Author: azeeadmin

Non-tracking search engine DuckDuckGo has denied a claim made in a forum post suggesting it’s using browser fingerprinting as “absolutely false”. The post has been shared on social medium by some security professionals.

Browser fingerprinting is a common but controversial technique. Many websites — and their advertisers — try to track you by collecting as much information about your browser, including its plugins and extensions, and your device, such as its make, model, and screen resolution, to create a “fingerprint” that’s unique to you.

That fingerprint is used to track you across websites to figure out which sites you visit — and which targeted ads to serve up.

No wonder some users were surprised.. We checked the site using CanvasBlocker, a popular privacy extension used to block trackers from fingerprinting your browser, and obtained the following readout:

(Screenshot: TechCrunch)

DDG has carved out a small but growing space for itself in the search market as a pro-privacy Google alternative by saying it does not track or profile users — but instead displays ads based on basic keyword search.

If it was using browser fingerprinting to track users, that would very clearly go against long-stated non-tracking principles.

But founder and CEO Gabe Weinberg assures us it is not, saying this is a case of a false positive.

He told TechCrunch: “Fingerprinting-detection libraries unfortunately create false positives because they don’t anticipate good actors using some browser APIs for non-nefarious purposes for which they were designed. We know this not only because we’re falsely identified here (and have been elsewhere) but because we are building this type of detection into our mobile app and browser extension and don’t similarly want to make false claims.”

Asked which browser APIs might be triggering the flag Weinberg said DDG uses getBoundingClientRect() to “determine size of browser and how to layout the page”, adding: “I think that is the one that set this one off in particular.”

CanvasBlocker’s default setting is to not block fingerprinting but to return “fake readouts,” which returns a new random value each time a website tries to fingerprint. In this case, it seems that the site’s browser resizing code was triggering the plugin.

The company’s head of search, Brian Stoner, has also responded to the forum claim via Reddit, writing: “We are absolutely NOT doing any fingerprinting whatsoever. Please see our privacy policy, it’s pretty clear on this: ‘We don’t collect or share personal information’.”

“We use a variety of browser API’s to deliver a search experience that is competitive with Google’s. Many “fingerprint” protection extensions take a scorched earth approach, blocking any browser API that could be exploited by a bad actor.”

DuckDuckGo said late last year that it’s now processing 30 million daily searches, up by more than 50 percent year-over-year.

Motorola Solutions, which split off from Motorola Mobility back in 2011, has added a new license plate capture tool to it law enforcement suite with the acquisition of VaaS International Holdings today for $445 million in cash and equity.

The acquisition should help enhance the company’s set of law enforcement products. “Within the public safety space [Motorola Solutions] provides an end-to-end suite that police departments can use. From radios to video analytics to the software the dispatch centers use to take in and respond to 911 calls, making sure all of the moving parts are integrated,” a company spokesperson explained.

As with most acquisitions of this sort, VaaS sees this as an opportunity to expand its markets and capabilities faster than it could on its own. “We believe commercialization of these new applications can be accelerated under the Motorola Solutions brand and reach, and we look forward to working together to grow and diversify our commercial business,” Todd Hodnett, co-founder of VaaS and president of Digital Recognition Network said in a statement.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a digital rights group, defines automated license plate readers (ALPRs) as cameras that “automatically capture all license plate numbers that come into view, along with the location, date and time. The data, which includes photographs of the vehicle and sometimes its driver and passengers, is then uploaded to a central server.”

The EFF claims that a camera mounted on a single squad car in a city can record up to 1800 license plates a minute, or up to 14,000 in a night. This data is then stored indefinitely by law enforcement, according to EFF. Motorola Solutions points out that they follow all applicable laws when it comes to collection and saving of this information.

“We continue to invest in compliance and auditing to ensure that data is protected and that access to the data follows the strictest regulatory and audit requirements. As we invest in data to help protect citizens, speed up and drive efficiency in investigations we are also investing in protecting the rights of citizens and public safety personal,” Andrew Sinclair, general manager and corporate vice president, Software Enterprise, Motorola Solutions told TechCrunch. It is worth noting that this type of data has been misused by some in the past..

VaaS projects 2019 revenue to reach $100 million from a combination of commercial and law enforcement business. The company name comes from the fact it’s made up two holding companies: Vigilant Solutions for law enforcement users and Digital Recognition Network (DRN) for commercial customers. Both of these entities will continue to operate as they get incorporated into the Motorola Solutions family.

The company was founded in 2014 and raised $5 million, according to Crunchbase data.

Spotify has begun testing a new type of ad in Discover Weekly, its personalized playlist of music that’s the streaming service’s flagship feature. The company says that, for the first time, it will allow a brand to “sponsor” this playlist as opposed to just running ads. It believes many advertisers will be interested in this opportunity due to the playlist’s ability to reach heavily engaged Spotify users, and because it allows advertisers to “own the personalized listening experience” on Spotify.

According to Spotify, Discover Weekly listeners stream more than double the amount of users who don’t listen to the playlist because of the personalized experience it offers. That will make the ad product more compelling, compared with brands’ existing ability to sponsor other editorial playlists on the service.

With Spotify’s Sponsored Playlist ad product, brands can surround Spotify’s free listeners with audio or video messages in ad breaks, and gain Spotify’s help in building a collaborative marketing plan.

Microsoft will kick off the launch of branded ads by running an A.I. ad campaign called “Empowering Us All.” This will explore A.I. across sectors like Education, Healthcare and Philanthropy. Spotify says it was a good fit for the launch, as Discover Weekly is customized for each user by taking advantage of A.I. technology.

“At Microsoft we are focused on empowering every individual and organization to do more. Our work in AI is a central part of that mission to unlock human ingenuity,” said Erin Bevington, General Manager of Global Media at Microsoft, in a statement. “Our partnership with a technology innovator like Spotify offered a way for us to effectively share that message within a personalized entertainment experience powered by AI.”

Spotify recently passed 200 million monthly active users, but is now looking to new ways to generate revenue from its user base beyond simply converting free users to premium subscribers.

The company has been growing its subscriber base at a steady pace, but Wall St. hasn’t been happy with its financials. One issue is that its newer promotions, like its low-cost student and family plans, have seen its average revenue per user dropping – as of Q3 2018, it had fallen 6 percent year-over-year to $5.50. A more valuable ad product could help bring these numbers back up. 

“Personalization has quickly gone from a nice-to-have to an expected consumer experience that delights audiences and marketers are craving opportunities to be part of it” said Danielle Lee, Global Head of Partner Solutions at Spotify, in a statement. “Our new Discover Weekly ad experience positions advertisers for success and ensures that our fans are hearing messages that embody the ethos of discovery.”

Brand sponsorships for Discover Weekly are currently in beta testing, says Spotify.

Meet KADRILJ and FYRTUR. They’re Ikea’s upcoming smart window blinds and they look great. The two product lines are battery-powered shades that can open and close through a dedicate app. They also interact with IKEA’s TRÅDFRI lighting gateway allowing homeowners to control the shades through Alexa, HomeKit and Google Assistant.

Pricing is aggressive: 99 to 155 euros (about $113 to $181). The shades have yet to be officially announced by Ikea, but according to the company’s site, they will be available in Europe on February 2nd. It’s unclear when they’ll be available in different markets.

These products are joining Ikea’s growing list of smart home devices. Last year, the company launched its smart lighting solutions that competes with Philips Hue and LIFX. Before that, Ikea produced a few tables integrated with wireless charging pads.

The upcoming smart window blinds follow the understated trends set by Ikea’s other smart home products: inexpensive relative to competitors and equipped with just a basic feature set. There’s nothing fancy here with the smart window shades. And that’s the point. With its smart home products, Ikea is seemingly concentrating on including just the necessary functions and not building in extra things, feature-creep style. Ikea’s smart home gadgets are as basic as Ikea’s furniture and that’s great.

As with Android, Google’s goal with its voice-driven AI helper, Google Assistant, is to get it onto devices. Lots and lots of devices.

And they’re making pretty damned good progress there. Ahead of CES this morning, Google dropped a little stat update: Google expects Assistant to be on 1 billion devices total by the end of this month.

That’s up from around 400M devices this time a year ago.

Google first announced Assistant back in May of 2016. By October of that year, they’d rolled it out to the Pixel/Pixel XL; nowadays, it’s on TVs, smart speakers, tablets, smart watches, and just about every new Android phone that hits the market.

It’s hard to know exactly how many actual users this translates to — but it’s definitely not a billion. On one hand, many Google Assistant users probably have it on multiple devices simultaneously, be it their phone, their tablets, Google Homes around their house, etc. On the other, many devices — particularly Google Homes — are meant to be used by multiple users throughout the day. Google will only say that active users are up “4 times over the past year”.

Standard Cognition helps retail stores stand up to Jeff Bezos’ juggernaut. The $50 million-funded autonomous checkout startup is racing to equip bigger shops with scanless payment technology that lets customers walk out the door without ever stopping at a cashier. While Amazon Go opens its own 2,000 square foot boutiques, Standard Cognition is working on outfitting 20,000 square foot and larger drug stores and grocers. That led Standard Cognition to make its first acquisition, Explorer.ai.

Why would an automated checkout company acquire a self-driving car startup? Because whether you’re tracking shoppers or pedestrians, you need sophisticated maps of the real world. The more accurate the machine vision is, the larger the store you can equip. And since Standard Cognition uses ceiling-based cameras instead of putting them on every shelf like Amazon, it’s much cheaper to keep eyes on a bigger space.

Standard Cognition is only just over a year old, but with the backing of Y Combinator, Alexis Ohanian and Garry Tan’s Initialized Capital, and a fast-moving team of seven co-founders, it believes it can outmaneuver Amazon. That means doing whatever it can to leap forward. Standard Cognition already had in-house mapping technology, but Explorer.ai’s team and tech could accelerate its quest to bring even 100,000 sq ft big box supercenters into the automated checkout age.

“It’s the wild west — applying cutting-edge, state-of-the-art machine learning research that’s hot off the press. We read papers then implement it weeks after it’s published, putting the ideas out into the wild and making them production-worthy — taking it from state-of-the-art to dumb machines you can kick and they won’t fall over.” says Standard Cognition co-founder and CEO Jordan Fisher. “It’s no easy task and the exactness we’re going to require will only increase. Having a world-class team of engineers and researchers that can build the next generation version of our mapping is why we’re so excited to have the team joining us.”

From AV To AC

Explorer.ai is was founded in 2017 too, and its acquisition so soon is a testament to how hot the autonomous driving and checkout markets are. Akshay Goel, Nagasrikanth Kallakuri, and Tushar Dadlani noticed self-driving vehicle startups were all trying to generate their own maps. They cobbled together data from several providers, built maps specifically for different purposes, and soon had fellow startups trying to throw money at them. They raised just under $1 million from Story Ventures, early Facebook engineer Nick Heyman and more, growing the team to seven employees.

Explorer.ai’s co-founders

But eventually Explorer.ai realized the bigger players were too cautious to rely on outside maps and it could be years before they’d be comfortable with the idea. “Our view is it would take quite a while to become a commercial success in mapping for autonomous vehicles” Goel tells me. “Most of the companies we were working with in partnerships tried to acquire us from an early stage. Should we fundraise more or start looking at the acquisition process?” the team asked itself as its cash dwindled.

Explorer.ai got a few terms sheets for funding, but weren’t sure they’d be able to go to market fast enough. The founders shopped the startup around “to pretty much everyone” Goel says, though they refused to name names when I asked if that included natural acquirers like Uber and Google’s Waymo. But then they took a left turn into retail. “What we saw was that essentially since autonomous checkout has a lot fewer safety issues, [Standard Cognition] could go to market much faster, and mapping had a large impact on autonomous checkout.”

The two companies declined to disclose financial terms of the deal, but Fisher tells me “We can definitely say it was a competitive process and we’re excited that we could win the hearts and minds of the Explorer team.” They’ll join Standard Cognition’s 40-plus employees as the work on pilots for US and Japanese retail locations. Goel adds that “the investors, founders, and team are happy”, implying the payout more than returned the money it’d raised.

Explorer.ai made self-driving car maps before joining Standard Cognition

The big question Standard Cognition’s customers are asking are whether autonomous checkout is cost-effective, simple for customers to understand, and won’t let shoplifters destroy their margins. That means minimizing installation fees, perfecting onboarding and instruction, and recognizing the difference between someone putting an item back on the shelf versus into their jacket. The startup believes that done right, human cashiers can be repurposed as concierges that help customers find what they’re looking for and buy more without having to stand in line.

Standard Cognition co-founder and CEO Jordan Fisher

“How do you make this a bulletproof, reproducible system that works as well as a till in a grocery store that no one worries about breaking?” is the challenge Fisher and his new compatriots must solve. “Amazon is pursuing what we call as shelf-based approach with sensors every few inches on every shelf. What’s not great is the expense, the complexity of the electrical and compute systems . . . this is why you’re seeing autonomous checkout applied to Amazon Go and not larger Whole Foods stores. Not from a lack of desire from Amazon, but because it’s not technologically tenable with the approach that they’re taking. I’m confident they’ll tackle that challenge in the next few years but today they’re limited by their technology.”

And so Standard Cognition is pushing as fast as it can build a lead and brand by giving independent retail stores and chains the firepower to fight off Amazon. Standard Cognition will also have to outcompete fellow autonomous checkout startups like ex-Pandora CTO Will Glaser’s Grabango, which announced it’d raised $12 million today. Grabango now has signed deals with four U.S. retail chains up to 25,000 sq ft in size and has 37 employees. There’s also fellow Y Combinator startup Inokyo with a pop-up shop in Mountain View; and Trigo Vision that has a deal with an israeli grocery chain for more than 200 stores.

“I wasn’t thinking we’d do any acquisitions a month ago” Fisher reveals. “Our goal is not just to deliver autonomous checkout to the world but to do it phenomenally quickly. We’re at the beginning of a space race. Two to three years from now, I think this will be potentially as crowded as autonomous vehicles. We’re in the lead today but that’s not enough for us. We need to be light-years ahead to capture as much of the market as we want. [With the Explorer.ai acquisition] how many days does this advance us? How much further along on our roadmap for world domination does this bring us? When we sat down, it was tangible, the real progression of the roadmap.”

Apple is reportedly gearing up for a new streaming TV service to rival Netflix, Amazon and Google this year, but in the meantime, it is also expanding interoperability with more third parties like smart TV makers to make what it already has available easier to use in the living room.

In the latest development, smart TV maker Vizio today announced at the CES consumer electronics show that it’s adding support for AirPlay 2 and HomeKit to its SmartCast interactive TV platform. The integration will mean that Vizio TV owners can link their other Apple devices up to their TVs to browse and watch content from iTunes, as well as any photos, videos or music on those devices. Then, through HomeKit, they can also control that content and the rest of the TV using Apple’s voice assistant Siri.

Vizio said that the feature will be rolled out first to beta users of the SmartCast 3.0 platform in the U.S. and Canada in Q1 2019. In Q2, it will be rolled out to all SmartCast TV users via a free, over-the-air update to the 3.0 version of the platform.

“At our core, Vizio is committed to delivering value. SmartCast 3.0 is one of the ways we’re doing just that. By adding support for Apple AirPlay 2 and HomeKit, users can play content from their iPhone, iPad and Mac directly to SmartCast TVs, and enable TV controls through the Home app and Siri,” said Bill Baxter, Chief Technology Officer, Vizio, in a statement.

He added that this also will make Vizio the first smart TV brand to offer the ability for consumers to use any major voice assistant — Siri, Amazon’s Alexa or Google Assistant (the latter two integrations were added previously) — to control their sets. “We’re excited to be the first in the marketplace to support such a wide range of ways for consumers to sit back and enjoy the entertainment they love.” The Google Assistant functionality is also expanding to control more services such as the launching of apps and switching inputs.

The Vizio / Apple news comes just one day after Vizio’s bigger rival Samsung — which has a 33 percent share of the smart TV market in the US compared to Vizio’s 24 percent — also debuted an Apple AirPlay integration, along with a new tab directly linking to iTunes in Samsung’s interactive platform.

The iTunes app is an exclusive to Samsung for the time being, but the Vizio deal lays the groundwork for more collaboration between Vizio and Apple ahead. Vizio, notably, is not a direct competitor to Apple in other business areas in the way that Samsung is.

For Vizio, this is a significant step ahead for the company at a time when it is playing some catchup against Samsung, which once trailed Vizio but gradually overtook it as the leading smart TV player. I’d argue that Vizio is also still recuperating from its no-good, very bad 2017.

Its series of unfortunate events included a failed $2 billion acquisition of the company by Chinese maker LeEco after LeEco itself fell apart; a lawsuit against LeEco over that deal breaking down; another lawsuit, this time from the FTC (settled for $2.2 million) over snooping on its customers’ viewing habits; and a third suit brought by AMD, this time over graphics patent infringement, which AMD has since won.

This is actually the first time that Vizio has been at CES in years, which is also saying something. The company is also using the event to announce its newest range of 4K HDR smart TVs and audio equipment, including sound bars and subwoofers.

On the side of Apple, taken together, the two integrations with Vizio and Samsung underscore Apple’s challenges and ambitions at the moment.

The company last week warned the market that sales of its iPhone smartphone — for years now the company’s undisputed growth engine — would be falling short of expectations for a number of reasons. (They included worse-than-expected sales in China, where price and feature competition is fierce; a global slowdown in phone sales as the market saturates; and weaker demand for its new, expensive models.

Apple, as you know, has over the years been building up a services model to complement its hardware business — with apps, music, video, cloud services and more — and many believe that the company will start to focus on that even more to offset slowdowns in its hardware sales, as well as to boost the sales of that hardware. (Hence the rumors of a Netflix-style OTT video service.)

It’s an opportunity for sure, but not a guaranteed win. Apple TV — the company’s existing bridge to content on televisions — hasn’t managed to overtake the collective popularity of other smaller middleware like Google’s Chromecast and Amazon’s Fire TV and Fire stick. And the OTT market is very crowded already, with offerings from all of the above, pay-TV providers, smart TV makers and more.

Given all of the above, it will be worth watching to see who else might have Apple-related news this week and if a kinder, more device-agnostic Apple-as-services provider emerges as a theme at CES this week.

A pair of new devices from Huawei are making their debut on-stage at CES in Vegas this week. The more interesting of the two is the MateBook 13, a slim addition to the company’s line of premium Windows laptops.

The 13-inch laptop is 0.59 inches thick and weighs 2.86 pounds, giving it a similar footprint to the latest MacBook Air. The price is certainly right though, starting at $999 for the i5 version with integrated graphics. The i7 version, which sports an NVIDIA GeForce MX150, meanwhile, runs an additional $300.

The display 2160 x 1440 at 200ppi, coupled with a large trackpad and spill resistant keyboard. The both configurations have 8GB of memory built in, either 256 or 512GB of storage and a battery that promises around 10 hours of video playback. There’s a headphone jack, along with one USB-C on either side. It’s not a lot of ports, but at least the company had the forethought to split them up.

The MM5 Lite, meanwhile, is the latest addition addition to the company’s MediaPad line of tablets. Like the Matebook, the new slate marks a budget entry into the line, here priced starting at $299.

That gets you a 10.1 inch 1920 x 1200 display, 3GB of memory and 32GB of storage (augmented by a microSD. There’s a USB-C slot for quick charging and, unlike the new iPad, a headphone jack. There are four speakers on-board as well, sporting Harman Kardon certification, while the 7,500 mAh battry should give you around 13 hours of playback by Huawei’s estimation.

Both devices are hitting retail this month. 

Petcube’s popular line of pet cameras let people monitor, talk to and interact with their dogs and cats while away – including by doing things like doling out treats or turning on a laser toy, for example. Today, the pet camera maker is upgrading its line with two new devices, the Petcube Bites 2 and Petcube Play 2. These are redesigned and reimagined versions of the company’s existing pet cameras, which now offer improved sound and connectivity, a 180-degree ultra-wide lens, as well as built-in support for Alexa.

Both cameras now include a wide angle lens with up to 180 degree full-room views, so you can see more of the room than before. They also now include a premium audio experience with full duplex sound, a 4-microphone array and speaker bar. The cameras offer improved connectivity, with support for both 2.4 and 5 GHz Wi-Fi, as well.

Beyond the tech spec upgrades, what pet owners may be more excited about is the cameras’ new ability to work with Alexa, without requiring a separate Amazon Echo or other Echo device.

Instead, Petcube cameras can now take the place of a small smart speaker, like the Echo Dot, for example. Through Alexa, Petcube camera owners will be able to play music (hence the need for better sound), control other smart home devices, set alarms, listen to the news, check the weather, and more. They’ll also have access over 50,000 Alexa skills from their devices, including Petcube’s own companion voice application.

With the Alexa voice app, pet owners will be able to ask Alexa to fling treats, play with their pet, or order more pet supplies from Amazon, the company says. This Alexa skill was previously available to older generation devices, but required that the customer had their own Alexa device – now the Petcube is the Alexa device.

The two cameras are getting other tweaks, too.

The treat-dispensing device called the Petcubes Bites 2 has been redesigned to be more compact, so it can better fit into smaller spaces. It now also has a better “treat flinging” mechanism and can support a wider variety of treat sizes than before, so you can better control treat portions. The mechanism flings with more precision, too.

Meanwhile, the Petcube Play 2 is a redesigned version of the cube-shaped camera that includes a built-in laser toy, which has been re-engineered to be more precise and smoother than the prior version, Petcube claims.

Both also offer 1080p HD video, 4x digital zoom and night vision.

As before, the pet camera hardware is used to entice pet owners to sign up for the Petcube Care subscription. The system leverages A.I. to figure out what pets are doing, detect if there’s human movement in the frame, register if the dog begins barking or the cat mewing, and identify other abnormal behaviors. In those cases, pet owners would receive an alert so they know to check in on their device, pet and home.

Subscribers also get discounts on pets products and services from Mars Petcare, Wellness, Trupanion, Rover, Audible, Vetted, KONG, and others. The pricing plan for Petcube Care starts at $2.99 per month.

The new cameras come in Matte Silver and Carbon Black design options. The Petcube Bites 2 is $249 and the Petcube Play 2 is $199 on Petcube.com.

Tile, a company best known for its keychain-style lost item trackers aimed at consumers, is expanding its location-tracking technology to new devices besides its own. The company today announced it has partnered with a number of BLE chip companies to integrate its tracking technology directly onto their chips.

Tile’s new partners on this front include Qualcomm, Dialog, Silicon Labs and Toshiba, the company says.

These companies will produce BLE chips that feature Tile’s location-tracking technology. This, in turn, will allow manufacturers to build devices that work with Tile right out of the box. Those that do so will be able to promote their products as “Find with Tile” enabled.

For some of Tile’s partner manufacturers – like Bose and Skullcandy, for example – this sort of integration allows them to better compete with Apple, whose own “Find My iPhone” technology is now able to track down all sorts of Apple products, including AirPods and Apple Watch.

Skullcandy began working with Tile last summer, and is now one of several audio integrations ahead for Tile, along with Sennheiser, Sol Republic, Plantronics, and Anker, who all have Tile-enabled products planned.

“Knowing Tile’s finding technology will be available for activation at the production phase makes integration fast and seamless, and opens new ideas for how we can use it from product conception,” said Skullcandy CEO Jason Hodell, in a statement shared today.

Tile has been looking for ways to expand its revenue beyond device sales alone for some time. Tile sales have been growing steadily going from 10 million to 15 million units sold from 2016 to 2017, and from 15 million to 22 million units sold from 2017 to 2018.

But the company doesn’t share how many people are active Tile customers nor will it speak to its revenue. It also had to trim its staff in early 2018, due to underwhelming holiday sales.

Being able to license out its tech to others could then be a way for it to expand its business.

The company declined detail its agreements with BLE chip makers or device manufacturers, but the company tells TechCrunch that it has seen a “higher-than-expected” rate of customers who are introduced to Tile through a partner then convert to become a Tile users. Many of these customers then also upgrade to its Premium subscription.

Tile last year began working with Bose and other partners, to start embedding its technology into various devices, including the Bose SoundSport Wireless and QuietControl 30 headphones, which also launched Tile integrations summer.

Other partners working with Tile have also included Samsonite, Propeller Health, Boosted, Starling, Herschel, Away Travel, SuitSupply, Blunt Umbrellas, G-RO, This is Ground, Fossil, Kenneth Cole, Ricardo Beverly Hills, Axiom, Nomad, Keysmart, and Keyline/Bianca, among others.

Tile says its new audio partners will launch Tile-integrated devices in the months ahead, but didn’t have exact timeframes for each.

“With the introduction of our BLE chip partnerships, Tile is becoming a foundational building block for BLE-enabled product manufacturers in a variety of verticals, from audio and cameras, to laptops and wearables,” said CJ Prober, who was named Tile CEO last fall, in a statement. “With over 20 billion BLE devices forecasted to ship in the next four years, ‘Find with Tile’ will soon be a key everyday feature in consumer products.”

BLE partnerships are only one way Tile has been expanding. The company last year took in a strategic investment from Comcast, which been working with Tile by allowing Xfinity customers to locate Tiles using their TV remote. Tile also updated its lost item trackers, the Tile Mate and Tile Pro, to offer replaceable batteries that automatically ship through subscription in the hopes of attracting more customers and creating a recurring revenue stream beyond the hardware.