Author: azeeadmin

TomTom, the mapping and navigation company you probably still remember from its heyday as a leader in the stand-alone in-car GPS space, is launching a free mobile maps SDK for developers at TechCrunch Disrupt today. This move is part of the company’s overall transformation from a consumer device manufacturer to a software company.

The new SDK will feature free maps and traffic tiles for all Android and iOS users. As TomTom VP of business development and product marketing Leandro Margulis told me, free in this case really means free. While the SDK doesn’t offer routing and some other advanced features, there’s no limit to how developers use its mapping and traffic tiles.

“This is about putting the developer at the center of everything that we do,” Magulis told me. “If you look at any kind of partnership that you do, either big or small, at some point you tell and engineer or a developer to go and try the API. We want to make sure that everybody can see the beauty of what we can do.” He noted that other players in this space also give away a lot of different things, but that TomTom decided to give away what it does best — and to do so without any restrictions in terms of API calls. And developers won’t even have to give TomTom a credit card number to do so.

As Magulis also stressed, developers can mix and match geolocation services from multiple vendors without breaking any of TomTom’s rules.

In addition to the new SDK, TomTom is also making a number of other announcements today. STMicroelectronics, for example, is connecting its development tools directly to TomTom’s Maps API to help IoT companies locate their devices. RideOS, an autonomous driving startup, will use TomTom’s real-time and historical traffic data and maps for its platform while Zenly will use the company’s routing and parts of its search APIs to power its social maps.

“People may say, ‘TomTom, are you guys still around?’ But yeah, we’re thriving,” Margulis said. “And we’re not your dad’s TomTom, we’re not you mom’s TomTom. We’re your TomTom. We are a technology company, we are location experts and we are here to enable the next generation of location-based use cases.”

Experiences, not cash, are the new corporate bonus. At least, according to Airbnb.

With that mantra in mind, the $31 billion company is expanding the part of its business that targets business travelers, called Airbnb for Work. The new effort will help them tap into a large market they’ve been missing out on—non-travelers.

Airbnb is adding three new features. The first addition allows businesses to use Airbnb Experiences, the part of the app or website where travelers can book tours or events for their vacations, to arrange team-building activities, like sailing lessons or pastry-making classes. The second makes some of the homes available on Airbnb for corporate off-sites and meetings. And the final new feature lets employers secure temporary housing for employees relocating for work.

“In today’s hyper-competitive talent environment, once you’ve recruited great employees, you want to keep them,” the company wrote in today’s announcement. “The spaces where people spend time away from the office make a big difference. Sterile conference rooms aren’t motivating and don’t foster creativity. However, relaxing and productive environments help people open up to connect and contribute; they help teams achieve their shared goals more effectively.”

Airbnb for Work has proven to be quite the money-making endeavor since its 2014 launch as “Airbnb for Business,” and now accounts for 15% of its bookings. It saw 3x growth in bookings from 2015 to 2016 and again from 2016 to 2017. 700,000 companies have used the service to plan business travel.

Airbnb has been busy expanding its platform this year. Last month, it integrated Airbnb listings into Concur’s search and booking tool in what was the first time it linked up with a corporate travel platform. A few months before that, it established a new tier specifically for high-end customers called Airbnb Plus and Beyond by Airbnb.

The hospitality powerhouse is expected to hit the public markets as soon as June 30, 2019. Slowly, it’s taking the steps necessary to IPO, like creating a bonus program that will provide cash bonuses to employees in 2018 and 2019 and poaching an Amazon executive to lead its homes unit.

Hasura, a company that creates tools for developers on top of the popular Postgres database, is introducing a new product in public Alpha today aimed at helping programmers build serverless apps more quickly and efficiently.

The idea is to simplify function writing by offering an open source event system on top of Postgres to trigger events when certain conditions are met in the underlying database. This should help reduce the amount of coding needed to make something work, while also driving a more scalable system.

Typically, programmers string together a series of API calls to services to take care of different parts of an app such as calling a payment or communications gateway. This saves the programmer from having to create the various pieces from scratch. The problem is that if anything goes wrong in the middle of a string of calls, the system can break down and typically has to start over.

By taking advantage of serverless architecture, they believe they can simplify the entire process by removing the need to worry about the underlying infrastructure — one of the primary value propositions of serverless — while providing a much simpler asynchronous event-driven approach to coding that is less prone to breaking down as it calls the various parts of the application.

The company got $1.6 million in seed funding in April. It has been offering a Kubernetes solution, but with this announcement it is expanding into serverless, as it has gained in popularity with developers.

At the time of the funding, CEO and co-founder Tanmai Gopal told TechCrunch, “Our focus from the beginning has been making the application development super fast. How we do that is placing our APIs on top of a Postgres database to deploy any kind of code,” he explained in April.

The newest product is an extension of this philosophy by letting developers take that cloud-native approach announced in the spring, and giving developers tools to take advantage of serverless in an open source, vendor-agnostic way.

The European Union is set to move ahead with a plan to enforce pan-European quotas on streaming services like Amazon Prime Video and Netflix to support production of locally produced film and video content.

Roberto Viola, the European Commission’s directorate general of communication, networks, content and technology told Variety that the new rules are on track to be approved in December.

“We just need the final vote, but it’s a mere formality,” he said in an interview at the Venice Film Festival.

The proposals will require that streaming services give over at least 30% of their on-demand catalogues to original productions made in each EU country where a service is provided (individual EU Member States could choose to set the content bar even higher, at 40%).

Streaming services will also have to ensure visibility and prominence for local content — so no burying the ‘European third’ in a dingy corner of the site where no one will find it, let alone stream it.

The EU lawmakers’ intention is to stand up for cultural diversity against the might of Hollywood and the flattening power of platforms — in the latter case by making platforms invest in local content production rather than just doing the easy thing of fencing yet more Marvel superhero movies.

And, frankly, if you’ve seen one superhero movie you’ve seen them all. So the move — which will probably draw loud and hair-raising screams from U.S. commentators — is, nonetheless, A Good Thing.

It is also not at all unusual in Europe, where cultural diversity is championed and measures to protect linguistic and cultural difference are not just acceptable but the welcome norm.

On the film front, some EU countries already require cinemas screen a portion of locally content, for example.

The Commission’s revision to EU audiovisual law will go further, by bolstering local content production across the region, including by placing requirements on local broadcasters to reserve a majority of airtime for European content. And also by requiring that streaming services actively promote EU works.

Hollywood + platform power is now a force so very mighty that cultural difference risks being steamrollered before it until nothing but tedious superhero tropes remain.

At least without proactive policy counteractions to unlock investments in creativity at a local level and not just protect but develop community voices. Ergo, the real superhero is a policy that battles the evil of cultural homogeneity and champions local light and color.

In Germany, which has already pushed ahead with content quotas on streaming services, a surcharge is added to subscription fees for the services to support a national production fund.

Netflix attempted to challenge the Commission’s support of Germany’s move to support its local film industry in the courts, arguing it countered EU law on state aid.

But in May the European General Court dismissed its appeal against the EC decision — saying its action was inadmissible as Netflix has no legal standing to challenge the decision.

We’ve reached out to Amazon and Netflix for comment on Viola’s comments.

Image credit: Trailer still from Blue is the Warmest Colour

Indie app maker MacPaw updated its Mac cleaning software with a new major version called CleanMyMac X (which is different from MacKeeper). It’s hard to believe, but CleanMyMac currently has 5 million users.

CleanMyMac X helps you remove unneeded files and get an overview of what is slowing down your computer. Most people don’t need this kind of apps. But if you know what you’re doing, it can speed up your maintenance process.

The app is now divided into four maintenance tasks. First, the app lets you scan your hard drive for gigantic cache files and unneeded language files. If you have a small hard drive, you can easily gain multiple GBs by cleaning up those big Spotify or Dropbox caches. The app also looks for iTunes data that you don’t need and mail attachments that you don’t need on your Mac. The company has built a database of rules to make sure that it doesn’t delete any of your personal files.

Second, CleanMyMac X now haw a malware scanning element. It can find adwares, spywares, miners and worms on your hard drive and help you get rid of them. You can also easily delete browser data and remove Wi-Fi networks you don’t trust so that you don’t automatically connect to them.

Third, the app provides a bunch of maintenance scripts to rebuild your Spotlight index, repair disk permissions, flush the DNS cache and more. You can also review apps and Launch Agents that automatically start when you reboot your Mac.

And fourth, CleanMyMac X now offers an update tab that lets you review all your installed apps to update them all. It works with apps that aren’t in the Mac App Store. You can also uninstall apps and their related support files using CleanMyMac X.

The app also comes with an updated menubar app so that you can view basic stats in one click — CPU, memory usage, network speed and more. This isn’t as powerful as iStat Menus, but it gets the job done.

CleanMyMac X costs $90, or $45 for existing users. You can also choose to subscribe to the app for $40 per year. MacPaw is also the company behind subscription service Setapp, and CleanMyMac X will be part of your Setapp subscription.

Overall, this update brings a couple of nice additions and is a nice evolution. Maybe you’re already using DaisyDisk, Hazel, Objective-See’s security apps, iStat Menus and other utilities that do some of CleanMyMac’s tasks. But CleanMyMac remains a nice package of utilities to take care of your device.

GM is poised to build more all-electric vehicles as improvements continue at its recently expanded battery lab and a new LG Electronics plant in Michigan comes online, according to the automaker’s chairman and CEO Mary Barra .

The LG Electronics facility in Hazel Park will start making battery packs this fall to supply GM’s Orion Assembly Plant, where the automaker builds the all-electric Chevrolet Bolt, Barra wrote in a post on LinkedIn. The post, provided a progress report towards the company’s goal of zero crashes, zero emissions and zero congestion.

“Over the last century, cars, trucks and crossovers transformed our lives by giving us the freedom of mobility. But relying exclusively on internal combustion engines to power this freedom presents challenges,” Barra wrote. “Today, we have a tremendous opportunity to help reduce these challenges by adding electric vehicles to our lineup.”

Much of the post was a recap, noting GM’s plan to launch 20 new all-electric vehicles globally by 2023 and a production increase of the Chevy Bolt. The company also plans to deliver a prototype vehicle capable of a 180-mile range with less than 10 minutes of charging to Delta Electronics for official testing as part of a new U.S. Department of Energy initiative that was covered last month by Bloomberg.

There were a few new nuggets, namely that the LG Electronics plant would soon be producing battery packs.

Barra also said thanks to a recent expansion of its battery lab, GM is able to complete nearly all battery testing under one roof, which has reduced development time and cost. The lab, located in GM’s Global Technical Center in Warren, Mich., is now more than 100,000 square feet and includes new heavy and mild battery abuse test areas.

GM has planned additional major enhancements of the battery lab that will begin this fall and include adding with new test chambers and advanced equipment.

Wunder Mobility, the Hamburg-based startup that provides a range of mobility services, from carpooling to electric scooter rentals, has raised $30 million in Series B funding. The round was led by KCK Group, with participation from previous backer Blumberg Capital and other non-disclosed investors.

The German company says the investment will be used to expand the company’s engineering team in its home country and to establish an international B2B sales organisation. Currently, Wunder Mobility has 70 employees working from four offices in Asia, Germany, and South America. The aim is to add another 100 employees over the next twelve months in the areas of product development and B2B sales.

Founded in Hamburg in 2014, but now with an international focus, including emerging markets, Wunder Mobility supplies software, hardware, and operational services for various “future-oriented” mobility concepts. These span smart shuttles, fleet management and carpooling, reaching more than two million users in a dozen countries, including France, Germany, Spain, Brazil, India, and the Philippines.

“We are enabling communities on four continents to address the global traffic challenge and to deploy more sustainable mobility options faster by hosting a full-stack urban mobility tech platform,” explains founder and CEO Gunnar Froh.

“Our three product lines either allow private people to share empty seats with people headed in the same direction (Wunder Carpool), match professional drivers with passengers in 6-10 seater vans (Wunder Shuttle), or give travellers the option to rent vehicles (electric scooters, cars) by the minute (Wunder Fleet)”.

In recent months, transport companies as well as customers from the automotive industry in Japan, Europe and America have committed to using Wunder technology. The company is already processing around one million trips per month worldwide.

To that end, Froh describes Wunder Mobility’s typical B2C customers as the emerging middle class in mega cities such as Rio de Janeiro, Manila or Dehli.

“Many of these customers commute to work every day for several hours, are often first-time car owners and are open to sharing empty seats in their cars in order save on gas and car expenses,” he says.

On the B2B side, the startup’s customers are large OEMs, and public transit companies or suppliers, such as the Japanese conglomerate Marubeni. “We are working with Marubeni on ambitious new mobility services worldwide,” adds Froh.

Meanwhile, Wunder Mobility’s competitors are cited as Via in New York on the shuttle side. In Europe it perhaps competes most directly with Berlin’s Door2Door, and Vulog in Paris.

Betaworks this morning revealed this list of six startups participating in its fourth Camp accelerator program. Launched in 2016, the program brings together a collection of young companies united under a single theme.

This time out, things are focused on live-streaming, for a program fittingly titled, LiveCamp. Betaworks settled on the topic based on the popularity of apps like Twitch and HQ Trivia. It’s admittedly a bit more nebulous than past topics like BotCamp, VoiceCamp and VisionCamp.

“When first settling on our next Camp program we knew that ‘live’ as a category would be a bit harder to define than our previous themes like voice-computing and augmented reality,” Betaworks’ Peter Rojas told TechCrunch, “but while these companies may each be building a wildly different product, they all share a common theme of bringing people together in real time for a shared experience.”

Betaworks has put together a nice little package for the half-dozen winners, including an 11-week in-house bootcamp and $200K per company. In addition, Betaworks will receive 8 percent common stock from each.

It’s a fittingly diverse array of companies, running the gamut from gaming to meditation to here’s the latest batch:

• Bunch: An app that lets users play games over video chat, from HQ to Flappy Bird.
• Cityrow Go: On-demand streaming of exercise — kind of a Peloton, but for rowing courses.
• Content Flow: Live video streaming technology company, with a proprietary player.
• Cultural Genesis: A digital gaming remix studio from Santa Monica, California.
• Ghost Commander: A hybrid theater/gaming experience that lets users impact narrative structure.
• Journey Meditation: On-demand and live-streamed meditation courses.

Calling all early-stage startup founders! Show of hands, please. Who among you wants to exhibit your outstanding technology — to thousands of influential tech leaders, founders and investors — at Disrupt Berlin 2018 on November 29-30?

Here’s terrific news. We’re looking for exceptional startups to designate as TC Top Picks — and we’ll give each of the chosen few a FREE Startup Alley Exhibitor Package. Interested? Then get moving and apply right here before the September 28 deadline.

We run a tight curation process over here at TechCrunch, and our discerning editors — in their search for exceptional founders — will vet every application thoroughly. And that alone provides value. Here’s what Luke Heron, CEO of TestCard.com, said about exhibiting in Startup Alley.

“TechCrunch uses a curation process regarding the companies it accepts,” he said. “So, exhibiting at Disrupt — among all these other fantastic startups — has a hugely positive impact when you’re fundraising.”

Your startup must fall into one of the tech categories below to qualify as a TC Top Pick, and we’ll choose up to five startups to represent each grouping:

• AI/Machine Learning
• Blockchain
• CRM/Enterprise
• E-commerce
• Education
• Fintech
• Healthtech/Biotech
• Hardware, Robotics, IoT
• Mobility
• Gaming

What exactly do you get with an Exhibitor Package? Happy to elaborate. It includes a one-day exhibit space, three Disrupt Berlin Founder Passes, access to CrunchMatch (our free investor-to-startup matching platform), full use of the Startup Alley Exhibitor lounge and access to the Disrupt press list.

Who knows, you might even be selected as one of the Startup Battlefield Wild Card winners and compete in our $50,000 startup-pitch competition. How cool is that?

Top Pick designees also receive lots of media attention, including a three-minute interview on the Showcase Stage with a TechCrunch editor, which we promote across our social media platforms. It’s the gift that keeps on giving long after Disrupt ends.

Disrupt Berlin 2018 takes place on November 29-30. You have an opportunity to showcase your startup to thousands of potential investors, founders, collaborators and customers in Startup Alley — for free. Apply here to be considered for a TC Top Pick. Your opportunity awaits — until it disappears on September 28.

Morgan Stanley has valued Tesla’s autonomous vehicle ride-sharing business, which does not yet exist, at $17.7 billion, about one-tenth of Waymo’s value, yet still above GM Cruise, the investment firm said in a research note published Tuesday.

The $17.7 billion valuation, or about $95 per Tesla share, is notably lower than the $244 a share that Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas said the service was worth in 2015. (Keep in mind this valuation is just for Tesla’s autonomous vehicle ride-sharing network, not the entire company.) Morgan Stanley’s current price target for Tesla is $291 a share.

Placing a value on a business that doesn’t exist may seem, well, premature. But in Morgan Stanley’s view, it reflects Tesla’s stagnation in this area as much as the progress made by other autonomous vehicle technology companies such as Cruise and Waymo . Jonas noted that Tesla has shared “extremely few details about how shared autonomy can be positioned as a separate business model,” while Cruise and Waymo have become “increasingly conspicuous with their efforts to grow the business with specific targets for commercialization and deployment.”

Tesla’s higher cost of capital compared to Waymo and potentially less room for adjacent revenue monetization were also cited as reasons for the lower valuation.

“In our opinion, Tesla may one day need to make a strategic decision over whether to pursue a shared autonomy strategy on “go-it-alone” basis or whether to find ways to “attach” their vehicle data and fleet management ecosystem to one or more external platforms that maybe in a far better position to pursue data monetization, improved customer engagement/experience and lower cost to the consumer,” Jonas wrote in the research note.

Three years ago, Tesla CEO Elon Musk floated an idea for a network of autonomous vehicles that Tesla owners could put to use on a ride-sharing service to earn a bit of extra money. Few details about this Tesla Network have emerged since then.

The most recent smidge of information came from Musk during the company’s first-quarter earnings call in May when he said that from a “technical standpoint” Tesla vehicles would be capable of full autonomy by the end of this year. He also noted that regulatory approval made it difficult to predict timing of an actual launch.

In the meantime, companies like Waymo and GM’s Cruise have ramped up their deployment plans for autonomous vehicle ride-hailing services.

Morgan Stanley does predict that Tesla will take the lead, at least initially. Jonas predicts that Tesla’s autonomous vehicle ride-sharing network will have more vehicles, more miles traveled and greater revenue than Waymo by 2030.

However, the Waymo figures continue to ramp up very significantly through 2040, reaching $724 billion of revenue and $92 billion of operating profit by 2040, Jonas wrote.

“In short, we assume Tesla gets off to a faster start than Waymo in terms of shared miles accumulation, but that Waymo catches up and surpasses Tesla just a few years later and with likely a more sustainable and protected business model,” Jonas wrote.

The forecast places Waymo at the top with a $175 valuation, Tesla at $17.7 billion, and Cruise trailing with a $11.5 billion valuation.