Category: UNCATEGORIZED

OnePlus’ original Bullets weren’t the sexiest of earbuds, but they were a solid, workhorse offering for those who prefer a yolked design to fully wireless. And like the rest of OnePlus’ offerings, the price was right.

Announced today alongside the 7 Pro, the Bullets Wireless 2 aren’t a radical departure from their predecessor, but do a good job of building atop a solid foundation. The $99 buds feature improved sound with an architectural that was apparently inspired by nautilus spiral sea shells.

What that means is good sound for a pair of bluetooth earbuds and a pretty comfortable fit, courtesy of an an elongated angular design. I’ve been waiting them a bit and am pretty happy with the fit. The over the neck design is more of a personal presence. They’re bulkier than fully wires buds, but it’s handy to be able to pull them out and let them rest over your shoulders when not in use. The yolk is a soft silicone, while the metal buds snap together magnetically to close the loop.

That added real estate also helps on the battery front, without the need for a charging case. All told, they should get you around 14 hours of playback when fully charged. If you’re in a pinch, you can squeeze an impressive 10 hours of playback out of a 10 minute charge using USB C.

All in all, not a bad deal for $99.

Google is giving its Shopping destination a revamp and introducing a universal cart across its platform of services, including Search, Shopping, Images, and even YouTube. The search company announced today an entirely redesigned and now personalized Google Shopping experience where shoppers can discover and compare products, then checkout instantly using their Google account.

As a result, the Google Express app will become the new Google Shopping app as the standalone “Express” brand is merged into the new set of Shopping products and features.

The changes appear to be a competitive move meant to rival all the new ways consumers shop and discover products online — such as browsing Pinterest, or being inspired by Instagram ads or shoppable posts, for instance.

Meanwhile, Google knows that its network of sites are also often part of the shopping process, but it hasn’t always well-capitalized on this. People today use web searches, or look at pictures of products they want on Google Images. Sometimes they even watch YouTube videos where the products are unboxed, demonstrated, and discussed.

Now it aims to leverage its various platforms and increase its ad revenue.

For starters, it’s introducing a new, personalized Google Shopping homepage where consumers can filter products by brands they love, or features they want, as well as read product reviews and watch videos. For example, explains Google, if you were in the market for a set of new headphones, you could filter for attributes like “wireless” or a brand like “Sony.”

Some items will also include a blue shopping cart button that, when clicked, will allow the consumer to add the item in question to a universal cart where the purchase is backed by a Google guarantee, plus customer service and easy returns.

This, says Google, represents a merging of Google Shopping with Google’s other checkout and delivery service, Google Express. Following the changes, the Google Express app will update and become Google Shopping instead. it will feature the all-new Google Shopping experience which has the transactions built in and the universal shopping cart.

Brands that already participate in Shopping Actions for Google Assistant will be included in this new purchase experience, which is going live now across Google Shopping, Google.com, and the Google Assistant.

Shopping Actions will expand to Google Images and YouTube later in the year.

In other cases, retailers may use ads, including the highly visual Showcase Shopping Ads, to drive traffic to their own websites instead. These ads were previously available on Google Shopping, and are now expanding to Google Images, the feed on Discover, and soon, YouTube.

That means if you’re on Google’s app or watching YouTube videos for ideas, Google will now be able to capture that interest and turn it into clicks and conversions. These ads today appeal mostly to newcomers to a brand, as 80 percent of traffic to retailers’ websites from a Showcase Shopping ad is from someone who just discovered the brand, Google notes.

In addition, Shopping ads are being updated to drive in-store pickup traffic. That is, when consumers shop online and click through to buy from a Shopping ad, they will have an easier way to purchase items for in-store pickup. This beta feature requires merchant participation, however. The retailer will need to have product landing pages on their sites that show when in-store pickup is available as well as a local inventory feed in the Merchant Center that shows which items are in stock, and optionally a list of items that can be quick-shipped to a local store.

Retailers will also now be able to optimize their Shopping ads not only by specific goals but by where the ads display, too. For example, they can choose whether ad campaigns appear on Google.com, Images Search, YouTube or elsewhere across the web. Brands can also work with their retailer partners to use the brand’s own budget in order to help promote top products in retailers’ shopping campaigns. Those interested in this Shopping campaigns with partners beta program, have to sign up to participate. 

Google has been moving towards this direction for some time. Google Express wasn’t really working, but Google knew that it had the traffic elsewhere across its platforms that could turn product discovery into ad dollars, clicks, and conversions. In the past, it began testing new layouts for Images that looked just like Pinterest, and tried used its Image site to connect users to Pinterest-like interests, including recipes and products. On YouTube, it’s been rolling out Merch shelves under videos, as well, which allow creators to sell items — a feature that blazed a trail to make YouTube a more shoppable platform.

“We’re making the places where people come to browse and explore products on Google shoppable,” said Surojit Chatterjee, Vice President of Product Management, Shopping, in an announcement. “These new shopping experiences let people shop and purchase frictionlessly right where they already turn to for research and inspiration: Search, Google Images, YouTube and a redesigned Google Shopping destination,” he noted.

Algorithmia, a Seattle-based startup that offers a cloud-agnostic AI automation platform for enterprises, today announced a $25 million Series B funding round led by Norwest Partners. Madrona, Gradient Ventures, Work-Bench, Osage University Partners and Rakuten Ventures also participated in this round.

While the company started out five years ago as a marketplace for algorithms, it now mostly focuses on machine learning and helping enterprises take their models into production.

“It’s actually really hard to productionize machine learning models,” Algorithmia CEO Diego Oppenheimer told me. “It’s hard to help data scientists to not deal with data infrastructure but really being able to build out their machine learning and AI muscle.”

To help them, Algorithmia essentially built out a machine learning DevOps platform that allows data scientists to train their models on the platform and with the framework of their choice, bring it to Algorithmia — a platform that has already been blessed by their IT departments — and take it into production.

“Every Fortune 500 CIO has an AI initiative but they are bogged down by the difficulty of managing and deploying ML models,” said Rama Sekhar, a partner at Norwest Venture Partners, who has now joined the company’s board. “Algorithmia is the clear leader in building the tools to manage the complete machine learning lifecycle and helping customers unlock value from their R&D investments.”

With the new funding, the company will double down on this focus by investing in product development to solve these issues, but also by building out its team, with a plan to double its headcount over the next year. A year from now, Oppenheimer told me, he hopes that Algorithmia will be a household name for data scientists and, maybe more importantly, their platform of choice for putting their models into production.

“How does Algorithmia succeed? Algorithmia succeeds when our customers are able to deploy AI and ML applications,” Oppenheimer said. “And although there is a ton of excitement around doing this, the fact is that it’s really difficult for companies to do so.”

The company previously raised a $10.5 million Series A round led by Google’s AI fund. It’s customers now include the United Nations, a number of U.S. intelligence agencies and Fortune 500 companies. In total, over 90,000 engineers and data scientists are now on the platform.

If the world of online dating feels too intimidating, Match’s new service AskMatch aims to help. The flagship dating brand from Match Group — which also operates Tinder, Hinge, OKCupid, Plenty of Fish, and others — is first-to-market with a new service that puts a professional dating coach right in its app.

The coaches are not an A.I. chatbots, but actual people — professional coaches or certified matchmakers, the company says. Members who want to use the service can call them directly from the app for help with common questions. This may include getting assistance with setting up a good dating profile, or just asking questions about modern dating — like when to define the relationship, how to send a great message, or how to deal with ghosting, for example.

The idea, the company explains, is to make online dating feel more personal. That’s an area where dating apps tend to struggle. People today can fail to make real, lasting connections through apps because — like much of what takes place online — there’s a layer of artificiality between people. Without face-to-face connections as in the real world, they end up browsing photos as if they’re shopping for a person, instead of trying to really trying to connect.

But there are ways to break through the online barrier. A well-thought-out dating profile can help someone get to know you and kickstart conversations. The way you behave and chat in the app can create interest or it can repel — that’s where the dating coaches’ advice could help.

“Our dating coaches are all about making dating personal again. In this tech-driven world, Match is focused on getting our members into real-world relationships, and that starts with investing in our relationship with our members,” said Match CEO Hesam Hosseini, in a statement about the launch. “This service is another way Match ensures our members have the best experience while they are dating—from saying hello to making a commitment—by offering an unbiased expert in their corner.”

The feature, which is initially available starting this month to daters in New York City, will roll out to other markets throughout the year. It will be available nationwide by 2020, Match says.

It’s also free for NYC members and as it expands nationally. It’s unclear how long that will be the case. But unlike Tinder, Match is subscription-based so there are funds coming in to help with costs.

While Match is the first major dating brand to offer coaching, Match Group-owned Hinge had toyed with the idea a couple of years ago. It trialed an in-app personal assistant that would help you message matches and schedule dates. However, the assistant meant to save people from the tediousnesses that comes from using dating apps, rather than help you improve your own dating skills. It never fully launched. Other apps have tried and failed to make in-app coaching work, as well.

The launch follows a big redesign for Match’s app that the company says makes the app more visually appealing and helps users better connect thanks to under-the-hood improvements to matching algorithms. The app also added recently a feature called “What If” to create serendipity by connecting users based on things they both love.

Following the redesign, Match saw a 20 percent increase in 4 and 5-star ratings, user likes increase by 20 percent, and messages up by 10 percent.

But Match needed more than a fresh coat of paint — it needed a new angle to better define itself in an age where Tinder is dominating. The dating coach focuses on the needs of a slightly older crowd than those on Tinder — the 35-plus users who may not feel as comfortable dating online, and turn to a more traditional dating brand on their first go.

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase is ramping up stablecoin support around the world. Customers can now trade USD Coin (or USDC for short) in 85 countries — USDC support was only available in the U.S. excluding NY. You can trade USDC on both Coinbase and Coinbase Pro.

The company has been aggressive when it comes to international expansion. Coinbase is currently available in over 100 countries — 85 out of 103 countries support USDC. But there’s a trick. Many countries can only exchange crypto assets for other assets — there’s no crypto-to-fiat conversions.

As the name suggests, a USDC is a token that is worth exactly 1 USD. Its value is stable against USD. That’s why people call this type of assets stablecoins. Coinbase and other USDC partners store USD in a bank account every time they issue a token.

And it’s clear that many customers living in countries suffering from inflation are going to love USDC. For instance, Argentina had a 47 inflation rate in 2018 alone. Rents, mortgages and basic goods end up costing a lot more than before. Your savings also represent a smaller sum of money if you convert it to USD.

Many people have already been using cryptocurrencies to avoid inflation. But it also creates tremendous risks as most cryptocurrencies still suffer from price fluctuation.

USDC could be part of the solution. You could use an exchange to convert some bitcoins into USDC and then store them on a secure wallet.

Here’s a list of new countries with crypto-to-crypto trading: Angola, Armenia, Aruba, Bahamas, Bahrain, Barbados, Benin, Botswana, Brazil, British Virgin Islands, Brunei, Cameroon, Cayman Islands, Costa Rica, Curaçao, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Ghana, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Kyrgyrsztan, Macau, Maldives, Mauritius, Mauritius, Mongolia, Montenegro, Namibia, Nepal, Nicaragua, Oman, Panama, Paraguay, Rwanda, Serbia, South Africa, Taiwan, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Zambia.

Correction: A previous version of this article said USDC was already available in 35 countries and expanding to 50 additional countries. USDC was only available in the U.S. (excluding NY) and is expanding to 84 new countries.

Disclosure: I own small amounts of various cryptocurrencies.

Bitcoin is now trading at around $8,130, up a whopping 60.84 percent over the past month, with the price surging $3,086.14 over the period.

The cryptocurrency’s meteoric rise is reminiscent of its rocketing growth in the latter half of 2017, when prices reached over $18,400 on the back of buoyant capital markets, rampant speculation, and a turbulent political climate in Northern Asia spurred by saber rattling between President Donald Trump and North Korea’s dictator, Kim Jong-un.

While geopolitical tension is once again gripping the market (thanks to the ongoing trade war between the U.S. and China), that may only be one factor contributing to Bitcoin’s surge.

“Anticipation of the upcoming supply shock [of new BTC introduced via mining] may be creating upward pressure on the price of Bitcoin,” wrote Alyse Killeen, a partner at the investment and advisory firm Stillmark, in an email. “Bitcoin is introduced to the market when the Bitcoin protocol rewards miners who validate blockchain transactions. Specifically, the Bitcoin protocol gives BTC to miners for adding blocks to the blockchain. Today, miners earn 12.5 BTC for adding a new block that is accepted by the network. In May 2020, the time of the next ‘halvening‘, that reward will be reduced to 6.25 BTC, thereby reducing the total number of BTC introduced to the market on a daily basis.”

Killeen also noted that Bitcoin is inherently more valuable today than it was at the same time last year. More Americans can access Bitcoin through apps like Cash and Robinhood, and TD Ameritrade’s BTC contracts and (soon) eTrade.

Technology advances are also making Bitcoin more useful and more secure, Killeen wrote. The development of the Lightning Network is proceeding and creating a new application ecosystem, while the Blockstream Satellite network is creating redundancies in blockchain availability.

In fact, the number of businesses that take Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies expanded exponentially yesterday thanks to an agreement between the U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin purveyor Gemini (owned by the Winkelvoss twins of Facebook and Social Network fame) and the payment network Flexa, whose technology is undergirded by cryptocurrencies.

Using Gemini’s exchange and clearing house and Flexa’s transaction technology most of the stores an American consumer encounters in their trip to the mall now accept Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies as payments.

That adoption doesn’t explain the bump in Bitcoin prices entirely. And skeptics of digital cryptocurrencies argue that there could be a simpler explanation for the rise in digital currencies right now — good old fashioned price manipulation.

As crypto-skeptic David Gerard wrote in this blog post yesterday:

It’s because the price of Bitcoin is a proxy for margin trading — and rather than investing in the commodity itself, you can make more money by manipulating this thin and ill-regulated market to burn the margin traders.

This also allows the large holders — the “whales,” and the exchanges themselves — to cash out to whatever little actual-money US dollars are available, in a trading system where the liquidity is mostly fake dollars called “tethers.”

Willy Woo explains how short squeezes work in crypto. This is a pattern we see over and over:

1) When the market is majority short, there’s too much money to be had to allow them to win.

2) Whales keep buying up the market until the shorts get liquidated.

3) At liquidation the short seller has to buy back at market price.

4) A tidal wave of buys cascade through the orderbooks, a chain reaction, the price goes vertical.

5) Whale payday. The whales that bought up the market sheparding the price up now dump their positions at profit.

6) Blow-off. The price comes down to its organic levels.

Other investors, like Travis Scher at the Digital Currency Group think that it’s as simple as a new class of investor looking at Bitcoin as a new store of value and a haven for investors looking to escape volatile public markets.

“I spend very little time trying to understand or explain short-term crypto price movements, as the price and the fundamentals often seem to move in diametrically opposed directions. So all I can say with certainty is that there are more buyers than sellers in recent months,” Scher wrote in an email. “But in this case, I do think that one factor driving the rally is that the narrative around Bitcoin as digital gold is growing. We fully expect Bitcoin to replace gold as the leading non-government controlled store of value over the coming decade.”

Rivet, a new app from Google’s in-house incubator, wants to help children struggling to read. The app hails from Area 120 — Google’s workshop for experimental projects — and includes over 2,000 free books for kids as well as an in-app assistant that can help kids when they get stuck on a word by way of advanced speech technology.

For example, if the child is having difficulties with a word they can tap it to hear it pronounced or they can say it themselves out loud to be shown in the app which parts were said correctly and which need work.

There are also definitions and translations for over 25 languages included in the app, in order to help kids — and especially non-native speakers — to better learn reading.

For younger readers, there’s a follow-along mode where the app will read the stories aloud with the words highlighted so the child can match up the words and sounds. When kids grow beyond needing this feature, parents can opt to disable follow-along mode so the kids have to read for themselves.

While there are a number of e-book reading apps aimed at kids on the market today, Rivet is interesting for its ability to leverage advances in voice technology and speech processing.

Starting today on Android and (soon) iOS, Rivet will be able to offer real-time help to kids when they tap the microphone button and read the page aloud. If the child hits a word and starts to struggle, the assistant will proactively jump in and offer support. This is similar to how parents help children to read — as the child reaches a word they don’t know or can’t say, the parent typically corrects them.

Rivet says all the speech processing takes place on the device to protect children’s privacy and its app is COPPA-compliant.

When the child completes a page, they can see which words they read correctly, and which they still need to work on. The app also doles out awards by way of points and badges, and personalizes the experience using avatars, themes and books customized to the child’s interests and reading level.

Other surprises and games keep kids engaged with the app and continuing to read.

According to Rivet’s Head of Tech and Product Ben Turtel, the team wanted to work on reading because it’s a fundamental skill — and one that needs to be mastered to learn just about everything else.

“Struggling readers,” he says, “are unlikely to catch up and four times less likely to graduate from high school. Unfortunately, 64 percent of fourth-grade students in the United States perform below the proficient level in reading,” Turtel explains.

Rivet is not the first app from Google aimed at tackling reading. An app called Bolo offers a similar feature set, but is aimed at kids in India, instead.

While Bolo was not an Area 120 project, others from the incubator have focused on education like learn-to-code app Grasshopper, or used speech processing technology, like customer service phone system CallJoy.

Rivet was previously spotted in the wild during beta trials this year, but is now publicly available and a free download on both Google Play and the Apple App Store across 11 countries, including the U.S.

There’s something about gaming laptops that make manufacturers do weird things. It’s kind of wonderful, in a way. Companies tend to give their teams a much wider berth for strange and novel designs, and HP’s Omen line is certainly no stranger. Designs that tend to be relegated to the concept shelf of history actually hit the market, and indeed, the Omen X 2S is currently on target for a May/June release.

The defining characteristic of the $2,700 notebook is almost certainly the inclusion of a second screen that lives just above the keyboard. HP’s not the first to attempt such a thing — in fact, we might actually be approaching a trend here. The six-inch secondary display is considerably smaller than the 15-inch mean dealie.

It’s designed to provide supplementary information at a glance. While the idea of a secondary screen has been around for some time, I do think HP’s at least being fairly realistic about how it will primarily be used. Rather than assuming that game developers are going to create content specifically for the 1080p touchscreen, HP suggests that gamers will almost certainly use it for other apps entirely.

It suggests chatting in WeChat and WhatsApp, using Spotify and watching Twitch and YouTube videos. In other words, it will essentially serve the same function as just sticking your phone on your laptop — but this one is built in. Oh, and HP sells “Omen apparel” now, so you can coordinate with your new dual-screen laptop.

Disney will be taking full operational control of Hulu, although Comcast will hold onto its ownership stake until 2024.

Disney became a majority owner of in the streaming service — currently a joint venture between Disney and Comcast — earlier this year with the acquisition of Fox. And last month, Hulu announced that it would buy back AT&T’s 9.3 percent stake for $1.43 billion.

In recent presentations on its streaming plans, Disney has described Hulu as a key part of its strategy, along with ESPN+, India’s Hotstar and the upcoming Disney+. Meanwhile, Comcast-owned NBCUniversal has announced plans for streaming service of its own.

Under a new agreement, Disney is taking full operational control of the company, effective immediately. And starting in January 2024, either Comcast or Disney can initiate a sale of Comcast’s stake, based on its independently assessed fair market value at the time, with a minimum value set at $27.5 billion. If Hulu raises more funding before then, Comcast can either invest more more money or see its 33 percent ownership stake diluted.

The deal also extends Hulu’s license to stream NBCUniversal content, and to include NBCUniversal channels on its Hulu Live service, until “late” in 2024. In addition, even though NBCUniversal has given Hulu exclusive streaming rights to some of its content, it will be able to bring that content to its own service in exchange for reducing Hulu’s licensing fee.

Shortly after closing its second venture fund on $262 million, Defy Partners has hired Brian Rothenberg from Eventbrite to invest in Series A startups.

Defy was launched in 2017 by former Kleiner Perkins general partner Trae Vassallo and Neil Sequeira, a managing director at General Catalyst for more than a decade. Rothenberg represents the pair’s first outside addition to the general partnership.

Rothenberg joins from Eventbrite, where he’s spent the last 6.5 years in several different roles, most recently as the ticketing and event platform’s vice president of growth. This is his first full-time investing role, though Rothenberg tells TechCrunch he’s had plenty of practice through investing his personal capital and scouting for venture funds like Sequoia Capital, First Round Capital and Y Combinator.

“I’ve talked to almost every firm in the valley and through that, I got to see what was really important to me,” Rothenberg said. “Defy has enough capital to make targeted and meaningful investments but not so much capital they feel they have to shove money into deals.”

Nearly a decade ago, Rothenberg interned at Canaan Partners before co-founding a local services marketplace called SkillSlate. The business raised $1.5 million in equity funding before selling to TaskRabbit in 2011.

“Having been a founder myself, at the Series A is when you start to see the growth levers emerging,” he said. “But what a Series A was 10 years ago is not what it looks like today. I’ve seen a lot of companies that are overfunded at the Series A, which on the surface seems great because they have a lot of runway but it can be very destructive.”

Focusing on the “Series A gap,” Defy provides between $3 million and $10 million in Series A companies across industries. Defy’s founders Vassallo and Sequeira are known for high-profile investments earlier in their careers, including Bustle, The Honest Company, Dropcam and Nest. Through Defy they’ve backed Owl, which sells security cameras for vehicles; cloud security compliance platform Shujinko; Securly, a tool meant to help kids stay safe on their devices, among others

With its second fund, Defy looks to be scaling its practice. In addition to raising more capital and hiring its first non-founding partner, the firm introduced a new scout program to help with deal sourcing. Dubbed the “Sage” program, Defy has tapped Brian Lee and Sujal Patel to help with investing and to mentor its portfolio companies.

“Our goal is to create a right-sized firm, that means we can’t bring on lots of people or we end up in the same slope of everyone else where more people equals bigger fund which ultimately leads to larger checks,” the Defy founders wrote in a blog post announcing the program.