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Saturday, April 6, 2019
Geek Trivia: Who Invented The Countdown?
from How-To Geek http://bit.ly/2ORlMVC
A look at "OPMs", companies which manage online courses for universities like Harvard and Yale, and take a 60% cut typically from tuition fees (Kevin Carey/The Huffington Post)
A look at “OPMs”, companies which manage online courses for universities like Harvard and Yale, and take a 60% cut typically from tuition fees — The price of college is breaking America. At a moment when Hollywood celebrities and private equity titans have allegedly …
from Techmeme http://bit.ly/2KioAwu
VCs invested $334M in blockchain startups in Q1 2019, well below the 2018 levels when $5.5B was raised, but in line with 2017 levels according to PitchBook data (Mike Orcutt/MIT Technology Review)
VCs invested $334M in blockchain startups in Q1 2019, well below the 2018 levels when $5.5B was raised, but in line with 2017 levels according to PitchBook data — Was cryptocurrency a flash in the pan? Less than two years ago, Bitcoin's skyrocketing price was making people crypto-millionaires overnight.
from Techmeme http://bit.ly/2FUss1j
Crypto payments startup Celo says a16z crypto and Polychain Capital have purchased $15M and $10M respectively in the project's Celo Gold tokens (Yogita Khatri/CoinDesk)
Crypto payments startup Celo says a16z crypto and Polychain Capital have purchased $15M and $10M respectively in the project's Celo Gold tokens — Andreessen Horowitz's cryptocurrency fund A16z Crypto and venture capital firm Polychain Capital have invested $25 million in cryptocurrency payments startup Celo.
from Techmeme http://bit.ly/2OY3pyA
TikTok is becoming a new platform for a song to find an audience, as shown by the viral hit "Old Time Road", which now has more than 65M streams on Spotify (Julia Alexander/The Verge)
TikTok is becoming a new platform for a song to find an audience, as shown by the viral hit “Old Time Road”, which now has more than 65M streams on Spotify — ‘TikTok helped me change my life,’ says Lil Nas X — Montero “Lil Nas X” Hill's parents were concerned when their son dropped …
from Techmeme http://bit.ly/2G6GBtx
Profile of CarpeDonktum, a stay-at-home dad posting highly popular pro-Trump memes and blurring the lines between viral trolling and the business of politics (Charlie Warzel/New York Times)
Profile of CarpeDonktum, a stay-at-home dad posting highly popular pro-Trump memes and blurring the lines between viral trolling and the business of politics — A stay-at-home dad in Kansas reveals how the lines have blurred between viral trolling and the business of politics.
from Techmeme http://bit.ly/2IfYwzy
Tesla’s automated parking feature will be rolled out to U.S. owners next week
Tesla is preparing to roll out a more capable and robust version of its automated parking feature known as Enhanced Summon next week, CEO Elon Musk tweeted Saturday.
The tweet comes just days after the company released a new version of Navigate on Autopilot, an advanced driving feature that is viewed as a step towards full automated driving on highways.
In the tweet, Musk writes “Tesla Enhanced Summon coming out in U.S. next week for anyone with Enhanced Autopilot or Full Self-Driving option.”
Enhanced Summon is a parking assist feature designed to vehicles to navigate a parking lot autonomously and find its driver — under specific conditions. For instance, the driver, who uses the Tesla app to remotely call the car, must be within a certain distance of the vehicle.
Using the feature, the vehicle will pull out of a parking space, navigate around objects and come to the owner. Musk has been teasing this feature for some time now and owners in the early access program have used it. It’s started to be available more widely a few weeks ago to some owners. (There are already numerous video demonstrations of Enhance Summon in action) Now it appears it will have a wider release, based on Musk’s tweet.
Tesla’s vehicles are not self-driving. Autopilot is an advanced driver assistance system that can be described as a Level 2 system, a designation by the SAE that means partial automation. Level 2 can control two ADAS features simultaneously like adaptive cruise (accelerating and deceleration along with the vehicle ahead) and lane steering in certain conditions. However, the human driver is expected to maintain control at all times.
(Others have referred to it as semi-autonomous system, but that terminology has been recently shunned by industry insiders)
Navigate on Autopilot, which is supposed to guide a car from a highway on-ramp to off-ramp, including navigating interchanges and making lane changes, is Tesla’s most advanced driver assistance feature to date. The feature was initially held back when the automaker released the latest version of its in-car software, 9.0. When Navigate on Autopilot was eventually released in late October, Tesla placed some limitations on it, including that it mad a lane change suggestion that required the driver to confirm by tapping the turn signal before it would proceed.
In this newest iteration, drivers will now have the option to use Navigate on Autopilot without having to confirm lane changes via the turn stalk. The new version offers “a more seamless active guidance experience,” the company wrote in a blog post April 3.
For a bit of history, Tesla announced in October 2016 that it would started producing electric vehicles with a more robust suite of sensors, radar, and cameras—called Hardware 2—that would allow higher levels of automated driving. Owners of these Hardware 2 vehicles would be able to opt for one of two advanced driving packages, Enhanced Autopilot or Full Self-Driving, the latter of which is supposed to push the automated driving feature to new levels of capability and eventually drive autonomously without human intervention.
Owners with Enhanced Autopilot have vehicles capable of adaptive cruise control, Autosteer (essentially lane keeping), Summon and Navigate on Autopilot. But then in October 2018, the same month it started rolling out Navigate on Autopilot, Tesla removed that “full self-driving” option (FSD).
Then suddenly this year, Tesla changed the terminology and pricing again — and it brought back FSD.
Enhanced Autopilot is no longer available to new owners. Instead, owners can opt for Autopilot or FSD. Autopilot includes the Autosteer and adaptive cruise control features.
Owners who want the more advanced features like Navigate on Autopilot have to buy FSD. Navigate on Autopilot is considered a step towards that still on-met full self-driving promise.
Autopilot costs $3,000 and Full Self-Driving, costs an additional $5,000. So to get FSD owners have to plunk down $8,000.
from TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2KhVk98
As Google disbands its external AI ethics board, a look at its internal AI ethics council comprising of senior execs and led by its chief legal officer (Bloomberg)
As Google disbands its external AI ethics board, a look at its internal AI ethics council comprising of senior execs and led by its chief legal officer — A board filled with internal executives raises questions about accountability — Two weeks ago, Google established an external panel …
from Techmeme http://bit.ly/2I3Xh7d
Testing US Army's Integrated Visual Augmentation System, a version of HoloLens 2 modified for military use, which felt like a real-life game of "Call of Duty" (Todd Haselton/CNBC)
Testing US Army's Integrated Visual Augmentation System, a version of HoloLens 2 modified for military use, which felt like a real-life game of “Call of Duty” — - Microsoft is building the military's IVAS headset, which is based on HoloLens 2.
from Techmeme http://bit.ly/2UriAX6
GPS Rollover is today. Here’s why devices might get wacky
The Global Positioning System time epoch is ending and another one is beginning, an event that could affect your devices or any equipment or legacy system that relies on GPS for time and location.
Most clocks obtain their time from Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). But the atomic clocks on satellites are set to GPS time. The timing signals you can get from GPS satellites are very accurate and globally available. And so they’re often used by systems as the primary source of time and frequency accuracy.
When Global Positioning System was first implemented, time and date function was defined by a 10-bit number. So unlike the Gregorian calendar, which uses year, month and date format, the GPS date is a “week number,” or WN. The WN is transmitted as a 10-bit field in navigation messages and rolls over or resets to zero every 1,204 weeks.
Since that time, the count has been incremented by one each week, and broadcast as part of the GPS message.
The GPS week started January 6, 1980 and it became zero for the first time midnight August 21, 1999. At midnight April 6, the GPS WN is scheduled to reset, which could be problematic for legacy systems and impact time and the time tags in location data. Utilities and cellular networks also use GPs receivers for timing and controlling certain functions. For instance, the U.S. power grid uses timestamps embedded in GPS. The U.S. Department of Energy says that “GPS supports a wide variety of critical grid functions that allow separate components on the electric system to work in unison.”
It should be noted that the WN restart date could be different in some devices, depending on when the firmware was created.
The bug, which some has described as the Y2K of GPS, will cause problems in some GPS receivers such as resetting the time and corrupting location data. The GPS WN rollover event may hurt the reliability of the reported UTC, according to U.S. Department of Homeland Security. HDS said an GPS device that conforms to the latest IS-GPS-200 and provides UTC should not be adversely affected. The agency also provided a word of caution:
However, tests of some GPS devices revealed that not all manufacturer implementations correctly handle the April 6, 2019 WN rollover. Additionally, some manufacturer implementations interpret the WN parameter relative to a date other than January 5, 1980. These devices should not be affected by the WN rollover on April 6, 2019 but may experience a similar rollover event at a future date.
If you own a newer commercial device with updated software, it’s most likely fine. But double check and make sure the software is up-to-date.
The U.S. Naval Observatory suggests contact the manufacturer of your GPS receiver if you have been effected by the GPS week number rollover. Some GPS receiver manufacturers can be found at the GPS World website.
Work has been done to avoid this kind of rollover issue — or at least punt it down the line. The modernized GPS navigation message uses a 13-bit field that repeats every 8,192 weeks.
from TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2G5IuXr
Scooters, remote workers, ethics, the future of fintech, etc.
Editor’s Note: refocused newsletters
It was another dizzying week here at Extra Crunch as you will shortly see in this newsletter.
One change that we are making: we are simplifying our newsletters to keep you better informed on what is happening on Extra Crunch. We are merging the daily, weekly, and article editions of this newsletter into a “roundup” format that will come out twice per week. The goal is to keep the signal high, and the noise in your inbox low.
To control which newsletters you receive from Extra Crunch (and TechCrunch more broadly), feel free to go to our newsletters page while logged in. And as always, if you have feedback, do let me know at danny@techcrunch.com.
Scooters may kill the sharing economy?
TechCrunch’s scooter aficionado Megan Rose Dickey dived into the current state of the scooter market, and came back decidedly non-plussed. Scooters seem like a viable solution to the last-mile problem of urban transportation, but the reality is that the sharing economics behind them are weak, and huge regulatory barriers are being erected that will almost certainly slow their advance. Even worse, sharing may disappear entirely:
from TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2G3UBEz
Space tech rockets higher
Venture investment in space technology is hitting stratospheric heights in recent quarters. But investors in the sector are betting it will rocket higher still.
The latest example of high-velocity funding is satellite internet startup OneWeb, which recently announced a galactic-sized $1.25 billion venture funding round in the wake of a successful launch. The financing, which included a long investor list featuring the ever spendy SoftBank, brought total funding for the Arlington, Va. company to a whopping $3.4 billion.
But OneWeb is far from the only space tech company to secure a big round recently. A Crunchbase News roundup of large investments in the sector unearthed a sizable list of companies attracting attention and big checks from venture capitalists, with at least a half dozen securing rounds of $50 million or more since 2018.
What’s the draw? Largely, it’s the oft-repeated tale of a startup sector seeing valuations rise as early-stage companies mature, said Chad Anderson, CEO of investor group Space Angels.
“The barriers to entry came down in 2009, when SpaceX provided increased access to space through low-cost launch and transparent pricing,” Anderson said. “We saw the first pioneering companies, like Planet [former Planet Labs]*, take advantage of that new access starting in 2013.”
Now, the crop of space tech companies that launched five or six years ago is middle-aged by startup standards and ripe for larger, later-stage rounds.
Economics of satellite design and launch have also become a lot more compelling for investors in recent years. Whereas satellites previously cost hundreds of millions (or even billions) to design, manufacture, and launch, today a small satellite can be built for tens of thousands of dollars and launched for a few hundred thousand dollars, Anderson said.
Venture capitalists seem to like that math. Over the past 10 calendar years, Space Angels estimates that venture capital funds have invested nearly $4.2 billion into space companies. Of that total, 70 percent was deployed in the last three calendar years.
More firms are getting into the space, as well. Currently, Anderson calculates that just over 40 percent of the Top 100 venture capital firms now have at least one space investment. Their investments are concentrated in two areas: satellites and launch technology, particularly for the small satellite space.
To get an idea of where the money is going, we put together a chart below showing the space tech companies that have secured some of the largest funding rounds since last year:
While space tech is generating a lot of venture investment, however, not a lot of startups have yet made it to exit. That’s not entirely surprising, if we presume that typical venture startup-to-exit timelines apply. If the current crop of funded startups launched in the 2013 time frame, we’d expect to see exits pick up in a few years.
It is worth noting, however, that the one most famous and pioneering of the current crop of venture-backed space companies, Elon Musk’s SpaceX, has also stayed private. Certainly SpaceX has the name recognition and track record to support a blockbuster IPO.
Yet Anderson contends that’s unlikely to happen — at least not for a very long time. For one, Musk has laid out the company’s ultimate goal as colonizing Mars. That doesn’t jibe well with the typical public company duties, like meeting quarterly numbers. It doesn’t help that Musk has already gotten into hot water with regulators for his approach at Tesla.
Yet as SpaceX pursues its grand ambitions, the company has also served as a launchpad for a number of other space tech entrepreneurs — we put together a list of nine startups with a SpaceX alum as founder or core team member.
So while colonizing Mars remains a risky bet, the odds in favor of blockbuster space tech exits on Earth are getting a lot higher.
*Planet and SpaceX are Space Angels portfolio companies.
from TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2uSavLQ
Netflix says it pulled AirPlay support because it is technically impossible to ensure a good enough user experience on 3rd party devices now getting AirPlay 2 (Sean Hollister/The Verge)
Netflix says it pulled AirPlay support because it is technically impossible to ensure a good enough user experience on 3rd party devices now getting AirPlay 2 — A “technical limitation” — With no warning and little explanation, Netflix has removed the easiest way to sling its shows from one Apple device to another: AirPlay.
from Techmeme http://bit.ly/2CZwIMr
Webcomics creators, including artists behind XKCD and Dinosaur Comics, talk about their early days, and how social media and Patreon have shifted the economics (Cat Ferguson/The Verge)
Webcomics creators, including artists behind XKCD and Dinosaur Comics, talk about their early days, and how social media and Patreon have shifted the economics — Featuring the artists behind XKCD, Questionable Content, Dinosaur Comics, and more — Illustrations by Alex Castro / The Verge
from Techmeme http://bit.ly/2OVmMYO
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