Hackers took over the Gentoo Linux GitHub repository

Popular Linux distribution Gentoo has been “totally pwned” according to researchers at Sophos, and none of the current code can be trusted. The team immediately posted an update and noted that none of the real code has been compromised. However, they have pulled the GitHub repository until they can upload a fresh copy of the unadulterated code.

“Today 28 June at approximately 20:20 UTC unknown individuals have gained control of the GitHub Gentoo organization, and modified the content of repositories as well as pages there. We are still working to determine the exact extent and to regain control of the organization and its repositories. All Gentoo code hosted on github should for the moment be considered compromised,” wrote Gentoo administrators. “This does NOT affect any code hosted on the Gentoo infrastructure. Since the master Gentoo ebuild repository is hosted on our own infrastructure and since Github is only a mirror for it, you are fine as long as you are using rsync or webrsync from gentoo.org.”

None of the code is permanently damaged because the Gentoo admins kept their own copy of the code. Gentoo stated that the compromised code could contain malware and bugs and that users should avoid the GitHub version until it is reinstated.

“The Gentoo Infrastructure team have identified the ingress point, and locked out the compromised account,” wrote the admins. “Three Github repositories containing the Gentoo code, Musl, and systemd. All of these repositories are being “reset back to a known good state.”

Replacing pills with a Band-Aid? Avro Life Science thinks there’s a patch for that

Shak Lakhani, the  21-year-old chief executive and co-founder of Avro Life Science, started researching biomaterials when he was 15 years old.

Every summer and after school the teenager would travel nearly two hours by bus and train from the Richmond Hill neighborhood of Toronto where he lived to the tissue engineering lab at the University of Toronto and develop three-dimensional, in-vitro models of tumors using biomaterials.

For three years, Lakhani worked in the lab, before going on to study nanotechnology engineering at the University of Waterloo a short 73 miles away. It was there, in his first year, that Lakhani met another Richmond Hill resident, Keean Sarani, and launched Avro Life Science.

Sarani, also 21, had his own history in life sciences. A former epidemiologist who worked as a research assistant at the aptly named Hospital for Sick Children, Sarani spent his high school years working in community pharmacies before going on to graduate from the University of Waterloo with both an Honours Science degree and a doctorate in pharmacy directly from high school.

Sarani and Lakhani, who’re related by marriage, first met in the Village 1 dormitory complex at the university. Within months of their first meeting the two decided to start working on the company that would become Avro.

They formally launched the business in January 2016, a time when Lakhani said the two college students would hold “startup Sundays” where they would pitch ideas to each other in one dorm room or another on Sunday evenings, until they found an idea that seemed viable.

Given their experience — Sarani in pharmacies and treating patients and Lakhani in chemistry and material science, the two hit on the idea of drug delivery and patches.

Avro Life Science co-founders Keean Sarani and Shak Lakhani

The two initially toyed with a multivitamin patch for daily health, but through the sniffles, watery eyes and sneezes of perennial allergy sufferers the two hit on the idea of an antihistamine patch to cure their own ailments.

The two won their first pitch competition three months after hitting on the initial idea in March 2016, and formally incorporated their business in November 2016.

Fast-forward two years and the two co-founders are just about ready to make the final preparations for the first product with help from an initial seed round from investors led by Fifty Years, with participation from Susa Ventures, Garage Capital, Heuristic Capital, Embark Ventures, Uphonest Capital and Buckley Endeavours. Individual angel investors also participated in the round. In all, Avro has about $2.2 million in the bank.

According to Lakhani, the company has already developed a polymer that allows Avro to make patches that can deliver hundreds of different drugs. Now it’s just a matter of gearing up for clinical trials that the company will run before the end of the year.

The first product, Lakhani says, is “a medicated sticker for seasonal allergies.” The company’s plan to get to market involves revitalizing drugs that pharma companies haven’t been able to bring to market because oral delivery is difficult, Lakhani says.

“Really the breakthrough is the [proprietary] combination of materials that can hold all of these different drugs,” he said. “The method of drug delivery is the same as in nicotine patches. In our case as a result of the polymer and manufacturing method…. [the drugs] don’t bond with the polymer. They are micro-adhesives in the patch. Heat from the skin dissolves the polymer and allows the drugs to enter the blood stream.”

Basically, there are tiny bubbles on the patch and contact with (and heat from) the skin causes the bubbles to break and deliver any drugs in an unadulterated form to the bloodstream, Lakhani explained.

Because the company is using generic drugs for its first tests, it’s hoping to have an easier path to market to prove the viability of its delivery system.

Down the road, the company also has some pretty impressive pharmaceutical partners that it could tap. Avro is already working with Bayer as part of their accelerator program in Toronto, and that may lead to a deeper relationship down the road, according to Lakhani.

The first drug that the company is testing is Loratadine (a common antihistamine).

“In the coming years, we envision bringing a number of other patches to market for drugs addressing neurodegenerative diseases, cardiac health, analgesics and many more to improve drug delivery and compliance while revitalizing pharma pipelines,” Lakhani wrote in an email. “One day we hope to allow large pharmaceutical companies to ‘rescue’ drugs that they spent billions of dollars developing, but failed trials due to low bioavailability, high liver toxicity from an entire pill being metabolized at once.”

For Fifty Years co-founder Seth Bannon, Avro’s technology is a “Holy Grail” for drug delivery that can save pharmaceutical companies billions of dollars.

“The market for this is absolutely massive. Initially, Avro can manufacture and sell patches carrying generics direct to consumer to address issues like compliance with children and the elderly,” wrote Bannon, in an email. “Because Avro can deliver many drugs transdermally… When you deliver drugs transdermally, you significantly reduce liver toxicity and boost bioavailability. This means pharma can rescue drugs that just barely failed in Phase III. Pharma will pay a lot for this.”

WhatsApp copies Telegram to add one-way ‘broadcast’ mode to group chats

“Good artists borrow great artists steal” is a phrase that Facebook seems acutely aware of.

It’s common to speak of Instagram, the Facebook-owned photo-app-now-social-network, borrowing from Snapchat, but now Facebook’s WhatsApp chat app is increasingly drawing its innovation from others such as Telegram.

This week, WhatsApp outed a new feature for its groups that is essentially a replica of Telegram’s channels — that is, a one-way broadcast communication stream.

Telegram channels are popular for setting up a broadcast news feed that allows people to sign up to get alerts from channel admins, who might be news agencies, companies, schools, public interest groups or more. Now WhatsApp is adding the feature to give its message app new use cases.

Actually, as is often the case for WhatsApp, users have unofficially adopted channel-like behavior for some time. Last year, for example, there were reports of a rural journalist using the messaging app to report and broadcast local news. Doing that is suddenly a whole lot easier through this new ‘broadcast-only’ feature.

“One way people use groups is to receive important announcements and information, including parents and teachers at schools, community centers, and non-profit organizations. We’ve introduced this new setting so admins can have better tools for these use cases,” WhatsApp wrote in a short blog post.

Still, the fact that WhatsApp requires users to provide a phone number to join groups — anyone’s number can be looked up by any group member — is one issue when it comes to creating or joining public groups. Telegram has introduced usernames, which mitigate that issue, but still, the app doesn’t have anything like WhatsApp’s scale which is a crucial consideration when deciding which app to plump for.

WhatsApp has over 1.5 billion active users, more than 200 million of which are in India, whereas Telegram recently passed 200 million active users worldwide.

Hydrate, intoxicate, caffeinate, repeat: Meet the startups pouring the future

Joanna Glasner Contributor

More posts by this contributor

• VCs serve up a large helping of cash to startups disrupting food
• US startups off to a strong M&A run in 2018

These days, it seems like everyone with extra cash has some kind of pricey drinking habit. It might be fine wine, craft beer or cocktails. Or it could come in the form of coconut water, cold-pressed juice or the latest frothy caffeinated concoction.

No matter what your preference, startups and their backers likely have you covered.

In a follow-up to our story earlier this month about food startups gobbling up venture funding, Crunchbase News is taking a look at beverage companies guzzling capital. We found that while drinkables receive a smaller portion of funding than edibles, it’s still a sector that draws hundreds of millions of dollars in annual investment.

Where are investors pouring all that money? Some unlikely places. For instance, it appears the largest funding recipient so far this year is a China-based chain called Hey Tea that’s well known for a specialty called cheese tea. (An unfortunately named, slightly salty iced drink that a Crunchbase News team sampling determined was actually pretty tasty.)

Besides cheese tea, we found startups are also raising millions to bottle deep ocean water, customize instant coffee and make your party punch more portable.

Bottom line: So long as there are profit margins to squeeze out, the quest continues for new ways to get you drunk, hydrated or caffeinated. Below, we look at what’s trending on all these fronts.

Hydrate

Venture investors and startup entrepreneurs are betting there are highly scalable businesses to be built in doling out more exotic varieties of water, coconut-based beverages and other drinks to hydrate calorie-conscious consumers.

An analysis of Crunchbase data unearthed at least a dozen companies developing new varieties of water and fitness drinks that have raised funding in recent quarters.

Funding data reveals that investors still see the potential for significant returns from coconut water. The largest round in the hydration category went to Harmless Harvest, a seller of fair trade, organic coconut water and probiotic drinks that recently raised $30 million. The funding comes as the sector is on a tear, with the U.S. spending alone on coconut water projected to reach $2 billion next year.

We also saw a couple of deals involving startups offering alternatives to bottled or tap water. The most heavily capitalized one to receive funding in the past couple of years appears to be FloWater, a Denver-based startup that provides pure water refill stations and has raised about $8 million to date. Meanwhile, bottled water is still generating attention, too, as evidenced by the $5.5 million round late last year for Kona Deep, a bottler of deep ocean water.

Intoxicate

You may need water to survive, but if you’re looking to secure venture capital, it helps to throw in a bit of alcohol.

Since last year, venture investors have poured more than $300 million into an assortment of companies providing alcoholic beverages, drinking gadgetry and services to connect consumers with booze. Crunchbase News highlighted about a dozen that raised sizable rounds, along with one hangover cure startup.

Some of the larger funding rounds are for companies that don’t make alcohol; instead, these startups offer easier ways to select and buy it. These include Vivino, a popular wine rating app, as well as Drizly and Saucey, two ordering and delivery services.

There are emerging brands in the mix, too, including BeatBox Beverages, a purveyor of party punch in portable packages; Milestone Brands, a producer of organic tequilas and other spirits; and Plum, which has a gadget for dispensing good wine by the glass.

Caffeinate

If too much drinking makes you sleepy, let caffeine come to the rescue. Venture investors, known to be heavy consumers of caffeine, also seem to like investing in the stuff.

Using Crunchbase data, we highlighted more than a dozen companies in the coffee and tea space that have secured good-sized rounds in roughly the past year. They range from fast-growing chains, like China’s Hey Tea, to packaged drinks, like non-dairy blended drink maker Willow Cup, to instant beverage innovators, like Sudden Coffee. We even found a blockchain company in the mix, Crypto N Kafe, which aims to connect coffee farmers and consumers directly.

It’s not a bad area for exits, either. The most recent significant exit was Blue Bottle Coffee, a venture-backed brand known for really, really strong brews that sold a majority stake to Nestlé last September at a valuation of over $700 million.

Nourish

One additional beverage category in which we saw a high level of activity was in meal-replacement and nutrition drinks. Overall, we found at least a half-dozen companies developing nutritional drinks that have raised funding in recent quarters.

In this sector, probably the best-known startup name is Soylent, which has raised over $70 million for a line of drinks marketed to consumers who don’t have the time or inclination to sit down for a traditional meal. We also found a potential rival, meal-replacement beverage maker Ample, which secured angel funding last month.

The biggest round in the past couple of months for the space, however, went to REBBL, a startup that raised $20 million in May for its line of bottled drinks featuring health-promoting herbs, protein and coconut.

Mix it all up: Caffeinated, full and buzzed

Beverage investments, like everything else, aren’t always a home run for VCs. The demise of juicer startup Juicero last year offers a cautionary tale that large rounds don’t always translate into compelling business models.

That said, beverage purveyors don’t have to worry much about demand drying up. People will always be thirsty. And while we typically quench our thirst with simple tap or filtered water, where’s the fun (or the massive exit potential) in that?

Methodology

Our analysis focused primarily on companies that have secured funding in the past year; however, we also included some rounds outside those parameters that were exceptionally large or noteworthy in other ways.

The hottest investors at The Europas, & your specially discounted ticket

In partnership with TechCrunch, The Europas Unconference & Awards, features smaller breakout sessions on key subjects for startups, followed by a glittering awards show for the hottest startups in Europe, based on voting by expert judges and the industry itself. Plus loads of networking opportunities with investors, and the super-fun Pitch Rolette pitch competition. See below for your special discount offer!

Just some of the investors coming to The Europas this Tuesday, July 3, in London include:

Alliott Cole, Octopus Ventures

Andrei Brasoveanu, Accel Partners

Carlos Eduardo Espinal, Seedcamp

Damir Bandolo, Columbus Capital

Eileen Burbidge, Passion Capital

Eze Vidra, Reimagine Ventures

George McDonuagh, KR1 (Blockchain/Crypto)

Jamie Burke, Outlier Ventures (Blockchain/Crypto)

Jason Ball, Qualcomm Ventures

Jeremy Yap, Angel Investor

Joe White, Entrepreneur First

Maria Wagner, Beringea

Michael Jackson, Mangrove Capital Partners

Nancy Fechnay, Angel Investor (Blockchain/Crypto)

Paul Dowling, Dreamstake Ventures

Richard Muirhead, Fabric Ventures (Blockchain/Crypto)

Scott Sage, Crane Venture Partners

Sitar Teli, Connect Ventures

Stephanie Hospital, OneRagtime

Suzanne Ashman, LocalGlobe

Thomas Graham, TLDR Capital

Tugce Ergul, Angel Labs

Vishal Gulati, Draper Esprit

Wendy Tan White, BGF

Instead of thousands and thousands of people, think of a great summer event with a selected 800 of the most interesting and useful people in the industry, including key investors and leading entrepreneurs.

Here’s the agenda.

And here’s 14 reasons to attend The Europas:

• Ultra-high quality Investors, speakers & featured guests

• New startup founders brought into the eco-system

• New deal-flow for investors

• Our “Diversity Matters” Free pass bringing in more women and POC

• Expert speeches, discussions, and Q&A

• Intimate “breakout” sessions with key players on vertical topics

• The opportunity to meet almost everyone in those small groups, super-charging your networking

• Convivial, relaxed atmosphere conducive to networking

• Key press including WSJ, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, attending

• A stunning awards dinner and party which honors both the hottest startups and the leading lights in the European startup scene

• Content independently curated by journalists

• The only truly independent, industry-backed awards in Europe

• Percentage of profits will be donated to charity

• All on one day to maximize your time in London

Plus, as a special offer for TechCrunch readers, we have discounted tickets of up to 60% off:

• Daytime conference plus evening awards tickets (£250, 60% discount) (valid all day, July 3rd) – this ticket includes the daytime conference and the awards dinner with ceremony and after party. It includes refreshments and lunch during the conference, and the awards drinks reception and dinner.

• Daytime only, Unconference tickets (£75, 60% discount) – this ticket includes the afternoon Unconference only.

• Evening Awards-only tickets (£195, 60% discount) – this ticket is for the awards dinner with ceremony and after party. It includes the awards drinks reception and dinner.

If you wish to sponsor the events or to purchase a table for 10 or 12 guest or a half table for 5 guests, please contact [email protected]

The conference and awards are supported by TechCrunch, the official media partner. Attendees, nominees, and winners will get deep discounts to TechCrunch Disrupt in Berlin, later this year.

Announcing TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield Latin America in São Paulo on Nov. 8

TechCrunch is excited to announce that the Startup Battlefield Latin America is coming to São Paulo on November 8 this year. This is the first event TechCrunch has ever held in Latin America, and we are all in to make it a memorable one to support the fast-emerging startup ecosystem in the region.

The Startup Battlefield is TechCrunch’s premier startup competition, which over the past 12 years has placed 750 companies on stage to pitch top VCs and TechCrunch editors. Those founders have gone on to raise more than $8 billion and produce more than 100 exits. Startup Battlefield Latin America aims to add 15 great founders from Latin America to those elite ranks.

Here’s how the competition works. Founders may apply now to participate in Startup Battlefield. Any early stage (pre-A round) company with a working product headquartered in an eligible Latin American country (see list below) may apply. Applications close August 6. TechCrunch editors will review the applications and, based on which applicants have the strongest potential for a big exit of major societal impact, pick 15 to compete on November 8. TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield team will work intensively with each founding team to hone their six-minute pitch to perfection.

Then it’s game day. The 15 companies will take the stage at São Paulo’s Tomie Ohtake Institute in front of a live audience of 500 people to pitch top-tier VC judges. The judges and TechCrunch editors will pick five for a finals round. Those lucky finalists will face a fresh team of judges, and one will emerge as the winner of the first-ever Startup Battlefield Latin America. The winner takes home $25,000 and a trip for two to the next Disrupt, where they can exhibit free of charge in the Startup Alley and may also qualify to participate in the Startup Battlefield at Disrupt. Sweet deal. All Startup Battlefield sessions will be captured on video and posted on TechCrunch.com.

It’s an experience no founder would want to miss, considering the opportunity to join the ranks of Battlefield greats from years past, including Dropbox, Yammer, Mint, Getaround, CloudFlare, Vurb and many more.

Get that application started now.

Here’s the need-to-know about qualifying to apply:

• Have an early-stage company in “launch” stage
• Headquartered in one of these countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay, Venezuela (Central America) Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico, Panama (Caribbean – including dependencies and constituent entities), Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico.
• Have a fully working product/beta reasonably close to, or in, production
• Have received limited press or publicity to date
• Have no known intellectual property conflicts
• Apply by Aug. 6, 2018, at 5 p.m. PST

Tickets to attend Startup Battlefield Latin America will go on sale soon. Interested in sponsoring the event, contact us here

Benchmark’s Mitch Lasky will reportedly step down from Snap’s board of directors

Benchmark partner Mitch Lasky, who has served on Snap’s board of directors since December 2012, is not expected to stand for re-election to Snap’s board of directors and will thus be stepping down, according to a report by The Information.

Early investors stepping down from the board of directors — or at least not seeking re-election — isn’t that uncommon as once-private companies grow into larger public ones. Benchmark partner Peter Fenton did not seek re-election for Twitter’s board of directors in April last year. As Snap continues to navigate its future, especially as it has declined precipitously since going public and now sits at a valuation of around $16.5 billion. Partners with an expertise in the early-stage and later-stage startup life cycle may end up seeing themselves more useful taking a back seat and focusing on other investments. The voting process for board member re-election happens during the company’s annual meeting, so we’ll get more information when an additional proxy filing comes out ahead of the meeting later this year.

Benchmark is, or at least was at the time of going public last year, one of Snap’s biggest shareholders. According to the company’s 424B filing prior to going public in March last year, Benchmark held ownership of 23.1% of Snap’s Class B common stock and 8.2% of Snap’s Class A common stock. Lasky has been with Benchmark since April 2007, and also serves on the boards of a number of gaming companies like Riot Games and thatgamecompany, the creators of PlayStation titles flower and Journey. At the time, Snap said in its filing that Lasky was “qualified to serve as a member of our board of directors due to his extensive experience with social media and technology companies, as well as his experience as a venture capitalist investing in technology companies.”

The timing could be totally coincidental, but an earlier Recode report suggested Lasky had been talking about stepping down in future funds for Benchmark. The firm only recently wrapped up a very public battle with Uber, which ended up with Benchmark selling a significant stake in the company and a new CEO coming in to replace co-founder Travis Kalanick. Benchmark hired its first female general partner, Sarah Tavel, earlier this year.

We’ve reached out to both Snap and a representative from Benchmark for comment and will update the story when we hear back.

Here’s what it was like to stumble into Netflix and Lyft’s activation for GLOW at ‘Muscle Beach’

Today at “Muscle Beach” in Venice, Calif., Netflix and Lyft joined forces for a promotional campaign in support of the streaming media site’s (really excellent) dramatization of the origin story for the women’s wrestling league — GLOW (or the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling).

Your intrepid reporter was taking a walk on the beach and stumbled upon the marketing stunt (which was kind of genius).

For those of y’all who don’t know, Muscle Beach is sort of a mecca for weight lifters and body builders — including, back in the ’80s, a young Ah-nold Schwarzenegger. A history that made it an ideal spot to celebrate Netflix’s (pretty terrific) ode to all things new wave-d, hair metal-ed, neon accented, high-waisted, cocaine addled and muscle-bound.

Members of the cast posed for pictures, and wrestlers engaged in training sessions and ’80s-themed exercise classes throughout the day.

The activation will be up for the next week and included a Reebok pop-up with limited-edition ’80s styles; a photo booth and costumes for pictures; free copies of Paper Magazine and trading cards emblazoned with the pictures of each of the most popular characters from the show.

The day wasn’t without incident. Some Muscle Beach-goers got into a war of words with security over the event’s unannounced takeover of the basketball courts adjacent to the “beach.”

The second season of “GLOW” dropped today on Netflix.

California man arrested for sending death threats to FCC’s Ajit Pai over net neutrality

While many people in this country are angry with current chairman of the FCC Ajit Pai, arguably with good reason, it’s unfortunate that at least one has descended to the level of sending credible death threats and, unsurprisingly, has subsequently been arrested.

Shortly after the FCC voted in December to nullify the agency’s 2015 net neutrality rules, Norwalk resident named Markara Man contacted Pai several times threatening him and his family.

According to a Justice Department press release, Man first told Pai that he was responsible for the death of a kid who had killed herself because of the loss of net neutrality. Next he sent a list of locations around Arlington, where the chairman lives, and threatening to kill members of his family. The third apparently was just an image of a framed photo of Pai’s family.

This clearly rises above the low-level — yet also deeply inappropriate — casual slurs against the chairman one sees in practically every discussion of FCC issues, including this website. As such it was investigated by the FBI, which traced the emails to Man’s location and confronted him.

He admitted to sending the emails in order to “scare” Pai, which I can only imagine it did. He’s been charged with the incredibly wordy crime of “threatening to murder a member of the immediate family of a U.S. official with the intent to intimidate or interfere with such official while engaged in the performance of official duties, or with the intent to retaliate against such official on account of the performance of official duties.” If convicted he could face up to 10 years, but that’s all up in the air still.

Listen: as you may be able to tell from TechCrunch’s own coverage of FCC issues and net neutrality (mostly by myself), I’m no fan of Chairman Pai’s, though I try my best to stick to the facts — which, helpfully, are also largely anti-Pai. But threatening the family of the man is, I hardly need say, taking it much too far. Not only is it reprehensible on its face, but it feeds a narrative of spite and ignorance that works counter to the very goals the threat-maker evidently espouses.

Net neutrality is a serious issue and the current administration’s elimination of the 2015 rules is a perfectly good reason to protest and, indeed, take Pai personally to task, since he is the foremost architect of our present situation. By all means call your elected officials, make net neutrality an issue in the 2018 midterms, and make your voice heard. But for everyone’s sake keep it civil.

What we know about Maryland’s controversial facial recognition database

When police had difficulty identifying the man whom they believed opened fire on a newsroom in Maryland, killing five people, they turned to one of the most controversial yet potent tools in the state’s law enforcement arsenal.

As The New York Times reports, Anne Arundel County Police Chief Timothy Altomare’s department failed to ID its suspect through fingerprinting. The department then sent a picture of the suspect to the Maryland Coordination and Analysis Center, which combed through one of the nation’s largest databases of mug shots and driver’s license photos in search of a match.

That database is the source of some debate. Maryland has some of the most aggressive facial recognition policies in the nation, according to a national report from Georgetown University’s Center on Privacy & Technology, and that practice is powered by one central system: a pool of face data known as the Maryland Image Repository System (MIRS).

For facial recognition searches, Maryland police have access to three million state mug shots, seven million state driver’s license photos and an additional 24.9 million mug shots from a national FBI database. The state’s practice of face recognition searches began in 2011, expanding in 2013 to incorporate the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration’s existing driver’s license database. The Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services (DPSCS) describes MIRS “as a digitized mug shot book used by law enforcement agencies throughout Maryland in the furtherance of their law enforcement investigation duties.”

According to the Georgetown report, “It’s unclear if the [Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services] ‘scrubs’ its mug shot database to eliminate people who were never charged, had charges dropped or dismissed, or who were found innocent.”

In a letter to Maryland’s House Appropriations and Senate Budget and Taxation Committees in late 2017, DPSCS Secretary Stephen T. Moyer notes that the software “has drawn criticism over privacy concerns.” In that report, the state notes that images uploaded to MIRS are not stored in the database and that “the user’s search results are saved under their session and are not available to any other user.” DPSCS provides these details about the software:

MIRS is an off-the-shelf software program developed by Dataworks Plus. Images are uploaded into the system from MVA, DPSCS inmate case records, and mugshot photos sent into the DPSCS Criminal Justice System-Central Repository (CJIS-CR) from law enforcement agencies throughout the State at the time of an offender’s arrest and booking. Members of law enforcement are able to upload an image to MIRS and that image is compared to the images within the system to determine the highest probability that the uploaded image may relate to an MVA and/or DPSCS image within MIRS.

In the 2017 fiscal year, DPSCS paid DataWorks Plus $185,124.24 to maintain the database. The report declined to answer questions about how many users are authorized to access the MIRS system (estimates in The Baltimore Sun put it at between 6,000 and 7,000 individuals) and how many user logins had occurred since 2015, stating that it did not track or collect this information. On a question of what steps the department takes to mitigate privacy risks, DPSCS stated only that “the steps taken to protect citizen’s privacy are inherent in the photos that are uploaded into the system and the way that the system is accessed.”

In 2016, Maryland’s face recognition database came under new scrutiny after the ACLU accused the state of using MIRS without a warrant to identify protesters in Baltimore following the death of Freddie Gray.

Last year, Maryland House Bill 1065 proposed a task force to examine surveillance techniques used by law enforcement in the state. That bill made it out of the House but did not progress past the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee. Another bill, known as the Face Recognition Act (HB 1148), would mandate auditing in the state to “ensure that face recognition is used only for legitimate law enforcement purposes” and would prohibit the use of Maryland’s face recognition system without a court order. That bill did not make it out of the House Judiciary Committee, though the ACLU intends to revisit it in 2018.

A robotic astronaut named CIMON is on its way to the ISS

There’s a new astronaut on its way to the International Space Station this morning aboard SpaceX’s most recent resupply launch, and it’s only the size of a medicine ball. CIMON (Crew Interactive Mobile Companion) is an artificial intelligence assistant designed by Airbus and IBM to assist the European Space Agency’s astronauts in everyday tasks aboard the ISS. Weighing in at just 11 pounds and roughly the size of a medicine ball, this minute astronaut is equipped with the neural network strength of IBM’s Watson.

Crew members will be able to correspond with CIMON via voice commands and access a database of procedures. CIMON will also be able to detect the crew members’ moods and react accordingly, Till Eisenberg, CIMON project lead at Airbus, told SPACE.com.

In a February press release announcing CIMON’s arrival, Airbus said that CIMON’s emotional intelligence, in addition to its friendly face and voice, will help it operate like a true crew member aboard the station. To start, CIMON even has a built-in friend.

Before setting off today, CIMON has been trained alongside German astronaut Alexander Gerst to recognize Gerst’s voice and face and help him complete three different task while aboard the ISS. CIMON will help the geophysicist and volcanologist study crystals on the space station, solve a Rubik’s cube using video data and play the role of an “intelligent camera” to document a medical experiment on-board.

CIMON’s mission with Gerst will take place between this June and October 2018, but Airbus hopes that in the future CIMON will be able to observe crew members on longer missions and help scientists learn more about the social dynamics involved in extended space flight — an issue that will be paramount for any dreams of Martian colonies to come.

Meet founders and investors at Disrupt SF 2018 with CrunchMatch

In only a few short months — on September 5-7 — TechCrunch will play host to more than 10,000 members of the tech startup community at Disrupt San Francisco 2018. Our flagship event draws the best and brightest early-stage founders looking to launch, and investors to fund, their companies. Making the right connections in just three program-packed days can be a challenge, which is why we created CrunchMatch, a curated business match-making service that helps connect the founders with investors who share similar business goals.

Here’s how CrunchMatch works.

When founders register for Disrupt SF, they’ll get access to the CrunchMatch platform and provide information about their company — its tech category, funding stage, where it’s located and its current funding status.

When investors register for Disrupt SF, they’ll also get access to the platform to create a profile specifying their investment categories, the funding stage they’re looking for and their preferred geographic locations. CrunchMatch, powered by our partner Brella, uses algorithmic magic to match suitable founders and investors based on the profile information they provide.

The CrunchMatch platform then suggests meetings, and it even sends out the invitations, which you can easily accept or decline as you please. What’s more, you can use CrunchMatch to reserve a meeting space in our CrunchMatch area on the Disrupt show floor. CrunchMatch is the most efficient way to cut through the clutter and get to the people who are most likely to meet your business criteria.

Last year, CrunchMatch produced more than 1,300 meetings. We estimate that number will easily triple at Disrupt SF 2018. Now, big numbers are all well and good, but it’s the results that matter. Is the service helpful? We asked for feedback from both sides of the founder/investor coin.

Michael Kocan, an early-stage investor at Trend Discovery, appreciated the service’s efficiency:

I can quickly schedule a meeting for later that day. I had over 35 meetings with startups that I pre-vetted using CrunchMatch, and I made a significant investment in one.

As an early-stage founder, Luke Heron, CEO of TestCard.com, used the service to schedule a full day’s worth of meetings:

We used the CrunchMatch platform to schedule a bunch of meetings on our second day of the show. We met with six or seven VCs and, by and large, they were very positive meetings.

Stroll through Startup Alley — the heart of Disrupt with more than 1,200 pre-series A startups and sponsors — to see what’s new, but with this match-making tool in your networking arsenal, you’ll save time — and shoe leather — by targeting the right companies or investors for your specific needs.

Disrupt SF 2018 takes place in San Francisco on September 5-7 at Moscone Center West. Don’t miss out on the most efficient way for founders and investors to network and connect. Buy a Founder, Investor, Startup Alley Exhibitor Package or Insider Pass to Disrupt SF and you’ll be invited to fill out a CrunchMatch profile.

Doctrine raises $11.6 million for its legal search engine

French startup Doctrine is raising a $11.6 million funding round (€10 million) from existing investors Otium Venture and Xavier Niel. Doctrine is building a search engine for court decisions and other legal texts.

This is a key tool if you’re a lawyer or you’re working in the legal industry in general. There are now a thousand companies using the service. It currently costs around €129 per user per month.

A little back-of-the-envelope calculation lets you see that Doctrine currently has a monthly recurring revenue of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Doctrine competes with Dalloz and LexisNexis. These databases have been hugely popular because it’s been so hard to list court decisions. Not only Doctrine managed to get a ton of data, but they also have better technology to search through all these entries.

France is currently trying to share as much open data as possible. Eventually, court decisions could be accessible to anyone. But there are many challenges to overcome as each decision needs to be anonymized.

So it might not be a data-driven industry in a few years, but a tech-driven industry. Automating the indexation of court decisions and new laws is going to be key as more and more data becomes accessible. That’s why Doctrine seems to be in a good position against legacy software in the legal industry.

The startup is currently growing by 20 percent month over month. Doctrine plans to hire 160 people over the next 18 months.

In London, Uber has won the battle but risks losing the war

Bradley Tusk Contributor

More posts by this contributor

• Shockingly, Congress acted responsibly in regulating autonomous cars… So what’s next?
• When don’t f*** with people’s cars became don’t f*** with people’s phones

The sighs of relief are palpable. Uber can keep operating in London. With 3.6 million customers, 45,000 drivers, and a slew of reforms, changes and concessions already made to Transport for London (TfL), most observers expected Uber to win a reprieve – and they did. Uber passed the first of two tests.

The second test is a little less obvious – and a lot harder. Being able to navigate the political climate in Europe demands that Uber not only demonstrate contrition, but implement real change too. But if Uber loses sight of who the end user is, winning the battle in London doesn’t eliminate the risk of losing the entire war everywhere.

Here’s the thing: regulation is neither inherently good nor bad. Taxi regulation wasn’t all fundamentally evil and corrupt when Travis Kalanick ran Uber and it’s not all fundamentally necessary and appropriate under Dara Khosrowshahi’s reign either. That’s because there are no laws of nature on how ridesharing – or even transit in any form – should operate. It’s all a series of choices, priorities, and trade-offs between competing public and private needs and capabilities. It’s just a question of getting people from point A to point B in the most efficient, cost effective way possible. That’s it.

Uber has seen so much success so quickly because the previous system simply didn’t work. More than 75 million people wouldn’t have downloaded and regularly use Uber if they were happy with their current options. If transit regulation were functioning effectively, traditional taxis would have evolved to meet the needs of its customers and the market wouldn’t have been so fast and so easy for the taking. Like any successful entrepreneur, Travis saw an opening in the market and took it.  Just because Uber then committed a series of very public missteps and public relations gaffes doesn’t make any specific regulation more or less necessary, thoughtful or intelligent.

When Uber started collecting signatures from its customers in London to support its right to operate, 850,000 people signed. They’re the ones who ultimately matter. The customer is far too often ignored in highly regulated industries, which, sadly, are frequently dominated by special interest, pay to play politics (balancing the relative power and needs of insiders typically becomes paramount to actually creating logical public policy).

That’s why Dara has to be careful. Contrite? Yes. Calm. Absolutely. Losing London wasn’t an option. But if the game changes just to appease and placate the critics at every turn in hopes that the people who help shape public opinion stop complaining, it’s a losing battle. Appeasement is not a strategy in and of itself. Meeting the demands of the market is.

Many of the changes Uber agreed to in London are worthwhile: 24-hour telephone support hotlines, better contact with the police, better reporting of incidents, imposing limits on hours worked before taking a break, hiring independent directors. But if they’re all just coming from a place of trying to get people to stop criticizing you, you’re worrying about the wrong people in the first place.

Uber’s greatest asset is its customer base. Uber’s greatest reason to exist is customer demand. The people’s needs were being unmet by taxi and ignored by the regulators. That’s why Uber had an opening. That’s why customers flocked to the platform. Yes, Uber has a ton of work to do – both as a business itself and as a culture still very much in flux. But that doesn’t mean losing sight of who you are. Just being the anti-Travis isn’t enough. Taxi already was the original anti-Travis. That didn’t work.

In this current political climate, it makes sense for Dara to speak softly. But if he wants more than just pats on the back and positive comments on Twitter, he’d better carry a big stick too.

Apple buries the hatchet with Samsung but could tap LG displays

After years of legal procedures, Apple and Samsung have reached an agreement in the infamous patent case. Terms of the settlement were undisclosed. So is everything clear between Samsung and Apple? Not so fast, as Bloomberg reports that Apple wants to use OLED displays from LG to reduce its dependence on Samsung.

You might remember that Apple first sued Samsung for copying the design of the iPhone with early Samsung Galaxy phones. The first trial led to an Apple victory. Samsung had to pay $1 billion.

But the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office later invalidated one of Apple’s patents. It led to multiple retrials and appeals, and the Supreme Court even had to rule at some point.

After many years, Samsung ended up owing $539 million to Apple. According to Reuters, Samsung has already paid $399 million.

If you look closely at the original case, it feels like it happened many decades ago. At some point, the Samsung Galaxy S 4G, the Nexus S and a few other devices looked a lot like the iPhone 3G.

But now, it’s hard to say that Samsung is copying Apple. For instance, Samsung is one of the only phone manufacturers that hasn’t switched to a notch design. The Samsung Galaxy S9 and the rest of the product lineup still features a rectangular display . Huawei, LG, OnePlus, Asus and countless of others sell devices with a notch.

That could be the reason why it seems weird to spend all this money on legal fees for things that are no longer true.

And yet, the irony is that Apple and Samsung are the perfect example of asymmetric competition. They both sell smartphones, laptops and other electronics devices. But they also work together on various projects.

In particular, the iPhone X is the first iPhone with an OLED display. It’s a better display technology compared to traditional LCD displays. It’s also one of the most expensive components of the iPhone X.

According to Bloomberg, Apple wants to find a second supplier to drive component prices down. And that second supplier is LG.

LG already manufactures OLED displays. But it’s difficult to meet Apple’s demands when it comes to the iPhone. Apple sells tens of millions of smartphones every year. So you need to have a great supply chain to be able to become an Apple supplier. LG could be ramping up its production capacity for future iPhone models.

According to multiple rumors, Apple plans to ship an updated iPhone X with an OLED display as well as a bigger iPhone. The company could also introduce another phone with an edge-to-edge LCD display with a notch and a cheaper price.

There’s one thing for sure, it’ll take time to switch the entire iPhone lineup to OLED displays.

Coinbase CEO unveils crypto charity fund targeted at $1 billion

Hot on the heels of Coinbase expanding its crypto fund to U.S.-based investors, the company’s own CEO has unveiled a fund of his own but this time it is focused on philanthropy.

GiveCrypto.org is aiming to raise $10 million by the end of this year — it has already secured $3.5 million — with a view to growing its total pot to $1 billion over the next two years.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said he’s been inspired by the Gates Foundation and acts of charity from the crypto community — including Ripple donating millions in XRP to schools, the Pineapple Fund, and OMG giving $1 million to GiveDirectly — all of which he said shows that crypto can have a positive impact worldwide.

“People who invested early in crypto have amassed an enormous amount of wealth in a relatively short amount of time. Yet the reputation of the crypto community has been dominated by images of “bros in Lambos,” whose antics get a lot of attention. This doesn’t represent the best of our community.

“Most people I respect and know in the crypto ecosystem believe we have a responsibility to help this technology reach a much wider audience,” Armstrong, who has personally donated $1 million to GiveCrypto.org, wrote in a post on Medium.

The fund is open for donations at givecrypto.org/donate

The Coinbase chief said the fund will offer a mix of direct-cash transfers and crypto-to-crypto disbursements — as well as ‘hodling’ — to get funds to those who are deemed to need it.

On that subject, Armstrong said that when the time is right, GiveCrypto.org will find trusted local “ambassadors” to handle payments while it may also collaborate with non-profits and develop systems to track the money flow, as organizations like GiveDirectly already do.

A big focus looks to be the unbanked — crypto can reach those outside of traditional financing and cut out the potential for foul play by going direct — but it isn’t yet clear how the recipients of the donations will be selected. But then again the charity fund is still being assembled — on that note, it is currently hiring for an executive director who’ll be involved in making calls like that and shaping the fund.

Note: The author owns a small amount of cryptocurrency. Enough to gain an understanding, not enough to change a life.

Singapore sovereign fund Temasek snaps up tech events firm Unbound in $12M deal

Media exits happen, but typically you don’t hear of tech events companies being sold. Well, that’s the case in Singapore where SingEx — a subsidiary of the country’s Temasek sovereign wealth fund — has forked out to buy a majority share in Unbound Innovations, a five-year-old UK-based business that runs technology events worldwide.

Details of the transaction were not made public, but TechCrunch understands from a source with knowledge of negotiations that SingEx bought a 51 percent share in Unbound in a deal that values the company at £18 million, or around $23.5 million. So that SingEx stake cost around $11.5-12 million.

Unbound has been around since 2013 but it seems to have struck out with its Innovfest event series, which has focused on uniting governments with corporates and the startup world. That aside, it has run ‘Unbound’ events in London since 2016 and it works with corporates such as Unilever, HSBC and Accenture on innovation projects.

Indeed, this investment news comes weeks after the conclusion of Unbound’s two-day Singapore-based event, Innovfest Unbound, which claimed to attract over 12,000 attendees. Innovfest began with events in Singapore and Miami last year; those two added to the recent event account for over 20,000 attendees, Unbound said.

Coming up next is a London event July, followed by the Miami return later this year and the first event in Bahrain planned for 2019. But that’s likely only just the start.

Unbound said that this new capital will go towards doubling its operations and expanding into new verticals and geographies through a mix of acquisition and organic expansion. Right now, there’s no word on what those expansions might look like.

It stands to reason that expanded reach is good for Temasek, too. The fund has a big position on tech within its $275 billion portfolio — which added UST Global via a $250 million deal yesterday — and having a majority stake in Unbound will likely increase its exposure to tech ecosystems, companies and more. Not to mention that the events business is actually pretty lucrative in itself.

MongoDB launches Global Clusters to put geographic data control within reach of anyone

MongoDB‘s Atlas service has been giving companies a managed database service in the cloud for some time. Mongo deals with all the heavy lifting behind the scenes, relieving the developer of creating it all themselves. Today the company announced it was taking that a step further by allowing customers to have granular control over where the data lives with a new feature called Global Clusters.

This allows companies to choose a cloud provider, then move data from a MongoDB database running in Atlas to any location in the world. As MongoDB CTO and co-founder, Eliot Horowitz explained, it doesn’t matter who the cloud provider is, you can set a data location policy, select a cloud vendor and data center location, and see what the results will look like on a graphical representation of the world map. When you give the OK, Mongo moves the data automatically for you in the background without shutting anything down to do it.

Global Clusters interface. Screenshot: MongoDB

Lots of countries are requiring proof of data sovereignty, including the EU’s GDPR rules that went into effect last month. It has been challenging for many businesses to comply with these kinds of rules on their own. Horowitz said he created geographic partitions before Atlas and it required a tremendous amount of engineering effort. By providing it as a service in this fashion, the company is putting this kind of data migration in the hands of the smallest business owners, giving them that geographic granularity from the start.

“I think what you’re going to see is a lot of [small businesses], who feel they can now compete with some of the larger websites and actually have that high level of service on day one, rather than having to wait to hire a team of engineers.”

The beauty of this approach from Mongo’s perspective is that they don’t even have to worry about building a worldwide data center presence of their own. Instead they simply piggy back on the global locations of each of the main public cloud providers, AWS, Microsoft and Google.

“The cool thing is that those data centers come from any of the cloud providers. So you can actually do this on any cloud provider that you want in any region [they support],” he said.

This feature will be available starting today for all Atlas users.

Social SafeGuard scores $11M to sell alerts for brand-damaging fakes

Social SafeGuard, a 2014-founded U.S. startup which sells security services to enterprises aimed at mitigating a range of digital risks that lie outside the corporate firewall, has closed an $11 million Series B funding round, from AllegisCyber and NightDragon Security.

It’s hoping to ride the surge in awareness around social media fakery — putting the new funding towards sales and marketing, plus some product dev.

“As one of the few dedicated cybersecurity venture firms, we know how big this challenge has become for today’s security executives,” said Spencer Tall, MD of AllegisCyber, in a supporting statement. Tall is joining the Social SafeGuard board.

“This is no longer a fringe need that can be ignored or deferred. Digital risk protection should be on the shortlist of corporate security priorities for the next decade,” he adds.

Social SafeGuard’s SaaS platform is designed to alert customers to risks that might cause damage to a business or brand’s reputation — such as brand impersonation, compliance issues or even the spread of fake news — as well as more pure-play security threats, such as social phishing, malware, spam and fake accounts.

Its platform uses machine learning and a customized policy engine to offer real-time monitoring of 50 digital and social channels (integrating via an API hub) — including social media platforms, mobile messaging apps, IM tools like Slack, unified comms platforms (Skype for business etc), clouds apps like Office365, blogs and news sites, and the dark web.

The types of threats the platform is trained to look out for include malicious message content, inappropriate images, malicious links, account takeover attempts and brand impersonation.

“Digital risks to any enterprise are twofold: internal or external — from employees communicating in non-compliant ways that expose a business to regulatory danger to more typical cyber threats like phishing, malware, account hacks or brand impersonation. Social SafeGuard helps mitigate all of these new digital risks by giving companies the tools to detect threats and defend against them, so they can adopt new technologies without fear,” says founder and CEO Jim Zuffoletti.

As well as threat detection and real-time notification, the platform includes built in take-down requests and follow-through — “to make threat management as responsive as possible”, as he puts it.

Social SafeGuard’s software also does risk scoring to aid the rapid triage of potential threats, and uses AI to try to anticipate “potential attacks and identify known bad actors” — so it’s responding to a wider security industry shift from purely defensive, reactive actions towards pro-active detection and response.

On the compliance front, the platform includes a governance and customizable policy engine that enterprises can use to monitor employee and partner communications for regulatory violations.

“For compliance-focused clients, messages are archived with automated audit trails that provide transparency and clarity,” notes Zuffoletti.

The platform has around 50 customers at this stage. Zuffoletti says its biggest customers are in the financial services and life sciences sectors — but says high tech is its fastest-growing sector.

Examples of the kinds of attacks its tools have been used to prevent include account takeovers, malware attacks, financial regulations violations, and FCPA and HIPAA violations.

“In one recent example, we were able to perform a forensic analysis of an online securities fraud scheme, which also posed brand reputation issues for one of our clients,” he adds. “Our platform is adaptable to evolving hybrid threats, too.”

On the competitive front, Zuffoletti namechecks the likes of Proofpoint and RiskIQ.

Disrupt Berlin 2-for-1 Innovator passes available today only

Did you miss out on our 2-for-1 Innovator passes to TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin 2018 on November 29-30? If so, you’ve caught a lucky break, because we’re bringing it back for a flash sale. You have until June 28 at midnight CET time — exactly 24 hours — to score two Innovator passes for the price of one: €695 + VAT. Buy them here and buy them quickly, because they’ll be gone in a, well, flash.

Don’t miss your opportunity to experience a Disrupt event in Berlin, an international hub and home to Europe’s most vibrant startup scenes. You’ll experience two programming-packed days that include world-class speakers ranging from titans of the tech and the venture capital industries to some of tech’s most promising rising stars.

Take in Startup Battlefield — the leading startup pitch competition — to see which of Europe’s best early-stage startups will reign supreme and take home the $50,000 prize.

Explore the very latest tech products, platforms and talent on display in Startup Alley, our exhibition floor and home to more than 400 early-stage startups. You won’t find a better place to network, find a new job, meet collaborators or maybe even catch the eye of an investor.

Last year at Disrupt Berlin 2017, Luke Heron, CEO of TestCard.com, had two main goals in attending Disrupt: networking and finding investors. The company exhibited in Startup Alley and used CrunchMatch, our free business-matchmaking platform, to set up seven investor meetings. All told, he walked away a happy CEO.

“I’m a serial proselytizer when it comes to TechCrunch events. If you’re a startup or an entrepreneur, attending Disrupt is a no-brainer,” said Heron.

Innovator pass holders can use the Disrupt Mobile App to connect with attendees, including media outlets, and you get access to the full media list. You also get to attend our TC After Party for cocktails and networking in a much more relaxed setting. After the conference, you’ll receive access to our library of exclusive event video content.

Disrupt Berlin takes place on November 29-30 at Arena Berlin. You have 24 hours to take advantage of this flash sale. Get a move on and buy your 2-4-1 Innovator passes for €695 before the sale ends.

Google Home now supports Spanish

Google Home has learned Spanish. Google announced this morning that its smart speakers are now able to listen and respond to users’ voice commands in Spanish. The update may help the speakers gain more ground against Amazon’s Alexa-powered Echo devices, not only in the U.S. where a number of people today speak Spanish as their native language, but also in other international markets.

Related to this, Google says its Google Home products, including the Home, Home Mini and Max, are available in Spanish in Mexico and Spain.

Though today Amazon Alexa devices have the most market share in the U.S., Google may have found Amazon’s Achilles heel by targeting language support to grow its own install base. While Amazon supports English, German and more recently, Japanese, Google has promised its smart assistant will support over 30 languages by year-end.

Those languages – or at least some of them – should roll out over time to Google Home speakers, too, as Google targets new markets with its smart devices.

Today, however, Google’s mobile Assistant speaks more languages than its speakers, which currently support English, French, German, Italian, and Japanese, according to Google’s website, in addition to now, Spanish.

Google also said its Assistant will become multilingual, meaning users will be able to switch between two languages without having to change the settings. This support will initially be available in English, French and German, but it makes sense that Spanish would be a priority here, as well, though Google didn’t say today if that would be the case. (And presumably, the longer-term goal is to also make its smart devices, not just its mobile Assistant, capable of multilingual capabilities across languages.)

To change a Google Home’s language to Spanish, you’ll need to launch the Google Home app, select Preferences, then visit the Settings menu.

With Spanish enabled, you can ask Google Home about your day (“Ok Google, ¿cómo será mi día?”), the World Cup (“Ok Google, ¿cuándo juega México?”), listen to top songs (“Ok Google, reproducir mi lista de reproducción para hacer ejercicio”), adjust your thermostat (“Ok Google, sube la temperatura del termostato”) and more, as you can in other languages.

TourRadar, the OTA for tour holidays, scores $50M Series C led by Silicon Valley’s TCV

TourRadar, the online travel agency (OTA) that targets the multi-day touring market, continues to be on a roll. The Vienna, Austria-headquartered company, which also has offices in Brisbane and Toronto, has raised $50 million in Series C funding.

Consisting mostly of primary funding, the round is led by the Silicon Valley growth VC firm TCV, with participation from existing investors Cherry Ventures, Endeit Capital, Hoxton Ventures, and Speedinvest. Notably, TCV previously backed Expedia and Airbnb and so has a very decent track record in travel.

Erik Blachford, a venture partner at TCV and already an angel investor in TourRadar, has joined the company’s supervisory board. Blachford was previously President and CEO of IAC Travel, managing all of IAC’s travel assets including Expedia and Hotels.com. Again, a very good fit for TourRadar as it looks to scale up going forward.

In a call, TourRadar co-founder and CEO Travis Pittman — who founded the company with his brother — told me he was glad to have finally got Blachford on his board. The pair first met at a conference a few years back when Pittman heard the ex-Expedia CEO wax lyrical about the need for an OTA that serviced the group multi-day tour industry. He approached him afterwards to say that TourRadar wanted to be that company.

Not to be confused with something like GetYourGuide, which focuses more on travel experiences that take up part or all of a single day, TourRadar is a place to book a multi-day tour in the same way you might book a package holiday. To deliver this, the company works with more than 600 large and small local tour operators across Europe, Asia, the Americas, Australia and New Zealand. These include well-known operators such as G Adventures, Contiki, and Collette, and hundreds of specialty operators that otherwise would rely purely on local agents and word of mouth. In total, TourRadar offers more than 25,000 tours in 200 countries.

In fact, Pittman says TourRadar’s main competitor is large incumbent tour package companies, and that multi-day tours are one of the last areas of the travel industry that has not fully moved online. Another interesting tidbit regards TourRadar’s potential for growth: the company so far only targets english speaking consumers. Next on the roadmap is a lot more localisation, says the TourRadar CEO, with Germany, for example, a huge travel market.

To that end, TourRadar says it intends to use the funding to expand its team globally and to invest in the technology platform “to provide a personalized user experience for customers in new and existing source markets across the globe”. One area of focus will be developing a proper TourRadar mobile app — yes, really! — as Pittman reckons mobile, thus so far neglected, is a great platform for inspiration and discovery when deciding where to book your next tour.

More broadly, the platform supports operator partners in various ways, including offering instant bookings and tour review functionality, but there is room to go a lot further. This could include re-introducing community features to enable people who are planning to be in the same tour cohort to get in touch with one another before, during and after a tour.

Apply to compete in Startup Battlefield MENA 2018

There’s nothing we love more than the excitement of Startup Battlefield, unless it’s bringing the world’s best early-stage startup pitch competition to a new region for the first time. And guess what? Thanks to Facebook, we’re heading to Beirut to showcase amazing entrepreneurs across the Middle East and North Africa!

The search is on for the very best entrepreneurial tech minds and makers in the region to compete in the inaugural TechCrunch Startup Battlefield MENA 2018. The competition takes place on October 3 at the Beirut Digital District in the very heart of Lebanon’s dynamic startup scene. Applications are now open, so apply today.

Here’s how Startup Battlefield MENA works. Our highly discerning TechCrunch editors will review all eligible applications and then select 15 pre-Series A startups to compete. Every Battlefield team receives free, expert pitch coaching from our seasoned editors so they’ll be prepared to step onstage and face a panel of four judges — consisting of top entrepreneurs, technologists and investors with relevant experience in each tech category.

All competing teams get six minutes to pitch their company and to present a product demo — in front of a live audience — to the Startup Battlefield judges, who follow up immediately with a rigorous Q&A. The judges then select one overall winner to become “The Middle East and North Africa’s Most Promising Startup.”

The founders of the winning team receive US$25,000 in no-equity cash and a trip for two to compete in the Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt in 2019 (assuming the company still qualifies to compete at the time).

Win or lose, every team that competes in Startup Battlefield receives invaluable exposure to investors and media coverage — plus entry to the Startup Battlefield alumni network. This community consists of almost 750 companies that have collectively raised more than $8 billion in funding and produced more than 100 exits. Names like Mint, Dropbox, Yammer, TripIt, Getaround and Cloudflare might ring a bell. That’s some good company to keep.

Does your startup qualify? To compete in Startup Battlefield MENA, you must:

• Have an early-stage company in “launch” stage
• Be a resident from one of these eligible countries: Algeria, Armenia, Bahrain, Egypt, Georgia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestinian Territories, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, UAE, Yemen.
• Have a fully working product/beta reasonably close to, or in, production
• Have received limited press or publicity to date
• Have no known intellectual property conflicts
• Apply by July 17, 2018, at 5 p.m. PST

Don’t miss your opportunity to compete in the first-ever TechCrunch Startup Battlefield MENA 2018. The event takes place on October 3, at the Beirut Digital District Nassif Yazigi, Lebanon. We can’t wait to see the amazing startups coming out of the Middle East and North Africa. Apply today!

Original Content podcast: Netflix’s ‘Set It Up’ hits the rom-com sweet spot

In the new Netflix film “Set It Up,” two personal assistants (played by Zoey Deutch and Glen Powell) come up with an unusual plan to keep their tyrannical bosses (Lucy Liu and Taye Diggs) busy: Make them fall in love with each other.

As decreed by the unbreakable laws of romantic comedy, it’s not just the bosses who find themselves attracted to each other, but their assistants as well. And in the latest episode of the Original Content podcast, we’re joined by Jon Shieber to talk about the film.

If you’re looking for a wildly original or unpredictable story, “Set It Up” probably isn’t the movie for you. But if you’re looking for a sweet, funny and of course romantic distraction from the ongoing horror show of the real world, you could do a lot worse.

This also leads to a broader discussion of what we’re looking for in romantic comedies. Plus, we cover the latest streaming news, like the launch of Instagram’s IGTV video hub, Apple’s pickup of the new immigrant-themed anthology series “Little America” and Apple’s new production deal with Sesame Workshop. And on top of all that, Jordan shares some thoughts on her new AirPods.

You can listen in the player below, subscribe using Apple Podcasts or find us in your podcast player of choice. If you like the show, please let us know by leaving a review on Apple. You also can send us feedback directly. (Or suggest shows and movies for us to review!)

Facial recognition software is not ready for use by law enforcement

Brian Brackeen Contributor

Recent news of Amazon’s engagement with law enforcement to provide facial recognition surveillance (branded ‘Rekognition’), along with the almost unbelievable news of China’s use of the technology means that the technology industry needs to address the darker, more offensive side of some of its more spectacular advancements.

Facial recognition technologies, used in the identification of suspects, negatively affects people of color — to deny this fact would be a lie.

And clearly, facial recognition-powered government surveillance is an extraordinary invasion of the privacy of all citizens, and, a slippery slope to losing control of our identities, altogether.

There’s really no ‘nice’ way to acknowledge these things.

I’ve been pretty clear about the potential dangers associated with current racial biases in face recognition, and open in my opposition to the use of the technology in law enforcement.

As the Black chief executive of a software company developing facial recognition services, I have a personal connection to the technology both culturally, and socially.

Having the privilege of a comprehensive understanding of how the software works gives me a unique perspective which has shaped my positions about its uses. As a result, I (and my company) have come to believe that the use of commercial facial recognition in law enforcement or in government surveillance of any kind is wrong — and that it opens the door for gross misconduct by the morally corrupt.

To be truly effective, the algorithms powering facial recognition software require a massive amount of information. The more images of people of color it sees, the more likely it is to properly identify them. The problem is, existing software has not been exposed to enough images of people of color to be confidently relied upon to identify them.

And misidentification could lead to wrongful conviction, or far worse.

Let’s say the person wrong person is held in a murder investigation. Let’s say you’re taking someone’s liberty and freedoms away based on what the system thinks, and the system isn’t fairly viewing different races and different genders. That’s a real problem, and it needs to be answered for.

There is no place in America for facial recognition that supports false arrests and murder.

In a social climate wracked with protests and angst around disproportionate prison populations and police misconduct, engaging software that is clearly not ready for civil use in law enforcement activities — does not serve citizens– and will only lead to further unrest.

Whether you believe government surveillance is ok, or not, using commercial facial recognition in law enforcement is irresponsible and dangerous.

PETER PARKS/AFP/Getty Images

While the rest of the world speculated the reasons we are being monitored, the Chinese government has been making the reasons they are watching all 1.4 billion of its citizens transparent– and it’s not for their safety.

China’s use cases for Face Recognition software for surveillance are actually an outstanding example of why we have never and will never engage with government agencies – and why it’s an ethical nightmare to even consider doing so.

China is currently setting up a vast public surveillance network of systems that are utilizing Face Recognition to construct “social credit” systems, which rank citizens based on their behavior, queuing rewards, and punishments, depending on their scores. They’ve already proven in the case of arresting one man spotted by their CCTV network in a crowd of 60,000 people exactly how poorly this could go.

The exact protocol is being guarded, but examples of ‘punishment worthy’  infractions include jaywalking, smoking in non-smoking areas, and even buying too many video games. ‘Punishment’ for poor scores includes travel restrictions and many other punishments.

Yes. Citizens will be denied access to flights, trains— transportation— all based on the ‘social behavior’ equivalent of a credit score. If all of this constant surveillance sounds insane, consider this:  right now the system is piecemeal, and it’s in effect in select Chinese provinces and cities.

China News Service via WSJ

Imagine if America decided to start classifying its citizens based on a social score?

Imagine if America and its already terrifying record of racial disparity in the use of force by the police – and had the power and justification of someone being “socially incorrect”?

Recently, we read about Amazon Face Rekognition being used in law enforcement in Oregon. They claimed that it won’t be a situation where there’s a “camera on every corner” as if to say that face recognition software requires constant, synchronized surveillance footage.

In truth, Rekognition and other software simply requires you to point the software at whatever footage you have — social media, CCTV footage, or even police bodycams. And that software is only as smart as the information it’s fed — and if that’s predominantly images of, for example, African Americans that are “suspect,” it could quickly learn to simply classify the black man as a categorized threat.

Facial recognition is a dynamic tool which helps humanize our interactions with machines. Yet, desperate for more data, we’re seeing a preview in China of face recognition, when used for government surveillance, truly dehumanizing entire populations.

It’s the case of an amazing technology capable of personalizing experiences, improving interactions and creating positive feelings— being used for the purpose of controlling citizens. And that, for me, is absolutely unacceptable. It’s not simply an issue for people of color, either – eventually, scanning software of any kind could measure the gait (the way you walk), the gestures, the emotions of anyone considered “different” by the government.

It is said that any tool, in the wrong hands, can be dangerous.

In the hands of government surveillance programs and law enforcement agencies, there’s simply no way that face recognition software will be not used to harm citizens. To my core, and my company’s core, we truly believe this to the point that we have missed out on very, very lucrative government contracts. I’d rather be able to sleep at night knowing that I’m not helping make drone strikes more “effective.”

We deserve a world where we’re not empowering governments to categorize, track and control citizens. Any company in this space that willingly hands this software over to a government, be it America or another nation’s, is willfully endangering people’s lives. And letters to Jeff Bezos aren’t enough. We need movement from the top of every single company in this space to put a stop to these kinds of sales.