Yearly Archives: 2020

News: MIT Media Lab names Dava Newman as new director

MIT’s famous Media Lab, the multidisciplinary idea factory that produces many a fascinating invention and influential thinker, has found a new director in its backyard after scouring the globe for candidates. Dava Newman, MIT professor of aeronautics and astronautics and former deputy administrator of NASA under Obama, will helm the intellectual hub. The Media Lab

MIT’s famous Media Lab, the multidisciplinary idea factory that produces many a fascinating invention and influential thinker, has found a new director in its backyard after scouring the globe for candidates. Dava Newman, MIT professor of aeronautics and astronautics and former deputy administrator of NASA under Obama, will helm the intellectual hub.

The Media Lab is famed for its freewheeling techno-intellectual prowess, but for more than a year has been leaderless following the resignation of former head Joi Ito. Ito resigned when it was discovered that billionaire and alleged child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein had given funding and reportedly received special treatment and access to the Media Lab under his leadership.

The ensuing leadership search no doubt looked for, if not exactly new blood (Newman has been involved with MIT for decades) then certainly a break from the past. Out of 60 candidates, they interviewed 13 and ended up picking Newman for a variety of reasons.

“In a field of outstanding candidates, Professor Newman stood out for her pioneering research, wide range of multidisciplinary engagements, and exemplary leadership. She is a designer, a thinker, a maker, an engineer, an educator, a mentor, a convener, a communicator, a futurist, a humanist and, importantly, an optimist,” wrote Dean Hashim Sarkis in a letter announcing the appointment.

Coincidentally (or is it?), Newman just last week was a speaker at TC Sessions: Space, where she seemed to give a preview of her new responsibilities talking about the importance of inclusion in major efforts like NASA’s Artemis.

“It’s going to bring the scientists and engineers together, but we need the artists, we need the designers, they’re the visionaries,” she said. (If you missed the event, you can watch this and all our other panels on Extra Crunch.)

Newman seems to be starting off the job by emphasizing one of the best qualities a leader should have: listening to the people she’ll be leading.

“I plan to start by doing a lot of listening and learning,” she said in the MIT announcement. “I like to meet people where they are, and to encourage them to put all their great ideas on the table. I think that’s the best way to go forward, working with the whole community — faculty, students and staff — to tap into everyone’s creativity. I can’t wait to get started.”

News: Gift Guide: TechCrunch’s Favorite Things of 2020

It goes without saying, but 2020 was a bad year for a lot of people. For many, it was a year of stress, of sadness, and anxiety. It was a year of missing friends and family; of just getting to the next day, even as each day seemed to blur into the last. As we’ve

It goes without saying, but 2020 was a bad year for a lot of people.

For many, it was a year of stress, of sadness, and anxiety. It was a year of missing friends and family; of just getting to the next day, even as each day seemed to blur into the last.

As we’ve done at the end of each of the past few years, we invited our team to look back and highlight some of their “favorite things” — the things that, as we look back from the depths of December, put smiles on our faces, or helped us pass the time, or taught us some new skill. Most years this question feels like “What made your year better?” This year it felt more like “… What made your year suck less?”

Our definition of “things” on this list has always been incredibly fuzzy by design. “Things” can be whatever makes sense to the writer. “Things” can be podcasts, or songs, or movies, or people, or concepts. Some of these things are new to the world in 2020. Others are things that have been around for years (decades, even!), but popped back up in our lives this year. Whatever the case, we hope you find some inspiration; some new thread to pull, some new song to sing, or some new thing to love.


Zack Whittaker, Security Editor

WBGO 88.3FM

As a kid I used to fall asleep listening to the late-night talk show radio shows from my bedroom in England. These days I’m all about WBGO, a New Jersey public radio station broadcast from Times Square. It plays jazz all day, every day, and that’s about it. Jazz doesn’t want to talk about politics around the dinner table or post anti-vax conspiracy theories to Facebook. It’s perfect escapism from the news firehose. We have WBGO playing quietly on the radio in the kitchen throughout the day. And since it’s an easy listen, I often put it on as I work from my desk. I even bought a HomePod mini as an early Christmas treat so I can listen all day long.

Cross-stitching

Image Credits: Zack Whittaker

The TV dried up pretty early on and there wasn’t much else to do, so I took up cross-stitching. It’s easy to learn — similar to a Paint by Numbers but with sewing — and requires little skill so it’s ideal for me. It’s a fantastic way to wind down and forget about the actual dumpster fire of a year it’s been.


Natasha Mascarenhas, Reporter

Call Your Girlfriend (Podcast)

Image Credits: Call Your Girlfriend

In a year where every relationship is a long distance relationship, Call Your Girlfriend has been a must-listen podcast. It’s been running since 2014, but I only picked it up this year because I was looking for ways to think about adult friendships that are platonic. I think the topics put a lot of coronavirus fatigue into eloquent context, such as consent conversations when people have different risk tolerances, how to find joy in this time, the science behind friendship. The show, co-hosted by Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman, describes itself as a “podcast for long-distance besties everywhere.” I’d add that it’s an exhale during a time where all of us are very, sometimes subconsciously, tense.

Graffeo coffee

San Francisco’s Graffeo Coffee is one of North Beach’s remaining treasures. The little coffee roaster was my bi-weekly stop during my quarantine sanity walks all throughout this year. And I still order the beans even though I’m not in SF anymore! Good people, small business, and get the beans whole and dark roasted.


Brian Heater, Hardware Editor

Waxahatchee Saint Cloud

Image Credits: Waxahatchee

Not to put too fine a point on it, but music might have saved my life this year. And thankfully there were some terrific albums this year — Lomelda, Thundercat, Denzel Curry, Open Mike Eagle and Death Valley Girls to name a few. But Waxahatchee’s latest was just a huge ray of country twang-infused pop-indie folk. Start with “Fire” and go from there.

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

Some things are worth revisiting throughout life. They’ll never change, but the lives we’ve led can’t help but profoundly impact our relationship to them. It’s been said that Moby Dick holds the secrets to the universe within its 135 chapters. But while Melville may have laid the groundwork for such revelation, it’s clear he couldn’t make heads or tails of the results. Moby Dick is a singular work in American literature. It’s profoundly strange and funny and disjoined and beautiful and sad. It’s also wildly, wildly weird. It’s a perfect quarantine companion.

Orba by Ariphon

Image Credits: Brian Heater

I’d been waiting to play with Artiphon’s Orba since meeting with the company back at CES 2020 (those weird and wild days when we used to jam humans into a room to look at products). The $99 gadget is probably the closest I’ve come so far to a device that can foster music creation among the non-musical. It’s also a terrific little time killer and great for blowing off a bit of steam between meetings.

Lodge 49

Maybe Lodge 49 is an uncynical critique of a deeply cynical time. It’s a goddamn ray of sunshine in a dark moment that was, naturally, too beautiful to live. Perhaps the (cancelled) AMC show is an inadvertent object lesson in appreciating what we had, rather than lamenting what we lost. Maybe some day it will return as a one-off Netflix season or a Kickstarter movie when everyone is on-board with the show three years from now and we’ll all be excited while bemoaning the fact that it just couldn’t capture the magic of the original.


Neesha A. Tambe, Startup Battlefield Editor and Head of Community

1-min dance parties

With very high risk parents and a doctor brother the COVID fear starts to settle in your bones. To keep the sad panda at bay, I started to do one minute dance parties in the morning. Just me and Spotify on random – no judgement, no expectations, just movement. If it feels hard to get started, start with your big toe and watch the good vibes start to flow 🙂 A little free and crazy dancing to start the day makes for a bright and beautiful day.

Baking

With the privilege of working from home, I’ve gotten very much into baking and cooking. I love love gifting cooked and baked goods – fresh bread, brownies, pumpkin tarts, sauces, soups etc. to my friends. It’s amazing how a little gift of food always brings an immediate smile to the faces of the people we care about! (Esp. if they are vegan lol)

Digital Phone Banking

It’s clear that we need to remain actively engaged to keep our democracy strong. I’m extremely grateful for digital autodialers that allow me to advocate for those that most need the support without actually having to be in specific place or outside. Not only is it our duty, but it makes me feel good to know that I am making a difference in my small way helping folks make it to the polls. It’s so fun to talk to people all across the country and connect with them on the humanitarian issues that matter most. Yay democracy!


Devin Coldewey, Writer

Picross/Nonograms

In a year when seemingly nothing was as it should be, I discovered the puzzle genre that I’ve been looking for all my life — and apparently it has been around just as long. Filling in the rows and columns according to the provided numbers is simple and peaceful, yet occupies my mind almost completely, allowing a safe, mobile dissociation from the perils of real life. The best one I’ve found is Konami’s Pixel Puzzle collection, which is free, easy to use, and has fun pixel art from retro games.

Tenet

Image Credits: Warner Bros.

Christopher Nolan’s latest isn’t the best movie I saw this year, but as with Inception, no one even tries to make movies like this except him, and I marvel at the pure plate-spinning audacity of his filmmaking. Maybe you think it’s pseudo-intellectual wankery, but… well, perhaps it is. But it’s a prime example of the species.

Hyori’s Bed & Breakfast

Image Credits: Netflix

After the heartbreak and disillusionment of Terrace House’s tragic end, we needed another gentle reality show showcasing the ordinary (yet still strange to me) everday lives of people in another country. I found Hyori’s Bed & Breakfast very late and it has filled the gap (though another Korean entry, Three Meals a Day, is also worthy). Featuring a retired pop star and her husband as they attempt to convert their home to a B&B, it’s funny, weird, and full of dogs and genuine human moments.


Henry Pickavet, Editorial Director

GT’s Strawberry Serenity Kombucha

Image Credits: GT’s Kombucha

I cannot leave a grocery store without scouring the beverage section for kombucha. And not just any kombucha. The sweet red label of a GT’s Strawbery Serenity kombucha must be in stock and ready for pillaging or it would have been a wasted trip. I have a problem. Signed, The Kombucha Bandit of Sacramento.

Willow.tv

Image Credits: Robert Cianflone / Getty Images

When I left Australia in 2010 after having lived there for three years, I brought back with me a love of cricket. Time zones, as well as virtually no one in the States to discuss it with, made it hard for me to keep track of what was happening on pitches all over the world. My subscription to Willow.tv almost fixes all of that. I’m still facing some sleepless nights as Australia takes on India in the summer tour Down Under, but at least I can watch it live.


Natasha Lomas, Senior Reporter

Fitness Blender

Image Credits: Fitness Blender

With many months of 2020 spent confined almost entirely to a one-bed apartment, with all gyms closed and a total ban on going outdoors for exercise, staying fit has required some changing up of the usual routines. To wit: I’ve found Fitness Blender’s gimmick-free training videos a total god-send. Now I almost look forward to HIIT! Thanks so much guys. Plus one more (related) positive vibe this year: My favorite yoga teacher, who lives in another city, started doing Zoom classes remotely — truly a silver lining to 2020’s virtual everything. Thx Chloe!

UberTape

Image Credits: Natasha Lomas

No, not a surveillance camera for safely riding in Ubers — UberTape is a brand of kinesiology tape that’s been another saving grace in an injury-prone year when I also discovered some new and unfun skin sensitivities (happily this tape is “hypoallergenic and latex free”).

What actually is kinesiology tape? It’s support tape for joints and muscle. I was introduced to it by my physiotherapist and can confirm it has made the difference between being able to train pain-free or not. It’s miraculous stuff — so long as you position it correctly (with the right amount of stretching). So whether 2020 has hit you with achilles tendonitis, shin splints, plantar fasciitis, tennis elbow or runners knee — and this year has surely hit most of us with some new and unusual injury (and plenty more besides) — I’m happy to report a little stretchy tape goes a long way. So thanks, UberTape, for helping make 2020 a little less painful.

The Wire (again)

I first watched The Wire about ten years ago when it was first screened on UK terrestrial TV. I remember taking a while to sink into it at first — Baltimore gang slang was pretty exotic (to a Brit) back then — but after a few episodes we were hooked on McNulty, D’Angelo, Omar & crew just like McNulty is hooked on Jameson and cheap bar thrills. The full five seasons were duly consumed and judged an incomparable master work.

A decade on and our 24/7 connected world is now one gigantic phone-enabled wiretap. (Nor do any of the mega corporations surveilling our every blink have a proper legal base, much like Lester didn’t for that last wiretap. Tsk.) The show was also prescient in pointing out the fragile business of reporting truth vs the tacky lure of fake news. Truly ahead of its time — before you even start in on the marvelous cast of characters and intricate societal portrait, showing how corrupt, stupid, vindictive, self-interested decisions by a handful of people in positions of power trickle down, again and again, wreaking misery on the next generation and condemning the already vulnerable to yet more suffering.

Rewatching The Wire at the end of 2020 has, fittingly enough, kept me sane through a second lockdown and Europe’s second (or third) waves of COVID-19, now

Image Credits: Natasha Lomas

with an unfestive holiday season fast approaching. I’m just sad they only made five seasons. Can someone please call David Simon?

My DIY training wall (and other projects)

Staying sane in lockdown has definitely meant keeping busy. So when not hard at work reporting for TechCrunch (or training for climbing), I’ve made sure to have a few creative projects on the go — including a fun collaborative writing gig with my friend (and former TCer, John Biggs). But the project that’s delivered the most tangible results (so far) is my DIY training wall — which is part training tool, part artwork (I can’t take art credit but painting the wall was my idea). Planning and making the board kept me busy through the first lockdown. Being able to use it for training circuits has kept me going through the second wave of gym closures, so I think that’s a good result.


Greg Kumparak, Editor

Hunt for the Wilderpeople

Image Credits: Madman films

This one was released in 2016, but somehow flew under my radar until it was added to Netflix in late 2020. Directed by the WAY TOO DAMNED TALENTED Taika Waititi (who also directed What We Do In The Shadows, JoJo Rabbit, and the best episode of The Mandalorian), it tells the tale of Ricky Baker, a defiant teen who reluctantly finds himself under the guardianship of new foster parents in the New Zealand bush. I can’t say much more without spoiling it, but Waititi managed to cram a whole lot of movie (and emotional ups and downs) into an hour and forty minutes. Skip the trailer and just dive in.

Jackbox Party Pack Series

Image Credits: Jackbox Games

I miss friends. I miss board games. I miss board games with friends. The Jackbox series, streamed over Zoom, brings back a little bit of that energy without requiring too much setup or explanation. Pick a game, fire up a zoom screen share, play. Each “box” has a handful of different games, and everyone plays using the phones they already have as controllers. There are 7 different boxes, and you can often find the older ones on sale. My favorite boxes are the ones that include Quiplash, Drawful, Fibbage, and, with the right group of trivia loving weirdos, Trivia Murder Party.


Darrell Etherington, Science Editor

Beer delivery

Image Credits: People’s Pint Brewery

Once a week, I get beer delivered to my home and it’s great. I rotate between a few local breweries, including Bandit Brewery, Halo Brewery, Left Field Brewery and People’s Pint Brewing Company. If you’re located in Toronto or the surrounding area, look them up and enjoy.

Brilliant Smart Home Control

Image Credits: Brilliant

These panels that replace either one switch or a bank of switches are fantastic for any smart home using most of the popular products, including Ecobee, Hue and Switch. They also act as video intercoms, and can automatically provide live feeds from your Ring doorbell when someone’s at the door.

Freewrite Traveler

Image Credits: Darrell Etherington

Astrohaus’ second device is a travel-friendly version of their e-ink typewriter. It’s great even if you’re only traveling as far as the backyard, as a lap-friendly focused writing device that has no real competition anywhere. It’s the cure for doomscrolling.

Twelve South HiRise

Image Credits: TwelveSouth

If you’re used to working from a notebook computer at an office, you probably had some kind of rise or monitor. At home, a stand like the adjustable Twelve South HiRise is clutch for comfort and ergonomics.


Romain Dillet, Writer

Thelma & Louise

The best way to escape from COVID reality and fight patriarchal societal structure at the same time. A masterpiece that will leave you speechless and push you to blaze your own trail across the desert.


Megan Rose Dickey, Senior Reporter

Tony’s Chocolonely Milk Chocolate Caramel Sea Salt

Image Credits: Tony’s Chocolonely

Tony’s Chocolonely has been my saving grace this year, and last year. And the year before that.

I’ve been a chocolate addict since I was a wee one — back when a Hershey’s chocolate bar only cost $0.35 at my local corner store. Tony’s Chocolonely costs a pricey $5.95 per bar, but it is so worth it.


Alex Wilhelm, Senior Editor

Reading books in the bath

This isn’t something that you can buy, but it’s something I have spent inordinate amounts of time doing this year. Reading is good, baths are good, and together they provide the perfect place to read lots in a one sitting without winding up on Twitter by accident.


Stacey Cohen, Strategic Sales and Partnerships

Zoom Yoga

The number one way I stayed sane this year was with the amazing opportunities to practice yoga with my favorite SF teachers, like Janet Stone, Rusty Wells, Jeremy Falk, Peter Walters, and Melody Pfeiffer just to to name a few. This gave me something to focus on (especially during these winter months of lockdown). Janet Stone in particular created a platform that basically became group therapy and such an amazing support system. Outdooryogasf saved my life while living alone during a pandemic! The innovation around yoga and creating zoom classes, integrating music, creating community was bar none the best experience for me in 2020.

Friday night zoom movie nights

I can’t believe I am still doing this a year later. Every Friday, my friends log in to watch movies together. Most of the time I fall asleep, but we’ve watched so many movies and it’s a great way to stay connected.

Image Credits: Tony Sala


Tony Sala, Director of Sales

New Family

While it was difficult to be separated from friends and family, the smile from a little one can melt your heart. Aria Bella born in the middle of the pandemic, May 2020.

The Great Outdoors

No, not the movie. The actual physical real world outdoors. For me in 2020, the great outdoors was a great escape (no, not another movie reference). A good ol breath of fresh air goes a long way towards positive mental health.


Bryce Durbin, Illustrator

Duolingo

Image Credits: Duolingo

I started using this app on a whim in January and kept going after I realized it was free (albeit ad-supported). The courses, built around sample sentences that test reading, speaking and hearing, introduce vocabulary and grammar with fun animated characters. Nothing can take the place of practicing the language with native speakers, but this is a good place to start.

What Had Happened Was (Podcast)

Image Credits: What Had Happened Was

The best new podcast of the year is two dudes talking, but not just any dudes: polymath Open Mike Eagle interviews legendary producer Prince Paul over the course of 12 episodes about the many varied projects of his 30-plus-year career. Whether you are deeply familiar with groups such as De La Soul and Handsome Boy Modeling School or are ready to dive in, these stories are fascinating.

Local pub trivia (Online)

A pub in my town would host trivia every Thursday, pre-pandemic. The same week things shut down, clever organizers cobbled together an online version using a YouTube stream and Google forms, attracting dozens more teams than could ever attend in person. The pub has recently shut down but the game goes on, now in its fortieth week. (My small team has yet to win.)


Safa Aliabadi, Events Partnerships

Peloton

Image Credits: Peloton

Since all the fitness classes that I used to take are no longer availabe (OrangeTheory, Barry’s, SoulCycle), the Peloton has kept me active and sane. I love the variety of classes it offers, from yoga to bootcamp. Also, being able to take a class at my schedule and convenience makes it even more convenient. It’s going to be hard to go back to a studio once (if ever) we’re back to normal.


Catherine Shu, Writer

Audiobooks read by Juliet Stevenson

I’ve depended on audiobooks for a lot of my reading over the past months and realized how rare a narrator like Juliet Stevenson is. She subtly uncovers depths of meaning in sentences, especially dialogue, without overpowering them with her own intepretation. Each phrase feels like it’s been lit from within.

I’m not the only one person who relied on Stevenson’s narration to mentally escape this year. In a Lithub article, Scott Spencer, who has spent more than 300 hours listening to Stevenson reading, wrote, “Even a fatuous idea becomes interesting as she has enlarges and illuminates it with her voice—that voice which is the audible expression of her profundity and humanity.” Fortunately for Stevenson’s fans, she is a prolific narrator, with over 180 titles listed on Audible. Her work spans many genres, so if you’re looking for somewhere to start, I highly recommend “The Paying Guests” by Sarah Waters.

Lovecraft Country

Lovecraft Country

Image Credits: HBO

“Lovecraft Country” is a show that stays with you for a long time after you watch it. Honestly, I kind of regret binge watching it, because in hindsight it would have been better to let each episode marinate in my head for a couple days before plowing back into the narrative.

If you’re in the same place, I highly recommend reading Kinitra Brooks’ reviews on The Root to help you unpack the show. Dr. Brooks is a literary scholar who focuses on Black women and genre fiction, and her essays explore each episode’s treatment of horror themes and historical context (though “historical” feels like the wrong word to use here because even though the show takes place in 1955, all of its commentary on racism is still highly relevant today). HBO’s official podcast, hosted by Ashley C. Ford and “Lovecraft Country” writer Shannon Houston, is also wonderful.

Warrior

Andrew Koji in "Warrior"

Image Credits: David Bloomer / HBO (opens in a new window)

Now that Cinemax has stopped producing original content, the future of “Warrior,” based on a concept developed by Bruce Lee, is unclear. I’m really hoping that it gains enough new viewers on HBO Max to warrant another season and tie up loose ends, because I’ve become emotionally invested in many of the characters.

There’s Ah Sahm (the lead, played by Andrew Koji), of course, but I also want to see how Young Jun (Jason Tobin) copes with finally gaining real power, and learn more about the women characters, especially Mai Ling (Dianne Doan) and Ah Toy (Olivia Cheng), whose motivations were really only hinted at in the first two seasons. As someone who grew up when yellowface was still routinely broadcast on TV, it’s extremely meaningful to see a show where the majority of the cast is Asian. I love how the show plays with language and accents to depict how the Chinese characters appear to one another, versus how to appear to white characters, and also how it deftly switches between honoring and subverting martial arts movie tropes.


Steve O’hear, Writer

Virtual events

I actually feel slightly guilty about this one — hey, I’m British, it’s what we do best — but the move away from in-person to virtual events has been an amazing leveler for me and net positive overall.

I use a wheelchair and have other physical challenges that make traveling for work more difficult and energy-sapping, so historically I’d only get to do one or two events per year as a moderator or speaker. That all changed in 2020 and by my count I’ve done well over 10 events, including high profile conferences like our own Disrupt, CogX and Slush. Ceilings are often broken when and in ways you least expect them to be.

Endlesss

Image Credits: Endlesss

Launched on March 31st, just as the U.K. and many other countries around the world first entered lockdown, Endlesss is a collaborative music making app (iOS and Mac) that combines software recreations of drum machines, samplers, synths and FX, with a “tap to loop” workflow that should be familiar to anyone who has used a looper pedal or loop-based sequencer.

What makes Endlesss different and exciting is the way these loops or riffs can be shared or remixed by others participating in your jam — essentially sending musical messages back and forth as if it were a chatroom. Unsurprisingly, for many (myself included), the app has been a creative, and dare I say, therapeutic outlet during the pandemic.


Anthony Ha, Senior Writer

Beyond a Steel Sky

As someone who grew up loving classic adventure games, I found this Apple Arcade title to be a near-perfect update of the old-school formula.

You play as Robert Foster, a man whose search for a missing child draws him back to a seemingly utopian city after years in the wilderness. The game is filled with colorful characters and locations (designed by “Watchmen” artist Dave Gibbons), with puzzles that rely less on ridiculous combinations of inventory items and more on conversation and hacking the various bits of technology around the city. The game is a sequel to the 25-year-old “Beneath a Steel Sky,” but I didn’t have a problem jumping in fresh, and although it’s a bit prone to crashing on my iPad, I’ve happy to endure a few bugs while exploring the fascinating world.

Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy

David Barr Kirtley’s science fiction-focused podcast has been around for more than a decade, and it’s been my favorite podcast for most of that time. My appreciation only increased this year, when I frequently found myself desperate to think about things other than the pandemic and the election.

The show’s in-depth author interviews and panel discussions allowed me to lose myself in hours of conversation about bad video game movies, or “book club” discussions of science fiction classics like “Dune.” (Dave was kind enough to ask me to join for an episode about one of my favorite books, “Foundation,” and that conversation was one of the highlights of my year. But now I can’t listen to the episode without hearing my dumb voice!)

Image Credits: Robin Roy Julius


Robin Roy Julius, Lead Software Engineer

Time

Working from home has allowed me to gain back time with my family. This was the silver lining to 2020 for me. I was able to spend more time with my family. There wasn’t time taken to travel to work and home. I was at my workplace at home. I could spend time with my wife and kids within 3 steps of my work area. It was sometimes rambunctious, noisy, loud, chaotic or all of the above, but it was well worth being able to spend more time with them.


Lucas Matney, Reporter

Future subscription

I’ve been paying for Future’s exercise plan subscription since covering the company’s Series B raise back in October. The app pairs you with a personal trainer who communicates with you over text and makes guided workout plans for you. The service’s $150/mo is certainly nothing to balk at, but during a year when gyms have shuttered and the amount of time I’ve spent inside my apartment skyrocketed, it’s grown a lot harder to draw boundaries inside my day and the app has done wonders helping me mentally carve out time to get active.

The weakness of the program is a lack of live feedback especially when it comes to safely pulling off a new lift or routine, but the key to making the most of the platform is asking more of your trainer in between sessions and getting that guidance. Paying for Future has been a luxury but it’s been a game changer these past few months and I’m hoping I can keep this quarantine habit going.

Luxury sweatpants

Image Credits: Outdoor Voices

By about early-April of this year, it was clear that comfort was king but that getting dressed up for the work day was a radical act of self care. I’ll admit, I’ve gone through ebbs and flows, but I eventually landed on a solution that skewed heavily towards comfort. I doled out some cash on some very comfy, activewear sweatpants from Outdoor Voices. I opted for the Sunday sweatpants during a sale and stocked up on a couple pairs. Spending as much on sweatpants as I would on some dress pants required some mental gymnastics to justify, but surviving 2020 is an exercise in flexibility.

Daily Latte

I got real lazy with coffee this year. Last year, I was hipstered to the nines with a great pour-over coffee setup including a gooseneck kettle and a Chemex. In early quarantine after nearly everything had shut down in SF, an afternoon trip to the coffee shop became one of the few moments in the day to clear my head and refocus my brain. That got expensive over time as my latte addiction grew, I also gained like 15 pounds which I can attribute to several bad habits. Fast forward to present and I’ve boarded the Nespresso train again after a hiatus, this time using a new machine from their Vertuo line which boasts double espresso shot pods which have been a godsend. I’ve been teaming a double shot with some oat milk frothed in one of their Aeroccino machines. Yum.

Atoms Masks

Image Credits: Atoms

I love these masks, they’re comfy, easy to clean and were a great upgrade from other face-hugging solutions. Lots of sizes and fun colors have made these a great option to inject some personality into pandemic wear.


Travis Bernard, Senior Director of Membership

Barry’s At-Home

Exercising during the pandemic hasn’t been easy. Gyms are closed, and most don’t have exercise machines at home. I’ve always been a big fan of Barry’s Bootcamp for HIIT exercise classes, and now they’ve brought the experience into your living room with Barry’s At-Home. The 45-minute virtual classes will get your heart rate up and help shed the pounds you put on in 2020. I’ve done well over 100 Barry’s At-Home classes this year, and it’s been a wonderful way to keep my mind and body optimized for performance.

National Parks Annual Pass

Digital detox was much needed in 2020. My wife and I had a chance to visit three national parks this year, and it was one of the best ways to get away from our devices. It’s amazing what a day of hiking will do for your mindfulness. The National Parks Annual Pass will run you $80 and gets you access to all the National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands.

 

 

News: Singapore-based open finance startup Finantier gets backing from Y Combinator

Being “underbanked” doesn’t mean that someone lacks access to financial services. Instead, it often means they don’t have traditional bank accounts or credit cards. But in markets like Indonesia, many still use digital wallets or e-commerce platforms, creating alternative sources of user data that can help them secure working capital and other financial tools. Finantier,

Being “underbanked” doesn’t mean that someone lacks access to financial services. Instead, it often means they don’t have traditional bank accounts or credit cards. But in markets like Indonesia, many still use digital wallets or e-commerce platforms, creating alternative sources of user data that can help them secure working capital and other financial tools. Finantier, a Singapore-based open finance startup, wants to streamline that data with a single API that gives financial services access to user data, with their consent. It also includes machine-learning-based analytics to enable credit scoring and KYC verifications.

Currently in beta mode with more than 20 clients, Finantier is busy getting ready to officially launch. It announced today that it has been accepted into Y Combinator’s Winter 2021 startup batch. The startup also recently raised an undisclosed amount of pre-seed funding led by East Ventures, with participation from AC Ventures, Genesia Ventures, Two Culture Capital and other investors.

Finantier was founded earlier this year by Diego Rojas, Keng Low and Edwin Kusuma, all of whom have experience building products for fintech companies, with the mission of enabling open finance in emerging markets.

Open finance grew out of open banking, the same framework that Plaid and Tink are built on. Meant to give people more control over their financial data instead of keeping it siloed within banks and other institutions, users can decide to grant apps or websites secure access to information from their online accounts, including bank accounts, credit cards and digital wallets. Open banking refers mainly to payment accounts, while open finance, Finantier’s specialty, covers a larger gamut of services, including business lending, mortgages and insurance underwriting.

While Finantier is focusing first on Singapore and Indonesia, it plans to expand into other countries and become a global fintech company like Plaid. It’s already eyeing Vietnam and the Philippines and has established partnerships in Brussels.

Before launching Finantier, Rojas worked on products for peer-to-peer lending platforms Lending Club and Dianrong, and served as chief technology officer for several fintech startups in Southeast Asia. He realized that many companies struggled to integrate with other platforms and fetch data from banks, or purchase data from different providers.

“People are discussing open banking, embedded finance and so on,” Rojas, Finantier’s chief executive officer, told TechCrunch. “But those are the building blocks of something bigger, which is open finance. Particularly in a region like Southeast Asia, where about 60% to 70% of adults are unbanked or underbanked, we believe in helping consumers and businesses leverage the data that they have in multiple platforms. It definitely doesn’t need to be a bank account, it could be in a digital wallet, e-commerce platform or other service providers.”

What this means for consumers is that even if someone doesn’t have a credit card, they can still establish creditworthiness: For example, by sharing data from completed transactions on e-commerce platforms. Gig economy workers can access more financial services and deals by giving data about their daily rides or other types of work they do through different apps.

Building Southeast Asia’s financial infrastructure

Other open-banking startups focused on Southeast Asia include Brankas and Brick. Rojas said Finantier differentiates by specializing on open finance and creating infrastructure for financial institutions to build more services for end users.

The benefit of open finance for financial institutions is that they can create products for more consumers and find more opportunities for revenue sharing models. In Southeast Asia, this also means reaching more people who are underbanked or otherwise lack access to financial services.

While taking part in Y Combinator’s accelerator program, Finantier will also be participating in the Indonesia Financial Service Authority’s regulatory sandbox. Once it completes the program, it will be able to partner with more fintech companies in Indonesia, including bigger institutions.

There are 139 million adults in Indonesia who are underbanked or unbanked, said East Ventures co-founder and managing partner Wilson Cuaca.

The investment firm, which focuses on Indonesia, conducts an annual survey called the East Ventures Digital Competitiveness Index and found that financial exclusion was where one of the largest divides existed. There are significant gaps in between the number of financial services available in heavily populated islands like Java, where Jakarta is located, and other islands in the archipelago.

To promote financial inclusion and alleviate the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the government has set a goal for 10 million micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) to go digital by the end of the year. There are currently about eight million Indonesian MSMEs that sell online, representing just 13% of MSMEs in the country.

“Providing equal access to financial services will create multiplier effects to the Indonesian economy,” Cuaca told TechCrunch about East Ventures’ decision to back Finantier. “Currently, hundreds of companies work with their own unique solutions to bring financial services to more people. We believe Finantier will help them offer more products and services to this underserved section of the population.”

 

News: Boardable’s board management software for non-profits raises $8 million

Indianapolis-based Boardable, a provider of board management software tools for nonprofits, has raised $8 million in a new round of financing, the company said. The investment came from Base10 Partners with participation from the company’s seed stage backer, the Indianapolis-based enterprise investment firm High Alpha. Boardable provides organizational tools to help nonprofits better manage their board

Indianapolis-based Boardable, a provider of board management software tools for nonprofits, has raised $8 million in a new round of financing, the company said.

The investment came from Base10 Partners with participation from the company’s seed stage backer, the Indianapolis-based enterprise investment firm High Alpha.

Boardable provides organizational tools to help nonprofits better manage their board meetings and offers management solutions for nonprofit operations.

Software and services developers catering to the non-profit sector are seeing more interest from investors as they look for new verticals that have been underserved by technology companies in the past. Earlier this year, Reslia, a New Orleans-based startup, raised $8 million for its own spin on services for nonprofits and charity organizations.

In a statement, Boardable said that it would use the financing to grow its team and develop new tools to become more of a one-stop-shop for nonprofit operations.

“Most nonprofits manage their board members with ‘digital duct tape’—endless email threads and file sharing services. It’s a terrible experience that drains the board members and staff. Boardable is purpose-built by nonprofit founders to solve this problem, increasing efficiency and engagement,” said Jeb Banner, Boardable’s chief executive, in a statement.

Organizations including the YMCA, The Salvation Army, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, the Girl Scouts of Indiana and more have turned to the company to use its paperless approach for board management.

News: IAC plans to spin off Vimeo as an independent company

IAC announced today that it plans to turn Vimeo into an independent, publicly-traded company. Last month, IAC CEO Joey Levin wrote a letter to shareholders in which he said the holding company had “begun contemplating spinning Vimeo off to our shareholders.” It sounds like the company has moved beyond the contemplation phase, with plans that

IAC announced today that it plans to turn Vimeo into an independent, publicly-traded company.

Last month, IAC CEO Joey Levin wrote a letter to shareholders in which he said the holding company had “begun contemplating spinning Vimeo off to our shareholders.” It sounds like the company has moved beyond the contemplation phase, with plans that will be submitted for stockholder approval in the first quarter of 2021, and the actual spin off happening in Q2.

“The combination of Vimeo’s remarkable growth, solid leadership position, and enormous market opportunity have made clear its future,” Levin said in a statement today. “It’s time for Vimeo to spread its wings and become a great independent public company.”

While Vimeo once competed with YouTube as a consumer video destination, its strategy has shifted in recent years to providing video tools for businesses. In November, the company said it had 1.5 million paying subscribers and 3,500 enterprise clients — and that its most recent quarter was with positive EBITDA, plus year-over-year revenue growth of 44%.

The announcement notes that this is the eleventh company that IAC has spun off, a process in which it distributes its ownership stake to IAC shareholders. (Match Group completed its separation from IAC over the summer.)

“Today we have a rare opportunity to help every team and organization in the world integrate video throughout their operations, across all the ways they communicate and collaborate,” said Vimeo CEO Anjali Sud in a statement. “Our all-in-one solution radically lowers the barriers of time, cost, and complexity that previously made professional-quality video unattainable. We’re ready for this next chapter and focused on making video far easier and more effective than ever before.”

News: Austin-based ReturnSafe raises $3.25 million for its employee health management tools

ReturnSafe, a symptom checking and contact tracing employee health management toolkit for businesses, has raised $3.25 million in financing from investors including Fifty Years and Active Capital.  With companies looking to reopen operations and have their employees return to work safely, management toolkits that track employee health are piling into the market offering all sorts

ReturnSafe, a symptom checking and contact tracing employee health management toolkit for businesses, has raised $3.25 million in financing from investors including Fifty Years and Active Capital. 

With companies looking to reopen operations and have their employees return to work safely, management toolkits that track employee health are piling into the market offering all sorts of strategies to maintain a safe work environment.

These include offerings from companies like WorkSafe; or the ProtectWell tool from Microsoft and UnitedHealth; or NSpace, which has similar features and a scheduling tool for booking office space safely.

For its part, ReturnSafe is boasting six figure monthly recurring revenue and is working with 50 organizations since its launch six months ago.

The pitch to investors and customers is that the need to manage employees and ensure that workspaces are free from health risks is only going to grow in a post-COVID-19 world.

Of course, the best way for employers to ensure the safety and security of their employees is to provide adequate leave and time off if employees are sick and to ensure that everyone has access to adequate testing at regular intervals should they not be able to work remotely.

Like other companies in the market, ReturnSafe offers a symptoms screener, a testing dashboard, a case management dashboard and a new vaccine management service. In addition to those software tools, ReturnSafe pitches a set of wearable devices with built-in social distancing alarms to ensure that employees maintain safe distances. 

 

 

News: What a Facebook Photos product manager thinks about antitrust

We may pick a battle with Facebook and win, but lose the larger war. Losing that war may mean pushing the next Instagram out of Silicon Valley.

Samuel Odio
Contributor

Samuel is a product leader and two-time founder, currently serving as VP of Product at Fivestars. He previously founded Divvyshot (acquired by Facebook) and co-founded Freshplum (acquired by TellApart).

Leading up to Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram, I was the product manager in charge of Facebook Photos. Mark Zuckerberg had bought my previous company, Divvyshot, one of the first iOS photo-sharing apps. I worked closely with Mark, and so conversations about the future of social sharing and emerging mobile apps were common. Instagram was a competitor that came up more than once.

Now that attorneys general in 48 states and the Federal Trade Commission are suing Facebook for their acquisition of Instagram, you might imagine I have a strong opinion about it. I do, both as the former Facebook Photos PM and as a former Facebook acquisition. In some ways, I was the appetizer for the eventual entrée. As an American consumer, I know success for the FTC would unequivocally be a disaster for innovation.

A key question in this antitrust case is whether Facebook bought Instagram to eliminate a competitive threat. Documents have already leaked suggesting Mark perceived Instagram as a threat. That same sentiment felt clear to me in our conversations.

I wasn’t at Facebook for long. In my mid-twenties and with a rush of confidence, I decided to leave to start another company. In hindsight, I left abruptly and without much notice. I departed soon after kicking off an initiative to revamp our mobile Photos products, leaving the team in a lurch (the mobile rehaul never launched). Months later, Mark started to court Instagram. The deal was formalized exactly one year after my sudden departure.

We have to be sophisticated about what we call a monopoly and how we constrain (or punish) our country’s most successful businesses.

Despite those events suggesting anti-competitive intent, I’m simply not convinced that the recent antitrust suit will benefit the competitive startup ecosystem or even consumers as a whole.

A cliché phrase in the startup space is “thinking from first principles,” but in this case, it’s helpful. The primary reason the United States government wants to regulate monopolies is to “protect competition and benefit consumers.” In the recent antitrust suit against Facebook, they are ostensibly protecting Facebook’s competitors in the startup ecosystem.

There are two key pieces of legislation that Facebook has been accused of violating. First, the Sherman Act, which makes it unlawful to maintain or acquire a monopoly, and then the Clayton Act, which goes a step further in prohibiting anti-competitive, monopolistic mergers and acquisitions.

The sine qua non of an antitrust accusation — violating Section 2 of the Sherman Act, which Facebook is accused of — is being able to prove that a company has used their monopoly to “harm society by making output lower, prices higher, and innovation less than would be the case in a competitive market.” The Department of Justice also establishes that a major factor in qualifying a monopoly is if a company has had “a market share in excess of two-thirds for a significant period.”

Before looking at Facebook, let’s look at an example of successful antitrust action. Critics of Facebook often bring up United States v. Microsoft Corp. as precedent. In this case, Microsoft was accused of a monopoly stemming from its bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows. To be clear, I agree with this antitrust action because Microsoft had a monopoly. If you examine Microsoft’s market share for operating systems in 1998, they owned 86% of the market when the case was filed. It is easy to see how they used unreasonable bundling to artificially grow market share for Internet Explorer, clearly making “output lower” and “innovation less” (does anyone look back fondly at Internet Explorer?) for society.

It’s much harder to see where exactly Facebook has a monopoly. For instance, the FTC is suing Facebook to divest Instagram. Instagram’s revenue is primarily generated from advertisers on the platform. The FTC’s accusation of monopoly — with their fingers pointed at Instagram — would imply that Facebook has built a dominant share of the digital advertising market. However, market research company EMarketer found that Facebook had 23% of this market in 2020, a far cry from two-thirds control. Calling Facebook a monopoly is far from a cut-and-dry case.

Now let’s ask the question: Who actually benefits from this antitrust action?

Not the founder of the next Facebook-killer. With the FTC pressing the heel of their boot down on acquisitions, it becomes less rewarding — and riskier — to found a startup.

In Silicon Valley, every new founder is an aspiring disruptor. But they and their investors understand the value of the cliché, “if you can’t beat them, join them.” I understood that reality when I sold Divvyshot to Facebook in 2010, shortly after my bank account hit $0.

Without the prospect of rich acquisitions by major companies, fewer founders would risk their livelihood and venture capital dollars would shrink. Large technology companies would be incentivized to simply copy newcomer products, rather than acquire their teams. Don’t forget: Being acquired is a success for most startups and entrepreneurs (who often lack other appealing outcomes).

Not the consumer. For the consumer to benefit, one has to believe that either (a) Instagram would have been more successful without Facebook, or (b) Facebook’s behavior discourages other competitive startups.

The former has been well-debated and is a somewhat subjective question. For the latter, with a shrinking pool of dollars and founders comes a shrinking pool of competition in any category. It’s that competition that fuels a busy home screen with a dozen app icons for every use case. Instagram’s $1 billion exit encouraged copycats, competitors and innovators like Vine, Flipagram, VSCO, and, eventually, TikTok.

As Mark Zuckerberg said about their acquisitions, “One way of looking at this is that what we’re really buying is time.” It’s hard to stay on the top in tech. If dot-com history is any indication, today’s leaders will be tomorrow’s Yahoo. It’s that natural pressure of age, not the threat of antitrust, that encourages companies like Facebook to make innovative product bets in new categories like VR to avoid irrelevance.

It’s time for a new plan. To be clear, we must foster competition within our technology space here in the United States. We should explore entirely new versions of antitrust legislation that focus on affirmative outcomes rather than punitive assessments.

The U.S. government might consider accommodating acquisitions by these companies through ecosystem development. Rather than shutting down acquisitions, consider a requirement that the acquirer invests some percentage of any significant acquisition amount into blind minority positions at other emerging startups.

It’s a dramatic thought, but new dynamics might emerge with innovation as the clear winner. For instance, these technology giants may fund startups that undermine their entrenched competitors. One example: Facebook might use this venture arm to fund ideas outside their scope in the Future of Work, creating insurgent competition for Microsoft.

The outflow of capital from incumbents to startups would foster competition while still enabling incumbents to scale. Remember, it’s these scale effects that allow us to enjoy our low consumer prices, high quality of life and R&D-fueled innovation that no economy wants to lose.

There’s a more important monopoly at stake. Silicon Valley is the most competitive and innovative sector in the world. Regions and governments across the globe aspired to copy our “secret sauce,” but often have been hampered by regulation, corruption or anti-capitalistic legislation. Are we sure it’s time for us to start copying them?

Up until recently, that question was just hypothetical. Silicon Valley’s title as the leader in innovation was never under threat. We had the protective moats of geographic density, well-functioning capital markets, light-touch regulation and permissive immigration policy (50% of Silicon Valley startups are founded by immigrants, after all). Are we sure we don’t want to double-down on that winning formula?

Meanwhile, China has liberalized its economy. Shenzhen, China’s hub for technology innovation, has had its gross domestic output (GDP) grow by an annual average of 20.7% over the last 40 years, even recently surpassing Hong Kong. I find the recent dethroning of Facebook by TikTok as the most downloaded application worldwide in 2020 a foreboding sign.

While nobody would choose to give personal data to foreign companies ruled by autocratic regimes, most users aren’t weighing those consequences as they scroll through the next social experience. After all, who among us isn’t tempted to make that trade-off for an engaging TikTok video in the middle of a quarantine?

We have to be sophisticated about what we call a monopoly and how we constrain (or punish) our country’s most successful businesses. We may pick a battle with Facebook and win, but lose the larger war. Losing that war may mean pushing the next Instagram out of Silicon Valley.

And that may mean, somewhat ironically, that the only technology monopoly the United States government is dismantling with this flavor of antitrust legislation is its own.

News: Group Nine Media forms a SPAC to fund acquisitions

Group Nine Media — which owns Thrillist, NowThis, The Dodo, Seeker and PopSugar — is the latest company to form a SPAC, according to a filing with the SEC. These blank-check corporations, as they’re also known, have become a popular way to raise money from the public markets. The filing says that Group Nine is creating

Group Nine Media — which owns Thrillist, NowThis, The Dodo, Seeker and PopSugar — is the latest company to form a SPAC, according to a filing with the SEC.

These blank-check corporations, as they’re also known, have become a popular way to raise money from the public markets. The filing says that Group Nine is creating a SPAC “for the purpose of effecting a merger, capital stock exchange, asset acquisition, stock purchase, reorganization or similar business combination.”

The company goes on to claim that it doesn’t have any specific acquisition targets in mind, and that there have not been “any substantive discussions.” But it says it’s interested in digital media companies, as well as those in “adjacent industries” such as social media, e-commerce, events, digital publishing and marketing.

The idea of consolidating digital media properties has been a recurring theme from executives over the past few years. BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti, for example, has said that a consolidated digital media entity could have more clout in negotiations with Facebook and Google, and he recently struck a deal to acquire HuffPost from Verizon Media (which also owns TechCrunch).

Group Nine is itself a roll-up of previously independent digital media companies, led by CEO Ben Lerer (pictured above) and growing last year with the acquisition of PopSugar. The Wall Street Journal reported recently that the company was exploring a SPAC.

“We believe the digital media sector is primed for consolidation, as digital media companies need a scaled platform with efficient portfolio infrastructure to compete in the ecosystem and return value to shareholders in the long-term,” Group Nine says in the filing.

News: One final $100M ARR company and the startups we want to meet in 2021

As we head towards the exits of 2020, we have one more name to add to our roll call of private companies that have reached the $100 million annual recurring revenue (ARR) milestone. Well, one and a half. But before we get into Nexthink and give Coalition a honorable mention, let’s talk about the startups

As we head towards the exits of 2020, we have one more name to add to our roll call of private companies that have reached the $100 million annual recurring revenue (ARR) milestone. Well, one and a half.

But before we get into Nexthink and give Coalition a honorable mention, let’s talk about the startups we’re looking for in 2021.

The $100 million ARR list came together by accident, a quirk of a newscycle that happened to have a few companies reach the threshold when I was in transition back to working at TechCrunch. So, when I got back into our WordPress install, the group of companies that had each recently reached nine-figure revenues was top of mind.

But looking at $100 million ARR companies proved less useful than we might have hoped. Mostly what we managed was to collect a bucket of companies that were about to go public.

That was always a risk. As we wrote at the time:

Perhaps the startup market would do well to celebrate the $50 million ARR mark even more loudly. At $50 million ARR, a startup is scaling to IPO size. That’s the goal, after all.

This is our aim for 2021.

If your startup is approaching the $50 million ARR mark, or the $50 million annual run rate threshold, I want to hear from you. Drop a line if your startup has an annualized run rate between $35 million and $60 million, is privately held, and you are willing to chat about how quickly it is growing. (The Exchange first raised this idea in November.)


The Exchange explores startups, markets and money. Read it every morning on Extra Crunch, or get The Exchange newsletter every Saturday.


But that’s next year. Today, let’s chat about Nexthink, what the hell “digital employee experience” is and what’s good with cyber insurance and why it’s helping Coalition grow rapidly.

Nexthink gets IPO ready

Nexthink is a venture-backed software company with headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland and Boston. According to PitchBook, Nexthink raised external capital in modest amounts from 2006 until 2014, when the startup picked up a $14.5 million Series D. That round was its first worth more than $10 million.

From there, Nexthink was a venture capital success story, presumably scaling quickly as it raised two larger rounds in 2016 and 2018 worth an estimated $40 million and $85 million, respectively. Nexthink was valued at a little over $558 million (post-money) following its 2018 round.

How did it attract so much external funding? By building digital experience monitoring software. Which, after doing a bit of research this morning, appears to be software aimed at tracking what corporate end-users are doing with devices and how well software running on those devices performs.

News: The new stimulus bill makes illegal streaming a felony

We’ve already written several stories about the new pandemic stimulus package that Congress approved yesterday, including funding to increase broadband access and for new energy initiatives. There are, however, other provisions that could also have serious implications for the technology and media worlds. For one thing, the bill includes a proposal from Senator Thom Tillis

We’ve already written several stories about the new pandemic stimulus package that Congress approved yesterday, including funding to increase broadband access and for new energy initiatives.

There are, however, other provisions that could also have serious implications for the technology and media worlds. For one thing, the bill includes a proposal from Senator Thom Tillis (a Republican from North Carolina) that would make illegal streaming a felony, with penalties of up to 10 years imprisonment.

When Tillis released a draft of his proposal earlier this month, the open internet/intellectual property nonprofit Public Knowledge released a statement arguing that there’s no need “for further criminal penalties for copyright infringement,” but also saying that the bill is “narrowly tailored and avoids criminalizing users” and “does not criminalize streamers who may include unlicensed works as part of their streams” — instead, it focuses on those who pirate for commercial gain.

The bill also includes the CASE Act, which creates a new Copyright Claims Board within the U.S. Copyright Office. This system has been compared to small claims court, with the ability to adjudicate copyright claims and order payments of up to $30,000.

When the House of Representatives was debating the CASE Act last year, proponents defended it as giving independent artists an easier way to pursue copyright infringement claims, while groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation said it could have a negative impact on individual internet users. Techdirt’s Mike Masnick argued yesterday that it will “supercharge copyright trolling exactly at a time when we need to fix the law to have less trolling.”

Now that the House and Senate have approved the bill, it’s going to President Donald Trump for his signature. Since the full text was only released yesterday, we can probably expect plenty more debate over its implications in the weeks and months to come.

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