Sramana Mitra: I think COVID has changed the dynamics to weigh heavier on e-commerce and online shopping. If you had to choose one channel, you need to be digital more than the local and physical. I...
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The easy startup ideas have all been done — the ones that just required some homebrew hardware hacking or PHP dorm-room coding to get off the ground. These days, you might need multiple advanced technical degrees to accomplish something significant. At least that’s what Danny Crichton muses grimly this week, in an essay entitled “The two PhD problem of startups today.” Here’s one newsy example:
Take synthetic biology and the future of pharmaceuticals. There is a popular and now well-funded thesis on crossing machine learning and biology/medicine together to create the next generation of pharma and clinical treatment. The datasets are there, the patients are ready to buy, and the old ways of discovering new candidates to treat diseases look positively ancient against a more deliberate and automated approach afforded by modern algorithms.
Moving the needle even slightly here though requires enormous knowledge of two very hard and disparate fields. AI and bio are domains that get extremely complex extremely fast, and also where researchers and founders quickly reach the frontiers of knowledge. These aren’t “solved” fields by any stretch of the imagination, and it isn’t uncommon to quickly reach a “No one really knows” answer to a question.
Even when you try to build teams with the right combinations of knowledge, he argues, each domain is now so complex that the mesh of skills required is that much harder to achieve than previous efforts.
I partly disagree, because innovation does not map on to existing domains in such a simple way. Computer scientists in the ’60s did not expect personal computing to be a thing until the homebrewers at Apple proved it. Enterprise software industry experts last decade did not expect consumer app developers to apply their bottoms-up growth skills and beat sophisticated offerings from incumbents. I expect all sorts of arcane academic ideas to be fused with market demand in unexpected ways that break apart the models we have to day, led by people who might not check all of the boxes in traditional fields.
That includes the PhD itself and the education industry. Which is where Danny and I agree. The application of software to education has been a struggle because success requires understanding two disciplines, and he concludes that the way we learn will itself have to be broken down and reformed:
“We can’t wait until 25 years of school is complete and people graduate haggard at 40 before they can take a shot at some of these fascinating intersections. We need to build slipstreams to these lacuna where innovation hasn’t yet reached.”
Image via Getty Images / doyata
Edtech’s better future
Almost to prove Danny’s first point, some of the biggest companies in edtech today were founded by technical experts who were also university professors. Companies like Coursera are today raising their late-stage funding rounds on top of a pandemic-fueled boom for online higher learning.
But this generation of edtech unicorns already looks pretty different from anything that previous generations of education experts had imagined, as you can read an overview of from Natasha Mascarenhas on Extra Crunch. For example, Udemy was founded by a group of serial entrepreneurs, and they focused on practical skills from the start (long-time TechCrunch readers may recall our startup-focused CrunchU program with them circa 2013).
Of course, this generation of so-called MOOCs is widely seen as a limited success. In a column for Extra Crunch, Rish Joshi writes about the declining “graduation” rates that many show from students over the past decade. Instead, he sees a new wave of trends, including deeper gig-based expertise and automated niche learning, that will help anyone acquire more complex skills more quickly, at every stage of the education process. Here’s more, about the gig approach:
A potential gig economy for education created via small-group learning online would have a large impact on both the supply and demand sides of online education. Giving educators the ability to teach online from their own home opens up the opportunity to many more people around the world who may not have otherwise considered teaching, and this can greatly increase the supply of teachers worldwide. It also has the ability to mitigate the discrepancy that’s existed between quality of teaching in urban and rural areas by enabling students to access the same quality of teachers independent of their location.
Companies in this space like Outschool and Camp K12, are pre-college. But take a look around at everyone trying to teach data science, product management and other concepts that traditional industries need to incorporate to innovate more quickly, and you can see the solution that Danny hopes for starting to emerge. One day soon, you might be able to school up quickly on a new skill that you need to get a job — or a medical breakthrough.
For more on the latest in the space, be sure to check out Natasha’s second part of her survey with top edtech investors.
Planning your equity after an IPO
Do you think your unicorn employer is the next Amazon or Google? Are you ready to hold on to the stock of a potential winner through all of the ups and downs that happen to any company? If you haven’t already, consider diversifying sooner rather than later, writes startup financial advisor Peyton Carr in a series on the topic this week:
We consider any stock position or exposure greater than 10% of a portfolio to be a concentrated position. There is no hard number, but the appropriate level of concentration is dependent on several factors, such as your liquidity needs, overall portfolio value, the appetite for risk and the longer-term financial plan. However, above 10% and the returns and volatility of that single position can begin to dominate the portfolio, exposing you to high degrees of portfolio volatility.
The company “stock” in your portfolio often is only a fraction of your overall financial exposure to your company. Think about your other sources of possible exposure such as restricted stock, RSUs, options, employee stock purchase programs, 401k, other equity compensation plans, as well as your current and future salary stream tied to the company’s success. In most cases, the prudent path to achieving your financial goals involves a well-diversified portfolio.
Image Credits: Nigel Sussman (opens in a new window)
A new TechCrunch newsletter: The Exchange
In addition to the popular Equity podcast and regular appearances across TechCrunch and Extra Crunch, my colleague Alex Wilhelm is launching a new newsletter called The Exchange. It’s his weekly summary of the week, based on his daily writing for Extra Crunch and TechCrunch about tech and startup finance. You can sign up for it here. As a taste of Alex’s work if you’re not familiar, in one article this week, he took a look at the explosion in the still-new area of no code software, compiling investment activity in a space that is poorly understand and coming away with this analysis:
From this we can tell that at the very minimum, Q1 2020 VC totals for no-code/low-code startups were north of $80 million, though the real figure is likely far higher. In Q2 we can see at least $140 million in money, just among rounds that I was able to dig up this morning.
That puts low-code/no-code startups on pace to raise around $500 million at the very least in 2020. The real number is larger, and can swell sharply depending on how expansive your definition of the space is. That means that the startup world isn’t waiting for venture dollars to make their vision come true. The capital is already flowing in great quantity.
The next question is whether the startup and larger software world can make the no-code services of the world easy enough that lots of folks are willing to train themselves. The more power and capability that can be offered in exchange for learning a new way of interacting with software will likely help determine how much adoption is had, and how soon.
Around TechCrunch
Early-bird savings for Disrupt 2020 ends next week
Watch the first TechCrunch Early Stage ‘Pitch Deck Teardown’
And don’t forget to nominate your favorite investor for The TechCrunch List
Across the week
TechCrunch
Don’t let VCs be the gatekeepers of your success
Nielsen is revamping the way it measures digital audiences
Taking on the perfect storm in cybersecurity
Four steps for drafting an ethical data practices blueprint
Extra Crunch
Ann Miura-Ko’s framework for building a startup
From farm to phone: A paradigm shift in grocery
All B2B startups are in the payments business
When choosing a tech stack, look before you leap
Building and investing in the ‘human needs economy’
#EquityPod
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast (now on Twitter!), where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.
Up top the crew this week was the regular contingent: Danny Crichton, Natasha Mascarenhas and myself. As a tiny programming note, we’re going back to posting some videos on YouTube in a few weeks, so make sure to peep the TechCrunch channel if that’s your jam.
And we did a special episode on the SPAC boom, if you are into financial arcana. For more on SPACs –> here.
The Equity crew tried something new this week, namely centering our main conversation around a theme that we’re keeping tabs on: The resilience of tech during the current pandemic-led recession.
Starting with the recent economic news, it’s surprising that tech’s layoffs have slowed to a crawl. And, as we’ve recently seen, there’s still plenty of money flowing into startups, even if there are some dips present on a year-over-year basis. Why are things still pretty good for startups, and pretty good for major tech companies? We have a few ideas, like the acceleration of the digital transformation (more here, and here), and software eating the world. The latter concept, of course, is related to the former.
After that it was time to go through some neat funding rounds from the week, including:
Dumpling raising $6.5 million to help individual shoppers build their own Instacart.Kibbo’s shot at making the #vanlife happen for more folks, something that we think is a good fit for the pandemic and the mobile professional.Sora’s $5.3 million raise for no-code HR connective tissue, something that I was rather bullish on but drew some chat about no-code itself, and if the trend is more hype than substance.All that and I have a newsletter launching this weekend that if you read, you will automatically be 100% cooler. It’s called the TechCrunch Exchange, and you can snag it for free here.
Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 a.m. PT and Friday at 6:00 a.m. PT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.
Sonali Vijayavargiya, Founder and Managing Partner at Augment Ventures, discusses her firm’s investment approach, including early exits.
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The TechCrunch Exchange newsletter launched this morning. Starting next week, only a partial version will hit the site, so sign up to get the full issue.
Welcome to The TechCrunch Exchange! I’m incredibly excited that this newsletter is finally in your hands. There’s so much to chat about, dissect and grok. We’re going to be very busy.
What will we do each Saturday? First, we’ll expand on the themes that The Exchange covers for Extra Crunch on weekdays. We’ll also run through key startup-related news from the public and private markets. Our goal is to stay firmly abreast of the biggest stories in the realms of startups and money.
Another way we’ll use this newsletter is to provide a space to share interviews, details and stories that didn’t fit neatly into a piece, but really deserve their own time all the same. If you like what TechCrunch reports and want more, this missive will have it.
And finally, we’ll take a little time at the end for something fun. We’re talking about money on a day off, so we deserve some joy to go along with the math.
Sound good? Let’s jump in.
Coinbase’s future IPO
Coinbase is expected to go public in 2020 or 2021, with most expecting its filing early next year. Though given how hot the IPO market is today (more here), perhaps we’ll see the document sooner rather than later.
Regardless of when, the Coinbase debut will be a big deal, providing a booster shot of cash to investors who put over $500 million into the startup and crypto as a thesis. For you and I, the IPO will also mean an S-1 filing chock full of notes about how the crypto space looks for a mature trading platform.
But there’s another company in Coinbase’s space that doesn’t intend to go public: Binance. The Exchange caught up with its voluble founder, CZ, on Friday to chat about the possible Coinbase IPO. According to the CEO, a Coinbase debut would be “very good for the [crypto] industry,” which makes sense; if Coinbase can go public it would lend credibility to its market in a way that few other business transactions can.
But Binance, which funded itself partially through a 2017 ICO, plans on staying private. CZ says because his company has largely not raised capital from traditional sources, it doesn’t have to answer to investors. This means it isn’t pressured to go public or make money folks happy in other ways.
Like charging more for its products, CZ posited. Companies that raise extensive external capital have an “ethos” to maximize their rates so that they can “maximize shareholder value,” he said. In CZ’s view, Binance doesn’t have to do that so long as it keeps making money and doesn’t run low on cash.
Private commerce without exit events feels strange because it locks up shareholder value — external investors aside. Still, the crypto world is providing us with a live business case of two competing philosophies regarding how to run a business; one following a more traditional venture approach and one building off the back of a newer model.
Which will come out on top? It’s not clear, but the eventual Coinbase S-1 is going to be big in helping us better understand one half of the question.
Market Notes
Various and Sundry
I’m publishing this series on LinkedIn called Colors to explore a topic that I care deeply about: the Renaissance Mind. I am just as passionate about entrepreneurship, technology, and business, as I...
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Vincent Diallo: I could also mention Singuli, which is an investment we did in January. They’re active in forecasting with the first end goal in fashion that is also touching FMCG somehow. We...
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Countries the world over have tried to find ways to track the spread of the coronavirus through their citizens' smartphones, with varying success. Ireland's attempt stands out.
Ireland launched its contact-tracing app, COVID Tracker, on July 7, and within a week it was downloaded by around 37% of Ireland's adult population. The app garnered international attention and NearForm, the software company that built the app with Irish health authorities, has been approached by other countries, and US states, to help build overseas versions.
Business Insider spoke to NearForm's technical director Colm Harte to find out how the software company avoided the pitfalls that have hindered contact-tracing apps in other countries, including the UK, where an national app was promised for May but is now slated for winter.
NearForm never pitched itself as a government partner on contact tracing â instead, it was approached by the Irish Health Service Executive (HSE) in March, Harte said.
"We were very keen to help, so this kind of kicked off over a weekend in mid-March. We put a team together and within the first 24 hours we went back with designs," he said. A day later, the app had a development team, and three days later, a working prototype.Â
That prototype showed how the app would look to users, but NearForm still had to actually build the crucial contact-tracing tech.
It set up a team to look at how the app could harness Bluetooth. Like many contact-tracing apps, COVID Tracker makes phones use Bluetooth to send out signals, searching for nearby phones with the app downloaded. These signals produce a log of contacts â if one user tests positive for the virus and is asked by the HSE to upload their log, others users are alerted through the app.
Bluetooth was a problem, particularly with iPhones, which normally won't send Bluetooth signals if an app is running in the background. The HSE set up calls with Apple, and soon afterwards, Apple and Google announced they would release an API for contact-tracing apps â basically, a standardized framework app developers could use.
The Google-Apple "exposure notification" API was rolled out to developers on May 20.
It turned the team's plans upside-down. NearForm's app was based on a centralized model, which pools user data externally so it can be examined by authorities. "There are some advantages to the centralized model, you get a lot more useful information from an epidemiological perspective," said Harte.
But Apple and Google were clear: If authorities wanted to use their API, they had to build decentralized apps, where the data remains on the users' phone. This would preserve user privacy, the firms said.Â
Harte said the Bluetooth limitations and the privacy argument made the decision to switch straightforward for the HSE. "From a technical perspective and a privacy perspective, it goes down better with the public," he said. "We'd kind of hit [a] brick wall with Bluetooth technology."
Having Apple and Google shoulder some of the technical burden was a bonus. "It made a lot of sense because otherwise you were going to have to invest a lot of time and effort to try and get that better," he said.Â
In its first two weeks, the app has already been used to detect positive cases of the virus, Fran Thompson, chief information officer at the HSE, told Business Insider in a statement. Harte said it's still too early to tell how much impact the app will have on curbing the spread of the virus, but even if it detects only a small number of cases, that's better than nothing, he said.
Out of Ireland's population of 4.9 million, 25,800 people have so far tested positive for the coronavirus, of whom 1,753 are confirmed to have died, per the World Health Organization.
"Any impact this has is beneficial, so if it breaks even a handful of transmission chains it's been of benefit," Harte said.
Apple Inc. announced it will give employees paid time off on Election Day to vote or volunteer at a polling place, Bloomberg News reported Friday.
The company will offer US retail employees and hourly workers as many as four hours of time off on November 3, to vote or volunteer, according to the Bloomberg News report.
"For retail team members and hourly workers across the company, if you're scheduled to work this Election Day, we'll be providing up to four hours of paid time off if you need it to get to the polls," Deirdre O'Brien, senior vice president of retail and people at Apple, wrote in an internal email obtained by Bloomberg News.
"If they choose, our teams can also use this time to volunteer as an election worker at one of your local polling stations," O'Brien continued in the email.
Representatives from Apple Inc. did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.
The news comes after nearly 400 other companies joined a nonpartisan coalition called Time To Vote to encourage employees to vote by giving paid time off on Election Day, including Twitter and Uber. Apple did not appear on the list of affiliated companies, according to the website.
When you buy through our links, we may earn money from our affiliate partners. Learn more.
Â
Streaming has largely overtaken cable and satellite as the preferred method to watch movies and TV shows at your leisure. Low price points and the ability to watch on the go are primary reasons for the migration, but one sector has largely resisted any such paradigm shift â professional sports.
If you're a sports fan, you might be shelling out for traditional cable just to watch your favorite team. Hefty deals between sports leagues and TV networks have prevented services like Netflix from streaming games, but ESPN now has a low-cost service that should satiate many sports fans' appetites.Â
Updated on 07/24/2020 by Steven Cohen: We've revised this article to include details about UFC Fight Night on July 25. Added a link to our guide to watching the 2020 MLB season. Added details about a rumored price increase for ESPN+.Â
ESPN+ is a streaming subscription service that's considered a complement to existing ESPN content, not technically a separate platform. Think of it as an add-on to the standard ESPN app with live games, exclusive on-demand videos, and access to what was formerly known as ESPN Insider.
Previously, ESPN Insider offered subscribers exclusive written articles for a monthly $4.99 fee. ESPN decided to add video to the mix and created ESPN+ for the same price, giving subscribers access to stories, live streaming, and on-demand videos.
What's included with ESPN+?
ESPN+ includes a bevy of exclusive video content from live games to on-demand shows and exclusive stories. Unfortunately, the live games come with commercials â just like regular TV.
Subscribers can watch live games from the MLB, NHL, and MLS when their seasons are active; there are no live NBA or NFL games. There's also PGA golf, UFC, college football, international soccer, and tennis. You can read more details on how to watch Major League Baseball's 2020 season on ESPN+ and other services here.
In addition to games, ESPN+ also features original shows, including in-depth game recaps and analyses hosted by Peyton Manning and Daniel Cormier, and a shorter version of "NFL Primetime." Documentary programs, like "30 for 30," as well as full replays of historic NFL games are also available to stream on-demand.
Does ESPN+ offer UFC PPV and UFC Fight Night events?
If you're a fan of UFC or boxing, ESPN+ will often offer exclusive pay-per-view (PPV) matches so you'll get even more content from the service. The PPV events cost $64.99 for existing subscribers. The most recent UFC PPV event was UFC 251 on July 11.
In addition to PPV matches, ESPN+ also features access to UFC Fight Night events, including a trio of events on UFC's Fight Island in Abu Dhabi. Fight Nights are typically included as part of a regular ESPN+ subscription for $4.99 per month. The final Fight Island event is UFC Fight Night: Whittaker vs. Till on July 25.Â
What's not included with ESPN+?
ESPN+ is technically separate from ESPN, ESPN2, and ESPNews, so a subscription will not grant you access to live games being broadcast on those networks, including any live games during Monday Night Football and Sunday Night Baseball. That said, MLB games are still available to be streamed.
New docuseries airing on ESPN, like "The Last Dance," are also not included with a subscription. With that said, programs like this could be added to the ESPN+ library at a later date.
Your ESPN+ account is not the same as a cable login with access to the ESPN networks, so there's no way of getting around it either.Â
How much does ESPN+ cost?
An ESPN+ subscription will only run you $4.99 per month, or $49.99 annually â $10 less than what you'd pay if you go month to month. With that said, a report from The Verge indicates that ESPN could increase the price of ESPN+ to $5.99 a month starting in August. This price increase has not been confirmed yet.
There's also a combo package that bundles ESPN+ with Hulu and the new Disney Plus streaming service for just $12.99 per month â a $5 savings each month compared to getting all three services separately.
Where can I watch ESPN+?
One of the cool things about ESPN+ is that you can access it through the current ESPN app.
Instead of launching a separate app, all the ESPN+ content is unlocked in the ESPN app once you subscribe. The app is available on virtually every platform you can imagine â phones, tablets, laptops, Roku players, Fire TV products, Apple TV, Android TV, Chromecast, PS4, Xbox One, and Samsung smart TVs.Â
You can also stream on up to three devices simultaneously with one account.
How do I sign up for ESPN+?
Head over to the ESPN+ website and create an account, or open your existing ESPN account and you'll be prompted to sign up.
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Read more about ESPN+ on Insider Reviews:
A customer advisory board (CAB) can be an invaluable resource for startups, but many founders struggle with putting together the right group of advisors and how to incentivize them. At our TechCrunch Early Stage event, Saam Motamedi, a general partner at Greylock Partners, talked about how he thinks about putting together the right CAB.
“We encourage all of our early-stage companies to put this in place,” Motamedi said. The goal here is to speed up the process to get to product/market fit since your CAB will provide you with regular feedback.
“The idea here is [that] you have this feedback loop from customers back to your product where you build, you go get feedback, you iterate — and the tighter this feedback loop is, the faster you’ll get to product-market fit. And you want to do things structurally to make this feedback loop tighter, starting with a CAB.”
Motamedi said a CAB should consist of about three to six customers. These should be “luminaries or forward thinkers” in the market you are serving. “You add them to the CAB — you might give them small advisory grants — and they become stakeholders and give you feedback as you work through the early stages of product development.”
As for the people who you put on the CAB, Motamedi suggests first setting the right expectations for the board.
“There are three components. Number one, the most valuable thing you can get from these customer advisors is their time. So the first piece is you want them to commit to a monthly cadence, that could be 60 minutes, it could be 90 minutes, where you’re going to say, ‘Hey, I’m going to come to the meeting, I’m going to bring two of my teammates, we’re going to show you the latest product demo, and you’re going to drill us with feedback. We’re going to do that once a month.’ […] And then piece two is this notion of customer days, you could do quarterly, you could also do twice a year.
“The idea is you want to bring the customers together. Because if you and I are both CIOs at Fortune 500 companies and we independently react to a product, that’s one thing, but if we sit in a room together, we all look at the product together, there’s going to be interesting data amongst us as customers and the founder is going to learn a lot from that.[…] And I think the third piece is just an expectation that as the company progresses and product maturity increases, that folks on the CAB are going to be advocates and evangelists for the company with their customer networks.”
Motamedi recommends outlining those expectations in a short document.
When you buy through our links, we may earn money from our affiliate partners. Learn more.
Â
One month ago, as the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) and Major League Soccer (MLS) finalized their plans for season restarts â making them the first two United States sports leagues to begin play during the coronavirus pandemic â Major League Baseball's future was not solidified. The MLB was set to begin its season on March 26 but cancelled these plans in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Following this delay, regular discussions took place between the MLB Players Association and the MLB over the logistics of beginning the season. On June 23, the two parties struck a deal that would see their sport return to play on July 23.Â
Unlike the NWSL, MLS, and NBA, the 2020 MLB Season will not take place inside of a "bubble." Teams will play 60 games, 30 at home and 30 on the road. Each team will play its divisional opponents 10 times, totaling 40 games, and 20 games against interleague opponents from the same geographical division. For example, the AL East's teams will play games against their NL East counterparts.
The level of uncertainty surrounding the longevity of the 2020 MLB season is significantly higher than that of the NWSL, MLS, and NBA. This uncertainty primarily stems from the travel necessary to execute this season. Transportation, hotel stays, and entering and exiting stadiums all present the possibility of virus exposure.
Apart from modifying the season schedule, Major League Baseball is implementing further changes to this shortened season. Things like a universal designated hitter, extra innings beginning with a runner on second base, and a minimum three batter rule for pitchers entering a game, will all impact game plan execution. There are also changes to roster composition â making it easier for teams to manage their squads should coronavirus infections become an issue.
Major Storylines
The story of this MLB season, as was the case in March, begins with the Los Angeles Dodgers. With seven straight NL West Division Titles, including five NLCS appearances and two World Series runs over that period, the Dodgers have been tantalizingly close to a World Series championship. They strengthened their already stellar squad this offseason with the addition of former AL MVP Mookie Betts. With Betts in the outfield, the Dodgers are the odds-on favorite to be this year's champions.Â
The Dodgers face a formidable field as they eye their first title since 1988. Namely, the American League's two best teams in 2019, the New York Yankees and Houston Astros, look capable of repeating, or exceeding, last year's successes.Â
The Astros took the eventual champion Washington Nationals to seven games in the last World Series. Their only major departure during the offseason was starting pitcher Gerrit Cole, who joined the aforementioned New York Yankees.Â
In signing Cole, the Yankees addressed an area of urgent need. With Cole on the books to boost their starting rotation, as well as Aaron Judge returning from injury, the Yankees are their typical, competitive selves.Â
There are plenty of other teams capable of competing to be this year's World Series Champions. Squads like the Washington Nationals, Tampa Bay Rays, Minnesota Twins, and St. Louis Cardinals are all legitimate contenders. With that being said, the condensed nature of this season, paired with a prolonged offseason, means there is even more volatility than in a typical MLB season. Other contenders will certainly emerge.Â
How to watch MLB games Jayne Kamin-Oncea/Getty Images
The first weekend of baseball offers fans 13 nationally broadcasted games across ESPN, Fox, Fox Sports, MLB Network, and TBS. You can find the full list of the year's nationally televised games here. For viewing of nationally broadcasted MLB games on these channels, you will need a cable or satellite package with access to those channels, or a subscription to a live TV streaming service with support for those networks.Â
ESPN, Fox, Fox Sports, and TBS are all available through Hulu + Live TV. Additionally, packages from Sling TV, AT&T TV, and Youtube TV include those channels, plus MLB Network.
Of all these options, the most affordable way to gain live streaming access to ESPN, Fox, Fox Sports, TBS, and MLB Network is via a Sling TV Orange + Blue membership with the Sports Extras add-on. This package costs $60 a month.
In addition to the regular ESPN cable channel, the ESPN+ streaming service will show seven MLB games during the month of July and select games throughout the rest of the season. It is one of our favorite deals in streaming because of the massive selection of sports content available for just $4.99 a month or $49.99 a year.
Non-nationally broadcasted games are exclusively carried by regional sports networks, such as NESN (Boston Red Sox), Marquee Sports Network (Chicago Cubs), Fox Sports Regional networks, NBC Sports Regional networks, and others.
Finally, to view all out-of-market MLB games, fans can subscribe to MLB.TV for $24.99 a month.Â
The MLB 2020 season began with two games on Thursday, July 23. First, the New York Yankees faced the Washington Nationals at 7:00 p.m. ET. Then, the Los Angeles Dodgers squared off with the San Francisco Giants at 10:00 p.m. ET.
Quibi is paying for bloggers to write about its original programming.Â
The mobile-video startup, which launched in April, inked a deal with Static Media's studio to create content focused on Quibi shows.
Static's pop-culture blog, Looper, published nine posts between June 30 and July 21 that were marked "paid for by Quibi and created by Looper," based on Business Insider's review of the website. NickiSwift.com, another Static brand, also published four posts in roughly the same time period that were marked "paid for by Quibi."
The posts focused on shows including "Reno 911," "Dummy," "Most Dangerous Game," "The Stranger," "Nikki Fre$h," "Kirby Jenner," and "Chrissy's Court," which began rolling out in April or May.
Quibi characterized the content to Business Insider as market research to find topics that were popular with consumers. It said it has a broad range of partnerships, like others in the industry.
Quibi, which raised $1.8 billion ahead of launch, has ramped up its efforts to get people talking about its programming since the platform was released.
The subscription service debuted to disappointing user uptake, though Quibi previously told Business Insider it was proud of its launch.
Analytics firm Antenna, which measures churn and other metrics for subscription businesses, estimated that 27% of people who signed up for Quibi's 90-day free trial on the first day it was available stuck around, and started paying for the service when their trials ended in July.
The retention rate was lower than that of other recent streaming entrants, including Disney Plus. But Quibi didn't have the benefit of the established Disney brand and its broad back catalog of content.
One Quibi investor recently told Business Insider that word-of-mouth around Quibi content, much of which stars big names like Kevin Hart, Liam Hemsworth, and Anna Kendrick, will be crucial to the platform gaining more traction.
On top of pushing new titles like the Kevin Hart-starring "Die Hart" and its upcoming "The Fugitive" series," Quibi is also still marketing its first slate of shows, as the recent Looper and Nicki Swift content suggests. Some of Quibi's series performed solidly among critics on Rotten Tomatoes, but failed to break through into the broader cultural conversation.
Other streaming services have also turned to sponsored content to get people talking about their originals.
Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon have paid publishers from PopSugar to The Atlantic to promote their programming over the years. The trend goes back to at least 2013, when Netflix sponsored an op-ed in the New York Times about women in the prison system to promote "Orange Is the New Black," one of its first hit original series.Â
Netflix has also worked with Static's Looper. In one example, Looper published an article titled, "Hidden mystery gems on Netflix you need to watch," which was also published as a video in partnership with Looper on Netflix's film-focused YouTube account. (Netflix declined to comment on the partnership.)
Working with bloggers appears to be one part of a larger strategy to get more attention for Quibi's programming.Â
Quibi has been more active on social media in recent weeks, sharing more clips of its programming and organic articles about the content.
In June, Quibi tweeted one Looper article about "Most Dangerous Game," with a self-effacing joke that nodded at the mixed reception its content had gotten.
"See guys we have a good show," the tweet said.
That particular Looper article was not paid for by Quibi, according to Looper, though the subsequent marked articles were.
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Quibi also enabled screenshotting within its mobile platform this week, opening the door for people to generate memes and otherwise share moments from Quibi shows.
Alt texts are short descriptions that help describe an image, usually on web pages. Alt text read aloud by accessibility tools called screen readers, and also used by search engines to better understand and rank the website the image is on.Â
Alt text is never a part of the image file itself â you won't find it embedded in the JPG file, for example. Instead, it's paired with the image manually by whoever uploads it.
There are two easy ways to see if an image on a website has alt text. You can turn on your own screen reader, or "Inspect" the page's HTML code to see what alt text has been assigned to the image.Â
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How to check if an image has alt text on a web page using a built-in app or Chrome extensionÂ
Windows users can check for alt text in an image by using the built-in screen reader called Narrator, which can be accessed via the Start Menu's search function. Mac users can also try VoiceOver Utility, Apple's built-in screen reader found in the Finder's Applications menu.Â
Those who use Chrome as their browser can install the ChromeVox extension. Once installed, activate the extension if necessary and click on an image to hear the alt text.Â
How to check if an image has alt text on a web page by inspecting it
1. On a webpage, right-click the photo you want to see the alt text for.Â
2. In the menu that appears, choose to inspect the HTML. In Chrome or Firefox, select "Inspect." For Edge, choose "Inspect Element."
3. A pane displaying HTML should appear. Look for the HTML tag that says "alt=." What follows will be the alt text description.
Alt text is a short description of a digital image that can be read aloud by a screen reader. While we generally think about alt text as a part of web pages, it's a valuable tool anywhere users may need additional help to understand what images appear on the screen.Â
For example: You can add alt text to images in PowerPoint for just this purpose.Â
The easiest way to add alt text in PowerPoint is to do it as you're adding the image, but you can also add or change alt text to an image that's already been added to a PowerPoint slide.Â
If you want to write or edit the alt text of images in your PowerPoint presentation, here's how to do it, using PowerPoint on Mac or PC.
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How to add alt text to a new image in PowerPoint
1. In PowerPoint, add an image by clicking "Insert," selecting "Pictures" from the ribbon, then choosing "This Deviceâ¦"
2. When the image appears in your slide, you should see PowerPoint's suggested alt text appear at the bottom of the image.Â
3. To change the suggested alt text, click on it.Â
4. In the Alt Text pane that opens on the right side of the screen, click the text field.
5. Edit the alt text however you like, and the change will be automatically made to the image.Â
How to add alt text to an existing image in PowerPoint
1. In PowerPoint, find the image you want to update and click it.Â
2. Select "Picture Format."Â
3. Choose "Alt Text" in the ribbon.Â
4. You can also choose to right-click the image and select "Edit Alt Textâ¦" from the drop-down menu.
5. Enter the alt text you want to use in the text field. It'll be automatically saved with your deck.Â
How to use PowerPoint's alt text controls
When you create or edit alt text, you have two options aside from typing alt text manually.Â
If the alt text field is empty, you have the option of clicking "Generate a description for me." This is a fast way to add alt text, but it's not recommended. The alt text may be superficially correct, but it's unlikely to be specific enough to be genuinely helpful to users who need it.Â
You can also mark an image as decorative. Only do this if, like a border around text, it is irrelevant to understanding the slide deck and describing it would add no value.Â
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Chauffeured group transportation — the vehicles used for corporate outings, special events and even weddings — is a fragmented industry, with hundreds of small operators that rely on analog systems to book customers. Now in this era of COVID-19, these operators are being squeezed as travel and tourism have dwindled and companies have opted to have employees work from home.
One Los Angeles-based transportation booking startup called Swoop aims to bring these small, local operators into the digital age with a new software-as-a-service platform that it says is helping them adapt in this COVID-19 era. The startup, loaded with an injection of capital, is ramping up its SaaS product in hopes of tapping into a marketplace where customers spend $40 billion annually.
Swoop has raised $3.2 million in a seed funding round led by Signia Venture Partners, South Park Commons and several angel investors, including former Uber CPO Manik Gupta; Kevin Weil, co-creator of Libra at Facebook; Kim Fennel, a former Uber executive; and Elizabeth Weil, former partner at Andreessen Horowitz and 137 Ventures.
“I’m fascinated about how operators are still running most of their business with pen and paper,” Swoop CEO and co-founder Amir Ghorbani said in a statement. Ghorbani has witnessed firsthand the constraints of these small operators. During high school and college, Ghorbani helped with his parents’ limousine business. The experience prompted him to seek a solution.
“I saw a huge opportunity to help these small mom and pop shops, in an under-digitized industry, where no operator has more than 1% market share,” Ghorbani added.
Ghorbani began by building a group transportation booking platform used by companies like Airbnb, Google and Nike. Through those bookings the companies saw an opportunity to build business management software for vehicle operators.
Swoop’s SaaS platform lets companies book and dispatch rides, track vehicles and communicate with customers. It also acts as a central hub for payments and other bookkeeping. The tool is designed to smooth out the booking process as well as increase vehicle utilization, which is currently at 4.9%, according to the company. Swoop also passes on to the operators using its SaaS tool leads from companies that use the booking platform.
For now, the focus is on local transportation companies, not public transit, which is a sector that Uber is chasing.
COVID-19, which has suspended most group outings, has upended these local transportation operators. Swoop says it has adjusted its platform to help these operators survive. The company told TechCrunch that it is helping operators repurpose their vehicles to ship goods rather than people. For instance, large vans once used for corporate outings can now be marketed to food wholesalers or companies that need local package delivery. The platform is also being used to connect operators with companies like Amazon that provide transportation to shuttle essential factory workers.
A researcher has created an algorithm that uses artificial intelligence to create new lyrics "that match the rhyme and syllables schemes of existing songs," per a Vice report published Thursday.
Mark Riedl, a researcher at Georgia Tech, told Vice he created his "Weird A.I. Yancovic" algorithm as a personal project. The algorithm's name is inspired by the parody singer Weird Al Yankovic, who does something similar, taking existing songs and creating his own spinoff version with new lyrics. One of his most popular parodies is "White & Nerdy," a take on "Ridin" by rappers Chamillionaire and Krayzie Bone.
As Vice notes, however, Yankovic reportedly asks the original artist for permission before creating his parody of a given song. Riedl does not â and it's landed him in hot water.
Riedl posted a video to Twitter on May 15 with AI-generated lyrics and the instrumental part of Michael Jackson's "Beat It." On July 14, Twitter took it down after the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, a coalition of some of the record industry's biggest companies, submitted a copyright takedown notice to Twitter, per the report. Coincidentally, Weird Al Yankovic, the parody singer, also created a version of the hit track, entitled "Eat It," in 1984.
Other similar AI-generated videos that Riedl has posted to Twitter have stayed up, like a spinoff of Sam Smith and Normani's "Dancing With a Stranger."
Riedl told the outlet he thinks his videos are protected by fair use, which is a loophole in copyright laws that allow people to use copyrighted work without obtaining permission beforehand in certain circumstances. The doctrine covers parody work, among other stipulations.
"I would argue that my system is generating parody lyrics and that I do not require permission from the copyright holder to publish parody content," Riedl told Vice. "I am not a lawyer, however." Vice spoke with Casey Fiesler, an Information Science professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, who agreed that Riedl's video should be protected under fair use.
As Vice explores, the debacle has raised a host of questions pertaining to the intersection of technology and copyright usage, including how algorithm-generated work should be contextualized under fair use and how copyright laws could, or should, evolve to adapt to advancements in technology, like AI.
Per the report, Riedl is pushing back against Twitter's takedown of his "Beat It" video and hasn't heard back from the company yet.
Read the full report on Vice here.
A leaked Apple document has shed light on the guidelines and restrictions the company imposes on app developers participating in its "Find My" program, according to a new report from The Washington Post.
The Find My program, along with other changes Apple recently made to grant third-party apps greater access to its ecosystem, have been portrayed as a big win for developers, coming as Apple's relationship with app makers has come under scrutiny.Â
Find My is an Apple app that allows you to locate lost or stolen Apple devices tied to your Apple ID. Find My can also work even when devices are offline and sleeping by sending out Bluetooth signals from the misplaced device that can be detected by other nearby Apple products.
Apple announced the Find My network accessory program in June, which lets companies build support for Find My into their product so that iPhone owners can track them using the app.Â
But the Post's report points out what appears to be a restriction mentioned in the document: Competing services cannot be used with products in the program simultaneously â a decision that developers have characterized as odd, according to The Post.Â
The report did not elaborate on what this means, but it sounds similar to the way Apple's HomeKit Secure Video platform works. For example, when enrolling a Logitech camera with HomeKit Secure Video, 9to5Mac reported that users are presented with an agreement saying that the camera will no longer be usable with Logitech's Circle app once converted to a HomeKit Secure Video camera, since the firmware has been changed.
To revert the camera back to a version that's usable with Logitech's app, the customer would have to contact Logitech customer support. Converting the camera to HomeKit Secure Video also removes Android and web support, according to 9to5Mac.
But this doesn't appear to be a blanket restriction, as it seemingly varies by camera. The Netatmo Smart Indoor Camera still makes it possible to manage cameras via the Netatmo app even after enrolling it in HomeKit Secure Video, as iMore points out.
If this is similar to the structure of Apple's Find My specification, which is still in draft form, it wouldn't be totally unprecedented. But it would come amid heightened concerns about whether Apple's position as the operator of the iOS ecosystem and the App Store gives it an unfair advantage compared to developers.Â
Apple spokesperson Alex Kirschner told the Post that the program could be beneficial for developers since it allows them to tap into Apple's network of devices. "If you were a smaller player interested in getting into the finding space and you haven't built a finding network, this allows you to do that," he said.
Apple declined to comment further on the matter when contacted by Business Insider.Â
Tile, which makes a Bluetooth tracking accessory for tracking lost items, has voiced concerns about the level of access it's granted to the iOS operating system compared to Apple. The company raised issue with a change Apple made in iOS 13 which turns permission to always allow location access to app's like Tile's off by default, while the same setting is on by default for Apple's Find My app. Tile also sent a letter to the European Commission's competition chief Margrethe Vestager saying that Apple had been making moves to disadvantage Tile, according to The Financial Times.
The report comes as Apple â along with Google, Facebook, and Amazon â has been at the center of antitrust concerns in the technology industry. The CEOs of all four major tech companies are set to testify before Congress as part of an investigation into competition in digital marketplaces. Apple's practice of taking up to a 30% cut from App Store transactions is expected to be the focus of questions directed at CEO Tim Cook, coming after app makers like Spotify have said this rate makes it difficult to price their premium offering similarly to Apple Music.
Apple recently commissioned a study conducted by economic consulting and strategy firm Analysis Group showing that its App Store rates are similar to those of other online marketplaces.
Apple maintains that it maintains a level playing field for developers, saying on its website that the App Store welcomes competition.
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Adding music to an Instagram Story is an easy way to add humor, interest, and emotion to your videos. It's one of the many effects and filters available that makes the platform so popular.Â
But if you find yourself not able to add music to your Instagram Stories â say, if the music sticker isn't available â you may think you're out of luck.Â
There are a few reasons why you might not be able to add music to your Instagram Story, and they include:
You live in a country where the feature isn't available. Music is enabled on the app in over 90 countries, but due to Instagram's strict adherence to copyright law, it's disabled in some countries.Your app is out of date. You may need to simply update Instagram.You're trying to share a branded content campaign. Due to copyright laws and Instagram's advertising policies, music and some other features like stickers and emojis aren't allowed in branded content ads.Instagram's licensing agreements also limit the amount of music you can include in live videos, but there's no limits on adding music to Stories.Â
Here's how to tell if you can add music to your Instagram Story. This can be done using the Instagram app for both iPhone and Android devices.
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How to check if you can add music to an Instagram Story
Before adding music to any kind of Instagram post, you should read up on Instagram's music policies.
First, let's see if you can add music to your Instagram Story.Â
1. Open the Instagram app and tap the camera icon in the top left corner, or the blue plus icon on your profile image.
2. Record a video, then tap the sticker icon, which looks like a square smiley face with the corner bent.
3. On the pop-up screen, you should see a sticker that says "MUSIC," with little moving music bars next to it. You can also type "music" into the search bar to pull it up.Â
4. If you see the music option, you can continue adding music as you normally would.
If you don't see this option, you've fallen into one of the three categories explained above, and can't add music to your Instagram Stories normally.
However, even if you don't have this sticker, you're not out of luck. Playing music from a third-party app like Spotify or Amazon Music will work just fine.
How to add music to an Instagram Story if you don't have the music sticker
1. Open a music streaming app, like Spotify or Apple Music, on your device.
2. Start playing the song you want to use.Â
3. With the song still playing, go back to Instagram and record your Story; the music playing on your phone will be integrated. You won't be able to add a dynamic album cover or live lyrics, however.
Note that if you add music this way, Instagram will check your Story for copyright infringement, and if detected, will remove the sound from your video. Â
Who killed the electric car? Infamously, General Motors â the automaker's discontinued EV1, a pioneering vehicle from the 1990s, was the fallen hero of a 2006 documentary.
But GM has more than made up for the presumed offense; in addition the Chevy Bolt EV, in market since late 2016, the company has declared that its future is electric and that 22 new electrified vehicles should be rolling out by 2023.
We already knew about a larger Bolt SUV, a GMC Hummer electric pickup, and the forthcoming Cadillac Lyriq EV. Now with the release of GM's 2019 Sustainability Report, we learn that a full-size, electric Chevy pickup is on the way, offering "offering 400+ miles of range on a single charge," GM indicated.
The electric pickup now looks to be the marquée products hitting roads and trails in the coming months. Tesla revealed its Cybertruck at the end of last year, startup Rivian has a pickup headed for manufacturing, and Ford is in the process of developing a hybrid F-150 as a precursor to an all-electric F-Series (we've already seen a prototype tow a million-pound load of freight train cars).
A full-size Chevy EV pickup should logically be badged as a Silverado, as Autoweek suggests, but who knows? Hummer came back as a GMC. So Chevy could play around with the nameplate.
Earlier this year, GM provided substantial insight into its Ultium battery technology and its overall electrification strategy going forward. That means a fleet of EV Caddys, Buicks, a Hummer SUV, and now a Chevy pickup. In the grand scheme of things, its an ambitious lineup that would give GM one of the largest EV portfolios in the industry.
If you were to file into a classroom and open your notebook for science class today, the subject matter might be a little different from when you were in school.
Our body of scientific knowledge is constantly growing and changing. New discoveries or studies often lead to changes in old theories and sometimes even invalidate them altogether. That means some of the "facts" you learned in school aren't necessarily true anymore.
For example, dinosaurs probably didn't look the way your textbook depicted them. The origins of Homo sapiens aren't as neat as the timeline you might have learned. And many of the nutrition and exercise guidance from your health classes has been debunked.
Here are some science facts you may have learned in school that aren't true anymore.