Samsung confirms Quick Share, its AirDrop-like feature, to launch with the Galaxy S20; Quick Share allows files to be shared with up to 5 friends simultaneously — The sharing feature will come to other Samsung devices over the coming months — AirDrop has long been a handy convenience …
Twitter launches new tool to combat misinformation on the US Census; a prompt will point users searching for Census-related keywords to the official Census site — Twitter on Tuesday unveiled its plan aimed at minimizing the spread of misinformation about the 2020 census.
A state senator in California is introducing legislation designed to provide more direct oversight over direct-to-consumer genetic testing companies.
The new regulations, introduced by Santa Ana’s Democratic Senator Thomas Umberg, builds on attempts in the California Consumer Privacy Act to regulate the ways data collected from genetic testing can be used by companies.
“The fact that the Pentagon just warned all of the country’s military personnel to avoid home DNA tests should raise bright red flags for all consumers,” said Senator Umberg, in a statement. “Direct-to-Consumer genetic testing companies have, to date, gone largely unregulated by either state or national governments. This has led to the disclosure of consumers’ private biological information to third parties.”
The CCPA regulates genetic testing companies by allowing consumers to request information on how their data is used and opt-out of any unauthorized applications of their data or sale of that data to third parties.
However, the current authorization forms are confusing and consumers often don’t have a lot of clarity into what they’ve consented to allow genetic testing companies to do with the data, according to a statement from Umberg’s office.
Umberg, a retired U.S. Army Colonel, former federal prosecutor and small business owner who lives in Orange County, noted that the Pentagon issued a memo requesting service members not use DTC genetic services because, “the increased concern in the scientific community that outside parties are exploiting the use of genetic materials for questionable purposes including mass surveillance and the ability to track individuals without their authorization or awareness.”
Under Umberg’s proposal, Senate Bill 980, DNA testing companies would have to abide by strict guidelines for authorization forms for genetic tests. The measure also creates civil penalties for companies that fail to comply with the provisions in the Act.
Maryland and New York have long had stringent laws regulating how genetic tests can be marketed to consumers on the books and Illinois passed new laws to tighten how genetic tests can be used late last year.
“Forcing these companies to clarify their consent forms and requiring them to obtain written authorization for any genetic data disclosure, including de-identified data, will reassure California consumers that their most personal information is safe,” noted Senator Umberg.
Spaceflight Industries, owner of both Spaceflight, Inc. and BlackSky, is selling the Spaceflight, Inc. portion of its business to Japanese industrial megacorporation Mitsui & Co, and Yamasa both of which will co-own the company in a 50/50 joint venture after its closing. The deal will see Spaceflight continue to operate as an independent business based in the U.S. and headquartered in Seattle, with the same mission of providing rideshare launch services for small satellite payloads.
Meanwhile, Spaceflight Industries will use the funds generated from the sale (the terms of the deal were not disclosed) to re-invest in its BlackSky business. BlackSky is an Earth observation company that deals in geospatial intelligence, and that currently operates four satellites in orbit, with eight more planned to join its constellation sometime later this year.
The deal also means that Mistui & Co, which is one of Japan’s largest businesses and which operates in a variety of sectors including infrastructure, energy production, IT, food, consumer products, mining, chemicals and more, will now be in the rocket launch rideshare business as well. Mitsui also has an aerospace arm that includes a space business which provides satellite development, launch and operation services, but noted in a press release that Spaceflight will become “the cornerstone” of its space strategy pending close of the deal.
Spaceflight, Inc. has been offering its services since 2010, and has launched a total of 271 satellites on 29 separate rocket launches, with 10 missions set to take place in 2020 alone. The company’s business seems poised to grow as more launch providers and more small satellite operators enter the market, with many predictions indicating sharp uptakes in orbit-based businesses to come over the next decade.
This arrangement is perhaps indicative of things to come in the space industry, as more young companies look at their overall business and determine how best to delineate things to continue their growth and return funds on investment to stay on mission. SpaceX, for instance, has confirmed it’s looking at spinning out its Starlink business and taking that public, a move that could generate significant funds for it to then funnel back into its core launch business in pursuit of its goals of making humans multi-planetary.
The deal still has to undergo review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) because there’s a national security interest involved, given Spaceflight’s past work. This is expected to take multiple months, and the companies say they anticipate the deal will close sometime during Q2 2020 if everything is approved.
Registrars raise alarm over ICANN's plan to allow Verisign to raise .com TLD prices by 70% over the next decade, much higher than forecasted inflation in the US — Proposed contract allows Verisign to raise registration fees 7 percent per year. — Last week, ICANN announced that Verisign …
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip hands-on: has internals on par with the best of 2019 phones, flexible glass covering its great display, but durability is still a question — The difference in execution is pretty staggering.
Anthony Mackie takes up the mantle to play former rebel Takeshi Kovacs in season two of Altered Carbon.
Hard-boiled mercenary Takeshi Kovacs is back on a new case back and in a new body (or "sleeve") in the trailer for season two of Altered Carbon, the Netflix adaptation of Richard K. Morgan's 2002 cyberpunk novel of the same name.
(Some spoilers for S1 below.)
Like the novel, the series is set in a world more than 360 years in the future, where a person's memories and consciousness can be uploaded into a device—based on alien technology—known as a cortical stack. The stack can be implanted at the back of the neck of any human body (known as a "sleeve"), whether natural or synthetic, so an individual consciousness can be transferred between bodies. Income equality still exists, however, so only the very rich can afford true immortality, storing their consciousness in remote backups and maintaining a steady supply of clones. Those people are called "Meths" (a reference to the biblical Methuselah, who supposedly lived for 969 years).
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Hello and welcome back to our regular look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between.
This afternoon we’re digging into Lyft’s earnings results, unpacking the company’s performance, the market’s expectations and why shares in the American ride-hailing giant are off in after-hours trading.
Lyft’s earnings — following Uber’s own results that promised investors a quicker-than-anticipated path to (adjusted) profits — and the market’s reaction to its performance, provide a good frame for evaluating investors’ appetite for profits against growth. It’s a topic that’s important for startup founders and private-market investors alike.
Our investigation today is contentedly straightforward. We’ll start with the big numbers, drill into comparative performance and then weigh what the market is telling us.
In the fourth quarter of 2019, Lyft’s revenue came in at $1.017 billion, a gain of 52% compared to its year-ago result of $669.5 million. Sticking to the growth side of things, the company’s “active rider” count rose from 18.59 million to 22.91 million from Q4 2018 to Q4 2019, a gain of 23%. Lyft’s active riders also spent 23% more year-over-year, reaching $44.40 in the final quarter of last year.
Turning to losses, Lyft’s net loss (a metric that includes all costs) was $356.0 million in the quarter, a sharply worse result than its $248.9 million net loss in Q4 2018. The company’s adjusted net loss, however, was $121.4 million, an improvement from its year-ago $238.5 million adjusted net loss.
Turning to adjusted EBITDA, a heavily adjusted profit metric, Lyft lost $130.7 million in Q4 2019, an improvement on its Q4 2018 adjusted EBITDA loss of $251.1 million.
Investors had expected Lyft to report just $985.8 million in revenue and an adjusted EBITDA loss of $163.2 million. The street had also anticipated 100,000 fewer active riders and slightly slimmer revenue per active rider. So, Lyft beat expectations regarding growth, user count and health and for adjusted losses.
And yet Lyft’s shares are off over 4% in after-hours trading. While Lyft’s stock has recovered from lows set in October, 2019, the company’s equity is now more than $20 down from its IPO price, taking into account its post-earnings movement.
Why Lyft’s stock should fall after beating expectations and not changing its profit forecast might appear a bit confusing. It’s not.
SpaceX is gearing up for its historic first human spaceflight, with a crewed demonstration mission of its Crew Dragon spacecraft tentatively set for May 7 (though that date is flexible right now). The company on Tuesday showed a clip of the completed Crew Dragon spacecraft that will carry astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley undergoing testing, and CNBC revealed that it had hired former NASA Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations William Gerstenmaier.
Gerstenmaier served NASA for 14 years in that capacity, and was with the agency for forty years working on the Space Shuttle program as well as the International Space Station. It’s likely there are few other individuals in the world, if any, who have as much experience as he does with flying people in space, which makes him a very clutch hire for SpaceX as it readies itself for the operational kick-off of its human spaceflight program.
After the Demo-2 mission later this year, which will be the first to carry astronauts, the next step is for SpaceX to become a regular provider of crew transportation for NASA, ferrying people to and from the Space Station for regular crew change operations. NASA currently relies on transportation aboard Russian Soyuz rockets operated by Roscosmos to get personnel to and from the orbital lab, an arrangement that’s been in place since the Space Shuttle program ended in 2011.
Meanwhile, SpaceX also shared a short video clip of the Crew Dragon spacecraft that will carry Behnken and Hurley to the ISS sometime later this year. The capsule is in a specialized testing chamber, undergoing electromagnetic interference testing, a key part of its verification process before being fully certified for flight. Earlier this week, Ars Technica reported that nearly everything was ready in terms of preparation for the Demo-2 mission, and that it should take place sometime between April and June, with May 7 as the current working date.
After testing it in Ireland, Spotify makes its Kids app available in the UK and Australia for its Premium Family plan subscribers — Spotify launched its standalone Kids app in Ireland back in October 2019 as a way to give younger listeners access to its varied catalog of music.
Source: Alphabet quietly moved Jigsaw, a tech incubator that makes tools to curb online misinformation, back under Google last month — Another arm of Alphabet, the holding company for Google and a collection of other businesses, has gone away. — Within the past month …
Impala, a startup looking to update legacy hotel management systems with a modern API, raises $20M Series B led by Lakestar with Latitude Ventures participating — Impala has raised another round of funding just a few months after raising an $11 million Series A round.
Yimou Lee / Reuters : Taiwan's National Security Bureau says daily average cyberattacks on government departments doubled in 2024 vs....
