Google will start retiring Hangouts for G Suite users in October

Google’s strategy around its consumer messaging services remains baffling, especially since it killed off Allo (yet kept Duo on life support). Today, the company clarified the timeline of the transition from classic Hangouts to Chat and Meet for its paying G Suite customers. For them, the Hangouts retirement party will start in October of this year.

For consumers, the situation remains unclear, but Google says there will be free versions of Chat and Meet that will become available “following the transition of G Suite customers.” As of now, there is no timeline, so for all we know, Hangouts will remain up and running into 2020.

As for G Suite users, Google says it will start bringing more features from classic Hangouts to Chat between April and September. Those include integration with Gmail, the ability to talk to external users, improved video calling and making calls with Google Voice.

Google originally started migrating Hangouts users to the Meet video conferencing service last year. The story there was pretty straightforward, though, given that Meet was a new service with new functionality. For Hangouts, the story is far more complicated, and Hangouts Chat isn’t currently available to consumers. They do have the choice between dozens of other messaging apps, though, and all of this confusion is likely to cost Google quite a few users.

Google is killing off Allo, its latest messaging app flop

Read Full Article

Waymo plans to open a self-driving car factory in Michigan

Waymo and Magna plan to build thousands of self-driving cars at a factory in southeast Michigan, including autonomous versions of the all-electric Jaguar I-Pace and Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivan.

Waymo, the former Google self-driving project that spun out to become a business under Alphabet, announced Tuesday that the Michigan Economic Development Corporation voted to approve the company’s plan to set up a manufacturing facility in the state to build its self-driving vehicles. The MEDC approved an $8 million grant for the project.

The announcement is the latest signal that the startup is preparing to scale up its commercial operations. In December, Waymo launched a limited commercial robotaxi service in the Phoenix area dubbed Waymo One.

The Waymo One self-driving car service, and accompanying app, still has Waymo-trained test drivers behind the wheel. The safety driver will eventually be removed from the vehicle and the service will slowly open up to more people throughout 2019.

The companies are moving quickly. The goal is to begin moving into a facility by mid-2019 and begin preparing the site for manufacturing Level 4 autonomous vehicles. Level 4 is a designation by SAE that means the vehicle handles all of the driving under certain conditions.

The location has not been determined yet, except that it will be in southeast Michigan. This will likely be an existing facility, and not a new build. The factory will create up to 400 new jobs, according to Waymo.

We're getting started on the world’s first factory that is 100%-dedicated to the mass production of L4 autonomous vehicles, creating hundreds of jobs in Michigan. @MEDC #PureMichigan https://t.co/dWuRyjfYtp

— John Krafcik (@johnkrafcik) January 22, 2019

Waymo has supplier partnerships with Fiat Chrysler and Jaguar Land Rover. Last year, Waymo said up to 20,000 modified I-Pace vehicles will join Waymo’s driverless ride-hailing service in the first two years of operation. Waymo also has a deal with FCA for up to 62,000 modified minivans.

Waymo develops the hardware and software and then works with the automakers to integrate it into the vehicles at its Novi, Michigan facility. Through a partnership with Magna — the same company that is manufacturing the Jaguar I-PACE in Graz, Austria — the production and integration will now happen at a dedicated facility.

Read Full Article

Expanding the Application of Deep Learning to Electronic Health Records

Posted by Alvin Rajkomar, MD and Eyal Oren, PhD, Google AI, Healthcare

In 2018 we published a paper that showed how machine learning, when applied to medical records, can predict what might happen to patients who are hospitalized: for example, how long they would need to be in the hospital and, if discharged, how likely they would be to come back unexpectedly. Predictive models of various kinds have already been deployed in hospital settings by others, and our work aims to further improve potential clinical benefit by using new models that can make predictions faster, more accurate, and more adaptable for a broader range of clinical contexts.

Any endeavor to demonstrate the promise of machine learning requires intense collaboration between engineers, doctors, and medical researchers to make sure the work benefits patients, physicians, and health systems, and that it is equitable. Google is already fortunate to partner with some of the best academic medical centers in the world and we are now expanding this work to include Intermountain Healthcare, based in Utah.

The initial collaboration will focus on understanding how Google might adapt machine learning predictions to the various Intermountain care settings, from primary care clinics to the TeleHealth critical care unit, which remotely monitors critically ill patients in surrounding hospitals. We see potential in exploring how scalable computing platforms that include predictions might assist clinical teams in providing the best possible care.

As with our previous research, we will begin with jointly testing the performance of machine learning models on historical records, following strict policies to ensure that all data privacy and security measures are followed.

We are excited to explore how scalable computing platforms that include predictions might assist clinical teams in providing the best possible care in these settings. We additionally hope to further validate that our approach to predictions can work across health systems and improve care for patients.

Apple Pay is coming to Target, Taco Bell, Speedway and two other U.S. chains

A little more retail momentum for Apple Pay: Apple has announced another clutch of U.S. retailers will soon support its eponymous mobile payment tech — most notably discount retailer Target.

Apple Pay is rolling out to Target stores now, according to Apple, which says it will be available in all 1,850 of its U.S. retail locations “in the coming weeks”.

Also signing up to Apple Pay are fast food chains Taco Bell and Jack in the Box; Speedway convenience stores; and Hy-Vee supermarkets in the midwest.

“With the addition of these national retailers, 74 of the top 100 merchants in the US and 65 per cent of all retail locations across the country will support Apple Pay,” notes Apple in a press release.

Speedway customers can use Apple Pay at all of its approximately 3,000 locations across the Midwest, East Coast and Southeast from today, according to Apple; and also at Hy-Vee stores’ more than 245 outlets in the Midwest.

It says the payment tech is also rolling out to more than 7,000 Taco Bell and 2,200 Jack in the Box locations “in the next few months”.

Back in the summer Apple announced it had signed up long time hold out CVS, with the pharmacy introducing Apple Pay across its ~8,400 stand-alone location last year.

Also signing up then: 7-Eleven, which Apple says now launched support for Apple Pay in 95 per cent of its U.S. convenience stores in 2018.

Last year retail giant Costco also completed the rollout of Apple Pay to its more than 500 U.S. warehouses.

In December, Apple Pay also finally launched in Germany — where Apple slated it would be accepted at a range of “supermarkets, boutiques, restaurants and hotels and many other places” at launch, albeit ‘cash only’ remains a common demand from the country’s small businesses.

Read Full Article

Adjust expands its anti-ad fraud tech by acquiring Unbotify

Adjust, a Berlin-headquartered company focused on mobile ad measurement and fraud prevention, is acquiring bot detection startup Unbotify.

Founded in 2012, Adjust has become increasingly focused on ad fraud, and in fact created an industry group called the Coalition Against Ad Fraud a little over a year ago. Co-founder and CTO Paul Müller argued that although the industry has become increasingly concerned about fraud, Adjust has led the way in taking a more proactive approach: “Instead of just telling our clients, ‘Hey, you just spent money on fraud,’ we actively intervened and rejected attribution to a fraudulent source.”

In Müller’s view, Unbotify fits in with the company’s broader philosophy because the Israeli startup isn’t just trying to detect bots — it also “produces explainable results,” providing a clear explanation of why an impression couldn’t have come from a real human being.

“We strongly believe fraud isn’t a problem that can be solved with a magical black box or eight ball,” he said. “Fraud should not be an opinion. We believe in clear, transparent measurement of why something is fraud.”

The $8.2 Billion Adtech Fraud Problem That Everyone Is Ignoring

Adjust co-founder and CEO Christian Henschel said the entire 25-person Unbotify team will be joining the company, and will continue working as an independent office in Tel Aviv. In fact, Adjust plans to double the size of the team by the end of the year.

The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Unbotify was founded in 2015 by Yaron Oliker and Alon Dayan. According to Crunchbase, it raised $2 million in funding from Maverick Ventures Israel.

Ultimately, Henschel said, “What we’d like to achieve is to end fraud for digital media.”

Not that they think that Adjust alone can put a stop to all fraud. Instead, they hope to simply make it too costly and difficult for fraudsters to target Adjust customers.

“If you have a lot of houses on the street, and some of the doors are heavily fortified, most of the time [the thieves] will go with the door leaning open,” Müller said. “For us, the goal is not to eliminate fraud on idealistic level, but actually to make it financially unviable.”

The announcement comes just a month after Adjust announced it was buying data aggregation company Acquired.io.

Devcon raises $4.5M to beef up adtech security

Read Full Article

5 Tools to Find the Best Things to Buy on Amazon Quickly

Amazon, the global online shopping giant, makes it hard to find what you’re looking for. Let’s make it easier with a few choice apps, websites, and extensions.

Between these tools, you’ll be able to fix many of the annoyances that you encounter while shopping on Amazon. This includes a cleaner interface without sponsored posts and ads, curated picks of the best products on Amazon, and even a better search engine.

Needless to say, to use any of these, you should have set up an Amazon account and be familiar with buying from the site. If you aren’t, you can learn all about it in our extensive Amazon shopping guide.

Amazon Lite (Chrome): Remove Unwanted Ads and Banners

Amazon’s website design hasn’t changed much in years, and now it looks like a cluttered mess. Just loading the homepage takes a long time, and the search results are full of sponsored items, advertisements, and other unnecessary elements.

Amazon Lite is a free extension for Google Chrome that removes all these distracting and useless artifacts. You get a clean interface for the search results as well as a product’s description, and the user reviews too. It’s a much more pleasing way to browse or search on Amazon.

Speaking of search, Amazon Lite also strips away all the junk on the homepage and leaves you with just the search bar. It’s much faster to load, and far less distracting too.

Download: Amazon Lite for Chrome (Free)

Most Popular (Web): The Most Loved Products on Amazon

Amazon’s “Best Seller” tag doesn’t indicate the best product itself. If you’re unsure about what to buy when you’re faced with too many choices, go to Most Popular and check.

When deciding the best product in any category, Most Popular takes multiple factors into account, including the number of customer reviews, average rating, earnings, purchase/download volume, price, availability and release date. The products are then put into categories (work, wellness, etc.) and lists (like the best coffee maker, the best headphones, etc.) Go through the categories or search for products.

Most Popular also works with apps in the iOS App Store and extensions for Google Chrome, so that’s a neat bonus if you’re looking for software along with products.

FiveStar (Web): Minimalistic, Fast Amazon Search

FiveStar is a replacement for the default Amazon search to get a single page with all the top results. Search for any product or a category, like wireless headphones, and you’ll get the best-rated products.

All you see is the name, the price, and a little picture of the product. It’s nice to see only the top results and not be confused for choice, and without having to scroll too much. You can sort these by price, but none of the other Amazon filters are available at FiveStar.

Trusty Search Assistant for Amazon (Web): Easier Filters and Infinite Scroll

Of course, FiveStar is only useful if you want to quickly find what you want without much fuss. If you’re on a hunt, you’re better off with advanced ways to search Amazon, using tools like Trusty Search Assistant.

This Chrome extension adds a bunch of new options to the search results so that you can quickly filter or sort them according to what you need. It also removes the page-by-page style of results that Amazon uses, and instead goes with an infinite scroll so that you can see all choices at once, and the filters affect them immediately.

These filters are sliders that affect three basic aspects: rating, review count, and price. You can always set these through Amazon’s sidebar, but the sliders make it much more appealing, not to mention they stay on screen all the time.

Download: Trusty Search Assistant for Amazon for Chrome (Free)

DS Amazon Quick View (Chrome): Preview Product Page Without Clicking

You search for something in Amazon, you see a list of products, but to find the right one, you need to keep clicking back and forth between the results page and the product page. Well, no more. DS Amazon Quick View lets you preview the product page without ever leaving the results.

Just hover the mouse cursor over the item’s image, and this nifty Chrome extension jumps into action. It will show the details you need to know such as the product description, item’s shipping weight, shipping charges, average customer review, and other information that can help you decide. The extension also shows data about the seller, so you don’t end up buying from an untrustworthy source.

DS Amazon Quick View only works with the Amazon USA website. If you want to use it with other Amazon country sites, or get extra features like price history, purchase the Extended DS Amazon Quick View add-on.

Download: DS Amazon Quick View for Chrome (Free)

For Weird, Cool, or Discounted Products…

These websites and extensions are useful when you know what you want on Amazon. But well, Amazon has some offbeat items that you probably don’t know about (and didn’t know you wanted).

You should check out this list of websites to find cool, weird, or discounted items on Amazon. You never know what will catch your eye.

Read the full article: 5 Tools to Find the Best Things to Buy on Amazon Quickly

Read Full Article

WhatsApp Limits Forwarding to Fight Fake News

WhatsApp is limiting the number of times you can forward a message onto other people. Messages could previously be sent to 20 people or groups, but forwarding is now being limited to five. This is an effort to fight fake news and the spread of misinformation.

WhatsApp is regularly used to spread rumors. In some communities this has led to violence, with people being targeted as others believed what was being said about them. WhatsApp obviously isn’t happy about this, and is doing its best to combat the problem.

WhatsApp Prevents the Spread of Misinformation

Until now, WhatsApp has allowed you to forward a message onto up to 20 individuals or groups. According to Reuters, from now on, you’ll be limited to forwarding a message onto five individuals or groups. Which WhatsApp hopes will have a positive impact.

This limit of five recipients was put into place in India in July 2018 after a series of lynchings. Now, it’s rolling out to WhatsApp users around the world. WhatsApp will be updating the app over the coming days, starting with Android and followed by iOS.

Facebook's WhatsApp limits text forwards to five recipients to curb rumors https://t.co/8OmRZDENMt pic.twitter.com/AxSlZCmzpF

— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) January 21, 2019

The worldwide rollout of this limit on forwarding messages was announced at an event in Jakarta, Indonesia. Victoria Grand, the vice president for policy and communications at WhatsApp, said, “We’re imposing a limit of five messages all over the world as of today”.

We Should All Fight Back Against Fake News

Fighting fake news by not sharing stories on social media is something we should all be doing. But while a made-up story about a celebrity shared on Twitter is one thing, a message accusing someone in the real world of doing something bad is quite another.

This won’t solve the problem entirely, but it should limit the speed and spread of rumors amongst communities. And if you do see a message accusing someone of doing something bad, be sure to seek out the truth rather than believing everything you read.

Image Credit: Jan Persiel/Flickr

Read the full article: WhatsApp Limits Forwarding to Fight Fake News

Read Full Article

Top 7 Ways to Personalize Your Mac Desktop

Thanks to System Integrity Protection (SIP)—an Apple security feature—personalizing your Mac with deep system tweaks is not possible. But there are still other ways to spruce up your macOS desktop.

On that note, let’s see how to customize your Mac in seven easy steps.

1. Start With a Brand New Wallpaper

Simply swapping the default wallpaper for a background you like can make your desktop feel new again. To make this tiny change, visit General > Desktop & Screen Saver > Desktop.

There, pick a fresh image from the default Mac desktop themes, or go with a nice solid background color. You can also select one of the options under the Dynamic Desktop section for a wallpaper that changes to match the time of the day.

Better yet, access your Photos library from the sidebar to set your wallpaper to a photograph you love and don’t mind seeing every day.

Want to spice it up further? Set the wallpaper to change every hour, or add useful information to your desktop with an interactive wallpaper. To make these advanced tweaks and find wallpapers, go through the tips and apps in our ultimate Mac wallpaper resource.

2. Set Up a Custom Color Scheme

Starting with macOS Mojave, you can mix and match various color presets for system accents and highlights to come up with a fresh color scheme. To do this, visit System Preferences > General. and pick new colors under Accent color and Highlight color. You’ll then see the updated color scheme reflected across buttons, boxes, menus, selections, and other system elements.

In the same preference pane as above, switching to Dark Mode is another tweak you might want to consider. It’s one of the exciting new features of macOS Mojave and gives a sleek dark appearance to elements like the Dock, menu bar, app windows, and sidebars.

Since you can’t add system-wide themes to your Mac, your best bet is to activate app-specific themes. For example, if you use Alfred to control your Mac and have activated the Powerpack, you can use a custom theme to change how Alfred looks.

3. Add Icons and Backgrounds With Personality

You can not only scale icons up or down in Finder (via View > Show View Options > Icon size), but also change how they look using custom icons. When you’re browsing online repositories for icons, look for icons with the ICNS extension, which indicates that they’re in the Apple Icon Image format.

To change the icon for a folder (or a file), first copy the icon file. Now select the folder whose icon you’d like to replace and click on File > Get Info.

In the folder inspector that pops up, select the icon at the top and click on Edit > Paste. Now your custom icon is in place. If you’re not happy with it, select it in the inspector and hit the Delete key to switch back to the default icon.

PNG and JPG images can also work as the source for icons, but if you plan to use them, you have to open the image and copy-paste it to the folder inspector. Simply copying the image file doesn’t work.

You can even use an existing icon as the image source by copying it from the relevant inspector. For example, here’s a snapshot of my Home folder icon after I replaced it with the icon from the macOS Mojave installer.

Want to swap out the default app icons in the Applications folder for custom ones? You can, except for the apps that come bundled with your Mac. But you can use the icons of system apps as sources for third-party apps.

For example, you can replace the icon for your music player app with the system icon for iTunes. I have done that for VOX Music Player, as you’ll see in the screenshot below.

Did you know that you can add a new background to Finder from View > Show View Options > Background? This is possible only in the Icon view or “grid view” in Finder. (Not sure which view we’re referring to? We’ll help you get familiar with Finder view options.)

4. Revamp the Login Screen

To personalize the login screen on your Mac, start by switching to a new user picture for your account. You can do that from System Preferences > Users & Groups > Password. In this settings pane, click on the existing user picture next to your user name to swap it out for one from Apple’s default set or your Photos library. Hit Save to get the selected picture in place.

Next, you might want to come up with an entertaining lock screen message. You can add it under System Preferences > Security & Privacy > General. There, first select the checkbox for Show a message when the screen is locked.

(If the option appears grayed out, you’ll need to click on the lock icon at the bottom of the pane and enter your system password when prompted. This gives you access to the lock screen message setting.)

Next, click on the Set Lock Message button, type in what you want the lock screen to say, and hit OK. When you restart your Mac, you’ll see the message at the bottom of the screen, right above the power options.

5. Get a Better-Looking Dock

To personalize your Mac’s Dock, you should at the very least declutter it. Remove the icons of apps you don’t use often by dragging the icons out of the Dock and releasing them when you see the Remove prompt. Then, drag your favorite apps to the Dock from the Applications folder.

You can also reposition the Dock, resize its icons, and set them to magnify to various degrees on hover. To access the settings for these tweaks, head to System Preferences > Dock. Of course, instead of fiddling with the Dock, you could replace it with a third-party app like uBar or DockShelf.

6. Give Individual Apps a Makeover

Play around with the built-in settings for installed apps to add more personal touches to your Mac. For example, if you have the Slack desktop app installed, you can brighten up the Slack sidebar with a new theme.

In the Mac Mail app, change how your emails look by tweaking fonts and colors from Preferences > Fonts & Colors. Plus, you can highlight individual messages by selecting them and picking a new color via Format > Show Colors.

Get a new skin for the Terminal via Preferences > Profiles when you have it open. Select one of the themes available in the sidebar and click on Default at the bottom of the sidebar to set your choice as the default theme. You’ll need to restart Terminal for the new color profile to show up.

If you’re a dark mode enthusiast, how about enabling Dark Mode in your favorite Mac apps? Ulysses, Bear, Things, Tweetbot, Spark, and quite a few other apps support Dark Mode.

7. Add Custom Sounds to Mac

You don’t have to limit your personalization efforts to visual changes. How about adding a few audio tweaks too? For starters, pick a different system voice as the default from System Preferences > Accessibility > Speech > System Voice. Next, choose a new alert sound from System Preferences > Sound > Sound Effects.

You can even set your Mac to announce the time at set intervals from System Preferences > Date & Time > Clock.

Have You Customized Your Mac Desktop Yet?

As you can see above, with a little thought, time, and effort, you can make your Mac desktop truly yours. Once you do that, it’ll be even more of a pleasure to look at and work with. After you’ve made all those visual tweaks, why not add a few functional ones to streamline your Mac experience?

Read the full article: Top 7 Ways to Personalize Your Mac Desktop

Read Full Article

The 10 Best Virtual Reality iPhone Apps for Google Cardboard

The 11 Best Wired Headphones

The Linux Commands Reference Cheat Sheet

The Linux command line, also known as the terminal, can be an intimidating place. But it can also be your most effective tool.

Unlock the "Essential Linux Commands" cheat sheet now!

This will sign you up to our newsletter

Enter your Email

Read our privacy policy

Text commands often work regardless of which Linux-based operating system you use, and the results are often faster than what a graphical desktop interface can offer.

Yet even for long-time users, there are too many commands to commit to memory. That’s why we’ve prepared this handy cheat sheet of Linux commands.

The Linux Command Line Cheat Sheet

Terminal
clear	Clear the terminal screen.
history	Display recently used commands. You can also view these commands via the Up and Down keys.
!	Repeat a recently used command. You can use !n to repeat the n-th command in history or !-n to repeat what happened n commands ago.
man	Display the manual for a terminal program.
whatis	Display a brief description of a terminal program. A simpler alternative to the man command.
alias	Create a shortcut to a command or, when combined with the cd command, directory.
exit	Exit or close the terminal.
Navigation & File Management
cd	Change directory. Used to navigate between folders.
pwd	Display current directory.
cd	Change current directory.
ls	Display a list of files in the current directory.
cp	Makes a copy of a file. Defaults to the current directory unless you specify a specific one.
mv	Move a file from one directory to another.
rm	Remove a file or set of files.
stat	Display when a file was last accessed, modified, or changed.
touch	Change the date accessed or date modified time of a given file to right now.
rmdir	Delete a file or files.
mkdir	Create a directory. Defaults to the current directory, but you can also specify one.
rmdir	Delete a directory. Defaults to the current directory, but you can also specify one. The target directory must be completely empty.
rename	Change the name of a file or set of files.
find	Search a specific directory (or your entire PC) to find files that match designated criteria.
locate	Search for files or directories. Faster than the find command, but has fewer options.
grep	Search a specific file or set of files to see if a string of text exists and where.
mount	Attach a separate filesystem (such as an external hard drive or USB stick) to your system's main filesystem.
umount	Detach a separate filesystem from your system's main filesystem.
cat	Display the contents of a text file. Also works with multiple files.
chmod	Modify the read, write, and execute permissions of a file.
chown	Change the user or group that owns a file.
Users
su	Switch user. Unless you desigate a specific user, this command will attempt to sign in as the root user (which you can think of as the system administrator).
whoami	Displays the current user name.
id	Display current user and group.
passwd	Create or update a user's password.
System Administration
uname	Displays core system information such as kernel version, hardware, and operating system.
sudo	Enter before a command to perform the command as a system administrator. User must have administrator priveleges for this to work.
apt/dnf/pacman	Programs for installing software and updates. Which one to use depends on your Linux-based operating system. Each requires administrator rights and additional instructions, such as sudo apt install program-name .
jobs	Display the status of all current jobs. A job is a representation of a running process or group of processes.
bg	Send a job to the background.
fg	Send a job to the foreground.
kill	End a process according to its process ID (which you can get using the ps command.
killall	End all processes whose names match your query.
ps	Display a list of running processes. Defaults to processes started by the current user.
top	Displays a list of running processes, sorted by how much CPU each uses. Unlike ps, the command updates in real-time.
uptime	Displays time since last boot.
whereis	Finds the executable file for a program.
df	Displays how much disk space is used and free on your system.
free	Displays how much RAM is used and free on your system.
Network Management
ip	Displays you IP address, network interfaces, bandwidth usage, and more.
ping	Send or receive data from another computer on a network. Often used to test whether a network connection is established and the speed of that connection.
dig	Look up a domain's DNS address
wget	Download a file.
ssh	Secure Shell. Connect and login to a remote network location.
Miscellaneous
echo	Display a line of text. Often used in programs and scripts to relay information to users.
factor	Displays possible factors of a decimal number.
expr	Solve math equations.
look	Look up a word in the dictionary.

More Linux Terminal Commands

As comprehensive as this Linux commands cheat sheet may be, the list is only scratching the surface. There is far more you can do in the terminal than we could ever hope to fit on one page. Plus many commands change depending on your Linux-based operating system or require installing additional programs. The commands above are likely to work out-of-the-box on most Linux machines.

All the items in this cheat sheet are useful, but there are other Linux commands that are just plain fun. Then, on the flip side, there are commands that no one should ever run.

Read the full article: The Linux Commands Reference Cheat Sheet

Read Full Article

Roger Dickey ditches $32M-funded Gigster to start Untitled Labs

Most founders don’t walk away from their startup after raising $32 million and reaching 1000 clients. But Roger Dickey’s heart is in consumer tech, and his company Gigster had pivoted to doing outsourced app development for enterprises instead of scrappy entrepreneurs.

So today Dickey announced that he’d left his role as Gigster CEO, with former VMware VP Christopher Keane who’d sold it his startup WaveMaker coming in to lead Gigster in October. Now, Dickey is launching Untitled Labs, a “search lab” designed to test multiple consumer tech ideas in “social and professional networking, mobility, personal finance, premium services, health & wellness, travel, photography, and dating” before building out one

Untitled Labs is starting off with $2.8 million in seed funding from early Gigster investors and other angels including Founders Fund, Felicia Ventures, Caffeinated Capital, Joe Montana’s Liquid Ventures, Ashton Kutcher, Nikita Bier of TBH (acquired by Facebook), and Zynga co-founder Justin Waldron.

Investors lined up after seeing the success of Dickey’s last two search labs. In 2007, his Curiosoft lab revamped classic DOS game Drugwars as a Facebook game called Dopewars and sold it to Zynga where it became the wildly popular Mafia Wars. He did it again in 2014, building Gigster out of Liquid Labs and eventually raising $32 million for it in rounds led by Andreessen Horowitz and Redpoint. Dickey had proven he wasn’t just dicking around and his search labs could experiment their way to an A-grade startup.

“I loved learning about B2B but over the years I realized my true passions were in consumer and I kinda got the itch to try something new” Dickey tells me. “These things happen in the life-cycle of a company. The person who starts it isn’t always the same person to take it to an IPO. Gigster’s doing incredibly well. It was just a really vanilla separation in the best interest of all parties.”

Gigster co-founders (from left): Debo Olaosebikan and Roger Dickey

Gigster’s remaining co-founder and CTO Debo Olaosebikan will stay with the startup, but tells me he’ll be “moving away from a lot of the day-to-day management.” He’ll be in a more public facing role, evangelizing the vision of digital transformation to big clients hoping Gigster can equip them with the apps their customers demand. “We’ve gotten to a really good place on the backs of the founders and to get it to the next level inside of enterprise, having people who’ve done this, lived this, worked in enterprise for a long time makes sense for the company.”

Olaosebikan and Dickey both confirm there was no misconduct or other funny business that triggered the CEO’s departure, and he’ll stay on the Gigster board. Dickey tells me that Gigster’s business managing teams of freelance product managers, engineers, and designers to handle product development for big clients has grown revenue every quarter. It now has 1200 clients including almost 10% of Fortune 500 companies. Olaosebikan says “We have a great repeatable sales model. We can grow profitably and then we can figure out financing. We’re not in a hurry to raise money.”

Since leaving Gigster, Dickey has been meeting with investors and entrepreneurs to noodle on what’s in their “idea shelf” — the product and company concepts these techies imagine but are too busy to implement themselves. Meanwhile, he’s seeking a few elite engineers and designers to work through Untitled’s prospects.

Dickey said he came up with the “search labs” definition since he and others had found success with the strategy that no one had formalized. The search labs model contrasts with three other ways people typically form startups:

• Traditional Startup: Founders come up with one idea and raise from venture firms to build it into a company that’s quick to start and lets them keep a lot of equity, but these startups often fail because they lack product market fit. Examples: Facebook, SpaceX.
• Startup Accelerators and Incubators: Founders come up with one idea and enter an accelerator or incubator that provides funding and education for lots of startups in exchange for a small slice of equity. Founders sometimes learn their idea won’t work and pivot during the program, which is why accelerators seek to fund great teams, but otherwise operate traditionally. Examples: Y Combinator, 500 Startups.
• Startup Studio: The studios’ founders work with entrepreneurs to come up with a small number of ideas while keeping a significant of the equity. The entrepreneurs operate semi-autonomously but with the advantage of shared resources. Examples: Expa, Betaworks.
• Search Lab: Founders conceptualize and experiment with a small number of startup ideas, then focus the company around the most promising prototype. Examples: Untitled Labs, Midnight Labs (turned into TBH)

Dickey tells me that after 80 angel investments, going to every recent Y Combinator Demo Day, and talking with key players across the industry, the search lab method was the best way to hone in on his best idea rather than just going on a hunch. Given that approach, he went with “Untitled” so he could save the branding work for when the right product emerges. Dickey concludes “We’re trying to keep it really barebones. We don’t have an office, don’t have a logo, and we’re not going to make swag. We’re just going to find the next business as efficiently as possible.”

Read Full Article