June 2019
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Animal Crossing for Switch gets delayed
June 11, 2019 Off

Animal Crossing for Switch gets delayed

By Jill T Frey

Fans had few expectations rolling into Nintendo’s E3 Direct that were more pronounced than hopes for more details on Animal Crossing for Switch.

We got some insight into the title’s storyline, but the big news is that the originally announced 2019 release time frame is getting pushed back. Now, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, as it’s being called, will be released March 20, 2020.

“To ensure that this game is the best it can be, we must ask you to wait a little bit longer than we thought,” Nintendo executive Yoshiaki Koizumi said during the company’s presentation.

In terms of game details, it looks like you begin the game being flown to a deserted island courtesy of character Tom Nook’s “Nook Inc. Deserted Island Getaway Package.” From there, it seems that a lot of the gameplay should be pretty familiar, chatting with animals, getting them out of jams, customizing things, feeding … Read the rest

Here’s Mary Meeker’s 2019 Internet Trends report
June 11, 2019 Off

Here’s Mary Meeker’s 2019 Internet Trends report

By Jill T Frey

The Internet Trends report — everyone’s favorite slide deck — is back. Bond Capital founder and former Kleiner Perkins general partner Mary Meeker made her presentation onstage at Vox/Recode’s Code Conference in Scottsdale, Ariz. on Tuesday.

Meeker first crafted a report of this kind, which highlights the most important statistics and technology trends on the internet, in 1995.

This morning, Meeker highlighted slowed growth in e-commerce sales, increased internet ad spending, data growth, as well as the rise of freemium subscription business models, telemedicine, photo-sharing, interactive gaming, the on-demand economy and more.

“If it feels like we’re all drinking from a data firehose, it’s because we are,” Meeker told the audience.

The “Queen of the internet” made references to Slack, Stripe, Spotify, Dropbox, Discord, Twitch, Zoom, Stitch Fix, Instagram and Bond portfolio company Canva as she reviewed her slides.

It’s been a busy past year for the former Morgan Stanley … Read the rest

Over 1,400 self-driving vehicles are now in testing by 80+ companies across the US
June 11, 2019 Off

Over 1,400 self-driving vehicles are now in testing by 80+ companies across the US

By Jill T Frey

In a talk at the Uber Elevate Summit in Washington, D.C., today, U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao shared a total overall figure for ongoing testing of autonomous vehicles on U.S roads: More than 1,400 self-driving cars, trucks and other vehicles are currently in testing by more than 80 companies across 36 U.S. states, plus DC itself.

This puts some sense of overall scale to the work being done to test and develop self-driving car tech in the U.S. For context, note that California, one of the first states to have implemented AV testing on public roads, currently has 62 companies registered to perform testing — which represents a significant chunk of that 80-plus figure provided by Secretary Chao.

Chao also shared that there are more than 1.59 million registered drones currently in the U.S., of which more than 372,000 are classified as commercial, with more than 136,000 registered … Read the rest

Mozilla gives Firefox a new logo as it looks beyond the browser
June 11, 2019 Off

Mozilla gives Firefox a new logo as it looks beyond the browser

By Jill T Frey

Mozilla’s Firefox is getting a new logo that is meant to reflect that the brand now stands for more than a browser.

With products like its password manager Lockwise, private file-sharing service Send and security tools like Firefox Monitor, Mozilla has greatly expanded the brand. That’s a challenge no branding expert can refuse, so it’s no surprise the organization went on a quest for new logos and an update to its iconic Firefox brand.

In its announcement, Mozilla talks a lot about how the brand system rests on ideas like “it’s a radical act to be optimistic about the future of the internet” and “we make transparency and a global perspective integral to our brand, speaking many languages and striving to reflect all vantage points.”

The result of this exercise is an updated Firefox logo that takes the fox out of the equation and basically only leaves the tail. … Read the rest

GitHub hires former Bitnami co-founder Erica Brescia as COO
June 11, 2019 Off

GitHub hires former Bitnami co-founder Erica Brescia as COO

By Jill T Frey

It’s been just over a year since Microsoft bought GitHub for $7.5 billion, but the company has grown in that time, and today it announced that it has hired former Bitnami COO and co-founder Erica Brescia to be its COO.

Brescia handled COO duties at Bitnami from its founding in 2011 until it was sold to VMware last month. In a case of good timing, GitHub was looking to fill its COO role and after speaking to CEO Nat Friedman, she believed it was going to be a good fit. The GitHub mission to provide a place for developers to contribute to various projects fits in well with what she was doing at Bitnami, which provided a way to deliver software to developers in the form of packages such as containers or Kubernetes Helm charts.

New GitHub COO Erica Brescia

She sees that experience of building a company, of … Read the rest

Uber and AT&T team up for always-on connectivity for Uber Copter and Uber Air
June 11, 2019 Off

Uber and AT&T team up for always-on connectivity for Uber Copter and Uber Air

By Jill T Frey

Uber is partnering with mobile network operator AT&T on the always-on connectivity it’ll require for its aerial transportation service network. The on-demand mobility company announced the team-up at its annual Elevate Summit, which brings together a number of key players working toward making affordable, accessible in-city aerial transit a reality.

Uber said that it’s already working with AT&T on the network it’ll use for Uber Copter, the Manhattan-to-JFK helicopter-based service that it’s launching in New York in July. The service is promising connection with ground transportation at both ends, and it’s also anticipating travel times and working backwards to provide transportation on-demand as needed to get passengers to their destination at the time they request. So, for instance, Uber Copter customers could say they need to be at JFK by 5 PM and the app will figure out when they need to get a car to get to the … Read the rest

Uber envisions Uber Air will one day be cheaper than owning a car
June 11, 2019 Off

Uber envisions Uber Air will one day be cheaper than owning a car

By Jill T Frey

Uber has big dreams for Uber Air, the flying taxi service it’s wanting to launch in 2023. At the third annual Uber Elevate, head of Elevate Eric Allison said the company expects Uber Air to be cheaper than driving a car. It surely won’t be that way on day one, but once Uber deploys fully electric, autonomous shared vehicles, Allison said it will be more economical than driving a car.

“Our vision is that on a daily basis it’ll be more economically rational for you to fly than for you to drive,” he said.

At launch, Uber Air will be cheaper than a helicopter ride. This is a worthy comparison, given Uber unveiled its costly Uber Copter service last week as phase one of Uber Air. In the near term, Uber predicts Air will be comparable to the cost of Uber X and Uber Pool. Long term, which is probably … Read the rest

Relativity is building a 3D-printing rocket manufacturing hub in Mississippi
June 11, 2019 Off

Relativity is building a 3D-printing rocket manufacturing hub in Mississippi

By Jill T Frey

The future of rocket manufacturing has touched down in Mississippi.

At NASA’s John C. Stennis Space Center, nestled in Hancock County, Miss., right on the border of Louisiana, the Los Angeles-based 3D-printed spacecraft manufacturer, Relativity Space, is planning a massive $59 million expansion to make a permanent manufacturing hub in this bucolic corner of the southeast.

“This agreement demonstrates again NASA’s commitment to work with our industry partners to expand commercial access to low Earth orbit,” said Dr. Rick Gilbrech, director, Stennis Space Center. “This helps NASA maintain focus on the ambitious Artemis program that will land the first female and the next male on the south pole of the Moon by 2024.”

Relativity already has four of its proprietary 3D printers running in its Los Angeles headquarters and plans to build out 12 larger units in its new Mississippi digs. The company ultimately expects to get 24 … Read the rest

Tesla’s shareholder meeting: How to watch and what to expect
June 11, 2019 Off

Tesla’s shareholder meeting: How to watch and what to expect

By Jill T Frey

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is expected to take the stage Tuesday for the company’s annual shareholder meeting following a volatile year that saw swings between profitability and wider-than-expected losses, production goals met and deliveries milestones missed, and a securities fraud charge, and subsequent settlement, with the SEC.

The board, like the company it governs, has also undergone changes in the past 12 months. In December, Tesla appointed two independent board members, Oracle founder, chairman and CTO Larry Ellison and Walgreens executive Kathleen Wilson-Thompson. Four months later, Tesla announced in regulator filings, that was reducing the board by more than one-third, to seven directors. Brad Buss, Linda Johnson Rice, Steve Jurvetson and Antonio Gracias will not stand for re-election once their terms end.

Like its earnings calls, Tesla shareholder meetings are rarely boring. If the past is a guide, the event will be run like an informal town hall … Read the rest

Providing supplemental educational videos online nets Osmosis $4 million
June 11, 2019 Off

Providing supplemental educational videos online nets Osmosis $4 million

By Jill T Frey

With over one million YouTube subscribers and 500,000 registered users for its supplemental educational videos, Osmosis, which bills itself as the Khan Academy of healthcare, has raised $4 million in new funding.

The round was led by Felicis Ventures, with participation from previous Osmosis investors including Greycroft, Coverys, FundRx, Figure 8, Social Starts, and LearnStart,

“By reimagining medical education, Osmosis is addressing a critical impending global crisis: the need to develop and retrain tens of millions of healthcare professionals over the next decade to meet growing demand,” said Aydin Senkut, founder and managing partner at Felicis Ventures.

Felicis is betting on Osmosis in part because of the increasing demand for healthcare professionals around the world. The company cites statistics claiming that roughly 35 million more healthcare professionals will need to be trained by 2030.

Co-founders Shiv Gaglani and Ryan Haynes met at … Read the rest