Weekly Roundup: SpaceX explosion destroys Facebook satellite, Google takes on Uber

Posted Sep 2, 2016 by Anna Escher (@annaescher)

This week, what would have been Facebook’s first satellite was destroyed in a Falcon 9 explosion, Facebook changed its Trending Topics layout and new information about the Dropbox password breach was unveiled. These are the top stories of the week, and you can receive this post in your inbox, if that makes your life easier.

1. SpaceX experienced a devastating explosion while completing a routine static test-fire that destroyed Facebook’s $200 million Internet.org satellite. SpaceX confirmed there were no personnel injuries in the blast, but the rocket and payload were destroyed. There are three stages of questioning to go through when a rocket explosion occurs, and here’s what we know so far.

In a Facebook post, Mark Zuckerberg wrote that he was “deeply disappointed” by the loss, but here’s how the conversation probably went down.

2. Tick tock, tick tock. Is it September 7 yet? Apple sent out invites for its press conference on Wednesday, September 7, where it will most likely unveil the next iPhone. Leaks show that the iPhone 7 could feature streamlined antennas and a more prominent camera, as well as a dual-lens camera system in the larger model. It looks like the audio port is going away, too. There have been many rumors about a new MacBook Pro with a Touch ID sensor and an OLED mini screen above the keyboard. The Apple Watch should also receive an update. As always, we’ll be at the event, live-blogging and tweeting to bring you all the updates.

3. To the frustration of English-browsing users, Facebook removed the descriptions under Trending Topics in favor of increasing the scalability of the product, as well as fired the human editors who curate the Trending section. It didn’t take long for thealgorithm to screw up. At least we got some haikus out of it.

4. Both Dropbox and Last.fm revealed the full extent of password breaches from four years ago. Remember the Dropbox password breach? The company initially said that user emails were the only data stolen, but the number may have been much higher than we originally thought. It turns out that passwords were also acquired, leading to the theft of more than 60 million user credentials. PSA: please enable two-factor authentication.

5. Apple was ordered to pay up to $14.5 billion for illegal tax benefits in Ireland. The European Commission is saying that Apple benefited from illegal tax benefits for its European operations, and that Ireland must recover the so-called “illegal aid.” Apple CEO Tim Cook responded in a letter to customers calling the move “unprecedented” and “harmful” with “no basis in fact or in law.” Stay tuned.

6. Watch out, Uber. Google is now running its own ridesharing service in San Francisco. The new service uses the Waze app to connect commuters for shared carpooling, and is said to be much, much cheaper than Uber.

7. At first, Amazon was giving business to FedEx. But as the company pieces together its delivery business (including growing shipping operations, centralized hubs, air transport and last-mile delivery) the e-commerce giant might actually just kill FedEx.

8. Facebook cloned Snapchat once again with a new “instant video” feature for Messenger. Messenger already lets you make video calls, but the new service lets you and a friend instantly share real-time video with each other.

9. Does your iPhone 6 or 6 Plus suddenly become unresponsive with a flickering grey bar appearing at the top of the screen? Well, an iFixit report asserted that the problem is the result of a design flaw and a “Touch Disease” lawsuit hopes to elevate the case to class action status.

10. Bad news for those who are lazy/rich enough to outsource their laundry to Washio, as the service announced it will be shutting down effective immediately. The startup had raised a total of $16.8 million in funding.

11. A slew of new gadgets were introduced at IFA in Berlin. Some highlights include the strangely fascinating Lenovo Yoga Book, the Fitbit Charge 2 and Samsung’s latest smartwatch, the Gear S3. We also got to take Sphero’s BB-8 Force Band for a spin.

12. Blue Apron’s Farm Egg — the single egg packaged in its own little crate — prompts some important questions. Blue Apron, valued north of $2 billion and potentially gunning for an IPO, is as much a shipping company as it is a food startup; therefore, questions about carbon emissions, food transportation and packaging waste must be taken into consideration. But is the company part of the problem or the solution? TBD.

13. DraftKings, the fantasy sports startup entrenched in legal battles, closed $150 million in new funding led by DC-based Revolution Capital.

 

Weekly Roundup: Apple’s auto rumors, GoPro’s new devices and CZI’s $3B pledge

Posted 23 hours ago by Anna Escher (@annaescher)

This week, Yahoo came clean about a 2014 hack, Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan announced a huge investment to cure disease, rumors swirled around possible car tech purchase targets for Apple and the AI startup space continued to heat up with a few chat bot acquisitions. These are the top stories of the week.

1. We got our hands on all of Apple’s new hardware. A few consensus include that with two new finishes, virtual buttons and water resistance for the iPhone 7, Apple is teeing up for the future. Apple’s AirPods indicate its hardware-first approach to becoming a true audio platform. While they’re reliable, they’re far from audiophile quality. The Apple Watch has finally grown into itself with the launch of the Series 2. The second iteration delivers on all the qualities a decent sport watch should have.macOS Sierra officially became available, too. While this may not be the most exciting update, it signifies that after 15 years and 13 major updates, the Mac is now a mature platform.

2. The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative took to Facebook Live to announce its pledge to invest $3 billion over the next decade to help cure, prevent, or manage disease across the world. The money comes from the $45 billion organization Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan started to advance human potential and equality.

3. Rumors abound in Apple’s autotech sector. Apple is said to be in acquisition talks with car manufacturer McLaren and Lit Motors. McLaren told the BBC that the company isn’t having any investment discussion with Apple right now, but the NYT wrote that Apple and McLaren have been talking about a potential investment. McLaren’s statement could mean that it’s an acquisition instead of an investment, it has closed, or the discussion has ended. Time will tell which way Apple will turn.

4. GoPro debuted three new hardware devices including the GoPro Hero 5 and the new Karma Drone. But these products feel more like iterations than revolutions, even two years after the company’s major release. Despite a huge amount of enthusiasm and great marketing, one can’t ignore the sense that GoPro may be having trouble turning the page.

5. The plot thickens for Rothenberg Ventures, the SF-based venture firm that has been involved in an ongoing SEC inquiry. The firm is being investigated on the claims of deceptive financial practices including wire fraud and bank fraud, among other financial mismanagements. Now, the situation has attracted the attention of the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s General, says one source. A claim now states that Mike Rothenberg allegedly wired $5.2 million from Silicon Valley Bank without investor permission.

6. Another day, another hack. Yahoo confirmed it’s working with law enforcement toinvestigate a data breach which affected account info of “at least” 500 million users. Yahoo says that the user account information was stolen in 2014 by a state-sponsored actor. The stolen information includes people’s names, email addresses, telephone numbers, birth dates, passwords.

7. Airbnb filed a $555 million round with the SEC led by Google Capital and TCV. However sources close to the deal say Airbnb has not yet closed the round, and that the company has the capacity to increase the ceiling to the a $850 million figure. If all goes according to the company, Airbnb would become the fourth most valuable private startup.

8. Facebook came clean on a slight error in how it presented video view time on its platform. A mismatch in how average video view time is calculated and how it is defined — resulting in that number being reportedly inflated by half or more, for a short period of two years.

9. While it’s hard to believe that it took this long, Twitter officially cut down on what counts toward your 140 characters. As a refresher, that means media like photos, videos, GIFs, polls and Quote Tweets no longer eat into your character count. But links still do. Yay?

10. Big tech companies are eating up AI startups. Google acquired API.AI, a company helping developers build conversational, Siri-like bots. Amazon also made an individual hire of Navid Hadzaad, formerly of chat bot building platform Angel.ai (once known as GoButler). Hunger for AI tech only proves that tech is ready to unlock new potential when it comes to voice.

11. An IT error gave the world a glimpse of North Korea’s online ecosystem – and it’s pretty meager. An Uber app security engineer noticed that North Korea had set itself to allow domain administrators to request a list of its national top-level domains. Engineer Matthew Bryant had set up a script to watch for this and it was automatically copied. There are only 28.KP domains registered.

12. It came to light that Palmer Luckey, creator of the Oculus Rift, was the money man behind a group of Trump supporters calling themselves Nimble America. They dedicated the non-profit to proving “that shitposting is powerful and meme magic is real” and their primary goals were (or are) to disrupt online conversations and create funny pictures of Hillary Clinton. It’s not surprising that technologists would use their power to harm or confuse people. But doing so using a “shitpost” is.

13. Police use-of-force data is finally coming to light. Until recently, data proving the systemic racism that results in the police killings of unarmed black people has not been widely available to the public. But this week, the Department of Justice, led by Attorney General Kamala Harris and Y Combinator-backed nonprofit Bayes Impact unveiled URSUS, a statewide tech initiative to collect police use-of-force data from over 800 police departments.