Monthly Archives: December 2020

News: Macron promotes European tech ecosystem in an interview with Zennström

• December 8, 2020
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French President Emmanuel Macron sat down with Niklas Zennström for an interview on the European tech ecosystem. Macron listed everything that’s needed to create European tech giants that compete with the biggest American and Chinese tech companies. According to him, Europe needs to focus on “financing, integration of our markets and an actual single market,

French President Emmanuel Macron sat down with Niklas Zennström for an interview on the European tech ecosystem. Macron listed everything that’s needed to create European tech giants that compete with the biggest American and Chinese tech companies.

According to him, Europe needs to focus on “financing, integration of our markets and an actual single market, regulation for privacy and technological innovation, and having European data, a European cloud and European technologies to be sure that we don’t depend on others,” Macron said.

Zennström founded Skype and is currently running prolific investment firm Atomico. As Zennström isn’t a reporter, he wasn’t particularly confrontational during the pre-recorded interview. Earlier today, his firm released its annual State of European Tech report and held a virtual conference that featured Macron’s interview.

In the report, you can see that French startups attracted over $5 billion in funding rounds in 2020. Macron listed some of the reasons why French startups have been growing, including the French Tech Visa, some tax reforms (flat tax on capital gains and the end of the wealth tax except on real estate), some private efforts to improve diversity, such as Station F and Ecole 42, etc.

But Zennström didn’t come to the Elysée Palace for Macron’s year-end performance review. Macron wants to foster a truly European tech ecosystem without borders. “We need European financing, European solutions, European talent. Now, when you look at the map, we have what we call the GAFA in the U.S., the BATX in China and GDPR in Europe,” Macron said.

“We have regulation, fair point. But we don’t have the equivalent of these very, very large caps,” he added.

According to him, it starts with European financing. Last year, the French government has convinced institutional investors to invest more heavily in late-stage tech companies. Other countries should follow suit to create more public tech companies in Europe.

Earlier this year, the French government unveiled an ambitious support plan for startups during the economic crisis. “It’s been copied by other European countries,” a source close to the president said.

But Macron doesn’t want to be the inspiration for other countries. He wants to position himself as the leader of a single European tech ecosystem.

“We need an actual European digital market. Today, a lot of entrepreneurs have to deal with 27 regulations. This why the different directives arriving in the coming weeks, around mid-December — for digital services and digital markets — are critical,” he said.

And yet, the current economic crisis has shown us that European governments all have their own stimulus plans. In Europe, when it comes to taking ambitious economic decisions, it’s hard to find common ground. Let’s see if the same is true with tech ecosystems.

News: Despite the pandemic, small business optimism persists

• December 8, 2020
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This year has taken a toll on so many small businesses, yet the data shows the entrepreneurial spirit remains strong with a drive to push onward, improve and succeed.

Businesses and consumers alike are finding ways to adapt and stay resilient during these unprecedented times. Though recovery may take time, a new report confirms the strength of entrepreneurialism and grit of small business owners, who remain optimistic that their businesses will overcome any present and future obstacle with the right resources and preparedness.

In the inaugural American Express Entrepreneurial Spirit Trendex, which polled 1,000 small and midsized businesses, revealed notable insights about the entrepreneurial spirit in the United States. Even amidst the pandemic, the survey showed 75% of small business owners are optimistic about their business’s recovery and 82% feel that they are better prepared to handle a future crisis.

They continue to believe in their business and pursuing what they love. Of those surveyed, 81% believe the benefits of owning their own business outweigh the challenges, including financial stability, being their own boss, turning their passion project into a business and flexibility to set their own hours. The study uncovered more insights showing the current mindset of small businesses.

Small businesses are actively seeking advice

In order to successfully navigate these unprecedented times, business owners are searching for resources that can properly aid them. Businesses are actively seeking virtual business conferences and webinars (47%), virtual networking events (44%), advice and resources about leading through a crisis (44%) and learning ways to destress and stay mindful (42%).

Cash flow is top of mind

No surprise during an economic crisis, over 81% of business owners are prioritizing cash flow management and are identifying ways to cut back spending and increase sales, namely by moving services online. The survey found the top activities are:

• Increasing marketing efforts (41%).
• Increasing products/services online (40%).
• Cutting expenses (36%).
• Diversifying revenue streams (35%).

Pivot, then repeat

It would be difficult to find a small business that didn’t need to adapt their operations in some form due to the pandemic. It was the year of pivots for so many, and the survey finds the trend will continue into next year.

According to the data, 76% of business owners have pivoted or are in the process of pivoting their business model to maintain revenue, and among those that already pivoted, 73% expect to pivot again in the next year. Staying nimble to meet the demand of new market needs and demands is crucial to maintaining the health of your business, whether there is a pandemic or not.

Taking a stand

Aside from navigating the pandemic, business owners are also facing a historic moment in the fight for racial justice. Many business owners (43%) are fighting for change through public statements against racial injustice or monetary contributions to a racial justice organizations.

Business owners are also making change within their organizations, as 73% of those surveyed aim to increase diversity in the workplace. Top-of-mind actions include:

• Completely changing their company culture to make diverse employees feel more included (54%).
• Changing their hiring and recruiting processes (47%).
• Making measurable commitments to addressing racial injustice in the future (47%).

This year has taken a toll on so many small businesses, yet the data shows the entrepreneurial spirit remains strong with a drive to push onward, improve and succeed. The full report from American Express is available here.

News: Former Salesforce chief scientist announces new search engine to take on Google

• December 8, 2020
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Richard Socher, former chief scientist at Salesforce, who helped build the Einstein artificial intelligence platform, is taking on a new challenge — and it’s a doozy. Socher wants to fix consumer search and today he announced you.com, a new search engine to take on the mighty Google. “We are building you.com. You can already go

Richard Socher, former chief scientist at Salesforce, who helped build the Einstein artificial intelligence platform, is taking on a new challenge — and it’s a doozy. Socher wants to fix consumer search and today he announced you.com, a new search engine to take on the mighty Google.

“We are building you.com. You can already go to it today. And it’s a trusted search engine. We want to work on having more click trust and less clickbait on the internet,” he said. He added that in addition to trust, he wants it to be built on kindness and facts, three worthy but difficult goals to achieve.

He said that there were several major issues that led him and his co-founders to build a new search tool. For starters, he says that there is too much information and nobody can possibly process it all. What’s more, as you find this information, it’s impossible to know what you can trust as accurate, and he believes that issue is having a major impact on society at large. Finally, as we navigate the internet in 2020, the privacy question looms large as is how you balance the convenience-privacy trade-off.

He believes his background in AI can help in a consumer-focused search tool. For starters the search engine, while general in nature, will concentrate on complex consumer purchases where you have to open several tabs to compare information.

“The biggest impact thing we can do in our lives right now is to build a trusted search engine with AI and natural language processing superpowers to help everyone with the various complex decisions of their lives, starting with complex product purchases, but also being general from the get go as well,” he said.

While Socher was light on details, preferring to wait until GA in a couple of months to share some more, he said he wants to differentiate from Google by not relying on advertising and what you know about the user. He said he learned from working with Marc Benioff at Salesforce that you can make money and still build trust with the people buying your product.

He certainly recognizes that it’s tough to take on an entrenched incumbent, but he and his team believe that by building something they believe is fundamentally different, they can undermine the incumbent with a classic “Innovator’s Dilemma” kind of play where they’re doing something that is hard for Google to reproduce without undermining their primary revenue model.

He also sees Google running into antitrust issues moving forward and that could help create an opening for a startup like this. “I think, a lot of stuff that Google [has been doing], I think with the looming antitrust will be somewhat harder for them to get away with on a continued basis,” he said.

He acknowledges that trust and accuracy elements could get tricky as social networks have found out. Socher hinted at some social sharing elements they plan to build into the search tool including allowing you to have your own custom you.com URL with your name to facilitate that sharing.

Socher said he has funding and a team together working actively on the product, but wouldn’t share how much or how many employees at this point. He did say that Benioff and venture capitalist Jim Breyer are primary backers and he would have more information to share in the coming months.

For now, if you’re interested, you can go to the website and sign up for early access.

News: GitHub gets a dark mode

• December 8, 2020
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It’s GitHub Universe week and unsurprisingly, the ubiquitous code management service is announcing a slew of updates. Companies can now become GitHub Sponsors and invest in open-source projects by paying developers directly, there is automatic merging of pull requests (if that’s your thing), discussions for all public repositories and the beta of dependency reviews. GitHub

It’s GitHub Universe week and unsurprisingly, the ubiquitous code management service is announcing a slew of updates. Companies can now become GitHub Sponsors and invest in open-source projects by paying developers directly, there is automatic merging of pull requests (if that’s your thing), discussions for all public repositories and the beta of dependency reviews. GitHub is also making some updates to its continuous delivery features.

That’s all good and well, but let’s face it: you came here to see GitHub’s new dark mode.

Here it is:

Image Credits: GitHub

“Dark mode may offer respite from the visual overstimulation of a bright screen or simply give you a more consistent development experience across your text editor, IDE, and terminal. Whether you like your screen bright or if you want to feel like Mr. Robot in dark mode, it’s your choice in how you experience GitHub. Enable dark mode from your settings or set it to track your system preferences,” the company says. That sums it up pretty well.

News: Hear the latest from Kayhan Space and Firehawk Aerospace at TC Sessions: Space

• December 8, 2020
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TC Sessions: Space is happening next week (December 16-17), and as well as talking to some of the biggest names in the industry, we’ll be highlighting a few of the most interesting startups as well. Kayhan Space aims to coordinate the increasingly crowded lower orbits, and Firehawk Aerospace has a new approach to rocketry that

TC Sessions: Space is happening next week (December 16-17), and as well as talking to some of the biggest names in the industry, we’ll be highlighting a few of the most interesting startups as well. Kayhan Space aims to coordinate the increasingly crowded lower orbits, and Firehawk Aerospace has a new approach to rocketry that could lead to far more inexpensive launches.

We had Firehawk on stage (virtually) at Disrupt to compete in the Startup Battlefield, where they were among the finalists. The chief advance of the company is taking the concept of hybrid rockets and supercharging it with 3D-printed fuel. Instead of a reservoir of liquid, solid, or a combination of fuels, Firehawk prints the solid fuel with a “highly engineered internal structure” that makes it both more reliable and more powerful. It also simplifies the engine itself, which only has 12 parts.

Will Edwards is CEO and co-founder of Firehawk, and this is his first aerospace company — he went to law school then worked in the software and HR industries before meeting his co-founder and CTO, Ronald Jones. They formed Firehawk and are currently assembling a 5,000 LBF thrust engine to be tested at Stennis Space Center.

Kayhan Space is a data-based endeavor, the brainchild of Iranian childhood friends Araz Feyzi and Siamak Hesar. Kayhan, which came through Techstars’ virtual accelerator, aims to be nothing less than air traffic control for space. Satellites are proliferating, of course, and the next few years will see thousands more added to the crowd. How are they all tracked, and how will companies and organizations using different systems know if their satellites are in danger of colliding or otherwise interfering with each other?

Feyzi, Kayhan’s CTO, will talk with us about Kayhan’s approach to tracking satellites and how they aim to break into a market that is just now beginning to take off. With $600K in pre-seed funding, they’re just getting started as well.

In order to hear from these experts, you’ll need to pick up your ticket to TC Sessions: Space, which will also include video on demand for all sessions, which means you won’t have to miss a minute of expert insight, tips and trend spotting from the top founders, investors, technologists, government officials and military minds across public, private and defense sectors. There are even discounts for groups, students and military/government officials.

You’ll find panel discussions, interviews, fireside chats and interactive Q&As on a range of topics: mineral exploration, global mapping of the Earth from space, deep tech software, defense capabilities, 3D-printed rockets and the future of agriculture and food technology. Don’t miss the breakout sessions dedicated to accessing grant money. Explore the event agenda now and get a jump on organizing your schedule.

News: Christopher Nolan calls HBO Max the ‘worst streaming service’

• December 8, 2020
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So, how are filmmakers reacting to the news that Warner Bros. will be releasing all of next year’s movies on HBO Max at the same time that they’re released in theaters? Not too well, according to a story published yesterday in The Hollywood Reporter. While the story includes plenty of anonymous commentary (mostly from agents),

So, how are filmmakers reacting to the news that Warner Bros. will be releasing all of next year’s movies on HBO Max at the same time that they’re released in theaters? Not too well, according to a story published yesterday in The Hollywood Reporter.

While the story includes plenty of anonymous commentary (mostly from agents), the most incendiary quote comes in a statement provided by director Christopher Nolan, in which he called the recently-launched HBO Max “the worst streaming service”:

Some of our industry’s biggest filmmakers and most important movie stars went to bed the night before thinking they were working for the greatest movie studio and woke up to find out they were working for the worst streaming service. Warner Bros. had an incredible machine for getting a filmmaker’s work out everywhere, both in theaters and in the home, and they are dismantling it as we speak. They don’t even understand what they’re losing. Their decision makes no economic sense, and even the most casual Wall Street investor can see the difference between disruption and dysfunction.

On one level, Nolan’s comments aren’t too surprising, since he’s been one of Hollywood’s staunchest advocates for the theatrical movie experience. But Nolan’s words are remarkably direct and incendiary a director who’s generally reserved in his public comments — yes, he once criticized Netflix for its “bizarre aversion to supporting theatrical films,” but he later apologized for being “undiplomatic.”

And in this case, Nolan isn’t just criticizing a rival studio. He’s taking aim at the company that’s distributed nearly all of his films, including this year’s “Tenet” (a movie whose disappointing box office performance, particularly in the U.S., likely prompted the studios to delay their big releases yet again, and to consider streaming distribution more seriously).

While Nolan was one of the few people willing to criticize Warner’s decision on-the-record, The Hollywood Reporter suggests that the producers, directors and stars behind next year’s Warner Bros. slate were all blindsided by the announcement.

One particular concern is financial compensation, with deals usually tied to a film’s performance in the theatrical box office. The filmmakers and star of “Wonder Woman 1984” will reportedly receive “tens of millions” for bringing their film to HBO Max, but the talent behind Warner’s other movies might not be compensated at the same level.

And there could even be legal repercussions. Variety is reporting that Legendary Entertainment, the production company that co-financed next year’s Warner releases “Dune” and “Godzilla vs. Kong,” is considering suing the studio over its plans.

News: Researchers say hardcoded passwords in GE medical imaging devices could put patient data at risk

• December 8, 2020
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Dozens of medical imaging devices built by General Electric are secured with hardcoded default passwords that can’t be easily changed, but could be exploited to access sensitive patient scans, according to new findings by security firm CyberMDX. The researchers said that an attacker would only need to be on the same network to exploit a

Dozens of medical imaging devices built by General Electric are secured with hardcoded default passwords that can’t be easily changed, but could be exploited to access sensitive patient scans, according to new findings by security firm CyberMDX.

The researchers said that an attacker would only need to be on the same network to exploit a vulnerable device, such as by tricking an employee into opening an email with malware. From there, the attacker could use those unchanged hardcoded passwords to obtain whatever patient data was left on the device or disrupt the device from operating properly.

CyberMDX said X-ray machines, CT and MRI scanners, and ultrasound and mammography devices are among the affected devices.

GE uses hardcoded passwords to remotely maintain the devices. But Elad Luz, head of research at CyberMDX, said some customers were not aware that their devices had vulnerable devices. Luz described the passwords as “hardcoded,” because although they can be changed, customers have to rely on a GE engineer to change the passwords on-site.

The vulnerability has also prompted an alert by Homeland Security’s cybersecurity advisory unit, CISA. Customers of affected devices should contact GE to change the passwords.

Hannah Huntly, a spokesperson for GE Healthcare, said in a statement: “We are not aware of any incident where this potential vulnerability has been exploited in a clinical situation. We have conducted a full risk assessment and concluded that there is no patient safety concern. Maintaining the safety, quality, and security of our devices is our highest priority.”

It’s the latest find by the New York-based healthcare cybersecurity startup. Last year the startup also reported vulnerabilities in other GE equipment, which the company later admitted could have led to patient injury after initially clearing the device for use.

CyberMDX, which works primarily to secure medical devices and improve hospital network security through its cyber intelligence platform while conducting security research on the side, raised $20 million earlier this year, just a month into the COVID-19 pandemic.

News: Google opens its Fuchsia operating system to outside developers

• December 8, 2020
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For the longest time, Google’s new Fuchsia operating system remained a bit of a mystery — with little information in terms of the company’s plans for it, even as the team behind it brought the code to GitHub under a standard open-source license. These days, we know that it’s Google’s first attempt at developing a

For the longest time, Google’s new Fuchsia operating system remained a bit of a mystery — with little information in terms of the company’s plans for it, even as the team behind it brought the code to GitHub under a standard open-source license. These days, we know that it’s Google’s first attempt at developing a completely new kernel and general purpose operating system that promises to be more than just an experiment (or a retention project to keep senior engineers from jumping ship). For the most part, though, Google has remained pretty mum about the subject.

It seems like Google is ready to start talking about Fuchsia a bit more now. The company today announced that it is expanding the Fuchsia open-source community and opening it up to contributions from the public. Typically, companies start opening up their open-source projects to outside contributors once they feel they have achieved a stable foundation that others can build on.

“Starting today, we are expanding Fuchsia‘s open source model to make it easier for the public to engage with the project,” the team writes. “We have created new public mailing lists for project discussions, added a governance model to clarify how strategic decisions are made, and opened up the issue tracker for public contributors to see what’s being worked on. As an open source effort, we welcome high-quality, well-tested contributions from all. There is now a process to become a member to submit patches, or a committer with full write access.”

Google is also publishing a technical roadmap for Fuchsia, with a driver framework, file system performance and expanding the input pipeline for accessibility at the top of the list.

The company also specifically notes that Fuchsia is not ready for general product development or even as a development target. Anybody with the right technical chops can clone the repository and build the code, though. Google already provides quite a bit of documentation around how to do that today, as well as an emulator.

Google also notes that it aims to build an include open source community around the project. “Fuchsia is an open source project that is inclusive by design, from the architecture of the platform itself, to the open source community that we’re building. The project is still evolving rapidly, but the underlying principles and values of the system have remained relatively constant throughout the project.”

News: YouTube launches HDR support for live streams

• December 8, 2020
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YouTube in 2016 added support for HDR (high-dynamic range) videos on its platform, allowing cretators to upload videos offering higher contrast, more accurate shadows and highlights, a wider range of colors, and, overall improved image quality. Today, the company announced it’s now bringing HDR support to live streamed videos, too. This will make YouTube the

YouTube in 2016 added support for HDR (high-dynamic range) videos on its platform, allowing cretators to upload videos offering higher contrast, more accurate shadows and highlights, a wider range of colors, and, overall improved image quality. Today, the company announced it’s now bringing HDR support to live streamed videos, too. This will make YouTube the first major platform to support live HDR streams, it says.

The support will be available to creators using a supported encoder, while the HDR videos themselves can be played back on the latest Android mobile devices or on HDR-capable smart TVs or streaming sticks. Google’s own Chromecast, of course, supports HDR content. And the company had announced HDR playback on Android mobile devices back in 2017, so that’s not unexpected either.

When HDR first launched on YouTube, it was only offered to select YouTube channels at first. But the support for live streaming in HDR will be immediately available to any YouTube creator who wants to give it a try. Over time, YouTube says it will work to improve the experience, by allowing creators to stream HDR from additional encoders and mobile devices.

The new HDR support for live video content points to YouTube’s interest in better supporting the TV platform.

During the pandemic, YouTube said its service, as well as its live TV streaming service YouTube TV, saw an uptick in viewing on the big screen. As stay-at-home directives went into place, YouTube saw overall watch time on the TV screen jump 80% year-over-year in March. Also that month, YouTube content accounted for 41% of ad-supported video on demand streaming time on U.S. TVs, it said during its Brandcast event. YouTube usage on the TV, meanwhile, jumped to around 450 million hours per day up from 250 million hours in 2018.

Live-streamed video consumption increased during the early days of the pandemic, too. According to YouTube’s pitch to advertisers, live-streamed media via TV grew 250% globally from March 11 to April 10, 2020. It also noted that casted content watch time increased 75% year-over-year during this time frame.

By offering HDR live streams, YouTube can make a better pitch to advertisers to shift more of their dollars over to its platform from traditional pay TV networks — even if HDR viewing on YouTube’s platform remains more limited.

YouTube says HDR support is available as of today.

News: AWS announces SageMaker Clarify to help reduce bias in machine learning models

• December 8, 2020
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As companies rely increasingly on machine learning models to run their businesses, it’s imperative to include anti-bias measures to ensure these models are not making false or misleading assumptions. Today at AWS re:Invent, AWS introduced Amazon SageMaker Clarify to help reduce bias in machine learning models. “We are launching Amazon SageMaker Clarify. And what that

As companies rely increasingly on machine learning models to run their businesses, it’s imperative to include anti-bias measures to ensure these models are not making false or misleading assumptions. Today at AWS re:Invent, AWS introduced Amazon SageMaker Clarify to help reduce bias in machine learning models.

“We are launching Amazon SageMaker Clarify. And what that does is it allows you to have insight into your data and models throughout your machine learning lifecycle,” Bratin Saha, Amazon VP and general manager of machine learning told TechCrunch.

He says that it is designed to analyze the data for bias before you start data prep, so you can find these kinds of problems before you even start building your model.

“Once I have my training data set, I can [look at things like if I have] an equal number of various classes, like do I have equal numbers of males and females or do I have equal numbers of other kinds of classes, and we have a set of several metrics that you can use for the statistical analysis so you get real insight into easier data set balance,” Saha explained.

After you build your model, you can run SageMaker Clarify again to look for similar factors that might have crept into your model as you built it. “So you start off by doing statistical bias analysis on your data, and then post training you can again do analysis on the model,” he said.

There are multiple types of bias that can enter a model due to the background of the data scientists building the model, the nature of the data and how they data scientists interpret that data through the model they built. While this can be problematic in general it can also lead to racial stereotypes being extended to algorithms. As an example, facial recognition systems have proven quite accurate at identifying white faces, but much less so when it comes to recognizing people of color.

It may be difficult to identify these kinds of biases with software as it often has to do with team makeup and other factors outside the purview of a software analysis tool, but Saha says they are trying to make that software approach as comprehensive as possible.

“If you look at SageMaker Clarify it gives you data bias analysis, it gives you model bias analysis, it gives you model explainability it gives you poor inference explainability it gives you a global explainability,” Saha said.

Saha says that Amazon is aware of the bias problem and that is why it created this tool to help, but he recognizes that this tool alone won’t eliminate all of the bias issues that can crop up in machine learning models, and they offer other ways to help too.

“We are also working with our customers in various ways. So we have documentation, best practices, and we point our customers to how to be able to architect their systems and work with the system so they get the desired results,” he said.

SageMaker Clarify is available starting to day in multiple regions.