Year: 2021

Today, the release of OpenAI Codex, a new Al system that translates natural language to code, marks the beginning of a shift in how computer software is written.

Over the past few years, there’s been growing talk about “no code” platforms, but this is no new phenomenon. The reality is, ever since the first programmable devices, computer scientists have regularly developed breakthroughs in how we “code” computer software.

The first computers were programmed with switches or punch cards, until the keyboard was invented. Coding became a matter of typing numbers or machine language, until Grace Hopper invented the modern compiler and the COBOL language, ushering in decades of innovation in programming languages and platforms. Languages like Fortran, Pascal, C, Java and Python evolved in a progression, where the newest language (built using an older language) enabled programmers to “code” using increasingly more human language.

Alongside languages, we’ve seen the evolution of “no-code” platforms — including Microsoft Excel, the 1980s granddaddy of no-code — that empower people to program computers in a visual interface, whether in school or in the workplace. Anytime you write a formula in a spreadsheet, or when you drag a block of code on Code.org or Scratch, you’re programming, or “coding,” a computer. “No code” is code. Every decade, a breakthrough innovation makes it easier to write code so that the old way of coding is replaced by the new.

This brings us to today’s announcement. Today, OpenAl announced OpenAI Codex, an entirely new way to “write code” in the natural English language. A computer programmer can now use English to describe what they want their software to do, and OpenAl’s generative Al model will automatically generate the corresponding computer code, in your choice of programming language. This is what we’ve always wanted — for computers to understand what we want them to do, and then do it, without having to go through a complex intermediary like a programming language.

But this is not an end, it is a beginning. With Al-generated code, one can imagine an evolution in every programming tool, in every programming class, and a Cambrian explosion of new software. Does this mean coding is dead? No! It doesn’t replace the need for a programmer to understand code. It means coding just got much easier, higher impact and thus more important, just as when punch cards were replaced by keyboards, or when Grace Hopper invented the compiler.

In fact, the demand for software today is greater than ever and will only continue to grow. As this technology evolves, Al will play a greater role in generating code, which will multiply the productivity and impact of computer scientists, and will make this field accessible to more and more computer programmers.

There are already tools that let you program using only drag-and-drop, or to write code using your voice. Improvements in these technologies and new tools, like OpenAI Codex, will increasingly democratize the ability to create software. As a result, the amount of code — and the number of coders — in the world will increase.

This also means that learning how to program — in a new way — is more important than ever. Learning to code can unlock doors to opportunity and also help solve global problems. As it becomes easier and more accessible to create software, we should give every student in every school the fundamental knowledge to not only be a user of technology but also a creator.

In what has quickly become the busiest Unpacked of the virtual era, Samsung just dropped a new version of its wireless earbuds. The Galaxy Buds 2 add active noise canceling to the entry-level model, while retaining the $149 price point.

For those keeping track, the current Galaxy Buds offerings are Buds 2 ($149), Buds Live ($170) and Buds Pro ($200). The addition pretty clearly blurs the line between the first two. Asked for clarification on how the offerings now shake out, Samsung tells TechCrunch:

As our premium offering, the Galaxy Buds Pro leverage cutting-edge technology to deliver immersive audio, intelligent Active noise cancelling, and effortless connectivity. For those looking to show off their unique style, the Galaxy Buds Live combine high quality sound with an eye-catching design.

So, design and sound are the differentiators. The Buds Live were, of course, introduced during a time when ANC was more of an exception than a rule for nonpremium-priced earbuds, so I wouldn’t be too surprised to see them start to be phased out.

As I’ve said in the past, Samsung’s earbuds have always been quietly solid. They don’t get the love of Apple or Sony in that department, but the company has consistently produced solid buds, and I don’t see any reason to expect these will be any different. Of course, the Pros still sit at the high end, in terms of sound quality, 360 audio, etc.

Samsung says the new Buds are their smallest and lightest to date. Indeed, the Buds, the case and everything are quite compact (and surprisingly glossy!). They retain the familiar ovular shape that sits up against the wearer’s ear. They’re built specifically to pair with the company’s mobile devices, but you should be able to connect them to any Bluetooth device.

Image Credits: Brian Heater

Like the rest of today’s devices, the Buds 2 are now up for preorder and start shipping on August 26. Look for a review in the not too distant future.

Along with a surge in connected fitness funding, it seems that rowing machines are really having their moment. In April, Ergatta announced a $30 million raise, last month, CityRow announced a $12 million round for its studios and home machines, and today, Aviron is announcing a $4.5 million round. A rising tide and all that good stuff.

The round, which includes Samsung Next, Formic Ventures, GFC and Y Combinator, follows $750,000 in early-stage funding. As we noted in January, the Toronto-based startup spent much of the pandemic (understandably) pivoting from gym equipment to connected home fitness. As more people look to rowing as a full-body alternative to cycling that’s much kinder on your knees than running, the company’s looking to differentiate itself through gamification.

Image Credits: Aviron

“We’re going a lot harder on the gamification side of things,” founder and CEO Andy Hoang tells TechCrunch. “And that’s the biggest differentiator between, say, us and a Peloton or a Hydro. They focus almost exclusively on instructor-led classes, while we focus on these high-intensity races and fully animated games, where you’re shooting bugs or running away from zombies.”

Last month, however, Peloton announced plans to compete more directly on the game side of things, with plans to roll out in late-2021/early 2022. The first product is a Tron-esque racing game. “Peloton created Lanebreak to complement instructor-led classes with a fresh new experience for members, giving them more ways to stay engaged and motivated with their workouts,” the company wrote in a release last month. Aviron says it’s trying to add something deeper.

“What makes Aviron really different is we’re not gamifying the fitness experience by added new graphics or achievements to the end of your workout,” says Hoang. “What we’re doing is gaming the fitness experience. What makes games really fun and exciting isn’t the bells and whistles. It’s the characters, it’s the story, discovering new things and unlocking them.”

Image Credits: Aviron

The company has already begun to increase headcount. Last time we checked in, Aviron was at 10 full-time employees. The company has increased to 25, roughly half of whom are involved in its game development team.

“We’re constantly looking for people. Content is our focus, and we’re hiring the right people for marketing and branding,” adds Hoang. “We’re doing a whole new rebrand.”

Samsung’s watches have long been something of an anomaly. While the company embraced Wear OS (then Android Wear) in its earliest days with the massive Gear Live, the company quickly shifted to Tizen, an open-source operating system largely used by Samsung for wearables and smart TVs.

That’s no doubt been a kind of bugbear for Google, which has long struggled to crack a significant portion of the smartwatch market. Samsung, meanwhile, has had its share of success with its products while doing its own thing. But there’s always more market share to be grabbed.

Third-party apps have long been an issue for basically every smartwatch maker but Apple (it’s the main reason Fitbit bought Pebble, if you’ll recall), and clearly Samsung saw the opportunity in reigniting its partnership with Google. The deal — first mentioned at I/O and discussed more recently at MWC — is now seeing the light of day on the brand new Galaxy Watch 4 and Galaxy Watch 4 Classic.

Image Credits: Brian Heater

The companies refer to it as “the new Wear OS Powered by Samsung.” What that means, practically, is that Wear OS serves as the code base. Design and other elements of Tizen exist in here, but for all practical intents and purposes, it’s a custom built version of Google’s wearable operating system, which Samsung helped build out.

The company will stress that latter bit as an important bit of clarification — that it didn’t just slap a new coat of paint on the OS here. The company’s One UI Watch sits atop all of that, in a bid to create a unified user experience across Samsung’s mobile devices and wearable line.

Per a release:

Galaxy Watch 4 Series is also the first generation of smartwatches to feature Wear OS Powered by Samsung — a new platform that elevates every aspect of the smartwatch experience. Built by Samsung and Google, this cutting-edge platform lets you tap into an expansive ecosystem right from your wrist — with popular Google apps like Google Maps, and beloved Galaxy services, like Samsung Pay, SmartThings and Bixby. The new platform also includes support for leading third-party apps, like Adidas Running, Calm, Strava and Spotify.

In a blog post this morning, Google breaks down its end of the partnership thusly,

We’re taking what we’ve learned from Wear OS and Tizen to jointly build what smartwatch users need. Compared to previous Wear OS smartwatches, the Galaxy Watch4 features a 2.5x shorter set up experience, up to 40 hours of battery life, optimized performance with app launch times 30 percent faster than before and access to a huge ecosystem of apps and services.

And there are more ways to get more done from your wrist with Wear OS. We’re introducing more capabilities and a fresh new look based on Material You design language for Google Maps, Messages by Google and Google Pay apps as well as launching a YouTube Music app. There are also new apps and Tiles coming to Wear OS for quicker access to your favorites.

The software giant singles out turn-by-turn directions on Google Maps, the ability to download and listen to songs on YouTube Music and improved app discovery via Google Play. The news also finds Google Pay on Wear OS coming to 16 additional countries, including Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, Slovakia, Sweden, Taiwan, Ukraine and United Arab Emirates.

The other key focus on the line continues to be health — it’s the field on which all smartwatches are currently competing. The monitoring is built around a smaller version of the company’s BioActive Sensor, which measures optical heart rate, electrical heart (ECG) and Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis. The trio of sensors measure a bunch of different metrics, including blood pressure, AFib monitoring, blood oxygen and now body composition/BMI. So now, for better or worse, your watch will tell you your body fat percentage [post-pandemic grimace face emoji]. Says Samsung, “In about 15 seconds, your watch’s sensor will capture 2,400 data points.”

Image Credits: Brian Heater

Design is the primary distinction between the two models. The Galaxy Watch 4 is the thinner and lighter of the two — more in line with the Galaxy Watch Active. It sports a touch bezel, versus the Classic’s physical spinning bezel — arguably Samsung’s best innovation in the category.

Also, of note: Both models come in two sizes. That’s always been a bit of a sticking point for me on Samsung Watches. If your devices are large and only come in the one size, you’re essentially knocking out a sizable portion of your customer base right off the bat. The Watch 4 comes in 40mm and 44mm and the Classic is available in 42mm and 46mm. The models start at $250 and $350, respectively. Another $50 will get you LTE connectivity.

The watches go up for preorder today and start shipping on August 26. Preordering will get you a $50 Samsung Credit. The company is also launching a limited-edition Thom Browne version of the Classic in September, which will almost certainly cost an arm and/or leg.

Apple has settled its 2019 lawsuit with Corellium, a company that builds virtual iOS devices used by security researchers to find bugs in iPhones and other iOS devices, the Washington Post has reported. The terms of the settlement weren’t disclosed, but the agreement comes after Apple suffered a major court loss in the dispute in late 2020.

Corellium’s software allows users to run virtual iPhones on a computer browser, giving them deep access to iOS without the need for a physical device. In addition to accusing Corellium of infringing on its copyright, Apple said the company was selling its product indiscriminately, thereby compromising the platform’s security.

However, a judge dismissed the copyright claims, calling them “puzzling, if not disingenuous.” He wrote in his ruling that “the Court finds that Corellium has met its burden of establishing fair use,” adding that its use of iOS in that context was permissible.

Corellium started offering its platform to individual subscribers earlier this year, after previously only making it available to enterprise users. Each request for access is vetted individually so that it won’t fall into the wrong hands for malicious purposes, according to the company.

Editor’s note: This post originally appeared on Engadget.

China’s technology scene has been in the news for all the wrong reasons in recent months. In the wake of the scuttling of Ant Group’s IPO, the Chinese government has gone on a regulatory offensive against a host of technology companies. Edtech got hit. On-demand companies took incoming fire. Ride-hailing? Check. Gaming? You bet.

The result of the government fusillade against some of the best-known companies in China was falling share prices. The damage topped $1 trillion among just public Chinese companies listed abroad.

The Exchange explores startups, markets and money.

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What about startups in sectors that were reformed overnight? If their public comps are any indication, even more wealth was deleted in the recent wave of crackdowns.

The Exchange was curious about the impact of the Chinese government’s actions on the venture capital market. The Chinese startup economy has produced a number of world-leading companies. Tencent and Alibaba, yes, and even Baidu have become well-known for a reason. Could regulatory changes shake up the venture model that helped grow the country’s largest tech concerns?

After we checked in on the same question this Monday, SoftBank provided a partial answer, noting yesterday that it is pausing investments in China. The Japanese teleco, conglomerate and investing powerhouse has been deploying capital at a rapid pace in recent weeks. That will slow, at least in China. Here’s the WSJ:

The regulatory initiative in China has become so unpredictable and widespread that SoftBank and its funds are planning to hold off on investing much more there until the risks become clearer, [SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son] said at an earnings press conference in Tokyo.

Is SoftBank early to its decision to shake up its investing strategy, missing Chinese deals for some time? Or is it late? We secured data from PitchBook and Traxcn that paints a somewhat surprising picture of venture capital activity at least thus far in Q3 2021.

But first, a reminder of how well China’s venture capital market was performing as 2020 eased its way into 2021.

Before the shakeup

China had a reasonably good Q2 2021 despite the turmoil.

Sure, funding flowing into Chinese startups was down 18% compared to Q4 2020, per CB Insights, but that quarter had recorded an all-time high of $27.7 billion. With $22.8 billion raised, Q2 2021 still did better than every other quarter since Q2 2016 with the exception of Q2 2018, Q4 2020 and Q1 2021. Indeed, the ecosystem had started to cool down in late 2018 before picking up pace again at the end of 2020.

However, that’s only one way to look at the numbers. If you compare recent Chinese venture results with other regions, it underperformed. During Q2 2021, U.S. funding reached a new high of $70.4 billion, with places like Latin America, Canada and India also establishing new records.

This also means that China lost ground as to its share of global startup dealmaking, and the same goes for unicorn creation. According to Tech Buzz China’s summary of CB Insights data, the U.S. accounted for 132 unicorn births between January 1 and June 16, 2021, compared with just three in China.

Slightly falling quarterly venture capital totals and a notable decline in unicorn formation does not a startup winter make. So let’s look at what’s happened more recently.

So, what about Q3?

The thesis that there would be an instantly obvious slowdown in Chinese venture capital activity is not supported by the data we secured.

Samsung is set to introduce a whole bunch of new products, starting today at 7 AM PT/10 AM ET. I wrote a whole bunch of words about what to expect from the company’s latest Unpacked event. It’s a long list and a kind of return to the pre-pandemic days, back before companies started taking liberties by holding separate events for all their new products.

You can stream the proceedings here:

Here’s the short bulleted version, based on a deluge of leaks over the past several weeks and months:

• Galaxy Z Fold 3
• Galaxy Z Flip 3
• Galaxy Watch 4
• Galaxy Buds 2

Samsung has more or less confirmed the first three already. The company gave some substantial details on its forthcoming foldables. We’ve also heard a good deal about the new smartwatch — from a software standpoint, at least. Both Samsung and Google have been discussing their upcoming joint software platform.

More info on all of the above, soon. And perhaps even a surprise or two? Perhaps. We’ll be following along with the latest.

Trust wants to give smaller businesses the same advantages that large enterprises have when marketing on digital and social media platforms. It came out of beta with $9 million in seed funding from Lerer Hippeau, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Upfront Ventures and Upper90.

The Los Angeles-based company was started in 2019 by a group of five Snap alums working in various roles within Snap’s revenue product strategy business. They were building tools for businesses to fund success with digital marketing, but kept hearing from customers about the advantage big advertisers had over smaller ones — the ability to receive good payment terms, credit lines, as well as data and advice.

Aiming to flip the script on that, the group created Trust, which is a card and business community to help digital businesses navigate the ever-changing pricing models to market online, receive the same incentives larger advertisers get and make the best decision of where their marketing dollars will reach the furthest.

Trust dashboard

Trust does this in a few ways: Its card, built in partnership with Stripe, enables businesses to increase their buying power by up to 20 times and have 45 days to make payments on their marketing investments, CEO James Borow told TechCrunch. Then as part of its community, companies share knowledge of marketing buys and data insights typically reserved for larger advertisers. Users even receive news via their dashboard around their specific marketing strategy, he added.

“The ad platforms are a wall of gardens, and most people don’t know what is going on inside, so our customers work together to see what is going on,” Borow said.

The growth of e-commerce is pushing more digital marketing investments, providing opportunity for Trust to be a huge business, Borow said. E-commerce sales in the U.S. grew by 39% in the first quarter, while digital advertising spend is forecasted to increase 25% this year to $191 billion. Meanwhile, Google, Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter all recently reported rapid growth in their year-over-year advertising revenues, Borow said.

The new funding will go toward increasing the company’s headcount.

“We have active customers on the platform, so we wanted to ramp up hiring as soon as we went into general release,” he added. “We are leaving beta with 25 businesses and a few hundred on our waitlist.”

That list will soon grow. In addition to the funding round, Trust announced a strategic partnership with social shopping e-commerce platform Verishop. The company’s 3,500 merchants will receive priority access to the Trust card and community, Borow said.

Andrea Hippeau, partner at Lerer Hippeau, said she knew Borow from being an investor in his previous advertising company Shift, which was acquired by Brand Networks in 2015.

When Borow contacted Lerer about Trust, Hippeau said this was the kind of offering that would be applicable to the firm’s portfolio, which has many direct-to-consumer brands, and knew marketing was a huge pain point for them.

“Digital marketing is important to all brands, but it is also a black box that you put marketing dollars into, but don’t know what you get,” she said. “We hear this across our portfolio — they spend a lot of money on ad platforms, yet are treated like mom-and-pop companies in terms of credit. When in reality Casper is outspending other companies by five times. Trust understands how important marketing dollars are and gives them terms that are financially better.”

Impossible sent me a tube of its plant-based sausage to try ahead of today’s news. As an aside, the big box with several frozen packs inside was maybe not the most efficient way to send it, but I don’t know, maybe there’s no great way to send frozen foodstuffs. Someone feel free to disrupt that industry at your earliest convenience.

That said, I’ve got no complaints about the contents. I’ve tossed the sausage (Notsage? Fauxsage?) into a couple of pasta dishes and am currently defrosting what’s left for dinner tonight. As someone who hasn’t eaten pork or beef for probably a decade and a half, I’m probably not the best judge of how close they’ve come to the actual thing, but I dunno, it tasted pretty much what I remember sausage tasting like.

Image Credits: Impossible

The product is Impossible’s follow-up to its popular Burger, introduced earlier at a number of diners across the U.S. It’s also gone on sale at around 200 coffee shops around Hong Kong. Today, the company is announcing retail availability for the product, as it arrives in a number of major supermarket chains. The list includes, Kroger, Ralphs, King Soopers, Fred Meyer, Safeway, Albertsons, Wegmans, Stop & Shop, Hannaford, Giant Martin’s, Giant Food, Sprouts Farmers Market and Heinen’s.

The product is entirely plant-based and contains no cholesterol or trans fats, with nine grams of fat, including four grams of saturated fat per a 56 gram serving. That also includes seven grams of protein and zero grams of pigs. Impossible lists the number of pigs killed for food each year in the U.S., but I’ll save you that and just say…it’s a lot of pigs. Americans eat a lot of pigs.

Image Credits: Impossible

The product also uses 79% less water, 41% less land and emits significantly less greenhouse gas than pork production. I can also attest to the fact that it cooks quite well in a skillet.

Cart.com, a Houston-based company providing end-to-end e-commerce services, brought in its third funding round this year, this time a $98 million Series B round to bring its total funding to $143 million.

Oak HC/FT led the new round of funding and was joined by PayPal Ventures, Clearco, G9 Ventures, Mercury Fund, Valedor Partners and Arsenal Growth. Strategic investors in the Series B include HeyDay CEO Sebastian Rymarz and Casper CEO Philip Krim. This new round follows a $25 million Series A round, led by Mercury and Arsenal in July, and a $20 million seed round from Bearing Ventures.

Cart.com CEO Omair Tariq, who was previously an executive at Home Depot and COO of Blinds.com, co-founded the company in September 2020 with Jim Jacobson, former CEO of RTIC Outdoors.

Tariq told TechCrunch that the company provides software, services and infrastructure to small businesses so they can scale online. Cart.com is taking the best parts of selling direct-to-consumer on marketplaces like Amazon and Shopify to create value for brands. Tariq said he is pioneering the term “e-commerce-as-a-service” to bring together under one platform a suite of business tools like store software, marketing, fulfillment, payments and customer service.

“We see the power of having an interconnected platform,” Tariq said. “There also needs to be a hybrid between selling direct-to-consumer on Amazon and Shopify for companies that don’t have the money to pay for a percentage of their sales and receive no access to customers or data, and needing 20 different plug-ins that are not connected.”

Cart.com went after the new funding after seeing validation of its idea: brands coming to them wanting more products and services, which led to acquisitions. The company has acquired seven companies so far, including — AmeriCommerce, SpaceCraft Brands and, more recently, Dumont Project and Sauceda Industries. Tariq is planning for another three or four by the end of the year.

In addition, it received inbound interest from strategic investors, like Oak and PayPal, which Tariq said was going to enable the company “to be more successful faster.”

Allen Miller, principal at Oak HC/FT, said after spending time with Tariq to understand his vision about Cart.com’s software, payments and services, he felt that the company was doing something that didn’t exist in today’s commerce infrastructure.

He said that Cart.com is well positioned to help companies, like those with $1 million in sales, stay focused on growing the business while Cart.com stitches together all of the tools for them to operate in the background.

“It’s a unique offering to merchants that has a high value proposition,” Miller said. “The vision and drive that Omair and Jim have, along with an inspiring mission they want to achieve — to be brand-centric and help the next generation of merchants. These guys also have a good playbook on finding companies and teams to acquire, as well as handling the post M&A to have everyone on one platform.”

The new financing will enable Cart.com to further invest in technology development and to increase headcount by at least 15 times, with plans to go from fewer than two dozen employees to more than 300 team members by the end of the year. The company has nearly 70 jobs posted on its website for positions in engineering, technology, digital marketing and e-commerce. Tariq also expects half of the funds to go toward more acquisitions.

Cart.com currently serves over 2,000 e-commerce brands, including GNC, Haymaker Coffee, KeHE and Gravatiq, and processes more than $700 million in gross merchandise value per year. The company saw revenue increase 400% since the platform’s launch in November.

In addition, the company has nine fulfillment centers across the country, and is increasing its access to reach 80% of the U.S. population with two-day shipping, Tariq added.

“We are giving the power back to brands by giving them what they need to operate e-commerce,” he said. “There are still a few pieces to fill in so brands have a unified experience, but with us, they can add fulfilment, marketing or customer conversion tools with the click of a couple of buttons.”