Year: 2019

Fortnite is currently down for many players. The Twitter account for the Epic Games’ title, now the most popular video game in the world, confirmed the problem, tweeting “We’re aware that players are experiencing issues when attempting to use Epic Games services. We’re currently working on a resolution and will keep you updated.

We’re aware that players are experiencing issues when attempting to use Epic Games services. We’re currently working on a resolution and will keep you updated.

— Fortnite (@FortniteGame) January 29, 2019

Further details on Epic Games’ status page said it had identified an issue with logins and as of 01:53 UTC was still working on a fix. While the game, login, and store are experiencing major outages, Fortnite’s website, forums, and messaging services are still operational.

Fortnite’s issues comes half a day after Instagram was briefly offline.

Netflix is still up, if you need something to pass the time.

Fortnite is currently down for many players. The Twitter account for the Epic Games’ title, now the most popular video game in the world, confirmed the problem, tweeting “We’re aware that players are experiencing issues when attempting to use Epic Games services. We’re currently working on a resolution and will keep you updated.

We’re aware that players are experiencing issues when attempting to use Epic Games services. We’re currently working on a resolution and will keep you updated.

— Fortnite (@FortniteGame) January 29, 2019

Further details on Epic Games’ status page said it had identified an issue with logins and as of 01:53 UTC was still working on a fix. While the game, login, and store are experiencing major outages, Fortnite’s website, forums, and messaging services are still operational.

Fortnite’s issues comes half a day after Instagram was briefly offline.

Netflix is still up, if you need something to pass the time.

The newly minted social media star congresswoman is wasting no time in tearing into tech companies.

In a recent letter, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joined Maine representative Chellie Pingree in calling out tech companies for supporting an event they believe to be inconsistent with big tech’s ostensibly climate-friendly attitude. Ocasio-Cortez is a noted champion of a Democratic package of sweeping environmental reforms called the Green New Deal — a term we can expect to hear a lot more leading into 2020.

The letter, addressed to Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Sundar Pichai, expresses that the representatives were “deeply disappointed” to see that these companies sponsored a recent D.C. conference that featured a talk “denying established science on climate change” at a recent libertarian conference called LibertyCon.

LibertyCon appears to have hosted at least one group on the wrong side of the scientific consensus around climate change. That group, the CO2 Coalition, reportedly promoted the “good news” about carbon emissions with handouts promoting the supposed positive effects of the noxious gases on agriculture. A member of the group, Caleb Rossiter, spoke on a panel titled “Let’s Talk About Not Talking: Should There Be ‘No Debate’ that Industrial Carbon Dioxide is Causing Climate Catastrophe?”

As the letter reads:

“We understand that sponsorship of an event or conference is a common occurrence and that these sponsorships do not automatically indicate that the company endorses the variety of political viewpoints that may be presented at these events. However, given the magnitude and urgency of the climate crisis that we are now facing, we find it imperative to ensure that the climate-related views espoused at LibertyCon do not reflect the values of your companies going forward.

As you are well aware, the spreading of misinformation can be dangerous to our society. Today’s coordinated campaign to deny climate change, or put a positive spin on its effects, is not unlike that of the tobacco companies which once sought to discredit their product’s link to cancer… We cannot afford to make the same mistake again with climate change.

We look forward to hearing from you in the hope that we can continue to count on you as allies in the fight for a more sustainable future.”

As Mother Jones reported, Google contributed something in the ballpark of $25,000 for the event, with Facebook and Microsoft chipping in around $10,000 each.

Hims, known by many for its phallic New York subway advertisements, has raised an additional $100 million in venture capital funding on a pre-money valuation of $1 billion. The round was first reported by Recode and confirmed to TechCrunch by sources with knowledge of the deal.

A growth-stage investor has led the round, which is ongoing, with participation from existing investors. Our source declined to name the lead investor but did say it was a “super big fund” that isn’t SoftBank and that hasn’t previously invested in Hims.

Hims officially launched just over one year ago and has raised $197 million already, as well as incorporated a women’s wellness brand, Hers, to go alongside its flagship men’s wellness brand. The business sells sexual wellness products, skin care and hair loss treatments directly to consumers. In addition to erectile dysfunction medication, it offers the birth control pill to customers with prescriptions and Addyi, the only FDA-approved medication for women with hypoactive sexual desire disorder.

According to Recode, Hims spent months negotiating with investors, “with some of them balking at the valuation.” Meanwhile, our source says Hims passed on several viable terms sheets and had plenty of IVP — which led its last round — money in the bank ahead of their latest infusion.

$1 billion, a 2x increase from its previous valuation, is a hefty price tag for such an early-stage digital health startup. Then again, most valuations for venture-backed businesses are foolish.

San Francisco-based Hims is also backed by Forerunner Ventures, Founders Fund, Redpoint Ventures, SV Angel, 8VC, Maverick Capital and more.

You might want to turn off FaceTime for a few days.

A newly discovered bug in iOS allows FaceTime callers to listen in before you accept the call.

Word of the bug started spreading this morning after Chicago artist Benji Mobb demonstrated it in a tweet, later being spotted by by 9to5Mac.

The bug relies on what appears to be a nasty logic screwup in FaceTime’s group call system. While we’re opting to not outline the steps here, the bug seems to trick the recipient’s phone into thinking a group call is already ongoing. A few quick taps, and FaceTime immediately trips over itself and inexplicably fires up the recipient’s microphone without them actually accepting the call.

Weirder yet: if the recipient presses the volume down button or the power button to try to silence or dismiss the call, their camera turns on as well. Though the recipient’s phone display continues showing the incoming call screen, their microphone/camera are streaming.

TechCrunch has verified this bug on multiple iPhones running iOS 12.1.2. We reached out to Apple for insight on the issue, and a spokesperson for the company responded:

“We’re aware of this issue and we have identified a fix that will be released in a software update later this week.” 

So they know, and are working on it — but in the meantime, the quickest fix might be to disable FaceTime (Settings > FaceTime).

This is a pretty awful bug for Apple, who has been highlighting its privacy practices as a key differentiator. Just weeks ago, they flew this banner on a building directly across from the CES convention center:

Photo credit: David Becker/ Stringer (Getty)

Photo-sharing app and social network Instagram was briefly taken offline on Monday afternoon, causing nothing of consequence to occur other than a brief respite from one source of the constant deluge of inconsequential information to which we all voluntarily submit ourselves.

The service died at about 4:20, tragically the very moment when millions of people were turning to the app, for the third time that hour, desperately hoping to pass the time until the end of the workday. At least this was the case on the west coast of the U.S., the only location we are considering at this time.

The app launched fine but did not refresh feeds, and users were unable to scroll past however many posts were already cached; stories, which are also cached, were accessible but couldn’t be posted. I was able to send messages, but others weren’t.

Amazingly, even the website went down, and hard. Visitors received a “5xx Server Error,” which is not common — usually a server knows which of the various error codes to return. It seems to be back now, though.

The outage appeared to end, for some anyway, at about quarter of five, which means many of us are still at our desks, if we’re lucky enough to have them. If you were affected, here’s hoping your half hour was spent productively.

An Instagram representative told TechCrunch that they’re aware of the issue and working to fix it.

The Munchery saga continues.

In a new class-action lawsuit, former Munchery facilities worker Joshua Philips is claiming the startup owes him and 250 other employees 60 days’ wages, citing The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, a U.S. labor law that requires employers with an excess of 100 employees to give notice 60 days ahead of mass layoffs.

Munchery, a prepared meal delivery company headquartered in San Francisco, announced in an email to customers on January 21 that it would cease operations, effectively immediately. The abrupt shutdown not only came as a surprise to Munchery’s community of customers, but shocked vendors, many whom had been expecting payments from the business for several weeks. Munchery’s own employees were left in the dark, too, according to several former workers who spoke to TechCrunch about their debt and dissatisfaction with chief executive James Beriker.

Munchery ordered mass layoffs on January 21, per the lawsuit, the same day customers were notified the company would go out of business. In total, Philips is seeking equal to the sum of his and other affected employees’ “unpaid wages, salary, commissions, bonuses, accrued holiday pay, accrued vacation pay, pension and 401(k) contributions and other ERISA benefits, for 60 days, that would have been covered and paid under the then-applicable employee benefit plans.”

Munchery is deep in a pile of debt. The startup’s former vendors, which includes San Francisco-based Dandelion Chocolate and Three Babes Bakeshop, say they’re owed tens of thousands in overdue payments. Those businesses, and several other small vendors in San Francisco and Los Angeles that notified TechCrunch following the publication of this story, are still awaiting overdue payments, with one supplier claiming to be owed north of $100,000.

As of Monday morning, Munchery had yet to file for bankruptcy.

“They entered into a 14-month payment plan with us to cover nearly $150,000 in debt, but never had the intention of fulfilling their obligation,” an LA-based Munchery vendor, who asked not to be named, told TechCrunch. “The entire meal prep business is not sustainable on a grand scale like these companies envision.”

On top of its outstanding debts to vendors and facilities workers, Munchery also failed to send final paychecks to delivery drivers. Several Instagram messages provided to TechCrunch show a cluster of drivers in the San Francisco and Sacramento area are confused by the lack of communication from the venture-funded startup and are hopeful checks will arrive.

After arguing with Munchery employees, a delivery driver in Sacramento by the name of Sharon Howard said she finally received a “janky looking handwritten check” from the business on Monday and is hopeful it will clear.

“My co-workers up here in Sacramento have not received their final checks and are just um…waiting,” Howard wrote in an Instagram message shared with TechCrunch. “I sort of have the feeling that if they don’t speak up, they’re just gonna be forgotten about … It’s just not right to work with the expectation of getting paid and then just allow Munchery to turn a blind eye.”

Munchery chief executive officer James Beriker joined the startup in 2016

Munchery had raised $125 million in venture capital funding at a peak valuation of $300 million from key investors e.Ventures, Infinity Ventures, Sherpa Capital and Menlo Ventures, as well as from Greycroft, M13, Northgate Capital and more since its founding in 2010 by Tran and Conrad Chu. Aside from a small $5 million check, all that cash was deployed under the leadership of Tran, who struggled to improve Munchery’s margins and was eventually replaced by Beriker, the former CEO of Simply Hired.

Munchery, however, struggled under Beriker, too, and ultimately shut down its Los Angeles, Seattle and New York operations and laid off 30 percent of its workforce. A former Munchery employee, who asked not to be named, said Beriker’s poor leadership is to blame for the startup’s failure.

“The CEO was very disconnected to the business,” the person said in a text message. “We would see him maybe once every other week and only for 15 minutes — if that. The kitchen staff didn’t even know who he was when he came to the facility. In my time with the company, he was rarely truthful or transparent about the current state of the business and the future direction. Not to mention his very hefty salary that compared to that of a publicly traded Fortune 500 company.”

“My heart goes out to all of the big and small businesses that Munchery’s closure has and will affect,” the person added. “I am also hopeful that the staff who had zero advance knowledge of the closure will find employment quickly.”

Beriker has not responded to multiple requests for comment from TechCrunch. We’ve reached out to Munchery’s investors for additional details surrounding the strange, sudden and silent shutdown.

Here’s a look at the full legal complaint:

In a joint press event today, the U.S. Department of Justice revealed that it is pursuing criminal charges against Chinese mobile giant Huawei. Following a story from The Wall Street Journal earlier this month, TechCrunch previously reported that the indictments were set to be unsealed soon.

The indictments grew out of a civil suit dating all the way back to 2014 in which T-Mobile sued Huawei for stealing trade secrets related to a robotic phone-testing device known as “Tappy.” A grand jury in Seattle has charged Huawei, Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou and Huawei subsidiary Skycom with conspiracy to steal trade secrets, attempted theft of trade secrets, seven counts of wire fraud, and one count of obstruction of justice for the company’s alleged attempts to move potential witnesses back to China.

“As I told Chinese officials in August, China must hold its citizens and Chinese companies accountable for complying with the law,” Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker said. In a press conference, Whitaker announced that two criminal cases would proceed: one out of Seattle and one from a grand jury in New York.

Tensions between the U.S. and China have escalated considerably over the last year, with U.S. agencies and lawmakers increasingly cautioning that Huawei poses a major security threat, though the government has yet to make specific intelligence that would underscore its warnings public.

The absence of specific proof points to the fact that the U.S. may be wary of allowing China to participate in building out the infrastructure for 5G mobile networks to prevent future spying — even if the U.S. lacks proof that China is leveraging its hardware for spying against the U.S. government’s interests now.

“To the detriment of American ingenuity, Huawei continually disregarded the laws of the United States in the hopes of gaining an unfair economic advantage,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in the announcement. “As the volume of these charges prove, the FBI will not tolerate corrupt businesses that violate the laws that allow American companies and the United States to thrive.”

In news that will surprise few but still alarm many, a study has found that kids 2-5 years old who engage in more screen time received worse scores in developmental screening tests. The apparent explanation is simple: when a kid is in front of a screen, they’re not talking, walking, or playing, the activities during which basic skills are cultivated.

The topic is a thorny one, as there are plenty of arguments on both sides as to the possible pros and cons of screen use at an early age, and as with any other topic pertaining to parenting, it is immediately personal to many people and reliance on anecdote is common. It’s only through studies like this one, these and other researchers note, that we can begin to be sure of anything. (Of course, we must study the studies as well.)

The study, from the University of Calgary psychologists and published today in the JAMA journal Pediatrics, examined the effect of screen time during a developmental period on performance in basic skills at the end of each period — specifically, at 24, 36, and 60 months old. Caregivers reported average screen time, and also filled out standard questionnaires on motor and communication skills.

A rather straightforward correlation appeared in the results:

Greater screen time at 24 months was associated with poorer performance on developmental screening tests at 36 months, and similarly, greater screen time at 36 months was associated with lower scores on developmental screening tests at 60 months.

Importantly, the effect was not bidirectional or ambiguous — kids with more screen time usually had lower scores, but kids with lower scores didn’t necessarily have more screen time. This strengthens the hypothesis that screen time leads to lower scores instead of an unknown variable or variables affecting both.

The exact mechanism can’t be tested with the present data, but lead author Sheri Madigan suggests it isn’t exactly mysterious:

“A lot of the positive stimulation that helps kids with their physical and cognitive development comes from interactions with caregivers,” she said in a University of Calgary news release. “When they’re in front of their screens, these important parent-child interactions aren’t happening.”

And not just those, either. The paper explains in a bit more detail:

When young children are observing screens, they may be missing important opportunities to practice and master interpersonal, motor, and communication skills. For example, when children are observing screens without an interactive or physical component, they are more sedentary and, therefore, not practicing gross motor skills, such as walking and running, which in turn may delay development in this area. Screens can also disrupt interactions with caregivers by limiting opportunities for verbal and nonverbal social exchanges, which are essential for fostering optimal growth and development.

It’s hard to find a counter-argument to this. Screen time isn’t just plain bad, and as many have pointed out its ubiquity precludes the possibility of avoidance. So the question is not “whether or not” but “how much?”

And while there are arguments for dividing screen time into high and low quality, or beneficial and non-beneficial (these are not differentiated in the study), those are much more applicable for older children who are capable of engaging with it in more sophisticated ways. At very early ages it’s hard to deny that a child’s time is better spent on activities through which they advance their most basic skills.

For reference, the kids in the study were averaging 2-3 hours per day. But it’s important to not that there isn’t some magical number of hours that’s okay or harmful — “Unfortunately, we can’t derive this ‘tipping point’ from the statistical analyses that we provided,” Madigan told me in an email. “It will be an important avenue of our future research.”

So you need to hide all screens from your kids and worry like mad if they somehow manage to wheedle an extra half hour of Dora time out of you while you finish dinner. The implication isn’t that screen time is inherently bad but that it risks replacing the “high quality caregiver-child interactions” that are so critical at this period of development. The solution therefore is not necessarily less screens, but more and better time spent with the kid.

Giving parenting advice is well outside the scope of a tech blog but as an uncle and generally speaking a human I think it’s safe to say that there are great ways of integrating screen-based content with ordinary play, and in fact many companies are dedicated to that possibility.

Playing a game ought not to adversely affect communication if it’s a kid collaborating on a Minecraft base with their sibling, right? Or if a show is being watched in an active way that encourages communicating and trying new things? A parent will know best, but it’s important to pay attention in the first place, and establishing causal connections like the one suggested in this study is one more reason to do so.

I’ve asked the researchers a few questions about the study and will update this post if I hear back.

Los Angeles is partnering with on-demand shuttle-based service Via as part of a pilot program that will give people rides to three busy public transit stations.

The pilot program, which launched Monday, aims to solve the first- and last-mile problem that makes it challenging for people to get to and from public transit stations. Under the pilot program, Via will provide on-demand rides to and from the Compton, El Monte and North Hollywood stations. Via takes multiple passengers heading in the same direction and books them into a shared vehicle.

The pilot program with Via aims to combat decreasing public transit ridership, which has been hit by the rise in Uber and Lyft ride-hailing services as well as personal car ownership. Cities like Los Angeles are looking for ways to bring to public transit the dynamic, on-demand features that make ride-hailing popular.

“This innovative pilot program will give riders another glimpse into LA’s comprehensive future transportation system. Many Metro users face a challenge getting from home to station and vice versa,” LA County Supervisor and Metro Board Chair Sheila Kuehl said in a statement. “They need a quick, easy, and inexpensive door-to-door solution and this new pilot is one to consider.”

The year-long pilot between Via and Metro is valued at $2.5 million, which is funded in part by a $1.35 million grant from the Federal Transit Administration.

Via vehicles carry between 3 to 6 passengers. Rides are free for those registered with Metro’s low-income subsidy programs. For TAP card holders, rides are $1.75 a trip. Rides for everyone else are $3.75.

Via operates consumer-facing shuttles in Chicago, Washington, D.C. and New York. The company also partners with cities and transportation authorities, giving clients access to their platform to deploy their own shuttles. For instance, Austin’s Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority uses the Via platform to power the city’s Pickup service. Via’s platform is also used by Arriva Bus UK, a Deutsche Bahn Company, for a first- and last-mile service connecting commuters to a high-speed train station in Kent, U.K.