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Over the last several years, we’ve seen supply chain disruptions the likes of which we haven’t seen previously. The pandemic led to a series of issues that spiraled into a full-blown supply chain crisis.

Amazon wants to put AWS technology to work on the problem, and today the company announced a new supply chain solution at AWS re:Invent in Las Vegas.

AWS CEO Adam Selipsky talked about the supply chain disruptions in today’s keynote. “The last few years have highlighted the importance of supply chain resilience from baby formula shortages to ships circling ports unable to unload, the disruptions have been widespread. Addressing supply chain issues around inventory is especially critical,” he said.

And that is an area where the company wants to put its strengths to work with a new solution called AWS Supply Chain.

“So today I am thrilled to announce the preview of AWS Supply Chain, a new cloud application that improves supply chain visibility, delivers actionable insights to help customers mitigate supply chain risks and lower costs. With AWS Supply Chain you get a unified view of your supply chain data, ML-powered insights, recommended actions and built-in collaboration capabilities, so you can react quickly to unexpected issues,” Selipsky explained.

Selipsky says that the solution is designed to strip away the complexity associated with managing this kinds of data. “First, with just a few clicks you connect your supply chain data from SAP, EDI or other sources like warehouse management or order management systems. Then AWS Supply Chain automatically sets up a data lake using ML models that have been pre-trained to understand, extract and transform disparate incompatible data into a unified data model.”

It then lets you display your supply chain data on a map, and drill down on specific locations to find where inventory is and how you can eliminate issues in any particular location, all while communicating with supply chain managers across your organization from the same tool.

“AWS supply chain helps you mitigate risk and lower cost by giving you a unified supply chain and surfacing the best actionable insights all with a single pricing and no upfront licensing fees,” he said — and he promised as is often the case with AWS annoucements, this is just the start.

Over time the company plans to add additional functionality and linkages. “And this is just the beginning. We’re going to continue to invest here and work to solve your hardest supply chain problems,” he said.

AWS Supply Chain is available in preview starting today.

Amazon introduces AWS Supply Chain to help bring order to supply chain chaos by Ron Miller originally published on TechCrunch

AWS today launched a new service that will help users inside an advertising or marketing organization share data with other employees inside their company or with outside partners, all without running the risk of inadvertently sharing personal data.

This new service is part of Amazon’s new AWS for Advertising & Marketing initiative, which aims to leverage existing AWS services — and those from its partners — to provide purpose-built services for them. Clean Rooms is the first major new product of this initiative.

“Data clean rooms are protected environments where multiple parties can analyze combined data without ever exposing the raw data have emerged as a solution,” AWS CEO Adam Selipsky explained in today’s keynotes. “The clean rooms are hard to build. Their complex requirements take months to develop and once you’ve built a clean room you have to continuously update the data all the while meeting requests for new collaborators and data types.”

A company that has a customer’s loyalty data, for example, could collaborate with another that has data on a user’s ad-clicking behavior to create new insights into a user’s behavior, all without every sharing that user’s raw and identifiable data, Selipsky argued.

“With these insights, we can produce even more relevant ads while maintaining privacy for everyone to get started,” he said. “Brands and media publishers use the clean room console or the API and they set up a clean room and start collaborating with other companies in just a few clicks. So instead of spending months of development time to customize the types of queries and restrictions, you just need to allow partners to run these clean rooms with you.”

The idea here is to provide a single service that companies can use to collaborate on data while still protecting the underlying data, using a set of configurable controls. All collaborators can contribute their own data, be it in plain text, hashed, or pre-encrypted. Then, they can use these clean rooms to collaborate on this data, all without revealing the raw data to each other.

In total, there can be up to five collaborators and their data is stored in an AWS Glue Data Catalog. When anyone runs a query over this data, Clean Rooms will read it, wherever it lives, and then the service will automatically apply the pre-set rules to protect each participant’s raw data. Each table can have its own rules, which restrict the type of query that is allowed. Encrypted data will remain encrypted when these queries are run.

“Customers in the advertising and marketing industry have been seeking new ways to interoperate with their partners while protecting consumer data and reducing heavy lifting from their engineering teams,” said Tim Barnes, director of solutions for advertising & marketing technology at AWS. “With the launch of AWS Clean Rooms and AWS for Advertising & Marketing, AWS customers now have a broad set of solutions that make it easier for them to securely collaborate together, operate cost-effectively at petabyte scale and millisecond latency, and innovate more quickly in areas like advertising measurement and customer experience.”

AWS gets data clean rooms for analytics data by Frederic Lardinois originally published on TechCrunch

Crypto lending platform BlockFi filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Monday, just a few weeks after once-major crypto exchange FTX did the same. While BlockFi has been struggling to stay afloat for months now (and was even potentially going to be acquired by FTX), this latest filing signals that the bankruptcy contagion may run deeper than what the crypto industry sees at the surface.

“It is another example that the crypto winter is not over, and with the FTX debacle, it’s going to persist longer than previously expected,” Ric Edelman, founder of Digital Assets Council of Financial Professionals (DACFP) and author of “The Truth About Crypto,” said to TechCrunch.

With BlockFi now in the midst of bankruptcy proceedings alongside FTX, Celsius, Three Arrows Capital and Voyager, others in the crypto space are wondering if and when the next crypto firm will find itself on the chopping block.

“The level of intercompany investment within the blockchain and crypto community is unusually high, so the level of contagion is likely to be much higher than what we saw within the traditional financial community in 2008-2009,” Sam Dibble, partner at Baker Botts, said to TechCrunch.

“Unfortunately, the complexity of these intercompany investments is not fully known at this point and so the companies themselves probably don’t know how badly they will be impacted,” Dibble added. “My guess is that the entire industry will be impacted somewhat by the FTX and BlockFi bankruptcies, with a significant number of severe casualties.”

As BlockFi files for bankruptcy, how contagious will FTX’s downfall become? by Jacquelyn Melinek originally published on TechCrunch

Snapchat is adding a new privacy setting that enables users based in California to better protect their sensitive personal information. The company confirmed it’s rolling out a feature designed to comply with the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), which takes effect on Jan. 1, 2023, and applies to personal data collected on or after Jan. 1, 2022.

In November 2020, California residents voted to pass the CPRA, also known as Proposition 24, which builds on an earlier consumer privacy law, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) of 2018.

While the CCPA gave residents the right to access and delete personal information held by businesses and opt out of the sale of that data, the new law puts into place further requirements for businesses around their data collection practices and data retention. It additionally introduces new notification requirements and clarifies that users have the right to opt out of both the sharing and the sale of their personal information, while also adding a new category of “sensitive data.”

The law created the California Privacy Protection Agency to enforce the state’s privacy laws, as well as investigate violations, and assess penalties if warranted.

Consumers based in California, meanwhile, are to gain the right to not only know who’s collecting their information, but also be able to access it, correct it, delete it and transfer it, and to stop its sale and sharing, without being penalized as a result. As part of this, they’re also to gain the ability to access their options through “easily accessible” self-serve tools.

Snapchat’s implementation would seemingly address the latter as it presents a simple toggle switch under its Privacy Controls section in the app’s Settings screen. Here, users will be presented with a new option at the bottom of the list that reads “California Privacy Choices.”

A tap into this screen, (as spotted by competitive intelligence provider Watchful — see below image) reveals a new option to “Limit the Use of Sensitive Personal Information.” This page explains that enabling the setting would require Snapchat to limit the use of users’ personal info, including things like precise geolocation.

The setting, however, is appearing in the Snapchat app for all U.S. users — even those who don’t live in the state.

Snapchat confirmed the new privacy feature is rolling out in compliance with the CPRA, but notes it only functions for those users in California.

The addition is interesting as it demonstrates how a popular mobile app has chosen to comply with the new legislation. And unlike on Facebook — where settings are buried, difficult to find, and constantly being relocated — Snapchat’s new privacy feature is relatively easy to find. All of the app’s settings are available from one main screen, organized into sections. So the new CPRA-compliant setting isn’t something users have to dig around to find.

Snapchat complies with the California Privacy Rights Act with a new toggle switch for users by Sarah Perez originally published on TechCrunch

At its re:Invent conference, AWS today announced Amazon DataZone, a new data management service that can help enterprises catalog, discover, share and — most importantly — govern their data. The nifty part here is that AWS is using machine learning to help businesses build these data catalogs and generate the metadata to make it searchable.

“To unlock the full power the full value of data, we need to make it easy for the right people and applications to find, access and share the right data when they need it — and to keep data safe and secure.” AWS CEO Adam Selipsky said in today’s keynote.

The tool will provide users with fine-graned controls to manage and govern this data. That’s long been a major problem for enterprises, but it has only gotten harder as the amount of data has increased, ensuring that the right users have access to the right data, without compromising personally identifiable information, for example.

“Data zone enables you to set data free throughout the organization safely by making it easy for admins and data stewards to manage and govern access to data,” Selipsky explained. “And it makes it easy for data engineers, data scientists, product managers, analysts and other business users to discover, use and collaborate around that data to drive insights for your businesses.”

DataZone users will get access to a portal where they can set up their data catalog and define the taxonomy. Once DataZone is connected to a data source, it’ll use machine learning to populate its catalog with its metadata and users can add additional labels and descriptions as needed.

In a somewhat related announcement, AWS also yesterday launched its Digital Sovereignty Pledge, promising to give users the tools they need to control where their data is stored and accessed. DataZone does offer some of those controls, though its focus is obviously not on digital sovereignty.

AWS launches DataZone, a new ML-based data management service by Frederic Lardinois originally published on TechCrunch

Lordstown Motors has starting shipping its all-electric Endurance pickup trucks manufactured by Foxconn, a milestone that seemed impossible earlier this year.

Lordstown Motors, which has experienced investigations, executive upheaval and a shortage of capital, said Tuesday that its full-sized EV truck received full homologation with certification from both the EPA and CARB that clears the way for the company to start customer sales.

The first batch of 500 EV pickups, made at an Ohio factory now owned by Taiwanese hardware manufacturing company Foxconn, are on their way to fleet customers, according to the company. The announcement sent shares of Lordstown Motors stock up 3.79%.

Lordstown Motors has moved from one dramatic event to another in its short life as a company. Workhorse Group founder and former CEO Steve Burns started Lordstown Motors in 2018. The startup immediately gained attention for its deal with GM to buy the legacy automaker’s soon-to-be-shuttered factory in Lordstown, Ohio. GM invested $75 million into Lordstown.

The company became a political tool at times; the unveiling of its Endurance pickup truck geared towards contractors was largely used as a campaign stop for then-Vice President Mike Pence. Lordstown also sustained a series of setbacks, which seemed to ramp up after it became a publicly traded company through a merger with a special purpose acquisition company.

In March 2021, Hindenburg Research, the short-seller firm whose report on Nikola Motor led to an SEC investigation and the resignation (and ultimately the indictment) of its founder, issued a report disputing Lordstown’s claims it had booked 100,000 pre-orders for its truck. The firm also alleged that Burns paid consultants for every truck pre-order as early as 2016 while he was leading Workhorse.

By summer 2021, Burns and CFO Julio Rodriguez had resigned, the company warned it was running low on capital and investors learned it was being investigated by the Department of Justice.

Foxconn, best known as the maker of Apple’s iPhone, came to the rescue in September 2021 and bought the Lordstown factory for $230 million. Foxconn also agreed to manufacture the pickup truck for Lordstown under a joint venture contract. Foxconn increased its investment in Lordstown Motors in November 2022 by buying $170 million in common stock and newly created preferred shares.

Foxconn holds all of Lordstown’s outstanding preferred stock and 18.3% of its common stock on a pro forma basis.

Lordstown Motors begins shipping its Foxconn-made EV pickup trucks by Kirsten Korosec originally published on TechCrunch

Amazon announced today the launch of “Create with Alexa,” a new AI tool for kids that generates animated stories. The company first revealed the feature in September. “Create with Alexa” launched in the U.S. today, November 29, across supported Echo Show devices and is available in English.

To craft a story, a child says, “Alexa, make a story,” and then answers prompts, the company explains in its blog post. The child selects from three themes: “space exploration,” “underwater” or “enchanted forest,” and then chooses the story’s hero, a color scheme and adjectives like “silly,” “happy” or “mysterious.”

The AI then generates a five-to-ten-line story based on the answers. The story comes with a background image, animations, sound effects, music and more. Amazon claims that the story will be different every time, even if the same child chooses the same exact prompts.

Users can also save the story in their personal media gallery and replay it whenever they want. Soon, they’ll be able to share the story with their family and friends, Amazon added.

Nico Bishop, a UX designer, said that Alexa’s AI-assisted story creation would evolve over time. “Kids will want to be able to say, ‘I want to see a wall of chocolate,’ and soon we expect we’ll be able to do that,” Bishop said in a statement. She also noted that the company is working to improve graphic latency, sound effects and music capabilities.

“We envision a world where anyone can bring their ideas to life in the form of digital creations just by using a few spoken words,” said Eshan Bhatnagar, head of product for Alexa AI. “And Alexa will be right with them, assisting them as their co-creator.”

Some AI art systems like Stable Diffusion lack safeguards, making it easy for users to generate inappropriate artwork. However, Amazon’s “Create with Alexa” is targeted toward young kids, so there are content filters in place, Bhatnagar explained. And since it’s a child-directed Alexa feature, a parent needs to enable it on the device before their child can use it.

Amazon’s new Alexa feature uses AI to create animated kids’ stories on Echo Show by Lauren Forristal originally published on TechCrunch

The 2022 perspective that startups should cut their losses and chart a clearer path to profitability does not only apply to upstart tech companies. After a multiyear spending binge, larger technology companies are also pulling back on costs.

For some major tech concerns, the cuts have come in the form of explicit layoffs and staffing reductions created by not backfilling departing employees, while other tech shops are cutting costs, including perks and related employment-enticement efforts. But while some major technology companies are trimming spending to bolster profitability, others remain miles away from making money.

The Exchange explores startups, markets and money.

Read it every morning on TechCrunch+ or get The Exchange newsletter every Saturday.

Such is the case of Bilibili, a Chinese online video service with a social component. Today, shares of Bilibili are performing strongly, up sharply after the company reported better-than-anticipated Q3 earnings results. Naturally on the hunt for some good news amid a year of bearish headlines, compressing multiples, and chaos, we took a look.

What we found was a business further from profitability than we expected. The Chinese company, worth around $5 billion today per financial databases including Yahoo Finance, has done a fantastic job capturing a growing audience in its home market and keeping those netizens engaged. But when it comes to building a more profitable company — its stated goal, as we’ll examine shortly — it has much work ahead of it.

That shares of Bilibili are up more than 20% today is good news, albeit in a limited sense. The company’s shares trading on U.S. exchanges crested the $150 per-share threshold in booming 2021. They closed yesterday at $12.59 per share, before today’s uptick of nearly $3 per share.

The work ahead of Bilibili to reach profitability — measured in GAAP terms, mind — reminds us of other tech companies that saw their values skyrocket and losses stick during the 2021 era. Some of those concerns, like Twilio, are still growing quickly, and at scale, but their losses appear to have set a weight around their shoulders, compressing their total value.

Put more simply, Bilibili’s unprofitability tells us that unwinding 2021’s excesses will take years, in some cases. For already-public tech companies, this can mean a painful march to the black. For startups, it serves more as a warning about what happens when growth fails to generate sufficient operating leverage.

As tech companies seek to limit losses, a reminder of how far some have to go by Alex Wilhelm originally published on TechCrunch

TechCrunch Early Stage — our premier event designed for budding entrepreneurs and founders at the very start of their startup journey — returns by popular demand on April 20, 2023. And we’re excited to announce that this year, we’re taking it on the road to Boston, Massachusetts.

We’re mixing the East Coast vibe with unparalleled opportunity. This is our only event where you get hands-on training with top industry experts to help you build a successful business.

Register, save and secure your place: We have a limited number of passes available for a special launch price. They’re here until they’re not — get ’em while they’re hot. Buy your TC Early Stage pass now, and reserve your seat for just $149.

During small group sessions, roundtables and workshops, you’ll learn best practices and gain valuable insights from successful startup founders, subject-matter experts and seasoned investors. We’re talking core topics that anyone interested in building their own business needs to know. TC Early Stage has your name written all over it if you:

Dream of starting your own business and want to learn how to turn your idea into a viable startup.
Work your startup on the side and need to figure out the next steps that will move you closer to being your own boss.
Code, develop and engineer new products and wonder what it takes to monetize your ideas.
Need to move beyond friends-and-family financing and learn how to attract institutional investors.
Want to join a supportive community of like-minded businesspeople sharing a similar path.

You’ll engage with the experts and other founders and get real-time feedback about issues facing your company. Plus, you’ll walk away with actionable strategies and advice. We’re talking tips that you can use now — when you need them most.

TC Early Stage, which takes place on April 20, 2023, in Boston, Massachusetts, provides access to essential information, resources and community connection to help you realize your entrepreneurial potential. Buy your $149 pass now, and shift your startup dream into high gear.

Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TC Early Stage 2023? Contact our sponsorship sales team byfilling out this form.

See you in Boston for TechCrunch’s Annual Founder Summit by Lauren Simonds originally published on TechCrunch

The Federal Trade Commission this week announced that it has settled lawsuits against Google and iHeartMedia relating to “deceptive endorsements” of the Pixel 4 phone. According to a statement issued by the FTC, nearly 29,000 ads were aired featuring radio personalities.

The suit notes specifically that the promoters in question never used the handset, in spite of claiming to have had experience with the device. Google is said to have paid iHeartMedia – the United States’ largest radio owner – along with 11 other networks in 10 major markets millions to promote the product.

Those endorsements included scripted lines, including “It’s my favorite phone camera out there, especially in low light, thanks to Night Sight Mode,” “I’ve been taking studio-like photos of everything,” and “It’s also great at helping me get stuff done, thanks to the new voice activated Google Assistant that can handle multiple tasks at once.”

“Google and iHeartMedia paid influencers to promote products they never used, showing a blatant disrespect for truth-in-advertising rules,” Bureau of Consumer Protection Director Samuel Levine said in a statement provided by the FTC. “The FTC will not stop working with our partners in the states to crack down on deceptive ads and ensure firms that break the rules pay a price.”

Google and iHeartMedia have agreed to settle the suit to the tune of $9.4 million. The news arrives as federal regulators are taking a closer look at regulation around big tech, including a $400 million Google settlement for data tracking and increased scrutiny over potential monopolistic practices.

“We are pleased to resolve this issue,” Google Spokesperson José Castañeda said in a statement offered to TechCrunch. “We take compliance with advertising laws seriously and have processes in place designed to help ensure we follow relevant regulations and industry standards.”

We have reached out to iHeartMedia for addition comment.

Google/iHeartMedia will pay $9.4M to settle FTC charges for ‘deceptive’ Pixel 4 radio ads by Brian Heater originally published on TechCrunch