Year: 2019

The director and star of “Lost in Translation” are working together again, with Bill Murray starring alongside Rashida Jones in “On the Rocks,” a new film directed by Sofia Coppola.

The movie will tell the story of a young mother who reconnects with her playboy father in New York City. Production is supposed to begin this spring.

“On the Rocks” is the first film to come out of the partnership between Apple and A24, which will see A24 (the studio behind “Moonlight,” “Lady Bird,” “Hereditary” and other indie hits) producing several titles for Apple . The deal will help Apple’s yet-to-launch streaming service offer high-profile original films alongside shows like its star-studded morning news drama and an adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s “Foundation” novels.

It’s been nearly 16 years since the release of “Lost in Translation,” which was a financial and critical hit — it remains the highest-grossing film of Coppola’s directing career, and it cemented Murray’s shift to more serious roles. It also won Coppola the Academy Award for best screenplay, and it nabbed Murray his only Oscar nomination thus far. (How is that possible??)

Since then, Coppola has only directed Murray once, in the idiosyncratic Netflix special “A Very Murray Christmas.”

A smartphone screen is a wonder of the world. It’s not just that it’s bright and colorful and sharp. In some ways, it’s as good as human biology allows. We’ve packed so many pixels into such a small space that any more would be lost on us. We can’t make the screens themselves bigger, because then they’d become too large to hold. The only way to get more information from a smartphone screen is to bring the pixels closer to our eyes, with the device somehow mounted on our heads rather than holding it in our hands. Instead of a phone as we usually think of it, it would be more like a pair of glasses.

Sound unlikely? In fact, many smart CE companies (Apple, Microsoft, Google, HTC) are already working on this new screen. When it arrives, experiences you’ve only seen in the movies will become the stuff of everyday life.

The “diffraction limit” for the human eye

When you look through a small hole, things on the other side appear blurry. This is because when a ray of light passes through a hole on its way to your retina, it spreads out a little. Think of watching a wave from the ocean hit a sea-wall with a narrow opening: The way the straight wave becomes a ripple spreading out on the other side is the same as what happens to rays of light when they go through a hole.

You can play with this by making your own “pinhole camera” and looking through it at text far away. The smaller the hole, the blurrier. And your iris is, of course, also a hole.

Source: Getty Images: Carmelo Geraci/EyeEm

This means that our eyes, given their size, have only a certain ability to see detail. For the human pupil, at about 5 millimeters across, we can express this limit in pixels-per-degree, and the number is around 60. So, for example, if you hold a quarter at arm’s length away from your eye, it’s going to take up about 2.5 degrees of your view, which means that a little square display of 150 pixels across will look “perfect” to your eye. Any more pixels will be a waste because you wouldn’t be able to see them.

Starting in about 2010, our smartphone displays reached that level of quality, where we could no longer see the pixels, even held as close to our face as comfortable — a change that you may remember Apple aptly branding the “Retina” display. Even big-screen TVs have now reached that same limit . Anything beyond 4K is a waste of money because you can’t see the difference unless you are sitting so close you can feel the heat from the screen!

This means that a 6-by-3-inch phone held in our hands is never going to take up more than a tiny part of our field of view, and will never be able to show us more than the few dozen lines of text we can read on it today.

Insatiable appetite

But both our appetite and capacity for digesting visual information is tremendous. We love screens, and the bigger the better. We would love it, for example, if our laptops could magically unfold to have four screens instead of just the one (like those super-cool folding ones on Westworld).

Ideally, we’d be able to see screens in every direction, with the option to turn them off when we want to pay the closest attention to the real world. And these will be a far cry from early prototypes like Google Glass, which had an even smaller field of view and text/information capacity than your smartphone display.

The biggest possible screen

That is exactly what is being worked on: If you could fix the screen in front of your eyes with lenses that make it comfortable to look at, and which also have the ability to precisely sense the rotation of the head, you could create a magic new “screen” that completely surrounds you with pixels too small to be seen. Wherever you turn your head, the pixels right in front of your eyes would change to display the part of the virtual screen where you are looking.

This new screen will appear really, really big — about the equivalent of 16 4K monitors, with about 200 million pixels. Imagine being able to snap your fingers, any time, and be surrounded by 16 monitors containing any content you’d like — ones for email, text messages, browsing, video and whatever else you’d like to remember to check on. No-one will be able to see the content but you, and they come with you everywhere, just like your smartphone.

Trillion-dollar market

Would you wait in line at the Apple store for a $500 headset that surrounds you with 16 magic floating 4K monitors that don’t weigh anything and no one else could see? Of course you would — and you will. And by the way, you can keep the keyboard and mouse on your old desk, too . You just won’t need the monitor anymore.

Source: Hoxton/Paul Bradbury

This is exactly why so many great companies —  Apple, Microsoft, HTC, Google and startups like Magic Leap, Avegant and ODG — are working on trying to build this screen. The worldwide market for screens is about a trillion dollars, so whoever gets this new screen right will reap the rewards.

Accessible to all

Because they are self-contained and therefore cannot consume much in the way of computing power, these new devices will be less expensive than their predecessors — about the same price as a smartphone. And this means that, like the smartphone in comparison to the PC, they will be widely accessible  — in the hands of billions of us within the next 10 years.

So it is possible that this change will be empowering for the many people worldwide who currently have access to simple smartphone screens but not the more powerful work and learning opportunities offered by the expensive desktop and wall-mounted screens found in only more affluent homes and offices today. These inexpensive devices could give everyone worldwide the equivalent of a gigantic Bloomberg terminal.

VR and AR are lucky benefactors, not the killer apps

Thus far I haven’t focused on 3D VR worlds or AR objects superimposed on the real world, because these new screens won’t need them to still be wildly successful. Like camera apps were to smartphones, VR and AR applications will be the lucky beneficiaries of the race to a new screen. Once you have a device with such a screen, you can display 3D content or superimpose 3D content on the real world or travel to virtual worlds or communicate across the world as an avatar. Incredible VR applications that enhance human connections and experiences despite great distances are in the works now. But you won’t have to rush out to buy a headset — you’ll already have one for browsing and email.

Multiple companies will release headsets and glasses in the coming couple of years that will replace the smartphone screen as the way we take in visual information from our computers. Our first use of these screens will be to do all the things we struggle to do on our smartphones. Following that, virtual worlds, VR and AR will begin to make use of these screens, allowing us to augment or substitute entirely new worlds for the real one.

Everyone’s searching for the new “killer app” for VR and AR headsets, but you are already looking at it by reading this article.

Snap CFO Tim Stone is leaving the company, according to documents Snap filed with the SEC today.

“Tim has made a big impact in his short time on our team and we are very grateful for all of his hard work,” Snap CEO Evan Spiegel wrote in a memo, obtained by TechCrunch, to employees. “I know we have all benefitted from his customer focus and the way he has encouraged all of us to operate as owners.”

This marks Snap’s second CFO departure in the last twelve months.

“Mr. Stone has confirmed that this transition is not related to any disagreement with us on any matter relating to our accounting, strategy, management, operations, policies, regulatory matters, or practices (financial or otherwise),” Snap General Counsel and Secretary Michael O’Sullivan wrote in the fling. “Mr. Stone’s last day has not been determined. Mr. Stone will continue to serve as Chief Financial Officer to assist in the search for a replacement and an effective transition of his duties, including through our scheduled full year 2018 financial results announcement.”

In Spiegel’s memo, he also notes that Stone’s departure is not related to any disagreements pertaining to its finances (see full memo below).

Stone is a long-time Amazon executive, who joined Snap from Amazon back in May to replace outgoing CFO Drew Vollero. Vollero served as Snap’s first CFO.

Snap is currently finalizing its Q4 2018 results and says it expects to report revenue and adjusted EBITDA results “that are slightly favorable to the top end of our previously reported quarterly guidance ranges for each.”

Snap closed the day up 3.65 percent at $6.54 per share. In after-hours trading, Snap is trading down more than seven percent.

Here’s the full text of Spiegel’s memo:

Team,

I wanted to let you know that Tim Stone, our CFO, has decided to leave Snap.

Tim has made a big impact in his short time on our team and we are very grateful for all of his hard work. I know we have all benefitted from his customer focus and the way he has encouraged all of us to operate as owners.

Tim will remain at Snap to help with the transition, including through our Q4 and full year earnings call on February 5th.

Tim’s transition is not related to any disagreement with us on any matter relating to our accounting, strategy, management, operations, policies, regulatory matters, or practices (financial or otherwise).

Please join me in wishing Tim all the best in his future endeavors!

TechCrunch has reached out to Snap and will update this story if we hear back.

There’s nothing like The Sims to log off from reality for a bit. Getting away from the increasingly ubiquitous world of smart assistants, on the other hand, is a different matter entirely. EA announced this week that the perennial favorite life simulation series is getting its very own smart assistant.

Lin-Z is a lot like an in-game version of Alexa — or, for that matter, Google Assistant or Siri or Bixby or Cortana, et al. Accessed via a smart speaker with a familiar glowing green diamond, the assistant can play music, do trivia, tell jokes, turns lights on and off (smart home!) and order different services, like food, gardening and repair.

That feature is available this week in The Sims 4 for PC and Mac. Fittingly, the real Alexa is also getting a bunch of Sims-related skills, including trivia and the ability to play songs from the game’s soundtrack. That one’s available for users in Australia, Canada, India, the US and UK, for those looking to further blur the lines of reality.

Box announced today that it has hired Lakshmi Hanspal to be the company’s new Chief Information Security Officer (CISO). She boasts 20 years of security experience including holding executive security roles at SAP Ariba and Bank of America. She also spent time in a senior role at PayPal.

In a blog post announcing the hire, the company defined her role this way: “In the role of CISO, Lakshmi will be responsible for Box’s cyber security practice, security operations and data and platform protection.”

Hanspal sees similarities in Box from her time at SAP Ariba, but she recognizes that she will face a different set of challenges. “My role at Box is similar to what I focused on at SAP Ariba with the biggest difference being Box’s geographical footprint. Box is a born in the cloud company and expanding rapidly globally, so my focus will also include securing public cloud operations (future stack) and risk transparency for our customers,” she told TechCrunch.

She said that will involve improving service maturity and sustainability through automation, while continuing to ensure the highest level of security of both Box corporate and product platforms.

Box CEO Aaron Levie indicated that security is central to everything Box does, so finding the right Chief Information Security Officer was absolutely critical. “Not only does Lakshmi bring with her an impressive and diverse leadership experience from her time at SAP, PayPal and Bank of America, but she’s an incredible team builder and culture add for Box that will take our security team to the next level,” Levie said.

Hanspal is the third woman on Box’s executive team, joining Stephanie Carullo, who was hired as Chief Operating Officer in 2017 and Chief People Officer, Christie Lake.”

There’s no shortage of iPhone cases out there, of course. But for those who absolutely must have Apple’s stamp on their accessories, the company just dropped a couple of official charging cases for its latest round of handsets — the XS,  XS Max and XR.

The cases, first spotted by MacRumors, maintain a similar design language as their predecessor, marking its return for the first time since the iPhone 7. The familiar battery bump is back, but it now encompasses the whole of the rear, which should make holding it a little less awkward — and at the very least is a bit better looking.

This time out, the silicone covers are available in black and white and will work with Qi chargers, without having to pull the case off. 

The new smart charging cases are priced at $129, regardless of model, and should add between 33 (for the XS) and 39 (for the XR) hours of additional talk time. As Apple notes, there are some marked advantages with going first party on this one, including intelligent battery status, which is displayed in the notification center and on the phone’s lock screen.

After launching on iOS, Twitter is giving Android users the ability to easily switch between seeing the reverse-chronological “latest tweets” and the algorithmic “top tweets” feeds on their home page. The company announced the rollout at a media event in New York.

The “sparkle button” is a way for Twitter to appease long-time power tweeters while also shifting more of its user base to the algorithmic feed which the company says has served to increase the number of conversations happening on the platform.

You can read more about the company’s algorithmic feed thinking here:

Google today announced that it has started the long-expected rollout of its Material Design update for Google Docs, Sheets, Slides and Sites, after first testing this update to the G Suite apps with its new design for Google Drive last year.

It’s worth noting that there are no new features or other changes here. Everything is still exactly where it used to be (give or take a few pixels). This is solely a design refresh.

What you can expect to see when you get the update, is different interface fonts, slightly revised controls and some new iconography. There’s also some fresh new colors here and there, too. But that’s about it.

Google started the rollout of this new design for G Suite subscribers on the Rapid Release schedule today and everybody who is on that should get it within the next 15 days. Those users whose admins are a bit timider and are sticking to the Scheduled Release schedule will see the new design around February 11. Google doesn’t typically say when those features roll out to free users, but chances are you’ll see them within the next month, too.

Google has been rolling out updated designs for most of its web and mobile apps over the course of the last few months. Google Calendar was one of the latest apps to get this update and with the addition of the G Suite productivity apps, the company has now mostly completed this project — until it released updated Material Design guidelines, of course.

Outdoorsy is building for the road ahead. The three-year-old company, which connects customers with underused RVs and other trucks big enough to camp in overnight, just raised $50 million in Series C funding led by Greenspring Associates, with participation from earlier backers Aviva Ventures, Altos Ventures, AutoTech Ventures and Tandem Capital.

That puts its total funding, in less than year’s time, at $75 million. (We’d separately reported on its $25 million Series B round last February. It has now raised $81.5 million altogether.)

It’s easy to understand why investors are excited about Outdoorsy, which moved its headquarters from the Bay Area to Austin six months ago, partly to get closer to its base of customers, as well as to take advantage of attractive tax incentives. The company is capitalizing on a global trend of millennials who want to stay overnight at places other than hotels, which are often expensive and located in commercial districts that can’t provide the same authentic experience of staying in a neighborhood.

Yet Outdoorsy is taking things a step further, so to speak. As cofounder and CEO Jeff Cavins notes, even with Airbnbs seemingly everywhere, there remain plenty of places where it makes even more sense to rent an RV and set up a grill, including at a beach, beside a lake, or right outside events like musical festivals and car races. That’s saying nothing of traditional camping spots, like Yosemite and Yellowstone Valley.

It’s easier than ever thanks largely to Outdoorsy, too, says Cavins. Earlier on, the company logged serious time with outfits like Aviva, a British insurance company that is not only an Outdoorsy investor at this point but which was convinced by Outdoorsy to create an insurance product expressly to cover RVs as distinct from more accident-prone vehicles with which they’ve long been lumped, like dune buggies. The math was easy to grasp, offers Cavins of the argument Outdoorsy made. “Most recreational vehicles really aren’t driven around much. They are used for camping purposes. Some people do cross-country stuff, but most people don’t like driving so much on their vacations so there isn’t a lot of mobile time with these units.”

Indeed, by offering U.S. and Canadian RV owners up to $1 million in protection, and $2 million in protection for its European users, Outdoorsy says it has managed to sign up 31,000 vehicles to date, including a mix of traditional RVs, camper vans, towable campers, and trucks, all of which are collectively rented for six days on average and that produce, on average, $1,900 in income for their owners over that period.

And that’s mostly in North America. Outdoorsy thinks that as it expands more aggressively in Europe and Australia and New Zealand, among other places it’s rolling into, it will have closer to 65,000 vehicles available to rent on its platform by year end.

Not that expanding geographically is all the company has in mind. On the contrary, says Cavins, Outdoorsy is evolving into a kind of recreational marketplace, one with many more premium services beyond those in introduced last year, which including insurance and roadside assistance. For example, it more recently began inviting customers to finance their vacations through Outdoorsy, which has partnered with the lending company Affirm toward that end. It now offers trip and travel insurance to offset cancellations. And Cavin says the company is rolling out a spate of other new premium services in roughly one month

Outdoorsy also ushering in a new wave of entrepreneurship, by Cavin’s telling. Vehicle owners set their own pricing, with the help of tools provided by Outdoorsy, and they ultimately keep between 75 and 80 percent of what they earn, he says, adding that for some of its customers, those rental fees are beginning to produce meaningful revenue.

He points to one customer that he says is generating more than $1 million — quickly noting that this customer owns between 50 and 55 RVs. But he insists that while “most users start with two vehicles, we have some that get to four, then 20, then they hire hire their own mechanic and cleaning crew.”

What about those stretches of time when it isn’t a holiday and it isn’t summer and fewer people are looking to rent RVs? Cavins admits the market slows down markedly at times, which is why Outdoorsy is building up a business in New Zealand and Australia. Outdoorsy wants to take advantage of summer somewhere all year round. Still, says Cavins, the market is hotter than you might imagine. “Come May, it’s now very hard to get your hands on an RV.”

Mozilla today announced that it is closing the Firefox Test Pilot program. For the last three years, Test Pilot was Mozilla’s project to trial some of its more experimental Firefox features with a group of users that opted into this program. It was Test Pilot that first trialed features like Containers, which became the Firefox Facebook Container extension, Page Shot for taking screenshots, and the Lockbox app for iOS, the first non-Firefox Test Pilot project.

While Test Pilot is going away, though, Mozilla promises that it will continue this kind of experimentation. “The innovation processes that led to products like Firefox Monitor are no longer the responsibility of a handful of individuals but rather the entire organization,” the organization explains. “Everyone is responsible for maintaining the Culture of Experimentation Firefox has developed through this process. These techniques and tools have become a part of our very DNA and identity. That is something to celebrate.”

Mozilla promises that it won’t uninstall any of the experiments that you may be using today (if you are a Test Pilot user). Indeed, most of them will surely find their way into the addons.mozilla.org directory or evolve into standalone products. It’s also worth noting that Mozilla Labs continues to work on projects like Firefox for VR and other projects.

Still, it’s a shame to see Test Pilot disappear. It always felt like a useful, low-risk way of trying new things with a small group of users that was willing to be the test subject for niche features like tabs in a sidebar. Mozilla says it’ll actually experiment more now, but it remains to be seen how exactly it will do so without the Test Pilot program.