27 August 2020

Kneron launches its new AI chip to challenge Google and others


Fresh off a $40 million Series A round, edge AI specialist Kneron today announced the launch of its newest custom chip, the Kneron KL 720 SoC.

With funding from the likes of Alibaba, Sequoia, Horizons Ventures, Qualcomm and SparkLabs Taipei (as well as a few undisclosed backers), it’s worth taking the company’s efforts seriously, and Kneron has no qualms about comparing its chips to those of Intel and Google, for example. It argues that its KL 720 is twice as energy efficient as Intel’s latest Movidius chips and four times more efficient than Google’s Coral Edge TPU at running the MobileNetV2 image recognition benchmark.

Compared to its previous generation of chips, this updated version can process 4K still images and videos at a 1080P resolution. It also features a number of new audio recognition breakthroughs for the company, which Kneron says will allow devices that use its chips to bypass the standard wake words on other chips and have immediate conversations with the device.

Image Credits: Kneron

Overall, Kneron promises 1.5 TOPS in performance from its SoC, which uses an Arm Cortex M4 as its main control unit. The average power consumption for the full package is around 1.2W.

“KL720 combines power with unmatched energy-efficiency and Kneron’s industry-leading AI algorithms to enable a new era for smart devices,” said Kneron founder and CEO Albert Liu. “Its low cost enables even more devices to take advantage of the benefits of edge AI, protecting user privacy, to an extent competitors can’t match. Combined with our existing KL520, we are proud to offer the most comprehensive suite of AI chips and software for devices on the market.”

With KNEO, the company also offers an interesting networking solution for devices that are powered by its chips. With this, developers can create their own private networks and connect multiple sensors without having to route data to the cloud. That network uses blockchain technology to secure the data and in a bit of a twist, Kneron hopes to create a marketplace that will allow consumers to exchange or sell their data to buyers.

For now, though, the company seems to be more focused on the core hardware. That’s also an area where we’ve seen the competition heat up, with other well-funded startups like Hailo also recently launching their latest chips.


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Walmart expresses interest in TikTok, teaming up with Microsoft


There’s been a flurry of TikTok news today, and the flood doesn’t seem to be letting up.

First was the announcement that Kevin Mayer, who joined the company just a bit more than three months ago, has stepped down overnight.

Now, we are receiving a bunch of deal-related news as well. Walmart has confirmed to multiple news outlets that it has expressed interest in teaming up with Microsoft in a bid for the fast-growing social app. Meanwhile, entertainment news site The Wrap reported that Oracle has placed a bid for the company, targeting a price around $20 billion.

This is a fast-developing story, and we will have more updates to come as we receive them.

TikTok has been heavily in the news since the Trump Administration threatened to ban TikTok from the U.S. market unless it sold its U.S. operations to an American company. On August 6, President Trump signed an executive order that gave TikTok’s Beijing-based parent company ByteDance 45 days to make a deal to divest the U.S. operations of its popular video-sharing app. The deadline was later extended until mid-November.

The order arrived at a time of heightened tensions between the U.S. and China, which are battling across a number of fronts outside of tech. Relations have deteriorated over issues like China’s move to assert more authority over Hong Kong with its new national security law, the detention of one million or more ethnic Uighur Muslims in China’s Xinjiang region, trade tariffs, Beijing’s military buildup in the disputed South China Sea, and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tech companies were pulled into this conflict between the two superpowers. Ahead of the proposed TikTok ban, the U.S. government also had tightened its restrictions on China’s Huawei Technologies in recent weeks.

After Trump’s signing of the executive order, TikTok immediately fought back, most recently in the form of a lawsuit against the U.S. government that challenged the legality of the TikTok ban. In the interim, several U.S. tech companies’ names emerged as having had discussions with TikTok about a deal, including MicrosoftTwitterGoogle, Oracle, and even Walmart. Oracle on Thursday morning was said to be nearing a deal with the White House that would comprise $10 billion of cash, $10 billion in Oracle stock, and 50% of annual TikTok profit to flow back to ByteDance.

The actual risk presented by the TikTok app has remained in dispute. Trump’s executive order declared the social app, and other apps owned by Chinese companies that have entered the U.S., a threat to “the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.” The concern is that the app could collect data on U.S. citizens, including location, browsing and search histories. Critics believe TikTok could serve as a conduit for the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda and censorship arm, as well.

The TikTok app itself has become hugely popular in the U.S in recent years. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg even declared TikTok’s existence one of the reasons why Facebook shouldn’t be considered a monopoly, in his testimony before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee in July.

According to data from app store intelligence firm Sensor Tower, TikTok has been download nearly 194 million times in the U.S., which is 8.2% of TikTok’s total downloads, including its Chinese version, Douyin. The U.S. also accounted for nearly $111 million, or 13% of TikTok’s total ~$840 million in revenue.

Mobile data and analytics firm App Annie said TikTok had 52 million weekly active users in the U.S. during the week of August 9-15, 2020, and this number continues to climb. Its weekly active user count in July (July 15-25) was up 75% from just the beginning of 2020, in fact. It also became the top grossing app on the iOS App Store globally in the second quarter, due to increased consumer usage of mobile apps during the pandemic. It consistently ranks in the top five for downloads across both the U.S. iOS App Store and Google Play.

Time spent in the app has grown as well, from 5 hours, 4 minutes per month as of August 2018 to 16 hours, 20 minutes per month as of December 2019.

Despite all that success though, TikTok’s next steps remain hazy. It needs to fight its lawsuit, net approval from U.S. regulatory agencies, and also continue to build trust with users in the throes of an acrimonious election season. We’ll have more developments as this story unfolds.


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Facebook removes ‘Kenosha Guard’ militia account after shooter kills two at protest


Facebook has removed a local self-declared militia’s page and a related event following the events that unfolded last night in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Two people were killed and another was wounded when a man believed to be 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse allegedly began firing on a group protesting the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man shot in the back while walking away from officers and approaching his car. Rittenhouse was arrested Wednesday in Antioch, Illinois and charged with first-degree intentional homicide.

A series of videos from the night depict law enforcement officers at the protest having friendly conversations with a group of men carrying guns, even offering them bottled water and expressing appreciation for their presence. Rittenhouse appears to have been among the armed group at the protest who said they were attending to protect property. How the armed counter-demonstrators organized their presence and what groups they are affiliated with has not yet been reported.

Prior to the night’s events, a Facebook account called Kenosha Guard published an event to gather “armed citizens to protect our lives and property.” According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, a post by the now-removed account attempted to rally “patriots willing to take up arms and defend [our] City tonight from the evil thugs.”

Two different Facebook users reported the Kenosha Guard account last night before the shooting took place, but in both cases Facebook determined the event and account were not in violation of its policies, The Verge reported.

In a statement to TechCrunch, Facebook said that it removed the group, the event page and the suspected shooter’s accounts on Facebook and Instagram. The company did not find a connection between Rittenhouse’s own account and the Kenosha Guard page.

“At this time, we have not found evidence on Facebook that suggests the shooter followed the Kenosha Guard Page or that he was invited on the Event Page they organized,” a Facebook spokesperson said.

“However, the Kenosha Guard Page and their Event Page violated our new policy addressing militia organizations and have been removed on that basis.”

Facebook is currently monitoring its platform for content praising the shooting and plans to remove anything that meets its threshold for inciting serious violence.


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How the US medical community fails Black mothers | Wanda Irving

How the US medical community fails Black mothers | Wanda Irving

In the US, Black women are nearly 300 percent more likely to die as a result of childbirth than white women. Sharing appalling statistics on maternal mortality as well as her own tragic story of loss, Wanda Irving explains how racism and bias in health care minimizes and dismisses Black women's pain -- and makes a personal plea for leaders in the medical community to take steps toward reform.

https://ift.tt/32sVlwY

Click this link to view the TED Talk

Samsung is holding another Unpacked event next week for the Galaxy Z Fold 2


One of the nice things about virtual events is you can essentially hold as many as you’d like. It’s one thing to ask people to fly across the country or world to attend and another entirely to get them to tune into a livestream for an hour.

On September 1 at 10AM ET, Samsung will be holding an “Unpacked Part 2,” focused on the Galaxy Z Fold 2. The second-gen foldable got a little face time during the recent Note 20 event, but a new phone, watch, headphones and tablet ate up most of the alotted time.

Honestly, we already know a fair bit about the foldable, which largely seeks to address the numerous shortcomings of the original. For starters, there’s a reinforced screen. The hinge has also been upgraded to prohibit debris from falling behind the display. These (along with a protective layer that looked removable) are the chief reasons for various reports of screen damage with the original. I ended up damaging my own replacement unit, due to the fragile screen.

This event appears to be the one Samsung had originally planned to occur at IFA. The company ultimately pulled out of the Berlin-based trade show seemingly over COVID-19 related concerns. I have to imagine it’s going to be a more truncated event than the last Unpacked, unless Samsung has some additional hardware to reveal.

The foldable is set to go up for preorder the same day as event, though ship date and pricing have yet to be revealed since Samsung needs to save something for the presser. Most signs point to a similar price point as its $2,000 predecessor.


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LA gets a big SAAS exit as Fastly nabs the Culver City-based Signal Sciences for $775M


Los Angeles was always more than a one industry town, even when it comes to technology startups, but media and entertainment (and social networking) were always the big draws in tinseltown.

Now the city’s enterprise tech scene can claim a really big winner with Signal Sciences, the security monitoring and management company that is getting bought by Fastly, a provider of content delivery networking services, for $775 million.

“Our team couldn’t be more excited about the opportunity to join Fastly to continue to drive forward security protections that empower developers. But we also believe this is a great moment to showcase the diversity of the LA technology scene,” wrote Signal Sciences chief executive, Andrew Peterson, in a direct message. “Being the largest enterprise tech outcome ever here, we’re just one of so many great deep technology companies who are paving the way for the next generation of SoCal based start ups. We’re thrilled to help lead the way for the broader tech community in Los Angeles.”

Content delivery and security go hand-in-hand and some of the biggest companies online use businesses like Fastly and its competitor, Cloudflare, to ensure that their online presence doesn’t go offline — and that browsers can quickly download and deliver websites.

Fastly said that the acquisition of Signal Sciences’ business will boost its ability to provide better security for applications and APIs — the connective fabric between different services that knit different technologies together behind the scenes.

With the acquisition, Fastly is planting a flag as a new competitor in the cybersecurity market, even as companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google offer a wider array of services under their Internet as a service business lines.

Application security is a higher value piece of the services stack and it takes advantage of the natural position that a company like Fastly has as a content distribution network.

“Fastly was founded to meet developers’ need for greater visibility and control. Now, as the digital transformation movement continues to accelerate, DevOps teams are struggling with inadequate and inflexible security tools,” said Joshua Bixby, Chief Executive Officer of Fastly, in a statement. “Together with Signal Sciences, we will give developers modern security tools designed for the way they work.”

Los Angeles, California, USA – March 23, 2016: Aerial view of the Hollywood sign at dusk in Los Angeles. The image has been taken from an helicopter flying over LA. Image Credit: Getty Images/franckreporter

Under the terms of the agreement Fastly is buying Signal Sciences for $200 million in cash and approximately $575 million worth of stock, subject to customary adjustments for transactions, according to a statement.

Fastly is also setting up a $50 million retention pool of restricted stock units to give out to Signal Sciences employees.

Signal Sciences employees aren’t the only winners in the deal. The company raised $63 million in venture financing from investors including CRV, Harrison Metal, Index Ventures, Oreilly Alphatech Ventures, Lead Edge Capital, and individual investors including former Facebook security officer Alex Stamos, and Etsy chief executive Chad Dickerson.

The company’s last round was a $35 million investment raised about two years ago, and one investor with knowledge of the company’s cap table called it a “pretty efficient exit” for its backers.

Morgan Stanley & Co. and Union Square Advisors are acting as financial advisors to Fastly, and Cooley LLP is acting as its legal advisor with regard to the transaction, according to a statement. Qatalyst Partners is acting as financial advisor to Signal Sciences, while Goodwin Procter was the company’s lawyer.


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Amazon debuts Halo smart health subscription service and Halo Band wearable activity tracker


Amazon has introduced an entirely new membership program called Halo today that aims to provide comprehensive personal health and wellness monitoring and advice. The Halo service, which is opening to early access by special request today, includes both the service and a new Amazon Halo Band wristworn activity tracker for $64.99 for a six-month membership. Amazon says that the standard public price of the same will be $99.99 once it’s more generally available.

Halo looks to offer more than your standard health tracking gadget/app combo, by taking a comprehensive look at various measures of health, including body fat percentage, as measured at home with just your smartphone’s own camera and the Amazon Halo app. The company says that it was able to make this possible using its own advances in computer vision and machine learning. Amazon employes deep neural network-based processing of your uploaded photos to separate your body from its surroundings, analyze so-called body fat “hot spots” where it’s easier to measure body fat percentage, and then generates a 3D model of your body. You can then use a slider to adjust your body fat percentage up or down to see what kind of impact gaining or losing body fat would actually have on your physique.

Image Credits: Amazon

Amazon claims that its technology is able to provide accuracy up to the standards of what a doctor would be able to determine in a clinical setting – and as much as twice as accurate as is currently possible using other at-home methods, including smart scales.

Meanwhile, the Amazon Halo Band is a small, sleek wristworn device that can capture other measures of health, including activity, skin temperature, sleep states (including REM, light and deep sleep). It has an accelerometer, a heart rate monitor, two microphones, and it’s water resistant. The built-in battery can last up to a fully week on a 90 minute charge, and it’s compatible with a range of different band accessories for switching style.

Another unique vector that Amazon is measuring on top of activity, sleep and body fat percentage is wha tit’s calling “Tone” – that’s why there are microphones on board the Halo Band. That monitors your voice, and applies machine learning to determine factors including “energy and positivity.” Amazon says this will allow them to provide unique insights like whether “a difficult work call leads to less positivity in communication with a customer’s family,” for instance.

Image Credits: Amazon

The blatant, obvious concern here is that Amazon Halo seeks unprecedented access to a person’s personal data in order to derive its insights. Amazon is looking to collect information about the time, lengthy and quality of your sleep; biometric data including your heart rate and body temperature; information about when you exercise and where; and even highly accurate and detailed info about your body’s physical makeup – not to mention how your voice sounds and what that might indicate about your mental state.

Amazon says in a release about Halo that both Halo and Body were built with “privacy in mind,” and that body scans are automatically deleted from any servers where they’re stored after they’re processed. They’re then stored only locally on your phone, and Amazon says this means “no one but you ever sees them” unless you opt to share them. Further, it says all health data “is encrypted in transit and in the cloud,” with customers able to delete their data at any time. As for voice and speech data, Amazon says that these are analyzed locally on the phone itself and then immediately deleted after processing, so that no one ever hears them – including them customer themselves.

Image Credits: Amazon

Even so, this is handing a lot of trust and information to Amazon, and while the raw data may be protected, the insights gathered, even if anonymized, obviously stand to offer Amazon a lot more value in terms of its ability to tune its overall product offerings and create additional opportunities for things like its bourgeoning healthcare business. That said, Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant and ecosystem hasn’t seemed to deter customers, so it’ll be interesting to see how many are open to sharing even more info with Amazon in exchange for guided health and wellness advice.


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Christopher Ward’s C1 Moonglow moonphase automatic watch is perfect for space lovers


The moonphase watch is a long-standing marvel of the analog watch industry – featuring a complication that allows it to accurately track the phases of the Moon across a long period (provided the watch remains wound). Christopher Ward’s C1 Moonglow ($1,995) is a fresh, contemporary take on a moonphase that that really puts the Moon front and center, in a design that’s equally comfortable on the wrist for everyday wear, in the boardroom, or at a formal event. Its unique design is also sure to please anyone who likes to watch the stars, and the bourgeoning private launch industry that’s reaching out to them.

The basics

The C1 Moonglow features a version of Selita’s reliable SW220 automatic movement with that includes an in-house moonphase modification. The in-house customization does more than just add moonphase tracking – UK-based Christopher Ward has made it possible for the moonphase feature to work continually, rather than simply flipping once per day, as do most off-the-self versions of this complication. That’s what enables the Moon graphic details on the face to move smoothly across the surface of the watch, while providing accurate phase tracking for a span of up to 128 years according to the company.

The C1 also includes a calendar complication, which occupies the outer ring of the watch face and uses a sub-dial red highlight to mark the date. The watch measures 40.5 mm on the wrist, with a primarily black dial and a polished stainless steel case. It’s 12.35mm thick, and spans 48.55mm lug-to-lug. The automatic movement is wound with a custom Christopher Ward rotor that’s finished in black with a diamond-like carbon (DLC) coating, and the moment is 26 jewels with a 38 hour power reserve when fully wound. The included strap is a black Italian shell cordovan leather, with a deployant clasp.

Design and features

The key to the C1 Moonglow’s unique design is the custom moonphase dial, which features two incredibly detailed, 3D-textured images of the Moon. These are positioned opposite one another on the dial, and provide the phase indication as they peak above a smoked aperture limiter that spans the bottom half of the watch face. Depending on lighting conditions, this can either appear pretty much entirely opaque, or mostly translucent, and it’s a fantastic detail that also allows the top-grade Super-LumiNova lime applied to the Moon graphics to shine through at night.

The moonphase indicator dial also includes scattered stars, a touch that elevates this to the level of being somewhat playful while retaining the utmost class and sophistication. The stars are also luted, as are the watch hands, hour markers and date ring. The stacking off all these layers, and the textured surface of the hour ring, along with a white border ring between it and the date dial, give the watch an excellent amount of depth, but it’s still not a chunky or large watch on the wrist at a very reasonable 40.5mm size and just over 12mm height.

The caseback of the C1 Moonglow is also impressive, providing a great view of the in-house customized movement and coated rotor. A fairly aggressive bevel in from the watch case side means that the exhibition sapphire window seems to take up almost all of the back of the watch, and helps minimize the visual height of the C1 when viewed from the side.

Setting the moonphase is very easy, and accomplished by pulling the crown to its second position and turning it counter-clockwise. Clockwise sets the date, but you can adjust both independently and also independently of the time. Getting the phase accurate can be a bit tricker, but Christopher Ward provides easy instructions in the included manual – or you can use an app like Watchville which provides a very handy and highly accurate virtual watch face with moonphase to set your analog by.

Bottom line

As one of the most consistent and admired microbrand watchmakers out there, Christopher Ward has a great reputation for delivering interesting timepieces. The C1 Moonglow is among the most unique and appealing of its offerings, providing a tremendous amount of value for a watch with a custom-modified in-house movement and a moonphase complication. Best of all, it sports a stunning visual design that’s sure to turn heads – and maybe even distract some skywatchers from their telescopes and observatories.


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How to Send HTML Emails with Gmail


This tutorial describes how you can easily send HTML emails in Gmail without using any extensions. You can format your Gmail messages to include tables, buttons, custom fonts, social media icons, wrap images around text, and more. A little knowledge of HTML and CSS will come handy but it is not a pre-requisite.

The built-in WYSIWYG editor of Gmail offers basic formatting options - you can make text bold, create lists, change font colors - but that’s pretty much it. There’s no option to insert custom HTML into the message body that is required to send rich emails though Gmail.

Write HTML Emails Directly in Gmail

Let’s start with some basic examples and then we move on to more advanced example where you’ll learn how to send email newsletters that were created separately inside MailChimp.

Insert Buttons in Gmail

This HTML snippet creates a beautiful call-to-action button with a blue background, slightly rounded edges and rendered in the popular Roboto font.

<a
  href="https://digitalinspiration.com/"
  style="background-color:#1a73e8; padding:10px 20px;
         color: white; text-decoration:none; font-size:15px;
         font-family:Roboto,sans-serif; border-radius:5px;
         display:block; margin:20px 0; width: 120px"
  >Explore our work
</a>

We cannot copy-paste this HTML directly into the email editor of Gmail but with the magic of Chrome Dev Tools, we can. Let’s see how:

Open gmail.com and compose a new email message. Add an emoji in the message body to be replaced with the HTML button. Right-click the emoji in the Gmail editor and choose Inspect.

This opens the Developer tools in the bottom half of the browser. Select the <img> tag that contains the emoji, right-click and choose Editor HTML. Replace the selected content with the button HTML and click anywhere outside the dev tools window.

You’ll now see a beautiful HTML button rendered in your email message with all the CSS styles and formatting. Watch the video for a more detailed tutorial.

Insert HTML in Gmail

Insert HTML Tables in Gmail

In the next example, we will embed an HTML table in the Gmail editor. Unlike our button above that had all styles inlined, the CSS of the table is contained in a separate stylesheet.

Therefore, prior to pasting the pasting the table HTML into Gmail, we need to “inline” the styles else the formatting will be ignored by Gmail. This can be easily done through Juice - simply paste the HTML and CSS in the input box and it will inline all the CSS styles in the HTML tags that is compatible with Gmail.

Gmail with Inline CSS

Send Email Newsletters with Gmail

Until now we have seen examples of adding basic HTML blocks inside Gmail but wouldn’t it be nice if we could send professional and responsive email newsletters through Gmail?

Design Email Newsletter for Gmail

If you are new, the term responsive essentially means that the styles change automatically based on the device of the user. So if someone is viewing the email on a mobile phone, they would see a different layout than a person who has opened your email on a desktop computer.

You can use MailChimp or any other email template designer to create the newsletter. The only requirement is that the tool should have an option to download the designs as an HTML file.

You can feed this HTML file into Juice to inline the CSS styles and then insert the transformed HTML into Gmail using the emoji trick. The draft email newsletter can also be used as a template for sending personalized emails with Mail Merge.


Fairphone’s new flagship, the 3+, costs just €70 as a modular upgrade


Dutch social enterprise, Fairphone, has moved a little closer to the sustainability dream of a circular economy by announcing the launch of a modular upgrade for its flagship smartphone.

The backwards compatible hardware units mean users of last year’s Fairphone 3 only need swap out a few modules to be holding the Fairphone 3+ in their hand instead of buying a whole new device.

Fairphone pulled off a similar feat with an earlier model of its ‘ethical smartphone’ but this time it’s managed to shrink the time it took it to offer ‘plug and play’ upgrade modules for its latest gen device.

“What we’ve been able to do is get that whole idea of plug and play to the consumer within the smartphone business,” says Fairphone co-founder Bas van Abel. “That part is not trivial because you have to imagine that getting everything into that module and being able to put it into the old phone… Not only the hardware has to fit and everything has to connect in the right way in that previous kind of architecture but also the software.

“But we’ve been able to do that, and it took some time but we’ve done it way faster than we were able to do it with the Fairphone 2. So we’re proud of that as well.”

“The most important part is it’s really also a signal towards the industry that it’s possible to do upgrades with your phone and not have to come out with a totally new phone every year,” he adds.

Finding clever ways to extend device longevity is a core plank of Fairphone’s mission. The biggest resource sinkhole associated with smartphone consumption is the annual or biennial upgrade cycle which encourages consumers to swap perfectly functional phones for a shiny new model. Fairphone 3 owners can get its latest kit with a cleaner conscience.

Fairphone is selling the Fairphone 3+ camera and audio modules separately for current Fairphone 3 users — at an initial cost of €70 until the end of September (rising to ~€95 from October).

It is also selling a Fairphone 3+ handset for an RRP of €469, aimed at new to the brand users — opening up pre-sales from today on its website and via partner retailers, with a release date of September 14 across Europe.

Specs wise, the 4G Fairphone 3+ has a 5.7in Full-HD display with an 18:9 aspect ratio and is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 632 chipset. Out of the box it runs Android 10. On board there’s 4GB of RAM and 64GB of ROM, expandable via microSD. The removable battery is 3,000mAh. There’s also Bluetooth 5.0, NFC and a fingerprint scanner.  

van Abel confirms the business will continue to sell last year’s flagship — but at a reduced price of around €400.

The 3+ modules are only backwards compatible one generation of Fairphone which means anyone still using a Fairphone 2 can’t get this plug and play upgrade. The blocker there is the core module, per van Abel, who says not being able to swap the SOC out for an upgraded chipset remains the biggest challenge for modular upgrades that are able to span more than one smartphone generation.

“Our vision is definitely there that you can also eventually replace the core module… where the modem and the processor is,” he says, hazarding that it might be possible “within a couple of years”.

However the wider issue is the component industry still moves so fast it remains way out of step with Fairphone’s goal of longevity. The social enterprise pledges to provide up to five years of support for each device it sells, meaning it needs relevant spare parts to still be available in order that it can offer replacements or else stockpile them itself — a capital intensive process. And one that’s at sharp odds with the blistering upgrade trajectory of processor manufacturers.

From a sustainability and resource perspective, the best option is also for a smartphone user to keep using the same chipset for as long as possible. The maturity of the smartphone market and commoditization of the tech — leading to the more iterative device refreshes we generally see now — also tacitly supports that.

van Abel can point to consumers holding onto a handset for an average of about double the time they did when Fairphone got started. It’s a drift that’s providing uplift to environmentally sensitive brand focused on innovating to produce smartphones with a longer lifespan.

“We’ve done a lifecycle assessment on the Fairphone 3 and what comes out of that we’ve also tested what parts of the phone have what kind of footprint and you also see that almost 80% of the CO2 footprint of the phone is within the making and the production of the SOC,” he says. “So that means that if you really want to look at it from a sustainability perspective it really makes sense to keep that part of the phone just as long as possible. Because most of the harm on nature is on that part. So even replacing that part — being able to swap that part — it’s great but it’s kind of a shame that we throw away a lot of stuff and modules and components in the phone.”

“Recycling in the phone business at the moment is plain stupid,” he adds. “How it’s done is you collect the phones and they put them in an oven — they burn them. And then they get the minerals out… You can still reuse the minerals but there’s nothing smart about that. Nothing really has been reused so all the capacitors, the glass of the screen… So it does make sense at a certain point to being also able to swap the processor like you were able to do with the computers in the old days.”

When we reviewed the Fairphone 3 last year we were impressed by how normal the Android device felt — belying its modular, deconstructable interior and all the years of effort Fairphone has ploughed into scrutinising and reworking supply chains to be able to stand up its bold claim of a phone that “dares to be fair”.

Now, with the launch of the Fairphone 3+ modules, last year’s handset is getting a boost to its camera hardware — with a 48MP main lens and a 16MP front-facing lens offered as replacements to last year’s 12MP and 8MP units via the new modules (the main and front modules can be purchased separately or as an upgrade bundle).

On the surface that looks like a huge step up in hardware but it’s down to the camera module using the Samsung GM1 sensor — which uses tiny pixels of 0.8-micro to deliver light sensitivity equal to 1.6-micro pixels.

So it’s actually a software technique to eke more out of the hardware, with a trade off in that it entails some compression of picture quality. A Fairphone spokeswoman confirmed the main lens’ “effective output” is still 12MP. “This is common practice in the industry with phones such as the Samsung S5KGM1, Samsung Galaxy A90 5G, Nokia 7.2 and the Sony IMX363,” she added.

As we noted in our review of the Fairphone 3 last September, the 2019 flagship took a fairly standard snap — with photo quality closer to acceptable, than stand out. The performance gap vs the premium end of the smartphone market was noticeable, even as Fairphone had substantially bested performance vs its earlier handsets.

The company looks keen to further shrink the photo quality gap. Now it touts “significantly” improved photo and video quality via the 3+ upgrade — which it says supports “sharper selfies and clearer video calls”.

It’s also done work to optimize the software, noting support for enhanced object tracking, faster autofocus and image stabilization “for more reliable shots”. While the new audio module serves “louder, crisper sound”, per its press release.

A focus on boosting photo and video performance makes sense given how central the camera has become for smartphone users — feeding into the rise of trendy social video sharing apps like TikTok.

Successfully convincing consumers to hold onto their existing handset for longer means paying attention to such app trends to make sure hardware and software are keeping up with how people are using their phones.

For buyers of the Fairphone 3+ handset there’s another improvement: It boasts 40% recycled plastics — up from just 9% in last year’s model. Fairphone says the volume of recycled plastics is now equivalent to a 33cl plastic drinking bottle — so that’s one piece of plastic waste prevented from ending up in the sea (for now).

While some might wonder if there’s a subtle contradiction in a sustainable smartphone brand launching a new model only a year after unboxing last year’s flagship, van Abel says expanding the portfolio in important — as part of the overall mission to grow demand for ethical smartphones.

That demand is in turn needed to build momentum for the kind of industry-wide shift required for a wholesale upgrade to a circular economy. And the potential of offering devices as a services.

“We want to sell as many phones as possible — because our mission is to show that there is a demand for ethical phones,” he tells TechCrunch. “So the more phones we sell the more we can show that the demand is really there. But that also makes a problem in terms of longevity so we have another KPI where we say we want people to use our phone as long as possible — so we measure how long people actually use our phones and that’s improving every year as well. So a sales person at Fairphone they get a very hard kind of assignment because they have to sell as many phones as possible but they can’t approach people that already have them.”

“We’re challenging ourselves to disconnect the business model from these resources as much as possible but because we take that challenge in the core of our business I think we’re also ahead of where the industry needs to move towards,” he adds.

“Nobody can neglect the fact that we’re running out of resources and it’s getting harder and harder to get these resources. Look at cobalt, for example. Lithium ion batteries. There’s a run on cobalt. It’s gone like 10x, 20x the price it used to be — because we have this energy transition that we need all kinds of batteries for. So even sustainability needs these resources that you can’t get purely from recycling. So we know that this has to change. Even for geopolitical reasons I think that what we’re doing forces us to be ahead of the game.”

Demand for Fairphones has been building steadily over the past decade and the social enterprise is now “almost” at profitability, per van Abel. “We’ve sold over 200k phones — of which 60k were Fairphone 1s. We’ve sold over 100k Fairphone 2s. And last year we sold almost 50k Fairphone 3s and this year we’re aiming for over 100k Fairphone 3+,” he says.

“We’ve never had a portfolio. Now we actually have a portfolio of two phones, Fairphone 3 and 3+, because we’re going to sell the 3 as well at a lower price with the older modules — the previous modules — and the 3+ with the new modules. So that we also have a price point for people that don’t need the newest camera improvements.”

Fairphone remains very much a European project — one that’s perfectly positioned to benefit from a pan-EU push towards sustainability and a circular economy in the coming years. (A ‘right to repair’ Commission proposal for mobiles certainly looks helpful.)

For now, the biggest market for Fairphones is still Germany, per van Abel. While he says its focus for sales of the new portfolio is to push for more growth in Germany, with France, Holland and the UK its other main markets of continued focus. “We’re aiming more also at Scandinavia,” he adds.

“The danger of a commoditizing industry is where you get a lot of easy, cheap access to all these technologies and you see it moving towards two sides: The high end and the really low end stuff. But I hope that customers will also value the companies themselves, and the brands and what they stand for. Whereas [iPhone maker] Apple stands for design; they have a premium to it — you buy something more than just the phone. And I think Fairphone has that as well.

“We have a compelling story. Especially you see the group of conscious consuming growing within every report I read. You see it growing steadily each year. So people do take more notice of what they actually buy.”

Funding wise, the social enterprise is comfortably positioned with the debt, equity and growth financing it raised a few years back from impact investors. Though van Abel moots the possibility of taking in more funding to put towards marketing and help it keep scaling.

“But at the moment we’re good,” he adds. “The impact investors are very patient. It goes with the mission of the company. I think people really are part of Fairphone — participate in this company because they believe not only in the cash return but also in the impact.”

He also notes that Fairphone is also doing separate financing for some related initiatives in the supply chain which are required to underpin its claim of fair and ethical electronics.

“A good example of that is the fair cobalt alliance that we’ve just set up,” he says. “We’re really proud of that. We have set up a great consortium with mining companies, with refineries, with big companies like Signify, that are part of that supply chain of cobalt. It’s partly funded, as well, by the Dutch government. So we have more of a broker position — and that is the nice thing about being a social enterprise. You sometimes can be in between the non-profit and the for-profit sector. You can bridge easily those two worlds.”


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Daily Crunch: Spotify is testing virtual events


Spotify explores virtual concerts, Twitter tests a “quotes” count and Google’s Nest Hub becomes more hotel-friendly. This is your Daily Crunch for August 26, 2020.

The big story: Spotify is testing virtual events

We can’t have real-world concerts at the moment, so the popular music streaming service is exploring virtual alternatives. The feature isn’t live yet, but reverse-engineering scoopster Jane Manchun Wong tweeted out photos of an “Upcoming Virtual Events” section.

Spotify already highlights upcoming concerts from artists you like through various ticketing partners, and the screenshots show Songkick as the ticketing partner. Presumably, Spotify would be able to support virtual events with only minor changes to its bargaining agreement.

And how big can these events be? K-pop megastars BTS raised nearly $20 million for a single show — but it’s probably safe to assume that most events will fall far short of that.

The tech giants

Twitter experiments with adding a ‘Quotes’ count to tweets — This engagement metric would sit alongside the tweet’s existing retweets and likes counts.

Instagram Guides may soon allow creators to recommended places, products and more — The feature, which launched in May, has allowed select organizations and experts to share resources related to managing your mental health.

Google is pushing to get the Nest Hub in more hotel rooms — A new update is tailored for the hotel experience, with key features like wake-up calls, weather and local businesses.

Startups, funding and venture capital

SpaceX will launch Masten’s first lander to the moon in 2022 — Masten’s first lunar mission is set to take place in 2022 if all goes according to plan.

Here are the 94 companies from Y Combinator’s Summer 2020 Demo Day 2 — So many companies!

Course Hero, a profitable edtech unicorn, raises rare cash — A Series B extension of $70 million, to be more specific.

Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch

Synthetic biology startups are giving investors an appetite — Impossible Foods is only the most public face of a growing trend in bioengineering.

Funding for mental health-focused startups rises in 2020 — As wellness startups drift generally, VC hotspots emerge.

(Reminder: Extra Crunch is our subscription membership program, which aims to democratize information about startups. You can sign up here.)

Everything else

GM teases two new all-electric Chevy Bolt models — Both vehicles will go into production in summer 2021, according to GM.

Learn how to scale social impact startups at Disrupt with Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins and Jessica O. Matthews — Uttering the words “making the world a better place” isn’t the same as doing it, or doing it well.

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 3pm Pacific, you can subscribe here.


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What Are The Benefits Of A Smartwatch, And How Do You Choose The Right Smartwatch For You?


Smartwatches have become an accessory that almost everyone has these days, but with more and more models coming onto the market now, it can be difficult to know exactly which one to choose. It can be very confusing to differentiate between the different tech available to you, and hopefully, this article will help you know […]

The post What Are The Benefits Of A Smartwatch, And How Do You Choose The Right Smartwatch For You? appeared first on ALL TECH BUZZ.


Standard Model Changes


Standard Model Changes

Daily Crunch: Spotify is testing virtual events


Spotify explores virtual concerts, Twitter tests a “quotes” count and Google’s Nest Hub becomes more hotel-friendly. This is your Daily Crunch for August 26, 2020.

The big story: Spotify is testing virtual events

We can’t have real-world concerts at the moment, so the popular music streaming service is exploring virtual alternatives. The feature isn’t live yet, but reverse-engineering scoopster Jane Manchun Wong tweeted out photos of an “Upcoming Virtual Events” section.

Spotify already highlights upcoming concerts from artists you like through various ticketing partners, and the screenshots show Songkick as the ticketing partner. Presumably, Spotify would be able to support virtual events with only minor changes to its bargaining agreement.

And how big can these events be? K-pop megastars BTS raised nearly $20 million for a single show — but it’s probably safe to assume that most events will fall far short of that.

The tech giants

Twitter experiments with adding a ‘Quotes’ count to tweets — This engagement metric would sit alongside the tweet’s existing retweets and likes counts.

Instagram Guides may soon allow creators to recommended places, products and more — The feature, which launched in May, has allowed select organizations and experts to share resources related to managing your mental health.

Google is pushing to get the Nest Hub in more hotel rooms — A new update is tailored for the hotel experience, with key features like wake-up calls, weather and local businesses.

Startups, funding and venture capital

SpaceX will launch Masten’s first lander to the moon in 2022 — Masten’s first lunar mission is set to take place in 2022 if all goes according to plan.

Here are the 94 companies from Y Combinator’s Summer 2020 Demo Day 2 — So many companies!

Course Hero, a profitable edtech unicorn, raises rare cash — A Series B extension of $70 million, to be more specific.

Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch

Synthetic biology startups are giving investors an appetite — Impossible Foods is only the most public face of a growing trend in bioengineering.

Funding for mental health-focused startups rises in 2020 — As wellness startups drift generally, VC hotspots emerge.

(Reminder: Extra Crunch is our subscription membership program, which aims to democratize information about startups. You can sign up here.)

Everything else

GM teases two new all-electric Chevy Bolt models — Both vehicles will go into production in summer 2021, according to GM.

Learn how to scale social impact startups at Disrupt with Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins and Jessica O. Matthews — Uttering the words “making the world a better place” isn’t the same as doing it, or doing it well.

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 3pm Pacific, you can subscribe here.


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Microsoft researcher Dr. Cecily Morrison will discuss keeping AI ‘personal’ at Sight Tech Global


For Dr. Cecily Morrison, research into how AI can help people who are blind or visually disabled is deeply personal. It’s not only that the Microsoft Principal Researcher has a 7-year-old son who is blind, she also believes that the powerful AI-related technologies that will help people must themselves be personal, tailored to the circumstances and abilities of the people they support.

We will see new AI techniques that will enable users to personalize experiences for themselves,” says Dr. Morrison, who is based at Microsoft Research Cambridge and whose work is centered on human-computer interaction and artificial intelligence. “Everyone is different. Having a disability label does not mean a person has the same needs as another with the same label. New techniques will allow people to teach AI technologies about their information needs with just a few examples in order to get a personalized experience suited to their particular needs. Tech will become about personal needs rather than disability labels.”

Dr. Cecily Morrison with her partner and two children, including her seven-year-old son who is holding his cane.

Image Credits: Cecily Morrison

Dr. Morrison will speak at Sight Tech Global, a virtual, global event on Dec. 2-3 that will explore how AI-related technologies will shape the future of accessibility for people who are blind and visually impaired. The event, which launched on TechCrunch, takes place on Dec. 2-3 and is free to attendees. Pre-register here.

Dr. Morrison is currently involved in several research projects that explore the potential of AI to enable people who are blind or low vision. Project Tokyo, for example, is exploring ways to provide information about the immediate social environment to enhance people’s existing sense-making skills and abilities.

The team works closely with people who are blind or low vision to ensure that the research is grounded in their experience and needs. “It is critical that we imagine what the technologies do for people who are blind and low vision in a way that is empowering. Many blind and low vision people have well developed strategies for making sense of their environments. AI technology must augment these acute sense-making skills, covering information gaps. It is important that technology is not seen as replacing vision, but rather augmenting the information a person already has  when going about their lives.”

As the mother to a blind child, Dr. Morrison believes she has gotten “to see the world in a different perspective, taken part in communities that I wouldn’t otherwise have seen or taken part.” That has definitely driven her research.  An inclusive design project, Torino, was inspired by the need of blind children to learn to code. What resulted was a physical programming language designed to teach computational thinking and basic programming to children ages 7–11, regardless of their level of vision. The effort led to a spin out project called Code Jumper, which is now commercially available from the American Printing House for the Blind.

That success came from working very closely through trial and error with blind 7-11-year-olds, which is also where Dr. Morrison deepened her understanding of how critical it is for researchers to work closely with the people they aim to help. Then too, she points out, people with vision limitations are outstanding early technology adopters in general.

“In the agent space,” Dr. Morrison says, “we have done some work with people who are blind and low vision because, at the time we started working with agents, typical people were not heavy users of agents. In fact, most people thought they were toys. Whereas for people who are blind and low vision were early adopters and heavy users of agent technologies. They really could help push the boundaries of what these technologies can do. If you’re not using technology regularly, you can’t really imagine what the next steps are. So, it’s a great example of inclusive design where we can work with this cohort of very able blind people to help us think about what agents of the future are going to look like for all of us.”

Dr. Morrison holds a PhD in Computer Science from University of Cambridge and an undergraduate degree in Ethnomusicology from Barnard College, Columbia University. She shares life with her partner and two children, one of whom is blind.

Pre-registration for Sight Tech Global is open. And the event is free.

Sight Tech Global is a sponsor-driven event, and our partners so far include Waymo, Google, Wells Fargo, TechCrunch and Verizon Media. All proceeds go to the Vista Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired 501 (c)(3). For more information on sponsorship, please contact us at sponsor@sighttechglobal.com.


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Instagram Guides may soon allow creators to recommended places, products and more


Instagram is working to expand its recently launched “Guides” feature which initially debuted with a specific focus on wellness content. The feature, which launched in May, has allowed select organizations and experts to share resources related to managing your mental health — including things like handling anxiety or grief amid the COVID-19 pandemic, for example. A handful of creators first gained access to the feature, and have since posted their wellness tips on their Instagram profiles in a separate tab, called “Guides.” Now, Instagram is developing tools that will allow creators to build out Guides for other types of tips and recommendations, too — like recommended places or even recommended products.

The larger goal with Guides is to give Instagram users a way to post longer-form content that’s not just a photo or video. Currently, Guides can include photos, galleries and videos sourced from either the creator’s own profile, which is more common, or from other creators. In addition, the Guides include commentary or tips alongside the media.

Instagram Guides

Instagram Guides today (Image Credits: Instagram)

The feature would allow creators to use Instagram as their platform for sharing tips and advice, instead of having that traffic redirected outside of Instagram — like to a blog or other website.

At launch, Instagram head Adam Mosseri said the Guides feature was originally designed with the travel use case in mind, but the company pivoted Guides to focus on wellness because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Now it appears Instagram will be returning to its original idea of letting creators build Guides for places — and for other things, too.

The changes to Guides were first uncovered by Twitter user and self-described leaker, Alessandro Paluzzi. He tells TechCrunch he found the new features by reverse engineering the Instagram app. But these changes haven’t yet launched to the wider Instagram user base.

Instagram tests new feature

Image Credits: Alessandro Paluzzi, via Twitter

The tests show the company experimenting with a new compose screen, as well. Here, users are presented with all the different ways you can publish to Instagram’s social network. This includes the option to create a new Feed Post, post a Story or Story Highlight, post to IGTV, post to Reels or create a new Guide.

If you choose “Guide” from the list, you’re then presented with a menu that asks you to choose a Guide type. This can be a Places Guide, for recommending favorite places; a Products Guide, for recommending favorite products; or a Posts Guide, which is a more general-purpose format for recommending a series of your favorite Instagram posts.

This feature would allow Guides to easily fit into Instagram influencers’ workflows, as they often make recommendations to followers about where to go, what to purchase and more. Creators could even increase their affiliate network revenue or direct more users to their sponsored posts through the use of Guides, if they chose.

Instagram tests new feature

Image Credits: Alessandro Paluzzi, via Twitter

Instagram confirmed the new features are part of a series of improvements to Guides it’s working on.

“This is part of an early test as we work to improve guides. We’ll have more to share soon,” a spokesperson said. The company declined to say if or when the changes would roll out more broadly, adding it’s still in the early stages and the product could change based on user feedback. Instagram also declined to speak to its long-term plans for the Guides feature.

The changes come shortly after Pinterest began edging its way into Instagram territory. The social pinboarding site recently began testing its own new feature aimed at aggregating content for longer-form storytelling. With Story Pins, Pinterest creators could build out “guides” of their own for topics like recipes, crafts, DIY projects or more. In addition, more users are turning to Facebook rival TikTok for tips, inspiration and other creator content.


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