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Bill Gates played Secret Santa to a Michigander, sending 81 pounds of goodies tailored just for her

Since roughly 2012, billionaire Bill Gates has been participating in Reddit’s annual Secret Santa gift exchange, which matches Reddit users with internet strangers who give them presents.

He seems to relish the role. For example, in 2017, he was matched with a cat lover, sending off a giant load of feline-themed gifts, including a large stuffed cartoon cat and $750 in donations to her favorite animal charities. Last year, his gift recipient was a self-described miniature horse owner who loves yarn, natural fibers, and card-making. Gates sent him a bounty of yarn, decorating tape, pencils, postcards, sketchbooks, a custom-made blanket for his horse, and a signed copy of a “An Absolutely Remarkable Thing” by Hank Green, the man’s favorite author.

This year, the lucky Redditor who found herself on the receiving end of 81 pounds of gifts from Gates was a 33-year-old, Detroit-area marketer who told MarketWatch yesterday, “I always thought it would be super cool to be matched with him some day, but I never really would have expected this to happen to me.”

The woman — whose Reddit profile features a picture of her hugging the “Star Wars” character Chewbacca and that refers to Harry Potter and other books and video games — was also reportedly sent a Harry Potter Santa hat; Lego building sets that include a giant Hogwarts castle; a handmade quilt depicting scenes from Nintendo’s “Legend of Zelda” game series; and “Twin Peaks” memorabilia, including an L.L. Bean jacket worn by one of the crew members.

Gates, a renowned book lover who regularly shares his book recommendations, also sent her a bound manuscript of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby,” lines from which the woman had incorporated into her wedding earlier this year.

Making the gift even more special, it came with scans of Fitzgerald’s handwritten notes as he was working on the now classic novel.

Gates has been a pioneer on the charitable front for many years. According to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, Gates and wife Melinda Gates donated an estimated $4.78 billion dollars in 2018, bringing the total they’ve given through their foundation and other family foundations to $45.5 billion.

Gates also famously created The Giving Pledge with billionaire Warren Buffett. The pledge invites billionaires to commit to giving away most of their fortunes to charity.

Even while only one Redditor benefits from Gate’s munificence each holiday season, plenty of others of the platform’s users benefit from being part of its Secret Santa community.

Among some of the presents sent: Google gifted one user a Pixel 4 phone. Another received a 3D printer from their “fantastic” Secret Santa. Yet another Redditor received a handmade Captain America shield — along with a smaller handmade shield for his dog.


Source: Tech Crunch

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Wikipedia ban ruled unconstitutional by Turkish court

Two and a half years after being blocked by the Turkish government, Wikipedia appears to have received a reprieve. The country’s constitutional court this week ruled that the April 2017 ban violated freedom of expression laws.

The Wikimedia Foundation has been arguing the ban since May, when the parent organization took the country to European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). The foundation won in a 10-6 court decision that is expected to reinstate the user-edited online encyclopedia in Turkey.

In 2017, Turkey became the second country to completely ban access to the site, due to entries claiming ties to Isis and other terrorist groups. Turkey called the move an “administrative measure,” using a law designed to curb online security threats.

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales tweeted a photo of himself in front of the Turkish flag, along with the words “Welcome back, Turkey!” However, no time frame has been given for when the site will be reinstated in the country. 

“While today’s ruling from the Constitutional Court is a welcome development for free knowledge and the people of Turkey, there are other threats to our ability to continue to freely, openly, and collaboratively build the largest collection of knowledge in human history,” the foundation wrote in a post celebrating the ruling. “Despite this, today is a good day for those of us that believe in the power of knowledge and dialogue. We are encouraged by this outcome and will continue to work towards a world in which knowledge is freely accessible to all.”


Source: Tech Crunch

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Chinese apps are losing their hold on India to local developers

Apps from Chinese developers have been gaining popularity on Indian app stores for sometime. Last year, as many as 44 of the top 100 Android apps in India were developed by Chinese firms.

But things have changed this year as local developers put on a fight. According to app analytics and marketing firm AppsFlyer, Indian apps as a whole have recaptured their original standing.

41% of top 200 apps in Indian editions of Google’s Play Store and Apple’s App Store in Q2 and Q3 this year were developed by Indian developers and local firms, up from 38% last year, the report said. Data from App Annie, another research firm, corroborates the claim.

“This uptick happened chiefly at the expense of Chinese apps, which fell from their lead position to 38% from 43% in 2018. Altogether, Chinese and Indian apps make up almost four-fifths (79%) of the list,” the report said.

The shift comes as scores of Indian firms have launched payments, gaming, news, and entertainment apps in the last year and a half, said AppsFlyer, which analyzed 6.5 billion installs in the second and third quarters of this year.

But Chinese developers are not giving up and continue to maintain an “impressive” fight in each category, the report said.

India — which is home to more than 450 million smartphone users and maintains relatively lax laws to support an open market — has naturally emerged as an attractive battleground for developers worldwide.

Many Chinese firms including Xiaomi and ByteDance count India as one of their largest markets. TikTok app has amassed over 200 million users in India, for instance. Xiaomi, which leads the Indian smartphone market, is quickly building a portfolio of services for users in India. It launched a lending app in the country earlier this month.

Gaining traction among first time internet users, most of whom have lower financial capacity, can prove challenging. Those developing travel apps had to spend about 170 Indian rupees ($2.4) for each install, for instance. Food and drink app makers spent 138 Indian rupees ($1.9) per install during the aforementioned period, while games cost 13.5 Indian rupees.

Despite the marketing spends, retention rate for these apps was 23.4% on day 1, a figure that plummeted to 2.6% by the end of the month. (This is still an improvement over retention rates of 22.8% on day 1, and 2.3% on day 30 last year.)


Source: Tech Crunch

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Daily Crunch: Travis Kalanick is leaving Uber’s board

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here.

1. Uber founder Travis Kalanick is leaving the company’s board of directors

Uber founder and former CEO Travis Kalanick will officially resign from the board as of December 31, to “focus on his new business and philanthropic endeavors,” according to a company press release.

Kalanick, who was forced out as Uber CEO and eventually replaced by Dara Khosrowshahi, has been in the process of selling off his considerable ownership stake in the company. In fact, it looks like Kalanick has now sold all his remaining stock.

2. Plenty of Fish app was leaking users’ hidden names and postal codes

Dating app Plenty of Fish has pushed out a fix for its app after a security researcher found it was leaking information that users had set to “private” on their profiles. Before the fix, the app was silently returning users’ first names and postal ZIP codes, according to The App Analyst.

3. As DraftKings finds an exit, a reminder of what could have been

DraftKings, a betting service focused on fantasy sports, will go public via a reverse merger. Not too long ago DraftKings and its erstwhile rival FanDuel were ubiquitous on television; now the two companies are fractions of what they once were. (Extra Crunch membership required.)

4. Gift Guide: 13 last-minute subscription gifts for the people you totally didn’t forget

It’s too late to order things online, and brick-and-mortar stores are either closed for the week or absolutely slammed. So what can you do? Subscriptions!

5. Fyre Festival meets Mr. Bone Saw

Connie Loizos looks at the controversy around the three-day-long MDL Beast Festival in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The event, promoted by a number of celebrities and social media influencers, aimed to promote the efforts of its de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (known as MBS).

6. A false start for foldables in 2019

A year from now, the Samsung Galaxy Fold’s turbulent takeoff may well be a footnote in the largest story of foldables. For now, however, it’s an important caveat that will come up in every conversation about the nascent product category. (Extra Crunch membership required.)

7. Micro-angelo? This 3D-printed ‘David’ is just one millimeter tall

3D printing has proven itself useful in so many industries that it’s no longer necessary to show off, but some people just can’t help themselves. Case in point: this millimeter-tall rendition of Michelangelo’s famous “David” printed with copper using a newly developed technique.


Source: Tech Crunch

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Pyka and its autonomous, electric crop-spraying drone land $11M seed round

Modern agriculture involves fields of mind-boggling size, and spraying them efficiently is a serious operational challenge. Pyka is taking on the largely human-powered spray business with an autonomous winged craft and, crucially, regulatory approval.

Just as we’ve seen with DroneSeed, this type of flying is risky for pilots, who must fly very close to the ground and other obstacles, yet also highly susceptible to automation; That’s because it involves lots of repetitive flight patterns that must be executed perfectly, over and over.

Pyka’s approach is unlike that of many in the drone industry, which has tended to use multirotor craft for their maneuverability and easy take-off and landing. But those drones can’t carry the weight and volume of pesticides and other chemicals that (unfortunately) need to be deployed at large scales.

The craft Pyka has built is more traditional, resembling a traditional one-seater crop dusting plane but lacking the cockpit. It’s driven by a trio of propellers, and most of the interior is given over to payload (it can carry about 450 pounds) and batteries. Of course there is also a sensing suite and onboard computer to handle the immediate demands of automated flight.

Pyka can take off or land on a 150-foot stretch of flat land, so you don’t have to worry about setting up a runway and wasting energy getting to the target area. Of course, it’ll eventually need to swap out batteries, which is part of the ground crew’s responsibilities. They’ll also be designing the overall course for the craft, though the actual flight path and moment-to-moment decisions are handled by the flight computer.

Example of a flight path accounting for obstacles without human input.

All this means the plane, apparently called the Egret, can spray about a hundred acres per hour, about the same as a helicopter. But the autonomous craft provides improved precision (it flies lower) and safety (no human pulling difficult maneuvers every minute or two).

Perhaps more importantly, the feds don’t mind it. Pyka claims to be the only company in the world with a commercially approved large autonomous electric aircraft. Small ones like drones have been approved left and right, but the Egret is approaching the size of a traditional “small aircraft” like a Piper Cub.

Of course, that’s just the craft — other regulatory hurdles hinder wide deployment, like communicating with air traffic management and other craft; certification of the craft in other ways; a more robust long-range sense and avoid system, and so on. But Pyka’s Egret has already flown thousands of miles at test farms that paying for the privilege. (Pyka declined to comment on its business model, customers, or revenues.)

The company’s founding team — Michael Norcia, Chuma Ogunwole, Kyle Moore, and Nathan White — comes from a variety of well-known companies working in adjacent spaces: Cora, Kittyhawk, Joby Aviation, Google X, Waymo, and Morgan Stanley (that’s the COO).

The $11M seed round was led by Prime Movers Lab, with participation from Y Combinator, Greycroft, Data Collective, and Bold Capital Partners.


Source: Tech Crunch

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A Twitter app bug was used to match 17 million phone numbers to user accounts

A security researcher said he has matched 17 million phone numbers to Twitter user accounts by exploiting a flaw in Twitter’s Android app.

Ibrahim Balic found that it was possible to upload entire lists of generated phone numbers through Twitter’s contacts upload feature. “If you upload your phone number, it fetches user data in return,” he told TechCrunch.

He said Twitter’s contact upload feature doesn’t accept lists of phone numbers in sequential format — likely as a way to prevent this kind of matching. Instead, he generated more than two billion phone numbers, one after the other, then randomized the numbers, and uploaded them to Twitter through the Android app. (Balic said the bug did not exist in the web-based upload feature.)

Over a two-month period, Balic said he matched records from users in Israel, Turkey, Iran, Greece, Armenia, France and Germany, he said, but stopped after Twitter blocked the effort on December 20.

Balic provided TechCrunch with a sample of the phone numbers he matched. Using the site’s password reset feature, we verified his findings by comparing a random selection of usernames with the phone numbers that were provided.

In one case, TechCrunch was able to identify a senior Israeli politician using their matched phone number.

While he did not alert Twitter to the vulnerability, he took many of the phone numbers of high-profile Twitter users — including politicians and officials — to a WhatsApp group in an effort to warn users directly.

It’s not believed Balic’s efforts are related to a Twitter blog post published this week, which confirmed a bug could have allowed “a bad actor to see nonpublic account information or to control your account,” such as tweets, direct messages and location information.

A Twitter spokesperson told TechCrunch the company was working to “ensure this bug cannot be exploited again.”

“Upon learning of this bug, we suspended the accounts used to inappropriately access people’s personal information. Protecting the privacy and safety of the people who use Twitter is our number one priority and we remain focused on rapidly stopping spam and abuse originating from use of Twitter’s APIs,” the spokesperson said.

It’s the latest security lapse involving Twitter data in the past year. In May, Twitter admitted it gave account location data to one of its partners, even if the user had opted-out of having their data shared. In August, the company said it inadvertently gave its ad partners more data than it should have. And just last month, Twitter confirmed it used phone numbers provided by users for two-factor authentication for serving targeted ads.

Balic is previously known for identifying a security flaw breach that affected Apple’s developer center in 2013.

Hackers are spreading Islamic State propaganda by hijacking dormant Twitter accounts


Source: Tech Crunch

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Micro-angelo? This 3D-printed ‘David’ is just one millimeter tall

3D printing has proven itself useful in so many industries that it’s no longer necessary to show off, but some people just can’t help themselves. Case in point: this millimeter-tall rendition of Michelangelo’s famous “David” printed with copper using a newly developed technique.

The aptly named “Tiny David” was created by Exaddon, a spin-off company from another spin-off company, Cytosurge, spun off from Swiss research university ETH Zurich. It’s only a fraction of a millimeter wide and weighs two micrograms.

It was created using Exaddon’s “CERES” 3D printer, which lays down a stream of ionized liquid copper at a rate of as little as femtoliters per second, forming a rigid structure with features as small as a micrometer across. The Tiny David took about 12 hours to print, though something a little simpler in structure could probably be done much quicker.

As it is, the level of detail is pretty amazing. Although, obviously, you can’t recreate every nuance of Michelangelo’s masterpiece, even small textures like the hair and muscle tone are reproduced quite well. No finishing buff or support struts required.

Of course, we can create much smaller structures at the nanometer level with advanced lithography techniques, but that’s a complex, sensitive process that must be engineered carefully by experts. This printer can take an arbitrary 3D model and spit it out in a few hours, and at room temperature.

The CERES printer.

But the researchers do point out that there is some work involved.

“It is more than just a copy and downsized model of Michelangelo’s David,” said Exaddon’s Giorgio Ercolano in a company blog post. “Our deep understanding of the printing process has led to a new way of processing the 3D computer model of the statue and then converting it into machine code. This object has been sliced from an open-source CAD file and afterwards was sent directly to the printer. This slicing method enables an entirely new way to print designs with the CERES additive micromanufacturing system.”

Much smaller than that doesn’t work, though — Micro-David starts looking like he’s made of Play-Doh snakes. That’s fine, they’ll get there eventually.

The team published the details of their newly refined technique (it was pioneered a few years ago but is much better now) in the journal Micromachines.


Source: Tech Crunch

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What’s worse than Christmas music? Bitcoin Christmas music

The holiday season can be a lot. You might need something to make you feel better. This post doesn’t have it. But it does have some pretty terrible bitcoin Christmas music parodies that you can endure!

Enjoy:

In fact, the same account has made a bunch of similar pieces of musical fanfiction, proving the point that bitcoin fans are like other traders, but with fewer friends.

Take one for the road:

Now go get offline and spend time with someone you love.


Source: Tech Crunch

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Daily Crunch: Boeing names a new CEO

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here.

1. Boeing CEO out following 737 Max fiasco, will be replaced by current board chairman

Boeing’s CEO Dennis A. Muilenburg is CEO no longer, the company announced today. Effective January 13, 2020, current Board Chairman David L. Calhoun takes over the top executive officer spot at the aerospace company, and becomes president, as well.

This isn’t exactly a surprising decision: Boeing’s year has been marked primarily by its handling of the 737 Max issues it faced, which stemmed from aircraft failures that resulted in crashes and the deaths of passengers.

2. Tesla lands $1.4B from Chinese banks to build out its Shanghai gigafactory

Tesla has reportedly secured over $1.4 billion in financing in the form of loans from multiple Chinese banks in order to help fund the construction of its new gigafactory in Shanghai. First Reuters and now Bloomberg reported the funding, with an official announcement supposedly scheduled for sometime this week.

3. TikTok’s national security scrutiny tightens as U.S. Navy reportedly bans popular social app

According to a notice published by the U.S. Navy this past week, TikTok will no longer be allowed to be installed on service members’ devices, or they may face expulsion from the military service’s intranet. This is just the latest example of the challenges facing the extremely popular app.

4. Whatever happened to the Next Big Things?

So what’s next? Jon Evans runs through some candidates for Next Big Thing and wonders whether something has to be next at all.

5. India’s HomeLane raises $30M to expand its one-stop shop for interior design

HomeLane helps property owners furnish and install fixtures in their new apartments and houses. The company has established 16 experience centers in seven Indian cities so that consumers can touch and see materials and furniture.

6. 2019’s 10 defining moments in venture capital

These last 12 months have been replete with scandals, new and interesting upstarts, fallen CEOs and big fundraises. (Extra Crunch membership required.)

7. This week’s TechCrunch podcasts

On the latest episode of Equity, Alex and Kate discuss some new venture funds. And on Original Content, we review Netflix’s “Marriage Story,” as well as the latest Star Wars movie “The Rise of Skywalker.”


Source: Tech Crunch

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Max Q: Launches from SpaceX, Boeing and the ESA

Max Q is a new weekly newsletter all about space. Sign up here to receive it weekly on Sundays in your inbox.

Typically, the holiday season is a slow one in the tech industry — but space tech is different, and this past week saw a flurry of activity, including one of the most important rocket launches of the year.

Just about every significant new space company got in on the action during the past seven days, either with actual spacecraft launches, or with big announcements. And everything that went down sets up 2020 to be even crazier.

Boeing’s big year-end mission doesn’t go as planned

Boeing managed to get a crucial test launch in for its commercial crew program — which is NASA’s effort to get U.S. astronauts launching from U.S. soil once again. Boeing launched its “orbital flight test” or OFT on Friday, and the actual rocket launch part of the flight went exactly as intended.

Unfortunately, what came next didn’t match up with what was supposed to happen: The Starliner spacecraft (which wasn’t actually carrying anyone for this test) ran into an error with its onboard mission clock that led to it expending more fuel more quickly than it should have, leaving it with not enough fuel to make its planned rendezvous with the ISS.

… but at least it stuck the landing

The Starliner capsule didn’t dock with the Space Station, but it still completed a number of key objectives, like demonstrating that its docking arm extended properly. Maybe most importantly, it also landed back on Earth on time and on target, per the revised mission plan that Boeing and NASA hammered out once they determined they couldn’t reach the station as planned. In space as in startups, even failures are successes of a kind.

SpaceX launches Falcon 9 but misses the fairing catch

SpaceX’s latest launch took place on Monday, and it was a success in just about every regard — except in terms of one of its secondary missions, which was an attempt to catch the two fairing halves that together cover the payload as the rocket ascends to space. SpaceX has been trying to catch these with ships at sea equipped with large nets, and it caught one previously. It’ll keep trying, just like it did with rocket booster landings, and could save up to $6 million per launch once it gets the process right.

Europe launched a planet-watcher

The European Space Agency also launched a rocket this week — a Soyuz carrying a new satellite that will observe exoplanets (planets outside our solar system) from orbit. It’ll be able to assess their density from that vantage point, giving us valuable new info about the potential habitability of distant heavenly bodies.

Apple might enter the satellite constellation game

Smartphone iPhone XS mockup. Design template for graphic design, motion graphics, digital marketing.

Apple apparently has its own team internally working on satellite communication technologies. This effort may or may not involve the iPhone-maker actually developing its own spacecraft, but it seems like the overall goal is to develop its own direct wireless communication network to work with iPhones and other Apple hardware.

Amazon is opening a dedicated HQ for its satellite business

Meanwhile, Amazon’s own satellite business is a known quantity called “Project Kuiper,” and the company is going to double down on its investment next year with a new dedicated space for Kuiper’s R&D and prototype manufacturing. Eventually, Kuiper will be a constellation of low Earth orbit satellites providing broadband to underserved and unserved areas of the globe.

Rocket Lab is already working on its third launch pad

Rocket Lab will be opening a third launch pad, the company announced, just after declaring its second in Virginia this month. The third launch site will be at the same spot as its first — on the Mahia peninsula in northern New Zealand.


Source: Tech Crunch