Category: UNCATEGORIZED

Virgin Orbit is closer than ever to its goal of launching orbital satellites from a platform carried aboard a modified 747 aircraft. The company flew a successful cryogenic captive carry test of its LauncherOne rocket, carried by the Cosmic Girl carrier aircraft. This test marks the first time that the LauncherOne flew aboard the aircraft fully fueled with RP-1, though it used liquid nitrogen instead of liquid oxygen as an additional safety precaution.

This is an important test because it simulates the real thermal conditions the rocket would undergo during the actual demo launch, since all prior flights have just used water in place of fuel. That’s good for simulating carry weight, but water is much warmer than rocket fuel, which means it isn’t an accurate representation of actual mission conditions.

Virgin Orbit’s test flight in this case went just as planned, which is good news for its forthcoming full launch demo mission. This flight included a “complete, end-to-end launch rehearsal” that includes all ground operations, mission control, communications, launch range assets and the full flight path of the carrier aircraft.

In a blog post about its preparations for this flight, Virgin describes the changes its made as a result of COVID-19, which include re-written procedures for mission control operations, use o personal protective equipment, additional sterilization and having up to 90 percent of its employee base working remotely.

Next up is that crucial first demonstration launch, which will be the inaugural flight of the system as it’s designed to work in operation, including all components – with the LauncherOne separation and orbital delivery included. That’s still set to take place sometime this year, and with this test not complete, it shouldn’t be all that long before Virgin Orbit takes that step.

Amazon is putting new online grocery customers on a waitlist due to rising demand for its grocery pickup and delivery services amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The retailer on Monday announced it will ask new Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods Market delivery and pickup customers to sign up for a waitlist if they’re interested in either service, with some number of waitlisted customers invited to shop every week as Amazon increases its capacity for these online orders.

The company also said it will adjust store hours for some of its Whole Foods locations in order to focus its staff’s attention online on fulfilling online grocery orders during this time. One of its Whole Foods stores, located in Woodland Hills, California, is also now being used temporarily as an online-only store, meaning it will be closed to foot traffic.

Amazon has been working to address increasing consumer demand for online grocery in several ways since the health crisis began. It expanded online grocery pickup from 80 stores to over 150 in the last several weeks, and is continuing to grow that service’s footprint. It has also been releasing delivery windows throughout the day to make it easier for customers to see their options from both the Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods Market homepages. And it’s been working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to expand online access to SNAP (commonly known as food stamps) in states including Alabama, Iowa, Nebraska, New York, Oregon, and Washington, with plans for further expansions.

This rise in demand for online grocery is not unique to Amazon, however.

As now millions of Americans are being asked to stay home amid the COVID-19 outbreak, they’ve turned to online grocery providers as a safer alternative to shopping in stores. Last week, for example, grocery delivery service Instacart rolled out several new features aimed at opening up more delivery windows as demand reached record levels. Meanwhile, Walmart’s Grocery app saw its highest-ever number of downloads to date, boosting its app’s ranking even higher than Amazon’s for a time. 

This record growth has strained these businesses, which have even seen some workers walking off the job in protest at both Instacart and Shipt. But their ability to get their demands heard has been more difficult as there are now many unemployed ready to sign up to work.

Amazon in March announced it planned to hire at least 100,000 more people to help it meet its growing customer demand, including for grocery delivery, and would invest over $350 million to support employees and partners during the COVID-19 crisis. The new hires will help Amazon to more quickly receive inventory, restock and deliver products to customers, it said, while also increasing the delivery window availability.

Today, Amazon announced its original 100,000 jobs pledge has been filled with those new employees now working at sites across the U.S. The retailer today says it’s creating an additional 75,000 jobs as demand continues to grow. The company noted, too, that anyone is welcome to apply — including those who lost their jobs in industries like hospitality, restaurants, and travel — not just those who have retail or warehouse experience.

In addition, Amazon said its original estimate of $350 million it planned to spend to increase wages will likely now be over $500 million.

Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between.

TechCrunch is taking a closer look at a few markets as the world changes. Following our dive into Boston late last week, we’re widening our scope and taking a peek at the state of Utah.

Utah’s startup scene has been in the news lately, with one of its better-known successes Podium raising $125 million, for example. The round valued Podium at around $1.5 billion, a healthy valuation for the company which recently reached $100 million ARR.

To get a handle on what’s going on in Utah, TechCrunch spoke with Qualtrics’ CEO and co-founder Ryan Smith about his home state. We’ve also snagged some recent news and venture data and taken a look at what the tech companies of Silicon Slopes are doing as a group. Let’s explore.

Amazon has already hired over 100,000 new employees in the past four weeks as a result of the uptick in demand it’s seeing due to the global coronavirus pandemic, but it’s looking to add 75,000 more workers in the U.S., across both full- and part-time positions. The company revealed the expanded hiring efforts in a blog post on Monday, where it also announced that it will be upping its total spend on pay increases to over $500 million in light of growing need.

The company says that it hopes its hiring efforts can help mitigate some of the job loss and furloughing that has resulted from the economic crisis that is also occurring as part of the COVID-19 pandemic. Amazon positioned its openings as an option for anyone looking to seek work “until things return to normal and their past employer is able to bring them back.”

The company says it’s going to continue to bolster its investment in “safety, pay and benefits” for all new and existing employees. The online retail giant has detailed some of its efforts in this regard, including rolling out temperature checks across fulfillment centers and Whole Foods stores, as well as distributing masks to employees and conducing daily audits of these practices.

Workers at Amazon facilities have undertaken various actions to protest conditions and demand better health and safety practices from their employer. Employees at a number of warehouses have tested positive for COVID-19 already, including at a facility where CEO Jeff Bezos recently toured in a bid to show solidarity with the company’s fulfillment workforce.

Good morning friends, and welcome back to TechCrunch’s Equity Monday, a short-form audio hit to kickstart your week.

Before we jump into today’s show, don’t forget that the long-form Equity that started in the unicorn era and continue in today’s changed world still drops on Friday. We had a blast last week, so make sure to catch up.

That said, there was a lot to go over this morning, so let’s get into what we had to discuss:

• Global spend patterns are changing, helping some startups and slowing others. But notable in the mix is how well grocery delivery is doing; if the change will be enough to turn uncertain bets like Instacart into sure things, however, is not yet clear.
• Earnings are finally nearly here. We’ll see the big names start to disclose results next week. In the next three weeks or so we’ll hear from Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Netflix and Spotify. The results will help us understand how the market is doing; and, by proxy, how startups are performing.
• Quoting from our script this morning: “Would it be great to know how startups are doing without resorting to our chronic use of public proxies? Yes. Any startup who wants to kick off that trend can send in reports of how their Q1 went and what they expect in Q2 and the other two quarters of 2020 to EquityPod@TechCrunch.com. That’s probably the easiest way to get your company on the show, so, please do write in with specifics.”
• We took a look at the latest rounds from Kargo and Pangea.app.
• Finally, SoftBank’s huge Vision Fund bill is coming due. I almost can’t believe these numbers. What a mess.

And that’s the show for today. Stay safe, and we’ll be back Friday morning to cap off whatever this week winds up becoming.

Half a year after Devin Wenig stepped down as CEO, eBay is finally ready to name a permanent replacement. Following an appointment from the company’s board of directors, Jamie Iannone will step into the role as head of the company, effective April 27. The executive was also elected to eBay’s board.

Most recently, Iannone served as the COO of Walmart’s eCommerce division, having only been appointed the give a few months prior. Previously, he held a number of high profile executive gigs under the Walmart umbrella, including serving as the CEO of SamsClub.com. Other jobs include a four year stint at Barnes & Noble’s digital division (including Nook) and eight years as at eBay.

“In my previous experience with the company, I developed a deep appreciation for what makes eBay so special. eBay’s success has always been rooted in its robust C2C platform,” Iannone said in a release. “I believe the company has tremendous opportunities to capitalize on this foundation, innovate for the future and grow its ecosystem. I look forward to working with our global teams to enhance buyer experiences and provide more capabilities that will help small businesses sustain and grow. I will focus on continuing to evolve the company’s strategy while delivering on eBay’s commitment to maximize long-term shareholder value.”

Even more pressing than shareholder value at the moment (insofar as anything can be more pressing than shareholder value) is the company’s response to the on-going COVID-19 crisis. In late-March, eBay announced a crackdown on price gouging, and more recently, a waiving of seller fees to help struggling brick and mortars shift to a new, online selling paradigm. As with many other aspects of life, online retail is expected to be profoundly transformed by the global pandemic for some time to come. 

San Francisco International Airport has confirmed two of its websites were hacked in March in an effort to steal staff and contractors’ usernames and passwords.

The airport confirmed in a notice dated April 7 that the two websites, SFOConnect.com and SFOConstruction.com, were “the targets of a cyberattack,” in which the hackers “inserted malicious computer code on these websites to steal some users’ login credentials.” If stolen, these login credentials could have an attacker access to the airport’s network. It’s not known if there were any additional protections in place, such as multi-factor authentication, to prevent a network breach.

The notice added that: “Users possibly impacted by this attack include those accessing these websites from outside the airport network through Internet Explorer on a Windows-based personal device or a device not maintained by [the airport].”

The notice said the airport pulled the staff-only sites offline and issued a forced password reset on March 23. Both websites are now back up and running.

A spokesperson for San Francisco International Airport did not immediately comment.

It’s not uncommon for attackers to inject code on websites using an existing vulnerability to scoop up entered data, like usernames and passwords or even credit card details.

Two year ago, British Airways’ website saw 380,000 customers’ credit card records stolen when hackers injected malicious code on its website and mobile app. The attack resulted in the largest data breach fine in European history — some $230 million — thanks to the then-newly introduced GDPR regulations.

Apple is readying a new iPhone for fall to replace the iPhone 11 Pro this fall, Bloomberg reports, as well as follow-ups to the iPhone 11, a new smaller HomePod, and a locator tag accessory. The top-end iPhone 11 Pro successors at least will have a new industrial design that more closely resembles the iPad Pro, with flat screens and sides instead of the current rounded edge design, and they’ll also include the 3D LIDAR sensing system that Apple introduced with the most recent iPad Pro refresh in March.

The new highs-end iPhone design will look more like the iPhone 5, Bloomberg says, with “flat stainless steel edges,” and the screen on the lager version will be slightly bigger than the 6.5-inch display found on the current iPhone 11 Pro Max. It could also feature a smaller version of the current ‘notch’ camera cutout in at the top end of the display, the report claims.

Meanwhile, the LIDAR tracking system added to the rear camera array will be combined with processor speed and performance improvements, which should add up to significant improvements in augmented reality (AR) performance. The processor improvements are also designed to help boost on-device AI performance, the report notes.

These phones are still planned for a fall launch and release, though some of them could be available “multiple weeks later than normal,” Bloomberg claims, owing to disruptions caused by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Other updates to the company’s product line on the horizon include a new smaller HomePod that’s around 50 percent smaller than the current version, with a planned launch sometime later this year. It’ll offer a price advantage versus the current model, and the report claims it’ll also come alongside Siri improvements and expansion of music streaming service support beyond Apple’s own. There’s also Apple Tags, which Apple itself has accidentally tipped as coming – a Tile-like Bluetooth location tracking accessory. Bloomberg says that could come out this year.

Finally, the report says there are updates to the MacBook Pro, Apple TV, lower-end iPads and iMac on the way, which is not surprising given Apple’s usual hardware update cadence. There’s no timeline for release on any of those, and it remains to be seen how the COVID-19 situation impacts these plans.

Google has launched a website dedicated to coronavirus updates in India and tweaked its search engine and YouTube to prominently display authoritative information and localy relevant details about the pandemic from the nation’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the company said on Monday.

Additionally, Google is also showing more than 1,500 food and night shelters in about three dozen cities in India on Google Maps and Search to guide people in need, it said. Millions of migrant workers in India recently started to head to their home towns as their work disappeared after New Delhi ordered a 21-day lockdown across the nation last month to fight the spread of the infectious disease.

People can also find these locations by asking Google Assistant about “food shelters,” for instance, in English and Hindi. Assistant is available to users on smartphones, KaiOS-powered feature phones and through a Vodafone-Idea phone line.

The Mountain View-headquartered giant, which counts India among one of its key overseas markets, said it has published COVID-19 Community Mobility Reports to help health officials in the country in their decision-making. The reports capture how traffic and movement across public places such as parks, transit stations and grocery stores have changed in the country in recent weeks.

On Maps, Google has also introduced Nearby Spot on Maps to help people in the nation find local stores that are providing essential items such as groceries.

YouTube and Search are showing consolidated information including the top news stories, links to MoHFW resources, as well as access to authoritative content on symptoms, prevention, treatments and more, Google said.

More to follow…

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has provided an emergency use authorization (EUA) for a decontamination process provided by company Advanced Sterilization Products (ASP) that could see as many as 4 million N95 respirators per day sterilized for re-use. That’s a significant potential dent in the ongoing shortage of supplies faced by medical professionals and frontline workers at healthcare facilities.

This decontamination process would open up re-use of N95 masks originally designed for single use, and it uses vaporized hydrogen peroxide gas to clean the respirators. ASP’s STERRAD series sterilization machines, which are covered under the EUA, are in use in around 6,300 hospitals already (they’re commonly used for sterilizing other pieces of clinical equipment, but have not previously been intended for use with N95 masks) and there are around 9,930 in operation across the U.S., each with the capability of processing around 480 masks per day.

The FDA has perviously cleared another similar system for N95 decontamination: Battelle’s vaporized hydrogen peroxide process. This new clearance greatly expands the reach and potential volume of decontamination that’s possible, and should pave the way for others to follow.

Duke University was early in calling for this process to be used on N95 respirators, after demonstrating that it is safe and effective and available on a range of equipment already in use in biocontainment labs and other medical facilities.

So far, all of these clearances are EUAs, but this does seem like an area where the measures could become more permanent following the pandemic, in order to better prepare health care systems in case of other emergencies. Technologies for emergency re-use of single use equipment, and other ways to extend the viable life of crucial medical gear, seems like a wise area of further investment and study.