Year: 2018

Apple’s latest addition to its upcoming video streaming service is a timely one. The company has picked up “Little America,” a half-hour anthology series which looks at the “funny, romantic, heartfelt, inspiring, and surprising stories” of immigrants in America. The series comes from Oscar-nominated screenwriters of “The Big Sick,” Kumail Nanjiani (“Silicon Valley”) and Emily V. Gordon, and Emmy-nominated producer and writer Lee Eisenberg (“The Office,” “SMILF”).

Eisenberg will also exec produce alongside Emmy winning producer, writer and director Alan Yang (“Master of None,””Parks and Recreation”), and he will serve as showrunner.

Joshuah Bearman and Joshua Davis will executive produce for Epic Magazine, where the stories originated, alongside co-executive producer Arthur Spector.

“Little America” is being produced by Universal Television for Apple. 

The series, which was previously in development, was inspired by the true stories featured in Epic Magazine which aim to humanize immigrants at a time when nationalism and distrust of outsiders has taken root in the U.S.

As the “Little America” website explains:

Everyone here came from somewhere else. Even Native Americans crossed the Bering Strait at some point. This is the basic American idea — an identity open to all — but it can be easy to forget from inside. And that’s when politics can turn ugly, as it has recently, with our political narrative becoming a story of blame and fear. “Little America” is meant to counter that narrative with a fuller portrait of our most recent arrivals.

This is arguably Apple’s first show that has a political undertone, in the sense that it aims to increase empathy around the topic of immigration in a nation that’s currently lacking.

Apple CEO Tim Cook recently spoke out against the family separation taking place at the U.S. border, calling the situation “inhumane” and “heartbreaking,” so it’s not surprising that Apple would direct some of its investment towards a series like this.

Apple began developing the series in February, and has now given it a straight-to-series order. It’s only the second show at Apple to go that route, Deadline reports. (Octavia Spencer’s “Are You Sleeping” is the other.)

The show joins Apple’s growing roster of TV shows for its Netflix-like streaming service, reporting arriving in 2019.

Others in its lineup include s a reboot of Steven Spielberg’s Amazing Stories, a Reese Witherspoon- and Jennifer Anniston-starring series set in the world of morning TV, an adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation books, a thriller starring Octavia Spencer, a Kristen Wiig-led comedy, a Kevin Durant-inspired scripted basketball show, a documentary about extraordinary homes, a series from “La La Land’s” director, a series about Emily Dickinson, and a show inspired by kid report Hilde Lysiak.

 

Editor’s note: This post was done in partnership with Wirecutter. When readers choose to buy Wirecutter’s independently chosen editorial picks, Wirecutter and TechCrunch earn affiliate commissions.

It’s safe to say that for many, a world without internet is hard to imagine. When you need a solid internet connection for work, studying or for catching up on your favorite shows, having a poor connection is almost as bad.

While fast and reliable internet starts with having a good provider, owning the right gear helps to support it. From network storage to the best router, we’ve compiled picks for helping you set up and secure a dependable home Wi-Fi network.

Wi-Fi router: Netgear R7000P Nighthawk

More than anything, when it comes to setting up a home Wi-Fi network, it’s important to have a good Wif-Fi router. If you don’t rent one from your internet service provider, you’ll want one that’s easy to use, has a decent connection range, and that’s able to handle a crowded network.

Our top pick, the Netgear R7000P Nighthawk, is a dual-band, three stream 802.11ac router and it offers solid speed and throughput performance across long and moderate ranges. Its load-balancing band steering automatically kicks in when networks are busy, which means you won’t sit around clicking refresh and resending requests. We like that its toggles and features are easy to find. This router is ideal for larger spaces, including homes that experience coverage issues.                                                                                                           

Cable modem: Netgear CM500

If you have cable internet, a cable modem is one of the pieces of equipment that’s supplied by your service provider. As with a router, you may be paying an additional fee outside of the cost of internet service to have one. While a router helps your wireless devices communicate and use an internet connection, a modem is the device that connects your home network to the wider internet.

If you plan on, or have recently opted out of renting a modem, you’ll like that our top recommendation, the Netgear CM500, pays for itself in about six months. It’s compatible with a most cable Internet service providers, it’ll last for years, and you can rely on it to support Internet plan speeds of up to 300 Mbps.

Wi-Fi mesh-networking kit: Netgear Orbi RBK50

In some homes, it isn’t uncommon to try moving a router around to find the best signal. However, with spaces larger than 2,000 square feet — or small to large spaces with brick, concrete, or lath-and-plaster interior walls — relocating a router may not do the trick. Instead of just using a single router, a Wi-Fi mesh-networking kit uses multiple access points improving overall Wi-Fi performance and range.

Our top pick, the Netgear Orbi RBK50, comes with a base router and satellite, each unit a tri-band device. We think these two units are enough for supporting a solid home Wi-Fi network in most spaces, but you can add another unit to this kit if necessary. It’s equipped with more than enough Ethernet ports, and it’ll work without an internet connection during setup or an internet outage.

Wi-Fi extender: TP-Link RE200

For an even simpler, budget-friendly solution to bolstering a home Wif-Fi signal, we recommend the dual-band TP-Link RE200, our top pick for Wi-Fi extenders. It doesn’t extend the range of a network per se, but it increases throughput and decreases latency for a better Wi-Fi experience. It should be paired with a good router and is best for improving the speed of one device at a time over a network that isn’t too busy.

It’s compact, plugs into a power outlet and has an Ethernet port for easily connecting nearby devices. It’s a helpful middle-ground option for strengthening a Wi-Fi connection when you don’t need a mesh-networking kit and already have a decent router that doesn’t need to be replaced.                

VPN service: IVPN

A virtual private network, or VPN, helps to ensure that a connection is secure. It’s an extra layer of protection that encrypts your online activity and should be used in addition to password managers, browser plug-ins that support privacy and encrypted hardware. While network security is necessary, a service that’s transparent and trustworthy with helpful support is more important.

Out of the 12 VPN services that we tested, we think IVPN is the best provider. IVPN doesn’t log or monitor activity, and we like that it’s stable, fast and works across platforms. In situations where your network isn’t protected, or when you join an unsecure network, its “firewall” and OpenVPN protocol features will keep you covered.

NAS for most home users: Synology DS218+

For homes and spaces where multiple computers are used, network-attached storage (NAS) devices back up data and files to devices on one local network, or a cloud service. It’s a small computer equipped with one or two hard drive bays, and it always stays on using less power than a repurposed computer. Our top recommendation, the Synology DS218+, is easy to manage, and it has three USB ports and the fastest writing speeds of any NAS we tested.

For those with a massive database of files, a NAS device is a better option than an external drive. With the DS218+, you can play back media and conveniently access your data as it supports FTP protocol, VPN server capabilities, SSDs and more. The biggest plus with owning a NAS device is having the option to use it as a storage device, website-hosting device, a media streamer, or anything else that a Linux computer can function as.

This guide may have been updated by Wirecutter.

Note from Wirecutter: When readers choose to buy our independently chosen editorial picks, we may earn affiliate commissions that support our work.

Amazon, BerkshireHathaway and JPMorgan Chase have not been especially public about their plans for how they plan to take on employee healthcare in the US with their new joint venture, but now they have announced a big move that could see all of that change. The trio have announced that Dr Atul Gawande, the noted writer, doctor and researcher, will be the first CEO of the as-yet unnamed company.

The business will be based in Boston, where Gawande is already based, and it will operate as an independent entity, “free from profit-making incentives and constraints.” Gawande will take on the role starting July 9.

“I’m thrilled to be named CEO of this healthcare initiative,” said Gawande in a statement. “I have devoted my public health career to building scalable solutions for better healthcare delivery that are saving lives, reducing suffering, and eliminating wasteful spending both in the US and across the world. Now I have the backing of these remarkable organizations to pursue this mission with even greater impact for more than a million people, and in doing so incubate better models of care for all. This work will take time but must be done. The system is broken, and better is possible.”

It’s not clear whether Gawande will be stepping down from all of his other positions, or if this will be added to what is already a roster that doesn’t seem possible for a single person to handle (and yet he does). Gawande is a surgeon, practicing general and endocrine surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He is a professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School. He is a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine, and he is an author of books, namely no less than four New York Times bestsellers: Complications, Better, The Checklist Manifesto, and Being Mortal. (He is one of my very favourite writers medical subjects; I recommend reading him if you do not already.) He’s also involved with medical companies like Ariadne.

We’ve asked Amazon about the name of the new company, and what this appointment will mean for the rest of Gawande’s roles.

Prime Wardrobe, Amazon’s “try before you buy” shopping service first announced last summer, is officially out of beta and open to all Prime members in the U.S. as of today. The service has been gradually opening up to more customers over the course of the year, so many Prime members may have already had access before today’s official unveiling.

Prime Wardrobe is Amazon’s answer to the increasingly popular personalized shopping services like Stitch Fix and Trunk, which send a curated box of clothing to customers on a regular basis. These services allow consumers to try on clothing and other items in the home, then keep what they like and send back the rest.

However, Amazon’s service is more of a DIY version – instead of using stylists, you fill your own box with at least three and as many as eight items at a time. You then have a week to try on the items and return those you don’t want before being charged.

Like many of its rivals, Prime Wardrobe isn’t just aimed at women – it features collections for men, children, and baby, too.

The service is largely meant to help address one of the biggest problems with shopping for clothes online: fit.

Clothing designers have their own interpretation of sizing, and it’s often difficult for shoppers to get a sense of how something will really look without trying it on. Items may be too short or long, too long or tight in some spots, or shoppers might have an issue with how the fabric feels, the draping, the hemline, the quality of the workmanship, and other concerns.

Home try-on eliminates this obstacle to online clothing shopping, because it makes it easy to send items back when they don’t work.

Not all of Amazon’s online inventory is included in Prime Wardrobe, which means you can’t just browse the site and pick anything you want for home try-on.

Instead, you have to visit the Prime Wardrobe section to fill your box.

The site favors Amazon’s in-house clothing brands, but also features a good handful of bigger names, like Lilly Pulitzer, Tommy Hilfiger, Adidas, Guess, Levi’s, Calvin Klein, Nine West, Fossil, Lacoste, Hugo Boss, Stride Rite, Disney, Puma, Crazy 8, Gymborree, New Balance, Stuart Weitzman, Rebecca Taylor, J Brand, A|X Armani Exchange, and many more.

The retailer says that during its beta period Prime members have ordered “thousands of styles.” Women have bought denim and dresses; men bought tops, jeans and casual pants; for kids, shoes have been most popular.

Also of note, Amazon says its private label brands Lark & Ro, Daily Ritual, Amazon Essentials, and Goodthreads are the top-ordered items. That means Prime Wardrobe is doing well for Amazon, at least, even if it’s a more limited selection of clothing than online shoppers may have wanted.

We are living in the information age, but that doesn’t mean that we have all the time in the world to ingest everything that we want. A startup that is aiming to help with that has raised a round of funding to grow its business. Blinkist, a Berlin-based startup that presents condensed versions of non-fiction literature — each title can be read or listened to in about 15 minutes — has raised $18.8 million in funding led by Insight Venture Partners (a firm that is leading no less than three investments on this very day: see here and here).

Holger Seim, the company’s co-founder and CEO, told TechCrunch that the funding will be used to continue to expand the product. That will include localising content into more languages beyond English and German; adding more titles — there are now 2,500 titles with a rate of about 40 being added each month; and perhaps moving into more delivery formats beyond text and audio, which are the two ways you can consume a “Blink” — as its content is called — today.

The company has around 6 million users today and notes that they are equally consuming written and audio formats, although audio is growing faster. From what we’ve heard, it has also spoken informally with potential buyers, including a certain Seattle-based e-commerce leviathan that made its name in books, so the interest in its platform ranges beyond that of consumers, which may have also been some of the motivation behind this round of funding, a substantial round by Berlin and European startup standards.

While Blinkist has plans for how it will grow and evolve, one area will be holding fast on in its expansion is a commitment to human-powered content. That is, there are no plans to use all of the advances in artificial intelligence to produce Blinks in place of humans doing the condensing, a la Summly or others that have tried this approach.

“We believe the human element is always important and it is here to stay,” Seim said. The company uses a network of editors today to summarize and narrate those summaries for its users. Seim added that the company is “digging into AI,” but mainly for the purpose of seeing how it could help with recommendations of titles to readers, and also making recommendations to Blinkist itself: one challenge is to figure out what content it should add to the platform and what might prove most popular.

Having popular content is key for Blinkist’s business model: the app is free for 30 days but then costs $79.99/year or $12.99/month to use — meaning, it needs to have something that will lure people back again, and again. Currently, Blinkist doesn’t really make a lot of money from referrals, since on iOS as one example, it cannot link to Amazon purchasing (only iTunes), which cuts out one of the most popular platforms for buying books.

That will potentially be something Blinkist might try to figure out how to work around, since as Seim describes it, the purpose is not to replace reading the actual book or other work, but to get enough information about it to see whether you would like to buy it.

“Everyone likes to make the comparison to Cliffs Notes,” he said, referring to those yellow-covered books that many a student in the US used and uses to work around reading turgid texts, or at least to help understand them. Although Blinkist lacks substantial referral data — again because of platform limitations for its apps — “we do survey our users frequently and we are used by avid book readers, not by people who want to read books less.”

He said that almost 50 percent of its users say they read more books thanks to Blinkist and only nine percent say they read less.

Although there are obvious competitive threats to Blinkist, the most obvious of these — Amazon — is not a worry at this point, Seim noted. “W are not worried about Amazon,” he said. “It is a big player in the book space for reading, and listening also with Audible, so we are watching themn, but so far we are in a different business. We’re trying to inspire people and make it easier to take the first step and engaging in literature. We are a complementary business in that regard.”

That is how the investors see it, too. “As a concept and an investment opportunity, Blinkist offers something genuinely unique. The company presents an exciting model which is defining and spearheading a whole new category of self-development.” comments Harley Miller, Vice President at Insight Venture Partners. “We only want to work with the brightest and most ambitious teams, and we know that Blinkist and its founders share our vision for making a positive, global impact.”

You can read more about Blinkist in our interview with them here.

A new survey underscores what you already know. People don’t trust traditional media as they once did. They trust social media even less. And certain groups in particular, including Republicans and people with a high school education or less, are the most suspicious that what they read isn’t accurate.

The Gallup/Knight Foundation breaks it down in a new survey of 1,440 American recruited randomly to assess how pervasive U.S. adults believe misinformation is, and how responsible major internet companies are for preventing its dissemination.

The findings aren’t pretty. Overall, Americans think that 39 percent of the news they see on TV or hear on the radio or read in newspapers is deliberately intended to deceive. U.S. adults think it’s even worse when it comes to news they’ve discovered via social media; according to this same survey, participants said that fully two-thirds of the news they discover through social media is misinformation in some form.

Political leanings have an impact on perceptions, as you might imagine. Politically, for example, 51 percent of Republicans and 54 percent of self-described conservatives are more likely to perceive misinformation when it comes to legacy media, compared with just 23 percent of Democrats and 24 percent of liberals. 

Exposure also plays a role. Americans who say they pay a “great deal” of attention to traditional news say 37 percent of it is in misinformation, compared with those who pay little or no attention to national news and consider that 53 percent of it is intentionally misleading.

Education is another factor when it comes to perceptions about how effective, or not, the news is. To wit, people with postgraduate degrees estimate that 29 percent of traditional media (meaning TV, radio, and newspapers) is misinformation; people with a college degree say 35 percent is misinformation; and people with a high school education or less say upwards of 43 percent of traditional media stories are intentionally wrong on some level.

If you’re a reporter feeling lousy about these findings, take heart; social media companies have it far worse.

For reasons obvious to anyone who followed the story of Facebook’s involvement in election meddling in 2015 and 2016, the number of people who trust social media to find reliable accurate information is  . . . not high! In fact, 65 percent of U.S adults take whatever they read on social media with a grain of salt.

So what to do with this new world, where so many suspect they are reading “fake news?” Social media is easier to tackle than traditional news, suggest survey recipients, 76 percent of whom said they think internet companies have an obligation to alert users when they’re positive that a story on their site or platform or app is misinformation.

Indeed, a slim majority of respondents said that identifying misinformation is one of social media companies’ important responsibilities. They might have had in mind Facebook’s January decision to prioritize “trustworthy” news in its feed of social media posts, using member surveys to identify high-quality outlets and fight sensationalism and misinformation. They might have been encouraged by that development, too. According to the survey, 70 percent or more of respondents said that methods to counteract the spread of misinformation, including giving greater prominence to stories from reputable news sources, could be at least “somewhat effective.”

If you’re interested in learning more, you can find the study on misinformation here, and the survey on bias in media and social networks here.

Recruiting is one of the latest industries to get a data science makeover through companies like Hired and Triplebyte, but the former hopes to turn it into a subscription business just like other enterprise software companies — and has raised a new pile of funding to do that.

Hired looks to serve as a one-stop recruiting point for both companies and potential candidates. The startup collects information like a basic profile, some thoughts on what those candidates are looking for, and your resume information, and then crunches that through a series of back-end algorithms and processes in order to figure out the best match for that candidate. It then points those candidates to hiring managers at companies that are looking for a strong pipeline of candidates, though the company now hopes that they will be able to build a kind of recurring revenue model for those companies with its subscription business. Hired today also said it has raised $30 million in new financing led by the Investment Management Corporation of Ontario.

“Outside of your choice of life partner your choice of where to work is the second most important decision to make,” CEO Mehul Patel said. “You spend most of your time at work, and any misery or joy you take back to your life partner. When you look at recruiting, it’s a massive industry, and to companies it’s existential to find great talent — but it’s massively broken. Ask anyone who searches for a job whether it works great, and you are going to get a unanimous answer that it doesn’t.”

Chances are you’ve gotten a few pitches on LinkedIn to go throw your information on Hired, but that’s all part of the performance marketing that the company hopes to use to get a robust set of candidates onto the platform. By doing that, it can continue to not only have a steady stream of candidates, but also collect more and more information on what candidates might be the best fit. For example, a school might not be the best indicator of future success, while the number of followers on a Github account could be a better barometer for the performance of the candidate. It’s a pretty intuitive result, but not one that hiring managers are likely actively tracking unless they already know that’s the best protocol.

Through that, Hired tries to compress the amount of time it takes for a company to say it needs a candidate and then that candidate actually getting hired. The subscription idea is that hiring managers will be able to just post a position — whether it’s new or back-filling an existing role — and keep that steady stream of candidates coming. Patel said the company has been able to squish that threshold down to around 25 days, which was one data point they could flag investors on in order to convince them that the model was working. (The company, which did not disclose its bookings, also said its bookings grew 300% year-over-year, which is a big number but without a point of reference isn’t so useful.)

“We’re seeing the importance of data not just to drive the outcomes — that data lets you compare against other companies and makes sure you’re better hiring for any company,” Patel said. “We have data about which companies are successful, or why aren’t they successful, and we can share that and help companies figure out their best practices. That combination of helping companies hire predictably, or using high quality talent and doing that with great insight, is [where we think we’ll succeed].”

That subscription model is also going to be an important one as a hedge against a potential downturn, where hiring might slow. If the startup is able to convince companies that it is a viable pipeline that they should be paying a recurring fee, it might be able to absorb the shock of a recession and a slowdown in hiring and prove useful in cases like incremental hiring and back-filling old roles. The company also said that it has hired John Kelly to be its vice president of revenue, who previously worked at companies like SAP, Oracle, and FindView.

There’s going to be plenty of competition, especially as these companies are able to collect more and more data. There’s Recruit Holdings, the mega-Frankenstein of companies that include Indeed and GlassDoor (which the company acquired for $1.2 billion), that would likely provide the largest hurdle to cover. Patel said Hired should be able to close the time gap between finding the candidate and the hiring process, which would be the primary metric of success for the company, faster than other companies.

Nginx, the commercial company behind the open source web server, announced a $43 million Series C investment today led by Goldman Sachs Growth Equity.

NEA, which has been on board as an early investor is also participating As part of the deal, David Campbell, managing director at Goldman Sachs’ Merchant Banking Division will join the Nginx board. Today’s investment brings the total raised to $103 million, according to the company.

The company was not willing to discuss valuation for this round.

Nginx’s open source approach is already well established running 400 million websites including some of the biggest in the world. Meanwhile, the commercial side of the business has 1500 paying customers, giving those customers not just support, but additional functionality such as load balancing, an API gateway and analytics.

Nginx CEO Gus Robertson was pleased to get the backing of such prestigious investors. “NEA is one of the largest venture capitalists in Silicon Valley and Goldman Sachs is one of the largest investment banks in the world. And so to have both of those parceled together to lead this round is a great testament to the company and the technology and the team,” he said.

The company already has plans to expand its core commercial product, Nginx Plus in the coming weeks. “We need to continue to innovate and build products that help our customers alleviate the complexity of delivery of distributed or micro service based applications. So you’ll see us release a new product in the coming weeks called Controller. Controller is the control plane on top of Nginx Plus,” Robertson explained. (Controller was launched in Beta last fall.)

But with $43 million in the bank, they want to look to build out Nginx Plus even more in the next 12-18 months. They will also be opening new offices globally to add to its international presence, while expanding its partners ecosystem. All of this means an ambitious goal to increase the current staff of 220 to 300 by the end of the year.

The open source product was originally created by Igor Sysoev back in 2002. He introduced the commercial company on top of the open source project in 2011. Robertson came on board as CEO a year later. The company has been growing 100 percent year over year since 2013 and expects to continue that trajectory through 2019.

I admit I was a little reluctant to try this pack out, but in the end it was my favorite of the Chrome bags I tested for TechCrunch Bag Week 2018, perhaps not coincidentally, one of the least Chrome-like. If you’re familiar with Chrome’s bike messenger bag roots, the Pace feels like an abrupt departure, but it’s one you might fall in love with.

Wearing the Pace just feels…. fun? I don’t really know another way to describe it. For one, you can wear it as a tote bag or as a backpack and that is surprisingly liberating.

Plenty of bags, including Chrome’s oversized, industrial-strength packs, feel a bit like readying for a battle when you put them on. With a big pack on, you are no longer a person just shopping for groceries or going to the bookstore, you’re a person with a very serious backpack who is also doing those things. Maybe you’re some kind of hardcore bike person. And whether you are or not, wearing a huge backpack around town can just look like you take yourself very seriously.

The Pace is the opposite of that, while still managing that efficient, industrial thing that Chrome does so well. At 18L, it’s like you barely remembered to grab a bag at all, but here you are with a practical way (two ways!) to carry just the essentials. At first glance, the Pace looks tiny, but for me it comfortably fit a laptop, a 16oz water bottle, various pens, a book, my phone, charging cables and assorted other stuff I compulsively drag around every single day just in case because my anxiety medicine doesn’t work all the way.

The Pace, like the MXD Fathom, its less convertible twin, is tough black pack made from 1680d ballistic nylon and seatbelt-style webbing. The pack has a tote-style top-loading interior that zips up (why don’t all totes zip up?) and two stowaway backpack straps hidden behind a zipper on the back.

The Pace’s two external pockets are super thoughtful and great for a phone and sunglasses and keys or whatever other instant access stuff you need. From my experience, you need to be mindful about making sure those particular zippers are closed all the way around because it’s easy to leave them a little open. The zippers all felt great, though the main top zipper, which I didn’t even close most of the time because i’m living that #hybridbaglife, did snag on the material under it sometimes. It wasn’t hard to get loose, but still worth mentioning since it happened two or three times over five days or so of regular use.

One complaint I had because I did get so comfortable carrying this pack around is that an optional sternum strap would be nice, even if it’d harsh the vibe a little. The pack is super comfy somehow, in spite of its relative lack of structure, but did slide out toward my shoulders occasionally. This might be because most Chrome stuff is designed for broad dudes doing broad dude stuff, but on the whole the Pace felt like one of the least big dude-centric designs that I’ve ever seen from the company. The Pace’s ability to casually transform into a sturdy little tote bag should be a selling point for women and other smaller-bodied folks who aren’t built like tree trunks.

Aside from carrying my laptop around (one complaint: no padding on the bottom of the laptop sleeve), I mostly used the Pace to haul a small assortment of stuff back and forth at a weeklong event and it performed well all around. I also managed to take it on a short, steep hike and it did just fine, though it’s such a breeze to carry I actually didn’t notice that I wasn’t wearing it, left it at the top of the hike and had to re-hike back up there to get it. It must have been pretty comfortable because forgetting my pack is not a thing that happens to me.

I’m usually a rigid-backed pack person but I actually liked how unstructured this bag is. One night I went out to cover an event and was surprised to realize that the Pace carried my Sony A7S II and a change of lens just fine, distributing its weight and carrying it so well I forgot it was in there. I’m not sure what kind of dark tote bag magic is to thank here, but usually carrying any kind of camera in a non-camera bag makes for an awkward, lumpy experience.

What else? The Pace has some great internal organization pockets, though a few felt redundant enough that I couldn’t ever remember where I’d put my chapstick or my notebook or whatever I was reaching for at the moment, leading me to check the non-mesh internal pocket, the main internal compartment, the outside zippered area and the zip area that the straps tuck back into, which was convenient enough that I accidentally stuck stuff in there a lot.

I liked the Pace enough that I’d consider picking up the Fathom just to see what it feels like. There’s something special about this design. The Pace is a clever, lighthearted bag and it genuinely feels fun to carry. If that sounds dumb, then get the hell out of here, why are you reading bag reviews instead of checking your altcoin portfolio or whatever?

The Pace is an excellent casual city bag for when you want to run out the door to do something fun and carefree and mildly edgy, but you don’t want to look too prepared or like you brought your laptop even though you totally did. Like you’re showing up to a music video shoot that you’re not cast in or just want to look casual lowkey famous at brunch. Or like sleeping over at a date’s house but looking like you are playing it very cool and not carrying a change of clothes, a toothbrush and your Kindle. It’s unassuming and cool and might just be my new everyday pack.

What it is: A small tote/backpack hybrid that is very cool and not dorky.

What is isn’t: Capable of hauling many massive, heavy things. Run-of-the-mill.

Read more reviews from TechCrunch Bag Week 2018 here.