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Apple today introduced a new feature designed for use with its HomePod speakers, including its just-introduced HomePod Mini: Intercom. Similar to Alexa’s “announce” feature, Intercom will allow HomePod owners to leverage their smart speakers — and other Apple devices — to communicate with all family members at once.

The feature will make the most sense for households that have already bought into the Apple ecosystem, as you’ll be able to use Intercom across iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Mac and even AirPods and CarPlay.

For example, as Apple demoed today, a parent could announce that it was time to go via an Apple device downstairs, and reach family throughout the home, who could then respond using the Apple device nearest them.

Apple’s ability to leverage its entire ecosystem to make a feature like Intercom more useful could prove to be a competitive advantage in the smart speaker space versus rivals, like Amazon and Google, who have thus far led the market.

The $99 price point for the new HomePod Mini will make it more accessible to a wider audience. Consumers may also be swayed to buy from Apple because of its support for privacy when it comes to how it handles voice recordings.

It took a bit longer than usual (thank COVID-19 for some insurmountable manufacturing delays), but the iPhone 12 is here. And as expected, it comes bearing 5G. The latest version of Apple’s smartphone also arrives in a variety of different sizes, as the company continues to adjust to changing consumer purchasing patterns around mobile devices.

The inclusion of next-gen wireless is, of course, the flagship feature here. Apple is far from the first company to offer 5G on a handset, but given a bit of a bottleneck in adoption given the extremely odd year we’ve been experiencing. According to recent numbers from Canalys, only 13% of handsets shipping in the first half of the year were 5G capable. That means there’s a long way to go, and Apple finally adopting the tech will certainly move the needle.

CEO Tim Cook kicked off the announcement by inviting Verizon (TC’s parent co.) on stage to sell the carrier’s UWB take on the tech and announce that it’s gone “nationwide.” 5G will be available on all of the new models announced today. As expected, the line gets a full redesign, borrowing cues from the iPad Pro, including a flat edge more in line with older devices than the newer curved models. The device is also 11% thinner and lighter than its predecessor.

There’s a Corning glass display. Apple says it worked directly with with the Gorilla Glass maker to develop ceramic shield, which it states is around six-times more reliable in drop tests. The smartphone sports an OLED display (which appears to be consistent across the new devices, as well), with double the number of pixels as the iPhone 11.

Developing…

Today, during its iPhone hardware event, Apple unveiled the $99 HomePod Mini.

The HomePod Mini is clearly a reach for a broader swath of new users. The original HomePod managed to impress audiophiles but its high price served as a high barrier of entry to new users looking for a new smart speaker. Complicating that “smart speaker” designation is the face that Siri was and is several years behind the intelligence of both Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, leaving the speaker as a more compromised choice for users who might have been hoping to embrace the fully smart home ecosystem.

The new device starts shipping the week of November 16. The device comes in white and space grey colors.

The HomePod Mini ditches the trashcan Mac Pro design of its bigger relative and is much more spherical in shape, still covered in a mesh fabric. It boasts the same onboard screen that allows users to summon Siri and adjust volume, while giving the device a more interesting visual look than smart devices from other companies. Also differentiating the device is Apple’s S5 chip which the company says helps the HomePod Mini bring users its “computational audio.”

Like with the original HomePod, users can arrange a stereo pair of two of the HomePod Minis and will also be able to utilize multiple HomePod devices in a home to operate a new “Intercom” experience.

Image Credits: Apple

DroneDeploy, a cloud software company that uses drone footage to help industries like agriculture, oil and gas and construction get a birds-eye view of a site to build a 3D picture, announced a new initiative today that combines drone photos with cameras on the ground or even ground robots from a company like Boston Dynamics for what it is calling a 360 Walkthrough.

Up until today’s announcement, DroneDeploy could use drone footage from any drone to get a picture of what a site looked like outside, uploading those photos and stitching them together into a 3D model that is accurate within an inch, according to DroneDeploy CEO Mike Winn.

Winn says that while there is great value in getting this type of view of the outside of a job site, customers were hungry for a total picture that included inside and out, and the platform which is simply processing photos transmitted from drones could be adapted fairly easily to accommodate photos coming from cameras on other devices.

“Our customers are also looking to get data from the interiors, and they’re looking for one digital twin, one digital reconstruction of their entire site to understand what’s going on to share across their company with the safety team and with executives that this is the status of the job site today,” Winn explained.

He adds that this is even more important during COVID when access to job sites has been limited, making it even more important to understand the state of the site on a regular basis.

“They want fewer people on those job sites, only the essential workers doing the work. So for anyone who needs information about the site, if they can get that information from a desktop or the 3D model or a kind of street view of the job site, it can really help in this COVID environment, but it also makes it much more efficient,” Winn said.

He said that while companies could combine this capability with fixed cameras on the inside of a site, they don’t give the kind of coverage a ground robot could, and the Boston Dynamics robot is capable of moving around a rough job site with debris scattered around.

Image Credits: DroneDeploy

While Winn sees the use of the Boston Dynamics robot as more of an end goal, he says that more likely for the immediate future, you will have a human walking through the job site with a camera to capture the footage to complete the inside-outside picture for the DroneDeploy software.

“All customers already want to adopt robots to collect this data, and you can imagine a Boston Dynamics robot [doing this], but that’s the end state of course. Today we’re supporting the human walk-through as well, a person with a 360 camera walking through the job site, probably doing it once a week to documents the status of the job sites,” he said.

DroneDeploy launched in 2013 and has raised over $100 million, according to Winn. He reports his company has over 5000 customers with drone flight time increasing by 2.5x YoY this year as more companies adopt drones as a way to cope with COVID.

French startup Spendesk has added $18 million to its Series B round. The company already raised $38.4 million as part of its Series B last year, which means that it raised $56.4 million as part of this round. Eight Roads Ventures is investing in today’s extension round.

Spendesk, as the name suggests, focuses on all things related to spend management. The company issues virtual and physical cards for employees, lets you set up an approval workflow and manages expense reimbursements. It can also centralize all your invoices and receipts on the platform.

By centralizing everything on the same platform, it lets you control your spending in real time and save time on accounting tasks. Reconciliation is easier if you combine transactions and receipts on Spendesk. Clients can also export data to Xero, Datev, Netsuite or Sage.

Image Credits: Spendesk

For big expenses, you can send a request to your manager. If they approve your request, you receive a single-use virtual card for that expense.

Similarly, if your company gives you a physical debit card, you get a pre-defined budget. Your manager can top up your card for big expenses, block ATM withdrawals, block weekend transactions and more. Employees can check their payments from the mobile app, see their card balance and add receipts.

Spendesk is a software-as-a-service product with a monthly subscription fee. While transactions have probably slowed down due to the economic crisis, the company says that its subscription revenue has doubled year-over-year. In just a year, the company grew from 100 to 200 people.

It remains focused on small and medium companies across Europe. There are 40,000 people using Spendesk through their companies. Clients include Algolia, Curve, Doctolib, Raisin and Wefox. The company has hired Joseph Smith as Chief Revenue Officer, pictured left above with the company’s CEO Rodolphe Ardant (pictured right).

Image Credits: Spendesk

Edgify, which builds AI for edge computing, has secured a $6.5m seed funding round backed by Octopus Ventures, Mangrove Capital Partners and an unnamed semiconductor giant. The name was not released but TechCrunch understands it nay be Intel Corp. or Qualcomm Inc.

Edgify’s technology allows ‘edge devices’ (devices at the edge of the internet) to interpret vast amounts of data, train an AI model locally, and then share that learning across its network of similar devices. This then trains all the other devices in anything from computer vision, NLP, voice recognition, or any other form of AI. 

The technology can be applied to anything from MRI machines, connected cars, checkout lanes, mobile devices and anything that has a CPU, GPU or NPU. Edgify’s technology is already being used in supermarkets, for instance.

Ofri Ben-Porat, CEO and co-founder of Edgify, commented in a statement: “Edgify allows companies, from any industry, to train complete deep learning and machine learning models, directly on their own edge devices. This mitigates the need for any data transfer to the Cloud and also grants them close to perfect accuracy every time, and without the need to retrain centrally.” 

Mangrove partner Hans-Jürgen Schmitz who will join Edgify’s Board comments: “We expect a surge in AI adoption across multiple industries with significant long-term potential for Edgify in medical and manufacturing, just to name a few.” 

Simon King, Partner and Deep Tech Investor at Octopus Ventures added: “As the interconnected world we live in produces more and more data, AI at the edge is becoming increasingly important to process large volumes of information.”

So-called ‘edge computing’ is seen as being one of the forefronts of deeptech right now.

Launched almost 18 months ago, Numan joined the growing list of sites aiming at men’s health, such as Roman and Hims, for example.

Numan launched aiming to promote accessible medical remedies for Erectile Dysfunction but has since expanded into other areas to building a brand around pharmaceuticals on subscription.

It has now closed a £10M Series A funding round led by Novator, along with Anthemis Exponential, Vostok New Ventures, and Colle Capital.
 
“We are building a new kind of healthcare company that gives men simple and accessible solutions for their health and wellbeing problems… The COVID crisis is motivating men to take better care of themselves,” said Sokratis Papafloratos, Numan’s Founder and CEO in a statement.

As part of the funding, Birgir Már Ragnarsson of Novator joins Numan’s board. “We were impressed with Numan’s capital-efficient execution so far and are excited about the future direction of the company. Health is one of the largest economic transformation opportunities still addressable at a global scale, and we’re delighted to be part of Numan’s journey.” 
 
Numan intends to use the funds to continue investing in technology, expand operations, and grow the team, with Sam Shah, ex CEO of NHSX recently joining as Chief Medical Strategy Officer. 

Most research shows that most men don’t go to the doctor when something is wrong, and yet they are more likely than women to get cancer, heart disease and become overweight, and are more prone to smoking, drinking, and abusing drugs. Hence why startups like Numan are starting to show traction, as men can take more preventative measures.

Launched almost 18 months ago, Numan joined the growing list of sites aiming at men’s health, such as Roman and Hims, for example.

Numan launched aiming to promote accessible medical remedies for Erectile Dysfunction but has since expanded into other areas to building a brand around pharmaceuticals on subscription.

It has now closed a £10M Series A funding round led by Novator, along with Anthemis Exponential, Vostok New Ventures, and Colle Capital.
 
“We are building a new kind of healthcare company that gives men simple and accessible solutions for their health and wellbeing problems… The COVID crisis is motivating men to take better care of themselves,” said Sokratis Papafloratos, Numan’s Founder and CEO in a statement.

As part of the funding, Birgir Már Ragnarsson of Novator joins Numan’s board. “We were impressed with Numan’s capital-efficient execution so far and are excited about the future direction of the company. Health is one of the largest economic transformation opportunities still addressable at a global scale, and we’re delighted to be part of Numan’s journey.” 
 
Numan intends to use the funds to continue investing in technology, expand operations, and grow the team, with Sam Shah, ex CEO of NHSX recently joining as Chief Medical Strategy Officer. 

Most research shows that most men don’t go to the doctor when something is wrong, and yet they are more likely than women to get cancer, heart disease and become overweight, and are more prone to smoking, drinking, and abusing drugs. Hence why startups like Numan are starting to show traction, as men can take more preventative measures.

Apple’s big iPhone event is finally here – virtually, which is to be expected these days. This is already the second virtual event Apple has hosted this fall, following one in September at which it revealed the Apple Watch Series 6 and a new iPad Air. This time around, we’re going to see what the iPhone 12 looks like, as well as how many colors and sizes it comes in.

There’s also supposed to be plenty of other news, including a new smaller HomePod mini, maybe an updated Apple TV, possibly a number of different headphone products and more. Will we get our first glance at the first shipping ARM-based Mac to use Apple’s in-house processors? Probably not, but maybe!

We’re going to be following along live and offering commentary below, and you can also tune in live to the video stream right here. Everything gets underway at 10 AM PT/ 1 PM ET.

Earlier this year, WordPress .com introduced an easier way to post your Twitter threads, also known as tweetstorms, to your blog with the introduction of “unroll” option for Twitter embeds. Today, the company is addressing the flip side of tweetstorm publication — it’s making it possible to turn your existing WordPress blog post into a tweetstorm with just a couple of clicks.

The new feature will allow you to tweet out every word of your post, as well as the accompanying images and videos, the company says. These will be automatically inserted into the thread where they belong alongside your text.

To use the tweetstorm feature, a WordPress user will first click on the Jetpack icon on the top right of the page, then connect their Twitter account to their WordPress site, if that hadn’t been done already.

Image Credits: WordPress.com

The option also supports multiple Twitter accounts, if you want to post your tweetstorms in several places.

Once Twitter is connected, you’ll select the account or accounts where you want to tweet, then choose the newly added option to share the post as a Twitter thread instead of a single post with a link.

Image Credits: WordPress.com

In the box provided, you’ll write an introductory message for your tweetstorm, so Twitter users will know what your Twitter thread will be discussing.

When you then click on the “publish” button, the blog post will be shared as a tweetstorm automatically.

Image Credits: WordPress.com

The feature was also designed with a few thoughtful touches to make the tweetstorm feel more natural, as if it had been written directly on Twitter.

For starters, WordPress says it will pay attention to the blog post’s formatting in order to determine where to separate the tweets. Instead of packing the first tweet with as many words as possible, it places the break at the end of the first sentence, for example. And when a paragraph is too long for a single tweet, it’s automatically split out into as many tweets as needed, instead of being cut off. A list block, meanwhile, will be formatted as a list on Twitter.

To help writers craft a blog post that will work as a tweetstorm, you can choose to view where the tweets will be split in the social preview feature. This allows WordPress users to better shape the post to fit Twitter’s character limit as they write.

Image Credits: WordPress.com

At the end of the published tweetstorm, Twitter followers will be able to click a link to read the post on the WordPress site.

This addresses a common complaint with Twitter threads. While it’s useful to have longer thoughts posted to social media for attention, reading through paragraphs of content directly on Twitter can be difficult. But as tweetstroms grew in popularity, tools to solve this problem emerged. The most popular is a Twitter bot called @ThreadReaderApp, which lets users read a thread in a long-form format by mentioning the account by name within the thread along with the keyword “unroll.”

With the launch of the new WordPress feature, however, Twitter users won’t have to turn to third-party utilities — they can just click through on the link provided to read the content as a blog post. This, in turn, could help turn Twitter followers into blog subscribers, allowing the WordPress writer to increase their overall reach.

WordPress’ plans to introduce the tweetstorm feature had been announced last month as coming in the Jetpack 9.0 release, arriving in early October.

The feature is now publicly available, the company says.