Tech With Viral

Wednesday, 3 June 2020

C4 Ventures raises $88M fund for post-Series A startups, in a post-COVID19 world

C4 Ventures, the Paris-based VC, has raised a new €80 million ($88 million) “Fund II”. The fund was founded by Pascal Cagni, a former Europe boss of Apple, and includes cofounder Raph Crouan, another Apple alumni previously with Startupbootcamp and is currently President of La FrenchTech. C4 is designed to be a “post-Series A” fund and normally invests around €3-4 million euros.

The new fund is described as a “boutique” VC which will focus on tech which will thrive in “post-Covid” world. Recruited by the late Steve Jobs, Cagni started the fund within months of leaving Apple, but the firm didn’t become significant until 2014. Outside of business, Cagni is an “ally” to President Emmanuel Macron and has worked on several initiatives to boost France’s technology and entrepreneurship sectors.

Cagni, who was head of Apple in Europe from 2000 to 2012, said: “Having witnessed first-hand technology’s unique power to drive real-time behavioral change, we believe that, although Covid-19 is going to bring about an economic slowdown, it is also going to be a breeding ground for innovation and change through disruptive tech,” said Pascal Cagni. “We felt confident that we should, as planned, raise and deploy capital during this period.”

Fund II has a good head start, having invested in seven companies which will be able to adapt to a Post-Covid world including:

• Zoov, a French electric bike-sharing platform

• DriveNets, a software company adapting the cloud model to networking, allowing consumer service providers to scale up for lower costs.

• Trouva, a European online homeware marketplace helping independent local shops scale their offers online.

C4 has previously invested in include Nest, the smart thermostat company acquired by Google for $3.2 billion, and Graphcore, an AI chip start-up now valued at over $2 billion. But it also put cash into Anki, a consumer robotics company that went bust last year after raising around $200 million.

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Tuesday, 2 June 2020

Google pulls ‘Remove China Apps’ from Play Store

Remove China Apps, an app that gained popularity in India in recent weeks and did exactly what its name suggests, has been pulled from the Play Store.

The top trending app in India, which was downloaded more than 5 million times since late May and enabled users to detect and easily delete apps developed by Chinese firms, was pulled from Android’s marquee app store for violating Google Play Store’s Deceptive Behaviour Policy, TechCrunch has learned.

Under this policy an app on Google Play Store cannot make changes to a user’s device settings, or features outside of the app without the user’s knowledge and consent, and not it can encourage or incentivize users into removing or disabling third-party apps.

The app, developed by Indian firm OneTouch AppLabs, gained popularity in India in part because of a growing anti-China sentiment among many citizens as tension between the world’s two most populous nations has escalated in recent days over a Himalayan border dispute.

Several Indian celebrities in recent days have backed the idea of deleting Chinese apps. Yoga guru Baba Ramdev tweeted a video over the weekend that showed him deleting several apps that had affiliation with China.

Responding to a tweet from an Indian actor deleting TikTok from his phone, Nupur Sharma, a spokeswoman for India’s ruling party BJP, said it was “great to see concerned citizens setting an example” and “we ought to hit them where it hurts most.”

Citing an industry source, Chinese state-run Global Times news outlet reported on Tuesday that if the Indian government allows the “irrational anti-China sentiment” to continue it risks ruining bilateral relations that is “likely to draw tit-for-tat punishment from Beijing.”

The report added that some users in China ridiculed Remove China Apps and urged Indians to “throw away” their smartphones, referring to Chinese smartphone makers’ dominance in India’s smartphone market.

If the sentiment from India persists, it could mean bad news for several Chinese firms such as ByteDance and UC Browser that count India as their biggest overseas market. TikTok, which weeks ago was grappling with content moderation efforts in India, sparked a new debate over the weekend after a popular creator claimed that a video she posted on TikTok was pulled by the Chinese firm.

The video was critical of the Chinese government, she said. In a statement to TechCrunch, a TikTok spokesperson said the platform welcomes diversity of users and viewpoints and said it had implemented a more rigorous review process and reinstated the video.

In April, India amended its foreign direct investment policy to enforce tougher scrutiny on Chinese investors looking to cut checks to firms in the world’s second largest internet market. New Delhi, which maintains a similar stand for investors from several other neighboring nations, said the measure was introduced to “curb the opportunistic takeover” of Indian firms going through distress because of the global pandemic.

India’s Prime Minister Modi has also aggressively promoted the idea of boycotting goods made by foreign firms and advised the nation’s 1.3 billion citizens to look for local alternatives as part of his push to make India “self-reliant” and revive the slowing economy.

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Apple further expands into original podcasts with launch of ‘The Zane Lowe Interview Series’

Apple has quietly expanded its original podcast efforts with Friday’s launch of The Zane Lowe Interview Series, available on Apple Music and via RSS. Though technically not Apple’s first-ever podcast, the new series is the first series aimed at Apple’s consumers that focuses exclusively on entertainment content. The episodes in the series will feature Apple’s Global Creative Director, Zane Lowe, in conversations with leading artists like Billie Eilish, Justin Bieber, Kanye West, Hayley Williams, and, most recently, Lady Gaga.

Apple Music has published podcasts before, but not of this nature.

The company today uses its platform to distribute its corporate news, such as the Apple Keynotes podcast, Apple Quarterly Earnings Call, and Events at the Apple Store. While the latter is aimed at consumers, it’s an entirely different genre of programming. Its focus is Apple’s retail events, which may include big-name celebs at times, but whose larger purpose is tied to bringing in customers to Apple stores and showing off how Apple’s devices and software are used in the creation of art, music, photography, and movies.

Last year, the Apple Music team also experimented with the podcasting medium to distribute its 2019 Grammy’s Celebration which had first streamed live on Beats 1 that February.

The Zane Lowe Interview Series, however, is less of a one-off.

Apple says that new episodes will debut on Apple Music on a regular basis. However, there isn’t a set schedule for the release of new episodes, as with many other podcasts. Some weeks, Lowe may interview as many as four artists, and, the next week, he may interview none. While the conversations won’t necessarily be tied to new album releases, they are a big driver.

Hey I’m excited to share that I now have a new Podcast series where these conversations will live ongoing. You can hear my latest with ⁦⁦@ladygaga⁩ alongside others right now on ⁦@ApplePodcasts⁩ https://t.co/2wEeuWfTtH

— Zane Lowe (@zanelowe) May 29, 2020

The series launched on Friday and was followed by an in-depth profile of Zane Lowe by The New York Times.

Already, there are over a half-dozen episodes available, including the new Lady Gaga interview recorded ahead of the release of Chromatica; an interview with Paramore’s Hayley Williams ahead of her first solo album; one with Justin Bieber to mark his release of Changes; a two-parter interview with Kanye West recorded on the eve of the release of his ninth solo project, Jesus is King; an interview with Selena Gomez on the making of her third album, Rare; and one with Billie Eilish, detailing When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?

Apple’s launch of the original podcast series follows rival Spotify’s significant investment in podcasts in recent years, including Spotify’s acquisition of startups making podcasting tools, like Anchor, as well as acquisitions of podcast networks, like Gimlet and The Ringer, totaling $400 million. As a result, Spotify now offers its subscribers access to hundreds of original and exclusive podcasts including, as of last month, one of the most popular podcasts to date: The Joe Rogan Experience.

Apple’s efforts, meanwhile, have been minimal to date. Besides its 2019 experiment with the Grammy’s content and Apple’s various corporate series, the company had yet to launch other consumer-facing podcasts. Bloomberg reported in January Apple was looking into making original podcasts to promote its Apple TV+ shows, but nothing on that front has yet to arrive.

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Decrypted: iOS 13.5 jailbreak, FBI slams Apple, VCs talk cybersecurity

It was a busy week in security.

Newly released documents shown exclusively to TechCrunch show that U.S. immigration authorities used a controversial cell phone snooping technology known as a “stingray” hundreds of times in the past three years. Also, if you haven’t updated your Android phone in a while, now would be a good time to check. That’s because a brand-new security vulnerability was found — and patched. The bug, if exploited, could let a malicious app trick a user into thinking they’re using a legitimate app that can be used to steal passwords.

Here’s more from the week.

THE BIG PICTURE

Every iPhone now has a working jailbreak

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Tech companies mark Blackout Tuesday

Over the weekend, music industry execs Jamila Thomas and Brianna Agyemang called on fellow industry members to protest police violence against black people by pausing operations for the day. The pair created the site and hashtag #theshowmustbepaused, which spread quickly throughout social media as people looked for a way to offer solidarity with nationwide and international protests.

The call has transformed in a larger movement, among individuals and companies seeking to respond to the killing of George Floyd and other black Americans at the hands of police.

The Musicians’ Union stands with our Black members and all Black communities against all forms of racism, violence and discrimination. When we say "behind every musician”, we mean it. #BlackLivesMatter #TheShowMustBePaused pic.twitter.com/BHyFsqeOso

— Musicians' Union (@WeAreTheMU) June 1, 2020

“Tuesday, June 2 is meant to intentionally disrupt the work week,” the site explains. “It’s a day to take a beat for an honest, reflective and productive conversation about what actions we need to collectively take to support the Black community. The music industry is a multi-billion dollar industry. An industry that has profited predominantly from Black art. Our mission is to hold the industry at large, including major corporations + their partners who benefit from the efforts, struggles and successes of Black people accountable.”

Tech companies respond to George Floyd’s death, ensuing protests and systemic racism

Perhaps the most visible manifestation of the movement are the black squares that have begun to populate Instagram, Facebook and other social media sites. While evocative, the visual has been met with criticism of its own. In particular, some have taken issue with the presence of the squares accompanied by the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag.

stop posting black squares under the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag on Instagram. it is intentionally and unintentionally hiding critical information we are using on the ground and online. pic.twitter.com/EIS44aDXXd

— y’all don’t read the room (@anthoknees) June 2, 2020

“Stop posting black squares under the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag on Instagram,” writer Anthony James Williams noted on Twitter. “It is intentionally and unintentionally hiding critical information we are using on the ground and online.”

The chief concern is that a sea of black squares are drowning out much of social media’s use as both a lifeline for many on the ground, as well as a historical document of the protests. In many cases, the issue seems to be an unintentional hijacking of the feed.

Music-related tech companies have begun to embrace the movement, as well, days after many penned open letters about Lloyd’s death and subsequent protests. Yesterday, Spotify outlined changes for the 24-hour period. The list includes black logos and headers on a dozen or so playlists and podcasts, including Today’s Top Hits and RapCaviar. Some podcasts and playlists will also sport an 8:46 silent track, referencing the amount of time Floyd was suffocated.

We stand in solidarity against racism and violence.#TheShowMustBePaused #BlackLivesMatter #BlackOutTuesday pic.twitter.com/HA1fErI0AZ

— YouTube Music (@youtubemusic) June 1, 2020

Apple Music noted its own participation on Twitter. The service has canceled its Beat 1 radio schedule, in favor of one focused on black music. YouTube Music and Tidal also posted messages of solidarity on social media. The latter writes:

“We are heartbroken and furious at the murder of George Floyd and so many others, and fully support the Black community as it expresses its pain and anger. Recent events have only strengthened our resolve to loudly reject persistent racism and bigotry.”

In solidarity with the Black community – our colleagues, artists, songwriters, musicians, producers, and music listeners, Amazon Music will observe Black Out Tuesday to listen, learn, and find more ways we can act in the ongoing fight against racism. pic.twitter.com/HA1Urd9n4c

— Amazon Music (@amazonmusic) June 1, 2020

Amazon Music also noted that it will not be posting to social today, in honor of the event. Amazon, notably, received pushback after its early messages of solidarity. The ACLU in particular took the company to task for its role in providing facial recognition technology to police departments. The conflict is certainly worth noting as corporations attempt to walk the line of solidarity and crass co-opting of social movements.

On Monday, 10 Viacom media outlets, including Comedy Central, MTV and CMT, marked the day with an eight-minute-and-46-second screen featuring the words “I Can’t Breathe,” accompanied by the sounds of struggle.

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Decrypted: iOS 13.5 jailbreak, FBI slams Apple, VCs talk cybersecurity

It was a busy week in security.

Here’s more from the week.

THE BIG PICTURE

Every iPhone now has a working jailbreak

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via IFTTT

Monday, 1 June 2020

Is Zoom the next Android or the next BlackBerry?

Gaurav Jain Contributor

Gaurav Jain is one of the founders of Afore Capital, a $124 million fund focused on pre-seed. He was also an early product manager for Android.