Year: 2019

Get ready to experience world-class networking TechCrunch-style at TC Sessions: Enterprise 2019. On September 5, more than 1,000 of the top enterprise software minds and makers, movers and shakers will descend on San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. It’s a day-long conference featuring distinguished speakers, panel discussions, demos and workshops.

It’s also a prime opportunity to connect and build relationships with enterprise software founders, technologists and investors. Make the most of that opportunity by using CrunchMatch, our free business match-making service.

The automated platform lets you find people based on specific mutual business criteria, goals and interests. It helps you sift through the noise and make the most of your valuable time. After all, connecting with the right people produces better results.

Here’s how CrunchMatch (powered by Brella) works. When CrunchMatch goes live — several weeks before the main event — we’ll email a sign-up link to all ticket holders. You’ll be able to access the platform and create a profile with your specific details — your role (technologist, founder, investor, etc.) and a description of the types of people you want to connect with at the event.

CrunchMatch works its algorithmic magic and suggests meetings, which you can then vet, approve and schedule or decline. It’s an efficient and productive way to network. Take a look at how CrunchMatch helped Yoolox increase distribution.

All that time-saving efficiency will free you up to enjoy more of the presentations and hear from speakers like the renowned founder, investor, AI expert and Stanford professor, Andrew Ng. You won’t want to miss his take on how AI will transform the enterprise world — like nothing else since the cloud and SaaS. And that’s just a taste of what you can expect.

If you haven’t already done so, buy your tickets now and save $100 before the prices go up on August 9. Early-bird tickets cost $249 and student tickets sell for $75. Buy 4+ tickets to get the group rate and save another 20%.

ROI tip: For every ticket you buy to TC Sessions: Enterprise, we’ll register you for a free Expo-only pass to TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2019.

We can’t wait to see you at TC Sessions: Enterprise 2019 in San Francisco on September 5. Join your community, explore the top enterprise trends and companies and make productive connections with the influential people who can help you reach your goals. Buy your ticket today.

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Reliable analyst Ming-Chi Kuo from TF International Securities has released a new report, as Apple Insider spotted. I’ve read the report and it focuses specifically on keyboard suppliers that would potentially work with Apple . And the company should potentially replace the unreliable butterfly mechanism with a new scissor mechanism.

The first laptop that should receive the update is the long-rumored 16-inch MacBook Pro. Kuo has updated the release timeline for the new device, and he now says that it should be available at some point during the last quarter of 2019 instead of 2020.

But Apple shouldn’t stop there as the company is already working on updates for all laptops. By the end of 2020, the entire lineup should have received an update with a new keyboard.

According to the timeline, Apple could keep both the 15-inch MacBook Pro and the 16-inch MacBook Pro in the lineup for now. Maybe the new model will be more premium than the normal 15-inch MacBook Pro. So the MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro and 15-inch MacBook Pro could all switch to the new keyboard next year.

Apple first introduced the butterfly mechanism for the 12-inch MacBook back in 2015. The company gradually rolled out the new keyboard design across the lineup.

But it has attracted a ton of criticism over the years as many people suffer from dropped keystrokes and repeated keystrokes. Debris can easily block keys, and the keyboard itself is hard to repair. That’s why Apple has been running a free replacement program for all laptops that have a butterfly-based keyboard.

With the new design, Apple is basically going back to a trustworthy design. You can find scissor switches in most Windows laptops and even in Apple’s external keyboard. The company was even using scissor switches in MacBook laptops before replacing them with butterfly switches.

If today’s rumor is accurate, you’ll have to wait a bit more to get a laptop with a more traditional keyboard design. But it’s on the way.

It looks like the return of Softbank’s Vision Fund may be less reliant on murder money and more reliant on Microsoft’s money-making machine for its backing.

The rumored involvement of Microsoft in financing Softbank Vision Fund II (electric boogaloo?) is interesting for what it may indicate about how the relationship between venture investors, startups, and the large corporations that dominate the tech industry are changing.

If the name of the game is platform and services, then corporate behemoths like Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon and Apple are in interesting positions to invest in startups as a flywheel for growth in some of their most profitable and strategic business units.

To some extent this has always been true, but it’s becoming more important now as web services become larger slices of the corporate balance sheet at these three companies (particularly — although IBM is also playing in this game). Basically, like corporate accelerators and venture arms, investing in SoftBank is another service that’s being potentially offered to lock in startups to corporate cloud ecosystems.

While there are no guarantees that a nudge from an investor to use one tech platform for web services over another would make any difference, it’s clear that big tech companies like Amazon, Alphabet and Microsoft are all over startups to use one web stack over another.

Amazon has tied itself ever more tightly to the Techstars ecosystem of incubators for new tech companies, Microsoft has its own corporate accelerator programs and investment arm and Alphabet does the same.

As technology continues to advance, the big companies have more services they can offer to tech companies, that will be increasingly more compelling and drive increasing revenue.

All three big companies mentioned above (and even IBM, bless its big blue non-existent heart) have machine learning tools that they’d love to provide as a service to startups as well. And even as IBM sunsets Watson as a balance sheet item (an event that was an elementary conclusion to anyone who’s tracked its long, slow spiral), machine learning services are going to become a larger slice of revenue for the providers who can effectively tie startups into those services.

Most entrepreneurs pay lip service to the fact that enhanced algorithms are going to become table stakes in new product offerings so observers can watch that become another engine of growth for the big companies that can get it right.

Also, startups are going to increasingly become a sales channel for big tech, even as big tech has traditionally been a sales channel for startups.

Software as a service businesses using a freemium business model have an easier time getting into a corporate environment than Microsoft or Google . And even as the productivity suites from these companies battle it out (Verizon, FWIW, is team Google for now), some of the money flowing to a SAAS company’s coffers from a big corporate entity will ultimately wind up in either Microsoft, Amazon, or Alphabet’s returns.

This model also helps venture investors who now have more assurance that there will be late stage capital to bolster their businesses (including really really bad ones) although most traditional firms have a love-hate relationship with Masayoshi Son’s gargantuan investment vehicle.

Finally, there’s the simple fact that divorcing Softbank from Saudi Arabia’s journalist killing murder money is a good thing for the firm and the larger technology industry, which has enough moral conundrums to consider without adding (still another) problematic geopolitical relationship to the mix.

Spin, the electric scooter company acquired by a Ford subsidiary for around $100 million, is launching a new electric scooter with a sturdier frame, improved braking system, bigger tires and longer-range battery.

In short, this third-generation product is built to handle the kind of abuse that a shared dockless scooter is subjected to on a daily basis. It’s also designed to be more secure. The company has added custom security screws that were developed to thwart vandalism and tampering.

The design improvements should improve the riding experience and, in theory, attract more customers. However, more customers is only important piece of the scooter game. Gross profit margin is the other.

This third-generation is built to have a longer life, a key factor in improving the unit economics of the dockless scooter business.

Spin launched a pilot program in June to test the new scooters in Baltimore. The pilot showed “promising results for increasing gross profit margin, while decreasing costs associated with theft and vandalism,” according to the company.

“In our testing of the next edition Spin scooter, we have seen a significant increase in utilization and our customers are taking more rides and traveling longer distances,” Co-founder and COO Zaizhuang Cheng said in a statement.

The third-edition Spin scooter has 10-inch tires, a feature meant to better absorb shock from potholes and other rough road conditions. Other features include a wider and longer platform, a battery with 37.5 miles of range, and and an upgraded authentication system. The company also revealed a new logo as part of a brand refresh across its scooters, app and website.

Spin, which is housed under the automaker’s subsidiary Ford Smart Mobility LLC, will deploy the new scooter next month in Berkeley, Calif., Denver, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Memphis, Minneapolis and Washington D.C. Other U.S. cities will be added in the future.

Spin has been ramping up across the U.S. The company is the exclusive operator in 11 markets and has more than quadrupled the number of dockless scooter markets it operates to 47 cities and college campuses.

Its aim is to be in 100 cities and college campuses by the end of the year.

Let’s try this again: SpaceX is looking to launch its 18th International Space Station (ISS) resupply mission on Thursday at 6:01 PM ET (3:01 PM PT), a day after it tried to do so a first time. The initial attempt was scrubbed at the last minute due to weather conditions on the launch range in Florida at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, but there’s a backup window today so Elon’s rocket company will try again. The stream above will begin about 15 minutes beforehand.

CRS-18 will send a Dragon cargo capsule with 5,000 lbs of experiment materials, supplies and other cargo including a new automated docking sleeve to the ISS. This mission is one of the last in SpaceX’s current ISS resupply contract, which covers 20 total engagements – but NASA and SpaceX essentially re-upped for a second batch through 2024 as part of a new contract signed in 2016.

The Dragon cargo craft used on this mission has actually flown two previous ISS resupply missions, and will be the first to manage a third should this trip go as planned. It’ll rendezvous with the ISS in a few days, be unloaded by astronauts and re-loaded with return cargo, before detaching from the ISS and returning to Earth to splash down in the Pacific Ocean for recovery. Dragon will launch aboard a Falcon 9 first-stage booster that was used just a couple of months ago for the most recent CRS mission, too.

Tulsi Now Inc., the campaign committee for Tulsi Gabbard, filed a lawsuit this week accusing Google of infringing her free speech. The 2020 Democratic presidential candidate took the online giant to task over the suspension of a campaign advertising account for a total of six hours following the first presidential debate.

“Google’s discriminatory actions against my campaign are reflective of how dangerous their complete dominance over internet search is, and how the increasing dominance of big tech companies over our public discourse threatens our core American values,” Rep. Gabbard said in a statement offered to The New York Times, which was the first to report the story. “This is a threat to free speech, fair elections, and to our democracy, and I intend to fight back on behalf of all Americans.”

According to Google, the congresswoman’s account was flagged for “unusual activity,” when “large spending changes” triggered an automatic fraud prevention system. The campaign was suspend for around six hours overnight between June 27 and 28 — a relatively short amount of time, but a key one, in the wake of two large debates housting the massive Democratic field.

Gabbard’s campaign chalks the bump in spending up to a large increase in searches following national appearance. “To this day, Google has not provided a straight answer — let alone a credible one — as to why Tulsi’s political speech was silenced when millions of people wanted to hear from her,” the campaign writes in the suit.

As a private company, Google is not capable of violating the free speech enabled by the first amendment. But Gabbard joins a growing number of politicians taking on tech companies over similar issues. Thus far, however, the complaints have largely come from Republican circles calling out sites like Twitter and Facebook for perceived liberal biases.

The campaign, meanwhile, has turned the move into a push for fundraising. “Please join Tulsi in her fight for our core American values of free speech and fair elections,” it writes. “The Big Tech companies need to be held accountable for their actions, and that’s why we need Tulsi in the White House!”

We have reached out to Rep. Gabbard’s campaign for further comment.

If you’re on Discord, you’re probably not a member of just one chat server. They tend to collect. You install it to chat with your Fortnite friends… then a few of them split off and start an Apex server. And each of your favorite streamers has a server, so maybe join those. Oh! And now you’re in a clan, so add their server too. Then you realize that every city around you has its own Pokémon GO Discord, so you might as well add those too.

Eventually you’re dealing with a list of like 40 servers, and just finding the one you’re looking for in that little lineup of circular icons becomes a chore.

With that in mind, Discord is getting a feature that users have been requesting for ages: server folders.

Want to group your Rocket League chats into one folder, and all of those GO servers into another? If you’re used to making folders on iOS or Android, it’s pretty similar: just drag one icon on top of another, and you’ve got a folder.

Folders can be color coded to help you find’em faster — and once this update rolls out, they’ll show up on both desktop and mobile.

Perhaps handiest of all: you can dismiss all notifications/badges for an entire folder at once. Makes clearing out all your unreads in the morning just a little bit easier.

Discord put together a little video showing off the new folder mechanism here:

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1. Toyota invests $600 million in Didi, with the two setting up a new joint venture for driver services

Toyota has made a big investment in Didi Chuxing . As part of the agreement, the two companies will form a joint venture with GAC Toyota Motor to provide vehicle-related services to Didi drivers.

This is the just the latest of Toyota’s investments in ride-hailing and vehicle-sharing companies — it also backed Uber and JapanTaxi.

2. Samsung readies Galaxy Fold for September release

No concrete date just yet, but this is still more specific than the “coming weeks” line we’ve been hearing for a few months now.

3. Robinhood stored passwords in plaintext, so change yours now

This security misstep could have seriously exposed Robinhood’s users, although the company says that it has no evidence the data was accessed improperly.

4. Sonos and Ikea’s Symfonisk wireless speakers are a symphony of sound and design

The $99 Symfonisk Wi-Fi bookshelf speaker and the $179 Symfonisk table lamp with Wi-Fi speaker both deliver the excellent performance and sound quality that’s expected from Sonos, in practical everyday designs created by Ikea.

5. Tinder’s new personal security feature can protect LGBTQ+ users in hostile nations

Users who identify on the app as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer will no longer automatically appear on Tinder when they arrive in an oppressive state.

6. DoorDash will change controversial tipping model

Under the old model, tips were essentially subsidizing payments that would otherwise have come from DoorDash. The company isn’t releasing all the details of its new model yet, but the key change is that driver earnings “will increase by the exact amount a customer tips on every order.”

7. Duo’s Wendy Nather to talk security at TC Sessions: Enterprise

Nather is one of the most respected and trusted voices in the cybersecurity community as a regular speaker on a range of topics, from threat intelligence to risk analysis, incident response, data security and privacy issues.

NBCUniversal is getting a little more specific about its streaming plans.

Variety reports that NBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke was on this morning’s earnings call for parent company Comcast, announcing that the NBCUniversal streaming service will launch in April 2020.

The company had previously said the service would launch in “early 2020”, and would be ad-supported with a paid, ad-free option. As part of these plans, NBCUniversal has also reclaimed the streaming rights to “The Office,” which will be leaving Netflix in January 2021.

An NBC sitcom that ended six years ago might not seem like the sturdiest foundation on which to launch yet another streamer, but “The Office” is actually Netflix’s most-watched show, according to Nielsen.  And while NBCUniversal will be investing in streaming originals, Burke said, “I would expect the vast majority of consumption in the beginning would be [of] acquired programs.”

It looks like there’s going to be a big wave of media companies  launching their streaming plays in the next year or so — Disney+ is coming on November 12, and WarnerMedia’s HBO Max (which has the rights to another of Netflix’s most popular shows, “Friends”) is scheduled to launch in spring 2020. On top of all that, Apple’s TV+ is also supposed to arrive this fall.

AWS, Amazon’s cloud computing arm, today announced the beta launch of the AWS Chatbot, a chatty little chap who slides into your Slack and Amazon Chime channels and can inform you of any issues with your AWS resources.

It’s hard to imagine DevOps teams that don’t use Slack or similar tools, so it’s actually a bit of a surprise that AWS, which has long offered all of the tools to build chatbots, didn’t launch a similar service before.

The bot hooks into the Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS), which in turn allows you to integrate it with other AWS services. Right now, that list includes Amazon Cloudwatch, AWS Health, Budgets, Security Hub, GuardDuty and CloudFormation. That’s not exactly every AWS service, but it covers most of the bases for companies that want to keep an eye on their AWS deployments.

“DevOps teams widely use chat rooms as communications hubs where team members interact—both with one another and with the systems that they operate,” writes AWS’s product manager Ilya Bezdelev in today’s announcement. “Bots help facilitate these interactions, delivering important notifications and relaying commands from users back to systems. Many teams even prefer that operational events and notifications come through chat rooms where the entire team can see the notifications and discuss next steps.”

In good AWS fashion, it takes a bit of work to get everything set up for the AWS chatbot to work.

Right now, though, all of this seems to be a one-way street, too. You can get alerts to Slack, but at least in the beta, you can’t push any commands back to AWS yet. That means this chatbot likes to talk but isn’t much of a listener yet. Chances are, though, we’ll see more of that functionality once it hits general availability.