Thursday, December 8, 2016

Pebble perishes. It's The Daily Crunch.

THE DAILY CRUNCH
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8 2016 By Darrell Etherington

The Daily Crunch 12/8/16

A smartwatch pioneer throws in the towel, Nintendo Switch guests on Fallon and Uber calls out bad behavior. It's The Daily Crunch for December 8, 2016. And if you want truth to survive, remember to trust the Canadians.

1. Pebble's passing

Hardware is... impossible? For startups, that might be true. Consider that the most successful hardware performer on Kickstarter has announced it will shut down after an acquisition by Fitbit, which was essentially a bailout. Pebble devices will continue to work, but the Pebble, 2, Time 2 and Core are all cancelled and backers will be refunded.

Some Pebble 2 units had already shipped, and those will be the last Pebbles ever, unless in some distant future the brand and company are resurrected when the world is ready for wristworn tech in earnest. Which it honestly probably never will be.

2. Nintendo Switch gets switched on for gameplay demo

Someone turned on a Nintendo Switch! And used it! And it was Jimmy Fallon! This is actually awesome because it means the next-gen console is real and likely on track for its scheduled release in March next year.

3. Speaking of Nintendo games...

Super Mario Run is coming December 15 which is only a week away for those keeping track. And that's good, because it looks like a lot of fun and I could use some good old fashioned mindless mobile gaming fun. Brian played it and spoke to Reggie Fils-Aime and it sounds promising.

4. Uber details bad rider etiquette

Uber wants riders to know what it is they're doing wrong, in cases where they're doing something wrong. The company updated its Community Guidelines with a new policy on rider behavior, adding to the published policy on driver etiquette. It's a good step towards balancing out expectations on both sides of its user base.

5. Did you hear? Secret's not shut down anymore... sort of

The secret's out that Secret's back though it was never really all that secret to begin with. The anonymous publishing platform returns as more Medium than Twitter, with a web-based publishing tool that lets you share your thoughts basically instantly, with optional anonymity included. It's actually pretty cool as a publishing tool, but I'm very curious as to how people might make use of it.

6. Canada will retain Internet facts in the post-fact era

There's some reasonable concern that Trump could destroy the internet, or at least render it unrecognizable. Now The Internet Archive is making a copy in Canada for safekeeping among the ice and caribou. Actually the project's been underway since long before Trump, but his election has added some urgency to the mission.

7. Bluetooth's next-generation gets greenlit

The next generation of Bluetooth, Bluetooth 5, is now cleared for inclusion in gadgets and gizmos. It promises double the speed, 4x the range and 8x the carrying capacity, and should be more battery friendly. It will probably still be annoying to use.

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Wednesday, December 7, 2016

Musical.ly's growth and controversy. It's the Daily Crunch.

THE DAILY CRUNCH
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 7 2016 By Darrell Etherington

The Daily Crunch 12/7/16

Crowdsourcing your video news, Musical.ly's age anxieties and AI's mastery over Civilization. All that and more in The Daily Crunch for December 7, 2016. And if you're a child hearing this newsletter through a conversation with a talking toy, stop that right now.

1. Seenit wins the Disrupt Cup

TechCrunch Disrupt London 2016 just wrapped up, and the winner was Seenit, a video platform that combines footage captured by a group of users that can be specified by any organization. It's kind of like having your own roving reporter pool or b-roll shooters.

The platform is indeed cool, and has already been used by some big news and media organizations for a different kind of coverage. It'd be nice if it could automatically suggest content that might be most interesting, too, but that might come later.

2. Musical.ly has 40M monthly active users

Social app Musical.ly has a lot of MAUs for an app as young as it is, with 40 million people using it at least once a month. On the Disrupt London stage, the company's founder defended the network against accusations that it knowingly hosts a number of young users who are perhaps over-sexualizing themselves. Instagram has similar problems, he noted, which is definitely true.

3. Fab founder Jason Goldberg dips back into the funding pool

Fab founder Jason Goldberg hasn't really had a standout success, despite booting up a number of startups. Still, Goldberg's raising a seed round from investors for his new startup Pepo, and backers of his previous ventures are coming back for more despite not having any big payouts to show for having done so before.

4. This AI can probably beat you at Civilization

World building sims are incredibly addictive, and Civilization is definitely that. Arago's HIRO AI can play Freesim, the popular free version of Sid Meier's original, and it can play it so well it can beat not only all difficulties of computer players, but also up to 80 percent of the human players it encounters, too.

5. Trump's tech tête-à-tête

President elect Donald Trump is going to hold a meeting with the top leaders in tech. We don't know what this might look like or who's on the invitee list, but you can probably guess at invitees. The question will be how willing they are to play ball with Trump, given his questionable stances with respect to everything from Apple's manufacturing practices to data privacy.

6. Talking toys are best avoided

Toys that hold conversations might not be the best idea, according to a new complaint by consumer watchdog groups. That's mostly because a lot of these toys use speech recognition services that don't necessarily have a tight policy on privacy, which could lead to exposure risk for the content.

7. Oculus Touch's Wii Sports equivalent is a bit less accessible

Oculus Touch is here, and with it – games. VR Sports Challenge is kind of like its own Wii Sports, but Fitz found that while true sports fans will love it, more casual players might find it harder to get in the game.

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