Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This week TechCrunch’s Silicon Valley Editor Connie Loizos and I jammed out on a couple topics as Alex Wilhelm was out managing his fake stock game spreadsheets or something. (The jury is out on whether this was a good or bad thing.)
First up is Twitter buying Smyte, a startup targeting fixes for spam and abuse. This is, of course, Twitter’s perennial problem and it’s one that it’s been trying to fix for some time — but definitely not there yet. The deal terms weren’t disclosed, but Twitter to its credit has seen its stock basically double this year (and almost triple in the past few years). Twitter is going into a big year, with the U.S. midterm elections, the 2018 World Cup, and the Sacramento Kings probably finding some way to screw up in the NBA draft. This’ll be a close one to watch over the next few months as we get closer to the finals for the World Cup and the elections. Twitter is trying to bill itself as a home for news, focusing on live video, and a number of other things.
Then we have Juul Labs, an e-cigarette company that is somehow worth $10 billion. The Information reports that the PAX Labs spinout from 2015 has gone from a $250 million valuation all the way to $10 billion faster than you can name each scooter company that’s raising a new $200 million round from Sequoia that will have already been completed by the time you finish this sentence. Obviously the original cigarette industry was a complicated one circa the 20th century, so this one will be an interesting one to play out over the next few years.
Finally, we have meditation app Calm raising a $27 million round at a $250 million pre-money valuation. Calm isn’t the only mental health-focused startup that’s starting to pick up some momentum, but it’s one that’s a long time coming. I remember stumbling upon Calm.com back in 2012, where you’d just chill out on the website for a minute or so, so it’s fun to see a half-decade or so later that these apps are showing off some impressive numbers.
That’s all for this week, we’ll catch you guys next week. We apologize in advance if Alex makes it back on to the podcast.
Equity drops every Friday at 6:00 am PT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Pocketcast, Downcast and all the casts.
Labstep, an app and online platform to help scientists record and reproduce experiments, has raised £1 million in new funding, including from existing investors. The company, whose team has a background in commercial R&D and academic research, including at Oxford University, is backed by Seedcamp and says it plans to use the new capital to double its team to 12, and for further product development.
This will include the launch of a marketplace for lab supplies, and is one of the ways Labstep plans to generate revenue. The startup will also add features to its app that streamline how scientists outsource elements of their research.
First conceived of in late 2013 and soft launched in 2015, Labstep has set out to digitise the lab experiment tracking and sharing process, and in turn give scientific research a major leg up.
As explained by CEO and co-founder Jake Schofield, science experiments are often recorded in an archaic way, relying on a mixture of pen and paper or entering resulting data into legacy software. Not only is this cumbersome but it also means that experiments are prone to mistakes and can be especially hard to replicate and therefore validate, either by a team working together internally or when sharing and cross-checking with the wider scientific and research community.
Enter: Labstep. The platform and app enables scientists to build libraries of experimental procedures — a bit like recipes — and then easily record progress when following a procedure in the lab, including building a timeline of the experiment. Procedures can also be shared with teams or more broadly, as well as deviated from in a transparent way. In fact, Schofield says one way to think about Labstep is as a ‘Github for lab experiments’. Procedures can be made public or private and can be optionally forked.
“Rather than following paper printouts, when actually carrying out your experimentation you can walk through these procedures step by step on a mobile device at the bench,” Schofield tells me. “Interactive features streamline and make it much easier to capture, comment, and record when you deviate from these processes”.
“Our API allows you to connect all the devices in your lab and automate the upload of results,” he explains. “Every action creates a timeline post, this automatic audit trail increases accuracy and saves the huge amounts of time normally spent writing a progress diary after the fact. You can form lab groups, like internal slack channels, that allow you to share these protocol libraries and real-time updates to see how your colleagues are progressing, this is massive as people are often collaborating and working in different geographical locations”.
In addition, the record of the steps that lead to a scientific conclusion can be attached to academic papers in the form of a URL so that other scientists can attempt to replicate the findings. This feature alone could go some way to tackling what the Labstep founder says is “a global reproducibility crisis,” estimated to cost billions per year in wasted research.
“At the point you publish your results, the competitive emphasis on keeping your research private shifts as you now want others to reproduce and validate your findings. We generate unique IDs that can be put in your publications and methods sections to link the protocols and the process that lead to these results,” he says.
As a route to monetisation, in the coming months Labstep will roll out a marketplace to make it easier to source the lab supplies needed to reproduce findings. It also plans to harness the real-time data that the Labstep app captures on how supplies in the lab are used, and Schofield says that by streamlining the ordering process, the reproducibility problem can be further addressed.
In another nod to collaboration, Labstep will also launch cloud features that allow users to outsource elements of the experimental process. I’m told that although outsourcing of research is commonly done in commercial R&D, it is used much less in academia.
Meanwhile, Labstep says it has users from over 600 universities globally including Stanford, Harvard and MIT in the U.S., and Oxford, University College London, Imperial College, King’s College and the Crick Institute in the U.K. It’s also not the only startup in this space to have got the attention of investors. Benchling, a graduate of Silicon Valley’s Y Combinator, raised a $14.5 million funding round a couple of weeks ago.
There are only 10 more days until The Europas where the winners of this year’s startup awards will be announced at our gala dinner, in association with TechCrunch!
The Europas half-day “Unconference” will have a fantastic lineup of panels taking place in the afternoon before the awards. This year, we’ve done away with mainstage lectures, and we’ve created a series of more tightly focused discussion panels that give you a front-row seat to the biggest investors, founders and thought leaders in tech. No more seeing a huge investor or founder on stage and not even getting to talk to them! Our goal at The Europas is to break down the barriers between speakers and audience and to get the discussion going!
This year our panels are focused around three themes: Tech + Society; Start Up Central, and The Crypto Zone. You can see the complete agenda here along with the panel speakers.
In Tech + Society, we’ll be debating and discussing:
— What happens to the tech community post Brexit?
— The Disinfoconomy panel will dive into what’s next after Facebook’s data debacle for both companies, essentially trading in personal data and for user privacy.
— Mapping the Future of Transportation and Cities: a startup that’s just emerging from stealth mode will talk about how AVs can co-exist in today’s cities.
In the Startup Central, our zone dedicated to startup life, we’ll be covering everything from seed funding to Series B and beyond. Expect to meet many investors here, as many of them will be heading up the discussion (as well as attending the awards dinner), including investors from Accel, Passion Capital, Connect Ventures, LocalGlobe, Seedcamp and many more. We’ll also be diving into startup life itself, asking if a work life balance can ever exist, and what exactly is “cultural fit”? And our most popular panel is back – Meet the Press – where you can ask top tech reporters what about exactly “makes” a tech startup story.
Finally – if you haven’t noticed recently, we’ve fallen headlong into the crypto rabbit hole. By popular demand, we’ve got two blockchain tracks dedicated to exploring the opportunities and challenges in the space. One track is dedicated to the ins and outs of investing, and the other track to the number of industries and existing business practices that blockchain is disrupting.
Agenda so far (more speakers to be confirmed):
Tech + Society Zone
• Should We Stay or Should We Go Now?
Saul Klein, LocalGlobe
Eloise Todd, CEO, Best For Britain (& other panelists to be announced)
• The Disinformation Economy
Dhruv Ghulati of factmata.com
• Get Mapping, the Future of Transportation in an Autonomous Age:
Steve Gledden, AiPod
• AI + Startups – A Non Starter?
Paul Dowling, Deeptech Mondays
Startup Central Zone
• The New World Order of Early Stage Investment
Tina Baker, JAG Shaw Baker
Scott Sage, VC
• Crossing the Chasm to Series B and Beyond
(Speakers TBA)
• The Future of Funding: ICOs, Crowdfunding and VC
Michael Jackson, Mangrove Capital
Ali Ganjavian
• Meet the Press
Featuring Journalists from Business Insider, WSJ and more
• This Startup Life – from work/life balance to cultural fit
Brett, Forsyth Group
Crypto Zone 1
• Investing in Crypto: What’s Hot and What’s Not
Richard Muirhead, Fabric Ventures
Damir Bandalo, Columbus Capital
George McDonagh, KR1
Nancy Fechnay, blockchain Angel
• The Highs and Lows of ICOs: 3 Blockchain Projects, 3 ICOs
Linda Wang, Lending Block
• Tokenize It! Understanding Token Economics
Lee Pruitt, Instasupply;
• Smart Contracts, Smarter Businesses: What Smart Contracts Can Enable
• The Most Crypto Friendly Jurisdictions
Diana Rotaru, Blockchip
Keld Van Shreven, KR1
Crypto Zone 2
• The State of Blockchain in Europe
Sasha Ivanov, Waves
Lexi Willets, Coinweb
Peter Wilson, Blockchain
• Blockchain for Social Impact: Where is Blockchain Making a Difference
Min Teo, Consensys
• Fixing Media, the Creative Industries and Visual Arts with Blockchain
Maria Tanjala, FilmChain
Robert Norton, Verisart
Christine Mohan, Civil
• We Don’t Need No Thought Control: Digital Identity and Blockchain – Pelle Braendgaard, uPort
TechCrunch is hosting its first startup competition for entrepreneurs across the Middle East and North Africa! We’ve wanted to bring TechCrunch to the region for a long time, and now thanks to our sponsor Facebook, TechCrunch is bringing the Startup Battlefield competition to Beirut on October 3 this year, hosted at the Beirut Digital District (BDD), in the heart of the Lebanese startup scene.
We’re looking for the Middle East and North Africa’s best innovators, makers and technical entrepreneurs to participate in TechCrunch Startup Battlefield MENA 2018. Startups of all kinds shooting for an exit or IPO should apply. TechCrunch will host the event at BDD in Beirut in front of a live audience and top judges, and the show will be covered on TechCrunch. The judges will choose a winner, “The Middle East’s Most Promising Startup,” whose founders will win US$25,000 in no-equity cash plus a paid trip for two to compete in the Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt 2019 (assuming the company still qualifies to compete at this time). If you want to throw your hat in the ring apply today.
Science, technology and innovation have deep roots in the Middle East and North Africa, where the world’s first university was founded in Morocco in 859, and the world’s first medical center was founded in Cairo in 972. The startup world is increasingly focused on applications for artificial intelligence, whose algebraic roots date back to ancient Syria and Iraq. Past and present, the region is known for rich cultures producing great works of art, culture and scientific discovery.
Today, venture investment and startup ecosystem development are on the rise across the region. Careem, a Middle East unicorn and ride-hailing app, is creating hundreds of thousands of jobs, while training female drivers in Saudi Arabia. Last summer, Amazon acquired Souq.com for $580 million, while regional investors poured a billion dollars into a local competitor, Noon.
TechCrunch is eager to take part in covering the Middle East and North Africa’s burgeoning tech sector more fully. We love to see startup ecosystems develop, and Startup Battlefield is one of the best platforms in the world to spotlight the most promising ventures for investors, partners and even future employees. Our editors carefully pick the best startups to compete from tons of applications, and recruit world-class judges to ask tough questions and pick the winners. And the Startup Battlefield editors coach the founders to make brilliant pitches onstage at the Startup Battlefield event.
At the end of the day, that’s why the more than 765 companies that have competed in Startup Battlefield have raised over $8 billion and produced more than 105 exits to date.
Here’s how to participate:
Fifteen startups will be selected to join us onstage for Startup Battlefield MENA in Beirut.
Qualifying startups should:
Be early-stage companies in “launch” stage
Be a resident from our eligible countries
Have a fully working product/beta, reasonably close to or in production
Have received limited press or publicity to date
Have no known intellectual property conflicts
What do the winners receive?
Apart from the exposure that comes from pitching to the global TechCrunch audience as well as the live audience of distinguished technologists, entrepreneurs and investors in Beirut, the overall winner will receive US$25,000 in no-equity cash plus an all-expense paid trip for two to compete in Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch’s flagship event, Disrupt 2019 (assuming the company still qualifies to compete at this time).
Are costs to attend the pitch-off covered?
No, but TechCrunch will try to find financial assistance for a startup in need of assistance to reach the Beirut event.
Who picks the startups that will compete?
The TechCrunch editors who run the TechCrunch Startup Battlefield competition will choose the finalists from the application pool.
Who will judge the pitch-offs?
TechCrunch will select four judges for each theme. They will be noted entrepreneurs, investors and technologists with experience relevant to the category. A TechCrunch editor will moderate the judging, and cast the tie-breaker ballot, if needed.
What is the pitch-off format?
Each company will have six minutes to present. The judges will have six minutes to ask questions.
What are the judging criteria?
The judges will pick the startup with the product or service most likely to go into full commercial production and have the biggest impact on human potential and/or the largest exit.
When is the application deadline?
July 17, 2018 at 5pm PST.
When will the finalists be notified?
August 31, 2018 at 5pm PST.
Will TechCrunch’s team help prepare startups for the pitch-off?
Yes, in-person training and rehearsal sessions will be required, as well in-person rehearsal on October 2.
Twitter today announced it was acquiring the “trust and safety as a service” startup Smyte to help it better address issues related to online abuse, harassment, spam, and security on its platform. But it also decided to immediately shut down access to Smyte’s API without warning, leaving Smyte’s existing customers no time to transition to a new service provider.
The change left Smyte’s current customer base stranded, with production issues related to the safety of their own platforms.
Needless to say, many were not happy about this situation and took to Twitter to register their complaints.
According to Smyte’s website, its clients included Indiegogo, GoFundMe, npm, Musical.ly, TaskRabbit, Meetup, OLX, ThredUp, YouNow, 99 Designs, Carousell, and Zendesk – big name brands that used Smyte’s feature set in a variety of ways to combat fraud, abuse, harassment, scams, spam, and other security issues.
While Twitter had earlier told TechCrunch that it would be “winding down” Smyte’s business with existing clients, what that apparently meant was that it was going to announce the acquisition, then effectively shut off the lights over at Smyte and leave everyone in the lurch.
According to reports from those affected, Smyte disabled access to its API with very little warning to clients, and without giving them time to prepare. Customers got a phone call, and then – boom – the service was gone. Clients had multi-year contracts in some cases.
And again, to reiterate, Smyte is a provider of anti-abuse and anti-fraud protections – not something any business would shut off overnight.
In npm’s case, it even led to a production outage.
Twitter declined to comment, but we understand it was making phone calls to affected Smyte customers today to match them with new service providers.
The decision to smitesmyte an existing customer base the minute the startup joined Twitter isn’t a good look for either company, and is especially ironic in light of Twitter’s promises of “trust and safety” improvements in the months to come.
Trust, huh?
That’s how it works?
Holy shit Twitter bought Smyte and immediately shut it down. We had a 3 years contract with them and they just disappeared overnight. No communication at all, they just turned their servers off, closed our shared support channel and walked away. What the actual fuck
»Trust and safety as a service«, they said. Now @Twitter owns @HelloSmyte, and trust is down the drain. Shutting down their services immediately, not giving their customers any grace period to adjust. Thought #Smyte was better than that #massivedisgracehttps://t.co/ttXmLNg3qb
Wait…so did @HelloSmyte just shut down it's service entirely today with no warning after @Twitter bought them? What about their customers that rely on them for advanced moderation and the safety of their platforms? #smyte
A vendor notified us of their acquisition at 6am this morning and shut down their APIs 30 minutes later, creating a production outage for npm (package publishes and user registrations). The sheer unprofessionalism of this is blowing my mind.
It takes weeks to negotiate and sign an acquisition. You didn't find out at 6am. You couldn't give us a week? Even a couple of hours to take your service out of our critical path and avoid an outage? Fucking shocking behavior.
Hey @HelloSmyte , it's a massive bummer that you couldn't give your customers any notice before turning everything off. Is there anything you can do to help us out?
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.
I’ve always been wary of modular, rail-based bag systems. They’ve always struck me as rather military and imposing, which I suppose is kind of the point. Even Mission Workshop, whose other bags I have always enjoyed, put out one that seemed to me excessive. But they’ve tempered their style a bit and put out the Radian, a solid middle ground between their one-piece and modular systems.
The Radian is clearly aimed at the choosy, pack-loving traveler who eschews roller bags for aesthetic — which describes me to a tee. Strictly rolltop bags (originating in cyclist and outdoors circles) end up feeling restrictive in where you can stow gear, and rollers are boxy and unrefined. So the Radian takes a bit from both, with the added ability to add bits and pieces according to your needs.
What it is: Adaptable, waterproof, well-designed and not attention-grabbing
What it isn’t: Simple or lightweight
The core pack is quite streamlined, with no protruding external pockets whatsoever. There’s the main compartment — 42 liters, if you’re curious — and a cleverly hidden laptop compartment between the main one and the back pads. Both are independently lined with waterproof material (in addition to the water-resistant outer layer) and the zippers are similarly sealed. There’s also a mesh pouch hidden like the laptop area that you can pop out or stow at will.
You can roll up the rolltop and secure it with velcro, or treat it as a big flap and snap it to a strap attached to the bottom of the bag — the straps themselves are attached with strong velcro, so you can take them off if you’re going roll style. The “Cobra” buckle upgrade is cool but the standard plastic buckles are well made enough that you shouldn’t feel any pressure to pay the $65 to upgrade.
Access is where things begin to diverge. Unlike most rolltop packs, you can lay the bag on the ground and unzip the top as if it were a roller, letting you access the whole space from somewhere other than the top. The flap also has its own mesh enclosure. This is extremely handy and addresses the main ergonomic issue I’ve always had with strictly top-loading bags.
In a further assimilation of rolltop qualities, there’s a secret pocket at the bottom of the bag that houses a large cloth cover that seals up the pack straps and so on, making the bag much more stowable and preventing TSA or baggage handlers from having to negotiate all that junk or bag it up themselves.
Of course, a single large compartment is rarely enough when you’re doing real traveling and need to access this document or that gadget in a hurry. So the Radian joins the Mission Workshop Arkiv modular system, which lets you add on a variety of extra pockets of various sizes and types. Just be careful that you don’t push it over the carry-on size limit (though you can always stuff the extra pockets inside temporarily).
There are six rails — two on each side and two on the back — and a handful of accessories that go on each, sliding on with sturdy metal clips. The pack I tested had two zippered side pockets, the “mini folio” and the “horizontal zip” on the back, plus a cell phone pocket for the front strap.
They’re nice but the rear ones I tried are a bit small — you’d have trouble fitting anything but a pocket paperback and a couple energy bars in either. If I had my choice I would go with the full-size folio, one zippered and one rolltop side pocket. Then you can do away with the cell pocket, which is a bit much, and have several stowage options within reach. Plus the folio has its own rails to stick one of the small ones onto.
There’s really no need to get the separate laptop case, since the laptop compartment would honestly fit two or three. It’s a great place to store dress shirts and other items that need to stay folded up and straight.
As far as room, the 42 liters are enough on my estimation to pack for a 5-day trip — that is to say, I easily fit in five pairs of socks and underwear, five t-shirts, a sweater or two, a dress shirt, some shorts, and a pair of jeans. More than that would be kind of a stretch if you were also planning on bringing things like a camera, a book or two, and all the other usual travel accessories.
The main compartment has mesh areas on the side to isolate toiletries and so on, but they’re just divisions; they don’t add space. There are places for small things in the outside pockets but again, not a lot of room for much bigger than a paperback, water bottle, or snack unless you spring for the folio add-on.
As for looks — the version I tested was the black camo version, obviously, which looks a little more subdued in real life than my poorly color-balanced pictures make it look. Personally I prefer the company’s flat grey over the camo and the black. Makes it even more low-profile.
In the end I think the Radian is the best option for anyone looking at Mission Workshop bags who wants a modular option, but unless you plan on swapping pieces out a lot, I’m not personally convinced that it’s better than their all-in-one bags like the Rambler and Vandal. By all means take a look at putting a Radian system together, but don’t neglect to check if any of the pre-built ones fit your needs as well.
YouTube creators are gaining a number of new tools to generate revenue from their videos outside of traditional advertising, as well as those that will help them better engage their fans, according to news the video streaming site announced today at the VidCon conference in Anaheim, California. This includes the rollout of channel memberships, merchandising, marketing partnerships via FameBit, and the launch of “Premieres,” which offers a middle ground between pre-recorded, edited video and live streaming.
Memberships
Before today, YouTube had offered a Twitch-like “Sponsorship” model on YouTube Gaming. This gave fans the ability to sponsor a channel for $4.99 per month, which also gave them access to exclusive digital goods, like a custom badge and emoji.
YouTube started testing this program across its larger video network last fall, it said. Those tests led to YouTube channel memberships.
Creators will need to have 100,000 subscribers or more, be over 18, and be members of the YouTube Partner Program.
However, the price point for backing a creator’s channel remains the same: $4.99 per month, and includes the custom badges and exclusive emoji.
It will also allow subscribers to gain access to Members-only posts in the Community tab where creators will share custom perks from time to time, like access to an exclusive live stream, additional videos, shoutouts, news of upcoming events, early access to ticket sales, and other things.
YouTube says it will vet these perks manually, to ensure they meet YouTube’s guidelines and are something the creator can actually deliver.
“This tool set is fairly powerful, so we want to make sure that they don’t put products out there, that they really can’t commit to,” explains Director of Product Management, Rohit Dhawan, who heads alternative monetization at YouTube.
He says the perks can be almost anything the creator wants to offer, within YouTube’s guidelines.
“It’s kind of like a blank canvas…it’s us giving the creators the tools to customize their membership offering and provide whatever perks that they feel is going to be valuable to the fans,” he says.
This feature launched in January for select creators, who have already been generating revenue. It will soon arrive for all who are eligible.
Comedy creator Mike Falzone more than tripled his YouTube revenue, thanks to memberships, says YouTube. Spanish gaming channel elrubiusOMG now has six times the number of members as it did sponsors on YouTube Gaming alone. And Wintergatan is making over 50% of revenue from Channel Memberships.
Overall, the number of creators earning five figures a year is up 35%, and the number of those earning six figures is up by 40%, YouTube says.
Similar to sponsorships, YouTube retains 30% of sponsorship revenue after local sales tax is deducted, but covers all transaction costs, including credit card fees.
Merchandise
In addition to memberships, creators will also be able to sell to fans directly, starting today.
In a shelf directly below the video itself, creators with over 10,000 subscribers can offer merchandise like tee-shirts, hats, phone cases or any one of over 20 different merchandise items that make sense for their channel.
For example, the creator of Lucas the Spider turned his character into a plushie, and sold over 60,000 units, making over $1 million in profit in just 18 days.
This new program is being launched in partnership with custom merchandise platform Teespring.
YouTube says that Teespring will retain a cut of the merchandise, which varies per item. Effectively, the way this works is that there’s a flat price per item sold that goes back to Teespring, but the creator can mark up the item to whatever price they want, then keep the upside.
For example, a single t-shirt’s base price is $10.22, but creators typically sell them for $22. However, if the creators sells 200-499 t-shirts, the base price drops to $9.82, so the creator makes more money.
But YouTube has also negotiated a deal with Teespring where it receives a commission on those sales – a small flat percentage, we’re told – the majority of which is returned to the creator. This is meant to incentivize the creator to sell merchandise through YouTube, as they’ll receive more thanks to this returned commission than if they sold direct.
This is also a massive win for Teespring, which only a few years ago was restructuring its business and laying off staff.
During beta testing, Teespring says there was an 82% success rate for YouTubers using the merchandise service, and conversions from views to sales were testing at 2.5 times higher than with standard description links. This led to an average of 25% more units sold per user, among early adopters.
In addition, creators who have been connected directly with brand sponsorships via FameBit, the company it acquired in fall 2016, will also be able to use the merchandise shelf to point fans to whatever they’re selling – like video games, apparel, or any other product sold online. This feature was announced at VidCon, but hasn’t rolled out at this time.
Premieres
Finally, YouTubers who want to leverage the revenue generation possibilities that come with Live video, will have a way to do so without having to actually go live.
Instead, they can use a new YouTube feature called “Premieres” that creates a landing page they can promote ahead of a video’s release. This page will also have a chat feature, like Live videos do, which means creators can use Super Chat and take advantage of Channel Membership perks even if they aren’t doing live content.
The videos are uploaded in the same interface on YouTube, so there’s no new workflow to learn beyond toggling the “Premiere” switch on.
Creators can also join in the chats as the video goes live to engage with their fans around this pre-recorded content, as well as comment on the videos before they start. When the Premiere wraps, it’s posted as a regular video on the site (without the 2-minute countdown video YouTube adds.)
“We’re going to use our search and discovery platform to promote these,” notes Kurt Wilms, Group Product Manager at YouTube, who’s leading Live.
“Upcoming premieres can appear on the [YouTube] homepage and in recommended videos,” he says. Premieres will also show in the section where all the channel content you’ve subscribed to displays, we’re told. And Premieres will be in YouTube search and YouTube related videos.
“They’re going to appear across all the dedicated discovery portions of our site, which is awesome,” he says.
Premieres can be used to promote upcoming videos from creators as well as things like new movie trailers from studios, trailers from video games, or even music videos. But Premieres is not tied to YouTube Music at this time.
YouTube also said its version of Stories will arrive for all eligible creators with more than 10,000 subscribers later this year.
The announcements come at a critical time for YouTube, as Facebook is trying to woo creators away to its own network and video hub with unique features of its own.
The news also follows another announcement YouTube made to advertisers this week, about new ways they’ll be able to connect with their audience using a Creative Suite of ad tools.
SpaceX beat out one other competitor to land a $130 million launch contract with the U.S. Air Force using its Falcon Heavy rocket. The award is an important validation of the Falcon Heavy, one of the most powerful rockets ever made.
Under the contract, the Hawthorne, Calif.-based rocket company founded by Elon Musk will launch the Air Force Space Command-52 satellite to its intended orbit. The contract includes launch vehicle production and mission, as well as integration, launch operations and spaceflight worthiness activities, according to a notice posted by the U.S. Department of Defense.
The work, which will be performed at SpaceX’s headquarters, the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and in McGregor, Texas, is expected to be completed by September 2020. The mission is planned to be launched from Kennedy Space Center.
Two proposals were received by the DOD in the competitive bidding process.
“SpaceX is honored by the Air Force’s selection of Falcon Heavy to launch the competitively-awarded AFSPC-52 mission,” said SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell. “On behalf of all of our employees, I want to thank the Air Force for certifying Falcon Heavy, awarding us this critically important mission, and for their trust and confidence in our company. SpaceX is pleased to continue offering the American taxpayer the most cost-effective, reliable launch services for vital national security space missions.”
SpaceX successfully launched the Falcon Heavy for the first time (with a Tesla Roadster strapped to the top, no less, because… well, Elon.) in February 2018. The rocket has three cores, or first-stage boosters, that work in unison to get the rocket into a low Earth orbit. There are two side boosters and a center core. SpaceX has designed the rocket so that after stage separation all three boosters will land and be able to be reused. The company recovered two of the three boosters.
With a 30L capacity, the Yalta 2.0 (Chrome Industries, $96) is not a small bag but it’s not massive either. It’s a little bulkier on the bottom than the top, an inversion of most bike-friendly bags that usually crunch most of your carry weight high up on your shoulders. As a classic Chrome bag, I’ve always admired the Yalta from a distance for its unique profile, full side zipper and its decision to opt for a tension hook clasp instead of Velcro or a Chrome buckle (cool but heavy). The Yalta’s adjustable closure hook feels good to use and means that you don’t have to deal with the noise Velcro makes, which if you’re me is definitely not your primary ASMR trigger.
TechCrunch / Taylor Hatmaker
I tested the Yalta in two contexts: during the week for my normal routine and on a low-key weekend camping trip. During the course of my normal day-to-day testing, the Yalta turned out to be a surprisingly adept gym plus laptop bag thanks to its strangest design quirk: a large opening that lets you access the space that the waterproof main rolltop compartment sits in. Once you unzip the full-length side zipper you feel a little weird, like you’re somewhere you’re not supposed to be, but ride it out. That pocket, kind of an internal bladder around the true inner roll-top compartment, is handy if you figure out what to use it for.
TechCrunch / Taylor Hatmaker
For one, you can put your weird filthy stuff in there so it doesn’t ever touch your clean normal stuff, and that’s pretty cool. In my case that meant a full-sized Brazilian Jiu Jitsu gi — a huge robe-like training uniform — and the rest of my workout clothes, plus assorted nerd stuff, like my inhalers and 10 micron pens ranging from fine tip to extremely very fine tip. You can also get to anything in the cavernous side-zip area (again, this is the entire interior of the bag minus whatever is in the rolltop section) super easily, so it’s nice to have two big sections with varied levels of accessibility instead of just one huge main compartment and a side pocket or whatever. The laptop sleeve sits at the very back of the bag, accessible within this full side zip. While side-zip laptop slots are amazing, the Yalta’s did feel on the large side and my 13″ MacBook was safe but not very snugly positioned.
TechCrunch / Taylor Hatmaker
For my second trial, I loaded the Yalta up for a day hike to a local rock climbing spot with friends (note: this thing cannot carry a rope). It’s not what the Yalta is designed for, but it’s what I was up to so I figured I’d give it a shot. The bag performed well on the hike in, fully loaded with lunch, snacks, many layers, a raincoat, a small first aid kit, a Sony RX100 II, a really heavy guidebook for the area and a two-liter water bladder, which I stuffed into the strange side-zip area, snaking the hose out through the top of the zipper. I managed to forget my helmet, which I wished I’d had later when a nearby climber dropped a metal carabiner from 60 feet off the ground, but had I remembered it would have clipped on to the closure loops on front of the pack nicely.
TechCrunch / Taylor Hatmaker
Surprisingly, the Yalta — much more of a bike bag than a crag bag — did well throughout the day, distributing my weight comfortably enough that I didn’t notice it at all. The front pocket made essentials easy to access and the rolltop waterproof area gave me peace of mind that my stuff would stay dry if it started raining, which it usually does. One gripe: the sternum strap was surprisingly hard to hook and came undone sometimes, but it wasn’t a huge deal. It’s also worth remembering that any rolltop without full side access is going to be tough to organize, and that was definitely the case here.
TechCrunch / Taylor Hatmaker
Compared to some of Chrome’s more heavy-duty bags and other less-technical packs, the Yalta is a likable middle ground. The pack isn’t as rain resistant as a bag made out of fully waterproof material and the laptop sleeve could use some structure, but it carries a fair amount and it’s got a nice slender profile that looks and feels good. The Yalta doesn’t really have any quirks or tricks beyond the strange side-zip compartment, and that makes it a good fit for anyone who needs a good-looking, weather resistant mid-sized rolltop backpack for work and what comes before and after.
What it is: A great multi-purpose rolltop backpack that isn’t too technical.
What it isn’t: The ultimate gear pack. Full of pockets.
Facebook has recently come under intense scrutiny for sharing the data of millions of users without their knowledge. We’ve also learned that Facebook is using AI to predict users’ future behavior and selling that data to advertisers. Not surprisingly, Facebook’s business model and how it handles its users’ data has sparked a long-awaited conversation — and controversy — about data privacy. These revelations will undoubtedly force the company to evolve their data sharing and protection strategy and policy.
More importantly, it’s a call to action: We need a code of ethics.
As the AI revolution continues to accelerate, new technology is being developed to solve key problems faced by consumers, businesses and the world at large. It is the next stage of evolution for countless industries, from security and enterprise to retail and healthcare. I believe that in the near future, almost all new technology will incorporate some form of AI or machine learning, enabling humans to interact with data and devices in ways we can’t yet imagine.
Moving forward, our reliance on AI will deepen, inevitably causing many ethical issues to arise as humans turn over to algorithms their cars, homes and businesses. These issues and their consequences will not discriminate, and the impact will be far-reaching — affecting everyone, including public citizens, small businesses utilizing AI or entrepreneurs developing the latest tech. No one will be left untouched.I am aware of a few existing initiatives focused on more research, best practices and collaboration; however, it’s clear that there’s much more work to be done.
For the future of AI to become as responsible as possible, we’ll need to answer some tough ethical questions.
Researchers, entrepreneurs and global organizations must lay the groundwork for a code of AIethics to guide us through these upcoming breakthroughs and inevitable dilemmas. I should clarify that this won’t be a single code of ethics — each company and industry will have to come up with their own unique guidelines.
For the future of AI to become as responsible as possible, we’ll need to answer some tough ethical questions. I do not have the answers to these questions right now, but my goal is to bring more awareness to this topic, along with simple common sense, and work toward a solution. Here are some of the issues related to AI and automation that keep me up at night.
The ethics of driverless cars
With the invention of the car came the invention of the car accident. Similarly, an AI-augmented car will bring with it ethical and business implications that we must be prepared to face. Researchers and programmers will have to ask themselves what safety and mobility trade-offs are inherent in autonomous vehicles.
Ethical challenges will unfold as algorithms are developed that impact how humans and autonomous vehicles interact. Should these algorithms be transparent? For example, will a car rear-end an abruptly stopped car or swerve and hit a dog on the side of the street? Key decisions will be made by a fusion processor in split seconds, running AI, connecting a car’s vast array of sensors. Will entrepreneurs and small businesses be kept in the dark while these algorithms dominate the market?
Driverless cars will also transform the way consumers behave. Companies will need to anticipate this behavior and offer solutions to fill those gaps. Now is the time to start predicting how this technology will change consumer needs and what products and services can be created to meet them.
The battle against fake news
As our news media and social platforms become increasingly AI-driven, businesses from startups to global powerhouses must be aware of their ethical implications and choose wisely when working this technology into their products.
We’re already seeing AI being used to create and defend against political propaganda and fake news. Meanwhile, dark money has been used for social media ads that can target incredibly specific populations in an attempt to influence public opinion or even political elections. What happens when we can no longer trust our news sources and social media feeds?
AI will continue to give algorithms significant influence over what we see and read in our daily lives. We have to ask ourselves how much trust we can put in the systems that we’re creating and how much power we can give them. I think it’s up to companies like Facebook, Google and Twitter — and future platforms — to put safeguards in place to prevent them from being misused. We need the equivalent of Underwriters Laboratories (UL) for news!
The future of the automated workplace
Companies large and small must begin preparing for the future of work in the age of automation. Automation will replace some labor and enhance other jobs. Many workers will be empowered with these new tools, enabling them to work more quickly and efficiently. However, many companies will have to account for the jobs lost to automation.
Businesses should begin thinking about what labor may soon be automated and how their workforce can be utilized in other areas. A large portion of the workforce will have to be trained for new jobs created by automation in what is becoming commonly referred to as collaborative automation. The challenge will come when deciding on how to retrain and redistribute employees whose jobs have been automated or augmented. Will it be the government, employers or automation companies? In the end, these sectors will need to work together as automation changes the landscape of work.
No one will be left untouched.
It’s true that AI is the next stage of tech evolution, and that it’s everywhere. It has become portable, accessible and economical. We have now, finally, reached the AI tipping point. But that point is on a precarious edge, see-sawing somewhere between an AI dreamland and an AI nightmare.
In order to surpass the AI hype and take advantage of its transformative powers, it’s essential that we get AI right, starting with the ethics. As entrepreneurs rush to develop the latest AI tech or use it to solve key business problems, each has a responsibility to consider the ethics of this technology. Researchers, governments and businesses must cooperatively develop ethical guidelines that help to ensure a responsible use of AI to the benefit of all.
From driverless cars to media platforms to the workplace, AI is going to have a significant impact on how we live our lives. But as AI thought leaders and experts, we shouldn’t just deliver the technology — we need to closely monitor it and ask the right questions as the industry evolves.
It has never been a more exciting time to be an entrepreneur in the rise of AI, but there’s a lot of work to be done now and in the future to ensure we’re using the technology responsibly.
There are six rails — two on each side and two on the back — and a handful of accessories that go on each, sliding on with sturdy metal clips. The pack I tested had two zippered side pockets, the “mini folio” and the “horizontal zip” on the back, plus a cell phone pocket for the front strap.
