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It might seem like Lensa AI sprung up over night when suddenly, your friends are all posting artistic renditions of themselves that they generated on the app. But while the Lensa AI app itself has been around since 2018, its viral “magic avatars” feature launched in late November, boosting the app to the #1 spot on the iOS App Store‘s competitive “Photo & Video” charts. For comparison, YouTube is #3 and Instagram is #4 on the charts at the time of publication.

Lensa AI works by inviting users to upload 10-20 photos of themselves. Using the open source Stable Diffusion model, the app processes your photos to generate avatars of you that look like they were created by a digital artist.

When you download Lensa AI, you’re immediately greeted with a pop-up inviting you to join a seven-day free trial to use their AI editing tools — if you don’t cancel in time, you’ll be charged $39.99 for unlimited use of the app for a year. You can bypass this screen without committing to the trial, but the free version of the app is very limited and doesn’t include the viral magic avatar feature. Even if you don’t subscribe to the unlimited plan, you’ll be hit with another in-app purchase screen if you try to make your very own magic avatar. At the lowest price tier, you’ll have to pay $3.99 for 50 unique avatars (5 variations of 10 different styles). But hey, at least that’s cheaper than a blue check!

According to app analytics firm SensorTower, Lensa AI has amassed about 22.2 million worldwide downloads and almost $29 million in consumer spending since its launch in 2018. In the last month, the app has seen a significant spike with the release of magic avatars. In November, the app was downloaded 1.6 million times, up 631% from 219,000 downloads in October. The U.S. is Lensa AI’s largest market, generating 58% of consumer spending, but the app is especially popular in Brazil right now. Of all November downloads, 31% were from Brazil, where installs climbed 24,450% month over month.

Viral photo editing apps have a shady history, as some apps have been found to be vectors for malware. In other cases, users have worried about what happens to the photos they upload into these apps. These concerns came up around Russia-based AI editor FaceApp, which later made a statement that it might store updated photos in the cloud for “performance and traffic reasons,” but that most images are deleted within 48 hours.

Prisma Labs, the team behind Lensa AI, told TechCrunch that it uses AWS cloud services to process user’s photos. As soon as an AI model is trained on a user’s photos, the images are immediately deleted.

Lensa AI climbs the App Store charts as its ‘magic avatars’ go viral by Amanda Silberling originally published on TechCrunch

Apple iPhone users with iOS 16.1 software can now share car keys in their Wallet with non-iPhone users, starting with Google Pixel devices. In the future, that capability will extend to other devices with Android 12+, according to Apple.

Apple says it has been working with the Internet Engineering Task Force and other industry players to establish a standard for sharing digital keys across platforms. Keys can be shared via email, text message and WhatsApp.

When Apple initially launched digital car keys in 2020, iPhone users could share their keys through iMessage, Apple’s instant messaging service.

Of course, key sharing only works on cars that are compatible with digital car keys. Apple didn’t share a list of compatible cars, and instead directed users to contact their car manufacturer or dealership for an answer. To our knowledge, there are several 2021 and 2022 models of BMW that can be unlocked and used via digital car keys on iPhones, Google Pixels, Samsung Galaxy devices. Both Apple’s and Google’s digital car keys also recently arrived on the 2022 Kia Niro, the 2022 Genesis G90 and the all-electric 2022 Genesis GV60.

Apple’s digital car keys can usually be added to the Apple Watch (Series 5 or later or the Apple Watch SE) with the latest version of watchOS, according to a post from Apple. It’s not clear if this cross-platform capability will be available for Apple Watch users just yet.

Apple’s digital car keys are one of the company’s many features that allow users to carry less stuff around. Perhaps one of the company’s most popular examples of this is Apple Pay, which syncs a user’s credit, debit or prepaid card to their phone. In addition, iPhone users in certain states can now carry their driver’s license or state ID in their Wallet, and in select Hyatt hotels, users can unlock their rooms with a digitally stored key.

iPhone users can share car keys in Wallet with non-iPhone users by Rebecca Bellan originally published on TechCrunch

The cybercriminals behind the Medibank ransomware attack have published what appears to be the rest of the data stolen from the Australian health insurance giant.

The attackers, which are believed to be linked to the Russian-backed REvil ransomware gang, posted an update to its dark web blog in the early hours of Thursday morning, saying: “Happy Cyber Security Day!!! Added folder full. Case closed.”

The dark web blog was unavailable at the time of writing, but according to Medibank, the “full” folder contained six zipped files of raw data. At more than six gigabytes in size, the cache is much larger than any of the attackers’ previous Medibank leaks. Medibank confirmed in November that the attackers took 9.7 million customers’ personal details and health claims data for almost 500,000 customers.

The Medibank cybercriminals previously published data including customers’ names, birth dates, passport numbers, information on medical claims and sensitive files related to abortions and alcohol-related illnesses. Portions of the data seen by TechCrunch also appear to include correspondence between the cybercriminals and Medibank CEO David Koczkar, including a message in which the hackers threaten to leak “keys for decrypting credit cards,” despite Medibank’s assertion that no banking or credit card details were accessed.

The cybercriminals claimed they published the data after Medibank refused to pay their $10 million ransom demand, which was later reduced to $9.7 million, or $1 per affected customer.

Medibank said on Thursday that it is in the process of analyzing the latest leaked data but said it “appears to be the data we believed the criminal stole.”

“While our investigation continues there are currently no signs that financial or banking data has been taken,” Medibank said. “And the personal data stolen, in itself, is not sufficient to enable identity and financial fraud. The raw data we have analyzed today so far is incomplete and hard to understand.”

Although it’s believed the hackers have released all of the data stolen from Medibank, the company added that it expects “the criminal to continue to release files on the dark web.”

The Australian health insurance giant is urging customers to be vigilant with all online communications and transactions and to be alert for phishing scams related to the breach. Medibank added that to strengthen its security, it has this week added two-factor authentication in its contact centers to verify the identity of customers.

While Medibank is taking steps to shore up its cybersecurity, the company could face major financial penalties after the Australian parliament this week passed legislation that paves the way for businesses to be fined up to $50 million for repeated or serious data breaches.

Australia’s data and privacy watchdog, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) on Thursday announced that it had begun an investigation into the personal information handling practices of Medibank. The OAIC — also investigating the recent Optus breach — said its investigation will focus on whether Medibank took reasonable steps to protect the personal information they held from misuse, interference, loss, unauthorized access, modification or disclosure.

“If the investigation finds serious and/or repeated interferences with privacy in contravention of Australian privacy law, then the Commissioner has the power to seek civil penalties through the Federal Court of up to $2.2 million for each contravention,” the OAIC said.

News of the investigation comes after the Australian Federal Police (AFP) said in November that it knows the identity of the individuals responsible for the attack on Medibank. The agency declined to name the individuals but said the police believe that those responsible for the breach are based in Russia, though some affiliates may be in other countries. The Russian Embassy in Canberra rebuffed the allegations.

Though their identities remain unknown, the attackers responsible already appear to be moving on from the Medibank hack. In recent days the group has posted new victims to its dark web blog, including New York-based medical group Sunknowledge Services and the Kenosha Unified School District.

Medibank hackers declare ‘case closed’ as trove of stolen data is released by Carly Page originally published on TechCrunch

Disney announced today The Mandalorian’s long-awaited third season will debut on March 1st on Disney+. The company had previously said that the third season would debut in February, so fans will have to wait a little longer than expected to see the upcoming season.

The third season will take place following the events of “The Book of Boba Fett,” in which Din Djarin reunited with Grogu. A teaser for the upcoming season shows Mando fighting armed warriors on Mandalore.

The second season “The Mandalorian” premiered back in October 2020, so fans have had to wait quite some time to see their favorites together again. Carl Weathers, Giancarlo Esposito and Katee Sackhoff will all be returning in the third season of the show.

‘The Mandalorian’ Season 3 will premiere on March 1 by Aisha Malik originally published on TechCrunch

After launching as a pilot late last year, Discord will allow more servers to offer paid memberships in exchange for special server-specific perks.

Plenty of Discord communities were already using third-party services like Patreon to offer access to premium content, but the expanded feature will allow Discord-centric communities to manage that process from within the app itself. With the monetization option built into Discord, anyone who runs a server can create customized membership tiers that offer special roles and other benefits, like early access to merch drops or exclusive content.

Discord now calls the feature “server subscriptions” and it does what’s on the label. To be eligible, server owners must be located in the U.S. (for now, at least) and be in good standing on the platform with no recent violations of its platform policies and community guidelines.

The subscriptions offer server owners quite a bit of flexibility on what their monetization will look like. They can set subscriptions to be anywhere from $2.99 to $199.99 and decide which kind of perks to associate with the tiers they come up with. Discord’s cut of subscription revenue is 10%.

Unlike Twitter, which shoehorned a paid premium option late in the game, Discord users are already used to paying for special features on the app. Nitro, the premium version of Discord, bundles HD streaming, bigger file uploads and custom emoji for monthly subscribers. Discord devotees can also pay to “boost” their favorite servers, unlocking community-wide perks that everyone can use.

Beyond giving server owners ways to monetize their content, Discord is also adding more things for users to do in servers beyond text chat, audio and livestreaming. A few months ago, the company announced a suite of new interactive experiences that run within Discord servers including chess, poker and a way for community members to watch YouTube videos together.

Discord also announced a directory for apps — stuff like RPG mini-games and new sneaker drop alerts that run within servers (most users have historically called them “bots.”) Some hand-picked developers can sell premium subscriptions to apps, giving Discord’s broader community more ways to make money within the app itself.

Discord opens up paid subscriptions so servers can sell premium perks by Taylor Hatmaker originally published on TechCrunch

While this year’s stock market decline was swift, it was also widespread, with very few companies escaping the downturn. But current market conditions haven’t caused the same uniform trajectory for startups.

When public-market stock prices started to fall, everyone reminded themselves that it would take a few months to see the real impact on the private market — historically a six-month lag. But data from Caplight, a fintech that looks to make secondary trading more transparent, found that late-stage startups weren’t really following a singular trend.

The sample set of startups that Caplight examined includes the 10 highest-valued venture-backed companies, including recognizable names like Canva, ByteDance, and Stripe. We are focusing on the changes to the share prices at which these companies have been traded on the secondary market. Those prices are, in turn, derived from a company’s valuation set during secondary trades.

The data found that some of these late-stage startups’ valuations fell in line with the public market, while some started to drop off in 2021, before the public markets tanked, and others are still seeing their valuation creep up. While we don’t know precisely why, when, and how hard each company’s valuation is getting hit — if at all — there are a few observations worth noting.

Startup valuations are declining — but not consistently by Rebecca Szkutak originally published on TechCrunch

Despite a joint statement between Ye (fka Kanye West) and Parler in October noting that the two had reached an agreement for the rapper to buy the social network, that will not come to pass, Parler owner Parlement Techonologies said today.

Parler’s owner and Ye have “mutually” parted ways without closing the deal, the company said via emailed statement to TechCrunch. It sounds like the deal was also never really formalized beyond at best a memorandum-of-understanding, given the wording of the official statement, which follows:

Parlement Technologies has confirmed that the company has mutually agreed with Ye to terminate the intent of sale of Parler. This decision was made in the interest of both parties in mid-November. Parler will continue to pursue future opportunities for growth and the evolution of the platform for our vibrant community.

Also worth noting that Parlement says the deal actually died in mid-November, so it’s been sitting on this info for at least half a month now. So what’s changed?

Well, there is the fact that earlier today West praised Adolf Hitler and the Nazis during an interview with none other than Alex Jones — himself a person who was recently found liable for nearly $1 billion in damages for spreading horrible lies about the incredibly tragic Sandy Hook school shooting.

There is that.

Kanye West isn’t buying Parler after all by Darrell Etherington originally published on TechCrunch

A little over a year after buzzy coding bootcamp Lambda School rebranded as Bloom Institute of Technology, the venture-backed startup is conducting massive layoffs, according to sources. The workforce reduction, per people familiar with the matter, has impacted half of the company’s staff across content, product, data and engineering teams. The layoff is expected to have impacted around 88 employees, using metrics provided in BloomTech’s 2022 diversity report metrics.

This is the company’s third round of known layoffs since the COVID-19 pandemic began. During BloomTech’s last big layoff, in April 2021, BloomTech CEO Austin Allred admitted that it’s been difficult to make his for-profit company’s vision of “incentive-aligned education work.” In a now-deleted tweet posted earlier today, Allred quoted a prior statement of gratitude for employees pushing through the work despite being attacked from all sides, adding “even more so today.”

The name change to BloomTech appeared to be part of the company’s attempt to get things back on track. At the time, the startup updated its tuition payment options to introduce an outcomes-based loan. The financing instrument allows students to take a loan with zero dollars upfront, and then get 110% of their tuition refunded, including fees and interest from an approved lender, if they are unable to secure a job in web development or computer science within the next year.

At the time, the move meant that BloomTech was expanding beyond the original vision of scaling income-sharing agreements (ISAs), the controversial financing vehicle that it helped pioneer. ISAs, which are used between 90% to 100% of students within BloomTech’s cohorts, will continue to be offered as an option, with some changes.

Fast forward to today, and the current state of the tech labor market doesn’t make BloomTech’s mission any easier. The widespread layoffs within tech companies have unlocked a massive market of trained professionals looking for their next gig; all potential competition for BloomTech graduates hoping to stand out against ex-Twitter and ex-Stripe employees. Career Karma, a platform that helps connect students to coding bootcamps, cut staff this year while Flockjay pivoted away from its bootcamp pitch in 2021.

Market uncertainty is certainly one factor that impacts outcomes, but BloomTech has also been embroiled within a number of lawsuits over the past few years led by students who claim to have been misled by the institution. BloomTech’s pitch is that it can help students land tech jobs, but questions have arisen about what happens when students get jobs after graduating from BloomTech’s program that are unrelated to their studies there, and whether they still owe the company a share of their resulting income.

These tensions have grown over the years. Most recently, reports one education publication, a student accused BloomTech of intentionally misrepresenting its job placement rates. Last year, leaked documents obtained by Business Insider raised questions about the company inflating its efficacy and hyping up a curriculum that didn’t upskill folks at the level expected.

Allred did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

BloomTech, previously Lambda School, cuts half of staff by Natasha Mascarenhas originally published on TechCrunch

Back in my day, Apple gave us one iPad, and we had to use it, otherwise we’d go to bed iPad-less.

Kids today have all the iPad. There’s an iPad for every mood and every day of the week. Big iPads, small iPads, expensive iPads, slightly less expensive iPads.

If you’re looking for an iPad, it can be tough to know where to start – and that’s doubly the case if you’re looking to pick one up for someone else. There are currently six different models available for purchase from Apple’s site.

They are:

iPad Pro 12.9 inch (6th gen) – Starts at $1,099
iPad Pro 11‑inch (4th generation) – Starts at $799
iPad Air (5th generation) – Starts at $599
iPad (10th generation) – Starts at $449
iPad (9th generation) – Starts at $329
iPad mini (6th generation) – $499

The differences on the models aren’t entirely clear on the face of it, and things are further muddied by different refresh cycles and the fact that a new edition of a specific model doesn’t mean its predecessor necessarily goes away (as is the case with the 9th and 10th gens of the standard iPad). So here’s a quick guide based on different users and use cases.

This article contains links to affiliate partners where available. When you buy through these links, TechCrunch may earn an affiliate commission.

Laptop Replacement: 11‑inch (4th generation)

The notion of an iPad as a laptop replacement would’ve seemed downright bizarre as recently as a few years ago. But while many of us are a long way from giving up our notebooks, plenty (including a TechCrunch staffer or two) have made the jump to an iPad/keyboard case combo and not looked back. The transition has certainly been made easier by recent multi-tasking additions to iPadOS.

You’re best off going with one the Pro models here. While there are bound to be certain elements you miss from your PC days (ports spring immediately to mind), the addition of the M2 chip’s processing power will ease the blow a bit. Couple that with the Magic Keyboard, Smart Keyboard Folio or any number of third-party keyboard cases, and you’ve got a fairly capable laptop replacement (plus a much better camera system that you’re going to get on non-convertible PC).

We went with the 11-inch here for sizing and pricing reasons. Your mileage will vary, of course. Screen size is important for true multitasking and if you plan to use the system to watch movies and the like. You may also consider to $200 upgrade to 5G to always be connected.

Price:Starts at around $799

For Creative Pros: iPad Pro 12.9 inch (6th gen)

We’re definitely recommending the 12.9 inch version of the Pro here, for the simple reason that a little added real estate goes a long way when it comes to the digital canvas. As above, mileage will vary, but if your friend or loved one is the type to take Apple Pencil to digital paper, it’s probably worth the additional splurge.

Add in elements like the ProMotion and True Tone technology for the display and an excellent dual-camera system with 12MP Wide and 10MP Ultra Wide sensors, and you’ve got a well-rounded creative work slate.

Price:Starts at $1099

Frequent Travelers: iPad mini (6th generation)

Our two prerequisites here? Thin and light, obviously. The 6th generation iPad mini isn’t the most powerful device in here (though it does, notably, sport the A15 Bionic, vs. the 10th gen iPad’s A14), but for those constantly on the go, shaving off a few ounces goes a long way. The mini weighs in at 0.65 pounds, to the 10th gen iPad’s 1.05.

You are, obviously sacrificing a good deal of screen size here. The mini’s display is only 8.3 inches – somewhere between a very small tablet and very large phone. That’s more than enough for casual gaming, but you’re probably going to be less amenable to a movie marathon on the thing.

Price: Starts at $500

No Frills: iPad (9th generation)

An important thing to remember in all of this: even the cheapest iPad is an expensive gift – particularly in a bad economy. While it’s true that someone on your list would be over the moon to get a decked-out 12.9-inch iPad Pro, we’re talking about a nearly $800 difference in prices. Or look at this way: you could buy three 9th-gen iPads for the price of one 12.9 inch Pro and still pocket $112.

Certainly not everyone requires the latest and greatest. For most straightforward tablet tasks, a slightly out of date iPad will still get the job done. No shame at all in not buying the most expensive model for things like watching movies, surfing the web and catching up on emails.

Price: Starts at $329

Gift Guide: Picking out the right iPad by Brian Heater originally published on TechCrunch

A little-appreciated fact about Amazon’s Alexa is where the voice service’s public debut took place before it became widely available to customers. The venue was CSUN, the longstanding conference dedicated to assistive technology for people with disabilities, notably vision loss. No one had more to gain from a machine that could provide quick replies to spoken questions, and no group could provide more incisive feedback.

At the upcoming Sight Tech Global conference on December 7 & 8 (virtual and free — register here), two of Amazon’s foremost accessibility leaders, Peter Korn, Director of Accessibility, Devices & Services, and Dr. Joshua Miele, Principal Accessibility Researcher, will discuss how Amazon continues to dig deeper into the accessibility and fairness surrounding the remarkable Alexa voice service, which is used by millions of customers around the world, billions of times each week.

As Korn and Miele will point out, the advantages Alexa confers to blind people, for example, does not necessarily work in the same way for people who have speech disabilities; at the same time, Alexa’s capabilities long ago escaped the bounds of speech-based interaction. Today, 30% of Alexa interactions in the home are not prompted by users’ voice commands but by Alexa’s fascinating side hustles like Hunches and Routines.

And in a nod to the reality that not everyone speaks in a way that Alexa can understand today, Amazon recently joined a consortium of technology companies, including Apple, Google, Meta and Microsoft, to launch the Speech Accessibility Project with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), which is using AI and new voice datasets to make speech recognition systems, like Alexa, and other voice services better able to understand diverse speech patterns.

For people who work in assistive technologies, it was no surprise that Alexa’s first public debut was at CSUN. Many remarkable technologies have started with the blind. It was technology legend Ray Kurzweil who in 1976 took a huge step forward in optical character recognition (OCR), the ancestor of today’s computer vision, when he unveiled the $50,000 Kurzweil Reading Machineat a press conference hosted by the National Federation of the Blind. OCR spawned countless businesses outside of accessibility, as well as many powerful and virtually free tools used by the blind today, including many we discuss at Sight Tech Global.

The Alexa that Amazon demoed nearly eight years ago in front of the CSUN audience has done just the same, growing into a service with a vast number of features, like Show and Tell and Notify When Nearby, that help an increasing number of people, in part because of the Amazon team’s focus on an inclusive approach that aims to leave no one behind while also making Alexa better and more helpful for everyone.

Join Sight Tech Global for this session and many more, which you can see on the complete agenda. Now in its third year, Sight Tech Global brings together the world’s top technologists in AI and other advanced technologies to address assistive technology for the people who are blind. Register today.

We’re grateful to sponsors iSenpai, Google, Amazon, LinkedIn, HumanWare, Microsoft, Ford, Fable, APH and Waymo. If you would like to sponsor the event, please contact us. All sponsorship revenues go to the nonprofit Vista Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired, which has been serving the Silicon Valley community for 75 years.

Explore accessibility via Amazon Alexa at Sight Tech Global 2022 by David Riggs originally published on TechCrunch