More antitrust litigation targeting Big (ad)Tech: Google is being sued in the UK and the Netherlands where two suits have been announced today seeking damages on behalf of publishers who claim they have been harmed by anti-competitive adtech practices.

Per Reuters, publishers are seeking up to €25 billion in damages from Google for lost ad revenues via the litigation.

Google’s adtech stack — and certain other ad-related practices  — are currently under investigation by both EU and UK competition authorities. However, last year France’s antitrust watchdog found the tech giant had abused a dominant position for ad servers for website publishers and mobile apps — fining Google up to €220 million for a variety of self-preferencing abuses; and extracting a series of interoperability commitments. The French regulator dubbed the case a world first in probing its complex algorithmic ad auctions.

The tech giant did not dispute the facts of the French case — and that appears to have given succour to the litigants.

Law firm, Geradin Partners, which acted for complainants in the French Competition Authority case, is leading the UK and EU damages actions. “The French Competition Authority found Google had abused its dominant position by engaging in various forms of self-preferencing in breach of Article 102 TFEU,” it noted in a press release. “Specifically, Google used its publisher ad servers by favouring its own ad exchange and had used its ad exchange to favour its publisher ad server. Both practices had been in place since 2014. Google’s anticompetitive conduct was found to have caused harm to publishers. Google did not contest the findings.”

Commenting in a statement, Damien Geradin of Geradin Partners, added: “Publishers, including local and national news media who play a vital role in our society, have long been harmed by Google’s anticompetitive conduct. It is time that Google owns up to its responsibilities and pays back the damages it has caused to this important industry. That is why today we are announcing these actions across two jurisdictions to obtain compensation for EU and UK publishers.”

Both legal actions are being funded by London-based litigation funder, Harbour — which touts a 76% “success rate” on its website.

The Dutch action is a collective damages claim representing EU publishers. While, in the UK, the litigants intend to bring an opt-out claim to the Competition Appeal Tribunal, which the law firm said will focus on recovering compensation for lost revenue from the sale of advertising space on the websites of class members. (The parallel claims likely reflect differences in legal regimes for bringing competition class-action style claims inside and outside the EU.) 

Reached for a response to the litigation, a Google spokesperson attached the suits as “speculative and opportunistic”.

Here’s its statement:

“Google works constructively with publishers across Europe — our advertising tools, and those of our many adtech competitors, help millions of websites and apps fund their content, and enable businesses of all sizes to effectively reach new customers. These services adapt and evolve in partnership with those same publishers. This lawsuit is speculative and opportunistic. When we receive the complaint, we’ll fight it vigorously.”

Google has already faced a hefty bill related to its dealings with news publishers in France — following a €500BN fine by the competition regulator for breaching an earlier order to fairly negotiate copyright fees for use of snippets of publishers’ content (following a 2019 reform of EU digital copyright law).

But successful antitrust litigation could substantially crank up Google’s costs. And it’s worth noting that, in recent years, an EU directive was adopted that’s intended to remove obstacles to consumers and businesses bringing antitrust damages actions across the bloc.

Separately, Google is being sued in Europe by price comparison service, PriceRunner — which is seeking a few billions in damages after accusing it of breaching a 2017 EU antitrust order related to its product price comparison service.

While — since 2019 — Google’s adtech has been under formal investigation by its lead privacy regulator in the bloc, Ireland’s Data Protection Commission, following a series of complaints targeting the behavioral ad industry’s abusive surveillance of web users.

Returning to antitrust litigation, in another recent opt-out competition class claim targeting big adtech, Facebook’s parent entity, Meta, is currently being sued for damages on behalf of UK users. In that case the litigant alleges the social networking giant imposed unfair terms, prices and/or other trading conditions on Facebook users — including by requiring users to hand over their personal data as a condition of access to the Facebook social network, and failing to share with users the profits it makes from such data — linking a loss of privacy to a claim of anti-competitive conduct.

A certification hearing is due to take place at the end of January which will determine whether or not the antitrust case against Meta proceeds.

Google’s adtech practices targeted in UK, EU antitrust damages suits by Natasha Lomas originally published on TechCrunch

The wheels of global commerce continue to turn, through wars, pandemics and economic downturns; and today a startup taking a new tech approach to improve the workings of one of the more antiquated aspects of that industry — shipping — is announcing a big round of funding to double down on growth.

Xeneta — a startup out of Oslo, Norway, that applies innovations in crowdsourcing to the fragmented and often murky world of shipping to build transparent data and analytics for the industry — has raised $80 million, money that it will be using to build out its datasets and customers across more global routes.

Xeneta has already amassed 300 million data points from “several hundred” of the world’s biggest shipping companies, which contribute and subsequently source source data from the Xeneta platform to figure out if they are paying market prices for their shipping on particular routes. And more than $40 billion in procurement sitting on the platform to date. This is all just the tip of the iceberg, however: Patrik Berglund, Xeneta’s CEO and co-founder, said in an interview with TechCrunch that combined procurement across air and sea (the two channels Xeneta covers today) totals between $600 million and $900 million depending on the season; and there are thousands more shipping companies and other shipping players out there.

“We believe we will have 1,000 of them on Xeneta in the near future,” he said. It has aimed for the biggest first: current customers include Electrolux, Unilever, Nestle, Zebra Technologies, Thyssenkrupp, Volvo, General Mills, Procter & Gamble, and John Deere.

The funding values Xeneta at $265 million, the company has confirmed.

Apax Digital, the growth equity arm of PE firm Apax, is leading the round, with Lugard Road Capital also participating. Lugard is an affiliate of a previous backer of the company, Luxor, and other existing investors include Creandum, Point Nine and Smedvig. Prior to this round, the company had raised around $55 million over a series of rounds starting in 2013.

Innovations in e-commerce and fintech have sped up how the world finds and pays for goods and services, but when it comes to getting items from A to B to turn the wheels of that ecosystem, the journey is a little less zippy: shipping remains a fragmented and — subject to economic, climate and social changes — often unpredictable ecosystem. 

There have been a number of tech startups emerging over the last several years targeting opportunities to bring more modern approaches to the antiquated and un-streamlined world of shipping. PayCargo is building new payment products; companies like sennder, Zencargo and Flexport have zeroed in on freight forwarding; Flock Freight is applying a carpooling ethos to trucking; Convoy is also applying a new touch to logistics; Fleetzero believes there’s mileage in electric freight ships; and so on.

Xeneta is in yet another distinct category of freight and shipping services: business intelligence for the companies working within the industry.

As Berglund explained it, it’s a somewhat ranging and unstructured market: for starters, you have thousands of small and big shipping companies and the partners they use to carry out their work, as well as hundreds of thousands of businesses using those services. Added to that, those interactions are often analogue and impacted by a multitude of factors that can affect pricing and overall operations. Those who are looking to book a shipping job might not know what the going price might be for a particular route, or whether it can be approached in a different way more cheaply. Those with space on freighters don’t know the best prices to offer potential customers. 

Xeneta’s breakthrough was to build a platform where all of those players could essentially share what prices they are paying at any given moment for a particular route. Its system then orders that data and applies analytics around it to model how pricing is moving, and what it might mean for related routes elsewhere.

As with other crowdsourced logistics platforms (Waze is an apt example here), the more data that is fed into the system, the more powerful it becomes. Today, Xeneta has most definitely crossed over into the self-feeding category in that regard, although earlier years when the company was just starting out were definitely more challenging.

Initially, the company covered just one route — from a port in Norway to a port China. But getting its first customers to make the leap to provide data for that one passage to prove Xeneta’s value turned out to be a winner: Berglund said that things quickly picked up as those customers input more data, and others started to as well, in order to get better insights into how much they were paying, what routes they were using and so on. The data now is based on a 70/30 split between sea and air shipping (it doesn’t cover ground routes at this point) and the data feed is active enough that when you visit Xeneta’s site, you see it passing ticker-style as it gets updated, more like a stock exchange. Interestingly, it seems that those who are submitting data are less concerned about the competitive aspect of divulging their own data to would-be rivals: the value gained from knowing the bigger picture seems to outweigh this fact.

The company, interestingly, isn’t in the business of booking shipping routes, nor does it want to be, Berglund said.

“My background is in freight forwarding,” he said, and so he knows the benefit of being someone that can provide that group with more data to do the job better. “Whether its a new digital freight forwarder, or a legacy player, they are all in need of better data to run their businesses more efficiently.” He added that 95% of the market still mainly uses Excel spreadsheets to parse historical and current data.

“I’m just flabbergasted that they still use that, and fax machines.”

And just to be clear, it’s not the only one that has realized the potential of offering more intelligence tools to this eventually modernizing industry. Others like Freightview are also building tools to make it easier for those booking shipping to get a sense of market pricing.

“Buyers and sellers of freight have been flying blind in a complex and opaque market. Xeneta’s world-leading dataset and cutting-edge platform provide unique access to granular real-time information and insight, enabling data-driven freight sales and purchases,” said Mark Beith, a partner at Apax Digital, in a statement. “This delivers compelling value for their blue-chip customer base – not just in sales or procurement, but also in budgeting and reporting, and increasingly in ESG monitoring. We’re thrilled to partner with Patrik and the Xeneta team and help deliver their vision.” Beith is joining Xeneta’s board with this round.

Xeneta makes a splash with $80M on a $265M valuation to scale its crowdsourced sea and air freight analytics by Ingrid Lunden originally published on TechCrunch

New data from Carta indicates that valuations for very early-stage startups are holding up better than we might have expected in the current slowdown.

But while it appears that the price at which investors are willing to put capital into various startup sectors is at times becoming more expensive, the pace at which deals are happening is slowing enough that the changing value of seed deals actually makes sense.

Call it the glass half-full/glass half-empty seed market. If you are bullish, there’s good news aplenty. And if you are bearish, well, we have enough data to make that argument as well.

Is the glass half-empty or half-full in the seed market? by Alex Wilhelm originally published on TechCrunch

One of the major changes with today’s launch of iOS 16 is the ability for users’ to now personalize their Lock Screen with widgets, in addition to adding widgets to the Home Screen, which had rolled out in iOS 14. However, outside of built-in widgets for Apple’s first-party apps like Calendar, Clock, Fitness, Home, News, Reminders, and others, this new feature relies on developer adoption. Fortunately, a number of app developers have worked to make their apps iOS 16-ready on launch day, having seemingly understood the power that comes from earning a place in this key iPhone real estate.

Whether you’re looking to customize your overall iPhone theme, or you have a more specific goal in mind — like keeping up with your workouts or emails, for instance — there are already quite a few apps going live today that can help you personalize your device’s Lock Screen using widgets. These widgets come in three sizes: circular, rectangular and inline. The first two appear below the clock on the Lock Screen, while inline widgets sit as a line of text and/or symbols above. But it’s up to the developers which widgets they choose to support.

To add the widgets, you just press and hold on your Lock Screen after updating to iOS 16 then tap the “Customize” button. From this edit mode, you can then tap the row where you want to add or swap out widgets. This will pull up a window that lists the available widgets you can add.

Likely, Lock Screen widgets will mainly appeal to an app’s most loyal customers and to those who already spend time customizing their device’s look and feel on a regular basis with other personalizations, like custom icons and Home Screen widgets.

We’ve taken a look at some of the iOS 16-ready apps that have today introduced support for Lock Screen widgets, and compiled the list below with a few recommendations. Over time, there will be many more apps that update to include widgets, but whether sizable user adoption will follow still remains to be seen.

Personalization widgets

• Motivation: This motivational quotes widget saw 500,000 downloads in a day when iOS Home Screen widgets first launched. Now it will allow users to add those same motivational quotes to their Lock Screen in different widget sizes.

Image Credits: Motivation app

• I am: Made by the same company as Motivation, this variation includes only positive affirmations designed to disrupt self-doubt, many of which begin with the text “I am.”

Image Credits: I am app

• Launcher: This custom widget maker tool is expanding beyond its interactive Home Screen widgets to now allow users to add widgets to their Lock Screen which let you do things like run shortcuts, play music, contact people, or run any app. It will also support Watch Face Widgets on watchOS 9.
• Themify: Another Home Screen personalization app that’s updated with support for iOS 16 features, including the Depth Effect wallpapers and Lock Screen widgets offering inspirational quotes.
• Widgetsmith: One of the most popular Home Screen widget customization apps has expanded to now support the iOS 16 Lock Screen, giving users the ability to design their own text, circular or rectangular widgets using a variety of options, themes, symbols, photos, and other widget types — similar to how you can build your own Home Screen widgets. A must-have for true customizers.

• Livepic: (to become MyScreen): A customization app that had before focused on Live Wallpapers and Home Screen themes will update following iOS 16’s release in around a week’s time (Sorry, this one is delayed!). It will deprecate Live Wallpapers in favor of Depth Effect Wallpapers with its iOS 16 update, and will change its name to “MyScreen,” as a result. The app will also add a new “Lock Screen Pack” feature that contains several elements designed to work together, including wallpapers, widgets, charging animations, and more. It’s also adding a Photo Shuffle feature that lets you configure how often you shuffle between your favorite Lock Screen photos. Each pack has up to 20 images with a similar design, theme, or color scheme.
• Lock Screen Icon widget: A WWDC’20 Swift Student Challenge Winner, Rihab Mehboob, has designed a very simple Lock Screen widget that lets you customize your screen with icons and text, as well as another for contacting favorite people with messages or FaceTime.

• ScreenKit: This theming app includes a set of over 100 Lock Screen widgets, plus wallpapers, Home Screen widgets, custom app icons, and more so you can create a complete design with one app.

Travel

• TripIt: This often-used travel app is adding Lock Screen widgets that will display the most relevant details for a user’s trip or activity, including things like the upcoming trip or plan (eg. the flight, train, hotel, etc.), the relevant flight information, and the post-landing details, like a car reservation or hotel booking.

Image Credits: TripIt

• Flighty: This travel app’s new iOS 16 Lock Screen widgets include a Trip Countdown widget to use ahead of your travels, as well as a Live Flight Status widget, and an In-Flight Progress Bar that works offline.

Image Credits: Flighty

Work/Productivity

• Things: The popular task manager app is bringing your “to do” list to the Lock Screen. The company made three new Lock Screen widgets, a Lists widget that puts your to-do’s directly on your phone’s screen — including either today’s to-do’s, your inbox, deadlines or others. Meanwhile, the “New To-Do” widget lets you tap to launch the app and add a new item, while the Progress ring widget lets you quickly see how many of your to-do items you’ve completed.

Image Credits: Things

• Readdle: This company’s longtime PDF app for iPhone, PDF Expert, will introduce Lock Screen widgets for quick access to recent and favorite files, jumping into an audio player, or syncing files to your computer. Its Documents and Calendars apps will also embrace the Lock Screen with widgets for recent and favorite files, tasks and events, to-dos and other features. And its Scanner Pro app will let you start a scan or visit your scans library from the Lock Screen.
• Todoist: This popular to-do list app and task manager added a variety of iOS 16 Lock Screen widgets for quickly adding tasks, keeping up with task goals and other productivity stats.
• GoodLinks: This $4.99 read-it-later app updated for iOS 16 with support for a range of features, including Focus Filters, App Shortcuts and Lock Screen widgets that let you access a list or a tag or open an random unread link.
• LookUp: This English dictionary app had already offered more than just definitions with features like Word of the Day, quizzes, translations and more. With iOS 16, it’s adding Lock Screen widgets including a glanceable Word of the Day, quick access to Search (so you can look things up without unlocking your iPhone), and a Learn widget for growing your vocabulary.

• Google: We should note that Google today promised iOS 16 Lock Screen widgets for key apps like Search, Chrome, Gmail, Maps, and more, but it doesn’t have them available on launch day, saying instead they’ll roll out in the “coming weeks.”

Cooking

• Pestle: This recipes app will update for iOS 16 with features like Siri Shortcuts, support for “Shared with You” to incorporate recipes sent over iMessage, as well as Lock Screen widgets. Its new widgets will include one that shows a user their meal plan, as well as Live Activity widget when iOS 16.1 releases later this fall.

Weather

• CARROT Weather: This award-winning weather app has already made a name for itself with its great design, feature set, and the humor it brings to something as typically straightforward as a weather forecast. Now it’s adding over 20 customizable Lock Screen widgets that will allow users to view the weather, daily and hourly forecast and even CARROT’s jokes without unlocking your iPhone.

• Slopes: This ski and snowboarding app’s new Lock Screen widgets will keep you updated on the conditions at your favorite local resort and other snow forecasts. Its iOS 16 update also added a new Home Screen widget that displays your favorite winter photos.

Image Credits: Slopes

Health & Fitness

• Personal Best: This fitness tracking app is rolling out a big update for iOS 16 that includes new features like heart rate zones, new workout icons, and more in addition to its Lock Screen widgets that help you keep track of your latest workouts and their details.

Image Credits: Personal Best

• SmartGym: Along with plans for Live Activities support in a later release, this fitness app is adding iOS 16 Lock Screen widgets offering a weekly summary, heart rate and calorie charts, and a way to track how many workouts you’ve done. The widgets come in multiple shapes and sizes, as well.

Image Credits: SmartGym

• Empirical Sleep: This iPhone sleep tracker works with Apple Watch to help users analyze their sleep patterns, including by integrating its data with the iOS Health app. The app looks at three main metrics — sleep onset, duration and quality — and makes recommendations for better sleep. With iOS 16, Empirical Sleep is updating with a new “sleep stages” support supported by watchOS 9, new watchface complications and iPhone Lock Screen widgets that will display the three sleep stages it tracks.

Image Credits: Empirical Sleep

• Gentler Streak: This personalized workout tracker app is introducing three sizes for its Lock Screen widgets which allow you to track your activity status using simple iconography along with motivational support.
• Dark Noise: This $9.99 white noise app lets you easily access ambient sounds for sleeping, focus, relaxing and more. With iOS 16, the app lets you add a shortcut to your favorite sound right on the Lock Screen.
• WaterMinder, FitnessView and Calory: From the same developer, this hydration tracker, fitness tracker and calorie tracker have all been updated with iOS 16 with Lock Screen widgets that let you keep your eye on your various health metrics without unlocking your phone.

Utilities

• CardPointers: This iOS app helps you find the right credit card to use in order to maximize your bonuses when you make a purchase. With iOS 16, it’s launching a new version that adds support for a range of new features, like Focus Filters, Passkeys, App Shortcuts, Shared with You and more, as well as a set of Lock Screen widgets. Because the app automatically creates thousands of App Shortcuts, there are a lot of possible Lock Screen widgets available, as well. The app supports 2 variants — one that shows you the best card to use at any store or category of purchase; and another for tracking expiring points and offers to help you save money.

Image Credits: CardPointers

• Speedy: This dedicated app allows you quickly message, call, text a contact from the Lock Screen, or even message with FaceTime, WhatsApp, Signal, or Telegram. The app doesn’t require additional permissions to work and will remain free as the developer expects this to be a crowded space.
• Scanner Live: This new iOS scanning app helps users scan, sign, edit, annotate and export PDFs from its app. With iOS 16, you can also add scanning shortcuts to the Lock Screen in the form of either a Live Scan or Classic Scan widget.
• Clendar: This $0.99 minimalist calendar app is rolling out its iOS Lock Screen widgets for keeping up with your appointments.
• Pretty Progress App: This app which already delivered templated countdowns, timers and progress bar widgets to the Home Screen is now adding Lock Screen widgets as well with the iOS 16 update, in addition to support for syncing with iCloud.

Music

Soor: This alternative music player app rolled out iOS 16 support with Lock Screen widgets in both rectangular and circular versions that let you access your favorite music without unlocking your iPhone.

25+ iOS 16-ready apps featuring Lock Screen widgets you can try today by Sarah Perez originally published on TechCrunch

A series of commitments offered by Amazon in the EU, where regulators are investigating competition concerns linked to its use of third party data, has been dubbed “weak, vague and full of loopholes” in a critical submission signed by a dozen civil society and digital rights groups, non-governmental organizations and trade unions.

The submission, which was made public today, goes on to urge the bloc’s regulators to reject Amazon’s proposals and press on with a full antitrust investigation of the two-sided marketplace. “We urge the European Commission to reject Amazon’s commitments outright and in full, and instead continue vigorously to pursue its antitrust cases against Amazon, imposing remedies and penalties (on the Commission’s own terms) as necessary,” the 12 signatories write.

The full list of signatories are as follows: Austrian Federal Chamber of Labour (AK Europa); Balanced Economy Project; Digitale Gesellschaft e.V.; European Public Services Union (EPSU); Foxglove; Goliathwatch; FairVote UK; LobbyControl; Simply Secure; Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO); UNI Europa; and WEED (Weltwirtschaft, Ökologie & Entwicklung e.V.).

Their submission argues that much of what Amazon has proposed to try to settle the EU’s investigation into its handling of merchant data will be required under an incoming pan-EU law anyway — called the Digital Markets Act (DMA) — that’s expected to start applying from spring 2023, bringing in major penalties for non-compliance.

The incoming regulation reforms the bloc’s approach to competition enforcement around Big Tech — introducing up-front requirements for so-called “gatekeepers”, whose core platform services fall in-scope, in oft-complained-about areas like self-preferencing and data use.

But the signatories warn there’s a risk of a confusing “dual-track” of regulatory requirements opening up around the ecommerce giant if the Commission decides to accept Amazon’s commitments as it could soon be subject to the DMA. They also point out that “most” of what Amazon is offering will be required under the DMA anyway (such as a ban on self-preferencing; or restrictions on not using non-public data generated by business users) — asserting that Amazon is offering less extensive obligations, hence there’s a risk of one undermining the other.

“[T]he DMA’s obligations are more extensive than those offered by Amazon, and will be enforced by the Commission rather than by the company itself. From the point of view of both efficacy and rule of law, it is not appropriate for a private company to make voluntary commitments parallel to those that will imminently be imposed on it by European law,” the signatories argue, implying that, if accepted as is, the commitments could become a vehicle for Amazon to evade the full force of beefed up EU antitrust law (and the full sweep of associated obligations on its business).

The EU’s probe of Amazon’s use of third party data has been public since 2019. The Commission published a first set of antitrust charges back in November 2020 — saying at the time that its preliminary conclusion was the ecommerce behemoth had abused its market position in France and Germany, its biggest markets in the EU, via its use of big data to “illegally distort” competition into online retail markets.

Last fall, news reports suggested Amazon was seeking to settle the EU investigation by offering concessions on how it operates. Then, earlier this summer, details of Amazon’s proposal were confirmed by the EU which published a summary — saying the company was offering concessions attached to how it uses third party seller data; around its programming of the influential Buy Box; and for Prime, its membership program (which links to Amazon’s own logistics business such as via preferential delivery options). 

Specifically, on marketplace seller data, Amazon offered to refrain from using non-public data relating to, or derived from, the activities of independent sellers on its marketplace, for its retail business that competes with those sellers. Re: the Buy Box, it proposed applying equal treatment to all sellers when ranking offers to make the selection for the Buy Box, as well as offering to display a second competing option to the winner in certain circumstances.

While, on Prime — which emerged as a second strand of the EU’s probe — Amazon offered to set non-discriminatory conditions and criteria for the qualification of marketplace sellers and offers to Prime; to let Prime sellers freely choose any carrier for logistics and delivery services (and negotiate terms directly); as well as offering not to use any information obtained through Prime about the terms and performance of third-party carriers, for its own (competing) logistics services.

However the 12 groups critical of Amazon’s proposals in the aforementioned submission argue that what it’s offered both does “not materially improve” the position of third-party sellers vis-à-vis the ecommerce giant and risks muddying the water around the application of the DMA.

Asked for a view on whether the Commission will be minded to accept Amazon’s commitments, a policy advisor who has been working with the NGOs for this submission flagged the public consultation process as a sign that EU lawmakers are looking at what Amazon has suggested seriously. Although he also argued they will likely be applying a sceptical eye — not least given some of the issues being raised in submissions such as this one but also as he suggested the Commission will be wary about preempting Amazon’s obligations under the DMA (which he said “touch on similar practices but are more comprehensive and now have a foundation in EU law”).

“If I had to make an educated guess, I think the Commission will eventually accept a set of commitments from Amazon but only after significant revisions based on DG COMP’s feedback,” Global Counsel’s Max von Thun added. “I would also expect them to make it explicit that Amazon — if designated as a gatekeeper [under the DMA] — will still have to demonstrate separately how they are complying with the DMA’s obligations, and perhaps even specify that the commitments will be superseded by the DMA obligations once they take effect in early 2024.”

EU urged to reject ‘weak’ Amazon offer to end antitrust probe by Natasha Lomas originally published on TechCrunch

It’s going to be a big week for the crypto market.

On Thursday, the Ethereum system upgrade dubbed “the Merge” will occur, moving one of the largest and most important blockchains in the world away from its current proof-of-work setup to a proof-of-stake model. The technical change brings with it a wealth of questions, including what sort of precedent it sets for rival blockchains that are sticking to their proof-of-work guns.

The Merge is often discussed in the context of the anticipated changes to the environmental weight of Ethereum — proof-of-stake doesn’t require the same level of compute inputs, meaning the blockchain won’t need to marshal a Bitcoin-like fleet of computers to keep its network running. That’s good.

But if you were hoping for that much more from the upgrade, hang tight. Other goodies might be a bit farther down the line.

The Exchange explores startups, markets and money.

Read it every morning on TechCrunch+ or get The Exchange newsletter every Saturday.

Reading through the analyst, investor and founder perspectives that we collected last week concerning expectations for the upcoming Merge changed my perspective on the event. Given how long the Merge has been in the offing, you might expect that it will swoop in and de-kink every part of the Ethereum blockchain. It will not.

Big hopes for the upcoming Ethereum Merge by Alex Wilhelm originally published on TechCrunch

Blue Origin launched its 23rd New Shepard rocket mission this morning, featuring science payloads designed for experimentation. The mission needed early, however, after it was aborted during the first ascent stage of the rocket, prompting the abort process to take over and firing the parachutes on the capsule, which drifted back to Earth shortly after take-off.

This was not a crewed mission, so there was no one on board the capsule, though it is the same vehicle that the company uses for its private spaceflight tourist missions. This marks the first time ever that Blue Origin has encountered a problem with the New Shepard spacecraft during a flight, in nearly two dozen missions.

So far, all Blue Origin has said is that an anomaly was detected which resulted in the abort process. The company hasn’t yet specified any details, but the issue occurred during the ‘Max Q’ phase of the launch, which is the point at which the rocket is undergoing the most stress due to atmospheric pressure and friction.

We’ll be looking for updates (Blue Origin says they’re on the way), but the mission does provide a unique test of Blue Origin’s active escape system, which was responsible for the capsule separating and landing apparently safely once the anomaly occurred.

Developing…

Blue Origin launch aborted after mid-flight anomaly by Darrell Etherington originally published on TechCrunch

Google announced this morning it will bring access to a number of its popular apps, including Search, Maps, Gmail and more, to the iPhone’s Lock Screen. With the updated version of Apple’s mobile operating system — iOS 16, releasing today — iPhone owners are now able to customize their device by adding widgets to their Lock Screen, instead of only their Home Screen, as before.

These mini widgets come in three sizes: circular and rectangular, which appear below the Lock Screen’s clock, and inline, which appears above the clock as a line of text and symbols.

Google’s widgets will take advantage of all three formats.

The company, in a blog post, previewed its iOS 16 widgets, which include a Search widget that lets you begin a Google search from the Lock Screen, even using your voice or camera (Google Lens). This widget will additionally offer a Google Translate widget, as well.

Image Credits: Google

Similarly, a new Chrome Lock Screen widget will allow users to start a search, including a voice search, but will also offer a button to quickly launch an incognito mode search. It includes a widget that adds Chrome’s dino game, which typically appears when Chrome is offline, as a Lock Screen option, too. (While we love the dino game, we can’t imagine giving up our limited Lock Screen real estate for this one — but to each their own!)

The new Google Drive Lock Screen widget, meanwhile, will allow you to open a suggested Drive file or Starred files and folders with a tap, which could be useful for business-focused Lock Screens.

And the Gmail widget will help you keep an eye on your inbox. This widget comes in all three sizes, as the inline widget can appear above the clock to show a shortened date (like “Wed 7”), followed by the number of new messages in the inbox. A rectangular widget breaks down how many new messages are in each category — like Social, Updates, or Promotions — which helps users better understand if the incoming mail is actually important. A smaller, circular widget simply displays how many new messages you have.

Image Credits: Google

Another app, Google Maps, is also adding Lock Screen widgets following the iOS 16 release. These will be useful for travelers and commuters as the widgets will offer real-time traffic updates and estimated travel times to places like your office or home address. Additional widgets will also let you tap to find restaurants, shops, coffee, or hotels along your route.

Image Credits: Google

Finally, a Google News widget brings short headlines to the Lock Screen, which can be tapped on to launch the Google News app.

Google had previously launched Home Screen widgets when they first became available with the launch of iOS 14 in 2020, then bringing interactive elements for many of these same apps — including Gmail, Drive, Chrome and others — to users’ Home Screens. But one widget that it offers on the Home Screen is missing from this new collection of Lock Screen widgets: Google Calendar. That seems an odd oversight given that meetings and events are the sorts of at-a-glance information that many would want quick access to, like the Lock Screen provides. Hopefully, this widget’s launch is just delayed but still in the works.

The company didn’t offer an exact time frame the new Lock Screen widgets would become available, only that they’ll roll out in the weeks ahead.

Google introduces a set of iOS 16 Lock Screen widgets for your iPhone by Sarah Perez originally published on TechCrunch

Alongside its fall hardware update, which included new streaming and audio devices, Roku today unveiled the features it has in store for the next version of its media software, Roku OS 11.5. This time around, the platform maker is looking to advance its own offerings, like its Live TV experience, as well as better cater to viewers who are struggling to keep up with a range of film and TV content across a growing number of streaming services with new features like an expanded universal watch list, a platform-wide “continue watching” feature, and a new discovery center called “The Buzz,” featuring short-form content.

Many of the new additions see Roku returning to its roots as a company that focuses more on connecting customers to the many streaming services they enjoy, instead of heavily pushing its own free streaming hub, The Roku Channel, and subscription platform.

For instance, one new feature is transforming Roku’s “Save List,” previously available only on The Roku Channel and in the mobile app, into a platform-wide universal watch list that lets viewers save movies and shows from across their services to a single destination. This feature will now also be located within the “What to Watch” hub on Roku’s Home Screen Menu, in addition to the mobile app.

Image Credits: Roku: Save List

To use the feature, Roku customers will see a “Save” option on the newly revamped movie and TV show details pages, which now sport a more visual design. This “Save” option will let the user add a given title to their Save List for later viewing. This could be particularly useful for titles that are still only available for rent or purchase, but may hit a customer’s subscription streaming services at a later date, as well as those they just want to remind themselves to watch later.

Save Lists will additionally arrive in Canada, the U.K., and Ireland with this release.

Another feature, “Continue Watching,” will also be located in this “What to Watch” hub, giving customers a quick way to jump back into titles they were previously viewing. And it doesn’t only work with The Roku Channel, the company says — it will support top streamers like Netflix, HBO Max, and Paramount+, too. The company hinted more partners were on the way, but could not share names.

Image Credits: Roku: Continue Watching

Roku also can’t seem to escape consumer demand for short-form content.

Like Netflix, which entered this space with its comedy-focused “Fast Laughs” feature on mobile before expanding to the TV earlier this year, Roku is also now embracing short-form video with a new Home Screen addition called “The Buzz.”

But unlike Netflix, it’s not creating any of this short content itself. Instead, it’s leaving that up to partners, including AMC+, Apple TV+, BET+, Crackle, Hallmark Movies Now, IGN, Plex, Popcornflix, SHOWTIME, Starz, The CW, Tubi, Vevo, and Wondrium.

These brands will post short-form video clips, trailers, interviews, and even images to engage Roku viewers who are looking for something new to watch. Viewers can “like” these posts and save the content to watch later through the updated watch list feature. They can also follow profiles, as on social media, or immediately start streaming the promoted title. The company said the feature would expand over time with more content and partners.

Image Credits: Roku’s The Buzz

The updated software will also introduce a few features that cater to Roku’s own interests.

One of these is the new Roku Store, which lets consumers shop for both free and paid streaming channels. This is more of an update to the existing channel search experience, as the store will better organize the available offerings by category in more of a marketplace format.

Roku will also promote its foray into Live TV with a dedicated Live TV Channel “Guide” button on its mobile app remote, which will likely appeal more to recent cord-cutters who still want a cable TV-like experience.

At launch, this Live TV Guide will include content from The Roku Channel, over-the-air content from a connected TV tuner, free AVOD (ad-supported video on demand) channels, and premium subscription channels launched through The Roku Channel’s subscription platform.

Image Credits: Roku Home Screen

By pushing the new button, users will be able to browse and search channels or filter their discovery efforts by way of new channel categories — Recents, Favorites, and Subscribed. The latter will connect users to their Premium stations from The Roku Channel. Customers can also browse the Live TV offering by genre, like News, Sports, Movies, Entertainment, Kids, Crime, Music, and En Espanol.

Related to Live TV, Roku will later introduce a centralized discovery location for sports content that will help viewers find live sports on now, as well as replays and other sports-related content.

Among the smaller updates in this release is an enhancement to Roku’s voice feature that adds a display on-screen showing the channel options related to a voice search. This way, Roku Voice can ask a follow-up question, like asking which channel in the list the user wanted, and the user can respond more conversationally by saying something like “the second one.”

The company is also expanding its Bluetooth Private Listening feature, which lets users listen to TV through headphones so as not to disturb others. This now supports the company’s newest Roku Ultra and its audio devices the Streambar and Streambar Pro.

The company notes the Roku OS 11.5 update is arriving in the months ahead, but says some features may appear sooner instead of waiting to be packaged as a part of the larger OS release.

Roku also today introduced a new version of the Roku Express streaming player ($29.99) with dual-band Wi-Fi and additional storage, and a new product called Roku Wireless Bass ($129.99).

Roku’s latest update adds short-form video, a universal save list and ‘continue watching’ feature by Sarah Perez originally published on TechCrunch

The Lumafield Neptune CT scanner

Lumafield today announced a $35 million Series B, and new features for its desktop X-ray computed tomography platform that aims to provide engineers and designers with unparalleled access to their products. Lumafield revealed the Neptune scanner and Voyager software in April when the company emerged from stealth.

The company also released significant updates to its desktop CT scanner today, saying in a press release that the scan time is now more than 300x faster.

With the AI-powered Voyager software, the Neptune scanner offers design and engineering teams a practical CT solution. What was previously unavailable due to cost and availability are now available to more engineer teams and startups, thanks to Lumafield’s novel approach. The company says these products are viable, from one-off scans to high-volume manufacturing offerings, with pricing starting at $3,000 monthly.

Lumafield software

The product works by capturing a series of X-Ray images on the Neptune scanner, which is fed into the Voyager software. Using AI-powered tools, the software creates a highly-detailed 3D reconstruction showing the external and internal makeup of the product.

The new round of funding brings the total amount raised by the company to $67.5M. Spark Capital led the new round of financing with participation from existing investors Lux Capital, Kleiner Perkins, Data Collective, and Tony Fadell’s Future Shape. In addition, spark Capital’s Santo Politi is joining Lumafield’s board, along with Victoria Holt, previously the CEO of Protolabs.

“Lumafield has been fortunate to have some of the world’s leading investors back our vision of ‘CT ubiquity.’ Thanks to their support, we’ve been able to help engineers change the way they work on everything from cosmetics packaging to bike parts,” said Eduardo Torrealba, Co-Founder, and CEO of Lumafield, in a released statement. “We’re honored by this vote of confidence from Santo and Victoria, as well as our Seed, Series A, and Series B investors. We’re excited to move into our next phase of supercharged growth.”

[gallery ids="2394804,2394805,2394806,2394797,2394802"]

Lumafield raises $35M, announces speedy updates to its affordable desktop CT scanner by Matt Burns originally published on TechCrunch

Starbucks is today officially introducing Starbucks Odyssey, launching later this year — the coffee chain’s first foray into building with web3 technology. The new experience combines the company’s successful Starbucks Rewards loyalty program with an NFT platform, allowing its customers to both earn and purchase digital assets that unlock exclusive experiences and rewards.

The company had earlier teased its web3 plans to investors, saying it believed this new experience would build on the current Starbucks Rewards model where customers today earn “stars” which can be exchanged for perks, like free drinks. It envisions Starbucks Odyssey as a way for its most loyal customers to earn a broader set of rewards while also building community.

To develop the project, Starbucks brought in Adam Brotman, the architect of its Mobile Order & Pay system and the Starbucks app, to help serve as a special advisor. Now the co-founder of Forum3, a web3 loyalty startup, Brotman’s team worked on Starbucks Odyssey alongside the Seattle coffee chain’s own marketing, loyalty, and technology teams.

While Starbucks had been investigating blockchain technologies for a couple of years, it has only been involved in this particular project for around six months, Starbucks CMO Brady Brewer told TechCrunch. He says the company wanted to invest in this area, but not as a “stunt” side project, as many companies are doing. Rather, it wanted to find a way to use the technology to enhance its business and expand its existing loyalty program.

It opted to make NFTs the passes that allow access to this digital community, but it’s intentionally obscuring the nature of the technology underpinning the experience in order to bring in more consumers — including non-technical people — to the web3 platform.

“It happens to be built on blockchain and web3 technologies, but the customer — to be honest — may very well not even know that what they’re doing is interacting with blockchain technology. It’s just the enabler,” Brewer explains.

To engage with the Starbucks Odyssey experience, Starbucks Rewards members will log in to the web app using their existing loyalty program credentials.

Once there, they’ll be able to engage with various activities, which Starbucks called “journeys” — like playing interactive games or taking on challenges designed to deepen their knowledge of the Starbucks brand or coffee in general. As they complete these journeys, members can early digital collectibles in the form of NFTs (non-fungible tokens). Starbucks Odyssey, however, does away with the tech lingo and calls these NFT collectibles “journey stamps” instead.

Additionally, a set of limited-edition NFTs will be available to purchase in the Starbucks Odyessy web app, which also works on mobile devices. Though hosted on the Polygon blockchain, these NFTs will be bought using a credit or debit card — a crypto wallet is not required. The company believes this will make it easier for consumers to engage with the web3 experience by lowering the barrier to entry. It also won’t complicate consumers’ transactions with things like “gas fees,” preferring to offer a bundled price.

The company is not yet ready to share what its NFTs will cost or how many will be available at launch, saying these are decisions that are still being ironed out.

However, the various “stamps” (NFTs) will include a point value based on their rarity and can be bought or sold among Starbucks Odyessy members in the marketplace, with the ownership secured on the blockchain. The artwork on the NFTs is being co-created by Starbucks and outside artists, and a portion of the proceeds from the sale of the limited-edition collectibles will be donated to support causes chosen by Starbucks employees and customers.

By collecting the stamps, members will gain points that can unlock exclusive benefits.

These perks go beyond those you can earn with a traditional Starbucks Rewards account and its “stars.” While today, members can earn things like free coffee, free food, or select merchandise, the points earned in Starbucks Odyessy will translate into experiences and other benefits.

Image Credits: Starbucks Hacienda Alsacia (opens in a new window)

On the lower end, that could be a virtual espresso martini-making class or access to unique merchandise and artist collaborations. As you gain more points, you may earn invites to special events hosted at Starbucks Reserve Roasteries, or even earn a trip to the Starbucks Hacienda Alsacia coffee farm in Costa Rica. It’s expected the very largest perks will be reserved for those who purchase NFTs, though lesser versions may be offered to those who earn their way up.

For instance, a paid NFT could offer the full travel package and farm tour, while an earned NFT could offer the tour alone with flights and hotels left up to the user. The company hasn’t made any formal decisions on this front, however.

But what the company can say is that it wants to deeply integrate the program with its existing loyalty rewards, beyond simply using the same user account credentials for both programs.

Brewer says Starbucks is already imagining how some of the activities that earn NFTs will be connected to real-world Starbucks purchases, for instance.

In Odyssey, users earn NFTs by doing challenges, which might also include a real-world activity like “try three things on the espresso menu.” This would require the user to show their barcode at checkout — as they would if earning stars — to have their transaction counted towards the Starbuck Odyssey challenge. The company is still determining what mix of games, challenges, and quests it will include at launch.

“But we’ll have experiences that do link directly to customers’ behavior in our stores,” Brewer stresses. Most importantly, the company wants to make gaining NFTs something anyone can do — not just those with money to blow on digital collectibles, as is often the case with current NFT communities, which price out the average user.

“There will be a lot of ways for people to earn [rewards] without having to spend a lot of money,” says Brewer. “We want to make this super easy and accessible. There will be plenty of everyday experiences customers can earn like virtual classes or access to limited edition merchandise, for instance. “The range of experiences will be quite vast and very accessible,” he adds.

Starbucks says it explored all the different blockchains for the project but landed on the “proof-of-stake” blockchain technology built by Polygon for this effort because it uses less energy than first-generation “proof-of-work” blockchains, which is more in line with its conversation goals.

Image Credits: Starbucks (opens in a new window)

The idea to enter into the world of web3 makes sense for a company known for taking advantage of emerging technologies and making them more approachable and easy for consumers to access. In years past, Starbucks introduced Wi-Fi in its stores to encourage customers to spend more time during visits. It also pushed the idea of mobile wallets long before Apple Pay became ubiquitous. And it made mobile ordering the norm well ahead of the Covid pandemic, when other restaurant chains picked it up.

But one criticism leveraged against many traditional businesses when they enter the web3 market is that they’re approaching it as a marketing stunt, not a real endeavor. Starbucks, of course, argues that’s the case here — but only time will tell how serious its interest may be.

“We’re bullish on the future of these technologies enabling experiences that were not possible before,” Brewer claims. The intention is to be flexible and move with the customers as the web3 market changes, he explains. “It’s really important that we’re looking at it for the long-term,” he continues. “But, given that we’re plugging it into our industry-leading, massive scale rewards program — we’re committed,” he says.

The company says its web3 platform will open its waitlist (waitlist.starbucks.com) on September 12 and will launch later in the year. It will remove the waitlist and open the platform more broadly sometime next year.

Starbucks details its blockchain-based loyalty platform and NFT community, Starbucks Odyssey by Sarah Perez originally published on TechCrunch

Russian search giant Yandex has confirmed the completion of the sale of two of its flagship media properties, News and Zen, to local social media giant, VK, following regulatory approvals.

As we reported back in March, Yandex began looking for ways to offload its news aggregator and blogging recommender platform in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as the Kremlin has cranked up control of the media and freedom of expression — seeking to shape the narrative around what it only ever refers to as a “special military operation”. The Russian state has also sought to clamp down on anti-war sentiment, raising risks for media owners. And we understand Yandex insiders had come to refer to News and Zen as “toxic assets”.

In a statement today, the Dutch registered company announced its Russian operating subsidiary had completed the sale of the news aggregation platform and Zen “infotainment” service to VK — confirming too the acquisition of 100% of the food delivery service, Delivery Club, which had been owned by VK.

The transaction received approval from the Federal Antimonopoly Service, Yandex added.

Following closure, Delivery Club becomes part of Yandex’s ‘E-commerce, Mobility and Delivery’ segment. And Yandex’s statement notes that, as of today, the brand be consolidated in the group’s financial results — with these changes due to be reflected in its third quarter financial results.

As we reported last month, the sale includes the Yandex.ru homepage which will pass to VK — with visitors to that site being redirected to a renamed version of the page, dzen.ru, which is controlled and developed by VK.

The redirect is expected to begin happening later today.

We understand that the deal to sell News and Zen to VK was a pure asset swap — with no financial component to the transaction.

Yandex’s sale of News and Zen to VK completes by Natasha Lomas originally published on TechCrunch