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Komodo Health, a health-care enterprise in the business of making data-driven maps, has laid off 9% of staff, or 78 people, according to sources. The personnel change comes around a month after the company internally announced that its CFO would be leaving the company at the end of the year for personal reasons, and just months after the Tiger Global-backed company was once rumored to be planning to go public.

But, as IPO season continues to be frigid, the not-yet-profitable business has clearly opted to make cuts ahead of any 2023 movement. Sources say the restructuring could be the company’s attempt to look more profitable ahead of an anticipated public market debut.

TechCrunch reached out to Komodo Health for comment but did not yet hear back at time of publication. The company did, however, confirm the layoffs through a LinkedIn post.

Co-founders Arif Nathoo and Web Sun wrote a memo to staff, obtained by TechCrunch, which describes the layoffs as part of a broader restructuring as the world changes “again.”

“We believe that this is the beginning of a change that may last for many more months, if not years,” the co-founders wrote in the email, sent to all full-time employees. “We have always prided ourselves on running a capital efficient business, and today we’re taking steps to ensure that we are well positioned for the current world around us.” Axios last reported that Komodo’s ARR, as of March, was around $150 million; investors, meanwhile, valued the company at $3.3 billion during its last funding round, a $220 million Series E announced in March 2021.

After the email was sent, Komodo Health’s co-founders also held a meeting with remaining employees, adding that the company has closed a structured equity infusion from Dragoneer and Coatue for around $200 million, sources said. The co-founders also stressed that the layoff would be the first and last at the company. It is unclear whether this round was raise at the same valuation of its March 2021 round.

Komodo Health is joining a number of late-stage companies that have announced workforce reductions in the final innings of the year, including Stripe, Plaid and Airtable. It conducted a previous round of layoffs in April 2020, just months after raising a $50 million round from Andreessen Horowitz.

Current and former Komodo Health employees can reach out to Natasha Mascarenhas on Signal, a secure encrypted messaging app, at 925 271 0912. You can also DM her on Twitter, @nmasc_.

Komodo Health, once tipped for a looming IPO, has cut staff as CFO departs by Natasha Mascarenhas originally published on TechCrunch

Zeekr, the premium electric car brand under China’s Geely, said Tuesday it has confidentially filed for a U.S. initial public offering. If it goes through, it’ll be the first major Chinese listing in the country in nearly two years, following China’s effective ban of foreign IPOs.

Zeekr filed last week with regulators, but didn’t provide any details like the number of shares to be offered, the price range or listing date. Reuters reported that Zeekr, which will be spun out from Geely, aims to raise more than $1 billion through its debut and is seeking a valuation of more than $10 billion, citing sources with direct knowledge of the matter.

The filing comes a few weeks after Zeekr held a joint event with autonomous vehicle company Waymo in Los Angeles to show off its Autonomous Mobility Platform, an electric minivan-type vehicle that is built with Waymo’s AV stack for future robotaxi and logistics operations. Waymo and Zeekr first announced their partnership to co-develop a purpose-built AV a year ago.

Zeekr has also partnered with Mobileye, a company developing advanced driver assistance systems and AV technology, to build an all-electric autonomous vehicle for consumers. While those vehicles are being developed for the Chinese market, it’s clear Zeekr is pursuing a dual path to commercialization and global expansion — one that involves partnering with AV companies while also producing its own luxury EV model.

The EV-maker counts Tesla and Chinese peer Nio as competitors, and is currently marketing its 001 crossover, its flagship and only model, in Europe next year.

Zeekr’s filing comes a few months after Washington and Beijing struck a deal that lowers the likelihood of delisting for more than 200 Chinese firms listed on New York exchanges by allowing American officials to review audit documents of Chinese businesses that trade in the U.S.

Geely’s electric car brand Zeekr files US IPO confidentially by Rebecca Bellan originally published on TechCrunch

Multiple U.S. government agencies held a press conference Tuesday afternoon regarding the indictment of FTX’s former CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried.

When asked whether the entities will bring charges against other individuals allegedly involved in the FTX collapse, Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said during the event, “I can only say this: Clearly, we are not done.”

The meeting convened hours after the U.S. attorney’s office, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) all filed charges against Bankman-Fried earlier in the day.

This transpired after Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas on Monday night. The SEC charged Bankman-Fried for an alleged “years-long scheme to defraud investors of FTX,” Gurbir Grewal, director of the SEC’s division of enforcement, said during the conference. Bankman-Fried is being investigated for other securities violations. The U.S. attorney’s office and the CFTC filed charges against him in “parallel actions.”

Williams declined to comment on which FTX-related individuals have cooperated in the investigations to date, but reiterated the importance for those who haven’t to “do so and do so quickly.”

“As alleged in our complaint, starting in 2019 continuing through November 2022, Bankman-Fried raised more than $1.8 billion from equity investors on the basis of lies,” Grewal said. “FTX operated behind a veneer of legitimacy that Bankman-Fried created among other things … but as we allege in our complaint, that veneer wasn’t just thin, it was also fraudulent.”

Grewal said since FTX’s inception in 2019, Bankman-Fried had been secretly diverting customer funds to his crypto hedge fund, Alameda Research. “As alleged in our complaint, he then misused those funds to make undisclosed venture investments, lavish real estate purchases and large political donations.”

When asked during the conference whether the FTX downfall is relatable to what happened with the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme, Williams said, “It’s hard to compare these things, but this is one of the biggest financial frauds in American history.”

Grewal added that Bankman-Fried’s prior statements that the crypto exchange operated with “sophisticated risk controls and other customer protections” were “simply bogus.”

“He frequently claimed that Alameda was just another customer with no special privileges,” Grewal said. “[But] he provided Alameda virtually an unlimited line of credit funded by FTX customers and he also diverted billions of dollars of customer funds from FTX to Alameda.”

Grewal’s takeaway surrounding the FTX collapse was simple: Non-compliant trading platforms pose dramatic risks to both investors and customers. “Among other things, they don’t provide them with the same robust level of disclosures and protections against fraud and conflicts of interest. That’s what traditional U.S.-registered exchanges provide, so it’s imperative that non-compliant platforms come into compliance.”

“The runway is getting shorter for them to come in and register with us,” Grewal said. “For those who do not, the enforcement division is ready to take action.”

In separate news, the U.S. House Financial Services Committee held a hearing Tuesday morning focused on FTX’s collapse. The four-hour hearing covered a lot of ground and left many questions unanswered, but several parts stood out from new FTX CEO John J. Ray III’s testimony, which you can read about in detail here.

US attorney says ‘we are not done’ charging individuals for FTX collapse by Jacquelyn Melinek originally published on TechCrunch

It’s official: A U.S. Department of Energy lab produced a controlled nuclear fusion reaction that released more energy than it consumed.

On December 5, just after 1:03 a.m. PT, 192 lasers at the National Ignition Facility converged on a small gold cylinder that contained a tiny bead of fuel composed of two isotopes of hydrogen, deuterium and tritium. In a flash, the cylinder vaporized, emitting X-rays that bombarded the fuel pellet, turning its outer diamond layer into an expanding plasma that compressed the fuel inside to the point where its nuclei fused and released a tremendous amount of energy.

How much energy?

When the BB-sized fuel pellet ignited and produced a sustained fusion reaction, it released about 50% more energy than was imparted by the experiment’s lasers — the world’s largest and most energetic laser system. The lasers’ energy heated the fuel pellet to 150 million degrees Celsius and compressed it with a pressure over twice that found at the sun’s center.

In specific terms, the lasers put in 2.05 megajoules of energy and the fusion reaction released 3.15 megajoules. That’s even better than leaked reports suggested. The team at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory spent the last week deciphering the data to determine the exact results.

Only 4% of the deuterium-tritium fuel burned in the fusion reaction, suggesting plenty of room for improvement. The gold cylinder took about two weeks to manufacture, and the diamond-coated fuel pellet took about seven months to produce.

In scientific and technical terms, the reaction is considered net positive. In real-world terms, it produced far less power than what would be expected of a commercial power plant. To produce the 2.05-megajoule shot, the laser system required 300 megajoules of power, Kim Budil, director of LLNL, said in a press conference today.

Still, Budil said that the team sees a way to get to “hundreds of megajoules of output” per shot, an amount that would be required for a commercial-scale power plant using the technique, known as inertial confinement.

“We need the private sector to get into the game,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said.

World-record fusion experiment produced even more energy than expected by Tim De Chant originally published on TechCrunch

Amid backlash over the intrusion of algorithmic, recommended content into Instagram’s feed, Instagram today introduced a number of new features designed to make it easier for users to keep up with their real-world friends. The company is now rolling out several significant changes, including most notably an addition called Notes — a feature Meta had considered turning into a Twitter competitor, according to a recent news report. With Notes, users can update their friends using just text and emoji, adding a different format for social updates beyond the images and videos Instagram is best known for. Other new features are also rolling out to Stories and will introduce new ways to share with groups.

Of all the new features being announced, Instagram Notes is perhaps the most interesting as it adds a way to communicate with others publicly, using just text. While that’s obviously reminiscent of a platform like Twitter, the current implementation has a much different user interface. In Instagram, users can leave notes by going to the top of their inbox, then selecting the followers they follow back (aka mutuals) or others from their existing “Close Friends” list. They’ll then type out the note itself using 60 characters of just text or emoji. The note will appear at the top of friends’ inboxes for 24 hours and replies will arrive as DMs.

Instagram said that during testing it found people appreciated having a way to start conversations in a lightweight way.

So while the format itself differs from Twitter’s real-time feed, the use case for Notes could have some overlap as the company described the feature as a way for users to share “what they’re up to” or ask for recommendations. Twitter today prompts users for similar input. When you go to compose a tweet, for example, the app asks you to share “What’s happening?” And like Notes, it has a contained text input limit. (Though that limit will now grow substantially, Twitter owner Elon Musk said.)

Meanwhile, The New York Times reported last week how Meta was considering turning Instagram Notes, which has been in testing for many months, into a more fully-fledged Twitter rival to capitalize on the chaos at Twitter following Elon Musk’s acquisition. The report said the company had been weighing whether Notes should even be its own standalone app or another feed inside Instagram. For the time being, however, it appears Instagram is launching Notes as is.

Another set of new features targets Instagram Stories.

One is an update to the “Add Yours” feature launched last year, which encourages others to participate in your trend by sharing their own variation. Now, Instagram is testing an update where you can specifically invite friends to participate by tapping “pass it on” when you see a trend that you think they’d like. This feature is meant to combat one of the bigger threats from TikTok where users replicate trends, whether dances or skits or AI effects set to music, by posting their own take.

Instagram is also now testing “Candid,” a way for friends to share Stories that are only visible to others who also share their own Candids. This feature is an obvious competitor to BeReal, which also locks friends’ content behind a blurred screen until you also post. And like BeReal, Candid sends out daily notification reminders. (TikTok is trying a similar feature with its TikTok Now posts that appear in users’ feeds.)

This isn’t the first time Instagram has tried to take on BeReal, which has been gaining a following among younger Gen Z users. The company earlier this year tested other features including one called IG Candid Challenges which is similar to what’s now become Candid. It also more shamelessly duped BeReal with a dual camera feature it simply called Dual.

Instagram says users can capture a Candid from the Stories camera, the multi-author Story at the top of the feed, or from the daily notification reminder.

Two other features focus on improvements to group sharing.

The new “Group Profiles” are a new type of profile on Instagram for sharing posts and stories with friends. Content shared to a Group Profile is shared with group members instead of your followers and gets posted only to the Group Profile, not your own profile. This seems to respond to how many younger people are already using Instagram — to post content to groups for their school, for example, or around some sort of theme. Before, these accounts would be managed by only select people with the account login who would may curate content from submissions. Group Profiles could prompt greater participation as they reduce the barrier to posting.

Collaborative Collections are another new way to connect with a group of friends. In this case, the idea is to allow a group to connect over a shared interest by saving posts to a new “collaborative collection” in a group or via 1-to-1 direct messages (DMs). Users can add to a collaborative collection by saving a post they come across in their feed or by sharing it with a friend over DM, then saving it from there.

It’s essentially an expansion of the over five-year-old Collections feature, but one that helps you build that collection with others. This could be useful for gathering together travel ideas for a group trip or sharing recipes, among other things.

The new features were announced by Mark Zuckerberg on Instagram itself.

The company confirmed to TechCrunch that Notes will be coming to both iOS and Android users, while the rest of the features are still early stage tests. Group Profiles are testing in Canada, Chile, and Taiwan, while the other features are in testing with a small percentage of people around the world, we’re told. The one exception is Collaborative Collections — in this case, if you’re in the test group and start a collection with someone who’s not in the test and invite someone new — they will then be automatically added to the test.

“Connecting with others is why people come to Instagram,” the Meta blog post stated — an acknowledgment, of sorts, of the backlash the app saw from users who are unhappy with the irrelevant and intrusive content in their Instagram feeds. This culminated in Instagram actually rolling back some changes after Kylie Jenner and other celebs publicly complained about the app trying to be too much like TikTok. The company decided to pause tests of full-screen posts and decrease the amount of recommended content as a result of users’ complaints.

The new set of features refocuses on social sharing with friends, and seems to be a better move in terms of acknowledging what people actually want from Instagram — to connect with friends, not to just be entertained, as on TikTok.

Instagram now supports text updates with launch of Notes, adds other new sharing features by Sarah Perez originally published on TechCrunch

If any HBO Max subscribers planned on having a “Westworld” marathon, this might be your last chance to watch your favorite android hosts run amok in the ol’ Wild West. The sci-fi series could soon be pulled off the streaming service, Deadline reported yesterday. Last month, Warner Bros. Discovery confirmed that “Westworld” was officially canceled, likely due to a decline in viewership.

WBD declined to comment on the Deadline report.

Many subscribers were unsurprised about the “Westworld” cancellation after the fourth season was considered a flop. However, it will still be disappointing if we lose access to all the seasons, especially the first two seasons—which had the most viewership. “Westworld” is among the most well-known HBO dramas, next to “Game of Thrones.”

Note that if the series is removed, it’s likely it’ll move to another platform, but nothing is confirmed. One potential new streaming home could be WBD’s free ad-supported streaming service, which CEO David Zaslav previously mentioned was in the company’s future plans.

To make things worse, HBO Max is also reported to be pulling “The Nevers” and “Love Life,” Deadline added. The publication noted that WBD has been looking over the HBO Max slate for its annual financial review and deciding which shows to cut.

Also, according to Variety, WBD recently canceled the series “Minx” after it had just been renewed for a second season. Lionsgate, which produced “Minx,” told Variety that it is “working closely to find a new opportunity for ‘Minx.’”

Unfortunately, viewers are used to the wave of cancellations under new CEO Zaslav. Ever since Discovery acquired WarnerMedia, the company has been turning over every stone it can to save costs. This includes cutting several shows and films. (So long, “Batgirl.”) More recently, reports are circulating that “Wonder Woman 3” is no longer happening.

In Q3 2022, the company missed Wall Street expectations, reporting a total revenue of $9.82 billion and a net loss of $2.4 million. Earlier this year, Zaslav promised shareholders that the company would shed$3 billion worth of costsover the next two years.

‘Westworld’ and other titles may soon be removed from HBO Max by Lauren Forristal originally published on TechCrunch

There’s no magic formula for creating a winning pitch deck, which is why most of the articles we run on this topic continually emphasize the fundamentals.

Venture capitalists are like judges at a gymnastics competition: Each pitch will be assessed for its technical quality and difficulty, but execution and artistry is just as important.

If your deck doesn’t give prospective investors a clear idea of how you will put their money to work, you might leave their office with a logo water bottle, but you are not going home with a term sheet.

Full TechCrunch+ articles are only available to members.
Use discount code TCPLUSROUNDUP to save 20% off a one- or two-year subscription.

Despite its simple purpose, the Ask slide is “almost universally a struggle to get right,” says Haje Jan Kamps, who reviews five reasons why founders frequently miss the mark:

Forgetting to include the slide altogether.
Not naming a specific dollar amount you are raising.
Including a valuation on the slide.
Omitting what the funds will be used for.
Listing a specific runway, i.e., “This will keep us running for 18 to 24 months.”

“The whole purpose of doing a fundraising process is to raise money, so you may as well go all-in with a clear ask,” writes Haje.

Thanks for reading,

Walter Thompson
Editorial Manager, TechCrunch+
@yourprotagonist

Twitter Space: Is tech media creating “charismatic” founders?

Larger-than-life entrepreneurs are nothing new, but tech has taken that to the next level, often with an assist from news media.

Today at 1:00 p.m. PT/4:00 p.m. ET, Builders VC investor Andrew Chen will join me in a Twitter Space to discuss the role tech reporting plays in shaping ecosystems, narratives and expectations.

This should be a lively conversation, so please bring your comments.

Hook your investors with the perfect summary slide

When it comes to the summary slide, founding teams must answer the question “why invest?” by briefly recapping the strongest points from their presentation.

Haje Jan Kamps has curated several summary slides that will “cement your company in time and place by helping investors figure out how much you are raising, what stage your business is in, and well, what the hell your company actually does.”

5 lessons we’ve learned from building a venture fund from scratch

Emerging managers are under unique pressure to show their prowess when it comes to picking winners, but raising a fund and making investments doesn’t offer instant gratification.

Eric Tarczynski, managing partner and founder of venture fund Contrary Capital, says the early days of his firm were occasionally humbling.

“I once had an LP ask, ‘Have you invested in any startups I’ve heard of?’” he writes in a post that shares some of what he’s learned while raising two funds over the last five years.

“Building a brand, credibility and a track record takes time,” he says. “We’re five years in, and it routinely feels like we’re just getting off the starting line.”

How to implement a video SEO strategy

For anyone who runs a website, “pivot to video” has become a sour joke.

If your startup is shaping up its video content strategy, a wholesale shift isn’t required: Instead, conduct a content audit to identify areas where interactive content can drive growth, such as testimonials, product announcements and webinars.

In a guide for first-timers, SEORadar creator Mark Munroe shares a checklist for preparing a video SEO strategy that boosts traffic and generates leads.

“Getting a sustained jump in web traffic is every SEO strategist’s dream, and video is [a] no-brainer way to do it,” writes Munroe.

3 methods for valuing pre-revenue novel AI startups

The Berkus Method, scorecard valuation and venture capital are the most commonly used frameworks for costing pre-revenue startups, but when it comes to AI, are traditional yardsticks still useful?

“AI can scale much faster than other technologies, so what works at the beta or minimum viable product stage may not work when an AI product scales to millions of users,” according to Ryan E. Long, principal attorney of Long & Associates.

Long identifies some of the limitations of using traditional means to value pre-money “prototype or novel AI startups” in an article that identifies regulatory issues and shares tactics designed to “minimize the number of uncertain variables.”

TechCrunch+ roundup: Summary slide showcase, video SEO strategy, how to value AI startups by Walter Thompson originally published on TechCrunch

Fintech startup Checkout.com was in the news this morning because the Financial Times reported that the payment company had slashed its internal valuation to $11 billion. And it’s a huge drop compared to the $40 billion valuation that the company reached a little less than a year ago.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean what you think it means. In Checkout.com’s case, the company wasn’t in the process of raising a new funding round. Unlike Klarna’s down round, the new valuation wasn’t determined by a VC firm willing to invest in the company.

Checkout.com is building a full-stack payments company — it acts as a gateway, an acquirer, a risk engine and a payment processor. The company lets you process payments directly on your site or in your app, but you can also rely on hosted payment pages, create payment links, etc. It supports card payments, Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, Alipay, bank transfers, SEPA direct debits and it also lets you issue payouts.

Let me take a step back first. It’s hard to determine how much a private company is worth. The post-money valuation has been used as a metric for startups to see how big they are compared to their direct competitors. If Big VC Firm is willing to invest $100 million for a 25% stake of a startup, the startup is now worth four times this investment, or $400 million — at least on paper.

But that metric is imperfect as companies don’t raise at the same time and the economic environment can drastically change from one year to another. And entrepreneurs tell me that January 2022 is very different from December 2022.

It has become much harder to close a new funding round. Entrepreneurs need to make some concessions. They sometimes accept to hand out a bigger chunk of their cap table for the same round size, which leads to… a lower valuation.

Some startups accept liquidation preferences and other investor-friendly clauses so that their valuation remains stable. In that case, the valuation becomes even more meaningless as VCs expect bigger returns than what they’re supposed to get on paper.

But valuations aren’t just big numbers for headlines. They also matter for employees who own stock options.

“We took advantage of the current conditions to update the tax valuation of the company. We decided to do that for our employees so that we can re-strike all the options that have been handed out recently and therefore create more upside potential for them — they will have to pay less for those options,” Checkout.com founder and CEO Guillaume Pousaz told me.

That reminds me of another payment company that also decided to lower its internal valuation. This summer, Stripe lowered its own valuation to around $74 billion from $95 billion.

In Stripe’s case, the company worked with third-parties to update its 409A valuation, which changes the value of employee stock options. It has implications when it comes to taxes as employees usually pay taxes on the difference between the price of their options and the new share value as defined by the new 409A valuation.

I asked Guillaume Pousaz if Checkout.com’s new valuation was similar to a 409A valuation update. “Yes, it’s like a 409A. It has to be produced by an accounting and auditing firm,” he told me.

There isn’t a lot of chatter about 409A valuations in the European startup community. And Checkout.com is a rare example of an internal valuation change. It could mean that some VC firms overpaid to invest in the fintech startup. It could also mean that tech companies are now valued at a lower revenue multiple compared to 2021.

But it doesn’t say much about the upcoming negotiations between VC firms that want to invest in Checkout.com and the startup’s executives. They will land on a different valuation. But that would require a new funding round, which doesn’t seem likely in the current landscape.

“We don’t need to raise money and there are no plans in that respect,” Pousaz said. “To be honest, we don’t have to raise again. Never say never, but unlike many fintech companies, we have a proven business model.”

Why Checkout‏‎.com lowered its internal valuation by Romain Dillet originally published on TechCrunch

Apple is rolling out its iOS 16.2 update for all users today along with iPadOS 16.2 and macOS Ventura 13.1. The new version brings features like improved encryption for iCloud data, Live Activities on the home screen, and a Karaoke feature for Apple Music. Plus, Apple is also debuting its collaborative whiteboard app Freeform.

Here’s the list of all things you’ll get to experience with iOS 16.2.

End-to-end encryption for iCloud data

Historically, Apple has encrypted sensitive data like passwords while storing it in iCloud. Now, the company is launching end-to-end encryption for most data with a new Advanced Data Protection mode. Emails, contacts and calendar events aren’t end-to-end encrypted as those services are based on unencrypted standard protocols. If you activate Advanced Data Protection, it means that only you can access your device’s data by authenticating your identity on a trusted device like an iPhone or a Mac. If anyone else tries to decrypt the data — including Apple — they’ll likely find gibberish.

You shouldn’t confuse this with Lockdown mode, which prevents threats like government-grade spyware attacks on journalists, activists, and human rights defenders.

With this iOS 16.2 rollout, all U.S.-based users will be able to secure their data behind encryption. The company said that a wider rollout is expected next year. At this stage, the Advanced Data Protection mode will protect things like device and message backups, reminders, Safari Bookmarks, Notes, photos, and voice memos.

Apple Music karaoke mode

While Spotify Wrapped is a much sought-after year-end event, Apple Music’s karaoke mode could be a fun feature of house parties around the year. The feature, called Apple Sing, will be available to all users with iPhone 11 and above, along with iPad and Apple TV.

Apple uses a combination of enhanced real-time lyrics sync for karaoke and on-device machine learning for splitting vocals from the music track. It also separates and highlights background vocals for a better group experience. The company said that at launch, this feature will be available for the top 80% of its most-played songs with more tracks being added along the way.

For months, users have spotted Spotify’s own karaoke feature in testing. But the company never officially confirmed any rollout. Now that Apple Music has made this feature available to its users, the pressure will be on Spotify to launch it on its service.

Freeform app

Apple first introduced Freeform as a digital whiteboard for its own ecosystem during its Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) in June. Last month, we previewed the app, which was available through beta versions of iOS 16.2, iPadOS 16.2, and macOS 13.1.

The app is simple to use: it’s just an infinite board where you can draw objects and lines, insert media, attach documents or notes, and annotate on stuff. There’s also a collaborative element to it, but that requires everyone to use Apple devices.

Products in the digital whiteboard space are pretty valuable. Last month, Adobe acquired Figma for a whopping $20 billion. Earlier this year, Miro raised $400 million at a $17.5 billion valuation. While Apple is not vying for enterprise consumers or professional designers at the moment, it wants to grab the attention of casual tinkerers who might want to choose Freeform over other tools.

AirDrop limitation

Apple tweaked AirDrop settings in China with the iOS 16.1.1 update. If you configure AirDrop so that you get requests from “Everyone”, it is limited 10 minutes. Now, the company is enabling this feature to all users with the iOS 16.2 update. After 10 minutes, the setting for AirDrop falls back to “Contacts Only” and you will need to manually change it to “Everyone” each time.

Updates to Live Activities feature

Live Activities are lock screen and home screen widgets that can be updated with real-time info. They were rolled out with the iOS 16.1 update. With iOS 16.2, Apple is introducing Sports score updates through the Apple TV app. U.S. and Canada-based users will get access to scores for games from NBA, English Premier League, and MLB. Meanwhile, users in Australia, Brazil, Japan, Mexico, the U.K., and South Korea will get access to MLB scores via Live Activities.

Other stuff

iPhone users in India will be able to use 5G in eligible areas on the Reliance Jio network with this update.
The Weather app will have a dedicated news section to show you local news stories.
Apple is also adding home screen widgets for Sleep. These widgets inform you about recent sessions and stages. It also lets you quickly see your medication plan.

The iOS 16.2 update is rolling out to all users with iPhone 8 or above starting today.

Here are the top features of Apple’s iOS 16.2 update by Ivan Mehta originally published on TechCrunch

Uber’s delivery business in Spain has settled with local labor unions which were challenging its dismissal of more than 4,000 riders in August last year ahead of a labor law reform coming into force — acknowledging the dismissed couriers as staff and agreeing to pay severance equivalent to 45 days’ salary per year worked (via Reuters).

In a statement emailed to TechCrunch, an Uber spokesperson said:

“This agreement with worker unions in Spain aims at compensating couriers who were not able to access our app following the introduction of the Rider Law in 2021. We have since then launched a new model in full compliance with the new local regulatory framework and remain open to dialogue with all relevant parties to continue to improve independent work for all.”

The ‘Riders Law’, as the 2021 Spanish labour law reform is known, was aimed at platforms perceived to be falsely classifying delivery couriers as self-employed — introducing a presumption of employment for those providing such services through digital platforms.

Uber’s decision to let go of thousands of couriers ahead of this change in their employment status was dubbed a de facto collective dismissal by unions FeSMC-UGT and CCOO-Servicios — who challenged its action before the National Court. The court initially dismissed the challenge but in a ruling in July the Supreme Court revoked the lower court’s decision, deciding that the unions could challenge the dismissal and triggering a retrial.

Uber appears to have settled to avoid this, as the retrial in the National Court was scheduled for today.

The unions said 4,404 couriers who were dismissed by Uber last year should receive compensation under the settlement.

“This is a historic agreement,” they write in a press release (which we’ve translated from Spanish). “For the first time a collective dismissal of delivery people has been recognized in court and guarantees the collection of compensation for each of those affected, in amounts that are better than those established in law.”

Delivery workers who are affected by the settlement should receive an email from Uber’s local delivery firm, which is called Portier Eats Spain, informing them of the agreement and the amount of compensation they should receive, per the unions.

In order to claim compensation due they need to reply within a month of receipt of the message, accepting the compensation and confirming their bank details for transferring the payment — which should be remitted within four months.

Affected couriers who no longer have access to the email address they previously used to communicate with Portier Eats Spain are instructed to contact FeSMC-UGT immediately by email — at plataformasdigitales@fesmcugt.org — in order for the union to manage the payment of their compensation.

Change of compliance gear

While Uber has agreed to recognize that these former couriers were employees, it has recently changed how it responds to Spain’s Riders Law.

An Uber spokesperson told us the company now operates two different models in Spain — one of which entails working with third party fleet partners who employ couriers directly. But it has also, since September, launched a tweaked model which enables couriers to remain independent (i.e. self employed) without — it claims –breaching the Rider Law.

Delivery platforms in Spain responded in a variety of ways to the change in the labor law last year — including pulling out of the market altogether (in the case of Deliveroo). Others claimed to have adapted their models, such as homegrown rival Glovo, which claimed it would take on some riders as staff but does not appear to have employed the vast majority of its couriers.

That led to some tension with Uber — which earlier this year penned an open letter accusing Glovo of flouting the labor reform and complaining it was unable to contract enough couriers to secure its service because so many were opting for ongoing ‘self-employment’ with Glovo.

Fast forward a few months and Uber has reworked its playbook to steer closer to Glovo’s.

That may not be the soundest compliance strategy, however, as the latter continues to face regulatory bumps on home turf — such as a $78M penalty it was hit with in September for employment law breaches attached to its employment classification of riders.

The company claimed that sanction pre-dated the entry into force of the Riders Law but fresh challenges to its tweaked model — and to Uber’s — are all but certain.

Zooming out, last year, European Union lawmakers proposed a bloc-wide reform aimed at improving conditions for workers on gig economy platforms — proposing legislation to bring in a rebuttable presumption of employment across EU Member States with the goal of enforcing minimum standards in areas like pay, conditions and social protections.

However the file — and the proposed legal presumption of employment for platform workers — has proved divisive, as Euractive reported recently, with divisions emerging between national delegations and no compromise position yet adopted by the Council.

Uber’s food delivery platform agrees to pay severance to couriers let go ahead of Spain’s Riders Law by Natasha Lomas originally published on TechCrunch