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Thought VR was too expensive and too bulky? Well, VRgineers is here with a giant $5,800 headset to prove that you lack perspective.

The Prague-based startup just showed off its latest piece of high-end VR hardware which it will be launching at this year’s CES expo. The headset sports an 180-degree field-of-view, dual 2560 x 1440 OLED displays and a form factor that’s massive. The big focus of the revamped XTAL headset seems to be in the lenses which have a brand new design meant to expand what users can see at full resolution inside the headset while also minimizing distortion elsewhere.

The headset has integrated Leap Motion hand-tracking, is compatible with a variety of tracking systems and leans heavily on voice controls.

What VRgineers has built is quite obviously professional-focused. It’s pushing industry boundaries in field-of-view and resolution.

Their focus is clearly enterprise given its $5,800 price tag. Specifically, the startup seems to be trying to capture the automotive market where VR is actually being leaned on heavily in design and manufacturing.

The high-end VR headset market is in a bit of an interesting spot right now. Oculus has kind of seemed to hurt the rest of the market by having driven hardware margins so low in the quest to make VR more approachable. It’s difficult to fault them for wanting to recoup some of their investment in OculusVR, but the more niche hardware players have really been usurped by a competitor that’s just operating on longer timelines.

Things are looking up for more high-end focused VR startups though, Oculus seems to be moving in a different direction for its next PC VR hardware release. We reported last month, that Oculus was looking to keep a lot of stuff the same with its next headset, possibly called the “Rift S”. This leaves some positive room for high-end VR startups to charge exorbitant amounts for their products but also deliver more niche feature sets for customers at the same time.

Source: Tech Crunch

Apparently, a lot of people realize at the last minute that they don’t have either beer, wine, or liquor in their home when they need it.

It’s certainly the most obvious explanation for a sizable new round of funding into Drizly, a six-year-old, Boston-based on-demand delivery app for alcohol that works with roughly 1,000 brick-and-mortar liquor stores across the U.S. and Canada to deliver spirits to customers in what it says is less than an hour. Indeed, according to a new SEC filing, the company has just locked down $34.5 million in funding, which roughly doubles the company’s previous $33 million in funding. Investors include Polaris Partners, which led the company’s Series B round a couple of years ago, along with Baird Capital. Altogether, shows the filing, 17 investors took part in the offering.

The Drizly app shows shoppers different prices on the beer, wine and liquor that they’re looking for at local shops, along with different delivery or pick-up options. There have been some recent changes behind the scenes as the company has grown, too. In late summer, cofounder and original CEO Nick Rellas moved into an advisory role, while his cofounder and cousin, Cory Rellas, who had been the company’s chief operating officer, took over as chief executive. (Nick Rellas remains on the company’s board.) Drizly published a statement at the time, stating: “Having taken on a more critical role in the operations of the company over the past few years, coupled with his experience at Bain Capital, Cory is poised to lead Drizly through the next stage of its growth.”

Drizly also added a CMO, CFO, and head of HR to its leadership team over the past year, as the Boston Globe reported in August.

Another sign that the company is maturing: it made its first acquisition in July, absorbing Buttery, an on-demand alcohol e-commerce company that was only active in four cities but whose backend technology and employees were integrated into Drizly. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Source: Tech Crunch

Tesla is now seeking $167 million in a lawsuit against Martin Tripp, the former Tesla employee who CEO Elon Musk has referred to as a saboteur, CNBC first reported. The lawsuit, originally filed in June and seeking just $1 million at the time, alleges Tripp stole confidential and trade secret information, and gave it to third parties.

Tripp, in July, filed a formal whistleblower tip to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission alleging Tesla misled investors and put its customers at risk. It’s been a bitter back-and-forth between Tesla and Tripp, who then in August tweeted photos of allegedly damaged batteries at Tesla’s factory.

According to the filing, Tesla has not made Musk available for a deposition. Additionally, the filing argues Tripp’s lawyers need to depose more than ten people involved with Tesla.

“In this case, where Mr. Tripp is being sued for more than $167,000,000.00 and has asserted counterclaims against Tesla, more than ten (10) depositions is certainly reasonable and appropriate,” Tripp’s lawyers wrote in the filing.

I’ve reached out to Tesla and will update this story if I hear back. The case is Tesla, Inc. v Tripp, located in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada.

Source: Tech Crunch

Members of the House Judiciary committee have today closely questioned Google’s CEO about the company’s intentions in China, following reports this summer it’s planning a controversial return to the market despite local censorship of Internet services.

Mountain View pulled its search engine out of China back in 2010, under pressure over censored search results. It also cited cyber attacks originating from the country as factoring into its decision to leave.

So Congress wanted to know what exactly had changed that Google is considering reversing that exit, and how doing so wouldn’t contradict its own “core values”.

A none-too-comfortable Pichai stuck closely to a qualified line on the topic, telling Congress Google has no plans “right now” to launch in China, thereby leaving the door open for a launch at a future date.

At the same time he pointed to Google’s “mission”, of making information digitally accessible, to justify what he couched as an exploratory, internal effort at this stage — saying the company mission underpins its ongoing interest in the market. 

He made no mention of the 800M+ Chinese Internet users that Google could potentially add to its business if it returned to the market as factoring into his calculations.

“Right now there are no plans for us to launch a search product in China,” Pichai told the committee. “We are, in general, always looking to see how best — it’s part of our core mission and our principles — to try hard to provide users with information.

“We always have evidence, based on every country we’ve operated in, us reaching out and giving users more information has a very positive impact. And we feel that calling but right now there are no plans to launch in China. To the extent that we ever approach a position like that I will be fully transparent, including with policymakers here. And engage and consult widely.”

A little earlier in the session the committee was briefly interrupted by a person trying to enter the room holding a poster depicting the Google logo superimposed on the Chinese flag.

The chair asked for the individual to be removed and the door to be shut.

Asked directly whether he would “avoid launching a tool of censorship and surveillance in China while you are CEO of Google”, Pichai trod carefully in his response, avoiding making any such categorical commitment — but saying he would be “very thoughtful” about any relaunch. 

“Congressman I commit to engaging,” he said, beginning his answer. “One of the things which is important to us as a company, we have a stated mission of providing users with information, and so we always — we think it’s in our duty to explore possibilities. To give users access to information… I have that commitment but as I said earlier on this we’ll be very thoughtful and we will engage widely as we make progress.”

He was also asked directly whether there are any current discussions with any member of the Chinese government on launching the app. “This effort currently is an internal effort,” he replied to that, reiterating again that he would be “happy to consult/be transparent should we take steps towards launching a product in China”.

Asked who is leading the China project, Pichai also kept things vague — saying it’s being undertaken by Google’s “search teams”, before adding: “But these are distributed efforts. It’s a limited effort internally currently.”

One of the policymakers who questioned Pichai about Google’s intentions in China, congressman David Cicilline, suggested returning to the market would be “completely inconsistent” with Google’s recently announced AI principles.

But ending his five minutes of allotted question time with the Google CEO, Cicilline said concern about technologists working with anti-democratic regimes “goes beyond Google — and frankly beyond China”.

“At a moment of rising authoritarianism around the world when more leaders are using surveillance, censorship and repression against their own people we’re in a moment that we must reassert American moral leadership,” he said, asking also for an open letter from a coalition of human and civil rights organizations, opposing the launch of a censored Google search engine for the Chinese market, to be submitted to the committee for the record.

A little later in the session Pichai was also asked by a different congressman how many engineers worked on the China project. He said the number varied but at one point more than 100 Googlers had been engaged on it.

He declined to specify exactly how long Google has been working on the project — saying only that it’s been “underway for a while”.

Source: Tech Crunch

Google CEO Sundar Pichai admitted today that YouTube needs to do better in dealing with conspiracy content on its site that can lead to real-world violence. During his testimony on Tuesday before the House Judiciary Committee, the exec was questioned on how YouTube handles extremist content that promotes conspiracy theories like Pizzagate and, more recently, a Hillary Clinton-focused conspiracy theory dubbed Frazzledrip.

According to an article in Monday’s Washington Post, Frazzledrip is a variation on Pizzagate that began spreading on YouTube this spring.

In a bizarre series of questions, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) asked Pichai if he knew what Frazzledrip was.

Pichai replied that he was “not aware of the specifics about it.”

Raskin went on to explain that the recommendation engine on YouTube has been suggesting videos that claim politicians, celebrities and other leading figures were “sexually abusing and consuming the remains of children, often in satanic rituals.” He said these new conspiracist claims were echoing the discredited Pizzagate conspiracy, which two years ago led to a man firing shots into a Washington, D.C. pizzeria, in search of the children he believed were held as sex slaves by Democratic Party leaders.

He also explained the new Frazzledrip theory in more detail, which he read about in The Washington Post’s report about the still rampant hateful conspiracies being hosted by YouTube. This newer conspiracy claims that Hillary Clinton and longtime aide Huma Abedin sexually assaulted a girl and drank her blood.

The Post said some of the video clips were removed after first appearing in April, and had been debunked, but its review of the matter found dozens of videos where the claims were still being discussed. Combined, these videos had been viewed millions of times over the past eight months. In addition, the investigation found that YouTube’s search box would highlight these videos when people typed in terms like “HRC video” or “Frazzle.”

YouTube’s policy doesn’t prevent people from uploading falsehoods, the Post’s report noted.

Raskin asked Pichai about this type of extremist propaganda.

“What is your company policy on that? And are you trying to deal with it?,” he questioned.

Pichai admitted, essentially, that YouTube needed to do better.

“We are constantly undertaking efforts to deal with misinformation. We have clearly stated policies and we have made lots of progress in many of the areas where over the past year — so, for example, in areas like terrorism, child safety, and so on,” said Pichai. “We are looking to do more,” he said.

In terms of the Frazzledrip theory, he said it was more of a recent happening.

“But I’m committed to following up on it and making sure we are evaluating these against our policies,” the CEO promised.

The issue with videos like Frazzledrip is that YouTube’s current policies don’t fully encompass how to handle extremist propaganda. Instead, as the Post also said, its policies focus on videos with hateful, graphic and violent content directed at minorities and other protected groups. Meanwhile, it seeks to allow freedom of speech to others who upload content to its site, despite the disinformation they may spread or their potential to lead to violence.

The balance between free speech and content policies is a delicate matter — and an important one, given YouTube’s power to influence dangerous individuals. In addition to the Pizzagate shooter, the mass shooter who killed 11 people at the Pittsburgh synagogue in October had been watching neo-Nazi propaganda on YouTube, the Post’s report pointed out, in another example.

Asked what YouTube was doing about all this, Pichai didn’t offer specifics.

The CEO instead admitted that YouTube struggles with evaluating videos individually because of the volume of content it sees.

“We do get around 400 hours of video every minute. But it’s our responsibility, I think, to make sure YouTube is a platform for freedom of expression, but it’s responsible and contributes positively to society,” Pichai said. He added that its policies allow it to take down videos that “incite harm or hatred or violence.” But conspiracy videos don’t always directly incite violence — they just radicalize individuals, who then sometimes act out violently as a result.

“It’s an area we acknowledge there’s more work to be done, and we’ll definitely continue doing that,” Pichai said. “But I want to acknowledge there is more work to be done. With our growth comes more responsibility. And we are committed to doing better as we invest more in this area,” he said.

Source: Tech Crunch

On the heels of an employee-led protest against Google, a group of 35 Google employees is banding together to take it a step further and end the practice of forced arbitration across the entire tech industry.

Forced arbitration ensures workplace disputes are settled behind closed doors and without any right to an appeal. These types of agreements effectively prevent employees from suing companies. Following the walkout last month, Google got rid of forced arbitration for sexual harassment and sexual assault claims, offering more transparency around those investigations and more. Airbnb, eBay and Facebook quickly followed suit.

However, optional arbitration at Google is only granted for full-time employees, which does not include the thousands of contract workers at the company. Now, a group of Google employees is demanding an end to forced arbitration, as it relates to any case of discrimination, across the entire industry.

As the employees note on Medium, arbitration is still forced for discrimination cases pertaining to race, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity, age and ability. Additionally, employee contracts in the U.S. still have an arbitration waiver, the employees wrote.

“We have not heard of any plan to render these waivers null and void,” employees wrote on Medium. “Google operates in 52 countries where arbitration laws vary, and leadership has not addressed these variances. What should we expect?”

Moving forward, they’re asking other tech workers to join them in their fight to end forced arbitration for all forms of harassment and discrimination. They’re also calling on elected officials to support the Arbitration Fairness Act, as well as Restoring Justice for Workers Act.

“We are already engaging with multiple organizations and can help connect the dots through educational materials and organizing resources,” they wrote. “2019 must be the year to end a system of privatized justice that impacts over 60 million workers in the US alone.”

I’ve reached out to Google and will update this story if I hear back.

Source: Tech Crunch

A group of U.S. tech giants, including Apple, Google and Microsoft, have collectively denounced the new so-called “anti-encryption” law passed by the Australian parliament last week.

The bill was passed less than a day after the ruling coalition government secured the votes from opposition Labor lawmakers, despite strong objection from tech companies and telcos.

“The new Australian law is deeply flawed, overly broad, and lacking in adequate independent oversight over the new authorities,” said the Reform Government Surveillance coalition in a statement. The tech companies added that the law would “undermine the cybersecurity, human rights, or the right to privacy of our users.”

It’s the latest rebuke since the bill’s passing, following an extensive lobbying effort by Silicon Valley to push back on the anti-encryption proposals.

The law allows Australian police and the intelligence agencies wide-reaching powers to issue “technical notices” — essentially forcing companies and even websites operating in Australia to help the government undermine encryption or insert backdoors at the behest of the government. Critics argue that there’s little oversight, potentially allowing abuse of the system. And because the notices will almost always be issued with a gag order, any technical notices are served behind closed doors in secret.

Companies that refuse to comply with the demands in a technical notice can be served heavy financial penalties.

The Australian government won in part by accusing Labor of using scare tactics, saying that the opposition party was choosing to “allow terrorists and pedophiles to continue their evil work in order to engage in point scoring,” said Australian defense minister Christopher Pyne, in a since-deleted tweet. Labor caved in to the pressure, and party leader Bill Shorten instructed his members to vote for the bill. He promised that the party would offer amendments to the law once passed in the coming months, while keeping “Australians safer over Christmas.”

The tech coalition said it’ll hold the Australian parliament’s feet to the fire, urging lawmakers to “promptly address these flaws when it reconvenes” in the new year.

The group, which also includes Dropbox, Facebook, Google and Yahoo parent company Oath (which also owns TechCrunch) — was set up after the companies were named in classified U.S. documents as participants in the secret National Security Agency program, dubbed PRISM. All of the companies denied their willing involvement, and began a collective effort to lobby the government to reform its surveillance operations — many of which rely on compelled assistance from tech companies and telcos.

Evernote, LinkedIn, Snap and Twitter, which weren’t named as PRISM partners, later joined the coalition, and also signed on to the letter.

Cisco and Mozilla joined other companies in separately filing complaints with Australian lawmakers ahead of the planned vote, arguing that the law “could do significant harm to the Internet.”

Source: Tech Crunch

Google Fit, Google’ s activity-tracking app for Android, is getting a small but meaningful update today that adds a few new features that’ll likely make its regular users quite happy. Some are pretty basic, like the launch of a Fit widget for your Android home screen, while others introduce new features like a breathing exercise (though that will only be available on Wear OS), an updated home screen in the app itself and improved activity logging.

The app got a major redesign earlier this year and in the process, Google introduced Heart Points as a way of tracking not just the length but also the strenuousness of your activities. Those are tracked automatically as you go about your day, but since Fit also lets you log activities manually, you didn’t really get a chance to log the intensity of those exercises. Now, however, you can adjust the intensity in your quest for getting more Heart Points.

The other major new feature is the exact opposite of strenuous exercise: a breathing exercise for those moments when you want to calm down. For some reason, Google decided that this feature is Wear OS-only right now. I’m not quite sure why that’s the case, but if you don’t have a Wear OS watch, you’ll just have to figure out some other way to keep calm and bugger on.

Source: Tech Crunch

It’s not true that everyone gets their news from Facebook and Twitter. But it is now true that more U.S. adults get their news from social media than from print newspapers. According to a new report from Pew Research Center out today, social media has for the first time surpassed newspapers as a preferred source of news for American adults. However, social media is still far behind other traditional news sources, like TV and radio, for example.

Last year, the portion of those who got their news from social media was around equal to those who got their news from print newspapers, Pew says. But in its more recent survey conducted from July 30 through August 12, 2018, that had changed.

Now, one-in-five U.S. adults (20 percent) are getting news from social media, compared with just 16 percent of those who get news from newspapers, the report found. (Pew had asked respondents if they got their news “often” from the various platforms.)

The change comes at a time when newspaper circulation is on the decline, and its popularity as a news medium is being phased out — particularly with younger generations. In fact, the report noted that print only remains popular today with the 65 and up crowd, where 39 percent get their news from newspapers. By comparison, no more than 18 percent of any other age group does.

While the decline of print has now given social media a slight edge, it’s nowhere near dominating other formats.

Instead, TV is still the most popular destination for getting the news, even though that’s been dropping over the past couple of years. TV is then followed by news websites, radio and then social media and newspapers.

But “TV news” doesn’t necessarily mean cable news networks, Pew clarifies.

In reality, local news is the most popular, with 37 percent getting their news there often. Meanwhile, 30 percent get cable TV news often and 25 percent watch the national evening news shows often.

However, if you look at the combination of news websites and social media together, a trend toward increasing news consumption from the web is apparent. Together, 43 percent of U.S. adults get their news from the web in some way, compared to 49 percent from TV.

There’s a growing age gap between TV and the web, too.

A huge majority (81 percent) of those 65 and older get news from TV, and so does 65 percent of those ages 50 to 64. Meanwhile, only 16 percent of the youngest consumers — those ages 18 to 29 — get their news from TV. This is the group pushing forward the cord cutting trend, too — or more specifically, many of them are the “cord-nevers,” as they’re never signing up for pay TV subscriptions in the first place. So it’s not surprising they’re not watching TV news.

Plus, a meager 2 percent get their news from newspapers in this group.

This young demographic greatly prefers digital consumption, with 27 percent getting news from news websites and 36 percent from social media. That is to say, they’re four times as likely than those 65 and up to get news from social media.

Meanwhile, online news websites are the most popular with the 30 to 49-year-old crowd, with 42 percent saying they get their news often from this source.

Despite their preference for digital, younger Americans’ news consumption is better spread out across mediums, Pew points out.

“Younger Americans are also unique in that they don’t rely on one platform in the way that the majority of their elders rely on TV,” Pew researcher Elisa Shearer writes. “No more than half of those ages 18 to 29 and 30 to 49 get news often from any one news platform,” she says.

Source: Tech Crunch