Welcome to this week’s transcribed edition of This is Your Life in Silicon Valley. We’re running an experiment for Extra Crunch members that puts This is Your Life in Silicon Valley in words – so you can read from wherever you are.
This is Your Life in Silicon Valley was originally started by Sunil Rajaraman and Jascha Kaykas-Wolff in 2018. Rajaraman is a serial entrepreneur and writer (Co-Founded Scripted.com, and is currently an EIR at Foundation Capital), Kaykas-Wolff is the current CMO at Mozilla and ran marketing at BitTorrent. Rajaraman and Kaykas-Wolff started the podcast after a series of blog posts that Sunil wrote for The Bold Italic went viral.
The goal of the podcast is to cover issues at the intersection of technology and culture – sharing a different perspective of life in the Bay Area. Their guests include entrepreneurs like Sam Lessin, journalists like Kara Swisher and politicians like Mayor Libby Schaaf and local business owners like David White of Flour + Water.
This week’s edition of This is Your Life in Silicon Valley features Tim Kendall, the former President of Pinterest and current CEO of Moment. Tim ran monetization at Facebook, and has very strong opinions on smartphone addiction and what it is doing to all of us. Tim is an architect of much of the modern social media monetization machinery, so you definitely do not want to miss his perspective on this important subject.
Sunil Rajaraman: Welcome to season three of This is Your Life in Silicon Valley. A Podcast about the Bay Area, technology, and culture. I’m your host, Sunil Rajaraman and I’m joined by my cohost, Jascha Kaykas-Wolff.
Jascha Kaykas-Wolff: Are you recording?
Rajaraman: I’m recording.
Kaykas-Wolff: I’m almost done. My phone’s been buzzing all afternoon and I just have to finish this text message.
Rajaraman: So you’re one of those people who can’t go five seconds without checking their phone.
Not that long ago, visiting the website of an auto dealership was a little like going to a store without a cash register. The retailer’s website might list all the cars, trucks and SUVs in its inventory, but there would be no way to actually buy one online.
A digital commerce startup called Drive Motors jumped in to fill that void. Unlike Carvana and Shift and other online used car startups that have emerged on the scene, this company is providing the “buy button” for dealerships and automakers by creating a native transaction layer within their existing webpages and stores.
Now, the three-year-old company is flush with a fresh injection of capital, high-profile investors and a new name that founder Aaron Krane says better reflects its broader vision and business plan.
The startup, now called Modal, has raised $5 million in capital from new investors, including Peter Thiel, Japanese dealer conglomerate IDOM, and Ally Ventures, the investing arm of national auto lender Ally Financial.
The company started small, first landing local dealerships in California as customers of its real-time financing and digital commerce platform. Today, its customers include auto brands and some of the largest dealer groups in the country. In 2018, the startup saw its online monthly volume per store double to more than $1.8 million per month, and more than $10 million per month for top-performing individual stores.
That transaction layer is still the core feature of the company’s business, Krane told TechCrunch. Modal has added several new features since its last funding round, including real-time financing, digital documents and in-store point of sale.
Krane initially landed on the name Drive Motors because it sounded relevant to the auto dealerships he wanted to win over and not the Silicon Valley tech world where he had come from. (Krane founded Drive Motors after selling his fantasy sports startup Hitpost to Yahoo, and becoming an entrepreneur-in-residence at Khosla Ventures.)
The new name and capital just better reflects its broader strategy, he added. Krane landed on the name Modal because it embodies the company’s primary mission of delivering transactions within someone else’s experience.
“We want to be invisible, we want to be a fully self-contained embedded feature within a car brand’s vehicle page, or a car retailer’s vehicle page,” Krane said. “We don’t want to change the context on the buyer at all; that’s a philosophy that starts at the top and penetrates all the way down even the smallest decisions in our company.”
That notion of transparency and self-contained interactions led Krane to the new name because “modal,” in software terminology, means a self-contained user interface that is overlaid on top of an existing application page and keeps that existing application page in full view the whole time.
The new name also hints towards where the company is headed.
“The platform starts with just creating accessibility to a digital transaction, but it becomes the ultimate channel to introduce an entire ownership operating system, which can span everything from the more contemporary mundane automotive needs like servicing, all the way through introducing the most far out mobility or connected vehicle features,” Krane said.
Sidewalk Labs, the smart city technology firm owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet, released a plan this week to redevelop a piece of Toronto’s eastern waterfront into its vision of an urban utopia — a ‘mini’ metropolis tucked inside a digital infrastructure burrito and bursting with gee-whiz tech-ery.
A place where high-tech jobs and affordable housing live in harmony, streets are built for people, not just cars, all the buildings are sustainable and efficient, public spaces are dotted with internet-connected sensors and an outdoor comfort system with giant “raincoats” designed to keep residents warm and dry even in winter. The innovation even extends underground, where freight delivery system ferries packages without the need of street-clogging trucks.
But this plan is more than a testbed for tech. It’s a living lab (or petri dish, depending on your view), where tolerance for data collection and expectations for privacy are being shaped, public due process and corporate reach is being tested, and what makes a city equitable and accessible for all is being defined.
It’s also more ambitious and wider in scope than its original proposal.
“In many ways, it was like a 50-sided Rubik’s cube when you’re looking at initiatives across mobility, sustainability, the public realm, buildings and housing and digital governance,” Sidewalk Labs CEO Dan Doctoroff said Monday describing the effort to put together the master plan called Toronto Tomorrow: A New Approach for Inclusive Growth.
Even the harshest critics of the Sidewalk Labs plan might agree with Doctoroff’s Rubik cube analogy. It’s a complex plan with big promises and high stakes. And despite the 1,500-plus page tome presenting the idea, it’s still opaque.
Startup Join wants to modernize the back office for an industry that’s everywhere, but maybe not top of mind, especially when it comes to project management software: Commercial construction. The company has raised a $4 million seed round, co-led by Signalfire and Building Ventures and including participation by existing investor Bolt.
The startup’s core product is a collaborative decision-making platform designed to facilitate more effective working relationships between everyone involved in the preconstruction phase of a building project, including owners, contractors, designers, tradespeople and suppliers. The platform includes visualization tool, including timeline and budget planners, along with trend predictions so that you can see how changes to the plan will affect the project overall.
It also includes permission-based account access control, so that you can ensure everyone working on the project has the visibility they need to the pieces they touch. Join’s product also provides insights based on past project performance so that future ones can benefit from the successes of the past.
Join’s foundation is based on the observation that commercial construction industry is following a path blazed by the software industry before it, from a so-called ‘waterfall’ product development mode, whereby you more or less follow rigid steps in sequence, to a more agile mode in which each phase is more fluid and the project’s scope can change in the execution. Join believes construction is following a similar path, hence the need now for a tool like this.
The founding team behind Join includes co-founder and CEO Andrew Zukoski, Drew Wolpert, Ye Wang and Jim Forester. Both Zukoski and Wolpert have experience at Flux.io, a startup borne of Google X, that focused on supporting architecture, engineering and construction industry improvement via cloud-based solutions, and Wang has a background in manufacturing design technology from past work at both Onshape and Autodesk.
Join will make use of this round, which brings its total funding to $5.2 million including a pre-seed round led by Bolt, to bring on additional product development talent to help it set up for public launch of the platform to customers.
Federal authorities have announced its latest crackdown on illegal robocallers — taking close to a hundred actions against several companies and individuals blamed for the recent barrage of spam calls.
In the so-called “Operation Call It Quits,” the Federal Trade Commission brought four cases — two filed on its behalf by the Justice Department — and three settlements in cases said to be responsible for making more than a billion illegal robocalls.
Several state and local authorities also brought actions as part of the operation, officials said.
Each year, billions of automatically dialed or spoofed phone calls trick millions into picking up the phone. An annoyance at least, at worse it tricks unsuspecting victims into turning over cash or buying fake or misleading products. So far, the FTC has fined companies more than $200 million but only collected less than 0.01% of the fines because of the agency’s limited enforcement powers.
In this new wave of action, the FTC said it will send a strong signal to the robocalling industry.
Andrew Smith, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said Americans are “fed up” with the billions of robocalls received every year. “Today’s joint effort shows that combatting this scourge remains a top priority for law enforcement agencies around the nation,” he said.
It’s the second time the FTC has acted in as many months. In May, the agency also took action against four companies accused of making “billions” of robocalls.
The FTC said its latest action brings the number of robocall violators up to 145.
Several of the cases involved shuttering operations that offer consumers “bogus” credit card interest rate reduction services, which the FTC said specifically targeted seniors. Other cases involved the use of illegal robocalls to promote money-making schemes.
Another cases included actions against Lifewatch, a company pitching medical alert systems, which the FTC contended uses spoofed caller ID information to trick victims into picking up the phone. The company settled for $25.3 million. Meanwhile, Redwood Scientific settled for $18.2 million, suspended due to the inability for defendant Danielle Cadiz to pay, for “deceptively” marketing dentistry products, according to the FTC’s complaint.
The robocalling epidemic has caught the attention of the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates the telecoms and internet industries. Last month, its commissioners proposed a new rule that would make it easier for carriers to block robocalls.
Google Drive’s offline capabilities are getting an upgrade. Currently, you can use Google Chrome to make your Docs, Sheets, and Slides available offline. On Tuesday, the company announced the launch of a beta test that will expand offline capabilities to other content as well, including PDFs, images, Microsoft Office files, and other non-Google file formats.
The beta test, dubbed the “Google Drive Offline for Binary Content Beta,” is only open to admins of G Suite domains who have Drive File Stream enabled. Admins who had previously opted into the Alpha test for offline Docs, Sheets, and Slides will be automatically whitelisted for this new beta, Google notes.
Though the beta is limited for now, if Google is able to work out the bugs and ensure the stability of this new set of capabilities, it would naturally want to roll out support more broadly across not just its G Suite user base but to the consumer version of Google Drive, too.
Once the G Suite domain is enrolled, users will be able to enable offline from within the Drive or Docs settings, then sign into Chrome and right-click on files, then check “Make available offline.”
Offline preview will also work, once enabled. Plus, users are able to right-click and open the non-Google files in native applications, like Microsoft Office, to make them available offline.
ChromeOS isn’t currently supported in the beta, but it will be in the future, Google says.
The new beta addresses one of Google Drive’s more notable issues, especially in the workplace. A variety of work documents are not in Google file formats, and much of that work does need to be more easily available offline when employees are traveling and have limited connectivity. For now, users can sync their Google Docs, Sheets, Slides and Drawings files offline, or download files directly to their device. They can also use desktop client applications as a sync solution, if preferred.
Meanwhile, Google Drive competitor Dropbox is moving forward as an enterprise collaboration workspace, which even allows users to launch apps with shortcuts for G Suite, and more — including offering integrations with Zoom and Slack. Essentially, it’s becoming a portal to work tools instead of just a file storage platform.
G Suite has yet to kill Microsoft Office, which has 180 million monthly actives for Office 365 commercial. (Google says G Suite had 5M organizations as clients by year-end 2018). And on the consumer side, iCloud Drive is getting an upgrade in the new version of macOS, which will now support folder sharing in addition to file sharing — a much-needed feature that could convince more casual customers of Drive or Dropbox to make the switch.
Google didn’t say how long the best would run before public availability.
Android Police was first to spot the beta test, also noting the limitation in being a Chrome-only feature could still be an issue.
First developed in the 1980s at Motorola, the Six Sigma method of project management has since taken over the world. Thousands of top companies use it and are willing to pay top dollar for certified experts. If you want to advance your career, or work as a project manager, the Comprehensive Six Sigma Certification Collection can help you acquire the necessary skills. The Collection includes 10 video courses working towards top professional exams. You can get it now for $35 in the Semi-Annual Sale at MakeUseOf Deals.
Master the Process
Although the Six Sigma framework was originally developed for manufacturing, it can be applied elsewhere. Over the years, the likes of Amazon, Ford, GE, and Dell have all adopted it successfully.
If you want to work for these giants, it’s a good idea to get acquainted with Six Sigma. This training helps you master the methodology, along with many other useful management skills.
Through 32 hours of video tutorials, you learn the key principles of Six Sigma and how they can apply to any business setting. You also learn about Lean Six Sigma (a popular variant), Minitab (project management software), Voice of Customer techniques, and Quality Function Deployment (part of Six Sigma).
In addition, the bundle includes full prep for Six Sigma exams — from White Belt to Black Belt.
32 Hours of Training for $35
Order now for $35 to get lifetime access to the training, worth $1,649.91.
Valve has officially added an LGBTQ+ tag to Steam to help gamers discover games with LGBTQ+ themes. Valve has also added a new hub for games tagged as LGBTQ+, which should help indie developers get their titles noticed in a crowded market.
Steam is the marketplace for games used by the majority of PC gamers. There are thousands of games available on Steam, making it difficult for smaller developers to get their titles noticed. Which is what makes tags and tagging so useful.
Steam’s Tagging System, Explained
Steam uses approved tags and non-approved tags. Approved tags can be added by developers, allowing Steam’s algorithms to surface and recommend games. Whereas non-approved tags let individual users sort their games without affecting discoverability.
Steam has never had an official, globally approved tag for the LGBTQ+ community. However, with indie developers increasingly catering to LGBTQ+ gamers, the lack of an official tag has prevented some solid games from finding a wider (but targeted) audience.
Valve Adds an Approved LGBTQ+ Tag
As first reported by Kotaku, an indie developer named Yitz raised this issue with Valve. And after a discussion where other developers expressed their (admittedly mixed) opinions on the matter, Valve added LGBTQ+ as a globally approved tag.
The new LGBTQ+ tag means there’s also an LGBTQ+ hub page allowing you to “browse the newest, top selling and discounted LGBTQ+ products on Steam”. This is currently pretty sparse, but that should change as more developers add the LGBTQ+ tag to their titles.
Discover Games You Want to Play
This tag gives games with LGBTQ+ themes their own space on Steam. Which is obviously good for gamers who want to be able to discover those games quickly and easily. And people who aren’t interested in LGBTQ+ games can just as easily ignore them.
Tech companies are slowly seeking to be more inclusive. And in the same way that adding your sexual orientation to Tinder can help you match with the right people, this new tag should help gamers identify games they’re interested (or not interested) in playing.
Microsoft has made plenty of mistakes over the years, but none greater than fudging its mobile strategy. This isn’t my opinion, but the opinion of Bill Gates, founder and former CEO and chairman of Microsoft. In other words, the person that should know.
How Microsoft Let Android Win
Gates revealed his “greatest mistake ever” in an interview with venture capital firm Village Global. After being asked about his attitude to work/life balance, Gates opens up about how Microsoft missed the boat on the emerging mobile market, letting Android dominate.
He said:
“In the software world, particularly for platforms, these are winner-take-all markets. So the greatest mistake ever is whatever mismanagement I engaged in that caused Microsoft not to be what Android is.”
“That is, Android is the standard phone platform; non-Apple phone platform. That was a natural thing for Microsoft to win. And it really is winner take all.”
“If you’re there with half as many apps or 90 percent as many apps, you’re on your way to complete doom. There’s room for exactly one non-Apple operating system and what’s that worth? $400 billion that would, you know, be transferred from company G to company M.”
There WAS room for three mobile operating systems, but Microsoft never recovered from that initial mistake. The company is now doing well under Satya Nadella, but as we all use our smartphones more and more, Microsoft’s mistake gets costlier every year.
Isn’t Steve Ballmer Really to Blame?
Some are wondering why Gates is claiming personal responsibility for Microsoft’s failed mobile strategy. After all, Gates stepped down as CEO in 2000, years before iOS and Android battled for supremacy while Windows Mobile failed to gain traction.
Steve Ballmer was in charge of Microsoft at the time this was playing out, and he famously laughed at the iPhone for being overpriced and unattractive to businesses. So perhaps Gates actually regrets stepping down and handing Ballmer the reins when he did.
Microsoft Admits Defeat on Mobile
Gates shouldn’t be too hard on himself. He founded a company that has dominated the technology industry for decades, and made him richer than some countries. Still, with the end of Windows 10 Mobile, Gates is clearly reflecting on a genuine misstep.
Minecraft is one of the most popular and enduring games ever created. Thanks to the Minecraft Hour of Code, it’s also an excellent way for kids to learn the basics of programming.
Want to know more about how Minecraft Hour of Code tutorials can benefit young coders? Keep reading!
What Is Minecraft?
First introduced in 2011, Minecraft is a sandbox video game created and designed by Swedish game designer, Markus “Notch” Persson. Now published by the Microsoft-owned Mojang, the game allows players to build with a variety of 3D digital cubes to create a virtual world. In doing so, you can explore, gather resources, craft, combat, and more, both in single player and multiplayer modes.
In 2014, Microsoft acquired Mojang for $2.5 billion. By early 2018, over 176 million copies of Minecraft have been sold across all platforms. It’s the best-selling video game of all time!
Introducing Code.org’s Hour of Code
Founded in 2013, Code.org is a non-profit organization that encourages students to learn computer science at school and at home. Through its website, the organization offers free coding sessions for anyone who has a desire to learn.
Code.org’s “Hour of Code Challenge” was first launched during Computer Science Education Week in 2013. It encourages students to complete short programming tutorials over the course of an hour. Since then, the number of one-hour coding tutorials has grown considerably.
The challenge has gone global, with tutorials available in over 63 languages and 180+ countries. Code.org has as focus on underrepresented demographics, with the majority of students either female or from a minority group.
What Is Minecraft Hour of Code?
Through a partnership between Microsoft and Code.org, a Minecraft Hour of Code was first introduced in 2015. Designed for kids aged six and older, the tutorial offers the basics of programming within the Minecraft platform. After that, gamers complete 14 challenges based on what they’ve have learned.
“A core part of our mission to empower every person on the planet is equipping youth with computational thinking and problem-solving skills to succeed in an increasingly digital world. With ‘Minecraft’ and Code.org, we aim to spark creativity in the next generation of innovators in a way that is natural, collaborative and fun.”
How Do the Minecraft Hour of Code Tutorials Work?
To date, there are four Minecraft Hour of Code tools for would-be coders:
Minecraft Adventurer
Minecraft Designer
Minecraft Hero’s Journey
The latest, Minecraft Voyage Aquatic
With each tutorial, you learn the basics of computer science by programming a virtual character through a top-down view of the Minecraft world. For this, you use Blockly, a client-side JavaScript library for creating visual block programming languages.
Created by Google and released as open source under the Apache 2.0 license, Blockly uses linked blocks to write programs. As you drag and drop the boxes, you generate code in JavaScript, Python, PHP, or Dart. Blockly can also be customized to make the code in any textual computer language.
The first decision you make in your chosen Minecraft Hour of Code is selecting a character, Alex, or Steve. From there, the window splits into three parts.
On the left, you’ll find the Minecraft play space. It’s here where your program runs. Below this, you’ll see the instructions for each level of the tutorial.
The toolbox, in the middle area, is where the commands which control your character reside.
On the right is the workspace, where you build your program.
Each lesson works in the same way and begins with an introductory video. Let’s find out more about each Minecraft Hour of Code tutorial.
Minecraft Adventurer
The first collaboration between Microsoft and Code.org, Minecraft Adventurer is available via your web browser. You can also download a copy for offline use; it comes in various languages for both Windows and Mac.
The latter is ideal if you have slow internet or you wish to download and install it on multiple PCs.
To start coding in Minecraft Adventurers, drag the moveForward(); block to your workspace.
Next, click Run to allow your character to move forward one space on the Minecraft grid. From here, you can add more blocks to the program. As you do, your character will continue to move in a direction, depending on your command.
Stuck or confused? Minecraft Adventurers makes it simple to undo your changes. Use the Start Over button at the top-right corner of your workspace and begin again.
Minecraft Designer
With Minecraft Designer, you program animals and other creatures in your own Minecraft sandpit. Unfortunately, the first thing you’ll notice is that the Minecraft world has stopped. As such, the sheep aren’t moving, the chickens stopped laying eggs, and zombies are just standing still.
Your job is to add code to make the Minecraft world work once again.
The screen is once again split into three main parts. On the left is the frozen Minecraft game that requires fixing. In the middle you’ll find the toolbox with commands for the chickens, sheep, and other Minecraft creatures. On the right side is the workspace, which is where you’ll build the program.
Minecraft Designer starts you off by programming a chicken. Once again, you’ll teach the character to move by dragging blocks and clicking run. To go further, drag another move forward block, and so on.
To redo the game, hit the Reset button and start again.
Minecraft Hero’s Journey
In this Minecraft Hour of Coding, Minecraft: Hero’s Journey, you find an agent at every level. You must program this agent to get your character past each of the 12 current levels.
Difficulty increases with each step; in the first level, you’re instructed to move the agent to a pressure plate. An iron door will open, so that the character can escape.
Minecraft Voyage Aquatic
The latest Minecraft Hour of Coding puts your agent in charge of a fishing boat. Various challenges are presented, again largely based around movement and problem solving.
Tasks in this version include finding a boat, catching fish, and finding shipwrecked treasure. As ever, you’ll be able to improve your code by redoing challenges, and instructions can be expanded for clarity.
By the end, you should be able to create instructions to direct your agent with as few blocks as possible.
Final Thoughts on Minecraft Hour of Code
Though aimed at children aged six and older, Minecraft Hour of Coding is worthwhile for anyone who wants to code. It’s for this reason that each tutorial has been designed for use both in a classroom and for individual use.
Minecraft Adventurer might be the only one available for offline use, but they’re all accessible online, regardless of your platform. After you complete each Minecraft puzzle, go back and solve them in different ways. In doing so, you’ll uncover additional hours of playability.
In preparing to write this article, I went through and began each Minecraft Hour of Coding. Each was exciting, fun, and yes, worthwhile. It comes highly recommended, regardless of your age.
The United States of America has its fair share of great comedy shows, but the British take on the genre is an altogether different experience. If you want to indulge in the UK’s eccentricities, awkwardness, and wit, here are the best British comedies on Netflix.
After the success of The Office, a lot was resting on Ricky Gervais’ and Stephen Merchant’s next major venture. Could the comedians deliver a series that was the equal to the mockumentary that arguably changed the TV landscape?
Fortunately, Extras proved that they weren’t one-hit-wonders. In fact, some corners of the internet think Extras is even better than The Office.
Andy Millman tries to get fame and fortune, working his way up from being a supporting artist to getting his name in lights. Along the way, he mixes with the stars and discovers they’re not as brilliant as Hollywood paints them. It’s a who’s who of the big screen, with Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, David Tennant, Samuel L. Jackson, Daniel Radcliffe, and David Bowie all playing twisted versions of themselves.
This show is barmy. You may already know its leading man, Greg Davies, from his role as Mr Gilbert in The Inbetweeners. He’s the ideal choice for Ken Thompson, a man driven to the edge by his son-in-law, played in the first season by Saturday Night Live’s Andy Samberg.
When Thompson’s daughter, Rachel (Tamla Kari, then Esther Smith) returns from her gap year, she brings along her new husband, Dale, a loud, laissez-faire American who brings out the worst in the uptight family unit he finds himself in.
Cuckoo gained a lot of press for its second season after Samberg proved too busy to film more episodes. Twilight star Taylor Lautner subsequently replaced Samberg as Dale’s illegitimate son.
If you’re not a fan of medical procedure shows… then Green Wing is still for you!
Yes, it’s set in a hospital, but it doesn’t focus on gory storylines. It instead revolves around the lives of its core cast, which includes Tamsin Greig (Black Books), Olivia Colman (Broadchurch), Stephen Mangan (I’m Alan Partridge), and Sally Bretton (Not Going Out).
The series was born from the juxtaposing idea of making a sketch show with a more sitcom-like structure. Green Wing is a surreal show with a strong array of characters you’ll warm to.
Ever wonder what Brits think Hollywood is really like? Episodes takes that notion, adds in Friends star, Matt LeBlanc, and questions “the American dream”.
Greig and Mangan play married writing team, Bev and Sean, who dream of hitting the big time in the US. After their sitcom wins a BAFTA, they’re sent to America to remake it, albeit with LeBlanc unsuitably cast as the lead.
The whole cast is strong, but LeBlanc really makes this worthwhile. He’s very happy to tear down any idealized version of himself people may have, and instead poke fun, transforming his good nature into a hideous distortion.
If you’re searching for shows like Doc Martin—the ever-popular series that’s sadly now missing from Netflix—then Last Tango in Halifax is a strong contender.
Celia (Anne Reid) and Alan (Derek Jacobi) are former childhood sweethearts whose lives went in very different directions. Now in their 70s, they get back in touch and discover that their love for each other is still there. They form the anchor for the narrative, which veers off to explore the experiences of their families, as mindsets clash and societal boundaries butt heads.
There are tonnes of great shows exclusive to the streaming service. There are even some cancelled Netflix Originals worth watching. After Life, though, hasn’t suffered the same fate as Daredevil, Sense8, or Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Its first season was such a success, a second was quickly commissioned.
It’s a typical Ricky Gervais premise: Tony’s world is sent upside-down by the death of his wife. This makes him look at life in a different way; he’s now determined to say and do whatever he feels like, regardless of it hurting others. In response to this, his family and friends attempt to turn him into a better person.
It’s a grim topic, but dealt with well through dry humor and an endearing, dissonant optimism.
And now for something completely different… If you really want to take a trip through the looking glass, Monty Python is for you.
You’ll probably have seen the franchise’s films, notably Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) and Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979). If so, you’ll know what you’re in for from the original TV series. Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin wonderfully satirize the British establishment through this surreal sketch show.
Monty Python’s Flying Circus pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and remains a milestone in TV history.
Many classic sitcoms like Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em, The Thin Blue Line, and Only Fools and Horses were broadcast on the BBC. And one of the reasons it’s such an important institution is its ability to make fun of itself. W1A is a prime example of that.
The series began as Twenty-Twelve, a tongue-in-cheek mockumentary about organizing the London 2012 Olympics. The spoof proved so popular, the BBC used the same strong cast—including Hugh Bonneville (Downton Abbey), Jessica Hynes (Spaced), and Jason Watkins (Nativity!)—to joke about its own branding, jargon, and high-profile disputes.
Narrated by Doctor Who’s David Tennant, W1A also features a number of celebrity cameos, including controversial novelist Salman Rushdie, actor Samuel West, and mathematics whiz Carol Vorderman.
What Are Your Favorite British Comedies on Netflix?
If you’re searching for funny British shows on Netflix, there’s something here for everyone. Hopefully, you’ll invest in a few and use them as entry points for other great British comedies, such as Are You Being Served?, As Time Goes By, and Fawlty Towers.
Looking for an online image editing suite with Photoshop-like tools, social media profile templates, and online collaborative features? And one that’s easy to use as well?
No, really, it exists! After looking at the new features launched by PicMonkey, we’re impressed with what’s on offer. Want to know more? Here’s what you can do with PicMonkey, which you can test out now with a free trial.
What Can I Do With PicMonkey?
PicMonkey is a feature-packed collection of graphic design and photo editing tools. But don’t just take our word for it. PicMonkey’s features include:
Browser-based graphic design package
Frames, textures, and themes
Easy export tool
Hundreds of fonts
Themed collections of fonts, frames, textures, and other elements
Template library for everything from collages to social banners
Collaboration tools (a first for this space): shared folders, simultaneous editing, and commenting
With these tools, you’re set up to complete even the most complex graphic design tasks. Whether you want to create new images, edit photos, add Instagram stories, or pimp your Facebook page, PicMonkey has the tools you need.
Need a Social Banner? Try PicMonkey
Social network banners and profile pics are increasingly important. They’re also tricky to create without the right dimensions and a halfway competent art or graphic design package. Thankfully, PicMonkey has you covered.
The app has a collection of templates for Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Twitch, Tumblr, Twitter, and YouTube available. These are all designed to perfectly fit as covers, profile images, and similar. In addition, PicMonkey provides templates for Pinterest, Etsy, and popular online ad formats.
It doesn’t end there; you’ll also find templates for Apple Books and Kindle book covers. Along with templates, you can also choose from blank canvasses, set to the correct size.
All this means that you can efficiently handle the sometimes-necessary artistic projects you encounter in online life. For example, when you need to whip up a Facebook banner, simply load the banner, drop the images you want to include, and manipulate them. When your banner is done, export it, then upload to Facebook.
Looking for a Collaborative Design Tool?
What if you need to work on a design with a friend or colleague? Until now, you had to rely on old-fashioned email (and all of its file size limitations) or Dropbox, which is quick to let you know when you’ve already run out of space.
With PicMonkey Collaboration, there’s a better way. If you need inspiration fast and want input in real-time, these features are for you. It’s a bit like Google Docs for design: invite coworkers or contractors into your Share Space, and each of you can view, edit, and comment—all in real-time.
You can set different access levels (Editor, Viewer, etc.) just like Google Docs. And with PicMonkey’s unlimited cloud storage, you’ll never run out of room.
PicMonkey has recently introduced of a trio of collaborative features. These let you and your colleagues work even better together.
Shared Spaces: Create spaces and folders of images to share with others. You can then invite others into your shared space for viewing or commenting.
Edit images with others in real-time. This lets you work on important tweaks right with your colleagues.
Comment on images. Suggest revisions, tweaks, and other changes for the designer to consider.
Throw in PicMonkey’s other features, and you’ve got an online graphic design package that can revolutionize the way you work. This is big.
Editing Photos With PicMonkey
One of PicMonkey’s greatest strengths is photo editing. You can upload photos from your device, drag them into the browser window, or import them from a cloud account.
You might, for example, simply plan to add some sort of Instagram-style filter effect to your photos. But PicMonkey can tweak a photo to take it from a near-disaster to a memorable moment. As you’ll see in this image, it packs tools to aid in fixing a wonky shot. You can do so by rotating the original and cropping to the subject.
Sharpen, burn, clone, and many more tools are available to repair and enhance your photographs in PicMonkey.
Learn More via PicMonkey’s Resource Center
It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the tools at your fingertips. With so much on offer, the PicMonkey team has wisely provided resources to help you out. There’s no need to sit bewildered as you attempt your latest artistic endeavor; simply click the Learn link.
This opens a new tab, taking you to the Resource Center. Here, you’ll find various guides, such as PicMonkey 101, and tutorials for creating infographics and making a circle logo. Many more tutorials and tips are available as reference; you’ll find that a lot of these are accompanied by a corresponding YouTube video.
Like What You See? PicMonkey Is Affordable
While the free trial is feature-packed, it only lasts for seven days. This should be enough time for you to evaluate the software. To use PicMonkey long-term, you’ll need to sign up for one of the subscription packages.
Basic is $7.99, billed monthly, or $72.00 annually, saving you 25 percent.
The Pro package is $12.99 a month, or $120.00 annually. This saves you 23 percent.
Finally, the Team subscription is $33.99 monthly, or $300.00 annually. That’s a 26 percent discount, allowing you to share with three other users. If you have more than three in your team., greater discounts are available.
All packages offer cloud storage (1GB for Basic, unlimited for the others), export JPG and PNG files (PDF files are also supported in Pro and Team), as well as top-tier fonts, effects, templates, touch-up tools, and access to all features via the mobile app.
Then there is the collaborative side. All subscription levels support creating folders to share, editing images in real-time with others, and commenting. Higher subscription options, meanwhile, deliver more features.
Pro packages get priority email support and the ability to upload your own fonts. Team subscriptions get all this, plus discounts for three or more users and permission management.
PicMonkey: Top Graphic Editing and Collaborative Tools
By now you should know enough about PicMonkey to decide if it’s the graphical tool for you. The obvious advantage of a browser-based tool means that you can use it on almost any device. Whether you use a traditional desktop, laptop, or Chromebook computer, you can create, edit, and collaborate on images with PicMonkey.
Its mobile app support lets you work from a phone or tablet, while the affordable packages suit all levels of use.
In short, PicMonkey is the online artistic collaboration tool that you’ve been looking for. Check it out today to sign up for a free trial and find out for yourself.
Startup Battlefield is known around the world as TechCrunch’s premier startup competition, and today we’re proud to announce that on November 11-12 we are producing our hardware-focused competition, Hardware Battlefield at TC Shenzhen in that amazing heartland of hardware, Shenzhen, China.
The event this November will be TechCrunch’s fifth Hardware Battlefield, but our first ever in China. TechCrunch pioneered this hardware startup competition back in 2014 at CES in Las Vegas (the year Google acquired Nest!) and followed with more Hardware Battlefields in 2015, 2016 and 2017, all at CES. The 60 companies the editors chose to compete provided an incredible span of innovation — fromsmart socksfor diabetics tofood testing devices, tomalaria diagnostictools, toe-motorcyclesandrobotic arms.
Through those years we always had our eye on Shenzhen. The city offers an ecosystem like no other to support hardware startups through accelerators, rapid prototyping and world-class manufacturing. This year we worked with our partner in China, TechNode, to help us deliver on the dream. TCHardware Battlefield 2019 will happen on November 11-12 and be a part of the larger TechCrunch Shenzhen show happening November 9-12.
Hardware Battlefield 2017 Winner
If you are the founder of an early-stage hardware startup anywhere in the world, please consider applying for this Hardware Battlefield, whether or not you’ve ever been to China or Shenzhen. The Hardware Battlefield pitch sessions will be judged by top VCs, founders and technologists from around the world. TechCrunch’s editors will closely cover the event. All the pitches onstage will be captured on video and published on TechCrunch, where they will be viewed by a global audience, and the Hardware Battlefield winner will take home a check for $25,000 as well as worldwide acclaim and membership in the Startup Battlefield elite. To date, the 857 Startup Battlefield contestants have racked up $8.9 billion in funding and 110 exits. And for those contestants who are new to Shenzhen, we’ll make sure you get the insider’s tour of how that amazing city operates to support hardware founders.
How does Hardware Battlefield work?
Apply.Submit applications here to be considered. Startups must have a minimally viable product that they can demo onstage. The product should have limited if any press coverage to date. Founders looking to launch their product onstage have an edge. Founders from any industry or country may apply as long as the product is a hardware device or component. TechCrunch’s editors will select an elite set of 10-15 hardware startups to pitch on the main stage. The application deadline is August 14.
Prepare. TechCrunch’s team will put the founders through a rigorous six-week training program to prep their pitches, products and presentations for the big day onstage.
Compete.Participants will have six minutes to pitch, including a live hardware demo, followed by an intensive Q&A from a panel of judges — accomplished VCs, founders and technologists.
In March, Spotify filed a complaint against Apple with the European Commission over the so-called “Apple tax” and claims of restrictive rules regarding the App Store. In the time since, Apple has responded with the launch of a website that takes aim at the anti-trust, anti-competitive claims against it, and most recently, a deep dive into how the process of app approvals work, by way of a CNBC profile. Now, Apple has responded to the EC complaint with its own filing which says Spotify is only paying this “Apple tax” on less than one percent of its paid subscribers.
Specifically, Apple’s filing says that Spotify only pays a 15% “app tax” (revenue share) on just 0.5% of its 100 million premium subscribers, or around 680,000 customers. This revenue share only impacts those customers Spotify acquired during the 2014-2016 time frame who signed up for the subscription through an in-app purchase. Afterward, Spotify switched off the option to sign up in the app.
This is contrast to the claim made by Spotify CEO Daniel Ek on the company’s blog in March, where he wrote that “Apple requires that Spotify and other digital services pay a 30% tax on purchases made through Apple’s payment system.”
In addition, MBW reports, citing an unnamed source, that Spotify pays even less than the standard 15% for those customers who signed up through in-app purchase due to label discounts. The source told the outlet that Spotify just wants to “pay nothing.”
However, Spotify’s claim goes beyond the Apple tax.
It also said that Apple used its App Store power to penalize the competitor in other ways — like limiting Spotify’s ability to communicate with customers, or even send emails to its iOS users. Spotify said Apple also blocked its iOS upgrades — something it brought to light years ago. Apple, meanwhile, has always maintained it has treated Spotify like any other app developer.
Apple’s responses to these latter points were also sneaked into the recent CNBC piece where a “longtime Apple veteran” who was only identified as “Bill,” made certain to tell the news site that he had “called Spotify when an update was rejected” — e.g., because Spotify had been emailing customers and asking them to pay the music streamer directly, outside the App Store.
In addition to Spotify’s EU complaint, Apple is facing other attacks against its App Store in the U.S. courts.
And in June, two app developers proceeded to sue Apple over its App Store practices, making similar claims about Apple’s 30% commission on app sales and its requirement to price apps in tiers ending in 99 cents.
After using the App Store for years to dramatically grow their business, Spotify seeks to keep all the benefits of the App Store ecosystem — including the substantial revenue that they draw from the App Store’s customers — without making any contributions to that marketplace. At the same time, they distribute the music you love while making ever-smaller contributions to the artists, musicians and songwriters who create it — even going so far as to take these creators to court.
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Apple’s approach has always been to grow the pie. By creating new marketplaces, we can create more opportunities not just for our business, but for artists, creators, entrepreneurs and every “crazy one” with a big idea. That’s in our DNA, it’s the right model to grow the next big app ideas and, ultimately, it’s better for customers.
Wind turbines are a great source of clean power, but their apparent simplicity — just a big thing that spins — belie complex systems that wear down like any other, and can fail with disastrous consequences. Sandia National Labs researchers have created a robot that can inspect the enormous blades of turbines autonomously, helping keep our green power infrastructure in good kit.
The enormous towers that collect energy from wind currents are often only in our view for a few minutes as we drive past. But they must stand for years through inclement weather, temperature extremes, and naturally — being the tallest things around — lightning strikes. Combine that with normal wear and tear and it’s clear these things need to be inspected regularly.
But such inspections can be both difficult and superficial. The blades themselves are among the largest single objects manufactured on the planet, and they’re often installed in distant or inaccessible areas, like the many you see offshore.
“A blade is subject to lightning, hail, rain, humidity and other forces while running through a billion load cycles during its lifetime, but you can’t just land it in a hanger for maintenance,” explained Sandia’s Joshua Paquette in a news release. In other words, not only do crews have to go to the turbines to inspect them, but they often have to do those inspections in place — on structures hundreds of feet tall and potentially in dangerous locations.
Using a crane is one option, but the blade can also be orientated downwards so an inspector can rappel along its length. Even then the inspection may be no more than eyeballing the surface.
“In these visual inspections, you only see surface damage. Often though, by the time you can see a crack on the outside of a blade, the damage is already quite severe,” said Paquette.
Obviously better and deeper inspections are needed, and that’s what the team decided to work on, with partners International Climbing Machines and Dophitech. The result is this crawling robot, which can move along a blade slowly but surely, documenting it both visually and using ultrasonic imaging.
A visual inspection will see cracks or scuffs on the surface, but the ultrasonics penetrate deep into the blades, making them capable of detecting damage to interior layers well before it’s visible outside. And it can do it largely autonomously, moving a bit like a lawnmower: side to side, bottom to top.
Of course at this point it does it quite slowly and requires human oversight, but that’s because it’s fresh out of the lab. In the near future teams could carry around a few of these things, attach one to each blade, and come back a few hours or days later to find problem areas marked for closer inspection or scanning. Perhaps a crawler robot could even live onboard the turbine and scurry out to check each blade on a regular basis.
Another approach the researchers took was drones — a natural enough solution, since the versatile fliers have been pressed into service for inspection of many other structures that are dangerous for humans to get around: bridges, monuments, and so on.
These drones would be equipped with high-resolution cameras and infrared sensors that detect the heat signatures in the blade. The idea is that as warmth from sunlight diffuses through the material of the blade, it will do so irregularly in spots where damage below the surface has changed its thermal properties.
As automation of these systems improves, the opportunities open up: A quick pass by a drone could let crews know whether any particular tower needs closer inspection, then trigger the live-aboard crawler to take a closer look. Meanwhile the humans are on their way, arriving to a better picture of what needs to be done, and no need to risk life and limb just to take a look.
A visual inspection will see cracks or scuffs on the surface, but the ultrasonics penetrate deep into the blades, making them capable of detecting damage to interior layers well before it’s visible outside. And it can do it largely autonomously, moving a bit like a lawnmower: side to side, bottom to top.