Ahead of the U.S. presidential election, Google says it’s taken a number of steps to improve the quality of information that it highlights across its various search and news products.
Google executives outlined these changes at an online press event today, as well as in a blog post. The biggest change seems to be in its policies around Autocomplete, the feature where Google suggests a search based on what you’ve typed so far.
The company says that it will now remove any Autocomplete predictions that seem to be endorse or oppose a candidate or a political party, or that make a claim about voting or the electoral process. That would mean eliminating predictions like “you can vote by phone,” “you can’t vote by phone” or anything suggesting that you donate to a party or candidate should be removed.
At the same time, Google emphasized that this only applies to Autocomplete. Users will still be able to search for information around voting or candidates — you just won’t see those queries automatically, and it become much harder for a candidate or party to use Autocomplete to drive users to make a desirable search.
David Graff, Google’s senior director of global policy and standards, said this is merely a new approach to the company’s existing policies, and “not so much a completely new policy or philosophical approach.”
He added, “We’re acutely aware that with this upcoming election … people have strong opinions and given the backdrop of COVID, there’s a lot of questions about voting information and how that might play out against the backdrop of the pandemic.”
Graff also described this as a “conservative” approach, one in which some innocuous suggestions will probably be eliminated so that Google doesn’t risk allowing misinformation around the election from sneaking in.
Pandu Nayak, who heads Google’s search quality team, also said this policy will leave the vast majority of Autocomplete suggestions “completely untouched.”
“They get an outsized discussion around them, of course, but they’re actually a very small fraction of Autocompletes,” he said.
The other changes and progress that Google is highlighting today the formation of an Intelligence Desk, a team of analysts that monitors the news and identifies “potential information threats”; the fact that Google can now identify breaking news moments in just a few minutes, compared to 40 minutes a few years ago; new programs designed to prevent vandalism on Wikipedia from sneaking onto the Knowledge Graph panels that appear alongside search results; and fact check labels in Google Images.
With touring ground to a halt for the foreseeable future, 2020 has become the most difficult year for musicians in recent memory. One’s ability to survive on music depends on a variety of factors, of course, including things like audience, reach and how their fans access their output.
The world of recorded music has been a mixed bag throughout the pandemic. New industry figures from the Recording Industry Association of America out this week show that revenue for recorded music is actually up for the first half of 2020, owing, unsurprisingly, to the growth of music streaming.
With vastly more people stuck inside seeking novel methods of entertainment, paid subscriptions (Spotify, Apple Music, et al.) are up 24% year-over-year. Revenues on streaming music are up 12% overall, hitting $2.4 billion for the first half of the year. The figured has been hampered by an overall drop in ad sales that certainly isn’t limited to the music industry. That has had a sizable impact on services like YouTube, Vevo and Spotify’s free tier.
Physical sales of CDs and vinyl took a massive hit to an already rocky foundation, down 23% for that time period. Streaming now makes up 85% of all revenue in the U.S., with physical sales only commanding 7% — just slightly higher than the 6% made by digital downloads. It’s a troubling figure, given the difficulty many more independent artists have faced in monetizing streaming.
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek faced backlash from the industry for comments surrounding streaming revenue. “There is a narrative fallacy here, combined with the fact that, obviously, some artists that used to do well in the past may not do well in this future landscape, where you can’t record music once every three to four years and think that’s going to be enough,” the executive said in a recent interview.
The comments came as many musicians have struggled to keep their heads above water during a sustained touring hiatus. They also come as the streaming service has continued to pump money into acquisitions in an attempt to build out its podcasting presence.
Two ride hailing drivers are taking India-based Ola to court in the Netherlands in another test case targeted at algorithmic management of gig workers.
The case, which is being supported by the App Drivers & Couriers Union (ADCU) union and others, is similar to one filed by drivers against Uber in July, also in a Netherlands court.
The drivers in both cases are asking for their personal data to be ported to their union’s data trust so it can be used for collective bargaining purposes. They say the companies haven’t provided all the requested data — and Uber, for example, has sought to suggest EU privacy rights prevent it from handing over more information.
Both cases reference European data access rights under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) — including protections for individuals who are subject to significant legal or equivalent effects as a result of wholly automated processing.
In the Ola challenge, the ADCU says the drivers received only partial data in response to requests for their information under GDPR — such as not receiving date-stamped GPS data.
Another complaint is the lack of ratings data at the trip level which they say Ola blocked — meaning they have no way to challenge unfair or discriminatory ratings.
The drivers argue “huge gaps” in the data provided reduces their ability to meaningfully analyse their own performance.
They also allege that Ola’s data protection policy suggests a high degree of driver surveillance and performance management at the same time as the company denies basic worker rights — as drivers are classified as self employed.
“Ola give tantalising detail on level of surveillance and control over workers. Fraud probability scores for drivers for example. Admit that performance factors go into dispatch decision,” an ADCU spokesperson told us.
Gig platforms in Europe have faced a number of legal challenges over the classification of workers as they have scaled in the region. These latest cases are interesting in how the plaintiffs are going after the platforms’ algorithmic management as a means of illustrating the degree of worker control.
In a press release announcing the suit, the ADCU points to a safety feature Ola introduced in London earlier this year known as ‘Guardian’ which the company says uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to analyze ‘millions of data points’ ‘in real time to automatically detect irregular trip activity’ — saying Ola has “provided no information on the driver personal data processed in such risk profiling despite disclosing that it calculates a ‘fraud probability score’ for each driver”.
The plaintiffs argue transparency that over such systems is essential — pointing to the potential for them to impact driver earnings. One of the drivers bringing the case reports having his pay docked after Ola’s algorithm deemed the trips ‘invalid’ (incorrectly, as he tells it).
When the driver tried to appeal, Ola told him the process is automated and has no manual intervention — asserting that the deductions were correct and could not be reversed.
Yet Article 22 of the GDPR affords EU data subjects the right to contest automated decision making with significant legal or similar effects on them — including the right to human review of a decision. So it’s another interesting test of the extent of legal protections provided by the regulation.
Commenting on the suit in a statement, Yaseen Aslam, president of ADCU said: “Ola could choose to use its technology for good to ensure drivers are well paid, protected and treated with dignity at work. Instead Ola has taken advantage of its position of platform power to exploit and impoverish its workforce. It’s time for drivers to take back control and build collective power. The first step is to demand access to their own data at work.”
We’ve reached out to Ola for comment on the challenge.
The plaintiffs say they will ask the district court in Amsterdam to make an order that Ola immediately comply with EU data protection law and be fined €2,000 for each day it does not do so.
They note that action has been taken in the Netherlands because Ola Netherlands BV, the corporate entity that controls the platform and driver data, is based in Amsterdam.
Twitter announced expanded efforts to fight misinformation ahead of the U.S. election — with at least a few hair-raising lines that throw November’s stakes into sharp relief.
The company is making a game plan for what happens if the results of the 2020 election are unclear or contested, with a handful of newly articulated policies set to go into effect next week on September 17.
Twitter now plans to either remove or attach a warning label to any claims of victory prior to election results being official. The policy change specifically mentions that it will take action on any tweets “inciting unlawful conduct to prevent a peaceful transfer of power or orderly succession” — a shocking phrase to read about an American election, but a relevant one nonetheless.
“We will not permit our service to be abused around civic processes, most importantly elections,” Twitter’s Safety team wrote. “Any attempt to do so — both foreign and domestic — will be met with strict enforcement of our rules, which are applied equally and judiciously for everyone.”
Plenty of President Trump’s critics have expressed fear that he might refuse to leave office if he loses in November, but so have the president’s former close allies. At a House Oversight Committee hearing last year, Trump’s own former attorney Michael Cohen expressed early concerns about that possible outcome.
“Given my experience working for President Trump, I fear that if he loses the election in 2020 that there will never be a peaceful transition of power,” Cohen said.
At a rally last month, Trump said that after winning another four years in office “we’ll go for another four years because they spied on my campaign,” saying that he should have a “redo.” While his supporters might read the statement as a joke, Trump’s critics see a president again testing the waters with an outrageous and undemocratic claim.
Twitter also said that it will remove or add a label to any tweets presenting false or misleading information about laws around civic processes, and the officials and institutions overseeing them. That rule could pertain to a wide swath of voting-related misinformation, including false claims around who can vote and what documents they need to show, if any.
The company will also act on any “disputed claims” that might cast doubt on voting, including “unverified information about election rigging, ballot tampering, vote tallying, or certification of election results.”
Social networks are keenly aware of the looming threats to democracy lurking in November’s election, even if they’re rarely able or willing to come out and name them. Gaming out possible nightmare scenarios is a worthwhile exercise for Twitter and other platforms as they gird themselves for a flood of misinformation from users, foreign campaigns and political figures alike come November.
TechCrunch is thrilled to announce the 20 companies pitching in Startup Battlefield. Over the next five days, founders from around the world will be connecting in remotely to pitch live on the virtual TechCrunch Disrupt 2020 stage. Our most competitive batch to-date, startups will be vying for $100,000 in equity-free prize money, the attention of tier-1 investors and global press.
The competition is stiff. The selected startups have undergone a rigorous application process, with a 2% acceptance rate. This year’s batch is exceptional. From green engine design to social networking video tools, GIS construction management to central American banking platforms for women, adaptive Sub-Saharan African transportation to healthcare affordability , these companies make ground breaking innovations in their verticals. Startups featured run the gamut – water conserving vertical farming in India, screen-less interfaces, security tech, multi-lingual adaptive children’s learning toys, and even 3-D printed rocket fuel.
Teams have trained for weeks with the Startup Battlefield team to hone their pitches, polish their live demos, and strengthen their business launch strategy. Monday through Thursday, startups will pitch live for six minutes followed by a six minute Q&A session with our expert judges. On Friday, the finalist companies selected will pitch again for the final Startup Battlefield round – this time with a new set of judges.
Startup Battlefield starts on Monday, September 14th at 10:30am Pacific Time, with Startup Battlefield moderator and TechCrunch Senior Writer Anthony Ha. To watch the live stream simply log in to TechCrunch.com. You can also gain access to the full Disrupt 2020 experience here.
Finals begin at 10:40am PT. Companies will be announced online Thursday night.
*As a part of Startup Alley, companies are eligible for the Wild Card. These are the companies selected for Wild Card and can compete in Startup Battlefield. They are selected only days before the event.
Eric Peckham is the creator of the Monetizing Media newsletter and podcast. He was previously TechCrunch’s media columnist.
In the first part of my outline on the company, I explained the scope of Unity’s multidimensional business, its R&D efforts and competitive positioning, and its grand vision for interactive 3D content across every industry.
In the conclusion, I’ll dig into Unity’s financials and how it is marketing its public listing before turning to discuss the bear and bull cases for its future.
Key data points from Unity’s S-1 filing
Revenue grew 42% year-over-year from $381 million in 2018 to $542 million in 2019 with operating losses of $130 million and $150 million respectively. It hit $351 million in revenue by June 30 this year. That pace suggests a 2020 total around $700-$750 million (+30% year-over-year).
The company has gross margins of about 79%, although costs are overwhelmingly centered in R&D and sales and marketing, which account for 47% and 32% of revenue, respectively.
The company has cumulatively lost $569 million up to this point, including a $163 million net loss in 2019.
The geographical source of Unity’s revenue in 2019 was:
34% EMEA
28% U.S.
21% APAC — excluding China
12% China
5% Americas — excluding U.S.
Unlike many other Western tech companies, Unity operates freely in China.
In Part 1, I explained each of Unity’s seven main revenue streams. During the first half of 2020, revenue by segment broke down to:
$216.9 million (62%) from Operate Solutions (products for managing and monetizing content), the “substantial majority” of which is from the ads business.
$101.8 million (29%) from Create Solutions (products and consulting for content creation), two-thirds of which is from Unity Pro subscriptions.
$32.7 million (9%) from Strategic Partnerships and Other (Unity Asset Store and Verified Solutions Partners).
The S-1 discloses that less than 10% of overall revenue is from “newer products and services, such as Vivox and deltaDNA” (referencing key 2019 acquisitions for its Operate segment).
Eric Peckham is the creator of the Monetizing Media newsletter and podcast. He was previously TechCrunch’s media columnist.
Last week, Unity Software Inc. filed to go public on the New York Stock Exchange, but the 16-year-old tech company is universally known within the gaming industry and largely unknown outside of it.
Unity has expanded beyond gaming, pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into a massive bet to become an underlying platform for humanity’s future in a world where interactive 3D media stretches from our entertainment experiences and consumer applications to office and manufacturing workflows.
Much of the reporting about Unity’s S-1 has mischaracterized the business. Unity is easily misunderstood because:
Most people who aren’t game developers don’t understand what a game engine does.
It has numerous revenue streams.
There’s only a partial business overlap between Unity and Epic Games, its closest competitor.
Last year, I wrote an in-depth guide to Unity’s founding and rise in popularity, interviewing more than 20 top executives in San Francisco and Copenhagen, plus many other professionals in the industry. In this two-part guide to get up to speed on the company, I’ll explain Unity’s business, where it is positioned in the market, what its R&D is focused on and how game engines are eating the world as they gain adoption across other industries.
In part two, I’ll analyze Unity’s financials, explain how the company has positioned itself in the S-1 to earn a higher valuation and outline both the bear and bull cases for its future.
For those in the gaming industry who are familiar with Unity, the S-1 might surprise you in a few regards. The Asset Store is a much smaller business that you might think, Unity is more of an enterprise software company than a self-service platform for indie devs and advertising solutions appear to make up the largest segment of Unity’s revenue.
Unity’s origin and core business is as a game engine, software that is similar to Adobe Photoshop, but used instead for editing games and creating interactive 3D content. Users import digital assets (often from Autodesk’s Maya) and add logic to guide each asset’s behavior, character interactions, physics, lighting and countless other factors that create fully interactive games. Creators then export the final product to one or more of the 20 platforms Unity supports, such as Apple iOS and Google Android, Xbox and Playstation, Oculus Quest and Microsoft HoloLens, etc.
In this regard, Unity is more comparable to Adobe and Autodesk — which both have integrations with Unity — than to game studios or publishers like Electronic Arts and Zynga.
What are Unity’s lines of business?
Since John Riccitiello took over as CEO from co-founder David Helgason in 2014, Unity has expanded beyond its game engine and has organized activities into two divisions: Create Solutions (i.e., tools for content creation) and Operate Solutions (i.e., tools for managing and monetizing content). There are seven noteworthy revenue streams overall:
Create Solutions (29% of H1 2020 revenue)
The Unity platform: The core game engine, which operates on a freemium subscription model. Individuals, small teams and students use it for free, whereas more established game studios and enterprises in other industries pay (via the Unity Plus, Unity Pro and Unity Enterprise premium tiers).
Engine extensions/add-ons: A growing portfolio of tools and extensions of the core engine purpose-built for specific industries and use cases. These include MARS for VR development, Reflect for architecture and construction use with BIM assets, Pixyz for importing CAD data, Cinemachine for virtual production of films and ArtEngine for automated art creation.
Professional services: Hands-on, specialized consulting for enterprise customers using Unity’s engine and other products, beefed up by its $55 million April acquisition of Finger Food Studios (a 200-person team that builds interactive media projects for corporate clients using Unity).
Aside from these three product categories, Unity is reporting another group of content creation offerings separately in the S-1 as “Strategic Partnerships & Other” (which accounts for further 9% of revenue):
Strategic Partnerships: Major tech companies pay Unity via a mix of structures (flat-fee, revenue-share and royalties) for Unity to create and maintain integrations with their software and/or hardware. Since Unity is the most popular platform to build games with, ensuring Unity integrates well with Oculus or with the Play Store is very important to Facebook and Google, respectively.
Unity Asset Store: Unity’s marketplace for artists and developers to buy and sell digital assets like a spooky forest or the physics to guide characters’ joint movements for use in their content so they don’t each have to create every single thing from scratch. It is commonly used, though larger game studios often use Asset Store assets just for initial prototyping of game ideas.
Operate Solutions (62% of H1 2020 revenue)
Advertising: Via the 2014 acquisition of Applifier, Unity launched an in-game advertising network for mobile games. This expanded substantially with the Unified Auction, a simultaneous auction that helps games get the highest bid from among potential advertisers. Unity is now one of the world’s largest mobile ad networks, serving 23 billion ads per month. Unity also has a dynamic monetization tool that makes real-time assessments of whether it is optimal to serve an ad, prompt an in-app purchase or do nothing to maximize each player’s lifetime value. While the Unity IAP feature enables developers to manage in-app purchases (IAP), Unity does not take a cut of IAP revenue at this time.
Live Services: A portfolio of cloud-based solutions for game developers to better manage and optimize their user acquisition, player matchmaking, server hosting and identification of bugs. This portfolio has primarily been assembled through acquisitions like Multiplay (cloud game server hosting and matchmaking), Vivox (cloud-hosted system for voice and text chat between players in games), and deltaDNA (player segmentation for campaigns to improve engagement, monetization and retention). Unity Simulate trains AI models in virtual recreations of the real world (or testing games for bugs). These are structured with usage-based pricing, with an initial amount of usage free.
Unity versus Unreal, versus others
Unity is compared most frequently to Epic Games, the company behind the other leading game engine, Unreal. Below is a quick overview of the products and services that differentiate each company. The cost of switching game engines is meaningful in that developers are typically specialized in one or the other and can take months to gain high proficiency in another, but some teams do vary the engine they use for different projects. Moving an existing game (or other project) over to a new game engine is a major undertaking that requires extensive rebuilding.
Epic Games
Epic has three main businesses: game development/publishing, the Epic Games Store and the Unreal Engine. Epic’s core is in developing its own games and the vast majority of Epic’s estimated $5.6 billion in 2018 revenue came from that (principally, from Fortnite). The Epic Games Store is a consumer-facing marketplace for gamers to purchase and download games; game developers pay Epic a 12.5% cut of their sales. In those two areas of business, Unity and Epic don’t compete. While much of the press about Unity’s IPO frames Epic’s current conflict with Apple as an opportunity for Unity, it is largely irrelevant. A court order blocked Apple from punishing iOS apps made with Unreal. Unity doesn’t have any of its own apps in the App Store and doesn’t have a consumer-facing store for games. It’s already the default choice of game engine for anyone building a game for iOS or Android, and it’s not feasible to switch the engine of an existing game, so Epic’s conflict does not create a new market opening.
Origins: Unreal was Epic’s proprietary engine that was licensed to other PC and console studios and became its own business as a result of its popularity. Unity launched as an engine for indie developers building Mac games (an underserved niche) and expanded to other emerging market segments considered irrelevant by the core gaming industry: small indie studios, mobile developers, and AR and VR games. Unity exploded in global popularity as the main engine for mobile games.
Programming language: Based in the C++ programming language, Unreal requires more extensive programming than Unity (which requires programming in C#) but enables more customization to achieve higher performance.
Core markets: Unreal is much more popular among PC and console game developers; it is oriented toward bigger, high-performance projects by professionals. That said, it is establishing itself firmly in AR and VR and proved with Fortnite it can take a AAA console and PC game cross-platform to mobile. Unity meanwhile dominates in mobile games — now the largest (and fastest-growing) segment of the gaming industry — and has kept the largest market share in AR and VR content.
Ease of authoring: Unity has prioritized ease of use since its early days, with a mission of democratizing game development that was so concentrated among large studios backed by substantial budgets. This is why Unity is the common choice in educational environments and by individuals and small teams creating casual mobile games. Making Unity easier to use, including among nondevelopers remains an R&D focus. Unreal does have a visual scripting tool to conduct some development without needing to code, but it’s far from a no-code solution to developing a high-quality game (no one offers that). Unreal isn’t dramatically more complex but, as a generalization, it requires more work and technical skill.
Pricing: While Unity operates on a freemium subscription model, Unreal operates on a revenue-share, taking 5% of a game’s revenue. Both have separately negotiated pricing for companies outside of gaming that aren’t publicly disclosed.
In-house game development: Aside from its first two years of existence operating out of a Copenhagen apartment, Unity has never focused on creating its own content (aside from short films and demos to highlight new technology). Epic argues that building games informs them to build a better engine that has been more heavily tested for bugs. Unity argues that creating games in-house would put it in competition with customers and that it builds a better engine for the overall market by focusing solely on that and not repurposing an engine built first for a specific use case (e.g., MMOs).
M&A: Like Unity, Epic has made acquisitions to strengthen Unreal’s technical offering to game developers and to industrial customers, like its purchases of Quixel (a library of 3D scanned real-world assets) and Twinmotion (for bringing BIM and CAD assets into an engine).
Proprietary engines
Many large gaming companies, especially in the PC and console categories, continue to use their own proprietary game engines built in-house. It is a large, ongoing investment to maintain a proprietary engine, which is why a growing number of these companies are switching to Unreal or Unity so they can focus more resources on content creation and tap into the large talent pools that already have mastery in each one.
Others
Other game engines to note are Cocos2D (an open-source framework by Chukong Technologies that has a particular following among mobile developers in China, Japan and South Korea), CryEngine by Crytek (popular for first-person shooters with high visual fidelity) and Amazon’s Lumberyard (which was built off CryEngine and doesn’t seem to have widespread adoption or command much respect among the developers and executives I’ve spoken to).
There are many niche game engines in the market since every studio needs to use one and those who build their own often license it if their games aren’t commercial successes or they see an underserved niche among studios creating similar games. That said, it’s become very tough to compete with the robust offerings of the industry standards — Unity and Unreal — and tough to recruit developers to work with a niche engine.
UGC platforms for creating and playing games like Roblox (or new entrants like Manticore’s Core and Facebook Horizon) don’t compete with Unity — at least for the foreseeable future — because they are dramatically simplified platforms for creating games within a closed ecosystem with much more limited monetization ability. The only game developers they will pull away from Unity are hobbyists on Unity’s free tier.
I’ve written extensively on how UGC-based game platforms are central to the next paradigm of s.ocial media, anchored within gaming-centric virtual worlds. But based on the overall gaming market growth and the diversity of game types, these platforms can continue to soar in popularity without being a competitive threat to the traditional studios who pay Unity for its engine, ad network, or cloud products
What’s at the forefront of Unity’s technical innovation?
DOTS
In recent years, Unity has been developing its “data-oriented technology stack,” or DOTS, gradually rolling it out in modules across the engine.
Unity’s engine centers on programming in C# code, which is easier to learn and more time-saving than C++ since it is a higher level programming language. Simplification comes with the trade-off of less ability to customize instruction by directly interacting with memory. C++, which is the standard for Unreal, enables that level of customization to achieve better performance but requires writing a lot more code and having more technical skill.
DOTS is an effort to not just resolve that discrepancy, but achieve dramatically faster performance. It makes use of the ability to add annotations to C# code to further customize the code’s instructions and automatically recompiles code written by humans to be optimized for how a computer carries out instructions. The standard programming languages in use by humans are all oriented around how humans think (object-oriented); Unity claims a proprietary breakthrough in understanding how to reorganize object-oriented code into data-oriented code (optimized for how computers think) so that when it is compiled into the lowest level languages that provide 1s-and-0s instructions to the __, it is orders of magnitude faster in processing the request. This level of efficiency should, on one hand, allow highly complex games and simulations with cutting-edge graphics to run quickly on GPU-enabled devices, while, on the other hand, allowing simpler games to be so small in file size they can run within messenger apps on the lowest quality smartphones and even on the screens of smart fridges.
Unity is bringing DOTS to different components of its engine one step at a time and users can opt whether to use DOTS for each component/step of their project. The company’s Megacity demo (below) shows DOTS enabling a sci-fi city with hundreds of thousands of assets rendered in real-time, from the blades spinning on the air conditioners in every apartment building to flying car traffic responding to the player’s movements.
[megacity demo]
Graphics
The forefront of graphics technology is in enabling real-time ray tracing (a lighting effect mimicking the real-life behavior of light reflecting off different surfaces) at a fast enough rendering speed so games and other interactive content can be photorealistic (i.e., you can’t tell it’s not the real world). It’s already possible to achieve this in certain contexts but takes substantial __ [processing power?] to render. Its initial use is for content that is not rendered in real-time, like films. Here are two videos from __ by Unity and Unreal, each demonstrating ray tracing that makes a digital version of a BMW look identical to video of a real car.
To support ray tracing and other cutting-edge graphics, Unity released its High Definition Render Pipeline in 2018. It gives developers more powerful graphics rendering for GPU devices to achieve high visual fidelity in console and PC games plus nongaming uses like industrial simulations. By comparison, its Universal Render Pipeline optimizes content for lower-end hardware like mobile phones.
Next-gen authoring
The Unity Labs team is focused on the next generation of authoring tools, particularly in an era of AR or VR headsets being widely adopted. One component of this is the vision for a future where nontechnical people could develop 3D content with Unity solely through hand gestures and voice commands. In 2016, Unity released an early concept video for this project (something I demo-ed at Unity headquarters in SF last year):
Game engines are eating the world
The term “game engine” limits the scope of what these platforms are already used for. They are interactive 3D engines used for practically any type of digital content you can imagine. The core engine is used for virtual production of films to autonomous vehicle training simulations to car configurators on auto websites to interactive renderings of new buildings.
Both Unity and Unreal have long been used outside gaming by people repurposing them and over the last three to five years have made expanding use of their engines in other industries a big priority. They are primarily focused on large- and mid-size companies in (1) architecture, engineering and construction, (2) automotive and heavy manufacturing, and (3) cinematic video.
In film, game engines are used for virtual production. The settings, whether animated or scanned from real-world environments, are set up as virtual environments like those of a video game where virtual characters interact and with human actors captured through sets surrounded by the virtual environments on screens. The director and VFX team can change the surroundings, the time of day, etc. in real-time to find the perfect shot.
Since assets can be imported from CAD, BIM and other formats, and since Unity gives you the ability to build a whole world and simulate changes in real-time (on a screen or in AR/VR), there are a vast scope of commercial uses for it. There are four main use cases for Unity’s engine beyond entertainment experiences:
Design and planning: Have teams work on interactive 3D models of their product simultaneously (in VR, AR or on screens) from offices around the world and attach metadata to every component about its materials, pricing, etc. The Hong Kong International airport used Unity to create a digital twin of the terminals connected to Internet of Things (IoT) data, informing them of passenger flow, maintenance issues and more in real-time.
Training, sales and marketing: Use interactive 3D content so staff or customers can engage with photorealistic renderings of industrial products, VR trainings for risky construction situations, online car configurators that render custom designs in real-time or an architect’s plan for new office space with every asset within the project filled with metadata and responsive to interaction, changes in lighting, etc.
Simulation: Generate training data for machine learning algorithms using virtual recreations of real-world environments (like for autonomous vehicles in San Francisco) and running thousands of instances in each batch. Unity Simulation customers include Google’s DeepMind.
Human machine interfaces (interactive screens): Create interactive displays for in-vehicle infotainment systems and AR heads up displays, as showcased by Unity’s 2018 collaboration with electric car startup Byton.
Unity’s ambitions beyond gaming ultimately touch every facet of life. In his 2015 internal memo in favor of acquiring Unity, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote “VR/AR will be the next major computing platform after mobile.”
Unity is currently in a powerful position as the key platform for developing VR/AR content and distributing it across different operating systems and devices. Zuckerberg saw Unity as the natural platform for building “key platform services” in the XR ecosystem like an “avatar/content marketplace and app distribution store” for this next paradigm.
If the company can maintain its position as the leading platform for building mixed-reality applications in the coming era I envision where mixed reality is our main digital tool, Unity’s IPO will help it build a solid foundation.
Glasses/sunglasses with built-in speakers have been a thing for a shockingly long time now. They’ve never been particularly popular, mind, but at the very least, they’re an interesting enough concept for companies to continue taking a sporadic stab at the category, whose primary appeal seems to be not being forced to purchase both glasses and headphones.
Bose may have put its AR ambitions on the back burner, but the company is still very much into the idea of sunglasses that play headphones. In fact, it’s back with three new models: the Tempo, Tenor and Soprano. The new additions follow the original Frames launched back in 2018.
Image Credits: Bose
The Tempo is the more premium of the trio, with a bulky temple/earpiece that also sports the charging port. The music is designed to fire toward the ear, while keeping it unobstructed, so you can hear the world around you. That’s good for alertness, obviously, but a mixed bag when it comes to actually, you know, being able to hear what the speakers are playing. Especially in an urban environment.
The Tenor and Tempo feature smaller 16mm speakers in each ear and a stated five hours of battery. They’re otherwise distinguished from one another based on size and design. There’s UV protection on all of the models. They’re available today, priced at $249.
Image Credits: Bose
Bose also announced two pairs of fully wireless earbuds. The more notable of the two are the QC Earbuds, which adopt the company’s flagship QuietComfort banner, owing to the company’s on-board noise canceling. Between that and the $279 price tag, the buds are positioned to take on the AirPods Pro and Sony’s own excellent noise-canceling models.
Image Credits: Bose
The simply named Sport Earbuds, meanwhile, are priced at $179 and feature a new locking mechanism to stay in place while working out. Both models are up for pre-order starting today and will begin shipping before the end of the month.
As any startup grows, getting new products out the door and securing that next round of funding are always top priorities.
But security, all too often, falls by the wayside. After all, why would you invest money in something that you hope never happens when you could be funneling cash back into the business?
Fostering a corporate culture that embraces cybersecurity best practices keeps customer data safe and your company’s reputation intact. But security isn’t something you can easily tack on later. It must be ingrained in your company’s culture, and it’s so much easier to start in the early days of your company than scrambling in the aftermath of a data breach.
But how do you get there?
At TechCrunch Early Stage, we asked Casey Ellis, founder, chairman and chief technology officer at Bugcrowd, to share his ideas for how startups can improve their security posture.
Bugcrowd helps companies dip into a huge pool of cybersecurity talent — including hackers and security researchers — to find vulnerabilities. By helping companies identify flaws, they can shore up their defenses before malicious hackers break in. Few know better than Ellis — who’s run Bugcrowd for close to a decade — which policies, procedures and protections companies have put in place to get there.
Alexa can now control your printer. Amazon today announced a new Alexa-enabled printing feature that lets Echo device owners use voice commands print out common items, like their Alexa to-do lists, recipes, weekly calendars, educational content for kids, and even some games, like Sudoku or crossword puzzles, mazes, and more.
The feature works with any second generation Echo device or newer and a number of IPP-enabled compatible printers from brands like HP, Brother, Canon, and Epson. (You can check if your printer works with the feature by saying “Alexa, discover my printer.”) Amazon says it will expand to more printers over time.
Some of the printable content comes from Alexa itself, like your to-do list or shopping list, for example — things that people still often want to have jotted down on a piece of paper.
But much of the content Alexa can now print comes from third-parties. Amazon worked with Alexa skill makers Allrecipes, Los Angeles Times, and JumpStart Academy, to enable printing of other documents like educational worksheets, puzzles, coloring pages, recipes, and more.
That means you can say things like “Alexa, print a crossword puzzle,” “Alexa, print a first grade addition worksheet,” or “Alexa, print a chicken recipe,” and more. A full list of commands is here.
Some of these voice commands may be more useful than others. Being able to print “last Sunday’s crossword,” then followed by “last Sunday’s crossword answers,” could be fun for those who no longer get a newspaper but miss the puzzles. However, asking Alexa to “print a salmon recipe” is something of a crapshoot. Most people want to choose a specific recipe, not waste paper and ink on a recipe suggestion.
For schoolkids, however, there are a few commands that could be worth using. Alexa can now be directed print out “graph paper” or “lined paper,” which saves you from having to buy a whole ream for a single exercise or when you run out of the paper you need. Homeschooling teachers and parents may also appreciate the ability to print math worksheets as a way to supplement their remote learning curriculum.
The Alexa Print feature can be enabled by voice or set up in the Alexa app by choosing “Add Devices” then selecting “Printer.”
Once connected, Alexa receives the information about your ink or toner supply levels and will remind you when supplies are low through email or voice. These notifications are on by default, but can be turned off in the Alexa app on the device’s Settings page under “Status.”
Alternately, Alexa owners can automatically order ink or toner from Amazon at a 10% discount if they set up smart reorders. This option will autoship supplies when they run low, but has to be first enabled in the Alexa app.
In other words, Alexa Print isn’t just about helping Echo owners easily print things, it’s also a way to generate additional e-commerce sales by tapping into the increased work-from-home and distance learning activity now taking place as the pandemic continues.
