Author: azeeadmin

LinkedIn’s China site looks and functions just like LinkedIn everywhere else, except now it asks users in the country to verify their identities through phone numbers.

The American company is requiring both new and existing users with a Chinese IP address to link mobile phone numbers to their accounts, TechCrunch noticed this week. LinkedIn had for months told its China-based users to provide mobile number details before sending them to the main page, but it had mercifully kept a little “Skip” button that let users avoid the fuss until at least last week.

“The real-name verification process for our LinkedIn China members is a legal requirement, which will also help improve the authenticity and credibility of online accounts,” a LinkedIn China spokesperson wrote back to TechCrunch in an email without addressing whether the process is new.

The spokesperson also links the policy to China’s burgeoning mobile industry: “Considering the growing popularity of mobile devices and mobile Internet, Chinese Internet users are adapted to registration with mobile phone numbers instead of email addresses. Almost all apps in the Chinese market are applying this trend to follow users’ habits.”

In a note visible to China-based users only, LinkedIn explains that its identity check is a response to local regulations:

In some countries, local laws require that we confirm your identity before letting you engage with our Services. You must provide a mobile number and confirm receipt of our text. This phone number will be associated with your account and is accessible from your settings. If you choose to change or delete your confirmed mobile number your ability to access our Services in certain countries (e.g. China) will be blocked until you once again confirm your identity.

The California-based social network for professionals is a rare existence in China, where most mainstream global tech services like Facebook and Google have long remained blocked. Exceptions happen when foreign players bend to local rules. Microsoft’s Bing is accessible in China by censoring search results. Google also reportedly mulled a censored search service to re-enter China, an attempt that outraged its staff, politicians and speech advocates.

LinkedIn, which launched in China back in 2014, also hires so-called “information auditors” to keep close tabs on what users say and share in its China realm, according to a job post the firm listed on a local recruiting site. Like Google, LinkedIn caught flack for censoring content.

Real identity

Digital anonymity came to an end in China — at least in theory — when the sweeping Cyberspace Law took effect in 2017. The rules, which are meant to police information on the web, ordered websites to verify users’ real identities before letting them comment or use other tools, though users can still post with their screen names.

Large platforms like messenger WeChat and Twitter -like Weibo reacted swiftly by running real-name checks on users. The staple practice is to collect mobile phone numbers, which became a form of ID after China introduced a policy in 2010 requiring all buyers, foreign or Chinese, to show a piece of identification when they obtain their 11-digit identifiers. Google’s rumored search engine for China also asked for users’ phone numbers, according to The Intercept, which would make it easier for the government to monitor people’s queries.

LinkedIn had been able to avoid the inevitable process for months. Perhaps the government had gone after the biggies first. After all, LinkedIn is only a fraction the size of its main rival in China. As of November, LinkedIn had 13 million monthly installs while its local peer Maimai had 95 monthly installs, data from iResearch shows. Both are dwarfed by WeChat’s more than 1 billion monthly active users.

As with other fledgling industries, laws often lag behind technological development, not to mention the enforcement thereof when the odds are against enterprises. Take ride-hailing for example. Unlicensed drivers and vehicles were still running on the roads two years after China legalized the sector. When the government steps up oversight recently, the market is hit by a shortage of drivers.

Clamping down

TechCrunch has come to understand that LinkedIn’s identity enforcement is linked to the latest wave of government crackdowns. “Slowly, the Chinese Communist Party has been pushing their collective thumbs down on, not only foreign internet companies but all internet companies. It just so happens that the recent political atmosphere is causing more scrutiny,” a source with insights into the matter told TechCrunch, asking not to be named.

Other websites are also indeed tightening controls over users. Many apps that previously allowed third-party logins from platforms like WeChat and Weibo also recently started collecting users’ phone numbers, several people who experienced the changes told TechCrunch.

Users can still get around LinkedIn’s real-name verification by switching on their virtual private network, known as VPN, that lets people surf the net from an overseas IP address and circumvent the Great Firewall, China’s internet censoring machinery. But the practice is becoming more challenging and the stakes are growing. By law, only government-approved providers can set up VPNs. In response to regulatory oversight, Apple pulled hundreds of VPN apps from its China App Store in 2017.

More recently, China’s telecoms regulator slapped a 1,000 yuan (around $146) fine on a man for accessing the “international net” through “illegal channels.” The case is one of the few known instances where individuals are punished for using VPNs, sending worrying signs to those jumping the Wall to surf the unfiltered world wide web.

An intriguing new startup is out from under the radar in Southeast Asia after BasisAI, a Singapore-based company, revealed itself this week. The startup disclosed a seed investment from two prestigious investors in the region and some impressive credentials to back it up.

Started by twin brothers Linus and Silvanus Lee and Liu Feng-Yuan — all Singapore nationals — the startup is, as the name suggests, focused on AI… but the exact scope of its business is not yet clear. In a phone interview with TechCrunch, the founders explained their goal is to work with enterprises to help scale data project and give artificial intelligence and machine learning increased accountability.

“We see a problem within a lot of enterprises with data, they are keen to scale and take their innovation and lab experiments into production and reality,” Silvanus Lee explained. “What we’re trying to tackle is to make AI scalable and accountable.”

That, Lee continued, is important for reasons include refining results produced by AI systems, explaining how AI products work to stakeholders and users, as well as of course allowing companies to operate systems at large scale. The initial focus is Singapore, a prime location for enterprises and corporates in Southeast Asia, the founders added.

That’s about all we know about the business so far, despite coming out of stealth mode a lot of information is being kept private, including the exact size of the team under wraps — we are assured, though, that it’s “lean.” The startup did confirm, however, that it raised a $6 million seed round from marquee investors Temasek, the Singapore sovereign fund, and Sequoia India, the branch of the U.S. firm that handles deals in India and Southeast Asia.

Lee said they spoke to a range of investors and chose these two for the strategic value they bring to the table, particularly in Singapore.

Those are indeed impressive backers — Temasek, in particular, isn’t known for doing seed stage investments — and that is likely down to the caliber of the founding team as much as their (mysterious) vision.

The Lee brothers are both Singaporeans returning home from Silicon Valley, where they worked with major tech firms. Silvanus spent 15 years in the Bay Area with Dropbox and then Uber, where he was a director of data science, and Linus spent six years at Twitter in California before relocating to Singapore in 2016 to lead the social media firm’s data science team in Asia Pacific.

Matched with those tenures at top tech firms, meanwhile, is Liu, who has spent significant time working within the Singapore government. That has included stints with the Land Transport Authority (LTA) and on the Ministry of Trade’s Advisory team before nearly five years with GovTech Singapore, an agency under the Prime Minister’s office.

It’s the kind of ‘dream ticket’ that you’d imagine Singapore has dreamed of: two students which cut their teeth in Silicon Valley matched with another who has been part of the country’s digital push. (And, hey, twins, too!)

Still, it remains to be seen exactly what the company will bring to market.

Silvanus told TechCrunch that BasisAI is a product-driven company — as opposed to an agency-like outfit that advises enterprises — and he revealed that it has customers piloting deployments and software right now.

“Now it feels like the right time to come back and see if we can contribute to the tech ecosystem,” he said. “There’s a lot of world-class talent here, more so than ever before, and we feel like the time is right now to build a really high caliber tech and engineering company.”

“We really want to help grow the ecosystem in Singapore,” Lee added.

Baidu made several big announcements about Apollo, its open-source autonomous vehicle technology platform, today at CES. The first is the launch of Apollo Enterprise for vehicles that will be put into mass production. The company claims that Apollo is already used by 130 partners around the world. One of its newest partners, Chinese electric vehicle startup WM Motors, plans to deploy level 3 autonomous vehicles by 2021.

Apollo Enterprise’s main product lines will include solutions for highway autonomous driving; autonomous valet parking; fully autonomous mini-buses; an intelligent map data service platform; and DuerOS (Baidu’s voice assistant) for cars.

Baidu also released Apollo 3.5, the latest version of its platform, which now supports “complex urban and suburban driving environments.” Apollo 3.5 is already used by customers including Udelv, an autonomous delivery van startup that recently partnered with Walmart to test grocery deliveries. Baidu says up to 100 self-driving vehicles based on Apollo 3.5 will be deployed in the San Francisco Bay Area and other regions in the United States.

In China, Baidu plans to launch 100 robo-taxis that will cover 130 miles of city roads in Changsha, the capital city of Hunan province. The robo-taxis will use Baidu’s V2X (i.e. vehicle-to-everything) technology, to enable them to communicate with road infrastructure, like traffic lights.

Southeast Asian ride-hailing challenger Go-Jek has expanded into three new markets as it bids to expand beyond its native Indonesia, but it is having major issues getting into a fourth.

The company — which rivals Grab, is valued at over $6 billion and is backed by the likes of Google and Tencent — this week suffered a blow in the Philippines where the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) denied its application to operate in the country, as Rappler reports.

The issue is pretty simple: Go-Jek’s Philippines-based business — an entity called Velox Technology Philippines — is majority owned by an overseas business. (Go-Jek’s own Singapore-based Velox South-East Asia Holdings.) That violates local law which stipulates that at least 60 percent of a company should be owned by Philippines individuals or entities.

That’s a pretty major roadblock which, for now, Go-Jek doesn’t appear to have much chance adhering to without major structural change. It remains unclear how the company failed to foresee this issue, but that’s another matter altogether.

“We continue to engage positively with the LTFRB and other government agencies, as we seek to provide a much needed transport solution for the people of the Philippines,” was all Go-Jek would say when asked for comment from TechCrunch .

Meanwhile, Grab, which bought out Uber’s local business last year, claims it is compliant. A Grab spokesperson said the company’s business in the Philippines is “majority local owned.”

The company declined to provide more details, including the identity of Grab’s Philippines-based owner.

Previously, Philippines law allowed ride-hailing services to operate as ‘telecommunications services’ but that changed last year.

This week’s ruling is a blow for Go-Jek, which has moved into Vietnam, Thailand and Singapore over the last six months following a protracted $1.5 billion funding round secured last year. Go-Jek is edging close to finalizing a new investment of $2 billion which TechCrunch understands will be used to offer additional services and expand its presence in those three expansion markets.

Grab, meanwhile, has raised over $2 billion from its ongoing Series H round which the company intends to extend to $5 billion, as TechCrunch reported last month. That’s primarily motivated by an impending investment from SoftBank’s Vision Fund but TechCrunch understands that Grab is keen to raise a significant war chest as part of its battle with Go-Jek.

Meituan Dianping, China’s largest on-demand food delivery company, announced today at CES that it has signed three new major partners for the development of its autonomous delivery open platform. They are Nvidia, Italian automotive design company Icona, and French automotive supplier Valeo.

This is the first time Meituan Dianping, which went public four months ago in Hong Kong, has attended CES, where it exhibited its Meituan Autonomous Delivery (MAD) platform. Valeo will provide engines and sensors for MAD’s autonomous delivery vehicles and Nvidia’s technology will be used in its research and development and trial operations, while Icona will serve as a design partner for robots and vehicles.

Launched last July in Beijing, after a four-month trial, MAD’s partners already include Uditech, Segway-GX, iDriverPlus, and Roadster. As an open platform, MAD’s partners have beeen able to work on their own autonomous delivery vehicles. As TechNode notes, however, most orders still rely on a human delivery driver for at least part of the journey. For example, autonomous vehicles, including drones and low- or high-speed delivery vehicles, might gather orders from different restaurants and bring them to a pick-up point for the driver, or collect multiple orders and complete deliveries in an office park or university.

In a statement, Meituan senior vice president Wang Puzhong said “With the surging demand for food deliveries in China, Meituan is leveraging its platform and scale advantages to apply autonomous delivery technologies in its operations. We would like to work together with our partners to integrate resources from all parties to drive the large-scale and commercial application of autonomous delivery in China and around the world.”

As it develops, MAD might give Meituan Dianping an edge over its main rival, Alibaba’s Ele.me, which began drone deliveries last year that it claimks will dramatically lower its delivery costs by only requiring drivers for 15 percent of the route.

Meituan Dianping said it is now conducting trial operations of autonomous delivery in “a dozen locations in China,” including Shougang Park and Raffles City in Beijing, Xiong’an New Area in Hebei, and Shenzhen’s Lenovo Building. In addition to food delivery, Meituan Dianping is China’s largest e-commerce platform for in-store dining and also owns bike-sharing platform Mobike. It says it had 382.3 million annual transacting users and 5.5 million annual active merchants as of the end of Q3 2018 and operates in 2,800 cities and counties in China.

Matrix India, one of India’s highest-profile tech VCs, is loading up for new deals after it announced a new $300 million fund for early stage investments.

This is the third fund for the Indian firm, which is associated with U.S-based Matrix Partners. Matrix India has backed over 60 startups to date, including Uber rival Ola, ambitious medical platform Practo, popular news aggregator DailyHunt and classifieds company Quikr. The plan is to continue on that road with the new fund, which was announced today but officially closed its commitments in December, according to an SEC filing in the U.S.

Matrix India has been fairly consistent with its capital. Its debut fund was an initial $150 million that was later increased $300 million, while the follow-up in 2011 came in at $300 million before being increased by $100 million following the departure of co-founding partner Rishi Navani.

No extensions are planned for round three, Avnish Bajaj — the firm’s founder and MD in India — told TechCrunch in an interview.

Bajaj said he doesn’t have concrete plans for how the capital will be spent, but he envisages 12-14 deals per year “with more bias given to seed” over Series A and B deals.

“We will continue to do early stage,” Tarun Davda, the second of Matrix India’s three MDs — explained. “We are traditional venture capital with more focus on consumer brands.”

But that’s a very founder-led approach for Matrix, which is entirely dependent on finding startups teams it can gel with and believe in.

“We get smart enough about a trend to found out whose smarter than us and pursuing it,” Bajaj explained. But “if we find a market we like but not excited by founding team, we’ll pass.”

If on board, however, Matrix helps out on a range of areas, including hiring — it has a four-person recruitment team in house — as well as in marketing and finance, if required. Bajaj said it tries to connect portfolio founders were it sees benefits, but he freely admits that many in India’s startup ecosystem are already connected and know each other so often don’t require assistance.

Opportunity in India

Looking at the market now, the firm’s three managing partners see cause for optimism following 2018, a year in which Indian startup founding rebounded and the country saw a range of exits, chiefly Walmart’s massive takeover of Flipkart.

Davda said that, in particular, the growth of 4G in India — which has been driven by the developer of ‘challenger telco’ Reliance Jio — has been a “game changer” for a number of the firm’s portfolio who have seen the total addressable market for their services widen massively, while average user engagements have increased, too.

Matrix India sees the growth in internet access (and quality of access) coupled with India’s growing middle class as key development drivers for internet companies and startups in the country generally.

“The scale of companies likely to be significantly larger,” Davda said, adding that the pace of growth is increasing, too.

All of these could mean that IPO exits may be on the horizon for India startups, potentially within the next 2-3 years, Bajaj said, but already exit opportunities are appearing and they don’t all need to involve a Walmart buying a Flipkart — the $16 billion, while generating huge returns, isn’t particularly repeatable for a market.

Bajaj points to acquisitive Indian category leaders — including the likes of Ola, Paytm and others — who have reached sufficient size and have looked to other India startups to build up their businesses or expand into verticals via deals.

“That’s the real story, you are starting to see liquidity into the exits markets [as domestic] companies are reaching a certain scale,” he said. “Three years from now, we’ll see 2018 as a point of time when things changed.”

A large part of that may also be the type of founders and the nature of startups in Indian in 2019.

“Today, we are seeing guys who have been part of startup ecosystem for a while, who worked at big unicorns and got excited about problems they are seeing there, start new companies,” said Mumbai-based Vikram Vaidyanathan, the firm’s third MD. “They can hit the ground running at a much faster pace.”

Depending on your portable power needs and propensity for lower-back pain, the Omni Ultimate is either a godsend or something wholly ridiculous. The new power pack from L.A.-based Omnicharge has certainly charged up its fans, however, having raised north of $1 million on Indiegogo — nearly 2,000 percent of its initial goal.

The Ultimate appears to live up to its name, with a 40,300 mAh battery that’s swappable, so you’re never out of juice. It’s got an AC outlet, two full-size USB ports, one USB-C and DC in/out.

It’s also, as you’d expect, a downright beast of thing and could probably serve as a weapon in a pinch. Fittingly, you probably won’t be able to take it on a plane with with you. It’s not cheap, either, at $350 for early backers and $399 for those who pick it up, standard retail. The extra batteries, meanwhile, run $150 a pop. It’s shipping now for early backers and could be a lifesaver for long outdoorsy trips.

The company’s also releasing a trio of far more portable OmniMobile chargers ranging from 3,000 to 26,800 mAh, the latter of which is the upper threshold for flights here in the States. There’s also a Pro mobile that sports Wireless charging. Those hit Indiegogo later this month and will start shipping in March.

OmniCharge is also bringing wireless and USB C to its flagship Omni 20 in mid-February.

People have been talking about foldable smartphones for years, but it’s finally happening. Chinese company Royole was showing off the FlexPai at CES in Las Vegas, and we got to play with it for a few minutes.

It’s hard to say if it’s a phone or a tablet as you can basically use it as a phone and a small tablet. Arguably, the tablet form factor is the most usable one. It’s a 7.8-inch device that runs Android.

When you fold the AMOLED display, there’s still a small gap between the two halves of the screen. But it’s also much smaller than the unfolded version. It’s a bulky phone, but it’s still much easier to store in a purse compared to a tablet.

You can already buy a developer version of the device if you live in the U.S. for around $1,300. It runs Android with a bunch of custom software features. If you fold the device, all your content moves to one part of the screen. It’s not a fluid experience, but it works.

It’s impressive to see that Royole managed to beat Samsung and other manufacturers to the market with this technology. Now, let’s see if Royole will sell its own devices, partner with other manufacturers or both. We have a video of the device coming up later this week.

Like many small companies at CES, most of Nura’s time this week will be spent in meetings behind closed doors. Among other things, the Australian startup seems confident that it will be in a lot more stores by the time it releases its second product in May of this year.

Distribution for the Nuraphones was limited — no surprise, really, for a young company. Nura managed to strike deals with some brick and mortars, including specialty stores like B8ta, but sales for its first product were mostly restricted to online channels. It’s a shame, really, for the sort of product one really needs to experience in order to really understand.

Still, the over-ear headphones did generate substantial buzz through word of mouth. And while the company doesn’t disclose sales figures, it told TechCrunch that just north of 100,000 calibrations have been performed with company’s app. How, precisely, that translates to sales is unclear, however, as some users opt to share their headphones with other, leading to multiple calibrations per device.

The company has no doubt learned about sales and manufacturing lot since those early days. When we first met with Nura during its Kickstarter phase, there were only four employees. Thanks to sales, crowdfunding and a $5 million Series A last year, however, the company has since grown to around 50 people, spread out throughout the world.

The forthcoming NuraLoop will also no doubt have a broader appeal. The company has dropped the bass-pumping ear cups here, in order to focus on the sound-adapting earbuds. The bluetooth headphones feature a tether than connects behind the wearer’s back.

In the middle is a magnetic module that plugs into the charging cable and can also be used to hardwire the device for better sound. The price will also be considerably lower. A rep for the company told me that it will be around half of the larger model.

Nura also tells me it’s committed to manufacturing its own product, going forward, in spite of early discussions around licensing the tech to third-parties.

“We already were getting [interest] with the Kickstarter prototypes,” cofounder and CTO Luke Campbell told TechCrunch. “There were some larger companies that were open to it. A licensing model is something we were looking at initially, because hardware is hard. We had people telling us not to do it. To be honest, that’s not something that excites me.”

If you’re tired of firing up Photoshop for lightweight image editing tasks, this little tool is good news for you. Called Remove.bg, it can clear out the background of an image in seconds, no lassoing or any other editing hassle required. Because it uses AI trained on images of people, Remove.bg only works on photos of humans for now, immediately separating subject from background and leaving your image clean and ready for whatever you plan to do with it.

While Remove.bg has attracted a bit of attention before, we noticed it this time around when Twitter user Matt Haughey tested it out on Gritty, everyone’s favorite ambiguously anthropomorphic leftist meme. And it worked! Gritty is people, too.

When we tested it out, we were impressed by its ability to account for pesky, feathery hair without making an image look jagged and amateurish. Even if you’ve been using it for ages, dealing with hair can be tricky and time consuming in Photoshop. Best to shave it off.

 According to Remove.bg’s website, the creators were similarly fed up with the time and resource intensive process of leveraging powerful image editing software for trivial editing tasks.  

“Initially we had plans to build an app that uses the generated transparent images as the basis for something else. Given the promising results we thought: Why not release the background removal algorithm as-is, as a tool for the many designers, photographers, artists and other people who regularly need to remove backgrounds from images? So that’s what we did.

Since the release of remove.bg we have received a lot of great feedback and we are currently making plans for the future of the tool. We don’t have definite announcements about this yet, the only thing that’s clear is: We want to keep offering the current service free of charge on a permanent basis.”

On the about page, its creators also reassure users that they aren’t training AI on images edited with the tool. That’s it, no catch, it just works. We need more things that just work.