Category: UNCATEGORIZED

The 5G iPhone isn’t expected until roughly this time next year. But when it comes to the next-gen cellular technology, Samsung has already been there and done that. Back in the February, the company announced an everything and the kitchen sink version of the Galaxy S10, sporting 5G — its first device to do so. The model was finally made available last month.

At this afternoon’s Unpacked event in Brooklyn, the Note got its own 5G version — though the device got a little less time in the spotlight. That’s due, in part, to the 5G model is otherwise very little daylight between it and the standard Note 10+. Well, that and pricing, of course.

The device launches August 23 as a Verizon exclusive, running $1,300 to the standard version’s $1,100. The carrier partnership means there’s also a $36 a month for 36 months licensing model here.

Other details, including how the product’s battery will last with 5G switched on, are still TBD. Thankfully the Note 10+ has a pretty beefy 4,300mAh battery as a base. The devices also feature Samsung’s standard vapor chamber cooling system, which will hopefully address some of 5G’s overheating issues.

As with the other versions, pre-orders open at midnight tonight, and all will be available in stores on the 23. The exclusivity is limited. The companies won’t say which carriers will get it when, but I’d say AT&T seems like a pretty safe bet.

Tesla’s claims about the safety of its Model 3 electric vehicle prompted U.S. regulators to send a cease-and-desist letter and escalate the matter by asking the Federal Trade Commission to investigate, according to documents released by the non-profit legal transparency website Plainsite.

The documents show correspondence between the lawyers at National Highway Safety Administration and Tesla that began after the automaker’s October 7 blog post that said the Model 3 had achieved the lowest probability of injury of any vehicle the agency ever tested. Plainsite received the documents through a Freedom of Information Act request.

NHTSA took issue with the blog post, arguing that the Tesla’s claims were inconsistent with its advertising guidelines regarding crash ratings. The matter might have ended with that demand. But NHTSA took the issue further and informed Tesla it would ask the Federal Trade Commission to weigh in.

“This is not the first time that Tesla has disregarded the guidelines in a matter that may lead to consumer confusion and give Tesla an unfair market advantage,” the letter dated October 17 reads. “We have therefore also referred this matter to the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection to investigate whether these statements constitute unfair or deceptive acts or practices.”

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.

The automaker’s lawyers did, however, push back against NHTSA’s request, according to the correspondence released by Plainsite. Tesla lawyers argue in one letter that the company’s statements were neither “untrue nor misleading.”

“To the contrary, Tesla has provided consumers with fair and objective information to compare the relative safety of vehicles having 5-star overall ratings,” the letter from Tesla’s deputy general counsel.

The documents posted by Plainsite also showed NHTSA requested sales data on all Tesla vehicles produced since July 2016 with or without Autopilot, the automaker’s advanced driver assistance system. The agency also issued subpoenas to Tesla ordering it to produce information on several crashes, including a January 25, 2019 crash in San Ramon, Calif. The subpoenas requested information about the vehicle, its owner, history, and videos and images related to the crash and were to be sent to NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigations.

Disrupt San Francisco 2019 takes place on October 2-4. More than 10,000 people — tech founders, investors, hackers, leaders, makers and shakers — will gather for three days focused on early-stage startups. And if you work for a government agency or a nonprofit, we have great news in the form of a deep discount on Innovator passes.

We want as many different voices at the Disrupt table as possible, so take advantage of this opportunity and let your voice be heard. Your price of admission: $495, which saves you $800 over the early-bird price. Only your Innovator pass is discounted — not your Disrupt experience.

You’ll have access to the full conference and all the programming across the Main Stage, the Extra Crunch Stage, the Showcase Stage and Q&A sessions. That includes Startup Battlefield, our epic pitch competition, where extraordinary startups compete for $100,000.

Explore more than 1,000 early-stage startups and sponsors camped out in Startup Alley, participate in interactive workshops and network, network, network. Speaking of networking, you can use CrunchMatch, our free attendee networking platform, to seek out and make appointments with the people who can move your business forward.

Your pass also gets you into the always-awesome TechCrunch networking events. When the conference ends, you also have access to our library of event video content, so no worries if you miss anything.

And in a classic “but wait, there’s more” moment, your Innovator pass also gives you access to discounted airline fares and hotel rooms. Ka-ching.

That’s a whole lotta value, amirite? And now here comes the fine print.

All discounted tickets are non-refundable, and you can’t combine them with any other offer. To qualify for the discount, you must be a current, full-time employee of a nonprofit organization, a federal, state or local government agency, an international government agency or be an active military member.

Nonprofit employees must provide their email address from their organization during the online registration process. Government employees must provide their valid .gov email address during the registration process.

At the on-site registration check-in, you must show proof of current employment at your nonprofit (copy of 501c3 documentation) or government organization. Government contractors, including contractors working on government “Cost Reimbursable Contracts,” are not eligible for the government discount.

We accept the following forms of valid government ID:

• Government-issued Visa, MasterCard or American Express
• Government picture ID
• Military picture ID
• Federally Funded Research Development Corp (FFRDC) ID

If you don’t present valid nonprofit documentation or government ID at registration, you’ll have to pay the full on-site price ($1,995).

Disrupt San Francisco 2019 takes place on October 2-4, and we have a limited number of these tickets. Buy your discounted Innovator pass today and secure your place at the table.

The Trump administration has banned U.S. federal agencies from buying equipment and obtaining services from Huawei and two other companies as part of the government’s latest crackdown on Chinese technology amid national security fears.

Jacob Wood, a spokesperson for the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, was quoted as saying that the administration will “fully comply” with the legislation passed by Congress as part of a defense spending bill passed last year.

CNBC first reported the spokesperson’s remarks.

The new rule will take effect in a week — August 13 — and will also take aim at Chinese tech giants ZTE, Hytera, and Hikvision, amid fears that the companies could spy for the Chinese government. The rule comes in a year before Congress’ mandated deadline of August 2020 for all federal contractors doing business with Huawei, ZTE, Hytera, and Hikvision.

The government will grant waivers to contractors on a case-by-case basis so long as their work does not pose a national security threat.

Huawei has long claimed it does not nor can it spy for the Chinese government. Critics, including the government and many lawmakers, say the company’s technology, primarily networking equipment like 5G cell stations, could put Americans’ data at risk of Chinese surveillance or espionage. Huawei has vigorously denied the allegations, despite findings from the U.K. government that gave a damning assessment of the technology’s security.

The company first came to focus in 2012 following a House inquiry, which labeled the company a national security threat.

Spokespeople for Huawei and ZTE did not respond to requests for comment.

If you go back about a decade, Hadoop was hot and getting hotter. It was a platform for processing big data, just as big data was emerging from the domain of a few web-scale companies to one where every company was suddenly concerned about processing huge amounts of data. The future was bright, an open source project with a bunch of startups emerging to fulfill that big data promise in the enterprise.

Three companies in particular emerged out of that early scrum — Cloudera, Hortonworks and MapR — and between them raised more than $1.5 billion. The lion’s share of that went to Cloudera in one massive chunk when Intel Capital invested a whopping $740 million in the company. But times have changed.

Via TechCrunch, Crunchbase, Infogram

Falling hard

Just yesterday, HPE bought the assets of MapR, a company that had raised $280 million. The deal was pegged at under $50 million, according to multiple reports. That’s not what you call a healthy return on investment.

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. Disney will bundle Hulu, ESPN+ and Disney+ for a monthly price of $12.99

Disney’s streaming services just became even more appealing, since you’ll be able to get the full bundle for the same price as Netflix’s standard U.S. plan.

On its own, Disney+ will cost $6.99 per month, and it will include a big chunk of the Disney-Fox content library, as well as new shows set in the Star Wars and Marvel universes.

2. Twitter ‘fesses up to more adtech leaks

Twitter may have shared user data with advertising partners, even when a user had expressly told it not to.

3. Trump attacks Google and Sundar Pichai in morning tweets

Frankly, just copy-pasting that headline made me feel tired, but these kinds of comments could have a real impact on Google’s plans.

4. FedEx ends ground-delivery contract with Amazon

This means FedEx will not be providing any last-mile delivery service for Amazon, which is expanding its own shipping capabilities considerably.

5. In a 130-page court filing, Kik claims the SEC’s lawsuit ‘twists’ the facts about its online token

The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a lawsuit claiming that Kik’s $100 million token sale was illegal. Now the company filed a 130-page response, asking for an early trial date and dismissal of the complaint, while also alleging that the SEC is “twisting” the facts about its token, called Kin.

6. What tech gets right about healthcare

Why is tech still aiming for the healthcare industry? It seems full of endless regulatory hurdles, not to mention stories of misguided founders with no knowledge of the space. But sometimes, startups figure it out. (Extra Crunch membership required.)

7. Segment CEO Peter Reinhardt is coming to TechCrunch Sessions: Enterprise to discuss customer experience management

As part of a panel that includes Qualtrics’ Julie Larson-Green and Adobe’s Amit Ahuja, Reinhardt will discuss the difficulties companies face in collecting data to build a picture of the customer, then using it to deliver more meaningful experiences.

ANGI Homeservices — which operates HomeAdvisor, Angie’s List and other brands — is naming Handy CEO Oisin Hanrahan as its new chief product officer.

Handy offers on-demand access to workers who can clean, assemble furniture, mount TVs and perform other tasks around the home. It was acquired last year by ANGI (a publicly-traded subsidiary of IAC).

Hanrahan co-founded Handy in 2012, and he’s continued to run the company since its acquisition. According to today’s announcement, he’ll continue to do that in his new role, while at the same time overseeing product strategy across the entire ANGI portfolio.

Speaking of that portfolio: The company says that across its various brands, it works with more than 250,000 home service professionals in 500 categories.

“During the acquisition and integration of Handy, I have been enormously impressed with Oisin’s product vision, entrepreneurial energy, and leadership skills,” said ANGI Homeservices CEO Brandon Ridenour in a statement. “The products that win are simple, functional and, above all, effective. Oisin took a powerful idea — connecting customers to quality housecleaning and handymen professionals online — and created a far better experience than was previously thought possible. I am looking forward to all of our brands, benefiting from his drive, determination, insights and product leadership.”

The announcement comes just ahead of ANGI and IAC’s earnings reports later this afternoon.

If enterprise software makes your entrepreneurial heart beat faster, you do not want to miss TC Sessions: Enterprise 2019 on September 5 in San Francisco. And if you really want to make your heart sing, buy an early-bird ticket and save $100. But act quickly, because that deal disappears in just 48 hours on August 9 at 11:59 p.m. (PT).

Join more than 1,000 enterprise software experts and aficionados — leaders, rising founders and VCs — to discuss, explore and gain insight into the current and future state of enterprise companies, trends and technology.

This day-long conference features more than 20 sessions on the Main stage including interviews, panel discussions, plus separate speaker Q&As and breakout sessions. You’ll hear from industry giants like these (to name just a few):

• George Brady, CTO at Capital One
• Jim Clarke, Intel’s director of Quantum Hardware
• Scott Farquhar, co-founder and co-CEO at Atlassian
• Aaron Levie, Box co-founder and CEO
• Aparna Sinha, Google’s director of product management for Kubernetes and Anthos

Our presentations cover a wide range of crucial topics — like this one featuring Martin Casado (Andreessen Horowitz) and Wendy Nather (Duo Security):

Keeping the Enterprise Secure: Enterprises face a litany of threats from both the inside and outside the firewall. Now more than ever, companies — especially startups — have to put security first. From preventing data from leaking to keeping bad actors out of your network, enterprises have it tough. How can you secure the enterprise without slowing growth? We’ll discuss the role of a modern CSO and how to move fast… without breaking things.

You’ll find the lineup of events in the agenda, and we might even add a few surprises between now and September.

No TechCrunch Session would be complete without world-class networking, and you’ll have plenty of opportunities to build new connections. Even better, you’ll have CrunchMatch at your disposal. Our free business match-making platform helps you cut through the noise, zero in on the right people and produce better results.

You can’t clone yourself (yet), but you can bring your team and cover more ground. Take advantage of our group discount and save 20% when you purchase four or more tickets at once.

One more ROI checkpoint. For every ticket you buy to this Session, we’ll register you for a free Expo-only pass to TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2019.

TC Sessions: Enterprise takes place in less than one month, but the early-bird price evaporates in just 48 hours. Buy your early-bird ticket before the deadline — August 9 at 11:59 p.m. (PT). Save $100 and make your heart sing.

Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TC Sessions: Enterprise? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.

Over the past couple decades, retail has fundamentally changed. Amazon has swept in and devoured mom and pop stores, while incumbent brands face increased competition from a new crop of digital-first companies.

But not everything changes. People still want to see and feel the goods they’ll purchase, and most brands still see huge benefits from having a physical outpost.

At Disrupt SF 2019, we’ll hear from three founders and CEOs who have managed to not only build successful D2C brands, but also take those brands into the physical world.

So without any further ado, we’re delighted to announce that Brooklinen cofounder and CEO Rich Fulop, Framebridge founder and CEO Susan Tynan, and thredUP founder and CEO James Reinhart will join us at Disrupt SF 2019, which runs October 2 – October 4.

Brooklinen launched in 2014 with a straightforward value proposition: luxury sheets for a relatively affordable price. The company was founded by Rich and Vicki Fulop, a married couple, who have expanded the brand to encompass not only bed linens but towels, bath mats, and even loungewear. Through a combination of word of mouth and fantastic brand design, the products have grown in popularity over the years. But one of the real breakthroughs of the company was the decision to move forward with a physical space.

The Fulops thought carefully about timing, location, whether or not to hold inventory, how to design the space, and some of the other details that might seem like minutiae but that make a meaningful difference in the success of the store. We’re amped to hear more from Fulop about how he made these decisions and which ones worked out.

Framebridge, founded by Susan Tynan, launched in 2014 and has raised a whopping $82 million to dramatically simplify the process of getting things framed. Framebridge helps users visualize how their items will look in different style frames, and then sends shipping labels to the user. By letting users shop online, and centralizing the framing process in a single location, the company has been able to offer customers lower prices than traditional framers. Lower prices then translates to users getting more things framed.

Earlier this year, however, Framebridge shook things up with the introduction of two physical stores: one in Bethesda, MD and one in downtown Washington D.C. According to Tynan, average order volumes are 40 percent higher in store than they were online. Tynan brings a unique perspective to the panel in that the stores are built specifically to mimic the process of buying through Framebridge’s website, with the hope to turn physical buyers into online buyers. Plus, Framebridge operates two stores in very different markets, with one location in a concentrated metropolitan area and one in a more suburban neighborhood.

Meanwhile, thredUP founder and CEO James Reinhart has paved his own way in the offline retail world. The company claims to be the largest online marketplace for secondhand clothing, and is looking to take that same dominance into brick-and-mortar. But not without a certain level of calculation.

thredUP is using its troves of consumer behavior data to make decisions in offline, including the locations of the stores. The first store, for example, was launched in San Marcos, TX because the company has an unusually high concentration of shoppers in that area. Moreover, thredUP uses data about what types of clothing shoppers in a certain geographical area are interested in, and stock their stores accordingly. Plus, the company has built technology to let offline shoppers browse the entire online inventory based on the things they like in the stores.

Obviously, there is plenty to learn from these founders about all the finer points of taking a digital-first brand into the real world. We’re thrilled to have them all in the same room, and hope you’ll join us.

Disrupt SF runs October 2 – October 4 at the Moscone Center in the heart of San Francisco. Tickets are available here.

Did you know Extra Crunch annual members get 20% off all TechCrunch event tickets? Head over here to get your annual pass, and then email extracrunch@techcrunch.com to get your 20% off discount. Please note that it can take up to 24 hours to issue the discount code.

Vreal, an ambitious game-streaming platform that aimed to let VR users explore the worlds that live-streamers were playing in, is shutting down and laying off its staff after raising $15 million in venture capital. The startup announced the shutdown on its website’s homepage.

The Seattle startup raised cash from investors including Axioma Ventures, Upfront Ventures and Intel Capital. Vreal raised an $11.7 million Series A in early 2018.

Vreal’s tech let game streamers share the entire 3D environment of the VR world they were inside, something which allowed users to walk around streamers as avatars or explore on their own as passive observers while listening to the live-streamer blast their way through zombies.

The startup, which was founded in 2015, spent VR’s most hyped years building out their live-streaming tech. By the time they closed their Series A early last year, their platform was still in the pre-alpha launch stage. The platform launched in Early Access on Steam a few months later in June.

“Unfortunately, the VR market never developed as quickly as we all had hoped, and we were definitely ahead of our time. As a result, Vreal is shutting down operations and our wonderful team members are moving on to other opportunities,” a blog post titled “Moving on to new realities” on the company’s hollowed-out website now reads.

As I noted after the Series A announcement, the Vreal platform was “a product for a pretty tight niche: streamers with VR hardware broadcasting for viewers with VR hardware.” The company’s religious allegiance to VR hardware being the only way to enjoy and produce the content likely limited the platform’s reach too much. Two months ago, the company announced it was adding an experimental web browser view to its platform to expand its reach, but that move seems to have been too little, too late.