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Showing posts from November, 2019

This Week in Apps: Apple Arcade updates, TikTok distances itself from China, Kardashians send shady app to No. 1

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the Extra Crunch series that recaps the latest OS news, the applications they support and the money that flows through it all. What are developers talking about? What do app publishers and marketers need to know? How are politics impacting the App Store and app businesses? And which apps are everyone using? This week, we’re discussing the impact of the CFIUS investigation into TikTok, the further fallout of Apple’s vaping app ban, updates to Apple Arcade and Google Play Pass subscription-based app stores, Apple’s breaking changes that rolled out without warning (thanks, Apple!) and a shady app that reached the top of the App Store thanks to a big Kardashians-led endorsement, among other things. Headlines TikTok separates further from its Chinese parent One of the world’s most downloaded and used apps, TikTok, is under a national security review in the U.S. because of its Chinese roots. TikTok parent company, ByteDance, is a China-based operation —
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Startups Weekly: Chinese investors double down on African startups

Hello and welcome back to Startups Weekly, a weekend newsletter that dives into the week’s noteworthy startups and venture capital news. Before I jump into today’s topic, let’s catch up a bit. Last week, I wrote about Airbnb’s issues . Before that, I noted Uber’s new “money” team . Remember, you can send me tips, suggestions and feedback to kate.clark@techcrunch.com or on Twitter  @KateClarkTweets . If you’re new, you can subscribe to Startups Weekly here . China’s pivot to Africa Three African fintech startups; OPay , PalmPay and East African trucking logistics company Lori Systems , closed large fundraises this year. On their own, the deals aren’t particularly notable, but together, they expose a new trend within the African startup ecosystem. This year, those three companies brought in a total of $240 million in venture capital funding from 15 different Chinese investors, who’ve become increasingly active in Africa’s tech scene. TechCrunch reporter Jake Bright , who covers A
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Pixpay is a challenger bank for teens focused on pocket money

Meet Pixpay , a French startup that wants to replace cash when you’re handing out pocket money to your kids. Anybody who is older than 10 years old can create a Pixpay account, get a debit card and manage pocket money. Challenger banks are nothing new, but they’re still mostly targeted towards adults. If you want to create an N26 or Revolut account, you need to be at least 18 years old. You can create a Lydia account if you’re at least 14 years old with parental consent. Pixpay, like Kard , wants to fill that gap and offer modern payment methods to teens so that you can ditch cash altogether. Parents and kids both download the Pixpay app to interact with the service. A few days after creating an account, your child receives a Mastercard. It offers the same features that you’d expect from a challenger bank — you can customize the PIN code, lock it and unlock it, receive a notification with each transaction and restrict some features, such as limits, ATM withdrawals, online payments
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Black Friday Sale: 2-for-1 passes to Disrupt Berlin

Synchronize your watches startup fans, and get ready to score serious savings on passes to Disrupt Berlin 2019 . For today only, you can get 2 passes for the price of one. Our Black Friday sale starts now and runs through 11:59pm CET on 29 November . Don’t miss out! Simply purchase a pass to Disrupt Berlin now (Founder passes start at just €645 + VAT), and you’ll get two passes for the price of one. Split the cost with a colleague, gift the pass to a client or bring a member of your team to Disrupt. No matter how you choose to use that extra pass, you’ll reap extra value. Go BOGO — buy your passes — before the 24-hour clock runs out. Now you and your buddy can get ready to make the most out of two program – and opportunity-packed days in Berlin. Connection is the name of the game at Disrupt events, and there’s no better place to start promising conversations than Startup Alley . You’ll find hundreds of early-stage startups and sponsors exhibiting an array of products, platforms and
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Will the future of work be ethical? Founder perspectives

Greg Epstein Contributor Share on Twitter Greg M. Epstein is the Humanist Chaplain at Harvard and MIT, and the author of the New York Times bestselling book Good Without God. Described as a “godfather to the [humanist] movement” by The New York Times Magazine in recognition of his efforts to build inclusive, inspiring, and ethical communities for the nonreligious and allies, Greg was also named “one of the top faith and moral leaders in the United States” by Faithful Internet, a project of the United Church of Christ and the Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society. More posts by this contributor Will the future of work be ethical? Founder perspectives Will the future of work be ethical? Future leader perspectives In June, TechCrunch Ethicist in Residence Greg M. Epstein attended EmTech Next, a conference organized by the MIT Technology Review. The conference, which took place at MIT’s famous Media Lab, examined how AI and robotics are changing the future
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Will the future of work be ethical? Future leader perspectives

Greg Epstein Contributor Share on Twitter Greg M. Epstein is the Humanist Chaplain at Harvard and MIT, and the author of the New York Times bestselling book Good Without God. Described as a “godfather to the [humanist] movement” by The New York Times Magazine in recognition of his efforts to build inclusive, inspiring, and ethical communities for the nonreligious and allies, Greg was also named “one of the top faith and moral leaders in the United States” by Faithful Internet, a project of the United Church of Christ and the Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society. More posts by this contributor Will the future of work be ethical? Founder perspectives Will the future of work be ethical? Future leader perspectives In June, TechCrunch Ethicist in Residence Greg M. Epstein attended EmTech Next, a conference organized by the MIT Technology Review. The conference, which took place at MIT’s famous Media Lab, examined how AI and robotics are changing the future
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Will the future of work be ethical? Perspectives from MIT Technology Review

Greg Epstein Contributor Share on Twitter Greg M. Epstein is the Humanist Chaplain at Harvard and MIT, and the author of the New York Times bestselling book Good Without God. Described as a “godfather to the [humanist] movement” by The New York Times Magazine in recognition of his efforts to build inclusive, inspiring, and ethical communities for the nonreligious and allies, Greg was also named “one of the top faith and moral leaders in the United States” by Faithful Internet, a project of the United Church of Christ and the Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society. More posts by this contributor Will the future of work be ethical? Founder perspectives Will the future of work be ethical? Future leader perspectives In June, TechCrunch Ethicist in Residence Greg M. Epstein attended EmTech Next, a conference organized by the MIT Technology Review. The conference, which took place at MIT’s famous Media Lab, examined how AI and robotics are changing the future
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Will the future of work be ethical? Academic perspectives

Greg Epstein Contributor Share on Twitter Greg M. Epstein is the Humanist Chaplain at Harvard and MIT, and the author of the New York Times bestselling book Good Without God. Described as a “godfather to the [humanist] movement” by The New York Times Magazine in recognition of his efforts to build inclusive, inspiring, and ethical communities for the nonreligious and allies, Greg was also named “one of the top faith and moral leaders in the United States” by Faithful Internet, a project of the United Church of Christ and the Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society. More posts by this contributor Will the future of work be ethical? Founder perspectives Will the future of work be ethical? Future leader perspectives In June, TechCrunch Ethicist in Residence Greg M. Epstein attended EmTech Next, a conference organized by the MIT Technology Review. The conference, which took place at MIT’s famous Media Lab, examined how AI and robotics are changing the future
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Zebra Fuel, the startup that brought fuel directly to your vehicle, is ‘no longer’ delivering fuel in London

Zebra Fuel , the London-based startup that delivered fuel directly to your vehicle — backed by Robin and Saul Klein’s LocalGlobe, Brent Hoberman’s Firstminute Capital and Zoopla founder Alex Chesterman — has told customers it is “no longer” delivering fuel in London. However, it is unclear at this stage if the company has ceased operations entirely. In an email informing customers on Tuesday, Zebra Fuel gave no further details, except to express “sincere apologies for any inconvenience this causes you and hope that you have enjoyed using our services”. That sounds onerous, to say the least. Meanwhile, a tweet posted by an employee at Zebra Fuel, which has since been deleted, seemed to suggest that the company may have closed its doors. “Last night at @Zebra Fuel we did amazing – onto the next opportunity,” the tweet read. I’ve reached out to Zebra co-founder Reda Bennis and have yet to hear back. I’ve also contacted the PR agency the startup had previously used, and will update this
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Foodvisor raises $4.5 million to track what you eat using AI

French startup Foodvisor has raised a $4.5 million funding round after generating 2 million app downloads. Agrinnovation is leading the round and various business angels are also participating. I covered Foodvisor last month , so I’m not going to describe the app once again. In a few words, the startup uses deep learning to enable image recognition to detect what you’re about to eat. It can detect the type of food and it also tries to estimate the weight of each item. Foodvisor calculates the distance between your plate and your phone using autofocus data from the camera. It then calculates the area of each item in your plate. You can manually correct information before you log it. Foodvisor automatically tracks what you eat using deep learning With today’s funding round, the startup plans to improve the app and hire 15 more persons. The app recently launched in the U.S. and the company thinks it represents a good market opportunity. from Startups – TechCrunch https://if
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Bunq launches metal card and plants a tree for every €100 spent

Fintech startup Bunq is launching a metal card called the Green Card . While some banks offer a cashback program with premium cards, Bunq is offering a special kind of “cashback”. For every €100 spent, Bunq plants a tree. The company has partnered with Eden Reforestation Projects to finance reforestation around the globe. Manufacturing a metal card isn’t particularly environmentally friendly. That’s why the Green Card expires after six years instead of four years. It is also made of recyclable material (even though I’m not sure it’s that easy to recycle a metal card with a chip, a magnetic stripe and an NFC antenna after it expires). Other than that, the Green Card works more or less like the Travel Card . While Bunq offers traditional bank accounts, you can order a Travel Card or a Green Card and keep your existing bank account. The Green Card is a Mastercard without any foreign exchange fee. The company uses the standard Mastercard exchange rate but doesn’t add any markup fee.
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TikTok Reverses Ban on Teen Who Slammed China’s Muslim Crackdown

By BY RAYMOND ZHONG from NYT Technology https://ift.tt/33qAngs
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Revolut supports direct debits in the UK

Fintech startup Revolut is adding a key feature for users who want to replace their traditional bank account altogether. You can now pay with GBP direct debits. Revolut already added EUR direct debits last year . While most people use cards to pay for goods and services in the U.K., some businesses require you to pay with direct debit. It can be a utility bill, a gym membership or a phone contract for instance. Compared to card transactions, direct debits pull money directly from your account and transfer it to the recipient’s account. It doesn’t go through Mastercard or Visa. Some businesses love direct debits because it’s usually cheaper than card processing fees. Direct debits also don’t have an expiry date, unlike cards. Customers from the European Economic Area can now share their GBP account details for direct debits in the U.K. Direct debits are protected against some fraud and payment errors by the U.K. Direct Debit Guarantee . Revolut has partnered with Modulr for this
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Apple and Google Maps accommodate Russia’s annexation of Crimea

Global politics are difficult to navigate ordinarily, but in times of conflict companies that aim to provide an unbiased service, such as a map or search function, may have to come down on one side or another. Apple just came down at least partly on the side of Russia in its controversial annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, and Google has accommodated Russian interests as well. The large peninsula on the north side of the Black Sea was brought under Russian control in 2014 during political unrest there concerning Crimea’s status within Ukraine. World leaders decried the move, saying that Russia had deliberately helped instigate the crisis there in order to take advantage of it, and violated Ukraine’s sovereignty with its military presence. While the controversy surrounding these events are ongoing (indeed, the events themselves are too, in a way), companies like Apple and Google don’t have the luxury of waiting for history’s judgment to do things like update their maps. Both, for i
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