Month: June 2019

A decision to confirm Rep. Will Hurd as the keynote speaker at the Black Hat security conference this year has prompted anger and concern by some long-time attendees because of his voting record on women’s rights.

Hurd, an outspoken Texas Republican who has drawn fire from his own party for regularly opposing the Trump administration, was confirmed as keynote speaker at the conference Thursday for his background in cybersecurity. Since taking office in Texas’ 23rd district, the congressman has introduced several bills that would aim to secure Internet of Things devices and pushed to reauthorize the role of a federal chief information officer.

But several people we’ve spoken to have described their unease that Black Hat organizers have asked Hurd, a self-described pro-life lawmaker, given his consistent opposition to bills supporting women’s rights.

An analysis of Hurd’s voting record shows he supports bills promoting women’s rights only two percent of the time. He has voted against a bill that would financially support women in STEM fields, voted in favor of allowing states to restrict access and coverage to abortions, and voted to defund Planned Parenthood.

Many of those we spoke to asked to be kept anonymous amid worries of retaliation or personal attacks. One person who we asked for permission to quote said Hurd’s voting record was “simply awful” for women’s rights. Others in tweets said the move doesn’t reflect well on companies sponsoring the event.

Black Hat says it aims to create an “inclusive environment,” but others have questioned how a political figure with views that cause harm to an entire gender can be considered inclusive. But at a time when women’s rights — including right to access abortions — is being all but outlawed by controversial measures in several states, some have found Hurd’s selection tone-deaf and offensive.

When asked, a spokesperson for Black Hat defended the decision for Hurd to speak:

“Hurd has a strong background in computer science and information security and has served as an advocate for specific cybersecurity initiatives in Congress,” said the spokesperson. “He will offer the Black Hat audience a unique perspective of the infosec landscape and its effect on the government.”

Although previous keynote speakers have included senior government figures, this is the first time Black Hat has confirmed a lawmaker to keynote the conference.

Although abortion rights and cybersecurity are unrelated topics, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to separate social issues from technology and gatherings. It’s also valid for attendees to express concern that the keynote speaker at a professional security conference opposes what many will consider a human right.

Kat Fitzgerald, chief operating officer of the Diana Initiative, a conference for women in cybersecurity, said Hurd’s choosing was a “painfully poor choice” for a keynote speaker. “Simply put, in 2019 women and minorities continue to be ignored,” she said. “This keynote selection, regardless of the voting record, is just another indication of ignoring the InfoSec community that exists today.”

The Diana Initiative, which hosts its annual conference in August, she said, it is “about inclusion at all levels, especially in today’s charged environment of excluding women and minorities in so many areas.”

Hurd’s office did not return a request for comment.

Read more:

• Diversity and inclusion will be on everyone’s mind at RSA
• Fear and loathing at RSA: Hacking, security and the limits of protection
• Microsoft says it will push for diversity and security from the Trump administration
• Cyber breaches abound in 2019

VMware has been trying to reinvent itself from a company that helps you build and manage virtual machines in your data center to one that helps you manage your virtual machines wherever they live, whether that’s on prem or the public cloud. Today, the company announced it was buying Avi Networks, a 6-year old startup that helps companies balance application delivery in the cloud or on prem in an acquisition that sounds like a pretty good match. The companies did not reveal the purchase price.

Avi claims to be the modern alternative to load balancing appliances designed for another age when applications didn’t change much and lived on prem in the company data center. As companies move more workloads to public clouds like AWS, Azure and Google Cloud Platform, Avi is providing a more modern load balancing tool, that not only balances software resource requirements based on location or need, but also tracks the data behind these requirements.

Diagram: Avi Networks

VMware has been trying to find ways to help companies manage their infrastructure, whether it is in the cloud or on prem, in a consistent way, and Avi is another step in helping them do that on the monitoring and load balancing side of things, at least.

Tom Gillis, senior vice president and general manager for the networking and security business unit at VMware sees this acquisition as fitting nicely into that vision. “This acquisition will further advance our Virtual Cloud Network vision, where a software-defined distributed network architecture spans all infrastructure and ties all pieces together with the automation and programmability found in the public cloud. Combining Avi Networks with VMware NSX will further enable organizations to respond to new opportunities and threats, create new business models, and deliver services to all applications and data, wherever they are located,” Gillis explained in a statement.

In a blog post,  Avi’s co-founders expressed a similar sentiment, seeing a company where it would fit well moving forward. “The decision to join forces with VMware represents a perfect alignment of vision, products, technology, go-to-market, and culture. We will continue to deliver on our mission to help our customers modernize application services by accelerating multi-cloud deployments with automation and self-service,” they wrote. Whether that’s the case, time will tell.

Among Avi’s customers, which will now become part of VMware are Deutsche Bank, Telegraph Media Group, Hulu and Cisco. The company was founded in 2012 and raised $115 million, according to Crunchbase data. Investors included Greylock, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Menlo Ventures, among others.

Tesla and Uber both had requests for tariff relief rejected by U.S. trade officials, a decision that will force the companies to pay a 25% tariff or seek new suppliers.

Reuters was the first to report the decision by the office of the U.S. Trade Representatives. TechCrunch previously reported on The Trump Administration’s refusal to exempt the “brain” of Tesla’s Autopilot technology from punitive import tariffs.

Last year, the Trump Administration imposed 25% tariffs on a range of imports, including electronics, to try and reduce the U.S. trade deficit with China. Tesla and Uber are among the U.S. companies that have requested relief on those tariffs.

Tesla filed at the end of December a request for an exemption on the Model 3’s car computer, including its media control unit, connectivity board and advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) hardware. Uber was seeking an exemption on its Chinese-made electric bikes.

Tesla has consistently been adding software to its in-car touchscreen infotainment displays – including sometimes things that probably leave a lot of people scratching their heads. During a special Q&A today at annual gaming event E3 in LA, Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed that Tesla’s in-car display will support YouTube someday soon.

This isn’t the first time that the Tesla CEO has suggested YouTube might one day have a home in the company’s cars: In response to a fan’s question on Twitter last August he noted that ‘version 10’ of the company’s in-car software would provide support for third-party video streaming. The company debuted its ‘Software Version 9.0’ last year.

Musk specifically said YouTube would be coming to cars during the E3 event today, at which he revealed that Bethesda’s Fallout 3 would be coming to the infotainment displays, and unveiled a demo video of Android game Beach Buggy Racer running on a display in a Tesla Model 3.

On a recent podcast, the Tesla CEO also said that the company would consider opening the platform more broadly to third-party developers for both apps and games. The company has done a lot on its own to add software ‘Easter Eggs’ to the dash display, but turning it into a true platform is a much more ambitious vision.

On its face, adding attention-heavy apps like streaming video services to a car definitely seems counterintuitive, but to be fair to Tesla, a large number of drivers today use their phones for in-car navigation and those can also all technically display YouTube at any time. It does seem like a case of Musk’s mind racing ahead to a day when his cars are fully autonomous, something he recently reiterated he expects to happen within the next couple of years.

Lightspeed Venture Partners, a firm behind the likes of BetterUp, Aurora, Goop and dozens of others, will allocate more capital to mature companies with the hiring of three new partners.

Adam Smith, Amy Wu and Arsham Memarzadeh join the Menlo Park-headquartered venture capital fund’s growth practice. The team is led by longtime partner Will Kohler and Brad Twohig, who joined LSVP in 2018 to amp up the firm’s late-stage efforts, leading a $1.25 billion investment in Epic Games only months after arriving from Insight Venture Partners.

“I think we will continue to add to the team as we see the market opportunity ahead of us, so we can better understand when and where to invest,” Twohig tells TechCrunch. “They are going out and helping us identify interesting new opportunities. We are really looking for outlier businesses. We aren’t trying to invest in any company. We want outlier founders, outlying companies with outlying performance.”

The new hires double the size of LSVP’s late-stage team and come shortly after the firm closed on $1.8 billion for two new funds. Last year, LSVP announced Lightspeed Venture Partners XII, a $750 million early-stage vehicle, and Lightspeed Venture Partners Select III, a $1.05 billion fund for late-stage follow-on fundings.

Lightspeed, historically an early-stage fund, has continued to move downstream as deal sizes swell across all stages. With fresh capital to deploy, LSVP is not only continuing to invest in existing portfolio companies but also backing companies for the first time as late as the Series E.

“We still think there are great opportunities to make investments with a strong return profile even at the late-stage,” Kohler tells TechCrunch, citing the buzzworthy financial technology business Carta as an example. “[Carta is] an exceptional company even at a growth-stage investment because it has so much potential to keep growing. We are convinced there will be venture-sized returns.”

In addition to Carta, which LSVP invested in at its Series E earlier this year, Lightspeed has made late-stage bets on the B2B sales platform Seismic, employee coaching service BetterUp, Indian hotel business Oyo and Indian B2B wholesale marketplace Udon.

“Some time ago it might not have made sense for us to do this,” Kohler said. “But as we followed the growth of our early-stage companies, we’ve realized the markets are getting bigger, the global demand is impacting the size these companies can get and we can invest at an entry point that’s later on and realize a great venture return.”

Kohler emphasized the firm’s global funds — Lightspeed operates venture funds in China and India — as helpful mechanisms for late-stage deal sourcing. He also noted the firm’s expansion into late-stage is a “natural extension of its original vision.”

Founded in 2000, Lightspeed’s four founding partners — Chris Schaepe, Barry Eggers, Ravi Mhatre and Peter Nieh — “understood the boring non-sexy elements of tech,” Kohler explained.

As for the newest additions, Wu joins from Discovery Inc., where she was chief financial officer and senior vice president of the company’s global digital division. She will be focused on scaling businesses within LSVP’s portfolio.

Smith, focused on high-growth enterprise and consumer investment opportunities, previously worked as a principal at Bain Capital Ventures and a lead operations manager at Uber. Finally, Memarzadeh, who will invest in product-driven software startups, spent the last five years at OpenView, a Boston-based venture firm.

The open-source model paved the way for significant advancements in the fields of software and programming, and has positively affected industries such as medicine, engineering and even fashion. The success of open-source methods that focus on decentralization and allows for open collaboration on projects brings to light the potential for its implementation in other areas.

Among these areas, the 2D wonder-material graphene could greatly benefit from the widespread experimentation of open-source use. In its current state, graphene is primarily researched by scientists in universities and labs, but by making graphene a material that is open to be improved upon by anyone, we might see the fulfillment of the potential that graphene has been hailed for since its discovery.

The benefits of open-source and what it can do for graphene

The collaborative nature of open-source coding has significantly boosted our software capabilities in a short span of time. Open-sourcing allows for companies to not have to start from scratch, using existing software and modifying it for their own purposes. This saves a large amount of time and resources and gives companies more room to experiment and accelerate their advancements. Open-source methods help achieve a broader scope of innovation, because the people researching and tinkering are not limited to the professionals in the lab, but can now include hobbyists or aspiring scientists looking to get more involved.

For graphene, this level of experimentation could take it beyond its current limits. Graphene’s capabilities are staggering — it is essentially 2D, flexible, 200 times stronger than steel, conducts heat 10 times better than copper and conducts electricity 250 times better than silicon. Its abilities are far-reaching and extremely potent, making graphene applications nearly endless.

As it stands, graphene research is limited to a select few technology companies — Samsung, for instance, has the most graphene patents to date. Otherwise, most graphene research is done in university labs. In the same way that open-sourcing has built up software and related technologies, open-sourcing could also viably allow a wider range of individuals and communities to help unlock graphene’s unrealized potential.

Current limitations of open-source graphene

Graphene is fundamentally different from software in that it is a physical resource. Since the material’s discovery, quantity has been a serious issue, preventing the material from seeing widespread use. Natural reserves of graphene are few and far between, and while scientists have discovered ways of producing graphene, the methods have proved unscalable.

In addition, graphene would need a way to be experimented with by the average user. For those who don’t have the same equipment researchers do, how can they go about tinkering with graphene? In order for graphene to become an open-source material, a solution for these two problems must be found.

Mass production and 3D printing: solutions for open-source graphene

The solutions may be closer at hand than you might think. Recently, MIT researchers discovered a potentially scalable way to mass-produce graphene. Utilizing an industrial manufacturing process known as a roll-to-roll method, combined with a chemical vapor deposition (a common way for researchers to create graphene), the researchers were able to produce a graphene foil at 5cm per minute. After their machine had run for four hours, they had produced 10 meters of graphene. If this process continues to prove viable, we may begin to see the mass production of graphene become a reality.

For issues of experimentation, 3D printers are increasingly becoming capable of filling the role. The cost of 3D printers have been steadily decreasing as they become more capable. 3D printing software is also beginning to see a shift toward open-source methods as opposed to the proprietary angle that the 3D printing industry began with. 3D printers use cutting software to actually perform the printing process, and often will need additional software to help create 3D models. While 3D printers come with their own software built-in, open-source trends are allowing owners to edit the software based on their personal needs, and also allows them to install other cutting and modeling software onto the printer.

One of the most important aspects of 3D printing is the material used to create objects. 3D printers are capable of using a number of materials, including plastic polymers, metal and even wood. Recently, researchers at Virginia Tech University and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) have been experimenting with 3D printing with graphene. They successfully created 3D graphene aerogels and foams that can be shaped to suit various needs. Graphene is an essentially 2D material, so the ability to craft it into a three-dimensional form opens up the current possibilities for the material, extending beyond the membrane technology that many researchers and companies have focused on.

The capabilities to mass produce graphene and utilize it for 3D printing make it possible for open-source sharing on the material to come to fruition. With mass production techniques, graphene will be available for anyone to experiment. In addition, its usage in 3D printers can drive key discoveries or innovations that could lead to graphene’s full utilization in our products.

The journey toward graphene’s golden age is a slow but steady one. We are continually finding ways to overcome the obstacles that stop graphene from changing our lives. Achieving mass production and increased 3D-printing capabilities for the material are essential in making graphene a shareable and iterative technology. If we are able to use graphene as an open-source material, there’s no telling where the wonder material could take us.

The switch has been flipped on the 24-hour shot clock, which means there’s only one day left to save $100 on your pass to TC Sessions: Mobility 2019 in San Jose, Calif. on July 10. Early-bird savings ends on Friday, June 14 at 11:59 p.m. (PT), so buy your ticket now and save.

Join more than 1,000 dreamers and makers at TC’s day-long event focused on the current and future state of mobility and transportation. Hear from the top minds in their fields and see demos of their latest work. They’re not just dreaming of the future. They’re determined to invent, fund and build the revolutionary technology required to create it.

If you want to place your tech startup in front of this very targeted audience, a demo table is the way to go. But we have only one demo table left, so get moving and book a demo table now.

With all those mobility big wigs in the house, you’ll be in high networking mode, right? CrunchMatch, TechCrunch’s business match-making service, simplifies the connection process for you. It’s free and, even better, it will help you find people based on specific mutual business criteria, goals and interests. You’ll save time meeting the right people. Sweet!

Take a look at just some of the speakers and presentations we have scheduled. And check out the full agenda while you’re at it.

Delivering the Future: We’ll talk with Nuro co-founder Dave Ferguson to hear all about the strengths and challenges of building a self-driving vehicle, with a focus on local deliveries like groceries, food and retail goods.

Rethinking Urban Mobility: Motorcycle racing pioneer Erik Buell returns with a new company and vision. We’ll talk to Buell, now chairman of EV startup Fuell, about the tech behind the Flow electric motorcycle and the Fluid electric bicycle.

Autonomous Robotaxis vs. Shuttles: Karl Iagnemma, Alisyn Malek and Lia Theodosiou-Pisanelli represent some of the top minds trying to bring autonomous vehicle technology to the masses. They’ll debate which approaches make the most sense and have the best chances for economic viability, and which safety and security vulnerabilities and other challenges could throw them off track.

TC Sessions: Mobility 2019 takes place July 10 in San Jose, Calif. You have just 24 hours left before the early-bird pricing ends on Friday, June 14 at 11:59 p.m. (PT). Why spend more than necessary? Buy your ticket and save yourself $100.

Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TC Sessions: Mobility? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.

Nothing says summer in Silicon Valley better than the TechCrunch Summer Party. In its 14th year, we’re celebrating the startup spirit and culture at the Park Chalet, San Francisco’s coastal beer garden, on July 25. Who doesn’t love ocean views?

And nothing says relaxed networking in Silicon Valley more than showcasing your early-stage startup at our summer soiree. It’s a great opportunity to demo your business and place your face in front of influential people in a convivial atmosphere. Each demo table includes four summer party tickets — bring your whole crew. There’s a limited number of tables available, so book your startup demo package now.

Experience world-class networking and still have time to enjoy the venue, drink craft beer, sip a signature a cocktail or two and nosh on yummy appetizers. Maybe it’s the relaxed setting, the shared camaraderie or maybe it’s the libations — who can say for sure — but TechCrunch parties tend to be the place where start-uppers meet the people who go on to change their lives — future investors, co-founders or buyers.

Plus there’ll be several VC firms in attendance who are partnering with us for the event.

• August Capital
• Battery Ventures
• Data Collective
• Uncork Capital

Summer Party details you need to know:

• When: July 25 from 5:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
• Where: Park Chalet in San Francisco
• Attendee ticket: $95
• Startup demo package: $2,000 — includes four attendee tickets, one cocktail table, tabletop sign, power and internet access

There will be plenty of games and prizes. Yes, we love giving away prizes, like TechCrunch swag, Amazon Echos and tickets to Disrupt San Francisco 2019.

Come to the TechCrunch Summer Party at the Park Chalet and showcase your early-stage genius to a passel of influential start-uppers in a fun, relaxed setting. It’s a great opportunity to meet your future. Buy your demo table today, and we’ll hoist a craft beer to your success.

Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at the TechCrunch 14th Annual Summer Party? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.

XPRIZE CEO and Prodea founder Anousheh Ansari dreamt of being an astronaut as a child growing up in Iran, but understandably most people around her were skeptical about her ambitions. Yet in 2006, she made that dream come true when she became the first woman to visit the International Space Station as a privately funded citizen (as well as the first Iranian citizen and the first Muslim woman), traveling aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket as a trained and paying guest of the Russian Space Agency.

At the time, NASA wasn’t thrilled about the idea and definitely did not want Ansari to pay a visit. 13 years later, the U.S. space agency announced earlier this week that the ISS is officially “open for business,” and revealed that pricing for a night’s stay will be around $35,000 per person (that’s just lodging – you still have to figure out your own transportation). At a Creative Destruction Lab event in Toronto this week, I spoke to Ansari about what this milestone announcement means for commercial spaceinterests, and her perspective on the field and opportunity for space-focused startups in general.

“Actually, I wish I had my laptop to I could show a slide from probably six, seven years ago, maybe even longer, which I used that said ‘ISS for rent. It’s coming true! I’m telling you, I can predict the future,” Ansari joked. “But I think it makes so much sense.”

There are a number of reasons the situation has changed regarding how NASA views commercial and private interest in visiting and using the space station. Not least of which is that the station has now aged beyond its original mission parameters, and is definitely nearing its true functional end of life.

The space station is […] already on extended life right now,” Ansari said. “So now they can generate revenue from, make good use of the space station [beyond its intended mission] so they can invest in the next generation.”

Even if its original, official mission is technically ended, there’s a lot of advantage that private companies can still derive from the facility in the interim.

“There’s so much interest in doing research and experimentation on board the space station, I think the cost is incredibly low,” she added, referring to the pricing quoted in NASA’s guidelines for private astronauts. “I mean, there’s still the cost of access, which will mean it’s not affordable for everyone. But the renting space station for $35,000 a night and doing experiments. It’s incredible.”

“I think there will be a lot of companies, a lot of, you know, pharma, medical and health companies will definitely take advantage of that and do experiments,” Ansari continued. “And, and I’m excited. I’m glad it’s happening.”

PLAYA VISTA, CALIFORNIA – MAY 15: (L-R) Anousheh Ansari, CEO, XPRIZE, Peter Diamandis, Founder & Executive Chairman, XPRIZE and Emily Church, Executive Director of the Global Learning, XPRIZE attend the Global Learning XPRIZE Foundation Grand-prize Awards at Google Playa Vista Office on May 15, 2019 in Playa Vista, California. (Photo by Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Global Learning XPRIZE)

For Ansari, the growth in the commercial space sector has its origins in XPRIZE, the organization she leads as CEO as of last October. The Ansari X Prize, a $10 million prize so-named thanks to a multimillion dollar contribution provided by Ansari and her brother-in-law Amir Ansari, was awarded in 2004, and paved the way for the kind of business SpaceX operates today.

“The first prize was a $10 million prize, to go to space twice within two weeks, because we wanted to show that it can be repeated, which means that it is commercially viable – it’s not a science fiction project, and it can be done at a reasonable cost” Ansari recalled. “We had a requirement, I think it had to be 95%, reusable, outside of the mass of the fuel. We didn’t want someone to build two spaceships, fly this one, and then fly this other one. So it was all designed because we wanted to make sure it can really be a business.”

The key ingredient here was to show, for the first time, that this could be a commercially viable interest at investment levels that were not out of reach for private companies to pursue. And another key ingredient was that the project involved making sure participants actually could launch, and were cleared by relevant agencies to do so.

“We had to work with regulators and the FAA to figure out how people could even launch, because FAA didn’t know how to deal with this,” Ansari said. “They’d never had a private company wanting to launch something to space. So because of our work, and and the work we did with NASA and the regulators, they opened up, they created this division – now it’s called the FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation.”

SpaceX’s CRS-11 launch from 2017. SpaceX’s ability to launch privately is due in part to the work XPRIZE did to help establish guidelines for commercial launch operations.

While her work to date has broken a lot of ground and opened up avenues for startups, Ansari had specific requests about new areas of opportunity and consideration for entrepreneurs in attendance at the Creative Destruction Lab event during a keynote talk she gave to kickoff the first day. She noted that there exists plenty of potential for “cloud systems that exist above the clouds,” since data warehouse facilities operating in space would have immediate benefits in terms of energy collection and thermal management.

She also called for startups to focus on making sure they consider knock-on effects of the things they build. Space debris, as one example in the specific – and more generally, a reminder that exponential change naturally engenders a reaction of fear.

“It’s a difficult thing, because as engineers we just like to play with toys and play with technology,” she said. “But it’s up to us in this room to help make sense of this.”

As part of the gaming option for Tesla’s cars, Todd Howard, the director of Bethesda Games, said that the company’s “Fallout Shelter” game will be coming to Tesla displays.

Elon Musk is a huge fan of the Fallout series, saying in an interview at the E3 gaming conference that he’d explored “every inch” of Fallout 3.

Earlier this year, Tesla announced that it was adding “2048” and “Atari’s Super Breakout” to the list of games that drivers and passengers can play on the company’s dashboard display.

The company added Atari games to its slate of apps and services last August via a software update. At the time, the initial slate of games included “Missile Command”, “Asteroids”, “Lunar Lander” and “Centipede”.