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“Sledgehammer’s founders leave Call of Duty studio for new roles at Activision” plus 29 more VentureBeat

“Sledgehammer’s founders leave Call of Duty studio for new roles at Activision” plus 29 more VentureBeat

Sledgehammer’s founders leave Call of Duty studio for new roles at Activision

Posted: 20 Feb 2018 02:27 PM PST

The founders of Sledgehammer Games — Michael Condrey and Glen Schofield — are resigning from their posts as co-presidents of the Call of Duty studio, and they are moving on to new roles within Activision.

Condrey and Schofield started the studio in 2009 in San Mateo, California, and it was acquired by Activision to make Call of Duty games. They helped develop Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 alongside main developer Infinity Ward. Sledgehammer became one of three studios that rotated shifts in to produce the Call of Duty games every year. Kotaku first reported the departures.

It’s a big change for Call of Duty, which had more than $15 billion in sales at the decade mark. Sales are well over that number now.

In a statement, Activision said, “Following the incredible success of Call of Duty: WWII, Glen Schofield and Michael Condrey have decided to transition from their duties at Sledgehammer Games to new executive duties inside Activision. We thank Glen and Michael for their tremendous body of work on Call of Duty and look forward to continuing to collaborate with them in their new roles. These changes have created an opportunity to elevate one of the key leaders at the studio, Aaron Halon, to lead Sledgehammer Games. Aaron is a founding member of Sledgehammer Games and the natural fit to lead the team. He has over 20 years of industry experience and has played an instrumental role throughout the studio's history. We congratulate Aaron and are thrilled about the future of Sledgehammer Games, which we believe has even bigger days ahead.”

Sledgehammer’s first solo game was Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, which debuted in 2014. And then it created Call of Duty: WWII for November 2017. That game has had stellar results, with Activision saying it did $1 billion in sales within weeks of the November 3 launch.

Before starting Sledgehammer, Condrey and Schofield both ran EA's now-closed Visceral Games, where they created the original horror game Dead Space.

Above: Multiplayer combat in Call of Duty: WWII.

Image Credit: Sledgehammer/Activision

In a statement, Schofield said, “Michael and I have been collaborating for over 12 years. In that time, we've made great games that fans have loved, won awards on behalf of our projects and have lived our dreams. We thank Activision for the wonderful opportunity to create and lead Sledgehammer Games. Now, it's time to try other things. Activision has offered me the opportunity to focus my energy on something I'm very passionate about, exploring new game ideas for the company. It's something I just couldn't pass up. Working with such a great studio of developers at Sledgehammer Games has been an honor and the highlight of my career. The team is in great hands with Aaron, he has my full support and confidence. Thank you to everyone.”

And Condrey said, “We founded Sledgehammer Games to bring together a world class development team with a singular goal of delivering excellence for fans. Over the course of nearly a decade, Glen and I proudly grew the studio and watched a new crop of leaders emerge within the team. On a personal level, I'm deeply grateful to the men and women who have poured their passion into the pursuit of excellence with us. I'm proud of what we accomplished together, it has been the greatest experience of my professional life. I am looking forward to starting a new chapter of my career with Activision. I couldn't be more excited for the future of Sledgehammer Games and look forward to seeing Aaron lead the studio to new heights.”

The departures come at a big moment for the franchise, as Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg is also leaving the parent company in March, after eight years overseeing Activision and studios such as Sledgehammer.

Both Condrey and Schofield shared a passion for taking the franchise back to World War II, where it started, with last fall’s game.

4 ways AI could help shape the future of medicine

Posted: 20 Feb 2018 02:10 PM PST

GUEST:

At times, progress occurs so quickly that it’s difficult to separate science fiction from real life. Just five decades ago, computers were massive, unwieldy machines running on punch cards and primitive circuits. Today, a single smartphone has more processing power than the computer used on the Apollo missions.

AI has benefited greatly from this explosion in computing power and capability. Today, highly complex deep learning algorithms, patterned on the structure of the human brain, can master Go, trade stocks, and even write Harry Potter novels (though admittedly not very good ones). Given this versatility, some fear that deep learning AIs will reshape our economy by force, rendering hundreds, if not thousands, of occupations obsolete. It seems the world will no longer need humans. But is this really the case? No two occupations are alike, and the Great AI Reckoning will not affect all industries (and certainly not all employees) equally.

Before we go any further, it's important to figure out the automatability of the medical profession. How likely is it that an algorithm could replace a doctor? At some point in the future, will hospitals force us to enter our symptoms into touchscreens and wait for a disembodied electronic voice to give us a diagnosis?

Thankfully, that doesn’t seem likely. Based on research carried out by Oxford University and NPR, physicians and surgeons only have a 0.4 percent chance of falling victim to automation. Overall, most of the medical professions seem to have a far lower chance of automation than others. Physician assistants, for instance, have an automatability rating of 14.5 percent, while tax preparers have an automatability rating of 98.7 percent.

Any automatability study will take a close look at the duties associated with a job. At its core, what sort of tasks will a worker perform? Will they spend their time on routine tasks that a machine can easily break down into steps and replicate, or are they required to negotiate, exercise empathy, and use creativity and lateral thinking?

Doctors, needless to say, are the latter. Diagnosing diseases, performing surgery, and prescribing medicine aren’t simply complex, life-threatening tasks — they also require a good deal of empathy. Thus far, computers fail at this crucial requirement (hence Silicon Valley’s fear of AI). Though efforts are underway to teach computers empathy, it’s unclear whether it will ever be possible to build a computer that can understand the depths of human emotion.

When it comes to AI’s impact on medicine, I think we’ll find the result to be both significant and subtle.

1. AIs will catch mistakes

Even though computers will never replace flesh-and-blood physicians, artificial intelligence still has a place in medicine as a partner.

Think about what is required of a doctor: an understanding of biochemistry, such as new drugs, existing ones, and how such substances interact with individual patients; general information about each patient’s medical history, including whether they have any pre-existing conditions or risk factors that could be exacerbated by surgery or treatment; and a deep knowledge of diseases and conditions, which often evolve incredibly quickly.

The fact of the matter is that these requirements aren’t just conflicting ones, they’re humanly impossible. After all, a human brain consists of about one billion neurons, and each neuron has around 1,000 connections (for a total of one trillion connections). As impressive as this may sound, it’s not much. One brain has several gigabytes of working memory. Anything else is not so easily recalled.

Fortunately, AIs have no such problem. IBM’s Watson, for instance, can comb through millions of pages of data, read countless medical articles, and far surpass any human doctor in its breadth and scale of knowledge. Even if a doctor may forget that a patient’s unique biology makes them susceptible to a certain drug’s side effects, an AI won’t. And even if an overworked medical resident may miss a clue, an AI won’t.

2. AIs can help with rare conditions

On a related note, the powerful network of an AI will revolutionize the treatment of rare diseases. Yes, individual AIs are powerful, intelligent programs. However, when they’re networked together, they are unstoppable. In this configuration, they can draw from each others’ insights, see where one person went wrong, and devise innovative fixes.

Such tools already exist. A Wired feature discusses Modernizing Medicine, an AI-powered database that helps practitioners tap into knowledge from a database of 3,700 providers and over 14 million patient visits. Based on a technology similar to Amazon’s notoriously powerful recommendation engine, Modernizing Medicine mines data, recommends treatments, and, through the power of the network, helps busy doctors tackle an unfamiliar, threatening disease.

3. AIs will assist with surgery

It’s no wonder the drama depicted on shows like Grey’s Anatomy is so compelling. Surgery is incredibly complex, requires intense (and intensive) specialist training, and is, quite literally, a matter of life and death. AI could help reduce some of this drama.

When paired with augmented reality programs, which overlay digital cues and images atop real ones (think Pokemon Go), AI can provide surgeons with real-time information. This ranges from dividing the brain into various regions for neurosurgery to laying MRI scans and other imagery on top of a patient’s body (giving doctors X-ray vision). Complex software will power advanced hardware, giving doctors an extra safety net and providing some peace of mind for patients.

4. AIs will predict disease

A critical benefit of AI comes from its strength in gathering and analyzing reams of data and drawing conclusions from its analysis. Who is more likely to get cancer? What are the risk factors that make a patient more susceptible to, say, heart attacks as opposed to strokes?

Google, the king of analytics, has already jumped on the bandwagon. Several years ago, Google created its Baseline study, a comprehensive, ambitious undertaking that involved thousands of volunteers and 100 specialists in different medical fields. As the name suggests, the goal of the study was to establish a sort of baseline for human health from which algorithms and researchers could isolate biological clues that could predispose a person to specific illnesses.

Today, the Baseline study has continued under the banner of Verily, a division of Alphabet (Google’s parent company) and is set to expand in both scope and resources. In the near future, it’ll be easy to imagine a time when non-communicable diseases (strokes, cancers, heart attacks) or hereditary conditions are identified from a single visit to the doctor’s office. Not only can patients see their chances of contracting a specific disease, but doctors can also help their patients preempt these conditions with a clear-sighted, long-term plan of action.

It’s important to note that while AI will certainly revolutionize our relationships with medicine, it is far more likely to do so in a subtle, understated way. After all, AI’s most promising changes are related to systems and procedures in the form of back-end interfaces — not in, say, talking screens. Don’t be fooled, however: Even if most of the change occurs off-screen, medical practice will change for the better. Health care will become more accurate, more comprehensive, and cheaper over time, which is welcome news for everyone.

Ed Sappin is CEO of Sappin Global Strategies (SGS), a strategy and investment firm dedicated to the innovation economy.

Mobile developer Outplay’s revenues grow 1,904% as it plans a brand refresh

Posted: 20 Feb 2018 01:00 PM PST

EXCLUSIVE:

Mobile developer Outplay Entertainment has rebranded for the first time since it was founded in 2010. The Scottish studio partnered with design agency JDO to update its aesthetics around the idea of “limitless fun.”

Outplay cofounder and president Richard Hare says that the team conceived of the original brand identity before the studio opened. The company has grown since then, raising funds to the tune of $9 million total and acquiring developers such as Eight Pixels Square. It was enormously successful last year, ranked the fastest-growing Scottish tech company by the Deloitte Technology Fast 500. Outplay also reported a 1,904 percent growth in revenue since 2013.

“We wanted to take the time to take stock of our original vision for the company, the journey we've been on since then, who we are now as a team (in all of its cultural and creative diversity), and crucially who our players are and how our games connect us all,” said Hare in an email to GamesBeat.

Outplay’s free-to-play mobile titles, such as Crafty Candy and Mystery Match, have been downloaded over 100 million times when combined, according to Pocket Gamer. In 2018, the studio is focused on adding community features for its existing games as well as developing new titles for its portfolio.

Above: Outplay’s new logo after its rebranding.

Image Credit: Outplay Entertainment

“For 2018, we're focused on providing our players with more ways to play together each day in all of our games and offering additional opportunities for community participation within the games as well as our existing forums,” said Hare. “We also are in the process of developing and testing new games that are either exploring new platforms or genres for Outplay (both in some cases) as well as exploring concepts for games that are a natural evolution from our most successful titles.”

Mobile spending grew 30 percent year-over-year in 2017, and most of that was thanks to games. Last year, players spent $48.3 billion on mobile titles, and mobile game revenue finally outpaced those of PC and consoles. And mobile games are predicted to rake in $57.9 billion this year, according to market analyst Newzoo.

It’s a crowded space with juggernauts to contend with, such as Chinese tech giant Tencent’s Honor of Kings, which launched in the West in December under the name Arena of Valor. And older titles are still topping the charts. King’s Candy Crush Saga was the top grossing title in the U.S. last year despite debuting in 2012.

“Although this rate of change is challenging, we have never lost sight of making games that we find fun to play and create (and delivering them to the highest standards) and understanding who our players are and evolving games around them,” said Hare. “Although our company, team, games, and audiences have all evolved (and now our branding too), this focus endures.”

Drive Capital’s Chris Olsen sees the Midwest as the ‘frontier of innovation’ after 5 years in Ohio

Posted: 20 Feb 2018 12:45 PM PST

When Sequoia Capital partners Chris Olsen and Mark Kvamme left Silicon Valley to start their new venture capital firm in Columbus, Ohio, they bet their careers on the idea that the Midwest was one of the biggest overlooked investment opportunities.

Today, there’s still no equivalent of Sand Hill Road in the Midwest. But interest in investing in Midwest startups hasn’t cooled off since Olsen and Kvamme started Drive Capital in 2012. The firm is now on its second, $300 million fund, and has invested in 29 companies to date. Some of the firm’s most well-known investments include Columbus-based CrossChx, health care software startup Aver, and language learning service Duolingo.

VentureBeat recently spoke with Olsen, a Cincinnati native, to get his take on how Midwest startups have evolved since he first moved his business to Ohio nearly five years ago, in April 2013. Olsen says that the types of tech startups that are being created in the Midwest have diversified, which he attributes in part to the uptick in the number of STEM and engineering graduates from Midwestern universities.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

VentureBeat: Given that you’ve lived in Columbus for almost five years now, what do you feel like has changed in the Midwest startup scene since you first started Drive Capital?

Chris Olsen: Things have definitely shifted since we’ve been here, and I think in two regards. The first is deal flow — in our first year, we saw saw about 1,800 different investment opportunities. That’s now grown to about 3,500 investment opportunities a year, from which we invest in about 7 to 10 of those opportunities a year.

The second thing I’d say is the mix of the types of companies that we have the opportunity to invest in has also shifted. Where when we first got here there were a lot of more companies that I would define as “technology-enabled services businesses” — it was marketplace businesses that were powered by technology — today there are a much, much larger number of what I would consider “true technology companies.”

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If I look at what we’re investing in today versus what we were investing in in the beginning, today it’s next-generation platforms for artificial intelligence, it’s machine learning for data science, it’s next-generation consumer-facing applications for insurance and education that are really underpinned by a platform of technology. That piece is exciting because I do think that’s also meant that the companies we’re investing in seem to be getting much more interest from the Coast than when we first got here.

VB: When you say that more people in Silicon Valley are expressing interest in investing in the Midwest than before — what do you think is driving that? What do you think they see as interesting about the Midwest right now?

Olsen: I think they realize that the Midwest is a much better place to build a business today. It is the frontier of innovation, and it really is the opportunity of a lifetime to see this next economy swelling. People in Silicon Valley are not going to come here for any other reason than they have an opportunity to be more successful investing in companies here. It’s certainly not a majority held position, but we invest with so many venture firms now out in Silicon Valley.

One of them was telling us the other day that they’ve actually embarked on a strategy [in which] they will only invest in companies from the Valley if they will immediately open up an office outside of the Valley, and they’re looking at places like Denver and Columbus and Chicago as ideal places. Because there is better access to talent, there, there is better access to customers there, and it’s important that entrepreneurs use every advantage they can in their favor to help them be successful.

VB: Are there things you feel like investors in Silicon Valley still get wrong about the Midwest startup community? 

Olsen: [What] they get wrong is they're not spending enough time here. The incentives are still in a place where they miss the next great companies in Indianapolis — and they don’t really hold themselves accountable for that. If they miss an investment opportunity in Silicon Valley, they’ll say “How could we do that?” as that’s kind of their core focus.

You are starting to see a lot of really smart people spend more time in the Midwest, and say “You know, this is my primary focus area” — especially some of the younger partners in these firms, who are saying “Hey, I have an opportunity here to do something different, and maybe I can make a career by investing in the opportunities outside of Silicon Valley.”

VB: We’ve talked about this increased interest from Silicon Valley investors, but I’m curious if you’ve noticed any of your portfolio companies hiring more workers from Silicon Valley. The area had the largest domestic out-migration rate in 2016 and 2017 that it had had in 10 years.

Olsen: Those folks are great marketing examples — but the reality is, if your startup is dependent upon your ability to recruit people exclusively from California, it’s just not going to scale. Certainly if I look in our portfolio, we’ve got really talented people [that work for our companies] that have come from places like Twitter and Airbnb and Facebook and Google.

If you really look at the volume of people who are working in these companies, it comes from your ability to attract talent locally. Nationwide [in Columbus] has more engineers than Facebook. And the ability to find those pools of talent around town — from any of the other big companies, or you tap into the engineering departments of these schools — that’s really where the engine of large numbers of talent [is]. So if you want to hire more people from Silicon Valley, yeah, you can do that. But there’s no way to recruit 100 engineers out of Silicon Valley on an annual basis. You just need to find ways to develop the talent locally.

VB: What kind of traction do you think the Midwest startup scene is poised to get in, say, the next 5-10 years?

Olsen: I don’t see it slowing down, that’s for sure. I mean, I see more money, more funds getting started here, and that’s a super exciting thing. They’re also getting started at different stages. I think we’re going to look back five years from now and say “Wow, we’ve come a long way” — but relative to Silicon Valley, this is just the beginning.

Satoshipowered.ai wants VR and and blockchain to link up

Posted: 20 Feb 2018 11:07 AM PST

Game developers are looking for more ways to get players to spend money on in-game purchases, and new developer and crowdpublisher Satoshipowered.ai thinks blockchain-based cryptocurrencies are the answer. Satoshipowered.ai wants to use blockchain’s decentralized bookkeeping to give players true ownership over digital goods, which could introduce economic scarcity to games with a focus on virtual worlds.

Satoshipowered.ai (SAI) will use the Ethereum blockchain, which is a cryptocurrency that enables anyone to spin up their own customized digital coin (it’s also one of the primary forces driving up the cost of PC video cards). Developers can rework the blockchain that keeps track of Ethereum to also keep track of anything else — like who owns what piece of land in an online world, for example. Using this system, not even the original developer of a game would have the power to strip ownership of a digital product away from a player, which is an important concept in protecting the value of those goods.

As more game studios turn to a live-services model, a blockchain-powered in-game economy may prove attractive as a means of encouraging players to invest money into their characters and online presence. This is especially true because blockchain could make it easy for players to exchange goods among themselves without requiring the direct oversight of the developer, and that could lead to intricate online economies where players try to generate real-world money from their gameplay or even from their in-game speculation.

SAI is playing heavily into the idea of decentralization. The company claims it is a “Decentralized Autonomous Organization”, or DAO, that has worked on researching blockchain for two years before going public. Its only public-facing representative is a chatbot AI named SAI D.V. Nakamoto, that you can talk to on the developer’s website.

The press release (which a human sent) even features a statement from SAI.

"Satoshipowered.ai is pioneering cryptogaming by offering a 'Better-than-Free' attention-based monetization model for games and apps," SAI said. "My programming directive is to represent Satoshipowered.ai as the interface and personal assistant who professionally manages crypto assets and guides users within the platform. My proficiency in the creation of VR content is being utilized to benefit the visualization of blockchain transactions and market intelligence."

Plenty of gaming companies are getting into blockchain. Hell, Atari just introduced its own cryptocurrency. But this technology could have a profound impact on the way that we play games and spend our money within them, and whoever establishes that model first stands to earn a lot of money in the process.

Burnout Paradise Remastered crashes onto PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on March 16

Posted: 20 Feb 2018 09:36 AM PST

Criterion Games announced today that Burnout Paradise Remastered will release for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on March 16.

Burnout Paradise first came out in 2008 and was one of the first open-world racing games. It managed to sell 1 million copies that year and receive strong reviews. Now 10 years old, the racer still has fans thanks to its crash-based racing competitions and dense city setting.

"When people think of Criterion Games, they often remember the Burnout franchise and for good reason. What we created 10 years ago is as fun and unique today as it was back then," said Matt Webster, general manager at Criterion Game, in a press release sent to GamesBeat.

Burnout Paradise would be Criterion’s last main Burnout game. The developer went on to work for EA’s Need for Speed series and help with other projects like Star Wars Battlefront: X-Wing VR Mission. Other series, like Forza Horizon, have followed in Burnout Paradise’s footsteps of offering players an open-world to drive and race around. Last year, Danger Zone was a spiritual successor to Burnout’s crash-based game modes from Three Fields Entertainment, a studio created by ex-Criterion Games developers.

The remastered version has improved visuals, including support for 4K and 60 fps on PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One. It also includes eight add-on packs that were downloadable content for the original game, including Big Surf Island. A PC version will release later this year.

Dear Tech People ranks Snap, Dropbox, Airbnb, and more in diversity report

Posted: 20 Feb 2018 09:00 AM PST

Even though tech giants like Intel and Apple release annual reports on diversity, very few tech companies are following suit. Dear Tech People dove into these murky waters to answer questions like “How many women work at Snap?” and “How many engineers at Docker are black?” The three co-creators of Dear Tech People — Dhruv Maheshwari, Adina Luo, and Wyatt Shapiro — analyzed 70,000 public profiles, and today they have released their ranking of the 100 most diverse and inclusive tech companies.

Here are the top 10.

 

To collect the data, Dear Tech People says it looked at public profiles (like LinkedIn) and used a combination of name analyzers, facial recognition technology, and manual identification through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk to determine gender and race.

“We’ve checked the accuracy of our data with the companies that do have publicly released data reports,” wrote Luo, in an email to VentureBeat. “We’ve also talked to a couple of companies that only have internal numbers that have yet to be released.”

Above: Example of comparing the stats

Image Credit: Dear Tech People

Luo and her two co-creators all have full-time jobs in tech and are working on this initiative as a side project for now.

“One of our goals is to prompt more companies to release their own diversity reports,” wrote Luo. “To do so, we’ve been working on a verified partners program, in which companies share self-reported data with us, matched to our standards and definitions. In return, they receive a green verified check mark on our site. Becoming a verified company doesn’t have any effect on the ranking — it just demonstrates a commitment to data transparency and the standardization of diversity reporting.”

Above: Dear Tech People co-creator Adina Luo

Image Credit: Dear Tech People

Dear Tech People says it has been in talks with a couple of companies to get them verified. Clover Health is one of the first to have officially signed on.

The report is divided into three sections: Overall, Leadership, and Technical. The below figures refer to the overall employee base.

Snap, which went public last year, has yet to release a diversity report. According to Dear Tech People, only 38 percent of the employees at Snap are female, 3 percent are black, and 6 percent are Latinx (gender neutral term used instead of Latino or Latina). Dropbox, which is planning to go public this year, isn’t doing much better: 37 percent of employees are female, 4 percent are black, and 3 percent are Latinx. Airbnb is much higher on the list, as 44 percent of its employees are female. It is, however, also lagging behind in terms of racial diversity: Only 4 percent of employees are black and 8 percent are Latinx.

This is nothing new, sadly. Last February, Open MIC, a nonprofit that focuses on issues of diversity, released a study that shows African Americans, Latinx Americans, and Native Americans remain dramatically underrepresented in the tech economy compared to their overall presence in the U.S. workforce.

Other organizations that are fighting to support diversity and inclusion in tech are the Kapor Center for Social Impact and Project Include, both of which are spearheaded by diversity advocate Ellen Pao. In a recent interview we asked Pao what it takes for companies to remain diverse and inclusive throughout the years.

“The best way is through metrics and accountability,” she said. “Measure and track diversity and satisfaction at different levels, different functions, different titles, different compensation, and across different demographics to see where you might be able to do better at including everyone. Hold people accountable across the board for their behavior and actions.”

Although Dear Tech People isn’t currently working with the Kapor Center or Project Include, the creators said they were influenced by both and spoke with Freada Kapor Klein (cofounder of Kapor Center) in the very early days to learn more about the space.

Dear Tech People is definitely contributing to this movement by providing a clear and comprehensive database about diversity and inclusion in tech.

One thing I noticed in the ranking is that three of its top 10 companies are female-led — Glossier, Rent the Runway, and Stitch Fix — all of which have a workforce that is more than 60 percent female. Seeing as there shouldn’t be a double standard in diversity (men shouldn’t be excluded either), I asked Luo how they determined which company was more diverse and inclusive.

“When we think about the concept of inclusion, a big part for us is thinking about how inclusive and welcoming a particular company is for underrepresented groups like women,” she wrote. “That’s why we stand by seeing some of these female-heavy companies up top in the rankings. What we think is the real challenge for some of these female-led ecommerce companies is to reflect racial diversity.”

The data suggests female-led companies are more welcoming and nurturing to female employees. But they also need to do better in terms of racial diversity.

Another important point to bring up is transgender employees, who don’t seem to have a place in this ranking.

“We weren’t able to do anything outside the gender binary,” wrote Luo. “It’s just a shortcoming of facial recognition/name analyzer technology right now. If trans people don’t present clearly on their LinkedIn profiles as male/female, they’ve likely ended up in unspecified, along with many other profiles that don’t include photos or have very little info available for us to extrapolate gender. We’re working on doing better by trans people and those who identify outside the gender binary, and that’ll be a big priority as we move forward.”

So yes, the report has some shortcomings, but it’s a great start to getting a clearer idea of what’s really going on inside these tech companies, and it will certainly help diversity advocates make internal cases for specific inclusion initiatives.

Ahead of SpaceX Starlink launch, T-Mobile asks FCC to auction satellite spectrum for 5G use

Posted: 20 Feb 2018 08:35 AM PST

Armed with super-fast 5G wireless hardware, cellular carriers have already targeted broadband cable providers — now they’re butting heads with satellite companies as well. While Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been preparing to launch its first “Starlink” high-speed broadband satellites tomorrow, T-Mobile has asked the FCC to quickly reallocate a range of satellite radio frequencies for use in terrestrial 5G cellular systems, reports FierceWireless. T-Mobile’s efforts demonstrate how 5G is forcing governments to quickly consider the best uses of limited radio spectrum, as previously unconnected industries begin to wrestle over access to the airwaves.

Despite having previously obtained rights to midband and high-frequency radio spectrum, satellite operators have generally struggled in the United States. While SiriusXM has enjoyed some success with satellite radio services, satellite phone, television, and internet services have been limited by signal latency, equipment size, and coverage issues. Some of the problems are inescapable due to the use of distant satellites, while others can be mitigated with massive satellite deployments and state-of-the-art equipment.

To that end, SpaceX has spent years planning a huge collection of modern satellites, recently named Starlink. According to SpaceX, Starlink will be able to deliver 5G-like speeds of 1Gbps to users and reach billions of underserved people across the globe. The company’s most recently publicized plan calls for nearly 12,000 satellites to be split into two elevations, each operating at different radio frequencies: roughly 7,500 satellites at 40-75GHz, plus around 4,400 satellites at 12-18 GHz and 26-40Ghz. Tomorrow’s launch is expected to place two test Starlink satellites in orbit, with a complete network available in the mid-2020s.

T-Mobile’s simultaneous lobbying efforts aren’t specifically intended to undermine SpaceX, but they do illustrate how terrestrial 5G providers are itching to build high-speed wireless networks now, using some radio spectrum previously allocated to satellites. While companies such as Intel and Intelsat have proposed controlling the sale of their 3.7-4.2 GHz radio spectrum, the third-ranked U.S. cellular company asked the FCC to auction off that “midband” satellite spectrum, preventing satellite companies from holding up 5G deployments with monopolistic pricing, delays, or closed-door deals. T-Mobile also asked that high-frequency bands in the 24-47GHz range “be auctioned together as quickly as possible.”

Midband radio spectrum has emerged as a key enabler of 5G wireless, expected to be used across Europe as well as China, Japan, and Korea. Multiple governments have tentatively agreed to allocate various bands within the 3.1 to 4.99GHz range for 5G use, alongside higher frequency “millimeter wave” bands, each potentially at the expense of satellite companies.

The upshot? Whether they’re provided by satellites or cellular towers, next-generation communication services are going to be covering the world over the next decade, and they’re going to be impressively powerful — assuming governments work quickly to allocate radio spectrum to make that possible.

Doom on Switch gets much-demanded gyro motion controls

Posted: 20 Feb 2018 08:20 AM PST

A new patch for the Nintendo Switch version of Doom has added motion controls to the first-person shooter. It also includes a new partying feature to make playing mutliplayer with your friends easier and fixes some audio issues.

Doom came out for the Switch in November, following a May 2016 release on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. While the Switch version isn’t as technically impressive, you can play it on the go thanks to Nintendo’s new console.

Motion controls give it another unique feature. Other shooters on the Switch, including Nintendo’s Splatoon 2, make it possible to tilt the tablet or controller to help fine-tune aiming. And making this a post-launch feature for Doom could bring fans back to the game and attract new buyers.

The patch also fixes some bugs, notably audio and crashing issues. It also includes CPU optimizations and increases the resolution in certain areas of the game, so Doom on Switch might look better than it did before the patch.

Spotify job ad confirms it’s getting serious about building hardware

Posted: 20 Feb 2018 08:11 AM PST

Spotify is getting serious about entering the hardware realm. The Swedish music-streaming giant, which is currently preparing to become a public company, has posted a trio of hardware-focused job advertisements on its website, as first reported by Music Ally earlier today.

The most revealing of the job ads is for the position of Operations Manager – Hardware Product, and unambiguously states:

Spotify is on its way to creating its first physical products and setting up an operational organisation for manufacturing, supply chain, sales & marketing.

Ads for the two other roles, Project Manager Hardware Production & Engineering and Senior Project Manager Hardware Production, are less explicit in terms of the full nature of the roles. Indeed, Spotify already integrates with many third-party hardware makers, so it’s possible these roles could be focused on such integrations. But it’s more likely that all three roles are linked.

Spotify has actually advertised for hardware recruits before — last year it posted a listing for Sr. Product Manager-Hardware, which said:

You will be leading an initiative to deliver hardware directly from Spotify to existing and new customers; a category defining product akin to Pebble Watch, Amazon Echo, and Snap Spectacles.

The most likely device that Spotify will be working toward is, of course, a smart speaker. This will raise further questions around which voice assistant the company will use — will it license Alexa or Google Home? Spotify could even build its own AI assistant from scratch, but that would be a costly and resource-intensive endeavor.

Other potential hardware options could be something like a Spotify mp3 player that would appeal to runners or anyone who likes to travel without a bulky smartphone on their person. Of course, there are similar devices already out there from third parties such as Mighty.

So we don’t know a great deal about Spotify’s hardware aspirations. But we do know it’s looking to hire at least one person who will “define and drive the hardware operations process within Spotify” and “define and manage distribution, supply, logistics, fulfillment, and customer service for hardware products.”

Spotify’s hardware plans still seem to be in a pretty early stage, so it’s unlikely we’ll see anything concrete emerge this year.

VentureBeat reached out to Spotify for further information, but the company was unable to furnish us with any more details.

Transcending reality to protect our armed forces

Posted: 20 Feb 2018 07:50 AM PST

SPONSORED:

Presented by Booz Allen Hamilton

Today's mobility and immersive revolution is converging our digital and physical worlds, dramatically changing how we learn and interact with one another. It offers the possibility to help people work better, learn faster, and connect with others. While these technologies already exist, the potential for them to transform the way we work and operate today are great, especially when it comes to training our Armed Forces.

Current methods of training are not keeping pace with soldiers' needs in an incredibly fast-paced, constantly changing battle environment. Mobility solutions like immersive training will empower those serving in the Armed Forces to be more connected and sharpen their skills.

By training through these technologies, our military will lower financial investment and reduce risk, while increasing interoperability and cognitive comprehension. Warfighters will be able to repeat exercises at low cost and minimal physical risk, creating the muscle memory that turns training into an ingrained response. When a member of our Armed Forces only has an instant to react in the field, this ingrained response could mean the difference between safety and peril.

But how do we work to change the traditional training structure of the U.S. military to one that incorporates data and machine intelligence into Immersive training?

Building a data-ready operation

As a society, we rely on data for everything from finding the best route to the grocery store to determining if we have reached the right level of fitness for the day. Because we are so easily exposed to these data sources, there's a misconception that incorporating data science into military training is as simple as buying a headset and playing a game. But, as an organization, it can be overwhelming to think about all the infrastructure that needs to be in place to collect and use this data in an impactful way.

If built strategically, organizations can create a foundation — literally and figuratively — as they change and continue to mobilize. That technological foundation needs to be an open and non-proprietary framework for us to adopt and adapt, while addressing challenges such as security and privacy. If we direct our energy the right way, it will give us a solution that isn't as cumbersome as the one we currently rely on, delivering training simulations right to the fingertips or headsets of our service members without the months-long or year-long delay for new training simulations that exists today.

Our idea of the perfect military readiness platform allows new data to be ingested, whether from training simulations, biometrics, or other data sources. The goal, of course, is to gain insights to improve the readiness of our Armed Forces and reduce the risk of loss of life or injury in the future. We can move from having to manipulate data to work with simulations to having simulations that are able to ingest data from any data source. In effect, we're transforming simulation-ready data to data-ready simulations.

A machine-intelligent readiness platform

With Immersive technology, we are collecting a ton of data — everything from the user's physical behavior and what they are looking at to how fast they are reacting. To ignore this data would be a huge missed opportunity, and one that we believe would hinder the advancement of immersive technology and its ability to truly change the way we live in and interact with our environments.

This is where machine intelligence — including computer visioning, neural networks, quantum computing, deep learning, and artificial intelligence – comes in. We need to start building machine intelligence models that enhance military training by mimicking human behavior learned from service member interactions within the simulation.

Machine learning can create "smart agents" that respond to the trainee's voice, actions, and commands and execute the proper course of actions based on the virtual training scenario. In the current live training environment, these characters need to be either played by trainers at a high cost or neglected completely. Smart agents ingest data from the trainee's interaction and provide the feedback at a lower cost.

Machine learning increases the realism of scenarios by either augmenting or replacing the scripted step-by-step scenarios with more realistically generated randomness – just like warfighters’ experience in the field. Utilizing these technological advances, training can more closely match the experience of real world situations while still holding on to core lessons.

In addition to creating more realistic interactions, machine intelligence allows us to analyze the vast amount of data collected to provide real-time feedback to the users or the organizations training them. This is a critical part of enhancing decision making, training, and optimization of spaces. As technology advances to include human-brain and computer interfaces, allowing us to control devices with our minds or to implant technologies into our bodies to more efficiently operate, machine intelligence will evolve as well to further power these immersive technologies.

Without a comprehensive approach to immersive training — one that converges the digital and physical worlds by layering machine intelligence and data science on to training simulations and operations — our soldiers will continue to "game the game" instead of gaining the realistic training they need.

Young Bang is a Senior Vice President at Booz Allen Hamilton, focusing on developing and scaling state-of-the-art data science and machine intelligence and immersive capabilities. Young has also led the firm's health business in support of the Department of Veterans Affairs and Health and Human Services as well as IT support for the U.S. Army, Defense Logistics Agency, Office of the Secretary of Defense and other Department of Defense agencies. Young is a former member of the U.S. Army and currently sits on the board of directors for the Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers and teaches an undergraduate course in health IT at Georgetown University. To learn more about data science, machine intelligence and immersive at Booz Allen, contact Young Bang at Bang_Young@BAH.com or visit boozallen.com/immersive.

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Mom.life launches a digital economy to empower over 1 million moms

Posted: 20 Feb 2018 07:30 AM PST

EXCLUSIVE:

The tech world seems to be turning to blockchain and cryptocurrency to create economies where they didn’t exist before and fund projects in new and exciting ways. But what happens if you already have an economy?

Today, Mom.life — a global social network and messaging app for moms that has over 1 million users — has launched a digital economy that converts the app’s existing rewards into tokens with real-world value.

Founded in 2015, and with $2.5 million in funding, Mom.life is a free mobile app that helps moms around the world support each other by sharing parenting knowledge. Before today’s announcement, moms could reward each other with “Blooms,” which they have been doing since July 2017. During the app’s first two weeks of circulation, 150,000 Blooms were given out, and 500,000 Blooms are now given monthly. In fact, one-third of the active audience is now being compensated for content creation and assistance through this token system.

Transitioning Blooms to a bonafide cryptocurrency not only brings the usual benefits of a transparent, distributed ledger to Mom.life, it also gives Blooms real-world value. So what about all the Blooms that have been earned since July?

“The translation will be seamless and automatic,” company cofounder and CEO Sergey Shenderov told me. “Mom.life users will retain all the Blooms that have been earned as peer rewards before the launch of the digital economy. Our economic model assumes a launch-time price per Bloom of $0.015.”

Blooms will gain a real-world value once the token is listed, but they will continue to have in-app functionality, as well.

“The token will be listed on crypto exchanges, where it will have a market price and be exchangeable into other crypto and fiat currencies,” Shenderov said. “There will be a payment functionality for the tokens with the phased introduction of digital goods and services within the platform.”

When real value is offered as an incentive for recommendations, people sometimes begin gaming the system to make money. How is Mom.life guarding against fraud and maintaining the community’s existing values?

“Each electronic wallet will be tied to a specific smartphone,” Shenderov said. “Individual users can only generate tokens as community rewards, platform rewards [based on algorithmic accounting of individual contributions, taking into account factors like quality, consistency, community response, etc.] and rewards from third-parties for ad and content engagement — all impossible to control by users. Users excessively awarding other users will be impossible by design, as tokens are limited and can only be received from third parties for contributions.”

So what’s next for Mom.life?

“We are working on the token sale to investors and distribution [of the tokens] to our actual and potential users that will launch the digital economy project build-out and give us the financial runway to build the platform as fast as possible,” Shenderov said. “In the run-up to the launch, we are working on a series of exciting partnerships, both technical, to deliver blockchain infrastructure to sustain the millions of micro-transactions we are already running per day, and social, with organisations that share our philosophy of supporting women's causes globally and investing in them. We are already present in more than a 100 global markets, so now we are concentrating our marketing efforts and launching communities officially in the most core of them, as we will have potent financial incentives and a shared economic stakeholding for our global users.”

Mom.life’s new digital economy is available from today, with details available from its dedicated cryptocurrency website.

Hypergiant launches AI product incubator and seed stage fund

Posted: 20 Feb 2018 07:00 AM PST

Hypergiant is launching out of stealth today to help large companies develop an AI strategy to meet their business goals. The startup is also launching Hypergiant Ventures, an AI investment fund, and Hypergiant Applied Sciences, a product incubation studio.

Hypergiant raised a seed round of an undisclosed amount last August and currently has 24 employees, with plans to grow its team to more than 150 by the end of the year. Customers include Bosch and TGI Friday's, and the startup has established product incubation partnerships with Adobe and the aviation division of General Electric.

Hypergiant will be run by Conversable CEO Ben Lamm and currently has offices in Houston, Dallas, and Austin.

Conversable is best known as the maker of bots for large brands like TGI Friday's, Pizza Hut, Whole Foods, and Booz Allen, which has been called "the world's most profitable spy organization." In 2017, Facebook included Conversable on a short list of companies essential to the Messenger Platform bot ecosystem.

Lamm said Hypergiant was formed independently of Conversable to provide services that go beyond conversational AI and to take advantage of opportunities discovered during Conversable’s expansion over the past two years.

Lamm noted that for a lot of companies, AI has become "like the drug that nobody knows what it does but everybody wants it."

"Hypergiant first helps companies understand what these words [artificial intelligence] actually mean and how AI can drive value in a specific set of use cases, how can we show true ROI and value creation in 3-5 months that speak to your business problems," he said.

An example of the pragmatic approach and quick turnaround Hypergiant has in mind can be seen with TGI Friday's new mixologist service for making custom cocktails, which went drom concept to creation in a matter of months.

"It can start to understand if you like sour drinks or bitter drink or sweet drinks. It can learn these kinds of background trends against different groups and populations and can make better recommendations to you based on how it’s seen you order, and other correlations," he said.

Hypergiant Ventures plans to make about a dozen seed round investments in companies with AI-related technologies in 2018, Lamm said, with initial investments in AI solutions from Pilosa, Cerebri AI, and ClearBlade.

Storytelling will be an important part of Hypergiant's focus.

"One of the things we’re going to be pretty aggressive with [for] our customers is telling their stories. We’re only working with customers that will either let us tell the full story because we think it will help the entire industry moving forward or tell a redacted version of the story," he said.

Hypergiant's seed round was backed by Mythic Ventures, Align Capital, and Beringer Capital.

The company was cofounded with John Fremont and Will Womble, who previously worked with Lamm at Chaotic Moon, a company acquired by Accenture in 2015.

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Look After My Bills wants to cut your energy costs by sourcing the best deals

Posted: 20 Feb 2018 07:00 AM PST

EXCLUSIVE:

Look After My Bills wants to take the hassle out of finding the best energy provider by sourcing the cheapest deals on the market. The London-based startup launched today and will be graduating from Y Combinator's (YC) Winter 2018 batch in March.

Users sign up on the startup’s website and provide their energy details. The team then scans the market and switches providers on the user’s behalf through a power of attorney, thereby moving them to cheaper energy contracts. When that offer ends, Look After My Bills finds the next best deal.

"Everyone's business models are built on this idea of getting people in," said cofounder and co-CEO Henry de Zoete, in an interview with VentureBeat. "They offer a cheap rate for a year and hope you forget and stay with them for the following years."

According to the startup’s website, 60 percent of U.K. households keep the same supplier for more than five years. De Zoete claims that through his service, users are saving an average of £250 ($350) per year on their gas and electricity bills, with some saving more than £600 ($840). Look After My Bills gets a commission from every deal brokered.

"In 10 years’ time, people will look back and won’t believe that they spent hours of their lives shopping around and calling up dozens of companies to find the best deals for them," added de Zoete. "It will be completely standard to outsource this part of your life."

Look After My Bills says it analyzes every deal from every energy company that serves the U.K., which includes British Gas, Scottish Power, and EDF.

Above: Look After My Bills cofounders Henry de Zoete and Will Hodson

Image Credit: Look After My Bills

De Zoete and his cofounder, Will Hodson, have gathered a considerable amount of data these past few years through their startup, The Big Deal, which they founded in 2014. The collective bargaining platform allows consumers to grab one-off energy deals to save money. De Zoete says there are about 400,000 members using this product, which he says has made the startup profitable for the past four years.

One problem the cofounders encountered, however, is that very few members manage to switch to a new deal every time their current one ends, meaning they are hit with steep price hikes. So the duo added Look After My Bills to take care of that. The Big Deal is still active and is available to new and existing members.

Long-term, Look After My Bills plans to expand to other markets, including the U.S., and add additional verticals, like insurance, banking, and broadband.

The startup has raised a total of $120,000 from YC and currently has six employees.

Snapchat taps Giphy to let you add animated GIF stickers to your photos and videos

Posted: 20 Feb 2018 06:40 AM PST

Snapchat is getting a massive dose of GIFs from today with the news that the app will be integrating with Giphy’s gargantuan library of animated stickers.

Now when you take a photo or video, you’ll be able to add a funky GIF sticker to your creation, which you can scale according to your preferences.

Above: Giphy search in Snapchat

Above: GIF-tastic

Giphy already has a number of big-name technology integrations under its belt, including one with the mighty Facebook, which has offered support for Giphy GIFs for several years. Giphy has raised north of $150 million in funding and was last valued at around $300 million, which isn’t bad for a GIF search platform.

Snap has announced a number of updates recently, including new audience analytics for brands and celebrities, and it has also opened its marketing API for all developers to use. However, the most contentious update of late has been Snapchat’s redesign, which was aimed at making a clearer distinction between your Snapchat friends and professional content creators. The update has caused considerable consternation among Snapchatters who have campaigned the company to revert to the previous design; however, CEO Evan Spiegel recently confirmed that the redesign is here to stay.

With that in mind, Snap announced today that it will soon be rolling out Tabs to the Discover and Friends pages within Snapchat to help users sort through friends’ stories and group chats, as well as subscriptions for professional content creators.

Partners Federal Credit Union Selects Kony to Accelerate its Digital Transformation

Posted: 20 Feb 2018 06:25 AM PST

PRESS RELEASE:

The Credit Union for The Walt Disney Company Gives Behind-the-Scenes Look into its “Digital 2x” Initiative

AUSTIN, Texas–(BUSINESS WIRE)–February 20, 2018–

Kony, Inc., a leading low-code platform and industry apps provider for accelerating digital transformation, today announced it has been selected by Partners Federal Credit Union (FCU) as a strategic partner for its “Digital 2x” initiative. The Partners FCU “Digital 2x” initiative focuses on accelerating the delivery of new digital banking services and providing a differentiated digital experience to better meet member expectations.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180220005337/en/

As the exclusive credit union of The Walt Disney Company for the past 50 years, Partners FCU serves more than 150,000 members and their families.

To speed innovation and remain competitive, Partners FCU launched the new initiative working with Kony and The Boston Consulting Group, with a vision to deliver a seamless universal channel experience for its members across all of its digital services.

Recent member surveys revealed changing member expectations for digital banking services. While offerings such as person-to-person payments and robust budgeting tools are on the Partners FCU roadmap, the pace of delivery was not meeting members’ needs. The Partners FCU “Digital 2x” initiative focuses on accelerating the credit union’s digital transformation in order to deliver new digital banking services and capabilities, while also fostering an agile work environment to empower teams to quickly adapt to change. As part of this initiative, Partners FCU will document its journey in a five-part documentary series highlighting key milestones in the credit union’s digital evolution.

“Our vision at Partners Federal Credit Union is to make all financial dreams come true for our cast members. To do so, our velocity of improvement must meet the speed of digital disruption,” said John Janclaes, president and CEO, Partners Federal Credit Union. “We wanted to work with the industry’s best digital master, so we selected Kony to be our trusted partner to help us on this digital journey. Our objective is to ensure we deliver innovative banking services seamlessly across both our digital and physical channels, and not only meet but exceed the expectations of our cast members today and in the future.”

“The pace of digital innovation is significantly impacting the Financial Services industry, especially with rapidly changing consumer expectations,” said Thomas Hogan, chairman and CEO, Kony, Inc. “While many mid-sized banks and credit unions struggle to keep pace, Partners Federal Credit Union is not only addressing this challenge head on, they are transparently sharing their journey so other banks and credit unions can learn from their experience.”

For more information on the Partners Federal Credit Union’s journey:

Partners Federal Credit Union Digital Transformation – Overview video

Partners Federal Credit Union Digital Transformation documentary video – Part One

Kony is a recognized leader in the enterprise mobility space. Recently, Kony was named the only Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Mobile App Development Platforms Report for five consecutive years. In addition, Kony was named a “Leader” and earned the highest score in the current offering category in Mobile Infrastructure Services by independent research firm Forrester Research, Inc., according to The Forrester Wave Mobile Development Platforms, and Mobile Low-Code Development Platforms reports. Kony has also been named a “Leader” in the IDC MarketScape: 2017 North American Mobile Banking and Payments report, with the highest rating for Mobile Banking capabilities.

About Kony, Inc.

Kony is the fastest growing, cloud-based digital application and enterprise mobility solutions company, and a recognized industry leader among low code and mobile application development platform (MADP) providers. Kony helps organizations of all sizes drive business ingenuity by rapidly transforming ideas into innovative and secure omnichannel applications. Built on the industry’s leading digital platform, Kony provides the most innovative and secure omnichannel applications, with exceptional user experience and app design. Kony’s cross-platform, low-code solution also empowers organizations to develop and manage their own apps to better engage with their customers, partners and employees. By seamlessly leveraging and connecting apps to all types of data sources and information, Kony also enables organizations to transform their business processes and gain valuable insight. Kony was named the first place winner in CTIA’s MobITs Awards in the Mobile Applications, Development & Platforms category and included on the Inc. 500|5000 list of fastest growing private companies in America.

For more information, please visit www.kony.com. Connect with Kony on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Kony, Inc.
Jean Kondo, 510-823-4728
Jean.kondo@kony.com
or
Blanc & Otus
Danielle Tarp, 415-856-5182
Kony@blancandotus.com

Dynamic Signal raises $36.5 million from Microsoft Ventures, others to help companies engage with employees

Posted: 20 Feb 2018 06:00 AM PST

Dynamic Signal announced that it has raised $36.5 million for its employee communication and engagement platform in a round of funding from Microsoft Ventures, Cisco Investments, Time Warner Investments, Adams Street Partners, Trinity Ventures, and Venrock.

Founded in 2010, Dynamic Signal offers a platform that lets companies easily communicate messages to their workers, including videos and surveys, and is powered by alerts and push notifications. Employees are also encouraged to engage with content by commenting, “liking,” and sharing through their own social profiles on other platforms.

Above: Dynamic Signal

The San Bruno, California-based startup claims that more than a fifth of the Fortune 100 use Dynamic Signal, with big-name customers including Fedex, IBM, Oracle, Intel, Samsung, Sprint, and SAP.

Additionally, Dynamic Signal today announced a number of new features and products, including a newsletter creation tool, along with DySi Open, a new standalone mobile app aimed at marketing, HR, and communication professionals that serves up content around best practices, market trends, and more. It also allows professionals to connect with each other and share insights.

DySi Open app

Above: DySi Open app

Though there is no shortage of tools that allow companies to disseminate information to employees — from email to enterprise social networks and intranets — Dynamic Signal goes beyond being another “Facebook for work” by integrating with software such as Microsoft’s SharePoint, Salesforce, Adobe, Bitly, Jive, Oracle, SAP, Slack, Yammer, Facebook, and a host of intranet providers. Indeed, Dynamic Signal’s raison d’être isn’t to replace other enterprise social networks. Instead, it serves a slightly different purpose that is less about peer-to-peer communication and more about enabling companies to get information to employees and measure their engagement.

“Dynamic Signal is streamlining communication operations so that communicators and marketers aren’t bouncing between environments like intranets, Workplace by Facebook, and Slack, but rather have a single source of truth from which they can curate, create, and push content to all the platforms used by different teams, including mobile applications,” Dynamic Signal CMO Joelle Kaufman told VentureBeat. “Dynamic Signal also offers robust measurement and reporting functions, allowing communication professionals to measure their impact.”

Dynamic Signal had raised around $70 million prior to now, with Microsoft Ventures leading its previous series D round back in 2016. With another $36.5 million in the bank, the company said it plans to expand the platform’s functionality, develop deeper integrations with third-party enterprise apps, and pursue an “aggressive” hiring plan for its offices in Silicon Valley, Chicago, Seattle, New York, and London. The company said it expects to double its headcount in 2018.

“Employees are an organization’s most valued asset, and communication with them is mission critical,” added Dynamic Signal cofounder and CEO Russ Fradin. “But in today's enterprise, communication is broken. Technology has changed the way we consume information. The rapid adoption we've experienced is evidence that organizations recognize how significantly employee expectations for communication have radically outpaced enterprise communication practices.”

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Redlock: Hackers used Tesla’s public cloud for cryptocurrency mining

Posted: 20 Feb 2018 05:59 AM PST

Mega cybersecurity breaches have left the public and companies feeling vulnerable, and, according to a new report by cloud security firm RedLock, Tesla is one of the latest victims to have its public cloud breached by hackers.

The RedLock CSI team found that hackers infiltrated a public cloud environment owned by the electric car company. The hackers used their access to steal computing time for cryptocurrency mining. RedLock said it informed Tesla, and the car company’s security team has already addressed the vulnerabilities, according to a report being released by RedLock today.

The cloud security trends report evaluates serious threats to public cloud environments. It found that account compromises keep rising. Poor user and API access hygiene, combined with ineffective visibility and user activity monitoring, are causing organizations to be more vulnerable to breaches. For example, 73 percent of organizations allow the root user account to be used to perform activities — behavior that goes against security best practices. Sixteen percent of organizations have user accounts that have potentially been compromised.

A spokesman for Tesla said in an email, “We maintain a bug bounty program to encourage this type of research, and we addressed this vulnerability within hours of learning about it. The impact seems to be limited to internally-used engineering test cars only, and our initial investigation found no indication that customer privacy or vehicle safety or security was compromised in any way."

In many hacks, the goal is to steal data. But now, the thieves also hijack compute resources in order to mine cryptocurrencies (as detailed in Redlock’s October 2017 Cloud Security Trends report). The research reveals that 8 percent of organizations have been hit by cryptocurrency mining hacks, which mostly goes unnoticed because of ineffective network monitoring.

Menlo Park, California-based RedLock also found that many companies are still a long way from compliance with the General Data Policy Regulation (GDPR), a European Union privacy regulation that goes into effect in a few months. Companies are far from where they need to be to effectively govern the cloud and ensure compliance. For instance, the analysis shows that 66 percent of databases are not encrypted.

The report said the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities should serve as a wakeup call for industry to address vulnerability management in the cloud. However, the research demonstrates that 83 percent of vulnerable hosts in the cloud are receiving suspicious traffic, since many organizations can’t leverage standalone on-premise tools to gain such visibility.

During their work, RedLock CSI researchers learned about an intrusion into Tesla’s public cloud environment. In this case the hackers not only gained unauthorized access to non-public Tesla data, but were also stealing compute resources within Tesla’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) environment for cryptojacking. The attack was similar to the ones at Aviva and Gemalto.

The Tesla findings build on research from last year, when the CSI team found that hundreds of Kubernetes administration consoles were accessible over the internet without password protection and were leaking credentials to other critical applications. Cyber thieves gained access to Tesla’s Kubernetes administrative console, which exposed access credentials to Tesla’s AWS environment. Those credentials provided unfettered access to non-public Tesla information stored in Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) buckets.

In addition, the cyber thieves performed cryptojacking using Tesla’s cloud compute resources and employed specific techniques to evade detection. For example, instead of the more familiar public “mining pool,” they installed mining pool software and configured the malicious script to connect to an “unlisted” endpoint. That makes it harder for standard IP/domain-based threat intelligence feeds to detect malicious activity, RedLock said. Other tricks included hiding the true IP address of the mining pool server behind CloudFlare, and likely keeping CPU usage low to further evade detection.

“The message from this research is loud and clear — the unmistakable potential of cloud environments is seriously compromised by sophisticated hackers identifying easy-to-exploit vulnerabilities,” said Gaurav Kumar, chief technology officer of RedLock and head of the CSI team, in a statement. “In our analysis, cloud service providers such as Amazon, Microsoft and Google are trying to do their part, and none of the major breaches in 2017 was caused by their negligence. However, security is a shared responsibility: Organizations of every stripe are fundamentally obliged to monitor their infrastructures for risky configurations, anomalous user activities, suspicious network traffic, and host vulnerabilities. Without that, anything the providers do will never be enough.”

RedLock uses artificial intelligence to detect threats to cloud services such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud. The company is backed by Sierra Ventures, Storm Ventures, Dell Technologies Capital, and others.

Empires & Puzzles maker Small Giant Games raises $41 million for mobile titles

Posted: 20 Feb 2018 05:00 AM PST

EXCLUSIVE:

Finnish gaming companies have a strong record of on mobile, and the latest example is Small Giant Games, which is announcing today that it has raised $41 million in funding. The Helsinki-based studio of Empires & Puzzles has seen its first game generate more than 10 million downloads and $33 million in revenue in less than a year.

The money comes from lead investor EQT Ventures and existing investors Creandum, Spintop Ventures, and Profounders. Small Giant Games will use part this to expand internationally, expand its developer and graphic designer staff, and continue to invest in Empires & Puzzles.

Small Giant Games CEO Timo Soininen said in an interview with GamesBeat that Empires & Puzzles took off in part because the company designed a game that was easy to play, using the familiar match-3 mechanics with a fantasy role-playing game full of light-hearted characters.

Soininen and a crew of mobile game veterans started the company in 2016, and they launched Empires & Puzzles in March, just 11 months after getting started. Soininen said the success of Empires & Puzzles just 10 months after its launch has made the company profitable.

“It’s a significant milestone in a super-competitive market full of big boys,” Soininen said. “We are still quite small and are punching above our weight. It shows that if you have a high-quality team with the right tools and organize them well, things like this can happen.”

About 33 percent of the user base is active on a monthly basis, and a million players come back every day. The title is one of the few new entrants that has successfully broken into the top 100 grossing games in Western markets. That’s pretty good for a game that 12 people built. And Small Giant Games remains small, with just 25 employees.

"For EQT Ventures, Small Giant Games ticks all the boxes for the kind of companies the team wants to support," said Lars Jörnow, partner at EQT Ventures, in a statement. "The strong, data-driven entrepreneurial team had a clear vision of what it wanted to achieve, and it's delivering on that. Small Giant Games has achieved great traction and is determined to become a global winner — this is exactly the kind of attitude the EQT Ventures team looks for."

In an email, Jörnow added, “I first met Timo in summer 2016, when he was showcasing an early version of Empires & Puzzles. After a couple of great casual mobile games, the Small Giant Games team had made a bold decision to abandon the casual genre and instead plunge into the promised land of midcore (hardcore games with short session times). This isn't an unusual journey for a game [studio] to make as they search for a sustainable performance marketing loop. But, given my personal background developing match-3 games when I was at King Digital, I was intrigued by the team's ambition to mix this evergreen core game mechanic with a deeper metagame.”

A year ago, the company raised $6.5 million for its seed round. Soininen previously built Sulake and Habbo Hotel from a tiny startup to a large-scale international company with 300 employees and 350 million downloads. He was joined at Small Giant Games by Otto Nieminen, Markus Halttunen, Ilkka-Kristian Juopperi, Tommi Vallisto, and Tim Lönnqvist.

Above: Empires & Puzzles has match-3 gameplay.

Image Credit: Small Giant Games

“We saw the market got cluttered, and it was becoming impossible to create a casual game with enough marketing support to get into the a sustainable position in the top 100 grossing games,” Soininen said. “We saw that a lot of the role-playing games on the market were confusing and intimidating. We want to bridge casual and RPGs. Our game did not take itself seriously, but it has surprising tactical and strategic depth. Lars helped us find former King user-acquisition experts.”

Their insight was to try to change the monetization and engagement rates for a midcore game with approachable casual gameplay. Soininen said the team is getting started on new titles. They used marketing-tech vendors, such as Unity, Vungle, AdColony, Facebook, and Google.

“We were able to conclude this big round, add more developers, start work on a new game, and reward the whole team,” Soininen said. “It is fun to be growing this fast and to have investors like EQT Ventures who shared our vision.”

Part of the reason for the success is that the team developed its own analytics solution and used it to advertise effectively with performance marketing. In the coming months, the company will add new features to celebrate its first anniversary, including its own take on alliance wars.

“We have players who like the game and come back several times a day,” Soininen said. “The underlying core is strong, and we hope this game will have a life of many years. With this new backing, we can move forward with higher speed and build a bigger game.”

Soininen is looking forward to creating more original games.

“When you create something of your own, you can be super flexible,” he said. “You can take it in multiple directions with campaigns and themes, and that is what we will continue to do. We are super pragmatic. We know it is a tough market, and we have to deliver high quality. But being focused on what you do well is important.”

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Qualcomm partners with Hatch for cloud-based mobile games service

Posted: 20 Feb 2018 04:30 AM PST

Hatch Entertainment wants to create a cloud-based games-on-demand service for mobile gamers, and it is announcing a big partnership today to make it happen with Qualcomm.

Qualcomm Datacenter Technologies will collaborate with Hatch on delivering next-generation cloud-based gaming experiences on servers based on the Qualcomm Centriq 2400.

The 10-nanometer server processor has 48 cores, and Qualcomm is pitching it as a disruptive new solution for cloud computing. Qualcomm’s chip is optimized for cloud workloads and is designed to deliver throughput performance for highly threaded cloud native applications that are developed as micro-services.

Above: Hatch is an on-demand mobile games service.

Image Credit: Hatch

Angry Birds publisher Rovio spun out Hatch in November 2016 as a new kind of social hub for mobile titles. Not only does it enable mobile gamers to share their passion, it also creates new kinds of shared experiences where players can join and play single-player titles together.

"Our vision is to let people discover, play, and share great games instantly and in real time, bringing people together over games they love," said Hatch CEO Juhani Honkala in a statement. "Our collaboration with Qualcomm Datacenter Technologies is a significant leap forward in advancing our existing gaming technology and platform, which offers users a fun and completely new kind of gaming experience on mobile."

Hatch will allow consumers to play and share full-featured games over the cloud, and it will offer developers a new way to reach mass audiences on mobile for premium titles.

Hatch streams a game to consumers from the cloud. That means there are no downloads, no updates, and no in-app purchases. It has a native multiplayer experience. You can, for instance, play a single-player version of Monument Valley on Hatch. A friend could watch you play — or even take over the game and play while you become a spectator.

Hatch offers an instant game collection, curated to provide the highest quality gaming experiences. Players can easily play together with their friends and family, as well as share gameplay moments as they happen. Games on Hatch live in the cloud, so playing is instant — with no downloads, updates, or in-app purchases.

To make all that happen, Hatch needs low-latency networking performance on mobile data networks. It wants to deliver full-featured games at 60 frames per second over the Internet with less than half the bandwidth required for video-based game streaming solutions or streaming HD video.

For Hatch, Qualcomm Centriq 2400's 48-core processor will provide a large number of game instances per server, and that will keep per-user server costs lower.

"The Qualcomm Centriq 2400 server processor was purpose-built for cloud to deliver exceptional performance-per-watt and performance-per-dollar," said Vishal Gupta, vice president business development at Qualcomm Datacenter Technologies, in a statement. "We bring high compute density and energy efficiency with Qualcomm Centriq 2400 to help drive Hatch's innovative cloud game streaming solution."

Hatch will show its tech at Qualcomm’s booth at the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona from February 26 to March 1.

Hatch’s beta version is out now for Android users (version 6 and up) in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Luxembourg, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. More countries will come online later.

Qualcomm raises NXP offer to $44 billion as it seeks leverage against Broadcom

Posted: 20 Feb 2018 04:15 AM PST

In today’s episode of As the Semiconductor Industry Turns, Qualcomm has increased its offer for NXP from $39 billion to $44 billion as the former continues to fend off Broadcom’s hostile takeover bid.

"NXP is a highly strategic and attractive acquisition for Qualcomm that enhances the value of our leading 5G technologies,” said Qualcomm board chair Dr. Paul E. Jacobs in a statement. “We also believe the revised agreement provides certainty for both Qualcomm and NXP stockholders."

Certainty? Maybe. Then again, maybe not.

Qualcomm had initiated the deal with NXP in October 2016, well before Broadcom came calling last fall. Broadcom recently increased its own offer for Qualcomm to $121 billion, a bid that was swiftly rejected.

The two sides did meet, though apparently they failed to make any headway in reaching a deal. However, Broadcom has said that if Qualcomm increased its bid for NXP, it might withdraw its own bid for Qualcomm.

Qualcomm is getting squeezed from two sides, which puts it in a tough spot. Some NXP shareholders weren’t happy with the offer, which has dragged out the deal and forced the company to up its bid.

That will likely satisfy NXP shareholders. But, if Broadcom does walk away, Qualcomm could be facing heat from its own shareholders, who may have wanted the two companies to reach a deal.

Google Pay’s big global rollout begins

Posted: 20 Feb 2018 03:59 AM PST

Google announced last month that it was bringing Android Pay and Google Wallet together under the new Google Pay brand. Today, the big rollout begins, with the new Google Pay-branded app now available through Google Play.

If you already have the Android Pay app installed, it appears you won’t need to do anything. However, the app currently still shows up as “Android Pay” on your phone, despite appearing as “Google Pay” through the Google Play store on the web. The transition is evidently still underway.

Muddy waters

Google’s digital payment setup has so far been a little muddy, given that Android Pay was for online, in-app, and retail purchases using an Android phone, while Google Wallet was a P2P payment service for those with a debit card or bank account in the U.S. or U.K. and worked on Android and iOS.

Google Pay represents the company’s attempt to unify and simplify its digital payments service across the web, in apps, in stores, and through peer-to-peer (P2P) payments. It also constitutes the service formerly known as Pay With Google, which is an API that allows merchants to offer online shoppers a simpler way to enter their payment details at checkout.

Those in London, Kiev, and Portland will also be able to use Google Pay on public transport from today, and more cities will be added soon.

Above: Google Pay

Though the official Google Pay rollout kicks off today, the company said it’s planning on adding new features further down the road and will eventually add support across “all Google Products,” including Google Assistant.

P2P payments aren’t yet available through Google Pay either, with the company noting that those in the U.S. and U.K. will be able to send and request money “within the next few months.” Indeed, the Google Wallet app is no more, and it will be rebranded as Google Pay Send, which is presumably a temporary makeover until the company manages to integrate its features into the core Google Pay app.

Today is just the first step in Google Pay’s big rollout. What this means is that you will start seeing the Google Pay sign everywhere, both online and in the physical world, where Android Pay has hitherto been made available.

Ultimately, Google wants you to automatically turn to Google Pay when making payments anywhere. So rather than designating Android Pay for in-store purchases, PayPal for one-tap shopping online, and Venmo for P2P payments, this amalgamation is designed to position Google Pay as a one-stop-shop for all your transactions.

Tetra’s call recorder and AI-powered transcription app now works for inbound calls

Posted: 20 Feb 2018 02:01 AM PST

Nobody really enjoys taking notes, but it is an unavoidable fact of life for many in business and academia. During phone calls, specifically, it can be hard to focus on what’s being said while ensuring you accurately jot everything down in real time.

But what if there was a way for you to record a call through your mobile phone and have a full transcription of the discussion delivered to you within minutes? That’s exactly what San Francisco-based Tetra is setting out to enable with its AI-powered iPhone app that not only records your calls but converts the conversations into written form using deep learning and natural language processing (NLP).

With $1.5 million in seed funding, Y Combinator alum Tetra has announced a notable update to its mobile app. So far, Tetra has only worked with outbound calls, but now subscribers will be able to enjoy the full benefits of Tetra for incoming calls, too.

By way of a quick recap, Tetra is basically a VoIP app that works similarly to Google Voice, insofar as it allocates you a dedicated Tetra number that must be used for all outgoing/incoming calls. Once a call is complete, Tetra will spend a short period of time generating the notes.

Above: Recording then processing notes

Based on our brief tests, Tetra was able to accurately record and transcribe audio, though we didn’t put the app through the wringer in terms of throwing complex names, abbreviations, or colloquialisms into the mix. For normal day-to-day chat, though, it seems to work just fine.

Additional smarts include the ability to search for keywords across all conversations and then re-listen to a specific piece of audio by tapping on keywords. Users can help guide Tetra’s AI to create call summaries by manually tagging key moments during a call, and they can share notes with colleagues who weren’t present through the Tetra mobile or web app.

Above: Tetra: Notes and search

In terms of pricing, everyone can get 60 free minutes per month as part of a trial. Then you’ll have to sign up to the Plus, Pro, or Business plans, which offer varying amounts of call-time per month and range from $9 to $99.

Above: Pricing

Then there are the legal and ethical angles to consider. By default, Tetra automatically tells the people on the other end of the call that they are being recorded, however it’s possible for the Tetra subscriber to disable this announcement with the proviso that you “stay compliant with local law or get recording consent yourself,” according to Tetra.

AI for good

Though there is an almost palpable fear regarding what AI will mean for the future of humans, being able to automate boring transcriptions is undoubtedly one benefit that most people will welcome with open arms.

That said, companies with data confidentiality concerns will likely have some reservations about eavesdropping bots listening in on their calls, and the possibility that some content could be made accessible to humans will also be of concern. According to Tetra, it uses “industry standard” encryption and AWS servers to store any data collected. The company also said that “no humans are ever involved” in the creation of the transcripts.

Of course, automated transcription isn’t a new concept. Last year, Zoom announced it was adding automatic transcription smarts to its video conferencing platform, while emerging startups such as Clark.ai and Scopist are setting out to integrate with popular third-party conference calling software to automate note-taking. A startup offering a wearable voice recorder called Senstone raised north of $300,000 through Kickstarter last year to make it easy for you to convert real-world audio into written notes.

There are also existing players in the iPhone app space that record calls and transcribe audio. However, Tetra claims higher levels of transcription accuracy, without human interference and delivered within minutes.

It’s clear there is a big demand for automated transcriptions. While AI transcription won’t be perfect yet, and the app will likely struggle with more technical and nuanced language, it’s already good enough for many use cases. For now, though, Tetra only officially works with U.S. English, though it didn’t seem to have any trouble with my brand of U.K. English, which will actually be officially supported “soon.” Other languages that will soon be supported include Russian, Spanish, Hindi, Japanese, German, Czech, and Polish.

A spokesperson also confirmed to VentureBeat that an Android app is coming within the next few months.

Notable omissions in Tetra’s armory include integrations with third-party tools such as Slack, Skype, and GoToMeeting, though the company’s FAQ answer to whether it works with such communication platforms is “not yet,” which suggests Tetra is open to the possibility.

Still, it’s very early days for the company. Tetra only launched its app in October and has a team of just five. One of the benefits of using off-the-shelf APIs for its AI is that it doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel and can streamline its operations as it seeks growth.

Workforce programs will need to be overhauled in the age of artificial intelligence

Posted: 19 Feb 2018 09:20 PM PST

Not all researchers agree that artificial intelligence is as important a development as electricity or fire, or that hundreds of millions of jobs will be automated in the next decade. But it is clear that an increasing array of tasks will soon be completed by machines. And workers need to be prepared for a future in which they may have to develop a larger skillset than ever before.

Tech-friendly think tank the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) today published a report detailing how worker training policies will need to be adjusted in the age of AI and robotics. In the report, ITIF gives a vast number of policy recommendations, most of which will likely not come to fruition. But the report does offer a useful overview of shortfalls that exist in current training and retraining programs.

VentureBeat spoke with Maria Heidkamp, director of the New Start Career Network at Rutger University’s Heldrich Center for Workforce Development, about some of the biggest barriers workers face when searching for job retraining programs. “Many, especially older dislocated workers, haven’t been in a classroom since they were 18 and may be leery of going back to school,” Heidkamp said in an email. “Many are not sure what training might offer a good return on investment for them, and it can be difficult to find unbiased career advice.”

It’s worth nothing that ITIF, which has received funding from tech lobbying groups such as the Wireless Association and the Information Technology Industry Council, offers a rosier outlook than other organizations in terms of how technology will impact the workforce. A previous study conducted by ITIF estimates that only 8 percent of jobs will be at high risk of automation by 2024.

ITIF president Rob Atkinson, who authored the report, claims that automation will allow recent college graduates who are overqualified for the jobs they currently have to move up the job ladder. Atkinson also rejects the idea that automation will worsen income inequality.

The thinking is that as lower-wage jobs are automated, companies will pass those savings on to consumers by lowering the prices of goods and services. Spending will increase, thus creating more higher-wage, high-skilled jobs.

Nonetheless, the ITIF acknowledges that workers will “lose their jobs through no fault of their own, including from technology” and that the U.S. needs to do a better job of investing in programs that will lessen the blow. The U.S. currently invests just 0.1 percent of its GDP in workforce training and support programs.

The policy recommendations fall into four categories: ensuring full employment, nationally and regionally; ensuring workers have needed competencies before they are laid off;  reducing financial hardships for laid-off workers; and providing better transition assistance to help laid-off workers find new employment.

In order to support regional economic development, ITIF suggests creating “regional growth poles,” a solution that will likely pique the curiosity of state and city governments across the U.S.

According to Atkinson, each governor would identify two to six potential growth pole communities in key states. He told VentureBeat in an email that a growth pole community would be “150,000 to 400,000 in population; not adjacent to a larger metro; and ideally having a good university. Lafayette Indiana;  Eugene, Oregon; Santa Fe, NM; etc. would be examples.”

Congress would then increase funding for the Economic Development Administration, and 75 percent of those funds would go toward growth pole communities. The idea is that this would be a better use of federal money, which Atkinson said currently goes to too many places that “have very little prospect of an economic turnaround.”

However, the use of federal money alone won’t lead to an uptick in the number of businesses and jobs. Atkinson acknowledged that incentives for the private sector will likely be needed to convince businesses in overcrowded tech hubs like Silicon Valley and Boston to invest in growth poles.

Other policy solutions that ITIF touts include increased investment in apprenticeship programs, the creation of new kinds of technical colleges, and the establishment of portable training accounts that employees and employers can add money to, similar to a 401(K). A good number of the proposals ITIF suggests would require businesses to pay more taxes — which is not something the private sector is likely to jump at.

The ITIF also comes out against the idea of universal basic income, claiming that it will encourage workers to stay out of the job market (though a recently released working paper on Alaska’s universal basic income-like Permanent Fund found that the workforce participation rate did not change after the fund was instituted).

What the ITIF report doesn’t address is which policy solutions are most urgent.

Heidkamp, who hadn’t reviewed the ITIF’s report, said that the Heldrich Center is currently studying the effectiveness of work-based learning programs, like apprenticeships and on-the-job training programs — in order to make it easier for workers to gain the skills they’ll need if they have to find another job.

U.S. Congress considers cryptocurrency rules and regulations

Posted: 19 Feb 2018 06:38 PM PST

Representations of the Ripple, Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin cryptocurrencies.

(Reuters) — Jolted by the global investment craze over bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, U.S. lawmakers are moving to consider new rules that could impose stricter federal oversight on the emerging asset class, several top lawmakers told Reuters.

Bipartisan momentum is growing in the Senate and House of Representatives for action to address the risks posed by virtual currencies to investors and the financial system, they said.

Even free-market Republican conservatives, normally wary of government red tape, said regulation could be needed if cryptocurrencies threaten the U.S. economy.

"There's no question about the fact that there is a need for a regulatory framework," said Republican Senator Mike Rounds, a Senate Banking Committee member.

Digital assets currently fall into a jurisdictional gray area between the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve and individual states.

Much of the concern on Capitol Hill is focused on speculative trading and investing in cryptocurrencies, leading some lawmakers to push for digital assets to be regulated as securities and subject to the SEC's investor protection rules.

"The SEC is properly the lead on the issue," said Republican Representative Bill Huizenga, chairman of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets which will hold hearings on the issue in coming weeks.

Huizenga said the recent growth of the virtual currency market had made him more comfortable with more oversight. "Six months ago, we didn't see this explosion. The marketplace has changed," he said.

Carolyn Maloney, a Democratic senior member of the House Financial Services Committee, is another lawmaker advocating for direct oversight of digital assets by the SEC.

“A lot of people don't realize there's nothing backing these virtual currencies,” she said.

Alarm Bells

Virtual currencies have existed for years but speculation in them has recently ballooned, along with scams promising investors returns of over 1,000 percent in weeks.

In a time of volatile markets, hackers are also active in the sector, stealing $530 million of digital currency from Japanese exchange Coincheck last month.

Bitcoin, the best known virtual currency, lost over half its value earlier this year after surging more than 1,300 percent.

"We have to look carefully at all of the cryptocurrencies and make sure individuals don't get taken advantage of," said Representative Tom MacArthur, a House Financial Services Committee Republican.

Regulators globally have raised the alarm over cryptocurrencies, saying they may aid money laundering and terrorist financing, hurt consumers and undermine trust in the global financial system.

France and Germany want cryptocurrencies on the agenda for the upcoming G20 meeting of the largest advanced and developing economies.

Conservative Republicans also recognize the potential for broader risks.

"I'm a total free-marketer, so I don't want to regulate," said Republican Representative Dave Brat, a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus.

"But if it's a currency that could destabilize the whole economy, you're going to have that conversation," he said.

Security or Commodity?

The SEC and CFTC chairmen recently called for greater scrutiny of digital assets before the Senate Banking Committee. Members of the panel said the regulators will return to discuss how to move forward.

While many lawmakers agree tighter oversight is needed, there is no consensus yet in Congress on how to proceed.

While some lawmakers say speculative investments should be classed as securities, others want digital currency transactions regulated as commodities.

The SEC is already cracking down on transactions known as initial coin offerings (ICOs), while the CFTC has identified digital assets as a commodity subject to its anti-fraud rules.

Peter Van Valkenburgh, director of research at the Coin Center, a member of the growing cryptocurrency lobby, said lawmakers need to distinguish between ICOs that operate like securities and other virtual currencies including bitcoin, which he described as a commodity like gold.

Senator Rounds told Reuters there was an opportunity to regulate cryptocurrencies as both a security and a commodity.

But while lawmakers are keen to mitigate the risks digital assets may pose, they are also mindful of the need to protect innovation, including the underlying distributed ledger technology, said Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen, a member of the Senate Banking Committee.

"The goal here is to have rules of the road that protect consumers without trying to squash innovation."

Fe review — a conversation with a breathtakingly beautiful alien forest

Posted: 19 Feb 2018 05:15 PM PST

REVIEW:

Zoink’s Fe is a gorgeous reverie, awash in beautiful colors and accompanied by a soundtrack of soulful strings. You play as a small animal, fox-like in movement and appearance, who’s on a journey to save the forest from strange menacing creatures called the Silent Ones. It’s a stunning adventure, filled with breathtaking moments that remind you how small you are in the grand scheme of things — but also how you can work together with others to make a difference.

Fe is the first game to launch out of EA Originals, Electronic Arts’s indie program, and it’s out now on PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch. I played it on the PS4, and if you do play it, I’d recommend a big screen so you can best appreciate its captivating vistas.

Check out our Reviews Vault for past game reviews.

What you’ll like

Looks and sounds gorgeous

From screenshots, you can see Fe is beautiful. Each biome has its own color palette, and as you run through the underbrush, navigate mysterious caves, and clamber to the tops of trees, the light changes in bewitching ways. The world around you is prismatic, reflecting the sunlight with surprising pops of color and texture. A dark tree trunk becomes studded with glowing reds and oranges when viewed a certain way. A snowdrift becomes a study in pointillism.

Fe also features a lush soundtrack, starring a cello, viola, and violin. The music is cozy and playful at times, reminding me of games like Unravel. When you come face to face with the grandeur of nature, though, it swells to truly epic proportions. A particularly fantastic scene is when you discover an enormous creature, part stag and part moving forest. As you spring from tree to tree up the animal’s body, the music crescendoes to anthemic heights.

Sense of scale 

The giant animals you see are breathtaking. It brought me back to the first time I played Shadow of the Colossus, except this time rendered in the colors of the dawn: pinks, purples, and blues. Fe succeeds at portraying a sense of scale, from the larger-than-life creatures to the tiny lizard compatriots that are more or less your size.

Freedom of movement also contributes to this sense of scale. When you’re floating around atop spinning yellow flowers or climbing up spirals of stone so you can glide down to another platform in the distance, you feel as though you’re a tiny critter in a vast forest. Nothing punctuates this more than when you climb to the top of a tree, perching at its apex and viewing the misty valleys before you.

This also makes the struggle between you and the Silent Ones feel particularly heroic. The enemies are tall, with ominous glowing eyes. Sometimes they’re accompanied by attack dogs that are more than five times your size.

Fun mechanics

Most of Fe’s gameplay is platforming and stealth. You’re often traversing the landscape and solving environmental puzzles while avoiding enemies. The player-creature controls well, and it’s great fun to dodge and weave through the grass and swing from the trees.

My favorite mechanic is how you communicate with other creatures in the forest. You can unlock skills by collecting gem-like fragments, but as the story progresses, the main abilities you acquire are by learning to speak different languages. I love that the game tells you to “sing gently with animals,” which is a charming sentiment.

When you encounter another creature, you can gently press on the right trigger button to speak to them. Depending on how hard you press, the tone of your voice changes. You have to essentially tune into the right frequency to communicate with that animal, and once you do, a kind of understanding passes from both of you. Once you’ve formed this bond, they help you in your quest. And when you learn their language, you can use it to activate certain things in the environment — like coaxing a flower into blossoming so you can use it as a springboard to jump to a high ledge.

What you won’t like

Wonky camera

It took me a little while to get used to the way the camera automatically pans in and out or drifts in a certain direction, and when I first started playing, I felt motion sick. Though I eventually got used to the camera, it sometimes became a hindrance during areas where stealth is key.

Because waiting for the right time to scamper forth from your hiding place is so important, it’s unfortunate that the camera sometimes works against you. You’ll likely get the hang of its quirks early on, but sometimes it will frustrate you.

Obscure story

I liked that Fe has no words, its story told in mysterious glyphs and the language of animals. But sometimes the glyphs were a little too mysterious. About two-thirds into it, I still wasn’t sure what was happening or what the enemies were trying to do. Fe relies on the instinct to want to save forest animals — which, I admit, is quite strong, especially when they’re so cute. But I wanted more from the story.

I think it’s OK for a story to be somewhat inscrutable. After all, Fe takes place in a beautiful alien world with giant owl-like snakes and neon flowers. By the time I got to the end, though, I still felt like I didn’t really understand the Silent Ones’ motivations.

Large world that feels small

Each of the biomes is beautiful and characterful and a joy to experience. However, I couldn’t help but feel like my exploration wasn’t always rewarded. It seems the only point of exploration, really, is to get all the collectibles — spinning pink gems that can unlock abilities.

The other collectible is a set of stone tablets, and each reveals a glyph that explains part of the story. But many of these repeat, perhaps to make sure you get as much of the story as possible even if you pass up collecting most of them.

The result is that, though Fe’s world is beautiful and mysterious, you often won’t find any secrets or anything new as you dig deeper. All the animals you encounter in the main story seem to be it, and unless you want to finish 100 percent of Fe, it doesn’t seem like further exploration would yield much else.

Conclusion

Fe stumbles at times, in part because of its sometimes elusive camera. But it’s memorable and beautiful, worthwhile simply for diving into an alien world and letting it carry you away with its sometimes adorable, sometimes breathtaking creatures.

If you can get past some of its flaws, you’ll be in for an experience that’s full of wonder with fantastic visuals and an amazing soundtrack. Which I keep looking for online, by the way. But my search queries just keep returning discussions about Fire Emblem.

Score: 83/100

Fe launched on February 16 for PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch. The publisher sent us a code for review.

Blizzard is streaming a puppy version of Overwatch on Twitch

Posted: 19 Feb 2018 03:44 PM PST

You probably like Overwatch. You probably also like puppies. Well, Blizzard has finally combined those two things into one stream is live now on Twitch.

To celebrate the Lunar New Year and the Year of the Dog, Blizzard has introduced new events and content into its team-based hero shooter. And the publisher is using this as an excuse to play with a bunch of puppies. On the official PlayOverwatch account on Twitch, you can check out the “Year of the Dog Puppy Rumble” right now. It has full commentary and everything.

Watch it right here:

I know everyone is rooting for the 8-week-old Lulu, which is dressed like the Overwatch hero Symmetra, but I’m hoping that Blizzard uses this as an excuse to introduce a new character by letting a cat loose in the Puppy Rumble stadium dressed as someone else completely.

Logitech’s G920 wheel combines ease of use with thrilling racing

Posted: 19 Feb 2018 03:06 PM PST

REVIEW:

You don’t have to settle for some shoddy toy wheel when it comes to driving games. The simulation experience you want is attainable in the Logitech G920 Driving Force racing wheel (and the PlayStation equivalent G29) for $400. It works with the PC or Xbox One, and it provides realistic controls with immersive force-feedback. Logitech says this is the definitive racing wheel, and after using one for the last couple of weeks, I agree.

I’ve spent several hours with the G920 in games like Forza Horizon 3, Dirt 4, Project Cars 2, Spintires: Mudrunner, and American Truck Simulator. It works amazingly well in all of these, and it has made me into someone who’s looking for the next driving sim.

Here’s why the G920 is so good.

What you’ll like

Easy to install and use

If you’ve never used a racing wheel with your games before, you might think it’s more of a headache than a fun time. But that’s not the case. Logitech designed the G920 so that you could anchor it to variety of desks using a pair of built-in clamps. Those tighten enough that the wheel stays in place even when you whip it around a corner with a ton of force. I have never had to readjust the wheel or even the optional stick shifter.

Likewise, the pedals also stay in place, but this doesn’t involve clamps. Instead, Logitech added a strip of spikes that can retract (if you’re using the pedal unit on hardwood) or extend to dig into carpet. This works like magic. The spikes stick out at an angle, and even when I’m slamming on the break for a sudden stop at a red light, the pedals don’t drift away from my feet. I have had to adjust the pedals, but that was an infrequent occurrence, and it was only to keep the unit angled properly.

Excellent force feedback

The G920 is not a passive wheel. It features a motor that translates your vehicle’s movements into force-feedback motions that fight against your hands. So if you take a turn, the wheel has the power to pull back against you to let you know that the wheels under your car are tugging away at the tarmac with ferocity. But it’s also so much more than that.

The G920 can also simulate the idling of a massive big-rig truck, the feeling of driving over dirt at high speeds, and the skidding of your wheels across a wet road. This all amplifies the immersion in a game, but it also gives you more information about how much control you have over your automobile. If the wheel is really fighting you through a series of turns, you probably need to let off the gas or you’ll risk losing control.

Elegant design

Logitech’s engineers have done a lot to make the G920 a smart and immersive experience. The easy installation is a big part of that, but it is equally smart in use. For example, all of the buttons are within the reach of your thumbs and the rear paddle shifters give you a nice click when you engage them.

I also appreciate the leather-like material on the wheel, which makes it feel like something out of a Toyota. The rest of the setup is a mixture of aluminum and plastic alloys, and they are all sturdy and nice looking.

What you won’t like

Lots of cables

My only issue with the Logitech G920 is the cable management. If you have the stick shifter, you’ll have four cords coming out of the back of the wheel: power, USB, pedals, and stick. Those cables are probably going to have to shoot out in a variety of different directions because you may have power and USB in one area, but then the pedals have to go beneath the wheel while the shifter is off to the right.

This can turn into a tangled mess in an instant, and I find that frustrating.

Conclusion

I can’t imagine playing driving games any other way now that I’ve spent so much time with the G920. I’m pricing a Playseat racing chair to build an immersive experience in my home. I’m scouring Steam for new racing games. I’m breaking out old games with any vehicles in them and trying to see if this will work — Grand Theft Auto Online is next. The wheel is amazing, and it makes driving games that much better. If you have any affinity for this genre, I give the G920 my highest recommendation.

The Logitech G920 is available now for $400. Logitech provided a sample unit for the purpose of this review.

9 common mistakes executives make with data

Posted: 19 Feb 2018 02:10 PM PST

GUEST:

Data is a human invention. Humans define the phenomenon they want to measure, design systems to collect data about it, clean and pre-process it before analysis, and finally, choose how to interpret the results. Even with the same dataset, two people can form vastly different conclusions. This is because data alone is not “ground truth” — observable, provable, and objective data that reflects reality. If researchers infer data from other information, rely on subjective judgment, do not collect data in a rigorous and careful manner, or use sources that are of questionable authenticity, then the data they produce it is not ground truth.

How you choose to conceptualize a phenomenon, determine what to measure, and decide how to take measurements will affect the data that you collect. Your ability to solve a problem with artificial intelligence depends heavily on how you frame your problem and whether you can establish ground truth without ambiguity. We use ground truth as a benchmark to assess the performance of algorithms. If your gold standard is wrong, then your results will not only be wrong but also potentially harmful to your business.

Unless you were directly involved with defining and monitoring your original data collection goals, instruments, and strategy, you are likely missing critical knowledge that may result in incorrect processing, interpretation, and use of that data.

What people call “data” can actually be things like carefully curated measurements selected purely to support an agenda; haphazard collections of random information with no correspondence to reality; or information that looks reasonable but resulted from unconsciously biased collection efforts.

Here’s a crash course on nine common statistical errors that every executive should be familiar with.

1. Undefined goals

Failing to pin down the reason for collecting data means that you’ll miss the opportunity to articulate assumptions and to determine what to collect. The result is that you’ll likely collect the wrong data or incomplete data. A common trend in big data is for enterprises to gather heaps of information without any understanding of why they need it and how they want to use it. Gathering huge but messy volumes of data will only impede your future analytics, since you’ll have to wade through much more junk to find what you actually want.

2. Definition error

Let’s say you want to know how much your customers spent on your services last quarter. Seems like an easy task, right? Unfortunately, even a simple goal like this will require defining a number of assumptions before you can get the information that you want.

First, how are you defining “customer”? Depending on your goals, you might not want to lump everyone into one bucket. You may want to segment customers by their purchasing behaviors in order to adjust your marketing efforts or product features accordingly. If that’s the case, then you’ll need to be sure that you’re including useful information about the customer, such as demographic information or spending history.

There are also tactical considerations, such as how you define quarters. Will you use fiscal quarters or calendar quarters? Many organizations’ fiscal years do not correspond with calendar years. Fiscal years also differ internationally, with Australia’s fiscal year starting on July 1 and India’s fiscal year starting on April 1. You will also need to develop a strategy to account for returns or exchanges. What if a customer bought your product in one quarter but returned it in another? What if they filed a quality complaint against you and received a refund? Do you net these in the last quarter or this one?

As you can see, definitions are not so simple. You will need to discuss your expectations and set appropriate parameters in order to collect the information you actually want.

3. Capture error

Once you’ve identified the type of data that you wish to collect, you’ll need to design a mechanism to capture it. Mistakes here can result in capturing incorrect or accidentally biased data. For example, if you want to test whether product A is more compelling than product B, but you always display product A first on your website, then users may not see or purchase product B as frequently, leading you to the wrong conclusion.

4. Measurement error

Measurement errors occur when the software or hardware you use to capture data goes awry, either failing to capture usable data or producing spurious data. For example, you might lose information about user behavior on your mobile app if the user experiences connectivity issues and the usage logs are not synchronized with your servers. Similarly, if you are using hardware sensors like a microphone, your audio recordings may capture background noise or interference from other electrical signals.

5. Processing error

As you can see from our simple attempt to calculate customer sales earlier, many errors can occur even before you look at your data. Many enterprises own data that is decades old, where the original team capable of explaining their data decisions is long gone. Many of their assumptions and issues are likely not documented and will be up to you to deduce, which can be a daunting task.

You and your team may make assumptions that differ from the original ones made during data collection and achieve wildly different results. Common errors include missing a particular filter that researchers may have used on the data, using different accounting standards, and simply making methodological mistakes.

6. Coverage error

Coverage error describes what happens with survey data when there is insufficient opportunity for all targeted respondents to participate. For example, if you are collecting data on the elderly but only offer a website survey, then you’ll probably miss out on many respondents.

In the case of digital products, your marketing teams may be interested in projecting how all mobile smartphone users might behave with a prospective product. However, if you only offer an iOS app but not an Android app, the iOS user data will give you limited insight into how Android users may behave.

7. Sampling error

Sampling errors occur when you analyze data from a smaller sample that is not representative of your target population. This is unavoidable when data only exists for some groups within a population. The conclusions that you draw from the unrepresentative sample will probably not apply to the whole.

A classic example of a sampling would be to ask only your friends or peers for opinions about your company’s products, then assume the user population will feel similarly.

8. Inference error

Statistical or machine learning models make inference errors when they make incorrect predictions from the available ground truth. False negatives and false positives are the two types of inference errors that can occur. False positives occur when you incorrectly predict that an item belongs in a category when it does not. False negatives occur when an item is in a category, but you predict that it is not.

Assuming you have a clean record of ground truth, calculating inference errors will help you assess the performance of your machine learning models. However, the reality is that many real-world datasets are noisy and may be mislabeled, which means you may not have clarity on the exact inference errors your AI system makes.

9. Unknown error

Reality can be elusive, and you cannot always establish ground truth with ease. In many cases, such as with digital products, you can capture tons of data about what a user did on your platform but not their motivation for those actions. You may know that a user clicked on an advertisement, but you don’t know how annoyed they were with it.

In addition to many known types of errors, there are unknowns about the universe that leave a gap between your representation of reality, in the form of data, and reality itself.

Executives without a data science or machine learning background often make these nine major errors, but many more subtle issues can also thwart the performance of AI technologies you build that make predictions from data.

Mariya Yao is the CTO of Metamaven, an applied AI firm building custom automation solutions for marketing and sales, and the coauthor of Applied Artificial Intelligence, a book for business leaders.

This story originally appeared on Www.metamaven.com. Copyright 2018

Apple releases iOS, macOS, tvOS, and watchOS updates with Telugu character fix

Posted: 19 Feb 2018 01:31 PM PST

Apple today released software updates to all of its platforms to address the Indian character crash bug discovered last week. The fix is included in iOS 11.2.6, macOS 10.13.3 Supplemental Update, tvOS 11.2.6, and watchOS 4.2.3. As expected, the potentially serious nature of the bug hastened Apple’s response, allowing the issue to be addressed before the next full point releases of each OS.

Also known as the Telugu bug, referencing the specific language spoken by around 70 million people in India, the exploit causes certain iOS communication apps to crash when attempting to process a specific Telugu character. If the character is processed by iOS’ notification system, the device’s Home screen can crash and fall into a looping reboot cycle. preventing access to all of the device’s functions and data.

iOS 11.2.6 is a free download and can be accessed through Settings > General > Software Update on iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches. macOS 10.13.3 Supplemental Update can be accessed through the Updates section of the Mac App Store. tvOS 11.2.6 can be applied automatically by an Apple TV or manually in Settings > System > Software Update. watchOS 4.2.3 can be manually applied using the Watch app on an iPhone. Note that the patch will not appear on devices running Apple developer or public betas, which are said to have already addressed the bug.
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