Daily Crunch: MWC faces coronavirus concerns

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1. As top exhibitors pull out of MWC, organizers implement stringent safeguards

A couple of weeks before the event, the organizers of Mobile World Congress have issued some fairly sweeping safeguards over growing concerns around the coronavirus. After a number of high-profile back-outs, the organizers announced a ban of visitors originating from the Hubei province, whose capital Wuhan is believed to be the origin of the epidemic.

Following this news on Sunday, Sony and Amazon also pulled out of MWC.

2. NASA and ESA’s Solar Orbiter begins its nearly two-year journey to the Sun

After years of development, an exciting new scientific research spacecraft has launched on its journey to study our solar system’s central player: the Sun.

3. Netflix’s movies only won two Oscars this year

Two Oscars — Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Laura Dern’s performance in “Marriage Story” and Best Documentary Feature for “American Factory” — are a respectable showing for a studio that only started making movies a few years ago. Yet it still feels like a disappointment, given Netflix’s 24 nominations and its aggressive Oscar campaigns.

4. Starling Bank raises another £60M from existing backers

Starling Bank, the U.K.-based challenger bank founded by banking veteran Anne Boden, has raised another £60 million from its existing investors, Merian Global Investors and Harry McPike’s JTC. Starling is also disclosing that customers have opened 1.25 million consumer and business accounts since its banking app launched in May 2017.

5. The team behind Apple’s ‘Mythic Quest’ says video games aren’t the punch line

When video game publisher Ubisoft first approached “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” stars Rob McElhenney and Charlie Day about creating a new show set in the game industry, McElhenney said they weren’t interested — at least not initially. But a visit to Ubisoft’s Montreal office changed his mind.

6. Index Fund’s portfolio is driving long-overdue innovation in femcare

We chatted with Index principal Hannah Seal about the fund’s investment in tampon startup Daye and her broader thoughts on a new generation of female-focused startups. (Extra Crunch membership required.)

7. This week’s TechCrunch podcasts

The Equity team has some thoughts about Casper’s IPO, as well as the strong post-IPO performance of One Medical. And over on Original Content, we review Netflix’s Taylor Swift documentary “Miss Americana” — even if you’re not a Swiftie, I think we had a fun conversation about celebrity culture.

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Elon Musk tweets out #DeleteFacebook, saying ‘it’s lame’

Facebook receives plenty of pointed criticism from numerous corners, including for refusing to police political speech on Facebook, its seemingly endless string of privacy breaches and its apparent coziness with the Trump administration.

One of the platform’s most prominent critics, somewhat unexpectedly, is comic, writer and actor Sacha Baron Cohen. Indeed, his powerful speech to the Anti-Defamation League in November, characterizing Facebook as the “greatest propaganda machine in history,” quickly went viral. (We republished it here.)

Cohen isn’t done railing against Zuckerberg, however. Last Wednesday, he tweeted in frustration, “We don’t let 1 person control the water for 2.5 billion people. We don’t let 1 person control electricity for 2.5 billion people. Why do we let 1 man control the information seen by 2.5 billion people? Facebook needs to be regulated by governments, not ruled by an emperor!”

We don’t let 1 person control the water for 2.5 billion people.

We don’t let 1 person control electricity for 2.5 billion people.

Why do we let 1 man control the information seen by 2.5 billion people?

Facebook needs to be regulated by governments, not ruled by an emperor! pic.twitter.com/o4hNRFNpgt

— Sacha Baron Cohen (@SachaBaronCohen) February 5, 2020

On Saturday morning, Tesla founder Elon Musk responded to Cohen, himself tweeting “#DeleteFacebook it’s lame.”

#DeleteFacebook It’s lame

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 8, 2020

It was short, sweet and to the point (and presumably buoyed Cohen).

One might imagine that Musk, who has always spoken his mind, has been emboldened of late thanks to the skyrocketing value of Tesla. But Musk has long been a critic of Facebook, tweeting in 2018 after deleting his companies’ Facebook pages that he doesn’t “like Facebook. Gives me the willies. Sorry.”

Musk and Zuckerberg have butted heads in the past over the future of artificial intelligence, too. In 2014, Musk reportedly met with Zuckerberg, researchers from Facebook’s AI lab and two other Facebook executives at Zuckerberg’s Palo Alto home in an effort to convince Musk that he was wrong about the potential dangers of AI. Musk wasn’t persuaded, calling Zuckerberg’s understanding of the future of AI “limited” in 2017.

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Imaginative sculptures that explore how we perceive reality | Alicia Eggert

Imaginative sculptures that explore how we perceive reality | Alicia Eggert

TED Fellow Alicia Eggert takes us on a visual tour of her work -- from a giant sculpture on an uninhabited island in Maine to an installation that inflates only when people hold hands to complete an electric current. Her work explores the power of art to inspire wonder and foster hope in dark times. As she puts it: "A brighter, more sustainable, more equitable future depends first on our ability to imagine it."

Click the above link to download the TED talk.

Web traffic increases in 2019 were driven by mobile; top 100 sites saw average of 223B monthly visits

Mobile adoption around the world is having a significant impact on the web’s traffic. According to a new report from SimilarWeb, out today, mobile web traffic has jumped 30.6% since 2017, while desktop traffic dropped 3.3%. But it’s not just the numbers that are changing. Mobile visitors also behave differently from their desktop web counterparts, staying on pages for shorter periods of time, for example, which is impacting core metrics web publishers today track.

The report found that 2019’s total web traffic to the top 100 sites was up 8% from 2018, and up 11.8% over 2017, averaging 223 billion visits per month. The largest increases were in April and June 2019, when traffic was up by more than 10% over the same time in 2018.

 

Mobile is driving these traffic increases, but mobile visitors don’t stay as long on the site. Across platforms, the overall time spent on websites has dropped by 49 seconds from 2017 to 2019, the report found.

In addition, mobile has become the platform of choice for visiting certain categories of websites. Mobile traffic dwarfs desktop on adult sites, gambling sites, food & drink, pets & animals, health, community & society, sports, and lifestyle. And over the years, other categories shifted to become more mobile as well — including news and media, vehicle sites, travel, reference, finance, and others.

But not all categories are doing well, despite the shift to mobile.

News sites, for instance, were losing traffic. The report found that traffic to the top 100 media publications is down 5.3% year-over-year from 2018 to 2019 (a loss of 4B visits), and down by 7% since 2017.

These decreases impact all sorts of media categories, with popular news, entertainment news, and local news all showing decreases of over 25%. Only business & finance and women’s interest news categories saw any increases, the report said.

The increase in mobile traffic is also helping the biggest sites on the web grow larger, helping to further cement their position on today’s internet. The top 10 biggest sites saw a total of 167.5 billion monthly visits in 2019, up 10.7% over 2018. The remaining 90 biggest sites out of the top 100 only saw a 2.3% increase, by comparison.

Google’s move to consolidate traffic to its core domain increased traffic to google.com helped to increase its numbers and YouTube grew as well. However, Facebook’s troubles were reflected in its numbers as it lost 8.6% of traffic over the past year alone. The report theorized that some of its lost traffic went to YouTube, which could inform Facebook’s heavier focus on video in recent years. That said, Facebook’s investments in mobile helped it grow elsewhere — both Instagram and WhatsApp saw their web traffic grow up to 74% year-over-year.

Also on the decline were Yahoo, which lost 33.6% of its 2017 traffic, and Tumblr, which banned adult sites in 2018, leading to a 33% loss in traffic.

Facebook fought off the web traffic declines and related declines in app usage by re-engaging existing users in 2019, which helped it to increase the total number of app sessions throughout the year. YouTube uses a similar tactic to increase its own app engagement figures, leading to a close tie between the two on this metric.

The data for the report was gathered from January 2017 to December 2019, and tracked desktop and mobile web traffic, as well as Android app use.

The full report, available here, also dug into specific categories, like shopping, travel, finance, messaging, and more.

 

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How to Install Let’s Encrypt SSL Certificate with Apache on Ubuntu

This step-by-step tutorial will show you how to install Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate for an Apache server running on Ubuntu 18.04. I’ve created a droplet on DigitalOcean for this example but the steps should be similar AWS and other environments.

Install Apache 2

Login to your droplet with root (or use sudo with all the following commands).

Check if any Ubuntu packages are outdated.

apt update

Upgrade the outdated packages to the latest version.

apt upgrade

Install Apache2

apt install apache2

Start the Apache Server

systemctl start apache2

Check if the Apache server is running

systemctl status apache2

Enable the mod_rewrite package for Apache

sudo a2enmod rewrite

Restart Apache

systemctl restart apache2

Install PHP

Install PHP and restart the Apache server.

apt install php libapache2-mod-php
systemctl restart apache2
php —version

Install the CURL package

Install Curl and restart Apache server

apt install curl
apt install php7.2-curl
systemctl restart apache2

Install Let’s Encrypt on Apache

Install the certbot client that will help us automatically manage (install, renew or revoke) the SSL certificates on the Apache server.

Install Certbot

Install the certbot client and the plugin.

sudo apt update
sudo apt-get install software-properties-common
sudo add-apt-repository universe
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:certbot/certbot
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install certbot python-certbot-apache

Install Certbot DNS Plugin

Install the certbot DNS plugin for DigitalOcean. This will automatically add the _acme-challenge TXT DNS records to your domain that are required for authentication. The records are also removed after the certificates are installed.

sudo apt-get install python3-certbot-dns-digitalocean

This will only work if you are using the DigitalOcean Name Servers with your domain.

Create DigitalOcean Credentials File

Go to your DigitalOcean account’s dashboard, choose API and choose “Generate New Token”. Copy the token to your clipboard. Inside the terminal, create a new directory ~/.ssh and create a new file to save the credentials.

vi ~/.ssh/digitalocean.ini

Paste the following line in the credentials file. Replace 1234 with your actual token value.

dns_digitalocean_token = 1234

Save the file and then run chmod to restrict access to the file.

chmod 600 ~/.ssh/digitalocean.ini

Install SSL Certificates

Replace labnol.org with your domain name. This command will install the wildcard SSL certificate for all subdomains and the main domain.

certbot certonly --dns-digitalocean
    --dns-digitalocean-credentials ~/.ssh/digitalocean.ini
    --dns-digitalocean-propagation-seconds 60
    -d "*.labnol.org" -d labnol.org

If the certificate is successfully installed, it will add the certificate and chain in the following directory

/etc/letsencrypt/live/labnol.org/

Test the SSL Certificate

Go to ssllabs.com to test if your new SSL certificate is correctly installed on your domain.

Configure Apache to Use SSL Certificate

Now that the SSL Certificate is installed, we need to enable SSL for the Apache server on Ubuntu.

Enable the SSL module for Apache

OpenSSL is installed with Ubuntu but it is disabled by default. Enable the SSL module and restart Apache to apply the changes.

sudo a2enmod ssl
sudo service apache2 restart

Update Apache Configuration File

Open the default virtual host configuration file /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default.confand paste the following lines. Replace labnol with your own domain name.

<VirtualHost *:80>
        RewriteEngine On
        RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}$1 [R=301,L]
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost _default_:443>
        ServerAdmin amit@labnol.org
        ServerName labnol.org
        DocumentRoot /var/www/html

        ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
        CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

        SSLEngine on
        SSLCertificateFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/labnol.org/fullchain.pem
        SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/labnol.org/privkey.pem
</VirtualHost>

Save the file and restart Apache. The SSLCertificateFile and SSLCertificateKeyFile files were saved by certbot in the /etc/letsencrypt/live directory.

Adjust the Firewall

In some cases, you may have to enable Apache on SSL port 443 manually with the following command.

sudo ufw allow "Apache Secure"

Restart Apache. All your HTTP traffic will automatically redirect to the HTTPS version with a 301 permanent redirect.

sudo service apache2 restart

Verify Auto Renewal Process

Your Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate will auto-expire every 90 days. Go to the /etc/cron.d/ folder and you should see a certbot file. This cron job will automatically renew your SSL certificate if the expiration is within 30 days.

You can also run the following command to verify if the renewal process is correctly setup.

sudo certbot renew --dry-run

Good luck!

5 ways to create stronger connections | Robert Reffkin

5 ways to create stronger connections | Robert Reffkin

In a tech-obsessed culture, it can be difficult to build genuine relationships with people, especially in the workplace. Robert Reffkin shares his tips and tricks for establishing authentic connections on the job.

Click the above link to download the TED talk.

How to know if it's time to change careers | Chieh Huang

How to know if it's time to change careers | Chieh Huang

Quitting your job can be scary, but sometimes it's the best thing you can do for your career, says entrepreneur Chieh Huang. He shares how to know when it's time to move on -- and what can you do to prepare.

Click the above link to download the TED talk.

3 things new parents should consider before going back to work | Emily Oster

3 things new parents should consider before going back to work | Emily Oster

Should you go back to work after having kids? It's an emotional decision, but weighing three factors can make it easier, says author and economist Emily Oster.

Click the above link to download the TED talk.

6 ways to improve your relationship with money | Thasunda Duckett

6 ways to improve your relationship with money | Thasunda Duckett

Taking control of our personal finances can feel overwhelming -- but it doesn't have to be. Thasunda Duckett shares how to minimize shame around money and start having honest conversations about how to save.

Click the above link to download the TED talk.

The secret to giving great feedback | LeeAnn Renninger

The secret to giving great feedback | LeeAnn Renninger

Humans have been coming up with ways to give constructive criticism for centuries, but somehow we're still pretty terrible at it. Cognitive psychologist LeeAnn Renniger shares a scientifically proven method for giving effective feedback.

Click the above link to download the TED talk.

How to embrace emotions at work | Liz Fosslien

How to embrace emotions at work | Liz Fosslien

"You can't just flip a switch when you step into the office and turn your emotions off. Feeling feelings is part of being human," says author and illustrator Liz Fosslien. She shares why selective vulnerability is the key to bringing your authentic self to work.

Click the above link to download the TED talk.

How burnout makes us less creative | Rahaf Harfoush

How burnout makes us less creative | Rahaf Harfoush

Our obsession with productivity -- to-do lists, life hacks, morning routines -- is making us less productive, says digital anthropologist Rahaf Harfoush. She explains why we need to redesign our workday around creativity -- not just efficiency.

Click the above link to download the TED talk.

How to make faster decisions | Patrick McGinnis

How to make faster decisions | Patrick McGinnis

In a world of endless reviews and options, it's easy to become paralyzed by indecision. Investor and writer Patrick McGinnis shares the dangers of "FOBO" -- the fear of better options -- and how to overcome it.

Click the above link to download the TED talk.

Sony latest phone maker to pull out of MWC over coronavirus outbreak

Japanese electronics firm Sony is the latest phone maker to announce it’s withdrawing from the Mobile World Congress (MWC) tradeshow — citing concerns about the coronavirus outbreak.

“As we place the utmost importance on the safety and wellbeing of our customers, partners, media and employees, we have taken the difficult decision to withdraw from exhibiting and participating at MWC 2020 in Barcelona, Spain,” Sony wrote in a press release.

MWC is due to take place in Barcelona between February 24-27.

Sony said it will now run a press conference planned for the event remotely, via its official Xperia YouTube channel, at the scheduled time of 8:30am (CET) on February 24.

“Sony would like to thank everyone for their understanding and ongoing support during these challenging times,” it added.

In recent days a number of companies have announced they’re pulling out or scaling back their presence at the conference as a result of concerns about the spread of the virus — including Amazon, Ericsson, LG, NVIDIA and ZTE.

The World Health Organization dubbed the emergence and spread of the novel coronavirus a global emergency late last month.

At the time of writing the majority of infections and deaths from the virus remain in China, where the virus was first identified — in the town of Wuhan in the Hubei province.

Several Chinese tech companies, including ZTE and Xiaomi, have said they will make changes to their participation in MWC related to coronavirus concerns, such as placing limits on staff travelling from China or requiring they self isolate in the period before attending.

[Updated] LG withdraws from MWC due to coronavirus-related concerns

Yesterday the organizers of MWC, the GSMA, also announced stringent rules to try to safeguard attendees, including a ban on travellers from Hubei and a requirement that all travellers who have been in China must be able to prove they have been outside the country 14 days prior to the event.

Attendees will also be required to self-certify they have not been in contact with anyone affected, the GSMA said. Temperature screening will also be implemented at the event.

Last year the annual mobile tech conference drew almost 110,000 attendees, from 198 countries.

“While further planning is underway, we will continue to monitor the situation and will adapt our plans according to developments and advice we receive. We are contending with a constantly evolving situation, that will require fast adaptability,” the GSMA also said.

Attendance at MWC has regularly broken 100,000 in recent years but 2020’s conference seems likely to mark a break with business as usual as companies face pressure to rethink their travel priorities.

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Samsung teases videocalling on its next foldable during the Oscars

It was South Korea’s — rather than Netflix’s — night at the Oscars, thanks to Bong Joon-ho’s biting class satire Parasite, which won a well-deserved best picture gong. 

But tech giant Samsung appears to have been hoping to steal a little of the national limelight: The Korean phone maker chose a prime Oscars ad slot to show off a 360-degree view of its next foldable, running it as a teaser for its Unpacked 2020 unboxing event — which takes place in San Francisco tomorrow.

#Samsung showing off the new foldable during the #Oscars ahead of #unpacked2020 pic.twitter.com/PD9KdZKjmB

— Carolina Milanesi (@caro_milanesi) February 10, 2020

The ad shows the flip phones from all angles, opening and closing while the Comic Strip sounds of Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot pop and crackle in the background.

Notably we see the foldable propping itself up, with the screen half or three-quarters open, for a hands-free face-time style chat. (In case you were wondering what the point of a flip phone might be in 2020.)

There’s also an eye-popping iridescent purple colorway on show that seems intended to make the most of the screen-concealing clamshell design. A black version does a much better job of blending into the background.

While a brief side view of the phone shows what looks like a side-mounted fingerprint scanner — per earlier leaks.

And if you’re wondering how you’ll screen incoming calls when the clam is closed the ad shows a micro display that tells you the name of the person calling. tl;dr you can still ghost your frenemies while packing a flip.

We’ve seen renders of the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip leak online before but this is an official full view of the foldable Samsung hopes will spark a retro fashion craze for clamshell flip phones. (See also the rebooted Motorola Razr.)

Samsung will also of course be hoping this foldable can bend without immediately breaking…

My Galaxy Fold display is damaged after a day

Stay tuned for all the details from Samsung Unpacked 2020 as we get them (we’re especially keen to find out the price-tag for this foldable) — including our first look at the next flagship Galaxy S device.

TechCrunch’s intrepid hardware editor, Brian Heater, will be on the ground in San Francisco tomorrow to get hands on with all the new kit so you don’t have to.

Read Full Article

Samsung teases videocalling on its next foldable during the Oscars

It was South Korea’s — rather than Netflix’s — night at the Oscars, thanks to Bong Joon-ho’s biting class satire Parasite, which won best picture (among other well-deserved gongs). 

But tech giant Samsung appears to have been hoping to steal a little of the national limelight: The Korean phone maker chose a prime Oscars ad slot to show off a 360-degree view of its next foldable, running it as a teaser for its Unpacked 2020 unboxing event — which takes place in San Francisco tomorrow.

#Samsung showing off the new foldable during the #Oscars ahead of #unpacked2020 pic.twitter.com/PD9KdZKjmB

— Carolina Milanesi (@caro_milanesi) February 10, 2020

The ad shows the flip phones from all angles, opening and closing while the Comic Strip sounds of Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot pop and crackle in the background.

Notably we see the foldable propping itself up, with the screen half or three-quarters open, for a hands-free face-time style chat. (In case you were wondering what the point of a flip phone might be in 2020.)

There’s also an eye-popping iridescent purple colorway on show that seems intended to make the most of the screen-concealing clamshell design. A black version does a much better job of blending into the background.

While a brief side view of the phone shows what looks like a side-mounted fingerprint scanner — per earlier leaks.

And if you’re wondering how you’ll screen incoming calls when the clam is closed the ad shows a micro display that tells you the name of the person calling. tl;dr you can still ghost your frenemies while packing a flip.

We’ve seen renders of the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip leak online before but this is an official full view of the foldable Samsung hopes will spark a retro fashion craze for clamshell flip phones. (See also the rebooted Motorola Razr.)

Samsung will also of course be hoping this foldable can bend without immediately breaking…

My Galaxy Fold display is damaged after a day

Stay tuned for all the details from Samsung Unpacked 2020 as we get them (we’re especially keen to find out the price-tag for this foldable) — including our first look at the next flagship Galaxy S device.

TechCrunch’s intrepid hardware editor, Brian Heater, will be on the ground in San Francisco tomorrow to get hands on with all the new kit so you don’t have to.

Read Full Article

As top exhibitors pull out of MWC, organizers implement stringent safeguards

A couple of weeks out, Mobile World Congress organizer, the GSMA, has issued some fairly sweeping safeguards over growing concerns around the coronavirus. After a number of high profile back outs, including ZTE, LG, NVIDIA and Ericsson, the company issued a new list, including a ban of visitors originating from the Hubei province, whose capital Wuhan is believed to be the origin of the epidemic.

Per GSMA CEO John Hoffman,

• All travelers from the Hubei province will not be permitted access to the event

• All travelers who have been in China will need to demonstrate proof they have been outside of China 14 days prior to the event (passport stamp, health certificate)

• Temperature screening will be implemented

• Attendees will need to self-certify they have not been in contact with anyone infected.

[Updated] LG withdraws from MWC due to coronavirus-related concerns

More than 800 people have died from the virus, surpassing the 774 people who were killed by SARS circa 2002-2003. Hoffman adds that the organizer will be increasing a disinfectant program around the site and promoting a “no handshake policy.” As the organization notes, some 5,000-6,000 people from China attend the show each year, accounting for around 5-6 percent of visitors.

The GSMA is clearly interested in addressing concerns over the virus, while limiting further attendee or exhibitor erosion. The release quotes Catalan health minister Alba Vergés, who notes, “The Catalan health system is prepared to detect and treat coronavirus, to give the most appropriate response, and this must be clear to those attending MWC Barcelona.”

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