Daily Crunch: Apple and Google begin releasing their exposure notification API

Apple and Google ask for developer feedback on their contact tracing efforts, Facebook sees a “significant reduction” in ads and Microsoft makes life easier for IT managers.

Here’s your Daily Crunch for April 30, 2020.

1. Apple and Google release first seed of COVID-19 exposure notification API for contact tracing app developers

This is a developer-focused release, and it’s a seed of the API in development, with the primary intent of collecting feedback from developers who will be using the API to create new contact tracing and notification apps on behalf of public health agencies.

Apple and Google first announced the combined API and eventual system-level contact tracing feature on April 10, and intend to release the first version of the API publicly in mid-May, with system-level integration to follow in the coming months. The tech is designed to be privacy-preserving, ensuring that contact IDs are rotating and randomized, and never tied to an individual’s specific identifying information.

2. Facebook stock spikes despite ‘significant reduction’ in demand for ads

While Facebook’s ad revenues in Q1 increased by 17% year-over-year growth, Facebook used its earnings announcement to hedge expectations for Q2. In its release, the company said it saw “a significant reduction in the demand for advertising, as well as a related decline in the pricing of our ads, over the last three weeks of the first quarter of 2020.”

3. Microsoft makes it easier to get started with Windows Virtual Desktops

Microsoft announced a slew of updates to various parts of its Microsoft 365 ecosystem. The thrust is to make life easier for the IT admins that help provision and manage corporate Windows — and Mac — machines, something that’s even more important as many companies try to adapt to a new work-from-home environment.

4. Twitter Q1: sales up 3% to $808M as it swings to a loss on COVID-19, mDAUS hit record 166M

None of this should come as a surprise. Twitter announced more than a month ago that it was removing its own financial guidance because of the instability of its business due to COVID-19, noting only that it would be lower than expected.

5. Freada Kapor Klein warns of ‘vulture capitalists’ during pandemic

“We have seen a lot of VCs acting incredibly badly in the last couple of weeks — taking advantage of startups that are in a precarious position,” Kapor Capital’s Fraeda Kapor Klein told us. (Extra Crunch membership required.)

6. Here’s what NASA’s Mars helicopter will look like when it makes history with the first extraterrestrial powered flight

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory created a trailer of sorts to show you approximately what the flight will look like, sometime after the Mars 2020 mission’s targeted February 18, 2021 arrival date.

7. With fresh support from its billionaire backers, Pivot Bio is ushering in a farming revolution

Pivot uses genetically edited microbes to replicate the work that naturally occurring bacteria had done for millions of years to fix nitrogen in the soil.

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

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Apple exec Cynthia Hogan joins Biden’s VP vetting team

Joe Biden’s campaign this morning announced that it has chosen a team to vet potential running mates for the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. The four-person committee three high-profile Democratic politicians: Senator Chris Dodd, Congresswoman Lisa Blunt and Eric Garcetti, the mayor of Los Angeles, who has been in the spotlight recently, as his city has grappled with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Also on the list is Cynthia Hogan, who has been Apple’s Vice President for Public Policy and Government Affairs since May 2016. “Cynthia’s intellect and judgment have consistently distinguished her as a uniquely talented professional and we’re lucky to have her join the team at Apple,” Apple’s Lisa Jackson said when she joined.

The D.C.-based executive’s experience with politics — and Biden specifically — dates back well before that. Prior to reentering the corporate world, Hogan served as Biden’s Chief Counsel — first during his time in the Senate and then as Vice President. Hogan also spent two years as the Vice President of Public Policy for the NFL.

“Selecting a vice presidential candidate is one of the most important decisions in a presidential campaign and no one knows this more than Joe Biden,” campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon wrote in a statement issued today. “These four co-chairs reflect the strength and diversity of our party, and will provide tremendous insight and expertise to what will be a rigorous selection and vetting process.”

Choosing a running mate is never an easy task, though the 2020 campaign is particularly fraught. Biden’s team will help the candidate choose between a more progressive pick to cater to the left-leaning wing of a frayed Democratic Party or a more conservative choice to cater to GOP voters dismayed by Trump’s polarizing presidency.

Biden has previously said he plans to chose a woman as a running mate — a decision he is expected to reveal as early as July. Plenty of names have been floated, included former presidential candidates Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren, as well as other prominent Democratic politicians including Stacey Abrams.

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Meet EventBot, a new Android malware that steals banking passwords and two-factor codes

Security researchers are sounding the alarm over a newly discovered Android malware that targets banking apps and cryptocurrency wallets.

The malware, which researchers at security firm Cybereason recently discovered and called EventBot, masquerades as a legitimate Android app — like Adobe Flash or Microsoft Word for Android — which abuses Android’s in-built accessibility features to obtain deep access to the device’s operating system.

Once installed — either by an unsuspecting user or by a malicious person with access to a victim’s phone — the EventBot-infected fake app quietly siphons off passwords for more than 200 banking and cryptocurrency apps — including PayPal, Coinbase, CapitalOne and HSBC — and intercepts and two-factor authentication text message codes.

With a victim’s password and two-factor code, the hackers can break into bank accounts, apps and wallets, and steal a victim’s funds.

“The developer behind Eventbot has invested a lot of time and resources into creating the code, and the level of sophistication and capabilities is really high,” Assaf Dahan, head of threat research at Cybereason, told TechCrunch.

The malware quietly records every tap and key press, and can read notifications from other installed apps, giving the hackers a window into what’s happening on a victim’s device.

Over time, the malware siphons off banking and cryptocurrency app passwords back to the hackers’ server.

The researchers said that EventBot remains a work in progress. Over a period of several weeks since its discovery in March, the researchers saw the malware iteratively update every few days to include new malicious features. At one point the malware’s creators improved the encryption scheme it uses to communicate with the hackers’ server, and included a new feature that can grab a user’s device lock code, likely to allow the malware to grant itself higher privileges to the victim’s device like payments and system settings.

But while the researchers are stumped as to who is behind the campaign, their research suggests the malware is brand new.

“Thus far, we haven’t observed clear cases of copy-paste or code reuse from other malware and it seems to have been written from scratch,” said Dahan.

Android malware is not new, but it’s on the rise. Hackers and malware operators have increasingly targeted mobile users because many device owners have their banking apps, social media, and other sensitive services on their device. Google has improved Android security in recent years by screening apps in its app store and proactively blocking third-party apps to cut down on malware — with mixed results. Many malicious apps have evaded Google’s detection.

Cybereason said it has not yet seen EventBot on Android’s app store or in active use in malware campaigns, limiting the exposure to potential victims — for now.

But the researchers said users should avoid untrusted apps from third-party sites and stores, many of which don’t screen their apps for malware.

Millions downloaded dozens of Android apps from Google Play that were infected with adware

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TikTok tops 2 billion downloads

TikTok, the widely popular video sharing app developed by one of the world’s most valued startups (ByteDance), continues to grow rapidly despite suspicion from the U.S. as more people look for ways to keep themselves entertained amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The global app and its Chinese version, called Douyin, have amassed over 2 billion downloads on Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store, mobile insight firm Sensor Tower said Wednesday.

TikTok is the first app after Facebook’s marquee app, WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger to break past the 2 billion downloads figure since January 1 of 2014, a Sensor Tower official told TechCrunch. (Sensor Tower began its app analysis on that date.)

A number of apps from Google, the developer of Android, including Gmail and YouTube, have amassed over 5 billion downloads, but they ship pre-installed on most Android smartphones and tables.

TikTok’s 2 billion download milestone, a key metric to assess an app’s growth, comes five months after it surpassed 1.5 billion downloads.

In the quarter that ended on March 31, TikTok was downloaded 315 million times, surpassing its previous best of 205.7 million downloads in Q4 2018. Facebook’s WhatsApp, the second most popular app by volume of downloads, amassed nearly 250 million downloads in Q1 this year, Sensor Tower told TechCrunch.

As the app gains popularity, it is also clocking more revenue. Users have spent about $456.7 million on TikTok to date, up from $175 million five months ago. Much of this spending — about 72.3% — has happened in China. Users in the United States have spent about $86.5 million on the app, making the nation the second most important market for TikTok from the revenue standpoint.

Craig Chapple, a strategist at Sensor Tower, said that not all the downloads are as organic as TikTok, which launched outside of China in 2017 and has engaged in a “large user acquisition campaign.” But he attributed some of the surge in downloads to the COVID-19 outbreak that has driven more people than ever to look for new apps.

India, TikTok’s largest international market, accounts for 30.3% of the app’s downloads, according to Sensor Tower. The app has been downloaded 611 million times in the world’s second largest internet market.

From a platform’s standpoint, 75.5% of all of TikTok’s downloads have occurred through Google Play Store. But the vast majority of spending has come from users on Apple’s ecosystem ($435.3 million of $456 million).

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TikTok tops 2 billion downloads

TikTok, the widely popular video sharing app developed by one of the world’s most valued startup (ByteDance), continues to grow rapidly despite suspicion from the U.S. as more people look for ways to keep themselves entertained amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The global app and its Chinese version, called Douyin, have amassed over 2 billion downloads on Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store, mobile insight firm SensorTower said Wednesday.

TikTok is the first app after Facebook’s marquee app, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger to break past the 2 billion downloads figure since January 1 of 2014, a SensorTower official told TechCrunch. (SensorTower began its app analysis on that date.)

A number of apps from Google, the developer of Android, including Gmail and YouTube have amassed over 5 billion downloads, but they ship pre-installed on most Android smartphones and tables.

TikTok’s 2 billion download milestone, a key metric to assuage an app’s growth, comes five months after it surpassed 1.5 billion downloads.

In the quarter that ended on March 31, TikTok was downloaded 315 million times, surpassing its previous best of 205.7 million downloads in Q4 2018. Facebook’s WhatsApp, the second most popular app by volume of downloads, amassed nearly 250 million downloads in Q1 this year, SensorTower told TechCrunch.

As the app gains popularity, it is also clocking more revenue. Users have spent about $456.7 million on TikTok to date, up from $175 million five months ago. Much of these spends — about 72.3% — has happened in China. Users in the United States have spent about $86.5 million on the app, making the nation the second most important market for TikTok from revenue standpoint.

Craig Chapple, a strategist at SensorTower, said that not all the downloads are organic as TikTok, which launched outside of China in 2017, has engaged in a “large user acquisition campaign.” But he attributed some of the surge in downloads to the COVID-19 outbreak that has driven more people than ever to look for new apps.

India, TikTok’s largest international market, accounts for the app’s 30.3% downloads, according to SensorTower. The app has been downloaded 611 million times in the world’s second largest internet market.

From a platform’s stand point, 75.5% of all of TikTok’s downloads have occurred through Google Play Store. But the vast majority of spendings have come from users on Apple’s ecosystem ($435.3 million of $456 million).

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Apple will make it easier to unlock your iPhone while wearing a face mask

Face ID was a great idea — until large swathes of the world were forced to wear face masks, rendering it largely useless.

Apple has apparently heard our pain.

Users are reporting a subtle new feature in the latest developer version of iOS 13.5 that will make it easier to unlock your iPhone without having to take off your protective face mask.

Videos shared on Twitter by Robert Petersen and Guilherme Rambo show that Apple devices with Face ID will jump to the backup passcode-entry screen if it detects a mask. That’s not only helpful if you’re unlocking your phone dozens of times a day — which we all do — but it’s also helping to keep people safe by not forcing users to take off their masks, potentially exposing themselves to the virus.

Apple’s new Face ID unlock feature in iOS 13.5 beta (Source: Guilherme Rambo)

It’s not known if this feature will land in the final version of the software update. But one feature that will be included for sure is a new contact tracing API, built by Apple and Google in partnership, which lets national health authorities build apps that can help users privately and anonymously find out if they’ve been exposed to someone with coronavirus.

iOS 13.5 is expected to land in the coming weeks.

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Apple and Google release first seed of COVID-19 exposure notification API for contact tracing app developers

Apple and Google have released the very first version of their exposure notification API, which they previously called the contact tracing API. This is a developer-focused release, and is a seed of the API in development with the primary intent of collecting feedback from developers who will be using the API to create new contract tracing and notification apps on behalf of public health agencies.

Last week, Apple CEO Tim Cook told EU Commissioner Thierry Breton that the API would be arriving shortly, and this version is indeed now available – albeit to a specific and limited group that includes select developers working on behalf of public health authorities globally, according to the companies. This is a test release that’s intended to provide the opportunity for development and feedback in advance of the API’s public release in mid-May, at which time developers will be able to use the software feature on devices with publicly available apps released through the iOS and Google software stores, respectively.

Apple and Google say they will be providing additional details this coming Friday about the API and its release, including sample code to show how it operates in practice. Both are intent on providing updates to the documentation as they become available, and in adding access to new developers throughout testing, though this will be gated because the companies are limiting access to this API to authorized public health authorities only.

Already, Apple and Google have made available documents that describe the specification in detail on its respective developer websites, and it provided an update with improvements to the tech’s functioning, including in terms of its protection of user privacy, and the ease with which developers can deploy it within their apps, as discussed during a press call last week.

This update includes an added ability for health authorities to define and calcite an exposure risk level for individuals based on their own criteria, since that varies organization to organization. This will be variable based on approximate distance of an individual to a confirmed exposed COVID-19 patient, as well as the duration of that exposure. Developers can customize notification messaging based on their defined exposure levels to ensure alerts correspond correctly to calculated risk.

Apple and Google first announced the combined API and eventual system-level contact tracing feature on April 10, and intend to release the first version of the API publicly in mid-May, with the system-level integration to follow in the coming months. The tech is designed to be privacy-preserving, ensuring that contact IDs are rotating and randomized, and never tied to an individual’s specific identifying information.

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