Year: 2018

ScopeAR, a graduate of the Y Combinator Summer 2015 class, came to the augmented reality game very early, launching in 2011 when there was very little hardware and most people didn’t understand the technology. But it has managed to hang around long enough for the market and the hardware to finally catch with the founders’ vision of using AR as an advanced training tool in the enterprise.

Today, the company offers a pair of tools. First of all, there is RemoteAR, which CEO and company co-founder Scott Montgomerie describes as “Facetime with AR on top of it.” It allows a technician to virtually look over the shoulder at what a local person is seeing and provide directions and feedback in real time remotely. For example, the expert could circle the cover the technician needs to remove and point to the screws with two virtual arrows.

This could have great utility in any situation where you have an experienced person in the office, who doesn’t want to go on the road on anymore, but can still provide detailed instructions to a novice, acting as a trainer and helper. This is an actual problem in many industries with aging workforces.

Technician working with RemoteAR. Photo: ScopeAR

The second product, called WorkLink, lets you import a 3D CAD model, then associate that model with real equipment. When you put on hardware like Microsoft Hololens, you can see the 3D representation of the equipment and follow along with instructions on how to repair it. It also works with iOS, Android and Windows devices.

One big change since the company was established in 2011 is the variety of platforms you can use for augmented reality. “Last year was the thing where AR took off. Apple got into it with ARKit and Google with ARCore and awareness happened and people saw it was viable,” Montgomerie said.

By creating enterprise use cases like remote assistance and work instructions, the company has been gaining momentum over the last year, and reports tripling its revenue in 2017. Although they aren’t sharing a specific number, it’s fair to say they are growing quickly.

They developed an augmented reality training product early on that resonated with a mining company, and that along with consulting working with the likes of NASA, Boeing and Toyota, helped them stay afloat until things began to really click around AR in recent years, Montgomerie explained.

They also took some time to be part of the Y Combinator Summer 2015 class, and even scored a spot on TechCrunch’s list of favorite Demo Day 2 startups. During the YC experience, they developed the first version of RemoteAR. WorkLink followed a year later.

So far the company has taken on a a fairly modest amount of investment with Montgomerie reporting three seed rounds including $2 million right after Y Combinator, $1.7 million last May and another $2 million this past December. If the company continues to grow at this rate, it’s a good bet they will be looking for a Series A at some point to help scale the company further.

Robinhood started off as a dead-simple stock trading application that had no transaction fees — but since it’s continued to grow, and especially as it starts to dive into cryptocurrenty, investors are getting pretty excited about its prospects and are pouring a ton of new funding into it.

And it’s that tantalizing prospect of creating a next generation way of trading assets and cryptocurrency is now sending Robinhood to a $5.6 billion valuation in a new financing round that the company is announcing today. Robinhood says it’s closed a $363 million Series D financing round, with DST Global led this new round and Iconiq, Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia and Capital G participated. Robinhood had a $1.3 billion valuation last year when it had around 2 million users, and Robinhood says it now has 4 million users and has passed $150 billion in transaction volume.

“It’s the only place right now where you can trade crypto, stocks, and options all in one place,” CEO Vlad Tenev said. “For us to construct an experience that feels seamless and natural for customers, that for example want to sell an equity and use the proceeds to buy crypto, seamlessly, that’s been challenging not just from a product and design standpoint, but also infrastructure standpoint. There’s complexity under the hood, and our goal is to make it as seamless as possible in the process and make that complexity go away.”

Those 4 million users — and that valuation — indicates that Robinhood has clearly exposed a lot of demand for an easier way to users to dip their toes into financial services without having to work with firms that have trading fees like Scotttrade or E*Trade. And while there are a lot of services that offer robo-advisory services like Betterment and Wealthront, which make it easier to start investing small amounts of money, Robinhood offers users the opportunity to do these things at a more granular level.

And, of course, there’s the cryptocurrency aspect that is clearly spurring a lot of interest in the company. At the time, 1 million users waitlisted for access in just the five days after Robinhood Crypto was announced. Robinhood has premium services like Robinhood Gold, where the company can find additional ways to generate revenue that offset the requirements of running a system that allows users to trade stocks for free. Robinhood has raised $539 million to date, as diving into financial services can be an expensive prospect, as well as getting enough users on board to the point that it can scale to a level that the business starts to increasingly make sense.

Robinhood’s crypto trading service came out in February and by today, the comapny says it’s available in 11 states. The company also rolled out a web version and stock option trading, trying to become a more robust financial services company that’s still tuned to a younger generation that wants an easier way to get into investing without needing a big balance to invest. Most of Robinhood’s users, too, aren’t so-called “day traders” and are instead holding stocks for a while after they buy them.

“If you look at the data and the statistics, people that are active day traders are actually a very small percentage of our space,” Tenev said. “People that are actually transacting on that cadence are the minority of our customers. Most of our customers engage in more of these buy and hold accumulation strategies. We really see a lot of unique things because we don’t charge trading commissions. There are customers that deposit money regularly twice or once a month and then buy stocks as soon as those deposits come in. We don’t see a lot of customers that are doing rapid buying and selling.”

Still, as it tries to further expand — especially into products like crypto and new regions — it’s going to increasingly find itself trying to jump hurdles that financial services companies find when going abroad. And there’s always a chance that the trading platforms will try to become a little more competitive (and companies like Square are even getting into Bitcoin trading). That’s going to require a robust amount of funding to try to outmaneuver well-capitalized companies that might already have those relationships in place to more easily expand.

“The political climate is uncertain, it sort of affects everyone, it doesn’t affect us uniquely,” Tenev said. “We’re a crypto business now. Not a lot of people have a ton of clarity on what that’s gonna look like in the future, it’s a new space that’s evolving really rapidly. I think that we’re confident we can adapt and evolve, and we’re operating the business in a responsible way. There’s only so much you can do, but I feel like we’ve done a lot to address any concerns.”

Editor’s note: This post was done in partnership with Wirecutter. When readers choose to buy Wirecutter’s independently chosen editorial picks, it may earn affiliate commissions that support its work.

It should be easy to give a gift. But it can be hard trying to choose what gift to give. That’s especially true with technology, where products tend to be more functional than emotional. Here’s what matters most: finding a present that connects to the recipient, creates a sense of enjoyment, and that they’re actually going to use. Here are five tech gifts that will appeal to almost anyone.

Jaybird X3 Wireless Sport Earbuds

The Jaybird X3 earbuds are designed for working out, but their design and great audio makes them perfect for anyone on the go. The X3’s interchangeable tips and fins offer a highly customizable, comfortable fit. Overall sound is high quality out of the box, but we like that the companion Jaybird app allows a tailored listening experience. Eight hours of playback time means you’ll be set throughout multiple workouts or a full work day.

Amazon Echo (2nd generation) Voice-Controlled Speaker

While there’s more than enough buzz surrounding voice-controlled speakers, they’re not yet considered a standard home item. But we think they’re helpful, and we know that a lot of folks find them incredibly useful for ordering food, listening to audiobooks, streaming music, or controlling their appliances and lighting. Our favorite is the Amazon Echo (2nd generation), which does more (and does it better) than any other current model. It supports a huge list of smart-home devices—including thermostats, light bulbs, and vacuums, and it has a set of skills, including offering custom weather, news and calendar alerts. (Note: If you’re giving one of these devices as a gift, make sure the recipient’s preferred music service is supported; Amazon’s devices, for example, work with its own Prime Music service, as well as Spotify, but not with Apple Music.)

Jackery Bolt USB Battery

A convenient device (which at times doubles as a lifesaver) is a gift that anyone would consider a necessity. We researched more than 300 USB power banks and battery packs and tested 40, naming the Jackery Bolt as our top pick. The Jackery Bolt is made out of aluminum and is the perfect size for carrying around in your bag or pocket every day. It has two connector cables (one Lightning and one MicroUSB), and its 6000 mAh battery has enough power to charge a medium-sized smartphone twice.

Nixplay Seed Digital Photo Frame

The Nixplay Seed digital photo frame is perfect way to keep faraway friends and family members in sight. Since it’s Wi-Fi-enabled, you can be anywhere and use social media platforms, cloud storage, or your smartphone to upload pictures. It’s a great gift because new and old moments can be shared anytime, giving viewers more reasons to touch base with you. It has a high-resolution IPS display that can show images in landscape or portrait orientation. The photo frame’s remote and sensor—which turns the device off when no one’s in the room — lets you choose what you want to see at your convenience. Multiple people can create photo playlists through the Nixplay website, or add pictures to be shown by sending them through email. With 8GB of storage it has the capacity to hold roughly 25,000 smartphone photos.

GoPro Hero5 Black Action Camera

The GoPro Hero5 Black is our top pick for action cameras because it can be used for everyday filming, capturing memories during travel adventures, and is great in environments that aren’t suitable for larger, pricier camera equipment. It doesn’t have a clunky case, but it’s still waterproof. For those who usually place tech integration at the top of their gear list, the GoPro Hero5 Black also has a touchscreen interface and voice-control capabilities. During testing we found its footage to be crisp and clear with accurate color in addition to sound quality that’s worth keeping in professional edits.

Garmin Vivosport Fitness Tracker

If you’re looking for a way to jumpstart your exercise routine and you haven’t picked up a fitness tracker, now’s the time.  We’ve tested 23 fitness trackers over the past three years and think the Garmin Vivosport is the best option. Its built-in GPS, long-lasting battery life and color display set it apart from others. In addition to monitoring your workouts (including strength-training reps), it helps keep tabs on your sleep and stress levels, and is Bluetooth-enabled for IOS and Android integration with streaming music and notifications.

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.

As India’s internet access continues to surge among the billion-plus population, data is becoming the new oil. Whether online commerce, ride-hailing, mobile payments and banking, or more, someone needs to verify that people are who, and what, they say they are.

That’s an opportunity where HelloVerify, a verification and background screening startup that recently graduated Y Combinator in the U.S., is looking to make its mark.

The startup isn’t like most other YC grads. For one thing, it is from India — one of just 30 from the 1,000-plus YC network — while it is five years old, hasn’t raised VC capital and is profitable. The team came to the well-respected program to boost its network and learn more about startup scaling and monetization.

Founders Karan Mirchandani and Varun Mirchandani (two brothers) started the business primarily as an analog checking service, but as India’s digital ecosystem advanced, so the nature of its work developed. The company works with services to help verify their customers using a mix of offline registrations and online repositories, including social media. Today, online insurance, e-commerce, ride-sharing, flight booking and real estate web portals are among its fastest growing segments.

“In 12-24 months, our data business will leapfrog [our legacy focus] and drive this business to multiple-times more revenue,” the Mirchandanis told TechCrunch in a recent interview.

Already the numbers are notable.

Beyond a staff of 300 people, HelloVerify said it has carried out over two million background checks, with over 80 “large” customers among its clientele, such as Tata, Infosys and Prudential. Annual revenue, the brothers said, is currently at around $3 million.

In addition to digital growth, the business is poised to accelerate thanks to Aadhaar, the government-backed single identity platform for Indian citizens.

There have been controversies — particularly around weak security and the rollout in some states — but the system stands to massively boost the ease in which background checks can be carried out by providing a central lookup system.

“Aadhaar is focused on an audience of one billion people. It’ll be linked and connected to different databases which will be available for background screening. That, in turn, moves background screening away from traditional ways to make the process faster and more affordable,” CEO Karan Mirchandani explained.

Currently, he added, background checks typically take 24 hours to be processed. That’s a massive improvement on six to eight days when HelloVerify first went into business, but the founders see the potential to make it instant, or near-instant, once the Aadhaar system is fully established.

Already, the company is automating parts of its processes — including the solicitation of information and documents from individuals — but it sees the potential to add much more efficiencies through code. Particularly as the volume of tasks they are given increases.

“What started in IT is now speeding across airlines, shared economy, and more — from white collar to blue collar. The usage of background screening likely to happen more and more, for example, checking pilots, drivers, tenants, nannies, etc,” Varun Mirchandani explained.

In anticipation of that growth, HelloVerify is looking to raise capital from investors for the first time. The founders describe their goal as “a typical” Series A aimed at “taking the tech to the next level” and giving it a cash pile to go after aggressive growth.

Having already seen the benefit of mentoring at YC — where they also took the standard $120,000 investment check — the brothers are keen to open doors and networks with strategic investors that provide more than just capital.

“[YC gives] a different flavor you wouldn’t get in India, in terms of access to investors, platforms and people. It’s been a huge learning curve. It takes you at least five years ahead of the rest,” Karan said.

“Our objective is to go deeper, deeper and deeper to become India’s biggest online background checker,” Varun added. “With how big background screening has become in U.S., I believe the opportunity in India may be x10 based on population and added complexity.”

Certainly, Walmart’s $16 billion investment in Flipkart and Amazon’s continued efforts in the country, where it has deployed some $5 billion, are a testament to the growth potential that HelloVerify sees.

A new exploit allows hackers to spoof two-factor authentication requests by sending a user to a fake login page and then stealing the username, password, and session cookie.

KnowBe4 Chief Hacking Officer Kevin Mitnick showed the hack in a public video. By convincing a victim to visit a typo-squatting domain liked “LunkedIn.com” and capturing the login, password, and authentication code, the hacker can pass the credentials to the actual site and capture the session cookie. Once this is done the hacker can login indefinitely. This essentially uses the one time 2FA code as a way to spoof a login and grab data.

“A white hat hacker friend of Kevin’s developed a tool to bypass two-factor authentication using social engineering tactics – and it can be weaponized for any site,” said Stu Sjouwerman, KnowBe4 CEO. “Two-factor authentication is intended to be an extra layer of security, but in this instance, we clearly see that you can’t rely on it alone to protect your organization.”

Sjouwerman notes that anti-phishing education is deeply important and that a hack like this is impossible to complete if the victim is savvy about security and the dangers of clicking links that come into your email box. To demonstrate this, Sjouwerman sent me an email seemingly addressed to me from Matt Burns (matt@techcrunch.com) talking about a typo in a post. When I clicked on it I was transferred to a SendGrid redirect site and dumped into TechCrunch – but the payload could have been more nefarious.

“This highlights the need for new-school security awareness training and simulated phishing because people are truly your last line of defense,” said Sjouwerman. He estimates that hackers will begin trying this technique in the next few weeks and urges users and IT managers to harden their security protocols.

Dark clouds have gathered and broken over Apple’s plans to build a data center in Ireland. Three years ago, Apple announced that it would invest $2 billion into building a pair of new, green data centers in Ireland and Denmark. But today, the iPhone giant confirmed that it was cancelling the first of those two projects, after too many delays in the approval process, which today appeared to be extending in a way that could go on for a long time to come.

“We’ve been operating in Ireland since 1980 and we’re proud of the many contributions we make to the economy and job creation.  In the last two years we’ve spent over €550 million with local companies and, all told, our investment and innovation supports more than 25,000 jobs up and down the country.  We’re deeply committed to our employees and customers in Ireland and are expanding our operations in Cork, with a new facility for our talented team there,” the company said in a statement provided to TechCrunch. “Several years ago we applied to build a data centre at Athenry. Despite our best efforts, delays in the approval process have forced us to make other plans and we will not be able to move forward with the data centre. While disappointing, this setback will not dampen our enthusiasm for future projects in Ireland as our business continues to grow.”

Apple had planned for the data center — which would cover 166,000 square metres — to go online in 2017.

(The first phase of the Danish center announced at the same time, incidentally, is nearly completed and Apple is now working on a second center in the country. We’ve confirmed with sources that this second center is not the “other plan” that Apple refers to in its statement above, meaning another data center announcement from Apple in the region may be coming.)

As originally conceived, the facility in Ireland was planned to be built on land previously used for growing and harvesting non-native trees. As part of its CSR in building the facility on that land, Apple also pledged to “restore native trees to Derrydonnell Forest,” as well as build an outdoor education space an a walking trail.

But within months of Apple announcing the project, issues started to arise around the potential environmental impact and what effect the building of the data center would have on the national electric grid. Initially, the Galway County Council asked for more details from Apple about how the data center would work.

Then, when Apple provided it and the council granted permission to build the center six months later, individual objections started to surface, including from a local environmental engineer called Allan Daly, who has become something of the public face of the opposition to the plans.

Daly’s main argument was that Apple’s data center, particularly at its fullest-possible size, would put too much strain on Ireland’s power grid, including in the building of them. Apple has maintained that its data centers are powered on renewables, that it gives back over time, and that it wouldn’t over-build.

Last October, Apple won a case in the Irish High Court that appeared to give the company the green light it needed to proceed with its plans. But from what we understand, there was still some uncertainty that lingered, because opposition could have still taken the case to the Supreme Court to appeal once again.

That continued uncertainty was the final straw for Apple. With no guaranteed end in sight, Apple finally made the choice to “move on”, as one source close to the situation told TechCrunch.

The whole case underscores some of the ongoing issues that apparently exist in Ireland over how data centers are planned and approved by local authorities, and there is talk of reforming that whole process, but that is not something Apple will get involved with at this point.

The company has had a rather complicated relationship with the country. Like many tech companies, Apple has made a lot of investment into operations based out of Ireland, including its European headquarters in Cork. But it’s also been the subject of a large tax debate, which has seen Apple just weeks ago finally settle on paying some €13 billion ($15.4 billion) in back taxes to Ireland starting this month, after the EU ruled that the existing tax scheme was illegal.

Ironically, Ireland was on Apple’s side in trying to resist the payment — perhaps in part because it all too well understands its relationship to the companies that subsequently pump hundreds of millions of euros in investment and jobs into their economies.

It’s odd timing, therefore, that we’d hear about Apple pulling out of the data center in Ireland now, although from what I’ve been told the two are very distinct, unrelated issues.

Uber is expanding its presence in Spain by launching a licensed service on the country’s southern Costa del Sol coastline — ahead of the summer season when the region draws in millions of international tourists.

Last year the tourist hotspot pulled in some 12.5M visitors. Clearly Uber wants to cut itself a chunk of that business, as well as be able to cater to any existing users when they go on holiday to the region.

The company says some 150,000 people have opened its app in Spain’s Costa del Sol region over the past three years, illustrating how location-based app services can also generate freebie business intelligence.

“With the launch of UberX in time for the busy summer season, we are thrilled to bring on-demand transportation to the Costa del Sol,” an Uber spokeswoman told us. “We are committed to being a true partner to the cities of this famous tourist region for the long term.”

The UberX professional licensed driver service will launch in early June, and will cover more than 60km — including the coastal cities of Marbella, Malaga, Torremolinos, Benalmadena, Fuengirola and Mijas.

The company also confirmed the service will run year round, though presumably driver numbers are likely to fluctuate to reflect seasonal demand. Uber has previously used local jobs startups, such as Jobandtalent, to recruit drivers for its services.

Elsewhere in Europe Uber also already offers ride-hailing services in the Portuguese tourist region of the Algarve, Split/Dubrovnik in Croatia, Nice in France and Zandvoort in the Netherlands.

The Costa del Sol expansion comes a few months after Uber returned to Barcelona, the capital of Spain’s Catalonia region — offering a licensed taxi service there after buying up private hire vehicle licenses from a local operator.

Barcelona is a year-round tourist hotspot, and also pulls in scores of tech industry and business visitors thanks also to generous conference facilities — making it another attractive location for Uber to ply its trade in Spain, in spite of local taxi industry hostility.

Indeed, it was a 2014 legal challenge by a Barcelona taxi industry association to Uber’s unlicensed UberPop service that led to Europe’s top court to rule last year that Uber is a transport service, meaning the company has to comply with EU Member States’ individual transportation regulations — and can’t simply claim it’s a technology platform to circumvent regulators as it did in its early expansionist phase.

In recent years Uber has been reconfiguring where and how it operates in Europe, with a series of market pauses or exits — such as in Greece, Norway and Denmark. While last year in Finland it suspended its main UberPop service to wait for a new law to come in. Earlier this year it also parked a service in Morocco. But new service launches in Spain show it’s not retreating everywhere.

While Uber is only offering a professional licensed driver service in Spain — also relaunching with this service in the country’s capital city Madrid, two years ago — taxi drivers argue that local regulations continue to be flouted because there are more licensed vehicles on the road than the official ratio allows.

The ratio is supposed to be 30 taxis to every licensed vehicle but the National Markets and Competition Commission has encouraged a relaxing of licensing rules. So Uber continues to be a target for taxi industry action, including co-ordinated strikes in major cities over what drivers dubs unfair and exploitative practices.

Ride-hailing rival Cabify has been another target for local taxi industry ire.

TechCrunch Startup Battlefield is headed to VivaTech in Paris on May 24th to find and feature the best early-stage startup across Europe! In partnership with VivaTech, Startup Battlefield Europe will feature startups from across continental Europe working on the cutting-edge technologies blooming this Spring. VivaTech is the perfect spot to host our Startup Battlefield Europe competition as founders, business leaders, investors, academics, students, and media from Europe and around the world will descend on Paris to preview the future.

So, we are bringing some fantastic investors and founders along to judge the startups. Here’s our first round of judges to be announced, and there’s more to come!

Sia Houchangnia, Seedcamp
Sia is a Partner at Seedcamp, the European seed fund that has invested in over 250 groundbreaking startups including the likes of fintech unicorn Transferwise, Revolut, UiPath and wefox. Sia sources world-class founders for Seedcamp to invest from across the continent and supports portfolio companies as they go from pre-seed to Series A and beyond. Sia has a pan-European background, growing up in Switzerland before then studying in Spain and the UK. He holds a MSc in International Management from ESADE Business School. Before joining Seedcamp, he gained experience crunching numbers and analysing data in large financial services companies such as EY and UBS Asset Management. Sia has invested in hundreds of companies at pre-seed and seed stages across Seedcamp’s diverse portfolio and has a particular interest in Fintech, blockchain and more generally businesses that smartly leverage data to shake up large, old-fashioned industries. In 2018, Forbes included Sia in its “30 Under 30 Europe” list in the category finance.

Mounia Rkha, ISAI
Mounia started her career in the VC industry in 2008 with Ventech. She moved in 2011 to Morocco to co-found and manage Mydeal, one of the first group buying sites in Maghreb. Back to Paris, she joined Schibsted Growth, the corporate venture fund of the Schibsted Group (owner of the successful classifieds site LeBonCoin). She joined ISAI in june 2015 to manage the Seed Club activity. Mounia is also a co-founder of StartHer, an organization that aims at promoting entrepreneurship by women.

Jean de La Rochebrochard, Kima Ventures
In charge of Kima Ventures, the venture capital arm of Xavier Niel (founder of Free, 42, Station F). Investing in about 100 new startups every year, managing a portfolio of 600+ companies to date. Board Member at Zenly, Sourced, Ibanfirst, Forest Admin, Payfit and Side.

Rouven Dresselhaus, Cavalry Ventures
Rouven Dresselhaus is Founding and Managing Partner of Cavalry Ventures. He has a deep understanding of the digital economy and simultaneously, Rouven possesses strong ties to the old economy as he grew up closely connected to his family’s business, Dresselhaus GmbH & Co KG, one of the largest providers of screws and fastening parts in Europe. Other than taking the Founders Pledge, he is an avid supporter of and donor for YUNUS Social Business to generate sustainable social impact. Further, Rouven is a regular speaker on several important events and conferences such as Heureka, Wolves Summit, NGIN Mobility, IdeaLab!, EBSpreneurship Forum and the Familienunternehmer-Kongress. He is also a mentor at a number of different accelerator programs like Techstars, Techstars SAP.io, next logistics accelerator and the Axel Springer Plug and Play Accelerator. Prior to Cavalry, Rouven invested privately in more than 35 startups worldwide.

Alice Zagury, The Family
Alice Zagury is co-founder and CEO of TheFamily, a company dedicated to supporting and promoting the startup ecosystem in France. Passionate about art and a graduate from business school, she did art gallery internships before meeting tech entrepreneurs. She understands that the creators of technological solutions are the ones who will be able to impact and change the world. Alice Zagury is passionate about the tech world and created the Le Camping incubator. In 2013, she founded The Family with Oussama Ammar and Nicolas Colin. To date, The Family has supported more than 350 startups, whose total value exceeds one billion euros.

Versatility has also been on of the Switch’s best features. The latest Nintendo system is a fascinating hybrid device that skirts the line between home and portable gaming. Still, there are some in-between scenarios the console didn’t get quite right out of the box.

The kickstand problem has plagued the otherwise well-received device since its earliest days. It falls over often, it’s puts the device at a weird angle, and worst of all, the charging port is on the bottom, so you can’t play the system in table top mode while it’s plugged it.

Just ahead of E3, the company’s showing off a $20 solution. The simply named Adjustable Charging Stand props the system, while keeping it plugged in, via an AC adapter port on the side.

An adjustable kickstand on the back, meanwhile, means you can change the viewing angle, depending on the height of the surface it’s on. That’s good news for those times when you don’t have a TV set to plug into, but still want to pull out the Joy-Cons to get the full experience — be it on a desk or an airport tray table. 

The peripheral hits stores July 13.

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi spoke briefly of what’s been going in the world of Uber’s self-driving cars in light of the fatal accident in Tempe, Arizona in March. At Uber Elevate today in Los Angeles, Khosrowshahi said Uber will bring back its self-driving cars “within the next few months, I don’t know.”

To be fair, Khosrowshahi didn’t sound the 100 percent confident in his answer. That’s just to say I wouldn’t be surprised if it takes Uber longer than a few months.

He went on to say that when Uber does bring its cars back on the road, “it’s going to be in as safe of a way as possible.”

Uber pulled its self-driving cars off the roads following the March fatal crash. Later that month, Uber decided not to reapply for a self-driving car testing permit in California. Uber’s previous permit expired March 31.

If Uber wants to continue its tests in California, it will need to apply for a new permit, as well as “address any follow-up analysis or investigations from the recent crash in Arizona,” DMV Deputy Director/Chief Counsel Brian Soublet wrote in a letter to Uber in March. Uber may also need to set up a meeting with the DMV.

In response to a question about how the investigation is going with the National Transportation Safety Board, Khosrowshahi said it’s ongoing. Unlike Tesla being quite vocal about the fatal crash involving its Autopilot system, and damaging its relationship with the NTSB, Khosrowshahi said, “We will not be tweeting ahead of their findings.”

But that doesn’t mean there won’t be leaks. Earlier this week, The Information reported Uber’s software was at fault. Specifically, it was reportedly the fault of the software that determines which objects to ignore and which to attend to.

Following the report, Uber said it’s actively cooperating with the NTSB and can’t comment on the specifics of the accident.

“In the meantime, we have initiated a top-to-bottom safety review of our self-driving vehicles program, and we have brought on former NTSB Chair Christopher Hart to advise us on our overall safety culture,” an Uber spokesperson said in a statement at the time. “Our review is looking at everything from the safety of our system to our training processes for vehicle operators, and we hope to have more to say soon.”