Year: 2019

Mobile marketing company AppLovin is announcing that it has acquired SafeDK.

While AppLovin started out as a mobile ad business, it now bills itself as “a comprehensive mobile gaming platform,” offering tools for game developers around user acquisition, monetization, analytics and (through Lion Studios, launched last year) publishing. SafeDK, meanwhile, allows developers to manage all the different SDKs that their apps rely on.

Palo Alto-headquartered AppLovin says that by incorporating SafeDK technology, it will help its publishers ensure GDPR compliance and brand safety.

It also says SafeDK will continue to support existing customers, while its headquarters in Herzliya, Israel will become AppLovin’s first office in Israel. Co-founders Orly Shoavi and Ronnie Sternberg will remain on-board as the heads of SafeDK and general managers of AppLovin Israel.

The companies are not disclosing the financial terms of the deal, except to say that it was all-cash. According to Crunchbase, SafeDK has raised a total of $5.8 million from investors including Samsung Next Tel Aviv, Marius Nacht, StageOne Ventures and Kaedan Capital.

“We are delighted to be working with the AppLovin team to help mobile game publishers grow their businesses,” Shoavi said in a statement. “AppLovin has been a trusted partner for the biggest mobile game studios around the world and SafeDK’s technology will strengthen that trust.”

Early-stage hardware startup founders, it’s your turn to step into the spotlight and launch your innovative inventions to the world’s top investors. We’re inviting you to apply to compete in our hardware-focused pitch competition, Hardware Battlefield at TC Shenzhen on November 11-12. You might even walk away with $25,000 and a whole new business trajectory.

This is our fifth Hardware Battlefield — cousin to Startup Battlefield, our world-renowned pitch competition — and we’re leaving our CES stomping grounds behind and taking the Battlefield to Shenzhen, China. Why? The city, China’s hardware heartland, provides an unparalleled ecosystem that nurtures hardware startups through a combination of accelerators, rapid prototyping and world-class manufacturing.

We’ve collaborated with our China partner, TechNode, to host TC Hardware Battlefield 2019 as part of the larger TechCrunch Shenzhen show on November 9-12. This pitch competition is open to any early-stage hardware startup anywhere in the world. Show us your hardware — examples from previous Battlefields include smart socks for diabetics, food testing devices, malaria diagnostic tools, e-motorcycles and robotic arms.

Here’s how a Hardware Battlefield works. The first step is to fill out this simple application — the deadline’s August 14. You qualify for consideration if your startup meets these low bars:

• You must have a minimally viable product to demo onstage
• Your product has received little if any, press coverage to date
• Your product must be a hardware device or component

Pro Tip: Founders who want to launch their product onstage have an edge.

TechCrunch editors will thoroughly vet every qualified application and choose an elite cohort of 10-15 hardware startups. Those teams will pitch on the main stage in front of a panel of judges comprised of expert VCs, founders and technologists.

Don’t worry — we won’t just toss you to the proverbial wolves. A TechCrunch team with years of Battlefield experience will provide extensive coaching for each participating team. We’re talking a rigorous six-week training program to prep your pitches, products and presentations. You will be so ready to roll on game day.

Teams will have just six minutes to pitch and demo their products and then respond to a rigorous Q&A from the esteemed judges. Only one team will be declared the Hardware Battlefield champion and take home a check for $25,000.

Here’s more good news. Every team that competes enjoys an enormous amount of worldwide media and investor attention. What’s more, all participants join the ranks of the Startup Battlefield elite. Our Battlefield alumni community currently numbers 857 companies that have accumulated $8.9 billion in funding and 110 exits.

Hardware Battlefield at TC Shenzhen takes place on November 11-12. This is your chance to launch your hardware startup in front of some of the world’s most influential investors, technologists and journalists. Apply to compete in TC Hardware Battlefield 2019, and put your early-stage hardware startup’s name on the map — in Shenzen, China and beyond.

Nintendo’s latest mobile game is now available for iOS devices, a day before its official target launch date. The game is based on the Nintendo game created in 1990 for the NES and Game Boy, and re-released/re-made a bunch of times over the years for various Nintendo consoles.

Dr. Mario World, the iOS game available now, is, like its predecessors, a matching puzzle game in which you as Dr. Mario (or maybe you’re just a colleague of Dr. Mario? It’s somewhat unclear) cure ‘viruses’ by matching pill colors to the little jerks. This version has a number of additional gameplay features compared to the first, which was pretty Tetris-like in play. It also focuses on drag-and-drop mechanics, instead of manipulating pills like Tetris blocks as they fall.

For instance, you have other Doctors from the rich Mario fictional world to call upon for help, including Dr. Peach and Dr. Bowser, as well as assistants including Goomba, Koopa Troopa and others who apparently never either attained or aspired to professional medical doctor status. These have different skills that can make virus busting easier, and Nintendo plans to update the game with fresh doctors and assistants regularly.

Multiplayer is also part of Dr. Mario World, and you can go head-to-head or work together. Predictably if you’ve followed Nintendo’s foray into mobile titles, this one is free-to-play, with in-game purchases for unlocking more play time and unlacing additional characters and upgrades.

The U.K. data protection authority said it will serve hotel giant Marriott with a £99 million ($123M) fine for a data breach that exposed up to 383 million guests.

Marriott revealed last year that its acquired Starwood properties had its central reservation database hacked, including five million unencrypted passport numbers and eight million credit card records. The breach dated back to 2014 but was not discovered until November 2018. Marriott later pulled the hacked reservation system from its operations.

The U.K.’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said its investigation found that Marriott “failed to undertake sufficient due diligence when it bought Starwood and should also have done more to secure its systems.”

The breach affected about 30 million residents of European Union, according to the ICO, which confirmed the proposed fine in a statement Tuesday.

But Marriott said it “has the right to respond” before a fine is imposed and “intends to respond and vigorously defend” its position.

“We are disappointed with this notice of intent from the ICO, which we will contest,” said Marriott’s chief executive Arne Sorenson, in a statement. “Marriott has been cooperating with the ICO throughout its investigation into the incident, which involved a criminal attack against the Starwood guest reservation database.”

Under the new GDPR regime, the ICO has the right to fine up to four percent of a company’s annual turnover.  Given Marriott made about $3.6 billion in revenue during 2018, the ICO’s fine represents about 3 percent of the company’s global revenue.

The ICO said Marriott will be given an opportunity to discuss the proposed findings and sanctions.

“The ICO will consider carefully the representations made by the company and the other concerned data protection authorities before it takes its final decision,” said the U.K. data protection authority.

The proposed Marriott fine comes hot on the heels of a record fine imposed of $230 million by the ICO on Monday following the British Airways data breach. The airline confirmed about 500,000 customers had their credit cards skimmed over a three week period between August and September 2018.

Researchers said a credit card stealing group known as Magecart was to blame.

CEO Merrill Brown says he founded The News Project to address one of the big problems in the journalism business: “It costs too much to launch and operate news sites.”

It’s an issue that Brown knows well — he’s a former journalist, journalism executive and educator who served as the founding editor in chief of MNSBC.com. He announced earlier this year that The News Project has raised a six-figure investment from WordPress VIP, and now it’s actually launching with its first customer, the nonprofit site CALmatters, which offers news and analysis around California politics.

Last week, Brown and The News Project’s product lead Miguel Ferrer walked me through what the the company does, both for CALmatters and more generally. The company’s pitch, in a nutshell, is to provide a “news business in box.”

Ferrer explained, “Not only is it what you need for a news business in a box, it’s also understood to be more than a technical toolset, more than a CMS, even as the CMS is ultimately the core of everything.”

Put another way: The News Project has stitched together a publishing platform by working with a number of different partners, offering content management and hosting from WordPress VIP, website development by 10up, reader engagement tools from Piano, design by Charming Robot and ads by Google Ad Manager. (TechCrunch works with a number of these companies, including WordPress VIP, 10up and Piano.)

News organizations can get access to all of that by paying $25,000 to get on the platform, followed by a monthly subscription fee.

It’s exactly not a small investment, but Brown said that normally, “Unless all you’re going to do is hire a couple of kids, $25,000 not going to get you competing in the complicated news ecosystem we’re working in today.” So instead of seeing a newsroom spend $250,000 or more on a website launch or redesign, “We want to see that money spent against words on the screen.”

When the new CALmatters website goes live, the obvious change will be a fresh look, but Ferrer said that’s just scratching the surface. For one thing, The News Project has built templates to support more sophisticated article formats, like feature stories that are driven by images and videos.

“We never forget that UX and designs have to be performance-oriented,” Ferrer added. By that, he means that when The News Project works with partners to create a website, a great deal of “care and attention” are given to “how are we giving [content] space in a design to breathe, how are we assuring that there’s opportunities for recirculation, and we’re equally attentive to opportunities around messaging or advertising that’s ultimately so important to the business side of the equation.”

Brown noted that these tools support a variety of businesses models and forms of reader engagement, but they’re built around “the belief that reader revenue is the future.”

When asked about the broader issues facing the journalism business, Brown acknowledged that the industry is “going through a very significant restructuring” — but he suggested that this doesn’t mean newsrooms are going away.

“It isn’t about large daily metropolitan newspapers, it’s about sites in important vertical categories getting developed at the right scale, with the right kind of overhead — smaller and regional sites solving the problem of local news,” he said. “Certainly, the future of local news is not about newsrooms with 200 people in it, it’s about newsrooms with 20 people in it.”

And naturally, those are the kinds of newsroom that The News Project has been built to serve.

Apple officially stopped selling the 12-inch MacBook today, a computer that hasn’t had an update since June 2017 and that is also maybe one of the most contentious Macs in Apple’s lineup. The 12-inch MacBook at one time seemed like Apple’s path forward (plenty of Apple fans and analysts saw it as a sign of things to come when it launched in 2015), but ultimately ended up representing some of Apple’s biggest challenges with its Macs in general.

The biggest indicator that Apple felt the MacBook was a showcase and crucial product was the name – it was just THE MacBook, without any addition epithets or qualifiers like “Air” or “Pro” (both of which predated its existence. And when it debuted, it brought a number of firsts for Apple’s laptop lineup, including USB-C for both data and power, a keyboard with butterfly mechanisms, a Force Touch trackpad and a new way of “terracing” batteries that allowed Apple to maximize the power available to the diminutive notebook without making any compromises on size.

For sheer portability and screen-to-size ratio, the MacBook was an absolute feat. But this computer was one of Apple’s boldest statements yet when it came to a separation from current standards and opinions about what users did and didn’t need in a laptop. It only came with a single USB-C port (‘just one!’ people gasped, and that’s for power, too!); the butterfly keyboard was strange and different. This last thing would later prove possibly Apple’s biggest technical gaffe in terms of fundamental component design, which has impact even today in that the company released brand new computers using butterfly keyboards and immediately added them to an extended keyboard replacement program.

The MacBook also always lagged significantly behind its Pro and Air companions in terms of processor power, thanks to the energy-sipping Intel chips required in its construction to minimize heat. As a former MacBook owner myself, it was enough that you noticed the chug when you were doing stuff that wasn’t necessarily heavy-duty, and painfully apparent if you used the little notebook simultaneously with a home desktop, for instance.

But the MacBook was also excellent in its own way. It was so portable as to be almost forgotten as an addition to a bag. It was maybe the ultimate pure writing notebook, because that’s not something that ever felt the lack of processor power under the hood. And as often maligned as it was for being a single-port machine (besides the headphone jack, which is now a luxury in the smartphone world), there was a certain amount of focus necessitated by this monk-like approach to I/O.

Ultimately, the MacBook resembles the original MacBook Air more than anything – an oddball that had both lovers and haters, but that didn’t meet the needs or expectations of the masses. Like the Air, the MacBook could rise from the ashes with a future incarnation, too – perhaps one made possible by the much-speculated future Apple transition to ARM processor architecture. Or maybe it’ll just make way for an ever-evolving iPad powered by the more sophisticated iPadOS coming this fall.

Regardless, the MacBook was an eccentric machine that I enjoyed using (and was potentially considering using again pending an update), so here’s hoping it’s not gone forever.

Extra Crunch offers members the opportunity to tune into conference calls led and moderated by the TechCrunch writers you read every day. TechCrunch’s Connie Loizos recently sat down with VC-turned-professional coach Jerry Colonna for a chat about founder mental health, his less than predictable career path and his new book Reboot: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up.

After years as a successful venture investor, Colonna found himself confronting his own personal struggles with mental health. As a result, Colonna shifted his focus towards coaching founders and executives through the tensions that exist between personal happiness, mental health and traditional leadership practices.

In his book and in his conversation with Connie, Jerry discusses how one’s previously developed standards of success can impact their ability to lead and realize fulfillment from their work. Jerry elaborates on why many Valley executives encounter mental health pressures as their careers evolve, and details advice he gives to his own clients to help them re-engage with themselves.

“First, to unpack that ambition itself, is not a negative. It’s just ambition. But when we don’t understand the context of that ambition, what is it that’s driving us forward? Is it fear? Or is it excitement and enthusiasm about what’s possible?

Generally, it’s about both, right? When our ambition is primarily unconsciously driven be our fear, the likelihood is high that we’re going to drive the people who work for us crazy. Because nothing that they do, is ever going to make the fear go away. No matter how successful our ambition makes us.

Because the underlying motivation is fear. I am looking to become safe by what I’m driving towards. Now, if we were to flip it and say the thing that is really driving the ambition, is dreaming of a world that is possible. “I can’t imagine how cool it would be if this company were X.” Well, I may still act in a way that’s driven, but I don’t necessarily have to drive the people around me crazy.

And so by understanding the complicated nature of that word ambition, we get to, as I say, dial up the positive aspect of it and release a little bit from the less healthy more negative aspects of it.”

Jerry and Connie dive deeper into how media coverage impacts founder psyches and how it has evolved amidst an increased awareness around mental health. The two also discuss how external pressures are changing for younger generations of founders, as well as how society as a whole can truly tackle widespread mental health issues.

For access to the full transcription and the call audio, and for the opportunity to participate in future conference calls, become a member of Extra Crunch. Learn more and try it for free. 

Connie Loizos: Jerry, it’s a pleasure to be talking to you. We’ve been talking for many, many years. I’m afraid to say how many years…

Jerry Colonna: It’ll reveal how old we are.

Loizos: I know exactly. But I do remember you starting Flatiron, with Fred Wilson, many, many years ago and then going on to JP Morgan and I know that many of the listeners on the phone right now probably have traced your story because you are one of those characters of great interest in Silicon Valley. Can you talk a little bit about how you decided to leave venture capital and become a full-time coach?

BMW has finished a nearly two-year project to bring 100 electric vehicle charging stations to America’s national parks.

The automaker partnered in 2017 with several U.S. agencies, including the National Park Foundation, National Park Service, and Department of Energy, to donate 100 electric vehicle charging stations in and near to national parks throughout the United States.

More than 90 of the charging stations have been installed. The remaining few will open this month, the company said.

The effort is small compared to some of the broader infrastructure campaigns in the U.S. But it has the potential to ease the EV charging desert that exists on the open road and at national parks. And as more electric vehicles come on the market, the demand for these chargers will only increase.

The charging stations, which include Level 2 and DC fast chargers, are concentrated in popular areas where there’s a strong electric vehicle market. The agencies and BMW also considered the distance from nearby charging locations.

BMW’s charging stations can be found in Everglades and Grand Canyon, two of the most visited U.S. national parks, as well Death Valley in California, Rainier and Olympic National parks in Washington and Cape Cod National Seashore in Massachusetts.

BMW worked with the National Park Service and National Park Foundation to identify sites, address technical considerations and coordinate with state and local authorities.

“The automobile has long been central to the great American vacation in national parks,” said National Park Service Deputy Director P. Daniel Smith. “While our treasured landscapes offer familiar vistas time after time, the automobile has changed greatly, and parks want to meet the needs of our visitors who electric and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.”

The all-electric Mini Cooper was once just a demonstration car and a dream for EV fans, but now it’s a car people will actually be able to buy, with truly competitive range and a ground-up purely electric drivetrain. The new Mini Cooper SE is the brand’s first purely electric small car, with a range of between 235 and 270 kilometres (146 to 168 miles) and a fast-charing possible at up to 50 kW.

The Cooper SE can also manage zero to 60 acceleration in just over 7 seconds, and has an engine under the hood that’s capable of delivering the equivalent of up to 181 HP. You’ll get that instant acceleration which is a natural benefit of all-electric engines, and really a really quick jump off the line to 37 mph in just 3.9 seconds.

Of course, these performance numbers don’t match up to something like the Tesla Model S (or even the Model 3 for that matter) and the range likewise isn’t quite on par, which may be its biggest challenge. But the classic 3-door Mini Cooper design is a draw in itself, and the pricing on the vehicle is around $36,400 U.S. when converted from the 32,500 Euro starting cost, which could make it attractive for buyers at the entry-level of the luxury scale.

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Meanwhile, this is also the first electric car in the BMW Group family that offers the driver a choice between full regenerative breaking or light, meaning you can tweak how aggressively the vehicle decelerates when you take your foot off the gas. It’s another nice option for people switching from gas cars, or who just like to be able to tune performance as much as possible.

BMW Group says it’s going to start shipping these ASAP, and already has extensive interest from pre-registered customers.

You can get access to Uber’s controversial Quiet Ride button that lets you ask your driver for silence if you’ll pay a 20% to 40% premium atop the UberX price. Today the Uber Comfort tier launches in 43 cities and smaller states in the US plus Ottawa, offering those willing to pay the premium access to newer mid-size cars with more legroom, higher rated drivers, and Rider Preferences for requesting specific climate control or no talking.

Before users hail an Uber Comfort car, they can request “quiet preferred”, “happy to chat” or leave the default of “no preference”, as well as warmer or colder temperature settings. These Rider Preferences launched in May as part of Uber’s pricier Black and SUV cars alongside a way to request help with luggage, but now they’re becoming more affordable.

The move allows Uber to charge more for slightly better vehicles and higher-rated drivers that used to be lumped in with its budget UberX tier. This also lets Uber compensate drivers better if they’re willing to forgo the small talk or crank the air conditioning. “Uber Comfort should result in fares for drivers that are at least 20% higher than UberX (not including surge or promotions) for a trip with the same time and distance” an Uber spokesperson tells me. 

Some critics consider the Quiet Ride button an affront to the dignity of Uber’s contractors, saying it makes them act like robots when their jobs will soon be threatened by self-driving vehicles. But others just see it as enhanced customer service that’s reasonable to request given riders are paying for a driver’s professional services.

“The reception to Quiet Mode has been generally positive among drivers and riders” an Uber spokesperson tells me. “Riders appreciate the consistency and control they have over the type of their travel; business travelers in particular have shared how rider preferences have helped them be more productive en route to the airport, important meetings, or other work-related destinations. Drivers have shared how these new rider preferences have helped take the guesswork out of riders’ expectations, and helped them provide the best service possible.” They also noted that Quiet Mode is described in app as a “conversation preference” rather than a firm mandate to be silent.

To qualify for Uber Comfort, drivers need a car that meets higher and consistence vehicle make, model, year, and legroom requirements. They also must maintain a 4.85 or higher rating to be eligible. If these drivers don’t want to receive Rider Preferences requests, they can opt out of being classified as Comfort.

Uber Comfort is now available in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington DC, Atlanta, Austin, Baltimore, Boston, Charleston, Charlotte,  Dallas, Fresno, Hampton Roads, Houston, Honolulu, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Madison, Memphis, Milwaukee, Nashville, New Orleans, Omaha, Orange County, Palm Springs, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Portland, Raleigh-Durham, Richmond, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, San Diego, Seattle, St. Louis, Tampa Bay, Tucson, and Wichita plus Ottawa, Canada as well as the full states of Connecticut, New Jersey, and Rhode Island.

Here’s the breakdown of Uber’s tiers from cheapest to most expensive:

• Uber Express Pool – The least pricey shared rides where you have to walk a few blocks
• Uber Pool – Cheaper shared rides
• UberX – Private rides without extra Rider Preferences or better vehicles
• UberX Diamond – Better rated drivers and occasionally nicer cars but no Rider Preferences for top Uber Rewards loyalty members for no extra cost
• Uber Comfort – 20% to 40% more than UberX for Rider Preferences like Quiet Rides plus better rated drivers, nicer cars, and minimum legroom requirements
• Uber Select – Even more expensive for high-end cars but no Rider Preferences
• Uber Black & SUV – The highest price for Rider Preferences including luggage help and premium town cars or big vehicles

Back in December, I recommended Uber add a Quiet Ride option that can be nice if you’re trying to work or rest during your trip. Users told me it was awkward having to ask drivers mid-ride for quiet since some would become offended or even hostile.

That’s especially problematic for women, some who said their male drivers’ probing questions would escalate to unwanted flirtation. Uber needs to do better at training drivers that this is unacceptable and weed them out of the system. But the reactive approach of waiting for negative ratings to come in after drivers have annoyed passenger can be augmented by allowing riders to ask for quiet ahead of time.

Bringing Rider Preferences to a wider swath if its vehicles could help Uber differentiate itself from competitors like Lyft and squeeze more cash out of passengers by training them to use its upgraded tiers as it tries to maintain momentum in the public market. Two months after its IPO, it’s finally recovered and exceeded its opening price.