Jul
01

Bootstrapping with a Paycheck from New Jersey: Suuchi Ramesh, CEO of Suuchi (Part 1) - Sramana Mitra

For customer service, Ultimate.ai‘s thesis is it’s not humans or AI but humans and AI. The Helsinki- and Berlin-based startup has built an AI-powered suggestion engine that, once trained on clients’ data-sets, is able to provide real-time help to (human) staff dealing with customer queries via chat, email and social channels. So the AI layer is intended to make the humans behind the screens smarter and faster at responding to customer needs — as well as freeing them up from handling basic queries to focus on more complex issues.

AI-fuelled chatbots have fast become a very crowded market, with hundreds of so-called ‘conversational AI’ startups all vying to serve the customer service cause.

Ultimate.ai stands out by merit of having focused on non-English language markets, says co-founder and CEO Reetu Kainulainen. This is a consequence of the business being founded in Finland, whose language belongs to a cluster of Eastern and Northern Eurasian languages that are plenty removed from English in sound and grammatical character.

“[We] started with one of the toughest languages in the world,” he tells TechCrunch. “With no available NLP [natural language processing] able to tackle Finnish, we had to build everything in house. To solve the problem, we leveraged state-of-the-art deep neural network technologies.

“Today, our proprietary deep learning algorithms enable us to learn the structure of any language by training on our clients’ customer service data. Core within this is our use of transfer learning, which we use to transfer knowledge between languages and customers, to provide a high-accuracy NLU engine. We grow more accurate the more clients we have and the more agents use our platform.”

Ultimate.ai was founded in November 2016 and launched its first product in summer 2017. It now has more than 25 enterprise clients, including the likes of Zalando, Telia and Finnair. It also touts partnerships with tech giants including SAP, Microsoft, Salesforce and Genesys — integrating with their Contact Center solutions.

“We partner with these players both technically (on client deployments) and commercially (via co-selling). We also list our solution on their Marketplaces,” he notes.

Up to taking in its first seed round now it had raised an angel round of €230k in March 2017, as well as relying on revenue generated by the product as soon as it launched.

The $1.3M seed round is co-led by Holtzbrinck Ventures and Maki.vc.

Kainulainen says one of the “key strengths” of Ultimate.ai’s approach to AI for text-based customer service touch-points is rapid set-up when it comes to ingesting a client’s historical customer logs to train the suggestion system.

“Our proprietary clustering algorithms automatically cluster our customer’s historical data (chat, email, knowledge base) to train our neural network. We can go from millions of lines of unstructured data into a trained deep neural network within a day,” he says.

“Alongside this, our state-of-the-art transfer learning algorithms can seed the AI with very limited data — we have deployed Contact Center automation for enterprise clients with as little as 500 lines of historical conversation.”

Ultimate.ai’s proprietary NLP achieves “state-of-the-art accuracy at 98.6%”, he claims.

It can also make use of what he dubs “semi-supervised learning” to further boost accuracy over time as agents use the tool.

“Finally, we leverage transfer learning to apply a single algorithmic model across all clients, scaling our learnings from client-to-client and constantly improving our solution,” he adds.

On the competitive front, it’s going up against the likes of IBM’s Watson AI. However Kainulainen argues that IBM’s manual tools — which he argues “require large onboarding projects and are limited in languages with no self-learning capabilities” — make that sort of manual approach to chatbot building “unsustainable in the long-term”.

He also contends that many rivals are saddled with “lengthy set-up and heavy maintenance requirements” which makes them “extortionately expensive”.

A closer competitor (in terms of approach) which he namechecks is TC Disrupt battlefield alum Digital Genius. But again they’ve got English language origins — so he flags that as a differentiating factor vs the proprietary NLP at the core of Ultimate.ai’s product (which he claims can handle any language).

“It is very difficult to scale out of English to other languages,” he argues. “It also uneconomical to rebuild your architecture to serve multi-language scenarios. Out of necessity, we have been language-agnostic since day one.”

“Our technology and team is tailored to the customer service problem; generic conversational AI tools cannot compete,” he adds. “Within this, we are a full package for enterprises. We provide a complete AI platform, from automation to augmentation, as well as omnichannel capabilities across Chat, Email and Social. Languages are also a key technical strength, enabling our clients to serve their customers wherever they may be.”

The multi-language architecture is not the only claimed differentiator, either.

Kainulainen points to the team’s mission as another key factor on that front, saying: “We want to transform how people work in customer service. It’s not about building a simple FAQ bot, it’s about deeply understanding how the division and the people work and building tools to empower them. For us, it’s not Superagent vs. Botman, it’s Superagent + Botman.”

So it’s not trying to suggest that AI should replace your entire customers service team but rather enhance your in house humans.

Asked what the AI can’t do well, he says this boils down to interactions that are transactional vs relational — with the former category meshing well with automation, but the latter (aka interactions that require emotional engagement and/or complex thought) definitely not something to attempt to automate away.

“Transactional cases are mechanical and AI is good at mechanical. The customer knows what they want (a specific query or action) and so can frame their request clearly. It’s a simple, in-and-out case. Full automation can be powerful here,” he says. “Relational cases are more frequent, more human and more complex. They can require empathy, persuasion and complex thought. Sometimes a customer doesn’t know what the problem is — “it’s just not working”.

“Other times are sales opportunities, which businesses definitely don’t want to automate away (AI isn’t great at persuasion). And some specific industries, e.g. emergency services, see the human response as so vital that they refuse automation entirely. In all of these situations, AI which augments people, rather than replaces, is most effective.

“We see work in customer service being transformed over the next decade. As automation of simple requests becomes the status-quo, businesses will increasingly differentiate through the quality of their human-touch. Customer service will become less labour intensive, higher skilled work. We try and imagine what tools will power this workforce of tomorrow and build them, today.”

On the ethics front, he says customers are always told when they are transferred to a human agent — though that agent will still be receiving AI support (i.e. in the form of suggested replies to help “bolster their speed and quality”) behind the scenes.

Ultimate.ai’s customers define cases they’d prefer an agent to handle — for instance where there may be a sales opportunity.

“In these cases, the AI may gather some pre-qualifying customer information to speed up the agent handle time. Human agents are also brought in for complex cases where the AI has had difficulty understanding the customer query, based on a set confidence threshold,” he adds.

Kainulainen says the seed funding will be used to enhance the scalability of the product, with investments going into its AI clustering system.

The team will also be targeting underserved language markets to chase scale — “focusing heavily on the Nordics and DACH [Germany, Austria, Switzerland]”.

“We are building out our teams across Berlin and Helsinki. We will be working closely with our partners – SAP, Microsoft, Salesforce and Genesys — to further this vision,” he adds.

Commenting on the funding in a statement, Jasper Masemann, investment manager at Holtzbrinck Ventures, added: “The customer service industry is a huge market and one of the world’s largest employers. Ultimate.ai addresses the main industry challenges of inefficiency, quality control and high people turnover with latest advancements in deep learning and human machine hybrid models. The results and customer feedback are the best I have seen, which makes me very confident the team can become a forerunner in this space.”

Continue reading
  23 Hits
Sep
18

Divido, the consumer finance platform, scores $15M Series A

Divido, the consumer finance platform that lets you take out credit at the point of purchase to help spread the cost of buying new things, has raised $15 million in Series A funding.

Leading the round is Dawn Capital, and DN Capital, with participation from Mastercard, American Express Ventures and a number of previous investors. Renier Lemmens, who previously served as Chief Executive Officer of PayPal EMEA and was an executive at Barclays, has also been appointed as chairman.

Launched in late 2015, London-based Divido currently works with over 1,000 partners to enable them to offer B2C and B2B finance to their customers at checkout. This includes being able to spread the cost of any product or service over a period of time by providing instant access to credit at the point of purchase, either online and in-store.

However, where the company differentiates from the likes of Klarna is that Divido doesn’t provide the line of credit itself or work with a single lender, instead operating a marketplace model. This sees lenders compete to offer the most suitable credit.

The broader pitch is that Divido’s consumer finance at the point of sale leads to up to 20 percent more sales for retailers, more lending for banks and more transactions for payment partners. The company’s clients include Mercedes-Benz, BNP Paribas Shopify.

Explains Christer Holloman, CEO of Divido, in a statement: “Proactive retailers know they have to try new initiatives to grow sales. Offering customers the option to pay later doesn’t just increase footfall and eyeballs, but it also raises average order values and conversion rates. And what’s good for the retailers is also good for the lenders who are providing this credit, and the intermediaries that facilitate the transactions”.

Meanwhile, Divido says the injection of capital will be used for global expansion. The platform is currently available in the U.K., Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Nordics, and the U.S., and the company wants to be in 10 more countries by the end of 2019. Divido is also pivoting to licence its platform to banks and lenders via a service called “Powered by Divido”. This will let partners white label its technology to provide finance services to their customers.

Continue reading
  48 Hits
Sep
18

Elon Musk just revealed the 'final iteration' of SpaceX's biggest and most powerful rocket ship — take a look

HAWTHORNE, California — Elon Musk has finally revealed the person who is paying SpaceX untold millions to have the rocket company launch a private mission around the moon.

Yasuka Maezawa, or "MZ" as SpaceX's newest benefactor prefers to be called, is a Japanese entrepreneur, art collector, billionaire, and skateboarder who made his fortune in the fashion industry over the past 20 years.

In 2023, Maezawa hopes to pile six to eight artists inside SpaceX's giant new launch system called BFR, which stands for Big Falcon Rocket (or, as Musk has described it, Big F---ing rocket). They'd then launch from Earth and voyage around the moon on a trip that would take about six days.

Maezawa's goal with the mission, which he's titled #dearMoon, is to spread messages of art and peace in both space and on Earth.

Although Maezawa's announcement surprised many people inside SpaceX's rocket factory on Monday night, new images and information about the BFR that Musk shared raised even more eyebrows.

"This is the final iteration, in terms of broad architectural design," Musk told roughly 100 reporters during the press event.

Here are the latest BFR pictures Musk showed, how the in-development spacecraft has changed, and why tweaks that SpaceX engineers made are so important for the company's ultimate goal of colonizing Mars.

Original author: Dave Mosher

Continue reading
  124 Hits
Sep
18

10 things in tech you need to know today

SpaceX space tourist Yusaku Maezawa KIM KYUNG-HOON/Reuters

Good morning! This is the tech news you need to know this Tuesday.

1. Apple released its big new iPhone update, iOS 12. Apple announced the latest version of the operating system for iPhones and iPads in June, and it was rolled out for everyone on Monday.

2. The diver Elon Musk called a "pedo" is suing him for defamation. The lawsuit alleges that diver Vernon Unsworth's reputation was damaged as a result of "false and defamatory" tweets and emails written by Musk that said Unsworth is a pedophile who married a 12-year-old girl in Thailand without presenting reliable evidence to back those claims.

3. Elon Musk revealed who will fly to the moon on SpaceX's new rocket ship. Musk and his rocket company SpaceX plan to launch , a Japanese entrepreneur and billionaire, around the moon.

4. Google apologized for accidentally changing settings on some people's smartphones without their knowledge or consent. Some Android smartphone users reported that their battery saving settings were enabled without their knowledge or consent.

5. Amazon will reportedly release its own Alexa-enabled microwave, plus a bunch of other gadgets, later this year. Amazon is reportedly set to announce at least eight new devices powered by its Alexa voice assistant at an event later in September, according to CNBC.

6. The Apple Watch and AirPods dodged Trump's latest round of tariffs on China — but cloud data centers weren't so lucky. The US will spare the Apple Watch and other consumer gadgets from the latest round of tariffs on Chinese goods, but parts for computer servers and networking gear that power "cloud" data centers and internet-based services now face a levy.

7. Oracle stock tumbled after it missed Wall Street revenue targets. Shares of Oracle fell more than 5% in after hours trading on Monday after it reported a 1% increase in revenue in its fiscal first quarter, falling short of the average analyst expectation.

8. Twitter is trading at its lowest price since April after a brutal note from a Wall Street analyst. Twitter shares fell to their lowest price in months on Monday after a brutal research note from MoffettNathanson.

9. Regulators from more than a dozen countries are looking to crack down on "loot boxes," a controversial video gaming practice that could be too much like gambling. European regulators are questioning whether video games featuring random prizes you have to pay real money to get are the equivalent of gambling.

10. Nintendo is about to start charging $20 a year for online features on the Switch console. Nintendo was the last major console maker to offer free online multiplayer services, but the launch of the Nintendo Switch Online subscription service marks the end of an era for the console — and for online gaming in general.

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.

Original author: Isobel Asher Hamilton

Continue reading
  89 Hits
Jun
30

India blocks TikTok and dozens of other Chinese apps that the government says pose a security threat

Netflix is famous for its unique company culture, which does not tolerate either failing employees or "brilliant jerks."

The company recently held a LinkedIn Q&A where users could ask questions about its culture and philosophy, and its answers largely echoed a famous slide deck CEO Reed Hastings released in 2009 to summarize Netflix's management philosophy.

Though the company has morphed significantly since then, diving into original content and expanding across the globe, Netflix has maintained a commitment to its culture.

That means that working at Netflix isn't quite like working anywhere else, and neither is getting hired there.

Drawing from a 2016 Reddit AMA hosted by a purported Netflix employee and from last week's LinkedIn Q&A, we've compiled the following essential quotes on Netflix's hiring process and company culture:

The interview (via Reddit):

"About 40-50% of the interview is about making sure your personality is compatible with our company culture. The rest is about making sure you're technically capable … They flew me out and interviewed me for eight hours. It seemed really easy at the time, but I now realize that a lot of the questions were checking that my personality was a fit for the company. No crazy technical questions that I hate."

Culture fit was a big part of the hiring (via Reddit):

"You'll talk to about eight or so people, some from HR, some higher-ups, some of the team you're applying to. Typically if even a single person doesn't like you, it's unlikely you'll be hired. Ultimately the decision is with the team that's hiring but it's very rare for them to overrule a single 'no.'"

There's a list of qualities they expect in an employee (via LinkedIn):

"You need to have relevant experience for the role you are applying for and on top of that, when you interview in person, demonstrate qualities that showcase Netflix values. Are you courageous? Are you humble? Are you curious and passionate and ask thoughtful questions about the business? Are you able to and open to providing and receiving feedback to be better? Are you scrappy, have grit and willing to roll up your sleeves regardless of your title? Are you a team player? Are you inclusive and self aware? These are all things we look for."

No one cares where you went to school (via Reddit):

"I'm a college dropout. I haven't heard a single person discuss education or degrees. When you're working with people who have 5, 10, or even more years of experience education doesn't matter anymore. It's all about what problems you have the knowledge to solve."

There's independence with responsibility (via Reddit):

"At every other place I've worked, there's a very strict hierarchy and everyone is working on whatever the orders from up high are. In a sense that's also true at Netflix, but the orders are less orders and more context about what the big picture is and what is going on with the numbers. And everyone is expected to pitch in in their own way. You can give someone a problem and they can solve it without going back and asking you for the exact procedure."

On whether you can binge-watch Netflix at work (via LinkedIn):

"Freedom and responsibility — you choose how you want to spend your day doing what," a company representative responded on LinkedIn. "No one is saying you can or cannot do something, but you have to be responsible in moving the business and making an impact. For some teams it is necessary to watch our titles because they work on them."

"To be candid, there are a lot of fast-paced and exciting projects happening, so there probably isn't time or as much of a priority to catch up with personal Netflix viewing."

You have to perform (via Reddit):

"Netflix is definitely more cutthroat about firing 'dead weight' than every other company I worked for. If you're not working out for whatever reason, there's no reason to keep you."

This person also said there weren't any real "entry-level positions." So if you were looking to get hired straight out of college, you're probably out of luck. Though there are definitely people who have begun their Netflix careers in their mid-20s.

The "best" and "worst" part of the job are the same (via LinkedIn):

"The best thing is the freedom to do whatever you think is necessary to move the business forward. The worst thing is that nobody will tell you how to spend your time or what exactly you should be working on (outside of setting larger goals for your role). Determining which projects will truly be impactful is up to you, and sometimes that is really hard."

If you want to take a look at Reed Hastings' famous 2009 slide deck, scroll down:

Original author: John Lynch and Nathan McAlone

Continue reading
  104 Hits
Feb
12

Eight Sleep CEO says his startup is more than a mattress company

Ola, the arch-rival of Uber in India, has raised $50 million at a valuation of about $4.3 billion from Sailing Capital, a Hong Kong-based private equity firm, and the China-Eurasian Economic Cooperation Fund (CEECF), a state-backed Chinese fund. The funding was disclosed in regulatory documents sourced by Paper.vc and reviewed by Indian financial publication Mint.

According to Mint, Sailing Capital and CEECF will hold a combined stake of more than 1% in Ola . An Ola spokesperson said the company has no comment.

Ola’s last funding announcement was in October, when it raised $1.1 billion (its largest funding round to date) from Tencent and returning investor SoftBank Group. Ola also said it planned to raise an additional $1 billion from other investors that would take the round’s final amount to about $2.1 billion.

At the time, a source with knowledge of the deal told TechCrunch that Ola was headed toward a post-money valuation of $7 billion once the $2.1 bllion raise was finalized. So while the funding from Sailing Capital and CEECF brings it closer to its funding goal, the latest valuation of $4.3 billion is still lower than the projected amount.

Ola needs plenty of cash to fuel its ambitious expansion both within and outside of India. In addition to ride hailing, Ola got back into the food delivery game at the end of last year by acquiring Foodpanda’s Indian operations to compete with UberEats, Swiggy, Zomato and Google’s Areo. It was a bold move to make as India’s food delivery industry consolidated, especially since Ola had previously launched a food delivery service that shut down after less than one year. To ensure the survival of Foodpanda, Ola poured $200 million into its new acquisition.

A few months later after buying Foodpanda, Ola announced the acquisition of public transportation ticketing startup Ridlr in an all-stock deal. Outside of India, Ola has been focused on a series of international launches. It announced today that it will begin operating in New Zealand, fast on the heels of launches in the United Kingdom and Australia (its first country outside of India) this year.

Continue reading
  33 Hits
Jun
29

Tech employees are selling referrals online to job candidates for under $50 to help them get hired at Google, Facebook, and other industry giants

Audi e-tron, the German automaker's first all-electric SUV is officially here, in the metal.

The company pulled the covers off the five-passenger, all-wheel-drive e-tron on Monday night in San Francisco. It marks the latest evolution in the Audi brand, and also in the fledgling luxury electric SUV market.

Two electric motors power the e-tron. A 95 kWh battery gives the e-tron what Audi says is "well over 400 kilometers" of range. That would equate to more than 248 miles of range on a full charge, based on European testing.

Audi says numbers for the US market are pending, but anecdotal data, acquired from a handful of US road trips in a prototype e-tron produced ranges as high roughly 270 miles on a full charge, according to Audi President, Scott Keogh.

That testing included a 175-mile trip on one full battery charge, from the Craneway Pavillion where the Audi event was being held in San Francisco to South Lake Tahoe — a trek that starts at sea level and ends at a 7,000-foot elevation.

According to Keogh, who spoke at the debut event on Monday night, the e-tron made it to South Lake Tahoe, "arriving with an estimated 12 miles of battery left." Some back-of-the-envelope math puts that right around 187 miles of range.

"A very respectable feat, given that 7,000-foot climb," Keogh said. He said Audi engineers let the e-tron charge fully before starting their return trip.

"And then with the AC cranked, the radio blasting, two technical wizards at the helm, the e-tron made the 175-mile journey back to this very spot — but this time, it arrived with an estimated 94 miles of range remaining," Keogh said, which comes out to a roughly 269-mile range.

The e-tron's battery can be charged up to 80% capacity in about 30 minutes using publicly available 150 kWh DC fast-chargers.

The range is on par with the e-tron's closest competitor, the Tesla Model X, which promises as many as 295 miles of range on a full charge.

Jaguar's I-Pace electric crossover boasts a 220-mile range.

As with all electric vehicles, the battery range is partially assisted by regenerative braking. When the driver lifts their foot off of the accelerator pedal, energy that would have gone toward slowing down the vehicle instead charges the battery.

Audi says the e-tron can recapture energy from most types of braking applications — 90% by Audi's estimation. The automaker says a third of the e-tron's battery range will come from regeneration.

By all appearances, the e-tron is instantly recognizable as a modern Audi four-wheeler: stout, muscular, and well-proportioned. Nearly all of its functions are controlled via two interior touchscreens. It's also the first new Audi to come equipped with Amazon Alexa built in.

The e-tron starts at $74,800. A mid-range, "Prestige" model jumps to $81,800. A select few buyers will be able to opt for a limited "Edition One" e-tron, which tops at $86,700. Preorders are already underway. The first deliveries are expected to land in the second quarter of 2019.

Original author: Bryan Logan

Continue reading
  73 Hits
Jan
20

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Tod Francis of Shasta Ventures (Part 2) - Sramana Mitra

Bill Gates likes to tout himself as a pretty sunny guy. He regularly asserts that the world is getting better every day, in spite of the fact that the price of a loaf of bread is climbing, many people can no longer afford to buy a place to live, and free and fair elections are consistently under threat.

Gates remains undeterred. "Overall, I'm quite optimistic," he told a crowd of Harvard students in April.

He uses hard numbers to back up this persistently cheery outlook, pointing out that since the $50 billion-plus Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation began in 2000, the number of extremely poor people around the world has fallen sharply.

Since then, over one billion previously impoverished people have busted out of a so-called "extreme poverty" income bracket to live on more than $1.90 a day. In practical terms, this means there are fewer and fewer people getting around on two bare feet, cooking over a flame, and sleeping on the ground.

In 2017, the Gates Foundation launched its first annual Goalkeepers report, checking in on the UN Sustainable Development Goals to see how far we have come in the fight against infectious disease and poverty.

That first report asserted that the world is gradually getting better on those measures. Now the Gates Foundation is sounding the alarm, warning in its second Goalkeepers report that the stunning poverty progress of the past few decades could crash to a halt if more isn't done to help people stay in school and get enough to eat.

While the number of extremely poor people living in countries like China and India looks to be relatively on track to zero out by 2030, the number of people living in poverty in some of the world's poorest sub-Saharan African countries is still creeping upward — and could skyrocket if current trends continue.

Gates Foundation CEO Sue Desmond-Hellman says that forecasted downturn into extreme poverty is not inevitable. She believes the Foundation's biggest task today is helping prevent more poverty in Africa, largely by letting women take the lead in starting and growing their own families.

"If every African woman was able to have the number of children that she wants, you could have a decrease in population growth by 30% by 2100," Desmond-Hellman told Business Insider. "And that's just if she gets to do what she wants."

Education also plays a key role. China experienced its own dramatic poverty reduction in 1990s, arguably spurred in no small part by more educated women entering the workplace. India followed suit in the 2000s. Now is the time to foster a similar African "wave" of prosperity, the Gates Foundation argues.

"We really need to have a third wave, and it needs to happen in sub-Saharan Africa," Desmond-Hellmann said.

Business Insider

Today, women in sub-Saharan Africa have an average of .7 more children than what they'd ideally want, according to the new report.

"The worry, the peril is that more babies are being born in the places where it's hardest to live a healthy, productive life," Desmond-Hellmann said.

Nowhere will that be more true than in the African countries sitting below the Sahara desert, she said.

"By 2050, 86% of the world's extreme poor would be in sub-Saharan Africa," she said, "And 40% would be in just two countries: the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Nigeria."

At the same time, these two countries are set to experience rapid population growth, more than doubling and tripling in size. Fixes for this kind of population boom are already working in other African countries further north, like Kenya.

There, nonprofit Marie Stopes International provides free contraception for teens. At first, young Kenyan girls weren't interested in the free contraception, so Marie Stopes shifted its focus to empowering teenagers. They help young girls set goals for the future, and nudge the young women to wait to have kids until they want them, while continuing to finish school and pursuing their own dreams.

Refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo carry food distributed by the World Food Programme in the Kyangwali settlement on April 10, 2018 in Kyangwali, Uganda. Jack Taylor/Getty Images

Research shows clearly that a young woman who waits until she's finished school to have babies can have a positive, cascading effect on the health of her entire family, and country, for decades.

"Educated girls tend to work more, earn more, expand their horizons, marry and start having children later, have fewer children, and invest more in each child," the report said. "Their children, in turn, tend to follow similar patterns, so the effect of graduating one girl sustains itself for generations."

The Gates Foundation is also highlighting the importance of helping small-scale farmers move from subsistence farming to more focused crop production, zeroing in on growing one product, such as tomatoes, and selling it at market prices. That kind of sustainable business plan means families can make money and provide better nutrition for their kids, instead of simply relying on their own farms for food.

"One thing we know about small-holder farmers is that many of them are women," Desmond-Hellman said. "We know when that kind of economic gain is available for women, she'll spend money on health and education for her children."

Even as Africa is projected to nearly double in population size by 2050, the continent could produce a wave of healthier kids, ready to solve tomorrow's problems. But that's only going to happen if more women get to lead the way, putting their own health and education first.

Original author: Hilary Brueck

Continue reading
  50 Hits
Jun
30

Banking platform solarisBank raises $67.5 million at $360 million valuation

Audi unveiled on Monday its first fully-electric vehicle, the e-tron SUV, and opened reservations for the vehicle. The automaker will start delivering the e-tron in the US in the second quarter of 2019.

The e-tron will seat five, have two motors, and feature an all-wheel-drive configuration in its standard trim, according to Audi. The automaker has said it will have a range of around 248 miles, based on the European testing cycle, though it has not yet been tested by the US Environment Protection Agency.

In addition, Audi says the e-tron will have a top speed of 124 mph, a 0-60 mph time of 5.5 seconds, and a 95 kWh battery that will be able to get an 80% charge in around 30 minutes when using certain DC fast-chargers.

Most interior settings will be controlled through two touchscreens, and the vehicle will contain Amazon's Alexa, which will allow drivers and passengers to get the news, order groceries, stream music and audiobooks, and access some smart home features through voice control, Audi says. A heads-up display will project some information on the windshield, according to Audi. The automaker says customers will have the option of adding driver assistance features that will help regulate the e-tron's speed and distance from nearby vehicles in heavy traffic or at highway speeds.

Here'a a look at Audi's first fully-electric vehicle.

Original author: Mark Matousek

Continue reading
  69 Hits
Sep
18

Elon Musk just revealed who will fly to the moon on SpaceX's new rocket ship

HAWTHORNE, California — Elon Musk and his rocket company, SpaceX, have revealed who will fly their spaceship around the moon for the first time: a Japanese entrepreneur and billionaire named Yusaku Maezawa.

"Finally I can tell you that I choose to go to the moon!" Maezawa said during an announcement Monday evening.

Maezawa revealed that he has purchased all seats on the first crewed flight of SpaceX's Big Falcon Rocket— a new launch system that's being designed to colonize Mars. Besides himself, Maezawa plans to select six to eight artists to accompany him on his journey around the moon. The artists have not yet been chosen, but part of the project will involve them creating work inspired by their lunar journey after they return to Earth.

"If you should hear from me, please say yes and accept my invitation. Please don't say no," Maezawa said.

SpaceX did not reveal how much Maezawa paid for the lunar flight, but said it was a significant sum and that he already made a down payment.

"He's paying a lot of money that would help with the ship and its booster," Musk said on Monday. "He's ultimately paying for the average citizen to travel to other planets."

The world's first space tourist

Yusaku Maezawa SpaceX

Maezawa was a skateboarder and drummer in his youth, and founded the custom fashion company Zozo 20 years ago. The billionaire has made a name for himself as an art collector. Last year, he spent $110 million on a 1982 painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat.

He said that he was inspired to bring a group of renowned artists with him around the moon after thinking of the art Basquiat might have created had he flown through space.

"One day when I was staring at his painting, I thought, 'What if Basquiat had gone to space and had seen the moon — what wonderful masterpiece would he have created?" Maezawa said.

If all goes according to plan, Maezawa and his artist crew may become the first-ever private lunar tourists in history. The billionaire said he hopes the group will include a musician, sculptor, painter, film director, dancer, photographer, architect, novelist, and fashion designer. He is calling the project #dearMoon.

The mission is slated to launch as soon as 2023, though Musk said he can't be sure about that timeline yet.

"If I had some sort of crystal ball, I'd love to know how long things will take. You have to set some kind of date that's the 'things go right' date. Then of course we have reality, and things do not go right in reality. Usually there are many setbacks and issues," Musk said.

He added: "It's not 100% certain that we succeed in getting this to flight ... But we're going to do everything humanly possible to bring it to flight as fast as we can and as safely as we can."

Musk described Maezawa as incredibly brave, and said his desire to participate in and pay for this trip restored Musk's faith in humanity.

"This is going to be dangerous. This is no walk in the park," Musk said of the mission.

An evolving design for BFR

SpaceX's rendering of a Big Falcon Rocket spaceship carrying a passenger around the moon.SpaceX/Twitter

Musk also revealed some major design changes to the BFR. Instead of standing 347 feet tall, it will be 387 feet tall. It will have front actuator fins, as well as three back wings that will function as its landing pads.

The system's spaceship, which will ride atop a rocket booster, is expected to carry up to 100 people and 150 tons of supplies.

SpaceX is currently prototyping the spaceship and other BFR hardware inside a 20,000-square-foot tent at the Port of Los Angeles — at least until a much bigger permanent facility is completed. The first portion of the system has already been built, Musk said.

The project is incredibly ambitious and expensive — the total development costs for BFR are somewhere between $2 billion and $10 billion, Musk said.

"It's hard to say what the development cost is," he said. "I think it's roughly $5 billion"

A carbon-fiber barrel section for the Big Falcon Rocket. SpaceX

Prior to Monday's announcement, Musk last publicly described the BFR and showed renderings of the system at the 2017 International Aeronautical Congress.

Although the design for the exterior has been altered since then, Musk said on Monday that SpaceX still only has "some concepts" for the interior of the ship.

"What is the most fun you can have in zero G?" Musk said when Business Insider asked about the interior design. "We'll do that"

Aerospace experts who follow Musk and SpaceX's activities suggest that there could likely be more iterations of the BFR design before the company's first lunar voyage lifts off the launch pad.

"I think it is really healthy to see this iterative change happening, because I believe we can assume it is based on actual development and simulation going on," Greg Autry, the director of the Southern California Spaceflight Initiative, told Business Insider in an email before Musk's announcement.

But Musk said "this is the final iteration in terms of broad architectural design."

A Sept. 2018 rendering of SpaceX's Big Falcon Rocket launching through the cloud tops and toward space.Elon Musk/SpaceX via Twitter

He added that SpaceX plans to shift a majority of the company's engineering efforts towards BFR by the end of next year, and welcomes the growing competition in the private space race.

"Why is it 2018 and there's no damn base on the moon?" Musk said. "We should have one and go there. A lot."

Original author: Dave Mosher and Dana Varinsky

Continue reading
  37 Hits
Sep
18

15 Questions for Managers of Technology Startup Accelerators - Sramana Mitra

On August 23, 2013, my Harvard Business Review article, The Problem with Incubators and How to Solve Them, was published. At the time, there were 7,500 incubators and accelerators in the market....

___

Original author: Sramana Mitra

Continue reading
  46 Hits
Sep
18

Elon Musk is about to name the first tourist to fly around the moon — watch SpaceX's announcement live

Elon Musk, the founder of the rocket company SpaceX, plans to reveal who the company's first lunar space tourist will be on Monday night.

"SpaceX has signed the world's first private passenger to fly around the Moon aboard our BFR launch vehicle - an important step toward enabling access for everyday people who dream of traveling to space," SpaceX said on its website. "Only 24 humans have been to the Moon in history. No one has visited since the last Apollo mission in 1972."

SpaceX said the mission will launch aboard its upcoming launch system, called the Big Falcon Rocket, or BFR.

The BFR is an ambitious launch system that's being prototyped at the Port of Los Angeles. The design, at least as Musk described it during a 2017 presentation, calls for a 157-foot-tall spaceship that will ride a 191-foot-tall rocket booster into orbit.

But new renderings Musk shared this morning hint at significant design changes. More details about the launch system will likely be revealed during Musk's announcement this evening.

A Sept. 2018 rendering of SpaceX's Big Falcon Rocket launching through the cloud tops and toward space.Elon Musk/SpaceX via Twitter

Musk and the company's ultimate goal is to use BFR to colonize Mars.

Business Insider will be reporting live from SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California, as we meet the passenger and as Musk reveals why the person is making the trip.

You can watch the entire event via streaming video below or on YouTube. The feed is supposed to start around 9 p.m. EDT (6 p.m. PDT).

Original author: Dave Mosher

Continue reading
  40 Hits
Jan
20

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Warren Weiss of Foundation Capital (Part 2) - Sramana Mitra

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and his wife Lynne sent shock waves from New York to San Francisco on Sunday when they announced their purchase of Time Magazine, one of the world's most iconic magazine titles, for $190 million.

Now comes the tough part: what to do with it.

Despite its illustrious history, Time is in the same dire straights as almost all of its peers in the magazine industry. Revenue and subscribers for the print publication are sliding, the competition for ad dollars on the web is fierce and the size of the newsroom continues to shrink as a result of regular layoffs.

Bringing back the good old days when the newsweekly set the agenda for public discourse seems like a tall order, even with the financial backing and the passionate support of the Benioffs. Now industry observers and insiders alike are trying to figure out exactly what Benioff spent $190 million for — the brand, the circulation, the journalistic legacy or something else entirely — and what the next version of the 95-year-old magazine will look like.

Employees inside the magazine were so overjoyed by news of the sale that they quickly made plans to roll out the old bar cart this week. The gimmick, in which a bartender travels from desk to desk mixing cocktails for the newsrooms, harkens back to the magazine's golden era.

"A deep pocketed patron who believes in the brand and the mission and otherwise plans to stay out of people's hair is a dream scenario," said one longtime staffer at the magazine. "People are definitely happy. There is a wait and see approach, which I think is right. We have to see. We don't have much granular tell at this point about what his plans are, but everything he has said has been positive."

People are wondering, is Benioff a Bezos or a Pecker?

One insider said the team expects to keep the existing editorial leadership team in place under Editor-in-Chief Edward Felsenthal. Ben Gabbe / Stringer

The Benioffs are the third owners of Time Magazine in one year, after magazine publisher Meredith Corporation purchased Time's parent company Time Inc. for $1.8 billion in November 2017.

While Meredith has made clear for months that Time was for sale, people inside said it was less clear whether it would go to an acquisitor like David Pecker at American Media, a Trump ally who made drastic staff cuts after acquiring Us Weekly for $100 million in March 2017, or if things would go more like Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos's $250 million acquisition of The Washington Post in 2013, which grew its staff and revamped its digital offerings.

When it comes to editorial, one staffer said, the team expects to keep its current reporting structure and hopes to add new hires, though the Benioffs haven't made any specific promises.

Around 170 employees will change hands when the deal closes next month, the majority of which are on the editorial side, according to a Meredith spokesman.

Though many magazine companies have doubled down on digital, there are also signs that the Benioffs intend to maintain the print magazine: namely, as part of their purchase of Time, the Benioffs signed a multi-year agreement for Meredith to handle subscription fulfillment, paper purchasing and printing, as well as consumer marketing of the magazine.

One likely area of investment will be video, an area of the business that the Benioffs told the Wall Street Journal they are optimistic about.

"Pivoting to video" is a cliche in the media industry, but Time's efforts so far appear to be working. Time's video audience grew 30.7% year-over-year from July 2017 and July 2018, according to the Magazine Media 360 report. During the same period, Time's overall audience across print and digital declined by 3.2%.

Events and brand licensing are also options

Laurene Powell Jobs's organization owns a majority share in The Atlantic, which has found financial success with its events division AtlanticLIVE. Getty If the Benioffs decide to seek sources of revenue other than traditional print advertising, they could take their cue from Meredith, which claims to have the second-largest brand licensing business in the world.

The publisher has more than 3,000 unique products, branded with magazine titles like Better Home & Gardens, sold across 4,000 different Walmart locations and at Walmart.com, according to a company filing. So while the Benioffs may have bought a print magazine, they could find a good chunk of revenue in licensing the Time Magazine name.

Other magazines have had luck growing revenues through events. The Atlantic, which Laurene Powell Job's organization bought a majority stake in last summer, has an extensive events division called AtlanticLIVE. As of 2014, AtlanticLIVE was profitable and brought in $10 million in revenue annually.

Ultimately though, what employees and industry insiders alike want to see is support for Time's journalistic legacy.

"Meredith Corporation thoughtfully found buyers who respect the trust and credibility that is so strongly associated with the TIME brand," Linda Thomas Brooks, president and CEO of the Association for Magazine Media, said in an email.

"I've been told the Benioffs have a profound commitment to community and to finding solutions to some of society's most complex problems, and that they are as committed as TIME is to the sharing and debating of competing ideas and to journalism of the highest quality," she added.

While Time's circulation is in decline, the magazine still had nearly 3 million weekly print subscribers at the end of 2017 - making it one of the most widely read magazines in the US.

Revenues are expected to decline 9% from $173 million in 2017 to $158 million in 2018, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Changes include a new office and management team

While things are ambiguous in editorial, operationally Time has several clear hurdles to overcome before it fully functions as an independent company.

For one, it needs a leadership team. Benioff has been clear that he won't hold an operational role at the new company and Meredith currently runs all of Time's backend processes, such as accounting and public relations.

A spokesman for Meredith said that some of the back office employees who focus entirely on Time will move over to the new company. In the near term, Meredith will continue to provide certain functions like payroll and ad sales to keep the Time magazine machine running.

But for the most part, it will be up to the Benioffs to build out Time's executive office and administrative team from scratch.

Additionally, the magazine needs a new office, as the deal with the Benioffs did not include any real estate.

Marc Benioff told the New York Times that the magazine staff will stay based in New York. But if he did decide to move Time to San Francisco, he could probably find some room for the team in Salesforce Tower.

Original author: Becky Peterson

Continue reading
  38 Hits
Sep
18

All the Emmys 2018 winners

The 70th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards, hosted by Colin Jost and Michael Che, are happening tonight live from the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. And this is the home for updates on all the winners throughout the night.

The nominees for this year's Emmys were announced in July, and "Game of Thrones" and Netflix led the pack. "Thrones" has 22 nominations, while Netflix is the leading network with 112.

The first award of the night went to Henry Winkler for his work in best supporting actor in "Barry," the HBO comedy series.

It looks like the night will be a battle between HBO's blockbuster fantasy and Hulu's "The Handmaid's Tale," which took home the Outstanding Drama Series prize last year. But "The Americans," which ended its six-season run this year to critical acclaim, could be the surprise underdog that wins big in its final year.

We'll update this post as the awards are announced throughout the night, so stick around and enjoy the Emmys on NBC.

Below are the big winners of the night's awards, which we'll update throughout the night:

Original author: Carrie Wittmer

Continue reading
  32 Hits
Jun
30

The Unbearable Something of Q2 2020

You could soon get internet speeds on your phone that rival the fastest you can get through a landline broadband connection, thanks to a new generation of wireless technology that the carriers are starting to roll out.

Among the carriers that are launching the new service — dubbed 5G, for fifth generation wireless technology — is AT&T. Last week, the company announced it now plans to roll out 5G service in 12 cities by the end of the year and named the seven cities it plans to connect to its 5G network early next year.

The company is in the process of rolling out the equipment needed to support the new wireless standard across the country. But it plans to let the market guide when and where it turns on 5G, Andre Fuetsch, the chief technology officer at AT&T's Communications division, told Business Insider in an interview last week.

"Over time we'll just have see how much [5G] device penetration happens over time," Fuetsch said. "That will determine, really, the pace of how 5G gets built."

Unlike Verizon, whose 5G network relies on some of its own proprietary technology, AT&T's is compliant with the specification developed by 3GPP, the standards body for the wireless industry, Fuetsch said. That means that phones on AT&T's 5G network will be able to seamlessly switch over to older 4G radios when needed, and the company won't have to upgrade its equipment or customers phones after the fact to be compatible with the standard.

5G promises super-fast speeds — with the right radios

Like previous wireless standards, 5G promises faster speeds than its predecessors. Unlike with those past technologies, though, the throughput consumers will get with 5G could match or better those they see on their home internet connections. In certain cases, they could see speeds of 1 gigabit per second or faster, which is roughly what fiber-optic broadband services such as Verizon's Fios offer.

Andre Fuetsch, chief technology officer of AT&T's Communications division, is helping guide the carrier's 5G effort. AT&T But the actual speeds users see on 5G could vary a lot from place to place. That's because to deliver the fastest service, carriers will have to deploy radio towers that can transmit at so-called millimeter-wave frequencies. These are frequency bands in the range of 24 gigahertz and higher.

Those bands have the potential to transmit data very rapidly. But they come with some significant trade-offs. Signals sent in those bands don't go through walls and can be easily blocked. And they don't tend to travel very far, so to cover the same amount of area that they were able to serve with lower frequency bands, they'll have to use a lot more radio towers, potentially making deployment much more expensive.

Carriers can use lower frequency bands to deliver 5G service, but the speed is only moderately faster than what can be delivered with 4G, Fuetsch said. Peak speeds might reach around 1 gigabit per second, but average speeds will likely be in the hundreds of megabits per second, he said.

In addition to faster speeds, 5G also promises lower latency, which is the amount of time it takes for the network to respond to or pass along a signal from your phone.

"If you're in one of our millimeter-wave zones … you can expect gigabit-plus speeds. Not just peak speeds but average speeds," he said.

In other 5G areas, he continued, "you certainly will get some speed advantages, you will also get reduced latency, but you won't get as much speed as you would with a millimeter wave connection."

Millimeter-wave 5G will only be available in "pockets"

For now, AT&T plans to offer millimeter-wave 5G service only in dense parts of certain cities where there's already a lot of traffic on its network. By contrast, the company plans to deploy 5G over lower frequency bands throughout its coverage area, even within those same cities, as a way to fill in the gaps for where it won't have millimeter-wave radio towers, Fuetsch said.

5G wireless technology promises internet speeds of 1 gigabit per second and faster.Troy Wolverton/Business Insider"You will see parts of cities, pockets, zones of cities, that will be lit up with millimeter wave," he said. Because the signals don't travel very far and don't go through walls, "you're likely not going to see every single street."

AT&T will offer its first 5G device — a mobile hotspot gadget that subscribers can use to wirelessly connect their computers to the internet — later this year. Consumers will be able to buy the first phones for the company's 5G network sometime next year, Fuetsch said. He decline to give a more specific time frame.

Fuetsch also wouldn't say when AT&T expects to offer anything resembling nationwide 5G service. The company plans to turn on service in particular areas as increasing numbers of customers in those areas get 5G devices, he said.

All of the equipment AT&T is installing these days is compatible with 5G, Fuetsch said. So, the company turn on the service with a simple software upgrade, he said.

"We let the market drive it, but we're seeding all these cities with 5G to help start that drive," he said.

Other carriers are also starting to roll out their 5G networks. Last week, Verizon announced it will start delivering home internet access via its next-generation wireless network on October 1. Meanwhile, T-Mobile announced a $3.5 billion deal with Ericsson to have the latter build out the carrier's 5G network.

Original author: Troy Wolverton

Continue reading
  60 Hits
Sep
17

Silicon Valley's top biotech VCs share the biggest mistakes startups make when they pitch

Biotech is one of the buzziest sectors for venture-capital funds right now.

Across the globe, VC investments in biotech startups topped more than $10 billion for the first time in history. Over the summer, dozens of American biotech companies went public. Nearly a third of the companies in the latest class of Y Combinator, Silicon Valley's biggest startup accelerator, were in the biotech sector — up from just 8% the year before.

Much of the recent excitement has centered on new ways of tackling cancer using patients' own immune systems, fresh therapies built on gene-editing tools like CRISPR, and potentially revolutionary techniques for making meat without factory farming.

But if you're a science- or health-minded entrepreneur in Silicon Valley, cutting through the noise can be a challenge.

We talked to investors who've backed some of the companies working in these areas to learn what startup leaders get wrong when they pitch their ideas.

Emphasizing a tool's impact on the market over its impact on patients

Hollis Johnson Cure disease. Fix the food system. Prolong life.

These are just a few of the intrepid aims of today's leading biotech startups.

But accomplishing these goals requires laying practical groundwork. In healthcare, that could mean painting a concrete picture of where and when your startup's technology will be used. Whether it's a new disease-detecting diagnostic or a new drug to treat an illness, investors want to know how a tool will fit into the current standard of care, Dan Estes, a partner with venture capital firm Frazier Healthcare Partners, told Business Insider.

"The biggest mistake I see is when someone spends more time talking about how a product would affect the market than they do talking about how it would affect the disease it's designed to treat," said Estes, who serves on the boards of four pharmaceutical startups, including Cirius Therapeutics, which is focused on tweaking the human metabolism to NASH, and Sierra Oncology, a cancer therapeutics company.

Rather than focusing exclusively on how a new technique or drug would impact the market, Estes said he prefers when startup founders also demonstrate how people would actually use it.

"How will it help patients? What would that look like?" Estes said, adding, "The best investment is where you can very clearly see where a physician would use" a new piece of tech.

Graham Walmsley, a principal at San Francisco-based VC firm Versant Ventures, agreed.

"When I see too much about revenue and market front-loaded, it suggests some naivete," Walmsley, who recently led Versant's investment in a clinical-stage therapeutics company focused on treating non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), which is poised to be a significant burden on the US healthcare system due to the growing number of patients with the disease, said.

Instead, he'd like to see entrepreneurs "build out the entire clinical case" for their company or technology first.

Clinging to your pitch deck

If you're headed to a meeting with a venture capital firm, chances are you've planned ahead. Whether you've brought index cards or a PowerPoint presentation, you've likely got a list of basic points about your company that you want to get across. But sticking too strongly to a list of prepared items can also turn off investors who want to ask questions.

"There's a saying that I like which goes something like, 'You have to release your agenda,'" Frazier's Dan Estes said. "I think sometimes companies stick to their pitch deck too closely."

That means if you're pitching your company to a venture fund and someone on the fund's team wants to skip ahead to another part of your presentation or pause on a slide to further explore something you've mentioned, it's better to be flexible than to rigidly plow through your talking points.

"It's better to let the questions guide the discussion rather than walking through every component dogmatically," Estes said.

Similarly, Dylan Morris, a general partner at venture firm CRV who focuses on bioengineering and recently led the firm's investment in a drug development startup called System1, said startup leaders should focus less on the technical details or decades of science that went into their technology and more on keeping potential investors engaged.

"Don't come into the meeting to teach. Come to sell," said Morris.

Original author: Erin Brodwin

Continue reading
  100 Hits
Jun
30

Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Prem Jain and Soni Jiandini, Co-Founders of Pensando Systems (Part 2) - Sramana Mitra

The video gaming industry continue to come under fire for including "loot boxes" and other randomized content for purchase in recent titles.

The Gambling Regulators European Forum released a joint statement signed by regulators from 15 European countries and the Washington State Gambling Commission on September 17, expressing concern that the prize systems in some high-profile games are tantamount to gambling.

"We are increasingly concerned with the risks being posed by the blurring of lines between gambling and other forms of digital entertainment such as video gaming," the statement reads. "Concerns in this area have manifested themselves in controversies relating to skin betting, loot boxes, social casino gaming and the use of gambling themed content within video games available to children."

Loot boxes are packages containing digital items for use in-game, and that can earned by playing or by purchase. The items inside each virtual box are randomized, with odds of encountering each set by the developer — some especially rare items come with really long odds. In some cases, the items inside a loot box can enhance the player's gameplay, creating an added incentive to spend real money to acquire a digital item faster.

Some loot boxes contained exclusive items that are only available for a limited time. Like this Halloween-themed loot box from Overwatch. Blizzard/YouTube

In the statement, the regulators' forum compared the practice of including loot boxes to online gambling, and said the regulators involved will continue to push back in the interest of consumer protection.

The forum also plans to continue raising awareness so that parents can better identify when their children's video games are promoting what could be seen as gambling. As regulators continue to define the line between video games and gambling, they said it would be in the best interest of developers to engage in conversations with regulatory authorities to ensure that their games are not in violation of the gambling laws in each market.

Loot boxes were removed from "Star Wars: Battlefront II" due to public backlash. EA DICE

Last year the implementation of loot boxes in "Star Wars: Battlefront II" garnered attention from the U.S. Congress for what it saw as predatory tactics — the development team's response defending the practice is the most disliked comment ever on Reddit. The fierce backlash led to monetized loot boxes being removed completely, in favor of free in-game rewards.

Loot boxes are still featured prominently in several popular games, including "Overwatch," "FIFA 19," "PlayerUnkown's BattleGrounds," and "NBA 2K19." For some titles, like "Counter-Strike: Global Offensive" and "DOTA 2," players will even wager or sell cosmetic items from loot boxes, creating small grey-market economies.

Belgium and the Netherlands have been leading the charge against loot boxes, having declared the business model illegal in April 2018. Following an investigation, Belgium's Gaming Commission found "FIFA 18," "Overwatch" and "Counter-Strike: Global Offensive" to be in violation of its gambling laws.

In response, "Overwatch," "NBA 2K19," and other games have disabled the sale of loot boxes in both countries. Overwatch publisher Activision Blizzard had already begun publishing the odds for each item in the loot boxes in order to comply with a new set of Chinese regulations. Apple implemented a similar rule for iPhone games in December 2017.

The "Ultimate Team" mode in sports games made by Electronic Arts offers a wide variety of micro transactions mimicking loot boxes. PlayStation Store

However, Electronic Arts still plans to include loot boxes for sale in "FIFA 19," leading Belgium to declare a criminal investigation into the company earlier this month.

In "FIFA 19," players can purchase card packs to build their own soccer team in the game's Ultimate Team Mode, with rare cards helping to build a stronger squad. EA said it plans to publish the odds for each card pack, but that may not be enough to satisfy Belgian authorities. "FIFA 19" will release on September 28th, and the company has said it plans to continue working with regulators.

Original author: Kevin Webb

Continue reading
  22 Hits
Sep
17

Amazon will reportedly release its own Alexa-enabled microwave, plus a bunch of other gadgets, later this year (AMZN)

Later this year, Amazon is planning to release at least eight new devices that come with Alexa, its smart voice assistant, according to CNBC— including a microwave oven.

Beyond that microwave, the devices are said to include an amplifier, a receiver, a subwoofer, and some kind of gadget for your car. Some of these devices are expected to be revealed at an event later in September.

All of the devices will have connectivity to Alexa, but only some will have Alexa built-in for you to speak with. The others will be controllable by speaking to Alexa via other devices, including the Amazon Echo line of speakers, according to CNBC's sources,.

So far, the only Alexa-powered devices made by Amazon include the company's Echo smart speakers and smart screens, though it also recently purchased home security system maker Ring. The rest of the devices Amazon is said to be debuting, like the amplifier, receiver, and subwoofer, would bring Alexa closer to the sound system.

The microwave oven with Alexa compatibility would be the first Alexa-powered home appliance from Amazon, signalling the company's intent to feature more prominently more areas of a user's home. The same could be said for the reported Alexa-powered car gadget, where users also spend much of their time.

"We want customers to be able to use Alexa wherever they are," Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said in a statement in July. Indeed, expanding into other product categories would get Alexa in front of more people, in the areas where they already spend their time.

While these are a series of firsts for Amazon, there already exists several third-party Alexa-powered audio, home, and automobile gadgets. In audio, Sonos offers Alexa-powered amplifiers and subwoofers. And for home appliances, GE has an Alexa-powered smart microwave. In the car, Garmin has an Alexa-compatible dash cam.

Amazon has made a series of company acquisitions and partnerships that reflect the company's intent to become more ubiquitous in the home. Amazon acquired the smart doorbell company Ring earlier this year, and the company has partnered with home-builder company Lennar in incorporating Amazon's Echo devices into new houses.

Earlier ths year, Amazon was said to be working on an a home robot with Alexa built-in, according to Bloomberg. It was described as a "sort of mobile Alexa."

Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Original author: Antonio Villas-Boas

Continue reading
  52 Hits
Sep
17

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, who just bought Time Magazine for $190 million, says he lives with a 'beginner's mind' — here's what that means

Time Magazine has a new owner: Salesforce CEO and founder Marc Benioff.

The billionaire — whose net worth stands around $6.6 billion, according to Forbes— acquired the magazine for $190 million.

According to Benioff himself, the purchase came about thanks to his particular mindset.

"I live with a beginner's mind," Benioff told the New York Times in an interview via text.

Business Insider's Shana Lebowitz previously reported that the "beginner's mind" concept flows from Zen Buddhism. Someone with a "beginner's mind" constantly sees the world with fresh eyes.

In his text conversation with the New York Times, Benioff reportedly cited wisdom from 20th-century Zen master Shunryu Suzuki: "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few."

Back in 2016, Benioff described his thought process to The Wall Street Journal: "I kind of try to let go of all the things that have ever happened so far in our industry, which is a lot of stuff, and just go, OK, what's going to happen right now?"

It's a mindset that Benioff — a former Apple intern— reportedly picked up from Steve Jobs. In an appearance at a 2013 TechCrunch conference, he praised his former boss as a "spiritual man" who was "mindful and conscious of everything he did."

Jobs himself was a major advocate for cultivating a "beginner's mind," according to the Wall Street Journal.

Nowadays, Benioff is far from a novice in the world of tech — but he apparently still relies on his "beginner's mind" to make big decisions.

"My power was that I didn't really want to do anything but I was open to all possibilities," Benioff told the New York Times.

Original author: Áine Cain

Continue reading
  93 Hits
Jun
30

Avalara Expands Products and Partners - Sramana Mitra

Elon Musk and his rocket company, SpaceX, have published new and imaginative illustrations of a spacecraft that's supposed to ferry people and supplies to the moon and Mars.

The above rendering of the Big Falcon Rocket, or BFR, as the launch system is called, shows it punching through the cloud tops of Earth and flying toward space. Musk shared the image to Twitter on Monday morning.

A Sept. 2018 rendering of SpaceX's Big Falcon Rocket launching toward space.Elon Musk/SpaceX via Twitter

Musk also tweeted a side view of the vehicle (right) that more clearly shows its two stages: a booster, or lower stage, and an upper-stage spaceship.

Last week, SpaceX shared an illustration of the ship in space, flying around the moon while firing seven rocket engines.

That picture, below, shows the Big Falcon Spaceship — as it's sometimes called by Musk and his company — without the booster.

All three images were released just before a major announcement from SpaceX. Tonight, the company is planning to name the first person who will ride a BFR spaceship around the moon.

SpaceX's rendering of a Big Falcon Rocket spaceship carrying a passenger around the moon.SpaceX/Twitter

"SpaceX has signed the world's first private passenger to fly around the Moon aboard our BFR launch vehicle — an important step toward enabling access for everyday people who dream of traveling to space," SpaceX said on its website.

The company plans to broadcast live video of its announcement about the mysterious passenger starting around at 6 p.m. EDT (9 p.m. PDT) on Monday.

Read more: Elon Musk is about to name the first tourist to fly around the moon — here's how to watch SpaceX's announcement live tonight

But these new images may be more important than the revelation of the passenger's identity. That's because they show off subtle but important differences in a vehicle that is ultimately supposed to ferry up to 100 people and 150 tons of supplies to Mars — and, of course, a person around the moon.

SpaceX's interplanetary ship tripled its number of wings

Musk, who is SpaceX's chief designer, publicly described the BFR and showed renderings of the system at the 2017 International Aeronautical Congress (IAC).

According to those plans, the BFR would be 347 feet tall and 30 feet wide. It would be capable of carrying 100 people and 150 tons of supplies.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk speaks at the International Astronautical Congress on September 29, 2017 in Adelaide, Australia.Mike Brake/Getty Images

The newly released renderings show each stage of the system having roughly the same proportions. However, the spaceship's body appears to have gotten a significant design revision.

The 2017 version of the ship had one delta wing, as Musk called it, near its heat shield. The wing is designed to help the ship plow through planetary atmospheres like those of Earth and Mars.

"Depending on whether you're landing on a planet or a moon that has no atmosphere, a thin atmosphere, or a dense atmosphere, and depending on whether you're reentering with no payload in the front, a small payload, or a heavy payload, you have to balance the rocket out as it's coming in," Musk said during his 2017 IAC presentation.

He added that his engineers originally tried to avoid having even one delta wing, but said "it was necessary in order to generalize the capability of the spaceship such that it could land anywhere in the solar system."

It appears one wing wasn't enough, though: There are now three wing-like structures on the spaceship.

Elon Musk/SpaceX via Twitter; Business Insider

SpaceX may have decided that these wings are necessary for the system to safely return to Earth. Or perhaps they're for slowing the ship down as it enters Mars' atmosphere, which has air about 1% as dense as our planet's.

The renderings also show another wing on top of the ship, which resembles a tail fin like those on NASA's space shuttle orbiters. Musk called it "forward moving wing" on Twitter; presumably it's there to help further stabilize the ship as it moves through air.

What's going on with the BFR design changes?

We contacted several aerospace experts to get their takes on these design changes.

Greg Autry, the director of the Southern California Spaceflight Initiative, told Business Insider in an email, "I think it is really healthy to see this iterative change happening, because I believe we can assume it is based on actual development and simulation going on."

Indeed, the spaceship and other BFR hardware are being prototyped inside a 20,000-square-foot tent at the Port of Los Angeles — at least until a much bigger permanent facility is completed.

"Elon is an incrementalist and to a great extent he is always thinking aloud. I admire this, but people who do this openly get criticized when their ideas evolve," Autry said.

SpaceX's approach to designing rockets and spaceships is notably different than the way NASA and others do it, he added.

"NASA would design something like the Space Shuttle on paper and then build that damn thing come hell or high-water. Insights developed during the early production were usually ignored,'" Autry said. "Elon is from the software world, where rapid prototyping and iterative development are the norm ... Expect a different model from him, with some visible hiccups and in the end a safer and more efficient design."

Original author: Dave Mosher

Continue reading
  49 Hits