Category: UNCATEGORIZED

Arrival, the UK electric vehicle startup that plans to become a publicly traded company through a merger with  special purpose acquisition company CIIG Merger Corp., has picked Charlotte for its North American headquarters.

The company said it will add 150 new employees to support the headquarters and invest about $3 million in office space in South End neighborhood of Charlotte. Arrival said it will be hiring for a variety of corporate positions, including human resources, marketing, finance and administrative professionals.

Arrival was a secretive electric vehicle startup for nearly five years until January when it announced a $110 million investment from Hyundai and Kia. Over the past year, the company has shared more of its plans and partners, all culminating to its announcement last month to merge with a SPAC, or shell company, to become a publicly traded company.

Arrival’s aim is to produce electric vehicles that are competitive in price with traditional fossil fuel-powered vehicles and lower cost of ownership than other comparable EVs. Arrival says its modular electric “skateboard” platform, which can be used on a range of different vehicle types, along with its use of microfactories set up near major cities are how it will achieve its mission.

Arrival plans to produce commercial electric vehicles, beginning with van and bus models. The plan is to have four vehicles in the market by 2023, Arrival Automotive CEO Mike Ableson has previously said.

Arrival’s North American headquarters will be located less than 30 miles away from its first U.S. microfactory in Rock Hill, South Carolina. The company employs more than 1,200 people and has five engineering facilities and two microfactories globally.

SpaceX is one step closer to replacing its Falcon line of active duty spacecraft: Its Starship prototype ‘SN8’ achieved a major milestone in the ongoing spacecraft’s development program, flying to a height of around 40,000 feet at SpaceX’s development facility in southern Texas.

One of the Starship’s three Raptor engines cut off around 2 minutes into flight, but the prototype rocket continued its ascent. Then at around three minutes, another extinguished, leaving just one lit and firing. The rocket continued to climb, oriented upward, but it was hard to tell from the feed exactly how high it reached. The third flared out at around 4:30 into the mission, and the Starship oriented into a horizontal position, angling back towards Earth but effectively flat on its belly, gliding.

The Starship’s engines re-ignited as the rocket approached the ground, flipping the rocket into a vertical orientation once again and slowing its descent. It landed a bit harder than expected, however, resulting in an explosion that engulfed the rocket. That’s still a successful test, and went better than SpaceX or most observers likely expected it would. SpaceX’s flight controller could be heard on the stream congratulating the team on a job well done.

While a flight that ends with an explosion and total loss of the spacecraft may not seem like a win, when you’re designing and testing an entirely new spaceship it most definitely is. SpaceX expected that this test flight likely wouldn’t achieve all of its objectives, and CEO Elon Musk said on Twitter earlier this week that he likely anticipated it might achieve its target flight height but not do much else. It seems to have done that, and managed its ‘belly flop’ maneuver, as well as correctly re-oriented itself for landing, but with a bit too much speed coming in for the touchdown.

The team has no doubt gathered a ton of valuable data from this test, and will now be taking those lessons back to help improve its next attempts. SpaceX already has two more prototypes, SN9 and SN10, effectively ready to go for follow-up tests. Those already carry improvements compared to SN8 which flew today, and the team will be quick to implement additional tweaks based on this flight and the data they obtained during the test.

A new robot created by researchers at Northwestern University looks and behave like a tiny aquatic animal, and could serve a variety of functions including moving things place to place, catalyzing chemical reactions, delivering therapeutics and much more. This new soft robot honestly looks a heck of a lot like a lemon peel, but it’s actually a material made up of 90% water for the soft exterior, with a nickel skeleton inside that can change its shape in response to outside magnetic fields.

These robots are very small – only around the size of a dime – but they’re able to perform a range of tasks, including walking at the same speed as an average human, and picking up and carrying thing. They work by either taking in or expelling water through their soft components, and can respond to light and magnetic fields thanks to their precise molecular design. Essentially, their molecular structure is crafted such that when they’re hit by light, the molecules that make them up expel water, causing the robot’s ‘legs’ to stiffen like muscles.

Image Credits: Northwestern

Magnetic fields can then be applied to make the legs move, thanks to the embedded nickel skeleton which is ferromagnetic. Use of light and magnetic fields together, along with highly accurate computation, can produce very precise movement along desired paths.

The researchers behind this little bot envision future versions that are even smaller – small enough to operate on a microscopic level, perhaps for applications including targeted drug delivery within a patient. They could also theoretically be programmed to work together in a “warm”-like arrangement, which would allow them to scale up to handle larger tasks, such as potentially acting as an on-demand suture in case of injury.

A lot of research and work will be required to get to that kind of application, but the existence of the bots even at this stage is a remarkable achievement and a hint at what’s to come from soft robotics and intelligent materials that don’t require the kind of heavy and bulky compute associated with today’s production robots.

In light of artificial intelligence researcher Dr. Timnit Gebru’s exit from Google last week, Google CEO Sundar Pichai sent a memo to staffers, obtained by Axios, saying the company would investigate “the circumstances that led up to Dr. Gebru’s departure, examining where we could have improved and led a more respectful process.”

Last week, Gebru said she was fired from the company after sending an email to her direct reports discussing how she was disappointed in her organization’s approach to DEI as well as the approval process around her research paper. Gebru sent that email after Google did not grant her permission to attach her and her colleagues names to an AI ethics paper about language models. Gebru had previously sent her superiors an email, detailing that if they would not meet her specific conditions she would prepare to leave. Google proceeded to tell her it accepted her resignation and cut off her access to her work email.

In Pichai’s memo, he said the company needs to “accept responsibility for the fact that a prominent Black, female leader with immense talent left Google unhappily.” He also noted how it’s had a “ripple effect” through underrepresented communities at Google.

Google declined to comment but confirmed the memo is authentic. You can read the full memo over on Axios.

Pichai’s memo comes a couple of days after more than 2,000 Googlers and thousands of other supporters signed a letter standing with Gebru.

“Instead of being embraced by Google as an exceptionally talented and prolific contributor, Dr. Gebru has faced defensiveness, racism, gaslighting, research censorship, and now a retaliatory firing,” they wrote. “In an email to Dr. Gebru’s team on the evening of December 2, 2020, Google executives claimed that she had chosen to resign. This is false. In their direct correspondence with Dr. Gebru, these executives informed her that her termination was immediate, and pointed to an email she sent to a Google Brain diversity and inclusion mailing list as pretext.”

They went on to demand those who were involved in deciding how to treat Dr. Gebru’s paper meet with the Ethical AI team to explain what happened. They also demanded greater transparency around the decision-making, as well as a commitment from Google Research to research integrity and academic freedom.

SpaceX’s Starship prototype is set to take it’s first high-altitude flight – to around 40,000 feet or so – sometime this afternoon. This is the second time that it’s been poised to make this giant leap, after a try yesterday was aborted in the final seconds due to one of the Raptor engines automatically shutting down to potentially prevent an even worse ending to the test.

The spacecraft is one of the latest prototypes of Starship that SpaceX has built, and the first that will try for this high-flying demonstration. Other prototypes have climbed to a maximum of around 500 feet, after which they completed a controlled landing, too. This one will try that as well, provided it gets that far, but SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has said that it’s very likely something will go wrong with this test – which is fully within expectations at this stage in the spacecraft’s development.

The rocket is launching from SpaceX’s development facility in Texas, and will fly to its apogee height of 40,000 feet before executing (again, hopefully) what is essentially a belly flop maneuver to turn around and then fall back to Earth, before ultimately performing a controlled landing to come to rest vertically. All theoretical, but that’s how it would go if everything went perfectly.

We could get a spectacularly different result, which would still help SpaceX immensely in their development of Starship by providing valuable data. The exact timing of the test flight isn’t yet known, so stay tuned above – the window officially closes at 6 PM EST today, so it’ll have to happen before that it if it’s going to happen.

The Federal Trade Commission today announced a new antitrust lawsuit against Facebook, alleging that the social network has used monopoly power “with the aim of suppressing, neutralizing, and deterring serious competitive threats,” and must be broken up. The suit is separate from, but was investigated in coordination with, one from 48 attorneys general also announced today.

Both suits allege that Facebook has engaged in illegal patterns of behavior, which the states and federal investigators worked together to characterize. But the state lawsuit is concerned with violations at the state law level, while the FTC alleges violation of federal law. Therefore the two lawsuits, while objecting to the same actions by Facebook, will be pursued and adjudicated separately.

The allegations of both are similar: that Facebook’s acquisitions of WhatsApp and Instagram both constituted illegal shutdowns of nascent competitors by a monopoly, and that Facebook has used access to its platform as leverage to prevent other competitors from emerging.

The FTC and state lawsuits both call for the acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp, perhaps among others, to be retroactively judged to be illegal, and for those companies to be split off from the main Facebook company.

In addition to this divestiture, Facebook would need to seek prior notice and approval for all future mergers and acquisitions, from both the FTC and state authorities; various behaviors would also be prohibited, such as tying API access to not offering competing features.

Facebook, in a Tweet, said it is looking into the lawsuits, but disparaged them, saying “the government now wants a do-over with no regard for the impact that precedent would have on the broader business community.”

Indeed it is a natural question: How can the government approve the purchases of Instagram and WhatsApp, then retroactively disapprove them, without calling into question the entire oversight mechanism of the FTC and other regulatory agencies?

As the FTC notes in its Q&A on the lawsuit, this is not actually unprecedented or even unexpected. The process of approving the purchase of one company by another may present no obvious illegal qualities at the time, but behind the scenes it may involve many. An approved and consummate merger might be unwound if, for example, it was found to have been executed on false pretenses after the fact — or, as in this case, if it is found later to be part of a pattern of illegal practices.

“Our enforcement action challenges more than just the acquisitions,” explains the FTC. “We are challenging a multi-year course of conduct that constituted monopolization of the personal social networking market… the FTC can—and often does—challenge consummated transactions when they violate the law. In fact, identifying anticompetitive consummated transactions has been a key part of the mandate of the Technology Enforcement Division since its formation in February 2019 as the Technology Task Force.”

These filings are only the very first part of what will almost certainly prove to be a multi-year process — and one spanning two administrations at that, which will only slow proceedings. The next step will likely be a PR push from Facebook explaining its innocence.

The Federal Trade Commission today announced a new antitrust lawsuit against Facebook, alleging that the social network has used monopoly power “with the aim of suppressing, neutralizing, and deterring serious competitive threats,” and must be broken up. The suit is separate from, but was investigated in coordination with, one from 48 attorneys general also announced today.

Both suits allege that Facebook has engaged in illegal patterns of behavior, which the states and federal investigators worked together to characterize. But the state lawsuit is concerned with violations at the state law level, while the FTC alleges violation of federal law. Therefore the two lawsuits, while objecting to the same actions by Facebook, will be pursued and adjudicated separately.

The allegations of both are similar: that Facebook’s acquisitions of WhatsApp and Instagram both constituted illegal shutdowns of nascent competitors by a monopoly, and that Facebook has used access to its platform as leverage to prevent other competitors from emerging.

The FTC and state lawsuits both call for the acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp, perhaps among others, to be retroactively judged to be illegal, and for those companies to be split off from the main Facebook company.

In addition to this divestiture, Facebook would need to seek prior notice and approval for all future mergers and acquisitions, from both the FTC and state authorities; various behaviors would also be prohibited, such as tying API access to not offering competing features.

Facebook, in a Tweet, said it is looking into the lawsuits, but disparaged them, saying “the government now wants a do-over with no regard for the impact that precedent would have on the broader business community.”

Indeed it is a natural question: How can the government approve the purchases of Instagram and WhatsApp, then retroactively disapprove them, without calling into question the entire oversight mechanism of the FTC and other regulatory agencies?

As the FTC notes in its Q&A on the lawsuit, this is not actually unprecedented or even unexpected. The process of approving the purchase of one company by another may present no obvious illegal qualities at the time, but behind the scenes it may involve many. An approved and consummate merger might be unwound if, for example, it was found to have been executed on false pretenses after the fact — or, as in this case, if it is found later to be part of a pattern of illegal practices.

“Our enforcement action challenges more than just the acquisitions,” explains the FTC. “We are challenging a multi-year course of conduct that constituted monopolization of the personal social networking market… the FTC can—and often does—challenge consummated transactions when they violate the law. In fact, identifying anticompetitive consummated transactions has been a key part of the mandate of the Technology Enforcement Division since its formation in February 2019 as the Technology Task Force.”

These filings are only the very first part of what will almost certainly prove to be a multi-year process — and one spanning two administrations at that, which will only slow proceedings. The next step will likely be a PR push from Facebook explaining its innocence.

The end of 2020 will be marked by a series of high-profile consumer technology IPOs. Among the companies on file are several marketplace businesses including home rental giant Airbnb, food delivery service DoorDash, grocery delivery company Instacart and the online shopping platform Wish.

Poshmark, a social commerce platform in which Menlo Ventures invested early, has also filed to go public. While the public market will soon assign value to these marketplace businesses, the dominance of these businesses underscores the strength of the marketplace business model. It’s interesting then, to dig into the numbers to understand the state of marketplace businesses today.

What to make of 2020?

Typically, we’d spend most of our time analyzing the most recent data. But, it will surprise no one that 2020 is an outlier. Thankfully, we don’t need to throw the data out. There are some interesting insights. The pandemic impacted businesses broadly, some boomed while others went bust. How the marketplace category fared varied from business to business, depending on the category.

The large public marketplaces continued to perform. If we look at the top 20 publicly traded marketplaces, we see that their combined market cap increased ~63% in 2020. This growth rate is lower than the ~99% growth of the 20 public SaaS leaders.

Not surprisingly companies like the video meeting platform Zoom and Shopify, a commerce platform that allows anyone to set up an online store and sell their products, benefitted from new dynamics introduced by the pandemic.

Similarly, some of the largest public marketplaces, like Amazon, Etsy and Delivery Hero were boosted by changes in consumer behavior including spikes in online shopping and delivery.

Acquisition efficiencies increased with increased demand from consumers and merchants that resulted in favorable growth plus EBITDA pairing.

Take Etsy as an example: In the last quarter, it grew at a whopping 128% YoY compared to 32% the year before with EBITDA margin of 30% versus 15% from the year before.

But where some marketplace categories were propelled by COVID-19 tailwinds, categories like travel and fitness struggled against the headwinds created by the pandemic. This is where we saw some exciting innovation from startups — which tend to be more nimble than their public counterparts — adapted to the new normal. Take Classpass, which was originally conceived as a platform to connect gym goers with the right studio/fitness classes.

If you’re gazing longingly at new streaming services but can’t actually afford all of them, TiVo says it can help you choose.

In recent years, the company has been trying to evolve beyond the DVR business by creating products that make it easier for consumers to navigate the increasingly fragmented TV landscape. Earlier this year, it launched the Tivo Stream 4K, a $50 Android TV dongle.

In a blog post, TiVo said that its goal is to help you answer questions like, “Do I need a live TV lineup? If so, what’s the optimal service and line-up for me? Which streaming services best fit my taste and consumption profile?” The TiVo Stream 4K was the first step in that strategy, and today’s launch of TiVo Match Scores is the second.

The idea is pretty simple: When you browse different streaming services in the My Services section of the TiVo Stream interface, you’ll start seeing personalized scores between 1 and 100. The higher the score, the more likely that the service is a good fit for you.

Image Credits: TiVo

Vice President of Product Chris Thun told me via email that with streaming services becoming increasingly protective of their viewership data, TiVo draws on a variety of data sources to calculate the scores for each viewer — the same data it uses to recommend movies and shows throughout the Tivo Stream experience.

“With TiVo Stream, we’re utilizing engagement-based personalization alongside the more traditional viewership data (in cases where views are made available to us) to tune our recommendations,” Thun said. “Ingredient signals driving engagement-based personalization include titles within TiVo Stream that you engage with, add to your watchlist, or make a partner app selection (strongly implying viewership).”

Thun said every streaming service that’s integrated with TiVo Stream will be scored. The company plans to roll out Match Scores over the next few days, with full deployment by the end of the week.

A collection of states filed a multi-state lawsuit Wednesday accusing Facebook of suppressing its competition through monopolistic business practices meant to preserve the company’s outsized power. Fourty eight attorneys general across 46 states are behind the lawsuit, with only South Dakota, South Carolina, Alabama and Georgia declining to join.

The lawsuit, which looks at Facebook’s actions throughout the company’s history, alleges that the company bought competitors “illegally” and in a “predatory manner.” The suit cites Facebook’s acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp as prominent examples.

In the suit, the collection of states asks the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to “restrain Facebook from making further acquisitions valued at or in excess of $10 million” without notifying the plaintiff states in advance. The lawsuit also asks the court for “any additional relief it determines is appropriate, including the divestiture or restructuring of illegally acquired companies, or current Facebook assets or business lines.”

The suit was led by a committee of attorneys general from California, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, and the District of Columbia, with New York Attorney General Letitia James spearheading the effort.

“Almost every state in this nation has joined this bipartisan lawsuit because Facebook’s efforts to dominate the market were as illegal as they were harmful,” James said. “Today’s suit should send a clear message to Facebook and every other company that any efforts to stifle competition, reduce innovation, or cut privacy protections will be met with the full force of our offices.”

The state antitrust action against Facebook materialized the same week the FTC votes on its own antitrust suit against the social media giant. That vote will tie a bow on a 20-month long investigation into Facebook’s business, including its acquisitions of WhatsApp and Instagram — two formerly independent apps that were folded into the social giant’s business.

Facebook has been regularly criticized for its outsized influence and repeatedly been called to testify before Congress on antitrust issues, but the coordinated state antitrust effort marks a challenging new chapter for the company.