative Fund, Elefund, Slow Ventures, SV Angel, Kindred Ventures, Breyer Capital, Digital Currency Group, V1.VC, Kokopelli, Village Global and Chapter One.

It’s an impressive list of investors. So let’s see if decentralized exchanges can shake up the big exchanges that everybody uses today.

Comcast and Amazon today announced a new partnership that will see Amazon’s Prime Video service integrated into Comcast’s Xfinity TV set-top boxes. This is the first time that Prime Video content would be added to a cable operator’s platform in the U.S.. It’s also a particularly interesting choice on Comcast’s part,  given that Amazon is directly competing with pay TV providers through its Prime Video Channels a la carte TV subscriptions. And these will be available to Comcast’s customers via the Xfinity X1 set-top box as a result of this deal.

Today, Amazon offers over 160 premium Prime Video channels, including HBO, Showtime, Starz, Cinemax and others that have been previously sold as add-ons to cable TV subscriptions. Being able to access to these channels over-the-top – without a traditional TV subscription – is one of several factors that have convinced some consumers to cut the cord with cable TV entirely.

In other words, Comcast is really embracing the enemy here.

Of course, Prime Video Channels aren’t all that Prime Video offers. Members can also stream from Amazon’s library of TV shows and movies that come with a Prime subscription, as well as watch Amazon’s original programming, including shows like “Goliath,” “Sneaky Pete,” “Mozart in the Jungle,” “Man in the High Castle,” “Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan,” “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” and soon, the recently rescued “The Expanse,” among others.

Plus, Prime Video features live events at times, and offers series and movies for rent or purchase.

“Amazon Prime Video’s growing list of originals, movies, shows, documentaries, and kids’ programming will be an excellent complement to the overall X1 viewing experience,” said Dana Strong, Comcast’s President of Consumer Services, in a statement. “We want to give customers easy access to all their favorite content in one place. X1 continues to be a platform that can curate live TV, On Demand movies and shows, and streaming internet video and music titles into one, easy-to-use, seamless experience.”

This isn’t the first streaming service Comcast has worked with. The company has been offering access to Netflix through its X1 interface since 2016, and this April expanded its relationship with Netflix by bundling it into Comcast subscriptions. It also provides access to Google’s YouTube.

Despite Comcast’s willingness to work with the very services that are causing cable TV companies to lose customers, some reports claim these moves are akin to shoving a finger in the hole of a dam – the flood (of cord cutters, that is) is still coming. In fact eMarketer recently noted that the number of U.S. cord cutters will reach 33 million this year, which is faster than expected.

And it specifically said that partnerships between traditional TV providers and over-the-top services – like the one between Comcast and Netflix – hasn’t seemed to have had any impact on the pace of cord cutting.

“These partnerships are still in the early stages, so we don’t foresee them having a significant impact reducing churn this year,” said eMarketer senior forecasting analyst Christopher Bendtsen, at the time of the July report. “With more pay TV and [over-the-top] partnerships expected in the future, combined with other strategies, providers could eventually slow—but not stop—the losses,” he noted.

Comcast didn’t announce an exact launch date for the Prime Video integration, only saying that it would be available to X1 customers “later this year.”

Square, the company you know from your favorite coffee shop’s checkout counter, is opening to developers its Reader hardware. Using the new Square Reader SDK, developers will be able to build their own custom checkout and point of sale experiences, no matter whether that’s a self-ordering kiosk, a mobile app for waiters or any other similar service.

“While we’ve built some of the best point of sale software on the market, we know that many industries have niche needs and businesses may crave unique experiences that aren’t served by our existing products,” Square’s developer platform lead Carl Perry writes today. “That’s why we’re opening up our platform and providing developers direct access to Square hardware for the very first time.”

The overall idea here, it seems, is to ensure that Square’s service doesn’t just work well in industries where it is already strong (retail, restaurants, etc.) but also in niches where it currently doesn’t have a presence. And this new SDK will allow iOS and Android developers that want to support Square’s payment system to bring their solutions to verticals like transportation and healthcare, for example. It’ll also make it easy for them to integrate their payment system with other business software, like customer relationship management solutions and more complex enterprise resource planning systems.

Among those who have already trialed the SDK is Shake Shack, which is testing a Square Reader SDK-powered self-service kiosk at its “Shack of the Future” in New York and a number of pop-up locations. Similarly, Infinite Peripherals is building a digital taxi meter that’s currently in use in Washington, DC. Other early users include Joe and the Juice, a juice chain with an Instagram account, and  QuiqMeds, which helps healthcare providers dispense medication at the point-of-care (instead of the pharmacy).

Sonos opened its first day of trading at $15 a share though quickly gained 20% as trading began. As of publication, Sonos, trading under SONO, is around $18.50 a share.

Sonos priced its initial shares at $15 a share, below the expected range of $17 to $19. At this price Sonos is valued at just under $1.5 billion and will raise $208.5 million by going public. If the stock price maintains its current levels, Sonos will end its first day of trading up and in the expected range. Pricing their initial shares under the expected range resulted in the company raising as much money, but it also provided a bit of cushion in case Wall Street traders disagreed with the pricing. It’s never a good look to end a company’s first day of trading in the red.

Sonos’ Michael Groeninger, VP of Corporate Finance, tells me the company priced its IPO price under the expected range in response to recent market movement. As examples he pointed to the volatile market environment caused by multiple down days including Facebook’s big drop in stock price. Sonos, Giannetto said, is more concerned about where the stock price is in three to five years rather than on the first day of trading.

To celebrate its Nasdaq listing, Sonos updated the sound of the Nasdaq bell where it will be used going forward to open and close the day’s trading.

Sonos is nicely positioned as a third-party option in an ecosystem that’s getting increasingly crowded by proprietary speakers from the larger companies that own voice assistants like the Echo, HomePod and Google Home. But Sonos has been around for a considerable amount of time and has clearly built up a significant following to ensure that it could find itself operating as an independent public company. In its fiscal 2017 year, Sonos said it brought in nearly $1 billion in revenue, an increase of 10 percent year-over-year. The initial filing indicated that the company had sold a total of 19 million products in 6.9 million households, with customers listening to 70 hours of content each month.

I spoke briefly with long-time Sonos employee Nick Millington who is now the company’s Chief Product Office. He sees Sonos as a unique offering in today’s consumer market. He explained that the company’s three pillars of focus — openness, quality, and cohesive product family (he called it systemness) — is what makes Sonos unique. He pointed out that because of those three areas of focus, 90% of the products Sonos ever sold are still in operation today. Sonos’ biggest competitor isn’t speakers from Amazon or Apple, but rather a silent home, he said. Because the company has long worked with outside services, it is committed to brining Alexa, Siri and Google Assistant to its products.

Still, it’s hard to ignore the facing increasing competition from the electronic giants of Apple, Google and Amazon — all which want a spot for their own speaker in people’s homes. Sonos responded by building-in Amazon’s Alexa personal assistant into several products. Its most recent product, the $399 Beam sound bar, has Alexa built-in and lets users ask Apple’s Siri to control music on Sonos systems. Google Assistant compatibility is expected to come later this year.