Category: UNCATEGORIZED

To better compete with rivals like Spotify and Apple Music the music streaming service Pandora is cutting the prices on its Premium subscriptions for qualifying students and members of the military.

Pandora’s new pricing plans mean that students will pay $4.99 per month, a $5 discount to its $9.99 Premium product. The price includes the same features of on-demand music, ad-free listening, offline access, and customizable playlists.

For military personnel, national guard reservists, family members and veterans Pandora is offering a $7.99 per month price for the Premium service. It’s an offer that sets Pandora apart, since neither Apple Music nor Spotify offer military plans.

Both students and military will have their identity verified by SheerID to ensure that people who are trying to subscribe to the discount plan are who they say they are.

Each plan comes with a 60-day trial, which gives subscribers time to personalize the service to their liking — and that increases the possibility of retention.

Google Search is getting an upgrade with better news coverage and now, podcast indexing. At the company’s developer conference Google I/O this morning CEO Sundar Pichai kicks things off with an announcement that Google News’ “Full Coverage” feature, first launched last year, would now make its way directly to Google Search. Additionally, the exec said Google Search would begin indexing podcasts.

Google’s News vertical was updated last year with an A.I.-powered redesign, which included a “Full Coverage” feature to get a more holistic view of a news story.

“We use machine learning to identify different types of stories and give you a complete picture of our stories being reported from a wide variety of sources,” explained Pichai today. “It surfaces a breadth of content, but allows you to drill down into what interests you,” he said.

Google News today offer a view of all the different aspects of a story and a timeline of the events. Later this year, these features will come to Google Search, as well — not just the News vertical.

The more interesting news was glossed over, but is highly relevant to one of the most popular sources of news and information today: podcasts.

Google will begin to index podcasts so the engine can surface relevant episodes of a given program, based on the content, not just the title.

Plus, web searchers will be able to listen to the podcast right in Google’s Search results, or save an episode for later listening — like on their commute to work, for example.

The company didn’t spend much time on this announcement, so it’s unclear for now what this means for podcasters themselves. Today, they’re used to tracking listens through analytics programs which help them get a better idea of what podcast listeners engage with and respond to. It’s unclear if Google plans to offer any analytics service of its own, as part of this change.

“These are all examples of how we are making search, even more helpful for our users surfacing the right information in the right context,” said Pichai.

At its I/O developer conference, Google today announced that it is bringing the camera — and augmented reality – to Google Search. As the company demonstrated, you could search for something like “great white shark” and then see it in front of you through your phone’s camera. The company showed similar examples with a 3D model of the human muscular system.

It’s unclear how many of these 3D models will appear in search. It’s also unclear whether publishers will be able to create their own, but we expect to hear more about this later today.

“We are moving from a company that helps you find answers to a company that gets things done,” Google CEO Sundar Pichai said. “Our goal is to build a more helpful Google for everyone.”

That starts with Search, Pichai said, and this is a new example for this. It’s somewhat gimmicky, but also pretty cool, given that you can easily go from a search term to an AR experience in the Google app.

Square has acquired conversational artificial intelligence startup Eloquent Labs to help its merchants improve customer service.

Eloquent Labs, which raised a $1.5 million seed round back in early 2017, offers a conversational assistant named Elle to small businesses. The idea is that Elle will help merchants common customer service-related issues like returns, product tracking and FAQs.

“Eloquent’s conversational AI services are exactly the kind of technology that can level the playing field for businesses of all sizes by providing sellers efficient ways to interact with their customers,” Square wrote in a blog post. “The team will advance messaging across our entire ecosystem, and together we will build tools that leverage the latest in natural language processing research.”

There are a number of other startups in this space, including customer service software LiveChat, DigitalGenius and Olark. All three of those have raised more money than Eloquent Labs, which likely played a role in Square’s decision.

As medical devices move to networked technologies, securing those devices becomes increasingly important.

Regulators, seemingly late to the threat that unsecured medical devices posed, only began requiring protections for medical devices like pacemakers and insulin pumps two years ago, and since then new technology companies have leapt into the breach to begin providing security services for the healthcare industry.

Most recently, MedCrypt, a graduate from the most recent batch of Y Combinator companies raised $5.3 million in a new round of funding, from investors led by Section 32, the investment firm founded by former Google Ventures partner Bill Maris.

Joining Maris’ firm were previous investors Eniac Ventures and Y Combinator itself.

“Internet-connected medical technology is entering the market at light speed, calling for devices to be secure by design, which leads to a heightened level of patient safety at all times,” said MedCrypt chief executive Mike Kijewski in a statement.

Securing patient data has been a longtime requirement for health technology companies, but both patient records and hospital networks are dangerously vulnerable to cyberattacks.

In 2018, over 6 million patient records in the U.S. were exposed thanks to network intrusions and cyberattacks, according to the publication Health IT Security. And those were just in the ten largest security breaches.

The healthcare industry has only managed to achieve 72% compliance with the HIPAA Security Rule for protecting patient data, according to an April report from CynergisTek.

Investors have recognized the problem and are investing more into companies focused on the healthcare market specifically. MedCrypt’s competition for these security dollars include companies like Medigate, which raised $15 million earlier this year.

While Medigate focuses on network security, MedCrypt is focused on securing devices themselves. Both security functions are critical, according to investors.

“With regulators appropriately taking a hard look at medical device security and the sheer growth in the number of devices being added to already complex clinical networks,” there is a significant opportunity for companies tackling medical device security, according to a statement from Dr. Jonathan Root who has led several IT-enabled healthcare investments for USVP.

Google’s annual developer conference starts today, beginning as usual with a consumer-focused keynote where the company unveils new technology — devices, software, services and more for the first time. Today, we’re expecting to get news about Google’s new budget Pixel device, the Pixel 3a; its new mobile operating system Android Q; a new smart hub for the home, the Google Hub Max; and perhaps updates to other recently announced technology like game streaming service Stadia or the A.I. technology, Duplex. And plenty of other surprises, too, we hope!

The conference kicks off with the consumer keynote at 10 AM Pacific Time (1 PM on the East Coast and 6 PM in London). The developer keynote follows at 12:45 PM PST.

You can watch the live stream right here on this page, starting at 10 AM PST.

If you don’t have time to watch, don’t worry — TechCrunch will have all the news from I/O here: techcrunch.com/tag/google-i-o-2019

Shape Security has been helping big companies stay safe from fraudulent activities like password reuse and bot traffic on their publicly facing websites and apps. The company now wants to help smaller companies have that same type of protection, and today it announced a new cloud service called Connect aimed at that market.

“We’re an enterprise-focused company that protects the majority of large US banks, the majority of the largest airlines, similar kinds of profiles with major retailers, hotel chains, government agencies and so on. We specifically protect them against automated fraud and abuse on their consumer-facing applications — their websites and their mobile apps,” Shuman Ghosemajumder, CTO and co-founder at Shape Security explained.

The company has taken that same type of protection and packaged it for smaller businesses. “What we’re doing with the new product, which is called Connect, is automating those aspects which we have provided with the high-end [product], and are making it easier to deploy and run,” Ghosemajumder said.

He said that they get protection against the same kind of high-end, automated fraud that the large enterprise customers get, as well as protection against DDoS attacks, scraping and so on.

The company is best known for stopping the act of credential stuffing, a sophisticated kind of strike where attackers continually try to get onto a website or app using stolen usernames and passwords. In addition, they tend to use a variety of computers and IP addresses to mask the attack. In fact, Sumit Agarwal, who is co-founder and chief operating officer at Shape, coined the term when he was working at he was working at the Department of Defense in a previous position before he helped launch the company.

A product like Connect can help expand Shape’s market by moving beyond the large enterprises that have been its primary target up until now. While it provides a similar level of service, it delivers it in a way that makes it easier for these smaller organizations to consume, while still enabling them to take advantage of the advanced security techniques that would typically be out of their reach.

Shape Security was founded in 2011, but spent several years developing the core product before emerging from Stealth in 2014. It currently has 300 employees and has raised $132 million, according to Crunchbase data. The most recent round was $26 million in November.

After spending a decade working at international design and branding agencies, Kristine Arth launched her own independent branding agency called Lobster Phone last April. Since then, she’s launched 22 brands under her unofficial tagline “I don’t sleep.” Lobster Phone, however, is all about creating iconic brands with bold personality, which Kristine passionately delivers to her clients. We spoke to Kristine about her branding philosophy, the story behind the name Lobster Phone, and why she loves working with founders.

On working with founders:

“My specialty is people, honestly. I don’t find that I focus in any category, field, or particular segment of an industry is my focus. My specialty is working with people and understanding their background because entrepreneurs have a very different outlook on life. They will climb that mountain at all costs, and I feel very similarly. My sign is Capricorn, I’m a goat. So I will always climb to the top of that mountain. I feel very in line with entrepreneurs in that way because I want to help them do their best work.”

On common startup mistakes:

“Entrepreneurs will come to me and say, “I want a logo, I want a campaign, I want this.” And I will say, you need a brand, you need strategy, you need a foundational promise to sell to your clients. And with that foundational brand strategy and a flexible brand, we’ll get what you want. The common mistake is to come with a solution versus coming in with the problem.”

Below, you’ll find the rest of the founder reviews, the full interview, and more details like pricing and fee structures. This profile is part of our ongoing series covering startup brand designers and agencies with whom founders love to work, based on this survey and our own research. The survey is open indefinitely, so please fill it out if you haven’t already.

The Interview

Yvonne Leow: Can you tell me a little bit about yourself and how you got into branding?

Kristine Arth: I originally thought I was going to be a ceramist. I went to school at Columbia in Chicago, and studied ceramics for about half a semester before I discovered the computer lab, and was like “Oh my God, everything is happening so fast there, this is amazing. It’s for me.” So I quickly moved into graphic design and never looked back. I started in advertising and marketing, and worked in Chicago for about 10 years at Leo Burnett, Wunderman, and then moved out to San Francisco to start fresh. Fuseproject, a top industrial design and branding agency, reached out to me, had me come in for an interview and the rest is history.

In November, Amazon launched an Alexa app for Windows 10 PCs which allowed PC owners to speak to Alexa in order to set reminders, timers, alarms, create to-dos, track their calendar, control their smart home get news, information and more, and even play music. Now, that app is getting an update — amid Microsoft’s suite of Build announcements, Amazon has released a new version of the Alexa app for Windows that offers a hands-free experience.

That means, explains Amazon, you can now invoke Alexa whether it’s running in the foreground or the background. All you need to do is to say “Alexa” thanks to the new wake-word capability.

The hands-free option doesn’t replace the former push-to-talk capability. That’s still an option, if you prefer.

In addition to the new hands-free feature, the app now includes support for Pandora music streaming, allowing Windows PC owners to use Alexa to ask for their favorite Pandora stations.

The app represents another way that the Alexa experience has become untethered from Amazon Echo’s speakers, as well as a way for the voice assistant to be used in a more productivity focused environment.

The Alexa app for Windows 10 PCs will automatically update when it’s opened, Amazon says. The app is a free download from the Windows Store.  

Founded in late 2013, OnePlus did the impossible, coming seemingly out of nowhere to take on some of the biggest players in mobile. The company has made a name by embracing a fawning fanbase and offering premium smartphone features at budget pricing, even as the likes of Samsung and Apple routinely crack the $1,000 barrier on their own flagships.

OnePlus’ history is awash with clever promotions and fan service, all while exceeding expectations in markets like the U.S., where fellow Chinese smartphone makers have run afoul of U.S. regulations. The company’s measured approach to embracing new features has won a devoted fantasied among Android users.

Over the past year, however, the company has looked to bleeding edge technology as a way forward. OnePlus was one of the first to embrace In-Display fingerprint sensors with last year’s 6T and has promised to be among the first to offer 5G on its handsets later this year.

CEO Pete Lau formed the company with fellow Oppo employee Carl Pei, with funding from the Chinese smartphone giant. The pair have turned the company into arguably the most exciting smartphone manufacturer in the past decade. OnePlus has big plans on the horizon, too, including further expansion into the Indian market and the arrival of its first TV set in the coming year.

At Disrupt SF (which runs October 2 to October 4), Lau will discuss OnePlus’ rapid accent and its plans for the future.

Tickets are available here.