Category: UNCATEGORIZED

For the past several years, Unity’s valuation has ballooned alongside their public ambitions to become essential to customers beyond game developers.

One of the more interesting use cases of the real-time rendering game engine, had been helping companies train their systems inside a virtual environment. This has become a key part of the workflows for robotics startups and self-driving car companies that build technologies that need to be trained repeatedly on ever-changing circumstances.

Today at the company’s Unite conference, Unity announced that they’re building a dedicated product for these use cases, called Unity Simulation. The product is currently in closed beta, but it allows customers to run simulations on cloud-connected hardware thanks to a partnership between Unity and Google Cloud.

“By combining Unity’s real-time 3D development platform with the scale and flexibility of the cloud, Unity Simulation will help businesses accelerate the creation of better, safer, and more reliable products,” said Unity VP of AI Danny Lange, who previously led machine learning at Uber.

For self-driving car companies, these simulations can help the cars build up virtual experience on roads in fringe situations that can test the technology at its limits. Robotics companies can similarly test products virtually on realistic models that haven’t even been built yet.

Larger customers had already been using Unity for these kinds of problems, but they had been doing so with their own hardware. Unity Simulation relies on Google Cloud for running these parallel tests and can make a bit easier for small customers that want to leverage testing in virtual environments.

The product may appeal to customers outside the gaming world, but the use cases don’t exclude game studios. An example from Unity’s website details how the service can help studios quickly simulate thousands of outcomes of gameplay to help developers adjust the level of difficulty for users appropriately. For multi-player titles, a tool like this could explore whether new items or power-ups could be combined to make a single user too powerful. The service could also help studios identify how stable their title is.

Unity’s announcement comes at a sensitive time for the gaming company, which has been rocked by a sexual harassment allegation against its sitting CEO John Riccitiello filed by a former female executive at Unity. Riccitiello spoke onstage at Unity’s “Unite” conference in Copenhagen this morning, but did not address the recent lawsuit.

The startup recently disclosed it had closed a $525 million funding round at a $6 billion valuation and is reportedly targeting an IPO next year.

Disrupt SF will light up on San Francisco on Oct. 2-4, and as usual we’ve designed the show to be unmissable for founders, investors and just about anyone in the global startup scene. In a post two weeks ago, we spelled out five of the best reasons to attend, including the amazing speaker agenda, the perennial favorite Startup Battlefield and the new founder-focused Extra Crunch stage. 

Needless to say, we can think of many more reasons to join the show, and here are a few: 

#1 Diversity (and a far better Disrupt SF for it).  TechCrunch is the leader in the tech media world when it comes to delivering diversity in programming. The editors work extra hard to find great investors, founders and technologists who got to Silicon Valley on paths less traveled, to paraphrase the poet. To show our progress, we publish our programming diversity stats. To take just one intriguing example from the upcoming show, consider the winner of Battlefield Africa 2018, M-Scan, a Ugandan startup that developed a highly affordable sonogram for rural healthcare workers helping expectant mothers. They will join us at Disrupt SF. 

#2 Celebrities! Startups are very Silicon Valley, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t crossovers from the big screen or the arena floor or even the “deep state.”  This year That line-up includes Will Smith, Ang Lee, Ashton Kutcher, Stephen Curry, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Admiral Mike Rogers. TechCrunch’s editors are really looking forward to those sessions, and there’s nothing like being there in person to watch them.

#3 The Disrupt SF Tracks. Every year we designate official tracks for Disrupt SF and focus on recruiting both speakers and exhibiting startups for those categories. We also run a contest that awards the top early stage startups in each category a free exhibit spot. As usual, we will have hundreds of early stage startups on the floor, all arranged neatly in tracks. This year they cover most of the major and emerging startup categories, including: 

• Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning
• BioTech/HealthTech
• Blockchain
• Fintech
• Mobility
• Privacy/Security
• Retail/eCommerce
• Robotics/IoT/Hardware
• SaaS
• Social Impact & Education

#4 The Moscone Center (our venue in the heart of SF). There’s nothing like the creature comforts of a thoroughly modern convention center. Working bathrooms everywhere! Reliable HVAC. Plush carpet underfoot. Plenty of room to sit down and chat or work. For attendees who knew our pre-2018 Disrupt SF events, that might sound surprising given the tough conditions at our former venues, but we listened to you. A day at Moscone is far better than a day at the office, and you’ll be engaged with the future even while you keep up with work.

#5 The Hackathon. TechCunch’s legendary hackathon is back but in a new format, which runs concurrently with the show and finished with a final round of presentations from the top hacks, selected by a team of hacker judges, on the Extra Crunch stage. In the past, those presentations always took place the weekend before the show, so we’re delighted to make them a part of the regular programming so all show attendees can watch the hack final presentations.

So now’s the time to grab a pass to the show to save some serious money before things kick off next week. Remember, it’s the Innovator, Investor and Founders passes are the ones that get access to all the above! 

Disrupt SF will light up on San Francisco on Oct. 2-4, and as usual we’ve designed the show to be unmissable for founders, investors and just about anyone in the global startup scene. In a post two weeks ago, we spelled out five of the best reasons to attend, including the amazing speaker agenda, the perennial favorite Startup Battlefield and the new founder-focused Extra Crunch stage. 

Needless to say, we can think of many more reasons to join the show, and here are a few: 

#1 Diversity (and a far better Disrupt SF for it).  TechCrunch is the leader in the tech media world when it comes to delivering diversity in programming. The editors work extra hard to find great investors, founders and technologists who got to Silicon Valley on paths less traveled, to paraphrase the poet. To show our progress, we publish our programming diversity stats. To take just one intriguing example from the upcoming show, consider the winner of Battlefield Africa 2018, M-Scan, a Ugandan startup that developed a highly affordable sonogram for rural healthcare workers helping expectant mothers. They will join us at Disrupt SF. 

#2 Celebrities! Startups are very Silicon Valley, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t crossovers from the big screen or the arena floor or even the “deep state.”  This year That line-up includes Will Smith, Ang Lee, Ashton Kutcher, Stephen Curry, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Admiral Mike Rogers. TechCrunch’s editors are really looking forward to those sessions, and there’s nothing like being there in person to watch them.

#3 The Disrupt SF Tracks. Every year we designate official tracks for Disrupt SF and focus on recruiting both speakers and exhibiting startups for those categories. We also run a contest that awards the top early stage startups in each category a free exhibit spot. As usual, we will have hundreds of early stage startups on the floor, all arranged neatly in tracks. This year they cover most of the major and emerging startup categories, including: 

• Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning
• BioTech/HealthTech
• Blockchain
• Fintech
• Mobility
• Privacy/Security
• Retail/eCommerce
• Robotics/IoT/Hardware
• SaaS
• Social Impact & Education

#4 The Moscone Center (our venue in the heart of SF). There’s nothing like the creature comforts of a thoroughly modern convention center. Working bathrooms everywhere! Reliable HVAC. Plush carpet underfoot. Plenty of room to sit down and chat or work. For attendees who knew our pre-2018 Disrupt SF events, that might sound surprising given the tough conditions at our former venues, but we listened to you. A day at Moscone is far better than a day at the office, and you’ll be engaged with the future even while you keep up with work.

#5 The Hackathon. TechCunch’s legendary hackathon is back but in a new format, which runs concurrently with the show and finished with a final round of presentations from the top hacks, selected by a team of hacker judges, on the Extra Crunch stage. In the past, those presentations always took place the weekend before the show, so we’re delighted to make them a part of the regular programming so all show attendees can watch the hack final presentations.

So now’s the time to grab a pass to the show to save some serious money before things kick off next week. Remember, it’s the Innovator, Investor and Founders passes are the ones that get access to all the above! 

Amazon is building wireless earbuds that offer Alexa voice assistant access, and fitness tracking for use during activities, according to a new report from CNBC. These earbuds, combined with a new, larger Echo designed to provide more premium sound, could feature into Amazon’s hardware event taking place this Wednesday in Seattle, though the outlet is unclear on the release timeline for this gear based on its source.

These earbuds would be a major new product for Amazon, and would be the company’s first foray into personal health and fitness devices. While Amazon has either built or bought products in a wide range of connected gadget categories, including smart home and smart speakers in particular, so far it hasn’t seemed all that aggressive in personal health, even as Apple, Samsung and others have invested heavily in these areas.

CNBC’s report says that these new Alexa buds will have an accelerometer on board for measuring motion, and will be able to also provide distance tracking, calories burned and pace – in other words, all the things that you’d expect to track with a fitness wearable like the Apple Watch or a Fitbit.

Leaving aside their fitness features, earbuds would provide Amazon a way to deliver a more portable Alexa for people to take with them outside of the house. The company has partnered with other headphone makers on similar third-party Alexa integrations, and they’ve also experimented with bringing Alexa to the car, for instance, but it’s largely still a home-based assistant, successful as its been.

Helping the appeal of these reported new products, the buds are said to be retailing for under $100, which will put them at a big price advantage when compared to similar offerings from either dedicated audio companies and headphone makes, and to potential rivals like Apple’s AirPods. Though the report indicates that they’ll still rely on being connected to an iPhone or Android device for connectivity, as they won’t have their own data connection.

Amazon is also readying a bigger echo that has a built-in woofer and overall better sound than its existing lineup, according to CNBC . That mirrors a report from July from Bloomberg that also said Amazon was readying a high-end echo, with a planned launch for next year.

Some or all of these new hardware devices could make their debut at Wednesday’s event, but it seems likely a lot of what we’ll see will be a surprise.

Twitter today says it’s expanding its policies to prohibit financial scams on its platform — something you’d think would have already been banned, but apparently was never directly addressed through Twitter’s policy documentation. Instead, financial scams until now have been handled through Twitter’s spam reporting tool which was expanded last year to specifically identify what exact type of spam a tweet contained.

Among the choices were options to indicate if the tweet contained malicious links, was from a fake account, or was using hashtags or the reply function to post spam, among other things. It didn’t address the numerous sorts of financial spams that appear on Twitter, however.

The new policy better spells out what Twitter considers a financial scam.

Specifically, it says that using scam tactics to obtain money or private financial information is prohibited under the new policy, and users may not create accounts, tweets or send Direct Messages for this purpose.

It also details what kind of scams it’s on the lookout for, including relationship/trust-building scams, money-flipping schemes, fraudulent discounts, and phishing scams. These are detailed in its help documentation here.

The new policy arrives at a time when Twitter has been criticized for allowing crypto scams to proliferate on its service. Many of these involve impersonation, using the reply function to spam, and general promises to make victims lots of money. Twitter also this year allowed an obvious PayPal phishing attempt to run as a promoted tweet, which spoke to the need for stronger oversight in this area.

With regard to the new policy, users are still instructed to report the tweet, as before. That means clicking the “report tweet” option from the menu, then selecting “It’s suspicious or spam,” followed by the option that best explains how the tweet is suspicious.

Twitter also clarified that it doesn’t intervene in other financial disputes that fall outside this policy, like claims related to the sale of goods on Twitter, disputed refunds, or complaints about poor quality goods.

As with other scams, financial scammers will risk permanent suspension if they continue to post scams, phishing, and fraud, Twitter says.

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here.

1. As Adam Neumann reportedly faces pressure to step down; it’s looking like a fight for life between WeWork and SoftBank

Members of WeWork’s board of directors are pressuring controversial CEO Adam Neumann to step down and become non-executive chairman, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Apparently the pressure originates with investor SoftBank, which needs The We Company’s IPO to go well. The idea is to keep Neumann involved, while also making room for new leadership that could make Wall Street more comfortable with a WeWork IPO.

2. How Peloton made sweat addictive enough to IPO

Speaking of IPOs, Josh Constine breaks down 13 reasons why this fitness company — which is about to go public — has built up such a devoted cult. Ultimately, he says he’s bullish about Peloton because people will always be busy, lazy and competitive.

3. Amazon’s ‘Fleabag’ wins four Emmys, including best comedy series

Netflix didn’t go home empty-handed either, with wins for “Ozark,” “When They See Us” and “Black Mirror.”

4. 100 Thieves’ Nadeshot and Scooter Braun are coming to Disrupt

The esports organization, founded by Matthew “Nadeshot” Haag, has grown over the past couple of years into a household name for those who follow gaming. Haag will be joined on the Disrupt stage by 100 Thieves co-owner Scooter Braun, who also manages megastars like Justin Bieber and Arianna Grande.

5. Kabbage founders drum up $11M for Drum, an SMB marketplace for sourcing salespeople, goods and services

Drum bills itself as a marketplace for businesses to source sales people and sell their goods and services. Co-founder Rob Frohwein said the startup is “democratizing access to a physical salesforce.”

6. How Kobalt is betting on music’s middle class and DIY stars

This is the latest installment in our in-depth EC-1 profile on Kobalt Music Group. The company’s CEO Willard Ahdritz predicted years ago that streaming and social media would increasingly undercut the gatekeeping power of the major label groups, realigning the market to center on a vast landscape of niche musicians. (Extra Crunch membership required.)

7. This week’s TechCrunch podcasts

The Equity team debates one of the most cherished beliefs in Silicon Valley, the “cult of the founder.” Meanwhile, Original Content catches up on the soothing Netflix reality show “Terrace House.”

Amazon is introducing a new feature to its Alexa Show device designed to help blind and other low-vision customers identify common household pantry items by holding them up in front of Alexa’s camera and asking what it is. The feature uses a combination of computer vision and machine learning techniques in order to recognize the objects the Echo Show sees.

The Echo Show is the version of the Alexa-powered smart speaker that tends to sit in customers’ kitchens because it helps them with other kitchen tasks, like setting timers, watching recipe videos, or enjoying a little music or TV while you cook.

But for blind users, the Show will now have a new duty: helping them better identify those household pantry items that are hard to distinguish by touch — like cans, boxed foods, or spices, for example. 

To use the feature, customers can just say things like “Alexa, what am I holding?” or “Alexa, what’s in my hand?” Alexa will also give verbal and audio cues to help the customers place the item in front of the device’s camera.

Amazon says the feature was developed in collaboration with blind Amazon employees, including its principal accessibility engineer Josh Miele, who gathered feedback from both blind and low-vision customers as part of the development process. The company also worked with the Vista Center for the Blind in Santa Cruz on early research, product development, and testing.

“We heard that product identification can be a challenge and something customers wanted Alexa’s help with,” explained Sarah Caplener, head of Amazon’s Alexa for Everyone team. “Whether a customer is sorting through a bag of groceries, or trying to determine what item was left out on the counter, we want to make those moments simpler by helping identify these items and giving customers the information they need in that moment,” she said.

Smart home devices and intelligent voice assistants like Alexa have made life easier for disabled individuals, as it allows them to do things like adjust the thermostats and lights, lock the doors, raise the blinds, and more. With “Show and Tell,” Amazon hopes to reach the wide market of blind and low-vision customers, as well. According to the World Health Organization, there are an estimated 1.3 billion with some sort of vision impairment, Amazon says.

That being said, Echo devices aren’t globally available — and even when they are offered in a particular country, the device may not support the local language. Plus, the feature itself is U.S.-only at launch.

Amazon isn’t alone in making accessibility a selling point for its smart speakers and screens. At Google’s I/O developer conference this year, it introduced a range of accessibility projects, including Live Caption which transcribes real-time audio; Live Relay for helping the deaf make phone calls; Project Diva, for helping those who don’t speak use smart assistants; and Project Euphonia that helps make voice recognition work for those with speech impairments.

Show and Tell is available now to Alexa users in the U.S. on first and second-generation Echo Show devices.

Running an ethical tech company is underrated. From fostering a diverse and inclusive company to examining your technology’s impact on society, it all comes down to ethics.

Ellen Pao, who previously served as CEO at Reddit and sued her former employer Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers for gender discrimination, has made it her life’s work to foster diversity, inclusion and ethics in the tech industry.

The same goes for Tracy Chou, who first hit the spotlight when she provoked tech companies to release their data around employee demographics by setting up a database to track such information in 2013. Now, Chou, who is also a co-founder at Project Include, is focused on tackling the problem of online abuse and harassment at her startup, Block Party.

Through Chou and Pao’s work at Project Include, the two have worked with a number of startups that wish to foster diversity and inclusion at their own startups. Sisense, a business intelligence platform led by Harry Glaser, is one of those startups.

While the diversity and inclusion movement has made some gains in the last few years, it has still suffered severe setbacks. On one hand, tech employees are recognizing their immense power when they speak up and organize. On the other hand, those accused of sexual harassment and misconduct are too often facing too few consequences. Meanwhile, people of color and women still receive too little venture funding, and tech companies are inching along at a glacial pace toward diverse representation and inclusion.

Tech workers at Salesforce, Microsoft and Amazon have spoken out against their employers for having contracts with military and government agencies, and Twitter and Facebook continue to thrive as platforms where harassment and abuse is prevalent. Meanwhile, gig economy workers for the likes of Instacart, DoorDash, Uber and Lyft have also organized around low wages, wage theft and lack of benefits.

Clearly, there’s still a lot of work to be done. At TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco, you’ll hear from Pao, Chou and Glaser about how they grapple with ethics, and how focusing on diversity can positively impact a company’s bottom line.

Still need tickets? Head over here.

After several months of speculation, Apple today confirmed that it will be manufacturing the latest version of the Mac Pro in the United States. The move is in keeping with earlier versions of the high-end, pro-focused desktop. In June, The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple would move production of the long-awaited desktop to a plant outside of Shanghai.

Apple didn’t deny the report at the time, instead stating, “Like all of our products, the new Mac Pro is designed and engineered in California and includes components from several countries including the United States.”

This week, however, the company reported that manufacturing will be returning to Austin, Texas, using manufacturers from a variety of states, including Arizona, Maine, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas and Vermont. Suppliers include Intersil and ON Semiconductor.

“The Mac Pro is Apple’s most powerful computer ever and we’re proud to be building it in Austin. We thank the administration for their support enabling this opportunity,” Tim Cook said in a press release. “We believe deeply in the power of American innovation. That’s why every Apple product is designed and engineered in the US, and made up of parts from 36 states, supporting 450,000 jobs with US suppliers, and we’re going to continue growing here.”

The move is in keeping with Apple’s commitment to invest $350 billion in the States by 2023. The early reports that the company was shifting to Chinese manufacturing was a major sticking point for Trump, who called out Cook and Apple by name in a series of tweets.

“Apple will not be given Tariff wavers, or relief, for Mac Pro parts that are made in China,” Trump tweeted in July. “Make them in the USA, no Tariffs!”