Year: 2020

It was only a week ago that Google said it would hit pause on Chrome and Chrome OS releases “due to adjusted work schedules” in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Today, however, the company announced that it would resume releases — but with an adjusted schedule.

In the age of rapid-release schedules for browsers, the exact details of the new release schedules won’t actually matter all that much in practice.

I’m sure most Chrome users have no idea which version they are actually using. In case you do, though, the most noteworthy change here is that version 82 has been canceled. Version 80 is currently in the stable release channel, with version 81 in the beta channel. Around April 7, version 81 will become the stable version and then version 83 will launch a few weeks ahead of schedule in mid-May, while version 82 has gone the way of the dodo. You can find the detailed Chrome release schedule here.

In the end, the important news here is that Chrome and Chrome OS releases are back from their very short update hiatus. That, in and of itself, is a bit of a surprise given that Google’s update from last week made it seem like we were in for a longer pause and would only see security updates for a while.

Ads for face masks are still appearing on Facebook, Instagram and Google, according to a review of the platforms carried out by the Tech Transparency Project (TTP). This despite pledges by the platforms that they would stamp out ads which seek to profit from the coronavirus pandemic.

Facebook said on March 6 that it would temporarily ban commerce listings and advertisements for medical face masks, in an effort to combat price-gouging and misinformation during the COVID-19 crisis.

Google followed suit a few days later, saying it would temporarily ban all medical face mask ads “out of an abundance of caution”.

The risk of online misinformation exacerbating a global public health crisis has been front of mind for policymakers in many Western markets. Meanwhile front line medical staff continue to face shortages of vital personal protective equipment, such as N95 masks, as they battle rising rates of infection.

There has also been concern that online sellers are attempting to cash in on a public health crisis by price gouging and/or targeting Internet users with ads for substandard masks.

Early last week two democrat senators urged the US’ FTC to act, blasting Google for continuing to allow ads for face masks to be shown to Internet users.

A week later and ads are still circulating.

The TTP — a research project by the nonprofit Campaign for Accountability, a group which focuses on exposing misconduct and malfeasance in public life — reported finding web users still being targeted with face mask ads on Google this week.

It also conducted a review of Facebook and Instagram, and was able to find more than 130 pages on Facebook listing masks for sale, including some using the platform’s ecommerce tools. 

“One Facebook Page called ‘CoronaVirus Mask’ offers a ‘respiratory mask collection,’ with prices ranging from $32 to $37, and uses Facebook’s ‘Shop’ feature to display its merchandise and allow people to add purchases to their cart,” it writes in a blog post. “Facebook’s ‘check out on website’ button then directs users to complete the purchase on the seller’s website.”

“Facebook pages that use WhatsApp to establish contact with buyers are employing a tactic commonly used by wildlife and other traffickers, who often display goods on Facebook and then arrange the actual purchase through WhatsApp encrypted messages. The Facebook Page ‘Surgical Face Mask For Sale,’ for example, has a video showing boxes of medical masks and the seller’s WhatsApp number scrawled on a piece of paper,” it added.

“A visit to one of these Facebook pages often triggers recommendations for other pages selling face masks, a sign that the platform’s algorithms are actually amplifying the reach of these sketchy sellers. TTP, without logging into Facebook, went to the page for ‘Corona Mask Shop’ and was served up ‘Related Pages’ for ‘Corona Mask 247’ and ‘Corona MASK on sale.'”

TechCrunch conducted our own searches on Facebook today and while some obvious search terms returned no results a little tweaking of keywords choice and we were quickly able to find additional pages hawking face masks — such as the below example grabbed from a Facebook page calling itself ‘Face Mask Manufacturer’.

From this page Facebook’s algorithm then recommended more pages — with names like ‘Medical Masks’ and ‘Dispo mask for sale’ — which also appeared to be selling masks.

The TTP’s review also found mask ads circulating on Facebook-owned Instagram.

“One Instagram account for @coronavsmask reads, ‘Act now before it’s too late! GET your N95 Respiratory Face Mask NOW!’ It only has a single post but already counts over 6,300 followers,” it wrote. “An account created on March 14 called @handsanitizers_and_coronamask includes over a dozen posts offering such products.”

It also found “several” Instagram accounts that sell drugs had begun to incorporate medical face masks into their offerings.

At the time of writing Facebook had not responded to our request for comment on the findings.

In further searches the group was reproduced examples of Google’s third party advertising display network serving ads for face masks alongside news stories related to the coronavirus — an issue highlighted by Sen. Mark Warner in a tweet last week when he blasted the company for “still running ads for facemasks and other coronavirus scams”.

“The Facebook mask pages were searched and collected on March 17-18 using the terms “corona mask,” “N95,” and “surgical mask” in Facebook’s search function,” a TTP spokesman told us when asked for more info about its review. “Of the more than 130 pages identified, 43 were created in the month of March, more than a dozen of those just days before TTP ran the searches.”

“We don’t have the same level of data from Instagram/Google. Instagram’s search function does not lend itself to the same search ability; it doesn’t bring up a list of accounts based on a single term like Facebook’s search function does. With Google, our goal was to show examples of Google-served ads; those were identified in news stories on March 18,” he added.

We reached out to Google for comment on the findings and a spokesman told us the company has a dedicated task force that has removed “millions” of ads in the past week alone — which he said jad already led to a sharp decrease in face mask ads. But Google said “opportunistic advertisers” had been trying to run “an unprecedented number” of these ads on its platforms.

Here’s Google’s statement:

Since January, we’ve blocked ads for products that aim to capitalise on coronavirus, including a temporary ban on face mask ads. In the past few weeks, we’ve seen opportunistic advertisers try to run an unprecedented number of these ads on our platforms. We have a dedicated task force working to combat this issue and have removed millions of ads in the past week alone. We’re monitoring the situation closely and continue to make real-time adjustments to protect our users.

Google declined to specify how many people it has working to identify and remove mask ads, saying only that the taskforce is made up of members from its product, engineering, enforcement and policy teams — and that it’s been set up with coverage across time zones.

It also said the examples highlighted by TTP are already over a week old and do not reflect the impact of its newest enforcement measures.

The company told us it’s analysing both ad content and how they’re served to enhance its takedown capacity.

Airbnb says it will subsidize housing for 100,000 workers at the front lines of COVID-19 care, Groupon gets a new CEO and Stripe invests in a universal checkout startup. Here’s your Daily Crunch for March 26, 2020.

1. Airbnb to provide free or subsidized housing for 100,000 COVID-19 healthcare workers

Airbnb’s effort will work by allowing Hosts on its platform to opt-in to making their space available, with any fees that Airbnb would normally charge for using its platform waived for those who participate. The program will include new protocols around cleanliness that are designed to keep spaces safe for those workers who use it, and Airbnb will be working with the Red Cross, the International Rescue Committee, the International Medical Corps and other non-profit groups to help allocate space where it’s needed most.

Airbnb also has a fund established for those who want to provide monetary support, with 100 percent of all proceeds going to nonprofits working on COVID-19 relief.

2. Groupon axes CEO and COO as company looks to mount a recovery during a crisis

While plenty of tech stocks have seen their market caps dive in the past month, Groupon has taken a harder hit than most — the company’s share price has dropped more than 70 percent in the past five weeks.

3. Stripe leads $20M Series A into Fast, which is building a universal checkout service for e-commerce

Fast, per its name, wants to make logging in far quicker, and also wants to help you check out at online stores more simply and rapidly. In an interview with TechCrunch, CEO Domm Holland said he wants Fast “to be the intermediary for all consumer interactions,” which he broke down as a “fancy way of saying we want to give you one-click login, one-click payments, one-click data everywhere.”

4. Huawei announces the P40 and tries to stay relevant without Google

Last year, the U.S. government restricted U.S. firms from maintaining a business relationship with Huawei. Even though Huawei can only release Google-free phones, the company isn’t standing still and is releasing flagship phones at a normal pace.

5. The future of collectibles is digital

With an increase in digital adoption, a step-function innovation is emerging: digital collectibles. MakersPlace co-founder Ryoma Ito writes that the new medium is gaining in popularity. (Extra Crunch membership required.)

6. Plastiq raises $75M to help small businesses use credit cards more

When Eliot Buchanan tried to use his credit card to pay his Harvard tuition bill, the payment was rejected because the university said it doesn’t accept credit. Realizing the same problem exists for thousands of different transactions like board, rent and vendor payments, he launched Plastiq.

7. Meri Williams steps down as CTO of UK challenger bank Monzo

According to multiple sources, Meri Williams — who joined fast-growing fintech startup Monzo in September 2018 to much fanfare — announced internally that she was departing, saying that she wanted to voluntarily help with cost-cutting measures. (Williams had already cut back her involvement with Monzo and had been consulting for other tech companies.)

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here.

The Senate’s historic $2 trillion stimulus package will make history in one more way: by providing some financial assistance to gig workers.

Late last night, the Senate passed a $2 trillion stimulus bill in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of the bill, which makes its way to the House of Representatives for a vote this week, gig workers would be eligible to apply for unemployment benefits. Additionally, the bill would provide $600 per week in federal assistance for unemployed workers for up to four months.

This is good news for gig workers, who have been fighting for companies like Uber, Lyft and DoorDash to provide them with benefits. In California, there is already a law that would give gig workers benefits, but companies have so far chosen not to adhere to it. Even more, companies like Uber, Lyft, DoorDash and Instacart are backing a ballot initiative that would enable them to keep their workers as independent contractors. These companies’ rationale is that the gig worker protections law in California, which outlines what makes someone an employee versus an independent contractor, does not apply to their businesses.

Earlier this week, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi wrote a letter to President Donald Trump, asking him to include gig workers in the bill. Khosrowshahi also argued that there needs to be a third employment classification for gig workers that “would update our labor laws to remove the forced choice between flexibility and protection for millions of American workers.

“I am thankful that the U.S. Senate has ensured that drivers and delivery people—along with all independent workers—will qualify for expanded unemployment insurance under the bipartisan COVID-19 relief package passed today,” Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in a statement. “The 1.3 million Americans who drive and deliver with Uber are facing extraordinary economic challenges. Many are on the front lines of this crisis, keeping their communities moving and getting food to people sheltering indoors. Those who’ve lost the opportunity to earn need and deserve this support.”

What Khosrowshahi is saying about workers facing extraordinary economic challenges and being on the frontlines of the crisis is true, but it doesn’t take into account the fact that Uber could offer drivers and delivery workers benefits without the help of the U.S. government. In addition to unemployment benefits, gig workers have organized around better pay, disability insurance and the right to unionize.

The stimulus bill passed in a 96-0 unanimous vote after days of deliberation on the Senate floor. The cooperative vote signals the country’s dire need for financial help, as political leaders from both parties worked toward a quick, imperfect bill that would provide Americans and the broader economy quick relief rather than getting mired in a protracted political back-and-forth over the package’s details.

While speed is key to the effort’s success, some of the bill’s critics are wary of repeating mistakes made during the 2008 financial crisis, when a massive federal bailout package rescued big business and finance while average Americans struggled to recover for the next decade. Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders pressed that comparison Wednesday night on the Senate floor, though ultimately voted to approve the measure and move it over to the House.

On Wednesday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) signaled her own objections to the stimulus package. If the House isn’t able to unanimously agree to pass the legislation, lawmakers currently in their home states during recess could return to Washington to cast a recorded vote and hash out the bill’s remaining details.

“With the health risks of travel, there is no easy choice here,” Ocasio-Cortez told CNN. “But essential workers are showing up and putting their health at risk every day, and if the final text of a bill is set up to hurt them, it may be something we have to do.”

Until now, Duolingo‘s focus was always squarely on teaching languages, but today, the company launched Duolingo ABC, a free English literacy app for children ages 3 to 6. Originally, the company had planned on unveiling this app later in the year, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it decided to launch it early to help parents who are now suddenly finding themselves homeschooling their children.

The ad-free app is now available in the U.S., UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. It includes over 300 short lessons that teach basic reading and writing skills.

For now, the app is only available in English and on iOS, though Duolingo will likely add support for other platforms in the future.

“We created Duolingo ABC to tackle the global problem of illiteracy,” Duolingo founder and CEO Luis von Ahn said. “Teaching people how to read and write can change lives. By taking everything we know about how people learn languages, and how to keep learners motivated with gamification, we believe we can make a dent in global literacy rates.”

It’s interesting to see Duolingo branch out from its sole focus on those who want to learn new languages. ABC not only focuses on native speakers but also on a far younger audience than the rest of its courses. It’ll be interesting to see if this heralds a push into the wider education space for Duolingo or just a one-off app.

500 Startups is scrapping its cohort model for accelerating companies and moving to a rolling admissions process, the accelerator said during its latest demo day.

One of the progenitors of the accelerator model in the US along with Techstars and Y Combinator, 500 has been a cornerstone of the early-stage company building platform. The move to a rolling admissions mirrors an approach taken by other accelerator programs including MuckerLab, the wildly successful Los Angeles-based early stage program.

“Demo is changing the way it runs its accelerator to be rolling recruitment,” said Aaron Blumenthal, a 500 Startups venture partner. “It will be making investment decisions year round instead of twice a year. Demo Days will still happen twice a year, founders can pick which Demo Day they want to be a part of.”

Given the profusion of accelerator programs globally, the move to a rolling admissions schedule likely makes sense, giving entrepreneurs more flexibility around when and how they join.

The decision from 500 follows other significant changes from Y Combinator, which is moving to a virtual model for its own accelerator program — a decision influenced by the global response to the COVID-19 epidemic which has disrupted economies and threatened lives globally.

Blumenthal explained the switch in a blog post. Writing:

In a business where timing is everything, I realized the current accelerator model was serving an injustice to founders. That’s why shortly after I was put in charge of our flagship accelerator, I knew it was time to do exactly what we tell our founders to do every day—to innovate. So, after shepherding 26 batches of thousands of founders over the past 10 years, 500 is shaking things up.

We’re proud to announce that we’ve designed an entirely new platform that’s flexible and tailored to our founders’ timing and needs—not our own. Our goal is to move away from the one-size-fits-all approach of the past, and towards delivering relevant content, based on each founders’ growth stage and needs, precisely when they’re ready for it.

This new flexible approach reinforces our continued commitment to invest in founders from all over the world. We realize it’s not always feasible for every founder to move to San Francisco for four months at the drop of a hat, and we want to accommodate for that.

You can expect to see our new model in action in the near future. After we wrap up Batch 26’s Demo Day on March 26th, our accelerator applications will open indefinitely. We’ll begin accepting founders to our program on a continuous rolling basis, with more flexibility on start and end dates. That means no more application deadlines, and no more missing out on companies because the timing isn’t right. There will still be two demo days per year and plenty of opportunities to take advantage of the expertise the entire 500 community has to offer — all that changes is our flexibility to invest in companies and founders we believe in and their ability to join our programming when it’s the right time for them.

TechCrunch has covered 500’s current batch of startups here, and will have a post up shortly about our favorites from its demo day.

In a Twitter thread on Tuesday, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, outlined an 8-step plan to keep people safe, find treatments and a vaccine for the COVID-19 virus, while working to find a way to get people back to work safely. He also asked that all CEOs take “a 90 day “no lay off” pledge” to help everyone get through the crisis.

The same day, he posted another tweet pledging to not make any “significant” layoffs for 90 days.” When TechCrunch asked Salesforce to comment on the difference between the two tweets, the company chose not to comment any further on the matter and let the tweets stand on their own.

It sounds like Benioff’s second tweet, which also asked employees to consider paying their own hourly workers like housekeepers and dog walkers throughout the layoff period whether they were working or not, was designed to give the CEO some wiggle room for at least some layoffs.

Salesforce has almost 50,000 employees worldwide. Even if the company were to lay off just 1% of employees it would equal 500 people without jobs, though it’s not clear if that would count as “significant.” Perhaps more likely, the company might make some cuts to staff for performance or HR-related reasons, but not broad cuts, and thus make both of its CEO’s claims essentially true.

Salesforce is a wildly successful company. It celebrated its 20th anniversary last fall and has grown from pesky startup to a software behemoth with a projected revenue of over $20 billion for FY2021. It’s currently got almost $8 billion in cash-and-equivalents-on-hand. Certainly companies who use Salesforce’s products will continue to need them, even with the workforce at home.

While it could have an impact on that projection for FY2021 and its ability to land new customers this quarter, it seems like it has the money and revenue to ride out the situation for the short term without making any moves to reduce headcount at this critical time.

Companies around the world are shifting production lines and business models to address the needs of governments and healthcare agencies in their efforts to slow the spread of COVID-19. Two companies answering that call are Dyson and Gtech, both of which are working on ventilator hardware, leveraging their experience building vacuums and other motor-driven airflow gadgets to spin up new designs and get them validated and produced as quickly as possible.

Dyson, the globally-recognized appliance maker, is working with The Technology Partnership (TTP) on a brand new ventilator design called the CoVent. This design is meant to be made quickly at at high volumes, and leverages Dyson’s existing Digital Motor design, as well as the company’s air purification products, to deliver safe and consistent ventilation for COVID-19 patients, according to an internal email from founder James Dyson to Dyson employees and provided to TechCrunch.

Dyson was reacting to a request from UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson for ventilator supplies, and intends to first fulfil an order of 10,000 units o the UK Government. Its ventilator still needs to be tested and its production process approved by the government and the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (the MHRA, its FDA equivalent), but Dyson says in the email that “the race is now on to get it into production.” The company notes that experts from both the UK’s national healthcare agency and the MHRA have been involved throughout its design process, which should help expedite approvals.

The CoVent meets the specifications set out by clinicians for ventilator hardware, and is both bed-mounted and portable with a battery power supply, for flexible us across a variety of settings, including during patient transportation. Because it uses a lightly modified version Dyson’s existing Digital Motor design, the company says that the fan units needed for its production are “available in very high volume.”

“I am proud of what Dyson engineers and our partners at TTP have achieved. I am eager to see this new device in production and in hospitals as soon as possible,” Dyson wrote in his email. “This is clearly a time of grave international crisis, I will therefore donate 5,000 units to the international effort, 1,000 of which will go to the United Kingdom.”

Meanwhile, Gtech, another UK home appliance and vacuum maker, has likewise done what it can to answer the government’s call for ventilator hardware. The company’s owner Nick Grey said that it received a request to build up to 30,000 ventilators in just a two-week span, which promoted them to quickly set about figuring out what went into the design of this medical hardware.

Gtech’s team developed a ventilator that can be made from parts easily made from abundant stock materials, or off-the-shelf pre-assembled parts. The company says that it can spin up production of around 100 per day within a week or two, so long as it can source steel fabrication and CNC machining suppliers.

In addition to its own production capacity, Gtech is making its ventilator designs available for free to the broader community in order to ramp production. The company says that “there’s no reason why thousands of emergency ventilators can’t be made each day” in this way, according to an interview with Grey and CTV News. Like the Dyson model, Gtech’s design will need assessment and certification from the UK government and regulators before they can be put into use.

Target is pausing its plans to offer curbside pick-up of groceries and alcoholic beverages, citing the COVID-19 outbreak as the key factor in its decision to delay the launch. Although groceries via Order Pickup and Drive Up would be valuable services at a time when people are being asked to distance themselves from others to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus, Target says it won’t have time to train employees on these new processes right now.

Like many retailers and grocers, Target is impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak, which is significantly changing the way people shop. People are more likely to buy in bulk to minimize trips to the store. And many are panic-buying critical supplies, like toilet paper. Target says it’s seen a sustained surge in both traffic and sales, particularly in food and beverage and other household essentials, like cleaning supplies and baby products. Other categories, including apparel and accessories, have slowed.

The launch of any new system or process takes time to adjust to, even when there’s ample time to train. But Target staff today is working at increased levels — its March sales are 20% higher than March of last year, as a  point of comparison.

Like everywhere, Target also faces staffing concerns as people scramble to figure out childcare when schools are closed. It will have to reassess employee schedules on the fly, as staff leaves unexpectedly when they or a family member gets sick. There have also been a small number of cases where Target employees themselves have tested positive for the virus. And as the outbreak spreads, more will likely be exposed, given their continual contact with the public.

To address these concerns, Target is cleaning its stores regularly, promoting social distancing, wiping down carts, adding signage to guide guests, cleaning checklanes after each transaction, and more. It’s also stopping in-store returns for three weeks, but will honor later returns when the ban is lifted, as a result. And it’s pausing its small-format store openings and remodels planned for this year — shifting those to 2021, given the chaos around its business today.

To assist employees, Target announced that it’s investing more than $300 million in added wages, a new paid leave program, bonus payouts and relief fund contributions.

Though Target won’t roll out curbside fresh grocery pickup now, it continues to operate the grocery delivery business Shipt. This and other grocery delivery services are booming due to the outbreak. Instacart this week said it was hiring 300,000 more full-service shoppers due to coronavirus. Walmart, CVS, Amazon, and other U.S. employers are hiring more than 800,000 new workers due to the COVID-19 impacts.

Microsoft today announced that it has acquired Affirmed Networks, a company that specializes in fully virtualized, cloud-native networking solutions for telecom operators.

With its focus on 5G and edge computing, Affirmed looks like the ideal acquisition target for a large cloud provider looking to get deeper into the telco business. According to Crunchbase, Affirmed had raised a total of $155 million before this acquisition and the company’s over 100 enterprise customers include the likes of AT&T, Orange, Vodafone, Telus, Turkcell and STC.

“As we’ve seen with other technology transformations, we believe that software can play an important role in helping advance 5G and deliver new network solutions that offer step-change advancements in speed, cost and security,” writes Yousef Khalidi, Microsoft’s corporate vice president for Azure Networking. “There is a significant opportunity for both incumbents and new players across the industry to innovate, collaborate and create new markets, serving the networking and edge computing needs of our mutual customers.”

With its customer base, Affirmed gives Microsoft another entry point into the telecom industry. Previously, the telcos would often build their own data centers and stuff it with costly proprietary hardware (and the software to manage it). But thanks to today’s virtualization technologies, the large cloud platforms are now able to offer the same capabilities and reliability without any of the cost. And unsurprisingly, a new technology like 5G with its promise of new and expanded markets makes for a good moment to push forward with these new technologies.

Google recently made some moves in this direction with its Anthos for Telecom and Global Mobile Edge Cloud, too. Chances are, we will see all of the large cloud providers continue to go after this market in the coming months.

In a somewhat odd move, only yesterday Affirmed announced a new CEO and President, Anand Krishnamurthy. It’s not often that we see these kinds of executive moves hours before a company announces its acquisition.

The announcement doesn’t feature a single hint at today’s news and includes all of the usual cliches we’ve come to expect from a press release that announces a new CEO. “We are thankful to Hassan for his vision and commitment in guiding the company through this extraordinary journey and positioning us for tremendous success in the future,” Krishnamurthy wrote at the time. “It is my honor to lead Affirmed as we continue to drive this incredible transformation in our industry.”

We asked Affirmed for some more background about this and will update this post once we hear more.