Friday, July 31, 2020
Trump Says Will Ban TikTok From the US
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Google updates its "Why this ad" feature, now "About this ad", to show verified names of advertisers and is testing "trust tokens" to replace 3rd-party cookies (Mike Schulman/The Keyword)
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Trump told reporters he will use executive power to ban TikTok
President Donald Trump said he could act to ban the world’s most popular short video app TikTok from the US as early as Saturday, according to The Hill.
The president said he could use “emergency economic powers or an executive order” to bar TikTok from the US, he told reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday.
The news came hours after reports broke that Microsoft was in talks to buy TikTok. In his remark on Friday, Trump signaled he was not supportive of allowing an American company to acquire TikTok.
On the same day, Bloomberg reported that Trump could order ByteDance to divest its ownership of TikTok.
Trump’s announcement confirmed weeks of speculation that US regulators planned to block TikTok, which is immensely popular among American teens, over concerns that it could be a spying tool for Beijing.
The question is how a divestment or ban of TikTok will take shape. TikTok is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, which has emerged as the most promising tech startup in China in recent times, reportedly valued at a staggering $100 billion. It operates Douyin, the popular Chinese version of TikTok, separately for China-based users.
ByteDance has sought various ways to shed TikTok’s Chinese association. Efforts in the past few months range from appointing former Disney executive Kevin Mayer as TikTok’s CEO, claiming the app’s data is stored on American land, through to promising to create 10,000 jobs in the US.
The story is updating.
William English, who alongside Douglas Engelbart built the first computer with a mouse and showed it at "The Mother of All Demos", dies at 91 (Cade Metz/New York Times)
William English, who alongside Douglas Engelbart built the first computer with a mouse and showed it at “The Mother of All Demos”, dies at 91 — He was one of the computing pioneers who “showed what a computer interface could — and should — look like,” a colleague said.
President Trump says he will act as soon as Saturday to ban TikTok from the United States (CNBC)
President Trump says he will act as soon as Saturday to ban TikTok from the United States — - President Donald Trump on Friday told reporters he will act as soon as Saturday to ban Chinese-owned video app TikTok from the United States. — President Donald Trump on Friday told reporters …
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Lemonaid Health, which offers an on-demand service for accessing health care online, raises $33M Series B, bringing its total raised to $55M (Christine Hall/Crunchbase News)
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Microsoft is said to be in talks to buy TikTok in US
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Apple acquires Mobeewave, whose app lets shoppers tap their credit card or phone on a smartphone to make a payment; one source says the deal is worth ~$100M (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg)
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KDE Plasma Desktop review: I'm still not switching from GNOME
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Disrupt 2020 early-bird savings extended until next week
Even the hard-charging world of early-stage startups has its share of procrastinators, lollygaggers, slow-pokes, wafflers and last-minute decision makers. If that’s your demographic, today is your lucky day.
You now have an extra week (courtesy of Saint Expeditus, the patron saint of procrastinators), to score early-bird savings to Disrupt 2020, which takes place September 14-18. Buy your pass before the new and final deadline — August 7 at 11:59 p.m. (PT) — and save up to $300. Who says prayers (or secular entreaties) go unanswered?
Your pass opens the door to five days of Disrupt — the biggest, longest TechCrunch conference ever. Drawing thousands of attendees and hundreds of innovative early-stage startups from around the world, you won’t find a better time, place or opportunity to accelerate the speed of your business.
Here are four world-class reasons to attend Disrupt 2020.
World-class speakers. Hear and engage with leading voices in tech, business and investment across the Disrupt stages. Folks like Sequoia Capital’s Roelof Botha, Ureeka’s Melissa Bradley and Slack’s Tamar Yehoshua — to name just a few. Here’s what you can see onstage so far.
World-class startups. Explore hundreds of innovative startups exhibiting in Digital Startup Alley — including the TC Top Picks. This elite cadre made it through our stringent screening process to earn the coveted designation, and you’ll be hard-pressed to find a more varied and interesting set of startups.
World-class networking. CrunchMatch, our AI-powered networking platform, simplifies connecting with founders, potential customers, R&D teams, engineers or investors. Schedule 1:1 video meetings and hold recruitment or extended pitch sessions. CrunchMatch launches weeks before Disrupt to give you more time to scout, vet and schedule.
World-class pitching. Don’t miss Startup Battlefield, the always-epic pitch competition that’s launched more than 900 startups, including big-time names like TripIt, Mint, Dropbox and many others. This year’s crop of startups promises to throw down hard for bragging rights and the $100,000 cash prize.
Need another reason to go? Take a page out of SIMBA Chain founder Joel Neidig’s playbook:
Our primary goal was to make people aware of the SIMBA Chain platform capabilities. Attending Disrupt is great way to get your name out there and build your customer base.
It’s time for all you last-minute lollygaggers to get moving and take advantage of this second, final chance to save up to $300. Buy your pass before August 7 at 11:59 p.m. (PT).
Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at Disrupt 2020? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.
COVID-19 has pushed museums to improve their online offerings, including virtual tours, as they explore potential business models based on digital content (Daniel Grant/Wall Street Journal)
COVID-19 has pushed museums to improve their online offerings, including virtual tours, as they explore potential business models based on digital content — When Covid-19 forced museums to shut their buildings spring, many created new virtual offerings for visitors. That digital content is likely here to stay.
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Thursday, July 30, 2020
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Twitter hackers used “phone spear phishing” in mass account takeover
Enlarge (credit: Tom Raftery)
The hackers behind this month’s epic Twitter breach targeted a small number of employees through a “phone spear phishing attack,” the social media site said on Thursday night. When the pilfered employee credentials failed to give access to account support tools, the hackers targeted additional workers who had the permissions needed to access the tools.
“This attack relied on a significant and concerted attempt to mislead certain employees and exploit human vulnerabilities to gain access to our internal systems,” Twitter officials wrote in a post. “This was a striking reminder of how important each person on our team is in protecting our service. We take that responsibility seriously and everyone at Twitter is committed to keeping your information safe.
Thursday's update also disclosed that the hackers downloaded personal data from seven of the accounts, but didn't say which ones.
Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments
Sources: Facebook has completed deals with the three largest music companies, Universal, Sony, and Warner, for the right to show music videos (Bloomberg)
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Emails from Jeff Bezos and other Amazon employees suggest the acquisition of Ring was for "market position - not technology" (Makena Kelly/The Verge)
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In an update to the July 15 hack, Twitter says a few employees were targeted in a phone spear phishing attack, and it had since limited access to internal tools (Jay Peters/The Verge)
In an update to the July 15 hack, Twitter says a few employees were targeted in a phone spear phishing attack, and it had since limited access to internal tools — ‘This attack relied on a significant and concerted attempt to mislead certain employees’ — Twitter provided an update …
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Ford Bronco reservations surpass 150,000
The reception to Bronco 2021 — Ford’s flagship series of 4×4 vehicles that were revealed earlier this month — surpassed expectations of the company’s most optimistic initial projections, CEO Jim Hackett said in an earnings call Thursday.
More than 150,000 customers have plunked down $100 to reserve a spot to order one of the vehicles, according to Ford.
“We think this family of vehicles has big upside potential in the growing off-road category and this is a category with a leading OEM has not been seriously challenged until now,” Hackett said.
These are, of course, mere reservations, not actual orders. The deposits are refundable. Now, Ford is focused on the due diligence required to determine how many of these reservations will be converted to orders as it lay outs its manufacturing strategy for the brand.
The Ford Bronco 2 and Bronco 4 will be built at Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne, Michigan. The Bronco Sport will be assembled at plant in Mexico. The company is now determining how many shifts to staff at each factory in order to match actual orders.
“There’s still a lot of work to do,” Ford COO Jim Farley said in a call with analysts Thursday. “But the mix is great.”
The Bronco is a brand that leans heavily on nostalgia, customization, functional design and technology, such as the automaker’s next-generation infotainment system and a digital trail mapping feature that lets owners plan, record and share their experiences via an app.
While the response to the Bronco has been palatable, there are a number of competitors also aiming to win over customers. GM released a video this week teasing its all-electric GMC Hummer. While the video was a promotional mashup of buzzwords, it also showed that GM had clearly identified Ford Bronco and Tesla Cybertruck as its main competitors. Then there’s electric upstart Rivian, which plans to start production of its EV pickup and SUV in 2021.
Rakuten confirms it is shutting its US online retail store, originally known as Buy.com, over the next two months; Rakuten bought Buy.com for $250M in 2010 (Devin Coldewey/TechCrunch)
Rakuten confirms it is shutting its US online retail store, originally known as Buy.com, over the next two months; Rakuten bought Buy.com for $250M in 2010 — Japanese conglomerate Rakuten has pulled the plug on its U.S. online retail store, originally known as Buy.com …
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Self-driving startup Argo AI hits $7.5 billion valuation
Autonomous vehicle technology startup Argo AI is valued at $7.5 billion, just a little more than three years after the company burst on the scene with a $1 billion investment from Ford.
The official valuation was confirmed Thursday nearly two months after VW Group finalized its $2.6 billion investment in Argo AI. Under that deal, Ford and VW have equal ownership stakes, which will be roughly 40% each over time. The remaining equity sits with Argo’s co-founders as well as employees. Argo’s board is comprised of two VW seats, two Ford seats and three Argo seats.
Ford’s announcement in February 2017 that it was investing in Argo AI surprised many. The startup was barely six months old when it was thrust into the spotlight. Its founders, Bryan Salesky and Peter Rander, were known in the tight knit and often overlapping autonomous vehicle industry; prior to forming Argo, Salesky was director of hardware development at the Google self-driving project (now Waymo) and Rander was the engineering lead at Uber Advanced Technologies Group. But even those insiders who knew Salesky and Rander wondered what to make of the deal.
Since then, Argo has focused on developing the virtual driver system — all of the sensors, software and compute platform — as well as high-definition maps designed for Ford’s self-driving vehicles.
That mission now extends to VW Group as well. Ford and VW will share the cost of developing Argo AI’s self-driving vehicle technology under the terms of the deal. The Pittsburgh-based company also has offices in Detroit, Palo Alto and Cranbury, N.J. It has fleets of autonomous vehicles mapping and testing on public roads in Austin, Miami, Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C.
The investment by VW expands its workforce and operations to Europe. Autonomous Intelligent Driving (AID), the self-driving subsidiary that was launched in 2017 to develop autonomous vehicle technology for the VW Group, is being absorbed into Argo AI. AID’s Munich offices will become Argo’s European headquarters. In all, Argo now employs more than 1,000 people.
While the development and deployment of autonomous vehicles will be a long journey — a remark shared Thursday by Ford CEO Jim Hackett — the Argo investment has already provided the automaker with a short-term and timely gain.
The automaker said Thursday it netted $3.5 billion in the second quarter from selling some of its Argo equity to Volkswagen. That gain gave the automaker a one-time boost in its second-quarter earnings.
Ford posted a $1.1 billion profit in the second quarter, if the Argo transaction is counted. Ford lost $1.9 billion in the quarter before interest and taxes and one-time items. Ford reported a revenue of $19.4 billion, a 50% decrease from the same period in 2019 due to the COVID-19 pandemic which caused the company to idle its factories for weeks.
Still, the result could have been far worse. Ford had previously warned that it could post as much as a $5 billion net loss in the second quarter.
Despite these COVID-19 headwinds, Hackett said Ford is still committed to the long-term pursuit of AVs, a point reiterated by CFO Tim Stone, who said the automaker continues to make investments to commercialize its autonomous vehicle business, including product development, engineering and testing.
“The AV journey will be a long one, but Ford is now well positioned to run this race and compete like few others can,” Hackett added.
A look at Abu Dhabi-based AI startup G42, as sources say US intelligence officials fixated on CEO Xiao Peng ahead of its China divestment and Microsoft deal (Bloomberg)
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