Category: UNCATEGORIZED

The sixth full-scale testing prototype of SpaceX’s Starship has successfully completed a key static fire test of its Raptor engines, according to SpaceX founders and CEO Elon Musk . The so-called ‘SN5’ Starship prototype is now ready to move on to a 150m (nearly 500 feet) short duration flight test, which would mark the furthest yet that one of these testing spacecraft has made it through SpaceX’s planned development program.

SpaceX has been building and testing Starship prototypes (which are designed by the ‘SN’ followed by their number in sequence) since last year, after the company first built a sub-scale demonstrator that was made up of basically just the base of a Starship with a single Raptor engine mounted to demonstrate low-altitude flight and landing capabilities.

Since then, SpaceX has been building full-scale demonstration prototypes to perform more test flights, initially seeking to go immediately into high-altitude testing. These were known as Mk1 and Mk2, and Mk1 was destroyed during pressure tank testing, while Mk2 was scrapped with the company turning its focus to Mk3 (renamed SN1, starting the new naming convention for the series). The prototypes that have bene developed since have been built and tested rapidly, with SN3 and SN4 both suffering catastrophic failures during the testing process.

SpaceX has successfully test-fired the SN5 prototype, however, as of today, and will now move on to the first low-altitude ‘hop’ flight of full-scale prototype test vehicle.

Ultimately, SpaceX hopes to replace all of its launch vehicles with Starship – including Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy – as well as to use it with its forthcoming Super Heavy booster to carry large loads of cargo to Mars for establishing a permanent human presence on the red planet. It obviously still has many tests, and many iterations to go before it reaches that lofty goal, but Musk and SpaceX seem keen on a rapid pace of iteration and testing with a relatively public audience. The ample testing is pretty standard for space vehicle development, but doing it out in the open is novel, as is the speed with which SpaceX is building real test articles and then using the results to create new (and hopefully improved) versions.

Atlassian today announced that it has acquired Mindville, Jira-centric enterprise asset management firm based in Sweden. Mindville’s over 1,7000 customers include the likes of NASA, Spotify and Samsung.

With this acquisition, Atlassian is getting into a new market, too, by adding asset management tools to its lineup of services. The company’s flagship product is Mindville Insights, which helps IT, HR, sales, legal and facilities to track assets across a company. It’s completely agnostic as to which assets you are tracking, though, given Atlassian’s user base, most companies will likely use it to track IT assets like servers and laptops. But in addition to physical assets, you can also use the service to automatically import cloud-based servers from AWS, Azure and GCP, for example, and the team has built connectors to services like Service Now and Snow Software, too.

“Mindville Insight provides enterprises with full visibility into their assets and services, critical to delivering great customer and employee service experiences. These capabilities are a cornerstone of IT Service Management (ITSM), a market where Atlassian continues to see strong momentum and growth,” Atlassian’s head of tech teams Noah Wasmer writes in today’s announcement today.

Co-founded by Tommy Nordahl & Mathias Edblom, Mindville never raised any institutional funding, according to Crunchbase. The two companies also didn’t disclose the acquisition price.

Like some of Atlassian’s other recent acquisitions, including Code Barrel, the company was already an Atlassian partner and successfully selling its service in the Atlassian Marketplace.

“This acquisition builds on Atlassian’s investment in [IT Service Management], including recent acquisitions like Opsgenie for incident management, Automation for Jira for code-free automation, and Halp for conversational ticketing,” Atlassian’s Wasmer writes.

The Mindville team says it will continue to support existing customers and that Atlassian will continue to build on Insight’s tools while it works to integrate them with Jira Service Desk. That integration, Atlassian argues, will give its users more visibility into their assets and allow them to deliver better customer and employee service experiences.

“We’ve watched the Insight product line be used heavily in many industries and for various disciplines, including some we never expected! One of the most popular areas is IT Service Management where Insight plays an important role connecting all relevant asset data to incidents, changes, problems, and requests,” write Mindville’s founders in today’s announcement. “Combining our solutions with the products from Atlassian enables tighter integration for more sophisticated service management, empowered by the underlying asset data.”

ViacomCBS has announced a significant expansion to its streaming library, with the addition of more than 3,500 episodes of shows like “Avatar: The Last Avatar,” “Chapelle’s Show” and “Laguna Beach.”

Viacom and CBS were previously merged, then separated, then most recently merged again, and the additional content comes from across the company’s different brands — such as BET, Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, Smithsonian Channel, TV Land, VH1 and Paramount Pictures — plus additional sports programming, like exclusive U.S. streaming of the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League.

ViacomCBS had previously announced plans to launch an expanded and rebranded version of CBS All Access this summer, to better compete against streaming offerings like Disney+ and HBO Max. Today’s announcement suggests that the rebrand isn’t coming until early 2021, but positions this news as the first step in that process.

“Today marks the beginning of an exciting evolution of CBS All Access into the subscription streaming home for ViacomCBS and a preview of what’s to come,” said Chief Digital Officer Marc DeBevoise in a statement.

We’ve previously suggested that the main reason to sign up for CBS All Access is to get access to new Star Trek shows like “Discovery,” “Picard” and the upcoming animated series “Lower Decks.”  But this announcement feels like an attempt to lure non-Trek fans to sign up as well. (And just to be clear: I love Star Trek.)

Other original content in the works includes a Spongebob Squarepants spinoff called “Kemp Koral,” “The Spongebob Movie: Sponge on the Run,” an untitled project from director Richard Linklater and a miniseries adaptation of “The Stand.”

Today’s the day for all you early-stage startup founders to learn everything you’ve always wanted to know about Startup Alley but were afraid to ask (10 points if you get that pop culture reference). We’re live-streaming an Ask Me Anything session from the TechCrunch LinkedIn page today at 4 p.m. ET/ 1 p.m. PT, and it’s not too late to register for this free event.

Learn about the benefits, opportunities and exposure that come from exhibiting your business in Startup Alley — from founders just like you.

The AMA kicks off with a quick overview of Disrupt and Startup Alley, and then we’ll move into a panel discussion moderated by the Startup Alley team. Our panel of fierce founders and veteran exhibitors includes Felicia Jackson, inventor and founder of CPRWrap; Khrys Hatch, Capital Program Manager at Launch Tennessee; and Luke Heron, founder and CEO of Testcard. Heron’s startup has the added distinction of earning a TC Top Pick designation in 2019 — be sure to ask him about that experience.

Now, 2020 is a year like no other — not exactly a newsflash, right? Digital Startup Alley may be virtual, but the connections and opportunities that come from exhibiting there are very real. Still, you have questions. We get it. That’s why Emma Comeau, our Director of Events, will join us toward the end of the session to talk about what you, the Disrupt community, can expect at this year’s conference. You can ask her anything, too.

Today’s the day, founders. Join us for the Digital Startup Ask Me Anything Session — it’s free — at 4 p.m. ET/ 1 p.m. PT. Simply RSVP on the TechCrunch LinkedIn page, bring your burning questions and keep your business moving forward.

Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at Disrupt 2020? Contact the sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.

Chinese electric vehicle and parts manufacturer Kandi Technologies Group is officially bringing two EVs to the United States through its subsidiary Kandi America — news that has prompted run up in its share price in the past day. 

Kandi shares opened at $3.88 a share on Wednesday, jumping to $16.51 today. Shares have now settled below $9.

Kandi Technologies has been talking about bringing EVs to the United States for a couple of years. Now, two models are arriving as early as the end of 2020, beginning in a limited area in Texas. Both are priced under $30,000 before federal incentives.

The two models heading to the U.S. are Kandi’s compact K27 vehicle that comes with a 17.69 kWh battery and a range of up to 100 miles, according to the automaker (although it’s unclear if these are EPA estimates or another standard). The K27 starts at $20,499, and is eligible for the $7,500 federal income tax credit. That would put the K27 at just under $13,000, although again it’s unclear if this includes the destination fee.

The larger K23 is also coming to the U.S. market. This small electric SUV has a 41.4 kWh battery and a driving range of more than 180 miles. The K23 starts at just under $30,000, again before applying federal incentives.

Both of those vehicles, even without the federal incentives, are less expensive than other EVs sold in the U.S., including the Tesla Model 3, Nissan Leaf, Hyundai Ioniq and Kia Kona EV — to name a few.

The aim is middle class U.S. consumers. It’s a group that has had few affordable EV choices, Kandi Technologies Chairman Xiaoming Hu said in a statement. Kandi America CEO Johnny Ta echoed those sentiments.

“Electric vehicles have been valued for years for their efficiency, sustainability and innovation. However, owning the ‘it’ car often eluded consumers who desired a great EV alongside all the other comforts of modern living. Kandi is changing that by revolutionizing the EV-buying experience for many,” Tai said. “Kandi’s mission is to make electric cars accessible to all.”

The two models clearly hit the affordability standard. The question is whether they will tick the other important boxes for customers here, a list that includes reliability and performance.

The vehicles will be sold by Garland, Texas-based Kandi America, the trade name of Kandi’s wholly owned subsidiary SC Autosports, LLC. Sales will initially focus on the Dallas-Fort Worth area, the company said.

Rocket launch startup Astra is readying for its first orbital flight test, set to take place either this weekend or next week, weather permitting. The company will launch its ‘Rocket 3.1’ from Kodiak, Alaska – and while these are technically classified as orbital test flights, the company was quick to caution journalists on a press call on Thursday that it doesn’t necessarily believe each the three initial launches it has planned will make it all the way to orbit proper.

“We don’t intend to get a hole-in-one here,” said Kemp. “It’s a par three course. We intend to really accomplish enough to ensure that we’re able to get to [orbital] flight after three flights, and for us, that means a nominal first stage burn, and getting that upper stage to separate successfully. After that, pretty much everything that we learn is additional upside, and will be just delighted if that upper stage lights and we’ll be delighted if the upper stage teaches us something so that so that our next flight can even be more successful.”

Astra’s approach to building and launching rockets differs somewhat from its competitors. The startup only incorporated three years ago, and it’s building its rockets in Alameda, California – not far from Oakland. The Rocket 3.1 is a roughly 40-foot launch vehicle that carries a small payload, roughly equivalent to one of the small sats that make up the large constellations currently being launched for operation in low Earth orbit by a number of companies (for reference, SpaceX launches 60 of these on each of its Starlink missions).

When I spoke to Kemp ahead of their original attempt to win a DARPA launch challenge (since ended with the prize unclaimed), he stressed that they’re looking to build in volume at low cost, with the expectation of a higher tolerable margin for failure than other new space launch companies like SpaceX and Rocket Lab.

“Rather than trying to spend many years doing it first time, we’re iterating towards orbit,” Kemp said during Thursday’s conference about their debut attempt next week.

This is a do-over after the original planned attempt which suffered an anomaly that led in a total loss of the vehicle. That was a ‘Rocket 3.0’ model, and the company has upgraded the design and worked out a number of issues, including the one that led to that failure, with the ensuing time. The gap between now and that attempt at the end of March includes delays resulting from COVID-19, though Astra was eventually declared one of very few companies still allowed to maintain a staffed office since it’s considered important to national security.

These three initial test flights won’t carry any payload, in part because Astra fully expects to lose at least the first vehicle. But Astra’s model actually allows for some operational failures in exchange for economics that allow much less expensive individual launch costs than are currently possible with either SpaceX or Rocket Lab’s rideshare missions as options for small satellite operators.

The first Astra test launch is currently targeting sometime between a window that spans August 2 to August 7, between the hours of 7 PM and 9 PM PDT (6 and 8 PM local time in Kodiak). So far, weather isn’t looking great for Sunda, but the company notes the weather shifts quickly and plans to keep a close watch and adapt accordingly.

A new report from Pew Research makes an attempt to better understand U.S. adults who get their news largely from social media platforms, and compare their understanding of current events and political knowledge to those who use other sources, like TV, radio, and news publications. The top-level finding, according to Pew, is that social media news consumers tend to follow the news less closely and end up less informed on several key subjects.

That seems to reinforce a belief that many people already hold, of course — that people who get their news primarily from Facebook, for example, aren’t as informed.

But it’s important to understand how Pew Research came to this conclusion and debate to what extent it means the platforms are at fault, which is unclear from this data.

The firm first asked people how they most commonly get their news.

About one-in-five (18%) said they mostly use social media to stay current. That’s close the percentages of those who say they use local TV (16%) or cable TV (16%) news, but fewer than those who say they go directly to a news website or app (25%). Another 13% said they use network TV and only 3% said they read a newspaper.

To be clear, any study that asks users to self-report how they do something isn’t going to be as useful as those that collect hard data on what the consumers actually do. In other words, people who think they’re getting most of their news from TV may be, in reality, undercounting the time they spent on social media — or vice versa.

That said, among this group of “primarily” social media news consumers, only 8% said they were following the key news story of the 2020 U.S. election “very closely,” compared with 37% of cable TV viewers who said the same, or the 33% of print users who also said this. The social media group, on this topic, was closer to the local TV group (11%).

On the topic of the coronavirus outbreak, only around a quarter (23%) of the primarily social media news consumers said they were following news of COVID-19 “very closely.” All other groups again reported a higher percentage, including those who primarily used cable TV (50%), national network TV (50%), news websites and apps (44%), and local TV (32%) for news.

Related to this finding, the survey respondents were also asked 29 different fact-based questions about news topics from recent days, including those on Trump’s impeachment, the COVID-19 outbreak, and others. Those who scored the lowest on these topics were the consumers who said they primarily used social media to get their news.

Across 9 questions related to foundational political knowledge, only 17% of primarily social media news consumers scored “high political knowledge,” meaning they go 8 to 9 of the questions right. 27% scored “middle political knowledge” (6-7 right) and 57% scored “low political knowledge” (5 or fewer right.) The only group that did worse were those who primarily relied on local TV.

45% of who got their news from news primarily via websites and apps, meanwhile, had “high political knowledge,” compared with 42% for radio, 41% for print, 35% for cable TV, and 29% for network TV.

The social media group of news consumers was also more exposed to fringe conspiracies, like the idea that the pandemic was intentionally planned. Nearly a quarter (26%) of those who primarily got their news via social media said they had heard “a lot” about this conspiracy, and a sizable 81% said they had at least “a little.” This was significantly higher than all other news platforms, and a indication of how much conspiracies can spread across social media.

And yet, the same social media group reported they’re less concerned about the impact of made-up news. Only around four-in-ten (37%) said they were “very concerned” about the impact of made-up news on the 2020 elections, for example, which was lower than every other group except for local TV viewers (35%). Cable TV viewers had the most concern, at 58%.

More concerning, perhaps, is the power these conspiracies have to sway minds. Among those social media news consumers aware of the COVID-19 conspiracy, 44% who used social media to often get COVID-19 news said the theory was at least “probably true.” Only 33% of those who relied less on social media for COVID-19 news said the same.

The study went on to compare social media news consumers knowledge of other topics, like COVID-19 impacts and related health news, with those who got their news from other sources, using similar methods. Again, the social media group came away the least knowledgeable.

Pew’s conclusion from its research is that social media users are less informed, which seems fairly accurate on these specific topics. But the implication — or at least, what some people might take away from this report — is that they’re less informed because they rely on social media as their primary news source. That’s not necessarily true, given this data.

One issue with that conclusion has to do with social media demographics. The firm’s research also found that social media news consumers skewed young — 48% of those who mostly used social media for news were between 18 and 29, for example. They also tended to have lower levels of formal education, as only 26% had a college degree, versus 47% of those who read news websites or the 49% who turn to print. (Of course, this lack of higher education is likely, in part, tied to the fact that social media users skewed younger.)

Historically, we know young people don’t engage with politics at the same level as older adults. They turn out at lower numbers during elections. They can be less engaged in their local politics because they’re relocating for college or for new jobs; because they haven’t made voting a habit, and often miss registration deadlines. They may have had a poor education in civics to begin with and haven’t yet filled in the gaps the way older adults have. Many also feel alienated from politics. And so on.

On other topics, young people may also feel similarly distanced and disengaged. Many young adults have been unconcerned by the coronavirus outbreak, for example, thinking it only impacts older people, and carrying on as usual.

Their lack of knowledge, then, about the news may be due not to the platform where it’s consumed, but their interest and engagement with the topics in general.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Impossible Foods said today that it will now be available in Walmart, the largest meat market in America.

The deal with Walmart and other retail locations across the country increases the company’s physical footprint by fifty times.

Impossible Foods will now be available at over 2,000 Walmart Supercenters and Neighborhood Markets across the country and the company will be selling its frankenmeats on the company’s websites and mobile apps.

The company also provided updates on its Impossible Sausage rollout.

First revealed at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year (was it only a few months ago?), the sausage substitute is now in over 22,000 restaurants and is available for even more restaurants in the US through foodservice distributors. The company collaborated with Yelp to bring the sausage onto the menus of some of the nation’s highest rated diners on the crowdsource ratings’ service’s platform.

Impossible is now also in the influencer game with a direct-to-consumer e-commerce site pitching free deliveries for orders over $75 within the continental United States.

Impossible Foods also took the opportunity of its latest update and Walmart announcement to throw some shade at the traditional meat industry, noting that the company had not seen any COVID-19 outbreaks at its manufacturing facilities even as slaughterhouses that became COVID-19 hotspots.

Google today announced a new autofill experience for Chrome on mobile that will use biometric authentication for credit card transactions, as well as an updated built-in password manager that will make signing in to a site a bit more straightforward.

Chrome already uses the W3C WebAuthn standard for biometric authentication on Windows and Mac. With this update, this feature is now also coming to Android .

If you’ve ever bought something through the browser on your Android phone, you know that Chrome always asks you to enter the CVC code from your credit card to ensure that it’s really you — even if you have the credit card number stored on your phone. That was always a bit of a hassle, especially when your credit card wasn’t close to you.

Now, you can use your phone’s biometric authentication to buy those new sneakers with just your fingerprint — no CVC needed. Or you can opt out, too, since you’re not required to enroll in this new system.

As for the password manager, the update here is the new touch-to-fill feature that shows you your saved accounts for a given site through a standard Android dialog. That’s something you’re probably used to from your desktop-based password manager already, but it’s definitely a major new built-in convenience feature for Chrome — and the more people opt to use password managers, the safer the web will be. This new feature is coming to Chrome on Android in the next few weeks, but Google says that “is only the start.”

 

Magnetis, an automated wealth management solution for Brazilian investors, has raised $11 million in a new round of funding as it transforms itself into a full service brokerage for the nation’s investor class.

Investors in the round included Redpoint eventures and Vostok Emerging Finance, the company said.

“We’re quite happy with this vote of confidence from our investors. It only reinforces the credibility of our service and business model, which uses technology for goal-based investment management, without creating a conflict of interest,” said Luciano Tavares, founder and CEO of Magnetis. “The new funding will be used to launch our own brokerage and to develop new functionalities that improve customer experience and provide a complete and curated journey through goal-based investments.”

First launched five years ago, the company has set up 350,000 investment plans and has more than 430 million reals under management, according to a statement from the company.

The company said it planned to hit more than 1 billion reals by the end of 2021.

“Today, the Brazilian market is more sophisticated, with a sharp drop in a dependence on fixed income and a rise in more financial assets, including funds, shares, commodities and fixed-income securities. Defining a personal investment portfolio is a science, not a game or lottery,” said Anderson Thees, founder and managing partner of Redpoint eventures, in a statement. “Magnetis’ great differentiator is its ability to set up a personalized investment plan, with first-rate assets and its use of AI to manage all the variables in a sophisticated way. Magnetis is well-positioned for accelerated growth and our team at Redpoint is excited about guiding them during this new phase of our partnership as the fintech sector continues to boom in Brazil and beyond.”

Fintech in Latin America is a booming investment category, with companies like Nubank skyrocketing to multi-billion dollar valuations, and accounting for 22 percent of all Latin American fintech startups.

As the company closes on the new financing, it’s also launching a brokerage, which will enable the company to do more for its customers, according to Tavares. It may also allow the company to keep more money for itself since it doesn’t have to work with outside parties to execute trades.

“Our model for digital assets management and wealth creation is much more complete and sophisticated. The vision is to be a financial guide for our clients; making their investment experience simpler,” Tavares said in a statement. “A total integration with the broker makes the client’s journey simpler, more consolidated and complete.”

Tavares and Magnetis is also making a commitment to transparency around fees.

“We do not receive commissions on the products we recommend to customers,” said Tavares, in a statement. “The asset selection process is done in a transparent and automated way, and customers pay us an annual consulting fee based only on the amount they invest, and not according to the recommended investments. The end result is the selection of high quality products that are more aligned with the clients’ objectives.”