Category: UNCATEGORIZED

Enterprise startups UIPath and Scale have drawn huge attention in recent years from companies looking to automate workflows, from RPA (robotic process automation) to data labeling.

What’s been overlooked in the wake of such workflow-specific tools has been the base class of products that enterprises are using to build the core of their machine learning (ML) workflows, and the shift in focus toward automating the deployment and governance aspects of the ML workflow.

That’s where MLOps comes in, and its popularity has been fueled by the rise of core ML workflow platforms such as Boston-based DataRobot. The company has raised more than $430 million and reached a $1 billion valuation this past fall serving this very need for enterprise customers. DataRobot’s vision has been simple: enabling a range of users within enterprises, from business and IT users to data scientists, to gather data and build, test and deploy ML models quickly.

Founded in 2012, the company has quietly amassed a customer base that boasts more than a third of the Fortune 50, with triple-digit yearly growth since 2015. DataRobot’s top four industries include finance, retail, healthcare and insurance; its customers have deployed over 1.7 billion models through DataRobot’s platform. The company is not alone, with competitors like H20.ai, which raised a $72.5 million Series D led by Goldman Sachs last August, offering a similar platform.

Why the excitement? As artificial intelligence pushed into the enterprise, the first step was to go from data to a working ML model, which started with data scientists doing this manually, but today is increasingly automated and has become known as “auto ML.” An auto-ML platform like DataRobot’s can let an enterprise user quickly auto-select features based on their data and auto-generate a number of models to see which ones work best.

As auto ML became more popular, improving the deployment phase of the ML workflow has become critical for reliability and performance — and so enters MLOps. It’s quite similar to the way that DevOps has improved the deployment of source code for applications. Companies such as DataRobot and H20.ai, along with other startups and the major cloud providers, are intensifying their efforts on providing MLOps solutions for customers.

We sat down with DataRobot’s team to understand how their platform has been helping enterprises build auto-ML workflows, what MLOps is all about and what’s been driving customers to adopt MLOps practices now.

The rise of MLOps

There’s something to be said for consistency through good times and bad, and one company that has had a staggeringly consistent track record is international data center vendor, Equinix. It just recorded its 69th straight positive quarters, according to the company.

That’s an astonishing record, and covers over 17 years of positive returns. That means this streak goes back to 2003. Not too shabby.

The company had a decent quarter too. Even in the middle of an economic mess, it was still up 6% YoY to $1.445 billion and up 2% over last quarter. The company runs data centers where companies can rent space for their servers. Equinix handles all of the infrastructure providing racks, wiring and cooling — and customers can purchase as many racks as they need.

If you’re managing your own servers for even part of your workload, it can be much more cost-effective to rent space from a vendor like Equinix than trying to run a facility on your own.

Among its new customers this quarter are Zoom, who is buying capacity all over the place, having also announced a partnership with Oracle earlier this month, and TikTok. Both of those companies deal in video and require lots of different types of resources to keep things running.

This report comes against a backdrop of a huge increase in resource demand for certain sectors like streaming video and video conferencing with millions of people working and studying home or looking for distractions.

And if you’re wondering if they can keep it going, they believe they can. Their guidance calls for 2020 revenue of $5.877 – $5.985 billion, a 6 – 8% increase over the previous year.

You could call them the anti-IBM. At one point Big Blue recorded 22 straight quarters of declining revenue in an ignominious streak that stretched from 2012 to 2018 before it found a way to stop the bleeding.

When you consider that Equnix’s streak includes the period of 2008-2010, the last time the economy hit the skids, it makes the record even more impressive, and certainly one worth pointing out.

BuzzFeed plans to furlough 68 employees as part of broader cost-cutting measures, according to a memo from CEO Jonah Peretti that was shared earlier by Variety.

We’ve also obtained a copy of the memo, in which Peretti said the furloughs will affect the business, studios and administration teams.

It sounds like the furloughs do not yet include BuzzFeed News. However, Peretti wrote, “We will begin a negotiation with the News Guild [the union that represents BuzzFeed News] about the need to reduce costs in News,” and that efforts to minimize losses “will no longer be possible without further cuts similar to what we’re doing across other parts of the company.”

The furloughs will begin on May 15 and extend for three months. During that time, employees won’t be paid, but their health coverage will continue.

Peretti wrote that previously announced salary cuts will continue through the end of the year. (Peretti himself is foregoing pay during this period.) Other cost-cutting measures include subleasing the company’s offices in Minneapolis and Washington, D.C., and closing out more than 50 open positions in content and tech.

This is part of a broader wave of cutbacks at media organizations, digital and otherwise, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has led to a dramatic decline in advertising. Thus far, both BuzzFeed and Vox have used pay cuts and furloughs to cut costs while avoiding permanent layoffs.

“In difficult times we can’t abandon our values,” Peretti wrote. “We are just as committed as ever to quality journalism, which is why we recruited Mark Schoofs to lead our News team. We are just as committed as ever to diversity, inclusion, and our [employee resource groups]. It is important to share that these furloughs do not have an adverse impact on employees based on race or gender. We are just as committed as ever to the important work we do to serve our audience.”

Founder and CEO Lara Vandenberg told me that she created Publicist to support the ways in which the communications and marketing industry is changing— changes that are only accelerating due to COVID-19.

Vandenberg was previously senior vice president of communications and marketing at Knotch, and she told me, “More companies now are being better served by this flexible support, rather than being tied to these costly and rigid agency retainers.”

And at the same time, Vandenberg said there’s more freelance talent looking for work.

“As we’ve seen, more brands are continuing to downsize their internal teams, so a lot of people coming to the platform have either been furloughed or laid off,” she said. “This is really, really premium talent. I always believed that the industry was moving to project-based work.”

So she built an early version of Publicist while at Knotch, then left to focus on it full time. She launched a beta test earlier this year before the full launch this week.

Image Credits: Publicist

The goal is to help businesses find and hire freelancers for work like content creation, crisis communications, developing a go-to-market strategy or even hiring an interim CMO. Vandenberg said Publicist vets all the talent on the platform, and that those freelancers have worked for brands like Apple, Nike, Microsoft, IBM, Away, Glossier, Casper and Google.

“We have 350 skills on the platform, and I would say only about 10 percent of those are PR-related,” she added.

And Publicist isn’t just for establishing the initial connection between company and freelancer. It’s designed to enable the full collaboration process, with tools like video chat and screensharing — then the startup takes a 20% commission on payments.

Publicist is starting in North America, with plans to expand globally. Vandenberg suggested that some jobs (like crisis comms) probably require someone with local, on-the-ground knowledge, while others (like Amazon or Shopify marketing) are more geography agnostic.

Sonos has introduced a trio of new hardware today, adding three new smart speakers to its lineup, including the Sonos Arc soundbar that includes Dolby Atmos support, as well as Sonos Five, the next version of its Sonos Play:5 speaker, and a third-generation Sonos Sub. All of these will require the new S2 app that Sonos announced it will release to customers starting on June 8, which will introduce higher-res audio, a new UI and more.

The new Sonos Arc retails for $799, while the Sonos Sub is priced at $699 and the Sonos Five will set you back $499, and all three are now available for pre-order directly via the Sonos website. They’ll start shipping out and become available at retail globally beginning on June 10.

This latest generation of Sonos soundbar succeeds the Sonos Beam, one the first of Sonos speakers to include support for Alexa after the introduction of the Sonos One in 2017. Beam is a lower cost option, more compact option available for $499, whereas Arc is a larger soundbar that more closely resembles the Playbar and Playable speakers that Sonos previously sold. Arc seems designed to replace both, since neither currently appears on the updated Sonos website following this launch.

Sonos describes the Arc’s audio as “rich, realistic 3D sound” that emphasizes a “premium audio experience” with “crisp dialogue.” It’s also the first Sonos soundbar with Dolby Atmos support, which it manages using two new height channels that are designed to render all 5.1 channels accurately with room-filling qualities. When the signal isn’t a true 5.1 one, those are repurposed to help with low-end for better bass.

The new third-generation Sonos Sub has more memory and processing power than previous iterations, as well as a new wireless radio for connecting to the rest of your system.

Sonos Five, meanwhile, has the same acoustic design as the Play:5, but with more memory, pricing power and a new radio on board as well. It also now comes in a full white version, whereas the previous generation only offered a white face with a black body.

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As mentioned, all three of these will work with the new Sonos S2 app the company is launch in June – but these speakers will only work with that app, because of the operating system updates that the app includes, which brings improved security and support for better audio quality when streaming.

That S2 app is the future of the company, but it will come with some compromises for long-time Sonos users. The most important of which is that if you have older Sonos hardware, you’ll need to remain on the S1 network. Those devices include some of the oldest that Sonos makes, but it’s definitely dangling a carrot for upgraders here with this new lineup to convince them to retire those in order to upgrade to the new experience.

Peloton bested Wall Street’s high expectations, delivering a huge quarterly earnings report Wednesday that showed revenues climbing 66%. In after-hours trading, the connected fitness company’s stock bounced around, briefly pushing the share price above its previous all-time high and then back below it.

The company posted total revenues of $524.6 million for the quarter, besting estimates of $488.5 million. The company detailed a loss of $.20 per share. Total members grew from 2.0 million in Q2 to 2.6 million in Q3, a 30% quarter-over-quarter increase. In March, the company announced it was extending the free trial period from 30 to 90 days for digital subscriptions not tied to the company bike or treadmill hardware.

Peloton has proven to be one of the few public stocks to find an opportunity in the COVID-19 pandemic as user growth surges due to gym closures and shelter-in-place orders.

Updating

Fresh off of a large round of layoffs, Lyft reported its Q1 results this afternoon. The ride-hailing company disclosed that it generated revenue of $955.7 million in the first three months of 2020, up 23% from its year-ago Q1 revenue result of $776 million.

The company’s net loss of $398.1 million was also an improvement on its year-ago, IPO-impacted result. On an adjusted basis, Lyft lost $97.4 million, and its adjusted EBITDA result was a slightly better -$85.2 million. Lyft lost $1.31 per share in the quarter.

The company’s preceding guidance of around $1.06 billion in revenue and negative adjusted EBITDA of as much as $145 million now looks somewhat rosy in retrospect; investors’ final expectations for the company as detailed by Yahoo Finance included revenue of $897.9 million and a per-share loss of $0.64.

Investors rejoice

Shares of Lyft were up sharply in after-hours trading following its report. The firm’s revenue beat appeared to give investors hope that perhaps COVID-19 was not as impactful on its revenue as anticipated. Indeed, Lyft reported 3% more “active riders” in Q1 2020 than it saw in Q1 2019; the company also spent 19% more on average. The combination of those two results led to its revenue gains.

Lyft cut nearly 1,000 employees last week, as many unicorns slashed staff levels in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic disruptions. The firm also furloughed hundreds more to control costs.

After Q1 2020 Lyft remained well-capitalized, with $2.7 billion of unrestricted cash, according to its release, compared to Q1 operating cash burn of around $207 million. The firm has enough cash, it would seem, to weather a COVID downturn of several quarters.

What Lyft says on its call about the end of Q1 and what it expects in Q2 and beyond will determine if it can hold onto its gains. Let’s see what the firm has to say.

Got something in your medical history that first responders should know about if you call 911? Things like known drug allergies, or the medications you’re on?

The iPhone and Apple Watch will soon be able to share this information with first responders automatically (if you opt to let it do so.)

When a user with this feature enabled calls 911, Apple will ping their location to determine if the local 911 dispatch supports “Enhanced Emergency Data” — a service the company first started building out a few years back to tell emergency services where you’re calling from. If it does, your Medical ID info (as setup in your Health app) will be shared with emergency services accordingly.

It’ll also work with the Apple Watch’s Fall Detection feature, which can automatically call 911 if it detects that the wearer has fallen and is now immobile.

The feature was rolled into the beta build of iOS 13.5 this morning, and Apple says it should ship to everyone in “the coming weeks”.

This is a super logical feature, and one that’ll almost certainly save lives. People are rarely in the calmest state when calling 911, and most people wouldn’t think to say “Oh, and hey by the way, I have an allergy to [medication here]” if they’re worried they’re about to pass out — and that’s something first responders really should know.

As countries around the world face prolonged lockdown to prevent the further spread of COVID-19, retailers are among the hardest hit. Many have closed all their brick-and-mortar stores, resulting in furloughing of many employees.

The U.S. Census Bureau reported that retail sales during March 2020 were down 8.7%, the biggest monthly drop ever recorded since the Great Recession. Of the hardest-hit categories, clothing store sales were down 50.5% from February, furniture store sales were down 26.8% and luxury goods are expected to fall 31%.

Before COVID-19, physical retail was already decimated by e-commerce behemoths like Amazon, but now the sector’s fate seems sealed by the ever-increasing threat of the pandemic. A so-called retail apocalypse may seem inevitable, but in these challenging times, it is more important than ever to look at how technology can turn the tide.

How AR will transform retail in the next decade

Image Credits: MX-R (opens in a new window)

Imagine a future where consumers can virtually try on clothes that would fit them perfectly and they can purchase items confidently in the comfort of their own homes. Consumers will no longer need to choose different sizes because computer vision and scanning technologies would have already determined their perfect fit. These virtual clothes will also look so real that consumers will not be able to distinguish them from reality. Spoiler alert: This future is already here.

Virtual try-on is one of the most compelling use cases of augmented reality technology (AR), which arms consumers with the information they need to confidently make purchase decisions that will not likely result in returns for retailers. Retailers also can gain new insights into consumers’ buying patterns by tracking gazes, view history and time spent looking at a particular product. Retailers can even make the AR shopping experience more personalized by providing real-time feedback.

With more than two billion AR-enabled devices today and 100 million consumers expected to shop with AR this year, the technology is prime for adoption. Here are some examples of how the world’s leading retail brands are using AR to increase conversion, increase sales and decrease returns.

2020 and 2021 will be one of the periodic transitional eras in gaming as Sony and Microsoft debut their shiny new consoles, the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. To ease the process (and spur adoption of the next generation), EA may make its upcoming titles free to “upgrade” to your chosen console.

On an earnings call last night, COO Blake Jorgensen at the end of his remarks noted a possible effect on revenue “from the games we are launching for the current generation of consoles that can also be upgraded free for the next generation.”

EA declined to comment on the comment, but the meaning seems obvious enough. It likely refers to “cross-gen” games that will appear on both existing consoles and those set to debut later in the year. If you buy the next, say, Battlefield game on PlayStation 4, you will have the option to transfer it somehow to the PlayStation 5.

Exactly how this would work is not clear — there will almost certainly be some rigmarole involving deactivating the license on your old copy — but the effect is a positive and consumer-friendly one. People can buy a game, from EA anyway, safe in the knowledge that they can continue to play it even if they buy a new console. That hasn’t been the case in general before.

In fact the whole transition is looking to be a relatively easy one: The new consoles will be backward-compatible with many games from the previous generation; Services like online access and monthly free games will cross over; Some hardware and accessories will be shared; Built-in streaming options mean improved portability.

EA’s apparent commitment to cross-gen upgrades is among the first, though some publishers and developers have floated the idea or declared support for it, pending approval from the console makers themselves. The confirmation could trigger an avalanche of announcements as others hurry to assure gamers that they, too, will provide this option.

Sony and Microsoft are the ones left holding the bag here: While a sale is a sale for EA or Ubisoft, the console makers are under tremendous pressure to show their console launches are successful. (Nintendo, as usual, is pursuing its own agenda independent from the cadence of its rivals.)

Part of that strategy is high profile next-gen exclusives that people save up to buy alongside the new consoles, providing revenue spikes and platform lock-ins. When a large amount of those sales occur earlier in the year, and technically for the previous consoles, it’s not a good look.

These policies have a way of evolving right up to and beyond the moment of release. Sony clowned so devastatingly on Microsoft’s confusing and limited game transfer policies at E3 2013, the outset of this console generation, that it affected the whole zeitgeist, boosting PS4 sales and forcing Microsoft to reconsider. (You can see me in the video of it; I’ve rarely heard a crowd so excited about something.)

It’s better to err on the side of liberality, it turns out. EA, which has routinely erred on in the other direction over the last few years, hopes perhaps to curry favor in advance of a gaming market opening up in new directions. We’ll see if other companies follow suit.