Month: October 2018

Crypto and blockchain enthusiasts have been railing for years against the centralized world of banks, but many have been doing so from the privileged vantage point of developed countries. But what if blockchain technology turned out to be most revolutionary in emerging economies?

Take Africa for instance. Consumers in those countries became so frustrated with the banking fees imposed on their transactions every time the wanted to merely top up their mobile airtime, that airtime minutes alone actually became a form of money. Banking in the way it’s been developed for the developed world simply does not work when a transaction to top up a phone can cost more than the airtime itself.

South African-based startup Wala realised this early on. It had developed a smartphone app which acted like a wallet, facilitating customer transactions via the app with existing banking infrastructure. But the high banking fees for nearly every function was hurting Wala’s customer base and the company’s early business model as a mobile wallet for the smartphone generation.

They needed a Zero-fee solution, but the existing financial system just didn’t work. That’s when they realized they could switch to a cryptocurrency and allow payments across a peer-to-peer network for merchants, offering airtime, data, electricity bills – even the ability to pay school fees.

Today Wala, which raised $1.2 million selling ethereum-based “$DALA” tokens in an initial coin offering (ICO) in December last year, is facilitating thousands of transactions in daily accounts across Uganda, Zimbabwe and South Africa, with most of those are micropayments under $1.

Since the launch of their $DALA currency in May 2018 (currently accessible through the Wala mobile application) over 100,000 $DALA wallets have been opened and over 2.5 million $DALA transactions have been processed, says the company. The multi-chain crypto asset – at least right now – uses Ether for the wallet and Stellar for transactions, though it is not locked to any one platform.

Through $DALA protocols (Kopa, Soko and Kazi), consumers have access to borderless, low cost, efficient, and unique financial services enabling them to earn, save, borrow, and transact in a new, decentralized, financial system.

But Wala does not plan to stop there.

Today, Dala, announces it has partnered with a  gigawatt-scale solar program for Uganda to create a blockchain-enabled clean energy economy.

Here’s how it’s going to work:

Long-time energy company CleanPath Emerging Markets Uganda (CPEM) is partnering with the Ugandan Government and the Ugandan Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development on the project which will mean Ugandans are able to buy solar energy using $DALA from this massive new infrastructure project.

CPEM will use the DALA blockchain platform to manage its ledger, its vendor contracts, and its partner commitments. The company has over 11,000 MWs of renewable energy experience already under its belt.

The $1.5 billion program aims to create a new clean energy economy in Uganda, not only creating employment and kick-starting a clean energy economy but new economic development in Uganda. Ugandan consumers will be able to buy solar power in $DALA, workers to be paid in $DALA and the program will even run on $DALA.  

Tricia Martinez, Wala cofounder and CEO, told me at the recent Pathfounder event in Oslo: “The numbers we’ve seen since the launch of $DALA have been staggering, and a large portion of our current users are Ugandan, so this partnership is a natural next step to allow users the opportunity to further benefit from using $DALA. The high level of user traffic also shows us that Ugandans are ready to use crypto assets in their day-to-day transactions.”

But the story wouldn’t have come about without an enlightened African Prince who could have stepped straight out of the mythical kingdom of Wakanda, as featured in the recent smash hit Black Panther movie.

For the founder of CPEM is Prince Kudra Kalema of the Bugandan Kingdom (a Ugandan royal family), whose ancestry goes back to at least the 14th Century. Buganda is now a kingdom monarchy with a large degree of autonomy from the Ugandan state.

“We’re truly excited about this program and our partnership with Dala”, says Prince Kudra Kalema of the Buganda Kingdom, who is also Managing Partner and Co-Founder at CP-EM. “By providing Ugandans with an opportunity to access clean energy through $DALA, we’re fostering a more inclusive decentralized financial system not possible with legacy technologies.”

In an exclusive interview with TechCrunch, Prince Kalema told me: “My family considers itself to be the custodian of the land, and I have been searching for about a decade to find solutions that would improve the country. But what could we work on when people couldn’t even switch their lights on?”

It became obvious to him that the biggest issue was affordable electricity. And to do it in a renewable way, and it had to be solar. Microgrids turned out not to be the solution. And it had to be at scale.

But the question is, why did he hit on cryptocurrency?

“We began using the $DALA protocol because it became very clear that the financial structure in Uganda was not adequate. It was clear we needed something. There is no way the Uganda Shilling is stable enough for the type of programme we are doing. Wala was already invested in the same country and wasn’t just about the idea of a running a crypto coin in an emerging market, but was also about creating the best type of financial institutions for the country. That goes hand in hand with what we are doing. It became a no-brainer.”

He says the $DALA crypto combined with his solar project will be much easier to run in Uganda than in countries like the US: “Over 80% of Ugandans are under 35, and very well educated. I don’t like the term leap-frogging, but this is what this is. They don’t have to unlearn anything that was there before. They are eager to figure out and learn about a solution that will help them. When you look at how quickly mobile money was adopted by Ugandans — it became powerful not because it was imposed but because people yearned for it. Ugandans are saying that what we have right now does not work. The banking transaction fees, the cost of remittances… — it’s difficult for them to be enthusiastic about something they know doesn’t work already.”

Uganda continues to be a market hungry to adopt new technology, and the recent announcement that Binance is launching a fiat to crypto exchange in the country is a recent example of this.

He added: “Uganda has always been at the forefront of these types of things. Even before we were a protectorate of the British Empire, Uganda was part of the region where people would travel to find out how to deal with things in Africa. We had an intricate tribal system. The British didn’t invade, they made it a protectorate because of this.”

The details of the plan are ambitious. Prince Kalema’s CPEM plans to create a gigawatt-scale solar power development program in Uganda providing clean energy to 25% of the population and creating 200,000 new jobs in the clean energy economy. 

The program would more than double the current electricity generation capacity in Uganda (equivalent of about 2 average US coal power plants) where 75% of the UG population has no access to energy.

By using $DALA Ugandans will be able to consume energy at zero transaction fees, use it for everyday purchases, and also convert it back to fiat Ugandan currency via agents/merchants and cryptocurrency exchanges.

It will even allow CPEM and the government of Uganda to make grants of free power available to the poorest, while keeping a completely auditable and tamper-proof record of these grants. 

The story of how a small startup came to take African markets by storm begins in 2014.

Initially backed by angel investor and a social-impact VC (Impact Engine) in the US, Tricia Martinez’s Wala (pictured above) joined the Barclays Techstars Accelerator in London in 2016. It later set up shop in Cape Town, South Africa and started growing its team (it’s now at a total of 12 staff).

Not long after, South African VC Newtown Partners invested and Wala then issued the $DALA crypto-asset and set up the Dala foundation. It’s perhaps no coincidence that Newtown is headed-up by Vinny Linghams (of the well-known Civic and ethereum-based, project).

Martinez is passionate that cryptocurrency is going to be the solution emerging markets like Africa have wanted and needed for years: “The fact that the unit of account and store of value for this program is $DALA proves its utility and shows its potential to become a preferred financial system across emerging markets. We’re excited to be involved from the ground-level and look forward to playing our part in creating a just and accessible financial system for consumers.”

She says both the Prince and the Ugandan government “needed a partner that can help drive the financial inclusion to get them into a more efficient digital system. That’s when they heard about us. When we started talking we both saw the opportunity to actually build an entire ecosystem built on a crypto asset.”

“So it’s not just that consumers are buying that energy cryptocurrency, but the workers who are building our energy grids will get paid in it. So they’ve become very passionate about blockchain especially from the energy perspective, to create transparency. Working with the government to create more accountable records of what they’re building out could even reduce the potential for corruption.”

As Martinez points out: “In the hands of over 100,000 users in Uganda, already people are purchasing their electricity needs, products and services. The goal with this project is for people who are getting the energy to be able to then tap into all these other services that we offer. We’re also going to be launching cashing agents so that people can go to those mobile money agents around the corner to cash in and cash out to their wallet.”

It’s clearly a big project. Some observers will see the words ‘Uganda and Cryptocurrency’ in the same sentence and no doubt come out with some kind of trite, dismissive, assessment.

But Wala’s experience on the ground — and it cannot be emphasized enough how important that is, compared to the armchair commentators at most blockchain conferences in the Western world — combined with the hunger of an emerging nation, a passionate Prince and the ingenuity of its people should not be underestimated.

Bespoke Post says it has more than 100,000 subscribers signed up to receive a monthly “box of awesome” (that’s what it calls its bundles of curated men’s products). Next up: Creating brands and products of its own.

It’s a common move for retailers and ecommerce companies to launch their own brands, but it sounds like Bespoke Post isn’t just looking to create generic versions of stuff you’re already buying.

Instead, it says its “brand development studio” the Foundry will identify opportunities for men’s products that don’t exist, work with manufacturers to create those products and improve them with feedback from Bespoke Post customers.

The company is also unveiling its first new brand, Base Light, which creates grooming products for men, starting with a line of bar soaps. How is this different from any other soap? Bespoke Post says the bars are handmade in the United States, without “harsh” ingredients like synthetic dyes, parabens, sulfates or phthalates.

Base Light soaps are available for purchase individually, or as part of the company’s Refresh Grooming Box. There are also plans to launch Base Light-branded face wash, face scrub, face moisturizer, shampoo, conditioner, body wash and beard oil products this fall.

“Each month, we deliver hundreds of thousands of unique box experiences filled with everything from apparel and grooming products to home goods and cocktail kits,” said Bespoke Post co-founder Rishi Prabhu in the announcement. “We know the kinds of products our customers will love and can spot market opportunities for products that don’t exist yet.”

Bespoke Post says it will also launch brands in categories like homeware, apparel and shoe care.

Just when you thought you were safe from IoT on your keyboard Das Keyboard has come out with the 5Q, a smart keyboard that can send you notifications and change colors based on the app you’re using.

These kinds of keyboards aren’t particularly new – you can find gaming keyboards that light up all the colors of the rainbow. But the 5Q is almost completely programmable and you can connect to the automation services IFTTT or Zapier. This means you can do things like blink the Space Bar red when someone passes your Nest camera or blink the Tab key white when the outdoor temperature falls below 40 degrees.

You can also make a key blink when someone Tweets which could be helpful or frustrating:

The $249 keyboard is delightfully rugged and the switches – called Gamma Zulu and made by Das Keyboard – are nicely clicky but not too loud. The keys have a bit of softness to them at the half-way point so if you’re used to Cherry-style keyboards you might notice a difference here. That said the keys are rated for 100 million actuations, far more than any competing switch. The RGB LEDs in each key, as you can see below, are very bright and visible but when the keys lights are all off the keyboard is completely unreadable. This, depending on your desire to be Case from Neuromancer, is a feature or a bug. There is also a media control knob in the top right corner that brings up the Q app when pressed.

The entire package is nicely designed but the 5Q begs the question: do you really need a keyboard that can notify you when you get a new email? The Mac version of the software is also a bit buggy right now but they are updating it constantly and I was able to install it and run it without issue. Weird things sometimes happen, however. For example currently my Escape and F1 keys are now blinking red and I don’t know how to turn them off.

That said, Das Keyboard makes great keyboards. They’re my absolute favorite in terms of form factor and key quality and if you need a keyboard that can notify you when a cryptocurrency goes above a certain point or your Tesla stock is about to tank, look no further than the 5Q. It’s a keyboard for hackers by hackers and, as you can see below, the color transitions are truly mesmerizing.

Canadian internet provider Altima Telecom has fixed a flaw in its website that could have given an attacker full access to its customer database.

The customer database was connected to the company’s website, but could be remotely accessed with a blind SQL injection attack. Daley Borda, founder of Underdog Security, found the bug and reported it to TechCrunch, which we passed on to Altima.

Altima Telecom bills itself as one of the largest, independent Canadian internet service providers, serving Montreal and Toronto.

The database contained 427 tables, containing millions of records on customers — including billing data, support tickets, and other user data, according to Borda. Although the researcher could probe the database by entering commands into his browser’s address bar, he said that a malicious attacker could easily dump its contents and download the entire database.

He also found several database columns storing credit card data, including card numbers, expiry dates, security codes, and addresses.

When reached, Altima’s chief executive Frank Yang told TechCrunch that the database was protected using an encryption key management service. But when we asked several security researchers about the flaw, they said that a successful injection attack would appear as a request from a legitimate user.

“We really appreciate you and the security researcher bringing this to our attention,” said Yang. “We are taking this matter very seriously.”

It’s a surprisingly simple flaw that could have caused significant damage — even for a mid-sized ISP. Altima’s exposure is the latest in a string of security incidents at internet providers. Comcast has patched several flaws that allowed improper access to customer data. New York cable provider RCN recently admitted to storing customer passwords in plaintext.

UK members of parliament have once again called for Facebook’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, to travel to the country to face questions about how his business operates.

They’re renewing calls for facetime with the Facebook CEO in light of the massive data breach it disclosed on Friday — which the company said could affect as many as 90 million users, with 50M confirmed to have been compromised. It’s not clear exactly how many UK (or European) accounts are involved at this stage.

Facebook said on Friday that it had fixed the flaws, which were introduced after an update in July, and had been exploited by hackers to swipe access tokens. Attackers had been able to use its APIs to scrape some user data, it also said. It reset all potentially affected tokens once it discovered the hack late last month.

Damian Collins, who chairs a UK parliamentary select committee which, earlier this year, spent several months this year interrogating data protection issues, and recently called for a levy on social media platforms to help defend democratic institutions from online disinformation, told the Telegraph: “Facebook’s latest data breach demonstrates more clearly than ever why Mark Zuckerberg should face public scrutiny about the practices and policies his company employs to keep British users’ data safe.”

Julian Knight, another member of the committee, also said: “It would be helpful to hear from Mr Zuckerberg, but I won’t be holding my breath.”

Earlier this year MPs on the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) select committee appealed for Zuckerberg to personally give evidence as they scrutinized the impact of online disinformation on democractic processes. However Facebook repeatedly declined to send its founder — instead sending some alternative staffers, including — finally — its CTO.

The committee was not satisfied, complaining that the reps it sent were unable to answer their questions. Collins also slammed the company for what he described as an evasive “pattern of behaviour” — and “a desire to hold onto information and not disclose it”.

It also kept up its pressure for Zuckerberg to testify — offering the chance for him to answer questions remotely, via video link. Still Facebook declined.

In May, in a pretty extraordinary development, the DCMS committee then told Facebook that if its founder stepped foot on UK soil they would issue him with a formal summons.

Safe to say, Zuckerberg made no trips to the UK, although he did attend a meeting of the EU parliament’s conference of presidents towards the end of May (where he was heckled for also avoiding MEPs’ questions).

Given his record of rejecting invitations from the UK parliament, it seems unlikely the company will suddenly offer its CEO up now — to discuss an awkward security breach to boot.

Though Facebook’s lack of engagement with UK politicians might make the government keener to seize on the committee’s recommendation of a social media levy to offset damage caused by tech platforms’ accelerating online disinformation.

We’ve reached out to Facebook with questions and will up date this story with any response.

The data breach is the first that falls clearly under new EU-wide privacy rules which carry beefed up penalties for violations.

On Friday, in a statement commenting on the Facebook hack, the UK’s data protection agency said: “It’s always the company’s responsibility to identify when UK citizens have been affected as part of a data breach and take steps to reduce any harm to consumers. We will be making enquiries with Facebook and our overseas counterparts to establish the scale of the breach and if any UK citizens have been affected.”

The company does appear to have abided by the requirements of GDPR to report major breaches within 72 hours of discovery.

Netflix is doubling down on interactive TV, according to a new report from Bloomberg this morning. The streaming service is planning to develop a number of projects that will allow viewers to control the storyline’s progress in a TV show or movie, including one in an upcoming episode of the dystopian sci-fi anthology series, “Black Mirror.”

According to the report, the choose-your-own-adventure episode will be a part of “Black Mirror’s” fifth season, which arrives in December.

This is not the first time Netflix has tried interactive TV, but it’s interesting that it’s now bringing its experiment to more high-profile, adult-orientated shows.

The company had first announced its plans to offer this sort of interactive storytelling last June, but at the time, it was focused on kids’ shows. The original lineup included  “Puss in Book: Trapped in an Epic Tale,” “Buddy Thunderstruck: The Maybe Pile,” and “Stretch Armstrong: The Breakout.”

These are show in the Netflix user interface with a small icon of a game controller over the show’s thumbnail to indicate its interactive, playable nature.

In December 2017, Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos told Bloomberg it was preparing an experimental show aimed at older audiences, after seeing how kids had responded to the format.

The forthcoming, controllable “Black Mirror” episode will be the first time Netflix has used this format in a live-action series – and it’s the first interactive show designed for adult viewers. It’s also the first of at least two confirmed live-action projects, says Bloomberg, noting also that Netflix is in the processing of negotiating the rights to others. Two of the projects are said to be adaptations of video games.

Interactive TV is still very much an experiment. It’s not clear that this is something adults will want in their viewing experience. In addition, the production of a branched narrative is far more timely and costly which can be prohibitive in scaling these projects beyond the occasional “special episode.”

But people may come to Netflix due to curiosity about the format.

Netflix’s isn’t the only company trying interactive TV. HBO’s Steven Soderbergh project Mosaic also dabbled in interactivity through a companion app for iOS and Apple TV.

Reached for comment about today’s report, a Netflix spokesperson sent TechCrunch the following response:

 

This is the HP Spectre Folio. Unveiled in an over-the-top press event in Manhattan today, that included such turns of phrase as “aluminum has become the gold standard,” the device is a convertible laptop with a leather case.

As HP put it at the event, “this isn’t a PC that’s wrapped in leather, it’s a PC that’s made of leather.” So, what does that mean, exactly? Rather than covering the standard aluminum or plastic, the cow skin serves as both the chassis and hinge. Weird, right?

Another quote from the event: “It makes you feel a certain way when you touch it. It makes you feel a certain way when you smell it.” Not a thing I expected to hear when I headed to the city for an HP event this morning.

Point is, HP embraced something called ““manucrafturing,” in the equally bizarre words of its press release.

The laptop has a 13.3 inch pen-enabled touch screen and an Intel Core i5 or i7 processor inside. There’s 16GB of RAM and up to 2TB of storage. The battery should get up to 18 hours of life on a charge, according to the company — admittedly pretty solid.

[gallery ids="1723654,1723653,1723652,1723651,1723649,1723648,1723647,1723646,1723645,1723644,1723643,1723642,1723641"]

Pre-orders start today and the device is expected to start shipping before the end of the month. Pricing starts at $1,300 for the i5 version.

YouTube is expanding the ways advertisers can connect with their audience, thanks to an expansion to its TrueView in-stream ad format that will now push viewers to take actions when viewing ads beyond just a click. The company was already testing extensions that let advertisers add location elements or forms to their ads – to get viewers to sign up for a service or learn more via email. Chili’s tested this out to grow its loyalty program sign-ups, for example. Now, YouTube will add more extensions that let advertisers push other actions, like app downloads, travel booking, or buying movie tickets.

Early testers of these extensions included Vodafone, 20th Century Fox, Headspace, and Maybelline. Vodafone reported a 3.5% clickthrough rate, as a result, and a 2.3x incremental lift in ad recall, says YouTube.

With the new extensions, ads could become more useful to viewers who show interest. Instead of simply getting viewers excited about a new movie, for instance, viewers could be presented with an interface where they can browse nearby theaters and see when the movie is playing and where, then buy their ticket.

But this sort of ad is far more interruptive, too.

In that same movie showtime example, the ad takes over the full screen when the device is held vertically, YouTube notes. That does make it easy to click the showtimes and book a ticket, but some consumers may find this sort of takeover annoying.

Arguably, the ability to drive more than just an increase brand awareness is why advertisers would turn to a digital platform like YouTube in the first place. It makes sense that YouTube would expand the set of actions consumers can take on its ads to offer more than just a click that takes you to a company website. Whether YouTube viewers will actually stop in the middle of their video to buy tickets or download apps remains to be seen, of course.

The news was announced at Advertising Week on Monday, where YouTube also said that CPG advertisers will be able to measure their media using third-party market research firm IRI, in addition to Oracle Data Cloud and Nielsen Catalina Solutions (NCS).

 

 

YouTube is expanding the ways advertisers can connect with their audience, thanks to an expansion to its TrueView in-stream ad format that will now push viewers to take actions when viewing ads beyond just a click. The company was already testing extensions that let advertisers add location elements or forms to their ads – to get viewers to sign up for a service or learn more via email. Chili’s tested this out to grow its loyalty program sign-ups, for example. Now, YouTube will add more extensions that let advertisers push other actions, like app downloads, travel booking, or buying movie tickets.

Early testers of these extensions included Vodafone, 20th Century Fox, Headspace, and Maybelline. Vodafone reported a 3.5% clickthrough rate, as a result, and a 2.3x incremental lift in ad recall, says YouTube.

With the new extensions, ads could become more useful to viewers who show interest. Instead of simply getting viewers excited about a new movie, for instance, viewers could be presented with an interface where they can browse nearby theaters and see when the movie is playing and where, then buy their ticket.

But this sort of ad is far more interruptive, too.

In that same movie showtime example, the ad takes over the full screen when the device is held vertically, YouTube notes. That does make it easy to click the showtimes and book a ticket, but some consumers may find this sort of takeover annoying.

Arguably, the ability to drive more than just an increase brand awareness is why advertisers would turn to a digital platform like YouTube in the first place. It makes sense that YouTube would expand the set of actions consumers can take on its ads to offer more than just a click that takes you to a company website. Whether YouTube viewers will actually stop in the middle of their video to buy tickets or download apps remains to be seen, of course.

The news was announced at Advertising Week on Monday, where YouTube also said that CPG advertisers will be able to measure their media using third-party market research firm IRI, in addition to Oracle Data Cloud and Nielsen Catalina Solutions (NCS).

 

 

A patent suit between IBM and Groupon that has been underway for over two years has finally been settled. Today, the two companies announced that Groupon will pay IBM $57 million both to settle infringement claims, as well as to license e-commerce patents from IBM in the future. On IBM’s side, the company said it will “consider” offering Groupon products to employees as part of the company’s corporate benefits package.

“The license we have acquired to IBM’s patent portfolio will enable Groupon to continue to build amazing products for consumers and small businesses around the world. We look forward to sharing these products directly with IBM employees,” said Bill Roberts, Groupon vice president of Global Communications, in a statement.

The $57 million is a fair bit lower than the initial $83 million that IBM was initially awarded when it had won the case against Groupon in July, and significantly lower than the $167 million that it had originally asked for in damages.

Groupon had always argued that it wasn’t guilty because it believed the patents that were in question were too old, and so in July it had said it would consider appealing or applying for a lower sum (which it appears to have achieved).

The news puts to rest a case that has been ongoing since March 2016, when IBM filed a case against Groupon alleging that the daily deals site was violating four patents. IBM — one of the world’s biggest technology patent holders, with more than 45,000 now credited to it — is no stranger to litigating against other companies that it believes infringes on them, with other suits involving Twitter, Amazon, Expedia and more.

IBM made nearly $1.2 billion in intellectual property licensing and royalties in 2017 according to its annual report. Notably, this was down about 14 percent from 2016’s $1.4 billion, so it seems that the company might look to get more aggressive to bring back growth to that area.

“IBM invests over $5 billion annually in research and development,” said Dr. William Lafontaine, IBM’s general manager of intellectual property, in a statement. “This agreement further demonstrates the value of our intellectual property that results from this innovation. We’re pleased this matter has been resolved.”

Groupon has a market cap of about $2.2 billion and its stock is up by over three percent today, although overall has been on a downward trend for the last year, as the company continues to struggle to regain some of the momentum it had in its early days around deals for local goods, services and experiences.