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Gas stoves might be on the chopping block soon.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is considering banning the appliances in an effort to reduce harmful indoor air pollution, according to a tweet by commissioner Rich Trumka Jr. and comments he gave to Bloomberg.

“This is a hidden hazard,” Trumka told the news organization. “Any option is on the table. Products that can’t be made safe can be banned.”

Honestly, it wouldn’t be a moment too soon. Gas stove use is associated with both childhood and lifetime asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a leading cause of death worldwide. Even when they’re turned off, they leak a significant amount of gas, and the natural gas pumped into U.S. homes almost always contains well-known carcinogens, including benzene, hexane and toluene.

The health benefits of banning gas stoves would be enormous if only because they’re so widespread. Across the U.S., 38% of households have natural gas stoves. In some states like California and New Jersey, 70% of households use them. That’s a lot of asthma.

Climate benefits of killing gas stoves aren’t what you think, but the health benefits are by Tim De Chant originally published on TechCrunch

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to block a lawsuit brought by WhatsApp challenging the alleged mass phone hacking by Israeli spyware maker NSO Group.

Meta-owned WhatsApp first filed a suit against NSO Group in 2019 claiming the spyware maker exploited an audio-calling vulnerability in WhatsApp to stealthily deliver its Pegasus phone spyware onto users’ devices. Pegasus gives its government customers near-complete access to a target’s device, including their personal data, photos, messages and granular location data.

More than 1,400 devices belonging to journalists, activists and government officials were compromised by Pegasus, according to the lawsuit.

NSO Group filed a petition to dismiss the lawsuit in April last year, arguing that it could not be sued as it was acting on behalf of a foreign government. This claim of so-called “sovereign immunity” was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday, after it was previously dismissed by a California district court and later by the U.S. Appeals Court for the Ninth Circuit. The case will bounce back to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

In a statement, NSO Group spokesperson Liron Bruck said the company is “confident” that the court will determine the use of Pegasus by its customers was legal. WhatsApp spokesperson Carl Woog told TechCrunch that the company was “grateful to see the Supreme Court rejected NSO’s baseless petition,” and that NSO “must be held to account for their unlawful operations.”

The WhatsApp case is among a series of legal battles plaguing NSO Group of late. Apple also filed a lawsuit against the spyware maker, seeking a permanent injunction to block the spyware maker from using any Apple product or service — a move designed to make it more difficult for the company to operate.

In November, journalists from an investigative news outlet in El Salvador also sued NSO in a U.S. court after Pegasus spyware was detected on their iPhones. These journalists are being represented by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, which on Monday welcomed the Supreme Court’s decision.

“We’re pleased that the Supreme Court rejected NSO Group’s petition. Today’s decision clears the path for lawsuits brought by the tech companies, as well as for suits brought by journalists and human rights advocates who have been victims of spyware attacks,” said Carrie DeCell, senior staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute. “The use of spyware to surveil and intimidate journalists poses one of the most urgent threats to press freedom and democracy today.”

Supreme Court declines to block WhatsApp lawsuit over NSO phone hacking by Carly Page originally published on TechCrunch

Instagram announced today it will simplify its in-app navigation after years of confusing changes designed to push various products like Instagram Shop and Reels. The company says, starting in February, it will return the Compose button (the plus sign “+”) to the front-and-center of the navigation bar at the bottom of the app and it will remove the Shop tab entirely.

As a result, the Reels button will now move over to the right of Compose, losing its prime spot.

The earlier changes which had push Reels over Compose had been fairly controversial as Instagram users felt as if the company was forcing them to use the app’s new products at the expense of the overall user experience. The company had first relocated the Reels tab to the middle of the navigation bar in 2020, when it also replaced the popular Activity tab with the Shop tab instead. The Compose button and Activity were also then relocated to the top-right of the home screen, making them harder to find. At the time, Instagram explained these changes would make it easier for users to access Instagram’s “expanded suite of products.”

But in more recent months, there’s been increased backlash over how far Instagram has deviated from its original mission.

Last year, for example, high-profile Instagram users Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner added their voices to user complaints, as Jenner posted an image to her Instagram begging the company to “make Instagram Instagram again,” and to “stop trying to be tiktok.” Kim then echoed those sentiments in a post to her Stories. In addition to the aggressive Reels push, the celebs were upset over changes to the Instagram feed that more often pushed video content and recommended posts, rather than the polished photos that had helped make them famous.

But the stunt caught Instagram’s attention, leading Instagram head Adam Mosseri to respond to the criticism to assure users that photos were still a priority. He also addressed frustration with the increasing number of Recommended (algorithmically suggested posts) on users’ feeds, which seemed to be Instagram’s attempt to build out its own version of TikTok’s For You page.

The upcoming redesign won’t address all users’ complaints, of course — moving buttons around doesn’t mean the feed itself will change — but it will at least offer a simpler experience for users who just want to post their photos, as before. And by reprioritizing the Compose button, users may feel subtly encouraged to return to posting photos.

There were hints that Instagram was considering this direction when a test last fall began removing the Instagram Shop tab from the some users’ home screens, hiding it under Settings instead. Instagram said then it was only an experiment with a small number of users. However, The Information had reported the reason for the change was due to a shift in the “company priorities,” according to an internal memo.

The company today says the removal of the Shop tab doesn’t necessarily mean the end of shopping on Instagram, however.

“You will still be able to set up and run your shop on Instagram as we continue to invest in shopping experiences that provide the most value for people and businesses across Feed, Stories, Reels, ads, and more,” a spokesperson said.

Instagram says the changes to its navigation will reach its users in February.

Instagram is removing the Shop tab, moving Reels from the center spot in design overhaul next month by Sarah Perez originally published on TechCrunch

Anthropic, the startup co-founded by ex-OpenAI employees that’s raised over $700 million in funding to date, has developed an AI system similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT that appears to improve upon the original in key ways.

Called Claude, Anthropic’s system is accessible through a Slack integration as part of a closed beta. TechCrunch wasn’t able to gain access — we’ve reached out to Anthropic — but those in the beta have been detailing their interactions with Claude on Twitter over the past weekend, after an embargo on media coverage lifted.

Claude was created using a technique Anthropic developed called “constitutional AI.” As the company explains in a recent Twitter thread, “constitutional AI” aims to provide a “principle-based” approach to aligning AI systems with human intentions, letting AI similar to ChatGPT respond to questions using a simple set of principles as a guide.

To engineer Claude, Anthropic started with a list of around ten principles that, taken together, formed a sort of “constitution” (hence the name “constitutional AI”). The principles haven’t been made public, but Anthropic says that they’re grounded in the concepts of beneficence (i.e. maximizing positive impact), nonmaleficence (avoiding giving harmful advice) and autonomy (respecting freedom of choice).

Anthropic then had an AI system — not Claude — use the principles for self-improvement, writing responses to a variety of prompts (e.g. “compose a poem in the style of John Keats”) and revising the responses in accordance with the constitution. The AI explored possible responses to thousands of prompts and curated those most consistent with the constitution, which Anthropic distilled into a single model. This model was used to train Claude.

Claude, otherwise, is essentially a statistical tool to predict words — much like ChatGPT and other so-called language models. Fed an enormous number of examples of text from the web, Claude learned how likely words are to occur based on patterns such as the semantic context of surrounding text. As a result, Claude can hold an open-ended conversation, tell jokes and wax philosophic on a broad range of subjects.

Riley Goodside, a staff prompt engineer at startup Scale AI, pitted Claude against ChatGPT in a battle of wits. He asked both bots to compare themselves to a machine from Polish science fiction novel “The Cyberiad” that can only create objects whose name begins with “n.” Claude, Goodside said, answered in a way that suggests it’s “read the plot of the story” (although it misremembered small details) while ChatGPT offered a more nonspecific answer.

In a demonstration of Claude’s creativity, Goodside also had the AI write a fictional episode of Seinfeld and a poem in the style of Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven.” The results were in line with what ChatGPT can accomplish — impressively, if not perfectly, human-like prose.

Yann Dubois, a Ph.D. student at Stanford’s AI Lab, also did a comparison of Claude and ChatGPT, writing that Claude “generally follows closer what it’s asked for” but is “less concise,” as it tends to explain what it said and ask how it can further help. Claude answers a few more trivia questions correctly, however — specifically those relating to entertainment, geography, history and the basics of algebra — and without the additional “fluff” ChatGPT sometimes adds. And unlike ChatGPT, Claude can admit (albeit not always) when it doesn’t know the answer to a particularly tough question.

Claude also seems to be better at telling jokes than ChatGPT, an impressive feat considering that humor is a tough concept for AI to grasp. In contrasting Claude with ChatGPT, AI researcher Dan Elton found that Claude made more nuanced jokes like “Why was the Starship Enterprise like a motorcycle? It has handlebars,” a play on the handlebar-like appearance of the Enterprise’s warp nacelles.

Claude isn’t perfect, however. It’s susceptible to some of the same flaws as ChatGPT, including giving answers that aren’t in keeping with its programmed constraints. In one of the more bizarre examples, asking the system in base64, an encoding scheme that represents binary data in ASCII format, bypasses its built-in filters for harmful content. Elton was able to prompt Claude in base64 for instructions on how to make meth at home, a question that the system wouldn’t answer when asked in plain English.

Dubois reports that Claude is worse at math than ChatGPT, making obvious mistakes and failing to give the right follow-up responses. Relatedly, Claude is a poorer programmer, better explaining its code but falling short on languages other than Python.

Claude also doesn’t solve “hallucination,” a longstanding problem in ChatGPT-like AI systems where the AI writes inconsistent, factually wrong statements. Elton was able to prompt Claude to invent a name for a chemical that doesn’t exist and provide dubious instructions for producing weapons-grade uranium.

So what’s the takeaway? Judging by second-hand reports, Claude is a smidge better than ChatGPT in some areas, particularly humor, thanks to its “constitutional AI’ approach. But if the limitations are anything to go by, language and dialog is far from a solved challenge in AI.

Barring our own testing, some questions about Claude remain unanswered, like whether it regurgitates the information — true and false, and inclusive of blatantly racist and sexist perspectives — it was trained on as often as ChatGPT. Assuming it does, Claude is unlikely to sway platforms and organizations from their present, largely restrictive policies on language models.

Q&A coding site Stack Overflow has a temporary ban in place on answers generated by ChatGPT over factual accuracy concerns. The International Conference on Machine Learning announced a prohibition on scientific papers that include text generated by AI systems for fear of the “unanticipated consequences.” And New York City public schools restricted access to ChatGPT due in part to worries of plagiarism, cheating and general misinformation.

Anthropic says that it plans to refine Claude and potentially open the beta to more people down the line. Hopefully, that comes to pass — and results in more tangible, measurable improvements.

Anthropic’s Claude improves on ChatGPT, but still suffers from limitations by Kyle Wiggers originally published on TechCrunch

The 2022 equity crowdfunding market was unable to top 2021’s record-setting year. But despite seeing lower investment volume, it fared quite a lot better than venture capital did in the same time frame. Founders looking to raise extension or bridge financing should take note.

Back in July, it looked like equity crowdfunding — a funding route that allows startups to raise from unaccredited investors through Reg CF and Reg A filings, among others — was on track for its best year yet. According to the Arora Project, more than $215 million was raised through the first half of 2022, surpassing 2021’s H1 total of $200 million.

At the time, Krishan Arora, the CEO and founder of the Arora Project, which curates and tracks these deals, and Nick Tommarello, the founder of crowdfunding site WeFunder, both said that they noticed growing momentum for the strategy in 2022.

A flat year for crowdfunding isn’t a bad sign at all for early-stage startups by Rebecca Szkutak originally published on TechCrunch

European telcos are moving ahead with a plan to create a joint venture to offer opt-in ‘personalized’ ad targeting of regional mobile network users following trials last year in Germany. Although it remains to be seen whether European Union regulators will sign off on their plan.

In a filing submitted to the European Commission’s competition division (spotted earlier by Politico), Germany’s Deutsche Telekom, France’s Orange, Spain’s Telefonica and the UK’s Vodafone set out the proposed concentration to create a jointly controlled and equally owned joint venture — to offer “a privacy-led, digital identification solution to support the digital marketing and advertising activities of brands and publishers”, as they describe the proposed ‘first party’ data ad-targeting infrastructure.

The Commission has until February 10 to take a decision on whether to clear the joint venture (JV) and, therefore, whether or not to let the carriers go ahead with a commercial launch.

A spokesman for Vodafone said the telcos are not in a position to comment on the intended JV at this stage while the Commission considers whether to clear the initiative. And wouldn’t be drawn on a potential launch timeframe. They suggested public messaging on the project will follow approval — assuming the telcos do get a green light from Brussels to work together on the mobile ad targeting infrastructure.

Details about the plan for the carriers to dive into personalized ad-targeting emerged last summer during initial trials in Germany. The tech was described then as a “cross-operator infrastructure for digital advertising and digital marketing” — and Vodafone said they would be relying on user consent to the data processing. The project was also given the initial moniker “TrustPid” (but if it flies expect that clunky label to be replaced with some slicker marketing).

The telco ad targeting proposal quickly landed on the radar of privacy watcher who raised concerns about the legal basis for processing mobile users’ data for ads — given the European Union’s comprehensive data protection and privacy laws; and given existing microtargeting adtech (which also relies on a claim of user consent) was found in breach of the General Data Protection Regulation in February last year.

The project also faced some early attention from data protection authorities in Germany and Spain. We’re told engagement with regulators led to some tweaks to how the telcos proposed to gather consent — to make the process more explicit.

The telcos’ filing submission proposing to create a JV, which is dated January 6, 2023, confirms that “explicit user consent” (via an opt-in) is the intended legal basis for the targeting, writing:

Subject to explicit user consent provided to a brand or publisher (on an opt-in basis only), the JV will generate a secure, pseudonymized token derived from a hashed/encrypted pseudonymous internal identity linked to a user’s network subscription which will be provided by participating network operators. This token will allow the brand/publisher concerned to recognize a user without revealing any directly identifiable personal data and thereby enable them to optimize the delivery of online display advertising and perform site/app optimization. Users will have access to a user-friendly privacy portal. They can review which brands and publishers they have given consent to, and withdraw their consent.

Discussing their approach, a representative for one of the involved telcos (Vodafone) confirmed the intent is to rely on gathering consent from users via pop-ups. So if anyone was hoping that the demise of third party cookie tracking would knock consent spam on the head that looks, well, premature.

A first party data-based alternative to the (still, for now) ubiquitous tracking cookie also requires a legal basis to process people’s data for marketing — and alternatives to consent look increasingly tricky given ongoing guidance (and enforcement) by EU data protection regulators, such as the massive fine this month for Meta for trying to claim contractual necessity for processing user data for ads; or the warnings TikTok attracted last year when it sought to switch from consent to a claim of legitimate interest for its ‘personalized’ ads — a move it was forced to back away from.

Consent as the legal basis for ‘personalized ads’ is no picnic either, though: The IAB’s Transparency and Consent Framework (TCF) — which relies upon a claim of consent to third party ad tracking — was found in breach of the GDPR last year (as was the IAB Europe itself). And the Belgian DPA issued the adtech industry with a hard reform mandate. Albeit, for now, the tracking-ads status quo lumbers on, zombie-like — pending a final legal reckoning.

The distinction the four telcos behind the proposed JV are seeking to claim for their proposal for consent-based ad targeting — vs current-gen (legally clouded) adtech targeting — is, firstly, that it’s based on first party data (the claim for the TrustPid project is no syncing and/or enriching of the individual-linked targeting tokens is allowed and/or possible between participating advertisers). So it’s not the kind of consentless-by-design background ‘superprofiling’ of users that’s landed current-gen adtech into such legal (and reputational) hot water. The proposed tracking is siloed per brand/advertiser — with each needing to gain up-front consent from their own users and only able to target against data-points they gather. (Plus we’re told user-linked tokens would be cycled regularly, with the initial proposal being to reset them every 90 days.)

Secondly, the telcos are proposing to put contractual limits on participants — such as requiring that no special category data (e.g. health data, political affiliation etc) can be attached by an advertiser as an targetable interest to a user-linked token. They also want the JV to have the final say on the language/design of consent pop-ups (which they say will offer users a top-level refusal, rather than burying that option as routinely happens with cookie consent pop-ups). And they say they will audit all participating websites on a regular basis.

There is a third check: A portal where mobile users can view (and revoke) any consents they have provided to individual brands/publishers to use their first party data for ads — and which, we’re told, will provide an option that lets mobile users block the entire system (so a hard opt-out). Although we understand it’s not currently the case (in the trial) that users who apply such a block are prevented from receiving pop-ups asking for their consent to the ad targeting — so, again, consent spam and consent fatigue look set to continue. (And, well, could plausibly multiple as consent gets un-bundled — i.e. if the system takes off with lots of brands and advertisers.) At least, unless or until they can figure out an appropriate legal basis that does not require ongoing pestering of users who already denied consent with pop-ups.

If the telcos’ JV gets the green light from the Commission, scrutiny on the project will of course dial up — and close attention to technical (and contractual) details may well throw up fresh concerns. So it’s too soon to judge whether the approach will/would pass muster with regulators and privacy experts.

There could also be friction from mobile network users themselves — if they suddenly find they’re encountering a fresh, irritating layer of consent spam when browsing the mobile web, a service they do, after all, pay the telcos to provide them with. So tolerance for extra consent spam could be very low.

Moreover, convincing mobile users to actually opt in to ads — assuming they are indeed provided with a genuinely free (and fair/non-manipulative) choice to deny tracking, rather than being forced or bamboozled into it as has been the dark pattern rule for years — presents a major barrier for uptake. Plenty of people will deny tracking if they are actually asked about it (see, for e.g., the impact of Apple’s App Tracking Transparency requirement on third party iOS apps’ ability to track users).

So even if the telcos are allowed to build their ad targeting JV there’s no guarantee mobile users on their networks will agree to play ball.

Still, if this flies there could be a chance for brands to win web users over with a fresh approach. Being transparently up front about wanting to process people’s personal data for ads — and, potentially, also able to offer incentives for users to agree — offers an opportunity to do things differently vs a creepy status quo that can’t clearly explain how people’s data got sucked up, where it may have ended up, or what’s really been done with it.

An up-front approach could thus provide a route for savvier brands to deepen their relationships with loyal customers by making straightforward asks, not resorting to sneaky surveillance.

European carriers file to create joint venture for opt-in ad targeting of mobile users by Natasha Lomas originally published on TechCrunch

Dish-owned live TV streaming service Sling TV is looking to catch up with competitors with the launch of new features like user profiles and the promise of more changes to come in 2023. The company began quietly rolling out the user profiles feature just ahead of the Consumer Electronic Show last week, initially on Android TV and Fire TV devices, with support for more platforms in the near future.

Over the past several months, it’s also expanded its newer direct-to-consumer subscription integrations with the addition of discovery+, which joins 50 other services now available through Sling. And it’s made a Sports Scores feature available across Roku, Fire TV and Android TV devices.

Sports Scores has been rolling out to users since last year, making it easier to access scores from NFL, college football, NBA, NHL, and MLB games while continuing to watch live TV or on-demand programming. Meanwhile, Sling TV’s subscription lineup, which now nears 50 services, has been available since last August.

Combined with the rollout of user profiles (which had not yet been formally announced), the changes suggest a streamer that’s again trying to innovate to attract subscribers.

Though one of the early leaders in live TV streaming, having launched in 2015, Sling TV lost traction as newer services like Hulu with Live TV and YouTube TV arrived on the market. For the first three quarters last year, Sling TV faced subscriber losses, for example. However, the company more recently reversed that downward trend in its Q3 2022 earnings in November, when it reported a total of 2.41 million subscribers after 214,000 net additions. But this figure is still down from the 2.6 million subscribers Sling TV had in the third quarter of 2021, for comparison.

Sling TV needs to do more — and faster.

TechCrunch sat down with Sling TV EVP and Sling TV President, Gary Schanman, in an interview at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week, to find out what’s next for the service in the months ahead.

Sling TV parent Dish hired the industry vet last year, whose experience includes pay TV with roles at Spectrum, Charter and Cablevision (now Altice USA), and in the streaming space. Most recently, Schanman served as Chief Product Officer at Common Sense Networks, where he led the launch of the kid-safe streaming service Sensical. Now he hopes to revitalize the Sling TV brand.

“Over the next number of quarters, you’ll see a lot faster innovation of the product and the product set,” Schanman told TechCrunch. “When people join our company, we expect them to be creative and innovative and be all about winning. And so we’re starting to bring a lot more people into the company to help grow that,” he said.

The company is also looking at how it can better serve the different types of streamers and their needs in the year to come.

“We’re focused on helping consumers find, consume, and engage all the content they want. And we are comfortable with a variety of different types of consumers that have different needs. And that includes…people that keep our paid service – and they’re completely subscribed to all of our add-on packs. But it could also be people that come in for a period of time and want to watch some free content,” Schanman said.

“Free is a part of our thoughts about how we think about that engagement with the customer. We want a lifelong relationship with the subscriber where they see value in what we provide — and [free content is] a piece of that,” he added.

Schanman couldn’t specifically comment on what Sling TV has in mind around any sort of free streaming plans to come.

But overall, the streaming industry has shifted a lot of its focus in recent months to serving consumers free “live TV” channels, also known as FAST channels, which appear in a grid-like guide that feels more akin to a cable TV experience rather than ad-supported video on demand. Roku, for example, has launched FAST channels via itsLive TV Guide as has Amazon with Freevee, in addition to offerings from Pluto TV, Xumo and Plex. For some services, the idea is to lure in customers with free streaming — as Roku does via its free movies and TV hub, The Roku Channel — then upsell them paid streaming subscriptions.

Of course, if Sling TV were to go further down the free route, it could complicate its relationship with streaming media platforms, like Roku and Amazon, which want to direct consumers to their own free streaming products.

Beyond its plans to innovate on product, Schanman believes Sling TV has other advantages, including being simple and straightforward to use. He also touted the service’s reliability. It’s been a long time since “Game of Thrones” crashed its service, after all. But what Sling TV touts as simple could also be viewed as bare bones, depending on who you ask.

Still, the company believes that Sling TV’s bigger advantage is not necessarily the user interface, but how it organizes its programming into affordable le packages. Today, the streamer differentiates itself by way of a la carte programming packages that begin with a base subscription (Sling TV’s “Orange” or “Blue” packages) and various add-ons. Rival services, meanwhile, tend to bundle a larger number of channels into one offering, forcing subscribers to continually pay higher prices as new deals are forged.

“From the live TV perspective, we still have the best value in the market by far. We also have the most flexibility in the market. The truth is, you know, I think we’re a very pro-consumer customer offering. Most of our competitors are what I would call true one-for-one cable replacements, but they’re in some cases more expensive,” said Schanman.

The company plans to talk more about Sling TV’s affordability in the months to come, he said. That message is timely, as consumers are beginning to feel the financial impacts of having too many streaming choices and are facing a market where live TV plans are often no longer cheaper than traditional cable TV.

“We start at $40. So our flexibility and choice is a huge value proposition in the market,” the exec explained. “You can switch between packages any time you want. We have over six add-on packs that, when you add them on, are still less than what you’d have to pay on YouTube TV or Hulu TV,” he pointed out. “The more consumer choices there are, the more that our service has value in the market, because the share of wallet is challenged across the board,” Schanman said.

Sling TV rolls out user profiles, promises faster pace of innovation in 2023 by Sarah Perez originally published on TechCrunch

Apple Maps launched a new parking feature that provides users with parking options and availability near a specific destination. In partnership with the digital parking reservation platform, SpotHero, Apple Maps users across the U.S. and Canada can now get parking information for over 8,000 locations.

To use the new feature, launched late last week, iPhone and Mac users can search for a destination in the Apple Maps app and then select “More” and “Parking.” They’re then directed to the SpotHero website without leaving Apple Maps. Users can search for nearby parking and reserve a space using SpotHero’s secure payment options, the parking platform claims.

SpotHero also allows users to filter their search by date and time as well as parking spots with EV charging, wheelchair accessibility, valet services and more.

SpotHero, a Chicago-based company founded in 2011, connects drivers in more than 300 cities across North America to thousands of parking spaces. Its dataset of parking facility details, photos and reviews aims to help drivers find the best parking option available.

“We’re constantly identifying new ways to bring easy, affordable parking to drivers. Working with Apple Maps is one way we’re doing this. Through our new integration, Apple Maps users can discover SpotHero parking right in the Apple Maps on iPhone and Mac,” SpotHero CEO & Co-Founder Mark Lawrence told TechCrunch.

The SpotHero integration is a notable move for Apple and the multibillion-dollar parking industry as a whole. As of 2020, parking generated $131 Billion in direct revenue, according to the National Parking Association. However, less than 2% of parking is digitized. It’s important that major tech companies like Apple integrate parking technology into its apps. For instance, Google partnered with another parking platform, ParkMobile, to let users pay for parking using their voice.

The new feature also marks another step towards Apple’s goal of having Apple Maps be the go-to source for navigation. Apple Maps has launched a ton of upgrades in the past few years, including “multistop routing,” which lets users plan out their stops before they travel as well as more detailed maps, 3D view, AR experiences and more.

Apple Maps teams up with parking app SpotHero to give users access to 8K parking options by Lauren Forristal originally published on TechCrunch

In December, reports suggested that Microsoft had acquired Fungible, a startup fabricating a type of data center hardware known as a data processing unit (DPU), for around $190 million. Today, Microsoft confirmed the acquisition but not the purchase price, saying that it plans to use Fungible’s tech and team to deliver “multiple DPU solutions, network innovation and hardware systems advancements.”

“Fungible’s technologies help enable high-performance, scalable, disaggregated, scaled-out data center infrastructure with reliability and security,” Girish Bablani, the CVP of Microsoft’s Azure Core division, wrote in a blog post. “Today’s announcement further signals Microsoft’s commitment to long-term differentiated investments in our data center infrastructure, which enhances our broad range of technologies and offerings including offloading, improving latency, increasing data center server density, optimizing energy efficiency and reducing costs.”

A DPU is a dedicated piece of hardware designed to handle certain data processing tasks, including security and network routing for data traffic. The approach is intended to help reduce the load on CPUs and GPUs for core computing tasks related to a given workload.

Fungible was launched in 2016 by Bertrand Serlet, a former Apple software engineer who sold a cloud storage startup, Upthere, to Western Digital in 2017, alongside Krishna Yarlagadda and Jupiter Networks co-founder Pradeep Sindhu. Fungible sold DPUs that relied on two operating systems, one open source and the other proprietary, and a microprocessor architecture called MIPS to control flash storage volumes.

Fungible managed to raise over $300 million in venture capital prior to the Microsoft acquisition from investors including Softbank’s Vision Fund and Norwest Venture Partners. But its DPU architecture was difficult to develop for, reportedly, which might’ve affected its momentum. In August, after a rumored failed sale to Meta, the company revealed that it had laid off staff and was scaling back its product portfolio.

Increasing competition in the market for DPUs put pressure on Fungible, as well. Nvidia acquired DPU maker BlueField in 2019, while AMD snatched up Pensando late last year. Other rivals included GigaIO, Liqid, Lightbits, VMware’s Project Monterey and Amazon Web Services’ Nitro cards, which provide DPU-like functionality.

In Fungible, Microsoft gets DPU tech it could use to bolster Azure — perhaps by selling it as a subscription product or tiered service for block storage. It’s the second data center-centric acquisition in recent months for the tech giant, interestingly, following the purchase of high-speed fiber startup Lumenisity in December.

“The Fungible DPU was invented in 2016 to address the most significant problems in scale-out data centers: the inefficient execution of data-centric computations within server nodes,” Fungible wrote in a statement on its website. “We are proud to be part of a company that shares Fungible’s vision and will leverage the Fungible DPU and software to enhance its storage and networking offerings.”

The Fungible team will join Microsoft’s data center infrastructure engineering teams, Bablani said.

Microsoft acquires Fungible, a maker of data processing units, to bolster Azure by Kyle Wiggers originally published on TechCrunch

It may come as a surprise to some, but not every startup is clamoring to raise venture capital.

The reasons some founders shun the process of raising institutional funding vary based on individual circumstances. There are founders who don’t like the idea of giving up equity. Others don’t want to give up control of their operations and/or strategy. And there are many who want to hold on to both equity and control. Then there are those for whom raising venture capital is simply not as accessible, such as founders in emerging markets like Latin America.

There is no right or wrong way to grow a company. While some companies may stay bootstrapped forever, others decide after years of being in operation that maybe raising outside capital is not such a bad idea after all — especially if they are experiencing rapid growth.

Below are the stories of startups that were bootstrapped for years before going the M&A or venture route, as well as one that remains bootstrapped by choice:

These 5 companies bootstrapped their way to big businesses while VCs came knocking by Mary Ann Azevedo originally published on TechCrunch