Month: June 2019

YouTube chief executive officer Susan Wojcicki is standing by the company’s decision to allow conservative commentator Steven Crowder to remain on the platform. Her comments come one week after an investigation confirmed the right-wing pundit’s treatment of Vox host Carlos Maza was not in violation of its policies, despite Crowder’s consistent use of racist and homophobic slurs. Crowder has more than 3.8 million subscribers.  

“The challenge is when we get an allegation like this we take it very seriously,” Wojcicki told Recode’s Peter Kafka at the Code Conference in Scottsdale, Ariz. on Monday. “We need to enforce those policies consistently because if we were not to enforce them consistently, there would be millions of other people saying what about this video, what about this video, what about this video? If you look at the content on the internet, you look at rap songs, late night talks, a lot of humor, you can find a lot of racial slurs or sexist comments. If we were to take down every video…” 

Maza, a video producer on Vox’s “Strikethrough,” last week took to Twitter to accuse YouTube of allowing abuse, use of homophobic slurs and bullying to run rampant on its platform: “This has been going on for years, and I’ve tried to flag this shit on several occasions,” he wrote. “But YouTube is never going to actually enforce its policies. Because Crowder has 3 million YouTube subscribers, and enforcing their rules would get them accused on anti-conservative bias.”

Ultimately, YouTube suspended Crowder’s channel’s monetization, or the ability for him to earn money by allowing ads on his videos, citing a “pattern of egregious actions [that] harmed the broader community and is against YouTube Partner Program policies.” Crowder also sells a range of merchandise, including t-shirts labeled “Socialism Is For Fgs.” 

YouTube, amid heightened criticism, also made changes to its hate-speech policy that will see the removal of thousands of videos advocating neo-Nazism, white supremacy and other extremist ideologies.

Wojcicki said these changes are amongst many others in the works as the company considers both stricter internal policies and external regulation.

Tip-toeing around Kafka’s targeted questions, Wojcicki repeatedly explained the company was having a tough week and avoided providing direct responses to several pointed inquiries.

“We are focused on having high-quality content available but we also want a broad range to enable lots of different point of views,” she said. “Any time that you have a bunch of creators or people are upset, it’s difficult. This week it was unfortunate, we managed to upset everybody. It’s not an easy job. It’s a tough job but I’m encouraged by the fact that I hear so many good stories of people that have been able to pursue their passion [on YouTube].”

Once released, art belongs to the world. No one knows that better than Matt Furie. The Boys Club cartoonist has spent several years grappling with how the internet has coopted Pepe, turning his fun-loving stoner frog into one of the most prominent symbols of the alt-right.

Furie has launched campaigns, including a Kickstarter, aimed at taking back Pepe the Frog. Things finally came to a head when Alex Jones’ Infowars site began selling a poster using the amphibian’s likeness in 2017 and 2018. The case has become an important landmark in the fight for intellectual property online. The math of the issue clearly changes when one begins to profit using that art.

“What we asked for at the beginning of the case is for Infowars to stop selling the poster and to turn over all of their profits,” Furie lawyer Louis Tompros said in a statement. “Anyone who is going to make money using Pepe as an image of hate is not something Mr. Furie has ever authorized and is not something he is going to tolerate.”

The parties settled the suit this week, awarding Furie $15,000, $1,000 of which will be donated to Save the Frogs, an amphibian conservation charity. Not a small gesture from an indie cartoonist. Be nice, man, indeed.

Tompros noted that the deal is a settlement, not a licensing agreement. As such, Infowars has agreed to refrain from selling merchandise with Pepe’s image. We’ve reached out to Furie’s publisher for comment on the settlement.

Workhorse Group, the electric vehicle company that grabbed headlines last month over a proposed deal to buy General Motor’s Lordstown, Ohio factory, has raised $25 million from a group of unnamed investors.

The money will not go towards the factory. Instead, it will be used for the more pressing matter of keeping the company running. Under terms of the deal, investors will receive preferred stock and warrants to buy shares. An annual dividend will be paid out in shares of Workhorse stock.

The Cincinnati-based company is small with less than 100 employees. Its biggest problem isn’t ideas or even product pipeline; it’s capital.

Workhorse has struggled financially at various points since its founding in 1998. The company reported just $364,000 in revenue in the first quarter, down from $560,000 in the same period last year. As of March 30, 2019, the company had cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments of $2.8 million, compared to $1.5 million as of December 31, 2018.

Workhorse borrowed $35 million from hedge fund Marathon Asset Management earlier this year. 

Workhorse, which was once owned by Navistar and sold in 2013 to AMP Holding, has a customer pipeline for its electric trucks that includes UPS. It’s also hoping to win a contract with the United States Postal Service.

But it needs capital to scale up. The funding gives Workhorse the capital to deliver on its existing backlog and produce its N-GEN delivery van, according to CEO Duane Hughes

“We now have all necessary pieces in place to bridge Workhorse into full-scale N-GEN production and are looking forward to commencing the manufacturing process, in earnest, during the fourth quarter of this year,” Hughes said in a statement.

Meanwhile, GM has been in talks since early 2019 to sell its Lordstown vehicle factory in Ohio to Workhorse Group. GM’s Lordstown factory stopped producing the automaker’s Chevrolet Cruze in March; without any new vehicles slated for the factory, workers were laid off.

Under potential Lordstown deal, a new entity led by Workhorse founder Steve Burns would acquire the facility. Workhorse would hold a minority interest in the new entity. This new entity would allow Workhorse to seek new equity without diluting existing shareholder value.

Workhorse would build a commercial electric pickup at the plant if the deal goes through, Hughes has said.

Lilium, the ambitious Munich-based startup developing an all-electric vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) device, has announced that London is to be its new software engineering base, flying in the face of Brexit, you may well say. This, says the company, will create “hundreds of high-end software engineering roles” in the U.K. capital city over the next five years.

Alongside designing and manufacturing a new type of jet, Lilium plans to launch a fully vertical “air taxi” service by 2025, which will require consumer-facing “hailing” apps and sophisticated software for fleet management, including maintenance, and scheduling flights on-demand. That system also will need to integrate with existing air traffic control regulations and systems, all of which isn’t trivial, to say the least.

The announcement comes in the slipstream of Lilium unveiling a new five-seater prototype and a maiden flight last month. This saw the full-scale, full-weight prototype successfully take off and land, following extensive ground testing.

Meanwhile, the German startup is disclosing a trio of new senior hires, including the appointment of Carlos Morgado, former chief technology officer (CTO) at Just Eat, to lead the development of the new London software engineering team as VP, Digital Technology.

In addition, Lilium has appointed Anja Maassen van den Brink as chief people officer (CPO), and Luca Benassi as chief development engineer. Maassen van den Brink joins Lilium from VodafoneZiggo. Benassi is said to bring more than 20 years of experience in the aerospace sector, having worked at NASA, Boeing and, most recently, Airbus, where he was a senior expert and head of Acoustics and Vibration.

Commenting on the choice of London as a base for the engineering team, Remo Gerber, chief commercial officer (CCO), comments: “Achieving our aims will require us to build one of the world’s most innovative and high-performing software engineering teams. While we recognize that talent is global, London offers us access to a rich talent pool and an environment that’s well-suited to delivering the extraordinary.”

Of course, how rich that talent pool will remain after Brexit is yet to be seen. But for now it’s clear that Lilium believes that long-term London has more upsides than downsides, regardless of the current Brexit impasse.

For a press conference that spent most of the first half on a single title (Watch Dogs: Legion), Ubisoft’s E3 press conference was surprisingly packed on the news front. We got a new subscription service, a TV show and even an upcoming film. As always though, games were the real focus here — and there were plenty.

Here’s the best of what we saw at today’s big event.

Watch Dogs: Legion – Easily the biggest and arguably the most exciting reveal from the event, the open world, character swapping game got a lengthy walkthrough at the show. The title is set for arrival in March 2020.

Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey – The popular title gets a new trailer for its new story mode.

Brawlhalla – The free-to-play fighting game gets two familiar faces from Adventure Time.

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint – The latest tactical shooter to bear Tom Clancy’s name is due out October 4.

Rainbow Six Quarantine – This three-player FPS is due out in 2020.

Tom Clancy’s Elite Squad – Tom Clancy goes mobile in five player battles.

Roller Champions: This free-to-play game takes on the colorful world of roller derby.

Gods & Monsters: The creators of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey take on the world of Greek myth with this February 2020 title.

When people bring their own devices to work or school, they don’t want I.T. administrators to manage the entire device. But until now, Apple only offered two ways for I.T. to manage its iOS devices: either device enrollments, which offered device-wide management capabilities to admins or those same device management capabilities combined with an automated setup process. At Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference last week, the company announced plans to introduce a third method: user enrollments.

This new MDM (mobile device management) enrollment option is meant to better balance the needs of I.T. to protect sensitive corporate data and manage the software and settings available to users, while at the same time allowing users’ private personal data to remain separate from I.T. oversight.

According to Apple, when both users’ and I.T.’s needs are in balance, users are more likely to accept a corporate “bring your own device” or BYOD program — something that can ultimately save the business money that doesn’t have to be invested in hardware purchases.

The new user enrollments option for MDM has three components: a managed Apple ID that sits alongside the personal ID; cryptographic separation of personal and work data; and a limited set of device-wide management capabilities for I.T.

The managed Apple ID will be the user’s work identity on the device, and is created by the admin in either Apple School Manager or Apple Business Manager — depending on whether this is for a school or a business. The user signs into the managed Apple ID during the enrollment process.

From that point forward until the enrollment ends, the company’s managed apps and accounts will use the managed Apple ID’s iCloud account.

Meanwhile, the user’s personal apps and accounts will use the personal Apple ID’s iCloud account, if one is signed into the device.

Third-party apps are then either used in managed or unmanaged modes.

That means users won’t be able to change modes or run the apps in both modes at the same time. However, some of the built-in apps like Notes will be account-based, meaning the app will use the appropriate Apple ID — either the managed one or personal — depending on which account they’re operating on at the time.

To separate work data from personal, iOS will create a managed APFS volume at the time of the enrollment. The volume uses separate cryptographic keys which are destroyed along with the volume itself when the enrollment period ends. (iOS had always removed the managed data when the enrollment ends, but this is a cryptographic backstop just in case anything were to go wrong during unenrollment, the company explained.)

The managed volume will host the local data stored by any managed third-party apps along with the managed data from the Notes app. It will also house a managed keychain that stores secure items like passwords and certificates; the authentication credentials for managed accounts; and mail attachments and full email bodies.

The system volume does host a central database for mail, including some metadata and five line previews, but this is removed as well when the enrollment ends.

Users’ personal apps and their data can’t be managed by the I.T. admin, so they’re never at risk of having their data read or erased.

And unlike device enrollments, user enrollments don’t provide a UDID or any other persistent identifier to the admin. Instead, it creates a new identifier called the “enrollment ID.” This identifier is used in communication with the MDM server for all communications and is destroyed when enrollment ends.

Apple also noted that one of the big reasons users fear corporate BYOD programs is because they think the I.T. admin will erase their entire device when the enrollment ends — including their personal apps and data.

To address this concern, the MDM queries can only return the managed results.

In practice, that means I.T. can’t even find out what personal apps are installed on the device — something that can feel like an invasion of privacy to end users. (This feature will be offered for device enrollments, too.) And because I.T. doesn’t know what personal apps are installed, it also can’t restrict certain apps’ use.

User enrollments will also not support the “erase device” command — and they don’t have to, because I.T. will know the sensitive data and emails are gone. There’s no need for a full device wipe.

Similarly, the Exchange Server can’t send its remote wipe command — just the account only remote wipe to remove the managed data.

Another new feature related to user enrollments is how traffic for managed accounts is guided through the corporate VPN. Using the per-app VPN feature, traffic from the Mail, Contacts, and Calendars built-in apps will only go through the VPN if the domains match that of the business. For example, mail.acme.com can pass through the VPN, but not mail.aol.com. In other words, the user’s personal mail remains private.

This addresses what has been an ongoing concern about how some MDM solutions operate — routing traffic through a corporate proxy meant the business could see the employees’ personal emails, social networking accounts, and other private information.

User enrollments also only enforces a 6-digit non-simple passcode, as the MDM server can’t help users by clearing the past code if the user forgets it.

Some today advise users to not accept BYOD MDM policies because of the impact to personal privacy. While a business has every right to manage and wipe its own apps and data, I.T. has overstepped with some of its remote management capabilities — including its ability to erase entire devices, access personal data, track a phone’s location, restrict personal use of apps, and more.

Apple’s MDM policies haven’t included GPS tracking, however, and nor does this new option.

Apple’s new policy is a step towards a better balance of concerns but will require that users understand the nuances of these more technical details — which they may not.

That user education will come down to the businesses who insist on these MDM policies to begin with — they will need to establish their own documentation, explainers, and establish new privacy policies with their employees that detail what sort of data they can and cannot access, as well as what sort of control they have over corporate devices.

WarnerMedia has placed a straight-to-series order for “Dune: The Sisterhood,” a show based on Frank Herbert’s classic science fiction novels and tied to the big-screen “Dune” adaptation coming from Warner Bros. next year.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film’s director Denis Villeneuve will also be helming the show’s pilot, which is being scripted by one of the movie’s writers, Jon Spaihts.

“Dune” tells the story of warring noble families against the backdrop of the desert planet Arrakis. Since its publication in 1965, it’s become one of the most famous science fiction novels of all time. It was eventually followed up by five sequels written by Herbert himself, as well as countless prequels and additional sequels from his son Brian and Kevin J. Anderson. It was also turned into a film directed by David Lynch — who was notoriously unhappy with the results — and later into a Sci Fi Channel miniseries.

For the new movie, Villeneuve (who previously directed “Arrival” and “Blade Runner 2049″) has lined up an insanely impressive cast that includes Timothee Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Charlotte Rampling, Jason Momoa, Josh Brolin and Javier Bardem.

Unlike the films, it sounds like “The Sisterhood” will not be a straightforward adaptation of Herbert’s novel. Instead, it will focus on the Bene Gesserit, the titular sisterhood whose secret breeding plan ultimately results in the birth of “Dune” protagonist Paul Atreides, and whose formation was depicted in one of those prequels. (Anderson and Brian Herbert are both producers on the series, but it’s not clear whether the show will be adapting their work.)

Meanwhile, a recent report form The Wall Street Journal suggests that WarnerMedia’s streaming strategy has been shifting away from a three-tiered plan and will instead be limited to a single subscription service that would combine HBO, Cinemax and the Warner Bros. library for a price between $16 and $17 per month.

But it seems original content is still a part of that plan — and like Disney (which is creating streaming shows tied to its Star Wars and Marvel film franchises), WarnerMedia is looking for some movie-TV synergy to kickstart those efforts.

When you’re talking about 16 billion smackeroos, it’s easy to get lost in the big number. When Salesforce acquired Tableau this morning for $15.7 billion, while it was among the biggest enterprise deals ever, it certainly wasn’t the largest.

There was widespread speculation that when the new tax laws went into effect in 2017, and large tech companies could repatriate large sums of their money stored offshore, we would start to see a wave of M&A activity, and sure enough that’s happened.

As Box CEO Aaron Levie pointed out on Twitter, it also shows that if you can develop a best-of-breed tool that knocks off the existing dominant tool set, you can build a multi-billion company. We have seen this over and over, maybe not $15 billion companies, but substantial companies with multi-billion dollar price tags.

Last year alone, we saw 10 deals that equaled $87 billion with the biggest prize going to IBM when it bought Red Hat for a cool $34 billion, but even that wasn’t the biggest enterprise deal we could track down. In fact, we decided to compile a list of the biggest enterprise deals ever, so you could get a sense of where today’s deal fits.

Salesforce buys MuleSoft for $6.5 billion in 2018

At the time, this was the biggest deal Salesforce had ever done — until today. While the company has been highly acquisitive over the years, it had tended to keep the deals fairly compact for the most part, but it wanted MuleSoft to give it access to enterprise data wherever it lived and it was willing to pay for it.

Microsoft buys GitHub for $7.5 billion in 2018

Not to be outdone by its rival, Microsoft opened its wallet almost exactly a year ago and bought GitHub for a hefty $7.5 billion. There was some hand wringing in the developer community at the time, but so far, Microsoft has allowed the company to operate as an independent subsidiary.

SAP buys Qualtrics for $8 billion in 2018

SAP swooped in right before Qualtrics was about to IPO and give it an offer it couldn’t refuse. Qualtrics gave SAP a tool for measuring customer satisfaction, something it had been lacking and was willing to pay big bucks for.

Oracle acquires NetSuite for $9.3 billion in 2016

It wasn’t really a surprise when Oracle acquired Netsuite. It had been an investor and Oracle needed a good SaaS tool at the time as it was transitioning to the cloud. NetSuite gave it a ready-to-go packaged cloud service with a built-in set of customers it desperately needed.

Salesforce buys Tableau for $15.7 billion in 2019

That brings us to today’s deal. Salesforce swooped in again and paid an enormous sum of money for the Seattle software company, giving it a data visualization tool that would enable customers to create views of data wherever it lives, whether it’s part of Salesforce or not. What’s more, it was a great complement to last year’s Mulesoft acquisition.

Broadcom acquires CA Technologies for $18.9 billion in 2018

A huge deal in dollars from a year of big deals. Broadcom surprised a few people when a chip vendor paid this kind of money for a legacy enterprise software vendor and IT services company. The $18.9 billion represented a 20 percent premium for shareholders.

Microsoft snags LinkedIn for $26 billion in 2016

This was a company that Salesforce reportedly wanted badly at the time, but Microsoft was able to flex its financial muscles and come away the winner. The big prize was all of that data and Microsoft has been working to turn that into products ever since.

IBM snares Red Hat for $34 billion in 2018

Near the end of last year, IBM made a huge move, acquiring Red Hat for $34 billion. IBM has been preaching a hybrid cloud approach for a number of years and buying Red Hat gives it a much more compelling hybrid story.

Dell acquires EMC for $67 billion in 2016

This was the biggest of all, by far surpassing today’s deal. A deal this large was in the news for months as it passed various hurdles on the way to closing. Among the jewels that were included in this deal were VMware and Pivotal, the latter of which has since gone public. After this deal, Dell itself went public again last year.

If you can’t bet ‘em, launch your own service. Today at its E3 press event, Ubisoft announced that it will be joining the growing list of companies launching its own streaming service. UPlay+ will be up and running on September 3, priced at a loft $14.99 a month. Ubisoft is also opening access to preorders this week — and those who get in early will be get the month of September for free.

That price includes access to a library of more than 100 of the publisher’s titles, with more on the way. That includes classics like Prince of Persia, Splinter Cell, and Beyond Good & Evil. The list also includes upcoming titles like Watch Dogs: Legion and Ghost Recon Breakpoint, the latter of which will open in beta on September 5, with early access on October 1.

“More players are in the digital ecosystem than ever before, and a digital subscription is one of the easiest ways for players to access content,” Ubisoft VP Brenda Panagross said in a release tied to the news. “With Uplay+, players will have unlimited access to our large catalog of games for the first time.”

Of course, Ubisoft has some stiff competition on its hands, with streaming services from big names like Microsoft, Apple and Sony. The company does have an interesting ally in the battle however, with Google Stadia availability coming next year.

Netflix has snagged the distribution rights to Ubisoft’s adaptation of “Tom Clancy’s The Division” starring Jessica Chastain and Jake Gyllenhaal.

Directed by David Leitch, the new movie will come with a screenplay from Rafe Judkins, who’s also penning and showrunning Amazon’s adaptation of the “Wheel of Time” series.

The story is apparently set in the future when a pandemic virus spread via paper money kills millions across New York City. The heartening Christmastime-set story will focus on an attempt by a group of ragtag civilians whoa re trained to address catastrophes attempt to shore up what remains of civilizations against its ruins.

According to Variety, the producers include 87North Productions, Gyllenhaal’s Nine Stories, Chastain’s Freckle Films along with Ubisoft Film and Television.

Video games are another vein that Hollywood is mining for potential tentpole franchises. While their success has been mixed, “Tomb Raider”, “Resident Evil” “Angry Birds” and even “Detective Pikachu” have all raked in hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office after making the jump from console to cinema screen.

Ubisoft’s own attempts at box office gold have been somewhat less successful. The company tried with “Assassin’s Creed” and the Jake Gyllenhaal vehicle “Prince of Persia” but neither film resonated with audiences. Perhaps Netflix’s ability to control the funnel for an audience will encourage more viewers to sing on to “Tom Clancy’s The Division”.