Year: 2018

The United States Supreme court issued a decision this morning required police to obtain a warrant from a judge in order to track individuals through cellphone records. The 5-4 ruling is being regarded as a win for privacy advocates in the U.S.

The decision derived from a 2011 case in which FBI agents used three months of phone records in order to capture and convict a Michigan man of robbing Radio Shack and T-Mobile locations. The suspect’s lawyers argued that the evidence should be thrown out due to a lack of warrant, after their client lost in lower court rulings.

Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the opinion for the majority, used the platform to highlight the limitations of the ruling. “The Government will be able to use subpoenas to acquire records in the overwhelming majority of investigations. We hold only that a warrant is required in the rare case where the suspect has a legitimate privacy interest in records held by a third party.”

Roberts, who was joined by four of the court’s more liberal judges, also left open the possibility of using such records without a warrant in the case of life and death circumstances.

“As a result, if law enforcement is confronted with an urgent situation, such fact-specific threats will likely justify the warrantless collection of CSLI,” he wrote. “Lower courts, for instance, have approved warrantless searches related to bomb threats, active shootings, and child abductions. Our decision today does not call into doubt warrantless access to CSLI in such circumstances. While police must get a warrant when collecting CSLI to assist in the mine-run criminal investigation, the rule we set forth does not limit their ability to respond to an ongoing emergency.”

Are you ready for some scary numbers? After months of Mark Zuckerberg talking about how “Protecting our community is more important than maximizing our profits”, Facebook is preparing to turn that commitment into a Time Well Spent product.

Buried in Facebook’s Android app is an unreleased “Your Time On Facebook” feature. It shows the tally of how much time you spent on the Facebook app on your phone on each of the last seven days, and your average time spent per day. It lets you set a daily reminder that alerts you when you’ve reached your self imposed limit, plus a shortcut to change your Facebook notification settings.

Facebook confirmed the feature development to TechCrunch, with a spokesperson telling us “We’re always working on new ways to help make sure people’s time on Facebook is time well spent.”

The feature could help Facebook users stay mindful of how long they’re staring at the social network. This self-policing could be important since both iOS and Android are launching their own screen time monitoring dashboards that reveal which apps are dominating your attention and can alert you or lock you out of apps when you hit your time limit. When Apple demoed the feature at WWDC, it used Facebook as an example of an app you might use too much.

Images of Facebook’s digital wellbeing tool come courtesy of our favorite tipster and app investigator Jane Manchun Wong. She previously helped TechCrunch scoop the development of features like Facebook Avatars, Twitter encrypted DMs, and Instagram Usage Insights — a Time Well Spent feature that looks very similar to this one on Facebook.

Our report on Instagram Usage Insights led the sub-company’s CEO Kevin Systrom to confirm the upcoming feature, saying ““It’s true . . . We’re building tools that will help the IG community know more about the time they spend on Instagram – any time should be positive and intentional . . . Understanding how time online impacts people is important, and it’s the responsibility of all companies to be honest about this. We want to be part of the solution. I take that responsibility seriously.”

Facebook has already made changes to its News Feed algorithm designed to reduce the presence of low-quality but eye-catching viral videos. That led to Facebook’s first ever usage decline in North America in Q4 2017, with a loss of 700,000 daily active users in the region. Zuckerberg said on the earnings call that this change “reduced time spent on Facebook by roughly 50 million hours every day.”

Zuckerberg has been adamant that all time spent on Facebook isn’t bad. Instead as we argued in our piece “The Difference Between Good And Bad Facebooking”, its asocial, zombie-like passive browsing and video watching that’s harmful to people’s wellbeing, while active sharing, commenting, and chatting can make users feel more connected and supported.

But that distinction isn’t visible in this prototype of the “Your Time On Facebook Tool” which appears to treat all time spent the same. If Facebook was able to measure our active vs passive time on its app and impress the health difference, it could start to encourage us to either put down the app, or use it to communicate directly with friends when we find ourselves mindlessly scrolling the feed or enviously viewing people’s photos.

Urban transportation app Citymapper quietly rolled out an app update that lets you find many alternative mobility services in the app. You can now find the nearest dockless bike or electric scooter around you (not the Bird and Lime kind, the motorcycle kind).

The integrations are already live in many cities. The company didn’t add new buttons for each service because it was already getting quite crowded with buses, subways and ride-sharing services.

If you tap the bike button, you get a map view of the streets around you. In addition to traditional bike-sharing services, you’ll now find colored dots representing both Ofo and Mobike . Below the map, you get a list of the closest bikes. TechCrunch’s Ingrid Lunden previously reported that the Mobike integration was coming soon.

But Citymapper also added a new scooter button in multiple cities. As the name suggests, this button helps you locate the closest free-floating scooter that you can unlock with your phone.

In Paris, you’ll find Coup and Cityscoot scooters. In Berlin, you’ll find Coup scooters. In Madrid and Barcelona, you’ll find Muving, ioscoot, eCooltra and Yugo scooters… You get the idea. Chances are all your local options will be there.

Interestingly, electric scooters from Bird and Lime aren’t in there just yet. It might be what everybody is talking about, but you’ll only see Jump and Ford bikes in San Francisco.

For now, all you can do is locate the nearest bike or scooter. You still have to open each individual app to scan the QR code and unlock those vehicles.

But this is an interesting approach. Citymapper doesn’t operate any transportation service. It can be an agnostic player and provide a comprehensive view of what’s around you without any conflict of interest. It doesn’t have to recreate a transportation hub like Lyft or Uber as those two companies recently acquired Motivate and Jump to provide bike-sharing services.

And if you’re visiting a city for the first time, you can open the app to find out how you’ll be able to navigate that new city.

In what appears to be the latest salvo in a new, wired form of protest, developer Sam Lavigne posted code that scrapes LinkedIn to find Immigration and Customs Enforcement employee accounts. His code, which basically a Python-based tool that scans LinkedIn for keywords, is gone from Github and Gitlab and Medium took down his original post. The CSV of the data is still available here and here and WikiLeaks has posted a mirror.

“I find it helpful to remember that as much as internet companies use data to spy on and exploit their users, we can at times reverse the story, and leverage those very same online platforms as a means to investigate or even undermine entrenched power structures. It’s a strange side effect of our reliance on private companies and semi-public platforms to mediate nearly all aspects of our lives. We don’t necessarily need to wait for the next Snowden-style revelation to scrutinize the powerful — so much is already hiding in plain sight,” said Lavigne.

Doxxing is the process of using publicly available information to target someone online for abuse. Because we can now find out anything on anyone for a few dollars – a search for “background check” brings up dozens of paid services that can get you names and addresses in a second – scraping public data on LinkedIn seems far easier and innocuous. That doesn’t make it legal.

“Recent efforts to outlaw doxxing at the national level (like the Online Safety Modernization Act of 2017) have stalled in committee, so it’s not strictly illegal,” said James Slaby, Security Expert at Acronis. “But LinkedIn and other social networks usually consider it a violation of their terms of service to scrape their data for personal use. The question of fairness is trickier: doxxing is often justified as a rare tool that the powerless can use against the powerful to call attention to perceived injustices.”

“The problem is that doxxing is a crude tool. The torrent of online ridicule, abuse and threats that can be heaped on doxxed targets by their political or ideological opponents can also rain down on unintended and undeserving targets: family members, friends, people with similar names or appearances,” he said.

The tool itself isn’t to blame. No one would fault a job seeker or salesperson who scraped LinkedIn for targeted employees of a specific company. That said, scraping and publicly shaming employees walks a thin line.

“In my opinion, the professor who developed this scraper tool isn’t breaking the law, as it’s perfectly legal to search the web for publicly available information,” said David Kennedy, CEO of TrustedSec. “This is known in the security space as ‘open source intelligence’ collection, and scrapers are just one way to do it. That said, it is concerning to see ICE agents doxxed in this way. I understand emotions are running high on both sides of this debate, but we don’t want to increase the physical security risks to our law enforcement officers.”

“The decision by Twitter, Github and Medium to block the dissemination of this information and tracking tool makes sense – in fact, law enforcement agents’ personal information is often protected. This isn’t going to go away anytime soon, it’s only going to become more aggressive, particularly as more people grow comfortable with using the darknet and the many available hacking tools for sale in these underground forums. Law enforcement agents need to take note of this, and be much more careful about what (and how often) they post online.”

Ultimately, doxxing is problematic. Because we place our information on public forums there should be nothing to stop anyone from finding and posting it. However, the expectation that people will use our information for good and not evil is swiftly eroding. Today, wrote one security researcher, David Kavanaugh, doxxing is becoming dangerous.

“Going after the people on the ground is like shooting the messenger . Decisions are made by leadership and those are the people we should be going after. Doxxing is akin to a personal attack. Change policy, don’t ruin more lives,” he said.

Fresh on the heels of the launch of betaworks Studios, the startup factory is opening its doors once again as applications have opened for LiveCamp.

LiveCamp is the fourth installment of betaworks’ accelerator program, following the progress of BotCamp, VoiceCamp and VisionCamp.

LiveCamp is a bit less straightforward with its thesis. Inspired by Twitch streamers and platforms like HQ Trivia, LiveCamp is looking for companies that are interested in digital live experiences, where the line between performer and audience is blurred.

“You can think of eSports with commenting as the 1.0,” said Camps General Manager Danika Laszuk. “HQ really brought the idea of live to a more mainstream audience. I mean, there is no game if people aren’t playing it. But there are plenty of examples, like Peloton, where you could get a bike or go to a studio, or take a live spin class right from your home on your bike, with a community all over the world.”

Betaworks has always employed the “rising tide” strategy. Even years ago, with the entrepreneur in residence program, betaworks created a cohort of companies across a single vertical to give them the opportunity for early strategic partnerships.

LiveCamp will work in a similar way, with some companies focused on consumer-facing live applications, and others developing middleware to enable them, while still others will build applications to enable creators themselves.

Betaworks is looking for between 5 and 10 companies to join the 11-week LiveCamp program. Each company will receive a $200K uncapped SAFE note with a 25 percent discount, with 8 percent common stock in each company allocated to betaworks.

Companies can apply to LiveCamp here.

A day after MoviePass announced upcoming surge pricing, Sinemia is introducing a new deal group deal for families. The plans start at $9 a month for one movie for two people and goes up considerably from there, topping out at ten times that amount for three movie days a month for six people.

Families can get expensive.

The new plans will be available in the US, UK, Canada, Australia and Turkey. Earlier this month, the company, which touts itself as a MoviePass competitor in its own press material, launched single user plans starting at as low as $5 a month for a single film. The company also dropped the need for a physical card in a bid to differentiate itself from its chief competitor.

Of course, things have been heating up a fair bit in the category, with MoviePass’s recent explosion in popularity. Earlier this week, the AMC theater chain announced that it was launching its own take on movie membership, which also included a number of non-movie perks.

MoviePass, which recently passed three million paid subscribers, has been diversifying (for better and worse), investing in films like the recent John Travolta feature, Gotti, which scored a rare zero-percent on Rotten Tomatoes. The service is also mulling its own family plan for later this month, but Sinemia beat it to the punch on that one. 

File sharing tools are a dime a dozen these days. There’s Dropbox, Google Drive, and iCloud. But what if you want to share something quickly and easily from the command line? That’s why programmer Remco Verhoef created Transfer.sh.

The service has basically a file dump. You send a file to transfer.sh via curl and it stays there for fourteen days until its automatically deleted. For example, I uploaded this picture by adding a bit of code to my .bashrc.

The system is one of those small, clever tools that just works. Verhoef created it because he needed to be able to upload files on the fly.

“I created this application when I needed to share log data from within a ssh shell with someone else,” he said. “So I created a web application where I can easily upload files using curl (which is available on almost every platform) just using the command line and modify the file on the fly, like encrypting the contents, applying grep etc. The application has been made open source because it could be usable for many other people and I’d encourage them to run their own server.”

“We don’t have a business model, and we are keeping the site running as courtesy. It is getting a bit difficult to keep it running, because of the popularity and usage,” he said. He also runs a dev shop and is releasing a number of other products including ICO security.

Verhoef doesn’t promise security on his platform, only convenience. He recommends piping files through gpg before uploading them.

Not everyone is using the product for good, however, which frustrates his team.

“It is being used by a lot of people,” he said. “Some are using it for uploading log files, others are exporting complete video surveillance to us. Sometimes it is being abused, by distributing malware, botnets and other malicious tools, but we try to stop it as soon as possible. One time a porn website was serving porn photos through us, and when we found out we had all photos replaced by dogs and kittens.”

Welcome to Bag Week 2018. Every year your faithful friends at TechCrunch spend an entire week looking at bags. Why? Because bags — often ignored but full of our important electronics — are the outward representations of our techie styles, and we put far too little thought into where we keep our most prized possessions.

A few months back I declared the Peak Design Everyday Backpack the best thing at CES 2018. It was a silly comment since the bag was released a couple years back but it was new to me. I had purchased the bag from Best Buy a few days prior and was in love with the bag and had to tell the world. I’m happy to report that after carrying the bag around several more conferences and a family trip to Disney World, I’m comfortable declaring it the best backpack I’ve ever used.

The company recently released a black version and sent me one to test. It looks mean. It’s the backpack Darth Vader would carry if he needed to tout around a full frame DSLR, a couple lenses and a MacBook Pro.

[gallery ids="1661479,1661478,1661477,1661475,1661476,1661480,1661482"]

The bag’s main clasp is wonderful. It’s designed in such a way that the wearer can quickly open and securely close it. Just pull down and away to open the bag. To close it, pull down so the top is tight, place the clasp next to the metal rungs and let go. Magnets hold the clasp next to the bag and the tension on the top causes the clasp to find the next available rung. Try it and you’ll love it. I do.

Peak Design equipped the bag with solid hardware. All the clasps are metal and the zippers are durable. I don’t think there’s plastic anywhere on the bag.

Like I said several months ago, the bag is best described as smart and solid. It’s a confident design with just enough pockets and storage options. The bag features one, large pocket that makes up most of the bag. Foldable dividers allow the wearer to customize the bag as needed. And quickly, too. These dividers fold in several ways, allowing the bag to hold, say, a large telephoto lens or several smaller lens.

The bag is packed full of surprises, too. Straps are hidden throughout allowing it to hold a surprising amount of items even a drone.

Peak Design positions this bag as a camera bag, but it can be so much more with some little bags. I use these and they fit perfectly in both the 20L and 30L bag. It lets me keep things organized and separated in a way that I’ve haven’t found possible in other bags. Peak Design should look at making a series of these bags. I would be all over them if they did.

The bag I bought back before CES was the 20L. It’s the smallest option though far from small. My 15-inch MacBook Pro squeezes into the laptop compartment and the bag has yet to feel too small even when it’s holding a camera, a couple books and a travel pillow.

The new black bag looks amazing but it seems to show scuffs and dirt more than my grey one. That’s a shame, too. I throw my bags around and expect a lot out of them. This black bag looks more dirty after one oversea trip than my grey one does after six months of use.

Just like I said back at CES, I’m not going to run through all the details of this bag. A few more are worth calling out: The sternum strap is fantastic. It uses clips without moving parts so it should last a lifetime. The shoulder straps are attached to the bag with a rivet that allows the straps to swivel as needed — it’s a smart advancement in the design of a backpack. And inside the laptop sleeve is a small pocket that is absolutely perfect to hold a Traveler’s Notebook and a pen.

As backpacks go, the Peak Design Everyday Backpack costs more than most. The smaller 20L is $260 and the 30L is $290. To me, the higher price is justified and if there’s a backpack worth the extra cost, it’s this one. I highly recommend this bag.

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Bag design with Peak Design

Folks, it’s Bag Week! Tito Hamze visits Peak Design’s HQ in San Francisco to learn about the company and how they create their bags. From humble beginnings starting with a clip to hold your camera to a full-fledged accessory company, this outfit is growing and creating quality products — all while never having taken any traditional VC funding.

Facebook’s kid-friendly messaging app, Messenger Kids, is expanding to its first countries outside the U.S. today, with launches in Canada and Peru. It’s also introducing French and Spanish versions of its app, and rolling out a handful of new features focused on promoting respect and empathy, including a “Messenger Kids Pledge” and something called “Kindness Stickers,” which are meant to inspire more positive emotions when communicating online.

The stickers say things like “MY BFF” or “Well Done!” or “Best Artist,” and are designed to be placed on shared photos.

Also helpful is the new “Messenger Kids Pledge,” which is designed for both parents and children to read together, and includes some basic guidelines about how to be behave online. For example, it reminds everyone to “be kind when you communicate,” and to “be respectful,” explaining also that when someone doesn’t respond right away, they may just be too busy. “Be safe” and “have fun” are also a part of the guidelines.

This seems like a small addition, but it’s the kind of thing parents should already be doing with their kids when they introduce new technology – and many do not. Some parents don’t even know what apps kids are using, which has allowed those less secure apps to become hunting grounds for predators.

Messenger Kids works differently, as it requires parental involvement. Kids can’t add any friends without parental approval, and the app can be managed directly from parents’ Facebook.

While it’s understandable that people have a hard time trusting Facebook these days, there isn’t any viable alternative that allows kids to “practice” communicating or socializing online in a more controlled environment. Kids instead beg for apps aimed at adults and older teens, like Snapchat, Instagram, and Musical.ly – apps I personally won’t install for a “tween.”

Messenger Kids at least gives kids a way to privately socialize with approved people – kids whose parents you know and trust, and family members on Facebook. They’re at an age where you can still look over their shoulder, and correct bad behavior as it arises.

The alternative to using Messenger Kids is what a lot parents do – they refuse all social apps until kids reach a certain age, then throw them to the wolves on the internet. Is that really better?

Despite its sandboxed nature, kids like Messenger Kids because it has the features they actually want from the adult-oriented apps – like photo filters and stickers. (If the app would please add Facebook’s new lip-sync feature so I could stop hearing the begs for Musical.ly on a daily basis, I’d be much appreciative.)

Related to its push for kindness and respect, Messenger Kids will also soon roll out an interactive guide within its app called the “Appreciation Mission” which will encourage kids to discover and express appreciation for their friends and family. This will live in the “Mission” section of the app, where kids learn how to use features, like starting a video call or sending a photo.

Facebook says it consults with the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and a global group of advisors on the development of the features focused on these principles of social and emotional learning. (The Yale Center is a paid advisor.)

Come to think of it, a lot of adults could benefit from these sorts of features, too. Maybe Facebook and Twitter should add their own in-app kindness reminders, as well?

Messenger Kids also added support for two parents to manage kids’ accounts, based on customer feedback.

The app is a free download on iOS and Android.

 

Tinder will begin testing a new feature aimed at helping people find more matches who fit their particular interests across areas like education, job type, hobbies and other details. “Tinder Picks,” as the new feature is being called, will be available only to those on Tinder Gold – the existing subscription offering that includes a number of Tinder Plus features, like Passport, Rewind, Unlimited Likes and more, but also allows users to see who has already liked them.

Combined, Tinder Plus and Gold had an average of 3.5 million paid subscribers in Q1, but Tinder doesn’t break down the two offerings individually.

Tinder Gold launched globally in August 2017, and is being tested at different price points in various markets. The company says that during its first month, subscribers saw an over 60 percent increase in matches as a result of the offering.

With Tinder Picks, the company hopes to increase matches even more.

The feature is based on information shared in Tinder users’ profile – including education, what type of job they have, what they enjoy doing and other hobbies and interests. Tinder uses this information to organize users into groupings.

For example, a “foodie” might earn that tag because they work in a restaurant, went to a top culinary school, or mentions food in their bio.

Tinder Picks considers this information along with users’ previous swiping behavior to determine who the day’s top Picks are.

Users will see their daily Picks by tapping the diamond on the top of the Discovery screen. However, you’ll need to upgrade to Tinder Gold to actually tap into their profiles, swipe on them, or send them a Super Like.

The price of your Tinder Gold upgrade could vary because Tinder uses dynamic pricing that varies based on region, length of subscription, recent in-app promotions, and other factors, like age.

Tinder Picks refresh every 24 hours, but Tinder Gold users can opt to buy more at any time, the company says. These will be sold in packs of 10, 20 or 30 Picks a la carte. (Reminder: yes, we are talking about people…which Tinder has turned into a product.)

The new feature also works with Passport, so you can check out a list of Picks in other cities.

Picks is still in testing, so users in different markets may see slight different versions of the feature.

Tinder says Picks is live now in the U.K., Germany, Brazil, France, Canada, Turkey, Mexico, Sweden, Russia and the Netherlands. It will see how users respond over the next few days, then evaluate whether to roll out the feature more broadly.

“With Picks, we’re offering users a new way to discover the most interesting people on Tinder,” said Brian Norgard, Chief Product Officer at Tinder, in a statement. “Picks delivers a personalized, premium user experience within Tinder Gold that puts a spotlight on unique characteristics that make our users stand out.”

Picks is another interesting addition for Tinder because it’s a similar model to a rival dating app Coffee Meets Bagel, which just raised $12 million for international expansion efforts. Like Coffee Meets Bagel, the premise is to offer an alternative to endless swiping, and instead present a curated selection of potential matches to browse through, or the option to pay to have a few more.

It’s yet another example of Tinder’s now Facebook-like dominion over rivals. It will buy them out – as it did with Hinge (after adopting its media-sharing focus with “Feed“); or it will copy competitors’ features, like it did with Bumble, Happn, and now Coffee Meets Bagel.