Ideaforge

To paraphrase a saying popularized by countless dorm room stoners: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you use the hype around decentralized crypto economies to sell bacon.” The latest example of this age-old adage comes to us from Oscar Meyer and involves their exciting new cryp-faux-currency, Bacoin.

The currency can be redeemed for bacon and you “mine” it by sharing the good news of bacoin with your friends. Instead of taking up massive amounts of electricity, the production of the final store of value – pig parts – requires only a massive agricultural system dedicated to the wholesale destruction of mammals that are as smart as dogs and, in the right context, quite cute. The end product, bacon, is considered by many to be far more interesting than anything Vitalik created. In short, it’s a win-win.

How does it work? It’s basically a sweepstakes. From the rules and regulations:

The value of the Bacoin is tied to overall sharing meaning that the more people who share via the Website (as outlined above), the higher the value of the Bacoin. If overall sharing is slow, the value of the Bacoin will decrease. If sharing is slow and the value of the Bacoin is low, Sponsor may increase value of Bacoin in its sole discretion. The current value of the Bacoin will be displayed on the Website. Once the Bacoin is at a value you want, follow the instructions to “cash out” and you will receive a coupon with the corresponding value (all possible values of the Bacoin coupon are outlined in Section 4 below).

The current value of a single mined bacoin is about 28 slices of bacon and the more you share the more you mine. Given that it is in no way a decentralized cryptocurrency and has nothing to do with anything technical at all I’m hard pressed to find a reason to post this here except to admire the sheer chutzpah of a company who knows exactly what breed of Reddit-loving bacon eater will jump at a chance to Tweet about pork products. To paraphrase another saying by my friend Nicholas Deleon: I hope the asteroid they promised comes for us all soon.

Bacoin. Yeah.

Source: Tech Crunch

Chinese authorities revealed over the weekend that they have the capability of retrieving deleted messages from the almost universally used WeChat app. The admission doesn’t come as a surprise to many, but it’s rare for this type of questionable data collection tactic to be acknowledged publicly.

As noted by the South China Morning Post, an anti-corruption commission in Hefei province posted Saturday to social media that it has “retrieved a series of deleted WeChat conversations from a subject” as part of an investigation.

The post was deleted Sunday, but not before many had seen it and understood the ramifications. Tencent, which operates the WeChat service used by nearly a billion people (including myself), explained in a statement that “WeChat does not store any chat histories — they are only stored on users’ phones and computers.”

The technical details of this storage were not disclosed, but it seems clear from the commission’s post that they are accessible in some way to interested authorities, as many have suspected for years. The app does, of course, comply with other government requirements, such as censoring certain topics.

There are still plenty of questions, the answers to which would help explain user vulnerability: Are messages effectively encrypted at rest? Does retrieval require the user’s password and login, or can it be forced with a “master key” or backdoor? Can users permanently and totally delete messages on the WeChat platform at all?

Fears over Chinese government access to data held or handled by Chinese companies has led to a global backlash against those companies, including some countries (including the U.S.) banning Chinese-made devices and services from sensitive applications or official use altogether.

Source: Tech Crunch

Virgin Hyperloop One and DP World are launching a new joint venture, DP World Cargospeed, four months after the high-speed transportation technology developer tapped the Saudi shipping company in its $50 million financing.

The company’s stated goal is to deliver palletized cargo more efficiently by combining super high-speed promise of hyperloop transportation with new logistics technologies to accelerate deliveries along Virgin Hyperloop One’s planned routes between Mumbai and Pune in India; in Saudi Arabia, and in the United Arab Emirates.

Announced with much fanfare and in the presence of Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem and Virgin Hyperloop chairman Richard Branson, the new company is basically built on buzzwords like “on-demand” and the promise of future performance.

Right now there’re only 10 kilometers of Virgin Hyperloop track being built (and they’re all in India).

Although there’s not much more than a bunch of pontificating palaver around hyperloop technologies now, the startup companies and their corporate backers do present an compelling vision of the future of transportation.

As China sinks billions into a new silk road to connect the world to its powerful new economic engine, incredibly fast, incredibly efficient logistics will become increasingly important — especially if it can be made more environmentally sustainable by harnessing renewable energy.

“The global growth of e-commerce is driving a dramatic shift in both consumer and business behavior. On-demand deliveries are a novelty today. Tomorrow it will be the expectation,” Branson said in a statement announcing the new company. “DP World Cargospeed systems powered by Virgin Hyperloop One will enable ultra-fast, on-demand deliveries of high-priority goods and can revolutionise logistics, support economic zones, and create thriving economic megaregions.”

Hyperloop transportation is basically shooting a container through a really really big pneumatic tube really really fast. The technology uses magnetic levitation to propel the people-and-product laden pods through the tube with little friction. Hypothetically the hyperloop should be able to achieve speeds of around 300 meters per second — faster than the fastest high speed rail technologies in use today.

Hurdles to getting a system like this up and running are immense. Most of the shipping world still runs on logistics systems designed in the 19th and 20th centuries that remain resistant to 21st century innovations

DP World Cargospeed systems, enabled by Virgin Hyperloop One technology, will transport high-priority, time-sensitive goods including fresh food, medical supplies, electronics, and more. It will expand freight transportation capacity by connecting with existing modes of road, rail and air transport.

“Based on McKinsey’s assessment of our technology, Virgin Hyperloop One-enabled supply chains can dramatically impact business bottom lines by reducing both finished goods inventory and required warehouse space by 25%,” said Rob Lloyd, the chief executive officer of Virgin Hyperloop One.

For Virgin Hyperloop One, the new joint venture with DP World is another sign of the company’s continued renaissance since bringing Virgin aboard. The once scandal-wracked startup now has a partner with seemingly unlimited pockets and a consummate salesman and spokesperson in the chairman’s seat on the company’s board.

Branson, for one, is all in on the technology (at least until Virgin Orbit starts blasting off in earnest).

“The reason I became chairman of this company, I found this ridiculously exciting,” Branson told CNBC. “I think if we can build Virgin Hyperloops in a number of different countries, connecting countries, that will bring the world much closer.”

Source: Tech Crunch

A few months ago, Marceau Michel met up with a fellow entrepreneur, Kathryn Brown of ScoutSavvy, to discuss their triumphs and tribulations of their time in the tech industry. That’s when the two discovered they were running into the same issue: lack of funding.

Unfortunately, Michel, an African-American founder, is not alone. Just one percent of venture-backed companies are led by black founders. In an attempt to address this problem, Michel is looking to engage the public to help in an area where traditional investors seem to lack the willingness.

“A lot of lip service is given to diversity and inclusion but the actual practicability of it lacks,” he told me.

With Black Founders Matter, the goal is to bring the tenacity of the Black Lives Matter movement to the startup industry.

“If there’s a brick wall that is standing between minorities and their dreams as entrepreneurs, how can we help the regular person help us in dismantling the wall between us and our dreams?” he posited.

Black Founders Matter has a simple premise of selling t-shirts and sweatshirts for the purpose of not necessarily being political, “but literal,” Michel told me. The apparel, which costs anywhere from $49.99 to $69.99, aims to generate revenue while raising awareness about black and female founders.

To date, Black Founders Matter has sold a little under $10,000 worth of t-shirts. The goal, however, is to hit $10 million in sales within the next two years, and then funnel that money into black-led startups.

“We can shake up venture funding and what it looks like and who gets it,” Michel said.

As Michel works to get all the funds in place, he’s working to build a committee that will ultimately decide how to delegate the money. In addition to running Black Founders Matter, Michel is running his own startup, on-demand staffing company Werk Horse.

“What we’re trying to do is create something I think the whole world needs,” Michel said. “I’m not just trying to solve a problem for black people, but for everyone.”

Through Werk Horse and Black Founders Matter, Michel hopes people will start looking at black people as CEOs, founders, CFOs and CTOs. Once that happens, Michel is convinced “they’re not going to shoot us” and it will shift “the misconception people have about black people.”

Source: Tech Crunch

From home- and ride-sharing apps to TV and movie streaming subscriptions to social media platforms – Internet companies have transformed our lives.

Today the internet sector contributes approximately $1 trillion, or 6 percent of GDP, to the national economy, as well as 3 million jobs and 231,000 businesses. These digital economy jobs and businesses are thriving in almost every city — and in metro areas across the country.

The truth is undeniable: cities are shaping the next chapter in America’s history, and the digital economy is a driving force. While venture capital in the tech industry has historically concentrated in a handful of U.S. cities, metro areas nationwide are benefiting from the internet sector.

Local policymakers are demonstrating leadership and building deeper internet ecosystems, resulting in new businesses emerging everywhere. Meanwhile, cities across the country are popping up as new tech hubs by mixing unique cultural and historical traits with innovative policy approaches.

We believe that cities broaden this growth even further by highlighting success from the ‘ground up’ and diffusing the success of local innovation into the national policy dialogue. Those cities that best integrate digital technologies into their economies and ecosystems can achieve more for their residents — and those that do not could fall behind.

In our report, Here They Come: A Look at the Future of Cities in the Internet Age, published by the National League of Cities and Internet Association, we focused on actionable lessons and examples of innovation leadership in four unique cities: Columbus, Ohio, Kansas City, Missouri, Phoenix, and Pittsburgh. We chose these cities for their major internet-sector presences — and for the valuable lessons offered by their successful community-oriented programs.

In Columbus, homegrown tech firms are setting up shop and workers from the coasts are moving in to take advantage of a friendly business environment and booming tech scene. The city has quietly built the right environmental factors to foster tech businesses and is now reaping the benefits — perhaps most notably through its victory in the national Smart City Challenge for its technology-integrated transportation system plan.

Kansas City has one of the fastest growing tech scenes of the past decade, and boasts a higher concentration of internet sector and STEM workers than New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago. The city has taken care to develop economic inclusion plans to ensure the sector’s benefits are diffused across its residents — while also applying the tech start-up mentality to its unique cultural traditions, such as in its Arts Incubator program.

In Phoenix, leaders are actively pushing economic diversification and experimentation through digital technology. They have opened up government data for the public, welcomed autonomous vehicles, and are working with local partners to better understand the strengths and weaknesses of the area’s labor force.

In Pittsburgh, the city is using the world-class tech talent groomed in its universities to revitalize the region and attract offices for numerous major internet firms. Local stakeholders have partnered with private sector firms to develop and test state-of-art technologies. The city is also examining its own internal processes for tech applications, such as in procurement.

All of these cities demonstrate that strong, local digital economies have underlying strengths that help them thrive, ranging from robust partnerships to a focus on economic inclusion. Throughout our research, eight key lessons surfaced again and again to guide city investment in the tech economy:

• Transportation systems are critical infrastructure and can rapidly benefit from new technologies. From autonomous vehicles to more seamless and connected public transportation, the future of mobility is reliant on technology to thrive.
• Open data provides win-win opportunities to cities and community members. Businesses can use the data to improve products, services, and efficiency while governments can gain important insights on services and community needs.
• Rapid procurement system pilot projects allow for faster development of innovative city services while minimizing the risk from larger scale implementations.
• Partnerships are key to achieving policy goals. Governments can often draw on the technical expertise of the private sector while businesses can use the vision and policy expertise of local leaders to find better solutions.
• Capitalize on the unique cultural and historical assets. Rather than imitating another place, cities should look at how they can merge their unique heritage with tech.
• Emphasize the importance of economic inclusion. Build programs that allow every resident the opportunity to connect with the internet and every business the opportunity to build digital tools.
• Experiment with new programs through pilot systems. Small scale projects are a valuable way to test ideas, but also manageable for local start-ups who may not yet have the capacity for a full-scale implementation.
• Invest time and resources to build well-rounded labor markets and diverse economies. Internet tools can bolster any business and industry, but those tools require individuals with training.

Ultimately, when fostered with intent, the internet sector provides great promise for cities to use technology to build more inclusive, innovative economies. As we near the start of the 2020s, it is increasingly evident that cities are leading the national agenda on innovation.

The digital economy is driving an unprecedented expansion of ever-smarter, more-connected cities — and local leaders would do well to prepare now.

Source: Tech Crunch

Gillmor Gang: ONEonONE – A conversation with Frank Radice and Steve Gillmor . Recorded live Tuesday, April 17, 2018.

@stevegillmor, @fradice

Produced by Tina Chase Gillmor @tinagillmor

Liner Notes

Live chat stream

The Gillmor Gang on Facebook

Source: Tech Crunch

Sprint and T-Mobile, after years of going back and forth as to whether they are going to tie up two of the largest telecom providers in the U.S., have announced that the two companies have entered a merger agreement this morning.

The merger will be an all-stock transaction, and will now be subject to regulatory approval. That latter part is going to be its biggest challenge, because it will not only tie up the No. 3 and No. 4 carriers into the U.S. into a single unit, but also that international organizations hold significant stakes in both companies. SoftBank controls a majority of Sprint while Deutsche Telekom controls a significant chunk of T-Mobile. Following the administration’s intervention in the Broadcom-Qualcomm takeover attempt, it isn’t clear what will actually go through in terms of major mergers these days.

Bloomberg is reporting that Deutsche Telekom will have 42% ownership of the combined company, while SoftBank will own around 27% of the company.

As expected, the argument here is for the expansion of 5G networks as plans for that start to ramp up. T-Mobile argues in its announcement that it will help it be competitive with AT&T and Verizon as telecom companies start to roll out a next-generation 5G network, though it does in the end remove a carrier choice for end consumers in the U.S..

“The New T-Mobile will have the network capacity to rapidly create a nationwide 5G network with the breadth and depth needed to enable U.S. firms and entrepreneurs to continue to lead the world in the coming 5G era, as U.S. companies did in 4G,” T-Mobile said in a statement as part of the announcement. “The new company will be able to light up a broad and deep 5G network faster than either company could separately. T-Mobile deployed nationwide LTE twice as fast as Verizon and three times faster than AT&T, and the combined company is positioned to do the same in 5G with deep spectrum assets and network capacity.”

Both companies appeared to be finalizing the deal on Friday, when they set valuation terms and were preparing to announce the merger today. The deal values Sprint at an enterprise value of around $59 billion, with the combined company having an enterprise value of $146 billion. AT&T has a market cap of around $214 billion, while Verizon has a market cap of around $213 billion, as of Sunday.

The transaction, the companies said, is of course subject to regulatory approval. But, pending approval, it is expected to close “no later than the first half of 2019.”

Disclosure: Verizon is the parent company of Oath, which owns TechCrunch.

Source: Tech Crunch

While streaming and bingeing seem increasingly synonymous, Hulu’s biggest hit The Handmaid’s Tale actually feels like an anti-binge.

Some of that is just Hulu’s release strategy, where it doesn’t release an entire season at once, but instead comes out of the gate with a handful of new episodes (two this week for the launch of The Handmaid’s Tale season two), then reverts to a more traditional episode-per-week schedule.

But there’s also the fact that as good as it is, The Handmaid’s Tale is a tough show to watch. After each episode, you may want to relax a bit before returning to the dystopian future of Gilead, which is run by religious reactionaries who have stripped most women of their rights.

Season one introduced us to Gilead, and to our main character June (played by Elisabeth Moss), who’s been enslaved because she’s one of the few remaining women who can bear children. With season two, the plot gets moving right away, which makes it hard to offer our thoughts without giving away crucial details. Still, we gave it a shot in the latest episode of the Original Content podcast.

We also cover all the new shows and movies that Netflix has coming in May, the expansion of CBS’ streaming service to Canada and Anthony’s initial impressions of Avengers: Infinity War.

You can listen in the player below, subscribe using Apple Podcasts or find us in your podcast player of choice. If you like the show, please let us know by leaving a review on Apple. You also can send us feedback directly.

Source: Tech Crunch

Rip Pruisken waffled in college (we got that pun safely out of the way for now). He was a student in the Ivy League at Brown University, and had focused on academics for much of his life. His parents were physicists, and “I thought I would study some sort of cookie-cutter path of studying something that I would use post-college,” he explained. “I didn’t really consider entrepreneurship to be a viable option because I was still in that frame of mind.“

It was during a study trip to Italy that he had an epiphany. He was inside an Italian bookstore looking through business books when he suddenly realized that he had discovered a new passion. “If you can build stuff at a profit, you can build more stuff, and how cool is that? That was my aha moment,” he said.

Being an entrepreneur was one thing, but it wasn’t clear what Pruisken should sell. He had grown up in Amsterdam, where he used to eat stroopwafel, a snack composed of two thin waffle pastries melded together with a syrup center. During his freshman year, he had brought over a large quantity of them to school, and “all of my friends devoured them.” Remembering their popularity, “I literally started making them in my dorm in college, and started selling them on campus” during his junior year.

Selling ‘Van Wafels’ at Brown University

That was 2010. Today, Rip Van Wafels can be found in 12,000 Starbucks locations, and is a popular snack at tech companies, with some larger companies going through tens of thousands of units a week.

Their popularity comes from the intersection of a number of food trends. The snacks are made with natural ingredients and are healthy, with low calorie counts and limited sugar. Perhaps most importantly, they taste great, with different flavors that are designed to strike different moods (a chocolate wafel can work as dessert, while the strawberry wafel feels more like breakfast). The company currently produces eight flavors.

While the startup food company has had tremendous success, none of this was planned a decade ago when Pruisken got started. He worked with co-founder and co-CEO Marco De Leon, who was two years behind Pruisken at Brown University and was a good friend from Brazil looking for a change of pace from his Morgan Stanley internship.

They spent two years on campus trying to improve product marketing and the quality of the snack, which in hindsight was an important iteration process with what would become the company’s core consumer: well-educated and health-conscious tech workers.

The two stumbled into their market and stumbled into their name. “It started as Rip Wafel,” Pruisken explained, “and we got a cease and desist letter from Van’s,” which makes frozen food waffles among other products. A professor suggested Rip van Winkle, and that inspired the company’s current name. Pruisken himself was so enamored with the brand he changed his own name — Abhishek, which he had grown up with in Amsterdam — to Rip.

After much work, the two founders discovered that a tech company was particularly enjoying the snacks. “We realized we found this insight that one of our customers in the northeast was a tech company, and we talked to them and they said that it was the perfect treat that was an alternative to a candy bar,” he explained. So Pruisken borrowed the couch of his brother and started going door-to-door selling these Euro snacks to every tech company he could find, eventually 80 of them in one summer.

As he sold wafels, the same pattern would hold up. An order for one case would become two cases, and then 10 and then 20 of them. Eventually, word-of-mouth and distributor partnerships got the snack into the mini-kitchens of dozens of tech companies in San Francisco, as well as in Peet’s Coffee, Whole Foods, and ultimately Starbucks.

Pruisken believes the company’s success has come from iterating on the snack much as a software engineer might fiddle with JavaScript. “We have been reinventing our product every two years,” he said. “We are trying to make our product healthier while providing this very indulgent taste.” That includes experimenting with new ingredients like tapioca syrup and chickpea powder that can provide better nutrition at reduced sugar levels.

He sees the future of the company much the same way. “You can only cut the cycle time down by so much even if you do everything in-house. There are certain components you need to source like certain ingredients or packaging foam,” Pruisken explained. “The way to get ahead is to plan way ahead. So work on the things you want to launch in two years right now.” That includes a number of new flavors, as well as potentially adding products that touch on the brain-enhancing nootropics space.

Ultimately, Pruisken wants to redefine the category of packaged foods. “Convenient foods have been associated with cheaper, lower qualities and generally unhealthy foods in the US,” he said. “I think it would be great if that was elevated not just in the food space but broader.” From a foreign food in a Brown University dorm room to redefining the products on every grocery store shelf, stumbling has paid off for Rip Van, which is taking over the world one wafel at a time.

Source: Tech Crunch