Author: azeeadmin

A beta version of Apple’s latest mobile operating system is available to the public, Coinbase may go public and researchers discover a frightening smartwatch vulnerability. Here’s your Daily Crunch for July 9, 2020.

The big story: Apple releases public beta of iOS 14

Developers are no longer the only ones who can try out the newest version of Apple’s mobile operating system — beta versions of iOS 14 and iPadOS 14 are now available to the general public.

Romain Dillet has already been playing around with the new iOS, and he said the biggest change is a rethinking of the home screen, with widgets that can be stacked and flipped, along with an App Library that groups all the apps on your phone by category.

The tech giants

WhatsApp Business, now with 50M MAUs, adds QR codes and catalog sharing — The Facebook-owned messaging app is introducing new tools for businesses to connect digitally with their customers.

Apple says it’s ‘committed’ to supporting Thunderbolt on new Macs after Intel details latest version — “We remain committed to the future of Thunderbolt and will support it in Macs with Apple silicon,” Apple said.

Amazon’s Alexa heads Toni Reid and Rohit Prasad are coming to Disrupt — Two of the main executives behind Amazon’s leading smart assistant are coming to Disrupt 2020, which will run (virtually) from September 14 to 18.

Startups, funding and venture capital

Coinbase reported to consider late 2020, early 2021 public debut — The cryptocurrency exchange platform may be considering a direct listing instead of a traditional IPO, according to Reuters.

Kernel raises $53 million for its non-invasive ‘Neuroscience as a Service’ technology — The startup says it has created non-invasive technology for recording brain activity.

TikTok likes and views are broken as community worries over potential US ban — As of this afternoon, the company said a fix was in progress.

Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch

VCs are cutting checks remotely, but deal volume could be slowing — In a new survey from OMERS Ventures, 69% of VCs said they were willing to make a fully remote investment, but most of them haven’t actually done so.

As the pandemic drags on, interest in automation surges — Brian Heater looks at some of the ways COVID-19 may permanently alter the job market.

K Fund’s Jaime Novoa discusses early-stage firm’s focus on Spanish startups — The firm officially unveiled its €70 million second fund earlier this month.

(Reminder: Extra Crunch is our subscription membership program, which aims to democratize information about startups. You can sign up here.)

Everything else

Smartwatch hack could trick patients to ‘take pills’ with spoofed alerts — The vulnerabilities were found in SETracker, a cloud system that powers smartwatches and vehicles.

Coronavirus impact sends app downloads, usage and consumer spending to record highs in Q2 — Mobile app usage grew 40% year-over-year, according to App Annie.

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 3pm Pacific, you can subscribe here.

PC shipments had a rough first quarter for all of the same reasons as everything that isn’t a Clorox wipe or N95 mask. People just weren’t ready to drop a ton of money on a new device. The impact of COVID-19 was lessened slightly by IT departments and individuals adapting to the new remote working realty, but the numbers were far from ideal overall, due in no small part to issues with the supply, as the virus hit China and other parts of Asia.

According to numbers from Gartner, Q2 has seen the beginning of a rebound. It’s not a huge bump, mind, but at 2.8% year-over-year, it’s a notable increase after a rough first quarter. There are a couple of reasons for the growth here. First is the aforementioned interest in upgrading home setups for work and school. Second is from retailers, which have reopened in a number of locations and have begun to refill shelves after being cut off via the supply chain.

Lenovo stayed at the number one spot, with HP following close behind. The companies saw 4.2% and 17.1% increase in shipments, respectively. Dell, Apple and Acer rounded out the top five. All told, the U.S. market is up 3.5% for the quarter, as well. Mobile computers in particular saw the biggest growth, helping to curb some of the attrition among desktops.

Notably, Gartner believes the growth will only be temporary, so take the good news where you can get it, PC makers. “[T]his uptick in mobile PC demand will not continue beyond 2020, as shipments were mainly boosted by short-term business needs due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Gartner analyst Mikako Kitagawa says in the release.

PC shipments had a rough first quarter for all of the same reasons as everything that isn’t a Clorox wipe or N95 mask. People just weren’t ready to drop a ton of money on a new device. The impact of COVID-19 was lessened slightly by IT departments and individuals adapting to the new remote working realty, but the numbers were far from ideal overall, due in no small part to issues with the supply, as the virus hit China and other parts of Asia.

According to numbers from Gartner, Q2 has seen the beginning of a rebound. It’s not a huge bump, mind, but at 2.8% year-over-year, it’s a notable increase after a rough first quarter. There are a couple of reasons for the growth here. First is the aforementioned interest in upgrading home setups for work and school. Second is from retailers, which have reopened in a number of locations and have begun to refill shelves after being cut off via the supply chain.

Lenovo stayed at the number one spot, with HP following close behind. The companies saw 4.2% and 17.1% increase in shipments, respectively. Dell, Apple and Acer rounded out the top five. All told, the U.S. market is up 3.5% for the quarter, as well. Mobile computers in particular saw the biggest growth, helping to curb some of the attrition among desktops.

Notably, Gartner believes the growth will only be temporary, so take the good news where you can get it, PC makers. “[T]his uptick in mobile PC demand will not continue beyond 2020, as shipments were mainly boosted by short-term business needs due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Gartner analyst Mikako Kitagawa says in the release.

PC shipments had a rough first quarter for all of the same reasons as everything that isn’t a Clorox wipe or N95 mask. People just weren’t ready to drop a ton of money on a new device. The impact of COVID-19 was lessened slightly by IT departments and individuals adapting to the new remote working realty, but the numbers were far from ideal overall, due in no small part to issues with the supply, as the virus hit China and other parts of Asia.

According to numbers from Gartner, Q2 has seen the beginning of a rebound. It’s not a huge bump, mind, but at 2.8% year-over-year, it’s a notable increase after a rough first quarter. There are a couple of reasons for the growth here. First is the aforementioned interest in upgrading home setups for work and school. Second is from retailers, which have reopened in a number of locations and have begun to refill shelves after being cut off via the supply chain.

Lenovo stayed at the number one spot, with HP following close behind. The companies saw 4.2% and 17.1% increase in shipments, respectively. Dell, Apple and Acer rounded out the top five. All told, the U.S. market is up 3.5% for the quarter, as well. Mobile computers in particular saw the biggest growth, helping to curb some of the attrition among desktops.

Notably, Gartner believes the growth will only be temporary, so take the good news where you can get it, PC makers. “[T]his uptick in mobile PC demand will not continue beyond 2020, as shipments were mainly boosted by short-term business needs due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Gartner analyst Mikako Kitagawa says in the release.

In a statement issued this week, the U.S. Treasury Department notes that Amazon has agreed to pay $134,523 to settle potential liability over alleged sanctions violations. The charges specifically pertain to goods and services sent to people located in Crimea, Iran and Syria, which are covered by Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctions, between November 2011 and October 2018.

The Treasury Department also states that the retail giant failed to report “several hundred” transactions in a timely manner. The department adds:

Amazon also accepted and processed orders on its websites for persons located in or employed by the foreign missions of Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria. Additionally, Amazon accepted and processed orders from persons listed on OFAC’s List of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (the “SDN List”) who were blocked pursuant to the Narcotics Trafficking Sanctions Regulations, the Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferators Sanctions Regulations, the Transnational Criminal Organizations Sanctions Regulations, the Democratic Republic of the Congo Sanctions Regulations, the Venezuela Sanctions Regulations, the Zimbabwe Sanctions Regulations, the Global Terrorism Sanctions Regulations, and the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Sanctions Regulations.

The settlement is, of course, fairly insubstantial, compared to the massive market cap of the online retail giant. The transactions, were, however, for fairly low-level retail goods and services. In all, the violations only amounted to around double the settlement price of $134,523. 

The department doesn’t believe there was anything malicious going on, rather an issue with Amazon’s system, which failed to flag shipments to sanctioned areas. There appear to be a number of reasons this occurred. One example involves the site failing to note when product was shipped to the Iranian embassy in a different country.

Amazon opted not to offer a comment on the story, though the company notably self-disclosed what it believed to be potential violations of the aforementioned laws back in July of 2016. As The Wall Street Journal notes, a number of other tech giants have been hit with similar issues. Last year, Apple agreed to a $467,000 settlement for similar violations.

Harley-Davidson, the storied and struggling Milwaukee-based company that last year launched its first production electric motorcycle in an effort to reboot sales and appeal to a younger customer base, is cutting 700 jobs from its global operations. About 500 workers will be laid off before the end of the year, the company said Thursday.

The company’s CFO John Olin is also out, effective immediately. Harley-Davidson’s current VP Treasurer Darrell Thomas has taken over as interim CFO until a successor is appointed. “Significant changes are necessary, and we must move in new directions,” Harley Davidson Chairman, president and CEO Jochen Zeitz said in a statement.

Harley-Davidson has branded its job cuts and restructuring plan “The Rewire,” which Zeitz spoke about in the company’s first-quarter earnings call back in April. At the time, Zeitz said the company was still committed to its other strategic plan known as “More Roads” that aimed to make the manufacturer an accessible, global brand through marketing and dealership initiatives and a series of new products that included small displacement motorcycles for Asia markets and EVs starting with the LiveWire.

Still, Zeitz declared back in April it was time for a change.

“As a result of my observations and assessment, I’ve concluded that we need to take significant actions and rewire the company now in terms of priorities, execution, operating model and strategy to drive sustained profit and long-term growth,” he said in April. “We are calling it The Rewire. And it’s our playbook for the next few months, leading to a new five-year strategic plan, which we will share when visibility to the future returns.”

Visibility into the future has apparently returned, and in Harley-Davidson’s view it’s time to cut costs and possibly get back to its core products. Initial Rewire actions are expected to result in restructuring costs of about $42 million in second quarter of 2020, Harley-Davidson said in its announcement Thursday. The company plans to share a summary of The Rewire, including additional costs and expected savings, when it releases its Q2 results. The Rewire will set the foundation for a new 2021-2025 strategic plan which is expected to be shared in the fourth quarter.

Harley-Davidson has seen its sales drop in recent years in the U.S., its largest market as its core Baby Boomer customers have gotten older. The COVID-19 pandemic dampened sales further and the company has already cut back production, which resulted in dozens of job cuts last month at its factories in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. The push into EVs and products for Asian countries aimed to expand into new markets and breath new life into Harley-Davidson.

It’s unclear is how “The Rewire” might affect the company’s push into EVs. The LiveWire, which launched last fall, was supposed to lead a future line-up of EVs planned by Harley-Davidson — spanning motorcycles, bicycles and scooters. Harley-Davidson has not responded to a request for comment; TechCrunch will update the article if the company responds.

The statement from HD makes no specific mention of EVs. It only said the key elements of its restructuring plan was to enhance core strengths and better balance expansion into new spaces, prioritize the markets that matter, reset product launches and build up its accessories and merchandising businesses.

TikTok likes and views are broken for some unknown portion of the video app’s user base this afternoon. The impacted users are seeing a “zero” like count on TikTok posts, including their own and those of other app users, as well as “zero” views. The company has acknowledged the issue and says it’s working on a fix, but declined to explain what was causing the problem.

The TikTok Support account responded to the problem at 2:43 PM ET, noting it was working quickly to fix things, and then posted again at 3:35 PM ET to say a fix was in progress. The company said that users should soon see their app experience return to normal as the problem was resolved on the company’s end.

While typically an outage like this isn’t much cause for concern — online apps do break on occasion — the problem with TikTok comes at a time when the app is under fire in the U.S. for its ties to China. This week, reports emerged that the U.S. was considering banning TikTok and other Chinese-owned social media app, according to statements made by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. TikTok has already been banned in India for similar reasons.

Today, The Wall St. Journal reported that executives at TikTok parent ByteDance are considering changing the corporate structure of TikTok’s business or even establishing a headquarters for the company outside of China, in order to further distance TikTok from China.

The news has already concerned the TikTok community, who have begun fleeing to rival apps like Byte, Dubsmash, and Likee in the U.S., in order to be prepared for a possible ban.

Because of this possible ban, the issues around Like counts were seen by some users today as a signal that a ban was imminent. But that’s not yet the case.

Apple today announced its plans for a new, free resource aimed at helping educators of all skill levels gain the ability to teach both Swift and Xcode — the latest in Apple’s educational initiatives focused on encouraging more students to learn app development. On July 13, Apple will begin offering free online training to educators that will serve as an introduction to its Develop in Swift curriculum.

This curriculum has also been completely redesigned to meet students learning styles, based on user feedback, says Apple.

The new series will now include four books, “Develop in Swift Explorations,” “Develop in Swift AP CS Principles,” and “Develop in Swift Fundamentals,” all of which are available today. A fifth book, “Develop in Swift Data Collections,” will become available later this fall. All are available in Apple Books.

The curriculum is geared towards high school and higher education students and focuses on the open-source programming language Swift, designed by Apple, and using Xcode on the Mac.

For younger learners, grades 4 through 8, Apple’s Everyone Can Code curriculum instead uses puzzles and games to teach the building blocks of coding in Swift through the Swift Playgrounds app. This course is now being expanded, as well.

For all the students who have already completed the “Everyone Can Code Puzzles” book, they can now move on to a new book, “Everyone Can Code Adventures.” This book includes more advanced activities where students can practice building with Swift while also learning about important programming concepts.

The company says its intention with the new and expanded courses is to supplement the need for computer science instructors in the U.S., where there is often a need.

Apple noted that The Computer Science Teachers Association claims that fewer than 50% of all American high schools offer computer science classes today and many college students aren’t able to get into the computer science courses needed to graduate, due to a teacher shortage.

In addition, the courses are also being offered to parents, many of whom are now making the transition to become homeschool teachers amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Also for parents of homeschoolers, Apple added a new set of remote learning resources for ages 10 and up, including “A Quick Start to Code” with 10 coding challenges on iPad or Mac. Plus, there are resources on Apple’s Learning from Home website, launched this spring. The site includes on-demand videos and virtual conferences on remote learning, and options to schedule free one-on-one virtual coaching sessions, hosted by educators at Apple.

The long-term impacts of Apple’s push for increased coding education still remain to be seen. “Everyone Can Code” was only launched in 2016, for example, and the “Develop in Swift” curriculum arrived just last year. Combined, the programs today reach 9,000 schools and higher education institutions worldwide.

The idea that “everyone” can and should learn to code is still somewhat controversial. While many may be able to learn coding fundamentals, not everyone will enjoy coding or excel at it. Plus, people often turn to coding for the wrong reasons or get duped by coding bootcamps into thinking that a few weeks of training will have them sailing into six-figure careers with ease.

On the other hand, exposing more kids to coding concepts may help to uncover the potential talent and interest in programming that would have otherwise been overlooked. And that interest can then be nurtured by future courses and education as the child grows.

“Apple has worked alongside educators for 40 years, and we’re especially proud to see how Develop in Swift and Everyone Can Code have been instrumental in helping teachers and students make an impact in their communities,” said Susan Prescott, Apple’s vice president of Markets, Apps, and Services, in a statement. “We’ve seen community college students build food security apps for their campus and watched middle school educators host virtual coding clubs over summer break. As part of our commitment to help expand access to computer science education, we are thrilled to be adding a new professional learning course to help more educators, regardless of their experience, have the opportunity to learn coding and teach the next generation of developers and designers,” she added.

Funding for virtual reality startups has grown more sparse over the past couple years, as investors have grappled with extended timelines for mainstream adoption. Meanwhile, connected fitness has exploded, gaining attention amid shelter-in-place as companies like Peloton have seen huge user gains with Mirror recently selling to Lululemon for $500 million.

FitXR wants the virtual reality headset to become the next hot-seller in the connected fitness space.

The startup, which develops the popular VR exercise app BoxVR, tells TechCrunch it has just closed $7.5 million in Series A funding led by Hiro Capital. The funding was structured with $6.3 million in equity investment alongside a $1.2 million loan from Innovate UK, a UK government org. Other investors include Adam Draper’s BoostVC, Maveron and TenOneTen Ventures.

FitXR’s game BoxVR, has become one of the better-known purpose-built exercise apps available for VR devices. The boxing title adopts a Guitar Hero-esque interface influenced by Beat Saber but focuses on more physically-demanding movements like quick uppercuts and jabs. The startup sells the app, which is available in the Oculus Store, PlayStation Store and Steam, for $29.99, with additional content packs going for $9.99.

Working out in VR has slowly grown into a common use case for headsets thanks to the physical movement required for some of the more frantic titles. Beat Saber, which Facebook acquired last year for an undisclosed amount, was one of the first titles to fully realize the opportunity. Earlier this year, a16z-backed VR studio Within launched a subscription exercise app called Supernatural. Late last year, SF-based YUR raised $1.1M in pre-seed funding for their VR exercise software.

The virtual reality market has had a lot to gain from shelter-in-place, but supply chain problems with the industry’s top backer, Oculus, left VR studios with plenty of missed opportunities. All of Oculus’s headsets, including their $399 standalone Quest headset, have been sold out or in low-supply since the beginning of the year, a development that has negatively impacted the growth of an industry that is increasingly reliant on Facebook.

VR headset don’t have heart rate monitors or other fitness tracking capabilities, but VR developers do have access to plenty of motion data from how much and how quickly a user’s headset and controllers are moving. FitXR uses this data to calculate calories burned and lets users set personal goals for how many calories they’d like to burn in-app on a daily basis.

For now, FitXR’s products sits solely inside the VR headset, but as the company looks to scale its team of 20 further with this funding, the company’s leadership is teasing an interest in having its world grow beyond the headset.

“We look at our own usage of the product and we don’t think it should be constrained to virtual reality,” FitXR CEO Sam Cole told TechCrunch in an interview. “But I think the sticking point for us is that we believe the most fun way to work out is in a VR headset. And therefore the strong focus from us as a company is to continue to to build and innovate in that space.”

Funding for virtual reality startups has grown more sparse over the past couple years, as investors have grappled with extended timelines for mainstream adoption. Meanwhile, connected fitness has exploded, gaining attention amid shelter-in-place as companies like Peloton have seen huge user gains with Mirror recently selling to Lululemon for $500 million.

FitXR wants the virtual reality headset to become the next hot-seller in the connected fitness space.

The startup, which develops the popular VR exercise app BoxVR, tells TechCrunch it has just closed $7.5 million in Series A funding led by Hiro Capital. The funding was structured with $6.3 million in equity investment alongside a $1.2 million loan from Innovate UK, a UK government org. Other investors include Adam Draper’s BoostVC, Maveron and TenOneTen Ventures.

FitXR’s game BoxVR, has become one of the better-known purpose-built exercise apps available for VR devices. The boxing title adopts a Guitar Hero-esque interface influenced by Beat Saber but focuses on more physically-demanding movements like quick uppercuts and jabs. The startup sells the app, which is available in the Oculus Store, PlayStation Store and Steam, for $29.99, with additional content packs going for $9.99.

Working out in VR has slowly grown into a common use case for headsets thanks to the physical movement required for some of the more frantic titles. Beat Saber, which Facebook acquired last year for an undisclosed amount, was one of the first titles to fully realize the opportunity. Earlier this year, a16z-backed VR studio Within launched a subscription exercise app called Supernatural. Late last year, SF-based YUR raised $1.1M in pre-seed funding for their VR exercise software.

The virtual reality market has had a lot to gain from shelter-in-place, but supply chain problems with the industry’s top backer, Oculus, left VR studios with plenty of missed opportunities. All of Oculus’s headsets, including their $399 standalone Quest headset, have been sold out or in low-supply since the beginning of the year, a development that has negatively impacted the growth of an industry that is increasingly reliant on Facebook.

VR headset don’t have heart rate monitors or other fitness tracking capabilities, but VR developers do have access to plenty of motion data from how much and how quickly a user’s headset and controllers are moving. FitXR uses this data to calculate calories burned and lets users set personal goals for how many calories they’d like to burn in-app on a daily basis.

For now, FitXR’s products sits solely inside the VR headset, but as the company looks to scale its team of 20 further with this funding, the company’s leadership is teasing an interest in having its world grow beyond the headset.

“We look at our own usage of the product and we don’t think it should be constrained to virtual reality,” FitXR CEO Sam Cole told TechCrunch in an interview. “But I think the sticking point for us is that we believe the most fun way to work out is in a VR headset. And therefore the strong focus from us as a company is to continue to to build and innovate in that space.”