Source: Engadget | Amazon wants to write the rules regulating facial recognition tech
Reviews and Gadgets
- Excessive pressure
- Placing objects like keys on the screen before folding
- Exposing the Fold to water or dust
- Adding your own screen protector to the existing screen protector
- Keeping the device next to easily deactivated objects like credit cards and implanted medical devices
MediaRadar CEO Todd Krizelman describes his company as having “a very specific objective, which is to help media salespeople sell more advertising” by providing them with crucial data. And with today’s launch of MediaRadar Events, Krizelman hopes to do something similar for event organizers.
These customer groups might actually be one and the same, as plenty of companies (including TechCrunch) see both advertising and events as part of their business. In fact, Krizelman said customer demand “basically pushed us into this business.
He also suggested that after years of seeing traditional ad dollars shifting into digital, “the money is now moving out of digital into events.”
If you’re organizing a trade show, you can use MediaRadar Events to learn about the overall size of the market, and then see who’s been purchasing sponsorships and exhibitor booths at similar events.
The product doesn’t just tell you who to reach out to, but how much these companies have paid for booths and sponsorships in the past, whether there are seasonal patterns in their conference spending and how that spending fits into their overall marketing budget — after all, Krizelman said, “In 2019, very few companies are siloed by media format as a buyer or a seller. Anyone doing that is putting their business at risk.”
He also described collecting the data needed to power MediaRadar Events as “much more complicated than we expected,” which is why it took the team two years to build the product. He said that data comes from three sources — some of it is posted publicly by event organizers, some is shared directly by the event organizers with MediaRadar and, in some cases, members of the MediaRadar team will attend the events themselves.
MediaRadar Events support a wide range of events, although Krizelman acknowledged that it doesn’t have data for every industry. For example, he suggested that a convention for coin-operated laundromat owners might be “too niche” (though he hastened to add that he meant no offense to the laundromat business).
In a statement, James Ogle — chief financial officer at Access Intelligence (which owns the LeadsCon conference and publications like AdExchanger) — said:
Hosting events and the resulting revenue that comes from them is a big part of our business. However, the event space is getting more and more crowded and also more niche. Relevancy equals value, so we want to make sure our attendees are within the right target market for our exhibitors. MediaRadar provides critical transparency into the marketplace.
Source: Tech Crunch Startups | MediaRadar’s new product helps event organizers maximize sales
Source: Engadget | Google shutters Bulletin, its hyperlocal news experiment
After passively watching for many years as tech giants developed dominant market positions that threaten consumer privacy and stifle competition, American antitrust regulators seem to have finally grasped what’s happening and decided to take action.
This increasing scrutiny, which tacitly acknowledges that Europe’s more proactive regulators were perhaps right all along, is helping unleash a wave of tech startups at the expense of big tech. By holding industry titans accountable over the privacy and use of our data, regulators are encouraging long overdue disruption of everything from back-end infrastructure to consumer services.
Over the past decade, Facebook, Google, Amazon and others have tightened their grip on their respective domains by buying up hundreds of smaller rivals, with little U.S. government opposition. But as their dominance has grown, and as egregious privacy violations and mishaps proliferate, regulators can no longer look the other way.
In recent months, American regulators have announced a flurry of new antitrust investigations into big technology companies. The Federal Trade Commission has voted to fine Facebook $5 billion for misusing consumer data, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee is probing the tech industry for antitrust violations and 50 attorneys general announced an antitrust probe into Google. U.S. officials are even considering establishing a digital watchdog agency.
It’s hard to understand why it took so long, though perhaps U.S. officials were loath to target domestic companies that were driving huge economic growth and creating millions of new jobs. In contrast, their counterparts across the pond have been on an antitrust tear under the watch of European Union antitrust commissioner (and now also EVP of digital affairs) Margrethe Vestager.
Now that regulators from both Europe and the United States are pursuing antitrust probes, they have exposed areas where startups can innovate.
Startups take on big tech
Source: Tech Crunch Startups | Europe shows the way in online privacy
Reviews and Gadgets
Sneaky tactics lead to millions of malware-laden Android app downloads
September 26, 2019
Source: Engadget | Sneaky tactics lead to millions of malware-laden Android app downloads
Gatsby, a platform that uses modern web technologies like React and GraphQL to help developers build better sites faster, today announced that it has raised a $15 million Series A round led by CRV. Previous investors Trinity Ventures, Mango Capital, Fathom Capital and Dig Ventures also participated, as did Kong CEO Augusto Marietti and Adobe CPO Scott Belsky. The company previously raised a $3.8 million seed round.
While Gatsby may not be a household name yet, it has grown quickly since its launch in 2015. Its users today include the likes of IBM, PayPal, Braun, Airbnb and Impossible Burger. The company argues that about 1% of the top 10,000 websites have now been built on top of the platform, which promises that it allows these companies to do away with their old LAMP stack and move to a more modern stack, based on modern open-source tools and engineering practices. Gatsby also does away with a monolithic CMS system and instead brings together a variety of tools that still allow content creators to use platforms like WordPress or Drupal to create what’s essentially a headless CMS system. In that case, Gatsby simply becomes the presentation layer for the CMS.
“We’ve spent four years building Gatsby to be the most comprehensive platform for building a modern website,” writes Gatsby founder and CEO Kyle Matthews. “What would take companies months or even years to implement with a cutting edge web stack is trivial to start with, build with, and deploy on Gatsby.”
Gatsby itself is based on the GatsbyJS open-source project. The company says more than 2,500 people have contributed since that project started. Matthews says Gatsby (the company) is now contributing about $3 million per year to open-source projects that include the core Gatsby tools and the plugin ecosystem around it.
Like similar open-source projects, Gatsby monetizes its tools by offering a hosted service that helps teams of developers stand up a new site quickly, with prices starting at $50/month for one site.
Source: Tech Crunch Startups | Gatsby raises M Series A for its modern web development platform
Source: Engadget | De Niro is in top form in Netflix's 'The Irishman' trailer
Samsung’s new rebooted Galaxy arrives this week with one job: it just needs to not break. I’d already spent thousands of words breaking down the ins and outs of the product the first time around. This round, on the other hand, was more about making sure everything worked.
Back in April, I was among the reviewers whose device worked perfectly well. I toted the original Fold around the Bay Area without a problem, much to the amusement of curious co-workers. Samsung collected the devices soon after, as it went back to the drawing board due to issues with other units, but mine remained fully in tact.
This time out, however, I wasn’t so lucky. I pulled the Fold from my pocket while standing in line at CVS after work the other day. I opened it up and spotted something new nestled between the lock screen’s flapping butterfly wings. There was a brightly colored, amorphous blob. You can see it there in the photo at the top of the story (as well as a zoomed-in version below). It’s not huge. It’s maybe just under a centimeter across — and it’s a bit tricky to photograph.
In the grand scheme of first-gen foldable display problems, this isn’t a huge one, judging by photos from those who’ve had issues with the first model. In that case, devices were sent back with an entire side blacked out (in many cases the result of peeling back a laminate that resembled the protective layer devices ship with). Still, it’s not a great look after about 27 hours with the device, considering that it wasn’t dropped on concrete, dunked in water or stepped on. And the placement smack dab in the center dampens the effect of a 7.3-inch screen.
If I had to guess, I’d say it was pressing the display to close the device that did it. Samsung has since collected the device and will be taking it apart (likely in Korea) to find out what went wrong. We’ll update accordingly.
We can’t say the company didn’t warn us. As I noted the other day, Samsung issued a video prior to launch, advising users to “Just use a light touch,” B/W the footnote, “Do not apply excessive pressure to it.” The Fold itself came with ample paperwork warning against:
There was nothing inside the device while folded. I didn’t get it wet or feed it after midnight, and there’s no visible damage to the laminate layer, so I can’t really say definitively what happened here. And while the screen is certainly still usable, I think I’d probably be…irked if I had just paid $2,000 for a handset and had to deal with a large, rainbow colored blob in the exact center of the screen.
Part of the white-glove service Samsung is rolling out here is a $149 screen replacement. We got a comment from Samsung on the matter, and it sounds like this particular issue might fall within normal use that wouldn’t require an additional fee. Here’s what the company has to say on the matter:
We have seen an enthusiastic response to the launch of the Galaxy Fold in several markets over the past few weeks, with thousands of consumers enjoying the unique experience it offers.
The Galaxy Fold is a first-of-its-kind device, made with new materials and technologies that allow it to open and close just like a book.
We encourage Galaxy Fold owners to read the care instructions included in the box and in the product manual available online. Products used within these guidelines are covered under warranty. If they have any questions, Galaxy Fold owners can consult with Samsung product specialists through the Galaxy Fold Premier Service any time, any day.
The “products used within these guidelines are covered under warranty” appears to be the pertinent bit here.
It’s hard to say how widespread these issues are. When the device officially goes on sale in North America on Friday, there will be significantly more of these in the wild, at which point we’ll know more definitively whether this was a very specific anomaly.
Anyone who reviews products for a living knows that these things can happen. I’ve had review headphones that sounded like electrified tin cans, only to swap them with the company for the real deal. Manufacturing defects can occur with review units and commercial products, alike. Generally, such things aren’t cause for concern (and manufacturing issues are usually covered by warranties), but in this case it’s certainly worth highlighting, given the first-gen product’s history with display issues.
We’ll certainly let you know how this shakes out and whether whatever conclusion Samsung ultimately reaches would fall under the warranty of the Fold’s fine print or whether users might want to budget an additional $149, just in case.
Source: Tech Crunch Mobiles | My Galaxy Fold display is damaged after a day
Tech News
App Annie acquires analytics firm Libring, bringing adtech-related insights to its platform
September 26, 2019App Annie, a go-to source for mobile app market data and analytics, is expanding its platform with the acquisition of mobile analytics provider Libring. The deal will allow App Annie to present its mobile app market data side by side with advertising analytics data in order to paint a more complete picture of an app’s performance and revenue.
Already, App Annie customers leverage its platform to track key metrics related to their app’s growth and usage, like downloads, active users, retention numbers, demographics, rankings, reviews, competitive analysis and more. But the company said it heard from publishers and brands how it’s still difficult to analyze their user acquisition efforts, including their ad spend and related costs.
This includes the ability to combine the ad spend and monetization insights from more than 325 data sources, including Supply Side Platforms (SSPs), Demand Side Platforms (DSPs), app stores and analytics platforms.
This data is then presented in a single dashboard so it’s easier to understand critical metrics — like the customer acquisition cost, the lifetime value, the return on ad spend and the return on investment.
It’s ideal for larger organizations that have outgrown the spreadsheet, as it’s been sort of the App Annie of revenue aggregation, so to speak.
“The most successful companies find a way to capitalize on mobile, yet they have been struggling to maximize its value to their business,” explained App Annie CEO Ted Krantz, in a statement about the acquisition. “Today, this requires custom work to stitch together multiple point solutions, spreadsheets, business intelligence teams, agencies and consultants. We are committed to solving this by applying data science and machine learning to automate these composite metrics for brands and publishers,” he said.
The deal comes at a time when mobile ad spend is continuing to grow rapidly — it’s expected to double to $375 billion globally by 2022, the company noted. It’s now a massive part of the overall app industry, at triple the amount of consumer spending on the app stores.
As a result of the deal, Libring’s 30-plus employees are joining App Annie.
In the near-term, Libring’s current customers will continue to use its product as they do today.
But App Annie tells us there’s only some overlap between the two companies’ respective customer bases. For now, App Annie will work with its customers who want to purchase the new analytics service and find out what sort of enhancements they are looking for in an analytics solution. Libring’s customers can also purchase App Annie’s analytics, if they choose.
Later, App Annie will migrate the Libring backend to the same infrastructure provider the rest of App Annie uses, and will then integrate the front-end so customers can log in and visualize the new analytics and other market data together. More information about how this will all work will be shared when those tools are closer to being available, which is still several months from now.
Going forward, App Annie says its data science team will also offer predictive and prescriptive insights based on the new data.
According to Libring’s website, its customers included SEGA, Slickdeals, Reddit, Jam City, Wooga, EA, Zynga, Next Games, Meet Me, GameInsight, Deviant Art, Webedia, Ubisoft, theChive, saambaa, badoo, textnow and others.
App Annie declined to disclose the deal terms.
Related to the changes and expansion, App Annie also today introduced a new brand that features a gem logomark. The gem is meant to be a tribute to mobile gaming and the idea of “leveling up” while also a reflection of the value of actionable data, the company says.
The acquisition comes on the heels of several notable milestones for App Annie, including the launch of a product development testing ground, App Annie Labs; plus the addition of mobile web analytics in March — the same time when App Annie passed $100 million in annual recurring revenue.
The company is soliciting feedback about its plans for Libring and will post updates about the project on App Annie Labs, it says.
Source: Tech Crunch Mobiles | App Annie acquires analytics firm Libring, bringing adtech-related insights to its platform
Reviews and Gadgets
Uber brings all of its services into a single app in new test
September 26, 2019
Source: Engadget | Uber brings all of its services into a single app in new test
