Year: 2018

The working class of the United States doesn’t get many breaks these days. It’s not just a function of low pay and long hours, but also the incredible uncertainty of income and expenses that makes surviving week-to-week so challenging. One in five Americans have a negative net wealth, even in an economy where the unemployment rate is the lowest in almost two decades. Banks, meanwhile, are actively dissuading the working class from banking with them, creating a permanent class of unbanked and underbanked citizens.

For Jon Schlossberg, CEO and co-founder of Even.com, improving the plight of ordinary Americans and their finances is a deeply personal and professional mission. And now that mission has a huge new bucket of capital behind it, with Keith Rabois of Khosla Ventures leading a $40 million Series B round into the Oakland-based startup. Rabois is a return investor, having previously backed the company in its late 2014 seed round. With this latest round of capital, Even.com has now raised $50.5 million.

When Even.com first launched its eponymous app, the goal was to offer income smoothing for workers, helping them avoid usurious payday loans to make ends meet. Since that first launch several years ago, Schlossberg and his team learned that the only way to improve the finances for the working class is to help them budget better — ending the need for loans in the first place. “To do anything with your life, unless you are just born to the right family, you need to spend your money wisely, but we never teach you how to do that,” Schlossberg explained to me.

Last year, Even.com announced that it had stopped evening through its Pay Protection product. Instead, Schlossberg said that Even.com has evolved and wanted to “build a new kind of financial institution with products that fit your life.” It still has a feature it brands as Instapay, which allows users to request their earned pay in advance of their payday.

But Even.com is increasingly focused on improving the quality of its intelligent budgeting feature. Using artificial intelligence models honed over the past few years, the company now gives users of its Even app an “Okay to spend” figure that helps them think through their cash flow. By giving a predictive figure rather than a checking account balance, Even can help its users avoid sudden surprise expenses that can trigger the kind of financial death spiral that has become a familiar story in America. The company will also soon launch an automatic savings feature similar to Digit or Acorns that helps people build up regular savings.

Even’s Okay to spend feature gives insight into future cash flows before it is too late

While the company offers an increasingly comprehensive suite of financial tools, it has decided to avoid charging users specific use fees, opting instead for a subscription model. Schlossberg explained that “We are a mission-oriented company, but talk is cheap and where the rubber hits the road, it’s how you make money.” Even is free for users participating through partner employers, or $2.99 a month for individuals without a sponsor.

The company’s highest expense feature is Instapay due to underwriting, and so the company makes higher profits when fewer of its customers need access to payday credit. In other words, the better that its users budget, the fewer loans it will underwrite, and the more money the company makes. We are “directly incentivized to help people with their financial health,” Schlossberg noted.

Even has proven attractive to corporate customers, including Walmart, which partnered with the startup last December to offer its service to all 1.4 million employees at the retailer. Since the launch of that partnership, more than 200,000 Walmart employees regularly use the app, according to Even, and the typical active user checks their Okay to spend balance four times a week. A majority of active users have also taken out an Instapay through Even.

More interestingly, salaried employees at Walmart used the app slightly more than hourly workers, proving that just having a guaranteed income isn’t necessarily a panacea to financial trouble for many American households.

Even.com’s Series B round is all about expansion and growth for the company. Even intends to open an East Coast office this year, and intends to expand its product further into the Fortune 500 with partnerships similar to its Walmart deal. The company currently has 37 employees. In addition to Khosla, the startup raised funding from Valar Ventures, Allen & Company, Harrison Metal, SV Angel, Silicon Valley Bank and others.

IBM Watson Health and the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) announced today their continued partnership to use Watson’s artificial intelligence to support Veterans suffering from late stage cancer.

While perhaps better known as a Jeopardy! winner than an oncologist, Watson joined the VA’s Precision Oncology program in 2016 following the Obama administration’s introduction of the National Cancer Moonshot Initiative to promote cancer research in the country. Together, Watson and VA oncologists analyze tumor samples submitted by patients and look for mutations in the cancer’s genome. With that information, they can better target specific drugs and treatments to fight the cancer.

Since their partnership began, Watson and the VA have worked with over 2,700 veterans, and the announcement today will enable VA oncologists to use Watson’s genomics technology through at least 2019.

“It is incredibly challenging to read, understand and stay up-to-date with the breadth and depth of medical literature and link them to relevant mutations for personalized cancer treatments,” said Dr. Kyu Rhee, chief health officer for IBM Watson Health, in a statement. “…AI can play an important role in helping to scale precision oncology, as demonstrated in our work with VA, the largest integrated health system in the U.S.”

Before the initial partnership in 2016, IBM trained Watson for two years in the oncology departments of over 20 cancer institutes and early results found it made decisions that matched a team of scientists and clinicians.

While two years hardly awards the AI a degree in medicine, Watson does eclipse human professionals in one aspect: consuming data. Which is particularly important when you consider that the veteran population alone accounts for 3.5 percent of the nation’s cancer patients. (According to the National Cancer Institute, an estimated 1,735,350 new cases of cancer will be diagnosed in 2018).

In many ways, providing care and treatment for these patients is a numbers game, and one that Watson just might be able to help with.

Messenger Kids, Facebook’s parent-controlled messaging app that lets kids text, call, video chat, and use face filters, has now arrived in Mexico. The launch follows Messenger Kids’ recent expansion outside the U.S., where in June it first became available to users in Canada and Peru. The app in Mexico works the same as it does elsewhere – parents have to approve all the contacts the child is allowed to talk to – whether that’s family members the child knows, like grandma and grandpa, or the child’s friends.

Facebook has consulted with paid advisor Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and others on the development of Messenger Kids’ features focused on principles of social and emotional learning. For example, it recently introduced a section of guidelines that remind kids to “be kind” and “be respectful” and rolled out “kindness stickers” which are meant to encourage more positive emotions when communicating online.

These approaches are meant to help kids learn, from the beginning, better ways of communicating when online. However, it’s still advisable for parents to sit with kids as they practice texting for the first time, in order to talk about what’s appropriate behavior. As kids gets older, parents should continue to spot check their conversations and have discussions about what the child may have done right or wrong.

For example, we use Messenger Kids in our home, and I recently had a conversation about when it’s too early or too late to be placing a video call, after reviewing the chat history. I then adjusted the app’s “bedtime hours” to limit calls to certain daytime hours. This isn’t something you can do with other social apps.

While the app continues to be controversial because of its maker – Facebook is using it to get kids hooked on its products at a young age – there aren’t any real alternatives for parents who want texting apps for kids with parental controls and friend approvals built in. And even if a startup came up with a similar service, it would be hard to compete with Facebook’s scale.

Today, Messenger Kids has over half a million users across iOS and Android, and is continuing to grow with these international expansions.

On the heels of Google getting served a $5 billion fine by the EU over monopolistic practices related to its Android operating system, the European Commission today resurfaced another ongoing case in the world of large U.S. tech companies. The EC said that it has added to its investigation into Qualcomm and its predatory pricing of UMTS baseband chips. Specifically, today the Commission has sent more details relating to elements of the “price cost” test that it had applied to measure just how much below cost Qualcomm was selling UMTS baseband chips to edge out competitors.

If the case is decided against Qualcomm, the company could face an additional fine of up to 10 percent of its worldwide revenues. In 2009, these were $10.4 billion, while in 2017, global turnover was over $22 billion.

The original, 2015 case was based on a complaint filed by Icera — once a big player in baseband chips — and dates back to practices between 2009 and 2011 and alleged that Qualcomm used its market position to negotiate artificially low prices for UMTS chips — used in 3G phones — in order to oust out Icera. Others that made similar chips include Nvidia.

Qualcomm has wasted little time in responding to the notice posted by the EC.

“This investigation, now in its ninth year, alleges harm in 2009-2011, to a competitor who chose years later to exit the market for reasons unrelated to Qualcomm,” said Don Rosenberg, general counsel and executive vice president of Qualcomm in a statement. “While the investigation has been narrowed, we are disappointed to see it continues and will immediately begin preparing our response to this supplementary statement of objections. We belief that once the Commission has reviewed our response it will find that Qualcomm’s practices are pro-competitive and fully consistent with European competition rules.”

Qualcomm is already in the middle of appealing a $1.23 billion fine in the EU over LTE chip dominance in the iPhone, related to deals that were made with Apple at the expense of another big rival of Qualcomm’s, Intel. (Never mind that Apple and Qualcomm are also in the middle of a patent dispute.)

This older case, as Qualcomm points out, has been narrowed since it was first announced almost exactly three years ago. And while we don’t know what the exact details of the supplementary objections are and whether they have expanded them again (we have contacted the EC to try to find out), the Commission also notes in its short statement — printed in full below — that sending an update to its calculations doesn’t necessarily imply the outcome of this case.

Statement below.

The European Commission has sent a Supplementary Statement of Objections to Qualcomm Inc. This is a procedural step in the Commission’s ongoing investigation under EU antitrust rules looking into whether Qualcomm engaged in ‘predatory pricing’. The Commission sent a Statement of Objections to Qualcomm in December 2015 detailing its concerns. In particular, the Commission’s preliminary view is that between 2009 and 2011 Qualcomm sold certain UMTS baseband chipsets at prices below cost, with the intention of eliminating Icera, its main competitor in the leading edge segment of the market at that time. UMTS chipsets are key components of mobile devices. They enable both voice and data transmission in third generation (3G) cellular communication. The Supplementary Statement of Objections sent today focuses on certain elements of the “price-cost” test applied by the Commission to assess the extent to which UMTS baseband chipsets were sold by Qualcomm at prices below cost. The sending of a Supplementary Statement of Objections does not prejudge the outcome of the investigation. More information is available on the Commission’s competition website, in the public case register under the case number AT.39711.

Comcast announced this morning that it’s halting its efforts to acquire the film and television assets of 21st Century Fox.

Disney made a deal to acquire those assets last year, but after a district court judge approved the merger of AT&T and Time Warner (despite the antitrust-related objections of President Trump’s Department of Justice), Comcast announced another, higher bid.

That, in turn, prompted Disney to make an even higher offer of $71.3 billion (split between cash and stock). With Comcast dropping out, it seems like this bid will go through — if it can get regulatory approval.

Comcast says that instead of continuing to pursue a Fox acquisition, it’s focusing on its offer to acquire British satellite broadcaster Sky.

Another possible factor: The DOJ says it’s appealing the court’s approval of the AT&T-Time Warner merger.

“I’d like to congratulate Bob Iger and the team at Disney and commend the Murdoch family and Fox for creating such a desirable and respected company,” Comcast Chairman and CEO Brian L. Roberts said in a statement.

As of 10:08am Eastern, Comcast shares were up 2.85 percent and Disney shares were up 2.52 percent, while 21st Century Fox shares had dropped 1.68 percent.

Spotify wants give artists and labels and easier way to submit their new music for playlist consideration. The streaming service this morning launched a feature, still in beta, that allows any artists with a Spotify for Artists account or labels using Spotify Analytics to share unreleased tracks directly with Spotify’s team of over 100 editors worldwide. The team is responsible for programming Spotify’s playlists – the lists on which a new track’s inclusion could become a make or break point for an emerging artist, and are a key part of album promotion.

The company says that, today, more than 75,000 artists are featured on its editorial playlists every week, plus another 150,000 on its flagship playlist, Discover Weekly.

However, it hasn’t always been clear how to reach the editorial team to suggest music. These days, artists and labels ask for intros to playlists editors, believing that getting to the right person will give them an edge in having their tracks selected for a playlist. The new submissions feature aims to change this process, while also driving artists and labels to use Spotify’s own software for managing profiles and tracking their stats on the service.

Spotify also stresses that submissions should include other data, not just the song itself. It wants artists and labels to notate things like the genre, mood and other data, including things like the instruments used, whether it’s a cover, the culture the song belongs to, and more. This data will be examined in addition to data Spotify already knows about the artist – like what else their fans listen to, what other playlists their music appears on, and more.

This information is used by editors who will search across the submissions to find new tracks to add to playlists, and the info will be taken into account as Spotify programs its recommendations as an added bonus. For example, if the submission is tagged and sent in seven days in advance, the selected song will automatically appear in every one of the artist’s followers’ Release Radar playlists, says Spotify.

The company also took the time in its announcement this morning to clarify that no one can pay to be added to Spotify’s playlists – something that may seem to be an option, given the over-the-top Drake promotion on the service recently that had some customers demanding refunds for what felt like an advertisement. It gave the appearance of an artist throwing money at Spotify in exchange for playlist inclusion.

Spotify today states that’s not how things work, saying:

We want to make something crystal clear: no one can pay to be added to one of Spotify’s editorial playlists. Our editors pick tracks with listeners in mind. They make these decisions using data about what’s resonating most with their community of listeners.

Printrbot, a popular Kickstarter-backed 3D printer company, has shut down, leaving only a barebones website and little explanation. The founder, Brook Drumm, wrote that “Low sales led to hard decisions.”

“We will be forever grateful to all the people we met and served over the years,” he wrote. “Thank you all.”

Printrbot’s machines costs about $200 during the Kickstarter and Drumm created multiple add-ons including a belt for printing multiple objects.

Drumm also ran Vault Multimedia and appeared on Science Channel’s All-American Makers TV and a pastor. Drumm created his product after having trouble assembling an early Makerbot and finding the hardware and software difficult to use.

There is no clear information on future support or parts availability for current customers. I’ve reached out to the company for comment.

MoviePass competitor Sinemia is lowering prices on the already low-cost movie ticket subscription plans that it introduced earlier this year.

Its monthly prices are being cut by $1 across-the-board. The cheapest plan now costs $3.99 per month, which gets you one standard movie ticket for that month. The priciest one, which covers three tickets (and includes 3D, 4D and IMAX screens), now costs $13.99 per month.

Sinemia says it’s also offering discounts on its family plans, and on plans in Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia.

You might think that this summer promotion (which ends on September 3) seems timed to take advantage of the negative publicity around MoviePass’ new “peak pricing” for popular movies, and Sinemia’s press release doesn’t exactly deny it — the release literally begins: “At a time when MoviePass is running surge pricing …”

Sinemia subscribers also benefit from being able to purchase tickets in advance. And unlike AMC’s Stubs A-List program, Sinemia isn’t limited to a specific theater chan.

One caveat is that these plans are billed annually, so you’ll be making a bigger commitment upfront. On the bright side, this presumably locks in the lower price for a full year.

“With the release of highly-anticipated summer blockbusters, and with seasonal temperatures hitting record highs, we want to provide moviegoers a more affordable way to see must-watch films and get a break from the heat,” said Sinemia founder and CEO Rifat Oguz in the release.

An internal Apple document distributed to Apple Authorized Service Providers and obtained by MacGénération and MacRumors confirms that there’s a membrane under the keyboard to “prevent debris from entering the butterfly mechanism”. This is the first time Apple acknowledges that the third generation butterfly keyboard tries to fix unreliability issues.

“The keyboard has a membrane under the keycaps to prevent debris from entering the butterfly mechanism. The procedure for the space bar replacement has also changed from the previous model,” the internal document says.

When Apple introduced the updated MacBook Pro, the company told everyone that the keyboard had been updated for quieter typing. But iFixit found out that the company actually added thin silicon barriers under each keycap.

It’s clear that Apple didn’t want to publicly state that there is a reliability issue with its recent 12-inch MacBook and MacBook Pro models. The company doesn’t want to fuel those lawsuits.

But if you’ve been using a MacBook Pro or a 12-inch MacBook, you know that the butterfly keyboard isn’t ideal. While some people love typing with it, the main issue is that it’s not reliable. Sometimes, keys become stuck, you can’t use a letter, or it inserts two letters every time you press that key.

Even worse, if you try to bring it to an Apple Store to get it fixed, it’s an expensive process that involves replacing a good chunk of the computer. Dust, sand or hair can render your computer unusable.

It’s still too early to say if the 2018 MacBook Pro is more reliable. But Apple needs to update the 12-inch MacBook right away because it’s outrageous that they still sell a laptop with a broken keyboard.

PureSec, a startup out of Israel emerged from stealth today to provide a way to make serverless computing more secure.

Serverless computing reduces programming to writing functions, so that when a certain event happens, it triggers an automated action. The cloud vendor takes care of the underlying infrastructure and developers just write the code. It may sound like Shangri La for tech, but in reality there are still security concerns.

You might think that a process that lasts only milliseconds wouldn’t be subject to conventional kinds of attacks, but the fact is serverless functions are designed to take human checks and balances out of the equation, says company co-founder Ory Segal, and if you don’t set up the functions correctly you could be vulnerable.

As with any type of cloud security, there is a shared security model with serverless computing. On the vendor side, they ensure their data centers and systems are secure, but at the application level, it’s up to the developer. Certainly we have seen many instances where applications have been left exposed and data has leaked.

Segal says the function may be only a few lines of code triggering an action, but the action usually involves interacting with one or more external services. When that happens, there is an opportunity to manipulate the function and make it do something it wasn’t designed to do such as inject malicious code.

The product looks at your serverless code and lets you know which vulnerabilities you may have left exposed. It can even fix those problems for you if you wish. It also allows you to configure a security profile for your code from a dashboard and see a log of activity to track problems when they occur.

Screenshot: PureSec

Segal says when the company launched in 2016, it was just a couple of years after AWS launched its Lambda serverless product. At the time, it was not widely used or understood. Serverless computing remains very early in its development, but in order to grow it needs a set of underlying tools like security to really take off.

PureSec is built from the ground up to provide serverless security, and itself is built on top of serverless architecture. As Segal points out, traditional security products require underlying infrastructure to deploy something either on the server or network. With serverless architecture, there is no underlying architecture on which to deploy until event is triggered and the cloud provider figures out what compute, memory and storage is required to complete the process.

The company has been in stealth mode up until today and has raised $3 million in seed investment, according to Crunchbase. It has 7 employees based in Tel Aviv.