Feyzi Fatehi: We were recognized by the Gartner group as a cool vendor for PaaS. We are one of those stacks specifically designed to transform software to Software-as-a-Service. Those are the...
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Original author: Sramana Mitra
26 Hits
Jul
23
Jul
23
CircleCI launched way back in 2011 when the notion of continuous delivery was just a twinkle in most developers’ eyes, but over the years with the rise of agile, containerization and DevOps, we’ve seen the idea of continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) really begin to mainstream with developers. Today, CircleCI was rewarded with a $56 million Series D investment.
The round was led by Owl Rock Capital Partners and Next Equity. Existing investors Scale Venture Partners, Top Tier Capital, Threshold Ventures (formerly DFJ), Baseline Ventures, Industry Ventures, Heavybit and Harrison Metal Capital also participated in the round. CircleCI’s most recent funding prior to this round was a $31 million Series C last January. Today’s investment brings the total raised to $115.5 million, according to the company.
CircleCI CEO Jim Rose sees a market that’s increasingly ready for the product his company is offering. “As we’re putting more money to work, there are just more folks that are now moving away from aspiring about doing continuous delivery and really leaning into the idea of, ‘We’re a software company, we need to know how to do this well, and we need to be able to automate all the steps between the time our developers are making changes to the code until that application gets in front of the customer,’ ” Rose told TechCrunch.
Rose sees a market that’s getting ready to explode and he wants to use the runway this money provides his company to take advantage of that growth. “Now, what we’re finding is that fintech companies, insurance companies, retailers — all of the more traditional brands — are now realizing they’re in a software business as well. And they’re really trying to build out the tool sets and the expertise to be effective at that. And so the real growth in our market is still right in front of us,” he said.
As CircleCI matures and the market follows suit, a natural question following a Series D investment is when the company might go public, but Rose was not ready to commit to anything yet. “We come at it from the perspective of keeping our heads down trying to build the best business and doing right by our customers. I’m sure at some point along the journey our investors will be itching for liquidity, but as it stands right now, everyone is really [focused]. I think what we have found is that the bulk of the market is just starting to arrive,” he said.
24 Hits
Jul
23
Inventables announced this morning that it has raised an $11.5 million Series C. The round, led by Cue Ball, alongside True Ventures, Greycroft, Pipeline Capital and Draper Associates, brings the Chicago-based startup’s total funding cup to $21 million, per Crunchbase.
The company specializes in desktop 3D carving — or subtractive manufacturing (not to be confused with the additive variety you get with 3D printers). While Inventables has produced its own proprietary machines, including the X Carve and the no longer available Carvey, this round is all about its software offerings.
Inventables says most of the funding this round will go into Easel, the company’s web-based design platform. Among other things, the company is working to make the technology compatible with more third-party machines.
“We are excited to see thousands of American businesses using our products for production,” founder and CEO Zach Kaplan said in a release tied to the news. This investment enables Inventables to enhance the functionality and compatibility of our Easel software, helping our business customers produce products faster and more profitably.”
The move is also clearly an attempt to transform the platform into a serious business product — though Inventables has apparently had little trouble attracting users. The company says it’s currently on track for 4 million carving projects this year using its services.
28 Hits
Nov
13
Placed against our sci-fi expectations, robotics have largely fallen short — with one notable exception. In 2019, automation is a mainstay in factories and warehouses. There the technology has been proven out in the field, and VCs are happy to invest millions.
This morning Fetch Robotics announced a $46 million Series C raise. The round, led by Fort Ross Ventures, brings the San Jose-based warehouse automation company’s total funding up to $94 million. New investors CEAS Investments, Redwood Technologies, TransLink Capital and Zebra Ventures joined the round, along with existing investors O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, Shasta Ventures, SoftBank Capital and Sway Ventures.
Fetch says the money will be used to help expand globally for the largely U.S.-based operation. It also will be using funds to increase production for consumer demand and, naturally, additional research and development.
“Customers have responded enthusiastically to our unique Cloud Robotics solution, and we’re responding by securing the funds we need to continue growing and enhancing our offerings,” CEO Melonee Wise said in a release tied to the news. “The competitive pressures for excellence in logistics have never been greater. Our Autonomous Mobile Robots and cloud platform enables our customers to meet their customers’ demands while meeting their own financial objectives.”
The warehouse automation space has been booming in the past several years, and Fetch has been at the forefront. Founded in 2014 by Wise, an alumnus of Bay Area robotics pioneer Willow Garage, the company specializes in autonomous modular robotics designed to automate tedious warehouse tasks. We visited the company’s South Bay offices last year to get a fuller picture of what it has been working on.
These days the company is one of the primary alternatives to in-house automation plays like Amazon Robotics.
18 Hits
Jul
23
Mixhalo — the startup co-founded by Incubus guitarist Mike Einziger and his wife, violinist Ann Marie Simpson-Einziger — has raised $10.7 million in Series A funding.
The company’s initial goal was to bring better sound quality to concerts. Instead of hearing music blasted out of speakers, users can connect their smartphone to a network (the startup creates its own wireless channel that doesn’t rely on the venue’s potentially overloaded Wi-Fi or cell networks). Then, through their earbuds, they’ll hear the same sound mix that the musicians receive through their in-ear monitors.
Mixhalo launched two years ago at TechCrunch Disrupt NY, where Incubus and investor Pharrell Williams took the stage to play a couple of songs. The sound arrived loud and clear through my earbuds, and the experience didn’t feel too different from a normal concert.
Since then, Mixhalo has also been used at Y Combinator Demo Day and deployed on tours by Charlie Puth, Incubus and Metallica, as well as Aerosmith’s current Las Vegas residency.
And at the beginning of this year, Marc Ruxin joined as CEO. Ruxin previously led the music discovery startup TastemakerX (which was acquired by Rdio), so this is clearly an area that interests him, but he told me that he wasn’t actually eager to return to the music business. However, he was wowed by Mixhalo’s sound quality, and as he talked to Einziger (who serves as the startup’s chief creative officer), he became convinced that the technology could be used at a wide range of events and venues — conferences, sports, museums, megachurches and more.
Plus, unlike other music startups, Ruxin said the business model here seemed appealingly straightforward: “We sell enterprise software to event organizers.”
When I’ve described the idea in the past, there’s usually some skepticism about whether concertgoers really care that much about sound, and concern about whether wearing headphones diminishes the social experience.
Ruxin countered Mixhalo offers a number of benefits beyond sound quality — there’s the ability for each listener to control their own volume, and an opportunity to create unique experiences, like offering multiple mixes for a single concert, or watching one band at a festival (or one presenter at Demo Day) while listening to another via Mixhalo.
He also argued that people don’t realize how bad most concert audio is until Mixhalo gives the chance to experience something better.
“We’re definitely solving a problem in music that people don’t realize they have,” he said, comparing it to watching an old TV and thinking it was fine, until you had the chance to watch in HD: “Now, sports that’s not in HD looks crappy.”
As for the effect on the social experience, Ruxin said the idea isn’t to turn the whole event into a silent disco. Instead, Mixhalo allows the audience members to choose the experience they want. And that can change from song to song — he recalled seeing some fans listen to Mixhalo for most of a concert, then take their headphones off to sing along with the hits. Others did the opposite, wanting to get the best sound quality on their favorite songs.
Ruxin said he’s primarily focused on music and sports for now, but he’s also open to working with partners outside those areas, because the technology can be installed in, say, a Broadway musical with “no technical tweaks.”
The funding was led by Foundry Group, with participation from Sapphire Sport, Founders Fund, Defy Partners, Cowboy Ventures, Red Light Management, Another Planet Entertainment, Rick Farman and Rich Goodstone of Superfly and Charlie Walker of C3. Mixhalo has now raised a total of $15 million.
NEW YORK, NY – MAY 17: (L-R) Pharrell Williams, founder and CEO of MIXhalo Mike Einziger and TechCrunch senior writer Anthony Ha speak onstage during TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2017 – Day 3 at Pier 36 on May 17, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Noam Galai/Getty Images for TechCrunch)
13 Hits
May
23
Arrcus has a bold notion to try and take on the biggest names in networking by building a better networking management system. Today it was rewarded with a $30 million Series B investment led by Lightspeed Venture Partners.
Existing investors General Catalyst and Clear Ventures also participated. The company previously raised a seed and Series A totaling $19 million, bringing the total raised to date to $49 million, according to numbers provided by the company.
Founder and CEO Devesh Garg says the company wanted to create a product that would transform the networking industry, which has traditionally been controlled by a few companies. “The idea basically is to give you the best-in-class [networking] software with the most flexible consumption model at the lowest overall total cost of ownership. So you really as an end customer have the choice to choose best-in-class solutions,” Garg told TechCrunch.
This involves building a networking operating system called ArcOS to run the networking environment. For now, that means working with manufacturers of white-box solutions and offering some combination of hardware and software, depending on what the customer requires. Garg says that players at the top of the market like Cisco, Arista and Juniper tend to keep their technical specifications to themselves, making it impossible to integrate ArcOS with those companies at this time, but he sees room for a company like Arrcus .
“Fundamentally, this is a very large marketplace that’s controlled by two or three incumbents, and when you have lack of competition you get all of the traditional bad behavior that comes along with that, including muted innovation, rigidity in terms of the solutions that are provided and these legacy procurement models, where there’s not much flexibility with artificially high pricing,” he explained.
The company hopes to fundamentally change the current system with its solutions, taking advantage of unbranded hardware that offers a similar experience but can run the Arrcus software. “Think of them as white-box manufacturers of switches and routers. Oftentimes, they come from Taiwan, where they’re unbranded, but it’s effectively the same components that are used in the same systems that are used by the [incumbents],” he said.
The approach seems to be working, as the company has grown to 50 employees since it launched in 2016. Garg says that he expects to double that number in the next six-nine months with the new funding. Currently the company has double-digit paying customers and more than 20 in various stages of proofs of concepts, he said.
13 Hits
Jul
23
After years — decades even — of promises, the robotics industry is finally beginning to realize its potential. Nowhere is this phenomenon clearer than in the world of warehouse automation. Freedom Robotics, a new Bay Area-based startup, came out of stealth this week with plans to help ease the barrier of entry for companies to control and monitor large and small-scale robotics fleets alike.
Today, the company announced that it has raised a sizable $6.6 million seed round led by Initialized Capital . The round also finds a handful of high-profile investors joining, including, notably, Toyota AI Ventures and PagerDuty founder Andrew Miklas. They join the founders of Twitch, Lookout Mobile Security and Xobni.
Freedom’s offering is designed for out-of-the-box operation, with businesses able to customize the offering using its API. The offering minimizes the technical expertise required to implement its offering, promising that users can get started, “with just one line of code.”
Co-founder and CEO Josh Wilson tells TechCrunch Freedom Robotics was founded to help companies get their robots to market, adding he sees the company as an AWS-type product for robotics. Freedom Robotics is targeting robotic teams within large companies and, likewise, small companies building robotic solutions. Instead of building the infrastructure around robotic products, Freedom Robotics offers a simple, turn-key solution that addresses items most robotic teams face.
“In 20 years 50% of all jobs worldwide, which represents $2.2 Trillion in wages within the US alone, will be replaced by robotics and automation,” the company notes in its announcement. “Our Funding round enables us to build the team and technology that will be the core infrastructure to power the next generation of robotics companies.”
Interested parties can sign up for early access on Freedom’s site.
10 Hits
Jul
23
According to Canalys, cloud infrastructure spend grew 46% to $80 billion in 2018. While Amazon Web Services continues to dominate the market with 31.7% share, Microsoft Azure is second with 16.8%...
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Original author: Sramana_Mitra
15 Hits
Jul
23
Entrepreneurs are invited to the 451st FREE online 1Mby1M mentoring roundtable on Thursday, July 25, 2019, at 8 a.m. PDT/11 a.m. EDT/5 p.m. CEST/8:30 p.m. India IST. If you are a serious...
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Original author: Maureen Kelly
14 Hits
Jul
23
Jimmy has been in the e-commerce platform space for a long time. In this interview, he discusses how BigCommerce is using its open platform to extend the platform’s capabilities. Sramana Mitra: Let’s...
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Original author: Sramana Mitra
12 Hits
Jul
23
Since co-founding Heap, CEO Matin Movassate has been saying that he wants to take on the analytics incumbents. Today, he’s got more money to fund that challenge, with the announcement that Heap has raised $55 million in Series C funding.
Movassate (pictured above) previously worked as a product manager at Facebook, and when I interviewed him after the startup’s Series B, he recalled the circuitous process normally required to collect and analyze user data. In contrast, Heap automatically collects data on user activity — the goal is to capture literally everything — and makes it available in a self-serve way, with no additional code required to answer new queries.
The company says it now has more than 6,000 customers, including Twilio, AppNexus, Harry’s, WeWork and Microsoft.
With this new funding, Heap has raised a total of $95.2 million. The plan is to fund international growth, as well as expand the product, engineering and go-to-market teams.
The Series C was led by NewView Capital, with participation from new DTCP, Maverick Ventures, Triangle Peak Partners, Alliance Bernstein Private Credit Investors, Sharespost and existing investors (NEA, Menlo Ventures, Initialized Capital and Pear VC). NewView founder and managing partner Ravi Viswanathan is joining the startup’s board of directors.
“Heap offers an innovative approach to automating a company’s analytics, enabling a variety of teams within an organization to obtain the data they need to make educated and, ultimately, smarter decisions,” Viswanathan said in a statement. “We are excited to team up with Heap, as they continue to develop their cutting edge software, expand their analytics automation offerings and help serve their growing numbers of customers.”
34 Hits
Jul
23
Uber is testing a new subscription service in San Francisco and Chicago that gives customers discounts on cab rides, free JUMP bike and scooter rides, and free Uber Eats delivery, according to a new report from TechCrunch. The subscription reportedly costs $24.99 a month.
In a statement to Business Insider, a spokesperson for Uber said that it is "always looking for ways to make Uber the go-to option for your everyday needs," but would not provide more details on the pilot.
Business Insider understands there are no plans to extend the current pilot to other cities just yet.
This is the first time that Uber has offered a subscription that combines all of its consumer services, and it could help customers to become more brand loyal overall. The idea is that if you're only using its cab-hailing service at present, the membership will incentivize you to use its other services over competitors.
It already has a subscription service in place for its core cab-hailing business - Ride Pass. This launched last October and allows users to guarantee set prices on cabs for a monthly fee.
Uber isn't the only transportation company to be testing these subscription models, however. Its main competitor in the US, Lyft, launched a similar service last year - its All-Access Plan which costs $299 a month and gives users 30 rides worth up to $15 each. If a ride costs more than $15, the user pays the difference.
Original author: Mary Hanbury
107 Hits
Jul
23
A properly configured Ford F-150 pickup truck can tow 13,200 pounds. Towing capacity is critical in the full-size pickup market â and a key reason why the best-in-class F-150 has been the best-selling vehicle in the US for 42 years.
But Ford might do something unprecedented with towing capacity when its all-electric F-150 debuts in a few years.
How unprecedented? Staggeringly, if a recent demonstration of a prototype all-electric F-150 is any indication.
Ford hitched the pickup to a one-million-pound (roughly 454,000 kg) line of railcars and easily pulled the load for 1,000 feet. In a neat reference to the pickup's heritage, Ford measured the distance with 42 gas-powered F-150s, symbolizing the four-plus decades of sales dominance.
Read more: Ford is working on an all-electric version of its F-150 pickup truck
The F-150's chief engineer, Linda Zhang. Ford
Instant torque is gonna tow you
"Instant torque combined with a lightweight vehicle helps us deliver a new level of power, performance, and efficiency," said Linda Zhang, the F-150's chief engineer, in an interview with Business Insider.
She's a 23-year Ford veteran who also worked on the new Explorer and Escape SUVs. And she drove the F-150 prototype while it hauled the railcars.
As if a million pounds weren't impressive enough, Ford then drove those 42 F-150s onto the railcars and towed everything again, another 1,000 feet. The total weight on the second run was 1.25 million pounds (roughly 567,000 kg). The prototype was basically a freight locomotive.
The all-electric F-150 prototype. Ford
"It's a pretty epic and extreme demonstration," Zhang said.
It's unlikely that any future electric F-150 owner would need to pull a train up a mountain. But the demonstration â using an existing F-150 body outfitted with the electric drivetrain that Ford has been developing and is now testing â provided a hint at what the capabilities of the new pickup might be. The market could also get a glimpse when the hybrid-electric F-150 arrives next year.
Read more: This former SolarCity exec is trying to reinvent 2 parts of the solar business
Focusing on towing rather than speed
At the moment, Ford isn't divulging any technical details about the electric F-150, but the car maker has obviously zeroed in on a well-established feature of electric drivetrains: instant torque. Electric motors have access to all of their torque as soon as they start cranking, while even Ford's beefiest F-150 motor has to develop its 470 pound-feet of torque over by building up engine speed.
The electric F-150 towed 42 of its gas-powered brethren. Ford
This contrasts with how electric car makers have usually promoted torque; they tend to emphasize its ability to deliver supercar-beating 0-60 mph times.
Several electric pickups are anticipated in the next few years. Startup Rivian, which got a $500-million investment from Ford in April, hopes to sell a vehicle with F-150-level towing chops for the adventure market. And of course Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said that his company's pickup could combine the F-150's utility with the performance of a Porsche 911.
"We're focusing on meeting the needs of customers, giving them what they would expect from built Ford tough." Zhang said.
Watch the demonstration below:
Original author: Matthew DeBord
87 Hits
Feb
06
Huawei has just massively benefited from President Trump's fudging on a US trade ban.
The UK government was due to announce its official position on allowing Huawei's equipment into the country's 5G networks on Monday, but instead it decided to postpone the judgement.
Culture Secretary Jeremy Wright told the House of Commons during his telecoms supply chain review that the government is "not yet in a position" to make a decision on Huawei.
Wright implied that the postponement was due to a lack of clarity from the US government, which blacklisted Huawei in May after deeming it a national security risk.
"Since the US government's announcement, we have sought clarity on the extent and implications, but the position is not yet entirely clear. Until it is, we have concluded it would be wrong to make specific decisions in relation to Huawei."
The UK has been looking closely at whether Huawei poses a security risk if permitted to provide communications equipment to the country's telecoms operators.
UK officials have downplayed the idea that Huawei spies on behalf of the Chinese government, but did warn in March that the company's kit was riddled with software flaws. As a major ally of the US, the UK is also under pressure to follow the American view of Huawei as a national security threat.
These concerns became more complicated after former defence secretary Gavin Williamson was fired in May after an inquiry found him guilty of leaking Prime Minister Theresa May's plan to allow Huawei limited access to build the UK 5G network. Williamson denied being the source of the leak.
Meanwhile, the US position on Huawei since the ban is now unclear.
The US Commerce Department originally placed Huawei on an entity list in May, meaning US firms required a special license to trade with the company.
But President Trump announced at the G8 summit in June that he was relaxing the ban, and would allow American companies to sell to Huawei. A few days later however a Department of Commerce email obtained by Reuters told staff to still treat Huawei as blacklisted. There is also conflict between the President and Congress as to whether the ban on Huawei should be softened. Last week a group of senators filed a piece of legislation which, if passed, would block Trump from easing the pressure on the Chinese tech giant.
Huawei said it was emboldened by the UK's decision to delay its judgement. "The UK Government's Supply Chain Review gives us confidence that we can continue to work with network operators to rollout 5G across the UK," Huawei's Vice President Victor Zhang said in a statement sent to Business Insider.
Wright also stressed the need for a diverse set of equipment suppliers for 5G, something Zhang seized upon in his statement. "We welcome the Government's commitment to 'a diverse telecoms supply chain,'" said Zhang. Huawei, Nokia, and Ericsson dominate the market.
"The evidence shows excluding Huawei would cost the UK economy £7 billion and result in more expensive 5G networks, raising prices for anyone with a mobile device," Zhang added.
Original author: Isobel Asher Hamilton
103 Hits
Nov
13
A report tying Huawei to North Korea could spell trouble ahead for the company. Kevin Lim/THE STRAITS TIMES/Handout/Getty Images
Good morning! This is the tech news you need to know this Tuesday.
Apple is reportedly in talks to buy Intel's smartphone-modem chip business for $1 billion. According to the Wall Street Journal the two companies had discussed a deal earlier this year, but the talks broke down when Apple signed a deal with Qualcomm. Trump met with top US tech leaders to discuss sales to Huawei as he moves to soften restrictions against the Chinese tech giant. President Donald Trump met with executives of top US tech companies on Monday including Google, Intel, and Qualcomm. A new report tying Huawei to North Korea could flare up tensions with the US again. The Washington Post obtained leaked Huawei documents from an eight-year time span showing the company worked on setting up wireless networks in North Korea. Amazon hired one of Trump's allies to lobby on its behalf as it looks to score a $10 billion contract with the Pentagon. According to a recent lobbying disclosure filing first reported by CNBC Amazon has hired Jeff Miller, CEO of lobbying firm Miller Strategies. Microsoft is investing $1 billion in OpenAI, the Elon Musk-founded company that's trying to build human-like artificial intelligence. OpenAI's services will run exclusively on Microsoft's cloud. DoorDash uses a shady tactic that stiffs workers out of some tips and customers are furious. A DoorDash representative said the company was always perfecting its payment structures and in most cases contributed more to a delivery person's guaranteed minimum than customers, many of whom do not tip. Tesla lost its engineering VP to Apple amid the end-of-quarter delivery rush. Steve MacManus, vice president of interior and exterior engineering at Tesla, has departed the company. Microsoft agreed to pay a criminal fine to settle anti-bribery charges in the US. The US Department of Justice said Microsoft Hungary will pay the $8.75 million criminal fine, as part of a three-year non-prosecution agreement in which it "admits, accepts and acknowledges" responsibility for employees' misconduct. Apple closed its stores early in Hong Kong after violent protests erupted in the city. The closures come after police in Hong Kong used tear gas and rubber bullets on protesters after the Chinese government's liaison office in the city had been vandalized. A flaw in Facebook's Messenger Kids app meant children were able to talk to unauthorized users, The Verge reports. Messenger Kids is only meant to let children talk to users who have been pre-approved by their parents.Have an Amazon Alexa device? Now you can hear 10 Things in Tech each morning. Just search for "Business Insider" in your Alexa's flash briefing settings.
You can also subscribe to this newsletter here â just tick "10 Things in Tech You Need to Know."
Original author: Isobel Asher Hamilton
108 Hits
Jul
23
President Donald Trump on Monday met with executives of seven top US tech companies to discuss "a range of economic issues," including national security restrictions against sales to Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei.
Trump sat down with leaders from Google, Cisco, Intel, Qualcomm, Micron, Broadcom, and Western Digital Corporation â all top producers of US technology equipment â to discuss treatment of the Chinese technology company, according to the White House.
"The CEOs expressed strong support of the president's policies, including national security restrictions on United States telecom equipment purchases and sales to Huawei," the White House said in a statement. "They requested timely licensing decisions from the Department of Commerce, and the president agreed."
The meeting between Trump and top tier tech leaders comes as the US continues to shift its policy regarding Huawei, the largest telecommunications equipment producer in the world, which has been thrust into the center of trade war negotiations between China and the US.
The Trump administration previously raised concerns that Huawei technology could pose a national security risk and may be used as a backdoor for Chinese government espionage. Other nations, including Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, have also considered that Huawei tech might pose a security risk and have prevented Huawei from using its technology in " sensitive" parts of its telecommunications systems.
The US Department of Commerce added Huawei to a trade blacklist in May, which prevents the company from buying parts and components from American companies without US government approval. The move could have a dramatic effect on Huawei's operations, as the company relies heavily on US parts.
The placement of Huawei on the US trade blacklist has led to many major US tech companies and suppliersâ including Googleâ to stop providing critical software to the company.
But tensions between Huawei and the Trump administration have eased in recent weeks following a meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping during a meeting at the G20 Summit in Osaka, Japan, last month.
Following the meeting, Trump agreed to hold off on additional tariffs on Chinese goods and discussed the clampdown on Huawei.
"US companies can sell their equipment to Huawei ... there's no great, national emergency problem," Trump told reporters after his meeting.
Earlier this month, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross announced an easing of restrictions against the Chinese company in line with Trump's statements after the G20 summit, stating that the US would issue licenses to US companies looking to sell to Huawei as long as it does not pose a threat to national security.
Despite this apparent relaxing of restrictions, Huawei still remains on the US trade blacklist, a sign that the US remains cautious as it moves to improve its trade relations with China.
Early on Monday, The Washington Post published a report saying that according to documents Huawei, "secretly helped the North Korean government build and maintain the country's commercial wireless network," an allegation which Huawei denies.
Original author: Rosie Perper
68 Hits
Jul
23
Solar is harder than most people think, even though it's grown in popularity over the past 10 years.
Hayes Barnard wants to make solar easier. Barnard was SolarCity's Chief Revenue Officer, a job he took on when the solar-installer acquired his company, Paramount Solar, in 2013. A few months after the deal, Barnard created a solar nonprofit affiliated with SolarCity. When Tesla and Solar City merged in 2016, Barnard spun off the nonprofit prior to the tie-up and continues to run the organization.
Called GivePower, it facilitates solar projects in places where there currently isn't much energy drawn from the sun. This week, the organization announced that it had assisted the Sioux Nation is developing a 300-kilowatt solar farm in North Dakota on the Standing Rock Reservation, not far from the controversial Dakota Access pipeline and in the heart of fracking country. The solar farm is North Dakota's first.
Read more: There's one Tesla product that I'll definitely buy as soon as possible â and it's not the Model 3
"It will provide 50% of all solar in the state," Barnard said in an interview with Business Insider. "It's a pretty groundbreaking move in North Dakota."
The power generated by the system, which is owned by the tribe, will go to a Sioux Nation community center and to a veterans center. Of the income flowing in from operating the utility, the tribe will spend half on a scholarship fund to preserve its language.
GivePower has handed off the project at this point, after managing the development, securing the land, overseeing engineering an construction, and even hiring a member of the Sioux tribe â who has now moved on to start his own solar-development business.
The Standing Rock project under construction. GivePower
When Barnard isn't working on GivePower, he's running Loanpal, a solar-financing company that's trying to address what he thinks is another challenge with the industry.
"The whole idea was I want to say yes more often," he said. "Millions are calling, all we do is say no."
The "no's" came from hangups in the solar-financing process. Customers wanted to own, rather than lease, solar-panel systems, but when they investigated what it took to get panels on their roofs, they encountered potentially thousands in upfront costs â a "litany of upgrades," Barnard said.
Trying to cover the financing through the traditional home-equity routes ended up being too onerous, he said. And many buyers couldn't qualify for the financing that was available.
"We studied this meticulously to understand the disqualification rate," he added.
Financing has been a solar hurdle./ Zero Mass Water
The solution was a separate loan that didn't require a mortgage refinancing. Homeowners also have the option of doing a home refinancing later, absorbing the cost of the solar loan.
"A key component of what we did was to educate major banks," Barnard said. "It's been well received by the market, and solar contractors say it's great."
LoanPal has organized $27 billion in funding for 125,000 customers, according to the company's data, with 80% of the top 50 solar operations making use of its platform. So if Barnard gets his way, solar should become much easier for homeowners to consider, for banks to finance, and for installers to get onto rooftops.
"I want to be in the ecosystem of the industry where I can help everybody," he said, of Loanpal and GivePower. "You can all get a 'Yes.'"
Original author: Matthew DeBord
33 Hits
Jul
23
Facebook's Messenger Kids is supposed to provide parents complete control over who their children chat can with on the app. But as The Verge reported on Monday, that key promise appears to have been broken, thanks to a design flaw with the app.
According to the report, Messenger Kids had a design flaw that allows for a situation in which a child can enter a group chat with other users â including adults â who hadn't been preapproved by their parents.
A Facebook spokesperson confirmed with Business Insider on Monday that children had been allowed to chat with friends-of-friends in group settings within Messenger. All users in the chat groups had been approved by someone's parents, the spokesperson said, just not necessarily approved by the parent's of the child entering the chat.
"We recently notified some parents of Messenger Kids account users about a technical error that we detected affecting a small number of group chats," Facebook told Business Insider. "We turned off the affected chats and provided parents with additional resources on Messenger Kids and online safety."
The Facebook spokesperson would not give an exact number of children impacted, except to say it was somewhere in the thousands. The spokesperson also said the bug was discovered over the last couple weeks, and since then, the company has notified the parents of affected children.
Privacy settings for children having one-on-one chat conversations within Messenger Kids were not affected, according to Facebook.
News of the privacy flaw for Messenger Kids, which is designed for children under the age of 13, comes as some privacy advocates have called on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate the app over allegations of collecting data on its underage users â which would be a violation of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act.
Facebook already faces a potential $5 billion fine from the FTC for violating a privacy consent decree set by the commission.
Original author: Nick Bastone
23 Hits
Feb
06
YouTuber Logan Paul appeared on Fox Business Monday afternoon, and his responses left the internet wondering what exactly was going on â debating whether it was a stunt or if the vlogger needs media training.
The interview with Fox's Liz Claman was intended to discuss the fight for popularity among various social media platforms, including Youtube, Facebook, and a new emerging app, Tik Tok, which ranks as the fourth most downloaded app, Claman reported.
Paul, who has nearly 20 million Youtube subscribers, was invited to the news segment for knowing "a thing or two about jumping from platform to platform."
Paul's answers deviated to him calling himself the "quickest man on the planet" and explaining that he has pink eye.
Stunt or not, the internet simply thought the interview was bizarre.
"I'm everywhere, baby," Paul said during the interview in response to a question about platforms. "I'm everywhere, and I'm nowhere. I'm like a ghost."
Claman dubbed Paul as a "controversial 24-year-old megastar," citing a previous incident in which the YouTuber filmed a dead body in Japan's "suicide forest," which garnered significant backlash and prompted Paul to take a hiatus from social media following an apology video posted to YouTube, which was viewed over 55 million times.
"Liz, I have to stop you right there. You used the word 'controversial,'" Paul said in response to Claman's description of him. "Just so you know, I am an ex-controversial YouTuber. That's no longer me. We kind of graduated."
Claman asked why Paul remains active on both his YouTube and Instagram account, which has approximately 16 million followers, and yet his Facebook page, which has nearly the same amount in "likes," remains inactive.
"Why you have to call me out live like that?" Paul asked with a laugh during the interview, but revealed that he prefers the aforementioned platforms over the latter for monetary reasons, saying that YouTube does a better job at monetizing content creators.
Paul also revealed that his expenses surpassed his income for the "first time ever," saying that he's "definitely going downhill from here."
"I think it's the beginning of the end," Paul said, adding, "I also have pink eye. It's not contagious."
He quickly cut off the Fox Business host to clarify, "No, it is, there's a two-week incubation period," and apologized when Claman jokingly told him not to touch anything on set.
Paul went on to talk about the Challenger Games, a celebrity track-and-field event airing on July 27, in which 100 popular individuals, including Paul, will compete for $100,000.
"If I'm being quite honest with you, I'm the fastest YouTuber; I'm the fastest entertainer on the planet," Paul said, citing his athletic ability and potential to win the games. "I could be the quickest man on the planet. ⦠I'm betting 100,000 that I'm the fastest man on the planet."
Claman also noted his ability to do the splits, which Paul performs in some of his viral videos, to which Paul said, "Why can I do the splits? That's weird. I'm uncomfortable with myself."
Paul mentioned towards the end of the interview that another fight with fellow internet celebrity KSI is expected at the end of the year, following the first match in August 2018.
"KSI, I'm gonna beat you badly," Paul said.
Logan Paul and his brother Jake Paul recently topped a list of the highest paid YouTube stars. Between June 1, 2017, to June 1, 2018, Logan Paul made $14.5 million, according to Forbes. Jake made $21.5 million.
Original author: Lauren Frias
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Jul
22
Not all DoorDash tips actually go to the courier on top of an order's total.
The company's opaque system, which went viral this week after a New York Times reporter worked for the company and wrote about his experience, has now come under fire from critics and customers who call their tipping system misleading.
In short, every DoorDash order comes with a guaranteed minimum earnings for the worker who completes the job. If the total ends up being less than that guarantee, then DoorDash kicks in the rest of the money. But in a small number of cases, the tip can also help make up that difference.
Read more: DoorDash uses a shady tactic that stiffs workers out of some tips and customers are furious
In light of that news, we asked some of the world's most prominent gig economy startups, many of which function almost exactly like DoorDash, about their tipping policies.
Here's what the companies said:
Original author: Graham Rapier
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