Friday, November 30, 2018

Apple Watch Series 4 return period extended to 45 days due to ECG feature

An internal document addressed to all Apple Store employees and Apple authorized resellers has been obtained by MacRumors. The document outlines a new 45-day return period for the Apple Watch Series 4 due to the ECG (electrocardiogram) sensor embedded into the Watch's body. Likely due to the medical nature of the ECG, Apple had to add the extra month's time to the regular 14-day return policy for most of Apple's products. Should you request a refund past the first fourteen days, you'll need to contact Apple directly by telephone, email, or online chat. If you do take your Watch Series 4...



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YouTube Music updated with EQ adjustments

The latest feature to come to YouTube Music is the ability to tune the equalizer settings right from within the app. The change was first noticed in 9to5Google's teardown of the app from a few weeks ago and now appears to be rolling out to all users. Version 2.59 of YouTube Music has the new menu in the app's Settings right below the Streaming Quality option. The interface looks quite similar to the equalizer found in the Google Play Music app. Source: 9to5Google There are 12 presets to choose from, or you can customize five range sliders and fine tune a bass boost or...



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India's Do Not Disturb App is finally approved for iOS' App Store

With spam callers increasingly becoming an issue all over the world, India set out to tackle the problem by implementing a "Do Not Disturb" app that could let users report spam numbers and register to a ‘do not call' registry so that Indian subscribers can see relief from constant telemarketing calls. Apple was slow to adopt India's "TRAI DND" (as the app is called) and the TRAI - Indian telecom regulator threatened to ban iPhones from Indian networks if Apple didn't approve the app before January 2019. This was back in July. TRAI DND on App Store The DND app was launched for...



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Google Hangouts to be shutdown in 2020

According to a report from 9to5Google, a source familiar with Hangouts' future claims that the messaging service is getting unplugged in 2020, for consumers at least. Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet would still be a part of Google's G Suite. The platform has seen several major changes since its inception but Google has put its development on the backburner, instead focusing on its more recent services: Google Allo and Duo. Google launched Hangouts back in 2013 as a successor to Google Talk. It was the default Android app for instant messaging, group chats, and was the default chat...



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Our Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite video review is up

Xiaomi's lineup now consists of many dozens of devices, and the Mi 8 family even has a few too. This might all get confusing, but don't worry - we got your back. Today we're taking a detailed look, in video form, at one of the newest members of this series - the Mi 8 Lite. Despite sharing the Mi 8 name with the Mi 8 Pro, as the "Lite" suffix implies this is a mere mid-ranger. But does that mean it's not worthy of bearing the Mi 8 moniker? Find out if you watch our video review, embedded below. In under eight minutes you'll get acquainted with this interesting device, and you'll be...



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E Ink debuts a new electronic drawing technology

E Ink — a name synonymous with e-reader screens — just debuted a new writing Display technology called JustWrite. The tech offers the company’s familiar monochrome aesthetic — albeit in negative this time, with white on black.

The key here, as with most of E Ink’s technology is minimal power consumption and low cost, the latter of which it was able to accomplish by dumping the TFT (thin-film-transistor LCD). Instead, it’s a thin roll that could be used to paper surfaces like conference rooms and schools, in order to let people write on the walls using a stylus with practically no latency, as evidenced in the below GIF. 

“The JustWrite film features one of E Ink’s proprietary electronic inks and offers similar benefits as E Ink’s other product lines: a paper-like experience with a good contrast and reflective display without a backlight,” the company writes. “The JustWrite film is an all plastic display, making it extremely durable and lightweight, with the ability to be affixed and removed easily, enabling writing surfaces in a variety of locations.”

The technology could go head to head with the likes of Sony and reMarkable on drawing tablets, but E Ink appears to be more interested in embedded it in non-traditional surfaces. No word yet on how or when it will come to market, though the company is showing it off in person for the first time this week at an event in Tokyo.



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Facebook adds free TV shows Buffy, Angel, Firefly to redefine Watch

Facebook hasn’t had a hit show yet for its long-form video hub Watch, so it’s got a new plan: digging up some deceased cult favorites from television. First up, Facebook is making all episodes of Joss Whedon’s Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly free on Facebook Watch. There’ll be simultaneous viewing Watch Parties where fans can live comment together for Buffy at 3 pm PT today, Angel tomorrow at 12 pm PT, and Firefly on sunday at 12pm PT. Facebook recruited Buffy star Sarah Michelle Gellar to promote the launch.

These shows aren’t original, and they’re far from exclusive since they’re included in a Hulu subscription and are available to rent or buy on other platforms. But at least they’re not run-of-the-mill web content.Wwith Facebook’s remake of MTV’s Real World not arriving until Spring 2019, these sci-fi and horror shows are the most high-profile programs available on the free ad-supported streaming service. The hope is that fans of these shows will come get a taste of Watch, and then explore the rest of its programming.

However, Facebook downplayed this as a change is overarching strategy when I asked if it would be licensing more old TV shows. Instead, it’s trying to build a well-rounded mix of content. A Facbook spokesperson provided this statement:

“No – this doesn’t reflect a strategy shift. We’re focused on bringing content to Watch that people want to discuss and create a community around — whether that’s live sports like UEFA Champions League in Latin America, compelling shows like Sorry For Your Loss, Queen America and Sacred Lies, or even nostalgia content like Real World reboot we’re bringing to Watch next year. Buffy, Firefly and Angel are pop culture favorites with dedicated fan bases, and we’re excited for the opportunity to bring these shows back in a way that enables fans to watch and discuss together on the same platform.”

There’s no guarantee Whedon fans will flock to Watch in droves. [TechCrunch owner] Verizon tried the same thing, bringing Veronica Mars and Babylon 5 to its Go90 streaming service. That failed to move the needle and Go90 eventually shut down. Meanwhile, Watch Party’s simultaneous viewing hasn’t blossomed into a phenomenon, but perhaps bringing the feature to Messenger (which TechCrunch reports Facebook is internally testing) could more naturally spur these social consumption experiences.

Watch has made some progress sicne its lackluster August 2017 debut. 50 million people now spend at least 1 minute per month with Watch. For comparison, over 18 Snapchat Shows have over 10 million unique viewers per month. Facebook Watch users spend 5X longer watching than on clips discovered News Feed videos. But Facebook Watch really needs to pour the cash in necessary to secure a tent-pole series — its Game Of Thrones or House Of Cards. That might mesh well with its new strategy of conceding the younger audience that’s abandon Facebook in favor targeting older users, CNBC reported.

With so much free video content floating around and plenty of people already subscribing to Netflix, Hulu, and/or HBO, it’s been tough for Watch to gain traction when it’s so far outside the understood Facebook use case. Laying a bed of diverse content is a good baby step, but it needs something truly must-see if it’s going to wedge its way into our viewing habits.



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Nokia 8.1 (aka X7) launches in India on December 10, invites are in

HMD Global's event on December 6 in India will actually be taking place on December 10 instead. The confusion was finally cleared today when the company started sending out press invites for the gathering. The Nokia 8.1 is expected to be the star of the event, and this, according to the most recent rumors, will be a rebranded Nokia X7 for markets outside of China. The Nokia 7.1 was just launched in India today, and on December 5 as many as three new Nokia phones will be presented in Dubai, so HMD is definitely busy in this period. The Nokia 8.1 has a 6.18-inch 1080x2280 touchscreen...



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PayPal: Black Friday & Cyber Monday broke records with $1B+ in mobile payment volume

Black Friday broke records in terms of sales made from mobile devices, according to reports last week from Adobe. This week, PayPal said it saw a similar trend during the Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday shopping event. PayPal saw a record-breaking $1 billion+ in mobile payment volume for the first time ever on Black Friday – a milestone it hit again on Cyber Monday.

Mobile payment volume on Black Friday was up 42 percent over Black Friday 2017, the company said, and it even outpaced the mobile payment volume on Cyber Monday this year.

However, Cyber Monday saw more total payment volume, likely because much of the shopping that takes place that day comes from office workers back at their desktops, wrapping up a few more purchases.

Worldwide, mobile payment volume from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday accounted for a significant 43 percent of PayPal’s total payment volume. Between those days, PayPal was processing more than $25,000 per second, with more than $11,000 per second processed on mobile.

The peak hour took place on Black Friday, which shows the sales event has shifted much of its business online. It’s now coming close to topping Cyber Monday in terms of both online and mobile shopping, PayPal noted.

PayPal’s data also pointed to another trend: that of the blurring of the line as to when holiday shopping begins and ends. Many retailers these days are launching their deals on Thanksgiving or even earlier, then allowing them to run for the week of Black Friday or longer.

Amazon, for example, has decided to capitalize on its own Black Friday/Cyber Monday momentum by launching a “12 Days of Deals” event that will feature hundreds of new deals every day from Sunday December 2 through Thursday December 13.

Other times, the shopping starts early, as PayPal’s data shows. Thanksgiving has now become another major shopping day, the company said, having broken into the top 10 shopping days of the year. It also grew 41 percent over last year.

E-commerce spending wasn’t the only thing that’s up year-over-year, PayPal also found. On Giving Tuesday – the event focused on donating to charities and other worthwhile causes – PayPal said over a million customers from 180 markets donated $98 million this year. That’s a 51 percent increase from 2017, it said.



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The International Space Station’s new robot is a freaky floating space Alexa

Meet Cimon. The 3D printed floating robot head was developed by Airbus for the German Space Agency. He’s been a crew member of the International Space Station since June, though as Gizmodo notes, this is the first time we’re seeing him in action.

Really the floating, Watson-powered robot face is like an extremely expensive Amazon Echo designed to study human-machine interactions in space. This video highlights an early interaction between Cimon and European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst.

Gerst requests his “favorite song,” leading Cimon to play Kraftwerk’s “Man Machine,” only to shaken by the astronaut, who then demands the robot shoot some video. Once again Cimon complies, though this time he’s clearly a bit annoyed that the music has stopped. Kind of a rough first encounter for the two new coworkers.

“Happy with his initial outing, both Cimon’s developers and Alexander hope to see Cimon back in action again soon,” the ESA says. “While no further sessions are planned during the Horizons mission at this stage, it could mark the beginning of exciting collaboration between astronauts, robotic assistants and possible future artificial intelligence in space.”

Hopefully things go a bit more smoothly next time. Lord knows the last thing you want to do is piss off a space robot.



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Asus Zenfone Max M2 and Pro M2 specs and images leak

The Asus Zenfone Max M2 and the Pro M2 have showed up on a few occasions in the last few weeks in leaks and teasers but the new report is a bit more revealing than you'd expect. It has almost all the specs and renders that you'd need. Asus Zenfone Max Pro M2 WinFuture brings us detailed renders showing the design of both phones. The first thing we notice is that the non-Pro variant has slightly thicker chin and a narrower notch but otherwise the two follow the same design language. In addition, the Max M2 has a metal back while the Pro M2 takes the glass sandwich...



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Niantic confirms that Pokémon GO is getting PvP battles “soon”

Two and a half years after the launch of Pokémon GO, it’s still missing one major staple of the main series games: player versus player battling.

That’s about to change.

In a series of teaser tweets this morning, the company confirmed that the battle system is on the way, noting only that it’s “coming soon”.

Battling is the feature perhaps most demanded by the player base — particularly after the other oh-so-demanded feature, trading, was finally added around six months ago. While players have long been able to battle Pokémon stored in gyms, or work together to take down bigger/badder Pokémon that show up in raids, there’s never been the sort of real time, head-to-head battling system the series is so well known for.

In August of this year, a rep for Niantic mentioned that their goal was to get it out by the end of the year. Given this tweet, it’s looking like that’ll happen.



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The Arlo security camera goes 4K

The Arlo line was something of a surprise hit for Netgear, causing the networking company to spin it off into its own business earlier this year. The Arlo ecosystem is one of the most robust in the smart security camera space, and now it’s getting something it had never had before: 4K.

The new Arlo Ultra shoots in ultra high definition, with HDR image processing. At $400, it seems like — and likely is — overkill for most users. Do you need a 4K security camera? Almost certainly not. But there are some instances when getting the extra granular detail ultra high def affords could come in handy.

That price also gets you a free one-year subscription to Arlo’s Smart Premier service (worth $120), along with the Arlo SmartHub for connecting to home Wifi.

Beyond that, the Ultra also sports a 180-degree field of view and a built-in LED spotlight to get a better shot of dark views that night vision car offer. There are dual-mics on board as well, for two-way communications with active noise cancelation built in for clearer conversations.

The system will arrive in Q1 of next year.



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AT&T details its streaming service plans as it weighs a sale of its Hulu stake

AT&T may be ready to sell its stake in Hulu, the company revealed in an analyst presentation on Thursday. The company currently owns a 10 percent stake in the service by way of WarnerMedia, as a result of its Time Warner acquisition. But AT&T today is running its own streaming services, including live TV service DirecTV Now aimed at cord cutters, and a more lightweight WatchTV. It’s also preparing to launch yet another direct-to-consumer streaming service in 2019 that leverages its WarnerMedia properties.

The company offered a few more details about this new service during the presentation, noting that it will have three tiers of service.

The entry-level package will be focused on movies, followed by a premium service with original programming and “blockbuster movies.” The third service will include content from the first two tiers, then add an “extensive library of WarnerMedia and licensed content,” including classics, kids & family programing, comedy, and other theatrical releases and niche content.

The service will launch into beta in Q4 2019, AT&T said, and will complement WarnerMedia’s existing business. It will also work across devices, and will expand over time to include third-party content through partnerships.

As for selling its stake in Hulu, the company is “looking for opportunities to monetize assets” that are not essential to its current strategies, explained AT&T CFO John Stephens. He said the company was looking at its “minority investments in things like Sky México or Hulu or a variety of other things.”

The mention of the Hulu sale was a part of a larger discussion about paying down $18 billion of AT&T’s $20 billion in debt by the end of next year, which involved raising up $8 billion in cash by the sale of some assets.

Also of note was the company’s not-so-vague threat that WarnerMedia would not be renewing its licensing deals with rival streaming services when their rights expire.

Asked how the new direct-to-consumer effort will be able to compete with incumbents, WarnerMedia CEO John Stankey responded that over the next 18 to 24 months, “we’re going to see a pretty substantial structural shift that’s going to occur…some of the incumbents in that are in that space today should expect that their libraries are going to get a lot thinner,” he said.

“75 to 80 percent of their total viewing tonnage is sitting on a lot of that licensed content. So their pressure is they’ve got to make this pivot over the next 18 to 24 months to get people off of viewing the licensed content that maybe sits in our library or sits in a Disney/Fox library, and get it onto their own,” Stankey added.

The company believes that, over time, it will be able to bring in enough new subscribers to its streaming offers to offset the declines related to cord cutting, which is impacting its satellite TV company DirectTV. In Q3 2019, the company lost 359,000 net DirecTV subscribers as more consumers dropped pay TV in favor of streaming services, like Netflix.

 



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Apple Music coming to Amazon Echo devices

Amazon announced today that Apple Music service is coming to the company's Echo series of devices. Echo customers will be able to use Apple Music starting the week of December 17. Apple Music on Echo will work similarly to other music services, which currently include Spotify, Pandora, Amazon's own Prime Music and other local services depending upon user location. To set up Apple Music, you will have to login through the Amazon Alexa app on your phone and once the process is complete, you can just ask Alexa to play songs on Apple Music. The move is surprising but welcome...



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Toyota taps Docomo 5G to remotely control its humanoid robot

Toyota introduced T-HR3 to the world right around this time last year. The humanoid robot is capable of mimicking to the motions of a plugged-in human, a la Pacific Rim and countless other sci-fi franchises. The ‘bot’s learned a few new tricks in the intervening years, including, notably, untethered control via 5G.

Using the next-gen wireless tech, a plot is able to remotely control the robot from a distance of up to 10 kilometers (~6 miles). Toyota notes in a press release tied to the news that, in spite of earlier images, demos have been performed with a tethered robot. Using 5G tech from Japanese carrier  Docomo, however, the robot can be controlled from a distance with low latency.

As for what such a robot might actual be good for (beyond knocking the snot out of pint-sized kaiju), Toyota sees potential in homes and healthcare, with an eye on “a prosperous society of mobility.”

At the very least, it’s a nice little bit of press for the promise of 5G connectivity, which networking companies aim to frame as being a relevant technology well beyond just smartphones and computers. The tech will be demoed at a Docomo event in Tokyo early next year. 



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And the winner of Startup Battlefield at Disrupt Berlin 2018 is… Legacy

At the very beginning, there were 13 startups. After three days of incredibly fierce competition, we now have a winner.

Startups participating in the Startup Battlefield have all been hand-picked to participate in our highly competitive startup competition. They all presented in front of multiple groups of VCs and tech leaders serving as judges for a chance to win $50,000 and the coveted Disrupt Cup.

After hours of deliberations, TechCrunch editors pored over the judges’ notes and narrowed the list down to five finalists: Imago AI, Kalepso, Legacy, Polyteia and Spike.

These startups made their way to the finale to demo in front of our final panel of judges, which included: Sophia Bendz (Atomico), Niko Bonatsos (General Catalyst), Luciana Luxiandru (Accel), Ida Tin (Clue), Matt Turck (FirstMark Capital) and Matthew Panzarino (TechCrunch).

And now, meet the Startup Battlefield winner of TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin 2018.

Winner: Legacy

Legacy is tackling an interesting problem: the reduction of sperm motility as we age. By freezing men’s sperm, this Swiss-based company promises to keep our boys safe and potent as we get older, a consideration that many find vital as we marry and have kids later.

Read more about Legacy in our separate post.

Runner-Up: Imago AI

Imago AI is applying AI to help feed the world’s growing population by increasing crop yields and reducing food waste. To accomplish this, it’s using computer vision and machine learning technology to fully automate the laborious task of measuring crop output and quality.

Read more about Imago AI in our separate post.



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U.S. mobile app stores had their biggest day ever on Black Friday 2018

Black Friday wasn’t just a boon for e-commerce retailers, it helped the mobile app stores break new records, too. According to a new report from Sensor Tower, the combined consumer spending across the U.S. Apple App Store and Google Play on Black Friday 2018 reached $75.9 million – a record for the most ever spent in a single day on both stores.

The App Store accounted for most of that figure, however, with U.S. consumers spending a record $52 million on Black Friday. That’s a 31.6 percent increase in spending over last year’s shopping event, when consumers then spent $39.5 million.

It’s also notably higher than Christmas 2017, when spending reached $39.8 million – typically a strong day for app purchases and in-app sales, as consumers unwrap new iPhones.

The App Store’s $52 million was more than double the $23.9 million spent on Google Play during the same time.

Sensor Tower attributes the increased spending to a variety of factors, largely driven by mobile gaming. Game makers this year got in on the Black Friday action by offering players discounts on in-app purchases and other special bundles.

On the U.S. App Store, mobile gaming accounted for 68 percent of Black Friday spending, with consumers spending $35.4 million on games. That’s a 63 percent increase from the week prior, the report notes.

Other categories saw a boost, too, including Food & Drink and Sports – both reflective of the leisure time consumers had over the holidays. Food & Drink grew 34 percent while Sports grew 49 percent, Sensor Tower found, with top apps like NYT Cooking and ESPN: Live Sports and Scores benefitting from the surge.

Though the Black Friday shopping holiday is heavily associated with the U.S. because of its ties to Thanksgiving, the sales event is making its way around the world, too.

On the mobile app stores, that meant worldwide consumer spending saw a jump this year, as well.

The firm found that $117.3 million was spent by App Store users outside the United States on Black Friday, bringing the global total to $169.3 million, up 18.4 percent from 2017. The spending outside the U.S. was up 13.9 percent year-over-year, but that’s lower than the U.S.’s year-over-year growth of 31.6 percent between Black Friday 2017 and Black Friday 2018.

Also of note: while Amazon had its biggest day ever on Cyber Monday 2018, Cyber Monday didn’t perform as well on the app stores. In the U.S., app revenue was up about 20 percent versus the previous Cyber Monday to reach an estimated $37 million.



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Lawmakers say Amazon’s facial recognition software may be racially biased and harm free expression

Amazon has “failed to provide sufficient answers” about its controversial facial recognition software, Rekognition — and lawmakers won’t take the company’s usual silent treatment for an answer.

The letter, signed by eight lawmakers — including Sen. Edward Markey and Reps. John Lewis and Judy Chu — called on Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos to explain how the company’s technology works — and where it will be used.

It comes after the cloud and retail giant secured several high-profile contracts with the U.S. government and at least one major metropolitan city — including Orlando, Florida — for surveillance.

The lawmakers said that they expressed a “heightened concern given recent reports that Amazon is actively marketing its biometric technology to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as well as other reports of pilot programs lacking any hands-on training from Amazon for participating law enforcement officers.”

They also said that the system suffers from accuracy issues — which could lead to racial bias, and harm citizens’ constitutional rights to free expression.

“However, at this time, we have serious concerns that this type of product has significant accuracy issues, places disproportionate burdens on communities of color, and could stifle Americans’ willingness to exercise their First Amendment rights in public,” the letter said.

The lawmakers want Amazon to explain how Amazon tests for accuracy and if those tests have been independently verified — and how the company tests for bias.

It comes after the ACLU found that the software failed to facially recognize 28 members of Congress, with a higher failure rate towards people of color.

The facial recognition software has been controversial from the start. Even after concerns from its own employees, Amazon said it would push ahead and sell the technology regardless.

Amazon has a little over two weeks to respond to the lawmakers. A spokesperson for Amazon did not respond to a request for comment.



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DoJ charges Autonomy founder with fraud over $11BN sale to HP

UK entrepreneur turned billionaire investor, Mike Lynch, has been charged with fraud in US over the 2011 sale of his enterprise software company.

Lynch sold Autonomy, the big data company he founded back in 1996, to computer giant HP for around $11BN some seven years ago.

But within a year around three-quarters of the value of the business had been written off, with HP accusing Autonomy’s management of accounting misrepresentations and disclosure failures.

Lynch has always rejected the allegations, and after HP sought to sue him in UK courts he countersued in 2015.

Meanwhile the UK’s own Serious Fraud Office dropped an investigation into the Autonomy sale in 2015 — finding “insufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction”.

But now the DoJ has filed charges in a San Francisco court, accusing Lynch and other senior Autonomy executives of making false statement that inflated the value of the company.

They face 14 counts of conspiracy and fraud, according to Reuters — a charge which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.

We’ve reached out to Lynch’s fund, Invoke Capital, for comment on the latest development.

The BBC has obtained a statement from his lawyers, Chris Morvillo of Clifford Chance and Reid Weingarten of Steptoe & Johnson, which describes the indictment as “a travesty of justice”.

The statement also claims Lynch is being made a scapegoat for HP’s failures, framing the allegations as a business dispute over the application of UK accounting standards. 

Two years ago we interviewed Lynch on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt London and he mocked the morass of allegations still swirling around the acquisition as “spin and bullshit”.

Following the latest developments, the BBC reports that Lynch has stepped down as a scientific adviser to the UK government.

“Dr. Lynch has decided to resign his membership of the CST [Council for Science and Technology] with immediate effect. We appreciate the valuable contribution he has made to the CST in recent years,” a government spokesperson told it.



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China’s Infervision is helping 280 hospitals worldwide detect cancers from images

Check out ZTE nubia X's second screen in action

ZTE's sub-brand nubia announced its flagship bezel-less smartphone, the nubia X, a month ago but it's still a an exotic piece of electronics as only a few flash sales have been carried out. The newly surfaced video shows the smartphone's back OLED screen in action and it looks gorgeous. The Nubia X's back color and screen color blend together, which is a laudable technology, and its visual effect is amazing. pic.twitter.com/1I08xvBDUW— Ice universe (@UniverseIce) November 25, 2018 It's impressive how ZTE managed to install the OLED flush with the back panel. You can't really tell...



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There’s definitely reason to worry about Brexit, says Accel’s London team; “It’s not just startups; I’m not a U.K. citizen”

Longtime Accel partners Philippe Botteri, Sonali De Rycker, Luciana Lixandru, and Harry Nelis took the stage at Disrupt Berlin earlier today, and unlike many London-based investors, who have downplayed how much Brexit could hurt their local economy, the team was frank about their sundry concerns over what happens if the U.K. leaves the European Union as is currently scheduled to happen, beginning March 29, 2019.

Though they reiterated that no one can no for certain what Brexit’s impact might be, Botteri raised a handful of things that have the firm worried, beginning with “immigration and hiring talent and the movement of talent,” which could be meaningfully hampered by Brexit. “Even companies that don’t move their headquarters to London will often at some point begin to build a team,” he noted, questioning whether that will continue to happen.

There’s also the nontrivial issue of what happens to fintech companies, which have been thriving in London as a gateway between the U.S. and Europe and that have easily operated across all of Europe, said Botteri, who then asked, “What about that?” post Brexit.

Others of the teams’ concerns center on data resiliency and subsidies. Regarding the first, Botteri noted that “more and more” of Accels portfolio companies are “dependent on the use and leverage of data, and obviously,” he continued, “where the data is stored is very critical. You have laws in the EU. If the U.K. is out [that bloc], then does it mean that every company will need to have a separate data center in the U.K. or manage data differently?” As for subsidies, Botteri observed that U.K. startups have received meaningful R&D support from the European Union, and well as the U.K., and wondered aloud how a split will impact startups.

Botteri furthered offered on a personal note that, “It’s not just startups. I’m not a U.K. citizen. I’d love to know at some point what’s going to happen to my visa,” he said with an uncomfortable laugh.

The partners didn’t talk about Brexit alone. Instead, among other topics covered in the discussion is the downstream effects of having a player like SoftBank’s Vision Fund in the market, and whether the secondary market is picking up in Europe as many of regional companies — like their U.S. counterparts — linger ever longer a privately held companies.

Of SoftBank and the $100 billion that it is currently plugging into startups around the world, Nelis initially responded more generally, saying that it’s a “great trend for there to be more money for the European ecosystem. More money means more opportunities for great companies to be funded.”

But he added that he does think SoftBank’s appearance on the investing scene “changes the dynamic in the market. SoftBank is later-stage oriented and competing with other later-stage funds, so [what’s happening] is these [later-stage] funded are [trying to reach startups] a little bit earlier. So there’s this chain effect, where everyone needs to go earlier [stage] in order to accommodate this big amount of money.”

And what of SoftBank’s biggest backer, Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman, who has been tied by U.S. officials to the brutal murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi? Is that association prompting questions from founders regarding who, exactly is funding venture capital firms? De Rycker said they are not, “yet.” In part, she suggested, founders don’t have the time to give it as much thought as they perhaps should.

“The world right now is in such a race, it’s moving so fast . . . that I fear to say that for some of these questions, it matters at the core expense of some of these questions around where is the company coming from and what it means for your direction and who you are accountable to.” If a startup can “go forward without asking too many questions right now, why wouldn’t you, especially if you get a lot of capital at a very high price?”

As for a secondary market, the partners suggested that though there is one, though it’s not quite as evolved as in the U.S., where secondaries have become a routine way for venture capitalist to exit all or part of their investments. Said Nelis, “Primarily in Europe, secondaries are used to provide liquidity to founders. We’re very long term investors, where we’re involved eight, nine, ten years with our companies” and where Accel’s “main objective is to build big, valuable businesses, and to exit these companies when the founders do.”

If founders take a “little bit of money off the table” so they can “go and build a big company, rather than sell it halfway through the process,” that’s a good thing.

Asked how soon is too soon to do that, the firm declined to comment directly but said it hasn’t noticed any changes over the last five years.



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Asana raises $50M, Airbnb gets a new CFO, and a 2019 IPO preview

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.

This week as TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin came to life, Kate Clark and I snagged some mics and dug through the biggest news of the week (a $50 million check), and talked through who may go public next year, and what those IPOs might look like.

Our usual fare, if you will. (If you are missing Danny and Connie, fear not, they will be back next week.)

This week we hit two news items and one roundup. Here’s the skinny:

  • Asana raises $50 millionYep, Asana went back to the funding well this week for its Series E, despite having raised a $75 million Series D earlier this year. The company’s funding pace might seem aggressive, but we’re hearing that many startups are looking to tack on extra cash. Why? Because the market might change, and so the savvy are stacking chips in case the cashier closes. Oh, and the company dropped a number of relative growth metrics that were, I have to say, impressive.
  • Airbnb gets a new CFO. After its old CFO took off, Airbnb’s eventual IPO was on hold. You can’t go public without a CFO. But now it has one! And that means that the company can eventually sell shares on a public exchange, whenever it deigns to sell equity to the hoi polloi. But put your checkbook down, as it’s far from clear precisely when Airbnb will pull the trigger and give us an S-1.
  • Speaking of which, let’s talk decacorn IPOs. Not my best segue, but it’ll do. There are a number of private tech companies worth $10 billion or more (10x unicorns, or, ahem, decacorns) that will probably try to go public next year. You can read about it here, but the gist is that Uber, Lyft, Pinterest and Airbnb need to go public, and there’s reason to believe that they are going to do it next year.

All that and we managed to mispronounce “EBITDA” a few times.

That’s Equity for this week. Have a listen and we’ll be back in just seven days!

Equity drops every Friday at 6:00 am PT, so subscribe to us on Apple PodcastsOvercast, Pocket Casts, Downcast and all the casts.



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Shuttle business Via could add scooters to its lineup

Via, a shuttle-based carpooling service and platform that partners with cities in the U.S. and Europe, could soon add scooters to its business.

Via CEO and co-founder Daniel Ramot said on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin that the company is experimenting with the idea of adding scooters as a complement to its shuttle business.

“We’re also adding scooters mostly, again, for our partner cities, where they’re going to provide a holistic transportation solution as a public transit offering to the residents,” Ramot said.

Via’s consumer-facing shuttles are in Chicago, Washington D.C., and New York. The company also partners with cities and transportation authorities, giving clients access to their platform to deploy their own shuttles. For instance, Austin’s Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority uses the Via platform to power the city’s Pickup service. Via’s platform is also used by Arriva Bus UK, a Deutsche Bahn Company for a first and last-mile service connecting commuters to a high-speed train station in Kent, UK.

Via hasn’t launched scooters yet. But Ramot told TechCrunch backstage that Via is looking at launching scooters in Sacramento and is already in talks with city officials. The approach would be to add scooters in cities where it already has a presence. Scooters wouldn’t be launched without its core shuttle business or platform, Ramot said.

Via is still very much focused on building out its shuttle platform. By the end of next year, Via wants to be in about 300 cities powering the public transit system,” Ramot said.



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Sweetgreen is opening up order-ahead locations inside WeWork

Salad startup Sweetgreen is expanding on a pilot program with WeWork that provides free delivery to WeWork members. Though, it’s more accurate to describe it as an order-ahead service that lets you pick up your food from your WeWork of choice.

Geared toward WeWork employees and members, Sweetgreen at WeWork outposts are live in seven cities in the country. Across those seven cities, which include New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and Boston, Sweetgreen at WeWork has plans to cover 50 WeWork locations.

“WeWork and sweetgreen share a vision for creating community and being more conscious global citizens, fostering discussion and recognition of the way our actions impact ourselves, our communities, and the world around us,” WeWork President & Chief Financial Officer Artie Minson said in a press release. “Together, we are bringing sweetgreen’s offerings directly to thousands of WeWork members and employees while leveraging WeWork’s platform to support sweetgreen’s continued scale. While Outposts presents an exciting new opportunity, it only represents the beginning of this long-term, strategic partnership by our two mission-driven companies.”

At these locations, WeWork members and employees can place an order via Sweetgreen’s web or mobile platform, and then select their specific WeWork as the pickup location. From there, Sweetgreen delivers at a select time tpo that location.

This announcement comes shortly after Sweetgreen officially became a unicorn following a $200 million Series H round led by Fidelity. That round brought Sweetgreen’s total amount of funding to $365 million.

With the additional $200 million in funding, Sweetgreen is setting its eyes on other food categories and looking to expand its delivery offerings. Sweetgreen is also looking at using blockchain technology to create more transparency in the supply chain.



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Apple Music is coming to the Amazon Echo

Starting mid-December, Amazon Echo devices will be able to stream songs from Apple Music. A bit of a surprise, perhaps, given that Apple’s been a competitor in the space since launching the HomePod back in 2017.

Amazon’s had its own music service for some time as well, but the company appears to have given up on the dream of being a series competitor in the space — for now, at least. Instead, Echo smart speakers offer native support for a decent cross section of streaming services, including Pandora, Spotify, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.

The new skill lets users play specifics songs, genres, playlists and the Beats 1 station through the smart speakers. Adding Apple Music will help the popular smart home products tap into a rapidly growing service.

The company cracked 50 million subscribers earlier this year. That’s still well behind the 83 million paid subscribers Spotify announced back in July, but this addition should help give Amazon an added advantage against Google’s Home devices, particularly here in the States, where the bulk of Apple Music subscribers reside.

For Apple’s part, the offering brings Music to much more accessible hardware. The HomePod currently runs $349 — several times the price of the entry-level Echo Dot. The new skill arrives on Echos the week of December 17.



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Facebook quietly hired Republican strategy firm Targeted Victory

Facebook is still reeling from the revelation that it hired an opposition research firm with close ties to the Republican party, but its relationship with Definers Public Affairs isn’t the company’s only recent contract work with deeply GOP-linked strategy firms.

According to sources familiar with the project, Facebook also contracted with Targeted Victory, described as “the GOP’s go-to technology consultant firm.” Targeted Victory worked with Facebook on the company’s Community Boost roadshow, a tour of U.S. cities meant to stimulate small business interest in Facebook as a business and ad platform. The ongoing Community Boost initiative, announced in late 2017, kicked off earlier this year with stops in cities like and Topeka, Kansas and Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Facebook also worked with Targeted Victory on the company’s ad transparency efforts. Over the last year, Facebook has attempted to ward off regulation from Congress over ad disclosure, even putting forth some self-regulatory efforts to appease legislators. Specifically, it has dedicated considerable lobbying resources to slow any progress from the Honest Ads Act, a piece of legislature that would force the company to make retain copies of election ads, disclose spending and more. Targeted Victory, a digital strategy and marketing firm, is not a registered lobbyist for Facebook on any work relating to ad transparency. 

Targeted Victory

On his company biography page, Targeted Victory founder and CEO Zac Moffatt describes his experience helping companies “enhance their brand and get their message out in the current political and media environment,” mentioning Facebook, FedEx and Gillette as corporate clients. The bio page appears to be one of the only public mentions of his work with Facebook and the company was not mentioned alongside Gillette and FedEx on his Linkedin page.

TechCrunch reached out to Facebook to ask if it also contracted with equivalent left-leaning groups or other political firms it was willing to disclose. The company declined to comment on its political contract work and on the nature of its work with Targeted Victory.

In July and September of this year, Facebook hosted members of Targeted Victory for panels on election integrity and ad transparency, as well as best practices for election season. It’s unclear if Facebook disclosed its financial relationship to the company at the time.

Facebook panel

In March of 2017, a blog post by Targeted Victory mentioned that a new investment would “strengthen [Targeted Victory’s] already unmatched relationships with top teams at Facebook, Google, Twitter and Snapchat” indicating that the company had an established rapport with Facebook and other major tech companies at the time. TechCrunch contacted Targeted Victory about the nature of its work for this story but did not receive a reply.

Like Definers, Targeted Victory was founded by digital team members from Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign who formed their own companies in the election’s aftermath. As TechCrunch previously reported, Facebook’s communications team has a number of ties to Romney’s campaign and the company’s contract work with Definers arose out of those connections. Though the depth of Facebook’s work with Targeted Victory is not yet known, TechCrunch will continue to report what it learns. 

Prior to Targeted Victory, Moffatt served as the digital director on the Romney campaign, founding his company after the campaign dissolved. Before working on the campaign, Moffatt worked for the Republican National Committee. 

While the extent of Targeted Victory’s work with Facebook is not clear, Moffatt’s firm provides a range of potentially relevant services. On its website, Targeted Victory advertises “public affairs, advertising, media planning, fundraising and reputation management.” The company also offers services in online political advertising and voter targeting as dual areas of expertise. 

Moffatt’s opposition of regulation efforts targeting online political advertising is well known. In an interview with Axios last year, Moffatt criticized congressional interest in regulating political ads. “No government regulator, and very few members of the media, understand how these mediums are being leveraged by campaigns,” Moffatt said, dismissing potential regulation for tech platforms as “a knee-jerk reaction.”

Late last year, Moffatt suggested that Facebook’s efforts to self regulate could boost the social giant’s profits. Specifically, that Facebook’s decision to ask political groups to publish the ads they buy could generate even more interest in ad buys as firms see what their rivals are up to and ratchet up their spending.

Facebook’s visible political money

The world’s largest social network might be regarded as a just another liberal Silicon Valley stronghold by critics on the right, but Facebook’s financial disclosures and contract work tell a fairly different story. Facebook’s lobbying and federal political contributions in recent years depict a company with financial heft doled out to both the left and the right. Facebook’s federal lobbyists and political donations are registered in searchable public databases, but, as with any company, that data only reveals the surface layer of political relationships.

Facebook 2016 congressional contributions via OpenSecrets.org

Over the last three years, Facebook’s registered lobbying expenditures were mostly spent on large, uncontroversial bipartisan firms, a few smaller groups with specific partisan ties and a smattering of other issue-specific specialists. For example, Facebook brought on a Democratic former Senate chief of staff for lobbying related to “data security, online privacy, and elections integrity” and a firm called Capitol Tax Partners to lobby around tax reform.

Facebook PAC Contribution Summary via OpenSecrets.org

Historically, Facebook’s donations to Democratic candidates outweigh those to Republicans, though the numbers approached parity in the 2012 and 2014 election cycles. On the other hand, Facebook’s PAC, established in 2011, favored Republican candidates in three of the last four national election cycles, tipping Democratic by a margin of 1% in 2018. In 2016 Facebook’s PAC gave 44% of contributions to Democrats and 55% to Republican candidates.

At Facebook, Vice President of Global Public Policy Joel Kaplan “oversees all corporate political activity, including lobbying activities and political contributions.” A prominent Republican, Kaplan also oversees Facebook’s state level contributions, collected here, with the help of members of the company’s Public Policy, Legal and Communications departments. Kaplan made headlines in September when he sat in support of Brett Kavanaugh, the Supreme Court nominee accused of sexual violence and later confirmed. Following the confirmation, Kaplan and his wife hosted a party for Kavanaugh.

Making amends with conservatives

It’s not clear when Facebook’s relationship with Targeted Victory began and whether Facebook has ramped up relationships with conservative consultants in recent years or held them steady.

In May 2016, Moffatt attended a high profile meeting with Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg and 15 other prominent conservatives. Facebook ostensibly organized the meeting to mend fences with Republicans who were criticizing the social giant for a perceived bias against conservatives.

“I know many conservatives don’t trust that our platform surfaces content without a political bias,” Mark Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post following the meeting. “I wanted to hear their concerns personally and have an open conversation about how we can build trust.”

After the meeting, Moffatt remarked that anyone who didn’t see Facebook’s bias against conservative voices, part of a broader perceived trend in left-leaning Silicon Valley, “is completely missing the larger picture.”

In spite of the Facebook’s apparent financial ties to some of the GOP’s most closely held strategic groups, its Republican-helmed D.C. office and its contributions to candidates on both the left and right, criticisms that Facebook operates with a left-leaning bias remain a familiar chorus.

For his part, Moffatt was cautiously optimistic following the 2016 meeting with Sandberg and Zuckerberg, noting that “he would actually commend Facebook for being the only one of the major tech groups in Silicon Valley that’s willing to have conversations like this.”



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UrbanClap, India’s largest home services startup, raises $50M

UrbanClap, a four-year-old startup that offers home services across in India, has closed a $50 million Series D round for expansion.

The round was led by Steadview Capital, a hedge fund with over $1 billion under management, and existing investor Vy Capital. It takes UrbanClap to $110 million raised to date, according to data from Crunchbase.

UrbanClap matches service people, such as cleaners, repair staff or beauticians, with customers across 10 cities in India via its platform. Co-founder and CEO Abhiraj Bhal told TechCrunch that the business supports 15,000 “micro-franchisees” with around 450,000 transactions taking place each month.

“Micro-franchisees” is an interesting term — I’ve not heard it used much, even in the buzzword-heavy world of tech startups — but Bhal explained his vision to enable service workers to earn more and enjoy greater control of their work and, consequently, overall life.

For example, he said, the typical salary for an offline service worker might be in the region of 10-15,000 INR (up to $215) while, for those operating independently, their flow of work would be tied to a middleman, store or word of mouth networks. UrbanClap offers a more direct model, with workers keeping 80 percent of the cost of their jobs. That, Bhal said, means workers can earn multiples more and manage their own working hours.

“The UrbanClap model really allows them to become service entrepreneurs,” he said. “Their earnings will shoot up two or three-fold, and it isn’t uncommon to see it rise as much as 8X — it’s a life-changing experience.”

Beyond helping workers with their job, UrbanClap also provides training, credit, basic banking and more. Bhal said that around 20-25 percent of applicants are accepted into the platform, that’s a decision based on in-person meetings, background and criminal checks, as well as a “skills” test. Workers are encouraged to work exclusively — though it isn’t a requirement — and they wear UrbanClap outfits and represent the brand with customers.

While there is encouragement, there is also a level of monitoring. If a worker’s average review for their last 30/50 jobs (dependent on vertical) drops below 4.0, the system stops sending them work. They is an opportunity to appeal, retrain and return to the platform, except in cases of poor attitude, misconduct and other serious misdemeanors, Bhal said. He declined to provide numbers for dropouts but said that the retention rate is “healthy.”

UrbanClap founders (left to right) Abhiraj Bhal, Raghav Chandra and Varun Khaitan started the business in 2014

UrbanClap expanded to Dubai, the capital of the UAE, six months ago so it would be logical to think this new capital will go towards further expansions. No so, according to Bhal. The company is instead going after tier-two cities in India and working to deepen its position in its existing locations. In short, there’s no additional overseas plan at this point.

“In many ways, we think about the Dubai move as an extension of India [Dubai has a strong presence of Indian and South Asia nationals] rather than an international expansion — a little like a U.S. company going into Canada,” Bhal explained. “We believe we have enough headroom to grow in India and Dubai, these are fairly unpenetrated markets.”

Elaborating on that thinking, Bhal said that online is just a small component of all local service jobs in India.

“We need to get to double digital penetration of the offline market,” he said. “We think we could grow 10, 20 or 100 times from where we are right now.”

The company isn’t profitable yet and Bhal isn’t sharing revenue details, other than the fairly hazy detail that revenue is growing 3X per year. Rival Housejoy, which includes Amazon among its shareholders, went through some fairly well-publicized issues this year resulting in layoffs and, according to reports, efforts to sell the business.

Bhal didn’t comment directly on those reports, but he did say that if the company did do an acquisition, it would be focused on “adjacent spaces we aren’t in yet” as opposed to a direct competitor for growth.

He was somewhat more forthcoming on the future exit plan for UrbanClap, which did allow some secondary sales within this Series D round. Bhal said he fully intends to take the company public but he said that there’s no firm plan on when, or indeed where, that might happen.

“Eventually we will look to go public,” he said. “But we’re a few years away from that — we need to earn the right which means being a scalable and profitable company.”



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Jina Choi, the head of the SEC’s San Francisco office, is leaving the agency

Silicon Valley companies know to operate in the gray might be heaving a small sigh of relief this morning. Yesterday, afternoon, the Securities & Exchange Commission announced that Jina Choi, the head of its San Francisco office, is retiring after 16 years with the agency.

The release about Choi’s move is glowing, though it doesn’t off an explanation of why Choi is leaving or what her next move may be, though many federal employees are eventually lured into higher paying jobs in the private sector. (We’ve reached out to learn more.)

Choi was appointed to lead the SEC’s Bay Area office in 2013, and with a staff of 130 enforcement attorneys, accountants, investigators, and compliance examiners, it has brought enforcements against numerous high-fliers, including, most recently, Tesla’s Elon Musk, who was made to step down as chairman of the company for a period of at least three years after he was accused of fraud for tweeting that he had secured company for the car company when he had not.

As part of that same settlement, Musk had to pay a $20 million fine; Tesla promised to put in place a system for monitoring Musk’s statements to the public about the company; and Tesla agreed to pay a separate $20 million fine and to appoint two independent directors to the board. It has since appointed longtime board member Robyn Denholm as new chair to replace Musk.

In September, we had talked with Choi on stage at our San Francisco Disrupt show about another of the agency’s most famous cases to date: Theranos, the blood-testing company that was recently dissolved but was charged with massive civil fraud by the SEC back in March.

It was a case that the SEC spent nearly two years building, and when we talked with Choi about what took so long, she explained how resource-intensive nature of the SEC’s work in some detail.

The SEC’s Bay Area office oversees a surprising number of regions, including Portland, Seattle, Idaho, Montana, and Alaska.

It has not yet announced who will replace Choi.

The SEC just today announced that it has settled charges against boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. and music producer DJ Khaled for failing to disclose payments they received for promoting investments in ICOs, though the case was pursued by the agency’s New York office.

Mayweather agreed to pay $300,000 in disgorgement, a $300,000 penalty, and $14,775 in what’s called prejudgment interest. Khaled agreed to pay $50,000 in disgorgement, a $100,000 penalty, and $2,725 in prejudgment interest.



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N26 says it now has more than 2M customers

N26 announced today that it now has more than 2 million customers — up from 1.5 million in October.

The German fintech startup’s CEO Valentin Stalf was interviewed onstage at Disrupt Berlin with Tandem CEO Ricky Knox, where they discussed the growth of what are sometimes called challenger banks or neobanks — new banks that are taking on the incumbents by focusing on digital tools.

Stalf said N26 is seeing more than €1.5 billion in transactions each month, with €1 billion in deposits. He also discussed the company’s recent launch in the United Kingdom — he didn’t know the exact number of U.K. users, but estimated that the company has tens of thousands of U.K. accounts, with between 1,500 and 2,000 new signups on a single day three days ago.

Meanwhile, Knox said Tandem now has nearly half a million users in the U.K. (“This year, we’re seeing everybody’s growing really quickly.”) He also noted that because Tandem allows users to aggregate different accounts, he’s noticed some of those users are starting to become more focused on individual services.

“What tends to happen, particularly with the early adopter audience, is they will open [an] account with everybody because they want to check it out, they want to get the best product,” he said. “And then what you’ll see is over time, them kind of picking a horse — depending on the functionality they like, depending on, you know, the service they’re getting there — and settling in.”

Tandem is also expanding geographically, specifically to Hong Kong through a deal with Convoy Global Holdings. Asked why he’s making the leap to Asia before launching in other European markets, Knox said, “There are a load of massive Asian markets … The exciting thing here is the opportunity, as I said, for a global bank, and some of these Asian markets are really ripe for disruption.”

In discussing the different models for challenger banks, Knox warned against the dangers of the “marketplace bank” model, where banks make money by connecting customers to third-party services.

“What we found is, the more we try and push revenue in that area there, the less customers love it,” he said. “That’s the challenge with marketplaces: If you build your business model around it, you’ve got an inherent contradiction between customers loving you less when you make more money.”

Instead, Knox argued that customers have a better experience if the bank is willing to recommend free or low-priced services: “And actually at the backend, we’re still making money the same way the bank makes money. So we’re able to fund, if you like, all this great customer stuff at the front end.”

Moderator Romain Dillet quickly pointed out that Stalf was shaking his head while Knox was making his arguments.

“What we see with our customers is, I think if we have a great product, they’re normally also willing to pay a little bit for it,” Stalf said. “It needs to be transparent, and it needs to be a good value to consumers. But I think it’s untrue that customers are always not choosing a product if you price it.”

As for whether we’ll be seeing consolidation in the industry over the next few years, Knox argued, “I’d say there’s plenty of room for the existing cadre of neobanks to be incredibly successful on a global basis without any mergers or acquisitions.” He suggested it’s more likely that the established banks start trying to acquire the challengers, although he said, “That’s not a route we want to take.”

“I think there’s a couple players that are set for being a global bank, and I think we are trying to take the shot to be a global bank,” Stalf added. “I think it’s about building up 50 to 100 million users in the next couple years.”



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Samsung Galaxy A8s is certified by FCC, screenshot reveals the camera position

Samsung Galaxy A8s is expected to be the first phone by the Korean manufacturer with an Infinity-O display that has a cutout in the upper left corner for the selfie camera. After plenty of speculations, leaks and fan renders, the device was certified officially by the FCC under the name SM-G8870. The listing included a screenshot that revealed the upper left corner is empty from notifications - they moved slightly to the centre. Samsung Galaxy A8s screenshot The Samsung Galaxy A8s is also expected to have a taller screen than the Infinity Display, used in plenty of...



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Starwood Hotels says 500 million guest records stolen in massive data breach

Starwoods has confirmed its hotel guest database of about 500 million customers has been stolen in a data breach.

The hotel and resorts giant said in a statement that the “unauthorized access” to its guest database was detected on or before September 10 that dated back as far as 2014 — but didn’t disclose the breach until today.

“Marriott learned during the investigation that there had been unauthorized access to the Starwood network since 2014,” said the statement. “Marriott recently discovered that an unauthorized party had copied and encrypted information, and took steps towards removing it.”

Specific details of the breach remain unknown. We’ve contacted Starwood for more and will update when we hear back.

The company said hat it obtained and decrypted the database on November 19 and “determined that the contents were from the Starwood guest reservation database.”

Some 327 million records contained a guest’s name, postal address, phone number, date of birth, gender, email address, passport number, Starwood’s rewards information (including points and balance), arrival and departure information, reservation date, and their communication preferences.

Starwood said an unknown number of records contained encrypted credit card data, but has “not been able to rule out” that the components needed to decrypt the data wasn’t also taken.

“Marriott reported this incident to law enforcement and continues to support their investigation,” said the statement.

Starwood remains one of the largest hotel chains in the world, with more than 11 brands covering 1,200 properties, including W Hotels, St. Regis, Sheraton, Westin, Element and more. Starwood branded timeshare properties are also included. The company said that its Marriott hotels are not believed to be affected as its reservation system is “on a different network.”

The company has begun informing customers of the breach — including in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K.

Given that the breach falls under the European-wide GDPR rules, Starwood may face significant financial penalties of up to four percent of its global annual revenue if found to be in breach of the rules.



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GCHQ’s not-so-smart idea to spy on encrypted messaging apps is branded ‘absolute madness’

Nobody wants to be a third wheel. Unless you’re a British spy.

Two of the most senior officials at British eavesdropping agency GCHQ say one way that law enforcement could access encrypted messages is to simply add themselves to your conversations.

“It’s relatively easy for a service provider to silently add a law enforcement participant to a group chat or call,” said Ian Levy, technical director of the U.K.’s National Cyber Security Center, and Crispin Robinson, cryptanalysis director at GCHQ, in an op-ed for Lawfare.

“The service provider usually controls the identity system and so really decides who’s who and which devices are involved — they’re usually involved in introducing the parties to a chat or call,” they said. “You end up with everything still being end-to-end encrypted, but there’s an extra ‘end’ on this particular communication.”

Law enforcement and intelligence agencies have long wanted access to encrypted communications, but have faced strong opposition to breaking the encryption for fears that it would put everyone’s communications at risk, rather than the terror suspects or criminals that the police primarily want to target. In this case, two people using an end-to-end encrypted messaging app would be joined by a third, invisible person — the government — which could listen in at will.

This solution, Levy and Robinson say, would be “no more intrusive than the virtual crocodile clips” that lawmakers have already authorized police to use to wiretap communications.

Presumably that would require compelled assistance from the tech companies that built the encrypted messaging apps in the first place, like Apple, Facebook’s WhatsApp, Signal, Wire and Wickr. That poses not only an ethical problem for the companies, which developed their own end-to-end encrypted services so that even they can’t access people’s communications, but also a technical one, which would require the government to ask a court to compel the companies to rework their own technologies to allow government spies in.

It wouldn’t be the first time the government’s pushed for compelled assistance.

Only recently that the U.S. government lost its bid to force Facebook to re-architect its Messenger app to allow the government to listen in on suspected gang members. And not just the U.S. or the U.K.. Russia, the west’s favorite frenemy, forced Telegram, another encrypted messaging app, to turn over its private keys in an effort to allow its intelligence agencies to snoop in on possible kompromat.

Suffice to say, the U.K.’s plan has drawn strong criticism.

And NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, an outspoken commentator and critic of global surveillance, branded the move “absolute madness.”

“No company-mediated identity could be trusted,” said Snowden, suggesting that the move would effectively render the trust in any end-to-end encrypted messaging app redundant.

Exactly what the U.K.’s solution looks like isn’t entirely clear, but Mustafa Al-Bassam, a PhD student at University College London, said that the ability for users to verify their keys — which proves the identity of a person in a conversation — in an end-to-end messaging app is “is going to be increasingly important” to prevent government manipulation.

WhatsApp and Signal, for example, tell you when a user’s key changes, indicating that a new device is in use — and requires verification — or that a device has been manipulated by a third-party and that the conversation isn’t secure.

“They’re proposing to exploit the fact that users don’t verify each other’s public keys, and inject bad keys,” said Al-Bassam.



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