Facebook has removed 82 pages, groups and accounts for “coordinated inauthentic behavior” that originated out of Iran.
The social networking giant discovered the “inauthentic behavior” a week ago, according to a blog post by the company’s cybersecurity policy chief Nathaniel Gleicher. He said the operation targeted U.S. and U.K. citizens, and “posted about politically charged topics such as race relations, opposition to the President, and immigration.” The company said that although its investigation is in its early stages, it traced the activity back to Iran but but has not yet found a connection to the Iranian government
Facebook said that a little over one million accounts followed at least one of the pages run by the Iranian actors. The takedown also included 16 accounts on Instagram.
It’s the latest batch of takedowns in recent months. Facebook took down hundreds of accounts and pages in August with help from security firm FireEye, which found a widespread Iranian influencing operation on the social media platform. Although previous efforts by Facebook to take down accounts linked with spreading disinformation aimed at elections, the Iranian-backed campaign was targeting a scattering of issues. FireEye said in its analysis that the various narratives employed by the Iranians include “anti-Saudi, anti-Israeli, and pro-Palestinian themes, as well as support for specific U.S. policies favorable to Iran, such as the U.S.-Iran nuclear deal.”
Alphabet, Google’s parent company, and Twitter also removed accounts associated with the campaign.
Move aside Uber, China’s ByteDance is now the world’s highest-valued tech startup.
That’s according to reports from Forbes and Bloomberg both of which claim that the company has completed a $3 billion investment that values the company at $75 billion. A source with knowledge of the deal confirmed the round to TechCrunch and suggested that the value is pre-money, which, adding the round, would put ByteDance’s valuation at $78 billion. That’s ahead of Uber’s most recent $72 billion valuation, although the ride-hailing giant is being tipped to go public next year at a valuation of up to $120 billion.
ByteDance did not respond to a request for comment.
We previously reported that ByteDance was in talks with KKR and General Atlantic, and they were joined by SoftBank in the round — with Bloomberg reporting SoftBank plans to put in a total of around $1.8 billion which will include buying out some existing investors via secondary sales. On that note, the publication also claims that the round remains open to additional investors so the amount raised could increase.
ByteDance operates a range of digital media platforms, but it is best known for Toutiao, its AI-based news aggregator that has become one of China’s most-used apps with over 120 million users, and short video platform TikTok, which recently gobbled up Music.ly which ByteDance acquired via a $1 billion acquisition last year.
But it isn’t just popular in China. That TikTok-Music.ly merger is aimed at growing the platform globally, while ByteDance operates a number of Toutiao-like global services too. It has carefully fenced its Chinese and international versions, though. TikTok (500 million monthly users) and Chinese equivalent Douyin (300 million MAUs) are restricted to their respective markets, principally due to censorship concerns.
ByteDance has done the impossible and become an internet giant in China, breaking the dominance of Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent — the so-called BAT big three — but U.S. giants are also paying attention. Because imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Google is said to be (controversially) developing a Toutiao-like news app for China, while TechCrunch reportedly this week that Facebook is hatching a TikTok clone.
It hasn’t been plain sailing, though. ByteDance has been reprimanded by the Chinese government which has seen its services given app store bans, and the company’s content moderation team grown from 6,000 to 10,000. That’s part of the growing pains and in many ways, interest from Beijing is definitely a compliment that shows just how influential the company has become.
Blockchain startup Blockchain shared its roadmap for the coming months. The company is launching a hardware wallet in partnership with Ledger. Blockchain is also launching a new trading platform called Swap — this platform will find the best trading prices across a variety of exchanges and liquidity pools so that you can exchange tokens at a fair price straight from your Blockchain account.
Blockchain is one of the most successful cryptocurrency wallets out there. The company has built a solid user base with a software wallet for Bitcoin, and now also Ethereum and Bitcoin Cash.
Compared to traditional exchanges, you remain in control of your private keys. Blockchain can’t access your tokens, hackers can’t empty your wallet if Blockchain gets hacked. Blockchain currently manages 30 million wallets, which represent over $200 billion in transaction volume in the last two years.
But a software wallet isn’t as secure as a hardware wallet. There have been countless of phishing attempts and scams to take over your private keys. That’s why Blockchain is going to release its own hardware wallet, sort of.
The company is partnering with French startup Ledger to release the Blockchain Lockbox. It looks exactly like the Ledger Nano S, but with a Blockchain logo. It’ll feature a customer Blockchain firmware and integrate with Blockchain’s wallets.
Just like Ledger’s own app, you’ll be able to check your balance without connecting your hardware wallet to a computer. But as soon as you want to process a transaction, you’ll need to plug your Ledger wallet to confirm the transaction on the device itself.
It’ll be interesting to see how your Blockchain wallet and the one tied to your Blockchain Lockbox work together. The Lockbox could act as a sort of longterm vault while you could keep some coins on your standard Blockchain wallet for frequent transactions.
As for Swap, Blockchain is building its own trading product. It’s not going to be a separate exchange as the company plans to integrate with multiple sources. Eventually, Blockchain hopes to add support for decentralized exchange protocols so that you can exchange tokens without going through an exchange.
The Blockchain Lockbox will cost $99 and start shipping in November. I hope there will be other versions that support Bluetooth and mobile phones in the future as Blockchain is quite popular on mobile.
Looking for a phone or tablet that delivers a bit more than usual? Need a device that can enhance your productivity, rather than distract you with a ton of apps?
Samsung’s flagship 2018 devices ship with DeX, a hidden mode that, when activated, delivers a more traditional computing experience.
But what is Samsung DeX, and what can it do for you?
What Is Samsung DeX?
One of many features in the Samsung Galaxy S8 and Samsung Galaxy Tab S4, Samsung DeX is basically a desktop mode. You can enable it manually or configure it to switch on when connecting certain devices.
If you’re using a phone, take the time to configure these devices first. Once you dock your device, the screen goes black, so you won’t be able to set up Bluetooth hardware. Note this isn’t a problem for the Tab S4.
If you don’t have a keyboard and mouse to access the DeX desktop environment, don’t worry. You can use your phone as an input device instead.
How Samsung DeX Improves Productivity
With a tablet that instantly switches into a compact laptop-like device, or a phone that converts into a desktop computer, your productivity is bound to skyrocket.
While all the tablet’s apps and games remain at your disposal, the desktop environment is more geared towards productivity. With a mouse and keyboard connected, you can instantly launch your email client, word processor, spreadsheet app, or whatever tool you want to use.
Whether you’re using these features through a TV, using your phone as a portable PC, or working on a tablet, you’ll appreciate how Samsung DeX makes using Android for genuine working tasks simple. You might even find it improves hot-desking or makes it easier to use hotel room facilities for work.
And it means that if you’re not married to any desktop operating system, you no longer need a PC.
DeX offers a Windows-like desktop experience, with open apps gathered in the lower-left corner, and access to notifications where you would find the Windows System Tray. Open the app tray via the grid-like button.
Dex lets you display multiple apps on the desktop, either in windowed mode or full screen. Ultimately, it really feels like you’re using a standard computer, rather than a tablet.
Which Phones Support Samsung DeX?
DeX is currently only available on Samsung devices, and sadly not even all of them. However, it is present on the Galaxy S8/S8+, Note 8, S9/S9+, Note 9, and Tab S4.
To use DeX on a phone, you’ll need to connect the USB-C port on your device to an HDMI display. This is possible via several means, such as a dedicated DeX cable. Samsung also sells two suitable docking stations: the DeX Station and the DeX Pad. These even have USB and HDMI ports for connecting other devices. For more choices, third party docks are available as well.
Meanwhile, if you’re using the Samsung Galaxy Tab S4, a connected display isn’t necessary (although it remains an option). After all, a 10-inch display is more than adequate.
Other Android Desktop Environments
Samsung isn’t the only company to develop this sort of technology. Microsoft, for example, has developed Continuum, which works to switch the user interface depending on the screen size of the host device. It’s present in some of the later Windows 10 Mobile devices, such as the Lumia 950, and even works wirelessly.
Meanwhile, the Linux-based Ubuntu Phone, now maintained by UBPorts since it was abandoned by Canonical, also has a desktop mode, called Convergence.
And Samsung isn’t even alone in the Android world. Maru OS is one of several Android projects that deliver desktop functionality. The difference, of course, is that none of these Android desktop modes have Samsung behind them.
Amazingly, while these modes are in effect, you’re still able to use your phone for calls!
How to Start DeX on the Samsung Galaxy Tab S4
On the Samsung Galaxy Tab S4, DeX is included as an alternative mode. Samsung claims this gives you “the full productivity of a computer with the mobility of a tablet.”
This means that if you pair a Bluetooth keyboard with your tablet, you can flip into the DeX mode. Essentially, your Samsung tablet running Android turns into a small laptop, much like a Microsoft Surface does with a keyboard attached.
While Samsung provides its own case with a built-in keyboard, you can also use a third-party device. You might even connect a wired USB keyboard via the USB-C port.
To start DeX, pull down from the top of the screen twice to open the Quick Settings tray, and swipe across. You’ll find the Samsung DeX button; tap this to switch into the desktop mode. (You also have the option to enable Samsung DeX at Settings > Advanced Features.) Alternatively, you can long-press the button to access DeX settings.
These settings let you toggle DeX on and off, as well as provide an auto-start option for when the Samsung Book Cover Keyboard is connected. There’s also an auto-start prompt when connecting an HDMI cable to the USB-C port.
Other settings let you change the desktop wallpaper or keyboard and mouse settings in DeX mode, and even play audio through any connected HDMI device.
The Shortcomings of Samsung DeX
Although the DeX experience is solid, it’s hard to rid yourself of the knowledge that you’re using Android. One key shortcoming is that DeX doesn’t accept many Android gestures while using an app, as the interface is geared towards a mouse and keyboard.
Meanwhile, although some apps will run fine within DeX, some are stuck in portrait mode. Worse, others simply won’t open.
While good, and certainly easier to activate and use than Ubuntu Touch Convergence or Microsoft’s Continuum, DeX isn’t perfect. As such, your Samsung phone or tablet isn’t quite ready to replace your PC or laptop.
In a pinch, however, Samsung DeX can deliver a useful desktop experience. In short, you’re never without a computer when you have this software as an option. Freelancers, hot-deskers, and frequent flyers might just find DeX invaluable.
Private information is big business and everyone is trying to watch you. The secret services, governments, Microsoft, cyber-criminals, and your creepy neighbor from across the street all want to know what you’re doing, all the time.
While it’s almost impossible to remove yourself from the global grid completely, there are some steps you can take to reduce your information footprint.
The best place to start is with your browser. It’s your main portal to the web, so using a more secure option will make a big difference to your privacy.
Here are four private browsers that are (almost) completely anonymous.
The Tor network has one simple goal: anonymous communication. It’s the best private web browser available.
The network aims to protect a user’s location, browser history, personal data, and online messages from any person or bot that’s performing network traffic analysis.
How It Works
Network traffic analysis is arguably the most powerful weapon in a data collector’s armory. It can track your behavior and interests for advertising companies, it can lead to price discrimination on online shopping sites based on location, it can even reveal your identity to people who might want to silence or harm you.
Basic encryption techniques don’t protect you against traffic analysis. Data sent over the internet has two key aspects: the payload and the header.
The payload is the actual data (for example, the contents of an email); the header helps the data get to its destination. It includes information such as source, size, and timestamps. Encryption can only hide the payload, not the header.
And that’s when Tor comes in. It sends your internet traffic through so many individual relays and tunnels that the header is nonsensical to traffic analysis tools. In simple terms, instead of going directly from A to B, the network sends your traffic on a maze-like route through many locations.
A sniffer looking at a single point on that route has no way to tell where the traffic originated or where it’s going.
Browser Features
To access the Tor network, you need to use the Tor Browser. It’s so secure that the US Navy uses it for intelligence gathering. Tor is also used by law enforcement organizations who want to visit websites without leaving government IP addresses in the site’s log.
You don’t need to install any software on your machine; the browser is a portable app that can live on a USB stick. It means you can use the service regardless of what computer you’re working on, even if it’s in a public location such as a library or university.
The design of the browser will be instantly recognizable to Firefox users, but there are a couple of notable changes. The biggest difference is the integration of NoScript; it’s included by default. Unlike the regular NoScript add-on—which can be complicated to use—the Tor version has an easy-to-use slider to manage your privacy.
There are also some downsides to using the Tor Browser. For most users, the biggest issue is speed. Because your traffic is taking such a twisty route to get to its destination, your browsing experience will not be as fast. If you have a good connection, it might not be an issue, but if your internet speed is slow, Tor might become painful to use.
Ultimately, while Tor is the most anonymous browser option, it doesn’t guarantee anonymity. Taking online risks—such as downloading torrents or illegally streaming live TV—will still leave you vulnerable. But when compared to the mainstream browsers like Chrome and Safari, there is no contest.
Epic Browser doesn’t use a specialized onion network, but it does immediately disable lots of the most common ways your privacy is comprised when you’re surfing the web.
For example, it doesn’t save your history, there’s no DNS pre-fetching, it doesn’t allow third-party cookies, there are no web or DNS caches, and there’s no autofill feature.
When you close your session, the browser automatically deletes any associated databases, preferences, pepper data, and cookies from Flash and Silverlight.
If you’re a Google Chrome user, SRWare Iron will be familiar; it’s based on the open-source Chromium project, so a lot of the on-screen visuals look very similar.
The main difference between Chrome and SRWare Iron is data protection. Experts have criticized Chrome for its reliance on a “Unique User ID”; every time you start a session, Google is alerted to your data usage.
Comodo doesn’t come close to Tor Browser, but it does have some built-in tools that’ll make browsing the web a safer experience.
It’ll automatically block all tracking, cookies, and web spies, it comes with built-in domain validation technology that’ll instantly segregate strong and weak SSL certificates, and it uses the Comodo anti-virus suite to protect you from malware, viruses, and other attack vectors.
Like SRWare Iron, it’s based on Chrome, so it’ll be an easy switch for a lot of people.
Why Aren’t There Any Other Recommendations?
It’s surprisingly difficult to find high-quality browsers that focus on privacy as a primary feature. You’ll often hear Brave Browser recommended, but on the company’s website, it openly says that the app “anonymously monitors user attention, then rewards publishers accordingly with Basic Attention Token (BAT) cryptocurrency.”
If you have any other suggestions, we’d love to hear them!
Note that if you want to truly stay safe and enjoy anonymous browsing online, you should definitely pair your anonymous web browser with a reputable VPN that cares about your privacy. Don’t know which VPN to use? We highly recommend ExpressVPN. If you use this link, you can get three FREE months when you sign up for one year.
Google is making it easier than ever for you to delete your Search history. Previously, deleting your Google Search history meant actively visiting your Google account. Now, however, you can delete your history right from the Google homepage.
How to Delete Your Google Search History
The process, and the thinking behind it, is explained in a post on The Keyword. Google explains that it’s “making it easier for you to make decisions about your data directly within the Google products you use every day, starting with Search.”
If you visit the Google homepage while signed into Google you should see an invitation to “Control your data in Google Search”. Clicking on it will take you to a page packed full of information and options regarding the data you’re sharing with Google.
If you scroll down you’ll see “Your Search activity” with “Your recent activity” right underneath. You can then click on “All search activity”, which will list your searches, and “Google activity”, which will detail the Android apps and Google services you’ve accessed.
Further down you can opt to “Delete your Search activity” and choose between “Delete last hour” and “Delete all Search activity”. Further down again you can see your “Google-wide controls” and choose to enable or disable them based on your personal preferences.
Google obviously doesn’t want everybody to immediately delete all of their activity and disable the various ways Google tracks what you do online. So, in amongst these options are explanations of “How activity data makes Search work” and other information.
What Search Traces Are You Leaving Behind?
Google introduced the ability for you to control your data months ago, but it’s now front and center on the Google homepage. Which makes it much easier to access, and means more people are likely to educate themselves as to what traces they’re leaving behind.
The Tor network hosts onion sites. The Tor network is a series of interconnected nodes that allow private and anonymous internet use. Tor stands for “The Onion Router,” while sites hosted on the service carry the “.onion” top level domain suffix.
You cannot access Tor services or onion sites using your regular browser. They’re part of the invisible part of the internet known as the deep web. Or, more precisely, they’re part of the Tor darknet. Darknets are the bits you hear about in the news; an allegedly lawless area of the internet where anything goes.
But if you cannot access onion sites using your regular browser, how do you do it? And moreover, why would you want to?
How Do You Access an Onion Site?
You can only access a .onion site through Tor. To access the Tor network, you need the Tor browser. The Tor browser is modified Mozilla Firefox browser with numerous integrated scripts and add-ons to protect your privacy while browsing onion sites.
The Tor browser is preconfigured to connect to the network, and the developers strongly advise not messing around with the browser settings unless you know what you are doing. Adding to that, the “know what you’re doing” is different to a regular browser, in that altering the Tor browser settings can expose your private browsing data to external sources.
Head to the Tor Project site and download the Tor browser. Head to the download location, find the Tor Browser folder and select Start Tor Browser. The browser immediately checks for updates. If there is an update, apply it.
Onion sites, and darknets in general, can host some horrifying content. A large amount of it is fictional, but there is no doubt you can end up viewing potentially damaging and compromising material if you are not careful. Most of the truly awful bits are locked away behind paywalls, proxies within proxies, and addresses you won’t find printed anywhere.
There are those who would criticize websites for writing about such things—and Tor for enabling them. Tor’s Abuse FAQ provides a good defense, noting that:
“Criminals can already do bad things. Since they’re willing to break laws, they already have lots of options available that provide better privacy than Tor provides.”
Law enforcement already knows these areas of the Web exist—if not on Tor, they’d exist elsewhere. As the FAQ also notes, “Traditional police techniques can still be very effective against Tor.”
Read every description before you click any links!
How to Find Active Onion Sites
Google Search indexes the entire internet, one page at a time. Web crawlers (also known as a spider) are internet bots that systematically trawl through internet pages and index the content. Indexed content is found using a search engine.
The Tor darknet has similar indexing, though you won’t find those sites through Google. No, you need a special Tor search engine instead. Alternatively, there are numerous sites that curate lists of onion sites, such as The Hidden Wiki, and others that list indexed onion sites, such as the Onion Link List.
You must copy and paste the following links into the Tor browser, rather than your regular internet browser.
The Hidden Wiki is a general jumping off point for new darknet visitors. The linked address is correct for 2018. Older mirror versions of The Hidden Wiki exist but feature several outdated sites as well as broken links.
The Hidden Wiki contains links for cryptocurrency wallet services, secure messaging services, domain hosting services, darknet marketplaces, the darknet versions of popular social networks, various chans (like 4chan, but on Tor), and much more. It also has a long list of non-English language sites, too.
Another site using the “Hidden Wiki” name, but it isn’t the “official” site. It is, however, a very long list of onion sites. Unfortunately, it is difficult to verify how many of these sites are still up and running. Also, there’s a huge number of sites on this list I wouldn’t want to verify either, but it does have a description as to what each site is.
Torch is a well-known Tor search engine. However, it doesn’t work as a regular search engine. For instance, using TORCH to search for “Facebook” doesn’t return the Facebook onion site. Rather, it returns a long list of references to a Russian hacking forum. If you use Google to search for Facebook, you end up on the social media site.
If TORCH doesn’t help you find what you want, try Not Evil. Not Evil works more like a regular internet search and is the successor to TorSearch (another Tor search engine) and the Evil Wiki (another listing site).
For instance, a search for “Facebook” returns the official Facebook onion site. A search for “Proton” returns the official Proton Mail onion site, and so on.
Now, Daniel’s Onion Link List does include every type of site, so carefully read descriptions before hitting links. Handily, the directory also slaps a “SCAM” label on any sites that will attempt to steal your information.
Be Safe When Browsing Tor and Onion Sites
Most darknet users will tell you the same thing: do not believe everything you hear. A huge amount of myth and infamy surrounds the Tor darknet. For the most part, it isn’t true. And if it is true, you don’t want to know about it, see it, and especially not click any link that takes you near it. Whatever “it” may be.
If we want drones to do our dirty work for us, they’re going to need to get pretty good at hauling stuff around. But due to the pesky yet unavoidable restraints of physics, it’s hard for them to muster the forces necessary to do so while airborne — so these drones brace themselves against the ground to get the requisite torque.
The drones, created by engineers at Stanford and Switzerland’s EPFL, were inspired by wasps and spiders that need to drag prey from place to place but can’t actually lift it, so they drag it instead. Grippy feet and strong threads or jaws let them pull objects many times their weight along the ground, just as you might slide a dresser along rather than pick it up and put it down again. So I guess it could have also just been inspired by that.
Whatever the inspiration is, these “FlyCroTugs” (a combination of flying, micro, and tug presumably) act like ordinary tiny drones while in the air, able to move freely about and land wherever they need to. But they’re equipped with three critical components: an anchor to attach to objects, a winch to pull on that anchor, and sticky feet to provide sure grip while doing so.
“By combining the aerodynamic forces of our vehicle and the interactive forces generated by the attachment mechanisms, we were able to come up with something that is very mobile, very strong and very small,” said Stanford grad student Matthew Estrada, lead author of the paper published in Science Robotics.
The idea is that one or several several of these ~100-gram drones could attach their anchors to something they need to move, be it a lever or a piece of trash. Then they take off and land nearby, spooling out thread as they do so. Once they’re back on terra firma they activate their winches, pulling the object along the ground — or up over obstacles that would have been impossible to navigate with tiny wheels or feet.
Using this technique — assuming they can get a solid grip on whatever surface they land on — the drones are capable of moving objects 40 times their weight — for a hundred gram drone like that shown, that would be about 4 kilograms, or nearly 9 pounds. Not quickly, but that may not always be a necessity. What if a handful of these things flew around the house when you were gone, picking up bits of trash or moving mail into piles? They would have hours to do it.
As you can see in the video below, they can even team up to do things like open doors.
“People tend to think of drones as machines that fly and observe the world,” said co-author of the paper, EPFL’s Dario Floreano, in a news release. “But flying insects do many other things, such as walking, climbing, grasping and building. Social insects can even work together and combine their strength. Through our research, we show that small drones are capable of anchoring themselves to surfaces around them and cooperating with fellow drones. This enables them to perform tasks typically assigned to humanoid robots or much larger machines.”
Earlier today, The New York Times published a bombshell story about Google’s payout to Andy Rubin following reports of sexual misconduct by the Android creator.
In the wake of the piece, CEO Sundar Pichai and VP People Operations Eileen Naughton co-signed a memo sent to Google staff detailing what it deems “an increasingly hard line on inappropriate conduct by people in positions of authority.”
The note, which was obtained by TechCrunch via a Google spokesperson notes that 48 people have been terminated at the company for sexual harassment in the past two years alone. That list includes 13 individuals in a senior management position or higher.
The letter notes that “none of these individuals received an exit package,” a clear reference to the $90 million reportedly paid to Rubin in $2 million monthly installments. Rubin left Google in 2014. We’ve made the full letter available below.
We have also reached out to Playground — the hardware incubator Rubin launched in 2015 — for comment. We will update the story when we hear back.
From: Sundar
Hi everyone,
Today’s story in the New York Times was difficult to read.
We are dead serious about making sure we provide a safe and inclusive workplace. We want to assure you that we review every single complaint about sexual harassment or inappropriate conduct, we investigate and we take action.
In recent years, we’ve made a number of changes, including taking an increasingly hard line on inappropriate conduct by people in positions of authority: in the last two years, 48 people have been terminated for sexual harassment, including 13 who were senior managers and above. None of these individuals received an exit package.
In 2015, we launched Respect@ and our annual Internal Investigations Report to provide transparency about these types of investigations at Google. Because we know that reporting harassment can be traumatic, we provide confidential channels to share any inappropriate behavior you experience or see. We support and respect those who have spoken out. You can find many ways to do this at go/saysomething. You can make a report anonymously if you wish.
We’ve also updated our policy to require all VPs and SVPs to disclose any relationship with a co-worker regardless of reporting line or presence of conflict.
We are committed to ensuring that Google is a workplace where you can feel safe to do your best work, and where there are serious consequences for anyone who behaves inappropriately.
Snapchat continued to shrink in Q3 2018 but its business is steadily improving. Snapchat’s daily active user count dropped again, this time by 1 percent to 186 million, down from 188M and a negative 1.5 percent growth rate in Q2. User count is still up 5 percent year-over-year, though. Snapchat earned $298 million in revenue with an EPS loss of $0.12, beating Wall Street’s expectations of $283 million in revenue and EPS loss of $0.14, plus a loss of a half a million users.
Snap entered earnings with a $6.99 share price, close to its $6.46 all-time low and way down from its $24 IPO opening price. Snap lost $325 million this quarter compared to $353 million in Q2, so it’s making some progress with its cost cutting. That briefly emboldened Wall Street, which pushed the share price up 8.3 percent to around $7.57 right after earnings were announced.
But then Snap’s share price came crashing down to -2.29 percent to $6.83. The stock had been so heavily shorted by investors that it only needed modest growth in its business for shares to perk up, but the fear that Snap might shrink into nothing has investors weary.
Worringly, Snapchat’s average revenue per user dropped 12.5 percent in the developing world this quarter. But strong gains in the US and Europe markets grew global ARPU by 14 percent. Snap projects $355 million to $380 million in holiday Q4 revenue, in line with analyst estimates.
In his prepared remarks, CEO Evan Spiegel admitted that “While we have incredible reach among our core demographic of 13- to 34-year-olds in the US and Europe, there are billions of people worldwide who do not yet use Snapchat.” He explained that the 2 million user loss was mostly on Android where Snapchat doesn’t run as well as on iOS. Now down to $1.4 billion in cash and securities, Snap will need to start reaching some of those users or improving monetization of those it still has to keep afloat without outside capital.
An Uphill Battle
Q3 saw Snapchat’s launch its first in-house augmented reality Snappable games, while plans for an third-party gaming platform leak It launched Lens Explorer to draw more attention to developer and creator-built augmented reality experiences, plus its Storyteller program to connect social media stars to brands to earn sponsorship money. It also shut down its Venmo-like Snapcash feature. But the biggest news came from its Q2 earnings report where it announced it’d lost 3 million users. That scored it a short-lived stock price pop, but competition and user shrinkage has pushed Snap’s shares to new lows.
Snapchat is depending on the Project Mushroom engineering overhaul of its Android app to speed up performance, and thereby accelerate user growth and retention. Snap neglected the developing world’s Android market for years as it focused on iPhone-toting US teens. Given Snapchat is all about quick videos, slow load times made it nearly unusable, especially in markets with slower network connections and older phones.
Looking at the competitive landscape, WhatsApp’s Snapchat Stories clone Status has grown to 450 million daily users while Instagram Stories has reached 400 million dailies — much of that coming in the developing world, thereby blocking Snap’s growth abroad as I predicted when Insta Stories launched.. Snap Map hasn’t become ubiquitous, Snap’s Original Shows still aren’t premium enough to drag in tons of new users, Discover is a clickbait-overloaded mess, and Instagram has already copied the best parts of its ephemeral messaging. Snap could be vulnerable in the developing world if WhatsApp similarly copies its disappearing chats.
At this rate, Snap will run out of money before it’s projected to become profitable in 2020 or 2021. That means the company will likely need to sell new shares in exchange for outside investment or get acquired to survive.
The White House has issued a memorandum outlining the need for a new national wireless connectivity strategy; the document doesn’t really establish anything new, but does request lots of reports on how things are going. Strangely, what it proposes sounds a lot like what the FCC already does.
The memorandum, heralded by a separate post announcing that “America Will Win the Global Race to 5G,” is not exactly a statement of policy, though it does put a few things out there. It’s actually more of a request for information on which to base a future policy — apparently one that will win us a global race that began years ago.
In fact, the U.S. has been pursuing a broad 5G policy for quite a while now, and under President Obama we were the first country to allocate spectrum to the nascent standard. But since then progress has stalled and we have been overtaken by the likes of South Korea and Spain in policy steps like spectrum auctions.
After some talk about the “insatiable demand” for wireless spectrum and the economic importance of wireless communications, the memo gets to business. Reports are requested within 180 days from various Executive branch departments and agencies on “their anticipated future spectrum requirements,” as well as reviews of their current spectrum usage.
The Office of Science and Technology Policy is asked to report in the same time period on how emerging tech (smart homes and grids, for instance) could affect spectrum demand, and how research and development spending should be guided to improve spectrum access.
Another report from the Secretary of Commerce will explain “existing efforts and planned near- to mid-term spectrum repurposing initiatives.”
270 days from today the various entities involved here, including the National Telecommunications and Information Administration and the FCC, will deliver a “long-term National Spectrum Strategy” that hits a number of targets:
Increase spectrum access, security and transparency
Create flexible spectrum management models, including standards, incentives, and enforcement mechanisms
“Develop advanced technologies” to improve spectrum access and sharing
Improve the global competitiveness of U.S. “terrestrial and space-related industries” (which seems to encompass all of them)
It’s not exactly ambitious; the terms are vague enough that one would expect any new legislation or rules to accomplish or accommodate these things. One would hardly want a spectrum policy that decreased access and transparency. In fact, the previous administration issued spectrum memos much like these, years ago.
Meanwhile this fresh start may frustrate those in government who are already doing this work. The FCC has been pursuing 5G and new spectrum policy for years, and it’s been a particular focus of Chairman Ajit Pai. He proposed a bunch of rules months ago, and just yesterday there was a proposal to bring Wi-Fi up to a more compatible and future-proof state. It’s entirely possible that the agency may have to justify and re-propose things it’s already doing, or see those actions and rules questioned or altered by committees over the next year.
FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel was not enthusiastic about the memo.
“We are ripping up what came before and starting with a new wireless policy sometime late next year. But the world isn’t going to wait for us,” she said in a statement provided to TechCrunch. “Other nations are moving ahead with strategies they are implementing now while we’re headed to study hall — and in the interim we’re slapping big tariffs on the most essential elements of 5G networks. If you stand back and survey what is happening, you see that we’re not expediting our 5G wireless leadership, we’re making choices that slow us down.”
Whether this new effort will yield worthwhile results, we’ll know in 270 days. Until then the authorities already attempting to make the U.S. the leader in 5G will continue doing what they’re doing.
