Year: 2018

Another day, another crypto hack. This time it’s Korea, the crypto-mad Asian country, where an exchange called Coinrail lost more than $40 million in altcoins, ICO-issued tokens that aren’t bitcoin or Ethereum, after it was hit by an apparent attack over the weekend.

Korea may be a hot spot for crypto investment, but Coinrail is one of its smaller exchanges, just about ranking inside the world’s top 90 based on trading volume, according to coinmarketcap.com. Nonetheless, even the smaller exchanges have plenty of coins, as the size of this heist illustrates.

Most notably, the hackers got away with $19.5 million-worth of NPXS tokens that were issued by payment project Pundi X’s ICO. Added to that they scored a further $13.8 million from Aston X, an ICO project building a platform to decentralize documents, $5.8 million in tokens for Dent, a mobile data ICO, and over $1.1 million Tron, a much-hyped project originating from China.

That’s according to a wallet address that has been identified as belonging to the alleged attacker, who also got hold of smaller volumes of a further five tokens from Coinrail.

In all the cases, the companies issuing the tokens themselves were not hacked, the tokens that were nabbed belong to Coinrail users.

It isn’t clear how, or indeed whether, Coinrail will go about compensating its customers — Japan’s Coincheck refunded its customers following a high-profile attack earlier this year — but some of the ICO projects are taking steps in response.

Pundi was hit the hardest, claiming that some three percent of its total volume of tokens was impacted by this attack. It said it has frozen the tokens that were stolen and it has ceased trading of its tokens across all exchanges to help with the post-attack investigation, which it said includes the Korean police. NPER, which had around $860,000-worth of tokens taken from Coinrail, said it had frozen the stolen funds and it plans incinerate the tokens to render them useless to the hacker. Aston has also frozen its affected tokens, according to Coinrail.

Other projects have yet to comment, although Coinrail said in a statement on its website that two-thirds of the stolen tokens have been frozen with more action likely to happen.

Coinrail took its service offline and it said in a statement that it has moved the remainder of its assets — which it said is 70 percent of its total holdings — to cold storage while it reviews its security system and fully investigates the incident.

Some have suggested that the hack was responsible for bitcoin’s valuation dropping by over five percent in what is the cryptocurrency’s biggest decline for two weeks. However, Coinrail is so obscure that this theory seems unlikely.

What is for certain is that the hack serves as another strong reminder that the space remains unregulated — there’s with little recourse for victims of a crypto exchange hack, unlike say a bank robbery or payment fraud. More importantly, those who do buy bitcoin, Ethereum or other crypto tokens should keep their tokens securely in a private wallet (ideally using a hardware device for access) rather than leaving them within an exchange where they could be stolen.

For those of you keeping score on recent hacks on exchanges, here are a few: Coincheck lost an estimated $400 million earlier this year, last November saw Tether claim it lose $31 million following an attack while EtherDelta suspended its exchange service for a period in December after it was compromised.

The Mt. Gox hacking in 2014 is the mother of all crypto attacks, of course. In total the exchange lost around 744,408 BTC. That was worth around $350 million at the time, but today a holding of that size would be valued at some $5.3 billion.

Note: The author owns a small amount of cryptocurrency. Enough to gain an understanding, not enough to change a life.

Another day, another crypto hack. This time it’s Korea, the crypto-mad Asian country, where an exchange called Coinrail lost more than $40 million in altcoins, ICO-issued tokens that aren’t bitcoin or Ethereum, after it was hit by an apparent attack over the weekend.

Korea may be a hot spot for crypto investment, but Coinrail is one of its smaller exchanges, just about ranking inside the world’s top 90 based on trading volume, according to coinmarketcap.com. Nonetheless, even the smaller exchanges have plenty of coins, as the size of this heist illustrates.

Most notably, the hackers got away with $19.5 million-worth of NPXS tokens that were issued by payment project Pundi X’s ICO. Added to that they scored a further $13.8 million from Aston X, an ICO project building a platform to decentralize documents, $5.8 million in tokens for Dent, a mobile data ICO, and over $1.1 million Tron, a much-hyped project originating from China.

That’s according to a wallet address that has been identified as belonging to the alleged attacker, who also got hold of smaller volumes of a further five tokens from Coinrail.

In all the cases, the companies issuing the tokens themselves were not hacked, the tokens that were nabbed belong to Coinrail users.

It isn’t clear how, or indeed whether, Coinrail will go about compensating its customers — Japan’s Coincheck refunded its customers following a high-profile attack earlier this year — but some of the ICO projects are taking steps in response.

Pundi was hit the hardest, claiming that some three percent of its total volume of tokens was impacted by this attack. It said it has frozen the tokens that were stolen and it has ceased trading of its tokens across all exchanges to help with the post-attack investigation, which it said includes the Korean police. NPER, which had around $860,000-worth of tokens taken from Coinrail, said it had frozen the stolen funds and it plans incinerate the tokens to render them useless to the hacker. Aston has also frozen its affected tokens, according to Coinrail.

Other projects have yet to comment, although Coinrail said in a statement on its website that two-thirds of the stolen tokens have been frozen with more action likely to happen.

Coinrail took its service offline and it said in a statement that it has moved the remainder of its assets — which it said is 70 percent of its total holdings — to cold storage while it reviews its security system and fully investigates the incident.

Some have suggested that the hack was responsible for bitcoin’s valuation dropping by over five percent in what is the cryptocurrency’s biggest decline for two weeks. However, Coinrail is so obscure that this theory seems unlikely.

What is for certain is that the hack serves as another strong reminder that the space remains unregulated — there’s with little recourse for victims of a crypto exchange hack, unlike say a bank robbery or payment fraud. More importantly, those who do buy bitcoin, Ethereum or other crypto tokens should keep their tokens securely in a private wallet (ideally using a hardware device for access) rather than leaving them within an exchange where they could be stolen.

For those of you keeping score on recent hacks on exchanges, here are a few: Coincheck lost an estimated $400 million earlier this year, last November saw Tether claim it lose $31 million following an attack while EtherDelta suspended its exchange service for a period in December after it was compromised.

The Mt. Gox hacking in 2014 is the mother of all crypto attacks, of course. In total the exchange lost around 744,408 BTC. That was worth around $350 million at the time, but today a holding of that size would be valued at some $5.3 billion.

Note: The author owns a small amount of cryptocurrency. Enough to gain an understanding, not enough to change a life.

In startup land, the mandate is to get bought, go public or die trying.

And, as far as getting bought goes, one of tech’s Big Five could be a desirable acquirer. They have a lot of weight to throw around. Alphabet (the parent company of Google), Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft account for a titanic amount of market value — close to $3.9 trillion at time of writing. At least, that’s according to Crunchbase News’s dashboard of notable tech stocks.

When challenged by one another, these hulking behemoths of the tech sector more often fight than flee. And when challenged by a scrappy upstart, it is likely that they will gobble up the talent, technology and business of any aspiring competitor. It’s the circle of life.

And it’s those acquisitions we’re going to look at here.

Taken together, tech’s Big Five account for a relatively small portion of the overall M&A market. The chart below shows the number of acquisitions made by members of tech’s Big Five from 2007 through 2017. (For reference, Crunchbase records thousands of acquisitions per year.)

But what the Big Five lack in quantity is made up for in size. If you’ll forgive the big-game pun, acquisitions by Big Five account for a lion’s share of big deals in dollar terms.

So, for each of the Big Five, let’s see just how big some of those deals got. We base our analysis on Crunchbase data that, whenever possible, has been cross-checked with public news sources and regulatory filings. We’ll proceed from the most valuable (in market capitalization terms) to the least.

Apple

Despite being the most valuable among the Big Five, Apple’s acquisitions are not just among the smallest of the bunch, but also the least disclosed. In other words, out of the deals listed in Crunchbase and elsewhere, most of them don’t have dollar values attached to them. This may speak to Apple’s secretiveness and its tendency to build most of its products and services in-house.

Apple’s biggest M&A deal to date was its $3 billion buyout of Beats Electronics, which is perhaps best known for its flashy wireless headphones. But it’s not the headphones that caught Apple’s eye. Rather, it was its streaming service, which Apple CEO Tim Cook told ReCode’s Peter Kafka was “the first subscription service that really got it right.”

Including the Beats deal, here are the largest M&A deals we were able to find.

Amazon

It’s hard to find a business vertical Amazon isn’t somehow involved in. Web hosting? Check. White-labeled staples like batteries and paper towels? Check. Doorbells? Check. They apparently sell books online, too.

Now, in all seriousness, Amazon’s $13.7 billion buyout of Whole Foods in June 2017 brought the online shopping giant squarely into the world of brick-and-mortar retail as well. And while the Whole Foods deal was Amazon’s biggest splurge to date, it’s certainly not alone in the company’s collection of commerce company buys. These include Amazon’s buyout of Quidsi (the parent company of Diapers.com and Soap.com, which was the first to offer the free two-day shipping for which Amazon Prime is famous), footwear and clothing retailer Zappos, and Middle Eastern e-commerce site Souq.com.

Alphabet

Of tech’s big five, Alphabet is the most acquisitive, and it makes the most corporate venture investments. It’s also the company with the most complicated corporate structure. Recall that Alphabet is the parent organization of Google, and it’s Google which has made the surpassing majority of Alphabet acquisitions.

But for all the resources Alphabet has put toward M&A, its acquisitiveness resulted in a rather mixed bag of results. Most glaring amongst its duds is its $3.2 billion buyout of Nest Labs and, relatedly, the $555 million spent on Dropcam (which would later be rebranded as part of Nest’s home security offering).

Nest reportedly failed to meet revenue expectations and seize a dominant position in the connected home market, ceding ground to incumbents like Honeywell. And there are plenty of scrappy upstarts nipping Nest’s heels in markets like home security, smart doorbells and smart locks.

This being said, then-Google’s YouTube deal is likely Alphabet’s best acquisition from an ROI perspective. Although Alphabet doesn’t break out YouTube’s revenue, some good estimates and public market comps suggest the video streaming unit could be worth a cool $100 billion.

Microsoft

Microsoft made news this week by announcing its acquisition of software version control and code hosting platform GitHub for $7.5 billion. And, at this point, it seems like Microsoft is timing announcements of its biggest deals just to dunk on Apple. Myke Hurley, a tech podcaster and the founder of Relay FM, observed on Twitter that Microsoft’s 2016 acquisition of LinkedIn and its GitHub deal were both announced on the opening day of Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference.

Apart from cheeky timing, you will notice that Microsoft has made the largest M&A deals among tech’s Big Five.

Facebook

Of the Big Five companies in tech, Facebook’s M&A patterns seem to be the most binary. Its deals are either tiny or humongous. There isn’t much of a middle ground.

Some of Facebook’s biggest acquisitions present a case study of acquiring one’s way to nearly insurmountable market dominance. Although its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp didn’t cause much of a stir at the time, today these deals are seen as a cautionary case for current and future antitrust regulators.

On a brighter note, though, Facebook’s M&A record is also a lesson in the “buy versus build” dilemma many companies face. It’s sometimes more expedient to buy a company (and, critically, its engineering team) than to build new features from scratch. For many of the smaller deals listed here, we can see that Facebook opted to buy.

The Big Five’s acquisitions in perspective

At the very top of the tech food chain, the Big Five are in a unique position, and not just as rainmakers for VCs seeking liquidity.

Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft are some of the most powerful companies operating today, and their acquisitions tell part of the story of how they got to prominent positions in the first place.

Although some acquisitions appear to come out of the blue, it’s important to remember that one doesn’t just buy a company for the heck of it. There’s a strategic motivation for these deals at the time they’re made. And when these deals are struck, they can telegraph the company’s future plans.

In startup land, the mandate is to get bought, go public or die trying.

And, as far as getting bought goes, one of tech’s Big Five could be a desirable acquirer. They have a lot of weight to throw around. Alphabet (the parent company of Google), Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft account for a titanic amount of market value — close to $3.9 trillion at time of writing. At least, that’s according to Crunchbase News’s dashboard of notable tech stocks.

When challenged by one another, these hulking behemoths of the tech sector more often fight than flee. And when challenged by a scrappy upstart, it is likely that they will gobble up the talent, technology and business of any aspiring competitor. It’s the circle of life.

And it’s those acquisitions we’re going to look at here.

Taken together, tech’s Big Five account for a relatively small portion of the overall M&A market. The chart below shows the number of acquisitions made by members of tech’s Big Five from 2007 through 2017. (For reference, Crunchbase records thousands of acquisitions per year.)

But what the Big Five lack in quantity is made up for in size. If you’ll forgive the big-game pun, acquisitions by Big Five account for a lion’s share of big deals in dollar terms.

So, for each of the Big Five, let’s see just how big some of those deals got. We base our analysis on Crunchbase data that, whenever possible, has been cross-checked with public news sources and regulatory filings. We’ll proceed from the most valuable (in market capitalization terms) to the least.

Apple

Despite being the most valuable among the Big Five, Apple’s acquisitions are not just among the smallest of the bunch, but also the least disclosed. In other words, out of the deals listed in Crunchbase and elsewhere, most of them don’t have dollar values attached to them. This may speak to Apple’s secretiveness and its tendency to build most of its products and services in-house.

Apple’s biggest M&A deal to date was its $3 billion buyout of Beats Electronics, which is perhaps best known for its flashy wireless headphones. But it’s not the headphones that caught Apple’s eye. Rather, it was its streaming service, which Apple CEO Tim Cook told ReCode’s Peter Kafka was “the first subscription service that really got it right.”

Including the Beats deal, here are the largest M&A deals we were able to find.

Amazon

It’s hard to find a business vertical Amazon isn’t somehow involved in. Web hosting? Check. White-labeled staples like batteries and paper towels? Check. Doorbells? Check. They apparently sell books online, too.

Now, in all seriousness, Amazon’s $13.7 billion buyout of Whole Foods in June 2017 brought the online shopping giant squarely into the world of brick-and-mortar retail as well. And while the Whole Foods deal was Amazon’s biggest splurge to date, it’s certainly not alone in the company’s collection of commerce company buys. These include Amazon’s buyout of Quidsi (the parent company of Diapers.com and Soap.com, which was the first to offer the free two-day shipping for which Amazon Prime is famous), footwear and clothing retailer Zappos, and Middle Eastern e-commerce site Souq.com.

Alphabet

Of tech’s big five, Alphabet is the most acquisitive, and it makes the most corporate venture investments. It’s also the company with the most complicated corporate structure. Recall that Alphabet is the parent organization of Google, and it’s Google which has made the surpassing majority of Alphabet acquisitions.

But for all the resources Alphabet has put toward M&A, its acquisitiveness resulted in a rather mixed bag of results. Most glaring amongst its duds is its $3.2 billion buyout of Nest Labs and, relatedly, the $555 million spent on Dropcam (which would later be rebranded as part of Nest’s home security offering).

Nest reportedly failed to meet revenue expectations and seize a dominant position in the connected home market, ceding ground to incumbents like Honeywell. And there are plenty of scrappy upstarts nipping Nest’s heels in markets like home security, smart doorbells and smart locks.

This being said, then-Google’s YouTube deal is likely Alphabet’s best acquisition from an ROI perspective. Although Alphabet doesn’t break out YouTube’s revenue, some good estimates and public market comps suggest the video streaming unit could be worth a cool $100 billion.

Microsoft

Microsoft made news this week by announcing its acquisition of software version control and code hosting platform GitHub for $7.5 billion. And, at this point, it seems like Microsoft is timing announcements of its biggest deals just to dunk on Apple. Myke Hurley, a tech podcaster and the founder of Relay FM, observed on Twitter that Microsoft’s 2016 acquisition of LinkedIn and its GitHub deal were both announced on the opening day of Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference.

Apart from cheeky timing, you will notice that Microsoft has made the largest M&A deals among tech’s Big Five.

Facebook

Of the Big Five companies in tech, Facebook’s M&A patterns seem to be the most binary. Its deals are either tiny or humongous. There isn’t much of a middle ground.

Some of Facebook’s biggest acquisitions present a case study of acquiring one’s way to nearly insurmountable market dominance. Although its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp didn’t cause much of a stir at the time, today these deals are seen as a cautionary case for current and future antitrust regulators.

On a brighter note, though, Facebook’s M&A record is also a lesson in the “buy versus build” dilemma many companies face. It’s sometimes more expedient to buy a company (and, critically, its engineering team) than to build new features from scratch. For many of the smaller deals listed here, we can see that Facebook opted to buy.

The Big Five’s acquisitions in perspective

At the very top of the tech food chain, the Big Five are in a unique position, and not just as rainmakers for VCs seeking liquidity.

Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft are some of the most powerful companies operating today, and their acquisitions tell part of the story of how they got to prominent positions in the first place.

Although some acquisitions appear to come out of the blue, it’s important to remember that one doesn’t just buy a company for the heck of it. There’s a strategic motivation for these deals at the time they’re made. And when these deals are struck, they can telegraph the company’s future plans.

I wanted to write about scooter startups this week, but, alas, I failed to care enough about them to muster any opinion at all. The problem is that they are pure piggyback startups, and pure piggyback startups are boring because they have no chance of being genuinely transformative.

Let me explain. Many, or even most, successful tech startups / movements succeed because they manage to piggyback on existing infrastructure. This is so painfully obvious it’s almost a truism, where the infrastructure is “the Internet” or “smartphones” — but there are other kinds, too. In its early days, Amazon was a pure piggyback startup, relying on UPS/FedEx/postal infrastructure. Similarly, the scooter startups are obviously reliant on existing city infrastructure.

Hollywood movies follow a three-act structure, and so do transformative tech startups and movements. Act I almost always consists of piggybacking on pre-existing infrastructure. In Act II, they build / evolve their own new, custom core infrastructure. And in Act III, their new platform begins to supplant and obsolete existing / establishment infrastructure.

Consider Amazon, who have evolved their own infrastructure in the form of gargantuan and increasingly automated fulfillment centers — Act II — and are now reportedly launching its own delivery service, while decimating shopping malls — Act III. (Though it’s true that the so-called “retail apocalypse” is more complicated than that. ) Consider Uber and Lyft, who are still in Act I, relying on externally driven vehicles, but fighting to transition into a self-driving Act II.

Amazon also combined Acts II and III with AWS, of course, since that was a once-in-a-generation case where there was no existing/establishment infrastructure. Similarly, Google has a long history of unleashing its internal Act II infrastructure to become Act III industry transformers, eg MapReduce, Kubernetes, and TensorFlow.

An even more unusual example is Bitcoin, which evolved its parallel infrastructure (miners and nodes) from scratch straight into Act III, an extraordinary instance of bootstrap levitation. This succeeded at first purely because it was so technically interesting and innovative, and subsequently because it was built from the ground up to incentivize infrastructure growth — to the Sorceror’s-Apprentice-esque point where it’s possible that as much as one in every thousand watts of electricity generated worldwide today, and counting, goes to securing the Bitcoin blockchain.

You usually want to piggyback before you evolve your own infrastructure, lest you become Webvan, although there are several spectacular exceptions. Elon Musk has spent his career trying to build third-act companies; PayPal topped out at Act II, so he went on to SpaceX (which started in Act II after Musk’s attempt to piggyback on Russian ICBMs didn’t work out, and is now clearly in Act III, beginning to supplant the existing launch-industrial complex) and Tesla (which similarly launched into Act II and, is extremely ambitiously, aiming for Act III vs. the multitrillion-dollar installed base of global oil infrastructure.)

But, like American lives, some startup have no second acts. This is what I call the “piggyback problem”; when there’s no apparent way to evolve your own infrastructure. To be clear, this is not necessarily a business or financial problem. AirBnB leaps to mind as an example of an extremely successful pure Act I startup; it’s made arguable attempts towards Act II infrastructure, but I don’t think the path there is particularly clear. I’m sure its founders and backers are weeping all the way to the bank.

However, this does make AirBnB a little … well … boring. And the same is true of scooter startups. They are all strictly Act I piggyback startups, and I can’t see how they might get to Act II in the viciously contested, heavily regulated environment of the modern city. (Lest anyone argue that they are infrastructure, this is only true in a trivial sense; the point is that they rely on external infrastructure.) Not that there’s anything wrong with being Act I. But Act III is where tomorrow is born.

LIV Watches is a crowdfunding darling with a number of Kickstarted watches under its belt. Now it’s offering a unique set of watches to backers, including the Liv Genesis GX-AC, an automatic chronograph with date. The watch runs a Sellita Caliber SW500, visible through the see-through back, and features a screw down crown and massive metal pushers.

The company prides itself on the size of its watches and this piece is no exception. The GX-AC isn’t wildly big – at 46mm it’s just a bit bigger than most Android Wear watches – and it fits nicely thanks to a rounded rubber band that hugs the top and bottom of the case. There is a small running seconds hand at nine-o’clock and registers for minutes and hours at noon and six.

[gallery ids="1654222,1654220,1654219,1654218,1654217"]

If you’ve seen automatic chronographs before you know what you’re in for – a standard movement encased in a special steel case that is designed to appeal to a certain demographic. LIV is also Kickstarting a number of other watches, including a Day-Date chronograph that is flight-inspired and a diver, so check them out. However, if you’re into this piece then you’re in for a treat. It starts at $790, far below most mechanical chronographs I’ve seen, and the workmanship and quality of this piece is quite nice.

I wore it a little over the past few weeks and found it very comfortable and easy to read. The running seconds hand is a bit small and the lume is limited to the pips and hands but as a fashion/everyday wear piece it’s excellent. If you particularly like the style – F1 racing meets Kylo Ren – then you’re probably going to like this thing and since they’ve already surpassed their goal and hit $602,000 you can expect delivery of your perk.

Again, watches like this one require a specific style and taste. The LIV is reminiscent of Alpina and Tissot in its case style and decoration and it pays homage to racing and speed. Grabbing a Swiss made watch for under $1,000 is a treat and this is a good example of the species and well worth a look.

Good afternoon, downtown L.A.! The sun is shining, the birds are singing and the giant banners with gun toting cyborgs have been unveiled.

That can only mean one thing: it’s time for E3! Electronic Arts kicked the show off this morning with the first official press conference, and the big news was, as anticipated, Battlefield V.

Battlefield V

The World War II title will likely get a little more love at the Xbox press conference tomorrow morning, but we did get a look at some compelling gameplay. Notably, the title is getting a Fortnite-style multiplayer, battle royale mode.

Anthem

Bioware’s next title isn’t due out until next February, but Anthem still managed to get a lot of love today at E3. The multiplayer shooter finds players assuming the role of mech suit wearing “Freelancers.”

FIFA 19

Due out September 28, EA’s big soccer (or football or whatever) title is adding UEFA Champions League gameplay, after picking up the license from Konami. That’s big news for European soccer fans, bringing the annual tournament to the title. The company also announced a free trial for Xbox, Playstation and PC players.

Madden NFL 19

The popular football title (the other football) is destined for the PC for the first time in more than 10 years. It will bring with it new, more lifelike player animation when it debuts August 10.

Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order

It wouldn’t be an EA E3 event without some Star Wars love. Due out during the 2019 holiday season, the title will offer a dark take on the familiar universe, allowing users to play as a Jedi. That’s all we know so far, and sadly, there’s no trailer yet to speak of.

Unravel 2

No waiting on this one, however. The yarn of a puzzle platformer sequel just dropped today for the PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

Uber is reportedly looking into buying Motivate, the company that makes Ford GoBike’s in the San Francisco Bay Area and Citi Bike over on the East Coast. This comes following reports of Lyft getting close to purchasing Motivate in a $250 million deal.

Uber bought bike-share startup JUMP, a dockless, electric bike-share service, earlier this year, for about $250 million. In April, Motivate deployed electric bikes in San Francisco. Once JUMP’s 18-month pilot program with the city is up next June, we can expect to see companies like Motivate, Lime and others apply to deploy their own dockless bikes in the city.

I’ve reached out to Uber and will update this story if I hear back.

Just this week, both Uber and Lyft applied to deploy electric scooters in San Francisco. You can read more about that here.

Sure, E3 doesn’t actually officially start until Tuesday, but the big news kicks off this weekend. Here’s a quick overview of some of the biggest new titles we expect to be shown off at press conferences from Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, but there’s a lot more to the show than just the big three.

EA started several days of big announcements with a press conference in downtown L.A. this morning, focused on Battlefield V, Fifa 2019 and a bunch more. Microsoft, meanwhile, will be the first of the big hardware companies to hold court with an early afternoon event on Sunday, followed by Bethesda that night.

Monday is the most packed day of the week with events from Square Enix, Ubisoft and Sony. Nintendo, meanwhile, has Tuesday morning to itself, opting to again return to its pre-recorded streaming format in lieu of renting out a larger hall.

Here’s the full break down.

SUNDAY, JUNE 10

Microsoft: 1PM PT, 4PM ET

What to expect: Crackdown 3, Gears of War, Forza and (maybe?) a new Halo.

Bethesda 6:30PM PT, 9:30PM ET

What to expect: Rage 2, Fallout 76.

MONDAY, JUNE 11

Square Enix 10AM PT, 1 PM ET

Watch live video from Square Enix on www.twitch.tv

What to expect: Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Kingsom Hearts 3, Final Fantasy VII.

Ubisoft 12:30PM PT, 3:30PM ET 

What to expect: Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, new Splinter Cell.

Sony 6PM PT, 9PM ET

What to expect: Death Stranding, Last of Us Part II, Marvel’s Spider-Man

TUESDAY, JUNE 12

Nintendo 9AM PT, 12PM ET

What to expect: Super Smash Bros, Pokemon and (maybe) Fortnite

 

Airbnb — the travel startup that lets individuals rent out private homes or rooms in private homes to people as an alternative to hotels — has racked up more than 17,000 nights in its Open Homes program, a voluntary effort where Airbnb hosts can offer their houses and rooms free of charge to people in cities going through an emergency such as a hurricane or flood or other critical incident, either because those people have been displaced from their homes or because they have come to an area to help family go are going through a crisis.

Now, the company is piloting a new version of the program to make it even more ubiquitous: Airbnb hosts, and anyone who might be willing to put up people in emergencies, can now register so that they will be available on “standby” lists.

The first city that will pilot the new system starting this summer is San Jose, California, and the plan is to roll it out to more cities during the rest of the year, and eventually globally.

The idea to expand Open Homes came out of Airbnb thinking about how to make its program more effective and responsive to crises. The company has in total hosted people in nearly 9,000 homes over 90 disasters, but it found that there was a gap in time between when something happened, and the days it would take to recruit volunteers to provide homes. Given the time sensitivity of the need, the company thought it could do something to be more prepared.

On the part of the city of San Jose, it became the first city to pilot the program for two reasons. It relied on Airbnb in 2017 to provide homes to people displaced during major flooding, where the city needed to evacuate and find accommodation for 14,000 families, so it understood the benefit of the program. And it generally has a larger impetus to get involved in more tech-led initiatives that better leveraged its own place in the heart of Silicon Valley.

“As you might expect, as the biggest city in Silicon Valley, we believe in working in collaboration with tech,” San Jose’s mayor Sam Liccardo said in an interview. “Tech has impacted and changed our economy, but we also know that there is an extraordinary opportunity in having a collaborative approach.”

San Jose and Airbnb have worked together before: the city worked with Airbnb on crafting a scheme for taxing hosts to collect visitors’ taxes that were on par with what visitors paid when staying in hotels, and Liccardo noted that this became a template for how Airbnb worked out similar taxes in other cities.

While flooding was the reason Airbnb provided Open Homes in San Jose, Liccardo said that earthquakes are by far the more worrisome natural disaster that San Jose wants to be prepared for down the line.

Kellie Bentz, Airbnb’s Head of Disaster Response and Relief, says that the company has been working with relief organizations up to now to help coordinate housing options. This new phase of Open Homes will bring it into closer contact with city governments to develop programs.

While exact details will be worked out, Airbnb and cities will work together to get the message out to people, since the idea is to appeal to people beyond Airbnb’s own network of hosts. This will include public service announcements and in-person sessions where people can come and learn more about hosting during critical incidents, where they may not get paid, but Airbnb might provide some degree of cost covering for the efforts. Setting up networks of potential hosts ahead of time will allow Airbnb to have more comprehensive data on individual hosts and what their particular offerings and restrictions might be.

Bentz is very quick to say that the purpose behind this program is not to cosy up to city governments, or to simply expand its network of regular hosts. But I’d point out that both do happen to be potential (if unintended) side effects. City governments have not always been in harmony with Airbnb, which has run afoul of some local regulations that have been built for hotels and in some cases are only now being modified to account for Airbnb’s brand of travel accommodation. This gives Airbnb a place as not a disruptive aggressor, but a help. In the case of hosts, there have been plenty who have stayed at Airbnb’s but are reluctant to open up their own homes, and this gives the company a way of introducing the concept in a less all-in way. (Although, to be very clear, the company says it is not expanding this program for either of these reasons. “If we weren’t doing this with integrity, I would not be here,” Bentz said.)

While the idea is to bring in more than just Airbnb hosts as emergency accommodation volunteers, so far Airbnb hasn’t worked with any other networks that provide a platform to home owners to rent out their places, such as HomeAway. “We would be open to those conversations,” said Bentz. “But so far we have not had interest from them.”