Tesla drops lawsuit against Alameda County over Fremont factory reopening

Tesla has officially dismissed a lawsuit filed earlier this month against Alameda County that sought to force the reopening of its factory in Fremont, California.

The dismissal, which was granted Wednesday, closes the loop on a battle between Tesla CEO Elon Musk and county health and law enforcement officials. The lawsuit filed May 9, hours after Musk threatened to sue and move operations out of state, sought injunctive and declaratory relief against Alameda County. Reuters was the first to report the dismissal.

The lawsuit was filed after Tesla’s plans to resume production at the Fremont factory were thwarted by the county’s decision to extend a stay-at-home order issued to curb the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by coronavirus. Two days after filing the lawsuit, Musk reopened the factory in defiance of the county orders.

Production at the company’s Fremont factory — where its electric vehicles are assembled — has been suspended since March 23 due to stay-at-home orders issued by Alameda County and California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Musk had based the reopening on newer guidance issued by Newsom that allows manufacturers to resume operations. However, the governor’s guidance included a warning that local governments could keep more restrictive rules in place. Alameda County, along with several other Bay Area counties and cities, extended the stay-at-home orders through the end of May. The orders were revised and did ease some of the restrictions. However, it did not lift the order for manufacturing.

Tesla and county officials continued to negotiate even as the company called workers back and prepared to resume production. The county agreed to allow Tesla to continue to ramp minimum basic operations in order to prepare for operations.

 


Source: Tech Crunch

HBO Max will release Zack Snyder’s cut of ‘Justice League’

WarnerMedia announced today that director Zack Snyder’s version of “Justice League” will be released on HBO Max in 2021.

Snyder is the only credited director on the 2017 superhero film, but he left the film during post-production, after his daughter’s suicide, with “Avengers” director Joss Whedon stepping in to write and shoot new material.

The resulting film received mixed reviews and underperformed at the box office, leading to corporate shakeups at DC Entertainment and pushing the studio to focus on standalone films, rather than big crossovers.

At the same time, #ReleaseTheSnyderCut has become a popular hashtag on social media, with many of the movie’s stars joining in, so WarnerMedia is finally responding. It’s also probably happy to find a fresh source of already filmed content for HBO Max while COVID-19 has forced a pause on film and TV production. (The HBO-and-more streaming service launches next week.)

It’s not clear what form the release will take — according to The Hollywood Reporter, it might be a single film of nearly four hours, or it might be broken up into six chapters. And apparently the estimated cost is somewhere between $20 and $30 million.

“I want to thank HBO Max and Warner Brothers for this brave gesture of supporting artists and allowing their true visions to be realized,” Snyder said in a statement. “Also a special thank you to all of those involved in the SnyderCut movement for making this a reality.”

Personally, I’ve been a bit skeptical of the social media uproar, partly because I liked the existing version of “Justice League” just fine, despite its obvious flaws; partly because Snyder’s previous film “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice” was almost unwatchably bad; and partly because it’s become tediously predictable for indignant fans to demand a new version of a movie or TV show they didn’t like.

Still, it’s hard not to feel sympathetic for a director who just wants present his vision, particularly when the work was derailed by tragedy. And I can’t deny that I’m curious. So bring on the Snyder Cut.


Source: Tech Crunch

Why VCs say they’re open for business, even if they’re pausing new deals

This week Alexia Bonatsos of Dream Machine and Niko Bonatsos of General Catalyst swung by Extra Crunch Live to discuss where they are investing today and what the future might look like.

As expected, these seed and early-stage venture capitalists had a lot to say about their current investing cadence and what interests them in the world of edtech, Clubhouse and more. A big thanks to everyone who came out and submitted some great questions.

Going back through the chat today, a few sections jumped out. For this recap, I’ve gathered answers from the transcript regarding today’s fundraising climate, the future of AI and the possible impact of the downturn on VC-backed founder diversity.

And for everyone who couldn’t join us live, I’ve included the full video replay below. (You can get access here, if you need it.)

Today’s fundraising climate

Alexia:

It’s kind of a Rashomon; depending on whose perspective you’re getting the story, is just completely different.

Let’s see, are [VCs] being as active as they were in 2018? I’m gonna say no. I mean, look at your data, your data says no. But does that mean people [have] shut down the shop and are all in Montana? Also no, right?

We know that these kinds of “crisistunities” — and I’m not diminishing the crisis at all, it is very sad and very scary, and it’s something that I’m very privileged to be able to be experiencing from inside my apartment and not from outside within an emergency room or a food bank or any other place that it’s actually at the front lines, right?


Source: Tech Crunch

Crypto Startup School: How to scale companies using crypto

Editor’s note: Andreessen Horowitz’s Crypto Startup School brought together 45 participants from around the U.S. and overseas in a seven-week course to learn how to build crypto companies. Andreessen Horowitz is partnering with TechCrunch to release the online version of the course over the next few weeks. 

In week two of a16z’s Crypto Startup School, three company-builders provide real-world advice on using the qualities of crypto to create new business models and networks.

Coinbase founder and CEO Brian Armstrong walks us through “Setting Up and Scaling a Crypto Company,” explaining how crypto can help startups raise money, acquire customers and build a global profile. The issuing of tokens, for example, can align the incentives of early users and reinforce network effects, helping solve the “cold-start” problem that can derail many startups.

Armstrong also outlines the disadvantages of crypto that entrepreneurs must watch out for, including regulatory uncertainty. On balance, he thinks crypto is where the internet was in the early days.

“In five or 10 years, pretty much every startup that gets created, it’s going to use the internet, it’s going to use AI and it’s also going to use some form of cryptocurrency somewhere in that product.”

In the next lecture, Balaji Srinivasan, an angel investor and co-founder of multiple companies, including Earn.com and Counsyl, gives an overview of “Applications: Today & 2025.”

Srinivasan starts off by tracing the history of crypto from Bitcoin and Ethereum to the present. He highlights the crypto applications that have already gotten traction — infrastructure providers such as exchanges, wallets and miners; decentralized finance (DeFi) apps; and stablecoins that eliminate the volatility of early cryptocurrencies — and looks ahead to the ones that are likely to emerge in the next five years. These include personal tokenization, new financial instruments, decentralized autonomous organizations and gaming.

Finally, Forte co-founder and CEO Josh Williams does a deep dive on “Opportunities for Crypto and Gaming.” Williams explains that blockchain technology could have an even bigger impact on gaming than the internet because it’s not just connecting people, but potentially changing business models by aligning the incentives of developers and players. It can do this by allowing players to truly own the assets in games and verify their provenance, and by enabling developers to code rich incentive systems and rewards into games.

By incorporating these mechanisms, Williams believes, an already exploding gaming industry will grow and create multi-billion-dollar marketplaces within games that will truly benefit players and developers.


Source: Tech Crunch

Notion drops usage limit on its personal free tier

Notion, a popular note-taking and wiki-creation app, revamped their personal pricing plans today stripping many of the user limitations from the free tier, bringing it on par with the functionality offered by the $5 per month paid plan of yore.

The company’s previous free tier had a fairly low usage limit (1,000 “blocks,” which are Notion’s content units) that ultimately kept users from doing anything too robust without paying up. By completely removing the limit on the amount of text and data you’re able to log, Notion is ensuring that most paid users can get everything they need from a free account.

They’re not completely abandoning premium-tier personal accounts; in fact, all existing paid customers are being transitioned to “Personal Pro” accounts at the same price they were paying before. The new plan, among other features, allows for file uploads larger than 5MB, unlimited guest collaborators and, most interestingly, upcoming access to a long-awaited Notion API that the company says is “coming soon, for real.” In September, Notion announced they were making the app free for students and teachers; now the company is rolling out access to the Personal Pro plan to these users as well.

Users that were tying multiple accounts to a single free account to manage some small shared database will be automatically transitioned to a free trial of the company’s teams product. Once they hit the 1,000 block limit, they’ll have to upgrade to the teams product or figure out a way to make the guest collaboration workflow on the free personal tier meet their needs.

Last month, Notion shared they had closed a new round of funding at a staggering $2 billion valuation. It certainly seems they’ve determined their future revenues will rely on expanding their teams product rather than monetizing individual users quite as aggressively. Like many workplace tools companies, Notion has relied somewhat on bottom-up scaling, so it’s likely they saw the opportunity of getting their platform in more users’ personal workflows and transitioning some of them to their teams products as a worthwhile long-term bet.


Source: Tech Crunch

How to decode a data breach notice

Over the years I’ve seen hundreds, probably thousands, of data breach notifications warning that a company’s data was lost, stolen or left online for anyone to grab.

Most of them look largely the same. It’s my job to decode what they actually mean for the victims whose information is put at risk.

Data breach notifications are meant to tell you what happened, when and what impact it may have on you. You’ve probably already seen a few this year. That’s because most U.S. states have laws that compel companies to publicly disclose security incidents, like a data breach, as soon as possible. Europe’s rules are stricter, and fines can be a common occurrence if breaches aren’t disclosed.

But data breach notifications have become an all-too-regular exercise in crisis communications. These notices increasingly try to deflect blame, obfuscate important details and omit important facts. After all, it’s in a company’s best interest to keep the stock markets happy, investors satisfied and regulators off their backs. Why would it want to say anything to the contrary?

The next time you get a data breach notification, read between the lines. By knowing the common bullshit lines to avoid, you can understand the questions you need to ask.

“We take security and privacy seriously.”
Read: “We clearly don’t.”

A phrase frequently featured in data breach notifications, we first wrote about companies taking security and privacy “seriously” last year. We found that about one-third of all notices filed with the California attorney general in 2019 had some variation of this line. The reality is that most companies have shown little compassion or care about the privacy or security of your data, but do care about having to explain to their customers that their data was stolen. It’s a hollow, overused phrase that means nothing.

“We recently discovered a security incident…”
Read: “Someone else found it but we’re trying to do damage control.”

It sounds innocuous enough, but it’s an important remark to get right. When a company says they’ve “recently discovered” a security incident, ask who actually reported the incident. All too often it’s a reporter — like me — who’s reached out for comment because a hacker dropped off a file containing their customer database and now the company is scrambling to take ownership of the incident because it looks better than the company being in the dark.

“An unauthorized individual…”
Read: “We don’t know who’s to blame, but don’t blame us.”

This is one of the most contentious parts of a data breach notification, and it boils down to a simple question: Who was to blame for a security incident? Legally speaking, “unauthorized access” means someone unlawfully broke into a system, often using someone else’s password or bypassing a login screen. But companies often get this wrong, or can’t — or don’t want to — distinguish between whether or not an incident was malicious. If a system was exposed or left online without a password, you’d blame the company for lax security controls. If a good-faith security researcher finds and reports an unprotected system, for example, there’s no reason to paint them as a malicious actor. Companies love to shift the blame, so keep an open mind.

“We took immediate steps…”
Read: “We sprung into action… as soon as we found out.”

Hackers aren’t always caught in the act. In a lot of cases, most hackers are long gone by the time a company learns of a breach. When a company says it took immediate steps, don’t assume it’s from the moment of the breach. Equifax said it “acted immediately” to stop its intrusion, which saw hackers steal nearly 150 million consumers’ credit records. But hackers had already been in its system for two months before Equifax found the suspicious activity. What really matters is when did the security incident start; when did the company learn of the security incident; and when did the company inform regulators of the breach?

“Our forensic investigation shows…”
Read: “We asked someone to tell us how f**ked we are.”

Incident responders help to understand how an intrusion or a data breach happened. It helps the company collect on cyber-insurance and prevent a similar breach happening again. But some companies use the term “forensics” loosely. Internal investigations are not transparent or accountable, and their outcomes are rarely scrutinized or published, whereas incident responders are independent, qualified assessors that will tell a company what it needs to hear and not what it wants to hear — even if their findings may still remain private.

“Out of an abundance of caution, we want to inform you of the incident.”
Read: “We were forced to tell you.”

Don’t think for a second that a company is doing “the right thing” by disclosing a security incident. In the U.S. and Europe, companies aren’t given a choice. Most states have some form of a data breach notification law that compels companies to disclose incidents that affect a certain number of residents and above. Failing to disclose a breach can lead to massive penalties. Just look at Yahoo (which, like TechCrunch, is owned by Verizon), which was fined $35 million in 2018 by a U.S. federal regulator for failing to disclose one of its data breaches that saw 500 million user accounts stolen.

“A sophisticated cyberattack…”
Read: “We’re trying not to look as stupid as we actually are.”

Just because a company says it was hit by a “sophisticated” cyberattack doesn’t mean it was. It’s hyperbole, designed to serve as a “cover your ass” statement to downplay a security incident. What it really tells you is that the company has no idea how the attack happened. After all, some of the biggest breaches in history happened because of unpatched systems, weak passwords or because someone clicked on a malicious email.

“There is no evidence that data was taken.”
Read: “That we know of.”

“No evidence” doesn’t mean that something hasn’t happened, it’s that it hasn’t been seen yet. Either the company isn’t looking hard enough or it doesn’t know. Even if a company says it has “no evidence” that data was stolen, it’s worth asking how it arrived at that conclusion.

“A small percentage of our customers are affected.”
Read: “It sounds way worse if we say ‘millions’ of users.”

The next time you see a data breach notification that says only a “small percentage” of customers are affected by a breach, take a minute to think what that actually means. Houzz admitted a data breach in January 2019, in which it said “some of our user data” was taken. Months later, a hacker posted some 57 million Houzz user records. CBS-owned Last.fm also said in 2012 that “some” of its passwords were stolen in a breach. It later amounted to 43 million passwords. If a company doesn’t tell you how many people are affected, it’s because they don’t know — or they don’t want you to know.


Source: Tech Crunch

Spotify signs ‘The Joe Rogan Experience’ to an exclusive multi-year deal

Over the past couple of years, Spotify has demonstrating a long-term commitment to the podcasting format by shelling out money hand over fist. The music streaming service has made a number of high profile acquisitions, including production company Gimlet and editing tool Anchor, but today’s news may well be the biggest of all.

The company has signed The Joe Rogan Experience to an exclusive multi-year licensing deal. The show will hit Spotify September 1, and become exclusive to the platform later in the year. Rogan is arguably the biggest and most influential voice in the medium.

The podcast has dominated Apple’s podcasting charts and YouTube views. Rogan currently has 8.41 million subscribers on YouTube, where his videos regularly rack up more than a million views. A recent interview with Elon Musk has already generated more than 13 million views. As of this writing, the show is currently #2 on Apple’s charts and comprises three of the service’s top ten episodes. “The talk series has long been the most-searched-for podcast on Spotify,” according to the service.

In an audio message attached the the release, Rogan noted that, “It will be the exact same show. I will not be an employee of Spotify.” It’s a key point, not just in order to ease the minds of a rabid fanbase, but because the left has often been critical of Rogan’s show and message. The program has often featured right-wing voices, including members of the so-called Intellectual Dark Web, Proud Boy founder Gavin McInnes and de-platformed conspiracy trafficker, Alex Jones.

Other high profile guests include Elon Musk, who recently made another appearance on the program and Senator Bernie Sanders. Sanders’ campaign came under criticism from the DNC establishment after promoting Rogan’s offhanded nomination for president. At the time, the Human Rights Campaign said Sanders “must reconsider” the endorsement, stating that Rogan has “attacked transgender people, gay men, women, people of color and countless marginalized groups at every opportunity.”

While the show has long been hosted on a variety of audio and video platforms, Spotify could well come under fire from similar groups from similar groups. Rogan has described himself as not belonging to any political party and holding largely libertarian views.

In addition to purchasing existing shows and podcast production companies, Spotify has also been creating its own in-house programs, in a bid to wrest domination of the medium away from long-time leader, Apple. This acquisition represents a fairly massive shot across the bow, as diehard fans will soon have no other (legal) option for listening to the show. Details of the deal — including the duration — have not yet been disclosed.


Source: Tech Crunch

GM is working on a hands-off advanced driving system for city streets

GM has a “big team” working on an advanced version of its hands-free driving assistance system, Super Cruise, that will expand its capability beyond highways and apply it to city streets, the automaker’s vice president of global product development Doug Parks said Tuesday.

GM is also continuing to improve its existing Super Cruise product, Parks said during a webcasted interview at Citi’s 2020 Car of the Future Symposium.

“As we continue to ratchet up Super Cruise, we continue to add capability and not just highway roads,” Parks said, adding that a separate team is working on the hands-free city driving product known internally as “Ultra Cruise.”

“We’re trying to take that same capability off the highway,” he said. “Ultra cruise would be all of the Super Cruise plus the neighborhoods, city streets and subdivisions. So Ultra Cruise’s domain would be  essentially all driving, all the time.”

Parks was quick to add that this would not be autonomous driving. Advanced driving assistance systems have become more capable, but they still require a human driver to take control and to be paying attention.

“What we’re not saying is that Ultra Cruise will be fully autonomous 100% of the time, although that could be one of the end games,” Parks said.

Parks didn’t provide a timeline for when Ultra Cruise might be available. A GM spokesperson said in a statement after his interview that the company continues to expand its hands-free driver assistance system technology across its vehicle portfolio and has “teams looking at how we can expand the capabilities to more scenarios.”

GM said it “does not have a name or anything specific to announce today, but stay tuned.”

This new Ultra Cruise feature would put it in competition with Tesla’s Autopilot advanced driving system, which is largely viewed as the most capable on the market today. Tesla’s “full self-driving” package, a more capable version of Autopilot, can now identify stop signs and traffic lights and automatically slows the car to a stop on approach. This feature is still considered to be in beta.

GM’s Super Cruise uses a combination of lidar map data, high-precision GPS,  cameras and radar sensors, as well as a driver attention system, which monitors the person behind the wheel to ensure they’re paying attention. Unlike Tesla’s Autopilot driver assistance system, users of Super Cruise do not need to have their hands on the wheel. However, their eyes must remain directed straight ahead.

GM has taken a slower approach to Super Cruise compared to Tesla’s method of rolling out software updates that gives early access to some owners to test the improved features. When GM launched Super Cruise in 2017, it was only available in one Cadillac model — the full-size CT6 sedan — and restricted to divided highways. That began to change in 2019 when GM announced plans to expand where Super Cruise would be available.

GM’s new digital vehicle platform, which provides more electrical bandwidth and data processing power, enabled engineers to add to Super Cruise’s capabilities. In January, GM added a feature to Super Cruise that automated lane changes for drivers of certain Cadillac models, including the upcoming 2021 Escalade.

This enhanced version of Super Cruise includes better steering and speed control. The improved version will be introduced starting with the 2021 Cadillac CT4 and CT5 sedans, followed by the new 2021 Cadillac Escalade. The vehicles are expected to become available in the second half of 2020.


Source: Tech Crunch

Dear Sophie: What is required of employers laying off foreign workers?

Here’s another edition of “Dear Sophie,” the advice column that answers immigration-related questions about working at technology companies.

“Your questions are vital to the spread of knowledge that allows people all over the world to rise above borders and pursue their dreams,” says Sophie Alcorn, a Silicon Valley immigration attorney. “Whether you’re in people ops, a founder or seeking a job in Silicon Valley, I would love to answer your questions in my next column.”

“Dear Sophie” columns are accessible for Extra Crunch subscribers; use promo code ALCORN to purchase a one or two-year subscription for 50% off.


Dear Sophie:

Fallout from COVID-19 is forcing our startup to downsize. What legal requirements do we need to consider if we’re laying off foreign-born employees or scaling back their hours?

— HR Manager in San Mateo

 

Dear HR Manager:

Thank you for your question; a lot of people are going through the same thing. Keep in mind that terminating an employee that your company sponsored for a visa or green card can have ramifications for future hiring.


Source: Tech Crunch

Google is piloting a simpler Nest Hub Max interface at retirement homes

Last week, Mount Sinai showcased how it’s started using Nest devices to monitor patients remotely. Today, Google’s showing off how the Nest Hub Max is helping retirement home residents feel a little less isolated amid the COVID-19 lockdown.

To help matters along, the company is currently testing a simplified interface to make the smart screen easier to operate for less tech savvy residents. Google is currently piloting the device’s use in by handing units out to people at Merrill Gardens in Washington State. They’ll be the first to get a crack at the new UI.

Updates include additional “What can you do” cards serving as shortcuts to common requests like alarms, weather and music. Recipients will also get their devices preloaded with contacts for video calls — likely the primary use, as homes across the country institute social distancing.

“It’s important for seniors’ mental and emotional health to stay connected, and social isolation during this quarantine makes doing that especially hard,” Google’s Molly McHugh-Johnson says in a post. “As I learned with my grandma, Nest Hub Max and Duo video calling can help keep us ‘together’ while we’re apart.”

Retirement and nursing homes have been disproportionately impact during the COVID-19 pandemic. The elderly community in general has been hard hit by the virus, with a mortality rate of three to 11% for ages 65 to 84 and 10 to 27% for ages 85 and up. For that reason it’s become particularly important for communities to enact strong social distancing measures.


Source: Tech Crunch