Year: 2018

Facebook looks to be jumping on the blockchain wagon with plans to introduce its own stablecoin, according to a report from Bloomberg.

The social network company — under fire for a seemingly constant stream of privacy snafus of late — created an internal blockchain division in May and, while there has been plenty of speculation, the exact nature of its work is unclear.

The Bloomberg report is a first solid suggestion at what will come from the new division and, according to the publication, it’ll be a stablecoin that “let[s] users transfer money on its WhatsApp messaging app, focusing first on the remittances market in India.”

Facebook offered a non-committal response.

“Like many other companies, Facebook is exploring ways to leverage the power of blockchain technology. This new small team is exploring many different applications. We don’t have anything further to share,” it told Bloomberg in a statement.

If the U.S. giant does carry out the plan that Bloomberg is reporting then it would (easily) be the largest company to embrace consumer blockchain service. That’s both in terms of the size of the business — a $376 billion market cap and annual revenue of over $40 billion — and the user base it touches. Facebook reaches over 2.2 billion people for its core social network, 1.5 billion for WhatsApp, 1.3 billion for Messenger and a further one billion via Instagram.

That makes this a thread worth pulling on, so let us get into it.

Yet another stablecoin

Stablecoins have become all the rage in the blockchain space during the second half of this year with scores of projects popping up to provide solutions — but let’s start with why.

The concept is simple: a cryptocurrency that is pegged to a fiat currency and therefore immune to the often wild valuation swings.

Blockchain as programmable and border-less money has potential, but stability is a huge concern. Bitcoin, for example, hit a record high of nearly $20,000 one year ago, today its price is just over $4,000 but, symbolically, it fell below that figure in recent months. The ride for ‘altcoins’ has been even bumpier.

Stablecoins offer a way to deposit money ahead of buying into Bitcoin, Ethereum or other tokens more quickly than a bank account. They also allow profits to be moved from volatile tokens and, among other things, are a more stable way of sending crypto to another person (or business) without being subject to moving prices.

Yet, despite a simple premise, there are no current examples of a proven and successful stablecoin despite the many who have thrown their hat into the ring.

Tether, the highest-profile project, is dogged by concerns around its financial backing. The organization behind it has never shown that it has the required fiat currency to back the tokens in the market while its value has previously slipped below $1.

As TechCrunch wrote in November, a number of ‘Tether-killers’ have stepped forward but none have dethroned the top dog. USD Coin, an Ethereum-based project that trades on top exchange like Coinbase and Binance, is the second widest used option with a total market cap of $230 million. Impressive but that’s under 15 percent of Tether’s $1.8 billion which illustrates the gap.

Then there are regulatory concerns.

Basis, which had raised over $130 million from big name investors like Andreessen Horowitz and Bain Capital, shut down this month, 18-months after its founding, because it found there is “no way to avoid securities status for bond and share tokens.”

Fintech services

Details are scant right now, but it looks like Facebook’s proposed stablecoin is more of a technology play than a move to give cryptocurrency owners that much-demand stable peg.

Instead, it may be a bet that the company can add financial services and products to its hugely popular messaging services. Fintech is booming in emerging markets where digital platforms and data can help overcome limited credit scoring systems and low banking rates, but Facebook hasn’t really stepped into the ring. Its sole move has been with WhatsApp, has already implemented peer-to-peer transactions in India, so global money transfers and other financial features can make sense.

Cheaper and faster international money transfers were a suggestion that I raised one year ago when I wrote that Mark Zuckerberg was right to look into blockchain opportunities. Writing his New Year goals for 2017, the Facebook CEO said he intended to study encryption and the blockchain to “see how best to use them in our services.”

WhatsApp has more than 1.5 billion monthly active users, with India, its large single market, accounting for some 200 million of that number. India is also the largest destination for global remittances, with $69 billion in transfers sent into the country during 2017, according to data from the World Bank.

Beyond remittance, a stablecoin could be used for many more things. Right from buying digital goods and services to peer-to-peer payments and more aggressive areas like crypto trading, lending and more.

What does seem clear is that the work is at an early stage within Facebook’s blockchain division, which is said to have some 30-odd employees at this point.

Chat apps get into crypto and blockchain

WhatsApp would be far from the first messaging service to embrace blockchain if the project continued as Bloomberg expects. Although, ironically, others have taken to crypto in order to provide a differentiator to compete with dominant services WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.

Canada-based chat app Kik raised $100 million through an ICO in 2017 that created its own token (Kin) and a blockchain to support developer apps. The fundamental plan, Kik CEO Ted Livingston told TechCrunch last year, was to enable developers to build apps that monetize ‘positively’ through user attention or engagement, rather than the advertising model per Facebook. Revenue would be paid out in Kin using various user-centric metrics.

Far from a crypto apologist, Livingston has been criticized for calling blockchain technology “useless.” The Kik app isn’t blockchain-based yet but it has released beta products starting this summer.

Line, a Japanese app popular across parts of Asia, has also embraced blockchain with an in-app token called Link, its own trading exchange and a crypto investment fund. The company didn’t hold an ICO, it instead plans to distribute Link tokens to users for tasks and engagement while it can also be bought and sold. Link will eventually become a method to buy Line services or goods and there are plans to extend usage to third-party services, Line has said.

Then there’s Telegram, the messaging app from the founders of Russia’s Facebook alternative — VKontakte — the Durov brothers. Telegram, which gained popularity among the crypto industry, went all in on ICOs, raising $1.7 billion in a much-anticipated sale that, in the end, was limited to accredited investors only.

It was criticized, however, for a longwinded white paper that set out overly ambitious goals for its ‘decentralized’ platform. The project has maintained a low profile and little has been said about its current status beyond a messy situation that has seen some investors cash in before a product is even released.

One other notable chat app in crypto is Status, which raised over $100 million in Ethereum in 2017 to develop a decentralized chat app and ecosystem. The Status is available for use, but the company itself has run into financial issues and this month it laid of 25 percent of its 100 staff, according to Coindesk.

Meanwhile, Kakao, Korea’s largest messaging app company, has a blockchain company. Details on planned products are unclear, but Kakao has made investments into blockchain businesses.

There was countless gadgets released in 2018. It’s the end of the year so Brian and I rounded up the best of the best and the worst of the worst.
Some where great! Like the Oculus Go. Or the Google Home Hub. But some were junk like the revived Palm or Playstation Classic.

CES 2019 is a few weeks away where manufacturers will roll out most of their wares for the upcoming year. But most products will not be available for purchase for months. What follows is a list of the best and worst gadgets available going into 2019.

Google Home Hub

Google took its sweet time bringing an Echo Show competitor to market. When the Home Hub did finally arrive, however, the company lapped the competition. The smart screen splits the size difference between the Echo Spot and Show, with a form factor that fits in much more comfortable in most home decor.

Assistant still sports a much deeper knowledge base than Alexa, and the Hub offers one not so secret weapon: YouTube. Google’s video service is light years ahead of anything Amazon (or anyone, really) currently offers, and the competition shows no sign of catching up.

DJI Osmo Pocket

I wanted to dislike the Osmo Pocket. I mean, $349 for a gimbal with a built in screen is pretty steep by any measure — especially given the fact that the drone maker has much cheaper and more professional options. After an afternoon with the Pocket, however, I was hooked.

The software takes a little getting used to, but once you’ve mastered it, you’re off the races, using many of the same tricks you’ll find on the Mavic line. Time-lapse, FaceTrack and the 10 Story Mode templates are all impressive and can help novices capture compelling video from even the most mundane subject matter.

Oculus Go

The most recent wave of VR headsets has been split between two distinct categories. There are the high-end Rift and Vives on one-side and the super low-cost Daydreams and Gear VRs on the other. That leaves consumers in the unenviable position of choosing between emptying the bank account or opting for a sub-par experience.

Oculus’ Go headset arrived this year to split the difference. In a time when virtual reality seems at the tail end of its hype cycle, the $199 device offers the most compelling case for mainstreaming yet.

It’s a solid and financially accessible take on VR that shows that the category may still have a little life left in it yet.

Timbuk2 Never Check Expandable Backpack

Granted, it’s not a gadget per se, but the Never Check is the best backpack I’ve ever owned. I initially picked it up as part of a Gift Guide feature I was writing, and I’ve since totally fallen for the thing.

As someone who spends nearly half of his time on the road these days, the bag’s space’s big volume and surprisingly slim profile have been a life saver. It’s followed me to a Hong Kong hostel and a Nigeria hotel, jammed full of all of the tech I need to do my job.

It’s also unassuming enough to be your day to day. Just zip up one of those waterproof zippers to compress its footprint.

Happy Hacking Keyboard Professional 2

Like most nerds, I have more keyboards than friends. In 2018 I gave mechanical keyboards a chance. Now, at the end of the year, I’m typing on a Happy Hacking Keyboard Professional 2. It’s lovely.

This keyboard features Topre capacitive 45G switches. What does that mean? When typing these switches provide a nice balance of smooth actions and tactile feel. There are a handful of mechanical switches available, and after trying most of them, this switch feels the best to me. The Topre capacitive switch is available in a handful of keyboards, but I like the Happy Hacking Keyboard the best.

The HHK has been around in various forms since 1996 and this latest version retains a lot of the charm including dip switches. Everyone loves dip switches. This version works well with Macs, has two USB ports and is compact enough someone could throw into a bag. Starting just last month, the keyboard is available in the US through Fujitsu so buyers do not have to deal with potentially shady importers.

Worst

Palm

The Palm is the kind of device you really want to like. And I tried. Hell, I took the thing to Africa with me in hopes that I’d be able to give it some second life as an MP3 player. But it feel short even on that front.

This secondary smartphone is a device in search of a problem, appealing to an impossibly thin slice of consumer demographics. It’s definitely adorable, but the ideal consumers has to have the need and money for a second display, no smartwatch and an existing Verizon contract. Even then, the product has some glaring flaws, from more complex user issues to simple stupid things, like a lack of volume buttons.

It’s easy to forgive a lot with a fairly well designed first generation product, but it’s hard to see where the newly reborn company goes from here. Palm, meet face.

RED Hydrogen One

Where to start? How about the price? Red’s first foray into the smartphone space starts at $1,293 (or $1,595 if you want to upgrade your aluminum to titanium). That price will get you a middling phone with an admittedly fascinating gimmick.

After what seemed like years of teasers, the Hydrogen One finally appeared in October, sporting a big, metal design and Rambo-style serrated edges. The display’s the thing here, sporting a “nano-photonic” design that looks a bit like a moving version of those holographic baseball cards we had as kids.

I showed it to a number of folks during my testing period, and all found it initially interesting, then invariably asked “why?” I’m still having trouble coming up with the answer on that one. Oh, and a few told me they became a touch nauseous looking at it. Can’t win ‘em all, I guess.

Facebook Portal

Why? is really the overarching question in all of these worst devices. It’s not as if the Portal was a bad product. The design of the thing is actually pretty solid — certainly it looks a lot nicer than the Echo Show. And while it was initially lacking in features, Facebook has made for that a bit with a recent software update.

The heart of the question is more about what Portal brings to the table that the Echo Show or Google Home Hub don’t. It would have to be something pretty massive to justify bringing a Facebook-branded piece of hardware into one’s living room, especially in light of all of the privacy concerns the social media site has dealt with this year. There’s never been a great time for Facebook to launch a product like this, but somehow, no feels like the worst.

Portal delivers some neat tricks, including impressive camera tracking and AR stories, but it mostly feels like a tone deaf PR nightmare.

Playstation Classic

1: Half the games are PAL ports and do not run well on US TVs
2: Missing classics like Gran Turismo, Crash Bandicoot, and Tomb Raider
3: Doesn’t include a power adapter
4: Only one suspend point
5: This product makes me angry

 

Days after FedEx CEO Frederick Smith dismissed the Amazon threat to its business during the company’s earnings call, Amazon announced an expansion of its two-year old Amazon Air operation which will now add ten 767-300 dedicated Amazon cargo aircraft to its fleet. The planes are being leased from existing partner, Air Transport Services Group, Inc. (ATSG), which Amazon had previously tapped back in 2016 for 20 Boeing 767 freighter aircraft.

Before today’s announcement, Amazon’s air fleet operations had 40 total aircraft in use, as it took delivery of the 40th Boeing 767 cargo plane in November. Now it will grow to 50.

The 40 aircraft today are flying in and out of gateway operations at over 20 airports, and play a significant role in how Amazon is able to make good on its promises of fast, two-day shipping for Prime members, Amazon says.

The 10 new planes from ATSG will join Amazon’s fleet over the course of the next two years.

Amazon will also open a new Regional Air Hub in 2019 at Fort Worth Alliance Airport, followed by the opening of the Air Hub at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport in 2021. Amazon had previously announced openings of a gateway operation in Wilmington, Ohio in 2019, as well as an expanded operation in Rockford, Illinois, the company noted.

“Our customers love massive selection and fast delivery, and the Amazon Air capacity we are building enables Prime delivery speeds for customers from Seattle, Washington to Miami, Florida,” said Dave Clark, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Operations at Amazon, in a statement about the fleet’s expansion. “By expanding the Amazon Air network through our partnership with ATSG we’re able to ensure we have the capacity to quickly and efficiently deliver packages to customers for years to come,” he said.

The news of the Amazon Air deal comes days after a Seattle Times story reported ATSG would acquire 20 of the used 767s being retired by American Airlines over the course of next three years. The passenger jets would be converted to freighters, and it seemed likely Amazon would be the main customer.

However, ATSG had declined to name Amazon as a client at the time of the original reporting.

ATSG may not be the only one looking to buy more planes for Amazon. In November, Amazon’s other fleet partner, Atlas Air, was reported to be shopping around for around half a dozen more aircraft, too.

FedEx had downplayed Amazon’s threat only days ago, with CEO Frederick Smith telling investors, “We don’t see them as a peer competitor at this point in time.”

He pointed out that Amazon Air’s network was set up to move inventory within the Amazon system – like not-in-stock and low-turn products, as well as forward-stocked items for third-party customers who can’t duplicate inventory at every place. That means it’s scheduled differently than systems set up by FedEx or UPS, Smith explained.

Smith also said FedEx had not seen impact from Amazon Air, in response to a question from Merrill Lynch analyst Ken Hoexter. “Our numbers do speak for themselves as we are seeing significant volume growth across our U.S. domestic parcel business,” he said.

The exec additionally blamed the company’s problems not on Amazon’s threat, but on “bad political choices.”

“I’ll just conclude by saying, most of the issues that we are dealing with today are induced by bad political choices. I mean, making a bad decision about a new tax, creating tremendously difficult situation with Brexit, the immigration crisis in Germany, the mercantilism and state owned enterprise initiatives in China, the tariffs that the United States put in unilaterally,” Smith told investors. “So you just go down the list, and they’re all things that have created macroeconomic slowdown,” he said.

 

Good news for the fashion forward and lazy alike — Nike is bringing back its self-lacing sneakers for another go. And this time they’re going to be significantly cheaper. Granted, $350 is still more than most of us pay for a pair of kicks, but it’s less than half their original $720 asking price.

Details are pretty thin. CEO Mark Parker touched on the news during an earnings call, stating,  “I’m excited to announce that in the new year we’ll launch a new adaptive performance platform in basketball at the $350 price point. We have a smart shoe designed for the perfect fit, and it’s a major step in advancing and connecting our digital transformation to product.”

How closely they’ll resemble the original Hyperadapt — among other pertinent details — remains to be seen. That said, Nike’s been pretty clear that the goal has been dropping the price all along in an attempt to move away from sheer novelty. When I tested them back in 2016, an exec told me, “This is a concept car.” In 2019, it seems they may finally be ready for full production.  $350 isn’t quite a populist price point, but marks a move toward helping mainstream Marty McFly’s long unrealized dreams.

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.

This week we had 75 percent of the core crew on hand to chat: Connie Loizos, Danny Crichton, and myself. Kate will be back on the show early next year, we promise. We were also joined by Menlo Ventures‘ Venky Ganesan who was a super great addition to the team.

There was a lot to get through. In fact, we had to toss a few things overboard toward the end due to time. So, we didn’t get to US-China cross-border venture flows, or the new Lightspeed China fund, but we did dig into:

SoftBank’s latest three mega investments. SoftBank let loose a trio of titanic checks into three companies, including $385 million into Fair, a car-focused company, $400 million into Relay Therapeutics, which deals with “protein motion,” and $500 million into Cambridge Mobile Telematics. That’s what, $1.285 billion announced in a single week?

Pinterest’s impending IPO. As expected, Pinterest is going public. We riffed on its recent revenue growth and the timing of its debut. Honestly, I’m pretty giddy to read this S-1, and I doubt that I am alone.

The US market’s crisis. Recording this late in the day on the 20th, we cut the episode right after U.S. tech stocks took a pounding. Dropbox fell under its IPO price as other SaaS players like Box took big hits. Social fell, as Snap and Twitter both swooned, the former falling under $5 per share temporarily. The pain went on, and on, and on.

Big Chinese tech stocks at 52-week lows. It’s not only American tech stocks that are in trouble, however; Chinese tech shops that have already gone public are taking their lumps as well. Indeed, as Danny detailed, many firms that were running hot before are now testing full-year lows.

Equity’s impending two-week vacation. And to celebrate all of that, this podcast is taking the first two weeks of 2019 off. Mostly so that TechCrunch can decamp to Vegas for CES, but also because after more than 100 episodes, we need to catch our breath. (And restock the fridge with Red Bull. Danny did yawn on this episode, after all!)

Next week we have a special holiday episode involving the ever-brilliant Connie and a guest. Past that, as mentioned above, we are off for two weeks. So, we’ll be back as a group in the middle of January.

Until then, a big thanks one last time for hanging out with us over the last couple of years. Chat soon!

Iflix, the emerging market Netflix competitor that’s backed by Sky, is leaving Africa to double down on its business in Asia.

The Malaysia-based company announced today it has sold the remaining shares in its Africa business — Kwesé Iflix — to Econet Group, the telecom firm that is already an investor in the business. The deal size is not disclosed. Kwesé Iflix covers the Iflix service in eight countries — Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe — with plans to expand to four more soon.

The completion of the deal means that Iflix’s total market coverage is trimmed to 23 countries, including India, markets in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and more.

“It has been an incredible journey and learning experience, launching our service in Africa. The acquisition by the Econet Group, our regional partner and Africa’s leading broadcast network, is a significant milestone for the African business, and further reinforces Iiflix’s commitment to our core markets in Asia, particularly Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines which continue to grow from strength to strength,” Iflix co-founder and CEO Mark Britt said in a statement.

Iflix has raised nearly $300 million to date from investors that include British broadcaster Sky, U.S. Hearst Communications, broadband and TV provider Liberty Global and Malaysia-based Catcha Group . Its most recent funding round was $133 million in August 2017.

Econet-owned pay TV firm Kwesé bought into the company’s Africa business in February 2018, therein creating the rebranded ‘Kwesé Iflix’ joint venture. Since then, Iflix has divested its stake until finally exiting the business as announced today.

Iflix offers a freemium service with a paid tier that costs around $3 per month. It claims an audience of “millions” of users. Its biggest rival is Netflix, which has begun testing more aggressive pricing in Malaysia — Iflix’s home market — through a mobile-only package that lowers its subscription cost to RM17, or around $4, each month.

Moves like that put Iflix and other regional players such as Hooq — which doesn’t operate in Malaysia — under pressure if Netflix decides to press ahead and expand its cheaper subscription to more markets in Asia.

Both Iflix and HOOQ pivoted to freemium earlier this year, and Iflix, in particular, has doubled down on supply. The Malaysian firm this month initiated a $5 million program to back around 30 independent content makers across Asia as it bids to widen its local programming library to compete with rivals which, in Asia, include traditional TV.

The Consumer Electronics Show, like Burning Man, is a massive event in the middle of the desert. Also like Burning Man it is populated by some of the greatest minds in technology. But, unlike Burning Man, these people are all dressed and only a few of them are on hard psychotropic drugs. Also CES is mostly inside.

Here are some tips and tricks I’ve collected over a long career spent staying in awful hotels and wandering around massive conference halls full of things that won’t be released for another year. Hopefully they can be of some use.

Why should you go?

CES is not about innovation. It is about networking with potential buyers. The show is massive and it is popular primarily because it is in Las Vegas, a city so nice they made the movie Casino about it. But the days of you and your brother being dragged out into the corn and beaten to death are gone and what’s left is an adult playground of 24 hour craps and bad drinks.

You are not going to CES to drink and gamble, however. As a startup you are going there to find customers or get press. If you have the hustle and the will you can easily meet hundreds of potential buyers for your technology including some big names who usually buy massive booths to show off their “innovative” systems. When you go bypass the armed booth guards who stand at the front directing traffic and go talk to the most bored person at the booth. This is usually some middle manager who was wrangled into telling people about his company’s most boring innovation. Talk to him or her like a human being, offer to take them out for a coffee, do whatever it takes to get a warm lead inside that massive company. Repeat this hundreds of times.

CES costs $300 and the tickets to LV and the hotel will cost far more. Be sure you’re not cash poor before you go. This isn’t a Hail Mary for your startup, it’s a step along the way.

If you don’t think you can pull off this sort of social engineering I describe then please don’t go to CES or instead send the most personable member of the team. It’s too big and there are already enough nervous nerds walking around.

You haven’t planned yet?

So you’ve decided to go. Do you have tickets? A hotel? At least an AirBnB? It’s pretty much too late right now to get any of those things in time for January 8th but you can try.

Further, if you have a friend who lives there go stay with them. The hotels gouge you during this week. Check out the Excalibur hotel, arguably one the worst on the strip. Right now, you can stay at this illustrious medieval-themed hotel for $25:

Need a smoke-smelling room abutting a flying buttress topped with an animatronic Merlin around January 9? Fear not, my liege!

The best time to book for CES is a year before CES. The second best time is never.

Maybe you’re going to buy a booth. I wouldn’t, but go ahead and give it a try. I like what my friend Tommy here did. Instead of going through one of the countless staffing agencies in Las Vegas he put out a general call for help and he got plenty of responses. Lots of people would be willing to go to Las Vegas to help out for not much cash.

Do everything in your power to stay as close to the Convention Center or Sands (the hall with all the startups) as possible. It is a living hell trying to get around Las Vegas and you’ll thank me later for every hour in a cab line you save for yourself.

Go to where the action is

If you are trying to get press for your product launch then you came to the wrong place. First, if you’re going to CES to launch then you MUST LAUNCH AT CES. I’ve seen too many idiotic startups who flew in, paid for everything, and then told the world they’d launch in like two months or whenever Sven back at the main office in Oslo was done putting the finishing touches on the device driver. If you’re not ready to ship then don’t go.

Do not spam journos about your product unless you know them. Your emails will fall into a black hole.

Further, instead of getting a booth at the show I recommend getting a booth at Showstoppers or Digital Experience. The events costs about $8,000 for a booth and are approximately the same. They are held before the main event and they’re where all the journalists go to get free prime rib and ignore you. It’s also where all of the small market journalists and the weird freelancers who wear fishing vests and live in Scranton wander around so be ready to do a little target acquisition.

Want my advice? Put one person at your booth who can tell your story in two minutes exactly. That person must tell that story as many times as possible and give the odd journalist who will stand there asking dumb questions for an hour the stiff arm whenever someone else comes up. Maximize your message dispersal. Also, if you have product then have about 20 pieces there ready to give away to Engadget, Gizmodo, the New York Times, The Verge, and the like. Don’t give anything to me if I see you. I don’t want that crap in my suitcase.

Now for the ingenious part. Find the most popular food item at the buffets and stand next to it. When a hungry journo comes up to grab a spaghetti taco or whatever you scope out their badge and offer to walk them over to your booth. They’ll harrumph a little but unless they are one of the countless millennial reporters who believe they have to liveblog these events they have nothing else to do that night except for get drunk on gin and tonics. Drag them over to your booth and give them the two-minute pitch. They’ll be so busy eating they won’t be able to ask questions. Write down their email address – don’t ask them for a card – and give them yours. Then email the heck out of them for the next few days to remind them about your launch.

Further, never rent a suite and invite journos to come to you. They have enough trouble getting out of bed let alone getting a cab to your dumb room. If a journo wants to meet you MUST go to them. Don’t make them come to you.

Manage expectations

Like Burning Man, CES is the worst show on the planet held in one of the most unforgiving habitats known to man. As long as you accept these two points you will be fine. You will not “win” CES. At best, CES will give you a kick in the pants in regard to your competition and actual value to the world. Want to know if you have customer fit? Go to CES and meet your customers. Want to see if journalists care about your idea? Pitch them when they are fat and sassy at CES and feeling powerful. That experience will humble even the biggest ego.

Remember: the world is a cold, uncaring place and this is doubly true at CES.

Be careful with PR people

See that animated GIF above? That’s how I manage my CES email. I scroll through the subject lines, look for people I know, and then select all unread and delete them. One of the worst things about CES is that the letters “CES” show up in multiple words and barring writing a regular expression it is very difficult to filter them out. 99% of your CES emails will go unread.

So should you hire a PR person? Yes and no. If you hire them to just send emails then you might as well burn your money. However, if that PR person can lead you around the show and introduce you to folks who can help you get your story out then it might be worth it. Sadly, there is no way to tell how incompetent a PR person is until you get on the ground with them. I know a few I can recommend. Email me. Otherwise be very careful.

Don’t go

Look, CES sucks. I’m not going to lie to you. It’s too big, everyone there is distracted by potential Blackjack winnings and trying to get noticed or launch at CES is akin to holding a poetry reading in the middle of a rock concert: nobody is paying attention and you actually may annoy more people than you reach. It’s your call whether or not you want to give it a try but be ready to hustle. Besides, there’s always next year.

Bonus Tip: Buy a humidifier

I learned this trick from Brian Lam, formerly of Gizmodo: when you land go to Walgreens and buy a very cheap humidifier. Put it in your room and leave it on all day. Las Vegas air is very dry and you’re almost guaranteed to get chapped lips and a cough if you don’t have at least one spot where it doesn’t feel like you’re on the surface of Mars.

This was us at CES 2008 or so. We were such sweet summer children.

IBM today announced that it has developed a small sensor that sits on a person’s fingernail to help monitor the effectiveness of drugs used to combat the symptoms Parkinson’s and other diseases. Together with the custom software that analyses the data, the sensor measures how the nail warps as the user grips something. Since virtually any activity involves gripping objects, that creates a lot of data for the software to analyze.

Another way to get this data would be to attach a sensor to the skin and capture motion, as well as the health of muscles and nerves that way. The team notes that skin-based sensors can cause plenty of other problems, including infections, so it decided to look at using data from how a person’s fingernails bend instead.

For the most part, though, fingernails don’t bend all that much, so the sensor had to be rather sensitive. “It turns out that our fingernails deform – bend and move — in stereotypic ways when we use them for gripping, grasping, and even flexing and extending our fingers,” the researchers explain. “This deformation is usually on the order of single digit microns and not visible to the naked eye. However, it can easily detect with strain gauge sensors. For context, a typical human hair is between 50 and 100 microns across and a red blood cell is usually less than 10 microns across.”

In its current version, the researchers glue the prototype to the nail. Since fingernails are pretty tough, there’s very little risk in doing so, especially when compared to a sensor that would sit on the skin. The sensor then talks to a smartwatch that runs machine learning models to detect tremors and other symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. That model can detect what a wearer is doing (opening a doorknob, using a screwdriver, etc.). The data and the model are accurate enough to track when wearers write digits with their fingers.

Over time, the team hopes that it can extend this prototype and the models that analyze the data to recognize other diseases as well. There’s no word on when this sensor could make it onto the market, though.

The UK’s second busiest airport, Gatwick, reopened its runway early this morning after a day of shutdown triggered after drones were repeatedly spotting flying nearby.

In a media statement issued at 08:00 GMT this morning, the airport said it reopened the runway at 06:00 and that a “limited number” of aircraft are now taking off and landing.

Though it also warned the rate is “very restricted”, with just a few runway movements per hour.

Police units have been searching for the unknown drone operator/s since yesterday, so far without success. Last night military support was drafted in to help with the ongoing hunt.

Passengers are still being advised by Gatwick to check the status of their flight with their airline before travelling to the airport.

Gatwick said it has been working with partners in government agencies and the military overnight to “put measures in place which have provided the confidence we needed to re-open the runway and ensure the safety of passengers, which remains our priority”.

“We continue to provide welfare and information to all disrupted passengers who are at the airport and have had teams in throughout the night. Our priority today is to get our operation back on track so that people can be where they need to be for Christmas, and we will update as more information becomes available throughout the day,” it added.

The Guardian reports comments made this morning by the transport secretary, Chris Grayling, speaking on BBC Breakfast. He said there had been around 40 sightings of what are thought to be “small number of drones” while the airport was closed.

“This kind of incident is unprecedented anywhere in the world, the disruption of an airport in this way,” Grayling told the broadcaster. “We’re going to have to learn very quickly from what’s happened.

“I plan to convene discussion with other airports around the UK very quickly indeed so that they know what’s happened, they understand what lessons need to be learned, and we’ve put in place every measure we possibly can to ensure this can’t happen again.”

Aviation minister, Baroness Sugg, faced a barrage of critical questions over the incident in the House of Lords yesterday.

Robotics experts have also slammed the government for complacency over the technology, saying it has failed for years to listen to concerns about how drones could be misused.

The UK amended existing laws this year to bring in drone flight restrictions, barring flights within 1km of airports and above 400ft.

A charge of flouting the rules and flying drones recklessly or negligently acting in a manner likely to endanger an aircraft or a person in an aircraft carries a penalty of up to five years in prison or an unlimited fine or both.

But critics have said the regulations are too lax and that more needs to be done to ensure drones cannot be used to cause disruption to infrastructure and services at massive scape.

One more big consolidation play is underway in the highly competitive European food delivery business, amid more pressure from newer players like Uber Eats and Deliveroo. Today, Delivery Hero announced that it will be selling its operations in Germany — its actual home market — to Dutch rival Takeaway.com for a total consideration of €930 million (or about $1.1 billion).

The deal covers all of Delivery Hero’s operations in Germany, which include the Lieferheld, Pizza.de and foodora brands, which will now merge with Takeaway.com’s Lieferando.de brand. The financial terms: €508 million in cash and 9.5 million Takeaway.com shares worth c. €422 million, giving Delivery Hero an 18 percent share of Takeaway.com. Delivery Hero also will get a seat on the board unless it sells off shares that brings its holding to less than 9.99 percent. The companies say the deal should be closed in the first half of 2019.

The market is reacting positively to Delivery Hero’s news: its market cap is currently €5.9 billion and shares are up more than 14 percent in current trading. Meanwhile, Takeaway is valued at €2.5 billion and its shares are up by more than 24 percent.

Delivery Hero’s Germany businesses recorded 23 million orders, with Gross Merchandise Value (“GMV”) of €462 million and revenues of €76 million, the company said.

“This transaction provides Takeaway.com with a stronger proposition for both consumers and partner restaurants in the German market. It also allows Takeaway.com to operate on a significantly larger scale which is essential in building a profitable online food delivery business,” said Jitse Groen, CEO and founder of Takeaway.com, in a statement. “Although the transaction almost doubles Takeaway.com’s orders in Germany, there is still ample growth ahead, given that penetration of online food delivery in Germany is amongst the lowest in Europe. We look forward to welcoming Delivery Hero as a shareholder.”

Delivery Hero may have had its start and global headquarters in Berlin in 2010, but the company has made a lot of moves over the years to build and acquire food delivery businesses across a wide network of other countries, with a particular focus on emerging markets — not unlike another German e-commerce player, Rocket Internet, which itself was a big rival of Delivery Hero’s in food until the two undertook their own merger in a coopetition play.

First Rocket invested nearly $600 million in Delivery Hero and acquired several assets from it; then Delivery Hero acquired some assets from Rocket among several other shuffles. Delivery Hero has been offloading assets in other markets, too, selling its UK business to Just Eat for around $300 million.

“This transaction enables us to strengthen our globalfootprint and increase our focus on our key growth regions while becoming a shareholder in Takeaway.com, enabling Delivery Hero to benefit further financially from any additional value that Takeaway.com may create,” said Niklas Östberg, CEO of Delivery Hero, in a statement. “My sincere thanks go to our German teams for doing such a tremendous job and creating such outstanding businesses.”

As you can see from the very names of these brands, and the fact that Delivery Hero already operated three different delivery networks in the country, there is a lot of overlap both within the companies, and likely also for consumers taking these services, and it is no surprise to finally see them coming together. Although players like Amazon may have retreated a bit in the food delivery arena in Europe, there is still a ton of competition and overlap and that will likely mean we’ll see yet more consolidation ahead.